Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 11/12/25: Jon Stewart Shreds Dems For Cave, Economy Bleeding Jobs, MAGA In Shambles Over Economy

Episode Date: November 12, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss Jon Stewart unloads on Dems for caving, economy bleeding thousands of jobs, MAGA in shambles.   Katie Wilson: https://www.wilsonforseattle.com/      To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Jingle bells, jingle all the way. Yo, yo, yo, can we get a Thanksgiving first? I'm hungry. What's up, y'all? It's Cadeen. And DeVal, the host of the Ellis Ever After podcast. This holiday season. and tune in to Ellis Ever After.

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Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does. not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. Good morning and welcome to Breaking Points. You just got a lonely studio camera shot.

That's because Ryan is traveling today, so I'm very happy to be joined by the one and only Crystal Ball. Crystal, good morning. How are you? Good morning. How's it going? It's going great, but we were just talking before the camera started rolling that actually doesn't seem to be going well for literally anyone in the country right now because we're about to talk about how Democrats are furious with Chuck Schumer and Republicans maybe are getting increasingly impatient with the Trump administration on a couple of different fronts. We're going to break that down. Might have something to do with the jobs numbers we're going to cover in the show as well. But we're going to be starting with the shutdown, which is set to end with the House vote today.

Obviously, the shutdown has Democrats enormously frustrated with Chuck Schumer and party leadership. Actually, even party leadership like Hakeem Jeffries is reportedly annoyed with Chuck Schumer. So whether Chuck Schumer can withstand this wave in future leadership votes, that's going to be a serious question on the table going forward. Chris, we've got some jobs numbers from ADP because the government's not putting it. them out, don't we? Yeah. So those numbers have become increasingly important, the ones that are put out by private outfits like ADP. So we'll take a look at those not looking great in terms of the economy, not feeling that golden age so much, M. I think most of America also not feeling that golden age. And that is fueling some of the MAGA revolt, the early stage signs of MAGA revolt as

well. We have some indications ICE might be leaving Chicago. And also DHS is going after me. So that's a fun one. Ben Shapiro has thoughts on affordability and you have thoughts on Ben Shapiro's thoughts and I have thoughts on your thoughts on Ben Shapiro's thoughts. So we'll get that one. And then of course, since it's a lady's show or a ho show, as we like to call it, we had to dig into this trend of Mar-a-Lago face. So DC plastic surgeons are saying that more and more people, men and women, by the way, this is equal opportunity, are coming in looking for a. a look where it's like used to be the thing that if you got worked on you don't really want people to notice you want it to look natural they're overtly like no

no I want people to know that I got massive amounts of things injected into my face and like I want that to be advertised so it's an interesting trend like it's very actually fascinating development I like how you said we're going to dig into it we we read a story about it and we're going to talk about the story the breaking points investigative journalism Mostly what we do on the show, yeah. I love the idea of the shoe leather. I actually have been doing some of my own journalistic observations on this as well. So, you know, I'm not just going to go by what was put in the story.

That's just an excuse to talk about something I've actually been thinking about for a while. It's going to be good. So make sure you stay tuned for that. And Katie Wilson, right? Chris, we have an interview towards the end of today's show. Yeah. So I recorded this with her yesterday at a time when, so this is the sort of progressive insurgent candidate for mayor in the city of Seattle. When I talked to her yesterday, she was up in the vote count by 91 votes.

Oh, my God. Now we've had another mail ballot drop yesterday evening after I spoke with her. She's now up by, I think, between like 1,000 and 2,000 votes. And the later mail that's coming in now because Washington state voters, all of the voting is actually cast by mail. And the later ballots tend to be more progressive, younger voters who wait to the last minute. So as those drops have come in, she's taking more and more of a lead. So it was now like pretty fully assumed. she's going to be the next mayor of Seattle.

And it's really quite fascinating because Seattle, obviously is a progressive city. And they prior to leading into 2020, they had quite a progressive city council. Then you had 2020, you had Black Lives Matter. Seattle was a really focal point there. You also have issues with homelessness, rising crime, coming out of COVID, all of that. So there were some backlash elections that led to some more sort of centrist candidates right wing in the context of Seattle being put on the city council. and also in the mayor's office. So with Katie Wilson's apparent victory here,

it really sort of sweeps that slate of more centrist candidates out of office and brings back more progressives. And in fact, Katie, I think, is one of the more progressive people to ever hold the office of the mayoralty, just as one little tease for the interview, which I really think you guys will,

I think you'll enjoy. I think you'll, you know, it was very interesting speaking with her and her perspective on what it would take for her to deliver in that office. And she said, look, I think I'm going to be judged by improvements in quality of living in, you know, reducing chronic homelessness and in public safety. So that was very much, very much her focus and looks like the message that she brought won the day there. So excited to share that interview with you guys today. Yeah, looking forward

to that, Crystal. Make sure you go to breaking points.com to sign up for a premium subscription to the show. If you haven't done that yet, you get the show early and also access to the second half of the Friday shows, which, so they've been pretty lit, I have to say, recently. They've been, fiery. If you're not getting the second half of the Friday show, you're missing some of the best content of the week. There's no doubt about it. That's for sure. Ryan, Ryan unleashed in the second half of the Friday shows. Brim unfiltered. Yeah. All right. Let's go ahead and start with the shutdown, potentially coming to an end today. So the House of Representatives is going to vote on that bill where Senate Democrats joined with Senate Republicans to pass the continuing.

resolution to fund the government that has the left, as Crystal is going to walk us through, absolutely furious with Senate Democratic leadership. Chuck Schumer in particular is understandably bearing the brunt of the backlash. John Stewart addressed this on his show. Let's go ahead and take a look here at A-Zero. Tonight's show will be brought to you by, I can't fucking believe it. It's literally life or death, so Democrats have three words for this. No fucking way. Excuse me. Cave on the shutdown.

Huh? Not this forceful, young, authentic Democratic party that hangs out down by the river. Democrats, you sold out the entire shutdown. down not to get what you wanted, but for a promise to not get what you wanted later. Where in the art of war? Where, hold on. Crystal, this has, I mean, the criticisms of Chuck Schumer are just blanketing American airwaves. It's like impossible to get away from.

We actually have some more to show folks, but quick reaction there to John Stewart. No real surprise. No. And I mean, what he's saying is he puts it in a comedic way, but it's incredibly obvious. You did the longest shutdown in history to get literally nothing right after you had some of the most decisive electoral results that I've seen in my lifetime. What are we doing here? And so, yeah, I mean, the insanity of it is obvious on its face. And one quick note before we play Harry Enten talking about Chuck Schumer's numbers and how historically unpopular he is with his own party they're trying to sell and schumers i'm sure staffers were leaking to the press like oh no he didn't want the shutdown end he was totally in it for the fight and i think it's a sign of how it is a different day in the democratic party and with the democratic base that democratic base voters were like that's bullshit like we're not stupid we know that this deal was at least tacitly supported by leadership your number two guy dick durbin literally voted for it so they're not you know they're

not going to be snowed by these nonsense talking points. And this is really the sort of crystallization. I hate using that word because of my name, but whatever. It's the crystallization of the boiling rage that has really been simmering with the Democratic base during Trump 2.0 in general, where they have felt that Democratic leadership is weak. They have felt they don't know how to fight. They have felt they don't understand the moment. You know, there was a lot of disappointment sense of betrayal when they just for they just didn't even bother to try to use the leverage they had earlier during the administration you know they've been very um you know they they told jasmine crockett basically to like sit down and shut up and stop being so outspoken

they've been extremely reluctant to go after trump on immigration abuses and ice and national guard abuses in cities they've just been incredibly lame cringe and tepid and the democratic base is done with it so you know that's That's really, and to connect this to, you know, Zoron's win and what's going on in Maine with Graham Platner and, you know, the types of candidates that are succeeding right now, like there is a sense, I think, an accurate sense from Democratic leadership. They have lost control of the base of the party in a way that we've really never seen before. Previously, if they said, oh, it wasn't us. It was who, you know, it was the Republicans. It was, you know, it was these few rogue bad senators like Joe Manchin or Kirsten Cinema.

The base largely bought that. Those days are over, which is why you now see. this historic unpopularity for Chuck Schumer. Let's go ahead and play CNN's analysis on that front. Least popular Dem Senate leader ever. I looked at all of the polls going all way back since 1985. The one who has the lowest rating among Democrats is, in fact, Chuck Schumer. Look at this.

He's underwater with Democrats. His own party, he's underwater. He's at minus four points. That makes him the least popular guy for a Dem Senate leader going all the way back. since the mid-1980s, at least. Dems and Congress do too little to oppose Trump. During the first term, it was just 46% in 2017. That's the percentage of Democrats who said

that the Dems and Congress are doing too little to oppose Donald Trump. Look at where we are now. 69%. That is an increase of, get this, 23 points. The super, super duper majority of Democrats believe that the Democrats in Congress are not doing enough to oppose.

Donald Trump, and that, of course, is a big, big, big, huge criticism of Chuck Schumer, and that is why he is underwater. But, of course, the ultimate way to get Chuck Schumer out of office is to beat him in New York State. How do New York State Democrats feel about Chuck Schumer? And take a look here, the net favorable among New York Democrats. Chuck Schumer is above water with the Democrats in his home state, but just by 16 points. Look at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez running way ahead.

if she decides to challenge Chuck Schumer and come 2028, she's got a real leg up on the competition. I dare say at this point she would be the favorite to beat him, which would be something that would just blow my mind even just a few years ago, given that Chuck Schumer, of course, as a New York born bread type of guy. So, Crystal,

there's nothing poetic about this. I think if AOC runs against him, it's it's a, like, she would destroy him. I don't even think it would be close at this point, you know? I was going to ask you that. And when I look at this, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries were persuaded into this shutdown because they're actually trying to do what Nancy Pelosi sort of successfully

did in Trump 1.0, which is kind of put the lid on the simmering pot of populist anger. It's not even just populist anger. It's like anger across the board among average Democrats and people in their own caucus. And that's what they were trying to do here. They were trying to like head off the potential problem of a revolt and give the base what they wanted so that they would kind calm their criticism. And the poetry of it is that as the shutdown ends, Chuck Schumer is in more trouble. He's in more trouble now than when it started. I mean, I think that's pretty obvious at this point that the leadership unsuccessfully tried to stave off the revolt by going into the shutdown and by then ending the shutdown a week after those election wins in particular

with no real commitment from Republicans on a real problem for Republicans, by the way, which is heading into a midterm year, having many people's premium spike with the expiration of those Biden-era credits, they got nothing out of it. They got some fundraising out of it. I'm sure they got some energy from organizing and all of that out of it, sure. But people wanted a whole lot more. And now rather than staving that off, it stoked the fire even more. Yeah, that's exactly right. No, I mean, Dempty Party is fully here, fully here.

And I'm going to make a prediction. There are going to be some Democratic incumbents who are primaries who lose to random in their view, nobodies, who have never held political office, never been in the political fray. You're going to see some come out of nowhere surprises from, you know, you know, from just everyday people who are disgusted with the failures of Democratic leadership. And, you know, one thing I was thinking about because it doesn't appear that, like, Chuck Schumer's leadership role is going to be threatened in any way by the elected Democrats at this point. You have had a number of people in the House led by Rokana, kudos to him for understanding

the moment, who have come out and said Schumer should go. Not a single Democratic senator, though, to include Bernie Sanders, who got asked about it and was basically like, yeah, well, what are you going to do? You know, this is just how it is. So I don't see Democratic electeds in the Senate making any moves to toss him out of leadership. However, you know, and I think it comes in part from, look, their comfort with the status quo, whatever. I also think it comes in part from an old-fashioned view of what Senate or House leadership should be. So sort of the classic rule is this very insider. role, right? You're fundraising. You're handling the, you know, the legislative, like the strategy

and you're whipping, helping to whip votes. That's, you know, this sort of internal role. And the frustration with the Democratic base is they want Democratic leadership in the House and the Senate to be leading a public effort, a public fight. They want them to be sort of activist leaders in the streets fighting in a visible way. And Summer Lee made a comment to this effect when I spoke with her last week when I interviewed her last week. She was like, we, they need to understand that we need a new model of leadership that is in touch with the grassroots base that is leading the charge in terms of, you know, movements and activism on the ground. And so I don't think that, you know, a lot of the senators in the Democratic caucus, many of whom are old, including Bernie, who's, you know,

quite elderly at this point, I don't think they really understand why people are so frustrated in the role they actually want a Chuck Schumer to be able to. to fill. Because if you're a Democratic senator, you know, with that class, like, traditional status quo model, you're like, well, he fundraises well and he does okay in the like legislative whatever. And the base is like, but that's, we don't care about that. That is not what we want to see. We want to see you guys fighting. And if you have appointed someone, you're claiming this person as a leader, we want to see them actually leading. So I think that's part of the disconnect between where the people are and where the Democratic Party electeds are. Another thing I would say, and this has been

abundantly clear for a while, something we've been talking about for a while, the Democratic Party has a democracy problem. They do not feel that they need to listen to their voters at all. If anything, their instinct is always to like go against their voters, especially if you're talking about the progressive way. But now you have basically the entirety of the base that is increasingly is increasingly sort of radicalized, you know, increasingly aligned very closely with the progressive wing of the party. And so they're still in this outdated model of like, well, we always got a punch left. And if it's something that, you know, that are like progressives want, then it has to be something that we oppose. But what do you do when it's not just the progressives?

It's the whole party that is like you guys are screwing up big time. All I know is what I've been told, and that's a half-truth is a whole lie. For almost a decade, the murder of an 18-year-old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved, until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her. We know. A story that law enforcement used to convict six people, and that got the same. citizen investigator on national TV. Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica

Curran. My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, producer, and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find. I did not know her and I did not kill her, or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that you all said. They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her. They made me say that I pour gas on her.

From Lava for Good, this is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame. America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County in the Bone Valley feed on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or we're ever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season at free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus

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hugely profitable in the 80s and 90s, and fell off a financial cliff in the 2000s. Listen to Jenna World on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And this is where Chuck Schumer could actually be in trouble is when you have Graham Platner and a new generation coming in, if that happens, on a populist wave, that's basically what ended up pushing, you know, John Boehner and Paul Ryan, ultimately. And then I guess ultimately you could argue Kevin McCarthy as well out of office.

But let's roll this clip because I think to the point you just made, Crystal, if you are Chuck Schumer, you should take a look at, or you're at the DNC or the DSC, you should take a look at this clip of John Fetterman, getting grilled by Sonny Hosten of the view, who I jerk yesterday is going full Jennifer Welch here, about the shutdown. This is A3. Democrats had big wins last week. So you had momentum.

Why give in now? Why bring a butter knife to a gunfight? Are you willing to gamble that the GOP will negotiate on health care in good faith once the government reopens? because if that gamble is wrong, half a million Pennsylvanians that you represent, their health care costs will skyrocket if you are wrong. And I believe you are wrong.

Well, first of all, you know, MTG is quite literally the last person in America that I'm going to take advice or to get their kinds of my leadership and values. And now if Democrats are celebrating crazy pants like that, then that's on them. And now I don't need a lecture. I don't need a lecture from whether it's Bernie or the governor in California because they are representing very deep blue, blue kinds of populations. I promise you, this isn't a political game.

It is viewed by that by many of us. But the reality is 42 million Americans now not sure where their next meal is going to come from. And because we vote like that, vote like that. Or people that haven't been paid for five weeks now and that kinds of chaos. those workers have to borrow more than half a billion dollars, you know, from their credit union just to pay their bills now. So for me, we're in the middle of this. Senator, I got it. When you've lost the view, Crystal, but like, actually, seriously, like, the view is sort of, I don't know the best way to describe it, but maybe center left is one way.

They're just kind of like the most moderate Democrat, like, that's probably a suburban, moderate, affluent Democrat viewership. And if that's what you're seeing, if that's what the kind of average suburban leans left mom is watching in the middle of the day, fiery rancet, John Fetterman, Chuck Schumer is seriously in trouble. And the Democratic establishment is seriously in trouble. I think it's the beginning of the end for Schumer. You know, I don't know if it'll be in a primary in 2028. To be honest with you, I think of AOC jumps in that primary fight. I don't even know if he may just retire because it would be embarrassing, obviously, to lose. to her. Well, you'd think that about Andrew Cuomo and you'd think that about Joe Biden.

Yeah, well, he just seems to have a humiliation fetish. So that's a different psychology that we'll have to analyze there. But in any case, with Schumer, assuming he doesn't have a humiliation fetish, which, you know, we don't know yet. But, you know, I think certainly AOC would take him out in a primary. And then there's probably other New York state candidates who could easily take him out in a primary as well. she's just the best known and the one that people love to, you know, love to analyze. And I think she's certainly thinking about it. You know, indications are she and her team are debating, do I run against Schumer or do I actually run for president? And I don't think that they've come to a decision in that regard. Personally, I think she'd be a fantastic senator from New York. And again, it would be a cakewalk to

defeat him if he even bothers to try. And then, you know, in terms of the next leadership elections, you are going to have a real revolt on your hands. There is going to be mass pressure put on these Democratic senators to go in a different direction. And, you know, on MSNBC, I've been watching it some of these past couple of days because it's been kind of interesting to see where they land. And the vast majority of them are furious as well. You know, they are disgusted. They're shocked that, you know, that they caved at this moment. I talked yesterday about how Rachel Maddo did her whole opening rant on like, guys, we just had the No Kings protests, the largest action literally in history.

You had these election results. And now is the time you cave when you literally got nothing for it. Like, what the hell? And she, I don't know that I've ever really seen her criticize the Democratic Party, certainly not in that forceful or forthright away. She's one to sort of like hint in a direction, but that fully take a stand somewhere here. she was taking a stand and then she had Bernie Sanders on as her guest to back it up. But there was one MSNBC host, Lawrence O'Donnell, who comes on right after Rachel Maddow, who did actually defend Chuck Schumer.

A lonely voice crying out in the wilderness. Very courageous of him at this point, actually, in a certain way it is. Let's go ahead and take a listen to the case that he was making for Schumer. This is A4. It might be easy to criticize Chuck Schumer. it is easy to criticize Chuck Schumer. It's easy to make fun of him. You can wish he were smoother.

You can wish he had all the smoothness of Barack Obama. It's easy to criticize him, but it is not easy to replace him. It might be easy to call for his resignation, but it is not easy to say who, with a name, could do a better job. It actually is easy to say that. I would say Chris Van Hollen or Chris Murphy, either one of them would do a better job. I mean, Chris Van Hollen has really, he in a certain way is this kind of unifying figure because he's this very mainstream Democrat, you know, in the firmament of the establishment of the party. But he also was quite courageous and clever too, by the way, and creative when it came to Kilmara Brega Garcia and leading the charge there when it's come to Gaza and, you know, going there and looking at, okay, they're lying when they say that the, you know, that the. problem for aid distribution is the U.N. The problem is the Israelis. And he's been very, you know,

he's been very outspoken in that regard. And I think has earned a lot of respect from progressives and liberals who see him as someone who has stood up against the Trump administration. But, you know, he's going to be able to do the fundraising and do the party insider stuff as well. So personally, I think he would be a fantastic choice. Now, he's another one who may be sniffing around it, potentially running for president. I believe he had either a New Hampshire or an Iowa. a trip or something in that regard. In my opinion, you know, he's the type. He's not like a super charismatic figure, but he seems to be clever and principled and

have some decent strategic instincts. So to me, that would be, you know, his best use would be in something like leadership in the Senate. So the idea that Chuck Schumer, I mean, it's just farcical on its face that Chuck Schumer is so, so exceptional. How could we possibly replace him? It's like literally what planet do you live on? I can pick a random person off of the street and I think they would do a better job at this point with the role of leadership that the base actually wants their party leaders to serve at this point.

Well, right. And I mean, part of, I'm just again thinking back to Tea Party shutdowns, leadership never really wanted Tea Party shutdowns. Like they were dragged into it by Ted Cruz and whomever else. But they didn't have all those like specific attainable goals outlined. in a lot of cases. It was kind of just for the purpose of causing trouble and getting, like, throwing a wrench into the gear of Washington. And what's interesting about this is Democrats created a pretty specific benchmark that they wanted to achieve with the shutdown, which was health care. And there's nothing that Democrats have more of an upper hand on than health care

because Republicans have nothing. What is Mike Johnson saying right now? Like, we have notebooks full of plans or something like that. They got nothing. And And after all of that, concepts of a plan, right? Concepts of a plan. After all of that, they get, like, when you set that specific of a benchmark and you walk away, like, for really no, like the timing makes no sense. It's not as though, you know, the credits were on the table. Again, it's not until the end of the year. They expire at the end of the year. That's why this is coming up right now. So it's not like it was within a couple of days or anything like that. Speaking of the timing, let's try to figure out what it might have been

because the lever has some reporting about the airline industry which has swamped Washington, D.C. over the last couple of weeks but the next element up on the screen, just going to town lobbying people. And this was a report in the lever that found correlation between airlines' favorite Democrats

and who voted to end the shutdown. Crystal and Politico Influence had a great report last week as well about the airline industry just, like, as soon as Duffy announced the flight reductions or requested the flight reductions, that sent the lobbyist for the airline industry into overdrive. And I think that probably is as good of an explanation as any for why they voted pretty randomly on Sunday. I mean, it seemed as though even Democratic insiders were surprised, maybe not Schumer himself.

But it didn't seem like anyone actually realized this was about to be on the brink of them siding with Republicans, and that's exactly what happened. It seems like maybe it was the airlines. I mean, people forget how powerful the airline lobby is in D.C. You know, anytime, remember during COVID, like they always got their custom bailouts. You know, they're always in the ear of legislators. And then what Sarota and his team at the lever did is just to literally look at, okay, let's take look at the advocacy contributions.

Let's pull up the history. And lo and behold, seven out of the eight of them in particular have taken large sums from the industry, which means that you're going to be in constant communication with them. And then one in particular, Jackie Rosen of Nevada, was one of the largest recipients of airline lobby cash. So there's no doubt that money is influential, impactful in terms of their thinking. The other thing that I've been pointing to that I really think it's important for people to keep in mind is Trump's threat to nuke the filibuster. Republicans hated that. But these type of corporate Democrats also hate that. Because,

Even if they publicly claim they want to get rid of the filibuster, the truth of the matter is they love having an excuse for why they can't deliver. And the filibuster is the best excuse they've ever had. It is, in a sense, existential for them in order to maintain this pretense that they would love to deliver for working people. They would love to deliver for Americans, but they just can't because of this terrible rule called the filibuster. And therefore, we can never actually achieve the things that we totally promise you. actually want to achieve. So I think that was the other piece because that likely was the other way that this ends where Trump puts enough pressure on the Republicans where it's like, no, you are going to get rid of the filibuster. They cave to Trump and nuke the filibuster.

And in my opinion, that's a better outcome. And in my opinion, and I think the base of the Democratic Party would have accepted that too, because then it's like, okay, you fought, you did everything you could. And even if they ended up with nothing on health care, it's like, you know, you took it as far as you possibly could. You did not give up the fight and you press the case. You put health care on the table. You know, you really put the Republicans in a difficult spot. And now the filibuster is gone.

And guess what? If Democrats take back power is increasingly possible, at least in the Senate, in the next elections, then you're going to be able to pass some of your priorities that in the past you've always said you could never achieve. You could get Puerto Rico as a state. You could get D.C. as a state. You could pack the Supreme Court. You could pass legislation that actually will benefit working people.

So I think that filibuster threat is another thing that freaked them out because these corporate type Democrats need that, existentially need that as their excuse for why they can never actually really do anything big with the power that they have. Yeah, I mean, that's exactly right. I think because, you know, what's made me come around on the filibuster even recently, I always kind of go back and forth on the filibuster. What's made me come about, coming around on it recently is that, But it's actually healthy for the country to see more direct consequences of our votes.

And I don't mean consequences in a negative way, but actually it could be positive, could be negative, that when you vote on something, you see it happen. The filibuster is not like in the constitution. It's not like part of the, part of the system that the framers designed. And so if you have a majority of the House and the Senate and a president to sign a piece of legislation, then the country feels what they voted for as opposed to feeling that like constantly getting thwarted. Now, there are a lot of other things that I would, you know, do in addition to Newdy, the bill of us to make sure that the country was running if I could

wave my magic wand in a way that I think made sense and was helpful. But that one in particular, that means people would actually have to face votes. So they would have to face votes on the floor of the Senate. The senators would have to face votes on the floor of the Senate for things that they said they would support Medicare for all being a pretty obvious example. And then they would have to face votes from their voters who say, you told us you were going to vote for. I mean, John McCain is the best example. You told us you were going to repeal and replace how many times? And then you voted no on the repeal and replace. Those actually having those votes and actually seeing more, feeling more, putting less of a buffer between what people vote for

and what the country looks like is probably helpful at this point, Chris. I agree completely. And the other piece says, you know, because you have a legislature that really is not interested in governing that has helped to create the dynamic of an executive branch that just done does everything. And so it creates, I mean, Trump is responsible for, you know, the consolidation of power and the insane ways that he uses and abuses his power. But one of the things that sort of greases the skids in that direction is if you have

a filibuster that makes them impossible for Congress to do anything, then increasingly you have presidents reaching for the pen using executive power. And Congress just sort of like, I mean, they just, they just seed their power completely to the president. And they're happy to not have any, yeah, they're happy to not have any actual legislative responsibility. That's easier for them. That's more comfortable for them. So I do think the filibuster has sort of been an under discussed part of why this thing came to an end, the way that it, in my opinion, ridiculous and pathetic way that it ultimately did. Gang of eight, then you have Obama doing DACA with executive order.

This is, it happens all the time and the senators then can escape the backlash. So we may have gotten something good out of it. If Dems had continued to hold out, maybe Trump would have had them nuke the filibuster. I don't know. I'm skeptical. Senate Republicans were so, so averse to that for the reasons. we just discussed. All I know is what I've been told, and that to have truth is a whole lie.

For almost a decade, the murder of an 18-year-old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved, until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a handful of girls, came forward with a story. I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her. We know. A story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national TV. Through sheer persistence and nerve,

this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran. My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, producer, and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find. I did not know her and I did not kill her, or rape or burn, or any of that other stuff that y'all see. said it. They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her. They made me say that I poured gas on her. From Lava for Good, this is Graves County, a show about just how far

our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame. America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County in the Bone Valley Feed on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad-free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. May 24th, 1990, a pipe bomb explodes in the front seat of environmental activist Judy Berry's car. I knew it was a bomb the second that it exploded. I felt it ripped through me with just a force more powerful and terrible than anything that I could describe. In season two of RipCurrent, we ask, who tried to kill Judy Berry and why?

She received death threats before the bombing. She received more threats after the bombing. The man and woman who were heard had planned to lead a summer of militant protest against logging practices in Northern California. They were climbing trees and they were sabotaging logging equipment in the woods. industry. I mean, it was the number one industry in the area, but more than it was the culture. It was the way of life. I think that this is a deliberate attempt to sabotage our movement. Episodes of Rip Current Season 2 are available now. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Jenna World. Jenna Jamison, Vivid Video, and the Valley, is a new podcast about the history of the adult film industry. I'm Molly.

host of Heidi World the Heidi Fly story, and I'll be your tour guide on a wild ride through adult films. We get paid more than the men. We call the shots. In what way is that degrading? That's us taking hold of our life. In the 1990s, actress Jenna Jameson crossed over into mainstream culture, redefined stardom, then left it all behind.

I'm a powerful woman. I think that's intimidating to a man. With a cast of hundreds of actors and comedians playing key figures, we'll take a look at how adult films became legal in the 70s, hugely profitable in the 80s and 90s, and fell off a financial cliff in the 2000s. Listen to Jenna World on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Chris, let's talk about jobs. We have new job numbers from ADP. We can go ahead and put B1 up on the screen to the tear sheet from the Wall Street Journal, which is relying on the ADP numbers as well, the headline here. ADP estimates private sector was losing jobs in October, although we don't totally know whether this is an accurate reflection because we don't have government numbers right now, Crystal, reaction to these ADP numbers.

I'm not particularly surprised by them. What do you make about it? Yeah, I mean, you know, we've been seeing things trending in this direction for a while. And I think that Trump has thought that he could, look, Trump is a master at bending reality, like bending perceptions of reality. And I think he believed that he could do that with the economy as well. He could point to the stock market. We've had the government shutdown.

So we're not getting government numbers. So we have to rely on numbers like ADP. And we've been tracking here how people feel about the economy. Some 70% plus say that the economy is poor. that is a total reversal of where things were in his first term, where they had all sorts of issues with Trump, his approval rating was underwater, but they still felt like the economy was really good. And I think that is like the central reason, ultimately, that he ends up back in the White House. So you have a complete flip of that. People in their own lives are experiencing a lot of economic hardship. And then we've also been tracking the slew of corporate layoffs that have been coming down the pike. And, you know, it has been. we have been moving in this direction for a while, but I really think it's coming to a head now where it used to be, the general sense was, okay, if corporate America is doing well, then Americans are probably doing pretty well too. Those two things have become completely disconnected.

The best thing you can do as a corporate boss is fire a bunch of people. Your stock price is going to go up. And so the fortunes of corporations are actually now inversely related to the fortunes of ordinary Americans, you know, that is the reality of where we live now. And so yesterday, Sagar and I covered how consumer sentiment is at historic lows, historic lows. And as we go into the Thanksgiving and the holiday season, et cetera, you know, really bad place to be. Meanwhile, corporate sentiment is near all-time highs. I mean, that tells you everything about the tale of two economies and about the way that now what benefits corporate America is directly advantageous for them and disadvantageous for your average American. So I don't think,

you know, whether these ADP numbers are exactly precise, I think they are probably directly correct, that there was either very little job growth or actual job losses. This is also for the time period when the government was shut down, and the government is a huge part of our economy as well. Well, yeah, and so the ADP numbers, I mean, it's crazy right now the way that we are trying to understand what's happening without the usual information. So payrolls, firm. So ADP is estimating the private sector, according to the journal, was shedding 11,250 jobs a week in the four weeks through October 25. Now, it also says, last week in a separate data series, ADP estimated that the private sector added 42,000 jobs in October, but that figure uses a different methodology intended to replicate the government's monthly jobs report more closely. So it's just, it's a mess, just trying to understand even what's happening in the economy, but the consumer sentiment versus corporate sentiment marker is a pretty good one. And the, well, it's a good one in terms of taking the temperature of the public.

And in terms of Trump not understanding and not being able to explain away consumer sentiment or assuage consumer sentiment, I think that's really, really true, Crystal. It's a problem that the Biden administration had. And they kind of went for greedflation for a little bit, but in a very half-hearted, way to say, we understand, like, yes, we're in charge of the economy, but we understand, you know, to the extent any government is in charge of the economy or any president's in charge of the economy, but we understand what's going on and, like, find another scapegoat, et cetera. But it was half-hearted. And now for Trump, it's like he's not even looking for

a scapegoat other than Biden. You just keep saying we inherited a bad economy. Once you're a year into your presidency, which she almost is, you really have to stop saying that line about the economy you inherited because people are, it's, it's just going to piss people off. Not only does it stop working, but it's also just going to piss people off. So here's how how Speaker Mike Johnson talked about the idea, all the ideas that Republicans have to reduce health care costs, which are going up, up, up for Americans. This is B2. Subsidizing the insurance companies is not the answer because it just drives the cost up even further. So we need to look at the root causes. The Republican Party is the part.

party that is working on that, has been working on it, and has more ideas going forward. We've got to bring down the costs. And you can do that in a responsible way that also increases access and quality of care. And we've got notebooks full of ideas on how to do that. We've got a book consensus around it. That's news to me. They have notebooks of ideas of how to do this, Crystal, because if they had notebooks, we would probably expect to hear a little bit more about what's in those notebooks. And all we can hear about is the notebooks now. That's right. I'm having major flashbacks to Mitt Romney and his binders full of women. But we'll never know whether he really had those binders or not now, I guess. But yeah, with the notebooks of ideas, it also harkens back to

Trump saying, you know, we've got a concept of a plan on health care. The truth of the matter is Republicans have given up on health care. And they just decided the best thing to do is to just hope that nobody talks about it. Like, you know what? In 2024, in 2024, in 2024, in 2024, it worked, right? Kamala didn't really bring it up because Democrats also had kind of given up on health care. You know, Biden's theoretical plan was a public option, which I do think would be a significant improvement over the system that we have. Of course, I support Medicare for all. I think that's the direction that we should go in. But, you know, the Republicans have a point when it comes to the subsidies just going straight to the health insurance companies. They have a point about that. I mean,

that's been my criticism of Obamacare from the beginning, is you actually have to confront the health insurers. You have to confront big pharma. You have to confront the hospital system. and the private equity barons that are rolling up those hospital systems, like you actually are going to have to confront capital if you're going to deal with this thing. And there is zero indication that Republicans want to do that at all. So to the extent they ever float anything, it's like price transparency, sure, fine. Does anyone believe that that's going to solve the problem? The thing that Trump floated of, okay, well, instead of giving the subsidies to the health

insurers, we're going to give it to you guys in your health savings account. Okay, fine. But the reality of what's going to happen there, that doesn't deal with prices at all. It doesn't deal with the underlying problems at all whatsoever. And what you likely end up happening then is even fewer people inside the health insurance marketplace, which leads again to this death spiral situation, the people that are still there are older and sicker. And guess what? That raises premiums for everyone. So it could actually accelerate the collapse of the system we have, which look, Maybe that's something we should be cheering for at this point. Like, I'm not really, you know, I'm not an accelerationist typically, but something apparently catastrophic is going to have to happen before legislators are really willing to confront capital and deal with the system.

But, yeah, I mean, you listen to Mike Johnson talk and I'm just hearing Marjorie Taylor Green in my head saying, why do I have to be in like a skiff to, you know, to even stiff what a Republican health care plan is? And I think it was, again, the ladies of the view that were like, well, maybe there's not one. And she said, I think that's the real truth. And of course, obviously, that is the real truth. They are not going to do anything to try to tackle health care. They're just going to try to change the subject again. That is the actual strategy. Yeah, they got nothing.

It is the biggest failure of the conservative project in the last, what, 15 years when they could run on repeal and replace, it became a replacement in and of itself for an actual policy because it was such a useful political bludgeon. and hammer for so long that by the time they had the power to actually repeal and replace, it was abundantly obvious. There was no consensus plan and there was no good plan. There was no consensus plan because there actually was no good plan that people agreed on. And to your point about the Trump idea of giving subsidies directly to people, that's basically what we do, rather to insurance companies. That's basically what we do with college tuition. And I know we're going to talk about this a little bit later in the show, just on the general question of affordability. But that has not brought down the cost of college tuition in any way whatsoever.

So it's not a long-term solution. I don't know how interested Donald Trump is in a structural long-term solution. I don't think anybody is under the illusion or is under the illusion or delusion. You could probably call it that Donald Trump wants to do like a structural long-term fix to the health care system. He's never run on some type of like comprehensive fix to Obamacare, just, you know, repeal, replace. Everyone will have health care. So there is no Republican plan waiting in the wings that Trump could like shepherd through like a good old tax cut bill. There's nothing like that for health care.

And you know what? It matters to every single American family, normal American family, not ultra wealthy American family on a monthly basis. Even if you're upper middle class, your health care costs are out of freaking control. That's exactly right. Yeah, no, I mean, Trump, all he knows how to do is like brand plays and gimmicks. That's it. So, you know, someone brings him 50-year mortgage and he's like, and with a meme that appeals to his ego and he's like, yes, let's do that. And everyone absolutely hates it because he never thinks beyond like, this compares me favorably to FDR. Let's do it. The fake, you know, $2,000 stimulus checks that he's claiming he's going to send out, which is 100% never ever going to happen. And already his officials are like, well, what we really mean by that is the theoretical savings that you achieved through lowering the price of. avocados or whatever it's like you know so I mean that's that's really all he knows that now he's good at

that branding and those gimmicks right no tax on tips I think that was very appealing in the election you know I think people liked that idea but if you're actually going to govern and deal with complicated entrenched systems and entrenched interests you're going to need a little bit more you're going to need an ideology you're going to need some backbone and some will to do it you're going to need some actual, like, policy knowledge. And that is never, ever going to be this man who is so stupid that he would float something like a 50-year mortgage, which literally enraged absolutely everyone as an actual plan for affordable housing. Yeah, we're going to get to that in just one moment. Let's take a listen to Kevin Hassett here, who's the director of the National

Economic Council, talking about if the shutdown had continued, he was on Face the Nation over the weekend, there would have been a negative quarter. Well, that, I guess, Yes, may still happen. Here's B3. Goldman Sachs, they have a top economic team, and they're estimating that we've already knocked about one and a half percent off of GDP. I think that number is probably low if we keep going, even a couple more weeks, because there's going to be a massive amount of air disruption, especially around the holidays. And, you know, one of these things, every now and then when we're talking economics,

you and I, we talk about seasonal adjustments and things like that. But the fact is that Thanksgiving time is one of the hottest times of the year for the economy. It's, you know, Black Friday and all that kind of stuff. And if people aren't traveling at that moment, then we really could be looking at a negative quarter for the fourth quarter. All right. And here's a tear. Why is he smiling when he says that? I don't know. Here's a tear sheet from Reuters. The headline is U.S. fourth quarter GDP could be negative if shutdown drags on. White House Economic Advisor says just about what he mentioned there on face the nation. So I guess, Crystal, some of this could be getting at the pressure that Democrats were

under hearing from. I mean, he's citing Goldman Sachs there. I'm sure Democrats were hearing from some of their friends at places like Goldman Sachs about some of those very same numbers. And, you know, we were talking about the airlines pressuring Dems to cave on the shutdown. I'm sure this worked its magic with some of those Democrats as well. Yeah, no doubt about it. And, you know, for a top White House official to be saying we could be looking at negative GDP growth in the fourth quarter is pretty stunning. We also had Scott Bessent previously saying, effectively admitting that some sectors of the economy are already in a recession. So even this administration, which is happy to spend and to lie about, you know, basically everything, is having to acknowledge some measure of

reality because it's just becoming too obvious to, you know, whether you're someone who's on Wall Street, looking at the numbers, looking at activity, whether you're a regular person, like just going about your life, it's becoming too obvious to deny. And it's worth saying in terms of the shutdown impact, first of all, the government is still technically shut down right now. You know, I live in a town where the most of the economic activity is centered around this naval base that does a lot of civilian research. A lot of people have been furloughed there. I'm getting questions at gymnastics about like, so when are we getting paid again? When is that happening? I don't know. I have no idea. So in any case, it'll be a while even before things are

back up and fully running. And then the impact, and Sean Duffy admitted this, the impact of the airports is going to be long lasting. We were already in a dire situation with a lack of air traffic controllers. Now you've had people who couldn't go this long without a paycheck and they left and they're gone or they're just sick of being treated in this way. Like, you know what? I thought working for the government meant that I had a steady and reliable job and I clearly I don't. So I'm going to go and do something else with my life. Those are going to be long. lasting impacts that are going to, I think, bleed over into holiday Thanksgiving travel. It's just right around the corner. So, you know, for has it to be sounding the alarm here about

negative GDP growth, I think is quite exceptional. And the last thing I'll say about that is we've, of course, been tracking how almost all of the GDP growth anyway has just been this giant speculative bet on AI has been the entirety of GDP growth. any way that has been covering up a lot of other underlying problems in the economy, including in other corporate stocks, consumer-centered stocks in particular, all of which are underperforming stock indexes in Europe and other parts of the world. So if even with the AI hysteria, you are having negative GDP growth, that's a really ugly place to be. And I wonder, actually, if we do see that they blame the shutdown.

Yeah, if that's what, looking back on it, if that becomes the line for the administration is, you know, they're looking to either say we inherited this economy and such a mess. But there's so much going on in this economy that you and Sagar have covered recently. Let's go ahead and put this next element up on the screen. This is a CNBC report on ghost job postings, which the headline here says are adding another lay of unthinker. certainty to the stalling jobs picture. Since the beginning of 2024, job openings have outnumbered hires by more than $2.2 million a month, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data that points to ghost jobs that never seem to get filled. This is a really shocking report, Crystal, because it's one of those things you just, it's not even on your radar. And then when you look at it,

this is part of the article. Job openings have generally been on the decline since peaking above 12 million in March 2022 when opportunities outnumbered available workers by better than two to one in August, the latest month for which data is available because of the government shutdown. Openings totaled more than 7.2 million while hires were just 5.1 million. The ratio of vacancies to workers was about even. What did you make of this crystal? Because to me, it just seems to be another wrinkle in the enormously complicated picture of an economy that feels like a total bubble right now. Yeah, it feels fake. in a lot of ways. And so ghost jobs make sense as part of that picture. You know, we covered

statistics about how many more job applications, new college graduates are having to put out just an astonishing number. And then for even with that additional effort put in for worse results where they're not getting as many jobs, the unemployment rate for new college grads is going up. And so, you know, people who are going on whatever the, the resume, what is it indeed doc? What are the resume websites now? I forgot when I was coming out of college. it was Monster, I think, was the one we went to. But in any case, they're looking at these job openings and it's like, okay,

I've applied for a million of these. Who is even getting these jobs? And apparently in some significant number, the answer is no one. These are just sort of hanging out there in the ether, fake job postings that never get filled. So you have this perception of like, oh, there's all these, you know, job openings

and, you know, surely one of them, surely one of them will be interested in me, at least for a callback. But the reality is that they're actually, I don't know, just, they're just been hanging out there and no one bothered to delete them. They like to keep them out there to have resumes coming in in case at a last minute notice they need to bring in someone for some purpose or other. But I think for a lot of people who've been in the job market, it will probably ring very true to them that this is

what's going on. Yeah, I think that's right. And this is also part of the data package that economists used to understand where the economy is going. And some of the reactions in the CNBC story here are like, well, that's not helpful because right now we're trying to actually understand where things are going, what the real story is. And it's a reminder that, honestly, the experts here don't exactly know what the real story is, let alone with changes in immigration enforcement and then changes in artificial intelligence, how rapidly that is sweeping different professions. So things do not feel good. That is for sure. Yeah, indeed. And maybe that explains the Maga Revolt we're about to cover.

All I know is what I've been told, and that's a half-truth is a whole lie. For almost a decade, the murder of an 18-year-old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved, until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a handful of girls, came forward with a story. I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her. We know. A story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national TV.

Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran. My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, producer, and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find. I did not know her and I did not kill her, or rape or burn, or any of that, other stuff that y'all said it.

They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her. They made me say that I poured gas on her. From Lava for Good, this is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame. America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County in the Bone Valley feed on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

Hey y'all, it's Kadeen. And DeVal. The hosts of Ellis Ever After podcast. This holiday season, whether you're cooking for the family, out buying gifts for the kids, or crowded in holiday traffic, tune out the noise and tune in to Ellis Ever After. On Ellis Ever After, we get rid with our crew about family. If you feeling like you're feeling, that's probably because you're a good parent. Friendship.

Be careful what you put in your body. Move your body and love it the way you love them cars that house them, clothes, them shoes, love yourself, them brunches, love and marriage. You know what's become attractive to me? And it's because I've self-corrected and I guess I detoxified myself, accountability. Oh, yeah, that is bad attractive. So attractive to me and everything else in between. I've told my most embarrassing moment on this podcast before, which was me taking a

zip lock bag. So listen to Ellis Ever After on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and on the new season of heavyweight, I help a centenarian mend a broken heart. How can a 101-year-old woman fall in love again? And I help a man atone for an armed robbery he committed at 14 years old. And so I pointed the gun at him and said, this isn't a joke.

And he got down, and I remember feeling kind of a surge of like, Okay, this is power. Plus, my old friend Gregor and his brother try to solve my problems through hypnotism. We could give you a whole brand new thing where you're like super charming all the time. Being more able to look people in the eye.

Not always hide behind a microphone. Listen to heavyweight on the I-heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. patience with the Trump administration here in Washington, D.C., among some people on the right. Now, of course, there's always going to be some rumblings of discontent with any political party, but I'm just here to convey. This is getting to be a little bit louder by the day. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was on Morning Joe yesterday and asked about that Argentinian beef bailout, dare we call it a bailout, not the beef bailout. I'm sorry, there was

the beef bailout. This is the market bailout. Here we go. This is Scott Bessent, responding to some questions. Listen to exactly the language that he uses and doesn't use. How does a $20 billion bailout of Argentina help Americans? Do you know what a swap line is? It's currency swap, yes. Yes, but what is that? You're the Treasury Secretary. Yes, but why would you call it a bailout? That is how... In most bailouts, you don't make money. The U.S. government made money. We used our financial, we used our financial balance sheet to stabilize the government, one of our great allies in Latin America during an election. The president, they're won in a landslide. The government's going to make money. And I would rather use peace

through economic strength than have to be shooting at narco boats coming offshore if the government would collapse. All right. Well, there were some, you know, friends of Scott questions. He's so bitchy. Yeah. He's so bitchy there, right? Well, he's, like, do you even know what a swap line is? Why would you call that a bailout? Define it. Define swap. Like, he thinks he's got such a gotcha there. Um, but in reality, I mean, it is a bailout. That is an appropriate term to use. Yeah, both can be true. You can make money on a, a quote, bailout. Yes. Right. Even if your technical, financial engineering, you know, has a different term as well. That doesn't change the dynamics.

Okay, you have a swap line for them. Do you have a swap line for other countries? No, you don't, right? Because you specifically wanted to prop up this country. Exactly. Because you, Scott Besant have, you know, your buddy's money is on the line with regard to these hedge funds that had bet big on Argentina. And by the way, you wanted to intervene in their upcoming elections, which you did

successfully and helped to forestall what looked to be in coming. electoral losses for Javier Malay. So, like, no one is, no one is buying this bullshit. Well, yeah, and the reason that I slipped up and said beef bailout as I was setting up the segment is that that was also part of this, right, is people were annoyed with the use of fungible taxpayer dollars going specifically to Argentina. But then when Donald Trump mentioned potentially starting to import some modest amount of Argentinian beef, MAGA was furious.

Maha was furious. I wrote a story about it over at Unheard, just tracking everyone who had come out and was just completely beside themselves with this, what they saw as a betrayal of particularly small American farmers. Now, obviously, the American beef industry was annoyed by that period. But there are a lot of, you know, small American farms that have put some stock in MAGA and the Trump movement, hoping to get a little bit of help out of it. and were just completely caught off guard by that proposal to import any Argentinian beef, period, because they see themselves as being in need of help from the U.S. government and getting basically nothing. Now, Donald Trump was also grilled by Laura Ingram and what was obviously a pretty tough interview. And actually a contentious interview at certain points like this one,

maybe the most contentious point of the interview, on H-1B visas, this has set off another. firestorm on X. And again, this is just social media, where a lot of the elite discourse happens. So does it trickle into polling soon? Maybe not. We'll have to see. But this is what Trump said about H-1B visas. C-1. There's never going to be a country like what we have right now. And does that mean? The Republicans have to talk about it. And does that mean the H-1B visa thing will not be a big priority for your administration? Because if you want to raise wages for American workers, you can't flood the country with tens of thousands. thousands or hundreds of thousands of foreign workers.

But you also do have to bring in talent. Well, we have plenty of talented people here. No, you don't. We don't have talented people here. No, you don't have, you don't have certain talents and you have to, people have to learn. You can't take people off an unemployment, like an unemployment line and say, I'm going to put you into a factory who are going to make missiles. Or I'm going to put people. How do we ever do it before? Well, let me just, I'll give you an example in Georgia.

They raided because they wanted illegal immigrants. They had people from South Korea that made batteries all their lives. You know, making batteries are very complicated. It's not an easy thing. It's very dangerous, a lot of explosions, a lot of problems. They had like five or six hundred people, early stages, to make batteries and to teach people how to do it. Well, they wanted them to get out of the country. You're going to need that, Laura.

I mean, I know you and I disagree on this. You can't just say a country's coming in going to invest $10 billion to build a plant and going to take people off an unemployment line who haven't worked in five years and they're going to start making missiles. It doesn't work that way. So that's happening as people are also, like the interviews airing,

as people on the right are also furious about the proposal for 50-year mortgages, which Donald Trump had to defend to Laura Ingram in that interview as well. And he did basically defend it in that interview to Laura Ingram as well. At one point, he said it's not a big deal. We're going from 40-year to 50-year mortgages.

And Ingram jumped in and said, no, 30-year mortgages to 50-year. year mortgages. Just kind of touch. Yeah. And so here's a post that I just noticed pinging around some group chats yesterday. This is from Savannah Hernandez, who is a contributor with Turning Point USA. She posted this long, X, almost essay.

It's that long. She says, I'm tired. It's Ackman-esque, yes. Yeah, an Ackman-esque. She pulled an Ackman, and she wrote, I'm tired of based social media videos and big talk from the admin with zero follow-through. First thing she cites, we voted for home affordability,

and we were given 50-year mortgages and debt slavery. At one point, she then goes on to say, people are being arrested for, quote, anti-Semitic attacks. Meanwhile, it's Christian children who are being targeted and killed in the middle of mass,

and it's mobs of violent leftists who continue to scream, kill white people with zero repercussion. That is a recurring theme in her post. She goes on to say, American students are drowning in debt, and the admin has responded by making them compete

with 600,000 Chinese students. Oh, and if you're lucky enough to get a degree, you're still going to have to compete with the Republican-promoted H-1B visa hire that will work for half your pay. She goes on to say this is why the right wing is divided. She says every time Americans, or because Americans voted to feel safe,

prioritized and protected, and every time we try to voice our concerns, we are labeled as anti-Maga, anti-Israel, or anti-Trump for bringing forth substantial criticism of the direction of the party. She says she's watched the quote, right-wing implode over the last two weeks.

So, and by the way, it goes on. And the reason we are is because many are afraid to legitimately criticize the administration. That is absolutely true, Crystal. And I think she's directing this at those, quote, based social media posts from MAGA world. So she seems to be especially upset with, like, her fellow influencers who say, you know, if there's a little bit of criticism, it becomes a pile on over someone being anti-Maga or having their, like, MAGA bona fide's challenge, which is definitely. happened to Marjorie Taylor Green. And Marjorie Taylor Green, you know, whatever you want to say

about her going against the team during the shutdown, Marjorie Taylor Green is as MAGA as it gets, like true MAGA as it gets. This is a person who is like organic grassroots MAGA and is represents that sort of, I would, I always put around 30 to 40% of the Republican Party. That's the type of MAGA that actually goes to rallies, buys merch, that sort of thing. Marjorie Taylor Green represents those people who were inspired by Donald Trump's Drain the Swamp message and you and I could disagree or could debate whether or not people were, you know, right or wrong to put their hopes and drain the swamp Donald Trump, but people feel like they were out of options.

And they did. And that's the bottom line. And a lot of the people who were brought into the conservative movement, brought into the broader right on those promises, are now seeing second administration, Donald Trump. and second administration, Donald Trump, is a legacy building, Donald Trump, who's been laser-focused on foreign policy. And now is, what did he say last week, Crystal, after the Tuesday elections, like, they have this new word, affordability.

That was a good one. Oh, my God. Which is a con, which he describes as a con job by the Democrats, which is like, oh, my God. And by the way, speaking of Anatoj, guess who he's hosting at the White House today, Jamie Diamond and a bunch of other Walltree CEOs. So really, finger on the pulse there, brother. I'm sure you can walk them around your new

gilded ballroom and, you know, you can all marvel at the splendor of your Home Depot disgusting gold interior of the White House. You know, I mean, listen, obviously I think part of what this lady said was insane about like whatever her, you know, whatever her right-wing hysteria is and her critique that basically like, oh, they're not being fascist and, like action enough. Just in like the theatrical part. I too am frustrated that you're not in prison

yet. Right. I get it. I mean, it's understandable, right? We're all disappointed by that. Yes. Right? I, you know, it looks like fun. Months ago. I mean, Galane looks like she's having fun in prison. You could get a service puppy, maybe. In any case, I don't think I'd be getting that kind of treatment. Unfortunately, I don't have the goods on Donald Trump the way she does. In any case, putting that aside, you know, her point that she makes about, I'm tired of the base social media videos like the sense is basically I didn't take that as actually a shot at other influencers I took that as a shot at the administration which loves to create this fascist content their ASMR like deportation videos and they're you know set to music rating of the sandwich guys

apartment and all this kind of bullshit right or staging this oh we're going to march all the horses through the park where children were playing and record it even though like we're literally doing nothing other than posturing for the kids. cameras we showed many times obviously what is happening in chicago has been extremely real and extremely violent and horrifying for the communities there but also it was meant for the theater every single action they took when you see people recording them they've got tons of cameramen people recording on iPhones and actual like you know real legit cameras so they can package it up and produce it for mass content you see the dhs nazi posting on a daily basis and

And I think that they believed, and I think up to this point, in a large part, it has been that that would be enough because that's, that's like they're triggering and owning the libs, right? And they're like, that's what you people want, right? That's all you really need from us. And so what Savannah is saying is like, and again, I think part of what she says is completely insane and outrageous, but she's saying, no, actually, that's not enough. I see what you're doing. And I see that you're, you're trying to play us. Like, you're trying to play us. You're trying to substitute in this, you know, this show for.

the actual things that we thought we were getting and we thought we were voting for. Now, I don't think she's reflective of her specific disappointments. I don't think are reflective of the overall population. I think most of the population is pretty horrified by the level of authoritarianism, does not agree with the way that the deportations have been accelerated or the show of force. And we can see that if we look at C3 in these last elections, every single demographic group in the country shifted away from Donald Trump. And or for I should say from the Republican Party, but I'm like, you know, those two things are one and the same. And in particular, the largest ships came from some of the groups that were really heralded as a new part of the Republican coalition. You're looking at young people, young men in particular. You're looking at Hispanic voters. You're looking at Asian voters. Those groups fled the Republicans in these elections. So, you know, when you have that sort of.

of an undeniable national reckoning. And even the people who are coping and saying, oh, these were blue states and it's not a big deal, they know the truth. And this sense of we have a new coalition and we're going to be ascendant forever, you know, demographics is destiny, the way that Democrats thought back in 2008, that has just run smack into an actual reality.

So not surprising that you have more and more voices on the right who see the writing on the wall recognize that Trump is wildly unpopular and will not be alive, let alone in power forever, and are starting to feel more and bolden to make some noises. Emily, I do want to just say about that H1B saw, which I find incredible. So first of all, I think the H1B visa program sucks. I support bringing, you know, I'm very pro-immigration, but it does create a situation of basically indentured servitude. I think it needs to be, you know, wildly reformed. I don't think that the immigration status should be attached to the employer. So I have my issues with H-1B. Okay. Putting that aside, the thing he said about Georgia

was so fascinating because he's like, he's 100% correct about, look, they're building out this battery plant. Hyundai has their own people who know how to do this. We literally don't have workers who have this specific skill for how to build these batteries with by this particular company. Like, we just don't have that. And so, yes, we need some people here to train up our workers so that maybe in the future, they can hold those jobs. And he said something to the effect of like, and they wanted them out. Well, the they is Stephen Miller.

Like, this is his administration that conducted this raid. And he's acting like, I can't believe this was done. It's like, dude, these are your people that, you know, that went in and did this and created this whole diplomatic crisis and did, again, the base social media video show of force, put them in shackles. these South Korean workers who were legitimately here put them in shackles and arrested all of them and deported them back to their country. So it also showed just a level of disconnect between what he was willing to say in this interview and what the actual policy and direction of his

administration has been. Yeah, that is a really good point. So I'm looking right now at a new economist UGov poll on approval for Donald Trump. If you look at people who voted for Trump in 24, only 16% disapprove of the way he's handling his job as president now. But we should also look at this. I mean, it's at 18% among conservatives. So by ideology, 18%. That's almost one in five. And then by party ID, independence, 63% of independence disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president. In any presidential election, independent voters are absolutely crucial as they were in 2024. So when you have 60, 3% disapproval with independence. It's just going to depend on how much Donald Trump values.

I mean, he's doing the legacy building. He wants that Nobel Peace Prize for a reason because he wants history to see him as an enormously consequential figure and one who completely, what's the best way to put it, completely outperformed the expectations of the elite. I think that's what he wants people to see him as. And that's where he's willing. willing to cut deals with different countries and do all of these, like, big foreign policy kind of moonshot type negotiations. But at home, that question is going to hinge on independence. And one of the gripes that you've heard from people in Maga World recently is that

he's been too focused on foreign policy and not focused enough on affordability and domestic policy questions that matter, like homeownership, student loan debt, price of college, just cost of living stuff, which, Crystal, his political instincts, whatever you think of Donald Trump, he has better political instincts than a lot of people in the party leadership because he was out there talking about things like the price of eggs and the price of gas, the gas prices are roughly down. So he's got that going for him, but what? The price of beef is still over like six bucks a pound when I checked the last week. Yeah, and he talked about that. So he knows that it's a problem. The question is whether he has the sort of will to tackle some of these

problems in a way that really does make a difference. Because I think what we're starting to see as he approaches the one year mark of his second term, which most people assume will be his final term, we still don't quite know whether that will be the case. But which most people assume is his final term, people are not interested in the bullshit anymore. It's just not going to work because when you're looking at the post-Trump era, a lot of the Trump era politics fade away, not all of them, but a lot of them, which is to say the specific debate about Trump himself. Yeah.

When that fades away, you're left with way more nuts and bolts. The murder of an 18-year-old girl in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved for years until a local housewife, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. America, y'all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County on the Grays County. iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And to binge the entire season ad-free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I knew it was a bomb the second that it

exploded. I felt it ripped through me. In season two of Rip Current, we ask, who tried to kill Judy Berry and why? They were climbing trees and they were sabotaging logging equipment in the woods. She received death threats before the bombing. You receive more threats after the bombing. I think that this is a deliberate attempt to sabotage our movement. Episodes of Rip Current Season 2 are available now. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm I'm Ida Gomajora, and this week on our podcast, Hungry for History, we talk oysters, plus the Mianbi Chief stops by.

If you're not an oyster lover, don't even talk to me. Ancient Athenians used to scratch names onto oyster shelf. to vote politicians into exile. So our word ostracize is related to the word oyster. No way. Bring back the OsterCon. Listen to Hungry for History on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.