Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 12/18/25: Trump Blames Economy On Biden, Trump Venezuela WMD Lies, Epstein Files, Healthcare Costs Spike

Episode Date: December 18, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump blames Biden for economy, Thomas Massie blasts Trump Venezuela lies, Congress flees ahead of Epstein files, healthcare premiums spike.   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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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, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do you have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. So a lot to get into. So yesterday we got worried that President Trump was going to give a speech in the evening.

There started to be all these rumors from Tucker Carlson and others, that he was going to announce a direct attack on Venezuela. So he was very upset. Then he ends up giving this like weird speech on the economy and announcing some things. So we're going to talk about that. We're going to also talk about the continued possibility of direct war with Venezuela. We're going to have Rokana here, which is huge because he's been leading the way on Venezuela war powers resolutions. And And also, the Epstein files are set to be released tomorrow. And Roe, of course, has been really leading the charge there as well. So really looking forward to speaking with him about what we can expect and what the consequences

will be if they do not release everything that they're supposed to release. So we've got that. We have Republicans defecting from Mike Johnson and joining the Democrats on health care and kind of things in disarray there. Trump also making some comments about health care yesterday evening. We have some wild comments from Trump and from Miriam Adelson, basically her like openly bribing him in public to run for an unconstitutional third term with the help of other Zionist Alan Dershowitz and Epstein Associate. So that's a lot to get into. We also have some new plaques

installed at the White House, which are pretty much the pettiest thing of all time. We will show you that and give you a little update on the White House ballroom as well, which I know you guys are all really excited about. And meanwhile, Candice Owens met with Erica Kirk, went on her show, her audience reaction, she also joined Pierce Borgon and talked to him about it as well. There's a whole lot going on there in terms of within the right sort of intro right party conflicts. So we'll get into that one as well. That's your final, your tabloid update here from Breaking Points. But of course, you know, it is actually. It's consequential. Yeah. It is consequential. That's right. Thank you to everybody who has been signing up breaking points.com if you are able to

for our premium subscribers. And that is when we do have a note for all of you as well. So this is going to be our last in studio show of the year. But we're going to have content over the next two weeks. tease for our premium subscribers. You guys will be getting early access to some of the holiday stuff. We'd pre-recorded. But if news does break, then of course you will see us. Just some guidance there for our premiums. Check your email. It won't be a normal show release. We will just probably be, we'll be emailing you a link from which you can watch the content, whatever we may do. Okay? So everybody just keep updated over the next couple weeks before you see us again. And then for everybody else, please hit subscribe to our YouTube

channel if you're able to. It really helps people find this show. And if you're listening to as a podcast helps us grow, go ahead and send an episode to a friend. Rate us five stars. It really helps people find it. Yeah, we're trying to give, you know, the crew and the team as much of a, you know, break as we can at the same time. If there are significant developments, we also want to make sure that we keep you guys updated. So we'll be trying to strike that balance. And before we jump into the show, just want to say thank you to all of you guys for an incredible year for showing us support through any number of different tumultuous news cycles. Thank you so much to the crew here. Thank you to you, to you, Saugger.

to you as well. I feel very fortunate, especially this time of year and reflect on the things that are important to us. I feel very fortunate to have this space and be able to have the conversations and the debates that we do. A hundred percent. And we just, none of it possible without the audience and premium subscribers, especially you enable literally everything that we do. And so just thank you. Seriously, thank you. Coming up on the holiday season, we are all thinking about you as we go into it. So with that, we're going to go ahead and jump into the show. As Crystal said, A lot of speculation there about Venezuela. Venezuela, Venezuela. I was personally skeptical of the entire time. Yeah, he was. I can vouch for him on the call yesterday. I was like, I don't know, guys. I don't really think so.

Yeah, sometimes people get a little ahead of their skis and social media and all that goes wild. And I'm telling you, I spent a lot of the time on the phone yesterday and everyone was like, dude, I don't know where this Venice Willa thing is coming from. They're like, it's pretty much just going to be a campaign speech. And lo and behold, that's exactly what happened. So here were the very first thing out of Donald Trump's mouth. You knew you were off to the races. He was one minute late, by the way, which every minute after 9 p.m. I was counting because I still was way past my bedtime. And I had to stay up for this shit.

So this is what we had. 11 months ago, I inherited a mess, and I'm fixing it. When I took office, inflation was the worst in 48 years, and some would say in the history of our country, which caused prices to be higher than ever before, making life unaffordable for millions and millions of Americans. So there was a lot of that, basically, it was about, what, 20 minutes or so, it was basically a campaign speech. She could have ripped it out of anything, a billed as an Oval Office address.

The high level is basically Trump and the White House are deeply frustrated about their economy poll numbers, period. End of story. That's why Trump recently went to Pennsylvania. He did his affordability speech. J.D. Vand, actually, he went to my wife's hometown, Allentown, Pennsylvania, to go and to give a speech similarly to try and make a pitch in these more swingy county like areas, which voted for Donald Trump this time around, but previously it voted for Joe Biden. A lot of people not really buying it. Didn't particularly go off. all that well. This is where the infamous A-plus, plus, plus comments are beginning to make the rounds. And so my top-level analysis was, and Yashar Ali tweeted this, I'll take credit for his take. It's like a politician who's angry that he's not getting

the credit that he wants and decides to try and to give a speech to re-correct the record. And yet pretty much everybody else can just be like, okay, that's nice, but as he said in the beginning, 11 months ago, it's like, dude, it's just been a long time. Imagine being Joe Biden, as

He tried 11 months into his presidency to try and blame it on Donald Trump, which he did. And everyone was like, yeah, man, we're over that. Like, you've just been in power for too long. Yeah, that's right. And especially with how aggressive Trump has been in making his own moves and really taking credit for what he claims is this A-plus-plus economy. The speech was weird. I'm curious, do you think that the Venezuela thing was a plant? I saw people speculating that, like, they wanted that planet in the media so that the networks would all cover the speech?

you don't think so. No, I'm telling you that was entirely a creation of social media. Nobody at the White House ever once told anyone this had to do with Venezuela. The reason I took it possibly seriously, Tucker saying, okay, that's one thing, but then you had anti-war.com, which I mean, they're responsible, you know, journalists, they've broken

significant stories, they have good sources in this administration, et cetera, saying they had heard the same thing. And so I was like, yeah, maybe. Everyone was checking the, like, Pentagon Pizza Tracker and all that. And of course, they've been making all kinds of noises about Venezuela. I mean, that's still very much a live issue and Trump announcing this like blockade of sanctioned, quote unquote, Venezuela oil

tankers. So I don't know. I mean, the speech itself was strange because it was very rushed, like his ordinary cadence. He was talking really fast. It was very odd. It was sort of like rushed and angry and frustrated was the vibe. And I mean, I guess that's the appropriate vibe because I think that is how he feels of like, you know, why aren't people giving me credit for this amazing economy? because he just looks at the stock market. He's like, oh, the stock market's been so high. Things are so great for him and his friends who were like, you know, looting the treasury and, like, making all these corrupt global business deals. But so on a touch with where your average American is. And so you had, you know, just him trying to make the case and using all his normal, like you said,

campaign talking points. He also floated, and this was an interesting one as well, he said they're going to use the tariff revenue to cut service members a check. And that's noteworthy too. And I think could also be, you know, responsible for some of the timing here because the Supreme Court is probably set imminently to strike down those tariffs. So then what? And I mean, I think Trump has authority with tariff revenue to just like do what he wants because it's a little bit outside of the purview of Congress, which has always been, I think, one of the things that he liked about the tariffs and having all of these high tariffs is that gives him money that he can personally play with. But then if you're promising something to service members and then with knowledge that the Supreme Court is going to strike that down, like that money is not going to go out. You're going to have to actually pay that some money back to, you know, companies that have been paying these tariffs.

It's all up in the air. I think that's part of it too. Yeah, it's so up in the air right now. Yeah, it's such to explain Trump announcement called a Warrior dividend, which would be $1776 for every active duty American service member. I don't know. We issued that, especially after the shutdown

when you had guys who were literally in uniform having to go to a food bank, right? It's disgusting. So we've got one point-something million people who are in uniform. I think they should get paid a lot more. Now, that said, with the tariffs, like you're talking about, and this gets in the weeds, but it is important. The Supreme Court is likely to rule that the tariff

were unconstitutional or to strike them down. Now, there are multiple different return scenarios. So one scenario currently being contemplated by internal Washington is that only the plaintiffs in that suit would get a refund because it would be unfeasible. The government would argue we can't give back all of these hundreds of millions of dollars. By the way, this happened to me recently. I ordered something from Japan and I had to pay tariffs.

So, like, how would they even facilitate that? Would they give me a refund on my credit card? Like how you don't, it's just, I mean, imagine multiplying that by billions for every customer in transaction in the country. It seems insane. At the same time, if the court orders them to do so, it could happen. So that is theoretically something that would be, I mean, also it would be, you know, caught up in litigation and all of it in hell for years. But yeah, this is kind of one way, I think, to front run the eventual scenario of ordering refunds where I think what they'll probably end up doing, maybe, is saying only the specific plaintiffs to the case. are going to be paid back, not everybody, because the government will argue it's just not

possible, which is crazy because if we all had to pay, you know, certain goods or something, tariffs on goods and they're ruled unconstitutional, they're like, no, we're just going to keep your money, but that's the United States government for you. So anyway, yes, the tariff part was that. And actually, to the tariff part, I was thinking about why can't Trump blame the economy on Biden? Because you potentially could, and maybe people would buy it more. On Liberation day, you took official control of the U.S. economy. You said, this is my economy. These tariffs are mine, and I own it going forward. Now, there hasn't been a complete collapse, like, let's be real. Part of the reason why is AI juggernaut spending on data centers. But if you look at

consumer sentiment, if you look at the way unemployment rate, a lot of other stuff is trending, not so happy in terms of the general U.S. consumer. That's what this speech was about. It was trying to say, forget about Liberation Day. It was actually a good idea. And to the extent that there's anything bad in your life, it's all Joe Biden's fault. Yeah. It's just not going to work. I mean, we see that over and over again. They're trying to do this one big, beautiful bill. They're like, you're going to save thousands of dollars on your taxes. I'm like, it's just not true. Like, it's just actually not true. Yeah. And to the extent that it is true, it mean, like, how much of that got eaten up by inflation. Like, you don't have to believe me. Just ask people

themselves, even with the tax revenue or refund or any of that that you're likely to get. is it going to make up for your overall spending? If it was, then people would be a lot more optimistic, and they're not. So you don't have very much in your cap. Well, and if you look at, Emily Ryan and Ryan covered some of this yesterday. If you look at this jobs report that came out this week, it tells a pretty clear story about where the economy is vis-a-vis what the Trump administration had promised. You know, their thing was, number one, we're going to use these tariffs and, you know,

some policy that's in the big, beautiful bill to have a manufacturer. renaissance. Now, I guess you could say, well, maybe that's just going to take some time. I don't really see the, you know, trajectory or the policy in place to create that manufacturing renaissance, but you could say that. But you've had manufacturing job loss for like nine months straight. So it's not that we're just treading water while we await this, you know, golden era. In fact, we are going dramatically backwards in terms of manufacturing jobs. And that was one of the things that they focused on. You know, in terms of who is benefiting. in this economy. I mean, it's the very rich are basically the only ones that are really benefiting.

But if you look at this last jobs report, effectively, the only sector that was growing was healthcare, which is overwhelmingly dominated by women. And so it's actually, you know, men who have been doing even worse in this economy than they were doing before. Trump said a lot in this speech about like, oh, native-born workers and the job gains are going to native-born workers, et cetera, et cetera. But that promise has not paid off either. You know, the idea was, okay, if we do this mass deportation, we get people to, you know, to self-deport and all of this and close down the border, then all of the jobs will go to native-born workers and their unemployment rate will go down.

That hasn't worked down either. You have the native-born unemployment rate also going up. So, you know, across the board, in terms of what they wanted to do with the economy, or at least their stated goals with the economy and where we actually are, there's massive, you know, massive distance between those two things. So, you know, I think it's the vibe of this whole speech was like frustration and sort of like lecturing us about how we just don't get. We just don't get it. We just don't understand how great things are.

And you can gaslight people on any number of things and they'll buy it. But on their own economic condition, that is one thing that is going to be very hard. And many presidents before have crashed into the rocks trying to gaslight Americans about how things are going for them personally in their own lives. Yeah, this is just Biden, like, I mean, I hate to be redundant, but because it's just the most recent scenario, like in a lot of ways, we do feel like we're living through a lot of Biden's second term. And in, especially every time we get one of those headlines that's like White House furious with Netanyahu over something, right? And in the economy, I distinctly remember so many of those efforts in 2021, right around now and early 2022 of it's all Trump's fault. Actually, we've done everything that we could. The American Rescue Plan put all this money in your pocket. People were just not buying it. Bidenomics was a dead ender. And frankly, he, I mean, can you imagine what the midterms of that year would have looked like without the Roe versus Wade?

I mean, it would have been completely different. And so that's basically what they're rolling into right now. So we have some of the polling on this. Let's go to A4B, please, and put it up here on the screen. So this new NPR poll really just puts it all together. they say Trump's overall job approval is about 38% on the economy, it's 36, only 24% of independence approving of his economic performance. Dems have now edged ahead of the GOP, who is more trusted on the economy. Now, keep in mind, they still have like an overwhelming majority, but when you're

the party in power, you tend to get a lot of the blame. And just generally, this is what they say, why keep making the Biden comparison. The only time that Americans had a similarly negative view of a president's handling of the economy was in February 2022 when Joe Biden was president. Now Democrats are slightly more trusted, 37 to 33 percent. That's not a wide enough margin, but it is a sharp turnaround from the 16-point advantage that Republicans had on that question in 2022. So the reason why the Biden comparison is apt is just that's basically where he is. And I think to your point about promises, narratives are easy in the campaign.

They're easy. They're solid. Right. Like Biden's narrative was so simple. in 2020. I'm in the basement and I'm going to make things go back to normal. And obviously that was a presumption that Trump himself was the only one of our problems and not all of these other issues that are in. So it turns out like you can remove Donald Trump, but you can't just wave a magic wand and fix all of our macro problems. The Republicans came in with a story

about immigration and also about manufacturing and tariffs and a core part of it was that that would be paired with some immediate economic benefit in your life. It just hasn't materialized. I mean, their native-born, like you said, their native-born point is not a hundred percent incorrect in terms of who is going to get some of the newer jobs. But what that has to be done is to see a tick down in the unemployment rate and an increase in overall real wages, which has not happened. And especially if inflation is going to eat into those chunks and housing and health care, which we're going to do an entire block on, people have.

are like, I don't want to hear it from you right now, right? And so that's why the campaign, that's why watching this, it was just a campaign speech. And I mean, look, you know, there's always the whole, like, you campaign in poetry and you govern in prose. But like, you know, it's one of those ridiculous Washington phrases. But I think, you know, at the end of the day, people can see the difference, you know, between the promise and then what's actually happening in their own life. And in everybody that you know, because that's, the thing. is people don't just experience it individually. They experience society and everything that collectively. So they talk to all of their friends. And the overall consumer sentiment

is not something that just shows your own individual experience. It's about your children or your friends. You know, I don't just think about myself. I look at my people around me. I'm like, how is everybody else doing? And so even if I'm doing okay, I'll look at them. I'll be like, oh my God, this is a disaster because I don't just care about myself. It's ridiculous. That's how most people do. So I think that that's something the Trump administration is discounting as well. Yeah, I think so too. And, you know, I'm wondering there's been some reporting about how his advisors, Trump's advisors, were making this sort of like whole of administration effort to convince Trump this was something that he should have to care about. And, you know, you've heard him say the affordability is the Democrat con job or whatever. Like he had to be dragged to this kicking and screaming. And it shows. Like this was his advisors like, you need to do that. You need to go out and make this case. Right. You have a case. You have a case. You have. here's the case you're going to make and you're going to go out and people will, you know, people need to hear from you that things are good and they're getting better, et cetera.

And it definitely felt like he didn't want to be there. He rushed through the whole thing as fast as the fastest I've ever heard him speak. There were no, you know, digression. There was no asides. There was no ad limbing. It was just like, let me rip through this speech that my freaking advisors are making me give as quickly as possible and get to the other side of it. So in any case, well, at least we're not at war with Venezuela.

We are not at war with Venezuela. I am more underslept than normal, so thank you, President Trump, for making me stay up late to watch his stupid speech. And to everybody else in the White House, fuck you. Look, I mean, if you got to stay up late, it's got to be State of the Union or something.

It was a good, something kind of good reason here. Jesus, not to watch this angry man. I looked at my wife. I said, can you believe I stayed up for this shit? She's like, you're going to be so mad. She was right. All right. Love you, babe. Have you ever listened to those true crime shows and found yourself with more questions than answers?

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So let's turn to Venezuela. Obviously, we're going to talk about that a little bit with Congressman Rokana, but, and Brian and Emily touched on this a little bit as well, as the speculation online was building the case for taking back our oil from Venezuela was being made there from Donald Trump. Here's what he had to say on the tarmac while receiving the troops of dead American soldiers from Syria. Here's what he said on Venezuela. Not going to let anybody going through that shouldn't be going through. You remember, they took all of our energy rights.

They took all of our oil from not that long ago, and we want it back. But they took it. They illegally took it. I mean, Ryan did a good job yesterday of just discussing and breaking down this whole thing. I won't go into the general history and all of that of Chavez and of 1976 and all of that of oil. I will just simply point out the inconsistencies. Let's say that you wanted all the oil from Venezuela. Then that leader said you can have all the oil from Venezuela.

And you said, I'm going to launch a war because he refuses to give me back the oil. Would that make any damn sense to any of you? Because, again, like everyone's trying to, even retconning 1976 nationalization from Venezuela, or Chavez or the fact that Chevron today, today is exporting oil from Venezuela under a special license granted to them by the Biden administration. Again, let me reiterate that, that at this entire time, an American oil company continues to export oil from Venezuela under Maduro. Even if you accepted all of those ridiculous premises, if the core goal was to get the

oil and the leader said you can have the oil, then what the hell are we all doing here? And it's like the press is derelict. in their explanations of all of this. Maduro has said, I will give you the oil, I will give you the minerals, all I wanna do is kinda stay in power and go out on my own terms and hand power off to my guy. And at every turn, we're like no.

So even people who are saying it's about the oil, I wish it were about the oil. That would make more sense, because if it were about the oil, then we could make a deal. This is about Marco Rubio, whose family is Cuban and has a lifelong dream who believes

In the 1960s domino theory that if we knock off Venezuela, then Cuba will be next. That's the level of stupidity that we're all dealing with, like Florida, Miami occupied government. I saw a tweet from a congressman yesterday from Florida, and he was like, the Nicaraguan Venezuelan exiles that I represent are deeply supportive of President Trump. I was like, imagine if you said that about any other community, you know? My family's Indian. Can you imagine if my whole personality was about fucking Kashmir or something like, it would be insane. That would be the definition of dual loyalty and of importing your old world grievances to our country. If you want to talk about integration, lack of assimilation, I'm looking at people who are still grudged over some revolution during the 1950s.

I don't give a shit, okay, whether your family got to keep a plantation in Cuba. And as Tucker famously said, you know, they talk about expropriation. they seem to be doing okay down in South Florida the last time I checked. They all live in pretty nice houses, just saying, all right, that's fine. Seems to you're doing well. I'm happy for you. That doesn't mean I need to send my, you know, tax dollars and use our military to go and to restore the glory of your family down in Venice.

Like, it's ridiculous. There is a piece of this that just still, as I go over it, just still doesn't add up for me with Trump. And maybe the answer is that he doesn't really intend to do like direct strikes or certainly an invasion, that they just want to saber-rattle as much as possible to get as good a deal as possible. I mean, maybe that is actually what's going on here, and I think that's certainly possible. But I know where, I know ideologically where Marco Rubio is coming from, where some of the other Floridians in government are coming from, I understand Stephen Miller's interest in

this because of his whole, like, you know, let's just murder the drug dealers and that consolidates more power for him and gives him more power domestically as well. Like, again, all of that, I don't don't quite get the full, like, last piece of why this was persuasive to Trump. When, like you said, like, it seems like what he would love to do is, you know, yes, say, a rattle and then be able to come out and say, oh, we made this deal and look at what it's doing for us, et cetera, et cetera. So maybe that is the end point where we end up. But I think we also have to give some credence to Ryan's theory that he floated of, like,

hey, he thinks he actively wants another migrant crisis and caravans coming to the border because he thinks that benefits Republicans politically. And it also benefits them in terms of getting their, like, right-wing allies in government in South America. As we saw, we covered the election in Chile. I actually think that there's the core argument. This is what I've been told directly from arguments in the Oval. The way that it's being presented, Mr. President, you have to finish it. It's just like with George W. Bush and Iraq.

You have to finish the job. You looked weak. With one, right, exactly. That's all it is. It's all just, you look weak. Yeah. And they're like, if you make a deal, you're going to look weak because we've gone all out and you recognize this former government. That's it.

Is that he has been convinced. This is the Rubio strategy is for a while they were like, but he stole the election. Trump's like, I don't give the shit, stole the election. You know what I'm saying? My son-in-law's out here making cash money with the Gulf monarchy. You think I care about democracy? For a while, they're like, he's really bad on human rights. Trump, again, is like, I literally don't care, right?

I'm going to sit next to MBS. then they finally landed on he's a drug trafficker which is very good for a lot of people around him and then finally everyone just keeps telling him you're going to look weak if you don't back down that's why he refuses to make a deal even though he's a so-called deal maker i do want to give some props to maduro which i never thought i would say in my life they keep saying bro you got to leave and he's like no i'm not leaving you're either going to kill me or you're going to make a deal and right now we're brushing up against even what the trump administration wants to do from a legal perspective. There's a reason that if everybody goes and reads the truth social,

it was being presented as a full blockade. It's not. So read what it actually says. He says, ever assembled, it will get bigger and bigger until such time as they return to the United States, the illegitimate Maduro, blah, blah, blah, I am today ordering a total and complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers. Now, people read that as a total blockade. Here's the thing, though, only about 30-something percent of the tankers that come in and out of Venezuela are actually sanctioned. The one that was taken down by the Trump administration was previously sanctioned under Iranian Hezbollah, the Iranian Hezbollah sanctions. That's what the legal authority was. Two tankers left Venezuela yesterday. Now, I'm not saying this isn't going to be massively disruptive

to the Maduro regime, but it just shows you they're in a bind. They have the law where they are right now, where they can try to finagle these drug boats and all of that. And Trump keeps saying land strikes are coming. Hasn't done it. The legal pretext for that? Very difficult to justify. And Congress, if he actually did do that, may step in. No, I'm going to say may step in. They haven't stepped in. Yeah. They're giving him a short leash. But, you know, let's put A6 up here on the screen. I'm excited to talk about this with Congressman Rokana is just yesterday, the House of Representatives only very narrowly failed in a vote on a Venezuela war powers resolution, which would have stopped all the stuff that we see right now. It failed at 211 to 2.3. 13, if they actually start striking land or striking boats, for example, like real like Venezuelan oil tankers and blowing them up or get into an armed conflict, I think that would flip very quickly. You know, the Venezuelan Navy, again, why I have to respect Maduro is he keeps calling Trump's bluff. He's like, I'll take all your migrants. Keep sending them. Send them.

I'll take them. I'm going to give you what you really, really want. And at the same time, you're making these threats about my oil tankers. Okay, I'm going to denounce that as an act of piracy. he sent the Venezuelan Navy to escort those two tankers that I just talked about. So now we have a decision to make. What's happening here? Are we getting into a gunfight? Then you've got a direct confrontation.

Now you've got a real thing that's happening, which again, nobody has authorized, nobody's voted on. And of course, this is not an excuse. All of this could spiral out of control incredibly quickly. And we can end up in some USS main situation. So please do not take this as me saying

that they're being cautious. I'm saying that they're in a legal and a difficult political bind. They do not want American troops to die. They do not want any American troops ever to set foot on Venezuela and soil. Their best case scenario is a Libya-NATO-style intervention, which, yeah, exactly. Really great. Yeah, right.

It goes without saying. All of that said, they are still in a very tough place where they can't go to Congress because Congress would vote it down if they really wanted to, what they wanted to do, like full-blown regime change. So everything is like CIA pressure machinations, and Maduro has called their bluff. every step of the way. They're like, give us all your oil. He's like, okay. He's like, take all of our migrants, okay. Except the one thing he won't give on is I'm not

just going to step down from power. So he's basically saying, kill me or make a deal with me. And so I don't know. I mean, look, we might kill him. I really hope that we don't, but we might. Well, let's go ahead and bring in Congressman Rokana to talk about all of this, and, you know, he's been really leading the charge with these war powers resolutions

working in a bipartisan manner with Congressman Thomas Massey. So let's go ahead and get to Congressman Kana. Have you ever listened to those true crime shows and found yourself with more questions than answers? And what is this? How is that not a story we all know? What's this? Where is that?

Why is it wet? Boy, do we have a show for you? From Smartless Media, Campside Media, and Big Money Players comes Crimeless. Join me, Josh Dean, investigative journalists. And me, Roy Scoval, comedian, as we celebrate the amazing creativity of the world's dumbest criminals. We'll look into some of the silliest ways folks have broken the laws. Honestly, it feels more like

a high-level prank than a crime. Who catfishes a city? And meets some memorable anti-heroes. There are thousands of angry, horny monkeys. Clap, if you think, she's a witch. And it freaks you out. He has x-ray vision. How could I not follow him? Honestly, I got to follow him. He can see right

through me. Listen to Crimless on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. May 24th, 1990, a pipe bomb explodes in the front seat of environmental activist Judy Barry'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 Rip Current, we ask, who tried to kill Judy Barry? 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. The timber 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 Podcast,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Danny Shapiro, host of the hit podcast Family Secrets. We were in the car, like a Rolling Stone came on, and he said, there's a line in there about your mother. And I said, what? What I would do if I didn't feel like I was being accepted is shoes and identity that other people can't have. I knew something had happened to me in the middle of the night,

but I couldn't hold on to what had happened. These are just a few of the moving and important stories I'll be holding space for on my upcoming 13th season of Family Secrets. Whether you've been on this journey with me from season one or just joining the Family Secrets family, we're so happy to have you with us. I'll dive deep into the incredible power of secrets, the ones that shape our identities, test our relationships, and ultimately reveal who we truly are. Listen to Family Secrets on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Join us now, Congressman Roe-Connor. Great to see you, sir. Good to see you. Always good to be on. Yeah, of course. Let me put back up on the screen, guys, A6, so we can get the War Powers Resolution vote from yesterday, which narrowly failed.

211 to 213, and you've been deeply involved in trying to push back against this administration's rogue act. with regard to these drugboats and potential strikes in Venezuela. You had only three Republicans join with all of the Democrats, save for one, who I believe was Henry Quayor. And then you also had nine people who inexplicably missed the vote, including four Democrats. You know, what did you make of this narrow failure? There's a failure of Congress again. I mean, look, the American people don't want regime change wars.

And there were two war powers resolutions, actually, that failed. One said, stop just bombing boats in the Caribbean without clear standards. But the other one that should have easily passed said, we don't want to go into Venezuela to have a land invasion and topple Madero. And even that did not pass. And so Congress is really to blame for these endless wars. We are not willing to assert our constitutional authority. Sir, one of the things that we're really puzzled about here is the presentation from the Trump administration, where they're trying to force Maduro out, but they have not yet moved to any full-blown

kinetic action. Just curious from your perspective, at least on land is really what I'm talking about against the Maduro regime. There were some speculation about congressional briefings and others being given yesterday. I'm just wondering if you've heard anything about that from you and your colleagues. I know you yourself serve on some of the relevant committees. Have you heard anything recently? I was in a classified briefing yesterday about the second strike on the boat. And all I'll say about that is that it should be released to the American public. I've made that clear and that I have concerns about these strikes in the Caribbean. By the way, we've interdicted or stopped about 10 tons of cocaine coming in,

while Donald Trump has pardoned the former president of Honduras, Hernandez, who brought in 400 tons of cocaine. So it's total hypocrisy. The other concern I have is that they basically inquire. increasing our true presence in Puerto Rico, increasing the true presence in Florida, increasing our naval presence in the Caribbean, increasing our aircraft carriers, or General Ford carriers there. They're provoking a war. And if there's one incident that takes place, they can blame Madero and use that as justification to have a regime change war. The American people have rejected this. And yet this administration is doing exactly what the American people don't want.

I wanted to play a little bit of Congressman Thomas Massey, who you've worked really effectively in collaboration with across the aisle on some of these foreign policy matters in particular. Let's go ahead and take a listen to the case he made against this regime change war. The framers understood a simple truth. To the extent that warmaking power devolves to one person, liberty dissolves. If the president believes military action against Venezuela is justified and needed, he should make the case and Congress should vote before American lives and treasure are spent on regime change in South America. Let's be honest about likely outcomes. Do we truly believe that Nicholas Maduro will be replaced by a modern-day George Washington? How did that work out? In Cuba, Libya, Iraq, or Syria.

Previous presidents told us to go to war over WMD's weapons of mass destruction that did not exist. Now it's the same playbook, except we're told that drugs are the WMDs. If it were about drugs, we'd bomb Mexico or China or Colombia. And the president would not have pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez. This is about oil and regime change. And unfortunately, Thomas Massey there, one of only three who voted for this war powers resolution, help us understand why is there so much more support for these regime change wars in Congress than there is among the American people? Well, I could have given the same exact speech literally word to word that Thomas Massey did. I mean, he absolutely nailed it. The problem is several things. One, as he pointed out,

their oil interests. I mean, the Koch brothers have refineries in the Gulf of Mexico that require and need Venezuelan oil. That oil has been restricted. Their profits are being hurt. Second, you look weak. I mean, if you make this argument that we don't want to be for regime change war, in the Beltway foreign policy blob, they paint you as unsurious about national security. Third, they paint you as well. You may be sympathetic to Madero and he's a terrible leader. Well, yeah, he is a terrible leader, but the point isn't whether he's a terrible leader. The point is whether you want to commit American money and American troops to a war that's not going to have a better outcome. But it's the same game that what's frustrating is the American

now has seen through it. They keep voting for the president who promises them no endless wars, and yet the Congress seems to be asleep. Yeah, it's very frustrating for many of us watching, sir. We do, while we have you, want to talk a little bit about the Epstein Files. Tomorrow is supposed to be the day that the Trump administration does comply with the legislation that you spearheaded with Congressman Thomas Massey. Just curious, first of all, if you can preview anything that you may have heard about what might be coming. And second, some consequences for the administration, if they don't live up to that. Well, the early tell will be whether they comply with three federal judges. The federal judges have ordered that the grand jury testimony and all of the discovery

of the Maxwell trials and the Epstein trials be released. And there's a lot of information in there that will implicate other rich and powerful men who were either at the island, who covered up for Epstein knowing what was taking place, or who either abused underage girls or traffic in young women illegally. And so if they don't release that, that would be a total slap on the face, especially because the DOJ cited Massey and my law saying that judges should require the release of this information. More broadly, what we want to see is the draft indictments, which have other individuals named other than just Epstein and Maxwell. We want to see the witness interviews that the FBI conducted. So we actually know who is part of this Epstein class that covered

this up or abuse or raped young girls. I believe if they do not comply, there's going to be outrage in this country, but people also could be subject to prosecution for obstruction of justice. And I believe we need to hold people in the Trump administration accountable for crimes they have committed. And the next Democratic president should do that. So people should be very careful about violating laws and obstruction of justice. We can hold Pambandhi an inherent contempt of Congress where the sergeant of arms could actually arrest her. We could impeach Bondi. There are a lot of options on the table that Republicans and Democrats are talking about. I hope it doesn't come to that. And are you working with the Epstein survivors and with their lawyers

to help you determine, you know, whether the files are being released in a fulsome nature since they would have some knowledge of what should be contained in them? So you're absolutely right. I'm working very closely with Bradley Edwards, who is the most prominent lawyer for the survivors, and he's seen a lot of these files. Some of those files he actually has through discovery. So we know if there are games that are going to be played. We know if the names that these survivors want to come out are coming out. And Massey and I have spent too much time with these survivors to just let this slide. We are emotionally invested in this. We know what this means to the survivors. And we are going to continue to raise

our voices and fight until we have full transparency. If we need to, we'll bring the survivors to the front of the Capitol again. I hope that's not going to be necessary. One of the things that we've been consistently looking at here with the Epstein files, you've called it the Epstein class as well, is a general lack of accountability for the people surrounding who enabled him. And I'm just curious, you know, from your perspective, as you're looking at the broader kind of democratic elite and others, how, you go about as a prospective leader in that party, exiling, you know, the Larry Summers's and all of those of the world. But many of the other financiers, the Bill Clintons and others,

who associated themselves over the years with Epstein and kind of what this legislation combined with that public reckoning means for you. Well, let me just paint a vivid picture. You have Epstein's rape island. You have these sex parties going on. Suddenly you have one or two young girls who are 1617. And they're powerful men at these parties knowing what's going on, not saying anything. Regardless of whether they themselves rape these underage girls, what signal does it send to a 16 or 17 year old at one of these parties if they have powerful politicians, powerful rich people there watching what's going on, not saying a word? It sends a message that this is normal behavior. And those

people need to be held accountable, just like the people who actually rape these girls. My view is let the chips fall where they may. I was totally shocked and disgusted by Harvard's actions that there are apparently two young feminists who recorded some part of Larry Summers, who's a public figure, and they're actually facing disciplinary hearings at Harvard University for doing something that, in my view, was just basically free speech. It's not like they were recording kids or the classroom discussion. They were exercising speech with a public figure.

But I believe that we need to get rid of this Epstein class. We need to get rid of the old guard. These people who thought the rules didn't apply to them, elite impunity, they have governed the country in a way that has led to massive income inequality. They've watched wealth pile up. They've watched jobs be offshore. They've destroyed the working in middle class. And the first thing the Democratic Party needs to say is out with the old.

We're going to have a new generation of leadership. Could not agree more. I wanted to get you to weigh in because I think this is related. and you can tell me if you think this is related. Dan Bongino now has made it official. He is deputy FBI director. He's going to be stepping down at the end of this month. Let's go ahead and play before, guys.

This is Donald Trump, you know, making an official and talking about why Bongino was leaving. Dan did a great job. I think he wants to go back to his show. He wants to go back to his show. I think he's really right about that. Although I'm not sure how much of an audience he has left. I mean, he, I'm sure you recall, after the initial Epstein file,

release, fail memo situation. He had this whole angsty weekend away and there were rumors he was going to leave at that point. He's been kind of sidelined in the FBI now of making it official that he is going to step down. You know, speak to how much the Epstein files are involved in his fall from grace with the MAGA movement. And also you can zoom out from there, you know, how significant has this been a fracture point within MAGA between leaders and the base? It's been the biggest fracture point in the MAGA coalition since Donald Trump walked down the escalator. Let me explain why. You had Dan Vonjino, Cash Patel, Pam Bondi, J.D. Vans on podcast after podcast saying,

we want the Epstein Files released. They thought it was going to be largely Democrats implicated. But what they were telling the country is that there are corrupt and rich, powerful men who rape our girls and who pay no consequences. They have corrupted the system, and Donald Trump may not be a saint, but he's going to expose them. He's going to tear these institutions down. And they put their entire credibility on this. In fact, one of the reasons that Dan Bongino, who doesn't have any traditional qualification of being at the FBI was picked for the role, is to have this kind of transparency. And Pam Bondi cut his legs out from under him.

Susan Walls basically admitted it that Pam Bondi whiffed. And so Bonino probably feels like he has so little credibility left. purpose was to expose these kind of files. And the fact that he's leaving now, it gives me pause about whether we're actually going to get the full release. And one of the people who will be held in front of Congress when we win back Congress is Dan Boone Gino and before that to get the truth of what's in these files. Well, I'm personally looking forward to that and some more. All right. Thank you very much for joining us, sir. We appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you, Congressman. Thanks. Happy holidays. You too.

Listen to those true crime shows and found yourself with more questions than answers. And what is this? How is that not a story we all know? What's this? Where is that? Why is it wet? Boy, do we have a show for you? From Smartless Media, Campside Media, and Big Money Players comes Crimeless.

Join me, Josh Dean, investigative journalists. And me, Roy Scoval, comedian, as we celebrate the amazing creativity of the world's dumbest criminals. We'll look into some of the silliest ways folks have broken the laws. Honestly, it feels more like a high-level prank than a crime. Who catfishes a city? And meets some memorable anti-heroes. There are thousands of angry, horny monkeys. Clap if you think she's a witch.

And it freaks you out. He has X-ray vision. How could I not follow him? Honestly, I got to follow him. He can see right through me. Listen to Crimless on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you can. get your podcast. Lama is a spirit.

It's not just a city. I didn't really have an interest of being on air. I kind of was up there to just try and infiltrate the building. It's where Kronk was born in a club in the West End. Four world star.

It was 5.59. Where a tiny bar birthed a generation of rap stars, where preachers go viral, and students at the HBCU turned heartbreak in the resurrection. How do you get people to believe in something that's dead?

Where Dream was brought Hollywood to the south. and hustlers bring their visions to create black wealth. Nobody's rushing into relationships with you. Where are you from? They want to look you in the eye. Where the future is nostalgia. I'm talking to chat, GPZ.

She's like, you really did first lady to have a gayful girl's tape in Atlanta, Georgia. Like, that's what separates you from a lot of people. And I'm like, oh, what, you're right. Atlanta doesn't wait for permission. It builds its own spotlight. I'm Big Rube. Let us guide you through the stories behind Atlanta's most iconic moments. Listen to Atlanta is on the I-Heart Radio app.

podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, I'm Danny Shapiro, host of the hit podcast Family Secrets. We were in the car, like a Rolling Stone came on, and he said, there's a line in there about your mother. And I said, what? What I would do if I didn't feel like I was being accepted is choose an identity that other people can't have. I knew something had happened to me in the middle of the night, but I couldn't hold on to

what had happened. These are just a few of the moving and important stories I'll be holding space for on my upcoming 13th season of Family Secrets. Whether you've been on this journey with me from season one or just joining the Family Secrets family, we're so happy to have you with us. I'll dive deep into the incredible power of secrets, the ones that shape our identities, test our relationships, and ultimately reveal who we truly are. Listen to Family Secrets on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So as part of that angry manic speech last night, President Trump did also talk about what he thinks should happen with health care. Let's take a listen. The first of these unprecedented price reductions will be available starting in January through a new website, TrumpRX.gov.

And these big price cuts will greatly reduce the cost of health care. I'm also taking on the gigantic health insurance companies that have gotten rich on billions of dollars of money that should go directly to the people. The money should go to the people. That's you. So they can buy their own health insurance, which will give far better benefits at much lower cost. It will be far better health insurance. The current Unaffordable Care Act was created to make insurance companies rich. it was bad health care at much to higher cost. And you see that now in the steep increase in premiums being demanded by the Democrats,

and they are demanding those increases. And it's their fault. It is not the Republicans' fault. It's the Democrats' fault. They are demanding those increases after we had an entire government shutdown around trying to extend the ACA subsidies. And this comes as Republicans are really kind of in a mess with regard to health care. You have some moderates who realize these price hikes are going to be a major problem.

They want to vote for the ACA subsidy extension. Hakeem Jeffries has been pushing a three-year extension. He actually succeeded in getting the requisite number of moderate Republicans onto that discharge petition to force a vote. So that was a significant development at the same time you have Republicans who are pushing this sort of grab bag of really small ball, like sort of consensus policies about choice plans and some moderate, not even like significant pharmacy benefit manager reform, but some moderate stuff there. things that, you know, may around the edges make things modestly better, but it's not going to be like a significant reduction in your premiums or significant game changer anytime soon. Speaker Johnson was asked after these moderate Republicans defected

whether he had lost control of the House. Let's take a listen to that. Have you lost control of the House? I have not lost control. Because this is the third time. Look, we have the smallest majority in U.S. history. These are not normal times. There are proceeds and procedures in the House that are less frequently used when there are larger majorities.

And when you have the luxury of having 10 or 15 people who disagree on something, you don't have to deal with it. But when you have a razor-thin margin, as we do, then all the procedures that's what people think are on the table. So he claims he has not, in fact, lost control of the House. Let's go ahead and take a listen to some of these moderate Republican legislators. and how pissed they are at his handling of health care. This is C4, let's take a listen. I am pissed for the American people. This is absolute bullshit, and it's absurd that we are in a body with 435 members.

Everybody has a responsibility to serve their district, to serve their constituents. What do you say, go to the speaker who's not going to give you a vote on this AC extension? That's a failure of leadership. I mean, we have, you know, members on both sides who believe this. is an urgent issue, and it is for all of our members in terms of what their constituents are going to have to deal with in the start of the new year. So what's wrong with having a vote? So there you go. They are pissed because Johnson didn't even give them the ability to vote on an ACA subsidy extension, which is why ultimately they came to Hakeem Jeffries position and

signed onto this discharge petition, getting it to 218 signatures. And listen, not a Hakeem Jeffries fan, and I think he's played his cards very poorly in the past in terms of, like, being a communicator or an orator, terrible. Tactically, he played this very intelligently. He, you know, put this petition forward. There were some other rival Democratic positions. Josh Gottheimer had one that sucked and some other ones, et cetera. And he stayed strong on this particular position, betting that other harder-line Republicans in the House would make it impossible for them to even offer them a show vote on these ACA subsidy. extension, and that those Republicans would ultimately come to his position, and that is exactly

what happened to him. Yeah, and unfortunately, Speaker Johnson, just some inside baseball here, he canceled votes on Friday and sent everybody home early to kick this health care vote to the new year. It's also interesting timing. The Epstein files released that day as well. All times to find the reason to get out of town. He's like, get everybody the hell out of Washington because they don't want them all on Capitol Hill with cameras in their face. where they have to react. So a little bit of inside baseball there for everybody. But no, it's a disaster.

And I think that's one of the things why Trump announced it in his speech is because it felt very poll test to me. He's like, we have to hit inflation, we have to hit health care, we have to hit housing. And on health care, you know, this plan about we're going to give everybody money, it's like, again, I mean,

between the subsidies or the money, the problem is the cost. Like, if they give you... I've said here, my deductible is $14,500. The increase in my premium, and I have Obamacare, is the increase in my premiums is 17%. So if they were to grant this, like, HSA or whatever grant to a family, it would cover the increase in health care. Like, I'm sorry, that is just, yes, okay, I'll take it.

I'm sure everybody else will take it too. That doesn't mean that you've revolutionarily, like, changed my life, all right? Like, I'm not going to be like, wow, thank you for covering the increase in my health care premium over a year. That's just me. There's a lot of other people out there, too, who I think will probably feel the same way. They're like, the government's going to cover one-fifth of your deductible. You're like, yippee.

That's just not like – and then I was talking to Steve, our audio engineer today, and he was talking about how even when you do pay a thousand bucks a month for health care, if you have a higher deductible plan, like the – you avoid going to the doctor just because you're like, who's going to have to do co-pays and all of it. That is the fundamental issue. This is all tinkering around the edges. So, yes, even with ACA subsidies, like, sorry, it's just not, you know, the subsidies themselves were a Band-Aid to a broken and a shit system. And until we get very real about costs, nothing's really going to be, nothing's going to change. And what the subsidy conversation, I think, ignited is, because that's the thing. It's like no one wants to defend the subsidies, let's say, on paper, because everybody agrees.

It's still an insane system. It's horrible. But what the subsidy conversation ignited for everybody is just to think about the government and health care and about the fact that they can do something. And, you know, this was a rare case where just doing the status quo was better than letting them expire because now everybody is thinking about health care in a different way, I think, than previously, or it's more top of mind. And right now the subsidies have officially, I think, today, expired. So it's over. You know, we're cooked of those of us who are Obamacare subscribers. But it's not, I mean,

look, we're only 7 million. There's 10, hundreds of millions of people who have health care. Their premiums went up no matter what happened here. Period. So, and again, for most people, because health care is so complicated, they don't know whether they're getting a subsidy or not. They're like, my bill went up. Screw Trump. That's how they're going to think.

Completely. They have no idea whether they get a subsidy or not. Because health care is complicated as shit. That's absolutely right. I've seen all these polls about, like, in Kentucky, the Obamacare Exchange, I can't remember what it was called. It's like Kentucky Care or something like that. And people are, oh, I love that.

And then you ask them like, oh, do you like Obamacare? And they're like, no, I hate that. And it's like, it's literally the same thing. And I don't blame me because it is complicated. I don't understand all of the ins and outs. And, you know, I study this for a living. People come from other countries where they have universal health care. They're like, what is this?

Yes. What is happening here? What's a deductible? What is going on with this? Yeah. So, yes, you see your bill go up. You hear a national conversation about how Republicans are blocking these subsidies. And you think, oh, my bill is going up because these assholes aren't like helping to

fund the health care that they were doing previously. And yes, Republicans really are in trouble on this issue. Anytime health care is at the forefront of the political discussion, yeah, they're screwed. Yeah, it's, except 2010 when people were mad because their health care got messed. Yes. And when they could live in the abstract of like, this is bad, we'll do something better. But now after years and years and years of number one, people, you know, experiencing some benefits from Obamacare. And number two, Republicans demonstrating time and time again, they have zero answer or alternative that would be in any way superior, healthcare is probably their worst, single worst issue.

And so, you know, while I have, you know, thought it was terrible that Democrats ultimately caved on their shutdown fight, they did succeed in really focusing attention on this issue, which had been on the back burner for a couple of years, basically since the 2020 Democratic primary, health care has been on the back burner as an issue and not at the center of public conversation, even as the pain continued to ratchet up and increase year after year after year. We can put this Politico tear sheet up on the screens, the C5, just to give a sense of, you know, they've got some reporting about how the White House is thinking about all of this.

They say the White House weighs risks of a health care fight as ACA subsidies set to expire. The White House is wary that the current debate around health care subsidies could go the way of Republicans' failure to repeal Obamacare that fueled Democrats return to power in 2018. If only it were that simple, the administration is also contained. With differing opinions over the political ramifications of the subsidies expiring, the question of whether Trump's engagement might be unproductive on the hill, and the reality that Trump behind the scenes likely knows something must be done to prevent the premium spike some Americans would see. As congressional Republicans do count their intra-party divisions on how to address

the expiration of some Affordable Care Act subsidies, administration officials do not believe Trump should engage more than he already has. That's because they're fearful of the president getting yoked into a messy healthcare fight, according to two people close to the White House and who were familiar with health care conversations between the White House and the Hill. So, you know, I mean, that Trump being such a, you know, the leader of this party and a very strong leader of this party, even though he has been hobbled in recent months, the fact that they kind of want to keep him hands off and for him not to just assert this is what we're doing. And if you don't go along with it, I'm going to make you pay for not going along with my plan.

also leaves them sort of a drift because Mike Johnson is nothing other than effectively a puppet like doing whatever he thinks it is that Trump wants him to do. So if he's left to his own devices, that's part of why you're seeing such an absolute mess and a chaotic disaster right now. Remember the Senate too, even if it does get through the House. Like, what's going to happen with the Senate? Is Trump going to sign it, right? Especially after talking such a big game, how's that going to work? Yeah. So I wouldn't, I would not, if I'm a betting person, I'm sure there's some couchy polymarket market on that. I would never bet on making sure that the premiums or are in any way going to come back. The most likely, if at all possible scenario, will be what I said, some weird

$1,000 means-tested check to Obamacare alone, which, you know, does not, to the point of hundreds of millions of people out there have insurance. Their insurance statistically almost certainly went up in the last year. They have no idea whether it's, quote, subsidized or not or whatever connected to ACA, they're going to see that cost and they're going to get mad. So that fundamentally is why they don't understand what's actually happening here. And yeah, I mean, they should pay for it, honestly, the way that they've handled. It's just been a total disaster because they refuse to, like they talk, what did he say, concepts of a plan beforehand? The bet was, is that we're just never going to have to deal with this. That's what

every politician does. But then, for some reason, they said, let's let the, you know, the subsidies buyer. So they finally put it back into America's mind. All you had to do was nothing. Just let the ACA things go on. But for some, what, ridiculous, like deficit hawkery type reasons, they decided, and now, just like Obama, anybody who messes with the health care system, if you do it in the worst way, you're screwed. Like, that's the one thing people just don't want. They do not want their health care messed with, period, unless it's going to get better. And then even then you better approve it and they have no. Because it's hard to do it where it gets better for everyone. And the people who have had it, you know, had something where they feel like it was taken away from them.

They're going to be very exercised about it. I mean, with Obama, at least there were people who were immediately benefiting from Obamacare. With this, it's like nothing but. But even so to the Obama point, this is what I want to expound on. Yeah, we have a little bit of time. So what, the Obamacare was fundamentally kind of a socialist argument where it's like it's going to cover more people, but it's actually not that much better for everyone. It's like a socialist policy in practice. As in, yeah, more people are covered. Is that good? It's like, well, it's like healthcare kind of got shittier for everybody. It's very difficult to preserve a system of coverage and of high quality. That's the fundamental problem between like market-based health care, privatized health care.

Even in Europe and in others, you know, they have triage care. Now, listen, I'm not going to say that that's better or worse. It's a trade-off. A lot of people over there have accepted us. America's a very individualist nation. Even when you do look at polls, people are very dissatisfied with the health care system, but they personally like their own health care coverage. This was the problem with Obamacare. That's part of the reason why public option or something like that or you've got to find a place where people can preserve their individuality, their ability to choose, et cetera, while also trying to make sure that people are not dying from medical debt. This is the, you know, the Gordian knot, which is almost like, you know, for some reason

and just nobody can really figure it out. And I do think it's going to be really difficult for the Republicans in the future because they're going to grasp its straws and they're going to just throw more money into this corrupt system. Like fundamentally, that's where I think we're going to end up. Some weird check or something

that gets deposited into some account where you don't know the login and you're going to have to coordinate with your insurance company. I mean, that's how it always works, right? Even with Obama. I'm signing up for it's a nightmare. You have to go on there

and pick coverage or whatever, oh, and now you have to deal with the insurance company. Unfortunately, that's just the way it works. Open and roll. What is going on? Like, do I still have coverage or not? Like, what's going on here? I've got like three different cards in the mail.

It's just too much. And, yeah, I mean, I think that's just the fundamental political problem with health care. And nobody seems to square it. I don't know. I knew it was a bomb the second that it exploded. I felt it ripped through me. In season two of RipCurrent, we asked 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. She received 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. Dr. Laurie Santos from the Happiness Lab here. It's the season of giving. And this year, my podcast, The Happiness Lab, is partnering with Give Directly, a nonprofit that

provides people in extreme poverty with the cash they need as part of the PODS fight poverty campaign. Our goal this year is to raise $1 million, which will bring over 700 families, out of extreme poverty. Your donation will put cash directly in the hands of these families in need, and they'll get to decide how to use it, whether that's school transportation, purchasing livestock, or starting a business. Plus, if you're a first-time donor, your gift will be matched by giving multiplier,

which means more money for those in need. Visit givedirectly.org slash happiness lab to learn more and to donate. That's give directly.org slash happiness lab. What are the cycles fathers passed down that sons are left to heal? What if being a man wasn't about holding it all together, but learning how to let go? This is a space where men speak truth and find the power to heal and transform. I'm Mike Delo Rocha. Welcome to Sacred Lessons. Listen to Sacred Lessons on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.