Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 4/29/25: TEMU Prices Skyrocket, Trump Insiders Millionaire Club, Canada Election Results, Aging Dem Retires After Blocking AOC

Episode Date: April 29, 2025

Krystal and Emily discuss TEMU prices skyrocket, Trump insiders launch millionaires club, Canadian voters rebuke Trump as liberals win, aging Dem retires months after blocking AOC.   Ben Smith Podcast: https://www.semafor.com/hub/mixed-signals-media-podcast  To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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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. Welcome to Breaking Points. Emily, great to see you. Thanks for having me here, Crystal. Yeah, of course. I mean, it is your like a whole part of this thing now. So I don't really have to welcome you in. You're just, you know, you're fully integrated at this point. We've been doing so many fun host mix-ups lately, though. It's been a lot of like, it's been really interesting and fun. Yeah. I think people are enjoying the different dynamics. I'm enjoying the different dynamics. So, you know, the audience has been asking for different combinations. So we've been

delivering both intentionally and also through just life events, making it so that we need to swap days around. So in any case... Listen, we know we're not the bro show, but we can try to compete. We'll try our best. Tell the story about the guy that you met. It was like even the ladies. Yeah. So shout out if you're listening, but I met a guy the other day who said, love counterpoint, love crystal, love Sagar, love Ryan. I even love the girls show. They even love the girls show. Thank you. Shout out to that guy. Um, bunch of stuff to get into before I forget, uh, if you guys are still having challenges with Spotify, just make sure you're checking your email premium subscribers.

You should have instructions. We're going to continue to send those out and make sure everybody's good. If you're having issues, just send us an email. We'll try to get it worked out for you. Okay, so we've got updates on the trade war. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson out making some interesting comments. He's not too worried about empty shelves out there yet. So we'll get into all of that.

Also, people noticing Timu charging now an import charge. So whatever your basket is, whatever your card is, when you go to check out, it's more than doubled because of the import charges. So a lot of fallout beginning there. We've also got results out of Canada. Liberals mounting an extraordinary comeback. And really, it does have almost everything to do with Trump, with the trade war, with the 51st state talk. So I'll break that down

for you. We've got updates from Israel and also from Brooklyn. We've got Ben Smith on. He had, Emily, this fantastic scoop about these right-wing group chats, which I suspect, I mean, you must have been at least aware that these things were going on. I won't ask you to reveal whether you were inside of any of these, but some of the dynamics in there turned out to be really interesting. No, Crystal, I was like partially offended that I did not know about this. I mean, I do know that people on the right, yeah, no, but I was partially like, I'm glad they're not, if the fact that they're not adding me tells me that they don't want a journalist who's somewhat fair in their chat. But the right loves Signal. There's no question about it. I'm in a bunch of Signal chats, but nothing like with... I had no idea. Truly had no idea.

All right. So that's interesting. There's an incredible screenshot that came out of that one with David Sachs throwing fit, leaving the chat. Tucker leaves the chat. A Winklevii twin leaves the chat, whatever. So apparently these things were really influential in forging some of the alliances between, you know, the MAGA types and the tech right and some of the heterodox type, quote unquote, independent thinkers out there. So a lot to get into with Ben Smith. And we also are going to touch on this drama that's unfolding at 60 Minutes. Their longtime executive producer left and said, listen, I don't feel like I can be independent anymore. And this had to do with two things. One was some really actually quite strong, a little belated, but quite strong

reporting with regard to Israel and Gaza. And all of their Trump coverage was coming under increasing scrutiny. So he felt like he had to leave. Scott Pelley over at 60 Minutes gave a monologue, you know, really calling out their parent company, Paramount. So some very interesting dynamics there. We're going to see if Ben Smith can stick around to weigh in on that because he has such a great lens on the media. So a lot of interesting things in the show this morning. Yeah. Crystal, we should start with Scott Bessant talking about the shelves because that's what's on everybody's mind. You get the best reviews of anyone in the administration outside the president. Your thoughts about the U.S.-China standoff right now?

Well, Brian, first of all, it's all the president, especially on the 18 important trading partners. We're doing bespoke deals and he's going to be intimately involved in every one. Two weeks ago, when we had the Japanese delegation come in, he started it in the Oval. And then we took them into the negotiating room. So he laid the groundwork, told them personally how important the relationship was, but also how important a fair deal for the American people is. Currently right now, are you worried about empty shelves? Because they say that a lot of these supply lines and the cargo ships are being held up. A lot of people are saying, turn it around with the tariffs this high. I don't want the product. Are you worried about empty shelves? Not at present. We have some great retailers. I assume they pre-ordered. I

think we'll see some elasticities. I think we'll see replacements. And then we will see how quickly the Chinese want to de-escalate. Well, the word bespoke was an interesting choice in that context, Crystal. Let's put the next element. Yeah, bespoke deals. Just before you throw in the next element, because I think some of the dynamics here are funny. So, you know, liberals talk about sane-washing Trump, and I think Scott Besson is like the ultimate sane washer of Trump's tariff strategy and warning to everyone because Howard Lutnick is apparently going to be on CNBC today. And they've done analyses that have found that like when Besson's

out there, the markets are relatively calm. When you get a Navarro, when you get a Lutnick, it goes a little haywire. So, um, in any case, you know, Besson out there being like, I'm not worried about the empty shelves. I think Americans are going to be worried about empty shelves if they do show up, which looks increasingly likely. And we've got here up on the screen, this is the Timu portion. And yesterday we covered Shein has hiked their prices up to like 375% on certain items. Here you can see, all right, you know, I've got an item subtotal of $63.66.

Shipping is free. Sales tax is $3.77. Import charges, $89.46. So that's the 145% tariff. So larger than the, you know, cost of all of the goods put together for a total of $156. So instead of paying $63, people are paying $156 and Timo making sure, Emily, that they know where that charge is coming from. Right. And what's even more important, I think, by our standards, I mean, we're talking about the digital shelves here, but when people start going to Walmart, Target, grocery stores, and even clothing retailers that you're sort of walking through looking for things like an Old Navy, that's where things are going to get particularly interesting. Because, you know, like Timu and Sheen are extremely popular, no question about it.

I think most Americans would probably say at the end of the day, they're not like essential to their life. I'm I don't know. I'm not sure about that, because I think people have actually buy from, you know, almost wholesale from them and then resell in stores as well. So it's not just the online experience. It's also going to relate to those shelves in Walmart and Home Depot and other places as well. So in any case, you know, the fall is beginning. We've been covering, of course, all of the port traffic decline. You know, we're getting to probably early May, middle of May when you really will start to see, OK, all of the shipping that shut down when these tariffs were put into place. That's when it's really going to start to bite.

And what Besson says there is not wrong, that because there had been, some level of tariff had been anticipated. So especially larger retailers that could afford it did a lot of advance ordering so that they could have more in their warehouses to be able to lock in a lower price and be able to be more flexible and adjust when the tariffs actually came into place.

Of course, no one expected the particular tariff regime that we ended up with, but they may have some flexibility in the early days. And that's what Besson was basically saying of like, oh, I trust our great retailers. They're going to be fine because they, you know, probably prepared in advance. And I do think that there will probably be some of that that will help to at least push the shock off into somewhat into the future. And we'll see what happens with the tariffs between now and then. But, you know, increasingly, I saw Ray Dalio saying this yesterday. We've got Jamie Dimon out now saying even if there was a full like pullback at this point, it's really kind of too late to undo a lot of the damage that's been done,

which I think also relates actually to the Canada block that we're going to do. And the way that Carney is talking about this kind of irrevocable break in the relationship with the U.S. We can put A3B up on the screen here. Jamie Dimon will hang in and saying basically like a recession is kind of the best we can hope for at this point. He said he was addressing the crowd. He said he believes the best case outcome from the trade war would be a mild recession for the U.S. economy. So that's what he's saying is the best case scenario. Ray Dalio also sounding, you know, a pretty big warning. He put out something on Twitter yesterday saying basically it's already too late. We're going to have this massive realignment.

And here from here on out, it's just a question of whether that realignment is going to be executed with greater or less care. And I think we all can guess which direction we're going to be going in based on the moves of this administration thus far. Well, we're clearly going in a bespoke direction, Crystal. Bespoke direction. Yeah, it's got Besant. No, I mean, I do think that's the most important, connecting it to the Carney block.

I mean, he's basically saying, we'll get to this in just a moment, that this was all about the United States, that this is a permanent turning point for Canada. And he's not alone in thinking it, the rest of the world thinks it. So the question now isn't whether everything has changed or whether it's too late, though, I think it's helpful to hear that sort of from the mouth of Ray Dalio and Jamie Dimon. But basically, like, can the plane be landed in a way, you know, the optimist would say in a way that's even better than before. But to the diamond point, can the plane be landed in a way that is as manageable as possible for most Americans?

And if the best case scenario is a mild recession, they're going to have to hope that, you know, well, hope is the wrong word. They're going to have to pray that the benefits that come out of this realignment that they have orchestrated and been the architects of are felt by Americans to offset the political costs of a recession, let alone the substantive costs of people's lifestyles and pocketbooks. Yeah. And I mean, for me, it's just not clear to me what those benefits even are. You know, I know various things that have been floated. You know, in my estimation, we're going in the opposite direction of all of the, you know, the manufacturing, the rebirth of manufacturing in America. We're going backwards, certainly on that metric.

You know, the treasury yields, that hasn't worked out the way that they thought. So, you know, the amount of revenue we're bringing in from these tariffs is absolutely trivial at this point. You know, Trump is out there making these wild claims about, oh, we're going to replace the income tax with the tariff revenue. I mean, it's just like ludicrous, utterly ludicrous thing to say or to claim. So, I mean, that's always been the piece from the beginning is I just short-term pain for long-term pain is what it appears the track that we're on as far as I can tell at this

point. And we can already see, you know, some sectors being really hard hit. We can put this up on the screen. So, we already have what appears to be CNBC is describing as a full-blown crisis for farms. And, you know, the headline here, U.S. agriculture isn't nearing a trade war tariff crisis. It's in a full blown crisis already, farmers say. I've been following the numbers around. China's been canceling huge amounts of orders of pork, you know, things like our agricultural sector had already taken a hit vis-a-vis China from previous trade war actions.

And in Trump's first term, they orchestrated effectively like an ag bailout. There's some talk of that now as well because this is a constituency that votes overwhelmingly for Trump. So he feels favorable to them. Much of agriculture at this point is big business. So those are the type of people as well who can get their Mar-a-Lago dinner or get a call from the White House or, you know, throw some money at the inauguration. I know there was like a chicken company that had given like $5 million to his inauguration that was getting some perks, etc. So, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if this is one group that gets another bailout. Well, yeah, no, I think that's probably right.

And this is why American farming is sort of permanently in a state of crisis. The CNBC headline makes me grin a little bit because it's, you know, the tariffs are throwing it further into a state of crisis that American farming has been thrust into for decades. And that's part of why farmers,

you go back and watch interviews that places like NBC did with farmers earlier in Trump's term. And there was like this interesting optimism. People would, you know, reporters would come in from New York and DC with their microphones and cameras and be like, well, aren't you furious? And the farmers would say, no, we think some of this needs to happen. They probably also felt confident that they would eventually get a bailout. But Crystal, we're, what, almost 10 years into this now. And they're probably, I shouldn't say probably, their patience is obviously wearing thin for some type of structural solution to the problems in agriculture.

And that's just not coming. I mean, the administration definitely doesn't have a solution to that. Yeah, no doubt about it. And, you know, there's a big monopoly element there as well. And it's just, you know, increasingly impossible to make it as like a small-time family farmer. It's these giant agribusiness growers that dominate all of those markets.

The last piece we have here is the Dallas Fed survey survey came out and Joe Weisenthal tweeting about this. Apparently, the numbers were pretty dire, getting to the point of like, you know, this is supposed to be improving the landscape for manufacturing. And instead, the manufacturing survey from the Dallas Fed, the levels hit the lowest since May of 2020. That, of course, during COVID, all the comments are about tariffs and policy uncertainty added to the list of bad soft survey data. And that gets to the point of, you know, we're sort of in this period of suspended animation. The tariffs have been, you know, have been put into place, but we have not really fully seen in the big metadata, the, you know, macroeconomic data, what the fallout of that is

going to be. Retailers are warning about empty shelves. We're not seeing empty shelves yet. We're just starting to get these indications from Timu and Sheehan of the way that prices are going up. Amazon as well. Amazon sellers are hiking prices as well. So, you know, we're in this moment before kind of the calm before the storm. And maybe it won't be as, you know, maybe it won't be as significant as a lot of the numbers seem to indicate right now. But I don't think there's any doubt we're in for some pain here coming up as those shipments from China that would have arrived do not arrive. And retailers draw down on their stock. And we see these reverberating impacts of layoffs and just the logistics sector alone. I mean, you're talking about port workers. I saw the longshoremen put out a statement, you know,

really decrying the terrorist impact on them and their workforce. The trucking industry, which is incredibly important, especially for non-college educated men, which is another demographic that has been really supportive of Trump. Those are the areas that are really going to be hard hit early on. So I think we're all waiting to see what that impact is going to be. Yeah. The point, actually, even the language that Wiesenthal uses there about soft indicators, I mean, that's the list of soft indications about what's happening. That's what's just very hard to ignore. Even when you look at, you know, I read the Trump administration put out a press release this morning about

the benefits to the economy in the first 100 days of the Trump administration. You're reading through this long list of bullet points. And if you juxtapose it side by side with those soft indicators, the list of soft indicators that Weisenthal is pointing out and has racked up on his own, we, we cover them here, uh, that I think it's, you know, even if, again, I'm saying by the most charitable interpretation of the plan here, even if you aren't taking them at their own argument, if you juxtapose those lists side by side and say, we about a month from Liberation Day now, the indicators are stacking up in a way that suggests the long-term pain is not going to be worth the short-term gain. And that, I think, didn't have to be the case. It speaks to the execution in this case. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast

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And storytellers with wisdom to spare. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's go ahead and get to another Joe Weisenthal piece here that i thought was really interesting because one of the questions is like okay the markets are down overall but not that much and it seems like maybe they should be down more given all of these soft indicators and the manufacturing index falling off a cliff and consumer sentiment and a majority of americans saying they expect prices to get higher and their own financial situation to get worse. We're already seeing layoffs. You know, everybody's looking at the ports in Seattle and in L.A. and are like, there's no there's no cargo coming in.

This seems like it's going to be really bad. And yet the markets are like, it's OK, it'll be fine. And so Weisenthal has a theory about why that is the case. And he argues, we can put this up on the screen, that the Trump meme coin chart could be the market's most important chart right now. And I'll read you a little bit of his analysis. But the TLDR is that basically retail traders, the type that would be interested in buying the Trump meme coin, which you can see is up and has been juiced by this like promotion that Trump was like, hey, the top investors here,

they're gonna get a special dinner with me, whatever, which is grotesque levels of corruption. In any case, that those types of retail investors have been trained to buy the dip. And so every time the market goes down, they rush in to say, oh, this is an opportunity, a buying opportunity. I've been told

to buy the dip. I'm going to buy the dip. So Wiesenthal says, one possibility is that retail traders who've been trained like lab rats to buy every dip have piled in like crazy into all the old speculative stuff that's worked so well for so long. And so they're buying SPACs, Tesla, and random altcoins like the Trump meme coin. Pull up a chart of Robinhood or anything else you associate with retail, and you'll probably find the Trump meme coin, pull up a chart of Robinhood or anything else you associate with retail, and you'll probably find a line that's significantly above its levels from the start of the month.

Meanwhile, professional investors are extremely gloomy. A survey of fund managers from April 15th showed that there hasn't been this much bearishness in 30 years. Other surveys show basically the same thing. Bearishness is everywhere. And so one story you can tell is simply that serious investors are looking at all those charts of port traffic drying up and calculating the impact of tariffs on corporate earnings while retail investors are piling in like crazy, creating some kind of disconnect

between the line on the screen and what a fair value for stocks actually is. I thought that was a pretty interesting assessment, Emily, which would make sense of why perhaps the market isn't moving the way that you would expect looking at these numbers and looking at just what an extreme action, 145% tariffs on China, let alone the tariffs on the rest of the world, what an extreme action that really represents and what a fundamental reordering of the global economic order that that truly represents. Well, and I wonder also, I mean, the degree to which this is influencing, you know, the Trump administration's minute to minute policies. Like we remember when Walter Bloomberg, that ridiculous ex-account, posted that Besant had indicated, basically misquoted something that Besson had

said in a Fox News interview about a 90-day pause, which obviously ended up happening. But I think one of the reasons the administration probably held out on the 90-day pause as long as it did is because they saw what happened is as soon as Bloomberg tweeted that, the fake account, the market shot back up. And basically the only connection that anyone made was because of this like fake news tweet that was going super viral on X. Walter Bloomberg. Yeah, Walter Bloomberg. But that does, right, like that builds into the decision making structure for the Trump administration, how easy it is to reduce the markets with just statements. And that sounds really basic, but it's an important part, obviously, of what they're talking about in

the White House. It was the bond markets that Trump said people were getting a little yippy that fundamentally caused him to do a 180. Whether he was ultimately going to do it or not, I genuinely don't think we know. And so I think the Weisenthal theory sounds completely correct. And the last point I'll say, this is more abstract, but I was listening to an old zero hedge debate over the weekend. And it was about Bitcoin. And one person on each side of the argument, they both disagreed about the state of the economy. I think it was six months ago, something like that. And one person on each side of the argument, they both disagreed about the state of the economy. I think it was six months ago, something like that. And one of them made the point, this is what's terrifying about the economy, is that you can have experts who spend their entire lives studying this and working in this. And they legitimately can't tell you whether we're in a good or a bad economy. And the Trump administration is coming into that context and saying,

you know, this is that means that we can manipulate it in new and interesting bespoke ways to borrow a term from Scott Besson. And, you know, what that actually means is it's just a continuation or it's a dramatic manipulation of this experiment. Like it's a it's a dramatic new variable in an experiment that nobody really knows how it's going to end. Like it's a, it's a dramatic new variable in an experiment that nobody really knows how it's going to end. Like nobody can tell you how this is going to end, partially because nobody knows exactly where Donald Trump wants to take this and how other countries are reacting. But we've had a month long glimpse at that and it's not good for the administration. I mean, even the importance of the vibes is even in evidence, just based on what I

was saying earlier about apparently the markets do better when it's mostly Scott Besson out there versus Howard Lutnick. Yes. And, like, that shouldn't matter because the policy is the same. Right. So the fact that one comes in, like, a more, like, proper buttoned-up Wall Street-type package and one is this more, like, unhinged type of character, also a very Wall Street character, by the way, that shouldn't matter because the policy is not changing. But the fact that you have Besson out there

who can come up with, you know, terms of art like bespoke deals and, oh, I'm not worried about the shelves and isn't spinning tales about millions and millions of armies of people screwing in little, little screws and saying ridiculous things like that, the fact that that makes such a difference is in and of itself an indication that so much of the

market is just about the vibes of the day. And that ends up being very unpredictable. And then the other thing that seems to be moving the market appears to be whatever inside info is being given out to, you know, Wall Street traders to front run whatever announcements are coming out of the administration later, which is something, you know, we had talked about, I believe it was Besant who had given, Charles Gasparino reported on how he was giving out this information before it was public at an investor conference, allowing them to potentially profit on, you know, whatever moves were set to come out. You know, with the Trump coin thing, I just don't want to lose sight of this. Can we actually skip forward to, what is

this, A8 and put this chart up on the screen? You know, there's so much going on in this administration that it's hard to keep track. He's offering a private dinner to the top 220 investors in his meme coin. The offer caused it to surge in price, his family's latest effort to profit from cryptocurrencies. I mean, I don't want to hear a word from Republicans again about Nancy Pelosi's insider trading. Like, if you aren't speaking out about this, which is just such naked, brazen, profiteering, corruption, graft, etc., it is extraordinary. The level of just pay to play that is out in the open in this administration. And the meme coin is kind of like ground zero

for that. And we already know. We've already have examples of crypto dudes who put a lot of money into Trump's shitcoin and announced it publicly. And lo and behold, their enforcement actions get dropped. Lo and behold, they benefit. And it is so easy if you're, you know, if you are a head of state, if you are a CEO of a company, if you are just some random person who like wants a pardon or whatever, it's so obvious that all you have to do is put a bunch of money into to pump up Trump Trump shit coin of which he directly personally benefits and, you know, tell him or announce it publicly or whatever. And you stand very likely to benefit. So, you know, this announcement, as the article mentions, increased his meme coin value significantly. It had fallen off quite a lot. The Melania coin was basically

just like a total pump and dump run by some of the same people as Javier Millet's affiliated pump and dump scheme as well. And it's, you know, it's just, it's one of these things that I just can't let go and don't want to normalize

because the corruption is so incredibly brazen and naked. And yes, many politicians are corrupt and the campaign finance system needs to be reformed. This is at another level. And one more piece before I get your reaction here, Emily, go to A7, the club for the super rich that they are launching,

because I really specifically want to get your reaction to this. So this is from Politico. They say, the Trump-aligned club for the ultra rich launches in Washington. The launch of executive branch comes as Trump world looks to remake Washington. New club is coming to Washington. You probably can't get in. Don Jr., mega donor Omid Malik, and several other investors are launching an invite only club that costs more than half a million to join with an exclusive post White House Correspondents Dinner gathering. According to an invite, brainchild of Malik will be located in Georgetown. Their goal, the people familiar with the plan say, is to create the highest-end private club that Washington has ever had and cater to the business and tech moguls who are looking to nurture their relationships with the Trump administration. And by the way, the club already has a wait list, Emily.

Just unbelievable that we went from, you know, all this rhetoric about drain the swamp to this. And yet so very believable. Oh, yeah. But, you know, populists have for a long time and still will decry the quote unquote Georgetown cocktail parties. Like it is a cliche that is constantly invoked by populists, especially on the right in recent years. But what they just did was create that what they're trying to do is create their own like extra special Georgetown cocktail party. Literally they put those in Georgetown,

which doesn't really have anything to do with it, except for that. It's a funny part of the, them just walking right into this cliche. So yeah, the drain, the swamp is drain the swamp of the left. It's not drain the swamp completely. Obviously it's, you know, we're going to let, we'll let some people remain in the swamp. It's not a structural change to the swamp. If it was a structural change to the swamp, then you wouldn't have places where you have to pay half a million dollars to rub elbows with... Listen, it's not the same thing as Hunter Biden, but Don Jr. is selling this club because he's the son of the president

and has access to the president and has the ear of the president. Yeah, David Sachs was hosting this party. I mean, this is an administration official. It's just incredibly, incredibly brazen. And just one last piece on the latest corruption circuit. We've got some new info about how much Elon stands to benefit from the work of Doge, even as Doge, by their metrics or their public metrics, is a complete failure, has saved the taxpayer effectively no money. Even Steve Bannon is calling it out and Elon is set to appear sort of like slink out of town, but put A9 up on the screen. He stands to benefit to the tune of billions of dollars simply from his companies avoiding the regulatory scrutiny that they were

previously under from a whole host of agencies. And, you know, this is something, Emily, that we attract on this show. You know, there's a particular part of a particular board that was going after Tesla that regulates automated vehicles. And he was very unhappy with them. Oh, they get gutted. You know, the Department of Labor was, he had all kinds of issues with them and all sorts of allegations against his companies there. They get gutted.

CFPB, they were set to regulate Twitter if Twitter was doing this deal with Visa. They get gutted. So it was quite naked. And he's got his engineers in over at the, you know, the over inside of what's the why am I blanking on the the TSA? He's got them over inside the TSA. That's another area that, you know, is a big problem for him. So in any case, the Senate subcommittee found

2.37 billion in legal liability that he is saving just from his efforts to deregulate and defenestrate the administrative state. No, what he's been doing is sacrificing Crystal Nobly. You know, and at the same time, that's a joke, obviously, but we were talking about, you and I were talking last week, and you made a really good point that ultimately Elon's not in it for like his big goal in Doge is not moving some money around and saving himself a couple billion dollars, whatever. His big goal is like advancing these companies that he thinks are changing the world in this like techno libertarian way. It's not necessarily about the money, but that doesn't mean the money stuff isn't incredibly it's just so it's so corrupt. And the precedent that it sets going forward is high. It's a completely different precedent than what we had before with like Pentagon contractors. It's not the same thing at all. So anyway, all that is to say-

It was the FAA, not the TSA. I'm just, I'm sorry, guys. Too many acronyms for me this morning. That's why we need Doge, Crystal. That's why we need Doge. That's right. They just added another agency. Now I got the digital service, whatever, whatever

that I got to remember as well. Although I guess that already existed. Nobody just knew about it or cared about it at the time. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country

begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking.

Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never got any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero. She was stoic, modest, tough.

Someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her. Until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying.

This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This five months, we are not just celebrating. We're fighting back. I'm Georgiam Johnson, and my book, All Boys Aren't Blue,

was just named the most banned book in America. If the culture wars have taught me anything, it's that pride is protest. And on my podcast, Fighting Words, we talk to people who use their voices to resist, disrupt, and make our community stronger. This year, we are showing up and showing out.

You need people being like, no, you're not going to tell us what to do. This regime is coming down on us, and I don't want to just survive. I want to thrive. You'll hear from trailblazers like Bob the Drag Queen. To freedom!

Angelica Ross. We ready to fight? I'm ready to fight. And Gabrielle Yoon. Hi, George. And storytellers with wisdom to spare. Listen on iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, guys, it is official. The Liberals in Canada mounted what was an absolutely extraordinary comeback. They will be able to form a government led by Mark Carney, who was a central banker and now prime minister. Let's go ahead and take a listen to Carney in his victory speech, really talking about some of the fissures with the United States and how, you know, how significant they're going to be now and in the future. Take a listen. We are once again at one of those hinge moments of history. Our old relationship with the United States, a relationship based on steadily increasing integration, is over. The system of open global trade anchored by the United

States, a system that Canada has relied on since the Second World War, a system that, while not perfect, has helped deliver prosperity for a country for decades, is over. These are tragedies but it's also our new reality. We are over, we are over the shock of the American betrayal but we should never forget the lessons. We have to look out for ourselves and above all we have to take care of each other. So Emily, they are over the American betrayal, but it is not forgotten and they will be moving in another direction moving forward. And let's just put the results up on the screen when I want to get your reaction. I mean, the shift in the political winds in Canada has been extraordinary.

We had David Dole, who is himself Canadian, he hosts Rational National over on his YouTube channel. He was breaking down for us just how central Trump really was in this race. And according to him, it was the 51st state jabs that really packed the most punch. Obviously, the trade war significant as well. But that was the thing that really changed everything. And, you know, if you look at the polls and the way that they shifted, it's absolutely extraordinary. The liberals were able to make this comeback.

And Pierre Poliev, he had been seen, Emily, you can speak to this more than I can. He had been seen as kind of this, you know, right wing rising star media figure. I think the right had had a lot of hopes for Canada. There was a backlash there during COVID. There were the trucker protests. You, of course, had Trudeau, who had just fallen off a cliff and was sort of forced to resign, opening up the possibility for this election. So really a dramatic change of fortunes here, Em. Yeah, huge. And, you know, I think one thing that might happen in the media coverage of this over the next 24, 48 hours is that people think because the because Carney and his party came from so far behind, that this means Canada has decisively moved, or I shouldn't say

moved, but stuck with Trudeau and stuck with the liberals. But what we ended up seeing is they, we just had this graphic on the screen that showed they ended up five seats short of a majority. And it's absolutely a stunning comeback. There's absolutely no question about that whatsoever. I mean, Polyev was up by about 20 points in um, and polls closer to the beginning of the year. So the flip, uh, after Trudeau is like genuinely remarkable. Um, Canada is very, very divided and it, it absolutely, uh, this is a situation for Canada. That's, you know, it's, it's not, it's not 2015 anymore where Justin Trudeau is on the scene being the future. Poiliev really was seen as, to your point, the antidote to that. So if Trudeau was seen as

sort of the friendly face of the neoliberal Western future, then Poiliev was kind of seen as the answer to the follies of that era of Trudeau and Obama and Angela Merkel. He was seen as a figure who could sort of be young and articulate and bring the right into its future in Canada. And the fact that he, you know, himself fell so far short, while even things were fairly divided for his party, is a real blow to his ability to have a future. Now, maybe he still will. Politics are unpredictable. But he was particularly on the ascent. And this is a good indication that it didn't work out so well for his brand on the campaign. Yeah, what you're referring to is he actually lost his own seat.

So not only did the conservatives lose and they won't have, you know, a chance to form a government, the liberals will, but he actually lost his own seat. So he will not be a member of parliament anymore. So that stings. What David Dole tweeted out in reaction to this, and David's a lefty, he said, liberals just short of a majority putting NDP, those are the lefties, in the deciding seats. Jagmeet Singh loses his seat making an NDP leadership race quick and painless. Pierre Poliev loses his seat. LOL, he says, this is actually the perfect result. So that was his response to all of this. We pulled this reaction from, you know, run of the bill Canadian voter getting her sense of what was going on in this race and why she cast her ballot as she did. Let's go ahead and take a listen to B1B.

I think who I voted for would be the best to take care of Trump because Trump is, I'm sorry to say, an ass. And he shouldn't he shouldn't even be president of the United States. But because he is, we need a strong person so that we could stand strong. And I saw a poll that had Trump's approval rating in Canada at something like 11%. I mean, he's just like could not be more unpopular across the political spectrum. And he was not doing much to help them on day of. We can put this next one up on the screen. He posted this on, I believe, Truth Social. He said, good luck to the great people of Canada.

Elect the man who has the strength and wisdom to cut your taxes in half. Increase your military power for free to the highest level in the world. Have your car steal aluminum, lumber, energy, and all other businesses quadruple in size with zero tariffs or taxes if Canada becomes the cherished 51st state of the United States of America, no more artificially drawn line from many years ago. You know, I like when he talks about how the borders are arbitrary. Look how beautiful this landmass would be,

free access with no border, all positives, no negatives. It was meant to be. America can no longer subsidize Canada with the hundreds of billions of dollars a year that we've been spending in the past. It makes no sense unless Canada is a state. That forced Pierre Poliev to have to respond, put B3 up on the screen. He said, President Trump, stay out of our election. The only people who will decide the future of

Canada are Canadians at the ballot box. Canada will always be proud, sovereign, and independent. We will never be the 51st state. Today, Canadians can vote for change so we can strengthen our country, stand on our own two feet, and stand up to America from a position of strength. But Pierre Pelliev had done enough to associate himself with Trump and with the American right wing

that that was just completely overcomable. It was completely impossible to overcome, even as he's clearly doing his best here to distance himself from Trump and say, you stay out of our election, sir. We will never be the 51st state. And again, according to David Dole, that really was a sort of key tension point for Canadians where they wanted nothing to do. David also pointed out the last several ads that Pierre Poliev's team put out for the election, like their closing ads, did not feature him at all. So, which is also not a great sign of how people feel about your candidate.

That post is giving Vladimir a stop, right? Like, it looks so weak. It looks so weak, especially after Paulieff was sort of pro-Trump in some particular ways. Like it just to have to then say, President Trump, stay out of our election like he's a toddler. The other the flip side of this, of course, is that, first of all, the appetite in Canada for indulging the United States. I mean, this isn't just about the Trump administration. This is about the United States because Canadians know that there are a lot of people in the United States that support the Trump administration. And so the appetite for Canada now becoming anti-U.S. is strong. Eric Kaufman wrote about this. I want to say it was the Free Press, but he wrote about how Trump's approach to Canada, Greenland, but also just trade and populism in general actually has the effect of undermining some of his populist allies, people who he would want to build up around the world if Trump were engaged in this robust ideological, coherent ideological project to kind of realign the entire world, that actually a lot of this ends up undermining that goal. Because let's say you could have had Poiliev in Canada. There are populist parties in Europe. Is Trump hurting

an AFD or is he helping an AFD in Germany? Like, is this sucking the winds out of, is this taking the wind out of the sail of populism in some of these places? You know, Millet, is he going to hurt Millet at the end of the day? These are like legitimate questions. And something very interesting, we have a story up in Unheard on this right now, just this morning about what happened in Canada. You know, what is like the future of the United States trade relationship with Canada? Does this even work out well for the United States when Canada now has the option to align with other places and the Canadian people do not want to align with the United States under Donald Trump to the point we were discussing earlier in the show, Crystal. Does the short term pain end up having even by the Trump administration's own logic, no long term gain?

Because those even in the short term, the relationships were damaged to the point where there are permanent realignments or at least indefinite realignments that happen away from the United States. Yeah. No, Canadians did not hate us and now they hate us. I mean, if you look at the polling, like the shift in attitudes of your average Canadian vis-a-vis America has dramatically changed and now is incredibly negative. It's somewhere, you know, 65, 70% are like, yeah, screw these people, basically. And all of that effectively comes, you know, from Trump, the 51st state stuff, calling him Governor Trudeau, launching the trade war, all of that has just really shifted attitudes in Canada. It's been very unifying in terms of like Canadian nationalism and perspective. And just to emphasize again, how central Trump and the trade war and whatever is, we can put this up on the screen, this next polling, just to show you the way that things

unfolded here, just how down and out the liberals were. And, you know, unlike here, the blue is the conservatives, the red is the liberals. Most other places, that's the way they do it. But anyway, we're reversed here because we have to be special. Anyway, you can see where Trudeau resigns. It really is at, you know, a nadir of popularity for the liberals. And I do think part of the change in their fortunes is also the fact that, OK, Trudeau is gone. We got a new dude. And you could think of a worse resume than a central banker to be at the helm when you're facing this trade war. There was some potentially Mark Carney sort of like fanfic about maybe he was the one organizing the treasury bond sales behind the scenes. I don't know that that's actually true, but in theory, he would be the type of person who would understand the way that you could,

you know, you could utilize whatever leverage that you have. Then you see that Trump threatening to make Canada a 51st state and signing tariffs and the dramatic poll movement up to the present day where they're able to achieve this victory. And then the last thing I wanted to put up on the screen is I'm not sure that Trump is like really that upset about this, even though to your point, Emily, like theoretically you would think you would prefer to have the more right-wing prime minister in Canada there to work with. But he gave an

extraordinary interview to The Atlantic, which could be a whole segment in and of itself. But he got asked specifically about Canada. We can put this part up on the screen. And he seems to just sort of enjoy that he was so central, even if the outcome is the opposite of the one you would think that he would intend. So let me just read this. They say, you seriously want them to become a state? Talking about Canada, he says, I think it'd be great. And then they say, a hell of a big democratic state. A lot of people say that, but I'm okay with it if it has to be. Because I think, you know, actually, until I came along, I'm no political genius, but I know which way they're

going to vote. They have socialized medicine. Trump says, you know, until I came along, I'm no political genius, but I know which way they're going to vote. They have socialized medicine. Trump says, you know, until I came along, remember that the conservative was leading by 25 points. And one of the journalists says, it's true. And he says, then I was disliked by enough of the Canadians that I've thrown the election into a close call, right? I don't even know if it's a close call, but the conservative,

they didn't like Governor Trudeau too much. And I would call him Governor Trudeau, but he wasn't fond of that. So I don't know, Em. Seems like he just likes, he likes that he was central. He likes that he, you know, overturned what was expected. He likes that he was this troublemaker in terms of the Canadian elections. It doesn't seem like he's too upset. It seems like he's bragging about the fact that he handed this victory over to the liberals. Well, there's a more sinister reading of this, too, which was the piece that I referenced that we have up in Unheard this morning makes this argument that if you're Donald Trump and you actually want to undermine the stability of Canada. One of the ways to do that might be to take the person who's leading in the polls and just throw it all up into complete chaos and make the government more divided, which it

ended up being. So it wasn't a decisive win for the conservatives, and it ultimately wasn't a decisive win for the liberals. It's much less of a kind of a stable system at this point. Now, I tend to think what we just heard from Donald Trump in the Atlantic is probably as close to the truth as we can get, which is that he has another quote in that interview about how he runs the world now. That there's just something kind of thrilling about being the leader of the United States and being able to kind of wave your magic wand via truth social and throw everything into complete and utter chaos. There's no like coherent strategy to destabilize Canada behind it. But at the same time, I mean, for like Poiliev was running when he was ahead, he was like running against things like carbon tax.

This really was a rejection of sort of left neoliberalism, like Democratic Party, Obama, Trudeau, Merkel, neoliberalism. And Chris, I forget if this was you who was making this point. Trump also does seem to get along with the Keir Starmer's, the, dare I say, Scott Besson's, the Mark Carney types. So he might not be entirely upset about this result because he now feels like maybe he has someone he can like deal with that he can cut deals with. He doesn't necessarily want everyone to be like a lapdog. He sort of enjoys the competition. Well, he enjoys the lapdogs too, but he also loves the fights. I mean, he relishes the fights, which is why he was talking to The Atlantic yesterday. Well, you know, he loves our girl Claudia down in Mexico. So and he is so right about her. So I don't know. I mean, I have no insight into I did see somebody making that point. It's an

interesting one and one to watch. And I don't know whether they'll get along or not, you know, because of the antipathy that the Canadian public has towards Trump specifically and to the American public now in general, Carney's going to be under tremendous domestic political pressure to be extremely tough when he's dealing with Trump, or at least to project toughness and fortitude when dealing with Trump.

That's effectively what he has been elected now to do and to navigate this situation. So yeah, I saw some of the right-wing cope, like, oh, this will weaken Canada and now we can roll in the tanks or whatever was the insanity that I was seeing on Twitter. But, you know, conservatives have to be very disappointed when there seemed to be all of this

wind at their back, the vibe shift, all of that. And now you've got liberals winning quite handily here and being able to form a government with the lefties pretty easily and Pierre Poliev himself losing his own seat. So there you go. No, you're right. It's totally coped.

There were all kinds of think pieces earlier in the year about how this was the end of a neoliberal era in Canada and populism was ascendant. Conservatives were rallying around, American conservatives were rallying around Polyev, really liked him. He was going viral in American conservative circles. What was the Apple?

People keep talking about some Apple thing. The Apple munching. Tell them, I miss this. It was a viral video that he did with, and Polyev did, where he was, so he was being interviewed by some, it was like, I want to say it was like Canadian broadcast. Like it was a tough, hostile interview.

And he was very calmly kind of owning the reporter while he was munching on an apple, very nonchalant. Like he was just in this casual conversation and kind of owning the guy with facts and all of that stuff. I was just going to say facts and logic. So that's, he went really viral. That's probably the first time he got in a lot of American conservatives radars. And he had other moments like that, that conservatives were loving. So to turn around now and be like, oh, Polyev, he was, you know, just this loser all along who was, you know, driving the Canadian right into the ground. Trump. And that's what he should have, that, you know, he should have embraced Trump and then that would have led him to victory.

And I just, I mean, that's just utterly preposterous given how dramatically unpopular Trump is in Canada. Yeah, that's obviously insane, but there's something about how weak he looked by, you know, at first saying nice things about Donald Trump and then having to say, I mean, he was in an impossible situation than having to say, Mr. President or President Trump, stay out of our election.

Donald, stop. Please, leave us alone. Yeah, not great. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking.

Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero. She was stoic, modest, tough. Someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her. Until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I just couldn't wrap my head around

what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying. This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This five months, we are not just celebrating. We're fighting back. I'm George M. Johnson.

And my book, All Boys Aren't Blue, was just named the most banned book in America. If the culture wars have taught me anything, it's that pride is protest. And on my podcast, Fighting Words, we talk to people who use their voices to resist,

disrupt, and make our community stronger. This year, we are showing up and showing out. You need people being like, no, you're not going to tell us what to do. This regime is coming down on us. And I don't want to just survive. I want to thrive. You'll hear from trailblazers like Bob the Drag Queen.

To freedom! Angelica Ross. We ready to fight? I'm ready to fight. And Gabrielle Yoon. Hi, George. And storytellers with wisdom to spare. Listen on iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, well, shall we turn to the Democrats and what's going on with them? So you guys will probably remember there was a significant race for a leadership fight in the House between

AOC, who wanted to be ranking member on the Oversight Committee, which basically it's a very public-facing role. It was a good fit for her because she understands the media. She's feisty. She does well in these committee hearings, etc. So she would be in this prominent, forward-facing role in the Democratic Party. Nancy Pelosi intervened and instead got her man, Jerry Connolly, to across the finish line to be ranking member of this committee. Now, it was known at the time that Jerry Connolly is he's in his 70s and he also is suffering from cancer. And apparently that, you know, the cancer prognosis has just recently gotten worse. So he is now saying he's stepping away from that role as ranking member of oversight that he had just won over AOC. Let's put this up on the screen.

This is his official statement. Jerry Connolly, by the way, I've met him before a number of times. He represents a Northern Virginia suburban like Fairfax County district in Virginia and has for a while. He used to be the head of the board of supervisors in Fairfax County, so a long time public official. Anyway, he says, Dear friends, I want to begin by thanking you for your good wishes and compassion as I continue to tackle my diagnosis. Your outpouring of love and support has given me strength in my fights both against cancer and our collective defense of democracy. When I announced my diagnosis six months ago, I promised transparency. After grueling treatments, we've learned the cancer, which was initially beaten back, has now returned.

I'll do everything possible to continue to represent you, and thank you for your grace. The sun is setting on my time in public service. This will be my last term in Congress. I will be stepping back as ranking member of the Oversight Committee soon. With no rancor and a full heart, I move into this final chapter full of pride in what we've accomplished together over 30 years. My loving family and staff sustain me. My extended family, you all have been a joy to serve your friend and public servant. And, you know, I don't want to be an asshole here. I've met, like I said, I met Jerry Connolly, you know, interpersonally. Very nice person. But if you truly believe yourself to be, which I do, in this existential

threat for the future of the country and democracy, you need to put your most effective players forward. And it was always very clear that that would not be Jerry Connolly at 70 years old and battling cancer. It would be someone like AOC who is leading the fight and is out there, you know, touring the country alongside Bernie Sanders and garnering record-breaking crowds and understands new media, etc. And so here we are four months into the Trump administration, and he's already having to step back, Emily, from this role whatsoever. In terms of who's going to be the replacement, it's not going to be AOC. She is no longer actually on this committee. She, I guess, got switched or moved committees or whatever. Could put Ken Klippenstein, who's been all over this from the very beginning, put the information. To say the least, to say the very least about Ken's coverage of Jerry Connolly.

I tried to book ken for us today but he's like traveling right now and it's just like killing him because he's been all over this from the beginning but anyway put this next piece up on the screen this is who looks to be set to replace him another 70 year old representative stephen lynch um ken goes on to say his background is colorful lynch was apparently arrested at some point for drunkenly attacking a group of Iranian students protesting U.S. intervention abroad. There are some other members on this committee who could have been interesting. Ro Khanna is on this committee. Jasmine Crockett is also on this committee.

So you don't have to go with another 70-year-old. But yet, here they are. Just like, this is the guy who's next in line, seniority or leadership can rely on them or whatever. And it's it's absolutely incredible. I mean, Democrats have had multiple members die in office this session, which have led Republicans to, you know, expand their margins by a little bit. And that little bit can make all the difference in terms of, you know, getting close legislation through the House. I'm sorry, but there's no committee that Democrats should have wanted a like very aware and healthy person on more than oversight for the first 100 days of the second Trump administration.

Like, I am furious on behalf of Democratic voters just thinking back on how insane it was. This is a concession that everyone who was concerned about Connolly getting this position was correct. This is him basically throwing in the towel and saying, I'm not up to the job. Well, if you had the humility and your supporters had had the humility to say that 100 days ago, the Oversight Committee could have been much more robustly, energetically pushing back on the Trump administration. It is just completely, it's, you know, all of this is obvious what we're saying right now, but it is such a just obnoxious example of how wrong the old guard is and how stubborn the old guard is and how stuck in their ways the old guard is and just how not up to the moment they are. It's just the sort of arrogance

of the political class just being, I think, you know, to some extent here, put on full display. And again, predictable and obvious, but the oversight committee is doing exactly what it says. They have powers to call witnesses. When Republicans were in the minority recently under Biden, the oversight committee is where they felt they were doing their most important work. And it's because you can then call hearings and do Hunter Biden and Benghazi and all of those things come out of oversight. It's very powerful if you use it correctly. Yeah. And I remember when he won this or was going for this position at the time, which I can remember the exact language that he used, but he said something like, like, I've waited a long time for this. It was very like, I did my time. I'm next in line. So I'm getting this seat. And Nancy Pelosi made sure that he had the votes to be able to.

And again, like, we all knew this was the reality. They knew this was the reality. This was utterly predictable. And so not only was it really, you know, self-serving for Jerry Connolly even to put himself up for this position is extraordinarily, you know, extraordinarily short-sighted and weak move from Democratic leadership to push him for this spot and just speaks to a lack of seriousness and a lack of meeting the moment that has been characteristic across the board from the official Democratic leadership. And boy, do I have another

example of that. Senator Schumer, who, of course, you know, capitulated to the Republicans, the one thing that where Democrats in the Senate really had some leverage, he completely, you know, hands Republicans major victory there. Well, now he's on CNN saying that, don't worry, he's in the fight. He has sent the Trump administration a strongly worded letter, Emily, so he will await their response. Let's take a listen to what he had to say. But it's also going to hurt the kind of medical research and other kinds of great research that is done at Harvard and other universities. So we sent him a very strong letter just the other day asking eight very strong questions about why

this isn't just a pretext well you'll let us know if you get a response to that letter i do want to not seven not seven strongly worded questions eight strongly worded questions very strong very strong questions eight i love how dana's okay, you let me know when they get back to you on that one. Sure, buddy. Like, it's just, you can't make it up. It's so pathetic. It is so utterly pathetic.

It's insane that he was on live television and thought that was a good thing to say. Like, are you listening to yourself? You know that you were stepping straight into a joke, buddy. This is the minority leader. This is the head of Senate Democrats for how many years? And he can't even get through an interview without saying something

as stupid as that. I mean, it's come on, man. I miss Harry Reid. That's what I got to say about that. I miss Harry Reid. Harry Reid would never. He would never. No, he would never. Meanwhile, you've got, you know, they're just, again, the leadership. They are just thrashing around, trying to figure out where to be, what to say. They've recognized at this point that the base wants them to do more. So, you know, their response is things like Senator Schumer sending eight strong questions in a strongly worded letter. And then Hakeem Jeffries and Cory Booker did some sort of a like live stream hangout on the Capitol steps, which everything it's just, you know, it's just a little off. I will say that the Cory Booker speech, it didn't really it really didn't do it for me because of a variety of, you know, it wasn't really about anything. And, you know, it's felt to me very performative, although impressive. Like, listen, to hold your bladder that long is extraordinary. If in fact,

that's true. Just to speak for that long, I can't even imagine. But I have to say, liberals ate that shit up. They loved it. They absolutely loved it. They see him as a hero. And this shows you like the bar is not that high. They just want people to do something, even if that something is just like standing and talking for a while. Right. Cause that's a, that's a great point. Cause that filibuster didn't have any legislative goal. Like literally they just were lapping up Cory Booker, um, demonstrating how like passionately he was anti-Trump and anti this administration. And it was actually smart because he was like live on Tik TOK and breaking records. And it was actually smart because he was like live on TikTok and breaking

records. And it, you know, as I think vapid as it was, it just rallied the troops because people are desperate. Yeah, that's right. But in any case, Hakeem Jeffries, Cory Booker do this hangout live stream thing on the Capitol steps. Let me give you just just just a little taste of this, Emily, just a little taste. And I want you all to know I miss Obama. I miss Obama. I miss Obama. I miss Obama. And I miss I miss her husband, too. We'll be pushing back against the Republican efforts to jam this far right extreme budget down the throats of the American people. And we wanted to make sure that heading into that fight, we were very clear with our Republican colleagues,

there will not be a single Democratic vote to take away the health care of the American people. Not a single. Don't worry, Emily. The spirit of Barack Obama is alive and well in the fake-ass speech cadence of people like Pete Buttigieg and Cory Booker. So never fear. It's just feels so try hard. You know, it just feels very like we're going to be cool. We're going to do a thing here. We are doing a thing.

I don't know. It just lands weird. And Hakeem Jeffries has clearly his staff has clearly made a concerted effort in the last couple of weeks to make sure that he does media mostly out of a suit. So like now they're putting him in a baseball cap and t-shirts and, uh, his like sneakers. It's just so like, I'm casual every man, like I'm just, you know, your friend, it's very, to your point, try hard. Um, when it's so sudden, it looks just cringe. And it's again, we've, we talked about this recently, but it's so strange for me because this used to be even like younger Republicans, how they came across. And I'm not saying Republicans are like hip and spry either because they're not. But it used to not be like this for Democrats. Like it used to be a lot easier for them, especially in the Obama era, to come across as normal human beings. But they're

so they're overthinking it so much because they're so thrown off by like the youth shift and working class Hispanic voters, some changes in the black electorate. So it's just hard for them to figure out what they should do. And they haven't landed on anything. So it ends up looking really awkward. And there's no sign of that, you know, there's no sign of the light being at the end of that tunnel at all. And some of them, I mean, they're just so many of them are just like old and kind of lost at sea in the world of like the new social media, like they feel like I should be doing a thing, but I don't really know what that thing is. And so much of this too, is like, just stop trying to be something you're. Like Hakeem Jeffries, you're never going to be a firebrand.

You're never going to be that like super relatable, cool guy. That's just not who you are. I mean, look, to go back to the Canada block, Mark Carney is like the ultimate technocrat. And he just leans into it. And people are like, okay, that's who he is. You know, I mean, Bernie Sanders, like he's not out there trying to do a thing. He just is himself. That's, that's it. That's like, stop, just stop trying so

hard. On the other hand, I'd be remiss if I didn't say Chuck Schumer's strategy. I just basically like wait around and let the Republicans hang themselves is kind of panning out. Um, not only have we covered extensively Trump's numbers at 100 days, obviously they're really bad across the board. Even his best issue of immigration, he's now underwater, especially when you ask about specifics, foreign policy. But most importantly, his economic numbers have fallen off a cliff. And predictably, that is having a major impact on the down ballot races. I think Republicans just basically expect to lose the House at this point. It's almost like a foregone conclusion, given that we're nowhere near out of

the woods with regard to the economic pain either. Harry Enten just did a piece on the unpopularity of the Republican Party and how it may translate to midterm losses. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that. Democrats versus Republicans. We have three polls out within the last few weeks. What do they all show? They all show the Democrats up by two points in the CNBC poll. The Fox News poll that was out on Friday. Look at that. Democrats up by seven.

The New York Times poll that was out this Friday as well. Democrats by three. And keep in mind, the House GOP won the popular vote back in 2024 by a little less than three percentage points. So when you see three, seven, two, averaging four, that is a tremendous shift. That is a shift of seven points from the November 2024 elections away from the GOP. You look at Trump's net federal rating. In October of 2024, according to the New York Times, it was minus nine points. Look at where it is now, minus 30 points among independents. That's horrific. That's historically awful. Take a look at the generic ballot in October of 2024.

The Democrats were ahead, but only by three, well within the margin of error. Look at where they are now, up 17 points. There is no way on God's green earth that the Republicans can hold on to the House of Representatives if they lose independence by 17 percentage points. My goodness gracious. What do you think about that? I mean, like this is despite Democrats best efforts, I think. And that's part of this is interesting, too. Did you see Alyssa Slotkin dropping like F-bombs recently? Did you see the stories about that? I did not see that. Yeah. The Hill had a whole story yesterday about how Dems are like embracing the F word. And I feel like that happens every time a political party

gets a little bit desperate. But, you know, it's it reminded me of the Hakeem Jeffries, Cory Booker, like just sitting on the steps, chatting with people moment because it's like, you guys, what's working right now is Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez going to red states and fighting oligarchy, fighting oligarchy rallies, not Alyssa Slotkin, thinking that she's like a cool mom for dropping F-bombs in an interview, like forcing herself to drop an F-bomb in an interview. It gets just so bizarre. But I think the reason they're doing it, Crystal, is because they, like Hakeem Jeffries and Cory Booker, can't go full, quote, fight oligarchy. This is their,

and that's, by the way, what's good for the party. What's good for them would be to embrace this anti-oligarch message. But because they're also bankrolled by oligarchs, they're uncomfortable with that messaging. And that's why Alyssa Slotkin is now explicitly pushing back against it. And I think it's why Hakeem Jeffries and Cory Booker, maybe they clear the very low bar of, you know, looking like they have at least some energy and aren't, you know, full Connolly. But at the same time, I think what's what Trump is struggling with is coming without actually a decent resistance from the Democratic Party. And so that goes to show like, what could this be like? I mean, again, like Donald Trump has barely won a couple of

elections. This man came off being the host of Celebrity Apprentice. Like Hillary Clinton was terrible. Joe Biden was terrible. Kamala Harris was terrible. That's how bad Dems have been. It's not any, I think, special testament to Donald Trump being super attractive and likable. I think he's a smart politician with his base. But it's not like the entire country loves Donald Trump, despite what he may say. It's just that consistently Dems have been worse than Trump, except for Biden in 2020 in the middle of the pandemic. So in 10 years, they have not figured out a way to be slightly better than Donald Trump. Yeah, well, your point about Slotkin and Jeffries and Booker, too, is really well taken. And I've never seen anything more manufactured than the like pushing Slot, Eliza Slotkin on us. Like no one wanted this. The democratic leadership for some reason was like this lady, she's the real future of the party.

We're going to have her do the response to the state of the union. We're going to have her lead our effort to, you know, tamp down all this anti-oligarchy talk. That's getting a little too popular among our normie Democrat base. But to your point, you know, I think the, I think the, I think the things that have really landed with the liberal base has been number one, the stop oligarchy tour, the fight oligarchy tour. Um, number two, you know, people like Jasmine Crockett who just can

like dish it out and really is, it just has this vibe and this energy of she's not going to take any shit and she's going to like get out there and get in your face, whatever. Cory Booker's speech, whether I like it or not. I mean, listen, he did a thing. Okay. People like liberals loved it. The other thing is the Chris Van Hollen going to El Salvador, which, you know, to me is a study in contrast between Cory Booker's thing, which was actually basically about nothing, about like him positioning himself as a resistance fighter. Whereas Chris Van Hollen, you know, he actually did a thing. Like he went, it was a real issue. It was some personal risk to himself. It's a risky political issue. And obviously, McKellie did all he could to make the optics as terrible as possible, etc.

And, you know, I think his actions really kept that story alive and has helped to move public opinion dramatically against the Trump administration, not only specifically in that case, but that's what helped to drag them underwater on immigration in general. So, and since then you've seen some other representatives and senators follow suit

in going to visit people who are detained because they, you know, published an op-ed or had some, you know, pro-Palestine speech or whatever. You saw other members also travel down to El Salvador. So that really set a model for Democrats moving forward who actually wanted to do something and not just like sit on the steps of the Capitol and talk about how much they miss Barack Obama. Well, okay. So I think with the base, it makes sense to me that that would be sort of that all of that would be a shot in the arm. I still think the Van Hollen, um, and what was the, Oh, the, uh, yeah, well, I think the Van Hollen example in particular

is like, I don't think they quite nailed the messaging for a broader audience, but I think he understood that what the democratic Party's base, like the grassroots type people want right now is someone to like actually take personal risk and sacrifice. You know, I really disagree with that. And I think it shows up in the polling. I mean, when we were looking yesterday at the best and the worst issues for Trump, his best issue, and this was the New York Times Siena polling, which is, you know, considered to be one of the more credible pollsters and they do a large sample, et cetera. Best polling numbers were on immigration, though he was still underwater by four.

Worst polling numbers was the handling of Kilmara Brego Garcia. So I think, I mean, the numbers I've seen are like 20% support what the Trump administration is doing there. So I do believe that the efforts of Chris Van Hollen and others to shine a light on that and to consistently explain, you know, this isn't really about this one guy and however you may feel about him. This is about due process for all of us. This is about protecting all of our rights and your right to have your day in court before being sent for life to this, you know, foreign gulag. I think it's undeniable at this point that that messaging has landed and that it has dramatically turned people against the Trump administration's handling in that one specific case with bleed over into how they feel about the immigration program writ large. I think people definitely agree with that sentiment. I don't disagree

that that's where the public has landed on it. I think it's a for me, it's an interesting case study at how Dems can misread or not misread. That's the wrong word, how they can over maybe over read the public's position. Like it's it's easy to say. And actually, I think Trump does this sometimes, too. It's easy to say, OK, the public is with us. This is a winning issue. We can't be sending people to Seacott on mistakes that your own administration's attorneys, your own DOJ attorneys admit, and sucking up to Bacallet and doing that weird stuff. Nobody is here for that. I think what Van Hollen did then looked like the Trump administration was able to message it in a way that probably resonated with a lot of people as Dems actively trying to keep people who are not in the country legally in the country. Even though it's not what the case is about, I think it's easy to get. We probably just disagree on it. think it's easy to get caught in that trap of like not sticking on the narrow issue,

but then also looking like you're in the position that most people disagree with because you kind of misread where people are on the narrow issue in and of itself. But we probably disagree on that. I mean, I do. I do just disagree with the assessment there. And I think at this point, the polling bears it out pretty clearly that, you know, because the Trump administration had admitted fault in this case, it made it fairly clear cut of like, you screwed up, bring the guy back. Like, what are you doing? And also because the Trump, Trump himself was like, we're going for U.S. born, you know, homegrown criminals next.

It didn't take any imagination to go, oh, this isn't just about rights for undocumented immigrants. This is an assault on all of us. He wants to be able to send anybody he wants and disappear into this dungeon. And, you know, I think that really made it easier for Democrats to make the case that this matters for everyone. And, you know, the tariff stuff politically is obviously extremely toxic and is also something that everyone is aware of their own material circumstances and the way they're being negatively impacted. So I think they were able to push the message about Kilmara-Brega-Garcia and the assault on rights and the way that this, the implications this has for the broader immigration agenda. Well, obviously, the tariff stuff is there and is not going away anytime soon. But we can agree to disagree on that one if you'd like. We'll come back to it, I'm sure, another day.

Oh, yeah. There'll be plenty to talk about. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated.

I get right back there and it's bad listen to absolute season one taser incorporated on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts i'm clayton english i'm greg glad and this is season two of the war on drugs podcast last year a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them.

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Michael Kasson, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures and your guide on good company, the podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi. We dive into the competitive world of streaming.

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