Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 4/4/25: China Calls Trump's Bluff, Stocks Plummet, Lawyer Responds To JD Vance

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

Krystal, Ryan and Emily discuss China calling Trump's bluff on tariffs, stock market reacts, and a lawyer for a wrongly deported man responds to JD Vance.   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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shaping the Black community. From breaking headlines to cultural milestones, the Black Information Network delivers the facts, I also want to address the Tonys. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I had high hopes. To hear this and more on disappointment and protecting your peace, listen to Checking In with Michelle Williams from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Good morning, everybody. Happy Friday. Emily and Ryan, great to see you guys. Good to see you, Crystal.

Crystal, for those who didn't see the behind the scenes, was Ryan's tech support this morning. It was pretty impressive. And she nailed it. Geek squad. Yeah, got it worked right out. Diagnosed, fixed, boom, here we are. the mini show, but they're increasingly sort of not really mini shows. They're just shows because of so much stuff that's going on. But excited to get both of your reaction to Liberation Day and, you know, take your temperature as to how liberated you're feeling on this Friday.

Quite. Got a bunch of a bunch of different stuff with regard to that, including new jobs numbers that just came out, which actually came out much stronger than expected. So that's kind of interesting. We also have a new poll, a hypothetical poll, AOC versus Chuck Schumer. And for Senate, she's destroying him, which is really interesting. Major turnabout in terms of how the Democratic base is feeling. Ryan also flagged for us there's huge protests planned for, you know, from the Democratic base across the country, a thousand different protests planned in nationwide locations. We've got a few national security advisors who

were officially loomered that interesting developments there. And we're also really looking forward to speaking to one of the members of the legal team of that Maryland father who was wrongly deported to the El Salvador prison. So she actually represented him in that 2019 hearing where the judge ruled that he cannot be deported to El Salvador. So she should know all the ins and outs of the gang accusations and what they were saying and what the reality was, how the family's doing, all of that sort of stuff. So definitely looking forward to that. Huge show. Like to your point about not calling these mini shows, that's a lot, Crystal.

Yes, indeed. All right. So let's kick things off here. I guess we'll start with the latest on the jobs reports. Obviously, Trump has upended the entire global economy. So, you know, a lot to get to there. But we also had the jobs report come out this morning, and it actually crushed expectations, 228,000. Unemployment rate actually rose a little bit to 4.2%. Joe Weisenthal here saying the economists had expected 140,000 jobs, unemployment of 4.1%. The reason that the unemployment rate actually ticked up is because you had more people, higher workforce participation. So sort of more people jumping into the market and trying to find a job. Any reflections on that, guys, just before we get into the latest Liberation Day fallout? an interesting but meaningless round of numbers because people were going to say,

if it was terrible, they're going to say, oh, well, one more reason to sell. So a terrible report would have been bad and would have been another straw on this camel's broken back. Yeah. But a good report is discounted by the market because they're like okay well that was a good report in march that was before liberation day and the fall of western civilization because of the you know wisconsin race in wisconsin supreme court race so we're now in a post-liberation day post-western civilization world so the things that happened before that you know don't don't actually matter't actually matter. Uh, so it, it staves off a

little additional extra sell-off potentially. Um, and, but that's about it. And, and it, it, you know, it, it bakes in some hopes among these folks that Trump is going to, you know, uh, you know, cock things up so badly that the fed will step in and, and, you know, lower interest rates a whole bunch of times between now and the end of the year. Yeah. And that and that that'll cushion some of the blows. Yeah. Well, and that's kind of one of the high IQ arguments for the tariffs is like, oh, this is all an effort to bring down interest rates so that also when the U.S. has to roll all of this debt, that it will be at a lower interest rate. And so we need to like destroy the entire economy so that we can bring interest rates down is one of the

sort of like high IQ versions of the Trump tariff thing. And it's 915 when we're recording this right now. This is what, you know, CNBC, you got the ticker up here of the futures, what they look like. You know, yesterday obviously was pretty bad in terms of the stock market. Although, to be honest with you, I thought it could have been even worse. Yeah, I thought that too. You know, the nature of the tariffs, which are just so astonishing and massive and obviously global and insane, in my opinion. And, you know, we'll really have just I think it's impossible to really gauge exactly what all the fallout is ultimately going to be. But even with this jobs report now coming in higher than expected, obviously, future is still significantly down.

And, you know, China announced this morning or last night or sometime before I woke up that they were going to be retaliating with significant tariffs of their own and targeting a few key American businesses and industries in particular. So, you know, the theory is the markets are sort of reacting to that. And that's why they're down even more than they already were yesterday. Also, really sweet to see you and Kyle DMing. There's a lot of that. Yeah. And, and you know china's response to me suggests what a difficult spot the u.s is in like i would imagine that she and his advisors are almost paralyzed by the sheer number of different effective ways they have to screw us uh And they have a unified system whereby they can come up with an idea and then they can execute on it. Whereas in the United States, we are literally having chat GPT come up with our plan. So it's like chat GPT versus, you know, she and his

economists. Yeah. When she and his economists are sitting on massive piles of cash. And the manufacturing capacity of the world and the knowledge of the supply chains and they can, you know, largely kind of guide a lot of people say that Trump's actual scheme here is he's going to destroy the American economy, drive the prices down to bottom barrel, and then he and his billionaire buddies are going to buy up everything. I don't think that's right at all. But I think what he might end up doing is knock the price of everything way down, and then she and his buddies come in with their companies and buy everything up that they can get at a steep discount. Yeah, well, that's important to note is, you know, recessions, most people lose, but not everybody loses. You know, out of the financial crash, there was a massive consolidation. Banks got bigger than ever. It really was the kickoff of permanent capital being such a massive player in terms of buying up housing and these giant conglomerates becoming basically like America's landlord.

Out of the COVID crash, we all know that the tech barons really consolidated a lot of power. Bezos, Zuckerberg, Elon, they all came out of the COVID crash massively wealthier than before. And to your point about China, their markets are not down all that much. They've taken a little bit ahead, but nothing like what our markets are down, which tells you that investors are betting that they're actually going to be more or less okay out of this. And you can start to see in the specific retaliation that they picked, it was not only, okay, we're going to hit you with the same level of tariff that you're hitting us. It was also, we're going to block you from being able to import some of these rare earth minerals that are in, you know, all of our modern electronics and are really important. And that China has been, to your point, right, about the level of planning for years and years, you know, consolidating their control over some of those supply chains.

So they are certainly not powerless, to say the least, Emily, in this situation. No, they aren't. And it's interesting because a lot of this, well, actually, a lot of the like Liberation Day predicate, I was going back and looking at how people on the right talked about targeted tariffs in the years leading up to Trump 2.0. And it was always through the lens of national security. Always. That was the sort of justification for protectionism that some of these think tanks like the Heritage Foundation had for a really long time cast as socialist economics. And they've been such staunch champions of, quote unquote, free trade. And as they were warming up to Trump and acquiescing to Trump's hostile takeover of

the Republican Party, it was, OK, targeted tariffs. You could do targeted nearshoring with Canada and Mexico, but it's because of national security. And the argument that national security is stronger in these just like couple of weeks to come, we're going to get a lot more clues as to whether or not that's really the case. But a China that's not significantly hampered by this, that was the goal. I mean, that was an explicit national security ambition of tariffs that some of the people put forward before they joined the administration. Well, and some of the push to move manufacturing into like Vietnam was also, you know, OK, you know, we're not nearshoring to Mexico or bringing jobs back to the U.S., but this is a country that we have better relations with and we feel more comfortable manufacturing there. Vietnam just got hit with a gigantic tariff. So, you know, some of those prior efforts are also being completely undermined by this. You know, one of the things that's go ahead, Ryan.

And just one little point. China is retaliating against us. We're doing a trade war against the entire world. That's right. Which makes China's position so much easier. Stronger. Right. Like we're we're doing a trade war against Lesotho and Japan that don't even have inhabitants in some island that's largely like British and American military. And against people that might be able to help us in a trade war with China. That's right. That's exactly right. And that was actually one of the points that like Nate Silver was making is, are we really going to be negotiating with all 192 countries or whatever it is that we just tariffed? So yes, if it was a, I mean, I hate to just keep repeating myself, but if it was focused, if it's, you know, targeted particular industry or even a particular country

in terms of China, then you can imagine a plan that where we could come out on top, where there would be, there would always be minuses, potentially short-term pain for sure, but there could be something that was worth it on the other side. You know, I'm someone who thinks that tariffs can be a useful and important tool in certain instances, but the incredibly, not just chaotic, but insane way that this is done across the board and using chat GPT and pretending like a trade deficit is the same as a tariff just makes it impossible to imagine how this is ultimately going to work out. And one of the things- And on that, I think this might help people understand that,

because I see a lot of people being like, we're getting screwed by all these countries. It's like, imagine California and Oregon. Like, they trade with each other. Now, there's no tariffs because they're states within the United States. But I promise you that people in Oregon buy a lot more stuff from California than people in California buy from Oregon. So it would be like looking at that situation and saying, oh, wow, like there's a giant tariff up that Oregon has on California. Right. It's like, no, no, Oregon just doesn't make that much stuff. California makes an enormous amount of stuff. Right. That's how that's how trade works. Well, so maybe that will help people

understand that it's not that they're setting up. Oregon is not screwing California in a slight. I mean, I don't want to call it a defense of the administration because we haven't seen anything yet. But then telling Besson, well, Besson going out and saying, you know, these will be the higher end of the rate if you don't retaliate. And then the White House saying that is not the talking point. Like there are reports that the White House was saying that do not include anything about these being negotiating points. These are the final numbers in your talking points. It's hard to imagine the Treasury that. But I like some of these random, completely random tariffs. I wonder if they didn't take them seriously because they don't take them seriously. And if you are Lesotho or someone else, maybe Trump just wants to have it look like he was doing 80 deals and successfully negotiated with all of these different countries. So but like we'll see.

I genuinely have no idea. I don't think anybody has any idea. But the- I don't think Besson has any idea. I mean, he seemed like he was completely clueless and terrified in all of those interviews. They're like, so are you going to go to China and talk to him? He's like, nothing on the calendar. Yeah, it was an interesting idea.

But that's the USMCA exemptions. And what happens with that is pretty critical to what happens with China, obviously. So, you know, if you're going to be tariffing the hell out of Canada and Mexico in order to rebalance those relationships at the same time as you're trying to rebalance the relationship with China, the economic relationship with China for national security concerns, then you have to look very differently at your relationship with Canada and Mexico, which Besson also said. He got Caitlin Collins and said there are USMCA exemptions, but that's going to be renegotiated. So who the hell knows? Yeah. Well, and I said this in the show yesterday, but just to drill down on the point Ryan was making to help people understand, like, why a trade deficit is not the same as a tariff and does not necessarily represent a country screwing us. Arnaud Bertrand laid out the example of Lesotho.

This is an incredibly poor country in Africa. They're actually part of a regional trading bloc that has uniform tariff policy. So in theory, you would think, OK, well, South Africa and Lesotho, part of this trading bloc, have uniform tariff policy. So in theory, you would think, okay, well, South Africa and Lesotho, part of this trading block, have uniform tariff policies. So they should be getting hit with the same level of tariff, right? No, South Africa is far lower.

Why? Because we do actually import a significant for that country and a significant amount of mostly diamonds and other sort of like, you know, raw materials. And this is a poor country. So the people there, they don't have the money to buy things like iPhones and Teslas from our market. So does that mean that they're screwing us? No, it just means, you know, and it's not like we have

a domestic diamond market that we need to, you know, protect and gin up here. And that's the other part of this, one of the other parts of this that makes no actual economic sense is that there are certain things that we just literally can't produce here. We don't have diamond mines. That's just how it is, right? We cannot grow bananas outside of a few locations. We cannot grow coffee beans in outside of a few locations, something like 50% of our fruits and vegetables come from other markets. And so when you're doing this across the board, not only across the board with countries, across the board with all of these different products, all you're doing is creating a massively regressive tax. And that's the other part of this that is wild that I don't think

people should just let go is the president has claimed for himself the single handed ability to completely upend our our economy, the global economy. You know, these are powers that are supposed to be in the hands of Congress. You know, they're supposed to be power of the person raising revenue that is supposed to go through Congress. And so, you know, Jeff Stein was pointing out, he was like, you know, most experts that I'm talking to are saying that they probably legally are going to go through because the courts have taken a very permissive attitude towards president's ability to declare national emergencies or national security situations or whatever and do what they want in the sphere of tariffs. But compare that to Biden's like comparatively piddling student loan debt relief that gets struck down by the courts. And you have a you know, you just have a very remarkable situation. And I think it's also fair to say, like, and I believe that the tariff regime that Trump has announced is less about a particular economic outcome and more about him consolidating more control for himself. And that comes not only from the

extraordinary nature of the tariffs, largest tax hike probably in U.S. history, highest level of tariffs since, you know, it is much higher even than the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which vastly exacerbated the Great Depression, but not only from just like that exercise of power, but also now every company, every country in the world, every industry, they all have to go on bended knee to the dear leader and beg and plead their case, which is precisely why these powers were supposed to be with Congress. Because that, Ryan, is the way that a king operates. It's not supposed to be the way that a president ultimately operates. Yeah, I think there's a chance they might end up taking the powers away from him

if he abuses them too seriously and we see too much pain going around. I could imagine that happening. Who's they, Congress or the courts? Congress, yeah. Congress, because you saw- But can they? They would need probably two-thirds vote because obviously Trump would veto. Because otherwise he'd veto. Yeah. Right. So, I mean, this is imagining a world in which we've seen not just 20%, 30 percent come off the markets you know that's those that's still the market uh but you start seeing you know manufacturing plants close and like auto automakers lay off workers um still lance i think just laid off a thousand people yesterday

uh so if you start seeing like significant manufacturing industry layoffs and it's cutting against his the notion that he's bringing manufacturing back then i then then i don't know i don't know if it i don't know if there is anything that breaks the hold well uh yeah oh i was gonna say this is the benefit of what crystal was just laying out trump consolidating i mean other presidents have used these powers but trump using them more boldly um than in recent memory. The benefit from his perspective is that he can then cut these deals immediately to back off and try to course correct. He can just call up the folks in Lesotho and say like, oh, you guys, you know, you're such great

partners. We're taking this right down. You know, he's able to, like, operate on his whims, which is absolutely, for any president, terrifying amount of power. It should belong with Congress. It's an Article One power. But the presidential emergency declarations have held up in courts to that point. So, but I think you're right. There's something that he enjoys about being the guy who gets to have the final decision on such a significant basis because he feels like he's course correct. I mean, this is Trump's like deepest ideological commitment. He's generally more transactional than ideological except for tariffs and immigration. And so this is, you know, whether he ultimately backs down from a significant tariff regime, I think is unlikely,

but he's able to, he probably thinks he'll be able to do carve out type deals with the sort of flick of a pen or the picking up of a phone. Yeah. And I've seen Matt, like Matt Stoller, for instance, has been out there saying like, you know, people on the left need to stop just sounding like CNBC or MSNBC and freaking out at this. Like you have to understand like Trump has a legitimate argument about the nature of global trade imbalances and the way that it is screwed up the middle class over the last 50 years and undermine our ability to produce anything. To an extent that, you know, when there was a pandemic, if we hadn't gotten the supply chains going, we wouldn't have had masks.

We could barely make, like, you know, soap. They couldn't make any of the PPE that we needed. Agree with that, but to me, you don't get points for your virtue and for your correct analysis if what you implement doesn't really have a chance of working. And the reason it doesn't have a chance of working is that we're still a capitalist system, which allows capitalists to decide where they're going to invest their money. The state doesn't, maybe it should, but the state does not direct any considerable amount of investment. And so if you're an investor right now, like on the one hand, okay, it looks like it's going to be cheaper to, relatively cheaper to, you know, sell things to American consumers if I build them right here in America. Is that going to be the case two weeks from now?

Yeah, that's true. I don't know. And if you don't know, do you drop a $1.5 billion investment in a Wisconsin factory? Well, Trump's point is that- Like the answer to that is no, you don't, unless you have some sense of stability long term. No, I think that's the flip side of the coin. And Trump would say the uncertainty is the only thing that gets them to do that because they are so unclear.

But then Trump is a maniac. Just take the bet on Trump. Well, yes. Trump, like it's going to take them longer to get the deal together than the policies will be in place. There'll be new policies in like three days. That's right. And then new ones after that and new policies in like three days. That's right. And then new ones

after that and new ones after that. Right. And no one would expect that. I mean, this should, in theory, be Trump's last term in office. No one is going to think that the next president is going to continue with this particular tariff regime. So you're just getting your factory online in like two years. And now Trump's a lame duck. And like, that's the problem. Like, if you want to do this, go to Congress and do an industrial policy and buy in, get buy in from the American people and Democrats. Like Democrats, you want to build factories in the United States? Democrats, all they're going to ask for is, as you know, Bharat talked about daycare in the factory and union wages. Yeah. Is that we could do? Is that so bad? You know, you know, Bharat talked about daycare in the factory and union wages. Yeah. Is that we could we could.

Is that so bad? Is that so bad? You know, this also one of the things that bothers me about this tariff regime is that I actually do think it is going to negatively polarize many people against tariffs, period. And I think that is terrible. And it comes at a time when there was an increasing there was a bipartisan consensus in favor of targeted industrial policy. And Trump could rightly take credit for helping to create that shift in public policy. I mean, tariffs and industrial policy were like, you know, seen as knuckle dragging kind of stuff in the neoliberal

era. And Trump comes in, he does his China tariffs. I supported them. Ryan, I suspect you probably did as well. Definitely. Yeah. And then Biden keeps them largely in place, expands them. Which I supported too, yeah. But couples it with actual industrial policies. So in truth, Biden's version of it was much more successful than Trump's version. You can see that with the, you know, the chips. And Trump's had some positive impacts on manufacturing and yeah. Yeah. And so I drove through the Foxconn campus. Oh, boy.

That was Scott Walker. That was that was a major out. But put it let's put that aside. But, you know, there was this true bipartisan consensus in favor of targeted industrial policy and more more vastly more needed to be done. But Trump seems to have this idea that if you just put in place this giant tariff regime, everything is going to magically happen after that. And Ryan, you're so correct that he is not factoring into this the fact that, number one, the rest of the world is going to get a say. And number two, that you're still relying on capital and trying to figure out their incentives. And from the best we can tell, like their incentives are just going to be, OK, we're just not going to do really anything for the next couple of years. See how this shakes out. I wouldn't be hiring, you know, I mean, even thinking about our little business, the way that we're going to be impacted by this. It's like, I'm not taking on big new risks right now because the future is so uncertain.

At Dropsite, because of people's, like the subscription base and the donation base, like we could add a couple people right now, but we're not going to because we're probably going to see a downturn. That's exactly right. And companies like, well, we're a nonprofit, but so organizations like ours and like Breaking Points, you know, they get hit in a recession because if you lose your job, it's like, hey, I'd love to help you guys out. I support the journalism that you're doing, but I'm going to watch the free clips on YouTube and I'm going to read the free stuff. Yeah, I got rights to make and I got a family to feed.

Not at all. Obviously, if it's a choice between, you know, making your bills and this, like this has got to go. I mean, I would choose my premium subscription over feeding children, but that's just... It depends on the children, yeah. One of the things that's wild to me is, like, people are going to get hurt by this. You know, it's a massive thing that Trump has just done, like, insanely massive. And is he in the, you

know, the, like, economic situation room, crunching the numbers, seeing what the market reaction is, making deals, whatever. No, he's like, I think it's going well. And then he's off to play golf. Like this is so what I just I cannot comprehend the mentality of someone who is so casual about doing something that is such a nuclear bomb around the world. I mean, so here, you know, Jake Sherman, President Trump's leaving today for Florida, where he will attend the Live Golf Tour dinner at his Darrell Country Club. Here he is yesterday getting asked about like, hey, the markets are completely shitting the bed. Are you like, you're good with this?

Like, how are you feeling about this? Let's take a listen to what he has to say. The markets today are way down. The worst day in here because of the terror. So how's it going? I think it's going very well. It was an operation. I like when a patient gets operated on.

And it's a big thing. I said this was exactly. So they love this. It's an operation. It's a patient. The operation went well. But yeah, he thinks it's you know an operation it's a patient the operation went well but yeah he thinks he thinks it's going great and if i thought a few years from now this was going to turn around american manufacturing and production like i'd be like that's the coolest thing ever

yeah based like go for it like yes like it's it's gonna short-term pain long-term gain i just don't see the long-term gain, we have a statement. Sorry, Emily, just really quickly is we also I agree with that, Ryan. I absolutely agree with that. But we also can't be cavalier about this is a massive regressive tax, massive regressive tax at the same time as it's not like, you know, when he did tariffs in his first term, farmers got hurt and they had a big program to reimburse them. There's none of it's not like, you know, when he did tariffs in his first term, farmers got hurt and they had a big program to reimburse them. There's none of it's it's the total opposite of that at this point where you can't get a hold of somebody at Social Security so you can get your benefits there. Republicans widely expected to cut Medicaid. They're also widely expected to give on a giant tax cut.

So the you know, one of the theories, oh, they're trying to get the deficit down and do these things. Well, no, they're about to blow up the deficit more than they ever have before. And so you're doing austerity at the same time that you're expecting people to be able to shoulder this massive regressive tax hike at a time when they already were inflation was the number one issue for people. Like prices, they already feel so stretched because prices have been high. And that's what he was elected on

was to deal with those prices. So while I agree, if there was like, you know, okay, and we're gonna, it's really gonna re-industrialize middle-class jobs, like bring back the heartland of America and people are gonna be able to, you know, have this like solid union, middle class job, the way things were like, okay, that's worth exchanging some short term pain for. But you also have to help people to get through that period. And there's first of all, it's just short term pain and long term pain. And second of

all, there is none of that policy happening to help people who are truly going to be hurt, whether it's regular ordinary people, businesses, et cetera, in the interim to get to that theoretical promised promised land. I mean, I think that the tax cut situation is going to be completely crazy, but maybe they maybe they come up with something. I have no idea. It doesn't seem like it. Josh Hawley said he went to the White House yesterday and secured commitments from Trump not to touch Medicaid or Social Security. Again, we will see. There's a White House statement on... Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone,

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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.

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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, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now? Yeah, cause I bring him on tour with me

and he's getting older now too, so his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is, and they're starting to be like, yo, your dad's like really the goat like, he's a legend, so he gets it. What does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family it means a lot to me just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good like that's what's really important and that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better so the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy,

or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The jobs report that says, quote, the economy is starting to roar with a strong 228,000 jobs added in the month of March, well ahead of the market's expectation. There was also a sharp increase in transportation, construction, and warehousing employment. The president's push to onshore jobs here in the United States is working. The golden age of America is on its way. Good luck with that continued optimism.

Golden age, not so sure about that one. Gilded age, definitely. And I mean, that is their model, is that era, the gilded age is the era that he says he's modeling these policies to achieve. I think it gets to your point about the not just the optics because it's beyond optics. It's this optimism from multi multimillionaires and billionaires as markets are completely volatile and people are worried about their savings. They're worried about their month to month. That, I think, politically is going to be incredibly difficult for the administration to continue pulling on. Yeah.

I was talking to a friend last night. The couple is a teacher and a federal worker. And they've been doing a little house rehab, like a kitchen and a bedroom. And she said that she just went to order the sink and the couch and stuff. And I was like, well, first of all, you guys are morons. Like Trump told you a month ago, liberation day was coming. Yeah. You should have ordered it.

You should have ordered your stuff. She's like, she went back and looked and like a bunch of stuff was like already, already up like a hundred bucks, 200 bucks. Like the couch had not moved yet. It was the same price as before. So she like immediately like you know hit purchase on that yeah um but like things are moving like people are this is not all just the the dow jumping jumping around like these price hikes are coming yeah you know what respond to that a little bit ryan because that's been the other um you brought up solar before i've seen him

and others being like well the stock market know, this isn't really an important economic metric. So stop obsessing over it. And by the way, what it's down to, like where it was in the fall or something, that's really no big deal. How do you look at that? I think that's fine. Yeah. Like if you're doing big, long term, huge structural things that are going to benefit the the economy. And, you know, the, and Wall Street has a, has a, you know, panic attack and, and takes off like, like Stoller said, there was this big, you know, uh, drive up in, in prices after Trump won, because as Jeff Stein keeps pointing out, the Wall Street does not have a subscription to newspapers. Like they don't actually, they don't actually read the Washington Post

or the other papers that have been telling them very clearly that this is what Trump's doing. They're like, no, Trump, he's not really going to do this. No way. These are our guys. So they artificially drove up the price of equities, and now they're shaving that off. So that's fine.

I'm on board with that kind of broad Stoller critique to a degree. Like, there is a level of correction at which counterparties start getting affected. And you start to see, you know, a seize up in liquidity and ability of, you know, businesses to like access capital like it it becomes a problem but this kind of stuff if it if it's if it's good for the patient you know fine like you know run it run a little fever kill that kill that virus but it's your it this this to me is the equivalent of like bleeding like the way that they used to bleed patients in this in like the 17th and 18th century that's what yeah it's like yeah you're you're probably a little bit of bleeding is probably not gonna actually hurt you that much um and if it was actually going to make you better then sure go for it but it wasn't like that that was wrong so this is the wrong bleeding so yeah okay a little little bit of bleeding you can

survive but also what was it was like they're getting out the the bad the bad stuff the bad blood or the bad the blood was too hot maybe i don't know yeah yeah and washington had like four doctors and they all bled him and he died of losing too much blood um uh yeah so if you lose too much blood and the stock market loses too much blood, you know, it can it can be a problem. But yeah, that's what the real problem is. Yeah. Actual prices for sinks are going up like right now. Right. And when people's washing machines break.

They need they need a new one. Well, Mark Cuban was out yesterday, like go to Costco, go to Sam's Club, stock up. Like whatever storage space you have, fill with whatever non-perishable consumables. You can bet toilet paper is going to be disappearing from shelves at a store near you very shortly. But Emily, on the other hand, he does have fantastic spokespeople like Howard Lutnick who are making the case here. I mean, I would just say that I just took a sip of coffee and spit it onto my laptop. And this is the other part of it is like the argument that I saw from the cable news heads yesterday was just basically like, trust Trump because he knows what he's

doing. And that's certainly what what Lutnik was saying yesterday. I've got a great Jeanine Pirro clip I could show as well. But let's go ahead and take a listen to Lutnik and how he was pitching this. Let Donald Trump run the global economy. He knows what he's doing. He's 35 years. You got to trust Donald Trump in the White House. That's why they put him there. Let him fix it. I understand. Let him fix it. Thirty six trillion dollar deficit. Right. Is going to ruin our children's lives and our grandchildren's lives. Let Donald Trump fix the American economy. Follow up with you. So that's you know, we're just supposed to put our put our faith in the great leader. Howard Lutnick certainly has. There are others, many others who feel the same way,

Emily, that you just, you know, just trust in Trump and he'll he'll work it out. OK, but that quote, let Donald Trump run the global economy is a completely insane thing to say. But in true Trumpian fashion, it really is saying the quiet part out loud and so proudly too. I mean, American presidents wield the power basically to run the global economy, much to the chagrin of many people in the rest of the world. And he's just saying like, this is a wonderful thing. Let the dear leader run the global economy. It's just an insane way to approach it. But it's really what we have. Right. Like this is given that Besson is off of the Trump talking points on something so significant. It's like, I don't know that his closest advisors actually understand where he could take this, where he plans to take this, I think that is entirely intentional. And so the American people are left with the option of trusting Donald Trump. It's really their only talking point because we can all agree, like the three of us from the left and the right, on what's happened and the need for probably some tariffs.

Like we can probably all get to the table and think that through and chips act and all of that. But this particular execution of bringing jobs back to the United States and rebalancing global trade, the only thing you can do because there's so much uncertainty and so much bizarre tactical maneuvering is just say, let's hope it all turns out OK. And that is going to wear very thin, very quickly politically for them. And it's also just like as people are making decisions about kitchen renovations, kind of it's kind of a fucked up thing to do to people. The problem with the bringing on an income tax is that it made the American people fund the American government rather than foreign countries, which should be funding the American government. And you're like, okay, well, that analysis is like completely insane because like it's actually, you know, people eventually pay the tariffs. But like, hold on, record scratch, reverse a second. You think that in an ideal world, foreign countries are funding the American government? It's like, what? Right.

What do you mean? Like, can you unpack that for us? Like, why would they fund us? Like, why don't they fund themselves? You touch on something important, though. I mean, because part of the alliance with trump and capital which is very very firmly entrenched this time around it does go back to that you know mckinley utopia that he keeps referencing and hat and did on the campaign trail you know i went back during that time like

brushed up on my mckinley history is not a guy that I like particularly studied all that much. And the whole reason that the income tax was introduced is so you could have a progressive tax so that rich people so that capital could, you know, would be the ones who bore more of the burden of funding the government. That was the whole idea. But now our income tax is not all that progressive at this point. That's a whole other can of worms. But that's the idea. Tariffs are deeply progressive. So what in practice, this is not going to mean that foreign governments are funding our government for us. Thank you very much, China. Thank you very much, EU. Thank you very much, Canada or whatever. It's going to mean that more of the burden of funding

our government falls on working class people and less of it, even less of it than currently falls on the rich is going to fall on the rich, which of course, consistent with the tax plan and why you should never when these people talk about how they have to get the deficit under control, you should never take them seriously. So long as one of their main economic priorities is extending the tax cuts and jobs act which is a four trillion dollar tax cut for the wealthy and is going to greatly exacerbate our debt and deficit so um you know like how much of this trump knows or how much his view of tariffs is just like this sort of like kindergarten level because also some of the things that he his priorities are directly at odds with each other maintaining the dollar as the

world reserve currency is directly at odds with eliminating the trade deficit because you need the world to need dollars and so you know those things don't fit together the idea that these are going to fund the government also doesn't make sense. If everything's being reshored, then you're not going to be getting tariff revenue, right? That you get this back and forth of, oh, he's just a great negotiator. And these are just a starting point. Actually, the direction is to bring all tariffs to zero. That's some of the cope from the chamber type Republicans is this is actually a tool to get the tariffs to zero. And it's like, well, if you wanted that, you should have just done tpp back in the day you know they were on a track

with a bunch of asian pacific countries to go exactly in that direction and then you know trump is out there no no no this is the final offer so all of it is very confused which is why for me the easiest lens to view it through is the same lens as the attacks on universities, the attacks on the media, the attacks on the law firms, the attacks on free speech, the attacks on protesters, which is a power consolidation play. He is a CEO. He is used to making every decision and everyone jumping to his beck and call. And that is the way that autocratic CEO dictatorial style, that is how he wants things to be. And increasingly, he is accomplishing that. I think if you could, if the president could move tax rates unilaterally, but had to go to

Congress for tariffs, he'd be out here moving tax rates up and down. Yeah. Like, you know, once a week. Don't give people ideas. You can declare some type of emergency. The historical irony, by the way, to pick up on your McKinley point, McKinley was in a long-running war with the prairie populist movement. And one of their main things that they hated was tariffs because it drove up their costs. Right.

And it killed them. Yeah. So that our new populist is embodying McKinley. Right. The enemy of the old populists is amazing. Yeah, completely. And actually, when McKinley was assassinated, he was giving a speech announcing that he was rolling back.

Done with them. Tariffs. Because the world needed to train. We needed to move forward. And that was an old economic model. So even McKinley at the end realized the error of some of his- Trump is with the shooter there, I guess. It was Antifa. We're taking this too far. He actually literally was like an anarchist, wasn't he? Actual Antifa. Yeah. So we've all been following the story. Trump administration admitted this week that they made a, quote, administrative error and deported a Maryland father to that El Salvador prison in spite of the fact that a judge had ruled he could not be deported to El Salvador.

The administration, in spite of admitting this administrative error, have still maintained that he should have been deported. They also have maintained that there is nothing at this point that the courts can do to bring him back, even though they acknowledge this error. So we're very lucky to be joined this morning by part of the legal team for this man. His name is Kilmar Abrego-Garcia, and her name is Lucia Curiel. And she represented him in a 2019 hearing where the judge originally ordered said he cannot be deported to El Salvador. And that, of course, is exactly where he is now. Welcome. So glad to have you. Yes, thank you. So first of all, did I get all of the pieces there right? And can you just give us the timeline of

his entrance into the country and, you know, his interactions with the legal system and especially address the allegations that he has been a gang member or in the words of, I think, Caroline Levitt, the White House press secretary, a MS-13 gang leader. Yes. So he, you know, he was born in El Salvador. He fled the country when he was around 16 years old, entered the United States illegally around 2011, and had been living in the United States in Maryland until then, until about 2019 was his first kind of contact with the law enforcement. He was at a Home Depot soliciting employment with three other men, two of which he had interacted with only in that context of soliciting

employment at a Home Depot. It turns out one of them, at least unbeknownst to him, did actually have gang affiliation and had actually been convicted previously of gang participation in Maryland. But he didn't know that. He didn't really know this guy. They were just standing there chatting, trying to find work. When a police officer from the Hyattsville Police Department approaches the group, they talk to this one man that did have this known gang affiliation. Two of the men also allegedly kind of dropped something, took something out of their waistband and dropped it to the floor. Some kind of plastic bottles that were later confirmed to contain marijuana. This was not Kilmar.

This was some of the other two. And then this officer calls for backup and arrests all four of them. They don't talk to Kilmar at all. They don't tell him why he's being arrested. But they take all four of them to the police station and begin to interview all four of them. And just at the outset, the only thing they interview him about is his gang affiliation. They begin to say, OK, tell us what gang you're a part of. You know, what's your rank in the gang? You know, what's your rank in the gang? You know, what's your name in the gang?

And he's just totally befuddled. You know, I don't know what you're talking about. I have absolutely no connection to a gang. In this case, they're talking about MS-13. They don't believe him. And the next thing he knows, a nice officer is there to pick him up and take him to ICE detention center. This whole interaction is quite brief. So from the, there's only one document that kind of documents this whole interaction. It's a gang-filled interview sheet, and it's the only single source of these supposed gang allegations. The gang-filled interview sheet,

it all says that the officer approached the group at 2.27 p.m., and the gang-filled interview sheet is entered into the system at 6.47 p.m. So that means, you know, from the time that they apprehend the group, they then, you know, call for backup, arrest everyone, transport, interview, everything, you know. And then, you know, write up the report, enter it into the system. It's about four hours and 20 minutes. And in that time, they have come to, you know, after that very thorough, thorough investigation, they've concluded that he's an MS-13 gang member. And in the gang field interview sheet,

it says that the basis for that is that because he was wearing, at the time, a Chicago Bulls hat, which they say is officers know such clothing to be indicative of Hispanic gangster. The Chicago wearing the Chicago Bulls hat represents that they are a member in good standing with the MS-13. And they also say that a hoodie that he was wearing, which his wife had bought him and ordered off the internet, is also indicative of this Hispanic gang culture,

and they know that it represents see no evil, hear no evil, and say no evil, which is sort of one of the slogans of MS-13. And the final piece is a past proven reliable source that they say they contact. Can you talk about that? This alleged confidential informant? Yeah. All they say is that they contacted a past proven reliable source of

information that said that he was a member of the Western's clique. They don't say any information. And that's all. They don't say any information. And that's all. It doesn't say who this person is, what they said, their reason to fabricate. For all we know, you know,

it could have been one of the people that, you know, was seen kind of throwing out some containers with marijuana because from what we saw, those people were never charged with any crime. Let me get you to respond a little bit to the vice president who has been very vocal on this case. So here he is sort of punching back, I guess, at Kyle Cheney, who's the legal affairs reporter at Politico. And he says he is apparently unable or unwilling to look at the facts here. In 2019, an immigration judge under the first Trump administration determined the deported man

was in fact a member of the MS-13 gang. He also apparently had multiple traffic violations for which he failed to appear in court, a real winner. It's telling that the entire American media is going to run a propaganda operation today, making you think an innocent father of three was apprehended by a gulag. Here are the relevant facts. Number one, the man is an illegal immigrant with no right to be in our country. Number two, an immigration judge determined he was a member of the MS-13 gang.

Number three, because he is not a citizen, he does not get a full jury trial by peers. In other words, whatever due process he was entitled to, he received. What is what's your response to the framing and the facts also that the vice president puts out? Yes, all three of those are incorrect. The judge in the case that was actually very heavily litigated, which was his final hearing where the judge granted him withholding. That was a case that actually took place over two days, which is heavily unusual in immigration court. Those cases

often last, you know, one to maybe three hours. This case lasted over two days. And you'll see that, I mean, the court decision granting him withholding is in the court documents. And I think two things are notable there. One, the gang allegations don't really even appear in there. So I think it's just a testament to how the little weight the judge even gave them because they were – he was questioned very, very, very, very heavily about this. And in advance of that, we did also file a subpoena asking for the officers to appear and also asking for the government to produce any evidence substantiating allegations. The government opposed that.

They said that they had spoken to law enforcement partners and they had nothing else to offer. So, again, the only single piece of evidence was this game field interview sheet that some guy, basically, no information about who that guy was, reason to fabricate, why he was credible. I mean, it's kind of known in general confidential informants are unreliable. And, you know, what he said also doesn't really make sense. They said he was a member of a clique in New York. But also number two is he... That's a pretty key point. Is it New York? Yes. This Western's clique, as far as I've seen... Spent much time in New York? No, he's never lived in New York. Yeah, he's only ever lived in Maryland.

Does MS-13 have remote work back in 2019? No. That's probably more of an in-office kind of. Yeah, they operate. It's a day-to-day. You have to be, yeah. Not very liberal on the work from home with MS-13. But also, number two, in that decision, you'll see that he finds him credible, meaning he believed him and what he said, not only about what happened to him in the past in El Salvador, which, you know, gave him the basis to grant him humanitarian relief in the form of withholding removal, but that he believed him when he just vehemently denied being a member of MS-13.

Can we talk about the decision in 2019, which I imagine you were involved with to claim asylum after many years in the country? Because some critics, and I don't know if the vice president posted about this, but would look at that and say immediately, huh, this seems like a sort of tactic to, you know, bolster the case. But I know that he claims and you've claimed there were there were credible reasons to fear 18th Street gang propulsive business. Could you take us through that decision a little bit? Yeah. So, I mean, the legal standards are, you know, if you've suffered past persecution in the past in your home country, then that gives you a presumption of future persecution in the future. And he had suffered past persecution.

He and his family had been through a lot by this gang in the past. His father, I think, had been attacked about 18 times, had been held up at gunpoint, car robbed. He himself, for many, many, many years, were really terrorizing him on two occasions. They showed up at the family's home fully armed, kind of, if you do not give us money right now, we are ready to take your son from you. Essentially kidnap him. And his brother had also been like beaten, you know, lost consciousness from many beatings. They'd threatened to rape his sisters. The family had gone through, they had moved three times to three different neighborhoods and the threats persisted um so that this wasn't sort of just a one time hey you want money if you know you know we'll hurt you if you don't

give us money this was like a sustained over basically his his you know since he was like an adolescent until he left El Salvador. Yeah. And the criticism, oh, no, the criticism I saw was that why didn't he apply in 2011 for this? Like,

why did he wait until he's picked up at the Home Depot? Yeah. I mean, I think that's, he could have, if he probably, if he knew he could have, he probably,

and had legal counsel, you know, I certainly would have told him if I had heard his story and he had access to legal counsel, I would have told him, you know, apply right now. And then he would have he would have had a very strong case and probably would have been granted asylum instead of withholding of removal. Lucia, to get back to, I think, the core piece here, which I think can sometimes get lost in these details, not that these details aren't also important, but everybody involved admits this was a mistake, right? The administration admitted in court they made what they describe as an administrative error. And now Kilmar is in this prison in El Salvador, indefinitely a prison that is known for human rights abuses. You know, the whole point of sending them there seems to have been to send a message about, you know, exactly what sort of punishment will befall you. So everybody acknowledges this was a mistake. You should

not have been removed to El Salvador, period. What happens now? What is the next? I understand there's a hearing at 1 p.m. today. What do you think will happen there? And what sort of remedies do you believe are available? Because I was reading that, you know, administrations in the past have taken extraordinary measures to try to return people who were deported unlawfully or a mistake was made, but they may not be under an obligation to do so. So what are sort of the legal contours of that fight coming up? Yeah, I mean, this is really is pretty unprecedented. Yes, as you stated, usually when in the past government does see that somebody was deported erroneously and they see that they do take steps to correct that um because uh you know when a government makes a mistake they should correct that um but here they're they're refusing to do so even though the

consequences here are much more drastic than him just like being deported to el salvador and being able to just live a free life he is now yeah as you said in a a torture prison where he is he you know he doesn't even know his name's all over the news right now. You know, he is. So you, you and his family have no ability. Nobody is able to even contact him. There's no access even to lawyers in there. They can't even receive letters there. They are cut off from the world. So he is alone in there and has absolutely no idea that, you know, he's making national news that people are fighting for him. And he, you know, I'm sure he's very scared and he might be there forever. And so we're fighting to get him out of there. It's true that, of course, the court here can't tell El Salvador what to do.

But what we're asking is pretty simple. We're asking for the court to just order the government to stop paying El Salvador to keep him there and to just simply request for him to be released from there. And there really is no reason to doubt that El Salvador, which is a huge ally of the United States, would not do what the United States asks. But they're unwilling to do that. What's his family situation?

He still lives in Hyattsville? Like kids, wife? Yeah, he has a U.s citizen wife um he has a uh one uh biological child um and that was actually uh he actually missed the birth of his son when while he was detained um and uh in 2019 in 2019 uh that child, you know, potentially because of the stress of on the life of a person, of her husband being detained and knowing what would happen to him. Son was born with autism. He's nonverbal. He can't communicate. He, I believe, is deaf in one ear and has severe developmental delays. And then he also has two stepchildren that he's their father. The biological father is not in the picture. One of the other kids also has special needs, and the other daughter has epilepsy and I believe has had an episode recently.

And, Lucy, my last question for you, if Emily or Ryan have any others, they can they can feel free to jump in as well. But let's say that the court tells the Trump administration you have to try to get him back and the Trump administration actually complies and goes to Buckele. He says, hey, we screwed up on this one. We want this guy back. And he's brought back. What do you expect happens then? Because my understanding of his legal status is he could be deported somewhere else, just specifically not El Salvador. So if things work out and he is able to be brought back to the country, what do you think is the best case scenario for him then going forward? Yeah, it is possible for him to be deported somewhere else. There are procedures to follow, though, to do that.

It's also possible, you know, if they want, they might want to reopen his proceedings, which is what they would have had to do, have done if they did want to. 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 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. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month, and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices,

and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now? Yeah yeah because i bring him on tour with me and he's getting older now too so his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is and they're starting to be like yo your dad's like really the goat like he's a legend so he gets it what does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family it means a lot to me just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good. Like, that's what's really important,

and that's what stands out, is that our music changes people's lives for the better. So the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy, or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Deport him to El Salvador. In order to do that, right, they can do a motion to reopen and to prove that, you know, either that he no longer meets the requirements for withholding. And in that case, if that happens, a new defense deportation can be presented

or they could decide to do nothing and just let him live with the status that he has. He has a legal status here. Since he was granted withholding of removal in 2019, he has been in the United States legally. Gotcha. Well, thank you so much for helping to break down all of these details because I think it really helps people to understand the ins and outs of the system and also the horror of what has happened here with Kilmar and with his family. Lucia, thank you so much for your time. Thank you very much. Yeah, it's our pleasure. Pretty extraordinary getting to speak with Kilmar's lawyer and get all the details there. You guys have any reflections before we move on to some sort of political news here?

It's one of those interviews that we do sometimes and we both like from both sides we've all had this experience on our show it's what makes our show cool but for me it's sort of like i have such a fundamental disagreement with the entire process that i was like really eager to hear her walk through the steps and how this happened especially the 2019 thing but um you know she it's it's her job. She's doing her job. I thought it was pretty interesting. And yeah, it's just appalling that he's in a torture chamber.

For what? If you want to go through the court system and you want to deport him, whether to El Salvador, I mean, she says you can reopen the case and say, hey, this particular gang that Kelly dealt with him, he could go back. The Pupusa business would be fine. You can do that.

But you cannot just send him with no due process to a specifically to a country where a judge has said you cannot send him. And then for all of these people, why are they being put in this torture chamber? No, I agree with that. like the malnutrition like the treatment in that prison for a guy who since he's 16 years old is probably you know works harder every day than I do

in like weeks and for that and raising his step kids and his kid who's got special needs, to do that for your full life, and then the reward is to get sent to a dungeon where you're tortured and malnourished?

For what? It's evil. It's evil. It is evil. And especially since the administration's position is like, yeah, we fucked up. No, we're not going to do anything about it. He just has to rot. Like, we're not even going to ask McKellie when you just had Christie, you know, I'm down there like, you know, you can get into the prison we screwed up with this one. We need to get this one back. But the thing is, it reminds me, I knew what I mean, he had been indicating from the beginning, like his priority was really not getting the

hostages back in spite of what he was saying. But it's the same thing here. You know, it's one thing to know about this man, theoretically read an article about him, know he's a father, etc. It's another thing if he can actually tell you like, this is what happened. This is what I went through. This is what that place is actually right. they don't want him on 60 minutes yeah yeah that's true that's exactly right i mean that yeah i was just go ahead emily no it's all good okay um i was gonna get back into the whole asylum process thing we don't need to go there i'm sure we will on another day so um we'll just put a pin in that for now. Wanted to get in some political news here because this was pretty extraordinary indication of how much the Democratic base has shifted in Trump 2.0. So Data for Progress, admittedly, a progressive polling firm, but they put a hypothetical matchup between AOC and Chuck Schumer for Senate in the field. And what they got back,

pretty astonishing here. AOC winning handily, 55% to 36% for Schumer. And Ryan, I mean, I'm really excited to get your thoughts on this because it truly is a shift for the Democratic base. You know, it's this idea of AOC challenging Schumer in particular, or I guess potentially Kirsten Gillibrand, that has been around for a while. But I think even people like you and I were probably like, I don't know if she could actually win. Statewide, New York, like it's a different deal. And she has had more of this like niche progressive appeal. Her district makes sense, obviously, but can she

actually win statewide, let alone, you know, national ambitions? And because of the incredible contrast between the way she has taken the fight to the Trump administration versus how Schumer has been the emblem of laying down and playing dead, the Democratic base feeling very differently about this matchup going forward. And for the same reason that some on the left have gotten upset with her for being more of a Democratic team player, normie Democrats have warmed up to her because she is more of a team player with the Democratic Party. And that book right there, at the end of it, it finishes, spoiler, with a poll in New Hampshire, where I think the Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire had the highest favorability rating for her. Bernie actually might have been number one

or something, or maybe she was even ahead of bernie and you can i think bernie usually comes in number one in these things but in particularly among new hampshire um primary voters so the the question was could she you know beat schumer with upstate new york um you know it's a combination of suburban and rural democrats and i think right now schumer's at his i, maybe he has further low to go, but like he's at a low after, you know, just his complete capitulation. So a lot of the lead you're seeing there is probably more anti-Schumer than necessarily pro-AOC. But it shows that there's a majority of Democrats in New York are willing to say, yeah, yeah, AOC, fine. Let's give that a shot. And Emily, I think it's not just, first of all, I don't think it is just anti-Shoe. AOC is such a big name. She comes with a whole, people have a feeling about her. And I also don't think it's just that she decided

tactically to take this approach of I'm not going to be the outsider bomb thrower. I'm going to play the inside game. But it's it's it's not only that that has made Normie Democrats more comfortable with her. It's also the fact that Normie Democrats are becoming more comfortable with a bomb thrower and they want I mean, what they're disgusted with the Democratic leadership over is you aren't being aggressive enough. So AOC has been critical of, you know, Schumer and others, for example. And that's exactly actually what they want to see at this point. And that's what is really a very different dynamic with your average normie Democrat versus certainly back in 2017.

Yes. And the reason this is so dangerous for Chuck Schumer, and this is why he knows it, this is why the Democratic establishment has tried to co-opt people like AOC and squash any sort of hint of dissent from leadership, is that so many voters make a lesser of two evils calculation, especially in primaries. And so if they start to see Chuck Schumer as the greater of the two evils, maybe they're not culture warriors and you can drag up things AOC may have said about the police or ICE or something like that back in 2020. And I think those things will genuinely be harmful to her odds in a place like upstate if she decides to run. But if they look at Chuck Schumer and say, this guy is just a simp, he's not doing anything,

sometimes people will side with the culture warriors over the people like Chuck Schumer, especially if AOC sounds more like the version of her who unseated. What's his name? Joe Crowley. Yeah. In the first place. I love that his name has just fallen away from our consciousness. But Ryan and I haven't forgotten. Can't forget him. But but it is really like this is what happened with the Tea Party. We talk about this every week now, but the similarities are absolutely true. It's what happened with Donald Trump. Most Republican primary voters did not choose Donald Trump.

And that's why there was some conversation about whether he would actually win the Republican primary in 2024. But they continued to see Trump as a lesser of two evils against the establishment, even though people get exhausted with all of the posting and they don't like the way that he talks. They don't necessarily love his history with women. It just gets down to a lesser of two evils calculation. And Chuck Schumer is flirting dangerously with being put in the greater of two evils camp. And that's really what could end up undoing him. And he's not up for another four years. So to Ryan's point, like this could be his low and he's able to get it back together. But Ryan, I mean, what do you,

how are you feeling about the AOC, like potential national prospects? Because I was pretty skeptical. I'm still somewhat skeptical because I think Emily's, I mean, she did do a lot of the, you know, the Latinx and birthing person. Like she did do too much of that

kind of academic language that doesn't land with normal people. But her messaging lately has been fantastic. You know, she's been on the Stop Oligarchy tour with Bernie. She's been on the like bread and butter, like class war messaging that I personally think is, you know, the most political, politically both correct and also politically effective. And also she has won over a lot of the Democratic base. I think she's you know, she's grown in a lot of ways. So I am more open to her as an effective national candidate than I was previously. Where are you on that question? I think she's in the ballgame for sure. Yeah. The virtue that Bernie had is that even people who didn't agree with him would say, you know, he believes what he says.

He's been saying the same thing, you know, for 50 years. And you can find clips of him saying it 50 years ago. Yeah. Like verbatim. And so AOC will have the difficulty of like, hey, why aren't you saying Latinx anymore? Like what happened to your pronouns? Oh, and Chuck Schumer will go there. Or she'll stick with any of her opponents or the media will.

Or she'll stick with Latinx and stick with pronouns. And, you know, so anytime she, you know, you know, tries to move beyond that era, she's going to get pulled back by it. And, and we'll, I think we'll feel like she's being asked to throw some constituency under the bus and isn't going to want to do that. Right. But then are you going to get wrapped up in the axle of some you know silly policy um as a result of that and so that so she she still has the kind of thorns of she's kind of she's kind of tangled up in it and it's going to be difficult i think to just to untangle i think it would honestly i don't i don't know but i mean i think it's honestly better to just own it and lean into it than to be like who me latinx i mean especially when you're aoc

i mean or kamala harris right yeah you know just find a way of messaging it a little bit more a little bit better she's a great messenger she could maybe find a way yeah give up on latinx i mean maybe that's the maybe that's your sister soldier because nobody nobody will actually care about that yeah i mean you could you could see her saying like i find it interesting that you care more about a particular word that i use than the fact that the working class is getting screwed by donald trump and the billionaire you know like you can yes right yeah you can throw it back there were some communities that there were some communities telling me that they wanted that term. They don't want it anymore. Fine. Fine. Yeah, totally. Related to this, Ryan, you actually this was not

actually particularly on my radar, but these protests that are coming up this weekend appear to be quite large. Saturday nationwide hands off anti-Trump protests. You see the map here. Yeah, it's pretty extraordinarily broad movement. You see the map here. It's pretty extraordinarily broad movement. You said you knew you knew someone who was going to the one of the villages. Yeah, my dad. My dad is on the villages right now. He says he's a Pennsylvania snowbird. He goes down to the villages in the winter. So he's on the villages. It has more than 1100 rallies. They've had nearly 250,000 RSVPs. That was as of March 29th, so I'm sure they have even more by now.

So what's the particular messaging here? Is it just kind of everything, or is there a particular focus? Yeah, it's like anti-Doge, Doge, anti-doggy, hands-off Social Security, off medicare and medicaid um stop destroying the government uh make things better not worse um so it's kind of a broad resistance to what musk and trump are doing kind of rally but yeah you're i think you'll you're gonna see i think uh you know huge numbers of people i think are going, are going to turn out for this. There are buses coming to Washington, D.C. So, you know, it could be sizable here.

But even for, you know, wherever you are watching this, there's probably a hands-off rally, you know, fairly close. I asked my dad, I was like, is it a Tesla dealership? He said, no, it's a parking lot, which is, which sounds very, sounds very villages. But yeah, if the villages is able to bring out, you know, hundreds or even thousands of people, which is, this is famously a Republican leaning, you know, retirement community in Florida. I think part of the villages, it was in one of these Florida districts that was up last week, right? Yeah. There were Randy Fine, which, which my dad was saying, no,

like nobody down there likes the guy, including all the Republicans. DeSantis was just ripping him. I saw that. Yesterday. He's a pretty, it seems like a pretty despicable dude. And I kind of an arrogant guy who was like angered a lot of people with with a real haughty attitude on whatever commission he was elected to serve before this. But, you know, when Republicans win those races by 30, 40 points, it's going to be hard to lose. And, yeah, he ended up losing to a middle school teacher, Josh Wheel, by like 10 points or something like that.

I mean, being a middle school teacher. DeSantis said something like, you know, they wanted me to put this guy on the Florida Atlantic board. I tried to get rid of him and they didn't want him. It was pretty... Yeah, and nobody liked this guy.

Ron DeSantis is... You know what Ron DeSantis is like? This guy is unlikable. Yeah, I don't say that in a partisan way. Like people just do not like this. No. Yeah. Well, for good reason. When you see the horrific, like monstrous things, we got to we got to up our game. Right. That's what Cory Booker holding the floor that represents them realizing, like, OK, we're not meeting, but we got to do something right.

And or else there is going to be a Tea Party with, you know, pitchforks coming for us. And you also had these election results that democrats are taking a lot of heart in obviously you were in wisconsin um the liberal there wins by double digits they made huge you know 50 15 and 20 point made up ground in those two florida seats so there's a little bit of mojo re-entering the democratic. And then these protests come in and it's another, you know, visible demonstration of, okay, we, the base of the Democratic Party is fired up. Like they are ready to, you know, they are ready to go to war. They are ready to go in whatever direction they think makes sense in order to protest what is being done in this country. So, you know,

I think, like, I don't think anyone necessarily expects that it's going to change how the Trump administration is approaching Social Security, Medicare or whatever. But I do think it will probably strengthen the backbone a little bit of the Democratic Party who will see this show of strength. I mean, it might change how Republicans approach Social Security and Medicare because it's a confirmation of Trump's longtime political instincts. And that's why you saw Josh Hawley going to the White House yesterday saying, I talked to Trump. He says nobody is going to touch Social Security and Medicaid and trying to signal.

They are touching it. It's being touched right now. There's that video of Bill Cassidy this week on Newsmax. Did you see this, Crystal, of him accidentally saying cut Medicaid and then realized he meant to say reform and correcting it to the video of Bill Cassidy this week on Newsmax. Did you see this, Crystal, of him like accidentally saying cut Medicaid and then realize he meant to say reform and correcting it to the camera and giving a big old grin? Yeah. And like it may turn into one of those situations where Trump ends up saying like, you guys got to stop. We don't know, though, and that's probably not good enough assurance if you're just an average American who relies on those programs, which is why I think this is a study in contrast

with the resistance that bubbled up in 2017. And Ryan wrote a whole book about this, but I think we've seen this over the first, what, almost 100 days, 75 days, I think as of tomorrow, of the Trump administration. This looks, this is a much better Democratic resistance than the one of 2017. Because I increasingly think the one that came to be in 2017 morphed into something that ended up greatly backfiring on Democrats, because it wasn't based on class criticism. And this one, so far, is much more focused on that, which is pretty interesting for the Democratic Party. And there's just like a recognition that this isn't, don't talk about grab them by the pussy, like talk about actual nuts and bolts, kitchen table issues that

will break through with your regular voter every day. So not hands off my pussy, hands off my Social Security. It's like it's such an obvious. You would think it's been clarifying, I think, for the Democratic base to have this multibillionaire richest man on the planet literally wielding a chainsaw on stage, hopped up on ketamine, um, going, going after the, you know, going after the federal government and cutting, you know, um, and then, and then now they're watching all their 401ks, you know, collapse into, into some puddle. And that, you know, that, that's a lot worse for, uh, somebody in their seventies than it is for people in their ths or 40s.

Dow is down 1,200 points right now today, by the way. Another 1,200 on top of yesterday's 16. Yeah, that's like, those are real numbers. Starts to be real. Yeah. For sure. Okay, last thing here. Got to get Emily in particular, but both of you to weigh in on our friend Laura Loomer.

No, literally, Ryan. Ryan is actually in touch with Laura Loomer. I'm more curious about Ryan. She gave us a comment yesterday. I'll pull it up. Oh, did she? Yeah. So she she so this again, like while the while the global economy is in freefall and like, you know, from Trump's tariffs, he's not he's meeting with Laura Loomer at the White House before going to play golf. Right. This is his this is on his agenda. So anyway, after she visits, he fired what?

Three people from the National Security Council. The way Axios frames it, the firings come a day after conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer visited the Oval Office Press Trump to fire specific NSC staffers. Axios does not confirm whether the firings were directly linked to that incident, but the source familiar said they were being labeled as an anti-Neocon move. So Emily, what do we know about these people and their alleged sins? And of course, I mean, this comes as the whole Signalgate thing happened and no one was fired out of that, including Mike Waltz, who is definitely a neocon, as anyone can see for themselves within the Signal chats,

as were pretty much everybody else in that chat, by the way. So he's not fired, but these three people appear to have been loomered here in the wake of this of this meeting? Like, what do we know about these people? What do you think, Laura Loomer? What is her issue with them, etc? Well, Loomer is basically doing the Charlie Kelly chalkboard, Pepe Silva thing from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the meme. And I don't mean that in a bad way, actually, because some of these people's careers, you actually really have to start piecing together a puzzle in order to get the big picture of like, OK.

And Mike Walz is one of them. They may be talking like, quote unquote, America first patriots right now and staunch supporters of the Trump movement, which is moving towards China and moving away from the same neoconservative position on Ukraine and Russia. But Loomer is basically showing that some of these allies of Mike Waltz are sort of like him. He's someone who was an advisor to Dick Cheney, founded a defense contracting group that had big business in Afghanistan. And she was just kind of connecting the dots and showing these folks had similar career backgrounds that went through the national security ringer. And they're, according to Loomer, bringing all of that baggage with them and wrapping it in the America First packaging. So she's completely right, by the way. I mean, like there's been some ideological there's been some sincere ideological shifts among people in the Trump orbit who have reconsidered their own priors. And some of that is genuine. But if you look at Mike Waltz, I don't think it's really the case with him. And that's what she's saying is, look at these guys he brought with him.

You know, Ryan, you you what did she tell Dropsite yesterday? Oh, she's had a very statesmanlike respect for the White House and President Trump. I'm not going to divulge any details, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Which is so we reported over Dropside that inside the administration, Waltz's NSC is is just colloquially referred to as the neocon security council. It's just it's very much known as the kind of leading edge of the of the Warhawk element. went in and got Doug fights, Nepo hired, you know, Doug fights, one of the leading neocons of the Bush era and his kid, David apparently was. And it, it seemed,

it seems like Trump learned about this and moved on it. Now he sort of denied it. Like, do we, do we have the Trump clip talking on air force one on air force one? It's, it's, it's's it's quite funny to watch because he's like look laura loomer gotta see it let me i'll see if i can find but

he's like look laura laura loomer very strong and what's what's amazing uh is that she did this with michael waltz sitting there in the oval office oh. Oh, really? Oh, he was there? He was there. And the vice president, apparently, too. Loomer's got some balls, man. I will give her that. She has balls. And she's just sitting there. Oh, here it is.

She's dropping. Here, let me play this. She's just dropping all of this research, getting these clowns fired right in front, their bosses. It's like, you gotta, you gotta admire that here. Let me, let's play some Trump here. Tell us a little bit about your meeting with Laura Loomer and Mike Waltz today and how that came about. So Laura Loomer is a very good patron. She is a very strong person. And I saw her yesterday. She makes recommendations of things and people.

And sometimes I listen to those recommendations like I do with everybody. I listen to everybody and then I make a decision. But I saw her yesterday. She was at the ceremony. And she'll always have something to say, usually very constructive. She'll always have something to say, usually very constructive. Well, she'll recommend that too. Yesterday she recommended some people for jobs. Did she have anything to do with the NSC aides were ousted no no not at all no no not at

all not at all always have something to say usually very constructive very strong good patriot that's so good so good so yeah she sat there and ripped these people off of air force one and then that happened on the campaign laura was like on the plane a lot and was sort of in the inner circle and then Susie Wiles came in and asked her for help. They blamed her for him doing

that embarrassing thing. They're eating the pets. They're eating the cats. They're eating the dogs. Oh. They kicked her off for that. Well, turned out not to matter.

So, and to what we just watched from Trump, him claiming that it wasn't Loomer. Loomer just retweeted herself from 13 hours ago saying, you know how you know the NSC officials I reported to President Trump are disloyal people who have played a role in sabotaging Donald Trump? Because the fired officials are being defended by Jen Psaki and Andrew McCabe on MSNBC and CNN right now. So, I mean, I think it's fair to take all of the way that she's talking about it. And what happened is pretty clear evidence that this was directly connected to what Laura Loomer did in the White House.

Making much of an effort to deny that. Yeah. That was one of his more casual. No, she didn't have anything to do with that. Of course not. Yeah. He said, oh, she recommended some people for jobs. Yeah.

For those jobs after she told you to fire those people. I mean, she also absolutely bodied Dana Bash. I mean, this is nobody. I feel like it just never gets enough attention that Dana Bash's ex-husband, they're married well. She covered the Obama administration. you guys remember this better than i do um but it jeremy bass chief of staff to the cia yeah this is very close with leon panetta um and i think what loomer was pointing out i didn't verify this so i'm it's probably true sounds true but it didn't verify this but that one of waltz's nsc guys um worked for jeremy bash who obviously has been you know deep state circles interesting very long gotcha yeah laura loomer she's never wrong so no need to yeah there's a i i think you know i i trust her uh her fact checking um new york you know new yorker level fact checking um i guess the last thing I'll say about this

is, you know, Waltz seemed to have been protected by the fact that Trump hates Jeffrey Goldberg and didn't want to be seen as giving Jeffrey Goldberg a scalp. So instead, Loomer comes in and is like, alright, well

I guess we're not going to take out that guy. But all of these underlings, they're vulnerable, so we're going going to take out that guy. But all of these underlings, they're vulnerable. So we're going to come in with a knife with them. So that seems to be kind of what played out here. It's completely insane. I mean, he's Donald Trump. I have no idea why he's not pushing the issue with Mike Waltz, because there are this is the point that we were talking about the internal reporting about from Dropsite about people just calling it the neoconservative Security Council. It's there's like a lot of internal irritation with Mike Waltz.

He's he's not the most popular person in Trump circles and he never has been. Even outside of like ideology. Well, I think it's both that people see it both in the same way that he's someone who's wants to he thinks he can steer trump in the right he's the kind of guy that would have jeffrey goldberg in his phone exactly exactly and then go on laura ingram um when you know he doesn't really have much of a defense to mount and say i got sucked in you like it's not a but that's why i don't understand i mean he hasn't offered to, which would have probably been the patriotic thing to do to borrow a phrase from Trump himself in reference to Laura Loomer. But maybe it's I mean, I don't know. He's got a word with a star at Emily. But from the perspective of the internal fight between the neocons and the America firsters, Mike Waltz staying on, but being completely denuded and like stripped of power and like losing his staff is probably better for the America first isolationist crew than having him replaced by another neocon.

Who are they? They weren't in that signal chat. Well, J.D. Vance, whether or not Hegseth lives upider magazine, you're trying to stop them like, yeah, those those types. What's his name? Bridge. Bridge Colby. Yeah, Bridge Colby, like that his whole faction, like faction like you know they're they probably benefit from Waltz having sticking around but having less power but yeah but then are they just going to fill the vacuum

themselves and get all war happy yeah fall in line when Stephen Miller's like nope big guy wants to bomb so that's what we're doing I mean I guess I would rather like my defense is I would rather have those guys in the room than have a room full of mike waltz and john bolton uh yeah yeah no doubt um all right

guys uh anything else ryan i know you had a story you were following in gaza yeah we're at drop site we're working on a piece about the um the medic massacre which is kind of broken through um it's it's not out yet so i'll you know we can talk about that later but it's like yeah look for that people have been following that probably pretty closely it's um utterly utterly incredible utterly unbelievable yeah well it just march 23rd shows too i mean if this happened at the early stages of the the onslaught in gaza there would have been huge press attention. There would have been an effort, a mass propaganda campaign coming from the Israelis. Oh, they're all Hamas.

Yeah, slideshows. And here's a, you know, fabricated document that shows. The audio shows that the Medicare. You remember the fake phone call? Fake audio. Yeah, the fake audio that was released. There would have been a whole effort. Now they don't feel like they don't even have to really do it.

Yeah. I mean, not to say that they didn't claim they were Hamas or whatever, but there was much less effort required at this point. Yep. Yep. All right, guys. Well, thank you as always. And thanks to all of you watching out there. By the way, guys, you know, we're able to do these extra Friday shows with your support.

So if you're able to become a premium subscriber, we do really appreciate it. It helps us to be able to, you know, continue because we've really been trying to be as on top of the news as possible, given just how much things are breaking, like all the time, every hour. By now, when I go and check Twitter, there'll be like five more stories that we should have covered just right now. That'll be ready to go over my day. Your quote unquote vacation seemed very relaxing, like a great respite from. I wasn't spending hours every day doom scrolling. Don't worry. Yeah, I totally wasn't doing that.

Doesn't sound like you. But, you know, seriously, though, I don't feel like I could. I had to get my daughter to a thing. Okay, bye Ryan. I don't feel like I could step I got to get my daughter. Okay, bye Ryan. I don't feel like I could step away from the news for a week. Like, I feel like I would be lost when I came back. I feel like I would be completely lost. So I will say I'm glad it was that week and not Liberation Week,

because then I just would not have taken a vacation at all, honestly, because it's just too wild. But in any case, yeah, those are the times we live in. So we appreciate you guys' support if you're able to. And now we have these Friday shows to work through some of the stuff that happens throughout the week. Yep. Indeed. Indeed.

All right. Thanks, Emily. Have a great weekend, guys. We'll see you soon. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband.

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