Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 6/26/26: Trump Dirt REVEALED: Iran, Zohran, Pardons, Deportations, Ro Calls Out Elon Lawsuit

Episode Date: June 26, 2026

This Friday we sit down with authors Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan to discuss their new book REGIME CHANGE, which reveals the internal decision-making of Trump's second term. Then we talk to Congressman Ro Khanna about the brewing Democratic civil war following Zohran's DSA slate victory in NYC, and Ro's recent clash with Elon Musk over DOGE cuts to USAID — including Musk's threats to sue him. Regime Change Book: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Regime-Change/Maggie-Haberman/9781668067246   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Joy is essential and it's also elusive. But now, there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence. Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, Hoda Kot Me. If you're craving inspiration to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on-air chats. Listen to Joy 101 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

Joy 101 with Hoda Kotbe is presented by CVS. I'm Munges Chatekular and I'm back with a new season of my podcast, Skyline Drive. This time I talk to scientists, biopunks, curmudgens, blues owners, super seniors, and Goa's top cryotherapy lab to try to understand this obsession with living forever and what it means for all of us. And I get into a bit of trouble along the way. I'd say probably start bone smashing. That doesn't work.

Make it look more defined. They say it works. I don't know. Listen to Skyline Drive, How to Live Forever, on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is Michael Rappaport, and my podcast, the I Am Rappaport Stereo Podcast, is unlike anyone you've ever heard. If you're looking for strong opinions about sports, entertainment, politics, pop culture, and whatever else catches my attention, then subscribe now. This kid, Jafar Jackson, should absolutely positively get nominated for his portrayal as Michael Jackson. Listen to I Am Rap Report on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

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

It is Friday, June 26th here at Breaking Points. We have an amazing show for you this morning. Don't we, Crystal? Indeed, we do. I don't really get to do that on Friday. It is a little bit of an unusual show, though. We've got two major interviews, I would say. We've got Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan coming on to talk about their new Blockbuster book,

which is like the look inside the Trump administration. You've probably seen a bunch of their reporting already about the Iran War, about the Epstein files, about the way that these debates have played out. So very excited to speak with the two of them, kind of like fancy yes for our show. So it was exciting to get them on. And then we've got a longtime front of the show,

Rokana coming on to talk about his big fight with Elon Musk, which I think is actually really important and significant because you've got the richest man on the planet, threatening Rokana for having the audacity to cite publicly available studies about the impact of what Elon Musk's cuts at USAID have meant to real human beings in the world. So you've got the specter of the richest man on the planet contributing to the death of many people. And Elon doesn't apparently like that being pointed out, which I think is interesting in and of itself. And then also, of course, we want to talk to Roe about the events of the week, which I think have been as politically consequential as you can possibly imagine. So should be an interesting one.

Yeah. And on Maggie and Jonathan, you know, they, I don't think they get enough credit for the quality of journalism that they produce because they're often surrounded by people in their immediate field that are total hacks. Like, because what they do is they do that kind of general where you have extraordinarily good access at very high levels. And people like Barack Ravid have just given a very, very bad kind of reputation. to that kind of reporting because he just becomes a conveyor belt for whatever somebody is saying and it becomes news because the person who's saying it is a newsmaker, even though they are lying and have been lying and are constantly lying and you end up misleading the world. But if you notice, they don't really do that. They have that type of access, but they write in a much more contextualized

way in a way that allows people to actually learn things about the world. And that's, Yeah, they're not going to just put out. You should do with that access. I mean, the Baroquee approach is just basically like to funnel a press release into your, you know, into your copy. Like you're getting whatever the regime line is and you're just printing it unquestioningly. And then it's up to the rest of us to sort of sort through. I mean, it's still interesting to know what their line is, but there's none of that scrutiny on what it means. And, you know, I know Jonathan in particular has done one of the toughest interviews with Trump that I've ever seen,

one of the best, you know, Trump is difficult to interview on TV. And Jonathan did not pull any punches. So it's not like they've been shrinking violets either here. So that'll be a really interesting role. It'll be really interesting. We'll do the AMA at the end. And, you know, guys, we really appreciate your support. Thank you for hanging with us through the transition.

I think it's gone pretty smoothly. Everybody seems pretty happy with us back on Supercast. And, of course, if you want to continue to support us and get access to all the things, breakingpoints.com. That's right. Well, now a little bit of regime change. Happy Pride Months, Toronto. Pride is an opportunity for you to create your own space, to celebrate your existence.

IHeart Radio is proud to be an official sponsor of Pride Toronto Festival, and we won't stop. Celebrate Pride. Turn up the love and listen to IHeart Pride Canada. Your 24-7 radio stream and the only playlist you need for your Toronto Pride celebrations. Pride is so great because it gives a whole bunch of people this visibility that they've now. We have a ton to celebrate Toronto. Happy Pride. Iheart Radio. Hey, I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotbby. Okay, if you know me, you know this. I'm always searching for inspiration, for support, and useful tools to help maximize joy.

So this podcast lets us uncover all of that together. We're going to have these meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people, like when actress Olivia, Mund shared how she overcame fierce health challenges that she never saw coming. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer, and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartner depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Olympic champ Sean Johnson revealed why she had no choice but to be a gymnast.

There was something about gymnastics that was intoxicating to me. It's given me a belief that we all have one of those treasures inside of us. We just have to find it. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My first guest is Paris Houghton, Shakira, Luke and Yerrin, Samira and Gracie. I'm so excited. On the bouncy bed. You have surprises?

Many surprises. Welcome to Sweet 305, where the group chat comes to life. What a fuck. It's like a way to say, like, hello, amiga, hello, my God. What a... What out? Look, I never have ever been with my kids.

My kids, and my kids, do you know. I'm... Ooh. Oh, That's incredible. Yeah, the telenovela.

You're the only person I know that loves a Yellow Starburst. It's lemonade. And no, you say, me would like to collaborate with this person. This is Sweet 305.

Listen to Sweet 305 with Lele Pons as part of my Cultura Podcast Network on the IHart Radio app. Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Well, guys, we are very fortunate to be joined this morning by the two foremost journalist and chroniclers of the Trump presidency, both 1.0 and 2.0. Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, who are out with a new book that you must pick up and read because it has so many extraordinary anecdotes from inside the rooms where all the things are happening.

regime change inside the imperial presidency of Donald Trump. Welcome, guys. Great to have you. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Yeah, of course. Of course. So Maggie, let me start with you and with kind of a general question to dive into some of the specifics of the book. We've seen Trump make some what I would consider sort of inexplicable decisions over the course of Trump 2.0 in particular just this week. He like blew up his own affordable housing bill, holding it hostage to some other election priorities. What do you think are the top priorities and top influencers of the way that he has operated?

in this administration? It's a good question, and the housing bill is actually a great example of so much of what we write about in this book, which is Trump operating on pure gut. And he is having his influence, the people around him who influence his thinking, it's like a half a dozen people in the room of this government and this White House who are making the decisions every day. And if you are in this government and you're not in that room, you often have no idea what's going on.

and that includes top officials at the State Department, Justice Department, CIA, and so forth. He is not especially interested in domestic politics this term. I mean, this term is in so many ways not recognizable to the first one. It's not a binary. It doesn't mean that he's never going to pay attention. But certainly, if he had been seeing the poll numbers that he has now, that he does actually have by all external metrics and some from his own internal pollsters,

if he had been seeing the complaints about affordability from his own base, if he had been seeing how vocally angry members of his own base were about the Warren Iran, he would have been more responsive in term one. Now he is really doing the things that he wants to do because he is very, very concerned with and focused on leaving his,

indelible imprint on Washington and on the world. And he, we write about this. You can't argue that he has been an unbelievably consequential figure. He's certainly the most consequential president of my lifetime. I'm in my 50s, but he, you know, I think he will be the most consequential figure for the next few years going forward. And so on something like the housing bill, just to bring it back to your question, he wasn't interested in this housing bill. This was a bipartisan housing bill that Republicans wanted. that Democrats wanted. That's not his personal priority. And he doesn't really care that it is going to hurt the Republican Party because he is not

on the ballot this fall. But Jonathan may have another thought on this. No, I co-sign, Maggie. I co-sign what you just said. Don't do that when I'm drinking. Thank you. Jonathan, just a really quick follow up, though, on that. You know, I've been trying to discern whether or not he cares about the midterms.

Because, I mean, he'll say things like, I don't think at all about Americans' financial conditions. You know, he'll say, I love the inflation. Things that anyone with like a, you know, basic understanding of politics, let alone someone who's savvy enough to wind up in the presidency twice now, would know we're completely politically toxic, not to mention the tariffs being politically toxic, the Iran war being politically toxic, all of these sorts of things. And I look at that and I'm like, he just doesn't care that there's midterms at all. But then to go back to the housing example, at the same time, what is he pushing here? He's pushing this, you know, what I would call an election rigging bill to tilt the playing field in favor of Republicans, which indicates that maybe he does care what happens in the midterms in the midterms? So how does he, is he seeing the polls? Is he aware of how he's viewed? Does he care if there is a sort of electoral reckoning that happens, you know, in the midterms and moving forward? it's not it's not black and white right it's it's kind of nuanced um he his a as we report in the book

his aides wished he cared more about the midterms uh they yeah really care about the midterms it's not that he doesn't want to hold the house of course he wants to hold the house you know all things can you know he doesn't want to be impeached again and realizes that he will be but he's also not that worried about these things happening he that the supreme court gave him sweeping immunity it gave all president's swimming immunity in their 2024 to decision. We have reporting in our book he's told people he's going to pardon anyone who comes within 250 feet of the Oval Office. Sometimes he says 200 feet. Sometimes he says 25 feet. But some radius around the Oval Office is a pardon zone. And so what's he really got to fear? Not very much.

And his family's making more money than they've ever made ever by orders of magnitude. So he's in that position. Maggie's right. The information ecosystem around Trump is much more sealed off than it was. In term one, he would scroll Twitter, and he would be exposed organically to a lot more just opinions and whatever. This time around, and by the way, in term one, of course, you know,

it's become this tiresome cliche, but it also happens to be true. He was surrounded by a bunch of AIDS, who, and we know, because we talked to them, held him in contempt, viewed him as dangerous and detestable, and in many cases, pushed back very aggressively on all kinds of,

of issues with him. He doesn't have that anymore. He has aid to like him, believe in him, want to implement essentially whatever he says. And so you don't get a lot of friction there. And then, of course, when he goes to Mar-a-Lago, he's surrounded by flatterers saying, great job, you're crushing the Ayatollah, keep at it, you know, rah, rah, rah. He doesn't travel, really. First time he would do quite a bit of domestic travel. He's really quite housebound. So again, all presidents live in a bubble. This just happens to be a smaller, tighter bubble, although at the end, I guess Biden was in a very small type bubble too.

But it's very small and it's very tight. So, pardon me, he does care to some extent, just not as much as his aides would like. To pick up on the point that Maggie was making about the kind of indelible legacy that he wants to leave behind, I noticed in his very long press conference recently around the Iran MOU, he twice brought up the idea of him becoming Herbert Hoover as driving, you know, why he didn't for the more prosecution of the war and why he wanted to end,

why he wanted to end the war. So it seemed like he was shifting from kind of the positive things that he wanted to leave on the world. Like he's getting rid of the Iranian revolution. He's overthrowing the government of Venezuela. to like the other guardrail, which is I don't want to be Carter, I don't want to be a maneuver.

So with that in mind, what else is left for him? I mean, Cuba seems like something that he clearly has his eye on. That's a kind of thing. He can say, I'm the guy that ended the Cuban Revolution. What else?

The world is a fairly small place, and there are not as many spots where he may want to kind of leave his mark than you might otherwise think. Like if you're him and you now have two and a half years, God help us of time left. Like where do you think he's going to look, especially if he doesn't care about domestic policy here in the U.S.? A couple things, Ryan. It's interesting that you pointed out the Herbert Hoover moment.

I was fascinated by that. And he did that at that G7 press conference where he just talked and talked and talked for quite some time. That used to be something he would say in term one. And he would say it during the campaign a lot. you know, he would use 1929 hat tip to Andrew Ross Sorkin as like, you know, an epithet. It was it was something that, you know, you don't want to see a crash, you don't want to see a bubble burst on the economy. And he was very mindful of that. And then he really stopped talking about it last year in our reporting.

That was not coming up over and over again. In fact, and we, again, have very vivid scenes about this. The lead up to Liberation Day, which was his, you know, glorious. for a global trade war, which was something he wanted to try for decades. He didn't have an economic theory of the case around tariffs. He saw tariffs as a blunt instrument and a tool of power. And he had wanted to do this sweeping tariff implementation program. In term one, AIDS kept it pretty tailored. It turns out with a reason, you know, they used this formula that was sort of incoherent and indescribable. And Trump is asking AIDS. We have this vivid scene

where he doesn't believe the numbers that his own commerce secretary is giving him. And he tells his ever-present aid, Natalie Harp, you know, get me the real numbers, go find literally just Googling whatever these numbers were. The degree of fear and terror, frankly, that a number of his advisors had and cabinet officials had, the lead up to Liberation Day and then the lead up to the almost total meltdown of the bond markets on April 9th when he finally pulls back, we weren't hearing a ton about. Herbert Hoover. It was, you know, he tried this. He took it as far as he could. It's sort of hard to argue otherwise right now with the reality that he just can't bend to his will on this front. The gas prices are what they are. This MOU might be the paddle that gets them out of this particular creek, but it hasn't yet, and they're still moving toward it. I was surprised to hear him just say that, but at a press conference, but as we write in the book, whatever thin filter he

once had on what he says has pretty much evaporated. So I don't know how much he wants to conquer left. Cuba, obviously, he talks about quite a beat. Cuba is very important to Marco Rubio, his secretary of state. This has been a subject of focus for months and months and months, whether that will happen, remains to be seen. Whether he re-ups his Greenland push, I think remains to be seen. I think the Canada one has receded to the background. But what you do see is a president who is focused on spheres of influence, hemispheric spheres of influence, as opposed to, you know, sweeping imprints in far off lands for the most part. When we talk about leaving his imprint, what we're referring to, and we describe this in the book a lot, is imprint all over Washington, the ballroom, the Arc de Trump,

the Kennedy Center, which, you know, is still an ongoing fight, this be these beautification projects he has all over, the gilding of the Oval Office, which, um, the, we saw when we went in to see him in March and we hadn't, neither of us had been there in the Oval since that had happened. And it really is, it takes a second to take it in. One of the things to remember about him is he was infuriated during and after his first term that his name kept being taken off of buildings in New York, that he lost a PGA, I don't remember if his tour, PGA, forgive me, for being a precise tournament,

that he really wanted at Bedminster. The New York City took away his lease and then ultimately had to give it back for a Trump-Links golf course that was city property in the Bronx. He's not waiting for anyone else to recognize him this time. And that is really the imprint that he's leaving, but also it's across the culture.

And Jonathan, I think, can speak better to that than I can. Yeah, I mean, one thing we cover in the book is his efforts to influence the arts and the museums You know, it's sort of flown under the radar a little bit. Obviously, there's been a lot of coverage about eradicating DEI from universities and the government and corporate America. But we have a portion of the book where they're trying to essentially influence what artwork is shown in different museums around the country. And there's a pretty extraordinary scene where there are these Board of Regents meetings of the Smithsonian that we got inside. and you've got Lonnie Bunch, you know, the first African-American director of the Smithsonian.

You have the Chief Justice, John Roberts, various other luminaries in the room. And Vance is in there and he leaves the room. And one of his aides who's like in his early 30s holds up an iPad. And it's a photo of that Amy Sherald painting, the transforming liberty, the trans woman with the torch. You know, she cancelled her exhibition. And he's holding up this thing. It's like John Roberts, Lonnie, but she goes, this is not what Americans want to see. You know, so these are the kind of, you know, they are trying to influence the culture.

And it's a big, big part of this administration that I think has flown under the radar to a large extent with all the other reporting. So it's another element of. Yeah, I mean, that makes sense in light of the birthday celebration and all of that, these big cultural events that they're spending a lot of time and money and focus on. Right. And the rendering of history. Maggie and John, another question just about. about his mindset with how he's handling the Iran war. We feel like a kind of a cycle, like a vortex of repetitive agreements and then rescinding those agreements. Jeremy Scahill with Ryan

at DropSight News did some reporting that the Iranians have enlisted psychologists, mental health experts to analyze how Trump is thinking about this and that he might actually be mentally ill in some way. Has any reporting in the book covered Trump's health or uncovered anything, you know, of pictures about the makeup on his hands and just anything into his internal mental health mindset that you might have uncovered. We say with humility that this was, of any area of reporting in this book, this was a failure. We spent a lot of time trying to understand what's happening with his health. You know, there are so many secrets this administration keeps. They make these great displays of transparency. He's the most transparent president in the world. He takes every reporter's phone call,

blah, blah, blah, blah. They're actually very good. It's obviously a canard. They're also very good at keeping secrets when they want to. And his health has always been a lockbox for him over decades, not just since he became president. Many of his aides don't have a full picture of what is happening with his health. You know, they put out that statement recently when he went to Walter Reed again that he had been seen by 22 specialists. We can't get an answer on what those specialists treat or who they were. I can't even really begin to imagine what it would have been. or if it was 22. We know what you know, which is he's an 80-year-old man who, you know, when this we do talk about in the book, his hearing, by all accounts, is not as good as it was. He obviously is falling asleep in these meetings. His sleeping habits are a little more unusual than they were in term one, and they were strange, you know, initially too. He sleeps a few hours a night. We write about how, you know, at about 10 a.m. one morning when he hadn't been heard from a. today, it went up to the residence, and he was still asleep. And they assumed that he had had

some late night of posting or reading or whatever, and he went back to sleep for a while. He's got the makeup on his hands. They've been saying it's because of handshaking forever. But we certainly don't have any greater visibility into it than anyone else, and definitely not mental health. Jonathan, I wanted to ask you a little bit more about what things have served to check Trump at all. In this second administration, because one of the themes that you all tease out is certainly the fact that in the interim period, the effort was all, oh, the problem with Trump 1.0 was I had these people who were trying to rein me in and I had these institutions that would stand in my way. What can we do to make sure there's none of that the second time around? And they've been pretty effective at destroying any of the bounds or guardrails that existed. He had made some extraordinary comment, like, well, the only limit is, I think he said my own mind or my own.

worlds, both of which are pretty scary. But there have been times when they've been forced to pull back, you know, on the tariffs. Maggie was talking earlier about the bond markets were a problem. We were just talking about how with the Iran war he's like, oh, my God, I might be courting being Herbert Hoover here. So it seems like the markets are one piece. We're also seeing some significant, it seems like, at least public pullback on the most maximalist version of the immigration agenda. They're selling some of these warehouses that they had acquired. You've got Christy Noam. Mark Wade and Mullen in. So what are the things that have limited him over the course of the administration?

I am particularly curious about the immigration agenda since that's something that has been so core to Trump since he, you know, rode down the golden escalator. Totally. It's a great question. And the story is shifting a little bit in the last few months. But through 2025, it was pretty extraordinary. We haven't really seen an unbridled expression of existence. executive power like that, certainly not in our lifetime. And in some respects, with some areas,

we've never seen it. Congress essentially just ceded the field to Trump. I mean, when Bush went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, as we all know all the problems with that lead up and the intelligence and everything, it still went through Congress, right? There was still a congressional debate and a congressional vote. Trump didn't even talk to Congress. Just went. He just did it. He just went in, sent Delta Force into Caracas and snatched a sovereign head of state out of his bedroom in his pajamas. He didn't talk to Congress. He determined himself in his own mind that fishing boats carrying cocaine were quote unquote enemy combatants. And they just blew them up. You don't get a back seas on that one when you kill someone. So you talk about, you know, an expression of power,

taking someone's life without any discussion with Congress, without any authorization for the use of military force. It doesn't really get more profound than that. And that's before I even get to, you know, using levers of government to coerce law firms and universities and all the rest of it. So let's acknowledge all of that. What is also true is that so far at least they have not disobeyed Supreme Court rulings. There is pretty extensive reporting that they have been in many cases either ignoring, disobeying or fudging around with lower court rulings, particularly on immigration, a lot of examples of that. And we have a lot of reporting in our book about how serious the discussions were inside the most senior level of the Trump

administration about suspending habeas corpus. One of the most basic human rights you could have, the right if you get locked up by the government to challenge your detention. Stephen Miller absolutely was looking at wanting to, and Trump himself, suspend that right for illegal immigrants. The conversations were so serious. The staff secretary of the White House, Will Scharf, wrote confidential memos to the chief of staff, essentially outlining why this was a line the White House shouldn't cross. But they didn't cross that line. Supreme Court decisions on tariffs, they have obeyed.

And then Congress now, you're starting to see in the Senate some signs of life. And that's, I think, the natural outgrowth of Donald Trump alienating a few key senators. It turns out when you drive someone into retirement and you support their opponent, they feel somewhat liberated. But I don't think people who are, you know, I hear this sort of, oh, Donald Trump's, it's the end of Donald Trump in his power, whatever. Anyone who's opposed him in the Republican Party is basically out of a job. I mean, Thomas Massey, MTG retired, Tillis is out, Cassidy, you know, go down the list. In the Republican Party, as unpopular as Donald Trump is nationally and with independence, he's still an incredibly dominant figure.

So I do think there are limits. I think on immigration, he is not as a. hardcore is Stephen Miller. We have a thing in a book where Trump privately joked that if it was up to Stephen Miller, the country would only have 100 million people and they'd all look like Stephen Miller. So Trump on immigration is much more of a finger in the wind. It's not much of a joke, is it? It's just the truth. It is the truth. But Trump is much more of a finger in the wind on immigration. And when he sees bad press, he's much more willing to pull back, whereas Stephen Miller, you know, has been obsessed with this issue since he was a child and is a passionate ideologue. So that's

that's an example of where Trump, after he sees all the bad press after the killings of Renee Good and Alex Priddy, you know, he pulls back. But there aren't that many guardrails. There are certainly no guardrails inside the executive branch. They've removed every pocket of independence and the very quaint notion after Watergate that the president doesn't interfere with Justice Department investigations. That is obviously obliterated. He's ordering up investigations of named individuals. So, you know, that's the overall landscape. Can I add one point? I'm sorry, just very quickly, Ryan, just on the immigration point. We're recording this at a time when the Supreme Court has actually just granted the administration pretty sweeping hand to end temporary protective status for Haitian immigrants and other groups.

I think that's going to affect at least 350,000 people, possibly more. And essentially, the court is saying, you know, we can't interfere with executive branch decisions that. way. The TPS is entirely an executive branch choice. And so it is true that they did, as Jonathan said, they pulled back from these, you know, very, very splashy pushes into cities. But Tom Holman keeps saying they're going to do it in New York. They are selling these warehouses, but we have a bit in the book about how Stephen Miller was telling people he thought the warehouses were crazy and he didn't understand why they were being bought. And so you did have this fissure of the Nome run DHS, Nome slash Corey Lewandowski run DHS,

and what Stephen Miller actually was pushing versus what he was tolerating in the name of having officials who would go along with what he wanted. They still have a deeply, deeply restrictionist immigration policy, and for the most part, it's working. Well, I wanted to ask you briefly about Stephen Miller. I remember Trump when he was introducing him to maybe it was MBZ in the UAE. He said, this is the guy who runs my government. I've heard he's jokingly referred to as the kind of prime minister.

What is his relationship like with Trump now, but also more importantly, perhaps for us as we go on in the world when Trump is gone, what's his purchase in the Trump orbit kind of absent Trump? Like if we're in a post-Trump world, does he maintain this status? Or is he pretty connected to Trump's project? Stephen Miller did a pretty good job in the off years, you know, 21 through 24 of cultivating a wide range of relationships in the Republican Party. A lot of members of Congress consult him.

You know, they see him as a big brain, sort of a policy luminary. We write in the book that he's arguably, maybe even objectively the most powerful domestic policy staffer in recent White House memory. In term one, he was young, inexperienced, very valued, for sure, as a speechwriter, but he was pretty narrowly focused on immigration. He's got a much broader remit now. He's got this other title as Homeland Security Advisor, which gives him a much broader remit, you know, Western Hemisphere, Mexico. He was heavily involved in the drug bombing, planning for the drug bombing campaign, the drug boats. So he's really got his hands in everything. He's often in the room for foreign leader phone calls and meetings. We have reporting

in the book that he wanted to be national security advisor to succeed Mike Waltz. Many people in there believe that he has designs on the chief of staff role eventually. Trump values him because he gets things done. He said, and he also talks to Trump in a way that instills a lot of confidence. You know, yes, sir, we can do it. And don't worry. Like, we'll bulldoze through anything. We have a lot of reporting in the book about these phone calls that Stephen Miller would have inside the government, which became sort of legendary. He would berate these staffers at DHS and ICE and the agencies and basically threatened to fire them if they didn't pick up the deportation pace. He just drives them relentlessly. So I think he's got a big future in the Republican Party almost no matter what

happens because he sort of made himself indispensable as someone who has real experience in the executive branch, knows how to get things done, and has lots of relationships across the party. One of the key relationships, just to add to what Jonathan just said, and I don't think you said this, but I apologize, there was a siren outside. Was Elon Musk in these off years? He developed a very close relationship with Musk, was advising him on political donations. That is a relationship that, as far as we know, continues. and will be quite useful and durable for him going forward. Speaking of other close friendships,

Zaron Mamdani has been to the White House now twice to visit Trump. It kind of shocked the world how much of a bromance. It seemed that they now have. What was the reaction from the rest of the administration from such a positive experience? You know, the DSA now is a national topic, and Trump is calling them these crazy communists, but he still has nice words for Zoron. Tell us a little bit about those Zoron trips to the White House.

It's interesting. The Zoran-Trump text messaging back and forth is like one of the lockboxes that I've certainly been trying to understand for a while. It certainly wasn't a surprise to us that Trump was so enthralled by Zoron, Mammani's presence. because, A, Trump doesn't, he'll attack people online, but one-on-one interpersonal direct conflict is not always his thing. Zoroamam Dani is a really good political performer. And like he is a generational talent.

And so that didn't really surprise us either. He has attracted crowds. He was briefed for that meeting. Apparently in their meeting, he talked about how there was overlap between some of his own rally attendees and Trumps or, you know, can't. campaign event attendees and Trump's. And that is true. It was actually a little less than I thought it was going to be. It might get challenging for Trump because, as you say, not everyone in his government, by the way. I don't think, for instance, that the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles,

objects to having a good relationship with the mayor of New York. We certainly know that Trump, you know, we're at the Simon & Chuster offices right now, and Trump Tower is a few blocks away. So it's just a reminder that the Trumps have a business interest in this city and maintaining a good relationship with the mayor is something they care about. But yes, it's going to be hard for Trump to use everyone in the extended MAGA orbit who I speak to is very excited about the elections in New York the other day, as this will give fresh life to Trump's attacks on Democratic socialists. And it's true, except it's harder to maintain that when Trump is yucking at other. was Zoran Mamdani. So there are many places where Trump is not always in lockstep

with everyone around him, and this is one. Yeah, became an immediate problem for Elise Daphonic. Yeah, but there's also an element of like we don't need to over complicate too much. He also just likes handsome men. I mean, I don't know if you saw

his reaction to Jalani over when I was traveling with Trump in the Middle East. I mean, it was almost like, yeah, so, you know, we've seen a parade of these you know, handsome men be a face of my job. He likes a lot.

There's a type. There's a type. He likes good-looking men and women, but yes. Better look at the Tom Cruise. Big strong guy. Exactly. Talks about the muscles. Well, I really appreciate you guys taking the time.

I just want to also applaud you for spending so much time in the book on Trump, the Trump family corruption, which, you know, is truly world historic, hard to wrap your head around and difficult to cover because there is just such an overwork. overwhelming flood of it. So we didn't get a dig into that part this morning. People just have to go and buy the book and read it to see all of the reporting there. But Jonathan and Maggie, thank you both so much for joining us this morning. We really appreciate it.

And congrats on the book. It's spectacular. Thanks for having us. Yes. And I like that it's gold. I like the book this gold. It'll fit nicely in the oval. We do too.

It's actually a beautiful thing, man. It's a gorgeous cover. Look at this freaking thing. It's beautiful. Look at it. It's all behind me. Look at this. It's great.

I think I think it'll be on the wall there. Thank you very much. I think he's aware. I think he's aware of it. Thanks, guys. Got to ask them. All right. Thank you very much.

Thanks guys. Thanks for having us. See you. An IR radio experience. Weekend gold tickets to Ilson Inc. One, two, three. Everybody just script. Montreal with Dom Dalla, Chris Lakin friends,

Woolley, Dead Mouse, above and beyond, subfocus, and more with flights from Porter Airlines, three nights at residence in downtown Montreal, and $1,000 cash. Enter for your chance to win at iHeartRadio.ca. Ilsonique in Montreal, every day you enter is another chance to win. Hey, I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby. Okay, if you know me, you know this. I'm always searching for inspiration, for support, and useful tools to help maximize joy.

So this podcast lets us uncover all of that together. We're going to have these meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people. Like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges that she never saw coming. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer. And that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartner depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Olympic champ Sean Johnson revealed why she had no choice.

but to be a gymnast. There was something about gymnastics that was intoxicating to me. It's given me a belief that we all have one of those treasures inside of us. We just have to find it. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby

on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My first guest is Perix Houghton, Shakira, Luke, and Yerrin, Samira and Gracie. I'm so excited. On the bouncy bed. You have surprises?

Many surprises. Welcome to Sweet 305 where the group chat comes to life. What a . It's like a way to say like, Oh, my God, my friend, hello, hello, my brother. Look, I never have ever I've evered with nobody. Except with my kids, my children,

my love. Oof! That's incredible, yeah, the telenovela. You're the only person I know that loves a Yellow Starburst. It's really. There's no, there's a person that you can't, like you'd say, I'd like to collaborate with this person.

This is Sweet 305. Listen to Sweet 305 with Lele Pons as part of my Culture Podcast Network on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Join us now both to talk about the political earthquake in New York City and potentially across the country as well as his major fight

and the threats coming from Elon Musk is Congressman Rokana. Great to see you, sir. Great to see you. Thanks for having me back on. What do you think is the import of these elections this week? All of Zoron's candidates winning the rise of DSA, especially in the context of New York, but you obviously see candidates like Graham Platner. Abdul Siyid also rising in a way that would have been perhaps hard to imagine previously, the base of the Democratic Party supporting these candidates fullheartedly or fullthroatedly, whatever the term is? What do you think is the political import of what we saw unfold this week? Well, first of all, Crystal, you were right about a year ago. And you said that any candidate who does not acknowledge that there was a genocide in Gaza is going to lose a moral credibility with the base, that this is going to be sort of a moral test for a party.

And I know people talk about affordability and it's important and they talk about a lot of other issues. But at its core, many of these elections came down to candidates who recognized what was happening on their phones. and said, I'm not going to be beholden to anyone. I'm going to say it was a genocide, and I'm going to be very clear we need a new moral direction versus those candidates who were at best obfuscating or at worst still getting support from APEC and other pro-Israel groups. That was the central issue in many of those New York races and in Abdul's race and Grand Plattner's race. And the other central issue is the massive economic inequality, not just worthing the mouths. I want to bottom up economy.

middle-class economy. I want a working-class economy. Are you for wealth tax on billionaires? Are for Medicare for all? Are you for universal childcare at $10 a day? Do you actually stand for these policies? And you had in these candidates a clear willingness to take on extreme wealth and extreme power. And there's supposed to, speaking of support for Israel, there's supposed to be a vote was it today on a foreign ops appropriations measure that were massiest pushing an amendment to cut funding to Israel there was some apparently there was some some real drama or tensions in the Democratic caucus meeting about it yesterday were you were you at that meeting what if what have you heard about this like your the reporting is that a lot of rank and file Democrats are now very

kind of uncertain about how they should be approaching this issue which a couple years ago they were quite certain. It was just whatever Steny Hoyer and APEC told them to do. They did it. And now they're kind of at sea. What is this massive vote and how are Democrats thinking about it? Were you in the meeting yesterday?

I wasn't, but I heard about it. And there's been a sea change in the perception. Moderate Democrats are, to the extent that moderate Democrats are saying that we shouldn't ever vote for funding for Israel, that

I don't want to vote for a bill that has funding for Israel. And a number of Democrats came up to me saying, we are going to vote for your in Massey effort when the NDAA comes up to strike section 224, and we don't want to have a foreign appropriations bill passed that has Israel funding. So it'll be interesting to see how many Democratic knows they're going to be. But I would argue at this point, we're getting to at least, half the caucus that is opposed to funding for Israel. How freaked were your colleagues this week?

Because we're seeing some public signs of meltdown. You know, James Carville will say, how there should be a schism in the Democratic Party, a lot of hand-wringing going on. I know there was some anonymous Democratic House member, perhaps rhymes with Rottheimer, who's saying maybe he's looking at switching parties because he can't possibly coexist with someone like Dari Elisa

or with Claire Valdez or other, you know, candidates that would be supported by the Zoran Mamdani wing of the party. So I wonder what you're hearing and seeing. And is this serving as a sort of wake-up call? Because that's what the angst over this vote would indicate, that it's suddenly their eyes are open like, oh, we actually have a big problem here. People actually want us to signal some moral direction

and are not going to just stand by and watch us run cover for a genocide. Suddenly they have, are seeing what we've been seeing for the past year. I mean, this New York election was, was a wake-up call. It's in the epicenter of Democratic power, right? I mean, you can't dismiss it as, oh, that's just one of Rose districts in the West Coast. This is where all the media is. This is where Hillary Clinton came from. Schumer comes from. Hakeem comes from where the Clintons live near New York City. It's where all the funding is for the party. A lot of the funding comes out of

there. And suddenly, they're electing progressive, Democrats in the epicenter of Democratic power. So absolutely it has been a wake-up vote. One of the things that drives me crazy is our inability to stand by of progressive Democrats or Democrats for that matter because of some dumb thing or inaccurate thing they may have said in their past. Like, how about all of the collective idiocy of Donald Trump and J.D. Vance? Like, I don't want to ever hear a lecture from the Republicans about some statement that someone may have made. And yet, we freak out about the mildest things that someone may have said in the past and drive and feed in to Fox's narrative as opposed to simply saying the Republican Party should never lecture us about any issue of morality, patriotism, or normalcy ever for a generation. And anyone on our side has incredibly more patriotic and moral vision than anyone on their side who has been complicit with Donald Trump.

And so, you know, this is not in good faith what they're doing. And it's because they fear that the progressive party winning. And I saw your tweet that the progressives have already won. I don't know if I, I don't know if I'm ready to go that far. We still have a long battle and don't underestimate these folks. But we certainly have the momentum. Well, they've won the ideological war, is what I meant by that. You know, if you look at the polling, you see the media talking about the divide, the divide on Israel with the Democrats. And there is no divide, you know, in terms of the Democratic base. Divide is between that base and the elected officials who are trying to figure out how to catch up real quick, or at least some of them, or at least trying to figure that out. But there is no real divide with the base. My last question on this, and then I want to talk about your fight with Elon is you've been willing to endorse against incumbents. You know, you endorse Bradlander against Dan Goldman. even though he is your colleague.

I don't have the list in front of me, but I know you've in other instances, not that you do all of them, but you will selectively endorse against incumbents. It seems like people still like you. It seems like you're still able to be effective in the Congress that this doesn't just poison the well with everybody there. You know, how do you think about endorsing against your colleagues

and the discomfort that brings? Has there been, have there been repercussions for you internally within the caucus? What does that look like? We've got to have lunch. the capital. I can introduce you the people who hate my guts. Are you not allowed to sit with them anymore? You're going to make some people upset. And, you know, I think if there's one thing I've done, it's I've been willing to take some risks and I'm willing to not be liked by some folks.

Now, you can't make everyone upset. And that's where I've tried to have some balance. But, you know, I just, after we've done this, I'm cutting an ad for Elijah Manning. running against Debbie Wasserman Schultz. That's another place. I had uplifted, I'm an endorsed, but I uplifted Mila, who's, by the way, an extraordinary candidate has a great shot in Colorado. And there are other places where, I mean, Claire Valdez wasn't against an incumbent, but it might as well been against an incumbent because Nydia was basically acting like

endorsing her was burning a bridge with Nydia. And I guess what I do is, one, I'm transparent. I will give leadership a heads up. if I'm going to do it. I give them the rationale. They know that I don't do it gratuitously in every case. And in some cases, I'll endorse. In other cases, I'll lift people up on social media short of endorsement.

In other cases, I'll help get some funding. And look, I beat my conda. I ran against him twice. I ran against Tom Lantos against the war. And I promised myself that if I ever got there, I wouldn't close the drawbridge. and I would help other people. I remember what it was like running against an incumbent

and seeing the entire party endorse the incumbent and walk away from me. And so I'm not perfect, but I've tried to do that. And you know what? When you do that and you're transparent and you have some strength, people often respect that. And you don't have to always tow the exact line.

Of course, politics is an art more than a science and you can go too far and it's always a judgment. Congress, and you appeared on Jennifer Welch's show a while ago and created a storm that is still going, that is still ranging. I want to play a little bit of your comments from that interview. To come out in huge numbers, and I do believe that once we take power, there has to be accountability. There needs to be accountability for Elon Musk. You know, they're celebrating that he created 4,400 millionaires, but they don't talk about the 4.5 million children around the world who he possibly sentenced to death. by dismantling USA.

He needs to answer for that. He needs to be a subpoenaed. He needs to face investigation. He needs to answer for what he did with Doge. It's not just, let's move on. And we will use the Oversight Committee and the Judiciary Committee to hold people accountable who violated the law on ice and abused power with ICE, who violated the law and killing people on boats in the Caribbean, who violated the law when he was.

came to Iran and some of the strikes who violated the law with Doge, there will be accountability. There needs to be accountability before reconciliation. Out of that, you've had Elon Musk say he wants to arrest you, say he's going to sue you. You responded with a decent amount of data and also an offer to kind of debate him publicly on this question. Has he any chance? think that that's going to happen? No. First of all, it shows the power of independent media, right?

I mean, I'm on a podcast with Jennifer Walsh, and I say this, and Musk goes crazy. He literally has, I don't know if he still has it, but until yesterday, he had a pin tweet on his text of Jennifer Walsh and me. Like the guy who's a trillionaire doesn't have better things to do other than spending a week responding. But I think it goes to a core of what I believe about politics, which is it shouldn't just be performative. It should be effective, right? That the Epstein files, we actually got legislation done. There was just a lawsuit yesterday that succeeded with the Administrative Procedure Act that could get more of the files released. It was a coalition that was effective. And there are a lot of people

who tweeted out in Musk and who tweeted out studies. Why was this effective in actually getting a response and driving a national conversation on USA. Because I talked about the subpoena power, and he's not dumb. He knows that when I said, I'm on the Oversight Committee, and with Garcia, we're going to subpoena you, and we're going to have the votes and that it's criminal contempt to avoid the subpoena. Suddenly he said, wow, these guys are serious.

They're not just tweeting or going after me. They may actually hold me to Congress. And this is when people say they want to fight from the Democratic Party. I think what they want is not just. tweets or speeches, they want things that are going to have an effect. And the reason that had an effect is the combination of independent media and the combination of the threat of the subpoena power. And Congressman, there's been, like you said, quite a bit of cope from Elon.

Outside the pin tweets, I wanted you to react to a video of his thoughts on Doge and USAID. Let's take a listen. Parts of USAID that we found to be even slightly useful were transferred to the state. department. They've not been deleted. They've simply been transferred to the state department. But many times over with USAID and other organizations, when they said, oh, well, this is going to help children or it's going to help some disease eradication or something like that. And then when we ask for any evidence whatsoever, I say, well, please connect us with this group of children so we can talk to them and understand more about their issue. We get nothing. We don't, would they even try to prevent

show, I come up with a show often, meaning like, it's sort of like, well, can we at least see a few kids? Like, where are they? If they're in trouble, we'd like to talk to them and talk to their caregivers. And then we get something as a response because it's, what we find is an enormous amount of fraud and graft. Okay. Let me put this example to you. Very little of it actually gets to the kids, if anything at all. Your reaction to that, Congressman. Most people know it's absurd. Basically, USAID is giving food and medicine to the world's poorest. And Elon Musk didn't go to Africa.

He didn't go to South America. He didn't go to Asia where these programs were. He's sitting in Washington, D.C., and he ends 83% of these programs. 83% of the programs. It does so much damage that Congress or Republican Congress has to reauthorize some of these programs. So it's not as bad as what he did. Now it's maybe 20 or 30% cut. But he has just oblivious to what he has done.

But he's afraid because he now knows that he's going to have to start explaining this. So this entire week, he's been out there trying to cover for Doge. But we've had this conversation before. There's a new generation, Robert Garcia, myself, others who are not going to say, let's just kumbaya move on, who are going to expect accountability, not just for Elon Musk, but for the Trump officials who engaged in inhumane conduct. And that is part of the healing and reconciliation of this country, is to take on the people who have caused the divisions and the cruelty. Ro, you actually know Elon. I mean, he, I guess he's not your constituent anymore, but was at

one point, I presume. And you've spoken with him. You know, you've, you've, you've, you've, You've met him in person. Like, what is the deal with this guy? How do you view him? Why do you think this touched such a nerve? What do you think of his arc here to, you know, really hard, right politics where now he's getting involved, like inciting race riots in Ireland? Well, that's why I feel like I have some objectivity because we were on friendly terms for, I would say, at least a decade. I mean, he blurbed my first book after the Obama minister.

on bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. We had a disagreement back then. I had pushed that we linked the Obama grant to labor neutrality, which I wish we did. Tesla would be unionized if we had done that. It was the biggest miss in the Obama administration. I was public as a deputy assistant secretary of commerce, low-level person saying we should link it to labor neutrality.

But Elon was begging Anna Escher, who was my neighboring member of Congress, for that loan. I mean, every week he would call Anna Eshoo. I need this loan. to be able to get Tesla. After that, he blored the book. We had on and off conversation. He was very passionate about climate.

He was a very strong supporter, at least of immigration in Silicon Valley. And I thought that the reason he initially was upset was that we didn't invite him to the EV summit with Biden, even because people didn't want him there in union, that the union didn't want him there. And I thought, you know, even though he should be unionized, we probably should have had him there and that, and we had conversations. But then he just has gone, we gets to Doge. And, you know, I gave him initially the benefit of the out. We were going to have a meeting with him and Bernie and Warren on the defense budget and cutting the defense budget because that's something we've all wanted to do. He gets there and he does nothing with defense. He does nothing with any of these agencies. And he starts on an ideological agenda against USA. And he goes on an ideological agenda on, uh, immigration, an ideological agenda on trans kids. And I think he's just been swept in to this right wing ecosystem. And that's how he govern. And even his responses to me aren't trying to convince the independent person.

He's getting affirmation from this right wing media ecosystem. And that's who he's playing to. It's very sad and very scary. And the problem that he has here, and I'll put this element up here, This is February 3rd, 2025. He said, we spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper. Could have gone to some great parties, did that instead. And so if you contrast that with what he's saying, less than two weeks into Trump's term,

with the deliberative process that he claims that he engaged in, where they went, you know, program by program and aid recipient by aid recipient asking to be connected with. you know, orphans or otherwise to like get some validation for the program. What actually happened is he did literally destroy it. And then when there were attempts to reach out to the aid recipients, they failed because he had shut down all the programs. Like the employees were literally like locked out of their, out of their emails and otherwise, you know,

couldn't communicate. He shut the entire thing down. And that's literally what happened. But I do want to get you to respond to some of the right-wing counter-arguments, some of which I'm sympathetic to, which is a lot of the good work that they do is in this direct giving. They also have a political and ideological element to them where they'll fund kind of quote-unquote pro-democracy organizations that will back like an opposition party that is actually just sympathetic with whatever the U.S. interests are, whatever the U.S. slash corporate interests are. And so Musk is able to accurately cite. a decent number of foreign leaders in Central America or Africa who say, you know what, actually USAID is not helpful to us. We don't, we think that it's overly interventionist and undermines our internal politics. Obviously, you can, you know, both things can be true and you can protect the formula for infants while also addressing the political dimension. But what is your,

what is your response to that critique that, that there are a lot of people in Africa and, And in South and Central America, we're like, yeah, actually, we don't like USAID. Well, I acknowledge some of the critique. And if he had come in to reform it, he could have come to Congress and made those arguments. And maybe he would have gotten some support. And this is why I say that initially, I was open-minded about Doge. Sometimes journalists asked me that as a gotcha. Oh, you were open-minded about Doge.

I said, that's not a gotcha. Yeah, I was open-minded about it. I'm usually open-minded to working with people for constructive solutions. And he would have found an audience if he had said, look, Ro, I want to go after programs that are overly interventionist and undermining popular sovereignty in other nations. Maybe he would have gotten even Democrats, progressive Democrats, to do that. But he didn't do that. He basically took a sledgehammer with no one's input by Fiat, as he himself says, and put it in a woodchopper. and that's why we have so many potential deaths.

Now, in the rebuilding, and this I think is a broader point, in the rebuilding of all of these agencies, we want to do it with human rights, with progressive values, with a sense of what the future is going to require and not just let's just get Samantha Power back in there and do exactly what we were doing in the past. And that's the opportunity,

why I think we can have a new deal for our time, that there could be really a rebuild of government around a progressive vision, around an effective vision for government, and that's the opportunity. Ro, I had a question about the future political relationships of all these tech billionaires. Now, you mentioned that you and Elon were friends.

A lot of these tech CEOs were seen more as liberal Democrats before the Trump era. But now we see Zuckerberg, we see these AI CEOs, you know, cozing up to Trump, where do you think they go post-Trump? Do you think that they will be sort of always now marked as more conservative tech CEOs? Or will they flip back over and be good Democrats again if there's a Democrat in office? They're opportunists. I mean, some of them will play ball with whoever is in office.

But you're going to lose 30% of them if we take a lot of them. if we take a real platform issue, which is a wealth tax. If we're saying, look, we're going to tax these folks, then you're not going to get 30% of them. There'll be some who either aren't billionaires or who get that we don't want revolution, who will be fine with that coalition. But you have to lose some of those folks. And this is the basic fight I'm having with Gavin Newsom, where I've reported a 5% tax on 250 billionaires in California, so 3 million Californians don't lose health insurance.

He then is opposed to it, is leading the charge against it. Because these 250 billionaires are important donors and political contributors. And he says, well, I'm for a national billionaire's tax, but he doesn't want to do what Bernie is talking about, 5% tax on billionaires. He doesn't even want to do what Warren is talking about, 3% tax. He wants to just say, okay, they can't borrow against assets and should be taxed on that, which is exactly what the tech bill. billionaires are proposing. I mean, and would raise a fracture of the revenue. So at some point,

you've got to be choose. Are we going to be against the oligarchs or for the oligarchs? Yeah. We can be against them, which is what Bernie and I and Warren are. And then some of them may come along in the new social contract. But what we can't do is pander to them. Hey, Ro, just to remind everybody, what percent of the vote did your billionaire backed primary opponent? What did he end up with? Six percent. He's been, they spent over a, million dollars. And we didn't spend a dollar on it because I wanted to kind of see. I mean, we were doing town halls and they spent over a million dollars. He got six percent of the vote. We got 62 percent and the Republicans got the rest. And he did worse than candidates who haven't

spent a dollar against me. And I think it's that people really understood that, you know, he was the candidate of the tech oligarchs. Yeah. And I want people to understand, you represent Silicon Valley. and that is the level of popularity of those views. So just so people get out there in the Democratic elite world, how absolutely toxic and abhorrent pro-billionaire politics are to the Democratic, to the population at large, but certainly in the Democratic Party are at this point. I think that's a very good example. But, you know, if I could actually answer a little bit of Griffin's question here,

I don't think that Silicon Valley ever stopped playing both sides. You know, it's not like they abandoned giving money to the Democratic Party and Gavin Newsom's perfect example of that. But, you know, also the abundance movement is very much funded by these guys. And I think that's their entree into, okay, how do we keep our relevance? And how do we make sure we've still got a hand on what's going on with these people? So it's going to be a real choice, I think, going forward for party voters to understand the differences. And I think, and you can tell me if you think this is true, but Elon's mad about what you said about USAID.

He's mad because it's true. He's mad because he knows how disgusting it is to people. the optics of the world's first trillionaire and world's richest man, you know, stealing literally like the life force of some of the poorest people in the world and ripping away from them some of the basic needs that they have. He understands that that doesn't look great. But he's also mad at you because you have been a leading voice in terms of saying, hey, maybe we should tax these guys. Hey, maybe we shouldn't have trillionaires. Maybe that doesn't, maybe we can't have a democracy and actually have that level of wealth. And I think that's exactly what a lot of people are waking up to

right now. Yeah. And on that point, if 2029 comes and Democrats have come back into power, are we on track to get to a place where they can actually implement a wealth tax? Is it getting enough energy

within Democratic circles? Because if it's, the push for it can't really start then. Like it's got to be happening now. So that's the, yeah. I mean, that's why this fighting in California is so important. Emery,

California started the anti-tax movement with Prop 13 in 1978. That leads to Reagan winning in 1980. We can get the 5% tax in California in 2026. That could lead to that nationally in 2028. And you really have, you know, the SEIU, United Health Career Workers West, supporting it. I'm one of the leading voices for it. And then you have the governor leading the opposition against it, not just saying, okay, I'm neutral and let this play out.

He's literally out there trying to kill the ballot measure. So we need to win this fight and we need to start to get more people on board because then it's going to be a fight in the Supreme Court. I personally believe the 16th Amendment makes it constitutional, but we should not be naive that it won't be a fight in the Supreme Court. But the first thing we got to do is get our own party on board and not fall for these gimmicks. You know, okay, I'm for a billionaire tax, but it's not really a billionaire's tax. It's really just a tax on their borrowing, which is going to raise a fraction of the revenue. I mean, these people are really clever, and they're trying every means to preserve their wealth. But, you know, Elon, that is his fundamental problem.

It's not just that he cares about the wealth, though he does. He cares and control. He doesn't like the fact that I'm calling him out and calling these billionaires out as being sort part of a broken social contract. But the reality of how you know it's broken is you go around the country and you say, okay, Elon Musk has become a trillionaire. And I hear booze, right, from the audience. It's not even, I'm not even saying anything.

I'm not saying you did anything wrong. And did you hear Elon Musk became a trillionaire? It's sort of the setup to what I'm going to say. And all the audience starts booing. They started booing at the teamsters, you know, Trump voters in there. And that should tell you something, right? I mean, I'm not sure there are other times, you know, in our history where people have done these things and they're just reflexively hated. And if there was much more shared prosperity in

this country, you wouldn't have that same reaction. But you have all this wealth being accumulated while people can't buy a house, can't have child care, can't have health care. And this to me is going to be the central fight for the Democratic Party. Two central fights. Gaza and genocide, are you going to really take it on? And are you really going to take on the billionaires and trillionaires? Or are you going to mouth the focus group tested stuff? Because we all know, that it's affordability and we all know people want to hire tax on the rich and we all know that people don't like Israel. Are you going to mouth enough to get by? But then when you get in, you really haven't taken the actual fight so there's no structural check. And that's really the question.

One last thing that I would just add to that in terms of the billionaire's right wing turn. I think this is sort of inevitable because, you know, the moment of immense inequality that is only set to skyrocket more with the advances of AI, there's really two. two directions. One is that you do bring these oligarchs to heal so you can have a democratic society so that the abundance that we already enjoy if it was even, you know, distributed not evenly, but in some sort of an relatively equitable way where people are able to live and survive. You can either go in that direction of taxing the oligarchs or you can go in the scapegoat direction, which is, you know, the right-wing fascist rise that we've seen here and around the

world of it's the immigrants fault. It's the trans person fault, right? It's the, you know, pitting people against each other. And so in order for these billionaires to avoid scrutiny on themselves and the possibility of their own wealth being taxed at some, you know, reasonable level, the most obvious direction for them to go in is, you know, to start inciting race riots as Elon has become want to do with the social media platform that he purchased. So in a sense, I think that this right-wing turn is sort of inevitable. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right.

because they fundamentally are about protecting their capital. And they were fine with it when the Democratic Party was a party focused on women's rights, focused on immigrant rights, focused on voting rights. But now that the party is also focused fundamentally on economic inequality and going after the capital class, they are much more uncomfortable with the, with the Democratic Party. I mean, they are not, they don't want it to be an FDR party. I mean, they want it to be a party like Clinton, uh, focused on the social issue, which is not to discount the social issues. Those social issues matter, but it is the economic issues that,

uh, they find threat. All right, Congressman, thank you for your time. We hope Elon sees this interview and get so triggered that we are the next pin tweet, uh, on his Twitter account. You may get sued. You set up, are you set up, are you ready? ready for that? We're hoping for just a pin before a lawsuit. Oh, sorry, really quickly. Just any sign that he's actually suing you, Ro. Any, are you?

He's made threats before with journalists and he hasn't followed through and he has followed through with the German government and others. So, you know, I mean, he's also, he also sues sued a lot of people at media matters and is continuing to sue them. So, you know, it could be the way. I mean, he is. It just depends on what mood he is in. And, you know, but it wasn't just his, whether he sues me, of course, that matters to me personally and how much a headache it'll be.

Though it'll also obviously give me the chance for discovery and doge, which is, which, which I don't know if he's fully realized. Very interesting. But the bigger issue is he's sending a message to everyone on that oversight committee. Look, you come after me. I'm going to come after you. is not just that I have more than one vote and I give millions of dollars and I can spend $5 million against your race. I can actually tie you up in court for years and spend unlimited money against you.

So you know what? Why don't you just focus on a hundred other things you have to do as a member of Congress and leave me alone? Like go refund USAID, but don't subpoena me. It's not worth your time, not worth your headache. That's the message. The headline we need, Roe, is Roe Conna to Elon Musk. Bring it on.

That's what I said. I'm not going to be intimidated. I know, it's, that, that's, but that's, that's what we need. That's, that's where I think we've got to fight. I wish we had a Democratic Party, but where we've got other people saying, yeah, Elon, bring it on. Sue me too. Sue me too, right?

I mean, we've got to show actual fight where there's, where there's some risk, where there's some inconvenience and that, because that's what the activists are doing every day, right? They're going out to, they're getting arrested. they're putting their careers at risk. And I think that's really where what they want to see from elected officials is some actual risk, some skin in the game. And we saw that with those candidates who won in New York.

All right. Well, they can't sue us all. Congressman Rokana, thank you much for your time. And we'll see you soon. Thank you guys. Appreciate you. All right. Now time for a little bit of AMA.

and of course, if you're a new subscriber, you can submit written questions for the Friday AMA at the link in every daily show email. With that, let's get to our first question. Some reactions to Ryan on the streets of NYC for the DSA elections here. Let's start with this one. From Sabas 101 for Amazing BP,

with the death cult nature of the Israel government, threats of using nuclear weapons on the U.S. and in the region, should we do what the older gentleman from Ryan's great interview in NYC said and bomb them, making the region a true nuclear weapons free zone and protecting ourselves from their threats. If you missed that clip,

Ryan was around a group of espayat voters up in Harlem, and he spoke to one older gentleman, who I believe was reacting to pro-Palestine protesters and sort of sarcastically said, but if you want to stop the genocide, bomb Israel. A funny, a funny, uh, Coda to that interaction is that the next day somebody was like, by the way, you know who that was? That was Larry Seabrook.

I looked up, yes, that that was Larry Seabrook. Larry Seabrook was a state representative, state assemblyman and a city councilman in the city in New York who went to prison for front. Yeah. Because really. Because he was setting up all of these fake non-profits in Harlem. and then appropriating money from the city to those nonprofits

and then just keeping the money for himself and his friends and family. So in like 2013, he got sentenced to like five years in federal prison for corruption. I'd ask him. He's an ideas guy. He's good ideas.

I was like, how do you know, SBI? Like, what's your history with him? He's like, I've known him for decades. I was like, any good stories? He's like, it doesn't matter. What I've done doesn't really matter. It's about this about him.

He's a fighter for the people. Ironically, In 2021, when Mom Dani was in the assembly, they restored felon voter rights. So I believe he would be able to vote thanks to Mom Dani. So the bomb Israel guy is pro-espite? Oh, hardcore. He's an espiat machine. Yeah.

Nice. He was, I don't know what he was making. But, I mean, they're amazing. Yeah. Like, hopefully Israel will just listen to the United States and doesn't. Yeah. I don't think it's really necessary. How about we just try not funding their genocidal actions anymore, not sending them weapons to do their crimes and forcing them to act like a normal nation that has to live amongst their neighbors and not constantly wage war against everyone.

You should try that first. And if not, then I wouldn't want the U.S. to do it alone. I think you would need a U.N. mandate. And then I think U.N. peacekeepers would, I think, be appropriate. A lot of tools in the toolkit here. Yeah, sanctions regime. Like, I think all of that is before we get to going to war with them, in my opinion. Yes.

So next question for Crystal here from Jasmine. Crystal, I'm genuinely curious as how you view slash withstand all the misogynist vitriol directed towards you on social media. While Ryan gets some hate online, the tenor of comments is on a totally different scale. Seems like the troll's biggest trigger is, okay, this is their words, a hot leftist woman with strong opinions and insightful analysis. Stay triggered. I honestly, I'm a little bit oblivious. I just don't really look that much at the replies in the comments.

And I have developed a thicker skin, though, now where it just doesn't really bother me. You know, when you've done this for, and sometimes I'll send things out that I know are like kind of going to stir the pot and get a big reaction. And one of my favorite things to do is just sort of like drop that bomb and then, go away and not really pay attention of what happens in the aftermath. So that's how I handle it. It is what it is.

Okay. And one last quick, fun one because we're about to run out of time. This is from Matthew C. Ryan, how did you first meet Crystal and Sagar and what surprised you the most about them after working together? How did we? I don't remember when we first met, Ryan. I don't think that we interacted when you

ran for Congress. I covered the race, but I don't remember if I interviewed you or not. And then I remember when you launched the, I mean, I did the five or the cycle or whatever. The cycle. Yeah, so we definitely met it in MSNBC context. But then I remember you reached out when you were launching the working class. The People's House project. Yeah. And then and there were several candidates that you, Johanna Hayes, I think you were working with,

Richard O'Jetta. Chah Hayden. Jaddy. Jodden. She was such a cool, interesting candidate. J.D. Shulton.

And I think you also flagged that the D-Triple C was actively working against a bunch of them. And that was so. And then we've basically been in touch since then, right? Yeah.

Yeah, I would say that's my recollection as well. And then you met Sager just through the context of rising, right? Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. Same with Emily.

Which is how I met Soger, too. People who maybe don't know all the lore, Rising, originally launched me and Buck Sexton. But they wouldn't let us have a YouTube channel. It was crazy. Anyway, it was kind of a mess. That whole Hill organization, total mess. That's like you could write a book about all the things that happened there. Anyway, Buck was going to leave.

And Sager had filled in for him a couple times because they knew each other. And so Sager was the person that I wanted to come in because I thought we had an interesting an unusual dynamic in terms of where we agreed and where we disagreed. And my vision was always to have this like, okay, what's the best faith version of Trumpism? Like, what's the most honest, intellectual, like, truth-centric version of Trumpism? What if we had a show where you're like working with that and then you've got the Bernie wing, which of course is completely unrepresented, continues to the day to be basically wholly up or unrepresented in mainstream press?

what does that dialogue look like because it's not being modeled anywhere else? And this show's evolved a lot from that time, you know, as events have changed all of our political views and, you know, et cetera. But that was kind of the original conception of what we were going to do there. Very nice. Well, with that, that'll do it for this Friday show. And we will see you all on Monday. Stay tuned.

Bye, bye. Joy is essential and it's also elusive. But now there's a new and exciting way to start your journey. toward a more joyful existence. Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, Hoda Kotbi. If you're craving inspiration to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on-air chats.

Listen to Joy 101 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby is presented by CVS. I'm Mangishatiglur, and I'm back with a new season of my podcast, Skyline Drive. This time I talked to scientists, Puck's, Kermudgens, blues owners, super seniors, and Goa's top cryotherapy lab to try to understand this obsession with living forever and what it means for all of us. And I get into a bit of trouble along the way.

I'd say probably start bone smashing. That doesn't work. To make it look more defined. They say it works. I don't know. Listen to Skyline Drive, How to Live Forever on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is Michael Rappaport, and my podcast, the I Am Rapaport Stereo Podcast, is unlike

anyone you've ever heard. If you're looking for strong opinions about sports, entertainment, politics, pop culture, and whatever else catches my attention, then subscribe now. This kid Jafar Jackson should absolutely positively get nominated

for his portrayal as Michael Jackson. Listen to I Am Rap Report on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.