Some More News - Even More News: Trump Doesn't Think About Americans' Financial Situation

Episode Date: May 15, 2026

Hi. On today’s episode, Mary Houlihan joins Katy, Cody, and Jonathan to talk about Trump’s indifference to Americans’ financial situations, his reflecting pool, and his lawsuit against the IRS. They also dig into the very annoying Los Angeles mayor race.Check out Mary's show: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mary-houlihan-show/id1382359304DripDrop is offering our audience 20% off your first order. Go to DripDrop.com and use promo code "morenews"PATREON: https://patreon.com/somemorenewsMERCH: https://shop.somemorenews.comYOUTUBE MEMBERSHIP: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvlj0IzjSnNoduQF0l3VGng/joinSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi, on today's episode, we discuss how Trump doesn't care about American's financial situation, but he does care about his reflecting pool, his ballroom, and his lawsuit against the IRS. Plus, we look at the Los Angeles mayoral race. Hi, hello and welcome back to Even More News, the first and only news podcast. My name is Katie Stoll. That's true. Don't look it up. You can look up your name.

mine. The other stuff, don't look it up. I'm Cody. Hello, D. Very excited to welcome a new guest to the show today, comedian and host of the Mary Houlihan show. It's Mary Houlihan. Hello, hi, how are you? Doing all right, glad to have you here with us today. Sam'sies. Oh, Jonathan's also here. Yes. Hi. I like your backdrop, Jonathan. Oh, thanks. It's easier than setting up pictures and a guitar and plants. Yeah, that's a whole to-do. Yeah, it's just laundry back there.

I guess we should talk about news because there's so very much of it. Jonathan. Yes. Is it good out there right now? I mean... What's the temp? It feels a little lighter in the country for the last 19 hours or so. Just because the president's not here.

Yeah, he left. The president's out of the country. We're standing our attention. A bunch of people left. Elon's not here. Pete Hagsis not here. JD's still here. It's like being in L.A. during Coachella,

when everybody leaves to go to the desert. And you're like, all right, this is what a normal city feels like. But yeah, you can leave J.D., hold down the fort. The couch fort. Less of a line at Courage Bagels. You're like, JD's still here, but the rest of the city is great. Everyone's going into bagel stores being like, just give me whatever makes sense. Yeah.

That should have been the end of it. But before he left, the president was asked, and I'm only setting it up because you've already heard it. And the audio is a little tough to hear. But he's asked if he considers Americans' financial situations while negotiating with Iran to end the war. And let's just watch what he says. What extent are American's financial situations motivating you to make a deal? Not even a little bit. The only thing that matters when I'm talking about Iran, they can't have a nuclear weapon.

I don't think about American financial situation. I don't think about anybody. I think about one thing. We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That's all. Seems like he was thinking about a lot of other people, other than Americans' best interest when he made the decision to go into Iran. To go into war. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. That's the dumbest shit in the world. Are you allowed to say the dumbest shit in the world? You're so are allowed to say the dumbest shit in the world all the time. Every day about every single thing that happens. Yep. But you're right. It is.

If he hadn't won two presidential elections, I would just say he's such a bad politician. Because he should know that even though the context is, and you could still argue, you should care about that. But like, even in the context of this, you should never get the quote on video. I don't think about American's financial situation. Yeah. Don't you know anything about selling a war? It worked on you so many times. You should know how to do it by now.

Yeah, yeah. He doesn't even know what to call it. They don't like it when I call it a war. It doesn't matter what he says on camera. He's learned that he can spin it however he wants and certain amount of people, although fewer and fewer will just take whatever he says and be like, yum, yum, that tastes fine. But the reality is people's financial situation is in increasing, more distress and the numbers are showing it. Inflation in April had its biggest jump since 2022. It's now 3.8% year over year. Inflation all over. Prices are up a lot over the past year

and most of the high prices we're seeing right now still aren't because of what's going on. Like that is yet to come. This is just other stuff. Some of it's like climate related and like weather related where like certain things can't be grown as easily shipping and stuff. Some of it is just like general inflation. Some of his tariffs. Specifically tomatoes are specifically because of his tariffs against Mexico. And so all the stuff there was like, oh, prices are really high now because of this war. It's actually not yet because of the war. It's going to get so much worse. And obviously, like even given the context, obviously he's thinking about Americans' financial situations because that's what's driving him to like panic about the stupid war that he started that he didn't know

was going to cause all these problems or believe that would cause all these problems. So now he's scrambling to try to fix the problem that he started because he knows that people care about their wallets and prices and they need to, you know, control what's going on in November. Everything with Biden was because, you know, everyone thinks the president has a lower prices button or a lower inflation button, which they don't really. You know, you pass some legislation, you try to do some things,

they got it under control. The president doesn't really have a lever to pull to do that, but the president does have a few make prices go up, levers to pull, and Trump has pulled them all in the last year and a half. He's pulled the tariffs one. He's pulled the start the war. Zero inflation levers he has not pulled.

Do you think he's confusing it with his Diet Coke button? Oh, he's got like six. buttons there. Let's hope there's one button that's not there. His numbers are bad. We've talked about it. His numbers specifically on inflation from the new economist poll is 25% approval, 69% disapproval. So minus 44 on inflation, lower than Joe Biden's numbers ever were. That's real bad. Probably shouldn't have made this mistake a second time. Anyway, he's gone for a couple days.

That's right. He's getting... And again, what a relief. In Paris. In China. And embarrassed in China, presumably. What else should we discuss, Jonathan? We haven't really talked about the reflecting pool yet. No, we haven't. I just wish we didn't have to.

That Americans love when their wallets are hurting is government money being spent on some extravagant nonsense. That's hard to understand. So Trump said, here's the timeline really quick. Trump said on April 23rd that he had picked a contractor to redo the reflecting pool in front of the link. Memorial, someone that he'd worked with before at his golf club in Sterling, Virginia, and that the total cost would be $1.8 million. But once the Interior Department started filing records or whatever, the number was $13.1 million going to this vendor Atlantic Industrial Codings.

Yeah, it's like six, seven times, six, seven times as much money. And then on Monday, I really want to play this other Trump clip. And then I think we can, well, I don't know. I don't want to promise that it will stop with Trump clips. But I want to play this. I want to play this clip of Trump attempting to explain who hired the contractor and what it's costing, et cetera. So this is 1922 it was built. And it was broken for most of the time.

And you are now with Doug and myself and the great staff you have. And the people that did it. And by the way, these people did not work for me. They told us. They said they worked for me. they didn't work for me. They come from a different part of the country, but they were good. The people that worked for me recommended it, and they recommend we do it this way, but I recommended it to them because I'm very good at construction. So we saved at least, think of it, I saved

$349 million, and I saved four years of construction, and the New York Times said I didn't bid it. I didn't bid it. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. But I had nothing to do. I blame Doug. They gave it out. I didn't even give it out.

I thought he did give it out. I thought he recommended it. I mean... But he didn't give it out. But he did give it out. $3.40 billion ahead of time. Unbelievable. I beg to differ.

Good sir. It is believable. He said he didn't bid it or he did. And the New York Times said he didn't. And I said he didn't. And I said he did. and then he said he blames Doug. So did Doug not do it?

Is he saying that Doug didn't like let any come his bid on it? Interior secretary Doug Bergam is going to get blamed and thrown under the bus. After a minute of rambling and being like, this isn't playing well, it's all Doug's fault. What do you save $349 million from? And he also said $600 million to the Indiana University football team. But like about what? But like for what? Like what was that money for?

What do you save it? No, he's arguing that that's how, he's like, 13 million is nothing because it was going to be 600 million, 350 million to fix the reflecting pool. That's a lie. It's a thing he made up, yeah. But where did that 1.8 million come from? A thing he made up.

Like, these are, like... I know. A series of him making things up. Yeah. I know, like, there's no point in talking about it, like trying to pick apart his logic because it's nonsense. He doesn't know what's going on. Yes, every piece of it is insane.

But I wanted to play it. Well, yeah. Because it's fun to laugh at him, but also just the contrast between the reality of people's lives right now. And that $13 million is a lot of money, especially after we've just spent the last couple years reeling from them, doging things left and right, unnecessary cuts, firing people, the turmoil, US AID, people left without money, stranded, people dying. There's so much that has happened. And yet they have no problem just writing these checks for his pool, for his ballroom, for whatever. There's no pushback at all. And it's just it is important to point out, even if this is so dumb feeling that disconnect.

I agree with you. It's dumb. But we've definitely come to an understanding that the let's save our democracy, Kamala, 24 message didn't really play and that the thing that is going to end this movement, if anything, is going to be the price of gas. And so that's why it's like, I think from a messaging perspective, we just got to keep talking about it. And you can't really get away from it. He can lie all he wants, but when people go to the grocery store and they're like, what the hell, that's what they care about. Yeah, everyone who leaves a grocery store should see a sign that says, by the way, he wants a billion of your

dollars to make a balleroo. Like, by the way, he's wasting all this fucking money. Because it's also, it's just, it's just the expected thing. You have a bunch of, from him, there's a problem. There's something that, like, is like, this is an ugly truth or something. And you paint over it with gold. You cover it up. You make it look shiny and fancy.

And you spend all this money to create that illusion. His whole career is an illusion anyway. He's just doing it to our stuff and our country. and like this is this is like not important reflecting pools traditionally are supposed to like actually reflect like the the world that they're reflecting like the natural world around them like that's their purpose is to like have this surface of water reflecting and so when you decide to paint the bottom of it like bright neon like casino blue that defeats the purpose of it and I know that's not that important that's like the least important part of this but like it defeats

the purpose of it and it is again putting this really shiny veneer over something to cover it up and pretend like it's something else and it's just a frustrating metaphor that he continues to just spatter everywhere. The media is like so fucking bad at messaging. Like there's a clip of this billionaire, multi-millionaire president saying, what is a pool cost anyway? 300 million? I don't know. And like, yeah, we like really need to break through because regular people are walking around like without health insurance because they can't afford it. People like tons of people in this country kill themselves because they can't afford medical bills. And like it should be so easy and obvious to just explain to people like these rich people don't care about you and they're scamming you. but all of our corporate news is ran by people who are also multi, multi, multi, multi millionaires.

So they're like, well, do we really want to tell poor people they should be mad at rich people? Yeah. Yeah, they don't need more reasons. The David Ellison's of the world think that everyone thinks the way they think. And so they start news networks that nobody wants. They change CBS news to fit what they want, even. though nobody wants that. There was a report today that he's thinking of hiring Katie Miller to do a show for Paramount.

Podcast Paramount. Katie Miller, get her out there. That's the thing we needed to get. That's what's going to break through. That would be so unpopular. No one would like that. Well, she's very charismatic and smart. We're going to dump Tom Cruise and get Katie Miller on board.

It's so weird and pathetic. Like, Katie Miller of all people. Like, it's such a bizarre choice. I mean, it's not, it's just sick of fancy, it's just, yeah. I mean, even the Washington Post has this new, like, what is this show called, like, make it makes sense? Yeah, make it make sense. And they're very clearly trying to do this, like, free press paramount, like approach to politics. It's very, very odd how they feel like everybody has to chase this thing that is mostly fake.

Like, it's, like, it's completely inflated. There is no, like, organic audience that wants that. Right. It's kind of what's exciting about seeing this Barry Weiss CBS play out is like, nobody watches this. So now we know that like all of the internet's following is all fucking fake. Yes. Nobody likes this. It's not, yeah, it's all been inflated.

They, uh, whether it's bots or just buying views or whatever it is, they made themselves seem popular until fucking. Yeah. They're like Paramount bought them. And now they're just going to be infecting other like more legitimate. organizations because they're chasing an illusion that they've been tricked into buying. And I also think it just speaks to the nature of the ecosystem we have now where in general people aren't going to traditional media sources in the same way. Like they still will create a clip that everybody then clips and shares on their own site

with their own, you know, impressions or takeaways, but you can't trust or receive. respect these places anymore. And it doesn't matter if you're going to pander, you know, do a Barry Weiss move and bend over backwards trying to pander, trying to create this. It's not going to happen. It's done. People aren't going there. You go to any of these news sites, websites, YouTube channels, and the views are really

minimal. But then it gets traction on Twitter. It gets traction. Yeah, a clip or whatever, yeah. Well, it's interesting because so much of this stuff is kind of. of organic. Like, Joe Rogan had his podcast for a while before it became, like, the Joe Rogan experience. It was always called that.

But then it embodied the name, truly. And, like, we know as much as anyone how tough it is to, like, do podcasting in person because we live in separate places and have the studio and stuff. But the Washington Post one, like, it looks like they set the camera on the floor, kind of. The wide shot is very awkward. They're doing, like, matching shirts, like they're in the Beatles or something? Yes. But it's like matching khakis.

It's like, let's, like, the fab for dorks. Yeah. But they're trying to, like, put money into, like, sets and making it polished, but for no natural audience. Right. I was reminded because Paramount paid $150 million for the free press, which is a substack blog, $150 million for a blog. And now they have a new podcast hosted by Susie Weiss called Second Thought, which is, pop culture with a sharp, open-minded, and funny point of view.

It sounds hilarious. Right. And it's just like Casey Nystad on David Dobrick, did Justin Bieber fumble Coachella? But there's nothing organic about this because no one goes to these people to hear their thoughts about like pop culture. Washington Post reporters who are like talking like forced to talk about clavicular or whatever. It's absurd. I haven't done that yet, but I'm waiting for it. Any day now.

the clavicular power. But the time this drops, we'll see that announcement. They'll do it like two months after everyone else did their cliquet killer interviews. Oh, yeah, we're like past it. Like, we can't do, we can't do clavicular now. We're done. We're on to chud the, what's his name? Chud the guy who shot.

Chud the warrior, chud the guy. Some do you mean, chud the warrior? Stop. I didn't know this. I don't know this. They're like, here's this guy. You don't know him. Well, anyway, he shot someone and himself out of the,

It doesn't matter. Like, I don't know. You need to know. I know. But, like, we have this internal discussion all the time because we have to, like, kind of play this game. YouTube is featuring shorts now more than long-form videos. And we're like, but we do long-form videos.

We do hour-long podcasts and hour-long things. Let's do more shorts. Let's, like, everyone's in the same soup. And so it helps to have $150 million behind you. But, like, it can't be the only thing. No, it can't. And I don't want to abandon what we do to chase what an algorithm. rhythm is promoting in this moment because it changes every year also and because I like what we do

but also what's the point and the one thing that Cody and I specifically learned after years of working in internet and internet comedy is that you just cannot manufacture a viral moment or you know you just can't it's absolutely unsustainable you either have it and it hits or you don't yeah like it's like going up and going up walk up to a whiteboard and like a room full people and going viral video ideas like that's just not how to operate but that's how a lot of these people do it's that onion video from like 15 years ago where the like CEO is just screaming everyone to do more web videos which is what it felt like to be at a internet company in the early 2010s that's what it was that's what it was 100% content it's all frustratingly fake and it's

it is interesting to see them still chase this sort of of thing. Jake Tapper doing his episode from his desk and being like, you know, you might be asking why we're doing this in my office. Like, no, I know because you want to pretend that you're a podcast. You're a newsman. Like, you're embarrassing yourself. What are you doing? But to sort of like, take it all the way back to what we're talking about, the media is bad. And they're not doing a good job. And they can't communicate very well. All you need to do is show a clip of Donald Trump saying, I don't think about people's financial situations and him saying out loud

on camera, proudly, we can't afford health care or child care. We have to do war. Just show those forever. Easiest job in the world. Yes. Say that war costs a billion dollars a day. Bada bama bada bum.

We'll take one billion of those dollars and we'll make the ballroom. So war in a ballroom is why you can't have child care or health care or anything like that. Yeah, speaking of the ballroom, because that's another thing we're spending a lot of money on while people are hurting, et cetera, et cetera. Senate Republicans are being pressured to approve $1 billion in taxpayer funds for the ballroom. And that it is like a root, it's a big room for a billion dollars.

I need to make this clear too real quick because as many Republicans in like Congress today, committees are digging into some of this stuff. And every Republican I see, whether they're a pundit or a politician, will say, yeah, it's privately funded. Trump and his buddies are paying for it. This billion dollars is not that. This billion dollars is taxpayer money. And I just want to make that crystal clear as we move forward about this. Yes. That's that's they're lying. They're just lying. They're liars. They're lying. Right. And again, as Trump said 10 years ago, we print the money. We're not going to go into like a whole deficit. discussion, whatever. But if you care about the deficit and money and all that stuff, we shouldn't be spending a billion dollars on a ballroom anyway. Here is the president being questioned about why the price of the ballroom is so high. So what happened is we have a ballroom that's under budget. It's going up right here. I've doubled the size of it because we obviously need that. And we're right now on budget, under budget, and ahead of schedule. You double.

I double the size of it, you dumb person. You're double the size. You are not a smart person. So he clearly is about to call her the R word, in my opinion. And I'd like a second opinion about that. I mean, he could have been about to say the R word, or he could have been up to say you are really down. He might have been saying really, but you are, like,

it's happening this year. I'm still, I maintain my prediction. Cody. Cody has placed a huge amount of bets on Polly Market. that he will say it on camera this year. So, fingers crossed for Cody. Well, I mean, I hope he doesn't. I don't want him to.

But I know he will. But your shares in that Cody are going to be diluted because someone's going to put like $30,000 in it, like three hours before he does, and then they're going to make a killing. Sometimes I need more than water. Look at my face. Do you think this face is satisfied with just water?

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The thing that was sticking with me this week about war updates was the news that it turns out we did not really obliterate Ron's missile capabilities. the way that they were claiming. And this does circle back to the conversations we've been having this whole episode about reporting and news and the lack of information. A lot of that does start from the White House

and all the changes that have been made there with the... Just the inability to get information. However, this is a big one because the whole claim this whole time, the whole pretending of, well, we won the war. Technically, we've won the war.

We've won the war. They're totally obliterated, but now it's just about the street. It's about the blockade. But we haven't obliterated anything. Except school and a bunch of people. And yeah, it's like... Thank you. That is a really important part of what I do mean to say, which is other than the devastation

to civilian infrastructure, the loss of lives, which is incredibly important. it's the most important thing, but from their perspective, in terms of achieving a military objective, they have not done that at all. The only way to save face in this would be to say, oh, they're not going to be a threat

for at least 10 years because there's so much damage and they need to rebuild. And it's just flat out not true. Have you considered that just reporting on that is aiding and abetting the enemy and is in fact treason. I hadn't, but I know of somebody who did.

I can guess what you're referencing. Yeah, that's what the guy said. Yeah, that's what he said. I would like somebody to follow up with him and maybe even J.D. Vance about when he says stuff like this, because he should clarify on camera that he thinks that people at the New York Times should be executed. to death be like because that's what he's saying and I don't maybe he doesn't even realize that's

what he's saying it's like a thing you say they're treason is you're doing treason but you're saying they should be killed to death sir um vance was asked about the uh the uh the thing he said one of the five fucking shitty things he said about the the finances the people's finances you asked about you think it's like okay for him to say that he doesn't think about people's finance And he just said, like, well, I think he probably meant something else. But I agree that we shouldn't let him have a nuke. He's like, that's not anything. I just want people to follow J.D. Vance around specifically with a list of just things that

Trump says. And just like every day, just, hey, could you address this thing? Okay, number two, number three, go down the list and see what he has to say. Because he's really bad at avoiding that. And I would like him to say that he agrees with or disagrees with the president that people at the New York Times should be executed. But I don't think that I was going to do that. Mary, can you get them on your show and ask them that question?

Yes, I'd love to. Please. We've got an ask out and they just haven't gotten back to us. I'll send him a DM. Okay, great, great, great, great. On Signal, like, hey, this chat's really dead. I'm on a Signal chat with all these guys anyway. I don't know.

Yeah, they put me on the chat. I do want to mention that Democrats failed technically for a a seventh time to pass a war powers resolution in the Senate that would try to limit Trump's ability to continue the Iran war purely symbolic because it's not like Trump would sign that but it did fail 50 to 49 we got three Republicans on our side Rand Paul Susan Collins and now Lisa Murkowski and it only failed because John Federman voted no on it. Loser.

It wouldn't have passed the house either but it's pretty embarrassing. It's so frustrating. Like nothing about Trump makes sense. Like I feel like I'm always thinking like if he wants people to like him, why doesn't he just do this or this? It's all just like controlling narrative and propaganda. Like at any moment he could just say he could just leave the war and say we won. We won. And it doesn't matter if that's real or not.

Why doesn't he just do that? I think he would if he had assurances that the straight would reopen and that they would go back to. the status quo, I think he would do it immediately. But I think they've told him, oh, they want some concessions now. They want sanctions. They want stuff because they won. They started a war with us. God.

Yeah. So that's why we're in a real spot, real pickle. Otherwise, but you're right. It's like just take your ball and go home. You can say whatever you want to say. Honestly, your windows closed because now all this reporting coming up out about how not badly damaged their military apparatus is. And how much more are.

Yes. And how much more ours? That comes along with the fact that our bases seem to be decimated very easily. Maybe decimated is too strong, but way more damage than was reported if not decimated. I think either way, the reporting on it is bad for them, because they don't want us to remember that those bases even exist. They don't want people thinking, wait, why do we have bases in the UAE and Kuwait and all this stuff? So they're like remembering that is bad. And then, oh, also we failed to realize that attacking them would get those and the soldiers there blown up.

Well, that's why even when it was like when it first started, you saw all these people being like, oh my God, look Iran is bombing like all these other countries around them. It's like, no, they're bombing us in those countries. we're there. That's what they're doing because they just don't. And again, we weren't able to protect those bases. We were not able to protect,

which was the promise of having bases there is that we give you protection while we're there. But no, we just, yeah, we're done for. All these countries are going to be like, oh, America's over. So let's just partner up with China and Russia.

Duh. Yeah. And I'm happy to be. to be a failed empire where we just shrink in influence over time. I think that would be fabulous. It's gone well for much of Europe, and I'd love to see that happen for us. Let's just take the pressure off, yo. Like, why don't we have to be in the big bully everywhere?

America, chill. Let's go Portugal mode. Yeah. Like, once empires fade, they tend to get, like, free help. care for their people. Like they tend to get social services that the empire version of them did not have. So maybe we can get some of that good stuff. Once the pressure's off, once this administration is done pillaging our country for all

it's worth, should we talk about Trump's lawsuit against everybody? Yeah, it might be settled by the time this comes out. This is so enraging. He and his sons and his organization have sued the IRS for someone leaking tax returns during his first term. Of which he should have released, of which he should have fucking released. Yeah. He said he was going to and he said he did and all the things. He said he was going to once the audit that didn't exist was over.

We remember that from 10 years ago, the audit. Still going on. Anyway. That stuff didn't matter then. Doesn't matter now. unfortunately, but the IRS should be liable for the leak, I guess. So he's suing

the IRS, which he's in charge of because it's part of the executive branch, and now the DOJ wants to settle the lawsuit. He's asked for 10 billion. Settlement will probably be less than that. And he says it's no big deal. Whatever the settlement is, Americans should be fine with it because he's going to give it to, quote, really, really

good and respected charities. So like the Trump organization? This is so fucking wild. that this is allowed, this is happening. So they're going to settle because you can't have a plaintiff and a defendant on the same case, which essentially he is. So the case will get thrown out instead. He's going to tell them to settle.

You know what? Add this to the list of things that should be a part of messaging because I don't see anything more clear that he doesn't give a fuck about America or how that money is spent other than enriching himself. He's not taking a salary, okay? He doesn't accept the salary. He's working for the American people for nothing. He's losing money by doing this. Oh, he made, is it 30 billion or $3 billion? Billions of dollars since becoming the president the second time.

And his personal lawyer, Todd, is the guy who gets to decide the settlement, the acting attorney general. Fucking Todd. Todd Yeah, it is absolutely astounding He's antagonistic to the entire nation and he's like blatantly looting us

It's a plunder administration And just all these people like Well you know, he's tough around the edges What the fuck you're talking about? He's tough around the edges He's stealing from you gleefully It's just so absurd And like well I personally Don't have a problem with the person that leaked

the tax returns got me I don't care who gives a rats that was one person and that person was fired and that person was fired and can face accountability for his choices

I am just making an assumption about gender and all that but their choices and that should be that right you don't think that Trump is owed you don't think he's owed 10 billion dollars

I do not think he's owed I think he owes Probably $10 billion I mean if this becomes a bigger News story it could strays and affect those tax returns because I couldn't tell you What we learned or what was in them I'm assuming it doesn't make him look great

But though that would be in the news If he gets like $10 million let alone 10 billion for the leak Of some papers That showed that his organization was a scam Probably We need to get much

better at just like explaining to other Americans that they're getting scammed. I've like been making this concerted effort the past couple years and how I talk to like people online. A lot of this is inspired because my ex's mom was like an RFK lover. So like when you're at a table with someone like that, you realize like, oh my God, we're making things worse by like yelling at these people and telling them how stupid they are because then they become more. believing what they believe and think that you're crazy and you're brainwashed and you have to like you have to find common ground that first and say we agree on this and so if we agree on this can you believe me when I tell you about this other thing exactly so many people they'll like comment on my YouTube videos like typical Democrats typical liberals and then I'll reply to them like neither of the people in this video is a liberal. Like these are like I try to like phrase it in terms that they understand like these people talking are like Bernie Sanders types. Do you know what I mean? Like they're not

Republican or Democrats and we're trying to explain blah blah blah and sometimes you can see people start to get it. Sometimes people are just like no. I live in a community that is pretty conservative and I moved here a few years ago and I've had it my own journey. a similar journey of wanting to talk to people and understand and having where they're coming from, but having the same realization is like I can't just say you're wrong. This is also deprogramming and you have to build trust. You have to have conversations. You have to find common ground.

And you have to be willing to ask questions, even if you feel triggered by something they've said, repeat it back. So I hear that you're saying XYZ, whatever, and like have a follow-up question. And by offering the grace of listening, I find that oftentimes, not every time, oftentimes you get that grace back. And at the end of the day, you can start to see like, we're not that we are far apart. But if you talk about a thing, I'm like, no, we're we are agreeing here. And now maybe next time I can start to say like, do you see how this person is going against those interests? But it's exhausting and it's not for everybody.

I was living in like a super Republican town over. COVID and even people with like the most insane Trump bumper stickers, you can have a conversation with them and tell them that like these billioners are ripping you off and they will immediately say yes. Like there's no convincing them. Like they already know it. Everyone seems to start from that little kernel of like like yeah, obviously they're all trying to screw us.

But then you're like, okay, but like then you have Trump who's sort of like is that person who's done that his entire career and surrounds himself with those people. So maybe there's something there. Yeah. I think you have to validate to them that like, yes, Democrats, not all of them, but some of them are crooked. You are right. I'm not going to tell you that you're wrong because I'd be lying to you. So we can agree some of them are crooked. Can you agree with me that a lot of Republicans?

are crooked too. For instance, this one did this, this one did that. Well, then they start saying that's why they voted for Donald Trump. Like, if you go down that, they say he's outside of the system. So I thought maybe blah, blah, blah. Everything you're saying, I agree with. I do think that the more he runs his mouth, the more we talk about, yes, the ballroom, yes, the reflecting pool, yes, Trump's lawsuit against all of us. Yes, him not caring about America's financial situation as it pertains to his actions. All of this helps paint. that picture. And I think if there is something to have hope for, it is that at this moment in time, people will start to be able to, even if they're not going to say I'm a Democrat, it is us against

them. And I do think that there is a seismic change happening, I hope. And but bringing people to that realization does entail having tough conversations and being able to say, I agree that Bill Clinton is a pedophile. I agree that, you know, that they do not have our best interests. How about we all wake up together is kind of the approach. But again, there are also people that are just vile. And I don't want anybody to put themselves in a bad situation, especially if you're marginalized in any way. But I think, I feel in my heart that that's the only path. Yeah, any sort of class consciousness is going to benefit people. Bring it back to where we started. You were talking about like how do we get this message to people?

It's hard because I don't know that you're seeing the same feed. You're not. You're not getting the same information in the same way. And then there's also a lot of people that just literally, they're doing their best to put food on the table. Everything's expensive. They can't afford gas to get to work. This all sounds exhausting trying to break through.

I would just go to the outside and say, look at that Chevron station right there. 780. 780 today. Go into the supermarket. Ritz crackers, what the hell? It's not groundbreaking. It wouldn't be far enough for you guys. But I see the common ground.

And that's what I'm holding on hope for. But you're right. Just point to the signs. But sometimes you've got to have more of a conversation. I'm not trying to diminish your efforts. No, this is a comedy show. Comedy. Oh, God.

Oh, no. Should we talk about the L.A. mayor race before we wrap things up today? Yeah. Okay, so who all here lives in L.A.? Katie, you live somewhere weird, you said. I live in the mountain. I've lived in L.A. for a long time. I split my time, but I am registered in the mountains

because I feel like my vote is important here. So I'm not voting in this race, but I am very, very familiar with all the players. I live in Los Angeles I live ostensibly in Los Angeles but not actually I can't vote for mayor unfortunately not in the city proper annoying race very annoying race

we have here most of you don't live in L.A., so I'm going to try to do the quick version it won't be quick I'm sorry I apologize Karen Bass is the current mayor she's a Democrat whatever we had to vote for her because Rick Caruso billionaire who built the Grove was the other guy

we don't like that guy Republican like four days before He actually started running it. So we got Karen Bass. Fine. She can point to a few things. Oh, look, crime is trending down. Homelessness is trending down.

Did you have anything to do with that? I don't know. Whatever. She got a lot of bad press around the fires. And because of the fires, enter Spencer Pratt, former reality star, The Hills, if you know that. Founder of Pratt Daddy Crystals. Yeah.

I mean, if you're like under 40, you probably don't know who this guy is. Under 35, I don't know what the line is, the demarcation lie. I think he's banking on that a little bit. Right. There's like a cohort of like, no offense people, Gen Xers who like this kind of shit and do remember him and like,

oh yeah, we're in like, oh yeah, fuck the guy. You think Jen Xers, he's a millennial. I know. But there's a constituency of Jen Xers that like that kind of thing. He just says a lot of awful things about homeless people. He says he's not a MAGA guy, but he uses very Trumpy. language. There's a lot of video rants. There's a lot of lying. He's obviously taking a page from Trump. Basically, his house burned down during the fire. And so he was making videos about it and went viral after being

like has been and not famous in many, many years. And so then he was like, wait, I like being famous again. How can I keep this going? So then he decided to run for mayor. I think it's brand. I think it's even darker than that. You're right. That's part of the trajectory. Well, I'm sure he receives money as well. Him and Heidi Montaug, his wife, lost all of their reality TV money like 15 years ago, millions and millions and millions. You say lost, do you mean spent?

Spent. Lost, put it into his companies that failed. Thankfully, they're both come from very, very rich families. That's how they were famous in the first place. Yeah, they're on their rich kid reality TV show. I don't think that he'll win, but what's happening is dangerous, and we're going to unpack that.

But ultimately it doesn't matter if he wins or loses. He has now elevated himself to a level where he can get a job anywhere on, you know, right-wing podcasts. Yeah, it wants to be famous. This is why Trump ran the first time, you know, like, he's like, oh, I'll up the brand, I'll have a new season of my show and that'll be that. To be born with that amount of wealth and to not just like buy a McDonald's franchise or like buy a building and be a landlord.

And just be, yeah. Like he wants to be famous. It's not really about money. He was raised and his ego is used to being on TV. So that's what he wants. But what's interesting about part of this is that it seems that the L.A. County Federation of Labor has been trying to boost Pratt in order to make it be him in the runoff with the assumption that then he'll lose. And I'm asking, what the fuck, y'all?

Because this is what happened with Donald Trump. And again, I think that it would be tough to actually pull this off for him. That said, we have watched this happen. We have, we've all been shocked beyond belief by the changes that have happened in our country in the last 10 years. And I really think it is so unbelievably dumb to be trying to make that same play. Because this guy is getting platformed. And we are putting him on people's feeds and timelines and all the podcasts. And again, even if he loses, this is a person that's now around and will be squawking in our faces for fucking ever.

Yeah, that's the thing that I keep coming back to. Like, aside from like the whole Piper strategy that we know it is documented, they tried to boost Donald Trump in 2016 because they thought it would be easy to defeat him than what happened. So maybe just don't go to that well. But I keep coming back to, you know, obviously, you know, the reality stuff. and the thing that does worry me is that he's so fucking obnoxious. He's so annoying and stupid. That is so effective in what he's trying to do. And I, like, I'm just, like, he's too annoying to not win in my mind because, of course,

he would fucking win and, like, then just be this odious, obnoxious figure in our lives for longer. I think he's going to go the way. of hawk twa personally let's um i'm hopeful and i haven't even gotten to anyone you might want to vote for let's do that real quick because i think it rounds out the conversation two more people i want to mention nithyaraman is the more popular progressive in the race she was a big progressive presence in 2020 she got on the la city council she advocated for defunding the police and diverting resources diverting resources to mental health, all that good stuff.

Once on the city council, she moderated somewhat and then moderated even more after announcing she was running for mayor. And so she's not down with defunding the police anymore. A lot of the DSA kind of approved stuff is not part of the platform anymore. But she's like the progressive candidate that has a chance to be in the top two if she gets a few more votes than Pratt. And then after that, there's Ray Huang, who, Mary, you had on your show. And I actually really enjoyed watching that interview because you asked her, how do we do some of this stuff? Let's say you're the mayor.

How do we do social housing? How does this happen in a city like L.A.? And it's very clarifying to hear someone who can speak to that somewhat eloquently. Unfortunately, she's polling below 5%. and there's not much hope for her to get in that conversation and get in the runoff. And so it feels from the top level that it's either going to be Karen Bass versus Spencer Pratt or Karen Bass versus Nithiaraman and what would we rather have. Mary convince me otherwise, I guess.

It's hard. Well, I love Ray. I think she's the best. Something I find really fucking annoying about this whole election is like in progressive spaces, we are having conversations about this. And then we feel like we don't want to say this in public because Nithia is the second most progressive person. Right. But a lot of things are not fair. Ray joins the race first.

Nithia joined the race hours before the deadline. she has more name recognition to begin with. So it seems disingenuous when people make these claims that raise a spoiler. It's like, well, this other woman could have stayed on city council. She's going to leave her seat vacant. Who knows who's going to take it over? That's like a district that has a lot of conservative voters. It won't necessarily be replaced by a progressive.

Why would she leave that seat to run for mayor when there was already a progressive person she could have ran behind? But I don't want to get too much into just bashing her. Obviously, I should be saying what's good about Ray and why people should vote for Ray. I think they should vote for Ray. I think she's the most progressive. She has the best platform. She wants to make buses free. She doesn't like ice.

She doesn't mince words about ice. She doesn't mince words about how bloated the LAPD budget is. it really is and it's like so important for us to get that messaging out because people are so divided left versus rights and everyone loves the police and has their flag decal with the blue line on it. You know, a lot of people love police and don't want to hear anything bad about police. But the truth is their budget is so bloated and they're spending so much on like weaponry and stuff that could be. We're closing schools.

And I just feel like Ray is being the most honest and daring and saying, hey, we really shouldn't be spending our budget like that. We should be spending it like this. Part of her platform also is having like a popular budget. So citizens would vote, residents would vote on what they think. the budget is and then the city would have to spend the budget how if you can believe it how the residents want it in a popular democratic fashion and so they um did a pilot of this and they pulled all of these residents what are your budget concerns police and traffic came in last out of all

of these things. But that's the number one thing our budget spends currently. The top things were, you know, school, rent relief, just grocery, like popular things. How the things that you need to survive. Yeah. I don't know. I just, I think a lot of people are concerned that Nithia wouldn't be different at all from Bass. I think it's kind of telling that you're not quite sure. And I think but you're very clear about like, well, Ray says this, this, this, this. She wants this, this, this, this, this. And I think that is, it's just such a valuable asset to have somebody in that conversation, being able to say very strongly.

And like you're saying, explain how that would work when you have these sort of more maybe milk, toasty Democrats and then a loudmouth like Spencer Pratt, having somebody who can advocate for, in a lot of cases, what is ostensibly the opposite of what they're saying. you know you don't want um i mean i think of so many races where you have this sort of like republican and then a democrat is kind of like a little wishy-washy and like concerned and kind of wants to do like i'll do republican light i'll do like their version but like a little a little lighter on this stuff to kind of uh have my lane but then you don't have somebody up there saying like no what

you're saying is actually bad here's why what you're proposing is bad not that like oh we can kind of like we can work with that no no no say it's bad and say why it's bad say what you want to do instead. It is disappointing that she doesn't have more traction because the reality is is that there's a really big hill for her to climb it in and it's not likely. She could get out there and like make a splat like challenge Pratt to a fist fight, something like that, get like on people's radar. Well, it's like one of those things of like when you go to the ballot box, you think, do I want to deal with four more months of Spencer Pratt in my life? And if you feel like there's a chance to even if you think we're ending up with Bass no matter what,

which feels like, you know, not 100%, but it feels more likely than not that she will get reelected. As mayor, you think, do I want to deal with this piece of shit? and he'll give us content, whatever. Like, that's not what goes into my thinking. It's just sad. I feel sad that we never get, because Nithia is not like Zauron. If she had just stayed on city council

and not joins the mayor race, we could be saying, wow, how awesome we could have Ray versus Bass. We could be having a shot and we just kind of never get that shot in L.A. And, of course, we're jealous because of what they just got. Right. Right. And I think it's really worth remembering these Democrats Schumer and Jeffries, these people, they did not endorse Mamdani. They never said that they were going to vote for him when asked afterwards. They didn't say that they voted for him. They probably voted for Cuomo. So, yeah, that is, it's 100%. And look at the popularity and how much success of Mom Donny and how much success he's having. A little bit of a bummer. We all watch this play out in New York City and how inspiring it was

and what we're watching play out what's capturing the most attention in the L.A. race is the opposite of it. It's a knockoff Donald Trump and the story of this guy capitalizing on fringe complaints like Karen Bass burned down my house. Did she?

What would happen if you were in office when there was a fire? And treating like, I mean the way he talks about homeless people and the homeless was problem and contrasted with like, and like, man, I'm just so hard on my luck. My mansion in the palisades burned down and I have to stay at the Bel Air Hotel for thousands of dollars a night. And I craned in this airstream to pretend like I have to live there.

It's so fake and so annoying. He also benefits just from being like a Republican. So you're going to get attention. They have to show obligatory who's the popular Republican in the race. anything could happen, anything could happen, but I predict that he won't do well. We'll see. We'll see.

It's just like, I'm just like, but he's so annoying. We can all agree on one thing. This guy sucks. I want to be able, I want people to be able, I can't, I keep forgetting, I can't fucking vote in this selection. I want people to be able to vote for who they want based on the things that that person is saying they want to do. and the idea that there's this sort of like being like held hostage by like this sort of like these like chances and these all this other stuff and like I just vote for who you want and it sucks that these considerations even have to be made that feels like a good place for us to wrap this up Mary thank you so much for joining us this week please promote your show anything you want to plug yes watch my show watch my show

the Mary Hulahan show on YouTube. It's awesome interviews, but also documentary, travel, field segment type stuff that I'm proud of and trying to do more of. I have one video from my trip to Cuba, and I have a video coming out soon about going to the detention center in California City and also lots of funny interviews. It sounds like serious stuff, but I try to make it. Funny. Just like this show, a comedy show, right? Well, thank you, Mary. Thank you, gentlemen.

Thank you viewers at home. Oh, like and subscribe. All that stuff. Leave a comment. Algorithm. Hey. Whatever. Have a good weekend.

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