The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 2737 - Occupy Wall Street 15 Years Later; Fighting for Medicare for All w/ Yotam Marom, Nancy Altman

Episode Date: September 23, 2026

  It's Hump Day on The Majority Report On today's program: Donald Trump's love affair with NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani continues to kneecap the Republican candidates that are trying to center their campaign's around anti-DSA and anti-Mamdani. The centrist ghouls who see the Mamdani movement as a threat to their bank accounts are making desperate attempts to frame the mayor's joint press conference with the president as a gross failure. Yotam Marom, organizer, facilitator and author of "For Louder Days: Reaching Beyond a Politics of Powerlessness", joins to discuss the 15th anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. Nancy J. Altman, president of Social Security Works joins for a conversation about her book, "The Road to Medicare for All: A Call to Action". In the Fun Half: UN delegates walk out on Benjamin Netanyahu's speech. Scott Galloway asks Abdul El-Sayed if he understand why "as a Jew" he is offended when people point out that Israel is committing a genocide. Dave Rubin cannot handle Trump's relationship with Mayor Mamdani. all that and more. Please consider helping the Aldaghma family, they are the family behind Gaza Bakery, which provides bread and meals to displaced families, and Future Flowers Kindergarten, which gives children a place to learn, play, and experience moments of normalcy whenever conditions allow. On Sunday, October 4, Emma will be in Los Angeles doing a Bitchuation Room Live with Francesca Fiorentini at the Lodge Room. Get tickets here. To connect and organize with your local ICE rapid response team visit ICERRT.com The Congress switchboard number is [phone]. You can use this number to connect with either the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives. Follow us on TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@majorityreportfm Check us out on Twitch here: https://www.twitch.tv/themajorityreport Find our Rumble stream here: https://rumble.com/user/majorityreport Check out our alt YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/majorityreportlive Gift a Majority Report subscription here: https://fans.fm/majority/gift Subscribe to the AM Quickie newsletter here: https://am-quickie.ghost.io/ Join the Majority Report Discord! https://majoritydiscord.com/ Get all your MR merch at our store: https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/ Get the free Majority Report App!: https://majority.fm/app Go to https://JustCoffee.coop and use coupon code majority to get 10% off your purchase Check out today's sponsors: DELETEME: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to www.joindeleteme.com/MAJORITY and use promo code MAJORITY at checkout. TRUST & WILL: Get 20% off trustandwill.com/MAJORITY SUNSET LAKE CBD: Head to SunsetLakeCBD.com and use coupon code 'Left Is Best' to save 20% your entire order. Follow the crew on X @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattLech On Instagram: @MrBryanVokey Check out Matt's show, Left Reckoning, on YouTube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning Check out Matt Binder's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/mattbinder Subscribe to Brandon's YouTube channel: https://ww.youtube.com/Th3Discourse Check out Ava Raiza's music here: https:/www.youtube.com/@avaraiza

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discount code. One word, left is best, 20% off. We'll, of course, put that in our podcast and YouTube descriptions. And now time for the show. Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Wednesday, September 23rd, 2006. My name is Sam Cedar. This is the five-time award-winning majority report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, USA. On the program today, Yodam Maram, organizer, facilitator, author of For Louder Days, reaching beyond politics of powerlessness.

On to discuss the 15th anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. Then Nancy J. Altman, president. of Social Security Works In our most recent book The Road to Medicare for All A Call to Action Also on the program today U.S. and Iran hold first talks

since June. Trump says they went great. He pushed down oil for a day. Meanwhile, Trump and Republicans boot 760,000 people from their health care off the ACA

for the thinnest of ridiculous, most ridiculous fraud reasons you've ever heard. White House is in court defending a media ban saying White House access is a privilege. President G. visits the White House to see what a fading empire

looks like close up. Sanders in the Senate, Kesar in the House, introduced a bill to ban artificial superintelligence and create a Department of AI to provide oversight. Meanwhile, New York and California hot off the backs of their total cave on one of the most relevant mergers of our era.

Sue to block Trump administration from canceling offshore wind projects. Mamdani administration secures New York. York City's largest ever labor settlement, $131 million, will go to over 200,000 door dashers. Trump regime says nearly all 17,500 refugee slots for 2027 will go to white Afrikaners. And good news for all of you whose lives are spiraling out of control. Kalshi to will loan to its users to bet on big events on their platform. Lastly, Trump backs a ban on diesel fuel out of a desperate attempt to make up for his

Iranian war F up. All this and more on today's majority report. Well, okay. He did that Brian style. I always get it for doing that. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Very sensitive to that. I've noticed.

I, yeah, I mean, my ears are, you know, that's the, I'm used to a soft landing. Like a German automobile.

Exactly. Whereas pronunciation, it's sort of not really your ears. No, I can't hear any, I can know, I can hear actual words as much as I can sort of like just sounds.

in general. Folks, it is Humpty, Emma Viglin, out today. But I have licensed that term from her. We've got a bunch of stuff to go through. Two great folks that we're talking to today. I think we mentioned this on the show yesterday. Mom, Donnie met with Donald Trump yesterday. As you know, Mamdani is the mayor of the largest city in the country.

Is New York larger than L.A.? I always forget. It is. Yes. Okay. And, you know, I think it also has the largest immigrant population in the country. And also the mayor needs some federal housing funds. And I thought we went through this, frankly, I don't know, what was it, six months ago, eight months ago? on the day that Mom Donnie went down to the White House and came out actually afterwards, I just happened to have been booked on CNN that night. And I remember saying something to the effect of like this was masterful. And what Mom Donnie did in that moment was made it impossible. Because you'll recall six to eight months ago, I think it was.

Maybe it was last year. I don't even remember what year this year. is. The Democratic establishment was saying, Mamdani's election is going to hurt Democrats across the country because the Republicans are going to run against Mamdani. And establishment Democrats, I think, were very, very invested in that happening. And I think it's become much more clear that they were invested in proving that Mamdani's election was going to hurt Democrats across the country.

And Mom Dani in that moment got Donald Trump to basically say he's a great guy. He's not a, I mean, he doesn't bite. You know, he hugged me, whatever it was. And I said that night, I said, this destroys. I don't even remember her name anymore. Stephanics election. Yeah, in that moment, her election, I didn't even remember what she was running for anymore. I think she was.

her whole plan was to run against bomb d'ney i can't even remember she is so gone it buried her and also took away all of the republicans plans for the midterms incidentally i think the fact that has had to take that role for republicans but remember where the hasan piker stuff started it didn't start with the republicans it started with a combination of establishment Democrats and this person over at the bulwark. I mean, to the point where her colleague, Tim Miller. Miller was like, what are we doing here in a podcast with her?

And so I just, I think it's very important to point this stuff out because Democrats are going to take the House. there's a chance they may take the Senate and the iron law of institutions not a phrase coined by me I think I got it from the late Kevin Drum at the Washington

monthly some people would rather be the captain of the JV team than ride the bench on the varsity team I sort of like that I mean I was like a I'll be a big fish in a small

podcast person. But that's not good for our politics. Chuck Schumer might rather be the minority leader than no leader at all of the majority. I don't know. But there was a decided attack. They needed to maintain their power within the Democratic Party and also win the midterms if they could. And so, Mamdani meets with Trump yesterday, gets Trump to come to. the White House, humiliates him by having the entire press pool there, Gracie Mansion, sorry, in New York. We will see if there is, I mean, certainly New York City has not been invaded by ICE

in the way that we anticipated. They would right after Mom Donnie got elected, if you'll recall. Ice is still nibbling around the edges and whatnot, but we've got a lot of immigrants. We've got a lot of temporary protected status. people and Mom Dani is advocating for those people. But for some reason, folks like Neera Tandon and this woman, Sarah Longwell, have been expressing, I don't know, frustration, anger that Mom Dani met with Trump. Confusion.

And I want to reiterate this. I am totally against platforming people. and I am again you know who are who are are bad for just lack of a better word and I am also I don't believe that you should go on a podcast or promote or whatever go on to somebody else platform that you that you that are bad unless you make it really clear when you get there that I'm not your friend you are bad so that your people don't sort of like appreciate this person in some way or you're not a funnel into their world. So here's with Sarah Longwell, expert on politics apparently.

She cut her chops as the first female national board chair of the log cabin Republicans, which incidentally was a group that whitewashed. how homophobic the Republican Party was. But she doesn't like Trump. Good for her. That is a very low bar. But here is Sarah Longwell. I don't know, man.

It's not like he's just a regular old normal president, speaking of Donald Trump. What, like George Bush? Right. I get that everyone is invested in Mom Donnie being perfect. But that press conference was pretty gross. Now, if you watch, that press conference, you just see

Mom Dani's stone face throughout the whole thing getting Trump to supplicate himself to it. And I guarantee you, Trump did not get an ounce of popularity or approval from that press conference. What did, what did

Mom Dani get? We'll get to that in a moment. Liz Cheney made it her life's mission to ensure that Trump wasn't normalized. She went down swinging. Let's go back to 2019 when Liz Cheney was still alive during her life, when Donald Trump was president, this is a press conference. She led, I think it was a day after one of Donald Trump's

non-normal speeches. We're going to hear from my colleagues more about the state of the union last night. It was a tremendous speech by the president, laid out a path forward in terms of where we need to go on a range of issues. And really, I think, set the right tone in terms of the kind of bipartisan work that we need to do together. Pause it for a second. We could stop right there, and that's just insane. I think pretty much Liz Cheney normalized Donald Trump there in 2019, but it gets worse. There's something in particular that I want to speak to this morning and that my colleague, Congresswoman Wagner, wants to speak to. And that's to make sure that every American understands what today's Democrat Party stands for with respect to babies and with respect to the

murder of babies. We have seen now in states across the country the introduction of legislation that would enable the killing of babies. This is not about abortion. This is about killing babies after they are born. Okay, we're done. Liz Cheney Five years before she was campaigning with Kamala Harris was saying that Democrats were passing legislation to kill babies who were born. I'll just know Sarah Longwell was the moderator for the Kamala Harris Liz Cheney Town Hall in Pennsylvania. So she's particularly sensitive to this. Oh, I see. Okay.

So she was heavily invested in Liz Cheney helping Kamala Harris out. We've seen the data. There has been polling that shows that Liz Cheney. Cheney hurt Kamala Harris. Do I blame Liz Cheney for going around with Kamala Harris? Absolutely not, because it made perfect sense for her. It was the only way to revive her career. I blame Kamala Harris's people for going around with Liz Cheney. But getting back to what did Mom Donnie get out of this? We don't know yet, and maybe we'll never know, did Trump hold off on sending ICE into New York City into the most vulnerable communities.

We don't know yet if we're going to get federal funds for public housing. But every other political person in the country, apparently, except for Sarah Longwell, the expert, had an idea that when Trump meets with Mamdani, he is defanging a number one attack that Republicans have used against Democrats. They're using Hassan Piker now, again, as a function. of Sarah Longwell's push to make Hassan Piker a household name, which she did quite effectively. She just lifted it up and let the Republicans pick it up. But this is from Politico. Plus, there are competitive races in New York. I had some Republicans texting me about,

especially the governor's race where you have Bruce Blakeman running against incumbent Democrat Kathy Hockel saying that Blakeman is essentially screwed. now that this has like destroyed his campaign telling me that this is quote a total nightmare and that everyone in blakeman world is is freaking out right now because this is again this is what like every republican is running on right now is is make mom donnie and and and like the enemy and and the thing that you don't want to embrace it's wild it's wild it's wild And incidentally, in the clip, before the preceded that, she's talking about this across nationally. Mom, Donnie meeting with Trump, helped every single Democrat in every single race across the country and destroyed New York Republicans.

And there are a couple of, like she said, there are a couple of, it's not just Blakeman. Lawler. I mean, it's either sheer ignorance on the part of people like Longwell and. near a Tandon or just such a desperate desire to maintain their power within the Democratic Party or in the eyes of their donors or whomever. I don't, I can't figure out what the agenda is, what the, what's driving the agenda. But it is quite clear. People should be quite clear about this.

And it's, and understand, they are desperate to have people like Abdul al-Sayed loose. desperate. You can see it. They are white-knuckled. We'll play James Carvel later and Dave Rubin and all the rest of them. Because they have the exact same agenda. Scott Galloway. All right. We're going to take a break. I got some sponsors. In a moment, we'll be talking to Yodam Maram, organizer, facilitator, author of For Louder Days, Reaching Beyond a Politics of Powerlessness on the 15th anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. And then we'll be talking to Nancy Altman, President of Social Security Works, one of my favorite organizations on her book, The Road to Medicare for All, a call to action. First, a couple of words from our sponsors. I used this product for about 10 years before they came to us as sponsors. And I did so because at that time, you know, I do this. I had this problem on Air America as well with this show. there's a lot of

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That's trust and will.com slash majority to get 20% off. Trust and will. com slash majority. Again, we'll put that info in the podcast and YouTube description. Quick break. When we come back, Yotam Maram. We are back, Sam Cedar on the majority report. It is a real pleasure to welcome back to the program.

Yotam Maram, organizer, facilitator, author of For Louder Days, Reaching Beyond a Politics of Powerlessness. Can we shift Yotam over a little bit? Come on in. Come on in. Come on in. Come on in. Come on in. There we go.

Thank you. So, Yo, Tom, you know, last we spoke, we were talking about sort of in general, like, organizing and whatnot. But now we are, well, it's a little bit more than 15 years after Occupy Wall Street. It started September 17th. I remember that vividly, I think the 17th, if I'm not mistaken, was a Friday. I think I went down that it was raining. in because we had just started this show

maybe a year earlier and or actually no maybe it was yeah maybe it was a year earlier and we did a live broadcast there and I had to walk around with a radio shack mixer and we interviewed people and

then it was raining. Serious lore. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And it was was so exciting. I brought my kids down there or my daughter anyways. And there was such an energy in the air. Just tell me your recollection of that. And then let's speak about its legacy. Yeah, sure. Well, thanks for having me. I love being here with you. Well, I mean, the first night, I was a little bit grumpy about it. I didn't think it was going to work. I had been doing, you know, stuff around the city, you know, movement stuff leading.

up to that, including like a street occupation outside of City Hall to try to stop the budget cuts, the Bloomberg budget cuts. There were only a couple months earlier. And so I was like, this is fucking not going to work. And, and, but I was there and, you know, trying to be a good soldier. And, and, and yeah, that first day really kind of blew, blew, blew me open. Like, it was, it was a very special thing. I mean, you know, to be on, having come up on a, in a movement on the left, that always felt kind of on the margins. You know, you go to these protests and you, like, know, know everybody there and that kind of thing.

And then to be in a thing that suddenly felt like at scale was already a big deal. And I remember, like, you know, it got dark. And there were, like, these facilitators perched on these, like, stone blocks in the middle of the park and thousands of people, like, in, like, concentric circles around them. And the park has these lights that are built into the concrete. and they like light up and i mean it just like it was like people looked like angels like it was a it was a really like a kind of magical thing and there were a lot of these big transformative moments

i mean i had some of my first experiences of feeling like oh we could be part of a movement that wins things we could be you know and and that's not exactly what happened with occupy we can talk about the legacy of it but but that feeling of like oh we could be powerful we don't have to be a side show is a is a transformative thing for for people and and certainly was a transformative thing for me i think it's a really important contribution that movements can make. So, yeah, I mean, I have a million stories. The kind of opening of the book is some of my, like, stories from that time. It goes, the book goes on to, you know, sort of talk, you know, stories from movements since then in the last 15 years.

But some of the beginning is, so, you know, I have a lot of, like, juicy, you know, harrowing tales of the internal life of Occupy Wall Street, if that's like a people are gluttons for that. But, yeah, that's some of my recollection. Yeah, I would, I would, I would. recommend people check that out. It is, it is almost, it's so difficult to really express what it was in, in, in, in, in just a few words, because there was, um, it, you know, and, and you talk about this, there was no demands, which was, um, which, you know, in my mind, cut both ways. I went back and forth during that whole period of time.

Same. And like, just, but the taking up space in some way was, um, it was very different than I would have, uh, if someone had told me this was going to happen, you know, a month before, I would have, my attitude would have been like, what? No way. You just like, what, what's it supposed to do? But totally. People forget there was, there were these, uh, encampments. all across the country and in fact across the world that were based upon Occupy.

And there was real, there was a real sense that like something can actually grow out of this in a really strong way. But I want to talk about, you write about the idea of politics of powerlessness, which is still a phenomenon that is at play. and explain that dynamic. And then let's talk about sort of like what has come out of Occupy in the years since. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So this thing I call the politics of powerlessness, which is one of the kind of connective threads of the book is it's a way of describing this phenomenon where organizations and movements start to internalize their powerlessness and then behave in ways that make them even more powerless. So, you know, often because we spend a lot of our time not winning and on the margins and, you know, sort of the underdogs, we start to adopt a story about ourselves that that's what we're supposed to be and that's what we're always going to be. Like, I came up in the anti-war movement. And after the very beginning of the anti-war movement, that, you know, was this like a massive, I mean, record breaking numbers of people in the streets.

But then we didn't stop the war. and you know and and and and to a young person coming up in that movement it was pretty devastating and it really shifted my it was like oh we're not we're not going to stop the war and like it was bush and and the patriot act and flags everywhere they didn't used to be fucking flags everywhere like it was you know it was a it felt like a dystopian novel and and you start to you start to basically take on okay fine so we're not going to win but we're going to be the righteous few and once you start to think of yourself as as part of the righteous view, you you then abandon a lot of the behaviors that it actually takes to build movements. What actually takes to build movements is to talk to

people who are really different from you. It's like kind of sometimes boring, painstaking work of knocking on doors and calling people on the phone. It's like learning how to actually, you know, run a meeting and be in healthy conflict with people and build organizations and navigate all these hard things that come up in groups, that inevitably come up in groups about identity, about the longing, like that. This is the stuff of the book. It's like ways, I think, that groups can do that in a more healthy way. But once you start to, once you don't think you're going to win, whether because the enemy is scary or you're just caught up in despair, you have no experience of winning before, then you start to abandon that stuff. And you become insular

and self-righteous. And you turn on, you turn away from the public, you turn away from the enemy. You turn towards one another. You often turn against one another because that's how you can exercise the power you do have is like on one another in the space or online. or, you know, all this sort of call-out stuff. I think that is one of the things that I learned at Occupy and experienced and also did myself at Occupy. I think that we were very confused about power. We did not have a lived experience of any power for the left

or feeling that that was possible. And I think we acted a lot of that out on each other. And I think that came out in all of our stuff, like especially over time as we faced more and more barriers to growing and faced police repression and faced all this stuff. Like I think we more and more turned inward and turned people away and made it hard to join. And so that I think is one of the legacies of Occupy. I think that it was a case study in this this thing that we often do on the left still,

I think, do, though less than than before. And we can talk about that. And that's part of like, but definitely not the only. I mean, I think this is a, that that disposition is not, I think, exclusive to left-wing politics or even politics. I mean, I just remember like when, you know, smells like teen spirit came out, people were bummed that Nirvana was having success. And I'm like, what, like, why? What difference is it made? Their music's not different, you know, like it hasn't, you know, well, like people now kind of hate the Beatles because they were popular. I'm like, dudes,

they fucking make great music. What do you want? You know, it's like, I think it's true. I think you're right. I actually think the right wing has some of this stuff too. I mean, I think the sort of implode, like the, the ways that some of the far right turn in on themselves is similar to this. But, but I think the, but I'm happy about that. Yeah. But exactly. I hope they don't read my book and like get better at their internal shit. I mean, well, and so, but let's, I mean, when we talk about turning away from people, like, where did what like how far do we cast out when we're casting our lines like who's in that group that we shouldn't be turning away from

because there are some people in my estimation where it's like I'm not wasting the return on investment I hate to use like a business term but that's basically what we're talking about is not worth it for a significant portion of the country I mean if you're trying to make an example out of them or you're trying to use it to illustrate some other point but So who are we talking about? Because, like, you know, I just started the show by slamming a near a tendon and Sarah Longwell for attacking Mom Dani. But there are ilk like that. Maybe they're on the far out reaches, frankly.

But there's, it's almost like the people who are just sort of ignorant as opposed to willfully ignorant. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's right. Look, I think, yeah, it's true. Movements, they set boundaries one way or another. Like, we have to do it.

Because we're obviously, we're saying, no, this thing is not right. Like, this way the world is organized is not right. We're not okay with it. We're going to fight that. And so, and it's important that we have, that we get real about the fact that we have opponents in that. And, like, you know, opponents who are, if we're being honest, like, they're trying to kill us. Like, they're literally, before they give up power, they'll certainly want to kill quite a lot of us. and like they're driving the whole, like, the entire civilization off a cliff.

So it's not like a, it's not a game. And I think we have to be serious about the fact that we don't mean for everybody to belong. But I think our movements tend to be protective of themselves for good reason. We've been, you know, a lot of people come to movements because they've been hurt. Because they don't trust the mainstream, because they hate the mainstream, because, you know, And we start to then adopt these behaviors that are, you know, like litmus tests to be able to join. You know, you have to be, you have to show how radical you are. You have to all this stuff.

Okay. Here's a good story for this. I know we're both, we are both amateur softball players. That's correct. And we have overlap in the leagues that we're in. Yeah. So we know some of the same people. And maybe you're good.

I'm not very good. Or like, I'm all right. I mean, since you're bringing it up, people asking me where I got this bruise on my last game we both know Anthony we don't have to say his last name he's one of the better players on our

and maybe the best and he made the mistake of playing me a little shallow at left field last game and hit a triple and if you know what Prospect Park fields the grass is long of course it had been shortened I would have probably would have been just to stand up home run. Nevertheless, tied the game in the ninth inning. We went on to win.

It's not for you. It's not important. It's not important. It's not important at all. But no, continue on with what you're doing. Let me just. My softball story. Guys, stop it. All right, go ahead. My softball story, where's my? I'll show you. My softball story is kind of the opposite. is like I went to join, you know, this is basically like a pickup softball league that's been, it's been running for 30 years. Mine too.

You know, a lot of old men and like, you know, people with busted knees and whatever and they're, you know, and some like really great players and, you know, and I was looking for something to do that wasn't movement work. And so I went and I joined this thing. And I was like fine for the first couple of games. And then I think what ended up happening is I got put in positions where I was actually going to be tested. They were sort of like warming me up. And then I had a couple of games where I was catastrophically bad. I mean, I was like, I made like a bunch of errors like, you know, and you're like,

I hadn't played in 20 years. I played like when I was a kid in high school, not well, you know, and suddenly I'm just, you know, a few, this is a story I write in the detail in the book, if you want to know how painful each error was. But it was, you know, softball is one of these sports where you can't, there's nowhere to hide, you know, if you're going to fuck up, everyone's watching. You're going hit the ball or you're not. Nobody can help you. You're going to catch it or not. Nobody can help you. You know, and when you're playing with adults, particularly in my experience in Brooklyn, has been like, people let you know about it. Totally. Yeah. And I very quickly, like, you know, got demoted. And, and I had like a breakdown over this. I was like spent like a way too much of

my therapy money, like talking about, you know, this, this felt new to me, you know, failing in public as an adult. And, you know, I tend to be in movement spaces as a facilitator. My work is as a movement facilitator for groups going through hard stuff. And, you know, I'm in spaces where I'm sort of the one directing the flow of things. Like, and here I am, like, just sucking and, like, not being in charge. And, you know, I had a real hard time with it. And over time, what happened, I decided to stay and not just quit because I had so much fun in those first few games.

It felt like alive and connected. and, you know, like a kid again. And a couple things happened when I decided to stay over time. One is I made friends. And some of those guys are like really my buddies now. And the other is that I got better. And, you know, I'll show you. I'll show you.

He's going to pull out. He's going to, he's got a statue. This is my most improved. My most improved award. I can't believe I'm like, hi, mom. You know, where's my applause? There we go. That's a good job. Thank you. Thank you.

And anyway, it's ridiculous to have to say this out loud, but it is actually a profound thing to re-realize as an adult that when you practice something, you become better at it. And good, healthy things, communities or organizations, they expect that you are not great when you come. You might even be broken by this system. and they trust themselves to be able to take you in and they're not afraid of you and they let you stay long enough to improve. And, you know, the thing about softball is like, I wasn't asked to, nobody expected anything really of me

except that I would play, play by the rules and like, try. You know, try to not let my team down. That's like what it is to be part of a team sport. And I think this is how I'm connecting it back to the movement stuff is I think our movements are often the opposite. Because we're scared and because we've been hurt and because we have a lot to protect, really, a lot of marginalized people to protect, like who are fucked over by the system, by empire,

we often create pretty harsh boundaries for people where they have to prove themselves before they join. And that is not a winning strategy. That's not how mass movements are made. And the parts of the right that are successful, they do the opposite. They really expect you to be broken and they come, and they're ready to transform you. They take you for whatever you are and they put you to work.

And I think our movements need to get better at that. So to your question of like who belongs and who not, we have opponents we need to fight. But really a lot of people in this country, a lot of people in this world, they're up for the taking. They're looking for a place to belong. They're hurt by this system. They could very easily be convinced to turn on it. They would benefit from the world that we want to win. A lot of them know that already.

And simply the reason that most people are not in movements is because they don't really believe that they don't know how to join them and they don't really believe that anything can change. But we know that things can change. and that's we need to organize them in order for that to happen. Let's talk about the legacy of Occupy Wall Street because I, my, my assessment of it has changed over the years because I think in the in the direct wake of it, I was very excited. And then sort of like a couple years out, I was like, I'm not sure if that really amounted to anything. And then three, four, five, six, seven years out, I started to realize like all these people who are, I talk about who are activists, who are providing mutual aid in the wake of Sandy or they're preventing people from getting kicked out of their homes in Minnesota or they all came out of Occupy.

Absolutely. And I would say even in the context of like, you know, when Bernie had his run in 2016, and he's talking about the 99%. I mean, that came out of Occupy when, say more. Yeah, no, I think you're really right. I mean, I started off with saying, you know, some of the dark parts of the legacy of our struggles around power and powerlessness, but I really think that there's like an overwhelming contribution that Occupy Wall Street made,

that it was really a rupture that, you know, kind of, brought thousands and thousands of people into political action, trained thousands of leaders, some of whom you're describing that went on to build organizations that have become really the kind of infrastructure of the movement on the left. And, you know, this is a thing that movements often do when they're successful is they introduce new language to the public. They change people's perspective about what's possible. They expand their imaginations. And so this, you know, this thing, the 99%, like, it's, it's hard to overstate how important of a contribution that is to the story of this country. Like, that just was not, that's not what we were talking about

before then. And the 99% versus the 1% is like, when you really, when you think about it, it is an introduction of like class struggle into the public mainstream conversation. And here's, Bernie is a fantastic example because he's the most disciplined, consistent politician on, on earth. Like, he's, he's not from this planet, you know? And, And so we could say with great confidence that he's been saying basically the same thing for decades. But suddenly in 2016, it was popular. And that's because a movement came around and changed people's common sense about class. And so Bernie and then the squad and AOC and the growth of DSA and Zoran, like these are part of a trajectory that all had their own, you know, they all have their own inputs and leaders and ways that people.

develop and it's not all through Occupy, although I think that a lot of leadership came out of that too. But but I think this, this, this changing, the expansion of the imagination is a huge contribution and particularly towards this, on this trajectory that we're on now where there is like a left, a Democratic socialist left or, you know, whatever that's on the rise, I think, like, is very much part of the lineage of that. Do you think, and honestly, like I was reading about this $130 million essentially a settlement that DoorDash is paying

and Mamdani's got a I can't remember what the name of it is it's the functional equivalent of consumer financial protection bureau but also I think workers in it Sam Levine I think is the guy who's heading it and they're building

in the Mamdani administration they're building essentially a huge leftist, not just think tank, but like policy shop that also is implementing these things. And I feel like none of this would be happening without Occupy. You know, like those seeds that were planted there, you never know where they're going to go. And the seed can, you know, come off of what gets planted there and blow down the road a little bit or a bird eats it and poops it out somewhere else. But honestly, I feel like that all of that's...

stuff had to happen to be where we are today. And in five or six years from now, we could be talking about an administration, regardless who becomes president, staffed by many of the people coming out of this Mamdani administration. That is totally possible. And I think what I think this is a good example of is the interplay between different types of movement organization and movement moments. Like I think, you know, the way that movement moments like that, these kind of big ruptures in the streets, how we're talking, what the, you know, what we're saying is that part of what they're good for is, is this big picture sort of transformation that makes a lot else possible. And then, like, talent, if we're lucky and if we do our work, then talented politicians and disciplined organizations and it can't take that and turn it into something. real and durable and long term that can then like keep it going so you know the stuff like the mom dana administration is advancing that trajectory and so it's a really important interplay i actually

think that's one of the important lessons that i think we need to be grappling with in this moment i don't know if that's okay to go there i think like i i think we need to have respect for the different types of the different ways that movements are and the different types of organizations that make movements up. And I think, you know, Occupy is an important example of we got a lot of things wrong. But we got something right, which is that elections are not going to win us like the society we deserve on their own. That's not going to happen. And we have lots of historical evidence to show that that is the case. And what those kinds of movement moments are good for is, you know,

creating an opportunity for those kinds of more tangible wins, but then they also are necessary to keep driving the agenda forward and to also hold, you know, politicians accountable and to create more opportunity. And I just, I worry sometimes that we think like we get successful at something and we think that that's going to be the thing that if we just repeat rinse and repeat then it'll be enough and you know i think i think the truth is i think we're doing so dsa like the you know the the portions of dsa that are leading this the the left populist politicians who are who are like providing this example and and winning these things that the big sort of statewide organizations and you know all

that kind of stuff that makes this possible i think they're a huge contribution i think they're a big intervention in this like politics of powerlessness they're saying no we want power and here's how we're going to get it and here's how we're going to wield it and deliver for people and i think it's like a huge advancement we we didn't understand that stuff you know in the time that i was coming up but you know we're we did understand that like you can win a presidency in you know in chile like with day and like and then they come with tanks you know and it's like the the billionaires who run this who run this society, this empire, it will not go down without a fight. I mean, this is exactly what I've been thinking about.

Like, you know, aside from the sort of typical, your favorite politician is going to break your heart sometimes. If Mamdani was made president tomorrow and AOC, the majority leader in the Senate, And, you know, Summerlee, the Speaker of the House, we still, we would still be, have the fight of our life on our hands because we now have trillionaires out there who can do. Yeah, they live in bunkers and they have drones. Like people that have to understand that none of that's going to work. the best case scenario, the fantasy case scenario is not going to work without people being organized and ready to fight on a daily basis. Like this is not going to go away. There is no finish line

in this situation. There's really just an improvement in our lives, but a constant having to engage in this process. Yeah, I think that's really right. And I think, and, you know, so I think this, like this thing that portions of the left are now doing really well of like winning elections for on behalf of the movement is a huge contribution and we have so many other skills we need to keep learning and adopting and getting better at we need to we need to keep learning how to be in the streets we need to keep organizing people to be in the places where they belong like to be organizing day to day in your workplace in your school in your neighborhood the places where people live and are going to be long term that's where people that's where we need to build

organizations and groups. We need to learn how to build groups in a healthy way, like to, because inevitably, once you start building groups, like all this stuff comes up about leadership and power and identity and all these, these like very real struggles that people engage in when they're together, you know, but together is the only answer. Like people long term together in action is the only, is the only path out of this thing. I mean, that's what, that's what a lot of the book is for, for whatever it's worth. Like I think it's, it's sort of tips and tools from hard-won lessons about how to build healthy organizations and how to build healthy groups. And I think, yeah, you know, the midterms, like, I hope the Democrats and I hope

the progressive wing and the Democrats are successful. And, like, they're going to try to steal the election. And there's going to be all sorts of denial and there's going to be refusal to seat socialist elected officials. And then if we beat that, then, you know, then there'll be more. Then they'll be, then they'll be like right-wing militias in the streets. And the only way to win the kind of world we deserve, like you're saying, I think over time and in a way that doesn't really stop is mass movements. And mass movements have to be able to do lots of different things. They need to win elections, but they also need to learn how to organize long term. And they also need to learn how to be in the streets in these moments of rupture and even create those

moments of rupture. And they need to learn how to navigate the despair that comes in the face of backlash and build healthy groups. And yeah, we have a lot of work to do. We're going to link to for louder days reaching beyond the politics of powerlessness. If you could name two or three books or articles, for people who, particularly the young people listening, who weren't sort of around at that time or conscious at that time of what was happening about Occupy Wall Street. I mean, I think our members, maybe we should release some of those Occupy interviews

we did at that time. But what would you recommend? Let me think about what I'm trying to remember some good ones. There's one called The Occupier. my friend Sarah Jaffe, he wrote a great book that starts their necessary trouble, but it also sort of traces a lot of what you're talking about, how leaders came from there to like the housing justice movement in Minneapolis and that kind of stuff.

I think Jonathan Smucker wrote a book called Hegemony How To that deals with a lot of these similar ideas about how left movements sometimes turn inward. Yeah, those are some good ones. All right. We'll put that on the site, and we will link to those as well. And you and I will get together and do a little batting practice. I could use it. Got to extend.

Thank you. Got to extend. Lead with the hands. Yeah. Lead with the hands. Lead with the hands. Yeah, no, I'm trying to practice. Yeah, thank you.

You, Tom, a real pleasure. Hope to talk to you soon. Yeah. See you soon. Thanks. Bye. All right, folks. Let's take that same spirit.

And as we talk to our. next guest, Nancy Altman, who is the president of Social Security Works, who's written a book on The Road to Medicare for All, rather, a call to action. We'll be right back after this. We are back, Sam Cedar on The Majority Report. I want to welcome, I think welcome back to the show, because I think we've had you on in the past, Nancy J. Alman, she's the president of Social Security Works and whose most recent book, The Road to Medicare for All, a call to action. In fact, we played clips yesterday of Alex Lawson from Social Security Works, who was down interrupting a field hearing by Republicans from the, I think it was the Ways and Means Committee or the

Budget Committee. And I didn't realize this. We played Alex sort of causing trouble in the, in the space. But that was, I had assumed it was some type of, um, legislative. body, it was a Harlan Crow owned like Parliament or something. I mean, it's insane. He told me afterwards, he texted me, said, I just found out Harlan Crow owned that place.

And I'm like, what? It looked like it was the Texas legislature. Really nuts. But anyways, that's my... On that point, it just shows the billionaires aren't even hiding anymore. They just own the politicians and they just come out and show it. No shame.

It's crazy. It's like they've built their own legislative chambers on some level. I wonder if that's where they practice actually storming the capital. But be that as it may. Let's talk about Medicare for all. This has been a, well, this has been, and, you know, maybe there's been slightly different variations of a single payer health care system. but this has been an aspiration for, I don't think people understand this, for over a century, essentially in this country,

tell us some of the early history of it. So as soon as urbanization, industrialization, you know, when people lived on farms and rural areas and the health and medical care wasn't advanced, people, they birth at home, they died at home, they were taking care of it home. But once they got urbanized and industrialized and there was a change in medicine, we started having medicine and it started getting expensive. And there were a whole set of worker security issues.

You know, people were working 12-hour days and getting no days off. And there were a variety of movements to have a living wage, to have unemployment insurance, to have retirement insurance and to have health care because you always need health care. And all of those, there was an effort to enact all of those all over. Europe had an earlier start, but the United States, as you said, started the beginning of the 20th century, made great progress with workers' comp.

But that got killed. Workers after that, they tried health care. They did very well. The AMA actually supported it in the beginning. But then the forces pushed back. And it was not until the Great Depression that we got a minimum wage and a social security and the right to collect a bargain. And they almost got national health insurance then. But they decided it was too big a lift with all the opposition.

They tried under Truman that failed. And they decided to go to an incremental approach. stated Medicare for seniors was supposed to be just the first step in Medicare for all. And now it's time to finish the job. So, you know, we had, you know, easily, particularly, I mean, if you measure it from the 30s with the new deal, it takes about 30 more years to get to the first step of incremental care at age 65, where you get Medicare. That was also the advent of Medicaid, which is a,

which is the services are good if you can find a provider of Medicaid. The Affordable Care Act was an expansion of Medicaid, or, you know, that was the plan. And it did ultimately end up getting expanded to millions of people. But we have not moved the board. ball forward really. I mean, the Affordable Care Act is not really moving the ball forward anyway. It almost was just like a band-aid that in some ways, I don't know, I keep using these metaphors, but let the air out of the tires in some way and tried to sort of dull the expansion because

I remember that fight, the idea of just expanding Medicare to age 55 was, was at least. least in the air at the time and Joe Lieberman shot it down. But talk about that. Like what is the way to get there? I mean, well, let's talk about, let's start with this, the benefits of Medicare for all and the challenges associated with it. You know, Medicare for all, first of all, first of all, we say, Medicare, that health care is a right not a privilege,

and everybody nods in agreement with that. Not everybody, but the concept of it. Right. But then we don't do it. So the Medicare for All really does make a right, not a privilege. It's from cradle to gray. In fact, it's prenatal.

So it's your entire life. It also would save money. It's even very conservative. Mercatus that found that it would take trillions of dollars because the current system, it also would be better care. The United States spends twice as much as virtually any other industrialized country on their health care. They cover the whole population while the United States, of course, doesn't. And their health outcomes are better.

They have longer longevity. have lower infant mortality and so forth. So there are so many advantages to just joining the rest of the world and having what makes sense, which is a single-payer system where you just walk in, you don't have to worry about filling out forms and you have enough money and you have to cut your medicine and half because you can't afford it. You just, whatever you need, you go in and you get. You know, the, I think like the undersold part of Medicaid, because that Mercatus study was

pretty famous. And when we talk about savings, we're talking about savings to people. You will transfer some of your costs instead of paying to the health insurer you will pay in taxes, because everybody's going to pay more in taxes. But the amount that you pay in taxes is going be dramatically less than your insurance plus what health care ends up costing you. But the thing that is really, I think, like undersold is you don't have to have a second part-time job figuring out if your medical provider takes your insurance or if they do, you don't have to file forms or if you're out of a network, you don't have to go and submit and then argue with your insurance company, all of that stuff is just such a drain. It is exhausting. And I think it keeps people from getting

their health care. What about in terms of like pitching this? The big thing, I mean, I remember when Vermont was looking at it, because they had a waiver where they could try and do it. And the governor got too afraid about raising taxes on everybody. He couldn't communicate this notion of like you may pay more in taxes, but you're going to pay less in other places. So your net, what's in your pocket. How do we get around that sort of almost like mental block that Americans have? Well, I don't know if the Americans have it. It's there's a, you know, polling shows that American people support this idea. And in terms of cost, the way it should be set up and it's proposed to be set up is no premiums, no co-pays, no deductibles, no co-insurance. You just go to your doctor,

it's all paid for. In the same way the library is paid for, our roads are paid for, the military's paid for. It's a communal. And in fact, I would push to have the starting place or the billionaires and the multinational corporations to pay for it. But even if, as you say, everyone contributes something. It's going to be less than we pay now individually and less as a society. So I have actually a chapter of my book where I go through the attacks, because the attacks are obvious. Oh, it's socialism.

And all that really is is code for it's foreign or you'll lose your own health insurance. That I think is a big one because it's like, you know, and Kurt Bother, God bless you, you know, Mr. Roswater, it's money changing hands. So you think you're going to give it up and you don't realize you're going to get something better. Part of it is trust in government, which we don't have. But part of it is enacting, I mean, electing this November, people like El-Sahad and, you know, others who are campaigning on Medicare for all.

I think if it's, as you say, this presented, in fact, I think when people say how can we pay for, how can we afford it? My answer is how do you divvy up the savings? It's going to cost less than we're paying now. If you look at all the, everything that's paid through, as they say, tax expenditures, premiums and co-pays and so forth. It is such a wasteful system. We'll wind up saving money. And then the question is, who would, who, who gets the benefit of the savings. What do you think is the best route, both like as a policy question, but also as a political question in terms of like rolling it out? If you were to have the ability to pass a piece of legislation today and like, would you

start with, okay, we're going to 55 year olds end up. And everyone under the age of 25. And then we're going to go 45. Like, we're just going to keep going. Or would you just, in day one, everybody's covered? Well, I don't think it's a kind of, there are two ways to get us to where we want to go. In the end result, we want to get everyone is covered from cradle to grave. And it's single payer.

and the and it can it has to of course be phased in and there are different ways to phase it in but there are some advantages you can enact it all and then phase it in slowly I think the way you recommended would be just fine and in fact I would start one of the issues is Medicare is extremely successful extremely popular but that's a two-edged sword because people on medicare think they're and have something to lose. Right. It's going to take you to it. And the reality is they'll be much more.

It'll be better because the whole population will be there fighting for it. And it will have many more benefits. But starting, I would combine as phasing in and improving it. So reducing the premiums and having multinational corporations have to pay more in. And adding vision, hearing, dental, the lot of people are talking. about so so those who are currently on it see that they have something to gain another group they have to be careful in facing it in is those um uh are union workers who have so-called catac plans because they've given up compensation to get those plans and they you don't want them

to feel i mean they will also be better off but you might want to have those faced them more towards the end after everybody can see the advantages. So I think exactly what you say. Start by lowering the age, which makes perfect sense and have children and then gradually close it. But while you're doing it, get rid of the premiums, co-pays, deductibles, co-insurance, and add benefits.

So people say, I like to call it to improve Medicare because there's been a campaign to privatize it to undermine it. And we have to push back against that. Where are you on the question of outlying private insurance? Because I've had like a long time argument with folks about this. And the fear is, of course, that wealthy people, you know, that doctors will just provide or private insurance. You get private insurance for expensive doctors. And then there'll be a dearth of providers.

and whatnot, where are you on that? Because it's always occurred to me, and maybe you can tell me why this wouldn't work, that in lieu of outlawing private insurance, that you simply say, you cannot get licensed as a medical provider unless 80% of your billing is, or 90% or whatever the number is, is Medicare, is paid for by Medicare. And then, you know, private insurance ends up dying on the vine as a political, it's no longer a political hot button.

And everybody gets, all the providers have to stay providing care for people on Medicare. I think that's right. And on top of it, as weird, I was saying about giving up the savings. I think doctors should be well reimbursed. In fact, I think we should really push. I don't know that we could do it at the same time, but have medical, actually all of the higher education, you know, and certainly medical care free so that you don't, you know,

paid for again collectively. But I do think that after all the years of medical school and all the expense and time, the doctors appropriately should be well compensated. I think they are, I think they will appreciate and want Medicare more than private insurance because they don't have to worry about pre-authorizations of all of this stuff that you have to go through now, the denying and the delay and all of that. You know, back in 1965, doctors opposed, the AMA at least, opposed Medicare because they thought government would interfere with their practice.

Well, that was theoretical. Now they have the reality of insurance companies actually interfering with their practice. And I think, again, structured right and administered right, doctors will want it. Under traditional Medicare, there aren't these restrictive networks. You can go to whoever you want, virtually everyone. All the doctors take traditional Medicare. It's the Medicare advantage because it's private insurance that has these restricted. networks, but I think you're right, Sam,

but what we want to do is really structure it in such a way that nobody wants private insurance that there and one incentive is the doctors have to take Medicare. All right. Let me just turn to another thing that the administration just yesterday announced that they have found 750,000 cases of fraud. And they are going to, do we have this clip from Dr. Oz? I want to play this clip from Dr. Oz. Because I am completely befuddled by, I just sort of feel like if you're going

up with and pretend like there's fraud going on, be, come up with a better lie than this. This falls apart in seconds for me. It doesn't make any sense. Here's Dr. Oz. Folks might remember him from his infomercials, but now he's in charge of all of our health care. Dr. Oz beautifully stated, that 760,000 people, we call them phantoms because we believe most of me that don't exist or had no idea they had coverage. We believe that because we have been writing them, telexing them, you know, walking to them, FedExing, whatever we could possibly do to get into touch with them. They won't answer.

And they have never filed a claim. So it meets all the criteria for us to pretty as much as any government can say, you actually don't know you have this or you don't exist. You should be asking if I could another question, which is why didn't we take off the other 450,000 people? They're coming. But they had something about their story that was a little bit different than what we expected from the 100% fraud story.

Okay. So he's basically saying we're taking 750,000 off. We've got another 400,000 or so in the hopper that we're ready to get. But explain to me who is making money on this fraud. If there are 750,000 fake people that don't exist, but are getting insurance, I guess the government is subsidizing the private insurers, but are they creating the fake individuals? like why wouldn't you go after the insurance companies if that's the case? If medical providers can't be getting the money because there's no claims. Like, how is it you're getting punished for having insurance that you're paying for?

Right, because somebody's making up the other, there's government subsidies, but nobody's getting free insurance on the exchanges. Somebody's paying that money to the insurance companies. who is making money off of this? Like, I don't understand. This is the dumbest fraud being perpetrated by 750,000 individuals that one could even imagine. Like, I have fooled you. I'm paying you money and I'm not getting anything in return.

It's the perfect crime. Well, I see these 750,000 people, you know, they're also 150 year olds getting social security. I mean, it's just made up. As you say, if you're not filing any claims, then it doesn't costing the government anything. And if they're getting subsidies for those, then that's so those money goes to the insurance companies, not to individuals.

So why, as you say, maybe it's an insurance company for it. But I think it's more, there has been an effort, and it really goes back. It's, you know, President Dwight Eisenhower Republican, called a tiny splinter group who wanted to do away with the New Deal. And we were, but, you know, the American people loved all these programs. And what happened was Ronald Reagan got in and decided government was the problem. And as you were talking about Clinton and Obama, those were missed opportunities.

So what, because these programs are so popular, enemies of these programs have only a couple arguments. One is they're unaffordable, which is laughable. And the other is, oh, they're all right with fraud. You can't trust them. So the idea is to undermine confidence, and in that way, hope to undermine support. The other is what Alex, we talked about, was doing yesterday, and that is to go behind closed doors. I mean, I couldn't believe how open they were yesterday is these Republicans saying,

And we want to commission to avoid political accountability. But that is what Dr. Oz is all about. Let's get rid of these programs without getting, well, in their case, they're not getting voted. But Congress, they don't get voted out of our office. So they want to undermine confidence. And this is, as you say, it's just ridiculous. But it is why they're so, what we've got to do, is expand Social Security, expand Medicare and show that these people are, you know,

they claim they're working in the people's interests, but obviously Donald Trump and the others are working for themselves and for other billionaires. Without a doubt, Nancy Altman, President of Social Security Works, the book is entitled The Road to Medicare for All, a Call to Action. We will link to that book, and I just want to thank you for all the work you've been doing over Social Security works over these years, incredibly important. I've seen the disposition towards Social Security and the Democratic Party, at least, go from Barack Obama putting cuts to cost of living increases for seniors on the table to the entire

caucus in the Democrats voting to expand Social Security over the course of the past two decades. A lot of that has to do with the great work that your organization has been doing. So thank you very much for that. I appreciate it. And hopefully we'll see more of that in the future. Nancy Altman, again, thanks for your time today. Really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

All right, folks. We're going to take a quick break. Head to the fun half of the program. I still, I just, if you're going to come up and say that there's fraud, you've got the best minds in the Republican Party. You got your AI. You got your A. Exactly.

Can't you come up with a better why than that? Right. Right. Exactly. Rick Scott. His company drained, you know, millions, maybe billions out of Medicaid. I think that's the trouble they have is they don't want to give away the game. Right.

but like I don't understand how what is the fraud that's being committed you're signing up for something you're paying money you're getting a subsidy from the government but it's not going into your pocket it's going to the insurance company so instead of paying I don't know $1,200 a month you're paying $800 a month and what are you getting like I got this card I don't even need it but look Look, I got an insurance card. All it does is insure when they do need health care, they will not be paying their bill.

You know, when you drop them off and they go to the ER with no insurance, then I'm going to pay that. It's fascinating. I really, and nobody, I'm reading all these pieces in the Washington Post. I'm reading the, like I searched a bunch of different news pieces that were describing this.

And none of the reporters took a moment to say, Incidentally, this makes no sense because why who would be gaining from this? Who's benefiting from this? Honestly, the only way this works is if it's like the insurance companies are creating phantom clients so that they can pocket the subsidies. They wouldn't go after that. The Republicans? I mean, I don't know.

But they didn't bring up insurance companies. They're talking about individuals committing fraud. They go after individuals. So, like, this could only be done. The only way anybody could be profiting off this is if they were in the insurance companies. And they're faking that they're getting paid. But the problem is, is that, like, you would think in their, like, they're, they're all publicly traded companies. They've got a report we have X number of, of people of, of, people.

of customers, their revenues wouldn't match unless they're then faking that, oh, we're paying out part of this. We got to figure this out. I'm certain to think Dr. Oz might not be qualified for his position. I would love, can we book Dr. Oz? I'll go out to him. Let's do that. I want to talk about the.

I should go out to a lot of those kind of people. We should try and get Dr. Oz on. I am willing to bet a million dollars. He seems to like cameras. it's true i mean maybe who knows i will say for the washington post there's this line in here at tuesday's event also singled also singled out several convicted insurance executives who had wrongly enrolled tens of thousands of people into the ACA and used the profits to fund their lifestyles so that that part does exist but that's not what he was talking about there this is uh cricket uh crickett uh

Crickets Revenge. So if you have an ACA policy and you don't use it, they decide you don't need it and cut you. Can I cancel my car insurance if I don't have accidents? I mean, it's sort of like built into the word insurance. The idea that how many people are in the exchanges? Like what are we at now? 12 million, maybe more. A lot of people got bounced because of the cost. But how many people across? the country and the exchanges. Let's see here. I don't want to use the AI estimates. Let's see if I can find a estimate of 19.2 million Americans. Okay. So nearly 20 million Americans will just use for the sake of my math skills.

And you're telling me that you don't expect that there's 5% who have not made a claim? I mean, we're making the food as poisonous as possible. Yeah, these are the same people that say like illegals are caused Joe Biden to win in 2020. And let's be clear, right? The exchanges have only existed for about 10, 12 years.

And not everybody has been on them for 10 or 12 years. And the idea that 5% don't make a claim, that seems to me, it would be bizarre if you didn't have a cohort of people who don't make a claim. I mean, I can tell you, I have pet insurance. and I have not like when the cat goes in for like you know whatever a visit and it's 49 bucks or something like that I think I've been too lazy to file claim you're admitting fraud live on air exactly but you know I have it because you know my last cat had cancer and I was like that could cost thousands of dollars We need to get to the bottom of this.

Sam's thought about it more than Dr. Oz says. This is like one of those things where you're asking the question, it goes immediately like, I want to hire you at the... It's like a catch-me-if-you-can type thing. But they're bumping 750,000 people off their insurance. And what is the chances? I would put the chances at 100% that within the next six months, any number of those people are going to come down with Canada.

answer and they're going to have no health insurance or some other of they're going to get hit by a bus or whatnot and they're going to have no health insurance they're going to go bankrupt and they're going to die and to think they took all the trouble to telexing these people and nobody respond me never heard of that in my life i was a communication studies major telexing is what like you would call the early facts Jesus I don't that's a perfect way to not get a response. If they don't want people to respond to their inquiries, because that's their excuse for kicking them off. Yeah, we've been faxing these people. Yeah, pull up a telex. Oh, I got one here. It is like the early, like, this is an early

fax, uh, where it would come across on a typewriter. It has typewriter keys. Yeah. Dude, I'm sorry you lost your health insurance, but you didn't get back to our tellex. Yeah, and it was done, listen, it was high frequency radio. How many mimeagraphs? It was like literally like what do you call it?

No, no, that was wired actually. Telex would be like if you could send signals from machine to machine like through walkie talkie band essentially. Gotcha. Radio frequency. Radio frequency.

I mean radio frequencies, yeah. So, I mean, folks, if you don't want your health insurance canceled, make sure your telex machine is still working. Report to your nearest telex machine. You might have an important message. I didn't get my singing telegram from Dr. Oz. Hello, hello, hello. We had drums going. We had drums going.

Nobody was responding. Folks, it's your support that makes this show possible. you can become a member at join the majority report.com. When you do, you not only get the free show free of commercials, you also get the fun half. We got all sorts of new merch too. Check out our new merch. Shop.m. Majority ReportRadio.com.

That's a cue to pop up the images. Brian's just going. I knew. I'm not on that side of the... It's up there now. You should pop it up. Now I'm not putting it up. The whole office is falling apart. Brian's committing fraud by not putting it up. Here we go.

Made in the USA. Worth the weight. Majority report, baby bid. Whoopsy. You get a baseball shirt. We got black and blue long sleeve. I actually wear that shirt to softball, particularly in this weather. Not the one that you're going to buy.

It's all new, but I'm saying I'm all of that. But I do wear it underneath my Brooklyn naturals. I could sell the game worn cedar juice. I know. You autograph that one, is to have a little blood on it? Actually, it might. Scroll up, though.

We got the very controversial posit that is now P-A-W-S. I do think that is the right call. I agree, too. You're alone on this one. You know, the other posit now, though, collectors. item. First edition. I think we have

I think we still have like a couple of days left on the Jeffrey's cycle and we got the tank top and we got the max left hats. I think we got like a light blue patch hat too don't we? That one is very popular

the light blue one. We got the 20th anniversary mug which is now three years old. But we're modeling some new mugs so maybe we'll put a couple we'll see if a limited edition of the new mug uh uh comes out anyways uh also join our discord majority discord dot com uh oh what were the folks were mad at me about something yesterday on the discord and i can't remember what it was now and i meant to respond to it um also uh if you're watching us on twitch

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Sorry, what was it, pandemic anxiety? Who is our main main state over there? It's the most difficult of all the most annoying to do. There's only eight people. We have been self-censored there and have not been on for an extended period of time. Also, just coffee. Dot co-op, fair trade coffee, hot chocolate, use the coupon code.

majority get 10% off. Matt, what's happening in the, oh, Chris Burdick says, you need a basketball jersey that says, got to jump. That was what I used to say all the time on the call. That's, that's funny. That is a pretty good one. Matt. Yeah, yesterday we had left reckoning. Chip Gibbons of defending rights and dissent talking about Trump's McCarthyism and the war slash not war, not officially a war, an incursion that we're doing in the Strait of Hermuz. Excursion. Excursion, you're right.

A little excursion. And also Connor Mulherne talking about Fernando Ceramato, who is the Latin American Steve Bannon, who is now in trouble with the Bolivian authorities for trying to kill his wife and her surviving the hitman attempt as he was trying to flee out of the country with a bot network that influences elections.

So check that out. And patreon.com slash left reckoning to get David and I on the Sunday show. See in the fun half. Three months from now, six months from now, nine months from now. And I don't think it's going to be the same as it looks like in six months from now. And I don't know if it's necessarily going to be better six months from now than it is three months from now. But I think around 18 months out, we're going to look back and go like, wow.

What? What is that going on? It's nuts. Wait a second. Hold on for, hold on for a second. Emma, welcome to the program. Fun hack. Matt.

Who? Fun. What is up, everyone? Fun hat. No, me, Keen. You did it. Fun hat. Let's go Brandon.

Let's go Brandon. Bradley, you want to say hello? Sorry to disappointment. Everyone, I'm just a random guy. It's all the boys today. Fundamentally false. No, I'm sorry. Women's...

Stop talking for a second. Let me finish. Where is this coming from, dude? But dude, you want to smoke this? Seven and eight? Yes. Yes. It is you.

I'm going to first me. I think it is you. Who is you? No sound. Every single freaking day. What's on your mind? We can discuss free markets and we can discuss capitalism. I'm going to just know why.

Libertarians. They're so stupid though. Common sense says, of course. Gobbled e-gook. We fucking nailed him. So what's 79 plus 21? Challenge met. I'm positively clivering.

I believe 96, I want to say. 857. 21. 35. 501. One half. Three-eighth. Nine-11, for instance.

$3,400. $1,900. $6.5, $4.3 trillion sold. It's a zero-sum game. Actually, you're making a think less. But let me say this. Poop. You're going to call it satire.

Sam goes to satire. On top of it all, my favorite part about you is just like every day, all day, like everything you do. Without a doubt. Hey, buddy, we've seen you. Obviously. Yeah. Sundow guns out. But you should know.

People just don't like to entertain ideas anymore. I have a question. Who cares? Our chat is enabled folks. I love it. I do love that. Got to jump. I got to be quick.

I get a jump. I'm losing it. We're already late. And the guy's being a dick. So screw him. Sent to a gulaw? Outrage. Like, what is wrong with you?

Love you. Bye. Love you. Bye-bye.