The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3544 - Americans Are Paying For Trump's Trade War w/ Justin Wolfers

Episode Date: July 23, 2025

It’s Wednesday — hump day on The Majority Report. We kick things off with Trump and Tulsi Gabbard concocting a brain-drained Epstein distraction campaign about election interference in 2016. While addressing members of Congress, Trump even suggests that when asked about Jeffrey Epstein, Republicans should deflect by claiming, “Obama cheated the election.” Then we’re joined by Justin Wolfers, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Michigan, to break down Trump’s irrational tariff policies and the importance of banking independence. In the Fun Half, we cover a near-disaster in North Dakota where a B-52 bomber came dangerously close to a Delta passenger jet, exposing a communication failure between a local Air Force base and a civilian airport. Meanwhile, as the FAA is in shambles Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy continues to spread misinformation about crime rates—despite data showing a long-term significant decline, especially in New York. ICE continues to terrorize families across the nation with brown shirt tactics. This week, we look into the case of Mohamed Naser, a Libyan immigrant who was falsely identified by ICE as Iranian, kidnapped, and still not released—despite ICE acknowledging their "mistake." All that and more plus IMs Become a member at JoinTheMajorityReport.com: https://fans.fm/majority/join 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 ESVN YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/esvnshow Subscribe to the AMQuickie 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 SHOPIFY: Sign up for a $1/month trial period at shopify.com/majority SUNSET LAKE: Use coupon code “Left Is Best” (all one word) for 20% off of your entire order at SunsetLakeCBD.com Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattLech 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 show The Discourse on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ExpandTheDiscourse Check out Ava Raiza’s music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.com/ The Majority Report with Sam Seder – https://majorityreportradio.com

The Majority Report with Sam Seder. It is Wednesday, July 23rd, 2025. My name is Sam Seder. 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, Justin Wolfers, and on the potential lack of independence of the Federal

Reserve. Also on the program and meanwhile, Trump strikes an inflation inducing trade deal with Japan. Canada and Europe, however, prep for their own retaliatory tariffs. Republicans on the Hill call off summer work in Congress to give Trump time to strike a deal with Ghislaine Maxwell and defuse the Epstein scandal. EPA has drafted a plan to stop itself from addressing climate change. Columbia University punishes 70 students for protesting in a grant funding stop to Donald Trump. Mike Lawler toes the Trump line. He will run for reelection in the House rather

than governor of New York. Amid protests, Zelensky approves a bill weakening anti-corruption bodies in Ukraine. And bowing to a Trump executive order, the U.S. Olympic officials will bar trans women from Olympic competition. The FEMA search and rescue chief resigns over DHS's failures in responding to the Texas floods. Trump regime looking to criminalize aiding ICE protests. And as doctors in Gaza become too malnourished to treat patients. Israel is going to fund a tour for 16 under 30

MAGA influencers to remind everyone that America first is Israel first too. All this and more on today's majority report. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks so much for joining us. It is hump day. Hump day, says Emma Vigeland, of course, repeating her phrase that she coined now. Cut chain. Several years ago. Now everybody's using it.

I know. I know. Maybe you'll have to cut cost by having AI say the catchphrase We're gonna work on that in the meantime there There's this fascinating dynamic with the Epstein revelations the the Trump administration is Completely beleaguered by this because it's the first time they have not been able

in a long time to control the media narrative and is completely beleaguered by this because it's the first time they have not been able in a long time to control the media narrative. And polling suggests this is a story that is getting through to low information voters, which of course is the bedrock of the Trump victory in 2024 and Donald Trump is desperately looking for ways to get out from under what I mean maybe he's just doing this because he feels that the country needs to move on and there are important policy things that need to be done. Turn the page. Turn the page. Turn the page while I accuse Obama of treason, which is a crime that could result in execution. I said turn the page, not all the pages.

Turn the page back to the election that actually won where I'm going to accuse Obama of cheating. Right. They're obviously nervous about this. I'm going to pitch back to the election that actually won, where I'm going to accuse Obama of cheating. They're obviously nervous about this. They shut down Congress. Literally, they're going on a six week vacation. Take my ball and go home. Now I should say, everybody in the office tried to do the same thing. If they don't release it, I don't know why we have to come in.

It didn't work. Congress is taking a six week vacation so that they don't do any due diligence on the Epstein files. They're going to plan to subpoena Ghislaine Maxwell, but only after the Department of Justice meets with Ghislaine Maxwell to cut some type of deal. Now, I know that sounds suspicious, but remember the Department of Justice is completely independent from the presidency, including the representative they're sending from the DOJ who just his last job just happened to have been Donald Trump's defense attorney Now come on a lot of people gonna make a lot of like that doesn't sound suspicious to anybody everyone has a resume exactly and

It's a it's a total coincidence But Donald Trump is basically out there now overtly telling people how to make people not pay attention to the Epstein thing. And of course, like he's run out of, he tried the commanders, that didn't go anywhere. He thought like, if I could talk about the Native Americans, what's wrong with my guys? And sometimes my gals, it used to be all I needed to do was say, look, brown person, and everyone would pay attention. But instead, he found a darker than brown person to talk about, but he had to go deep.

Here he is. Remember this, Obama cheated on the election. And we have it cold, hard, blue, and it's getting even more so because the stuff that's coming in is not even believable. And you should mention that every time they give you a question that's not appropriate, just say, Oh, by the way, Obama cheated on the election. You'll, you'll watch the camera turn off instantly. But I want to thank. He's literally, what, what question do you think is inappropriate these days? You know,

what question? No, let's do number 10. We're gonna do number 10 here. Yeah, the question that he's talking about of course is If anybody asks you about Ed Steen say that Obama Was involved in the Russia hoax and this is the amazing thing I mean like the They are being so I don't know what to say, basic on this. This is not, you don't have to read into this for like six hours to understand what they're doing here. They're claiming that the Russia hoax was based upon Russia's ability to change the outcome of the election by going into voting machines.

And it was, and they're citing the Obama administration's findings that Russia did not have the ability to do that. And then they're conflating that with the argument that Russia was trying to, and your mileage may vary as to whether they were the determining factor of whether Russia's influence campaign online through the election to Trump, but that was the findings when Obama left office in 2016. It was reiterated four years later by a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, and they should try and find the person who chaired that committee. He must be out there somewhere. It's going to be hard to get him to testify because he is now the secretary of state in the Trump administration. But here is Tulsi Gabbard on Newsmax and I've got news for you. No pun intended. When Newsmax is skeptical

about your conspiracy theory, you know you have a problem three this year really quick because this is uh... is is relatively new here this is from uh... obama's office they say they uh... out of respect for the office of president they don't you will usually dignified what comes out of the white house for the response but says that this is so outrageous that they have to respond

uh... it says nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that russia worked to influence the twenty sixteen presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes these finds were from the twenty twenty report by the bipartisan senate intel committee led by then chairman marco rubio any response to that uh... we will be releasing further documents uh... tomorrow that will refute that statement.

And I would go back and point to, and we will be pulling a whole host of statements that were made by the Obama administration, by Hillary Clinton, by senior Democrat officials, by their friends in the media that state over and over again, after this January 2017 manufactured intelligence document was created that repeat the narrative. And I'm looking at my notes here. New York Times says Russian hackers acted to aid Trump in the election. CIA's, Obama's CIA director, John Brennan says there is strong consensus among us to

support the CIA claim Russian hackers aided Donald Trump's election Hillary Clinton said I would be president if Not for the Russian hackers supporting Donald Trump. So there is a vast body of evidence Hillary Clinton saying shit two years after the election don't put that on me. I Mean it. Two years after the election. Don't put that on me. I mean, Brennan, who's out of office saying this shit two years later, she's lying in this interview. Yeah. Like. Well, I mean, just follow the logic there. Like we're going to, we will be really recent

further things because we can't, with what we've already released. We can't refute that. And also, the net's going to be widened not just from Obama, but to everyone around him, including people in the media. Yeah, including statements by the New York Times. I mean, how is that related to some sort of investigation going down the line? Do they get to say like people? Here's, you know, here's the pod save America guys. The Krasenstein. The Krasenstein. Obviously an arm of the Obama administration. And the thing is if that's what it takes to shut her down on Newsmax This is like they are

They have lost the step Honestly, they have completely lost the step and part of the problem. I think is is Well, it's not it's it's they've lost their cooks Because in this instance, the people who usually develop these, um, fake conspiracy theories are the media guys who are bumping up against the conspiracies they had about Epstein.

And now there, there, there's no room for them to sort of maneuver here. So Tulsi Gabbard's there trying to make, you know, essentially throw together a meal and she's like, all I have is flour. I don't have anything else. And it's because the guy that's ordering the dinner or ordering the meal, basically, is somebody who's doing it at the 11th hour and not providing her with the ingredients that she needs. Room service. Right? Because he's asking for something that physically can't be created because there isn't the information that

they need. The reason that this administration looks like it's making things up on the fly is because they have to make things up on the fly is because they have to make things up on the fly because he's constructed an entire administration around him that just will respond to his every need and desire. That's what the Trump cabinet prerequisites were. This is the one thing to keep an eye out as they send Donald Trump's former defense attorney from the DOJ to go meet with Ghislaine Maxwell and her attorney and we'll dig into this a little bit more

but the one thing to keep an eye on is there's really basically two things that the the DOJ can do at this point well two things that the administration could do one is they could pardon her which of course would look a little bit bad yeah I might look a little bad. We decided to look into this and you know what? There was absolutely nothing there and we're going to pardon her. The other one is that they could file what is known, the DOJ could, a Rule 35 motion, which is basically a request to a federal judge to lower a prison sentence

based upon you know whatever conduct by the defendant or the very biggest the convict at that point uh... has been maybe they've done some community service or or maybe they have a cooperated with the government in some way now the problem is the judge has to sign off on this. And apparently this request will go to U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmeier, who's an Obama appointee, and Engelmeier is the one who blocked the Department of Doge from accessing the Treasury Department payment system.

So it's going to be interesting to watch what they do there, but we'll talk more about this later. In a moment we're going to be talking to Justin Wolfers. He's a professor of economics and public policy at Michigan, University of Michigan. First a couple of words from our sponsor. As people know, we sold a ton of Max left trucker hats Thank you, Hassan. in part because Hassan put it on his head. And then they made the other incentives. But and then we easily we you know somebody said I think it was the guys in the vanguard was like you you got to get a

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shopify dot com slash majority go to shopify dot com slash majority shopify dot com slash majority will put more of that info in the podcast in youtube description quick break when we come back justin wilfers professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan. We'll be right back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And back. We are back.

Sam Seder, Emma Vigeland on the Majority Report. It is a pleasure to welcome to the program Justin Wolfers, Professor of Economics and Planning, Public Policy at the University of Michigan. Thanks so much for joining us. Is that my cue? G'day. Hey, how are you? Nice to see you.

We had to get your full title in. Exactly. Let everyone see you. We have to get your full title in. Exactly. Let everyone know you're fancy. So this morning it was announced that Trump had struck a, I don't know what the adjective that he used, but I'm sure it was something like huge, big, earth-shattering deal with Japan and also I think the Philippines as well in the wake of Bong Bong Marcos visiting the White House. When I found out his first name was Bong Bong, I haven't hesitated to say it. But give us your assessment of that

before we sort of move on to sort of the implications of the tariffs thus far and ostensibly the semi-firm deadline of August 1st, according to Trump. Sam, can't we just all start by getting our own nickname, like Bong Bong? What would you be in the Bong Bong genre? I would have chosen Bong Bong. What about you Emma? M&M? M&M, yeah.

I think you nailed it for me. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Okay, tariffs. Okay. Look, the most important thing is it's really, really hard to keep track of this because the way it's going to be reported is tariffs on Japan have gone from 25% to 15%. And then people might think that sounded like an accomplishment, but that's

upside down and back to front and exactly wrong. So what I want to do is take you back to December of 2024. December of 2024, almost every industrialized country around the world charged extraordinarily low tariffs, 1% or 2%. An extreme might be 3%. So there basically were no tariffs. So then the president comes to town and says, what I'm going to do is I'm going to negotiate deals. Now, what you know right there, in January of 2025, is there's not much to be gained,

which is we already have access to most foreign markets with, most cases zero tariffs and in a few cases small tariffs. And so this was the whole enterprise of the trade war was there's not much to gain. There would be access to foreign markets, which we already have, and there's a whole heck of a lot to lose, which is starting a global trade war. So that is also the right baseline for thinking about any of these so-called deals. So what's happened is the president has just announced a deal, and I don't want you to focus on the 15% for the moment, because the 15% is how much the president of the United States is taxing Americans for buying stuff from Japan.

Now, I've got advice for him. You don't need to talk to the prime minister of Japan to decide how much you want to tax Americans. You could do that in the privacy of your own home. That's not a deal, that's a decision, right? And it turns out there's a specific form of tax that this particular president likes. So what did he get for us?

Well, what he gets for us is, do we get more access to the Japanese market? That's where you should be focusing. Now the first thing to realize is again, remember that basically we had complete access to Japan at the start of this. I should say almost complete access to Japan at the start of this. The other thing is I can't give you a lot of detail because of course we only have a truth social post to go on because of chaos.

That's how we do international diplomacy these days. But one of the things the president talked about was, we'll be able to sell American cars in Japan. Now this actually has a lot of people on the right riled up. They say, have you ever seen an American car in Japan? The answer is you don't see any. Do you wanna know why? It has nothing to do with tariffs.

Do you know what the actual tariff rate is that Japan charges on imported consumer cars? 0%. 0. None. Nada. Not a penny. So the Japanese weren't buying American cars, but it had nothing to do with tariffs.

Now it had something to do with the fact that if you've ever been to Japan, you'll notice everyone drives really small cars. And I'm from the Midwest and I can tell you what American cars look like. They're really big. You can't even park them in Japan. They drive on the other side of the road in Japan. They want more fuel efficient vehicles in Japan and in the future they're going to want electric vehicles and this administration has been moving us away from electric vehicles.

So this acts, you want to know how hard it is? You can't buy a Ford in Japan, not because they're banned, but because Ford doesn't have any dealerships. So there were a few things that are called non-tariff barriers, like Japan has some safety requirements that the American cars don't meet. And so that, I think, is the crux of what the president has got us. And can I just to add or have you expand on this. Donald Trump held up that graphic of all of the supposed trade barriers to the United States that was not as presented as if they were

imposing a tariff on us. It was the differentials between, within trade, which were a function of they're not interested in US cars in Japan for other reasons besides tariffs, but he took that deficit and sort of extrapolated it in some fashion or morphed it into as if it was a trade barrier as opposed to just a, we're not making products that are useful to them. It's like, I don't know, like selling kangaroos to Australia. I don't know what, like there's no, they had no interest in our cars, essentially. They had no interest in our cars. Actually, Sam, you've just brought up one of my favorites. So no, Trump is not trying to sell kangaroos to Australia, but actually he has a similar

beef, wait for that beef, get it, with Australia, and it's actually over beef. The American farmers complained that Australians won't buy American beef. Let me give you, in my Australian accent, a couple of facts here. First of all, Australia is a country that has a actually over beef. The American farmers complain that Australians won't buy American beef. Let me give you, in my Australian accent, a couple of facts here. First of all, Australia grows more beef than it can eat. Why would you want to buy American beef

when we already have too much Australian beef? Second of all, I have to say this, I'm Judy bound. Australian beef is better, let's put that aside. Third, in fact, we do allow American beef into Australia. You're allowed to send beef from the US to Australia. But you have to certify it's not Canadian beef and it's not Mexican beef because they have certain diseases that Australia doesn't have.

And the Americans who've wanted to try and send beef to Australia haven't wanted to certify that it was not Mexican or Canadian beef. And so the Australians told them to piss off. In any case, you could go and beat the Australians up to get access to the Australian beef market. And we have our own cows. It doesn't matter. So I'm like, I got hung up on that partly because I'm Australian, partly because I'm hung up on beef, but partly to show you the broader pattern of dishonesty about what's going on here. There are real trading barriers in some domains.

Some of them exist for very good reasons. For instance, Australia is an island that doesn't want to get diseases from the rest of the world. It's a wonderful thing that Australia doesn't have to live with foreign diseases. Some of them are when politically powerful groups lobby to get protection. Here you can think about Canadian dairy farmers. But some of them are also very big on paper, but don't really matter actually at all in practice. And that, by the way, is the story of Canadian dairy farmers. The global consensus in December of 2024 was basically every country's got its tariffs down as low as it

can and they're all trying to get their what they call non-tariff barriers, that's what we're referring to, down as far as they can. And they all try in good faith, but every country has politically important issues. And so there's always just a small amount of things where you say, I can't get my guys to sign off on this and then the other PM says, I can't get my guys to sign off on this. And then the other PM says, I can't get my guys to sign off on this. And so then you just sort of say, well, let's keep tariffs close to zero, if not exactly zero. That's where the world was.

And Trump hasn't yet gotten anyone to give up on the really politically important stuff. Well, what's also just hilariously incompetent about the whole thing is, is right now the Trump administration is basically gutting safety standards across a variety of sectors that would affect the products that they're demanding that these other countries import from the United States based on this misguided notion of a trade deficit cooked up by Ron Vara or whatever Peter Navarro's pseudonym was. But like, that's part of the problem, right, is that the United States is lagging technologically, and we can bring it back to cars and how China is so far ahead the United States right now with electric vehicles.

But this is an attempt to impose almost US economic hegemony by force without adjusting the economy to like future eyes or to progress our economy into the future that like would create products that people would want to buy outside of our oil and our aircraft parts, which is mostly what the U.S. is selling. There's so much there, Emma. I don't know where to start. So first of all, I want to go back. We sell a lot more than oil and parts.

We are actually a global technological leader. We actually sell some incredibly valuable and useful stuff. And as you think about which countries should, the way we teach this in economics 101, let me take a step back from international trade and just say the underlying economic theory here comes down to a simple thing. There's a whole bunch of tasks in the world, right? Around my house, one task is sweeping the floors and another is washing the dishes. And around the world, another task is designing new iPhones and yet another task is sweeping the floors and another is washing the dishes. And around the world, another task is designing new iPhones,

and yet another task is screwing in the little screws. And what we want to do is assign those tasks so that they can each, every task can be done by the person who has what we call a comparative advantage, but the person who can do it at the lowest opportunity cost. And so then that would lead you to say, well, what are the tasks Americans are good at? And it turns out that the United States has the most educated workforce in the world. And particularly when it comes to science, we have this where

we go off to the PhDs and so on. Those folks are just like doing amazing things. They're inventing AI, they're inventing Google, they're inventing whatever you think of Facebook. But also we're doing the same in pharmaceuticals as well. We are They're inventing Google. They're inventing whatever you think of Facebook. But also we're doing the same in pharmaceuticals as well. We are the world's great inventor. But this is an extraordinary allocation of tasks. We get to sit around and nerd out and invent things.

And in return, China will make the iPhone. And that means my kids will get to sit in a laboratory or in front of a computer or in front of a big whiteboard and dream big dreams. And kids in other countries will grow up and work at a factory. This is an allocation of tasks that serves the United States extraordinarily well. Emre, I do think you're on something, you used a word I don't normally use, American hegemony, which is Trump doesn't like the fact he doesn't run the world. And every country is independent, and they all have their

own legislatures, and they all pass their own health and safety laws and their own occupational safety laws and so on. And trade is what makes that complicated, because if they will not take our Trade is what makes that complicated because if they will not take our software, maybe we shouldn't take their t-shirts. It is an issue though that some of these things literally are reasonable safety standards from other countries that we should respect and some of them are unreasonable laws put in place by politically powerful lobby groups. I don't see a better way than going case by case. The overall, it seems to me, there are two purposes of tariffs.

I should put it this way. The administration has stated that the tariffs have two purposes, which are it seemingly completely at odds with each other. Aside from the fact that we could also call tariffs just import taxes, and it makes it more clear. It makes it more clear that it's, it's simply a tax. And we could talk about, I mean, I've heard you talk, you know, in various areas, and we will go over why we aren't seeing the implications of those taxes in the way that we thought we might by now, but that we're likely

too soon. But it's either a tax, they were bragging, we're going to make $600 billion a year, or it is part of a larger program to develop an industry within this country for whatever reason we have decided we want it. Maybe it's a national security, we need to have shorter supply lines, maybe we need more steel, maybe we need more, whatever it is. But if you're generating the revenue on one hand, it means that you're not building the industry here because people are still buying the things that they're being taxed on, right? Could you just walk us through that dynamic?

Sam, I think you've almost given the administration too much credit, which I know is something you often do. So I actually keep a list of the rationales we've been offered. So let's go through the list. So when Trump first came to power, he put taxes, tariffs, import taxes, your right to call them that, on Mexico and Canada in order to keep fentanyl out of the United States.

So the reason I want to talk about the shifting rationales is different rationales lead to different policies. And the problem is we have a policy but no rationale, which means our policy is a mess, which is your point. So if you want to keep fentanyl out of the US, then you should definitely put pressure on Mexico. But why Canada, which is the source of less than 1% of our fentanyl? Then he said what he wanted to do was prevent illegal immigration to the US from Canada and Mexico. That was the reason for those tariffs. Of course, forgetting the fact that the way that most illegal immigrants arrive in the United States is they take a plane and then they're enjoying themselves

and they just decide not to fly back. And they're inside the United States. There's nothing Canada or Mexico can do about that. The next thing that was said was that what we were going to do is we're going to reindustrialize. We're going to save manufacturing. And if we put high tariffs, then Americans would be forced to buy from American factories instead of foreign factories. Fair enough. But if that's the case, why do we have tariffs on bananas and coffee, which are two things that Americans could never grow? I agree that there is, in fact, a coffee industry in Hawaii, before you tell me otherwise, but not enough to service the entire US market. Then we were told it was going to be all about national

security and that's why we needed steel and aluminium. But if what you want is to protect American national security, I would imagine the next generation of warfare is about artificial intelligence and drones and not about steel and aluminium. Moreover, at the moment, we have tariffs on horse saddles. And I'm pretty sure we're not going to war riding horses. Then, and this was your point, Sam, they said, what we want is we want to impose tariffs, a tax, in order to raise revenue. And if we raise that revenue, we're

going to get rid of the income tax. So if that's the case, the tariffs actually have to be in place, and people have to be paying them. But if that's the case, you might have noticed, in fact, that they didn't eliminate the income tax. In fact, all they've done is offered tax breaks for the rich, whereas the tariffs are going to be predominantly paid for by working middle class families. Then that led us to April 2, where he said this was Liberation Day. The specific tariff each country got was a function of, he called them reciprocal tariffs

because he was worried that they're being unfair to us, so therefore we have to hit back. But then why would he put a tariff of 10% on Australia, which has a free trade agreement with Australia? Why would he put a tariff on Israel, where Israel was offering zero tariffs on everything? Why is there a tariff on South Korea, where Korea offering zero tariffs on everything. Why is there a tariff on South Korea, where Korea had zero tariffs on everything? Moreover, the idea that you should tie tariffs to bilateral trade deficits, this is the issue you were just describing, is utter nonsense.

Then he said, no, no, no. Remember, he announced those tariffs, the world blew up, stocks tanked, everyone set a recession just around the corner. and his mates from Wall Street called him and said, don't do this. So then he said, no, no, no, just kidding. I didn't actually want tariffs. This again is your point, Sam. What I wanted was tariffs for leverage to make deals against other countries. Let me make a simple point. If you want leverage against someone, you don't have to tax the American people to have

leverage with Japan. You simply need to say to Japan, I could tax the American people to have leverage with Japan. You simply need to say to Japan, I could tax the American people. Actually taxing the American people doesn't give you any extra leverage. Right. So then in any case, he says he wants leverage for trade deals. We're going to get 90 in 90 days. We got essentially zero in 90 days. So it seems like he couldn't be serious about leverage.

Then he said what he was going to do was tax any country that imposed tariffs on any country that stopped using the US dollar as a reserve currency. So now this is a completely different use of tariffs. Then he said to Canada he was going to cut off trade talks with Canada unless they got rid of their digital services tax. This is a whole new issue. So now we're going to use American tariff policy to set Canadian tax policy. This might be seeming weird for you, but don't worry.

He then went to NATO and learned that Spain wasn't willing to spend as much money as he was. So he said he was going to impose a special tariff on Spain, forgetting, of course, that Spain is a member of the European Union and it is literally impossible to impose a tariff on Spain. And then most recently, he learned that his good mate Bolsonaro, his fellow insurrectionist, was going to go to jail in Brazil, so said that most America he learned that his good mate Bolsonaro, his fellow insurrectionist, was going to go to jail in Brazil. So he said that most America first policy that we could have is to impose taxes on Americans

who buy goods from Brazil in order to prevent Brazil from putting insurrectionists in jail. That was a long list, Sam. I just wanted to make the case. It's more incoherent than you think. And I mean, it's obviously like the one thing he feels like he can do unilaterally. All right. Well, let's, I want to get to Japan and then I want to get to August 1st because I'm curious as to how, how nervous you think Wall Street is or might be.

But in terms of Japan, so in this specific deal, it's a 15% tax on working Americans, on all Japanese products, which is a great way to finance tax cuts for the wealthy if you don't want to let people know that's what you're doing. You call it tariffs. Supposedly, Japan is to buy 100 Boeing planes. I'd be a little nervous myself, particularly with Boeing is going. Japan is going to boost rice purchases by 75%.

If there's very little rice purchases, a boosting of 75%, 75% of zero is still zero, I would imagine, but they're going to buy other agricultural products. And then they're supposedly, I mean, again, it's so hard to know because this is just Trump maybe in an ambient haze tweeting this stuff out, but they're going to invest $550 billion according to Trump in the US and the US is going to get 90% of the profits. I'm not even sure I know what that means, but do you have an idea of what that means or what that could mean?

Doesn't it create some type of imbalance in terms of dollar denomination, the strength of the dollar, if these investments come in from outside the country, it's going to skew the value of the dollar such that it's going to expand our trade deficit? It sounds like yes. So I've been on this through, what's the expression written in this rodeo before? Yeah. I ride in a lot of rodeos. So I've seen this play before, which is he announces a lot of stuff on Truth Social and at this point often there's never actually an agreement. Often, there's never actually an agreement. So the deal with Britain looked very similar. And they had a big poster and impressive numbers.

But you actually read what the framework agreement said. It said, over time, Britain will work to open up its markets and change its biosecurity laws so that Americans get access to British markets. That remains simply a talking point. That's all. That was the deal. And then what you can do is you can say, how big are those markets?

And it's billions of dollars. And it seems very impressive. But they actually did nothing. And so I think the idea that we should do serious economic analysis by reading a tweet is a little bit beneath all of this. That's all I needed to hear, frankly. I mean, I have no doubt.

Let me teach the audience something that is important, because Trump falls for this all the time. So first of all, the bowings, they were probably already going to buy. And they just create an announceable. And by the way, the Japanese government doesn't buy bowings, Japanese airlines choose to and they do so based on profitability. The other part of this is when you say things like, we're going to sell this much soybeans, when you're talking about commodities, commodities are literally that, commodities. So they're going to buy it from the US instead of buying it from a different neighbor. And then everyone who would have bought from the US will buy from that neighbor instead.

And all you've done is changed which ships are going to which ports, but you're not changing anything. And that's because this is not a specific good made by the US. So if they said they were going to buy a lot more of a specific American made medication, that would be an increase in demand. This is just going to be a reallocation of demand around the globe and does nothing for American farmers. So the, the, the total out or export of, let's say if it's rice, from the US is not going to change.

It's just going to, we're going to be sending it to Japan as opposed to Britain or South America or wherever. So in terms of this August 1st deadline, he said it's sort of firm, not totally firm, but firm. And at what point, I mean, as this is going on, I would imagine that Canada, European countries, Asian countries are saying, you know, this is all well and

good for him, but for us, we need to be able to have something that we can plan on. And we're just going to find alternate markets, both in terms of what we want to buy and what we want to buy and what we want to sell. Every day that we have to make those plans puts the United States in a weaker position. Where are we going to be at the beginning of August? How nervous do you think the financial markets, the Wall Street, I mean, the various constituencies that would be impacted by this are of any of this stuff coming to fruition? Right. A lot of questions there, so I'll pick some up and you'll come back to the ones that I

miss. Okay. So first of all, how scared is Wall Street? The answer turns out to be surprisingly little. One fact is true. There's an unbroken streak every time Trump trusts his instincts, increases tariffs, for instance, or threatens to fire Fed Chair, Jay Powell. Every time he leans into his instincts, markets fall. The only thing that's changed over time is by how much. At the start of the Trump administration, and this was Liberation Day, he would say something outrageous like announce the Liberation Day tariffs, and markets would tank.

And then that would lead him to revise what he wanted to do. And what's happened is, you've all heard this word, TACO, Trump Always Chickens Out, that people have understood that the outrageous first claim is not anything he means. And so, as a result, when he speaks now, markets don't believe him. So markets are now falling when he moves into tariffs, but only by a very small amount, so small that the president doesn't get the feedback he needs that this is a very, very bad idea. Markets are confident that he's going to chicken out. I am not. And I am not because there are other policy domains, for instance, immigration, where he's taken really very, very extreme views and charged ahead, irrespective of external

advice and what external groups want. And there's no reason to think that he wouldn't do that again. So to characterize this, this is a debate between is he tariff man, the guy who actually loves tariffs, and there's good evidence that maybe that's who he is, versus is this taco man, the guy who always chickens out. If he is tariff man, this is a very, very high set of tariffs. Actually, it's now currently, we may be on track for the August 1st tariffs to be higher than the Liberation Day tariffs. It depends what day of the week you look at. And so if you're worried on Liberation Day, you should be worried today is my view on this. What do you have?

What's your sense of how other countries are sort of moving away? I mean, there's a real broad sense. I mean, you mentioned, you know, we have PhDs and this and that. There's a brain drain there. I mean, and it's sort of the same dynamic, right? Like it's just people are turning away from the United States. But, you know, we've all been to middle school and you're sitting in the middle school cafeteria and there's the kid who insists on fighting at the lunch table. Where that kid, you know, we

we are the kid who fights at the at the lunch table, and that makes us a less attractive friend. What happens is people get up and they make other friends. So that is at a very literal level what's happening right now. So the European Union is talking to the group of Asia-Pacific nations that formed what was once called the Trans-Pacific Partnership until the United States dropped out of it. But more generally, people want friends who are friendly

and they want friends who are reliable. What may not be clear to an American audience is this trade war has been the front page of news in almost every country around the world more days than not. This is just such a central issue. And people understand how they're being treated. And so if you thought about this through a foreign policy lens, and I want to emphasize I'm not a foreign policy guy, but we have made

the United States less central to the world economy. And it's not just tariffs. Of course, there's immigration. Whenever immigrants come over here and have a good life, they become more connected, their families back home, we understand each other and so on. But also international students, they're terrified of coming over here. International conferences are no longer being held here because you can't do that in case people won't get in across the border. And while the US will host the next Olympics,

if these are our border policies, we'll never host the Olympics again. And so all of this means, yes, we're a big country and yes, we're a rich country, but increasingly we will become disconnected. If you're President Trump, that was the goal. If you're the rest of us, you understand the richness that comes from being integrated with the rest of the world.

The richness is I sat down and I looked at my dinner plate last night and the salmon came from Norway and the dill came from Israel and the rice might have come from the US, but it might have come from China, and on and on it goes. It's the confluence of ideas and the people that all come together in this extraordinary melting pot, and we are not going to be that. And lest that sound alarmist, let me remind your viewers that prior to Hitler, the US was the center

of learning in the world. That's where the world's professors and scientists went to profess in science together. Hitler basically kicked out the Jewish scientists. They all left Germany and they ended up in the US. And the next 80 years of economic history is that Germany floundered. The US has created millions of incredibly high quality jobs as we have created the technologies of the future. If we are unreliable, that will not be our future. Let's talk just a little bit about inflation. I mean, I've heard you explain that we are starting

to see some inflation as a function of the tariffs, but because people saw this coming, there was inventories that were built up. There was a big expenditure and that takes a while to work its way through the system, almost like a, I guess, a snake eating a rat as it were. But once that passes, which we are sort of on the. I mean, we're going to see inflation increase in the coming months. And that's regardless of what happens on August 1st.

Yes. So let me just try and create a little bit of structure for the audience so that I know not everyone wants to think like they're in an econ 101 class, but that's how I teach. So when import taxes go up, we're going to see a little bit of a for the audience so that I know not everyone wants to think like they're in an Econ 101 class, but that's how I teach. So when import taxes go up, one of three things

has to happen, actually one of four things. So either the foreign countries reduce the price they send stuff to the United States. That's what Trump bet would happen. And to be absolutely clear about that, that has not happened. Import prices are literally unchanged. So we've had roughly a 10% tariff in place since April. If Trump were right, import prices would have fallen 10%. If you look at import prices excluding oil, because oil is not tariffed, they're exactly flat. So foreign countries are wearing none of it.

So that then means the only two other places the tax goes and it has to be paid by someone. So they're going to be paid by let's say Best Buy imports a washing machine from Korea. So you're going to be paid by Best Buy or Best Buy is going to jack up their prices, in which case it's paid by you. At this point, we're not seeing a lot of movement in consumer prices. We're seeing a little bit but not a lot. So what that tells us is that Best Buy is bearing it. Now, just to be crystal clear about that, Best Buy is an American company.

So the costs are being borne by Americans. They're being paid for by yours and my 401k, rather than at the grocery store, at the checkout. Now, why is it that that's happening? That's a fairly standard short run thing, which is whenever your costs go up and down a lot, businesses try and keep their prices pretty stable. And so it's only when they're confident that prices are up and they're going to stay high that they'll go ahead and pass on the price rises. So one that says don't

expect Best Buy to continue to be happy about lower profits. We saw earnings reports from General Motors and other big companies saying their profitability is down. The other part of this is actually what you said, which is the Trump tariffs went on in April and everyone's like, well, why aren't we seeing it in prices yet? Well, they didn't apply to the goods that were already on boats. It takes a month for a new good to get on the boat and get to the United States. That brings us to May. Then it has to get on the boat and get to the United States. So that brings us to May. Then it has to get off the boat and through customs. That's a couple of weeks. And then it has to get on the truck and into the store room.

That's another couple of weeks. And then once those goods get to the store room, it turns out the store room is pretty crowded right now, because a lot of companies' new tariffs were coming. So they stocked up. So these goods are only just getting to the shelves now. But the most recent price data we have is from last month. And so that's the very simple logic of why no one should ever have expected an effect on prices right now. The other part of this is people will

say, hey, for instance, I'll say to me, Justin, you've been screaming tariffs are inflationary this whole time, but we haven't seen an inflationary breakout. And part of the answer is Trump hasn't imposed most of the tariffs. Most of them are off until August 1st. It's no surprise that in June and July, we're not seeing the effects of August 1st tariffs yet. And so if he does go this next step, for sure and for certain, this will continue to raise prices. And then you'll ask me the question when and the answer is by the end of the year, but not straight away. So what happens when prices go up? And we've been talking about around the holidays. It's going to be a really major problem with like some of the trade wars with China and cheaper toys and things like that.

That's where things could be felt. that that's where things could be felt. What happens if prices go up and Jerome Powell remains firm at the Fed with not lowering interest rates in response to that? You know, some of the turbulence you're seeing in the market that you've described has been when he's been like openly flirting with firing Jerome Powell, but he's largely been prevented from doing that. But in 2026, he'll be able to replace him legally. So like, how does the Fed play into all of this right now? There's just so much to talk about. I apologize. And then I keep rambling in my responses. So Emma, I'm going to say the same thing I said to Sam a moment ago. Let me pick up some

important parts and the parts you want me to hit on, bring me back to it. Let's talk about Powell, Trump, and the Fed, because to many audiences, Federal Reserve independence sounds like an obscure concept and maybe something we don't even like. Here's the very simple logic of it. We could either have presidents make decisions about monetary policy, raising and lowering interest rates, or have independent nerds do it. I think a standard democratic theory view would say,

well, presidents are elected and nerds aren't, so maybe we should let presidents do it. The problem is, presidents can't be trusted. Presidents make choices in president's own political interests. And so Trump has already said very clearly what he wants to do is take an economy and run it into overdrive, which at one level would be good, we'd make more stuff, And so Trump has already said very clearly what he wants to do is take an economy and

run it into overdrive, which at one level would be good, we'd make more stuff, but another level would spark inflation almost straight away. And so this is the same logic that says when I go to a party with a six pack in my hand, I hand someone else my car keys because I know I'm going to get drunk enough, I'm going to make a really bad decision. And so what I want is someone else to make the decision for me. That's what central bank independence is. It's politicians understanding that politicians

can't be trusted. And for the past 50 years, politicians have understood that. And as a result, we've had reasonably low inflation. Now, if there were ever a politician who should not be handed the car keys right now, it's probably the guy in the White House who's already said that what he wants to do is reduce interest rates to a degree that simply makes no sense whatsoever.

That's the underlying story. Let me come back and actually tell you what I think this looks like in real life, because we've actually seen this movie before. In Turkey, a popular strongman, Erdogan, came to power. That popular strongman, like our popular strong man, really loves low interest rates. Ours, because he's a real estate developer, Erdogan, because he doesn't understand economics, arguably they both have that in common. Erdogan got frustrated with the Turkish central bank. And ultimately, what he did was he was somewhat independent before. He appointed one

of his loyalists, a yes man. That yes man said, all right, boss, you want low interest rates even though inflation is not only high but rising and he kept interest rates low. And inflation went up, up, up, up, up, and it kept interest rates low and they kept rising until inflation hit 86%. Now, you and I don't even know what it feels like to live in a world of 86%, but basically it causes 86% inflation, but basically it causes enormous dysfunction throughout society, let alone financial markets. Throughout society, you're running home to spend your money while it's still worth something. Financial markets cause a much broader meltdown. We know what happens when a populist strong man who loves low interest rates appoints a loyalist.

Things turn out very badly. You might say, well, Justin, we're not Turkey. The thing is, Turkey used to think Turkey wasn't Turkey. I think this is in fact an utterly genuine risk. That risk is going to come to the fore in May. It looks like he's not going to fire Powell now. Powell, my understanding is, is basically waiting and then the Fed has a dual mandate of low unemployment, at least over the course of like 20, 30 years. I mean, 20 years ago they were saying you could not have unemployment this low.

It was physically impossible for the country to have unemployment this low. It was physically impossible for the country to have unemployment this low. Inflation is around where their benchmark wants it to be. He's holding off on cutting rates because he's afraid of this tariff stuff is all in play. Trump wants him to, but Trump is going to install, I mean, it could be his son for all we know at this point to be, or nominate for the chair of the Fed. And I would imagine we're going to see following May, regardless of what the situation is, multiple rate cuts.

Is there, can the Fed, the body of the Fed itself inhibit the chairman from doing this? Do you see indications that they would do that? Because I would imagine it's in Trump's interest to have rates cut as much as possible in June, July of 2026 so that the overheating of the economy is basically in place for the midterm elections. And then who knows what he's thinking after that. But what are the mechanics of that? Great, great question. So look, when I talk to non-economists, I often think people aren't scared enough,

so I try and light a fire under them. If we lose the independence of the central bank, we lose a very, very valuable economic institution and much of our economic future. I may have succeeded a little too much with you, Sam, because you seem terrified. So now let me please. It's a lot of things a little too much with you, Sam, because you seem terrified. It's a lot of things, to be honest with you. Let me tell you the good news. First of all, it's not obvious Trump will appoint a charlatan.

It's still possible. Let me give you a couple of thoughts there. First of all, whoever he appoints has to be Senate confirmed. And that's actually been a reasonable barrier in the past. Secondly, the first half of the first Trump administration, he actually appointed very reasonable people to the Fed. They're not the people you would appoint, but they're people I would be willing to vouch for their credentials and their way of thinking, if not their values. They're people who are technically sound and unwilling to take crazy political choices just because the boss says so. That was the first half of the Trump administration.

The second half of the first Trump administration actually then tried to make two appointments that were genuine lunatics. Stephen Moore of the Heritage Foundation. Is he the heritage? I forget where he is. I haven't seen much of him as of late, but he was a longtime Heritage Foundation guy and sort of a Arthur Laffer acolyte, I guess you could say. And not only an intellectual lightweight,

but intellectually dishonest. And it turns out he also doesn't pay his alimony. That's actually what did him in. And then Judy Shelton, who was a gold bug. And gold bugs are a whole different kind of dangerous and so far outside the mainstream of thinking that her views on the economy simply most economists would say don't make sense.

So yes, is capable of charlatans as well, although in both cases ultimately Senate confirmation turned out to be the problem. Let me also tell you why I'm less worried about the next two years. Interest rate decisions are actually made by a committee. The committee is called the Federal Open Market Committee, and there are 12 members on it. And over the next, leading up to the midterms,

I think Trump gets to make two appointments, one of which would be chair. If the chair is a lunatic, the other 11, I'm very confident, I know many of these people personally, will just not be led by a lunatic. And you cannot just raise and lower interest rates as the Fed chair without the committee say so. If he appoints two lunatics, they're still

going to be out on their own. The more worrying things would be he could appoint someone who's not a lunatic, but actually quite smart and committed to similar goals that he had. The chairman is basically the boss of the staff and the staff are a really big part of these decisions because they're technical and difficult. The other thing you could do is you could launch on a pathway to take over the Fed with lunatics.

That's not going to play out in the next two years. But it turns out the Federal Open Market Committee, that important committee, is the people appointed directly by Trump, plus the Presidents of the regional Federal Reserve Banks, which are a very bizarre, you talk for a month about them, very bizarre institution, but you can only be appointed the President of a regional Fed if the Federal Reserve in Washington says yes. So if he takes over the five board of governors in Washington, then he would open the doorway to appointing more lunatics in the future. That's a much slower timeline, though. That's going to play out over, you know, you'd start to see first steps in a few years and start to really be worried a

few years after that. That's encouraging. I mean, since you're in a mood to assuage me, the Genius Act, like how, as we start to see this whole package of the supposed stable coins and the crypto legislation that the Republicans are teeing up, and it seems the Democrats, or at least a sufficient number of them, are bought and paid for by the crypto industry that they're OK with this. And maybe this is too broad of a question, but how many years until we hit the crypto version of 2008? For the first time in our discussion today, I'm going to be brief.

I have not seen a single use case for cryptocurrency apart from avoiding crime. So I don't see how our society is better with it. Equally, I don't see how our society suffers when it goes away. But it is the fact that they've moved from trying to get libertarians to invest to getting working class moms and dads to be the ones holding the can when the whole thing blows up worries me enormously.

So for any of your audience who are listening, my very strong advice is stay out. You might miss the up, but I promise you you'll miss the down as well. And look, I might be wrong, but this is an industry that as far as I can tell does nothing. Oh, no, I couldn't agree more. But what I'm concerned about is when the Treasury starts to support the stablecoins and when vanilla banking starts to get involved in this this, how much systemic risk, what's the over under on how long it takes for this to become a systemic risk? I may not buy any Bitcoin or Trump coin or whatever it is, but if all of these institutions of our financial industry is, you know, sort of, and we're

responsible for saving it, how exposed are we? And we'll let you go in a moment. I know you've got other things to do. I got to let you laugh at me. That was my phone. It was my therapist saying you're late. Maybe this is a different kind of therapy, Sam. We're all going to need it after this. Yes. The key issue is when people lose money, if something

teeters in crypto land, does the government stand behind it? And it turns out, by the way, you just went so nerdy, I feel good about my level of nerdiness. That was what happened in 2008, which is we made mutual funds whole. If we're not willing to let crypto pirates lose money, then we're the ones who end up burying it. And then that's systemic. If we are, I don't mind letting a few of them go bust. I don't mind letting all of them go bused. They went to the casino. They knew it was a casino, but we have to make sure that the administration responds

that way. Well, I guess we're going to see how much backing we provide in the coming months. Justin Wolfers, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at University of Michigan, and late for therapy. Thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it. Thanks so much. Take care. Bye-bye.

All right, folks. We're all going to head to our relative therapy sessions shortly. Also known as the fun half. In the fun half. Fun half today. We'll be featuring... Oh, so much fun. So much fun. I mean, that is the one good... Well... I feel better about the Fed stuff for the time

being. Hopefully he's correct and that just, Trump is just too constrained in this way. But we'll see. I mean, we'll see. I mean, by then hopefully, you know, we will see Obama will be arrested and will be on the show trials. It will start in May of next year, according to Trump. All right. Well, folks, we're going to head into the fun half.

Just a reminder, your support is what makes this show possible. You can become a member by going to jointhemajorityreport.com. When you do, you not only get the free show free of commercials, but you also get the I Am the Fun Half. And also you get the feeling of walking around going like, I'm supporting a show I like to listen to multiple times a week. Right. Or even once a week.

If we were starting the show today, we would probably do this once or twice a week and you'd be like, oh, this week they had, you know, Justin Wolfers on. That was great. But instead what we've done, I don't even remember who the guests we had. I can't remember anything anymore. Brittany, Goldman. Yeah. We had folks on about the Wagner Group, and we had folks on about what's happening with the Education Department. We're not even halfway through, we're officially halfway through the week right now.

Yep. Yep. We got Maddie Hassan coming on Friday to talk about Jubilee and not just those debates but broadly speaking, and of course we'll also probably cover the week news. Tomorrow you got... Well, we'll wait and make sure we're confirmed. A politician maybe coming on tomorrow. We do have Jean Guerrero confirmed. A politician may be coming on tomorrow. We do have Jean Guerrero confirmed.

Yes, yes. Jean Guerrero, who you- Oh, she's great. You had on before I joined, like right before I joined the show, but I wanted to have her back on because she- Literally wrote the book on Stephen Miller. It's in my backpack, but yes,

I wanna talk to her about Stephen Miller because he's, like, we don't know enough about this guy Who's basically the shadow president the last time I spoke to? Jean Guerrero, Steve Miller was still spraying on his hair, right? Right, right good thing. He's abandoned that now and he's just gone with the mole We went with the whole shave the head thing But I thought the surprise guest might have been and I am in it to win it. Yes Well, I do want to feature somebody who is both gay Muslim Jewish black and all of that on our show in the name of Diversity. Yeah, the DEI he's the DEI candidate

Captain Planet. Yeah, what do we want to say open invitation? Oh, yeah, if Andrew Cuomo wants to come on Just send us an email majority reporters at gmail.com. We will do that. You know what If Andrew Cuomo wants to come on, just send us an email, majorityreporters.gmail.com. We will do that. You know what? I'll reach out to him. Yes, if he wants to shore up his left flank. As long as he's probably house shopping in Florida right now, but if he's not, it would be great to have him on the program. Same goes for Global Infad info data info top info data info data into and to father and father You got to appreciate Eric Adams that he can Be joyful when he's smearing people right? That's one of his best attributes I have to pre tape him though because according to his Instagram. He's not at work until like 12 1

Why did he tweet something about see you at school? though, because according to his Instagram, he's not at work until like 12, 1. Oh, is that right? Yeah. Why did he tweet something about see you at school? Oh, I didn't see that. I saw the thing where it's like his morning routine and it's like, this is when I get up at 7 a.m. to like, you know, make omelet or whatever. And you can see the clock in the background says 11 a.m. Yeah, right. I love that. And you can see the clock in the background says 11 a.m.

Yesterday he tweeted it's going down period meet me after school tomorrow. He's just doing the clown engagement gimmick thing. They give this socials to the young kids and they're trying to get attention to be fair. My dad when I was a kid literally set his clock like an hour and 45 minutes ahead. So that like, it was a way that he, an hour and 45, not like the tip. I've heard five minutes. I did the five on the oven clock at home. It would just grow and grow. It was completely insane. I never really understood it. It was also like a handicap for time.

I think from his perspective, it was like, I just gained an extra hour and 45 minutes in the day. I thought it was daylight. I thought it was I thought it was I thought it was, you know, 9am, but it's actually 715. But like how does I got all this extra time in the day? I don't ever understand how people can trick themselves like that, because you are always going to know that you're the one that set the clock. Like, that's when you make it an hour and 50 minutes or what you do is, I mean, you know, clocks are different these days, but you could just press the button, let the minutes go forward, keep your eyes

closed and turn away, right? And then just wherever it lands you have no idea or just have a beep show you random numbers. Yeah Folks again join the majority report comm join the majority report comm your support keeps this show surviving and thriving also just coffee dot co-op fairtrade coffee Surviving and thriving. Also justcoffee.coop, fair trade coffee. Use the coupon code majority, you get 10% off. You can buy all sorts of grape blends or single origin coffees there.

Check out our merch. We got those Max Left hats and also check out the AM Quickie, amqickie.com. And we have over 15,000 people in our Discord now at majoritydiscord.com. It is a huge community. Check it out. Matt, left reckoning. Yeah, left reckoning last night, 7 o'clock. We had Alex Salmanon of Salon talking about the Roosevelt Hotel, how it briefly became

in Ellis Island. Then it got demonized by the right wing, and Eric Adamson closed it. Also, we talked about the AOC stuff, and Omar Fateh winning in Minneapolis, and Jacob Frye doing a stop the steal style tantrum after he tried to do some shenanigans to undercut the quorum and ended up just losing the entire endorsement despite being an Incumbent so a big L for the centrist big win for the DSA candidate check it out tomorrow or tonight or last night Patreon.com says left reckoning something like that happened at my softball game last night. You lost the quorum. Yeah. No, there was a

the Sometimes we play with pitchers from the same team that's batting. So you've got to trust them for fielding, right? Because they're playing the field. And there was two outs, man on first, and obviously the ball gets hit back to the pitcher. Pitcher goes to throw it to second base. The shortstop thought, our shortstop thought he was going to go to first, which is really sort of the play that you do, but nevertheless cover the base. And we have wide array characters playing this, and he got very very angry at the pitcher and just literally walked off the field and

got on his bicycle and rode off. We have audio. First of all, how dare you? It was a little more dramatic than that actually, but it reminds me of Jacob Fry doing the same thing. He rode his bike home too. Yeah, exactly. I'm taking my ball and I'm leaving.

You're going to do that. See you in the fun app. 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,'re gonna 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 hey

Fun fact. Matt! You. Fun fact. What is up everyone? Fun fact. No me keen. You did it! Fun fact.

Let's go Brandon. Let's go Brandon. Fun fact. Bradley, you wanna say hello? Uh, sorry to disappoint you. 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 and let me finish. Where is this coming from, dude? But dude, uh, you wanna smell my hair? No, I'm not gonna smell your hair. I'm not gonna smell your hair. I'm not gonna smell your hair. I'm not gonna smell your hair. No, I'm sorry. Talking. Oh, wow. Let me finish. Where is this coming from, dude? But dude, you want to smoke this 7A? Yes. Yes.

Is it me? It is you. Is this me? Is it me? It is you. Um, is this me? Hello, is this me? I think it is you. Who is you? No sound.

Every single frickin' day. What's on your mind? We can discuss free markets and we can discuss capitalism. I'm gonna go skyrocketing. Libertarians. They're so stupid though. Common sense says, of course. Gobbledygook. We fucking nailed him!

So what's 79 plus 21? Challenge me. I'm positively quivering. I believe 96, I want to say. 8, 5, 7. 2, 1, 0, 8, 5. 35. 5, 0, 1.

1 half. 3 eights. 9, 11 for instance. $3, 400. $1, 900. 6, 5, 4, 3 trillion dollars sold. It's a zero-sum game. Actually you're making me think less. But let me say this. Call 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 see you. all day like everything you do. Without a doubt. Hey buddy, we see you. Alright folks! Folks, folks! It's just the weak being weeded out, obviously. Yeah, sun's out, gun's out. I...I don't know.

But you should know! People just don't like to entertain ideas anymore. I have a question. Who cares? Um, um. Our chat is enabled, folks. Wow. I love it.

I do love that. Uh, uh, this is um. Got a jump? Got to be quick. I get a jump. I'm losing it, bro. Um, um. 2 o'clock, we're already late. And the guy's being a dick.

So screw him. Sent to a gulag? Outrageous. Like, what is wrong with you? Love you. Bye. Love you. Bye bye.