The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3581 - False Kirk Killer Narratives; Private Equity Killing the American Dream w/ Megan Greenwell

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

In the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination Ben Shapiro hurls baseless accusations about the murderer's ideology and identity on Real Time with Bill Maher. Utah GOP Governor Spencer Cox continues to pin the shooting on the left without providing any evidence to support his claims. Journalist and author, Megan Greenwell joins the show to discuss her book Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream. Check out the Private Equity Stakeholder Project. In the Fun Half: Howard Lutnick is laughing all the way to bank as every negative forecast for Trump's economy will ultimately benefit his family business. Another crook, Scott Bessent laughs as he denies that tariffs are a tax. A farmer in Arkansas lays out how screwed American farmers are under Donald Trump. Billions have been lost, and the only way out will be a bailout. When asked if the U.S. bombing an alleged drug boat in the Carribean was illegal he replied that the drugs on the boat were illegal. As people are losing their jobs simply for posting Charlie Kirk quotes, Brian Kilmeade flat out says that we should kill homeless and mentally ill people then offers a weak apology. Chris Van Hollen calls out New York Democratic leadership for not endorsing Zohran Mamdani. Kathy Hochul also endorses Mamdani, applying pressure to Schumer and Jeffries. All that and more The Congress switchboard number is [phone]. You can use this number to connect with either the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives. 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 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: CURRENT AFFAIRS: for 30% off for a year on any subscription of your choice, go to currentaffairs.org/subscribe and enter the code MAJORITYREPORT at checkout. The offer expires October 31st.   SUNSET LAKE:  Head to SunsetLakeCBD.com and through September 14th, you can save 30% on all Sunset Lake CBD’s Tinctures when you use the coupon code FallTincture 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/

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The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Monday. September 15th, 2000. 25. 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, Megan Greenwell, journalist and author of bad company, private equity, and the death of the American dream. also on the program today Kirk Shooter

not cooperating so the Utah governor decides to set a motive narrative meanwhile Trump claims he's made a deal with China over TikTok you know what that means it's Taco Monday

Fed meets tomorrow Trump's still trying to illicitly fire one of its governors. In the wake of shackling 300 Korean workers, Trump desperately begs for more foreign investment. It was a goof. Sorry about that.

Don't hold it against me. Governor Hokel endorses Mom Dhani, leaving Schumer and Jeffreys in the lurch. It's 15 days before a government shutdown, and Republicans plan to jam Chuck Schumer and watch him cave. EPA formally proposes eliminating reporting of corporate greenhouse gas emissions. Republican Education Department ends discretionary funding for colleges with large minority student populations. state department reauthorization bill to include a provision to allow the state department to revoke passports of U.S. citizens who are public about disagreements with U.S. policy and farmers coast to coast in despair between tariffs and a lack of labor. one of the farmers called American workers spoiled all this and more on today's majority report welcome

ladies and gentlemen thanks so much for joining us it is a Monday Emma is out today just a little bit of house cleaning I'm going to be out for the next couple of days passed away. My uncle, he was into his 90s. So he lived a long life. Very sweet man. And so I'll be out for a couple of days for that. Emma will be here. Just wanted to give you a heads up. Meanwhile, of course, there has just been an incredible amount. of misinformation, lack of information coming out about the suspect who killed Charlie Kirk. The reports are that the killer, or a suspected killer, is not cooperating with authorities. and then a whole mess of other stuff that has come out

largely based upon half statements by the Utah governor and then reporting that is from sources that are around the investigation if Cash Patel retweeting reporters reporting reporting that is not directly attributed only to sources around the FBI. Normally what happens is if the FBI wants to put something out, they'll put a statement on it. So when Cash Patel is retweeting reports that supposedly are going on with the FBI, you have to wonder why is it that he wants to maintain that arm's length

and create this narrative. this clip and uh i am in no way uh praising uh bill mar on this but um this clip i think captures the dynamic that has gone on over the course of the weekend this is a bench piero on tour i guess in the wake of uh charlie kirk being assassinated he's also got a book out oh he's got a book out to um here he is on uh bill marsha if there's a shooting at a synagogue it is very likely to be either a white supremacist or a radical muslim if it is a shooting of a republican politician it is very likely to be a trans antifa marx issue that is just not that is that it we don't know we don't know what this kid is we do know this kid was of the left we do know that we do know

what that this kid was of the political left that is according to contemporaneous reporting from as well as tablet magazine today it's two days out we don't know shit but here's we don't know shit they never do the internet is undefeated in getting it wrong to begin with it's not about the internet that's about the that's about the actual reporting by mainstream except the guardian is not right when here's what I here's what we heard is what I was told so far and I'll tell you what was right first I heard he's a registered Republican not not true okay then he was a donor to Trump not true his father works in the sheriff's office

not true. There was a picture of him wearing a pro-Trump shirt. Not true. A member of the Democratic Socialists of America. Not true. We don't know what he is. Well, how are you so sure he's of the left? Now, I agree when you write on a bullet. What did he write on the bullet? Catch this fascist, which is also a gamer thing. Okay, but now I'm hearing he may have been part of that group for whom Charlie Kirk was not right-wing enough. I mean, the Groyper's, yes. I mean, so that would... You're sure he's not that? I'm not sure that he's not that. Oh, then you were sure what he was. Hold on, hold on, Bill. Hold on.

Okay, because I've been... You were. I mean, yeah. We don't know about this guy. And even the information that we're getting, put aside the reporting, because the reporting has to be coming from somewhere. And there has been... Then no one who has been, who has said in any of the reporting that I've seen, where there's a quote from anybody who said he's of the left, this is what we get from the gut. First of all, I can't even like how incredibly, you know, the idea of hypocrisies, who cares?

but this guy what's his name cox spencer cox who's out there talking like we must come together and then you know dog whistles you know there's no rioting there's no uh basically just uh presenting the right wing talking points and how we need to come together and calm things down then he goes on this tour this weekend and giving half information. I mean, aside from the fact that God knows what is going to do to any attempts to convict this guy. But all of this sort of like, it's half conjecture. You know, I mean, watch this with the notion that what Spencer Cox is out there going is like, we know two plus maybe two equals. I'm not going to say what it equals. People are going to have to decide.

for themselves. That's what he's doing here. And it is, and it's that second two in that equation that is like vague enough. And then, again, you got Cash Patel out there retweeting, reporting that supposedly is attributing things to the FBI. But he has the ability to put out a statement from the FBI. Good. Understood.

I just want to go back to my first question about what you told the Wall Street Journal about that this is a person. indoctrinated with leftist ideology and the reason why i think it would be great to be more specific is because your goal of trying to lower the temperature you said that this is based on investigation and interviews with people who knew him did they just use the term leftist ideology or did they give specifics yeah there are i mean there are conversations that said that were discussed specifically about charlie kirk uh other conversations about the the Pause it, pause. Listen, he is not addressing the question here.

He is not addressing the question. And the bottom line is, if you're going to put out statements that this guy has left this ideology, you should be able to, which you shouldn't be doing at this point, until you have really, like, it all sewn up. You should be able to answer the her question with, yes, we have had specifics where people we have interviewed who are very close to him as, said, quote, he had a leftist ideology. But instead, he's dancing around to all this stuff. Like, the level of irresponsibility of this guy is off the charts. Go back a little bit and just let people listen to the way he responds to this question.

It is insane. Sure. You said that this is based on investigation and interviews with people who knew him. Did they just use the term leftist ideology? or did they give specifics? Yeah, there are, I mean, there are conversations that were discussed, specifically about Charlie Kirk, other conversations about the direction that this was going. And look, I, my job is just to tell people, I don't, I don't, I really don't have a dog in this fight.

If this was, if this was MAGA and a radicalized MAGA person, I would be saying that as well. If the friends were saying that, I would be sharing that as well. that's not what they're sharing. And so I do think it is important, again, to understand how someone gets radicalized like this. And in this case, it happened with as much as people wish it wasn't or don't want it to be this, these are the facts that are being presented to us. If there are additional facts that would point otherwise, but family discussions, parents, this is what they're saying. And again, these things happen. So it's okay to have these discussions. Listen, absolutely, and I'm just trying to get more facts, more details of the facts that you're putting out. One last question on that. No, no, she's not trying to get more facts. She's trying to get a fact. Conversations about discussions does not in any way even come remotely close to answering what she's saying.

So if this guy's able to go out and say he had a left-wing ideology, why can't he state a single fact? someone will testify that would be a piece of evidence of that not a shred of it it is this is just in and the idea that we don't have major mass media editorials or whatnot saying that this guy is acting about as recklessly as you possibly could at this point in this veneer of trying to be like i would say it if it was but you're not saying anything except for you're making some broad assessment and you can't even say what that what one single building block about that is if it is the case and we don't know if it is the case that this guy was in a romantic relationship with a

another man or was in a romantic relationship with a transgender woman. If that's the case, that still doesn't mean that this person had left. I can tell you right now that there are Groyper's who are either out and gay or secretly gay. I know this. That is the case. So the idea of that, and we don't even know about whether any of that is true.

There's a picture of a roommate wearing a onesie. And some hearsay relayed by law enforcement. And this guy goes on and makes assessments in the press, And then when he's question is to like, what is one element that is the basis of that assessment and nothing? Played out. So it's okay to have these discussions. Listen, absolutely. And I'm just trying to get more facts, more details of the facts that you're putting out there.

One last question on that. You just said right now, which is something that you mentioned on. on Friday is that he had discussions with family members about Charlie Kirk. Do you have specifics on what he was saying about Charlie Kirk to his family? Just not a fan. That's all I can see. Okay. Not a specific reason why. Oh, that's funny. I mean, it's, I don't know why he's laughing. But he's not a fan of Charlie Kirk. You know what? I would have guessed that based upon the bullet that he put into Charlie Kirk.

The question isn't whether he was a fan of Charlie Kirk. you're out there saying that he has some leftist ideology in what way wasn't he a fan of charlie kirk because you can go back to 2017 back at the time when charlie kirk was okay being on stage with a gay man and in front of t p usa and watch the groypers go up and uh add a mic and go after Charlie Kirk because of this and they are not fans of Charlie Kirk. You don't have to go back more than a couple of weeks

to see Nick Fuentes making it clear that he was not a fan of Charlie Kirk. You shouldn't let him call himself a Christian. I am also was not a fan of Charlie Kirk's, but I'm not going to commit any type of violent acts. That doesn't tell us anything. about the shooter.

I don't think there was anybody in the country who thought maybe this was just a really intense fan of Charlie Kirk's. So the governor's going out there making assessments and when he's questioned on even providing one iota of substance to support those assessments, all he does is to say the most obvious thing in the world that the killer of Charlie Kirk was not a fan of Charlie Kirk's and just leaves it out there to imply that he was not a fan of Charlie Kirk's because he was a leftist. Just, I mean, I don't have any different expectations of people on the right.

But the idea that the normie media doesn't seem to be able to point out like, hey, this is nuts what he's doing here. Nuts. All right. In a minute, we're going to be talking to Megan Greenwald, journalist and author, bad company, private equity, and the death of the American dream. We've got a couple of sponsors of the program today. Things are off the hook. I don't know what to tell you. Where are we here?

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We're going to be able to do so much, you know, and so much, you know, Thank you. back we are back sam cedar on the major report is a pleasure to welcome to the program megan greenwell i should say emma viglin out today uh want to welcome to the program megan greenwell journalist and author of bad company private equity and the death of the american dream uh megan welcome to the program i got to tell you i've been waiting uh i've been waiting to start to see books about private equity because it is such a, I think, a nefarious force

in not just like our economy, but like it is degrading so much, it seems to me, in our society. Let's just start like with your experience that motivated you at Deadspin to write the book. I was the editor-in-chief of Deadspin, which was a small kind of leftist kind of snarky sports site. And that was really my dream job. That was where I wanted to work. Once I got that job, I was sort of like, great, this is where I'm staying. And it all went wrong within about a year and a half. We were bought by a private equity firm based in Boston called Great Hill Partners.

And really day one, I knew this was going to be a disaster. They came in asking the dumbest possible questions, but not even asking dumb questions with a spirit of curiosity, asking dumb questions clearly intending to use the answer to justify their own bad decisions. And Deadspin was profitable. Deadspin had a huge, very loyal audience, 20 million unique visitors a month with a staff of 20. We were doing really, really well. And so I sort of naively thought, you know, we'll be fine because we're doing well. That was not the case.

I was driven out of my job within about three months. The rest of my colleagues followed me out the door about two months after that. And it really got me interested in why private equity works the way it does and how it plays out in other industries, you know, where the stakes are a little more life or death than in snarky sports blogs. We should say that, well, there's a couple of things. I mean, one, this is really a story about extraction. And in many respects, it really reflects what we're seeing going on in the government writ large, frankly, where an enterprise is essentially sucked of its life force because it probably there's so much here. I just got to say, though, you had mentioned at one point that Deadspin still is around, but it is now a husk of its. itself and in the it was bought more or less for the URL value for a sort of like gaming site

funnel uh and you had mentioned that greenfield puppies dot com gets more views and now i've been stuck on that greenfield puppies uh thing for uh way too long just looking at the puppies that was really my favorite detail yeah i was i mean it was it was a nice thing to do too because it's it's a rescue in there but we're putting that aside for a moment um the the the the private equity thing really fascinates me because i had a conversation with a vet like a year or two ago uh and i had heard about this happening i knew somebody who was a dermatologist um and uh the stories i heard about the vet let me and i ask you this about a dead spin uh just you know so that we can launch into this but the the story i heard from the vet was

like you know it's a it's a small private practice this vet set it up 20 or 30 years ago and the private equity people come in they have some requirements to keep people in place so that it can remain competitive for a certain period of time but they pressure the workers on some level like or to stick around and agree to stick around so that this guy can sell his practice and finally get the payoff and it is incredibly manipulative and then they're just going in to cut cut cut anyways um and that that's now are like one of the number one um uh professions for suicide because uh they have the the private equity people have them cut like raise the rates of services that would save the lives of pets and um

people can't afford it and so they end up putting uh their animals down and the vets go in there and know that they have to tell people, we've got to put your that it's just an incredibly depressing experience. Now, you follow four people through their own various things in four different areas, media, retail, housing, and hospitals. Tell us about the four that you chose and why those four areas. Yeah, so I chose the areas because they felt representative of the overall private equity trend in one way or another. So the book opens with retail, which is now sort of an outdated industry for private equity. They're not much interested in retail anymore. There are

exceptions. Walgreens just got bought by private equity. But for the most part, they're trying to get out because retail isn't sexy anymore. But what you see is they were involved in retail earlier on and then they got into hospitals and they applied the exact same playbook from retail into hospitals. So it really didn't matter whether it was selling toys or delivering babies or saving people after a heart attack. All of that is just like a widget that can be, you know, increased or decrease the production of to make more money. The ultimate goal for a private equity firm is solely to make money for itself. That does not require, in a lot of cases, making money for the portfolio company, it only requires making money for the

partners. And so in some cases, you end up in a situation where the most valuable move for the private equity partners is actually to work against the interests of your own portfolio company. And so telling that story over these four industries felt really valuable. In terms of the characters, I worked so hard to pick the right characters. I talked to to over 300 people for the book, and at least 150 of them were potential protagonists. I knew I needed characters that readers would sort of fall in love with, and not that they're perfect people, but they're all incredibly compelling people, and people who would just talk and talk and talk and never declined to answer a question, which is not most people.

And so I got lucky enough with a lot of hard work, I mean, literally over a year to find, four people who are so dedicated to what they did and, you know, so riled up about what happened to them that they were just, you know, I spent days and weeks with each of these people in their home asking them incredibly invasive questions. Most people don't want to deal with that. I know I would not. But I happen to find four incredible people, Liz, Roger, Natalia, and Loren, who you know really wanted their stories to be out there um i want to get to those four people but let's um take a step back and um uh talk about what um what private equity is and particularly like distinguish it because this notion of you can make money by buying a company or buying

an enterprise and your ability to make money is not just untethered from the health of that enterprise, but in fact, may be in direct inverse proportion or relationship to the health of that company. So first, distinguish for us private equity from like venture capitalists. Like those two things, I think, get confused. And they're different because they have different. essentially interests or agendas. Yes, I get tagged in stories online all the time of a venture capital disaster. And I'm like, okay, so, so different. So, I mean, the most obvious difference

is that venture capital is taking a stake in a company. Private equity is generally acquiring companies wholesale. So that means whereas a venture capitalist might get a board seat, the private equity firm has full control over every company decision. And so that's like a really serious, important difference. And the way venture capital is set up, venture capital is out looking for unicorns, right? The only way for them to succeed is for enough of their companies to be really successful. They can stomach all sorts of disasters as well because they're playing a hits game. but what they're like a roulette they're playing roulette and they're hoping that one of those

10 bets comes in and lands and it's going to pay for the rest of the bets and it's going to pay and more yes but that bet landing requires that company being successful in private equity i'll take twis or us as an example because it's the first story in my book um the private equity firms in charge of twice or us took out five billion dollars in loans to buy Toys R Us, and they were not legally responsible for paying those loans back. Only Toys R Us itself was. So the result was when, after several years of private equity ownership, Toys R Us went under. None of the employees got severance.

They were promised severance in their contracts, but they weren't given severance because they were too low down on the creditors list during the bankruptcy. And KKR and Bain Capital, the two. private equity firms in charge both walked away from the life of that deal making a profit so okay i want to walk people through this because this is a leverage buyout in this concept i explain this leverage but because joanne fabrics just went under in a very similar situation and uh i had to explain to my kids who uh you know uh various crafters um i had to explain what went on and they just looked me like what yeah because they're like literally my 12 year old son said how is that legal and

they they take out a loan to buy the company and then they make the company responsible for the loan then they extract all the value out of the company whether that's real estate assets or uh you know the machinery or whatever i mean they don't always do this one but this is broadly the formula yeah um they screw the the company they take their fees they take their profits from whatever they're working on and whatnot meanwhile the company is struggling to pay back this debt then it can't then it goes into bankruptcy yeah then they owe you know the pension for the workers they owe the these creditors the private equity guys are like well that's the corporation it's not us yes and they walk away with all the money and they've

It's insane. It's insane. So in the case of Toys R Us, it wasn't only that Toys R Us was buried under $5 billion of debt. The private equity firms in charge also sold off all of their real estate, as you mentioned. So Toys R Us historically had owned almost all of its own real estate, at least in the U.S. So now all of a sudden, they're paying rent on the exact same land they until recently owned outright. The proceeds from that real estate, those real estate transactions are obviously going to line the pocket of the private equity firms. And so it's just not that hard for a private equity firm to make money off of a company it owns while driving the company into the ground. That's what they saw, right? They saw that real estate assets and they said like this is, this is a one-time payout. We can grab that. We can put that in our pockets.

And the bankruptcy won't happen until we are basically safely, have put that cash in our pockets well and it's not even just a one time payout because in a lot of cases they strike sweetheart deals with the people they've sold the the real estate to such that they're taking a cut of the rent payments so they're really so they own they sell the land to themselves in uh for under market rate or whatever a good sweetheart deal they pocket the proceeds of that with one hand. With the other hand, they take rent from their company. Yeah, or even if they're not selling the real estate to themselves, they may be selling it to someone with whom they have a very you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours kind of relationship. So in hospitals, for example,

there's a company called Medical Properties Trust that's based in Alabama that I'm just fascinated by. They are not themselves a private equity firm, but they are the favored real estate partner of every private equity firm in hospitals. So, of course, all of these big firms have cozy relationships with medical properties trust where they get bonuses for orchestrating the deal to MPT instead of to some other real estate investment trust. And so they get the proceeds from selling the land, but they also get, you know, little transaction bonuses because medical property trust is their pal.

I it's just this dynamic and people have to understand they're doing this with with like almost every vet you go to now and now that we should say that's one model of the of the extraction which is the full we're just going to suck the entire lifeblood out of this um there's other models and let's go through this you mentioned um Liz, um, uh, uh, from Toys R Us. And the employees lost their pension. Um, and, and she was someone who was so dedicated to Toys R Us that she had a tattoo. Yeah. Of the logo. Um, I mean, let's go to, um, uh, Roger Goz, uh, who was, um, who worked at the, the Wyoming Doctors Hospital, uh, was that was or Wyoming? A Riverton Memorial Hospital. Riverton Memorial in Wyoming. What is the, how do they apply?

Because obviously, well, in some instances, they might, uh, shut down a hospital or two. But in this one, it's a, it's a similar dynamic, but a slightly different sort of like, we're not going to fully extract all of the life force out of this. We're just going to make it, um, much leaner. Yes. Yes, exactly. So in private equity hospitals right now, what's going on is essentially a great roll-up. A private equity firm will buy dozens and dozens of hospitals and consolidate as much of their operations as possible.

So when Apollo Global Management bought the hospital, where Roger worked in Riverton, Wyoming, very small-town Wyoming, they decided to consolidate it with another hospital they owned about 30 miles away. And originally everybody thought, okay, like consolidating means centralizing billing and IT, you know, stuff that leaves more money for patient care. But what ended up happening was Riverton's hospital lost its ability to deliver babies. All of a sudden it had no OBGYN ward at all. And so you had to travel 30 miles through wind-swept canyon to the other private equity hospital in the town of Lander to even be able to deliver a baby. They only, even Lander only had one or two people capable of delivering babies on staff.

So if they were busy or if you had any sort of complication, you were getting on a MEDAVAC flight to a bigger town. So the result was the number of MEDAVAC flights out of Fremont County where both Riverton and L, Lander R, increased 900% after this private equity acquisition. It wasn't that the hospital didn't exist anymore. It was just that you couldn't get care in a real way there anymore. Who paid for the MetaBac? Well, interesting, you should ask. Medevac companies are also a very popular target for private equity.

And so you see. Of course, this is like the, like I'm going to rent from myself. I mean, this is, we're creating a new business for ourselves. Right, exactly. So you see, you know, you can't get service at your private equity owned hospital. The private equity has bought the medevac company and obviously increased the prices dramatically. And so now you get a bill for, you know, thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars.

This is also one of the poorest areas of Wyoming. And you can't afford to pay that bill. and the only reason you are being charged that bill in the first place is because they took all the services from your local hospital. It's astonishing. It's astonishing.

And so, okay, let's go to the media. I mean, your story, a deadspin was similar to this. Same type of formula. let's like degrade or just like or completely extract and sell off.

So I was particularly interested in looking at local media because there are all these academic studies showing the importance of local media to communities. And not just in like the sort of romantic, sure everybody needs a local newspaper kind of way, but in real tangible ways. There are studies that show the rate of government corruption goes up when a community doesn't have a local newspaper.

Their bond ratings go down, which means eventually people end up paying higher taxes because they do not have a local newspaper. And so I was really interested in how has this played out in so many communities that have been stripped of their newspaper? And what does it mean for the journalists who go in, you know, wanting to tell important stories about a place? One of the things that was really interesting to me is there's been a lot of coverage of Alden Global Capital, which is the most easily caricatured private equity firm hedge fund in media. And they are, they're truly evil.

But I think that the focus on Alden has actually allowed Gannett to go off the hook. Gannett is much, much bigger than Alden. Gannett is historically, you know, this very renowned newspaper company that was the only source of news in many communities. And though Gannett is not currently actually private equity owned, it was a couple of years ago, its biggest debt holders are still two private equity firms. So they're still, they still have private equity calling the shots.

And I think the story of Gannett has really been overlooked, and that was why I wanted to write about it. And write about this character, Natalia, who spent her whole career at Gannett newspapers because she felt passionately about telling important local stories. She's just a firecracker. She's so fun to talk to. And I've heard from a lot of readers that, like, they really connected with Natalia. How do they go about, how does private equity in these situations, make money in the context of media enterprises because it's how I guess I like how that formula that

they have which again can either mean like we we sink the company or we just we just figure out how to sort of extract on an ongoing basis yeah how do they do it in the context of media so the staff size just gets decimated to the point that now there is an entire class of what scholars call ghost newspapers, which are newspapers that still come out and people still pay subscriptions for them. But they do not have a single journalist on staff. It is all syndicated content. And people keep subscribing, you know, basically out of loyalty. That will end at some point. People will catch on. And younger people are far less likely to subscribe to any newspaper than older folks are. So that's not a long-term strategy. But private equity is a short-term game,

Right? So you can cut all the staff. Even, you know, even in bigger cities, the Austin American statesman, for example, one of the fastest growing cities in the country had a couple hundred journalists on staff. And now it's in the 20s, I believe. So, you know, a state the size of Texas with a state capital as important as Austin, with politics as important as what's going on. in Texas. And all of a sudden you have, you know, a tenth of the journalist covering it, maybe less. Another one of the strategies, like we talked about in hospitals and retail, is you can sell off their big, grand historic headquarters downtown and move them out to the suburbs or charge them rent to, for, you know, part of the same building they once owned. So, for example, the Chicago Tribune had this iconic tower in downtown Chicago. That is now luxury condos because Alden Global Capital sold that headquarters to a developer, and that's what they did with it. And the Tribune journalists work way, way out there. So there are all sorts

of little tricks that you can take from one industry and just apply it, copy and paste it to another. Whenever I talk about this stuff, I have this vision of, like, I can't remember which one of the sci-fi things where it's just like we're keeping the host alive, feeding it gruel so we can just use the energy coming out of it. And it's really, it's incredible. Talk about how it implicates housing. So the housing stuff is really rough. Private equity is involved in pretty much every sector of the housing market right now. So they started in mobile homes. grew out to single-family, you know, build houses that they would buy and then rent out to other people. And now they're in massive apartment buildings as well. So I looked at one such

absolutely huge apartment complex in Northern Virginia, outside D.C., 2,300 units. And the private equity firm came in and essentially started acting like slumlords, right? That people couldn't get basic fixes done, rents were going up. At one point, there was this catastrophic flood that kicked 14 families out of their apartments. They were still being charged rent originally for this, and the landlord told them, you know, like if some of your stuff was ruined, you know, just call your rental insurance company. This is a apartment complex that serves a pretty low-income population. Not everybody has rental insurance.

And my character, Loren, another real firecracker, who doesn't put up with anything from anybody, stood up at this meeting in front of her landlord and all of her neighbors and said, we're not going to pay our renter's insurance? That's crazy. This is your fault, and you will be paying for all of our expenses, which they eventually did. But also, Lauren got evicted for being such a trouble.

maker, essentially. And, you know, she could have fought it in court, but Virginia does not have very friendly laws to tenants. And she just decided, you know, I can't live here anymore anyway. So in that scenario, are they coming in, are they larding up the apartment building with debt in that scenario? Or is it just that we think that there is 20% of our services as a landlord that we can cut, you know, maybe there'll be, you know, two percent will be clawed back by legal cases, whatnot, but we can squeeze 18 percent out of just making the experience. I mean, they're not, I don't think they care, but we can cut 20 percent, what I'm just picking a number, of like the operating costs, which are borne by the tenants in this instance, right?

like I don't have hot water for a week or two or I don't have heat for, you know, three weeks out of the year or the elevator's broken for a couple of days or whatever it is. The tenants bear it, the, you know, it's not painted, whatever it is. The tenants bear the cost in their experience, maybe out of their pocket, like in terms of the flooding. And the private equity, people like, that's just the cost of doing business, maybe a little bit of legal fees, and that's it. We can extract 20% out of this thing as it exists today. Yeah, so there is, there is some bank debt. There is a lot of cutting costs and increasing rent.

But one of the biggest tricks they have in the housing industry that actually is specific to housing, is private equity firms can access money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are government institutions. I mean, they are private companies, but they're overseen by the government. And the reason those companies were founded was to give low interest loans to ordinary Americans hoping to buy their first homes. There is nothing stopping private equity from getting that money as well. And that money has a very, very low interest rate. So, like investors in a private equity firm where you actually have to pay them a share of your profits, here you just have to pay whatever the low interest rate is, and then you're off scot-free.

And so Fannie and Freddie money has been absolutely crucial to private equity firms profiting off of housing. And at various times, progressive lawmakers have said, look, this isn't what Fannie and Freddie were designed to do. We've got to shut this down, but there's not a lot of appetite on Capitol Hill to regulate either private equity or its sources of capital because 88% of members of the House and Senate are taking money from private equity. So there's just no appetite for change. I mean, the stories of these people and the way that they fight back against this is, I think, you know, people will really enjoy these narratives. And I think it's great. But I'm also curious as to like, do we have any regulation?

Like on a broad scale, is there even a class of legislation that in any way regulates private equity? I mean, they sort of like sneak in and get loans, low interest rates that were really not meant to be a profit center. They destroy companies. Because we all, like, we are inculcated to believe that in the context of capitalism, you know, capitalists build companies that help communities. I mean, this is all sort of like a fairy tale, and I think everybody knows that. But it is so hard for people to wrap around. And there are other instances of this where the money that comes in, the people that buy a company or an enterprise,

their success is untethered from the success of that thing. It's so hard for people to understand that concept because it really, like, it's, it's shocking. Right. Is there, are there any regulations, like broadly speaking, on this, this practice? So there's, I mean, there's truthfully just very, very little. Private equity firms even have to disclose much less about their operations as other kinds of companies do. And on the federal level, I don't see that changing anytime soon, because like I say, 88% of the House and Senate are on the dole of private equity. That said, there is some interesting

stuff happening on the state level in multiple places. So both Massachusetts and Oregon recently passed pretty significant laws, increasing scrutiny of private equity deals in health care, and in Oregon's case, strengthening its ban against what's called the corporate practice of medicine, meaning that at least potentially private equity firms can't own hospitals or doctors clinics at all. And so I think it is really easy to get discouraged by the lack of regulation on the federal level and the lack of movement toward any regulation on the federal level. Elizabeth Warren has proposed what she calls the Stop Wall Street Looting Act over and over and over again. and that would fundamentally transform how private equity operates,

but it never gets anywhere close to getting out of committee. And so, you know, you can be depressed by that. Or maybe and you can also, you know, look at what can be done on the state level, on the local level, at the level of lobbying in front of pension fund boards, because pension funds have a tremendous amount of power with private equity firms because they're among the biggest investors. And these are all places where ordinary people have a little bit more of a voice than they would in federal politics most of the time.

So there is some interesting movement happening. And I think, you know, one thing that really unites people across the political spectrum is being upset about incoming inequality and being upset at billionaires. So that is actually sort of hard. to me, the fact that once people see what is going on with private equity, they start to think they should do something about it or somebody should do something about it, regardless of their political affiliation. And I think you're seeing some interesting examples of that happening in a few places. Lastly, is there like a, is there a clearinghouse to get a sense?

I mean, I know you, I think in your book it was 8% of the economy. me, uh, is a function of private equity. Are there, are there clearing houses like that, that, that, that show where, you know, what, what private equity, what industries have been completely sort of swallowed up by private equity? Because I, I'm just fascinated by this, because it is, it is literally like undermined. I mean, aside from like, and you have great stories of, of, of individuals who have been, you know, were directly. impacted by this as as people who are working for these enterprises um but like our daily lives is just a little crappier because of this and we don't know why yeah no exactly i mean one

experience i had over and over when talking to workers is them saying they didn't even know their company was owned by private equity until everything went wrong right because if you work Toys R Us, your bosses seven layers above you work at Toys R Us, your paychecks say Toys R Us. Unless you're a very nosy reporter like I am, why would you know, right? So there is no like one central clearinghouse. My favorite resource is called the Private Equity Stakeholder Project. And they're a nonprofit who basically monitors what's going on with private equity. They're not able to capture absolutely everything. But in their areas of focus, which do include both housing and medicine, they're really, really good at figuring things out and making that

information available to the rest of us. So they have a hospital tracker, for example, on their website where you can go to their website and look up any hospital in the country and see if it's private equity owned. And I think people should do that. I think people should have the information. I mean, there's a hospital. I can't remember what it's called now, because is just a story that I know from a friend that is known by all the other hospitals. Like, that's where people go to die. And it is a private equity hospital. Folks get in there.

And if you're sent there, you know, in an emergency, then it's just so poorly run. I can't remember what the name of it is. Tell your friend to get in touch with me. I will do that. Great. I will, in fact, do that. Always out for scoops, you know. Megan Greenwell, journalist and author of Bad Company, Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream, so important for people to read about these stories because it is, I am convinced, like, not only is it, do we have direct impact on our daily lives, it is also shows you a dynamic that I think is even taking place in corporations that aren't involved in private equity, but the same

dynamic with stock buybacks and whatnot, like the notion that people can make money, even when their company that we have two sets of interests that diverge often, the health of the company long term and the people who control it getting wealthier, it's important for people to be able to understand how those concepts exist at the same time. Megan Greenwald, we will link to your book at Majority. dot fm and the podcast and youtube description and i will uh connect you with that person beautiful thank you so much appreciate it all right folks uh what's the website to search uh hospitals re private equity it is the private equity stakeholder project we'll put a link to that and i want

we're going to talk to a guest from there eventually. Midwest Brewer, we have hospitals in Michigan that are known as the place you go to die. Corwell Health. I've heard that around here, too. Places, like in the Bronx, for instance, people growing up there realizing, like, a very different relationship to hospitals

than the one that I have. Yeah. All right, we're going to take a break, head into the fun half. Folks, it's your support that makes this show possible. You can keep us surviving and thriving by becoming a member at Join the Majority Report.com. When you do, you get the free half, free of commercials. You get the fun half. But most importantly, you keep this show being able to provide interviews that other people would say it's not sexy.

It may be a little bit dry, but this is the home of the not so sexy, sometimes dry, daily news program. On things that control your life. Yes, that are impacting you on a daily basis. This vet stuff, you know, a year ago was a year ago. in August, my cat with diabetes, we had to put down. And I felt so bad, we had to, you know, it was an emergency. We went to the, the cat hospital. And I felt so bad for the young vet associate who, you know, had to come to us and say,

like, well, it's going to cost, like, literally. like the price of a car and um then we can figure out what's wrong with him but for the next like five day whatever and i you know then this guy had to you know witness his family um and my you know my young kid holding the cat as as we put it to sleep like and this guy's knowing that like whatever care they were going to provide at a place not owned by private equity because I had had this conversation with a vet just by chance

and she had left this place that had been bought by private equity because she's like it's and vets were like the highest suicide rates because they're sitting there knowing you know you become a vet because you love animals and when it's

so explicit that this pet is going to live or die because of the expense and because there's somebody, um, you know, we need a higher profit margin here. And if it means we put down some, uh, animals, then we also get an extra 10% on that. I mean, it's, it's, it's like that dynamic with we close the hospitals and then we buy into the medevac company. We make it on both ends. all right um also just coffee got co-op it's a co-op it's a co-op it's owned by the employees and uh they make great coffee uh price is still reasonable even though we have tariffs they take care of their farmers whether it's in chiapas or in uh in africa very very various places in Africa.

I think they have growers. And they take care of their employees because they're part owners. Justcoffee.coop. Fair trade coffee. You can get the majority report blend or just get 10% off by using the coupon code majority. Matt, left reckoning. Yeah, left reckoning for the Sunday show. We talked about the topic of the week last week and also a Texas

State professor, Tom Alter, who got canceled for basically being to the left of LBJ at a socialist Zoom conference and that being infiltrated by Carlin Borsenko, who was a Jan Sixer, sort of lunatic. And she publicized some videos of him criticizing the Democratic Party as a member of a socialist party, not DSA, a different one. but yeah he's fired now he had 10 year now he's fired so we'll check that out patreon dot coms just left reckoning a lot of people getting canceled for um not espousing the uh regimes line on what uh charlie kirk provided society interesting we literally go to free speech to canceling people for even repeating uh his quotes i saw

some idiot centrist say that you're you guys are missing the point when you say the right is doing it now too because the left started it as if the left started this it is insane the it is insane i mean even if you are completely completely dead set on knowing no history you must have have heard of the red scare in this country, right? Like, you must have heard that people were getting explicitly canceled for any type of association or at all with anything left of the straightforward, you know. capitalism that we practice in this country iraq war era like to people not even remember that far back dixie chicks and understand and i've said this many times before to the extent that we didn't have cancel culture before it was because people would not get scheduled with the type of

police to the left you would not get the interview you would not get the job You would not get scheduled, as it were. There was no need to cancel you because you would never get hired in the first place. Just absurd. Charlie Kirk was a champion of free speech and anyone who says otherwise will be fired. There you go. All right. Quick break.

Fun half. Three months from now, six months from now, nine 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. The majority report. Emma, welcome to the program. Hey.

Fun hat. Matt. Who? Fun. What is up, everyone? Fun pack. No, me, Keene. You did it.

Fun pack. Let's go Brandon. Let's go Brandon. Fun hat. 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...

I want to smoke this, um, seven, eight. Yes. Hi, me. Is this a name? Yes. Is it me? Is it me? It is you.

Um, it's it's me. I think it is you. Who is you? No sound. Every single freaking day. What's on your mind? Sports. We can discuss free markets.

and we can discuss capitalism. I'm going to just know what. Who libertarians? They're so stupid, though. Common sense says, of course. Gobbled Egook. We fucking nailed him. So what's 709 plus 21?

Challenge met. I'm positively clovery. I believe 96, I want to say. 857. 210. 35. 5.01. 1⁄2.

3801. 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 it think less. But let me say this. Poop.

You 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 right, folks. Folks. It's just the week being weeded out, obviously. Yeah, sundowns out.

I don't know 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

I got to jump I gotta be quick I get a jump I'm losing it bro Two o'clock We're already late And the guy's being a dick So screw him

um um sent to a gulal outrageous like what is wrong with you love you love you love you bye bye