The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3585 - Trump Speech Crackdown; Hasbarist Bari Weiss to Lead CBS w/ David Klion

Episode Date: September 19, 2025

It's Casual Friday on the Majority Report On Today's Show: Trump's authoritarianism is here and there is no denying it at this point. Meanwhile, the stats on spending show that the economy is benefiting only the top 20%. Unemployment and prices are both rising, and when a Fox News reporter pressed him on this, Trump dismissed their polling as “trash” and said the pollster should be fired. Columnist at The Nation, David Klion joins us to discuss Bari Weiss' new role as top advisor at CBS News. In the Fun Half: Ezra Klein and Ross Douthat smell their farts in a faux intellectual conversation about the state of the Democratic party. Trump goes on a confusing rant where he claims he will lower medication prices 1000% but also claims prices will double. ICE officers in Van Nuys, California brutally beat-up an 80-year-old American citizen car wash owner, breaking his ribs and hospitalizing him. Kat Abughazaleh also gets brutally thrown on the street by an ICE agent. Andrew Schulz's co-hosts debate how far the attacks on free speech from the Trump administration will go. 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: DELETEME: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to joindeleteme.com/MAJORITY and use promo code MAJORITY at checkout. TUSHY: Get 10% off TUSHY with the code TMR at https://hellotushy.com/TMR  SUNSET LAKE:  Head to SunsetLakeCBD.com and use coupon code “Left Is Best” (all one word) for 20% off of your entire order. 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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now time for the show the majority report with Sam Cedar where every day is casual Friday that means Monday is casual Monday

Tuesday casual Tuesday, Wednesday, casual hump day. Thursday, casual thurs. That's what we call it. And Friday, casual Shabbat. The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Friday.

September 19th, 2025. 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, David Cleon, columnist at the nation, contributing editor at Jewish currents. Talk about the rise of Barry Weiss, who's now in. charge of everything. Also on the program today, Trump and his FCC chair celebrate their power in consolidation over and around the media.

Meanwhile, Trump to fire U.S. attorney who wouldn't essentially frame New York Attorney General Letitia James. Speaking of New York state politicians, land. Brissport, other New York lawmakers arrested by ICE for insisting on visiting an ice holding facility. Meanwhile, Charlie Kirk's widow named CEO of Turning Points USA. RFK Jr. Vaccine panel to vote against advising a universal Hep B vaccine. vaccine for children, Trump wants to reoccupy Afghanistan by retaking Bagram Air Base.

At least seven senators now seeking a resolution recognizing a Palestinian state as the push grows in Europe for recognition. Senate Republicans confirm a batch of 48 Trump cabinet nominee's. after their invoking of the Senate nuke option, or I should say, nuking the Senate filibuster rule. The U.S. consumers in the top 10% of the income distribution account for nearly 50% of spending in the country,

50% total. All this more when today's majority report welcome ladies and gentlemen it is casual friday welcome back sam thank you um thank you for the condolences folks um my uncle uh lived a very a full life bunch of grandkids a bunch of great grandkids uh and uh so i i head back to uh central massachusetts to um uh you spend some time with family and send him off and so

glad to be back I don't know I'm in glad to have you you know one thing though that came up as I was talking to people the

the idea of living in an authoritarian state so many people I believe out there are like, well, yeah, it does feel like that now. But, you know, it's not going to last. And I sort of feel like that is a problem. Because, like, even if we assume that the Republicans don't manage to gerrymander away a democratic control of the House,

which, I mean, frankly, it's a real possibility, folks. There does not seem to be much of a limiting, like a device to limit what Trump attempts to do. And a lot of what he's attempting to do, they've sort of found a successful mechanism to do what he wants to do. and that is basically lording government services and government functions over the various entities

that make decisions in our society and we saw this in the case of Jimmy Kimmel and others we see it in the case of Mahmoud Khalil who may be deported

to some random country because of his involvement with, frankly, between Colombia and pro-Palestinian protesters and supporters. But, you know, the time to worry about authoritarianism existing longer than you think it's just like as if it was going to automatically expire, the time to worry about this I mean, frankly, it was probably six months ago, 10 months ago, a year or two ago, maybe 10 years ago. But we're there now.

This is what it feels like where people are self-censoring, where people are afraid, where people, you know, you have trans folks who are like, I'm trying to figure out how to get out of the country because my life. literal health and life and in liberty is in already concrete terms, not just threatened, but in fact impaired. Down the road, those threats are there. Down the road, it could be even worse. And it's also the case for a whole cohort of people. I don't know if you got that video too, Brian. I put in about that 80-year-old.

Maybe you guys played that. Yeah, it's, it's in there. Okay. I mean, we are living in an authoritarian society now. There's just not, that's not hyperbole. It is just simply the case. Now, are there, are there ranges within that authoritarianism? Of course.

But we have crossed the threshold. When, when people are afraid, we're talking about the law firms, we're talking about the universities, We're talking about corporations. We're talking about individuals where the vice president, the United States, gets on a radio show and says, go get people fired for not showing enough deference to someone associated with the administration. I'm sorry. That's what authoritarianism is. And, you know, I've been thinking a bit about how leadership and folks in power have an effect on the rest of society. I mean, we've lived in under Trump, this spectro over our politics for around 10 years at this point. And it's not just Trump. I mean, it's obviously what we're seeing with Israel committing genocide, even Russia taking the opportunity to invade Ukraine.

where there is a complete breakdown enabled by the failures of liberalism economically in the liberal international order as well, in which might makes right, and that comes home to us eventually. And it also is interesting to me how the nation's like almost character and the way it interacts with the world is reflected too in this, in which. what you're describing this, people not being able to fully contemplate this happening to us. So that's what happens in other countries. That's maybe what we do to other countries. But that can't come home to us. And the other leadership that has enabled this is the Democratic Party that has not met the moment in any capacity that has capitulated over and over again to this. And that level of weakness also has an effect and doesn't.

doesn't give people the oxygen to resist in the way that they were doing in 2016 post, right? Like, for all of our issues about the resistance and, hey, I thought there was too much focus on Russia, less focus on material issues. There was some people being cringe, God forbid, whatever. I could, we could, I would love for some more earnestness back in our society once again. But that was, that showed that we did limit him the first time, to a degree. I mean, he made a lot, did a lot of damage. But the leadership from Democrats fighting him on everything had an impact. I mean, part of that also was just that they weren't as prepared to do what they're doing as they are this time. I mean, Project 2025, incidentally, the FCC chair wrote the communication section in Project 2025.

A lot of this stuff is part of that playbook. So, you know, the Trump and his minions are far more prepared this time around to run this playbook. But it is the case. And we'll play a clip from Chuck Schumer where he's starting to show at least setting the table maybe for a government shutdown. But understand, he enabled this. He is eight months too late on this. And even still, he's out there, you know, bemoaning Jimmy Kimmel getting fired. but moaning the actions of the FCC chair,

but up until days ago was, and maybe still is, 100% earnestly trying to figure out some type of fig leaf deal that Republicans would sign on to that he could pretend like he got something so that he could fund this government that is doing all these bad things

that he's talking about. Right. I mean, like, it is a completely, and even still, and we will give him a modicum of credit for at least, like, maybe setting the table for a government shutdown, but still, still, the framing of it is still just sort of like they're living in 1995. How about the optics of being somebody who had his statement on Mahmoud Khalil's detention was very mealy-mouthed, but now that a wealthy, white, liberal entertainment,

is impacted, which want to be clear, this is an enormously scary moment and it's an attack on the First Amendment. And obviously, we support Kimmel and his staff. But does the Democratic party that doesn't help their disconnect from the average voter when this is when he decides to basically take a stand here and not the people that were being punished for their speech in the first nine months of this administration or even the last administration right this mccarthy period started under the democrats look the the the the fact is is that the entire hysteria and i'm not saying that there is an anti-semitism in our society i i've experienced it as a child i've experienced it as an adult um it exists i have a long list but

the hysteria as a way of trying to silence protest about what Israel is doing and ginning up the anti-Semitism, that set up everything that happened in terms of Trump going after these universities. That set up everything that Trump did in terms of going after these law firms. That has been used now as the, and it's ironic in many. respects. But it has been used, used on Khalil, used on a graduate

student who's just writing an op-ed in Massachusetts. I mean, on and on. And once it is used, under the cover of anti-Semitism, suddenly that tool,

people are very, very comfortable swinging that hammer around in other contexts. So, I mean, so much. I mean, and to the point where like he funds the government and I do mean Chuck Schumer funded the government because it was his

you know, a group of seven senators that broke the filibuster. He funds the government and just like as if to just sort to illustrate what we're talking about because he's got to go out on book tour for his book about

anti-Semitism. To keep the last pro-Israel his number one job, according to him. Yep. And so all of this is tied it. But the point being, we're at a point now where there's two things that are clear. Or I should say one thing is clear. We're living

within an authoritarian. Our country is under authoritarian rule. And that doesn't mean it can't get a lot worse. It surely can. But things aren't trending in the right way. And

there's really like you know two um two things we have to do simultaneously one is we have to fight that authoritarianism and there's a whole myriad uh ways of doing that starting with like expand your social circle uh organize you know just like you're not doing anything like directly but you are building the relationships because you know Sam Harris once called me or said my behavior was psychopathic because we were going after a Dave Rubin

like he was the wounded elk and or something like this or caribou and antelope according to Logan. Antelope, right. And the idea being you know we pull apart the IDW folks one person out of time. And there was definitely, I mean, we weren't that, I think, calculating about it, but

that's how it's done. If you can find people who are isolated, much easier to take them out. If the administration can show that they can take out Jimmy Kimball, you know, he'll be fine. Then it sends a message to everybody else that you are much more vulnerable. So, organizing either in the context of your workplace, in your apartment building, just in your neighborhood, amongst your friends, that's really important. Standing up in situations like ICE, protecting vulnerable people in your community, immigrants, trans folk, whomever it is, you know, that's important. Standing up to authoritarianism when you see it sends a mess.

message to other people that is doable. And then the other half of what needs to be done is we need to have a political leadership that addresses the moment and has the ability and the competence to do so. And we don't have that. So, you know, it may seem inconsistent to both say, we've got to develop some type of social cohesion to push back against the authoritarianism on one hand and on the other hand be critical of political leaders who fail to meet the moment even though ostensibly they are on our side in the sense that they're most likely to be the vehicle for our set of policies that we want

but you need competence right i mean that's important um and not being corrupted I mean, how do you create more competent democratic leadership? You make them more responsive to the democratic will of the people, right? And that's what the critique. I think a lot of people are coming around to this notion that it's not about criticizing Democrats for clicks or for the sake of doing so. It's because there's a recognition amongst folks like us that the Democratic Party at this moment in history is the party that in our two-party system, it has to get elected to combat this. But we can't just elect them for the sake of it

because we saw what that looked like, right? It's not durable. It's not long-lasting if you just run an opposition to one guy. You have to cultivate democracy and do things to cultivate it just like the Republicans do things to cultivate fascism. And they cultivated by being responsive to their own base because in this era of explosion of dark money,

post-citizens United, where everybody knows our politics are undemocratic and they see it on their phones because no one understands why the F this genocide is still going on for example and and they see our government doing unspeakable things that's why the Fstein is a stand in for like a level of democratic responsiveness because people basically feel like this is all they can ask we have such little civic engagement Trump has helped killed it but also a democratic party that didn't bring anybody in into a primary process with this last election. Miss the cost of living stuff. Miss the cost of living stuff. Well, that I think is the- Just talks around and talks down and tries to manipulate the base from the top

and cuts off the over 90% of their base right now that say, we don't support what's happening. We don't want to fund Israel anymore. How can you be an opposition party that has effectiveness when you are not democratic in the state? smaller lowercase version of democracy the uh and and i mean it also it just ends up being a failure i mean they specifically told their canvassers don't send us information as to what voters are

saying about gaza and is that is the point the point of being uh small d democrat or democratic is because you functionally you work more of not necessarily efficiently but better ultimately because but if you are literally saying we're not going to record comments on this major issue because we don't want to know we we know and so we don't want any proof that we know and they buried their heads in the sand and they and then they missed the ball on the economy and Trump is also missing the ball on the economy I think broadly speaking our society or at least our media is missing the ball on the economy. We're looking

at, let's look at all right, let's look at this clip number. We're going to get to David Cleon in a few minutes. But here is clip number 10. And this is, you know, this is going to be helpful.

It's going to be helpful, hopefully, in the event that there are elections in 26 and 28, but this is number 10. I'm going to feel that because we do see polling that doesn't pull well in the economy. The recent Fox polling said 52% say the economy is worse under this administration. You've got unemployment at the highest rate in four years.

Groceries made a big jump in the last term. So how is that, you're looking forward with these plans that you just talked about. When will people feel that, Mr. Dr. Well, when the factories start opening, I mean, right now we're building them. And, you know, Fox polling, I have to tell you, I have to tell you, I've told you before. It's the worst polling I've ever had it. It's always, I mean, during the election, they had me winning by a little bit, not by a massive

amount. Can you pause it? You didn't win by a massive amount. You didn't get to 50% in the popular vote. What? Okay. Okay. Everybody's been listening to Fox Poll. Okay. Everybody's been listening to it. Okay. Okay.

Viglin polling. Roberta. Roberta. Okay. Okay. Okay. First polling I've ever seen them. And, you know, Fox polling, I have to tell you, I've told you before, it's the worst polling I've ever had. It's always, I mean, during the election, they had me winning by a little bit, not by a massive amount.

And Fox polling, I've told Rupert Murdoch, go get yourself a new pollster because he stinks. And this is. I kind of feel that. Did you tell him that in the litigation when you were suing him in court because the Wall Street Journal accurately reported on you signing Jeffrey Epstein's birthday? book? What's the status of that, by the way? What is a birthday book? I've never even heard of a birthday book. What? I'm actually born on a leap here. My understanding is it's birthday card. Oh, okay, now it's a full book? Well, I don't know. I'm confused. All right. His refusal to accept where the economy is at this point is going to be

helpful down the road. The economy itself is not going to be helpful. It's going to be painful for people because it's going to get worse but here's a put up a 10 a just to give an idea of where his polling is on this and even though no no this not keep going down yeah uh keep going one more here well sorry we're looking for the economy one all right well we can't find that that's Okay. Let's do. Let's do, this is number 11. We have it here. We have it here. This is, I mean, this is just showing polling on, it's bad. So this is comparing the economy in his first term versus the second term. And you can see he's minus 22 at this point versus basically have. having positive numbers the entire time, his first term. He dipped below a little bit towards the beginning of his presidency. But even at the end there, with COVID, I mean,

I guess there was the subsidies that were coming out at that time. He's fallen off a cliff. But the checks and things like that. This is his net approval handling an economy. It is minus 22. He's in bad shape. But here is what's going on with the economy. And this is what the Biden people missed. And, you know, we talked about this, but there's now, like, much more data to support this theory, which is that we

have two essentially economies in this country. We have one that exists for rich people, and its numbers obscure what the rest of the country

is going through. So here is this clip 11. This is from the BLS. I mean, and there's a story in Bloomberg that outlines this as well. Consumers in the top 10% of income distribution, and this shows essentially like the top 20%, top 20% and the top, I guess, 4%.

The economy is like their spending is just keeps going up and up and up. And it's basically flat for the rest of the 80% of the country. Consumers in the top 10% of the income distribution accounted for 49.2% of total spending in the second quarter. That is the highest since a blip in 1989. Do we have that other graph? I don't think so. Maybe it was in a news. Yeah, here it is. You can. see this look at where the the you had about one third of the spending essentially one third of the economy was a function of the top 10% in income distribution in this country back in 1992 and now it's 50% well i blame immigrants and trans people it's all the rich rich immigrant

and trans people who are up there, you know, pushing up the economy for just them and hiding the fact of what's going on in the 80% of this country. And so when you have 10% of the country providing 50% of the economic activity, when you have 20% providing probably close to 80% of the economic activity, maybe 70% of, percent of the economic activity, all of the measures that we have used traditionally to measure the health of the economy give you skewed numbers, your GDP, whatever it is. It gives you skewed numbers. And, you know, at one point it may catch up, but it certainly destabilizes society, and it certainly makes for the vast majority of Americans to be unhappy. And the, idea that like the Biden administration couldn't figure this out and now obviously the Trump administration doesn't I don't even know if they care um is a problem for the bottom line is like

you have 80% of Americans for whom the economy doesn't work it's crazy that you know decades of tax cuts has led to just a incredibly imbalanced economy and wealth inequality this is a a wealth inequality story. This is concentrating wealth at the top. And it's incredibly destabilizing, you know, as just a broad, like, you know, can lead things like, I don't know, fascism, authoritarianism, et cetera. There be a little disturbance. A little.

But we're okay with that. And by the way, much. All right. We've got to get to. I forgot he keeps going. We got to, but can I just say tax cuts, a big, ugly ass bill. It hasn't even hit yet. Which is going to pronounce the situation.

Yeah. Oh, it's going to get much, much worse. Yeah. And we're about to crash into a massive bump in health insurance costs. Massive. In a moment, we're going to be talking to David Cleon. He's written a piece in the – I think it was in The Guardian about – Can you remember her name now again?

Barry Weiss. Barry Weiss, essentially taking over our country. but more indicate what she's indicative of two i think um first couple words from our sponsors one of our sponsors today is delete me uh they're a great service i've been using it for over 10 years makes it easy and quick and safe to remove your personal data from uh the web at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everybody vulnerable um look it's super easy to find personal information online. Data brokers compile this stuff. They sell it. You get a monthly subscription. You can get as much as you want. And fishers and scammers, they

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That's join delete me.com slash majority. Code is majority. This one you may want to bring Emma back on for because people will laugh at potty jokes. I'm not sure if you know about that, Emma. but um i'm glad we need to talk to a doctor about our uh our bottom half are they clam up badeys normalized talking about your bottom half health while making bathroom visits so much more comfortable um i love my tushy it was super not no my tushy bidet uh that's a new drop yeah thank you um i uh i got a tushy i don't know

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See you in a moment. We are back, Sam Cedar, on the Majority Report, here with Emma Viglin. Joining us now, David Cleon columnist at the Nation, contributing editor at Jewish Currents. He's written a big piece in The Guardian. I guess it was a week ago, I don't know, a couple of days ago. David, welcome to the show. Thanks for having it. So you go into the merger, essentially, of Skydance and Paramount, which happened, you know, go too deeply into that.

But that is, is another opportunity for these corporate consolidation of our media, corporate subservience to the Trump administration. And there's sort of like a almost like a bonus aspect to this in terms of Barry Weiss and the question of Israel and Gaza. I mean, Barry Weiss, give us just a rundown for folks who don't know who Barry Weiss is. Give us a rundown on who she is because she is a fascinating figure and sadly increasingly an influential one. going to be in our politics and our media. Yeah, I often forget that there are people who don't know who she is. In my world of, you know, gossipy New York media, she's kind of inescapable. Barry Weiss is reportedly going to be the incoming. It's not exactly clear what the job title is, but let's say senior advisor to whoever runs CBS News coming out of this

huge merger you talked about. CBS is owned by Paramount. Now it's owned by Paramount Skydance. There are rumors about who might be running CBS, but Barry Weiss will be whispering in that person's ear. Currently, she is the founder and editor of the Free Press, which is a substack-based digital media publication that she started four years ago, about a year after her notorious self-firing from the New York Times, where she had been an opinion editor and writer. And before that, she was at the Wall Street Journal and Tablet. For that, she... Things got too woke for her at the Times.

Yeah, things got too woke for her at the Times. She did resign. She did not get fired, but she had become a lightning rod for criticism. And she had been hired by James Bennett, who was the former editor of the Atlantic and then became the editor of New York Times opinion, who was essentially forced to resign after this incident in the summer of 2020 when Near Times Opette. published Senator Tom Cotton saying there should be military deployments against Black Lives Matter protesters. This was, you know, the famous summer of 2020, George Floyd, peak woke, some on the right would say. And so Barry Weiss resigned not long after Bennett did voluntarily and had a sort of a blistering open letter to the New York Times saying it had become censorious and woke and hostile

to people with different political viewpoints. And she went out to sort of prove the liberal establishment that she had done very well in wrong. And it's hard to argue she hasn't succeeded. The free press became a massive success, both with a large paid subscriber base and larger unpaid subscriber base and also venture capital backers

going up to the top rungs of Silicon Valley and including people who funded Donald Trump's return to the presidency, like Mark Andreessen. Right. And I just want to say, like, too, she, this was also cancel culture as well, right? Like that's what she was riding and she was unable to be actually canceled and fired from the time. So she had to self-cancel to victimize herself to create this kind of branding for the so-called free press. And given what we're seeing right now with the authoritarian president actually cracking down on free speech,

in these wildly illegal ways, I think it paints a new light or sheds a new light on the branding that these like right wing figures, but she has an NPR voice. So she hides it. But like that they cynically used at that point and have and and in the face of actual crackdowns on free speech, you see where she lands. Well, here's where I should be a little fair to Barry. I try to be fair, because my piece makes the case, which I stand by completely and which no one has corrected any facts on, that Barry has, despite originally branding herself as a never-trumper back in 2016, and despite the official, you know, categorization of the free press as kind of heterodox, non-ideological, non-partisan, has overall had a very clear pro-Trump's land.

And in particular, in terms of, I focused on the ways that she's used the free press over the last 10 months to sort of carry water for the Trump administration's efforts to suppress speech, especially at university campuses in media orgs like NPR and very likely soon in CBS. But in fairness, and of course this is happening, I don't know if I can claim credit or not, but a week after my piece was published, Barry has actually come out saying that Trump's latest. moves, the FCC's moves to sort of blackmail Jimmy Kimmel off the air, she opposes that. How she squares that circle with how she's been acting to date is an interesting question that I can speculate about, but I do have a theory for how... Well, I do, I do want you to speculate that, but I think the answer probably lies somewhere in the notion of she got her start at Columbia University as a student literally doing like the TPS, TPSA equivalent of professor watch lists, I mean, that was

literally how she got her start was to try and get professors at Columbia. And this is years ago. I mean, she's, what is she like in her early 40s now? I mean, this must have been, you know, well, you tell me when you were at Columbia. I mean, so you, so you, you. So, you must have been, you know, well, you tell me when you were at Columbia. So you were aware of this as a student, I would imagine. Well, less than you would think, and I'm a little embarrassed about this. Partly, I think, because I was studying abroad at the height of it, partly because I just wasn't as active on campus as I might have been if I could do college over.

And so I heard, when I first, I think I first got to know Barry, who was the class behind me, even though we were at the same age. I think she'd taken a gap year in Israel. which is real being a major part of Barry's interest since the beginning. I think I knew there had been a controversy around her, but I didn't really know the details. And, you know, if it were me today, I certainly would have thought to look into them. But I think I was wrapped up in other things.

And we were friendly. And, but, you know, in hindsight, I know, for instance, she was being funded by an Israeli think tank called the Shalem Center, which is associated with the national conservative, Yoram Hazzoni, basically a fascist intellectual who backs Netanyahu. This was 20 years ago. But even then, I mean, she was playing ball with them and was one of a handful of students at elite campuses around the country.

This was reported, I don't know, a decade or more ago in the forward, I think. So there's a long history of Barry. And to be clear, she was essentially trying to, drive professors out of the university who she felt were espousing pro-Palestinian information, facts, I mean, opinions, whatnot. I believe she has maintained, when pushed on the obvious hypocrisy here, when she later became this free speech champion, that she wasn't trying to get anyone fired. She was just trying to call attention to real incidents of anti-Semitism against students on campus.

I mean, Barry slices these, it varies very clever about this, and she slices these distinctions very finely. And I think with what's going on this week with the FCC, which is obviously, I'm sure we all agree, an urgent crisis for basic press freedoms in this country and the Constitution, I think that the line she is drawing is you shouldn't directly use the federal government and the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. hammer of the FCC to try to drive speech off TV. But in fact, as she said in the editorial, I assume she penned for the free press and shared on Twitter, the, you know, it would have been fine if ABC fired Jimmy Kimmel of its own volition. I should say it's not totally clear if they fired him or just indefinitely suspended him as we record this.

But I think she thinks that, or she's maintaining that it would have been fine for them to fire him over the Anodyne thing he said. But the fact that the FCC chair is saying that's unacceptable makes it a threat to free speech, which is a very, very fine distinction. I mean, I would agree with that, I think, as far as it goes, because I think that is the difference between what is unconstitutional and what is just, you know, if ABC says we're firing you because of this, the audience in that instance has the opportunity, influence that decision, right?

I mean, people can say, like, I'm boycotting, but when, when they're, when they're doing it because the FCC has pressured them, or when, and frankly, we saw it in the context of Skydance and see, in Paramount, when they are acting in a way that they, that is essentially a soft bribe, right? Like, we're going to do X, Y, or Z so that you give the approval for this, um, uh, acquisition or merger or whatnot. It's also almost the exact same mechanism. It's just the sort of like opposite side of it.

One is the forehand and one is the backhand in terms of like a government influence. We should also say just so that we have a complete sense of who Barry Weiss is, she is the one who created the IDW, the intellectual dark web where- Popularized it anyway. I don't know if they would self-ident. identified before then. I think it was a phrase they were tossing around, but she wrote the big, hilarious New York Times feature that sort of put them on the map.

The photo shoot of them in the dark, magical forest. We should also say is completely self-negating. Like, the idea that these people were relegated to the darkest corners of the web, first of all, we all knew their names beforehand. they all had massive platforms, and they were being platformed in the New York Times. The idea that they were not allowed to do what they were doing was completely, like... Well, she presented them as she often does herself in her publication as, you know, heterodox, classical liberals with, you know, different views on things.

But virtually to a person, the names that she was highlighting are right-wing influencers or have turned out to be, in many cases, hard-right influencers. I mean, there's a clear valence when she does this. Barry Weiss is not surfacing people who turn out to be on the left. There is one thing. I mean, there is a little bit of divergence between Harris and the rest of those, but there is one consistent element with all those people. They are all Islamophobic.

They have all had a longstanding problem with Muslims. Mostly transphobic, too, right? I mean, I haven't done it. I mean, I think probably Harris less so. But I'm not sure. I don't really follow what he's doing these days. But certainly, you know, they're all anti-Muslim. Yeah. No, I mean, this is a real through line in Barry's work. One thing she's always had a knack for, though, is positioning herself as acceptable to, I guess you could say the center left, to sort of, you know, mainstream Democrats of the sort who would have been happy at Slate. in the 90s or early aughts, right? Or people like Andrew Sullivan, who are like a bit right of center, but kind of eclectic.

She's always been very comfortable in that world and very acceptable at places like Harvard and Columbia and the New York Times previously. And at the same time, she has all these ties to sometimes wildly conspiratorial right-wing figures, especially coming out of Zionist and Israeli circles. I mean, tablet, which shaped her, has gone from being a kind of centrist or even center-left publication a decade ago to being really feverishly conspiratorial right-wing site now. And she's still, I think, tight with everyone involved there. So Barry, I would say a major function of hers is kind of laundering far-right positions into the mainstream. Well, in fact, that's what you said in your piece.

what is less well understood about Barry Weiss is how she has used the free press to empower right-wing factions within established elite institutions and how her efforts have been turbocharged by Trump's return to the White House. I mean, she is like, she is like an analogous to what Drudge did

back in the aughts where he would launder information from the right-wing fever swamps into the mainstream media but now what she does is not just sort of launder the information because they don't

have that as much what she's doing now is ends up being I think as you describe here as almost like a hammer within taking over of these institutions it's no longer about feeding a narrative

because they don't need to do that anymore now it's like literally sort of jump the defied and assault the narrative-making machine of the mainstream? Right. I mean, imagine if Matt Drudge had been put in charge of a major news broadcaster or in a senior advisory role at a major news broadcaster, and his blog acquired for, you know, they're saying something like $150 million by a major media conglomerate. I mean, it's just we're in uncharted territory here. You know, Drudge was always understood to be a kind of like outside muck raker figure who had a certain, who developed a certain informal relationship with mainstream media.

But Barry is going to be the mainstream media in the Trump 2.0 era, which is very frightening, I think. Not least because CBS news has actually run some, I think, tough coverage on Israel sometimes. There have been 60-minute segments that have been. and there's the, well, you know, Tony DeCouple, of course, was asking very tough and pointed questions of Tanazi Coates, but still, Tanasi Coates was on the air, and there were people in CBS Brass, apparently, who weren't happy with how DeCoupel did that and were apologetic about it to staff. Barry, as I show in the piece, broke that story at the time. It was about a month before the 2024 election and, you know, essentially cast a light on CBS as, as this terribly woke place, which is crazy when you consider that Tony de Couple, you know, was the one doing that interview in the first place and saying the things he was saying. But now she's going to come on, presumably with an eye to, you know, push it to the right,

especially on Israel, probably on other topics too. And, yeah. Can you expand a little bit on Larry Ellison's son, David Ellison, who is the founder of Skyden, and also is kind of leading this effort a little bit. I mean, the timeline of how this merger came to be overlaps, obviously, with CBS Paramount settling the lawsuit over the 60-minute segment that Trump didn't like, and then canceling Colbert. And then, what do you know, this merger is approved with one of Trump's benefactor sons,

leading the effort. And Larry Ellison, did he eclipse Elon Musk, at least temporarily last week, as the richest man on the planet? What is their relationship like? Because my understanding is he's also a massive Zionist. That is my understanding, too. I am not an expert on David Ellison or Larry Ellison, and I think we're all going to start learning a lot more about them as they conquer our media. I understand that Larry Ellison supported Trump. I understand that they're Zionists and that they ideologically align with Barry, and I don't think it's a surprise they're bringing her on, given that.

I know that what's particularly alarming right now is that he's having just conquered Paramount, which, you know, includes CBS and Viacom, so, you know, MTV Comedy Central and other things. He's also just part of this group that's taken over TikTok in the United States that Andreessen is also involved in. And he's apparently looking to buy Warner Brothers Discovery, which would mean he would also control what, CNN, HBO.

I mean, this is all off the top of my head, so correct me if I'm wrong about any of this. But basically, it sounds like he's threatening to take over half of media, and he's rich enough that maybe he could actually do that. Like, are they possibly going to find a better better than him? And you think about that, and then you think about what's going on with Disney this week, and the FCC, and it's a very, very frightening time when, you know, I, in a past life, I was,

my work was more focused on Russia and the former Soviet Union than it is now. And as cringe as this kind of stuff sounds and as, you know, much as everyone rolls their eyes at any connection between, you know, Putin and Trump now, or any analogy between them. Like, this is kind of how it started in Putin's Russia in like year one and in other countries like Hungary, too. Like, They essentially use regulatory levers to, and carrots and sticks to kind of bully any critics off the air, you know, a comedian who might make fun of the president in puppet form or something like that. And they make sure that every TV station ends up in the hands of regime loyalist oligarchs.

And, I mean, it's happening before our eyes right now. It's very, very unsettling. And Barry, although she is currently coming out against the most. most egregious example to date of it with the FCC, you know, is a part of this. I mean, she, what the fact that she is about to be brought on by CBS is, is a part of these exact maneuvers and is part of the same process that, for instance, kicked Colbert off. And let's be clear, too, like, you know, where all of these, these characters play their roles, right? Like, I mean, she is, um, whether consciously or not. I mean,

I know I know that she perceives herself as an Esther figure in referencing the story of Porum where the king was being

convinced by people to by Haman, an advisor to kill the Jews and Esther came and was secretly a Jew and was married to the king and saved her people like can can you tell us how you know that that barry uh has sees herself that way sounds plausible

but how does she know that how do you know that um people in attendance to a birthday party uh and the and they she was harold the detail you're breaking here i like it harolded does an ester figure i mean this is um and uh and so creepy a little bit it sounds i mean we have evangelical christians in this country that talk like this and And we accurately describe what they are. So it's creepy. It's creepy. But putting that aside, her other function, I think, is, you know, almost like Tom Friedman in selling the Iraq war. There is a cohort of people who do not perceive themselves as, you know, sort of a MAGA person.

And, you know, this is a bone to that sort of quadrant. of her supporters and a way that makes her somewhat reasonable. Now, of course, if she's going into news media, of course, you know, I mean, it's not that hard to say, I don't think the FCC

should be interfering with networks, but everything else that is being laundered here. And this era, like, you know, when we say like it's a scary time, I almost am like starting to have concern that by even assuming that it's going to end, by saying time at this point,

like, you know, this is just, I've just spent the week with a lot of like sort of normies who are, you know, sort of like, well, when the election comes, you know, hopefully in, yeah, maybe, maybe. Actually, it's funny because when she said this yesterday, uh, last night, Barry also said, um, part of how she, first of all, I think you're completely right that Barry sees her. is sort of maintaining a tent that stretches from the center. River to the sea. Yeah. From the center to the far right.

And she needs to keep everyone happy in the tent. So she does occasionally, you know, punch right a little bit. That is part of her M.O. And it is part of how she's gotten this far. But also, she said yesterday sort of making the case to Maga, you know, what do you think will happen if we have a Democratic president who can then abuse the same authority. And I thought that was kind of doubly optimistic, first of all, that we're going to have another Democratic president, which, you know,

hope so. And second of all, that if we were to have another Democratic president, that it would ever occurred to them to play the kind of heartball that the right routinely plays right now. Right. For instance, during the Biden or Obama administrations, you know, they would say, no, it's all fair play. They wouldn't use the FCC this way. I don't think they would put regime malice on TV? No. I mean, and frankly, like, they won't even threaten now that they will. I mean, really, you know, I mean, this is an aside. It's a very asymmetric fight as we know. It's very asymmetric. And frankly, I think, like, you know, one of the things that people are starting to realize that they're going to have to demand of their democratic politicians to be public and articulate

that there will be accountability for this down the road. Like, I mean, like, you know, so that there is something to sort of put the brakes on but let me since you brought it up let's let's um uh you know sort of delve a little bit into your your experience in uh reporting and and thinking about uh russia in that turn um to that you know sort of like more uh controlled authoritarianism um what were there instances where you uh could see from an academic perspective, that things could have gone in a different direction? That's a very interesting question. I am hard-pressed to think of a time in the last, I mean, the obvious answer, I guess,

would be the Bolot and I square uprisings in, I think it was 2012 or thereabouts. There was a moment about, so, you know, Putin came to power at the end of 1999, beginning of 2000, basically hand-picked and very quickly consolidated his authority. But things were a little looser in the first decade, which was actually the time I was living and working in Russia in 2007, things were a little bit looser then than they've subsequently become. There was a fair amount of personal freedom. There was opposition media. It just wasn't on the big networks. You know, you could start a little magazine or a radio station or something. thing that would reach a more, let's say, NPR-type audience, but probably on a smaller scale

than exists in the U.S. And that wasn't a real threat to the regime. People traveled, people had friends abroad, people, you know, felt that they could go to protests. And then when Putin had, you know, served two constitutional presidential terms, that's what he was entitled to, and then became the prime minister and Dmitri Medvedev, who at least at the time, presented as a kind of, you know, Western friendly liberal face was the president. And there was a lot of us for a four-year term. And there was a lot of speculation about, well, is Putin going to like gradually move things in a more liberalizing direction? Then after Medvedev's term was up, Putin said he was going to return to the presidency and basically change the constitution. And at

that point, there were gigantic street protests of essentially Russia's professional class millennial generation, especially in Moscow and other major cities. And those, you know, got that they, they went, they flared for a little bit. They got brutally put down. Some people went to jail. Putin has moved, I would say, ideologically, and in terms of the substance of his authoritarian rule, much further, I guess you could say to the right since then. And then, of course, the war in Ukraine has sort of made that even worse, censorship and is extremely oppressive now. And huge numbers of people of that would be liberal, you know, cosmopolitan cohort have left. The huge expac communities have formed outside of Russia because people just don't really see a future there. Now,

we're not Russia. And I think for one thing, there's a much, I mean, Putin has been genuinely had majority support probably the whole time he's been in power. though it's hard to know exactly how much, whereas, you know, Trump is probably hovers around half the population, give or take. I think his popularity is falling. This is a very divided country with a much deeper, much, much, much deeper liberal democratic tradition than Russia has. So I don't want to say it's all going to go exactly the way it's gone in Putin's

Russia. It probably won't. But these are very worrying signs. It's definitely a playbook. And it shouldn't be. be limited to Russia. I mean, they're definitely, I guess the political science term is elected authoritarian governments all over the world that, you know, still hold elections and still maintain some of the, you know, outward functioning of the constitutional order, but have, you know,

basically rigged the whole game for permanent right-wing populist rule. I've seen this compared to Orban. And the tactics, I mean, he's used very similar tactics recently on the media. But, but, But I am curious about, you know, in some of my kind of darkest moments about this, I think about we had Gil Duran on to talk about his reporting on Silicon Valley and the network state and what these, like, Silicon Valley oligarchs anticipate in terms of consolidating power. And I believe that Peter Thiel knows Trump is old and in bad health, and he has a servant who owes his intent. entire career, basically, to him in J.D. Vance, who could ascend. And my concern is that they are putting these mechanisms in place to create a structure for democratic opposition not to even matter if Trump is out of the picture, too, because he dies of natural causes, obviously. And so, like, that's where, that's where we get into this, this terrifying,

territory where I think we can talk about the consolidation of our media by these same tech guys like Larry Ellison, Oracle, and such, they're all in the fold. Yeah, I mean, I totally agree. I don't think this ends with Trump at all, not that, you know, he's necessarily going anywhere soon. But, and I think, yeah, I think the right that will succeed him is, is illiberal to its core, has, you know, jettisoned any pretense of. of god i don't know the the 20th century republican party not that i want to romanticize that um but is

is uh is very much in line with uh with teal's kind of post democratic thinking and uh and and vance especially uh vance actually to give an idea of how intimate this assault on media feels right now um you know vance just hosted the charlie kirk show after kirk's assassination and um and on the show He made a point of attacking the nation magazine where I write and attacking a piece it ran that dared to tell the truth about who Charlie Kirk was, you know, a right-wing bigot, basically, and just laid that out and said, like, we don't have to mourn this guy. And Vance, you know, attacked it and also just blatantly falsely claimed that the nation is funded by George Soros' Open Society Foundation, which, you know, there certainly are left-wing publications. that are, but the nation is not one of them. But it's not like he ever, it's not like anyone ever corrects that. I mean, Vance just says whatever he wants.

So, I mean, we're really, we're living in a post-truth environment, and they're not just attacking, you know, it's a war on immigrants. It's a war on the most powerful TV stations and the biggest names in TV. But, you know, I don't think little left-wing magazines are being spared either. I think, I think that everyone's speech rights are under threat right now. I sort of know the answer to this question but I'm curious as to how you perceive it I mean you're a journalist you write about this

Barry Weiss because there is value in people understanding where she comes from how she functions within the context of our media and political landscape what like what like what outside of that. And, you know, that's the reason why you write this stuff. But how, how should people use this information? Like, or what value does it have in the context of dealing with what's coming, what exists now, and in what's coming? Well, I ask myself that all the time. And I guess the, you know, the most baseline answer is that we tell the truth because someone has to, because, you know, there has to be, a record of people saying these things and saying this was wrong that will inspire somebody or that someone can draw on someday. I have no idea what the immediate plan to stop any of this is.

I mean, I'd like to think that, you know, TV networks will start to show some spine because ultimately I don't know how they're supposed to run. You know, I understand that they don't want to lose their licenses, but I don't know how they're supposed to run viable businesses if the administration can just kick anyone they want off the air. And, you know, I mean, they're ultimately in the business of finding audiences and making money, right? And I'd like to think that, you know, Democrats will show spines as well, which is, you know, a few of them do. And that we will still have fair elections and, you know, the tide will turn again. I want to believe that's all still possible. I'm not ruling it out. But I do, at the speed at which

they are consolidating power and destroying like the normal levers by which uh let's say you know Richard Nixon was contained 50 years ago uh actually I just apropos of Robert Redford's death I just rewatch um all the president's men for the first time in a while so did a few friends who work in media and we were talking afterwards first of all it holds up great it's a really good movie still um but second of all um you know you watch it and you're like oh wow a news paper could like systematically expose corruption and wrongdoing and and take down the president of the United States who's spying on his political enemies like how quaint how quaint that would matter you know that that that's the thing i feel like there are papers who would do the same thing

yeah and they do it all the time they do it all the time and then by like okay comes out on a Thursday by, you know, Friday, it's like, oh, we've moved on to some other thing. I mean, that's the... Yeah, you watch that and you see, like, it's not that Nixon was a better guy than Donald Trump or a more honorable guy than Donald Trump. He's probably smarter, but never mind that. He, you know, what was different was institutions mattered in a different way. The public, you know, had a certain amount of trust in institutions to betray.

They could trust journalists when they didn't trust the president. They trusted the president to hold himself to a certain standard of conduct, which was then he was exposed not to be doing. And even the Republican Party had a breaking point, you know, in senators and so on, where they're like, we're not going to stand by this guy, which means that, you know, real journalism could make a real difference. And now it's like, now everyone wants to be Woodward and Bernstein, probably more than Bob Woodward does. and it doesn't make it doesn't register we should say Nixon did get the smothers brothers pulled from the air CBS you just say this I mean they could be but it was not part of a whole a seemingly whole I mean Kimmel just seems to be the latest right I mean we saw this with Colbert and we see this with Kimmel and

also how naked he just on truth social from Britain the other day he was like great news Colbert's down Kimmel's down now we just have to get rid of Fallon and Myers who I mean right does he really want to get rid of Fallon but I mean for that bad good

putting that aside putting that aside he's been calling it out right I mean he's been doing a lot of like Babe Ruth, like next up here, and then, and everybody's just sitting by. I mean, this is the part that is so insidious, is that everyone, all of the layers of this who could have pushed back at any given time, successfully or unsuccessfully, have not. The capitulation has come preemptively in every stage.

now CBS you know the the the the executives at CBS may see it as capitulation but you know Alison I like you know like I don't like we don't the politics may just be like yeah I'll get this guy off my air um and so you know from their perspective it's like I'm just working hand in glove with this, it is, it is bad. It is bad right now. And the thing is saying right now is almost mitigates how bad it is because there is no, this isn't necessarily finite at all. No, there's no reason to assume normal guardrails apply to apply us. I often find that people who I don't think of as patriotic or jingoistic or whatever, but still have sometimes a deeper-seated sense of American exceptionalism than they even realize. Even people who are

very far left and anti-imperialist and so on, sometimes on some level, I think, just believe that, like, there are guardrails here that don't exist elsewhere. And I've been skeptical about that for a while. I'd say I'm more skeptical about it than ever. I hope it's true, but we'll see. I mean, with this guardian piece, you know, I certainly didn't think I was going to stop CBS from hiring Barry. I don't think I'm going to stop Barry from doing what she's going to do to CBS, although I guess I could flatter myself that I at least, I would say the best I could have done with this article is, A, I hope it educates people across liberal media circles. You know, don't treat this person as a joke or is someone people just like to gossip about. Like,

she is really insidious, she is really censorious, she is not someone, you know, she's charming to a lot of people personally, but she's not someone to be trusted. And it's going to have a real effect on CBS, which people should watch out for. So I'm glad in that sense the piece traveled and people saw how this works. And it turned out to be very timely. The piece dropped the morning before Charlie Kirk was shot. And since then, we've had, you know, a week of discussion about press freedom and the implications here. Barry's initial reaction was wall-to-wall hagiography of Charlie Kirk on the free press, which, you know, I would argue definitely sets the stage or help set the stage. Lots of people are doing this for what the FCC

is trying to do right now, even if she says, whoa, whoa, whoa, don't go that far. And I guess the other thing I hope the piece did, maybe, I'm guessing Barry saw it. And I'm guessing that it occurs to her, I need to prove this impression of me that I'm just a Trump servant wrong by, you know, criticizing the administration sometimes, which is clever of her. And I don't trust it for a second. But, you know, I guess I guess we shouldn't rule out that there are still some people who feel some sense of shame sometimes, even very wise. And some, you know. And yes. And I think that's, I think that might be generous.

but I'm in a charitable mood. Also, I think there's like a dynamic, right? I mean, she didn't raise, she didn't raise the enormous investment that was put into her substack blog, you know, it didn't come from her bank account, her, you know, whatever it is, Freedom University or Prager, U. University of Austin, which she co-founded. Yes, that also.

also, it came from a set of donors who she probably, in patrons, you know, UATX was funded at least in significant part by Arlen Crow. Arlen Crow, who also was Clarence Thomas. Clarence Thomas's guy. Yeah. I mean, so there has to be, and, you know, these people are not one-dimensional. These multi-mead, I would imagine for her. her image is her sensitivity to her image is a direct result of what her sensitivity to her donor set

and to those people who fund her and expect returns and expect her to maintain a certain veneer that is important for whatever their job is so a good um i guess you know that makes her curb a little bit of thing, but a very important piece, David, really well done. Really appreciate you coming on and telling us about it. We, of course, will link to that piece in The Guardian and to your work at the nation and Jewish currents. Really appreciate it. Thanks so much.

Great to talk to you. All right. We've got to take a break. Head into the so-called fun half of the program, wherein we will have fun. And it'll be just about half, almost a minute. So that's pretty good. Hey, folks. I think it's good.

Folks, it's your support that makes this show possible. You can become a member of Join the Majority Report.com. When you do, you not only get a free show, free of commercials, but you get the fun half. and you help this show survive and thrive hairy times ladies and gentlemen getting a little

you know it's it's a little it's a neutral fall yeah you can't make fun of anything comedy's not legal it's like legalize comedy oh my god

the left wanted to make comedy illegal oh god we need to have your that be like the first button in the order because of how much they're going to try to say that this is a consequence culture instead of cancel

culture. Oh yeah, consequence culture, huh? Wait until you hear what Kaylee McInney has to say about this. It's beautiful. It's making Dakota proud. My point is, things are getting hairy around these parts

and it is it doesn't have to be us but support, you know, of course we would love it, but support people who are trying to provide you with a narrative that is not bought and paid for by an increasingly sort of like oligarchic elite and, you know, with a political,

a specific political disposition. That's going to be, I don't, I haven't, like, you know, over the course of my career really appealed to that notion as much because, you know, at times it was sort of cringy. Independent media is important, without a doubt, and we've definitely had media consolidation. We're moving into a, or have moved into, I should say, a different era. one that I don't think is going to get better soon. Bezos came, Bill Gates came. I think it's going to get a little bit worse, frankly. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, what are you going to do? Where, where, where? Also, Jerry Emden. we're going to get like increasingly um there'll be no show it'll just be soundboards we're going to be increasingly yes um what do you call it uh a giddy over the course of the like it's sort of that uh there's not going to be much you're having an emotional breakdown right yep yep all right uh also don't forget just coffee dot co-op fair trade coffee

uh they're a co-op in madison wisconsin they got the majority report blend uh check him out uh but they also have a bunch of other great coffees uh and use the coupon code majority get 10% off that left reckoning yeah left reckoning had a great show brian mirror on talking about brazil and bostonar getting put in prison look at that uh somebody facing consequences for cruise uh also tomanisha john talking about the um shooting gallery that is a Caribbean and why Caribbean governments are basically just okay with it said hey maybe give

us a heads up next time you blow a fishing boat out of the water but most importantly and this is clipped for on the YouTube channel of Left Reckoning Tom Alter people are calling him the Jimmy Kimmel of Texas State Socialists he's a 10 year professor at Texas State who has got fired

now because a speech he gave a pretty anodyne speech for a socialism conference over Zoom was clipped by a Jan Sixer who has appeared on like Dave Rubin's show and also said like Hitler was going to heaven because he like lived his life with some sort of intentionality. It's pretty out there sort of stuff. She got this professor fired. So I'd like more eyeballs on that, particularly if you're in Texas.

Just outrageous McCarthyism, Trumpism, I guess we could call it now, a period we're living through. Alex from Atlanta writes, day one of advocating to call the fun half, the done half, because we are cooked. Folks, we will see you in the fun half. Three months from now, six months from now, nine months from now. And I don't think it's going to be the same as it looks like in six months from now. And I don't know if it's necessarily going to be better six months from now than it is three months from now. But I think around 18 months out, we're going to look back and go like, wow.

What? What is that going on? It's nuts. Wait a second. Hold on for, hold on for a second. The majority report. Emma, welcome to the program. Hey. Fun hat.

Matt. Who fun pack. What is up, everyone? Fun pack. No me key. You did it. Fun pack. Let's go Brandon.

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

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

Yes. Is it me? Is it me? It is you. It is me? I think it is you. Who is you? No sound

Every single Fricking day What's on your mind? We can discuss free markets And we can discuss capitalism I'm gonna just know what Libertarians They're so stupid though

Common sense says of course Gobbled E gook We fucking nailed him So what's 79 plus 21 Challenge MET I'm positively clovery I believe 96 I want to say 857

210 35 501 1⁄ 911 for instance $3,400, $1,500, $6.5, $4, $3 trillion sold. It's a zero-sum game. Actually, you're making me think less. But let me say this.

Hoop. You can call it satire, Sam goes to satire. On top of it all, my favorite part about you is just like every day, all day, like everything you do. Without a doubt. Hey, buddy, we see you. All right, folks, folks. It's just the week being weeded out, obviously. Yeah, sundown guns 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.

Look, got a jump. You got to 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. Sent to a gulaw? Outrageous.

Like, what is wrong with you? Love you, bye. Love you. Bye-bye.