The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3588 - Trump Zero Kimmel One; Sun Sets in Baltimore w/ Hannah Gaskill & Dan Belson

Episode Date: September 24, 2025

It's Hump Day on Majority Report On today's show: MAGA is crashing out over Jimmy Kimmel's return to late night as they try to frame his firing as a "business decision" and not as a result of government censorship. Trump fires off a rage fueled post to Truth Social where he threatens to sue ABC for putting him back on air. Does that sound like a business decision? Baltimore Sun reporters Hannah Gaskill and Dan Belson join us to discuss the right-wing takeover of the 187-year-old paper by the chairman on Sinclair Broadcasting. Since the acquisition the owners have union busted and installed gag orders on the workers. Please take a moment to participate in the Baltimore Sun's letter drive. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer continues his media tour where he reiterates over and over again that he has nothing to offer and his plan for the Democrats is to lay perfectly still and hope that no one no spots him in the weeds. In the Fun Half: Katie Miller and Jesse Watters seem to mock Stephen Miller's virility with an odd metaphor. Trouble in paradise? We take a few phone calls including friend of the show Kowalski from Nebraska. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins pretends that there is nothing they can do to help the rising costs of foods. Farmers are being hit hard by the Trump administration, and even the reddest representatives are facing backlash as illustrated by outraged attendees at Rep. Mark Alford’s town hall in Harrisburg, Missouri. Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters announces every high school in the state will have TPUSA chapters. All this and more. 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: NAKED WINES: To get 6 bottles of wine for $39.99, head to NakedWines.com/MAJORITY and use code MAJORITY for both the code AND PASSWORD. CURRENT AFFAIRS: Go to currentaffairs.org/subscribe and enter the code MAJORITYREPORT at checkout. The offer expires October 31st FAST GROWING TREES: Get 15% off your first purchase.  FastGrowingTrees.com/majority SUNSET LAKE:  Head to SunsetLakeCBD.com and use the code FlowerPower25 to save 40% on all their sun grown flower, pre rolls, and even vapor cartridges. 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 Wednesday. September 24th, 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. End of America, downtown Brooklyn, USA. On the program today, Hannah Gasco, and Dan Belson, reporters at the Baltimore Sun, who are planning a byline strike in about a month because of the cuts at that 200-year-old newspaper.

Also on the program today, Trump tells the rest of the world, your countries, are going to hell. Also, please give me the... Peace Prize. America's so hot right now. We're the hottest country. Sorry from being negative. I had to take the stairs.

Meanwhile, President Trump and the entire Maga movement enraged that Jimmy Kimmel is back on the air. The late-night talk show host, they're enraged. file. Meanwhile, six days until a government shutdown and Republicans have refused to negotiate with a begging Chuck Schumer. Speaking of Chuck Schumer, his leadership now has become toxic

for all the people running for the Senate across the country. Trump does a 180 on Ukraine says all territory can be. regained in a move oddly designed to help the economy of this country. Israel once again attacks a humanitarian flotilla. Georgia Governor Kemp traveling to South Korea to beg Hyundai to return to Georgia as U.S. now considered a hostile work environment. I mean, we just sicked ice on you. It's so sensitive.

Man, all we did was chain 300, y'all. Treasury Secretary Besson, giving $20 billion more to bail out failed libertarian Javier Malay's project in Argentina. A shooting at an ice facility leaves two detainees

and the killer dead no ice thugs reported injured all this and more on today's majority report welcome ladies and gentlemen thanks so much joining us emma vigland out today unrelated to the naked wines advertisement earlier she went to a concert last night and i don't know i guess that it would what do the kids do at a concert these days? Hydrate. Hydrate. There you go. Poppers?

Did people still doing poppers? I don't think I'm going to do poppers at chapel room. It's a different party. All right. I've got a party. I don't go out. So. Um, so as you probably heard, because it's a huge story.

And let's be clear. There's a couple of things you should know about the context of Kimmel coming back. It is quite clear that many, many people canceled their Disney Hulu package. And a lot of this is, you know, people like have been meaning to cancel their Disney Hulu package. And then they just have a compelling reason. Like half of this industry is really built upon banking. on your laziness um and yeah a month goes by and you're like i meant to i meant to quit it and then another month goes by i meant to quit it another month goes by i meant to quit it

shot a literary hangover patron i will say the majority report is one of the only uh renewing subscriptions that i am aware of that actually sends you a payment reminder that your payments coming up which is absolutely not best practices to maintain a subscription business i can assure you uh but that is the case and coincidentally Disney had planned to send out an announcement that they were raising their rates as of yesterday or maybe it was monday and they anticipate when they raise their rates it reminds people that they've signed up it makes people go like wait a second all i did was watch and or over the course of like two like five years makes all sorts of people say that

I could just, like, I don't know, buy it on Apple TV or something like that and have saved me, you know, hundreds of dollars. How many murders can happen in this building? Exactly. And so they know they're going to lose a certain percentage of people when they make that announcement, if only because it's reminding people they're still subscribed. And I think that they realized they were going to take a massive hit here on, in terms of, Jimmy Kimmel and I would also imagine there was a lot of people and in the hit wasn't just from consumers I think they were getting a lot of pressure internally from people who worked for the network who were big producers for the network there were people already saying that

you know I don't have a job with them but big substantial producers like I would never work with them now Zoron canceled the town hall and Zoron canceled the town hall I mean they're um you're seeing the efficacy at least and there's also i imagine some awareness that disney was calculating like it doesn't matter how much we pay or how much uh tribute we pay to trump in the end we can't satiate this guy so we might as well uh go the other direction so kimmel's on air and now they're all all of the right wingers are trying to back pedal and make it's not a loss for Trump's

intimidation because the government never had anything to do it according to them. And of course, we know that's not the case. We know the reporting, but listen to their story here. This is Jesse Waters and former

Speaker Com Secretary, Kylie McEnany. It's a whole compilation. I've never heard them care about the Constitution so much. Their First Amendment, First Amendment, this has nothing to do with the First Amendment. This has to do with the business decision, as you noted. So the decision to suspend that, I suspect, eventually cancel Kimmel, is a business decision

by ABC. But similar to Kimmel, he's getting the boot because, well, he was just bad for business. You can like or not like Disney's decision on Kimmel. But until I see proof of actual government coercion of their decision, this is about Disney. making a business decision about its brand. Yeah, that was obviously a business decision, as evidenced by the fact they're going to reinstate him. I think he's going to be on the air later tonight. So I think it was a business decision. And if ABC wants to... Oh, pause it for a second. I just wanted to... Some people may not know that was Jim Jordan, who is wrestling with the question of Jimmy Kimmel. I say wrestling

only because he was a former wrestling coach. And he actually was, I think it mentioned in a lawsuit because he didn't protect the wrestling students who came to him and said, we're being preyed upon by a pedophile. I wonder if he canceled his Netflix subscription after they put out a documentary that heavily features him in that story. That's a business decision. All right. I'm sorry.

Continue. You see wants to suspend you because you got wrong, the assassin of Charlie Kirk. More power to them. That's got nothing to do with the first. amendment. That's a business decision. Now, I will agree that absent the pressure from the FCC and absent the pressure of, from the White House, a business decision is a business decision. But how could we possibly, you know, like Chris Cuomo said, until I see evidence. Well, we've seen the reporting. We've seen the statements by Trump.

four months ago saying Kimmel is next. We saw the FCC step in and his response to people saying you can't do that. And here is more evidence. Like I don't know what other evidence you need other than a cable from the FCC saying, we're not going to allow for your mergers or your licenses or your E and O and O deals unless you take off Kimmel, which highly unlikely someone's going to write that. But here is Donald Trump basically making a laughing stock of all those people who say it was not the White House and government involvement in censoring Jimmy Kimmel. I can't believe ABC fake news gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back.

Now, I know there's a chance that maybe Trump is trying to sort of like, make it like he's too insane or unknowledgible to actually have threatened ABC because it's not ABC News. It's ABC, the network, but nevertheless, go ahead. ABC News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back. The White House was told by ABC that his show was canceled. Something happened between then and now because his audience is gone and his talent was never there. Why would they want someone back who does so poorly, who's not funny, and who puts the network in jeopardy by playing 99% positive Democrat garbage. He is yet another arm of the DNC. And to the best of my knowledge, that would be a major illegal campaign contribution. All in caps for some reason? Yeah. Is Fox News a campaign

contribution? Okay. I think we're going to test ABC out on this. Let's see how we do. Last time I went after them they gave me sixteen million dollars this one sounds even more lucrative a true bunch of losers let jimmy kimmel rot in his bad ratings okay well there's a couple of things that tell on himself here put this back up i wonder how many companies that are going to pull a product cancel a show notify the white house in advance i mean ABC told the White House that they were going to cancel Jimmy Kimmel. Did they give him a heads up on like, oh, um, you know, did CBS say like, oh, we're going to renew Matlock this year? Just thought you'd know, want to know. Or, um, you know, we're going to have to take off housewives of

New Jersey. Like, is this common practice where TV networks report to the White House their, uh, scheduling decisions? Unlikely. And when he, he says um when he says uh we're going to test i think we're going to test a bc out on this what does that mean and if it was a business decision to get rid of him why did they bring him back when it became clearly a political issue i mean i think anybody who uh went on air and claim that this is absolutely, I mean, of course, I understand why the right wingers do it because they're just trying to pretend. But save those clips because we're going to need them, you know, next time cracker barrel decides they want to change their logo, which incidentally, I should

just say, just as a side. If you look at all of those fast food restaurants, they have all genericized their branding and the shape of their buildings. And it's because that industry has just become a land swap. Private equity. It's a total private equity type of situation. All of those things, it's really, those restaurants exist to basically pay the carrying cost of the real estate underneath. And the ease in which they can flip it as a function of just how generic the building on there is. Oh, this is McDonald's? It could be a Walgreens. Oh, it's a cracker barrel? Oh, it's Pizza Hut.

It doesn't matter. But that's an aside. All right. In a minute, we're going to be talking to Hannah Gaskell and Dan Belson. They're reporters at the Baltimore Sun. They are pushing back against what really appears to be disastrous leadership. at that um i mean historical newspaper i don't know if there's many newspapers that have been around in this country anymore uh that are as old as the baltimore son we will get to them in just a moment and then uh later uh we obviously have uh more uh stories to talk about not the least of

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Use the Code Majority Report. And we'll put all that information in the podcast and YouTube descriptions. We're going to a quick break. We're right back with Hannah Gaskill and Dan Belson reporters from the Baltimore Sun. We are back, Sam Cedar on the majority report. Emma Vigland out today. It's not showing up on my thing. I removed that just so we wouldn't have a bandwidth issue.

Oh, I see. Okay. Sorry about that. We had a little bit of technical issues. I want to welcome to the program, Hannah Gaskill and Dan Belson, reporters at the Baltimore Sun. Hannah, Dan, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having us, Dan. How long have you guys, you guys are union reps? What is the union that you represent, Hannah?

The Baltimore Sun Guild. We're part of the Washington-Baltimore News Guild. And how many people are in that union? So we've kind of gone down from maybe 40-plus down to around 20-ish. We're reporters and advertising support staff at Baltimore Sun. We're hemorrhaging employees at this point. And Dan, how long have you guys been both been working for the Baltimore Sun? We both started back around 2022.

I started at the Sun proper at 2020. So started in the Guild around that. And Hannah, just tell us a little bit about the Baltimore Sun. Like, it's long-term history, and then let's get more to the more sort of like, I guess, relevant short-term history. that has led us to all convene today? For sure. So we're a 187-year-old newspaper for the paper of record in Maryland. We have been purchased, passed with many hands,

over the almost 200-year history that we have. Most recently, in January 2024, David Smith, the chair of Sinclair Broadcasting, became the main owner of the Baltimore Sun. There's also a smaller owner named Armstrong Williams, who is a conservative talk show. I know Armstrong Williams from back in the day, actually. He followed me on one of our radio stations back during the Air America days.

We did not get along. I should also say, just off the top of my head, Armstrong Williams was also caught up in a scandal for, he was hired by a consulting firm, I think it was, or he was a consulting firm and was writing on behalf of that, ostensibly as he was working for the Bush administration or was getting paid by the Bush administration to promote stuff without telling people, nevertheless, I'm sure you can correct the record on that. But okay, so Sinclair Media mogul buys the Baltimore son. And Sinclair Media, maybe, Dan, you can help me out here. Sinclair Media owns like 50. They're sort of in the news right now, aren't they, in terms of Jimmy Kimmel, in fact. Tell us a little bit about who Sinclair News is. So Sinclair started here locally in the Baltimore area, and they've kind of gone around and purchased local TV stations across the country.

So, you know, I think as far as the Jimmy Kimball news, you know, Sinclair and Next Star owns around 20% of ABC stations, local ABC stations in the country. So Sinclair is more in the TV business. Davis Smith purchases us on a personal basis, but he is the chair and his family is heavily involved in Sinclair. So this is sort of like a baby Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch type of. situation. Murdoch famously owned both the newspapers and Fox News, and now I think Lachlan does. And this is, you know, largely what we're looking at. So what did he do when he came in, this new owner, when they came in, and this was a year or two ago, they've taken basically what, I don't know how you could find many examples of something that is more

of a sort of like regional or municipal institution than the Baltimore Sun. I mean, to the extent that those words have any definition, that would be it. Hannah, what was, what did the new owner do when he took over? I think that some context here would help. So this is a person who does not live in Baltimore, who purchased a unionized paper in Baltimore and has a tendency, or at least his broadcasting company, has a tendency to local officials have used the word fearmonger about crime, even though. crime in Baltimore City has gone down to historic lows. So it's kind of repurposed the focus of what we write about. Now, a lot of people are going to say that this is, you know, this guy is just coming in. He's making business decisions. But as reported by Cody Bettler, is this in the

actual son itself i don't know circulation data is reported as a 12-month average the most recent year was a six-month average in 2021 were reported on a 21 month average the sunday circulation um uh has dropped dramatically from a 2023 of 76 000 and a weekday circulation of nearly 30 thousand. It is dropped dramatically under the new leadership. This is from the Baltimore banner. Sunday circulation was 42,000. That's a 44% decline. The average weekday circulation fell to 18,000, which is 37% lower. I'm not easily shocked anymore, but yeah, that's pretty amazing, said Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst with Pointer. This is a tough era for print newspapers, no doubt.

It's also Sunsaw 41% fewer unique visitors to its website compared to 2023 in February of 2024. So this is a story of not like a slow, gradual decrease in circulation and readership. This is dramatic. Like, this is not a business decision. This is just poor business, it seems. Dan, what's your sense of that? You know, it seems like Baltimore has reacted to what has happened to the newspaper over the past year. And the way management has reacted to that reaction is how they've kind of blamed it on the union and used it to leverage their kind of draconian contract.

proposals like they want to silence us by putting in a non-disparagement clause in our union contract that they say that this is our fault this is this is fully based on the union's contract actions um you know did i do one of you go to a journalism school handed it did in journalism school did they want did they teach you that one of the precepts of owning a journalistic outlet is that you don't want to anybody to talk about it? That's not anything that I learned there. Okay, I didn't go to journalists, so I didn't know if they were teaching that now that it's that the point of a newspaper is to silence any critique of enterprises.

Okay, I was just curious. So, so far, the, the, management has fired a bunch of union representatives as far as I know they've um to correct the record only only one unionized person has oh only one only one okay we've seen a lot of reassignment and transfers and a lot of flight outside to other publications oh interesting okay so what are you guys now uh what is the union doing is are we near contract time Is it, is it, you guys are starting to take some actions, and why is that? Well, so we've been at contract time since soon after David Smith bought us back in, I believe

it was June, June last year, our previous contract expired contract we've had for decades. So we started negotiating back then. And basically since then, you know, we've many, many months have passed. And usually when contract negotiations happen, you start with something, companies, starts with something you meet somewhere in the middle the the management's idea has been more put something in front of us not a disparagement agreement if you don't agree to this we're walking away and so now we're at a point where they have decided because we won't sign everything they put in front of us they're going to implement it anyway yeah on sunday so we'll be allowed to talk for so much

Oh, really? On Sunday, how do they impose upon you a non-discharagement agreement if you haven't agreed to it? It's pretty illegal, we're pretty sure. So, yeah, you know, they're claiming that we've reached a bargaining impasse because we have not agreed to every single one of their terms. We don't believe we're at an impasse. We're still an act of bargaining. They have refused to move on pretty much anything. We put in request to bargain since they declared that they were not bargaining with us anymore since they gave us their last best and final proposal.

And they just refused to meet us at the table. And so what are you guys now doing as a union to push back? I mean, I imagine you're talking to lawyers about what could happen over the course of the next country. couple of days before you're supposedly silenced by a newspaper. And I'm reading too that you guys are planning a byline strike. We did a byline strike on election week, which is the most painful week for a newspaper to have a byline strike. And we retain our byline rights. So should we go that route, we've scrambled this past week seeing what we can do and one of those options could be a byline strike we could be we will be you know speaking up while we still can you know yeah I think a lot of our plan right now obviously is to talk to legal through WBNG but to make our voices heard on programs like yours with other outlets while we can so that people understand what we're going through and and we're not the only people affect by Mr. Smith's endeavors.

There's a whole campaign in Baltimore County called Don't Feed the Fox because he owns Fox 45. So the public is joining it at this point. And just for clarification, a byline strike is essentially you won't put your names on the pieces. And they'll all, and of course, you know, That is, it's something that makes people notice. You're still performing a function for people,

but it makes them stand up and notice that, like, you know, there's actually people generating this, and it makes a difference when you don't know who has written something. What can our viewers, if our viewers are readers of the Baltimore Sun, if they're in that Baltimore area, I mean, what can folks do to support you? So we're getting active on social media again. You can follow us at Balt Sun Guild on Blue Sky and X. We also have a letter drive, which sends an email to Mr. Smith, Mr. Williams, and our publisher,

and they do tend to sometimes respond. So that is available at bit.ly slash capital S, support the sun. Both assets capitalized there. You could also get a frustrated email from management. David Smith is a great emailer. Fantastic. Maybe we'll do that. Looking forward to that.

We're going to put links in the podcast and YouTube description of all those that people can get involved. Anything else that you want to say, while it is not actionable for the next couple of days? Look, silencing workers, silencing union journalists, that's silencing the truth. All we want is to get the truth out. And when management has a problem with that, that's concerning. You know, this is more than a contract for raises, et cetera.

This is about local democracy. And we're fighting for good journalism. Support your local journalists also. Subscribe to your local newspaper. I know it's expensive. know everybody's feeling the pinch, but it really does help. Hannah Gaskill, Dan Belson, thanks so much for your time today, guys. Good luck.

I know it's going to be a tough fight. So hang in there and keep us updated. Thank you. Thank you. And hi, Justin. Sorry. Bye. All right.

We're going to take a quick break. We'll come back. We've got more news. We'll just be back in. Well, we don't need to take a break, do we? Unless you need one. You kidding? Sam's a machine.

I'll just keep going. I won't stop at all. We won't rest. We won't rest. All right, hold on. We'll get there. We'll get there. Let's just start with this.

This is pretty stunning. And it is, I mean, look, the Donald Trump said he was going to end the Ukraine Russia conflict within 24 hours. We are very bad at math here, but... Time's gone pretty quickly. I am 100% sure. It's not... It's been more than 24 hours. How many hours are in 10 months?

That's what you have a calculator for, Brian. You're supposed to be telling me that. I'm that guy. You're supposed to be holding up a sign with that number when I introduced that idea. just to give you a sense of a how utterly vacuous Donald Trump's positions are and how utterly vacuous the idea that he was an anti-war candidate was and frankly on to some extent this is good news although I'm not sure it is geared towards bringing

an end to this war or but it at least for the time being makes it look like Ukraine will get support. Here is Donald Trump's post on truth social that announced it. Do we have it? This is number four. It is a full 180 degree turnaround. After getting to know, fully understand the Ukraine-Russia, military, and economic situation, and after seeing the economic trouble, it is causing Russia, I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and win all of Ukraine back in its original form. It is shocking that it has taken him eight months to get this information. the the it's it's shocking it's also it's completely unbelievable it's a lie of course but see if you

can see the hints in this as to what what this is really about because he's given you a couple of hints in the first sentence he gives you hints and they are capitalized the hints remember so much of what we hear from the conservatives, Republicans, and Donald Trump is projection. So he has fully understood the Ukraine-Russia military, was a different militaries, incidentally, and economic situation. And after seeing the economic trouble it is causing Russia, I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union,

is in a position to fight and win all of Ukraine back in its original form. With time, patience, and the financial support of Europe, and in particular NATO, the original borders from where this war started is very much an option. Why not? Now, wait a second. It's unclear which war he's referring to. Does this mean Crimea? Does this mean those areas of the Dantz?

It's unclear. Why not? Russia has been fighting aimlessly. for three and a half year war that should have taken a real military power less than a week to win. This is not distinguishing Russia. This is definitely him writing.

There's just no... He wrote all this compared to the Kimmel tweet. It's exactly the same. In fact, it is very much making them look like a paper tiger. When the people living in Moscow and of all the great cities, towns, and districts throughout Russia find out what's really going on with this war, the fact that it's almost impossible

for them to get gasoline through the long lines. Okay. And all of the other things that are taking place in their war economy, where most of their money is being spent on fighting Ukraine, which has great spirit and only getting better. Ukraine would be able to take back their country in its original form. And who knows, maybe even go further than that. Putin and Russia are in big economic trouble. Money economy, money, economy. This is the time for Ukraine to act. In any event, I wish both countries well. And we will continue to supply weapons to NATO. for NATO is do what they want to do what they want with them to do whatever what they want with

good luck who cares just give us some money okay so why has trump had this turnaround well who do they send out to talk about this turnaround is it pete hegseth department of war uh is it um marco rubio the secretary of state huh no it's the secretary of treasury and they send him to Fox business news. That's weird. But now Putin has started making incursions, you know, into the NATO borders. Exactly. So the one thing I can tell you. Oh, pause it for a second.

I'm sorry. Is this clip a month old? Nope. It's from, I believe, this morning. Oh, that's weird because Putin made those incursions. I assume they're talking about the drone attack on Poland or the drones that were shut down in Poland, which Trump at the time said, we're not. It was nothing.

It was a mistake. What's that about? It's just crossed the border. You know, borders are invisible. Has it taken them a month to figure this out? It's interesting. I'm trying to think of like what's different between a month ago and now in their minds. There was a recent thing at the Copenhagen airport that they're blaming on Russian drones, possibly too.

So maybe it's a little bit... I don't know about Poland. I know where Copenhagen. Okay. Let's just go back. I mean, again, Fox Business. channel and this is the secretary of the treasury but now Putin has started making incursions into the NATO borders so the one thing I can tell you is the U.S. is not going to get involved

with troops or any of that we will sell the Europeans weapons and then the Europeans can pass them on to Ukraine President Trump wants this war to end he's said several times yesterday, he thought it would be the easiest one to end. President Putin has made it clear that he just keeps escalating. And it's a race between the Ukraine military, the Russian economy, and we want our European allies to step up and focus on the sources of the revenues for the Russian economy. And it's oil. And Maria, just to be clear, just to be clear, just to be clear, This goes back to the original sin from President Trump's first term where he told them, do not, do not create Nord Stream 2.

Yeah. And it was that reliance on Russian energy that got us here. Well, I look, we had- Wait, what? Wait, no, I thought it was Biden. Hold on, Scott. Wait a second. I just, you told me we could make this economy that is in the crapper as we are, like, funneling down.

a hole where we're going to have stagflation you said selling weapons would make us money but what's this whole blame it on no it was biden's war at obama this would have never happened but for biden remember uh here's a political article from october two thousand twenty three title the white house is losing the messaging war on ukraine now it's changing the message the president's team is privately urging lawmakers to focus on the jobs that can be created by the money spent on the war. So the more things change, the more they stay the same. Yeah,

there you go. This is all about I mean, there's Scott Bassant, basically just telling Fox business invest, time to reinvest in the, you know, North of Gruntham

or, you know, Boeing or Raytheon or whoever it is. Yeah. How do we make money in this country? Weapons of war. For a banana republic who says, I was exploding bananas. Yep. So there is, and it does sound like there must have been a meeting at the UN where we'll buy all the weapons. We'll buy them.

We have the money. He loves deals. Yep. I mean, the entire European Union, especially Germany, has been saying, like, you know all that austerity and stuff that we've been doing for the last 15 years? well, we need to start deficit spending and not for climate, but for guns and bombs and stuff. There you go. And don't get me wrong.

I am glad that we are nominally supportive of Ukraine. I suspect that this is the most lucrative way in which we could do this. Yeah, and I don't think it will rebound to the Ukrainian favor, unfortunately. uh let's we got another minute here let's so as it stands now

the senate we are barreling towards a government shutdown chuck schumer has been desperate to um to provide the Senate any possible cover in which um it would allow chuck schumer to vote to keep the government open and uh schumer tried

to go around uh thune in the senate and go directly to trump and the amazing thing of what we're watching is we're watching senate and house republicans so confident that chuck schumer is going to cave for nothing that the only thing they wanted to make sure was that Trump didn't in any way agree to do anything with Chuck Schumer because Schumer was just looking for a fig leaf and they're going they're basically saying we're not even going to give you a fig leaf you're going to take this and here is a Chuck Schumer let's just do this one This is this what he posted to? He posted this to his ex account.

And now he's mad that Trump will come out. I don't know what he anticipates happening with this. What I do find amusing is that as desperate as he's trying to maintain a youthful look by pushing those glasses up, he can't help, but I need to put him back down. Now he has just a bigger set of glasses down at the edge of his. He went from this. This lasted for a day. and now it's back down here, so let's go.

And as he's off camera. He's like, get him off, get him off. Get him off. Here we go. We know Donald Trump watches a lot of television. Got it. Mr. President, if you're watching television, shut it off, and come sit down and negotiate with us. Do we know what channel this was on? Was it on MSNBC? I couldn't find. It looks like C-SPAN based on the Cairo.

We know, we know Mr. Trump watches a lot of C-SPAN. I don't think so. But like who does who does he think this is for? Who does he think this is for? And I mean, what we are watching is Chuck Schumer is on a tour right now. Politico has a story that

he is completely toxic with Senate candidate. it's not blue state candidates Iowa hell no Nathan Sage one of the handful of Iowa Democrats vying to replace retiring Senator Joni Ernst

told Politico when asked if he'd back Schumer for leader in Maine four of the Democrats running to unseat the GOP's most vulnerable center have already pledged not to support Schumer as leader the second thing Graham Platner said like Mills hasn't jumped into the race

yet she's going to be the only one because he's pushing her in there in illinois uh i'll remind you dick durbin chuck schumer's best buddy the senate whip is the retiring uh center from illinois three leading democrats vying to succeed schumers retiring number two say they're keeping their options open like they need they desperately want dick durbin's support as much as they desperately want dick durbin's support they still won't say they support chuck schumer they're saying i would do anything for love but i won't do that is there any let's we'll punt this question bull is this yes and schumers uh a spokesperson alex uh neyen said um the leaders north star is winning the majority in twenty twenty six what is chuck

Schumer's plan to win 2026, it is essentially to not exist as a political party. It is to do absolutely nothing that could in any way take a position on anything and hope that Donald Trump is so hated that somehow this bleeds down. down to Republicans. And it may, it may work. It also sets up a recipe for absolutely, you know, this just to keep recycling. Let's hope Donald Trump is really bad. Here is Chuck Schumer on Morning Joe.

Morning Joe, which, of course, is where you would go if you were trying to reach the public or conservatives or the president. No, this is where you go. if you are trying to convince democratic power brokers that you should still be in charge. And he's sitting there right now. Put it, put him up there. He's sitting there.

He's going like, I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. You can play a little more. You can see it. You can see he's like concentrated. Just go forward just a little. Oh, this is a different clip?

Oh, this is the clip. He's right here. He's like, I can do this. this. I can do this. I'm going to make it. I'm going to make it. Chuck, just you're doing good. Chuck, you're doing good. Chuck, you're doing good. That's what he's telling himself now because he's so nervous. He is so on the hot seat from all, but he's, I'm going to get out there. Chuck, you're doing good. Chuck, you're doing good. Leaders on the hill want that meeting to take place, though. That's a good Chuck. There's some reports that right now they don't.

Chuck. His show? I'm Chuck. I'm Chuck. I'm Chuck. Chuck is doing good. That's a good Chuck. That's a good Chuck.

That's a good Chuck. That's a good Chuck. Chucked it up. Me watching Russell Wilson in the red zone. That's a good. I'm a Chuck. I'm a Chuck. Here is his.

Here is Chuck Schumer's plan. Okay. This is his response. Okay. We're doing miserably. But fortunately. someone's else is more miserable. And one more point on all those polls,

even though Democrats' numbers are low, when you ask people, who do you prefer, a Democratic senator or Republican senator? We did it in the six battleground states, which were plus two plus three overall, so it's not a Democratic or independent survey. 4739, they prefer Democrats. And in a couple of the races,

where we have the two candidates, we win. So. Okay. He's, first off, first off, like, this generic thing, like, it's bad as Democrats are performing, the Republicans in these races are performing worse. You are basically saying, we are just a floating piece of driftwood on the river. And it's so far, it looks like the river's going in the right direction. There is at, this is like fundamentally, definitionally, not leadership. There is no plan.

There is nothing. It is we're going to drift into victory. And that may be the case. Maybe nothing changes. Maybe absolutely nothing changes the trajectory of that river. But we don't know that. And when you have absolutely no reason to vote for the Democrats except for they are not Republicans, there is no positive message there is no i mean don't trump's don't trump's personal net worth has doubled

in eight months we don't hear any like um all we hear is epstein which is fine that's good but maybe the idea of like don't trump's personal net worth has doubled has yours yours. Donald Trump's personal net worth has doubled. He's gotten rich, but you're getting poorer. We don't hear anything like this. We don't see anything of like him saying what the FCC is doing is bad. And when we become, we're going to do X because of it. But because you're not going to say that we're going to do X, because you're not willing to say that we're going to do anything. We're just going to lay low

and hope no one knows that we're here. You don't have reason to talk about anything. It's all just that's wrong. What's the right answer? Well, who knows? We're not going to say because maybe somebody will be upset about it. Succeed passively.

It is, and it is a strategy. And it could work. But, God forbid, there's some type of like, I don't know, terrorist attack. It happens. God forbid there's some type of major crisis.

God forbid there's anything that could change the flow of this river that you're now just gliding down. And you have ceded any ability to create a narrative. You can't start at three weeks out from an election. You can't start at four months out from an election. You need to start now. and they've decided we are completely abdicating we're not going to do any of that we're not even going to shut down the government unless unless like they make it absolutely impot you know chuck schumer's so desperate to just have anything that he can come back this is after nancy

Pelosi last time saying like i've never done a deal where you get you give something for nothing which is exactly what chuck schumer did he wants to give something so desperately but they're not giving him anything they want to break him and we'll see he may he may just cave anyways it's amazing all right we're going to take quick break head into the fun half just a reminder it's your support that makes this show possible when you become a member of the majority report you only get the free show free of commercials you get the fun half but most importantly you help us remain independent to survive and to thrive you know the idea that one day Google just says you know what they've we're we're changing our algorithm is um they haven't done it

yet as far as i can tell but the idea that they would do this or not do this we saw this with with facebook and instagram yep they decided we're going to downplay any type of uh of uh of politics um so that killed us on uh facebook and instagram um you see ticot is now already like uh purging and um banning and blocking and uh uh you know, de-alorithming, anything that is considered pro-Palestine or critical of Israel. None of that has hurt us in terms of revenue, but the thing that keeps us from that type of situation is our members supporting us. So it means a lot. Appreciate our members who have done so.

and also just coffee dot co-op it is fair trade coffee hot chocolate use the coupon code majority get 10% off they're a co-op you can buy the majority report blend a long time advertiser and support of the program really appreciate them as well Matt left reckoning

yeah last night devon Thomas O'Shea we did a sort of literary hangover episode where we talked about the Thomas Pynchon novel Vineland which is the source material for a new Paul Thomas Anderson movie called One Battle After Another, I believe, is the title of that's coming out this weekend. And we get into this sort of depiction of Reaganite reaction and budget cuts and Cointel Pro and a very good novel to read in our current era. So I highly recommend it. Check it out. Patreon.com's left reckoning. Postgame, we also talked about Kamala Harris on Madhouse, saying she wishes the Titans of Industry would have stood up to save democracy.

so check that out oh did that not happen the oligarchs didn't save democracy weird so weird it's almost as if they're interested in their own accumulation of money hmm okay quick break 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. Matt Drew. What is up, everyone?

Fun hat. No, me. You did it. Fun, Hacks. Let's go Brandon. Let's go Brandon. Fun crap.

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. Women's... Stop talking for a second.

Let me finish. Where is this coming from, dude? But dude, you want to smoke this? Seven, eight. Yes. All right, please. Is this thing? Yes?

It's neat. It is you? Um, it's just me? I think it is you. Who is you? No sound. Every single freaking day. What's on your mind?

We can discuss free markets and we can discuss capitalism. I'm going to guess not why. Who libertarians? They're so stupid though. Common sense says, of course. Gobble de gook. We've got. fucking nailed him.

So what's $79 plus 21? Challenge met. I'm positively quivering. I believe 96, I want to say. 857. 210. 35. 501.

One half. 3-8s. 9-11 for instance. $3,400, $1,900. $6.5,4, $3 trillion sold. It's a zero-sum game. Actually, you're making think less. But let me say this.

Poop. You can call satire. Sam goes to satire. On top of it all? Yeah. 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, 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. a question. Who cares? Our chat is enabled, folks.

I love it. I do love that. Look, got to 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 gulong? Outrage. Like, what is wrong with you?

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