The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3589 - Inside Bohemian Grove; DSA Hits Milestone w/ Daniel Boguslaw, Ashik Siddique, Megan Romer

Episode Date: February 26, 2026

It's an Emmajority Report Thursday on the Majority Report   On today's program:   JD Vance announces a halt on $259 million in federal funding for Medicaid in Minnesota over alleged fraud.   @JoseBird on YouTube releases a thorough video debunking Nick Shirley's claim about fraud in the Somali community in Minnesota. Check out Jose's entire video here.   Daniel Boguslaw from Deeper States on Substack joins Emma to discuss his video essay released with A More Perfect Union on Bohemian Grove.   Co-Chairs of DSA, Ashik Siddique & Megan Romer join Emma to celebrate DSA hitting 100,000 members nationally.   In the Fun Half:   Brandon Sutton and Matt Binder join the program   Medhi Hasan explains the misogyny behind the GOP's proposed SAVE Act.   In a weird, sexist rant Greg Gutfeld is confused on why he is repulsed by Rep. Ilham Omar (D-MN) despite being attracted to her.   Dave Rubin defends American imperialism with his classic bimbo style analysis.   all that and more   To connect and organize with your local ICE rapid response team visit ICERRT.com The Congress switchboard number is [phone]. You can use this number to connect with either the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives. Follow us on TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@majorityreportfm Check us out on Twitch here: https://www.twitch.tv/themajorityreport Find our Rumble stream here: https://rumble.com/user/majorityreport Check out our alt YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/majorityreportlive Gift a Majority Report subscription here: https://fans.fm/majority/gift Subscribe to the 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: PROLON: Get 15% off plus a $40 bonus gift when you subscribe to their 5-Day Program at  ProlonLife.com/majority SUNSET LAKE: Use coupon code "Left Is Best" (all one word) for 20% off of your entire order at SunsetLakeCBD.com  Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattLech On Instagram: @MrBryanVokey Check out Matt's show, Left Reckoning, on YouTube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning Check out Matt Binder's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/mattbinder Subscribe to Brandon's show The Discourse on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ExpandTheDiscourse Check out Ava Raiza's music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.com

It is Thursday. February 26th, 20206. My name is Emma Vigland in for Sam Cedar, and 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, Daniel Boguslaw will be with us to talk about his investigation into Bohemian Grove.

And later in the show, Ashik Sadiq and Megan Romer, co-chairs of DSA, will be joining us to talk about DSA hitting a major membership milestone. Also on the program, Trump continues to give Lindsey Graham the bluest of balls. Sorry for that image. Toying. I'm testing to see if you guys are paying attention. I wasn't. You can't go. It's still got my dad.

Focus. Pay attention, you too. Because he's toying about with bombing Iran, but also still trying to do peace talks in Geneva. And Lindsay's like, just give me this release, please. I don't have it in a lot of other areas. Anyway, we move on. Some of Trump's advisors want Israel to strike Iran instead of the U.S. to avoid the bad optics.

But, yeah, Israel's. totally sovereign, not our colony at all. Don't worry about it. By the way, this is predicated on the White House saying Iran's just so close to getting a nuke. After claiming they obliterated said nuclear program last year,

Cuba's Border Patrol shot at a speedboat from the U.S., one nautical mile from its coast, killing four, and saying they seized weapons from said boat. Not seeing a ton of denial from the U.S. Interesting.

Trump tells Zelensky that he wants a peace deal by summer the first time they've spoken in around a month. Thune throws cold water on Trump's push to nuke the filibuster to pass the mass disenfranchisement bill save act.

A blind refugee from Burma has been found dead after Border Patrol dropped him at a donut shop five miles from his home. The White House's war on Minnesota continues. Vance announces their pausing Medicaid funding over the Somali daycare conspiracy. A top treasury official has resigned after privately raising objections to this attack on Minnesota. FEC filings reveal that House Democrats' fundraising arm has taken millions from Palantir lobbyists. And lastly, trans people in Kansas

are reporting, receiving letters from the state demanding they surrender their driver's licenses. All this and more on today's majority report. Welcome to the show, everybody. It's a majority report Thursday. Hello, Matt. Hello, Brian. Who needs coffee when I can provide you with shocking graphic imagery like that?

Ad homonym writes in, Jesus, we're like 30 seconds into the show and I want to gouge out my eyes. Thanks for the mental image. You're welcome. That's what I'm here for. I'm in a good mood because we were social last night, specifically myself and Matt, although we said that and spent 90% of the time just talking to talking to each other. We did talk to other people too.

We did talk to other people and it was lovely. It was lovely to meet everybody last night. I was really honored to be like the moderator for David Griscombe's book talk. I read the whole book. The Myth of Red Texas, it's great. People should check it out, pick it up. O.R. Books is publishing it with the nation. And I think that there's a live stream that our channel should have shared, where if you want to watch the book talk from last night, you can.

So it was really, really cool to be a part of that. Everybody check out The Myth of Red Texas by David Griscom and there was a full house. It was a fun time. But let's turn back to Minnesota. here because, you know, after terrorizing the Twin Cities, killing two American citizens in Minnesota, beating and pepper spraying countless more, destroying property, kidnapping,

countless people, shutting down schools, causing car accidents. The White House has decided that their war on Minnesota has not been cruel enough. During the state of the Union, Trump talked about waging a war on fraud and he's now tasking J.D. Vance with it. The trope that black people and immigrants are stealing our social services is in conservative politics is nothing new. They just recycle it and they'll have rotating groups that they're looking at.

But the welfare queen. The welfare queen. Yeah. In the 80s. This is a fishing expedition based on racist tropes that go back decades and decades. The welfare queen one, as Matt mentions, is the most infamous. So, yeah, Vance had this press conference yesterday. And he was joined by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services admin, Dr. Oz.

A scam doctor. And they're announcing. here that they're going to pause Medicaid, federal Medicaid reimbursements to Minnesota over this fraud conspiracy that we'll talk about in just a second. Which has been prosecuted under the Biden administration, and they didn't find anything new to go after. So that's why they're all of a sudden doing sanctions now, because there was actually no new fraud they uncovered. Right. Here is the vice president, J.D. Vance, announcing this halt. So we're announcing today that we have decided to temporarily halt certain amounts of Medicaid funding that are going to the state of Minnesota in order to ensure that the state of Minnesota takes its obligation seriously to be good stewards of the American people's tax money.

Now, what is this going to mean? What this means is it does it mean shovel it to J.D. Vance's friends in the tech sector so they can build data centers? Is that what good steward is? Sorry, I'll let them continue. It's tax money. Now, what is this going to mean? What this means is that, first of all, the providers on the ground in Minnesota have actually already been paid.

The state has paid those providers the money. What we're doing is we are stopping the federal payments that will go to the state government until the state government takes its obligations seriously to stop the fraud that's being perpetrated against the American tax. So we're announcing today. Well, actually, play that part for a second. The first four seconds. He goes, so we're announcing today.

I mean, like, he's so bitchy and unpresidential. Just this. So we're announcing today that we have. I mean, literally, it reminds me of, like, sorority meetings. Like, so we're announcing today that we're wearing animal print at the deke party. Anyway, he's just so whiny. It's so annoying. But, um, let's get.

We're going to get to the fraud in a second here. This is incredibly cruel. They've already, this administration, taken a hatchet to Medicaid with the one big, ugly ass bill. And prior to its passage, around 70 million people in this country rely on Medicaid, lower income people, people with disabilities. Chip is the one for children. That is incredibly important for child, for low income.

families as well. So this is going to apparently impact in Minnesota nearly 1.3 million people, one in four Minnesotans, if they're able to pause these federal Medicaid reimbursements. And Medicaid costs are shared by states and by the federal government. The states, Minnesota and the other states do this as well, pay the cost to administer the program, and then you have the federal government and this reimbursement system. And so this could really undercut, like severely undercut the ability

to provide health care for people. As they... Right. As they give this like vague target of until they kind of get their house in order, until Minnesota figures out what's going on. And the reality is that there's nothing there. Let's just pull up this article here from the Minnesota Post. One, Minnesota is one of the

many blue states that is a donor state, meaning its federal tax contribution exceeds the amount it receives in federal funding. The federal government collected about $119 billion in tax revenue from Minnesota residents and businesses in 2023. The state in return received about $75 billion dollars to support health care, nutrition, social security, and other programs according to USA FACs, a not-for-profit organization that analyzes government data. That $44 billion difference between state, between taxes and revenue equated to about 7,600 per Minnesotan, and among 19 donor states in 2023, Delaware was the only one where residents had a higher net cost than Minnesota.

So, um, the, the, the, the, this is, uh, also just like not true on its face in terms of, like, even if Minnesota was a donor state, there could still be fraud, but the whole thing about fraud is a complete, uh, clan type lie. Just like everything this administration does, they did tariffs accusing Canada of trafficking fentanyl into our country. Those are just a complete lie that like, like, certain people like to take seriously. And there's a type of thinking that is like, no, you can't just dismiss this Somali fraud stuff. because it makes you look bad.

No, actually, it's people like you that shouldn't give these liars a goddamn inch because it was prosecuted under Biden. People are looking into it. The idea that we let this stuff run rampant is, again, a clan fantasy or a clan propaganda point. Yes. And so it started in 2019. There was an investigation into fraud at child care centers. The estimate was like $5 to $6 million in total.

And when we're looking at the figures that we're speaking about, that is not a large amount. charges were filed, the state tightened regulations, then there's the prosecution under Biden. But they're reviving this in 2025 and 26 to justify their attacks on Minnesota, their attacks on the Somali community, motivated by a far right agenda in the White House that hates Somali Americans, one, because they have incredibly high citizenship rates compared to other groups. So the fact that they're here so legally is a threat to their agenda. of ethnic cleansing, and also they are black, and also they are Muslim. So these are all factors into why this administration is targeting them. And Minnesota, in large, with, you know, with exceptions, has been welcoming of them. And like Ilhan Omar, people act like she's a member of a majority of Somali district.

She's not. Her district is majority white. That's what drives them crazy. And I've cited this. channel, we've cited it many, many times. I think I did the other day speaking about Jose's Tucker Carlson segment where I'm a patron, so I've been able to access it, but I'd encourage other people if they like these kinds of investigative video essay deep dives into political issues to do the same if you want to see that Tucker one, because it was really great. But this was from around a month

ago, a great debunking of this Nick Shirley video that kicked all of this off, these claims of Somali daycare fraud. And here is Jose's breakdown of that piece and how it's being mischaracterized, specifically in 2025 when there was those instances that we've already spoken about, but it's being distorted and they're trying to retrofit it into this 2025 daycare context. The other claim of $100 million in CCAP fraud a year isn't quite so clear cut. On the most basic level, the figure seems to be inflated. Over the course of several years, prosecution of fraud amounted to somewhere between $5 and $6 million, a far cry from the $100 million a year that was being cited.

However, the actual amount of fraud is difficult to determine, and this report declined to make an actual estimate of how much fraud is happening in the state when it comes through CACP funding. At least one C-Cap fraud investigator believed the $100 million figure could be accurate. But unlike what the Nick Shirley video alleges, it's not about daycare sitting empty all day, but rather daycare's not providing adequate service, like adults spending more time chatting amongst themselves or on their phones rather than watching the children. Representatives from the Department of Human Services more strongly disagreed with the $100 million figure

because prior investigations didn't turn up anywhere near that amount. While there were certainly some amount of fraud that was unaccounted for, the $100 million figure seemed unrealistic. And when looking at the total budget of the C-CAP service, it would account to more than a third of all funds allocated. In spite of the findings in this report, particularly the lack of evidence connecting fraud to funding terrorism, this talking point continued to lumber on. Here's an example from a local radio show on WZFG talking about it. Dude, it goes back pre-CO, the daycare one was 2017, 2018, 2017. Yeah, $250 million. I don't know how it suddenly became $250 million,

but that's the interesting thing about these fraud cases. Once they're discussed in the media, the figures start getting inflated, and the type of fraud that may or may not be happening is frequently exaggerated. In May of 2025, there was another report that looked specifically at attendance records at... No, this is the part I want to play, yeah.

It's really good. The whole thing's an hour. People should really check it out. We'll link to it. In May of 2025, there was another report that looked specifically at attendance records at child care assistance providers that raised some interesting questions. A news article from Minpost covering the report said, The Federal Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General sampled 1,155 child care centers and found that 11% of the payments made to those centers in 23 had errors. But that doesn't necessarily mean there was fraud. Improper payments is an

umbrella term that could include fraud. An 11% rate puts Minnesota above the permissible 10% threshold established by the federal government, UN said. On average, nationwide, the rate is 4%. So while child care fraud is something Minnesota has been working to produce in recent years, these are not new issues, but they are being repackaged and they are being promoted in ways to make it seem like there is an epidemic, said Elliott Hespel, a national child care expert, on a call with reporters this week. So there you go. This is the, again, check out that Jose video on Nick Shirley. It's entitled Minnesota, Nick Shirley and the demonizing of a community. more there. But that's the key point

with that background, which is that they're using this term of improper payments, which includes basically a wide variety of violations. Say they don't have the proper health codes here, or they don't have enough

staffing, or the staff was on their phone and that kind of thing and not paying proper attention to the children and stuff. They're claiming that all of that stuff fraud when a lot of it is just like violations. So they're trying to tie in that older investigation into this more modern one as a way to justify an ethnic cleansing campaign targeted at Minnesota.

Yep, it's a Jim Croyd. Clansman lie. That's what J.D. Vance is. He's the same person who's repeating the like lie that there's 20 to 30 million illegal immigrants in this country. Complete lie. Completely like a double or triple what the actual. cases, and if you look at those that 10 million or so, 12 million or so, 40% are people who overstayed visas. Like, this is all lies. It's entirely based on lies. And there's not even, there's no halfway between this.

The people that are now saying, well, I supported, you know, deportations, but not like this. They're the same suckers. Exactly right. In a moment, we're going to be talking to Daniel Boguslaw, but first a word from our sponsor today. Long work weeks and busy weekends can leave you feeling and looking depleted. Prolon's five-day fasting-mimicking diet works at a cellular level to reset and rejuvenate you from the inside out,

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program. Just visit prolonlife.com slash majority. That's p-r-o-l-o-n-l-l-fee dot com slash majority to claim your 15% discount and your bonus gift. Prolonlife.com slash majority. Link down below in the video and episode descriptions and at majority.fm. get 15% off plus a $40 bonus gift when you subscribe to their five-day program at prolon. At prolonlife.com slash majority. Quick break. When we're back, we'll be joined by Daniel Boguslaw. We are back and we are joined now by Daniel Boguslaw investigative journalists covering

corporate crime, government agencies, and politics at deeper states on substack. Daniel, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. It's great to have you. I'm excited to talk. to you about this because as we're dealing with and you know just trying to understand the Epstein files and the the real formality of this kind of elite network I think it has people looking at other elite networks and secret societies like the one at Bohemian Grove with a different kind of perspective and so I wonder if you could just speak a little bit about that, you know, how this new climate of understanding elite networks maybe even informed your reporting on Bohemian Grove? Absolutely. Well, it was exciting to publish the list this week of the

Bohemian Club and Groves membership list with the fine folks at more perfect union. I, you know, sort of developed an obsession with the Grove many years ago. And when the COVID vaccines finally rolled out, I took my COVID bucks and I headed out and tried to chase down that story in a bunch of other ones. but before I did that, one of the sort of foundational American sociologists named Bill Domhoff sort of wrote the foundational text, one of the foundational texts of American sociology called the Power Elite, and you really use the Bohemian Club as his focus to show that this was not so much a singular cabal that was running the world and running America, but it was a window into the power elite.

And it was a window into the people who were making a lot of the decisions. And, you know, whether it's the Bohemian Grove and the Bohemian Club or whether it is Jeffrey Epstein's network, I think it is important to really that this is a singular window into a very large community of one percenters. And no single window is going to explain everything, right? There's a million Fortune 500 companies. There's a million CEOs. There's a million corrupt officials inside and outside of government. But these instances of pulling the curtain back give us a view into how these relationship networks work.

And they serve as a moment for public debate where we can then discuss, okay, how do we use the tools at our disposal, whether it's the laws of our land, whether it's politics, to try to disrupt some of those networks and try to disrupt the stranglehold that. these people and companies have our country and our democracy. I wanted to play this part of the this out in 2000 this old clip of Alex Jones infiltrating Bohemian Grove and I'm Brian was laughing about this very formative for me as a child I honestly was not familiar but I it like you know with when we're talking about Epstein this is And that was another conspiracy that Alex Jones was all over until, you know, you make it about just the Democrats. There's questions about whether or not Alex Jones was intercepted by like kind of deep state forces and was participating in limited hangouts, I think. Well, yeah.

I mean, this was really what made his career, the Bohemian Grove video. And I would just point out before we play it that, I mean, the focus gets deeper and deeper to this idea of child sacrifice and demon worship. And I think it's dangerous. And you can see certain elements trying to steer the Epstein saga in that direction, too. I think it's critical to understand that, like, the real bottom line of both of these sagas is institutional power and social networks. And so I tried to offer my documentary as someone of a corrective to Alex Jones is to say, look, this isn't about demon worship or whatever, Cthulhu. This is about powerful people colluding to shape politics and commerce.

Absolutely. And that is important to emphasize, too, where even the mainstream press on Epstein is focusing on, you know, the salaciousness or the horrible crimes of the pedophilia, right? But not the like Israeli intelligence connections, for example, or the more critically, the suspicious activity reports, the bankers who are involved. Yes. Not just the, not just the Jamie Diamonds, but the second, third, fourth string people who are in these circles. I've just been rewatching succession with my wife. And it's like, look at how many. people touched, you know, the big scandal in that show. We have this from multiple institutions for the biggest banks in the world, J.P. Morgan, Deutsche. Ron Wyden still hasn't, you know, gotten the balls to release the full SAR reports, the full records of those banking transactions.

And meanwhile, you know, we're getting more and more, as you said, stalacious details coming out, more and more records about, honestly, at this point, some fringe allegations. And it's being steered away from the institutions and it's being steered away from institutional change and that's what I hope we can kind of drag it back towards. Yes, I'd like to, we will have that systemic substantive conversation in the second, but first we want to laugh a little bit about this. So this is Alex Jones in 2000. Exposing the criminal activities of the global elite, also known as the New World Order. In past films, we've documented the centralization of power, the move towards,

world government, the attack on the nation state, self-defense, the Second Amendment, family values, that is, the family itself, as well as private property rights. But time and time again in my research, I come, well, eye to eye with something that's even hard for me to believe. And that's that the elite, again, the so-called establishment kings, those that know best, the visions, the visions of the anointed ones are obsessed with the occult from presidents to governors to the heads of industry we've all seen the stories of presidents and first ladies obsessed with their astrologers making national policy we're going to skip ahead like 30 seconds the end that's why i was question the end was 140 right okay yeah yeah yeah that was from the very beginning

Two minutes in, sorry. Yeah. 100-acre secluded Redwood Grove, leaders from around the world, prime ministers, chancellors, presidents, governors, again, the heads of industry, banking, academia, the media, Hollywood, only a select few, a little over 2,000 people, travel there to engage in bizarre, ancient Canaanite, Luciferian, Babylon, Michigan. religion ceremonies. At least that was the rumors. And so I went to the library and got on the internet and saw many of the mainstream news articles admitting that world leaders do indeed go there. Okay. Pause it. Well, well, well. Okay. All right. We're sorry about this. We, uh, we, we got, we just wanted to get this part. Go really quickly. Fused with ancient druidic rights, where you have the female side of Satan,

which they first call out to in the... And then towards the horn god with the he, mixed with Masonic rights from Scotland. Okay, all right, all right. So, just to give people a sense of what the conspiracism was about. Now, Daniel, you're reporting, revealed the names of the people who were at Bohemian Grove. And by the way, when you were at the intercept, they tried to kind of kill this story, which is very interesting.

And maybe you can talk a little bit about that. But it seems to me that his fixation on the rituals is obscuring the true conspiracy here, which is that it's like presidents, the Koch brothers, people associated with currently Project 2025, all meeting at this location and determining things like gutting social social social. security, for example. Right. Yeah, that was one of the big ones that we reported on the doc. But there's a lot of Heritage Foundation members who are, you know, half their board, I think, was kind of on our snapshot list that we got. Also, one part that we didn't fully explain in the documentary is the incredible number of military, high-ranking four-stars, military generals, Navy admirals who are on my list,

including General Hayes, who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, during the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, who kind of put together the War on Terror Playbook, and then subsequently went on, of course, to join the boards of multiple defense contractors. So whether it's that sort of macro scale or whether it was looking at the individual encampments where they sort of have these camps within the larger camp, right, where they summer and showing that members of one of those camps within a camp had donated, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars to a neighbors for a better San Francisco nonprofit, which opposed,

you know, progressive ballot measures and all these things. So, you know, literally disrupting the city that the clubhouse is based in, you know, from the micro to the macro, you can see the hard economic realities of how these people work together. Also, you know, massive donors, you know, a dozen donors to Dave McCormick, the senator from Pennsylvania who launched his campaign month after the 2023 grove encampment. So again, this does not show that these people run the entire world, but it shows how they work together to, you know, oppose progressive change or to forward their economic and social interests.

And, you know, I think whether it's the Epstein list, whether it's this, you know, there is an outpouring of populist outrage. And the question is, how do we channel that, you know? And I don't think that politicians in Washington, I think it's great that they've opened the book, but I don't think that they've done a good job channeling it. And I don't think they've done a good job pulling the right strings thus far. Absolutely not. And so I guess then we can just take us back through the history of Bohemian Grove.

How did it start? And even if you could talk about more recent history than its founding, like at its height, really, the Nixonian and Reagan kind of conservative apparatus being very tied to Bohemian Grove. Sure. So it was actually started as a sort of progressive drinking club for San Francisco's kind of OG bohemians. Like we're not talking about the beat generation. We're going even farther back into the 1800s. You know, and it attracted a lot of real left-wing progressive forces. Jack London was, you know, is sort of one of the famous, most famous members of that era, but of course, then it started attracting the barons of industry.

I think we see that all the time today. You know, think of something like Burning Man, right, which kind of started as just kind of freaks, like San Francisco freaks and California freaks going out into the desert and it was slowly co-opted by rich people who have no generative or creative abilities of their own, but are hungry, right, for that sort of outlaying of whatever. And then it sort of is slowly transformed decade after decade into this elite networking zone. And there's this, you know, summer enclave, which is supposed to, it's supposed to be a retreat from work, right? Their motto is weaving spiders come not here.

The big Alex Jones style ritual with this effigy that's burned in front of the owl is called the cremation of care. the idea being that you're burning the toil and concern of day-to-day life and you're entering into this retreat. But in the mid-century, it does become this really unique summit for the West Coast and eventually the East Coast political elite. You know, the Manhattan, the sort of foundational elements of the Manhattan Project are planned there during the off-season. Nixon ends up going there to shore up support and meet people. Reagan is continually going there. Former FBI and CIA directors start going.

And then in the early 2000s, you also see this sort of Bush era national security. Cohort, Colin Powell, Rumsfeld are all members. And we had a former employee tell us that Colin Powell, I think, played Hamlet, or at least was in the production of Hamlet. It was some Shakespearean. I listened to that whole report and that part made me laugh. Some Shakespearean play that they put on and there was a, and Colin Powell starred in it, right? Yeah.

I mean, it's so childish too, which is like, like my, finish your point and then I'll make another point. No, no, I'm just saying that it's, it's a good way to show elite collusion. And in a way, we already know this, right? We know that the upper classes work together. They engage in mergers and acquisitions together. But this shows that a granular detail, and I think inspires people to say, like, okay, we have to

figure out a way to reduce this level of power. And so there's a literal component of this, right, which is looking and actually tracing the money and looking at campaign finance donations and looking at policy memos that were sent back and forth referencing the growth. But there's also an emotional element, which is to say these people are partying and getting pissed drunk and literally pissing on these gorgeous, you know, 100-year-old redwoods. And, you know, is that really the world we want to live in where those, Those are the people determining our national policy. And when we say people, we should also just make clear men.

It's all men. It's a men's only club, right? I mean, that has not changed to this day. There's been, I think there's one large lawsuit around this issue. And I think, like, eventually they let women come visit, but women are not members. And the other thing I would say, too, is that, like, despite all their power, there have been successful class action lawsuits from, grow workers from valets, from people who won settlements for accusations of wage theft and

discrimination. So it's also like as rich and powerful as these guys are, like they also can't help themselves but be dicks and then have to fork over, you know, millions of dollars to pay out their employees. Right. And, and how does this differ when I mentioned how childish it is. You know, I, I, how does this differ from say other secret societies like skull and bones where we know, you know, if you went to Yale, you're like Bush and what was Kerry in, in skull and bones, I'm forgetting. But, you know, a lot of that that's in college, I guess. It's almost like they level up out of outside of college. And it's like, we're going to do the secret society, but now that we're billionaires and top politicians and we have.

the power to implement whatever we want. Yeah, I mean, I think those clubs are really interesting. I've always been interested in them, but they're much smaller scale, right? Like, those are just in terms of membership. They are, you know, I think usually it's like, it's only around a dozen, I think, people a year. So you're looking at, you know, maybe 40 people total or something. You know, Harvard has a bunch of them, Porcelain Club, which I think Winkle Voss are in and I think is in the social network. But again, I think going back to Bill Domhoff, the sociologist I mentioned, you know, these clubs are not essential, right? Like these people already exist in this amorphous upper class. They have telephones. They have email addresses. They can pick up the phone and call each other.

But these places are windows into these associations. So again, they're not essential for the collaboration of this sort of 1%, but they show us, you know, reporters, researchers, they are sort of signposts for how these things work. And I think the same as can be said with Epstein, you know, like there are a lot of billionaires who are engaging in tax crime and fraud and hush money settlements. And what we got with this Epstein saga is a view, a small view into, you know, one corner of that world. Talk a little bit about the examples of Bohemian club members coming together to determine policy.

There was a story in the more perfect union report about a Reagan advisor being convinced to cut the capital gains tax at the Grove. Other efforts to cut Social Security planned at the Grove. The Koch brothers part of this club. I mean, just just open it up and talk about some of the worst examples. Yeah. And I mean, I think the Koch brothers piece is really interesting too, right? They brought Clarence Thomas there to kind of wine and dine him. And, you know, those examples are, you know, there's documentation outside of my list, right?

Like in various, in the presidential libraries, even in the FBI archive, there are examples of the lakeside talks of the FBI and CIA directors giving speeches there. But I think one of the most interesting things we uncovered in terms of policy was the fact that, you know, Donald Trump, you know, we have two sources that basically say Donald Trump wanted to join the club. He approached the club. And basically the club was like, your dirty new money. You know, we're old money. And, you know, they very much were kind of the Jeb Bush, you know, neocon faction of the Republican Party. But even after Donald Trump was rejected by them, you know, they still kind of found a way to court his advisors and to use the Heritage Foundation to sort of craft his playbook and to try to still negotiate with that side. And they were able to do that because they had a deep donor network and they had deep, deep connections. So I think that is a really interesting example where, you know, we have this documentation of discussions being had, of, you know, federal policy being shaped. But then we also see that even when things go wrong, for them. Even when things go south, they have such a powerful diffuse network that they're

kind of able to sneak their tentacles back in and realign things. When you mentioned the You're the New Money thing, that's a fascinating part of this too, because I noticed that these members are, I mean, even though the Bushes are fashioned themselves as Texans, the reality is they came from old money in the Northeast. And then George H.W. Bush, probably working with intelligence started an oil company in Texas, and that's where they rebranded. But like, when you compare it to the Epstein class, it's almost newer money and more like national security base, perhaps, but I'm trying to draw a distinction here. It seems like very much like this Bohemian Grove formal network at the height of its power,

perhaps was like the 70s and the 80s, and this was also these kind of blue-blooded conservative forces that shaped the modern Republican Party, for example. Yeah, and I think it's fair to say that, like, in the pre-Internet age, right, this type of FaceTime, this type of, you know, kind of roving event, right?

I mean, it's a huge, like 70 acres or something, right? With all these different clubhouses and events and stuff. So I think during that time, it was actually a more important networking space, and that's why you kind of see even greater hyper concentration. But I think, yeah, I think the defense aspect is really interesting. I mean, there's obviously an intelligence nexus. I mean, there's a former NSA director on the list I have.

But I think to me what's more interesting is the sheer number of military commanders. You know, that's really where you see that these people who, you know, are, you know, I personally move of the opinion that, you know, we have civilian control of the military. You know, I actually think that, like, you know, I obviously think the war in Iraq and Afghanistan was a horrible mistake, but I think that, you know, the role of our military is to follow the order of the person we elected to be president. And so my biggest issue with senior officers is that then they go into private practice, right? And they cash in and they advise companies on how to take advantage of the government and how to take

advantage of endless wars. And that's where it really gets dirty because then you have the private sector influencing policy and pushing for war and pushing for conflict. And I think that's the incredible thing is just seeing, you know, a dozen of these people cash out, right? And then go in summer in this pristine enclave. I mean, to me, that's pretty insane and sickening. And one part, I hope it's boosted more. Yes, absolutely. Lastly, can you speak a little bit about we have an I.M. here, Hakeem's Nancy Davis eyes, which is very obscure. One of the co-founders of the

John Burch Society is the Koch Brothers' father. I'm wondering if you think there's any connections with Bohemian Grove and the John Birch Society. I mean, there probably is. There's a lot of people involved. Right. But there's an interesting mix here, right, of like the sort of fiscal conservatives,

but at the same time they're doing this freaky stuff. And like, I think there's this famous Nixon quote where, you know, he called it like this weird, queer, gay, you know, thing where everyone's got their junk out and they're pissing all over each other. And I think there's, there's, there is something interesting there, right, where it's kind of like the most extreme conservatives probably would flinch at at what goes on there. And so it's kind of this weird thing of old money. But like the Epstein story, it's a elites are playing with their power. Yes. In debauchrous or rapacious ways that is, I think, difficult for us

to understand as regular people why that kind of, release for the powerful is both a camaraderie exercise and also another exercise of their power. Well, yeah, I mean, and I think that that's totally true. And that's an important piece that, like, I don't know, that I wish was discussed more is that I think a lot of times this like stuff, whether it's like getting drunk and harassing people or whether it's this idea of basically like, you know, sanctioned, accepted pedophilia. Like, The motive for that, I think, in a lot of ways, is this idea of taboo, right? This idea that you are so insulated from the normal laws,

you know, actual laws, but also social expectations of society, that you can engage in this. And that in engaging with it, you prove your membership to that club. And I think that's one of the really interesting things about Epstein, was it was kind of like, you see in some of these emails of people who, like, you know, there's no evidence. of them engaging in pedophilia or in sex, but they're emailing with Epstein, and they're kind of like you dog, like you love young women, right? Even Trump says that. And I think implicit in that is this

acknowledgement of like, we're all part of this club. We all know you are violating the law and violating our normal moral ethical code, but by acknowledging that and being part of that, like we are all part of this club. And like, I think that's been going on for thousands of years, right? I mean, I think that's how the elite works, you know, and it's not a genetic predisposition or something. It's a form of social cohesion. Well said. Daniel Boguslaw, thanks so much for coming on, investigative journalists covering corporate crime, government agencies and politics at Deeper States. Check him out on Substack. We'll put a link to that down below wherever people are listening to this or watching it. Daniel, thanks so much for your time today.

Thanks for having me. Of course. Quick break. And when we come back, we're going to be speaking to the two elected co-chairs of the Democratic Socialists of America, Aishik Zedek and Megan Romer. We are back and we are joined now by Aishik Sadiq and Megan Romer, the two elected co-chairs of Democratic Socialists of America. Here to talk about a major milestone in membership 100,000 strong. Welcome to the show, you guys. Thanks so much for having us.

Thanks so much. Thanks so much for coming on. Megan, I'll turn to you first. Just speak a little bit about the surge in membership and how significant it is that DSA is at 100,000 members at this point. Yeah, DSA 100K. This is something we've been working for towards for a long time. It's extremely exciting. And just sort of seeing, you know, it's not just members in big cities, right? We have over 200 chapters across the country, over 100 YDSA chapters. And so, yeah, the search, it's kind of a push-factor pull-factor situation, right? There's a lot of excitement about Zoranam-Dani, obviously. But also some of our other candidates, we have lots of folks who've won office in municipal races

and in-state houses across the country, and those have really driven membership. But then, of course, there's the push factor also, which is the re-election of Trump and him being just an absolute ghoul for the last, last stretch of time for Trump, too. And Ashik, how about the genocide in Gaza? Do you find that when you speak to members that have joined since October 2023, that that was a motivating factor as well? Yeah, absolutely.

And even before that, Palestine organizing has been a critical factor that's brought people in, just anti-imperialism. I myself was really activated to pay attention more to politics through the Iraq War and just the global war on terror expanding. So I think a lot of us have been coming to a left, you know, socialist analysis, anti-imperialist analysis of, you know, what the United States has been doing all over the world. So since October 2023, it's been extremely activating. The anti-war movement has grown a lot, and DSA has been a core part of that.

So we're really proud to be helping deepen the struggle for Palestine. It's brought a lot of people in. And just in the past two months, just to see the ways that the Trump administration is expanding the Monroe Doctrine, you know, calling it the Donro doctrine. that's been extremely activating. And we've had a whole analysis about why this is happening, why the United States is expanding this even further. It isn't starting with Trump.

Trump is just exposing what has been happening for, you know, over a century now. And Megan, when you're also looking at union membership ticking up slightly, even in spite of the Trump administration kind of just grinding the National Labor Relations Board. to a halt. I saw there was a piece in Jacobin about that increase kind of being a bit disproportionate in the South, which is very exciting. Like, how do you see DSA's role in fitting into and supporting union drives and workers organizing across the country and how that fits into the increase in membership? Yeah. So it's, you know, we touch on labor from a bunch of different a bunch of different points.

We have an organization that's a coalition of DSA and UE, the electricians union, United Electricians, and it's called EWAC. So cute, right? We love it. It's Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee. And EWAC trains people to take on sort of new organizing. So you can kind of call into EWAC and say, hey, I'm having this problem in my workplace. What can I do?

and they can coach you through a variety of options, whether, you know, if it makes sense to reach out to an existing union right now and unionize your shop from the jump, whether it makes sense to sort of think about escalating demands, and we're really able to train a lot of people through that program, and it's been really exciting,

and we're seeing chapters take on and create local Ewox, where they're able to do that just really directly with folks in their city, get the kind of the labor knowers to transfer their non-examination. to people who would like to learn. We also have coalition, you know, coalition work with, you know, unions at a national level.

And one of our priority campaigns right now is supporting Starbucks workers, which is an exciting. It's a great way for chapters that are maybe smaller, maybe chapters in the South that have really low union density, that don't already have a bunch of union members in them to get out and connect with folks who are trying to unionize because there's a Starbucks everywhere, literally everywhere. Yes, exactly right. And she can can you speak a little bit about how ICE's attacks on Minnesota and other areas of the country have impacted DSA membership too because we, you know, we're seeing how essential organizing is and kind of community connection and these networks in it's it's actually the only thing that is effective. Our politicians, the Democrats, are neutered, to put it mildly, and even the tools at, like, their disposal are insufficient with this kind of federal government crackdown.

So I feel like more than ever the central kind of community message of DSA is very, very poignant and fits the moment. Yeah, for sure. So it's very clear that the capacities that DSA chapters all over the country have been building up for the better part of a decade now are really powerfully situating our chapters to respond against ICE. Minneapolis is a great example with our Twin Cities DSA chapter. Our Los Angeles DSA chapter was there when ICE started occupying last year. Chicago chapters like North New Jersey DSA, North Texas DSA are chapters that have built up capacities with labor unions, workers and core unions and helping activate them to be involved in community organizing, our community defense networks that have spun up in chapters like this.

Our socialists in office have been front and center using their platforms to advocate against collaboration with ICE. So what our chapters have been able to do in places like this, especially the past two months in Minneapolis, we've had rapid response networks, Ice Watch, organizing to stop local police departments from collaborating officially with ICE. We're doing know-your-rights trainings, businesses of local businesses. where people can be vulnerable to, you know, to ICE, detentions and deportations, organizing to prevent new ICE facilities, and economic disruptions, working with organized labor,

doing court support. All these things are possible because of the ways that DSA chapters are already organizing, and it's come together really powerfully. So to see people in Minneapolis right now, I'm on a chapter visit, it's really impressive to see the ways that DSA members have been showing up with the broader community and the really strong, resilient networks that have come up, that are organizing in all sorts of ways that are really activating civil society in ways that I haven't seen in my lifetime.

It's a scary time, but it's a really exciting and hopeful time for a lot of people, just feeling their collective power together. And Megan, can you speak about how DSA works to collaborate globally with other leftist organizing and movements, particularly the Global South, for example? Yeah. So DSA is a member of Progressive International, which is an international, right, like the old days. It's different parties and organizations from around the world who have this sort of connective tissue and opportunities to, you know, learn from each other to sort of use each other's on the ground analysis to kind of figure out what our next steps should be. it's it's really exciting to be able to work from and learn from you know folks who are fighting U.S. imperialism from the other side and figuring out sort of what they've what they've done, what their analysis is, what it looks like on the ground, how even things like nitty gritty things,

like how do you do new member onboarding? Like those are conversations that we have, which, you know, there's so much to learn from each other, both macro and micro and being part of these coalitions is really powerful. And yeah, a sure. Sheik and I were able to go to Sweden also recently, and we were able to visit with the left party there, right before Zoran one office. So it was kind of fun to see like, okay, so, you know, how do you govern? What does this look like? You have some executive power here. We're curious.

What does that look like for you? So we, you know, we use those connections and those international, you know, there's a lot of knowledge that has been developed around the world. and no reason to reinvent wheels that have been. Well, I mean, it's essential because the global right is extremely well organized. I mean, between Steve Bannon's like summits in Italy with a bunch of wannabe fascists where they're trying to style themselves as Victor Orban types and like just in how they borrow from one another, whether it's Trump and Malay, whether it's Trump and Orban, whether it's Trump and Netanyahu. I mean, I think that Trump enjoys, like, seeing how the Iranian regime is cracking down on protesters. Like, they, there is more organization and that is benefited by cap, or that's aided by capital. So we have to go with the people power piece.

And I'm interested, Ashik, if you could talk a little bit about how, like, what would you say DSA is most interested in building towards from like a policy perspective? in the medium term. Like, would it be pushing for a Medicare for all or universal health care type agenda? Is it about an arms embargo? And, you know, there's sometimes critics that say that DSA shouldn't be working to elect people within the Democratic Party. I would argue it's the most efficient vehicle for that, but perhaps you could expand on the defense of that tactic.

Yeah. So from coast to coast right now, DSA chapters are organizing, especially around affordability and cost of living issues. This has been a core part of why Zeranamundi just caused so many, just activated such a powerful base in New York City. And our two largest chapters right now, New York City, DSA and DSA Los Angeles are campaigning to tax the rich to fund different initiatives toward the end of things that we talk about as just universal services. We really want to focus on things that we call transformative reforms or non-reformist reforms that help meet working class people's needs, but also raise expectations for what is possible and to activate people to organize in their own interests. So DSA chapters across the country are campaigning, you know, beyond electoral cycles

on demands around rent control, like Zornan talks about freezing the rent, public transit, free and public buses and subways, universal child care, and funding them by taxing the rich, just making the case about why these things are being blocked by the very powerful interests that you talk about all the time on the show. Just the, you know, all the Bohemian Grove people were against that. You know, we want everything for everyone. We want a campaign on deeply felt needs across the country beyond our own membership and identify the billionaires and their collaborators.

It's the people who stand in the way. So you can see more about what our basic program is. It's called Workers Deserve More. If you just search platform.d.sa.org, that lays out all the things that we want to campaign on. and we're really highlighting chapters that are campaigning around these kinds of things. And we want to make the international connections too. Like you mentioned Labor Farms embargo.

That's a core campaign priority for us right now to activate people in labor unions to organize and military aid to Israel. Because organized labor is the backbone of anything that we're campaigning for, whether it's the climate crisis or internationalism or anything else. We want to make sure that workers are organizing in their own interests toward those things and shaping how those things happen. We're not just activists on the outside or people who elect good, good socialist-branded people and then hope for the best. It's always about organizing everything together more powerfully. So you asked about the Democratic Party.

We, you know, we are trying to organize to throw out bad Democrats, but we're also building socialist power. And the point for us is to build independent power through our organization. DSA is now approaching the size of the socialist party over a century ago. So hopefully we'll to pass that. soon, but the point for us is to just have independent, accountable power in an elected office that's accountable to a Democratic, small-de-democratic base to take on the establishment and the Republican and the Democratic Party. So mostly we do run people on the ballot line in primaries, on the Democratic Party ballot line, but we have our independent power. And the Democratic Party

leadership hates that. And we think that's great. Well, I mean, and when we also support here on the show when the situation applies running a say and independent like i mean the dan osborne candidacy is an example of something i know this is not dsa but like you know it's specific to the region to the area where you're running and uh in new york the most uh effective vehicle to get socialist powers through the democratic primary process as we saw with zoran momdani and uh i really do think and perhaps Megan, you can reflect on this, that his, the way that he

has governed here, it would not have been possible without DSA organizing because it creates this kind of base of activation and support that allows him to act with

the urgency that is required of the office and that has been so I think admirable in how he has tried to just continuously be on offense, take the fight to the established powers. Like, what, when you reflect on that victory, how do you see how organizing emboldened the campaign? Yeah, I mean, I think that's true for those on Mamdani campaign. I think it is equally, if not even sometimes more so true for some of our smaller municipal offices, the ones that aren't maybe as sort of big and attention. because it's not New York City, and it's not the mayorality. But it's, you know, we see chapters who are able to use these municipal offices, city

counselors and county government officials to really move, like, very specific agenda items, things like expanding transit, for example. And that doesn't have, you know, there, again, like we're talking push and full factors, right? So you've got your poll factor is kind of the person in office. They're the ones who are kind of like, you know, able to move the messaging in a way that, you know, they have a platform and a mic and whatever. Your push factor is this organized mass of people who are able to, you know, show that, yes, there are big rallies lining up for comment at city council meeting, not like the sexiest work, but really important and important to show all those sort of people who are

on the fence, the sort of milk toast dems, the, the, the, less engage people that like there is this movement here you can be part of it and it's it's you know here to hold you accountable um so i think i think you see that kind of at every level um i think you know for a lot of us the burning campaign was the first time we kind of thought of politics like that right you elect a person and then they do good right but that is we sort of learned like oh this this is a mass movement campaign what does that mean and we had to kind of rethink the way we thought about politics and that's that's what we're trying to do here get people to rethink the way they think about politics. Yes. I think that that last point is so key because when you contrast it with

there are reformer mayors and other examples of them, you know, the the powers of capital like rush in. Brandon Johnson's an example. It's just like smear campaign immediately. Everything kind of falls apart. You don't necessarily have the power base of people that protects you from the worst of the attempts to sabotage, not saying their equivalent politics. but I just do think it's an interesting example. Just to add to that about Zoron's power in New York City coming out of DSA and aligned organizations, it really can't be overstated for us just how much Zoran really comes out of New York City, DSA. His work in the State Assembly before he ran for mayor came out of the New York City DSA Socialists and Office Block,

which is really focused on building that kind of independent alignment of strategy to figure out. with our membership. Like, what are the priorities in Albany at the state level of government? So, DSA members organized in core labor unions and community groups, groups like Desi's Rising Up and Moving, which is a group of mostly South Asian immigrant workers and tenant organizers who built a really strong community base for years, and were not represented in the political system. So Zoran's campaign identified pretty early on, like these are core parts of the working class in New York City, which is a very diversity, including politically diverse. Like when I was growing up there, I'm from South Brooklyn, it was, parts of the city were pretty conservative. So this is a really meaningful working class,

diverse coalition that was organized. And New York City, DSA members really helped do that. And that's how a bunch of labor unions came out early on, like public sector workers that would not have intervened, if not for TSA members who were workers in those sectors making the case for why this was a viable alternative that was worth fighting for. And that's the base of him being able to anything in office. Exactly. Exactly right. Two quick IMs and then we'll let you go. One for each of you. Alex Andert says, where did he get that rad sweatshirt? Oh, wow. Yeah, this is product placement. I think you can check out Dream NYC. If you just Google anti-billioner Socialist Club. We also have plenty of great merch in our DSA store. Yeah, go for it. Megan's rocking our hat right now.

Yes. The hat is rad as well. And then we have another I.m. This is a Nice Floridians for Emma. Thank you. Sorry, you're in Florida, although I'm sure the weather's better than here. Got to meet Megan about a month ago during a chapter's tour. She is incredible. So happy you had her and as she gone. Everyone listening should go find their local chapter and just attend an event. There's an incredible movement growing each day, even in the most unexpected places.

We are always stronger together. I was just going to say, hidden 100,000. We got like what? About 100,000 people that listen to this. show on a daily basis. Let's get that up to like 5,000. Let's get 5,000 people sign up. USA org slash join.

Yes. We don't help us be the historical socialist party. I think they had 112,000 or 118 maybe, so we can surpass that pretty soon. If you don't. Let's do it. Membership numbers have not been dropping, you know, the uptick, it's not quite the surge it was

like the day after Zoroa got elected, but still definitely an upward trajectory. As our chapter recruit people in their communities with the work they're doing. And yeah, it's exciting. Well, very exciting stuff. Ashik Sadik, Megan Romer, the co-chairs elected to lead the Democratic Socialists of America. Lots of internal democracy in DSA.

Quite the contrast to the Democratic Party saying, no, Biden's the nominee. You better deal with it. That's not the kind of thing you're going to find in DSA. the messiness of democracy, but also the beauty of it, is very present in DSA membership. So appreciate you guys. Thank you so, so much. And we will put a link down below for people to learn more about joining DSA in the video and episode descriptions. Yep.

Thank you guys. Thanks so much. All right, folks, with that, we're going to wrap up the free part of this program and head into the fun half where we will take your calls, read your IMs, do all of that fun stuff. We will be celebrating Brandon Sutton's fourth birthday of the week. Is that what we're talking about here? That's right. We can hear him. Wait one second. One second. Brandon's not in yet.

Brandon's not yet and we can't hear him cheering on what I'm advocating for the continued celebration of Brandon's birthday. Four days in. There you go. Four days in. I'm Royal Tenenbaum, Macon. thing tonight too. What does that mean? I got my whole sledding your wrist in a bathroom. Wow.

No. Sorry. Doing light incest. Wow. I just meant wearing a track suit. I guess I haven't seen that movie in a long time. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, isn't there incest in that movie? I don't know. between Luke Wilson and his sister. Yes. Again, with Gwyneth Paltrow. Yeah. Not my favorite. I'm not a huge West Anderson person.

I'm fine. But it's like, I feel like one that I've seen one. You've kind of seen them all. What? I'm, that's one you like, right? I like colors because I'm simple. And so I like his movies because they're very colorful.

I think he's my favorite Anderson director amongst the Paul W.S. in Wes Anderson Trifecta. But Paul WS is obviously like, you know, a really good director. I guess my favorite's the Grand Budapest Hotel. I like that movie. But yeah, anyway.

I like President Evil One with Milozovic. I got sidetracked. What is happening on the discourse, Brandon, birthday Brandon? Birthday Brandon. We have been celebrating my birthday this week, which was Monday. And obviously some people feel like that's. a little bit indulgent. I disagree and I would also point out

that they hated on Jesus too if you'll recall from your Bible weapons that they hated on Jesus and so when you adopt that posture Yeah, when you adopt that posture aimed towards me you also are in many ways I guess like mirroring

the people who crucified Christ for being the son of the Lord or the Lord himself. I don't know. Again, I haven't watched Veggie Tales in many years. which is kind of the theme of my birthday. So what we're going to be doing tomorrow is continuing our live watch, well, I guess live watch, but watch through of the Candace Owens' Erica Kirk documentary,

which we almost got through the entire first episode today when Candace took a turn towards a more obscure type of bigotry than we were expecting. And so tomorrow we'll be continuing that for the fifth day of my birthday celebration. So if you want to figure out which group Candice is racist to get, this week, you'll have to either tune into the discourse or watch her show yourself, which I would not recommend because of the immense psychic damage it might do to you. So go over to the weekend page, the discourse with Brandon or Twitch. You're that meme of the guy with standing, the soldier with his arms out in front of that

child with all these knives going into their back. You're protecting all of the precious audience members from the psychic damage of Candace Owens, because they don't have your brain capacity to take it on. I like to think of myself as that little like box that you can make out of like toilet paper tubes and like milk cartons that you use to look at eclipses, eclipse eye, eclipse or going blind. Obviously like our president, Donald Trump, did not require such a box, but I would not suggest you engaging in that behavior without me. I well said that you are you are the card the cardboard tube box to. protect people from the eclipse. Eclipse.

Yeah. That's where we've landed. Whoa. And then we lost Matt Binger for a sec. Do we have him back? Bender might need to reconnect. His connection hasn't been stable. If you can hear us, Matt.

Well, you know, I will say, allow me to say, even though Matt probably can't hear it, that for my birthday, I've been feeling extra grateful this year. And I do want to say live in front of a studio audience that I'm extra grateful for the majority report family for you know, everything you've done to enrich me, not just when I've been on the show, but for the years that I watched the show, this is obviously very applicable to Matt Bender, who's not quite here right now. So you'll have to report this to him later. But I'm really appreciative of the ways in which you've enriched me and helped me grow intellectually and emotionally in terms of, like, community. And I don't say that enough to people. No. I feel the same way about you, Brandon. I was, I learned something new every time we have a conversation.

I think about something differently every time you say something like, you know, at least once a show. So you're, we're, we love you. Uh, happy birthday four days later, even though I already texted you about this, but we're here to be indulgent. I love you all too. Yes, very sweet. So thanks so much. Uh, this is the kind of sincerity. I'm usually the only one that engages in.

So I love, I love, I love it. Everyone's up. They're also. I imagine this is salmon us? I live wept on my stream on Monday. I was off on Monday, but on Tuesday, an appreciation of all of you in my audience. And I'm not ashamed to say it because, like, tear maxing is the new meta. That's how Jordan Peterson got to us.

You got to put that. Yeah, that's Jordan Peterson's technique. It works. A lot of perverts out there. They love when you start crying. Are you joking? Clips of me crying. It's like, I mean, people run with it.

run with it. Oh, she's sad about what's happening in Gaza. Oh, I'm sad. Trump on the election, shit, lib. Exactly. Exactly. You know, well, they can't appreciate it because, like, when they're crying over silly things like the Cracker Barrow logo being changed or, like, Charlie Kirk,

if any such person existed, we're crying over real things, like my birthday. And the core degradation of American society. Oh, hello, Matt Bender. Hello. My internet went down at the wrong time. I missed out on a lot of what Brendan was saying. And it sounds like it was very emotionally charged. Well, luckily, it's recorded.

So you can go back and relive it in that way. Matt Vinder, what's happening with your shows? Not much. I don't even know if there's a leftist mafia tonight. I'll let everybody know. Everyone is busy today. but there might be, there might not be, I guess, YouTube.com slash Mapender, subscribe there.

And if we're live, you'll get the notification. Matt Leck, what's happening on Left Reckoning and the Jackman Show? Yeah, Left Reckoning, we had a show on Tuesday. Go check that out. And we got a Sunday show for people on Patreon.com, slash Left Reckoning coming up for Sunday members. and Jackman Show tomorrow on Iran and why it would be bad if we bombed Iran. Yeah.

And I'm very glad that in a time since we recorded that earlier this week, we haven't bombed Iran yet. Thank God. Thank God. All right, folks. We're going to head into the fun half. As a reminder, the show relies on your support. Join the Majority Report.com. You can IAM the show.

You can become a member. Even if you don't feel like I-Ming, it helps us stay resilient as we are on third-party platforms that can make determinations about us on a whim. And without members, we would not be able to do what we do. So join the majority report.com. All right. See you in the fun half. Okay, Emma, please. Well, I just, I feel that my voice is sorely lacking on the majority report. Wait, look, Sam was unpopular. I do deserve a vacation at Disney World. So, ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to welcome Emma to the show. It is Thursday I think you need To TIPO River Sam

That's police Sir, I'm gonna I'm gonna pause you right there Wait what? You can't encourage How much To live like this And I'll tell you why

So it's offered a twerk Sushi and poker With the boys Sushi and Puppins Dwarf Sushi and the ties I just think that What you did to Tim Poole

Was mean Free speech That's not what we're about here Look at how sad He's become now You shouldn't even talk about it I think you're responsible. I probably am in a certain way, but let's get to the meltdown here.

Twerk? Ugh. Sushi and poker with the boys. Oh my God. Twerk? Wow. Sushi. I'm sorry.

I'm losing my fucking mind. Someone's offered a twirp? Yeah. Sushi and poker with the boys. Logic. Twerp. Sushi and poker. Like a little kid, a little kid, a little kid.

Just don't understand. So I'm not trying to be a dick right now, but like, I absolutely think the U.S. should be providing me with a wife and kids. That's not. what we're talking about here. It's not a fun job. That's a real thing. That's a real thing. Willie Walker.

That's a real thing. It has like the weight of the world on the shoulders. Sanders doesn't want to do this show anymore. It was so much easier. When the majority report was just you, you were happy. Let's change the subject. Now, shut up. Don't want people saying reckless things on your program.

That's one of the most difficult parts about this show. This is a pro-killing podcast. I'm thinking maybe it's time to bury the house. You left is best. Ultra. Violet twer. We already fund Israel. Incredible theme song.

I Bumblers. Emma Viglin. Absolutely one of my favorite people. Actually, not just in the game. Like, period.