The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3612 - The Christo-Fascist Shadow President w/ Andy Kroll

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

It's News Day Tuesday on the Majority Report On today's program: The Trump administration continues to refuse to use contingency reserves to fund SNAP benefits. Trump brags about acing an IQ test and claims that AOC or Jasmine Crockett could never "pass the test" in a racist tirade. Turns out the IQ test was nothing more than a cognitive assessment designed to test for dementia. Matt administers the same test to Sam live on air. Journalist covering justice and rule of law at ProPublica, Andy Kroll joins the program to discuss his profile piece on Russ Vought. Check out Andy's article, "The Shadow President". In the Fun Half: Jim Breuer takes to social media to ask Ron DeSantis to explain the "chemtrails" in the sky. EPA Commissioner, Lee Zeldin shows that he is listening to his constituents such as Breuer as he announces a plan to share everything they know about chemtrails and "weather control" Bill Maher calls for Zohran Mamdani to renounce his Uganda citizenship over their policies that criminalize homosexuals. Those policies that were constructed with the assistance of U.S. evangelical leaders. Former White House Press Secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre was asked if she had any regrets about selling Biden's genocide support in Palestine to which she replies, "I am proud of everything I've done and take nothing back". Graham Platner continues to pack out rallies in small towns across Maine All that and more The Congress switchboard number is [phone]. You can use this number to connect with either the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives. 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: HELLOFRESH: Go to HelloFresh.com/majority10fm to get 10 Free Meals + Free breakfast for Life! One per box with active subscription. Free meals applied as discount on first box, new subscribers only, varies by plan. ZOCDOC: Learn a new Language and get up to 55% off your subscription at Babbel.com/MAJORITY SUNSET LAKE:  Head to SunsetLakeCBD.com and use coupon code “Left Is Best” (all one word) for 20% off of your entire order  Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattLech Check out Matt’s show, Left Reckoning, on YouTube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning Check out Matt Binder’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/mattbinder Subscribe to Brandon’s show The Discourse on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ExpandTheDiscourse Check out Ava Raiza’s music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.com

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Time for the show. with Sam Cedar. It is Tuesday, October 28th, 2025. My name is Sam Cedar. This is the five-time award-winning majority report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, USA. On the program today, Andy Kroll, journalist of ProPublica, covering, justice and the rule of law

on a deeper look into Russell vote the crypto-fascist shadow president also on the program we are days away for 42 million Americans

to lose nutrition support because Donald Trump and the Republicans have decided that's what they want to use for leverage to cut people's health insurance. Massive hurricane bearing down on Jamaica, the Texas AG sues Tylenol

claiming that Tylenol has been hiding autism risks. Good job. Meanwhile, U.S. kills 14 more. anonymous boaters in the eastern Pacific Ocean because apparently we can. Two Illinois National Guardsmen announced they're going to refuse to obey federalization orders to deploy in Chicago. Hopefully this is just the beginning. Trump's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, incidentally,

acting chair of that Russell vote to issue a directive aimed at preventing states from wiping medical debt from credit reports. New York Times following a Ziteo documentary reveals that U.S. assessment of the killing of Shereen Abu Aqla, Palestinian American journalist, shot by the Israelis in 2022. downplayed that the Israelis did it deliberately. Trump regime is replacing ICE regional leaders with more aggressive border patrol officials. Remember, border patrol operates within 100 miles of the border. Ice operates everywhere else.

Amazon to lay off 30,000. Brad Lander, a New York City Council member, Alexa Avilles, looked to both challenge sitting Congressman Dan Goldman. This as early voting underway in New York City for the mayoral race, apparently Gen Xers and boomers first to the polls. All this and more on today. Majority Report. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, Emma Viglin, out today. We are on day 28 of the shutdown. The administration is pretending now that they do not have the legal authority, of course they do, to provide for 42 million Americans receiving SNAP benefits, which of course is a meager some to help people not starve. And A, we know that we talked about this yesterday, the contingency funds have been set aside $5 billion.

We know that it was on the website of the USDA up until like a day or two ago, saying that the funds were available. We also know that this administration has been. recid um pounding funds meant for things and providing funds not meant to be provided for in a willy-nilly fashion so the idea that they couldn't fund snap is just simply a blatant lie we got follow the law and they are doing this in service of cutting health insurance for people That's the leverage. Do you want to eat or do you want health insurance?

That's the choice that they're giving the American people. We'll talk a little bit more about that later in the program. We get a lot to get to. But let's have a moment of fun, a little bit of levity in the first half of the show. You will be happy to know that your president is not suffering. from dementia according to him. Here he is on Air Force One explaining that he took an IQ test that shows that he's super intelligent. Apparently, they did not tell him the test has been released that it wasn't an IQ test. It was just to see if he has dementia. But he's very excited

that he thinks he passed. A great group of people, which they don't. They have Jasmine Crockett, a low IQ person. They have AOC's low IQ. You give her an IQ test. Have her passed like the exams that I decided to take when I was at Walter Reed. I took, it was a very hard, they're really aptitude tests, I guess, in a certain climate, like they're cognitive tests.

Let AOC go against Trump. let jasmine go against some i don't think jasmine the first couple of questions are easy a tiger an elephant at giraffe you know when you get up to about five or six and then when you get up to 10 and 20 and 25 they couldn't come close to answering any of those questions pause for one second did he say questions can you go back and like isn't he's got some weird um like uh dencher james cagney type of like a thing going on Well, let's just hear that again. They couldn't come close to answering any of those questions.

He chose to take the test. Like, I know I'm here for an MRI. Who knows why I would do that. Do you have a test that could take? Do you have like an IQ test or a cognitive test? And this is the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, Moka. Now, I have not seen this before, but apparently you guys want to give me the test, right? I'd like to administer you the most of the test.

Is this number 10? This is the first question. This is the first question. Well, and, you know, this would be you drawing a clock of 10 past 11. We're going to assume you can do that, but let's get to the first questions here. I'll do you a little bit of service there. So can you name these? Okay, from left to right

Okay, so this is the easy part I should say, all right From left to right So that's a lion A rhinoceros and a camel A one hump camel Now you notice I specifically nailed it as a one hump camel

As opposed to a two hump camel A lot of people make that mistake They'll assume just a camel is Necessarily has two humps or one hump Now for the next part This is when it starts to get a little bit tough. Okay, now we're getting into. Focus.

This is going to be me reading a list of words, and you must repeat them. Oh, shit. Okay. So I'm going to start reading the five words. Face Velvet Church Daisy Red. Face Velvet Church Daisy Red. Okay, now the second time. Okay, but you can go a little slower.

Face Velvet. We have to do two trials of this. Okay. Face Velvet Church Daisy Red. Face Velvet Church Daisy Red. Okay. Now I'm going to read a list of digits, and you have to repeat them in the forward order, the way I relate them. Forward order?

The way I give them, okay? This is confusing. Well, you know, this is this is this tough test. You want to be a genius or not? Yeah. Are you stacking up the Trump or not? Okay. 21854.

21854. Now, this one is going to be three numbers, but you have to repeat them in reverse order. Oh, damn it. 742 247 Now I'm going to read a list of letters You must tap your hand Actually tap the microphone

I'm going to adjust the instructions here When I read the letter A Okay F-B-A C-M-A-N-A J-K-L-B-A F-A-K-D-E-E-A-A-J-A-A-M-O-F-A-A-M-O-F-A-A-B so I would say you got about it

But you were going so fast I couldn't if that's not fair 65% I mean he said it got tougher I'd like to see Jasmine Crockett do you I know Jasmine Crockett is she's dusted already Okay now you see it's still stuck on

One hump camel two hump camel She can't handle this stuff Repeat after me Okay I only know that John is the one to help today I only know that John is the one to help today I only know that John is the one to help today. Okay. Let's give you a point for that. The cat always hid under the couch when

dogs were in the room. The cat always hit under the couch when dogs were in the room. Let's do one final one. This is abstraction. A similarity between e.g. a banana and a fruit would be fruit. So what's the similarity between a train and a bicycle? They're both modes of transportation. Now, I don't have the answers for these. So I agree with you on that. What's the similarity between a watch and a ruler? They demarc units of, they demarc units. Okay, yes. That is the final test.

You lost to Trump. What are you talking about? We don't actually have. That was it? Those are, that's all the. Your IQ, you're welcome to Mensa. I'm president. I'm president.

You know, my uncle went to MIT. I think it shows. Do you remember how quickly I said, Lion? Just like that. The final question is, what's the date month, year, date? Where are you?

It's basically a field sobriety test. Exactly. I mean, the guy's been bragging about passing, passing tests like that for a long time. He said he volunteered to take it. Like, I wanted to take it. Did he take this in the blue tent?

Do you have any more tests? I want to show how apt I am. I just don't think that they do random MRIs. Maybe they do. Maybe they just give them a random MRI just to see if there's anything, like a full body scan. I'm feeling frisky today. I didn't. Let me just take a look out of the hood.

Imagine him, like, sliding into the MRI. Oh, my God. I think they're going to have to do some type of wrap around. In a moment, we're going to be talking to Andy Kroll. He is a writer for ProPublica. He's been writing about Russell Vote for a long time. And, you know, we've been talking about Russell vote for a long time, but I have to say that there's a lot of stuff in this piece that I found new. and interesting.

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varies by plan that's hellofresh dot com slash majority one zero fm to get 10 free meals check it out we'll put the link in the podcast and youtube description all right now take quick break andy kroll journalist at pro publica covering justice in the rule law on his deep dive into Russell vote. We'll be right back after this. We are back, Sam Cedar on the majority report. I want to welcome back to the program, Andy Croll. He is an investigative reporter at ProPublic. and Andy, you've been on the Russell vote beat for a while. And this is, I mean, I feel like over the past year, I mean, I think we even spoke in the run

up to the inauguration. And he has done everything, I think, on some level that I know that you had predicted or talked about, and we had been talking about here. and you did a deep dive into this guy and really you've pegged him as the shadow president it really does feel like between him and uh stephen miller that's the entire agenda but let's start with this uh what i found really interesting in your piece or at least one of the things aside from sort of like the disturbing origins of of russell vote was that he was a lot more happy about Doge than I think certainly at the time that I had assumed he was.

But before we get there, give us the background of Russ vote, because I also learned through your piece that he's a lot more of a social, a cultural warrior than I think I had anticipated based upon just his role in the office budget management management. Yeah, it's great to be back as always. This was actually kind of a revelation for me as well. He, I think, even more than Stephen Miller, brings together, merges the sort of fiscal hawk, slash and burn, doge-esque policy stuff on one side, and then the kind of maga culture warrior. Christian nationalist approach, vision, ethos as well in a way that not a lot of people do. the cultural religious stuff we trace all the way back to the beginning like the literal beginning

his family upbringing his mom in particular was founding christian schools and was speaking to the press we're going back into like the 80s here talking about the importance of like teaching biblical principles in public education talking about how if the country moves away from you know what she described as these Judeo-Christian values, principles, whatever, teachings, that the country is going to descend into disease, amarchy, sin. I mean, it's a really dystopic view. So you have that piece that, again, the foundation for him seems to be laid very early. I heard talking when he was a kid.

And then you have the shrink the government down to size slash government programs, cut up the social safety net. And I think that that foundation is laid when he's working on Capitol Hill as a young staffer all the way up to a senior advisor. And he really sort of develops this expertise in how the government works, where the money goes, how it flows, and how you could cut it off if you had the power to him. I was struck by one moment in the piece where they have come to him and said, you know, people are going to die if you cut USAID. and he said, well, you could say that about any program that we have, which, okay, that may be true, but it sort of misses the point. How, what is the relationship between that Christian nationalism? And he's an avowed Christian nationalist, that Christian nationalism and the idea that we should strip the government of virtually all of its functions.

it's probably the first thing I would have asked him if he would have said yes to any of the like five interview requests that I put in a course of months most of this year so far how do you square your religious worldview the teachings that come with that with this desire to slash programs that in a lot of cases you can measure people have measured less funding means greater harms and some cases less funding means people will die at a higher rate. I think reading into what he believes, what he says, what he's written, which I did a lot of in this piece, the piece draws down, you know, dozens of hours of previously unpublished, you know, new speeches that he'd given, briefings that he had led, a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that no one has heard or seen before. And the way he seems to frame it is that the government, in his view, has gotten to this post-constitutional, corrupted, rotten place, it has completely gone off the rails from what the

founders intended in that if people like him don't go in and take these drastic measures, firing tens of, if not hundreds of thousands of federal workers, freezing government programs unilaterally, slashing funding that in some cases could lead to greater fatalities, that America as a country will collapse. You know, he said going into the 2024 election, we quote him as saying this, that, you know, that election of 2024 shouldn't be thought of as like on a scale of 1980 or some more contemporary

contest. It should be thought of as like 1864. It should be thought of as this is the election that we have to win. We, conservatives, MAGA, etc. Or else the American experiment explodes, collapses. The country is lost. So I guess if you look at these questions of why would you want to cut Medicaid, which is so clearly beneficial to low-income families around the country, undoubtedly will lead to poorer outcomes, including death, he would say that cutting these programs, shrinking the size of government is what his side has to do to try to save America in the way that they believe America should exist. That's the best answer I have without asking him directly.

Right. Well, I hate to put you in the position of him again. But how do you think that he reconciles this idea of impoundment, which is what he's doing, or rescission, which is what he's doing? And the opposite. I can't remember what the term is for it, where you actually sort of redirect funds that have not been appropriated by Congress. How does he reconcile that with the Constitution? Another very good question.

So this one, again, there is a pretty voluminous record of his views on why he thinks the president has these powers. Let's be clear. Article 1 of the Constitution, power of the purse belongs to Congress. Congress writes the laws appropriates the money. Article 2 says the executive, the president must, quote, unquote, take care to faithfully implement the laws that Congress has passed as Congress has passed them. And the way that that has been interpreted for a very long time, the way that most legal scholars, including the late conservative justice Antonin Scalia, have interpreted the Constitution this way, is that the president doesn't have the ability to say, well, I don't agree with this law that Congress passed. I don't agree with the funding to support it. So I'm just going to freeze it. I'm just going to hold it back because it doesn't align with my vision. that is not how checks and balances, separations of power, separation of powers has a work in this country.

However, the rest of vote has articulated on many occasions that he believes the president has, the executive has much greater power than it is currently operating with, that the president does have the essentially unilateral authority to say, I think this money is wasteful, I think this money is woke, I think this money is woke, I think this money. is going to our programs that shouldn't exist, I am going to pause them, I'm going to redirect them, or use these sort of budgetary gimmicks like the quote unquote pocket rescission to essentially zero out the money and prevent it from being spent. And, you know, this is a very contested theory. And I think what he wants is to have this. We have the 19, it was a 74 impoundment act as statutory authority. We have had multiple, I think, Not only if we had Supreme Court cases that have enforced the impoundment Act, I think it was a New York City be trained, but we also had the Supreme Court rule that line item vetoes, which is essentially a rescission, right, where the president says, okay, well, I'm taking this out of the budget. I don't believe in it is also unconstitutional. like it to me there's no controversy about this it's only controversial in the sense that like he's

decided that he can do it and there's nobody stopping him and there doesn't seem to be a mechanism in which to stop him because we now have the supreme court that essentially says well there may be problems with this but nobody has a toehold in which to bring a case um it let's go back a little bit uh it in his first term he essentially sort of like a pilot program this with Ukraine aid. Correct. What I found sort of striking was when Hillary Clinton lost, there was a lot of people who were in like sort of like the think tank world,

the bureaucratic world who were like, you know, all our projects are out the window. and I'm going to move on in some other way. When he loses in 2020 and gets booted out and is not able to sort of fully realize his, I mean, Christian nationalist merged with a supreme leader, which maybe isn't too different distinct from each other, sort of world vision. He doesn't go like bummer.

never going to have another Donald Trump again. I mean, like, I wouldn't have bet my career in 2020 after Biden wins that I'm going to get another bite at this apple. But he went immediately off and just started sort of like getting prepared to bite at this apple again. Is that just a function of like there's so much money with the Heritage Foundation that a guy could afford to do that? Right. Like, I mean, if this, like, if it reversed. and, you know, Bernie Sanders gets in for four years in 2020, you know, in 2016, and it, they don't get to implement their stuff. I think people would be like, okay, that's it. I got to wrap this up.

Now Donald Trump's been elected and we've gone a completely different direction because there's no sort of support for a Russell vote type, like a bureaucrat, ideologue. to sort of like then get on some type of cynicure. It's a really striking moment in the arc of his career. And really one that I think helps explain a lot of why he's been so empowered and influential now. January 6th, 2021 happens. And you see an exodus of senior Trump administration folks, including people in the cabinet. We forget like Betsy DeVos. I mean, no one's idea of like a squishy moderate says, no, no, no, no, this is

that I'm out, writes an op-ed and leaves, vote does the exact opposite. He stands by Trump. He goes on to say all the same things about a stolen election and the political prisoners unjustly targeted by the Justice Department who participated in the January 6th riots, says all that sort of stuff. But more importantly, within days of Trump leaving office,

a vote launches this think tank, the Center for Renewing America. And he starts building the groundwork for a potential second Trump term. Now, when you listen to the briefings, the behind-the-scenes conversations that we got recordings of, you know, you notice in like 21 and 22, there's like a little bit of a mention of like Ron DeSantis. Oh, well, Ron DeSantis. I mean, you know, he's there too. But it's pretty obvious almost from the beginning that this is a Trump-focused project.

and that they are, a vote is working to keep the MAGA torch aflame and to essentially take all the lessons from Trump One, learn those lessons, metabolize them in a certain sense to prepare for what a second Trump presidency would look like and how to avoid all that chaos, all that disorganization, all the mistakes that they made,

including the whole Ukraine impoundment debaubon. that led to Trump's impeachment, we have vote on tape saying that they were writing the quote unquote actual executive orders, actual regulations, and other legal authorities for our second Trump presidency, that they had drafted some 350 orders, regulations, and other documents that could be used by a future President Trump literally on day one. And of course, that's what Trump ended up doing on day one. He sat in Capitol One Arena at his desk on the stage and was handed executive order after executive order and signed them all right there in front of his adoring fans. I don't think that all of this happens if you don't have Russ Voigt, Russ Voight toiling in his years of exile to use his own phrase for four years to prepare for that moment should Trump win again. I want to get into sort of like, you know, what's actually he's been doing since the beginning of the year.

But one other aspect about him that sort of fascinates me or continue, you know, we've mentioned it briefly. But the clips of him, I was really surprised about the clips of him like, you sort of how virulent he was about CRT and anti-trans stuff and saying that the country's too secular because I view. him as this sort of ruthless bureaucrat. And it seems like he really believes this stuff. This is not like how does

the sort of economic ideology and his sort of social ideology how were they self reinforcing, I guess, within the context of the conservative movement? They're self

reinforcing in a few ways. One is this kind of talking point attack line that he helped coin woke and weaponized. This was a project of his during those Biden years when he was out of government

where he comes up with this phrase woke and weaponized. That gets used to tag government policies, agencies, individual lawyers, bureaucrats who are seen as anti-Trump or

or part of this larger, you know, corrupted federal government, as vote sees it. And that is used to apply to both the budget spending side of things, but also used to apply to DEI, used to apply to trans rights, used to apply to, you know, a broader notion of religious diversity and, you know, the cultural piece gets kind of wrapped into woke and weaponized in the same way that the sort of the spending of the deep state you know the the the the the joe going after Donald Trump get lumped into that as well so it's really interesting to see it that way but I think that he would say he has said again in some of these recordings that we have that the Judeo-Christian worldview part is the real

foundation for him and that the sort of budget wonk, green eyeshade, spreadsheet nerd piece of it is how you start to pick apart these programs or these agencies or go after individual government workers themselves who are, you know, opposed to or who are seen as incompatible with the Judeo-Christian worldview. I do think that's the wellspring for him. And, and again, The reporting in this story really helped me understand how much of that informs his worldview writ large. And when he's sort of behind the scenes talking to his own people, he really leans into the cultural and the religious stuff even more than the, you know, government program

dismantler side of what he does. Let's talk a little bit about Doge. My sense at the, you know, at the time was that Doge was sort of like interfering with his plans, and maybe they were to a certain extent, but from your reporting, he was largely happy because it sounds like what Doge did from his perspective was going and essentially till the land a little bit and loosen up the soil so that he could go in there and really be more surgical. Yeah, that's a good metaphor, a good way to think about it. I, this was a real sort of reporting question for me from the beginning. Where does Russ Votes project end and where

does Doge begin? How do I understand the interplay there? Again, you know, Vote has found himself kind of partnered onto something led by a leader that is so incompatible with so much of what he believes in the way that Donald Trump is, at least on a personal level, so different from Russ So I mean, Roosevelt is a deacon at his local Baptist church. You know, he's by no means as sort of like influencer, you know, Edge Lord out there on the internet. And he's certainly not like Elon Musk in so many ways. But I think there are specific instances where Doge workers kind of fall under votes direction,

like at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, this agency borne out of Elizabeth Warren's vision to protect consumers after the, 08 financial crisis, and he uses Doge to brutal effect in trying to dismantle CFPB as fast as possible. There is some collaboration there with USAID between Vote OMB and Doge, but really, it's getting to the tilling of the earth part that you mentioned. As Vote himself has said, you know, Doge came in, these tech roads didn't know anything about government. They didn't know anything about the laws that govern how you change things in the government. government or not, they just kind of battering ran their way through and let the pieces fall

wherever and let the lawsuits come. Who cares? Come at me, bro. And I think that that represented this kind of status quo smashing moment or this paradigm shift or however you want to describe it in a way that I don't think vote maybe thought he could or even if he thought he could. He just didn't think that that was the right strategy. But Doge showed it. different path. And I think that that cleared the way for vote to do even more aggressive things than maybe he would have in the first place if Doge hadn't been there. I feel like vote in the past week or two has said, like, we're a month or two away from closing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Give me your sense of like how decimated our government is. I mean, I don't know, you know, this is a little bit outside of your, specifically in the reporting of, but it's hard, I think, for people to sort of see the implications of seven-eighths of the Department of Education or seven-eighths of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or, you know, huge swaths of the USDA or the FDA or, I mean, we go on and on and on, essentially being furloughed. I mean, a lot of these people have been furloughed, never mind the government shutdown. They've been furloughed for eight months, seven months. like do you have a sense of I mean how would you characterize the shape of our government now and what it's going to take if it's possible to rebuild it to like even I mean you know what the rebuilding is going to be I mean we're you know in the event that we have the opportunity for it's a really good question and one that I thought about a lot of that got really deep into this story.

And actually, it came out of a conversation with a former government employee that I talked to, a real smart guy who is also smart enough to leave before all this went down. But the idea of working for the federal government as not the most remunerative or glamorous, but as steady, stable, reliable work that helps you, that lets you serve your country. The sort of concept of that, I think, has been cracked in a very big way, if not shattered. And I don't know if you can completely rebuild that, because I think the people who held that view and then saw that view smashed up are going to constantly think, well, does the next Republican administration, to be frank, are they going to just do what Doge

did or what Russ Vote did, like, am I never safe in this job again in the way that I thought I am? So I think there's a real, there's real damage done to the idea of government service and what that entailed. And can you make a career out of that? As a lot of people in this country do, they're a really long tradition of doing that makes one of the things that's so great about our country. And then you have the different programmatic pieces. I wonder about, you know, the NIH, for instance, there's been machinations there about freezing and unfreezing, really vital funding that goes out to researchers, who are the cutting-edge medical researchers in the world, and they're in our country in large part because the NIH funds them to do work that

no one else will. I don't know if those researchers feel that, wow, like everything has changed. I won't be able to do my research, but I do think they feel an insecurity now that they never had under Democrats or Republicans. And if this goes on for another three years and three months, then maybe they really do think I'm going to Canada. I'm going to go to Europe. Right. Some already have. Right. Some already have. Yeah. But it's, it's a, I think for some things, it's too early to know how this is going to play out. Obviously, this shutdown battle if the Obamacare subsidies are not brought back. The impact of that is really, big right now and will really have a ripple effect and put a big dent in this landmark law.

But I think conceptually psychologically, there's a lot of damage already done that will take a long time to repair if ever. Programmatically, it's still early. And it depends on what happens over the rest of this administration. I wanted to ask you lastly about the shutdown. Like, what do you, what do you think based upon your reporting russell vote is thinking about this shutdown is he was he excited about this or does this in any way disrupt his uh plans because i mean he was on a role and um it uh i'm curious as to your perspective on this i think he absolutely relished the chance to have this shutdown and probably pushed for it behind the scenes, and I wouldn't be surprised if he continued to push for remaining in the shutdown.

I say that because, again, I rely on his own words. During the Biden years, in these briefings that he gave to supporters of his, he talked repeatedly about why shutdowns are valuable and important and useful to the conservative cause. At one point, he's talking with his supporters. The midter, 2020 midterms had happened, and they're talking about who the next speaker for the Republicans should be. Rest, vote, not a Kevin McCarthy fan, will not shock anyone. But anyway, he says, we need to have a speaker who has a love of the shutdowns, a love of the shutdowns, because the shutdowns are how we save the country.

How we save the country. He sees these shutdowns as the ultimate brinksmanship negotiation period where you can get all the things on the bargaining table, get the concessions that you can't get during the normal order of Congress. So that just plainly leads me to believe he's getting exactly what he wants right now and Donald Trump has put him out front,

his Grim Reaper, his Darth Vader, to use Trump's term to lead the strategy on this shutdown. Where does that leave him with Republican lawmakers? Because it's easy for him to love the shutdown. because he's not, it doesn't impact him directly. Based on all the conversations I've had the reporting I've done, his relationship with congressional Republicans is poor to say the least. They don't like him outside of shutdowns saying,

I'm freezing this funding, I'm trying this pocket. I mean, he's trampling on their fundamental Article 1 authority, the number one job that Congress has. He's essentially saying, oh, I'm going to step all over it. I'm going to get in the way of it. I don't care. I'm sick of dealing with Republicans. So I think that they are generally not pleased with how the White House and the OMB has treated Congress. And I think that this shutdown is just another moment where congressional Republicans have essentially thrown up their hands and said, Democrats, you've got a problem. Go talk to Russ

vote. Go talk to the White House. They've essentially cut themselves out of this whole thing in a really remarkable way we haven't seen before yeah i think it's remarkable too because uh the democrats aren't necessarily um they're not preventing them from cutting themselves out of this equation which i think from a political uh standpoint you this is the pressure that you put them you russ vote is a rock and their voters are a hard place and that's where the democrats got to put them uh andy kroll a really interesting in-depth uh reporting really appreciate you coming on and talking about it. We'll put a link to this piece in the

podcast and YouTube description. Thanks for having me as always. We are back and we're going to head into the fun half. It's my goal today to do it under an hour. Impressive, right? Fifteen years in the making. Honestly, the mission creep of this show has been pretty spectacular over the course of the past 15 years.

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The Max Left? No, the one that says Am Majority. Yeah. Because it's not as, it's embarrassing to walk around with the hat with your own name on it. Trump might make Max Left illegal, so you might need to buy that one while you do. I would get that Max Left hat as soon as possible. Shout out to a few people at the Zoran Rally. We're waving it at me and Emma.

Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, that's funny. Tax left, Zoran. Check it out. Also, don't forget, we have a Discord, ladies and gentlemen. MajorityDiscord.com. Great place to go if you want to really talk about anything.

if you want ideas on how to organize, if you want to try and hook up with people in your neighborhood, so to speak. Also, I would imagine going to be continuing to be a better and better resource as your city gets invaded by National Guard. This story will talk about it in a bit about two National Guardsmen in Illinois saying that they will not deploy to Chicago. very important because I think once a couple of these guys speak out, more will be able to going forward. But again, majority Discord, great place to get some ideas for organizing, maybe organized in and of itself. So check that out. And also, as always, want to thank our Twitch watchers, Poggers. I don't want to get a hype train going because those things can really...

I mean, we're getting enough, especially on their replay, we're getting what we used to get on YouTube like five years ago. Like tens of thousands of people watching the VODs. All right. Love it. Love it. Poggers. Hyped train.

Hyped train. Matt, what's happening on Left Reckoning? Yeah, tonight we're getting into the ideas portion with Michael Burns of philosophy YouTuber, former professor. We're going to be talking, we're just getting into the heady stuff. So check that out tonight, 7 o'clock Eastern. Over 50,000 people subscribe. Also on Twitch, go subscribe to Left Reckoning on Twitch as well.

Figg says, please let Emma and Brian know that I absolutely love their 1930s detectives cosplay they did for the Zoron rally. What were you doing? Were you wearing a fedora? Well, Emma did have like a detective's coat on. That trench coat, yes. I was wondering what was going on with that. Real gum shoe. And I was dressed like a hick straight out of the woods.

So you were not wearing a costume No, I was not wearing a costume I was being my true self But how is that Well, how is that a 1930 detective? I think it's just the Carmen San Diegoness of Emma's coat Okay

See you in the fun half Three months from now Six months from now Nine months from now And I don't think it's going to be the same As it looks like in six months from now And I don't know if it's necessarily going to be better six months from now than it is three months from now.

But I think around 18 months out, we're going to look back and go like, wow. What? What is that going on? It's nuts. Wait a second. Hold on for, hold on for a second. The majority report. Emma, welcome to the program.

Hey. Matt. Who fun pack. What is up, everyone? No, me. T. You did it. Fun, ha.

Let's go Brandon. Let's go Brandon. Let's go Brandon. Fun half. 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. And let me finish. Where is this coming from, dude? But, dude, you want to smoke this? Seven, eight.

Yes. Yes? Is it me? Is it me? It is you. Um, it's this 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 go to life. Libertarians. They're so stupid though. Common sense says, of course.

Gobbled e-gook. We fuck. And bailed him. So what's 79 plus 21? Challenge men. I'm positively clovering. 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 me think less. But let me say this. Poop. You can call it satire. Sam goes satire. On top of it all, my favorite. 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. I have a question. Who cares? Our chat is enabled, folks. I love it.

I do love that. Look, got to jump. I 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 goul?

Outrageous. Like, what is wrong with you? Love you, bye. Love you. Bye-bye. I don't know.