The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3640 - Trump's Economy Hangs by a Thread; GOP Assault on Black Voters w/ Heather 'Digby' Parton

Episode Date: May 8, 2026

It's Casual Friday on The Majority Report On today's program: Carlyle's Chief Strategy Officer of Energy Pathways, Jeff Currie says U.S. oil reserves will run empty somewhere in the July 4th period. The CFO at household appliance manufacturer Whirlpool says that they haven't seen demand this low since the 2008 great recession. As oil and gas prices soar and the economy continues careen towards a recession Trump tells America that it's worth it because now Iran won't have the nuclear weapon that they've two weeks away from developing for the last 47 years. Heather 'Digby' Parton, friend of the show and contributing writer at Salon, joins the show to recap the week that was. In the Fun Half: Red state republicans are working hard, successfully, to disempower black voters. The Republican party - through the big, beautiful bill - have forced millions of Americans off of Medicaid. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy has spent the last 7 months filming a reality TV show as planes fall from the sky. Pete Hegseth makes a case that the $1.5 trillion-dollar military budget will be used efficiently and not involve payouts to fat cat CEO's Zohran Mamdani shows what it means to be a real leader in his press conference announcing $31 million in fines for a negligent slum lord in the Bronx. Ben Shapiro is desperate for a ratings boost as he tries to throw himself into the Candace Owens - Erika Kirk beef. 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: AURA FRAMES: Exclusive $25-off Carver Mat at https://on.auraframes.com/MAJORITY. Promo Code MAJORITY SUNSET LAKE CBD: Now through May 11th, you can save 35% on all CBD and THC Gummies when you use code Mom26 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.

Folks, it's May 8th, which means that May 10th is two days away from us. And that is Mother's Day this year. It came early or something. So a lot of people caught off guard. What are you going to get your mom? Well, I know one thing that you could get her. Get your mom an improvement in the quality of her life. Something she'll actually enjoy.

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head over to sunsetlake sabadad.com. Use the code mom 26, mom 26 for 35% off. See their site for terms and conditions. Quick break, not quick break. Actually, let's start the show. That means Monday is casual Monday. Tuesday, casual Tuesday. Wednesday, casual hump day.

Thursday, casual thursday. casual thurs. That's what we call it. And Friday, casual Shabbat. The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Friday, May 8, 2006. 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, looking back on the week that was Heather Digby Partney,

Parton. It's only been 20 years that I've been saying her name. Contributing writer to salon and proprietor of the Uber blog, Hullabaloo. And also on the program today, actually our second guest was unable to make it because of a flight cancellation and then was stuck on a flight

and then couldn't call us. We'll talk more about that in a bit. What are you going to do? Nobody's disappointed around here. Meanwhile, also on the program, Iran and U.S. exchange fire during their ceasefire.

U.S. Intel says Iran can outlast the Trump blockade for months and months. This just breaking, the Virginia Supreme Court tosses out the redistricting referendum

to would have netted Democrats four seats in Virginia. Meanwhile, a new report shows that the Supreme Court used faulty data in their Voting Rights Act decision. And Tennessee passes a new map disenfranchising black voters. They added a provision to remove. an obligation about informing voters of their new polling locations. Alabama next up, then probably Missouri, all to disenfranchise black voters and arguably cities. Trade court, U.S. Trade Court rules Trump's 10% tariffs illegal.

There is a widening circuit court split. The 11th Circuit is the. latest to rule that Trump's no bond for immigrant detainees is illegal. That's two circuit courts ruled one way. Two ruled the other. This is headed to the Supreme Court soon. Starmer over across the ocean, the pond, as they say, won't quit, he says, after huge labor losses locally.

U.S. payrolls increase more than expected, but manufacturing jobs are downed. and wage gains are overpowered by inflation. New York State passes a budget, including the Pied de Terre tax, on the rich and also provisions to fight ICE, including a ban on masks and a ban on local collusion. However, Hulkel allows unofficial communications to continue between ICE and local officials. Florida and the feds discussed closing the detention. Center in the Everglades, cutely known as Alligator Alcatraz.

In part because it's costing a million dollars a day to the state of Florida, and their immigration stuff costs them over 10,000 jobs. All this and more on today's majority report. Well, should we just discuss the bad news? Yeah, yeah. Hello, Sam. Oh, it's a casual Friday. Sorry, yes.

Yes, yes. We're very casual, very casual. Very casual. The, uh, we had expected to be talking to, uh, grand platner. And that is our, we got canceled music that we got. So, um, they had some flight issues or something like that. I don't know what it is.

But, uh, we're very disappointed in you, Graham. We're very, very disappointed. If you ask me. Reconsidering that Nazi tattoo stuff now. Sometimes when people, you know, a little afraid to get questioned. But we will, I'm sure we'll reschedule. We only support politicians that come on our shows, right? That's how responsible left-wing podcasters operate.

Of course. If you don't come on this show, it's quite clear. That's a huge damage. You don't have to say. You know, yeah. Not the movement or getting elected. And so we'll see. Now, he's been on before, to be fair.

Yes, with just me, though. Yep. All right. Meanwhile. So cool, Emma. I know, right? Meanwhile, meanwhile,

um, things are looking increasingly bleak for, um, the world economy. It is not hard now to find well-known economists saying we are headed into a global recession because of Donald Trump's tiny little excursion to the Middle East. Let's just take a little bit of a tour. here is Carlisle Group's chief strategy officer of energy pathways.

Jeff Curry on Bloomberg. This was two days ago. Number 10. Oh, sorry. Oh, yeah, this is nuts. When do storage tanks run empty? You're parts of the world, like Australia, Philippines, Thailand. You are, but the question is when and where.

I still say that with you, it's going to be sometime in the month of May that you're going to end up with Europe hitting tank bottoms. And in the U.S., it's somewhere in that July 4th time period. If not sooner, by the way, the inventory's number coming out of the U.S., the ones we got last night, the ones last week, I've never seen anything like that before. And I think that it's important to remember that these inventory numbers, let's define terms, a deficit versus a shortage. We have a deficit today, meaning that demand is above supply and we're drawing in inventories. It's not a shortage yet. So to answer your question, you have the shortages in places like Asia, and it's not that bad yet because you're not completely at tank bottoms.

But in places like Europe and the United States, you're in a deficit and you don't hit the shortages until you hit tank bottoms. All right. So just to be clear that the other day on the program, We had Rory Johnston on. And in many respects, what we saw with the tariffs, where you had people, you had importers importing a bunch of extra stuff in anticipation of the tariffs. And so they're selling out that inventory at a reduced cost.

And then once they run out of that and they have to import more stuff, the cost goes up. There's a similar dynamic that we have that's happening with oil. we have a certain amount of reserves. I'm not talking about the strategic reserves, although a lot of that was released already by Trump. But these reserves are why we're, what we're relying on

because the flow, the supply of oil is just not there. And at one point, those reserves stop, get empty. And then the actual deficit of oil, of oil that the world is getting. Again, we are down a billion barrels already annually.

So at one point this catches up. And that's looking bleak. Meanwhile, you can see it apparently in major appliances, which are, they tend to be a leading indicator. Here is Taylor Riggs on Fox Business News, of all places. So comments from executives are coming out and they're saying that they haven't seen demand this low since 2008, that this feels like recession levels to them. They're citing a number of factors, record low consumer sentiment, the economic impact of the Iran conflict, severe weather. All of that drove what they're saying is 7% contraction in industry demand during the first quarter.

We also played yesterday in the fun half, this clip of Kevin Hassett, who was basically saying that he just spoke to a credit card executive and people may be spending more on gas but they're spending more on other things too isn't that a great thing and at the end of last year Q5 or sorry Q4 of 2025 we hit another record of credit card debt 1.28 trillion dollars so yeah the credit card executive is pleased as their you know credit cards now have an average rate of 20 percent or something like that, that people are spending or have to put more on credit cards. But it's not a good indicator for the health of the economy. Oh, and make no mistake about it. Shell, the British-based oil company, they had massive profits. They said 24% increase in profits in the last quarter.

that is huge. And it's only going to get higher since then because you have these shortages, which ultimately they end up just increasing the money they get per barrel of oil. So we're going to see more about it. They don't have a problem with this. here is, and I should also add, when we talk about 2008, that was known as the Great Recession because it was so close to being a depression. You don't want to be compared to that one.

There's a bunch of other recessions they could have compared it to, but that was the great one. Here is Donald Trump saying, you know what? It's not that bad. I thought it was going to be worse. What are the staff in these talks that are very good? But we've got some insight as to it. Well, we've had talks, and we've had some good talks before, as you know. And all of a sudden the next day they forgot what happened.

You know, they're proud. Like these guys are proud. Nobody more proud than these guys. Sometimes they fight on pride because, you know, they're injured. They're hurt. No matter how great you are, you get hit by somebody else that looks like them. It's very tough. But they have great pride.

These people have great pride. The others do, too. enemies have great pride. We went into Venezuela, smart people, great people. They have a really strong military. We won it very quickly, and we have a fantastic, it's been a great thing for Venezuela. The people are really happy they're dancing in the streets because they have a lot of money coming in through the big oil companies that are all moving in. I was with Exxon Mobil last night.

The chairman was here, and we're talking about Venezuela, along with a lot of them, Chevron. They were all here last night. They all want to go there and elsewhere. We just hit a new high of the stock market. The stock market's the highest it's ever been. And I expected that the market would be down 20, 25%. I was willing to do that to get rid of a crazy country crazy. The people, look, you know, you talk about regime change.

Their first level leaders are dead. Their second level leaders are dead. Some of their third level leaders are dead. I call that regime change. but I thought we'd be down maybe 20% and we're up. The stock market's higher now than when we started this war. And I thought oil prices would go to $200, $250.

It's at $100 now. And I think you're surprised and I'm surprised. But even if it went to $200, it would have been worth it. I understood that. We had just set a record, $50,000 on the Dow, $7,000 on the S&P, a record. And I said, I hate to do this, but we have to make an excursion down to Iran

because we can't let them have a nuclear weapon. Look, and this is very simple. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. So here's the good news to all of you paying $1.50 more minimum, I say 150% of what you were paying three months ago for gas. The stock market's up. So if you're one of the, the 20% in this country who has real holdings in the stock market, you're in great shape.

You can pay for your new gas guzzler, but the rest of you, well, suck an egg. One note on that front page of the Financial Times today. Record low number of stocks driving Wall Street bounce raises fragility fears. Five big tech groups repel the rally, analysts sworn of sharp sell-off. So even that. And this has been going on for a while. I mean, you know, There's every reason to believe there's going to be some type of massive stock market correction. And, you know, I'm certainly not going to give out any financial advice. But, and I don't think we've seen nearly the end of the cost of gas at the pump. Well, when he says $200, $250 a barrel, why is he pulling that number out?

it's because that's the warnings that he's getting because he's panicking internally. We'll play a clip of him later completely unloading on, shockingly, another female reporter. But he is panicked because he's unable to get a victory right now with Iran that has all of the leverage here. And they're hoping that they're going to come back with this proposal that Rubio sent earlier today. But we'll see. And the difficulty is that it's quite clear the U.S. is not. interested in negotiating in any type of good faith. They just like replace somebody on the negotiation team with,

I can't remember what organization it is, but it's just like pro-Israel negotiation, I mean, organization, specifically putting one of these people on the negotiation team sort of signals, like we're not, we're not that into it. It's bizarre.

And we will see. It's, there's a lot of reason for concern at this point. I mean, jobs numbers were beat expectations. But if you look at those numbers, health care jobs, don't know necessarily the quality of those jobs, but manufacturing down again. Like in his first term and in his second term. Just something to note.

Make America great. What was all that tariff stuff about? If it wasn't about trying to build new factories. They don't talk about those factories too often anymore, do they? Howard Lutnik got rich. Isn't that all that matters? Just give it a couple more years, guys. It's all going to have factories stocked by robots,

giving you dividends for nothing. Everybody, UBI. In a moment, we're going to be talking to Heather Parton, or you may know her as Digby. first a word from our sponsor today here's another great gift for Mother's Day what does your mom want

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And the code is majority will put that information in the podcast and YouTube description. and at majority.fm. Quick break. When we come back, Heather Digby Parton. Nice. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the dulcid tones of, I can't remember who wrote that song. I don't think I ever knew.

I have to look that up. But regardless, thank you. And a great way to introduce our next guest, Heather Digby Parton, writer at salon.com, and proprietor, proprietor of the Uber blog Hullabaloo. Hi, Digby.

Hi, guys. Glad to be here. Great to see you, Heather. Way to end the week. Yeah. Another week. Another week, yes. Feels like a year.

The week as the week progressed, it feels like it got worse. And let's start with the most recent. I barely had a chance to read into this. the Virginia Supreme Court came down with the ruling that found that the Virginia referendum was illegal. And if I understand correctly, I just read quickly, it was because they're supposed to take two votes for a referendum on the either side of an election, of a general election and the supposedly one of the votes took place

in early voting of one of the elections and therefore they didn't really do it on either side of the election because the election was ongoing quite the technicality we should also say before you go into this

that the way that they pick Supreme Court justices is that the legislature votes on it but they've had a split legislature for some time in Virginia. So three of the members of the court were picked by Republicans, one by a Democrat, and then the other, I think it was three were in a sort of bipartisan fashion. So you've got to imagine at least one or two of those are Republican essentially leaning. And so there you have it. You know, this is a crap show because we're looking at,

Now, a lot of states that are Republicans are moving aggressively, particularly in the wake of the Voting Rights Act dissolution. And there's going to be a net gain much bigger than we had anticipated just even a week ago. Absolutely. I mean, this is pretty devastating, I have to say. And it's not just devastating because of the numbers, although that's part of it. Having the Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act, which, of course, these red states just immediately went in and decimating every blind. black, you know, district. They just did it in Tennessee yesterday. You know, they're going to, they split Memphis three ways and now there will be no black representation in Tennessee.

So the only black representation in the U.S. Congress will be in blue states and red states won't have any anymore. It's just absolutely insane. But, you know, very depressing and not unexpected. I mean, I have to say I really, I knew it was coming. I'm sure most people did because John Roberts and the, you know, the rest of the conservatives on the court have been angling to do this for, well, for decades since the Voting Rights Act was enacted, essentially. So, you know, basically it's just, it's a racist ruling. We had many of them right up there, I think, with Red Scott, you know, some of these Plessy versus Ferguson, the famous ones, this is going to be one to Calais, you know, versus Louisiana, is going to be one of those. And so we're dealing with that, which we knew was going to be bad. And then to have, so what are they doing? They're down in Florida now.

They have a Supreme Court. They have a Supreme Court decision. They actually had, I think, a constitutional amendment that said that you can't, that the legislature is not allowed to do redistricting. They're doing it. It's going to go to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court looks in every way like they're going to just allow it to happen. Because it's Florida. So they do things like that in the red states.

And they just say, yeah, whatever you need, Don, you know, dear leader, whatever you need, and whatever you need, Republican Party. So they're going to gain a bunch of seats, as you just said. And then in Virginia, where it went, you know, this was a referendum. People went out and voted in large numbers, and they voted to redistrict. Tens of millions of dollars, maybe up to $100 million spent on this. Yep. And it was, that's the Democratic way, right?

I mean, you have the people vote, and people came out on both sides. It wasn't an overwhelming vote, but it was decisive. And the, you know, the Democratic side on that prevail. And their Supreme Court, which, as you just pointed out, is packed with a bunch of Republicans, decided on a very, what appears to be. I mean, I just gave a cursory glance at the opinion, too, because we just came on. We just came on, and it was just released a little bit ago. but it's what you say.

I mean, it's just a very thin technicality that they could have, you know, they could have easily, you know, ignored and ruled the other way. But of course, they took the opportunity to do this, which is how they work. And the Democrats, meanwhile, I just read that the head of the,

that the Speaker of the State Assembly or whatever, not Louise Lucas, who's of the state Senate, who was the one who's sort of spearhead this drive to get this vote. It's the other guy. His name is Don Scott, I think. He came out and said, well, we respect the decision

of the Supreme Court. So they're not going to do some of these things that the Republicans are doing in these states, which is everything from just ignoring it and going ahead and doing it anyway to changing, you know, to basically suspending elections to doing all kinds of things.

And they could do this. I mean, they could just say they could pass, they have a majority, they could pass a law, and make it retroactive that this, you know, reasoning that the Supreme Court used is not valid. And just go ahead and do it. Just, you know, okay, go ahead. You know, we'll decide after the election whether we were right to do that. That's the kind of thing that they should be doing, and they probably, it appears anyway,

that they do not have an appetite for doing. And that is an absolutely devastating blow and not just because of the numbers, as I said in the beginning. it's also because of what it's going to do to the Democratic base, where the people who needed to come out and vote in vast numbers this fall, to try and overcome this, what they're going to do, to just try and eke out now what we thought was going to be a big wave and maybe be a big majority, we could actually have some real action in the House.

If we're lucky, and it's not impossible, it's certainly possible to do it. Some of these districts that they have in Virginia may very well go blue because they weren't big red districts to begin with in the original districting, maybe even in Florida where they're taking a big chance on redistricting down there because this looks more and more like it might be a dummy mandered down there where they actually will be diluting their safe districts into something where Florida could actually, they could actually lose a couple of seats, Texas as well. But, you know, this is not how it should be.

and if you just sit there and tell Democrats, well, sorry, guys, yeah, they do what they want, and we follow the rules and we do it. We follow the procedures and the norms, and we're very proud of ourselves, and we feel really good about ourselves for doing that because we're upholding norms while they are basically turning the country into a fashion state. Kind of hard to get people to come out and vote for a party that does that in this situation. Kind of hard to get people to do it. And the juxtaposition of how this was done via voter referendum and you get voters to come out to decide this.

And what is happening with these southern states where they're not asking. Votes have already been cast in some of these instances. They're not asking the voters how they feel about the maps. They're ramming it through. And I know, of course, the Supreme Court and the Virginia State Supreme Court are two different bodies. but I think it's a really important thing for people to observe that in times of anti-democracy and fascism, you have neutered legislatures and empowered courts,

whether it's Dred Scott, whether it's the court that FDR had to fight and threatened to pack. And now we're here in another moment of anti-democracy. And once again, the courts are asserted, themselves over the legislature and also in this instance the will of the people. Absolutely. Well, just to add one more thing to what you just said, Emma, we just saw an election in Hungary where Victor Orban was kicked out of office with a big overwhelming vote.

But I just want to remind people that one of the reasons that he was able to stay in power for 16 years was because he did exactly what the Republicans are doing right now by redistricting in their way of doing it, of course, it's Parliament. But he made it impossible in a number of different ways for people to vote for the opposition. And it took a very clever politician and people being economically, you know, absolutely devastated in the country.

And 16 long years and people finally just getting sick and up of it, that all the opposition banded together and they were able to overcome them. But 16 years, is that what we're looking at here? because I don't think the country could, I'm not sure it can survive the next three, much less Republican rule for another decade. I just can't even imagine how we'll get through it because these people are radical, they're extreme, and they are moving as quickly as possible toward, you know, authoritarianism. Yeah, exactly.

And I just want to point out two more things about this. The Virginia court, the technicality, as far as I understand, it involves early voting taking place. And the letter of the law says the two votes by the legislature to set up to just basically create a referendum have to happen on either side of those general elections. And because early voting had started, they said that was during the period, that was during the election as opposed to before it, as opposed to like, you know, one day, November 2nd, whatever.

Juxtaposed that, or I guess contrasted with what the Supreme Court did in the wake of the Tennessee ruling where 43,000 people had already voted. 43,000 people had voted and they canceled the election as if it was not, never mind the fact that like the add-on part of like they're not going to announce where your new polling location is. You know, if you are incentivized to go vote for a second time in the same election, you will not necessarily know where you're voting. The other, I would say, is that you mentioned Louise Lucas. Three days ago, her office was raided by the FBI as a way, presumably, to punish her for leading this fight. And I wonder how much of that weighs into the decision by,

the Virginia House leader in saying, we're good, we're not going to pursue this. We should also say like $100 million deployed. Hakeem Jeffries was taking laps, you know, victory laps around this. And we all presumed like, oh, they definitely did this the right way without any sort of question as to, you know, that would give a toehold.

for their Virginia Supreme Court, and apparently they didn't. And I don't know the, you know, the TikTok on that. But this is a very dire time because what we're also watching with this is we are seeing both on a state level and on a federal level the lengths in which the various courts will go to facilitate what the Republicans want to do. And that is an indication of like what we, think are the limiting principles for how this election goes off may not be limiting principles that in any state where Republicans control, they're going to be able to curtail voting or shape

it in whatever way they feel they need to. And this has federal implications when it comes to control over the House. It sure does. And I'll tell you something. I mean, I've always felt like you know, sure, they'll try to do what they can to suppress voting. They always do, and they'll probably go to greater lengths this time, even up to and including deploying National Guard troops or something like that. I mean, they refused to rule that out the other day. You know, well, you know, maybe we might, Pete Higgs-Seth is certain, well, you know, Biden did that, which is not true.

It did not. It did not. It was the state governors who, you know, sent some National Guard to, deployed them during voting because there had been natural disasters and things like that, just totally normal stuff. But, you know, he used that as an excuse. So who knows what they're going to do with the voting? But to me, the big thing that they've always been planning on, and this is Stephen Miller's legal group, this is their big thing, is preparing to contest the election should the Democrats

win. And they, I'm sure that if it's going to happen in states, you know, in these states where there's any kind of a Supreme Court, like the one in Virginia, and these swing state that may go the wrong way, or that may, you know, you may see, you know, a wave that takes out some of their their red state representatives, particularly if they're unexpected. You can imagine what they're going to do. They're going to file lawsuits.

They're going to attempt to not seat those people. They're going to use that as an excuse to, you know, wage all kinds of legal. warfare during the period after the election and before the new Congress would be seated, which I think is on January 3rd, and, you know, maybe pushed us into a constitutional crisis. And I, which, you know, wouldn't be the first time that this particular gambit has been tried. And we know they thought of it during 2020. And of course, that's a big part of Trump's, you know, whole, I mean, not that he's strategizing this, because with him is just pure id, you know, I won, how dare they say I didn't, you know.

But all the other people around him, the people who are thinking beyond him and how they can use this, they are getting ready to exploit this idea that the elections are, you know, deeply tainted by rigging by Democrats. And even though, you know, clearly it's the opposite at this point. We can see them doing it in broad daylight. So I'm very concerned. I mean, I think we thought, and, you know, I knew that we were getting a little too giddy with the idea. that the House was definitely going our way and the Senate was going to be in our hands and, you know, things were going to be able to put a stop to some of this stuff. And, you know, I felt from the beginning,

from the first day that he took office in the second term, that this is going to be a roller coaster. We're going to be high here one day and then something horrible is going to happen the next. And, you know, it's going to be like this. It's very hard to take for people like us. And probably everybody who's watching now who pays close attention to politics, this is. It's just brutal. I'm trying to keep up with what's going on. It's awful. On an emotional level, it's very hard to take.

And when you have things like today with the Virginia Supreme Court doing this and having the first words out of the Democrats' mouths say, well, you know, we're not going to try and fight back on this. I'm telling you, it's just, it's really, really hard. And I think they have to, you know, well, you know, you can say they have to do this and have to do that. and we have no power over making them do it. But I'm telling you, huge mistake in my view.

You've come out swinging when they do stuff like this. And, you know, as to like sort of the emotional roller coaster ride, I think it was like, you know, and we probably had these conversations. This time last year, I was going into the summer. I was like, oh, you know, there's every reason to believe that we're not going to have elections in 2026 or not, you know, not normal, not, not, we're not going to have a situation where people vote and we see the impact of that vote. Whatever, whatever, you know, the mechanism is, you know, I don't think we're going to have no elections. I think we're going to have elections that are tied up and, and then I think by the fall,

you know, deep into the fall, it's like, you know what? I think it's too, they, they can't do enough. and you know you look to mike johnson i can't remember who it was that he he didn't see now but for for months during uh it was the arihalba yes and you know uh i think that was probably had something to do with the epstein files but i think it was also uh mike johnson's way of saying like i wonder how long i can do this for yeah and uh i'll just make a note note to self random Democratic elected. I cannot seat them for whatever it was, 45 days. I mean,

I mean, this is, and, and, you know, people talk about the super majority that Obama had. People forget that the 60th senator, Democratic senator was Al Franken. And he was not seated for like six or seven months. because, you know, recounts and whatnot, but it doesn't take you seven months to recount. There was a lot of like, you know, lawsuits and whatnot. We could be looking at a situation where for six, seven months, eight months in 2027, we have only 410 congresspeople seated.

and 25 are being contested, and, you know, Republicans control 207 to 203 or something, you know, some scenario like that. We don't know. And I don't even think they know. I don't think the Republicans know. I think they're just basically saying, we're going to throw everything at this. Exactly. And we don't have a step-by-step plan, and this is how it's going to break. out. And it's that much more difficult, you know, for the Democrats to sort of like defend because

there is no plan. They're not like headed to this pass and going to, you know, get the high ground here. And so we have to flank them from the, it's, they're doing everything in every state and states in many places where we don't have any power, except for a couple lawyers and a legal system that tilts that has shown, I mean, you're one of these judges in a state court or, you know, a circuit court. And you're looking at like how it, what it takes to succeed in the Republican Party on the Supreme Court. And you're just like, I just got to deliver the, I got to deliver the answer that they want. And that's it. It's a very scary time. And frankly, I mean, maybe we wouldn't know, but I don't get a lot of like sense that Democrats are a creating a plan to deal with this on day of

and be that they're also starting to like offer plans to fix this stuff when they get in office which you know you want it to have like have a constraining impact like you know like Well, can I add to that and say that, like, in the sense that the Democrats never took the anti-democracy piece of the Republicans seriously. And this goes back, you could say January 6th, but you could also say in their lack of urgency on fighting back on redistricting and gerrymandering for the decades prior. But, like, Kamala Harris was running a campaign bringing out Republican Liz Cheney to talk about democracy. but it's state-level Republicans, it's Republican-appointed judges, it's the entire Republican Party,

it's Mike Johnson, that is now on board for the anti-democracy stuff. They just made it about Trump and not the Republicans. Right, which is a huge mistake. Huge, huge mistake. I've been writing a lot lately about how the conservative movement led up to this moment.

In fact, I wrote one today go up on the weekend at salon about the, you know, the national endowment for the humanities, there was a judge that ruled against the cuts to the grants that were made by Doge in the early months, right? You know, who was, speaking of Liz Cheney, you know, who was in charge of the national, you know, endowment for humanities for about 10 years? Lynn Cheney, and Lynn Cheney started the crusade against teaching history that was in those days we called it politically correct today. It's called woke. It's not any different. DEI was about affirmative action and multiculturalism instead of DEI.

All this stuff was done back in the 90s, back in the late 80s, started in the 90s with people like Lynn Cheney leading up to a point where we now have, you know, an entire culture that's a wash in this stuff. It's the same old stuff. It's not new. and we wouldn't have Donald Trump if it wasn't for Lynn Cheney. I'm sorry, that's just the fact. And it's been going on and it's happening in all this. It's what you say, Emma, that's absolutely true about the voting, about the, you know, not contesting things like, you know, not, at least not very artfully contesting, things like what happened with El Franken or the redistricting that Tom DeLay did back in the early 2000s.

I remember when that happened where he decided to redistrict in the middle of the decade instead of right after the census, as it's always been done. And we all just said and went, wait, you can't do that. What, what? You know, I remember writing about it. We probably talked about it, Sam. And, you know, just kind of, what? This is crazy. You don't do that.

Well, look at us now. They're going to be redistricting every six months if they want to. I mean, this is just, there's no longer, every election will be contested on that ground of who has the power. the state legislature or a state Supreme Court to redistrict in their own. And the Supreme Court just validated that by saying, well, partisanship is fine. You can do that. Just go ahead and, you know, redistrict every Democrat out of the state if you want to. That's fine. We're all good with that. And we'll just pretend like by Democrat, we don't mean black people or Hispanic people. We'll just pretend like that's just partisanship. So, you know, this has been going on for a long time.

And here we are today. And we're about to see the result of all that. We can put this up, but before we do, I just wanted to add that if you follow the gerrymander rulings by the Supreme Court going back 15 years or so when Anthony Kennedy was like, Anthony Kennedy was like, well, I'm not sure where I stand on this, but if you can bring me a measure of when there is extreme gerrymander to the point where it becomes disenfranchisement, I'll be into that. And then he was out the door and wanted his, his former clerk to be, to replace him. I can't even remember his name right now. It was Gorsuch, right? No, not Gorsuch, Kavanaugh.

And going out the door, he sort of bagged that whole thing. And they allowed gerrymander. So understand where we've come from, where we have. had a Republican-dominated Supreme Court that said, well, if you can prove that there is, like, excessive gerrymandering to not only can you just gerrymander the hell out of it, you can hide the fact that you're disenfranchising black people behind it because it's their fault for voting Democrats. That's right.

Vote for Republicans. It'll be fine. Here is, here is what Democrats could have done. And we could do this for abortion rights. We could do this. Like, we could do this example for half a dozen things. And it's indicative of Democrats not getting into power and using that power to solidify their power, even if that solidification of power is really about protecting a multicultural democracy. Put this up on the screen.

This is back from, like, what, 2020? 2021. And I can, that paragraph Matt had up was getting my blood boiling. Ultimately, the advocates fear that the Biden administration currently focused on the bipartisan infrastructure deal and an ambitious spending proposal has largely accepted the Republican restrictions as baked in and is now dedicating more of its effort to juicing democratic turnout. In private calls with voting rights groups and civil rights leaders, White House officials and close allies of the president have expressed confidence that it is possible to out-organize voter suppression according to multiple people familiar with the conversations. I have heard an emphasis on organizing, said Sherilyn. Eiffel, the president and director counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, who visited the Oval Office to meet with the president two weeks ago.

But she added, we cannot litigate our way out of this, and we cannot organize our way out of this. My God. You know, I mean, is this what it's going to take to get anybody to wake up? Apparently not. The guy in Virginia just said, you know, well, you know, I guess that's that. So I don't know what it's going to take to get people to understand exactly what's happening here. I mean, this is a dire problem. I'm sorry, I sound hysterical, and I don't really mean to, but this is really, this is really bad.

And it could, you know, the fact you can just say, I'm cracking a champagne over that Supreme Court decision, knowing that the best we can hope for in the future, it's very likely going to be the tiniest majority ever. and, you know, I think if we're lucky. And that's just, you know, this idea that we could have, you know, just have a decisive majority where the Democrats could prove to the country, look, we've been given a mandate to do these things and whatever. It's going to be trench warfare until people wise up and understand that they're going to have to fight. And it's like you're talking about, you know, what do they do and how they're just kind of never prepared, really,

for what's going to happen. And it's also entitlement. They feel entitled to the black vote and they are not doing anything to protect black people in the South from being disenfranchised. And that is frankly, I mean, Biden's racism and and his, the way that he spoke, he's spoken about black people, the tokenism with which he treated Kamala Harris. This is a problem in the Democratic Party with the old guard. They do not treat black voters with the respect that they deserve. Yeah, well, that's true. And I would expect that, you know, that's probably one of the good reasons why the old guard is being, you know, shown the door. And that will make a difference. I hope, I think. I think it will. But basically, I think that at the end of the day, what has to happen, what it just seems to me,

is that you have to, you can't necessarily be prepared for everything in exact terms. Like, you know, this is the, you know, layout is set of, you know, you know, ready responses, you just have to respond immediately and respond with defiance. You can, it has to be defiance. There has to stop being this idea, well, we need to protect the norms or this isn't. People won't vote for us to extreme. I mean, it's ridiculous. The 2000 election.

Yes. The Bush v. Gore. I mean, this is, it's the exact same disease that, that permeates. It's the, and this eternal, I don't even want to call it optimism, delusion. Yeah. You've had president after president, Democratic president, who has told us that the fever is going to break. And, you know, our better angels are going to, and a failure to use power when the, the rare times they get it. and just a blanket refusal to use power.

And I don't know, you know, you would have to do a study, a comprehensive study that is far greater than anybody would undertake it because nobody would listen to it after that anyways. But it is quite possible that the reason why, like, we can outrun them has, you know, resonance with certain people because that's the way we make money. like who knows you know what i mean it's like and it makes it easier for us to raise money they've disenfranchised the voters i mean i don't know what the incentive structure here is that

allows us and i don't i'm not saying they're all corrupt but i'm saying like that plays a part in it and then just sheer incompetence because when you are trying to protect a hierarchy in a power structure within an institution incompetence is very often what you look for because that person, those people, their incompetence will never challenge the hierarchy. Like, you see it in this administration. The reason why he hires incompetence all around him

is because the one thing he knows they'll do is be loyal. And they will never, never undermine the hierarchy and the way in which, you know, the protection goes, no you know and what's going on with this dnc autopsy thing is either a travesty or a travesty like there's no like like you can choose whatever excuse now they're doing they're putting up do we have a um like a tear sheet of this they're now claiming and a lot of this seems to be leaked through the pod save guys but they're the the the claim now seems to be You know, we saw reporting in February saying that the autopsy, that DNC had documents that said it was around Gaza.

And now we're being told there's nothing about Gaza in these documents. It's just that Ken Martin hired, and I use that term loosely because apparently you suppose he didn't pay him. That's what he claimed to John Favrow. He said that the report was free, which sounds shadier than. not being free. Like, yeah, the guy just flew around. He got a volunteer.

Yeah, no, no, he took a camper. He took a camper. And, you know, he would go, he was going to. It was for college credit. And supposedly now the line is it's such gobbly gook that we couldn't release it because it was so

bad. And I'm sorry. I get what you pay for, I guess. I'm sorry. If I believe that that's true, which I, you know, maybe, release it and fire Ken Martin. And if it's not true, release it and fire Ken Martin. I mean, his fundraising numbers, not good, at least in terms of what he's putting out the door and getting.

And so I don't know why. And you can't, like, autopsy seems to be, you know, one of those, like, you got three jobs. one is to fundraise one is to win the next elections and really the only other thing that's incumbent upon that is figure out why you lost last ones yeah yeah it's bizarre to me i really don't get it and when connell harris comes out and says yeah release it you're going all right i mean that was the one excuse that i thought that i thought well they just didn't want to embarrass her with you know whatever they found out about the campaign and that she you know and she's screwed up she's running you know,

ridiculously. But she is. And, and, Matt, almost had a heart attack. Matt's off mic sigh was. That was hilarious.

Very. Picked up. But I get it. And I feel the same way. It was so loud. It was picked up on Digby's. Yeah. They did.

I heard it. Yeah. And, you know, the funny thing is, is that if it had she decided to run for this, for the governor of Cal California. She went. She would have won, going to win. No problem. And it would have been a good job. I mean, what's wrong? Governor California, big job, big important job, you know, but just stop. Anyway, she's running. And the fact that she's running, and she also said to release the report tells me that, you know, if she's not afraid of it, I don't know why anybody else should be. And except for Ken Martin, that's the only one. A, I would say she may not realize that she should be afraid of it. Well, that's true. She is running. But I also suspect that she's not going to be going with the same campaign crew she did last time.

I wouldn't think so, no. And I think what she thinks it will do is to exonerates too strong of a word. But be able to shift blame or that it will blame sort of like the Biden hold. dovers in those people and that if she had her, you know, but of course, you know, here's the problem. You're running for president. Yep. And you're the nominee. It's really tough to, you know, pass the buck.

Like I would have won, I would have won this election. You know, like, we would have double the amount of subscribers. But, you know, the way my parents treated me when I was a kid and screwed up my ability to increase the number of, you know, business. It just made me not very good at my job. I just can't do it. I'm just terrible. I mean, what can I say?

But, you know, it'll be different next time because I'll have other people around me who will be much better at making up for my own lack of leadership and abilities. So it'll be much better. Don't worry. I've learned a lot since then. No, it's ridiculous. And, you know, I don't really get it. It's, all it's doing is creating, you know, how this is it's the stricant effect. You know, the more you talk about it and don't do it, then, you know, the more people are interested.

it. I mean, I think we'd all forgotten about it and probably would have long ago forgotten about it if they had released it when it was finished. Instead, now we're supposed to an election and now we're arguing over it. Like what's talking about? You know, it's ridiculous. That's gobbly cook. And the thing is, is that the Gaza part of it, which I have no doubt, it played a huge part. I think it was, you know, certainly in the youth, the younger people's both, you know, of course it did. No doubt about it. And so what? I mean, now, the whole country's kind of, you know, shifted and coming around to that idea. They would have looked prescient, you know, would have said, you know, gee, maybe we should

have really run with that. Look how, look how it is. I mean, I just don't, you know, yeah. Well, donor. Yeah, of course. You know, of course. And, you know, the old, you know, the military industrial complex or so kinds of, you know, interests that were involved in all of that. But nonetheless, just on a sheer sort of populist political level, it would have been smart

to get that out there. And just let that sit for a while and let this whole thing unfold. And look where we are today. We're in a war with Iran at Israel's behest. And, you know, the country is horrified, generally speaking. Even a lot of Republicans are horrified. And the Democrats would have looked good for having, you know, been brave enough to come out and admit that, you know, this thing.

I mean, it's tough to go up against the Israel lobby. And it's tough to offend certain of your base in doing that. but that's an important one. It's a moral question. And they would have looked good by now. But, you know, instead, you know, it's like, what the hell is in this? Are the Epstein files hidden in this thing? I mean, my God, put it out there.

Let's see it, you know? I don't know. I guess there are, I mean, there are some Democrats. We've been interviewing a lot of, like, Democratic primary challengers and people who are winning the primaries. And there's a, you know, I wouldn't say a huge, but there's a, decent size cohort of Democrats who

are running at least in some of these primaries, sometimes winning these primaries who I think just have a much more aggressive stance. But I feel like we are still a cycle or two away of really good cycles, if that's even possible for Democrats to win.

Never mind the primaries that need to happen where these there will be Democrats who won't necessarily be all ideologically aligned with what I want or even necessarily a majority, maybe, but certainly a majority of Democrats who understand the nature of what the Republican Party is. I mean, let's play this clip of Donald Trump. He is falling apart.

but and and and and much of like the i're the democrats are are focusing on trump but it seems to me like they still are dropping the ball in terms of connecting this to the republican party but let's just watch him as he clearly is feeling to the extent that he's conscious of what's going on around him a little bit of pressure and uh by the way female reporter shocking You got a good look at crew back there, fellas, huh? Mr. President, you are here against the backdrop of the war in Iran. Why focus on all these projects right now? You know why?

Because I want to keep our country beautiful and safe, beautiful also. This place was a disgusting place. It was Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and we had a terrible, I don't know, you probably, you probably, don't see dirt, but I do. And you walk down this pond. If you would have walked down, they'll tell you better than anybody. They had to take 11 or 12 truckloads of garbage out of that lake out of that water and sat there for years like that. And that's not what our country's about. Our country's about beauty, cleanliness, safety, great people, not a filthy capital.

What is this status? It's such a stupid question, if you ask. We're fixing up the reflecting pond to the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and you say, why are you fixing it out? Because you can understand dirt maybe better than I can, but I don't allow it. This is one of the worst reporters. She's with ABC Fake News, and she's a horror show. She's saying, why would you bother fixing this up?

Why would I bother taking 11 or 12 truckloads of filth out of the water in front of the Lincoln Monument? That's what made our country great. Beauty made our country. People made our country great. A question like that is a disgrace to our country. Any other question? I also interrupt,

wanted to confirm this woman of color as well. I was honestly going to say like, oh, well, I'm surprised she's not black. And of course, she kept saying filth dirt. I mean, like, it's the way that he speaks about Somalis and she's a black woman. Like, that's what triggers him more than anything.

And, and, and, And the fact that that is something that he's now, he is worried about it. Like we played the clip earlier of him saying that he, we, some people expected that oil or gas prices would go up to 200 or even 250 a barrel and I was prepared to stomach it. And I think that's what he's hearing. And I think he knows that we're a billion barrels behind and shortages are coming. And this is not, gas prices are not coming down anytime soon. And so he is stressed about that very. fact and obviously it came out in that in that response also reporting today um that the

billion dollars for his ballroom is in jeopardy oh no i mean the you know we were talking about this earlier in the week heather the idea that uh republicans are more fiscally responsible than democrats and in leaving the uh question aside in terms of like deficit and debt and modern monetary theory and how our money supply, we have a lot more control over it than we've said in the past. What it really shows, not only do Republicans always increase the deficit and Democrats actually close it,

it shows that nobody cares about it. And it's only deployed by rich people as a cover for austerity. And by austerity, I'm specifically talking cuts to programs as opposed to like, you know, austerity, the taxes being austere, etc., etc. And it is, you know, it's sort of fascinating that we still take this seriously. I mean, all of the year. I mean, it really is. And in fact, you know, I mean, I've been watching this happen.

They're getting, they're preparing for the day when they can redeploy this, this, this, trope about how, oh, the deficit is out of control, the Democrats, you've got to cut these programs, they're killing us. But you know, it's kind of weird because in this, generally speaking, Republicans raise the deficit and they do it through tax cuts, right? They usually cut the hell out of taxes for rich people, and then they also raise the defense budget. That's their game. All taxes and military, that's what they do. But they generally have tended to more or less kind of leave alone the other programs like USAID and other programs like that were kind of kept going.

They might be reduced a little bit, but they didn't just, you know, get rid of them. They talked a game, but they didn't really do it because they knew that this was going to be very disruptive and that people would feel it and that voters would be unhappy and that it just wasn't something he did. They just wanted to have Democrats on the hook and tell them that they have to cut it. They didn't want to do it themselves. Trump's not doing that. He came in with Doge and with Project 2025 and Russ Vote and all the rest of these people.

And they are slashing the hell out of programs. I mean big time. And you're finding that, you know, the grants that are going for medical research, the stuff that's going out for, you know, academia in general, they're getting rid of the Department of Education and all the money that flows through that to regular primary schools in this country. You've got the health care debacle where they're just really cutting the health. out of Medicaid and then people losing their Obamacare subsidies on and on and on.

They're doing that. And at the same time, they're raising spending on the military through the root trillions now. One point, he said out there making cutesy videos that we're getting $1.5 trillion for the Defense Department or sorry, the Department of War. And he's dancing around and acting like an idiot. And you've got tons of money going to policing. and they've cut the hell out of taxes for rich people again. So it's a little bit different of an approach where they are doing both things at the same time.

They've gone an extra step by doing what they usually do, cut taxes and raise the defense spending, and also cutting all this stuff. So people are aware of the cuts. They're feeling it. They're actually looking around. And now it started a war and gas prices are through the roof and inflation is going to, you know, rides very sharply, I think, very quickly. And it's a very, very risky strategy that they have.

Now, you know, we say that. I mean, I think it's from an electoral standpoint, maybe. Yeah, but does electoral standpoint exist? Exactly. Because I'm wondering if they even care anymore, whether voters like it or not. I mean, look, all these redistricting stuff, these precedents, they're going to be that much worse. You know, they may not get it all done by 2026.

but it's only going to continue in that direction for 2028. And the bottom line is you come into, Democrats come into power just to get to parity where we were. Just to rebuild these agencies is going to cost more than 100% of what was being spent before. To get it back to where it was, because you have to reconstruct things. You have to reconstruct in some instances decades worth of institutional knowledge, et cetera, et cetera.

and so it is it is a brilliant strategy in terms of like long-term trajectory for the country to go in a certain way and it's and it's it's just really the strategy has been we just got to destroy we got to protect like you say we've got to protect two silos and that is defense and tax cutting and that's it and like there's a piece in politico um uh that Republicans are like voters want us to do something, but we really don't have any ideas. We don't have anything to do. We did everything that we did. We did everything that we know how to do.

We cut taxes and we've cut services to people and we don't know how to do the other stuff. And in some level, it's like from a step back and look at the people who benefit from a Republican Party, it doesn't matter if the Democrats are in power for two years or four. years, if the trajectory of the government continues in this direction, it doesn't matter. And so we're going to need Democrats who understand this stuff. And I haven't just heard that much articulated about it all, frankly. I mean, I imagine some people, but, but. Well, you know, I did hear, I went and listened to a few.

I was kind of skeptical about, you know, Platner up in Maine, just, you know, just kind of peripherally. He was supposed to be on today. Well, I thought I went and watched a few. YouTube, and watched him talk. And I have to say, he's,

you know, he's really impressive. He's very impressive. And I wasn't, you know, I didn't have a dog in a fight one way or the other. I didn't care about either one of them,

Maine, you know, the total opposite into the country from where I live. But I was interested. Some, I can't remember.

Something spurred me. I'm going, I better go listen to this guy. And he's very impressive. And part of it is is that he does get the democracy stuff. He says that he doesn't make any bones about it. It's in there.

It's part of his, It's part of his rhetoric. He doesn't make any bones about Trump, but he does talk about the Republican Party in the way that you're talking about. And he does talk about, you know, the wealth inequality, the elite, you know, the wealthy elites that are rigging the system for themselves.

And he does it in a very, you know, and it's very Bernie-esque in some ways, but it's different with him. He has a different approach. It's kind of a sort of a holistic way of wrapping this whole, all these topics together. So I'm enthusiastic about that because if you're looking at a state like Maine and people are responding the way they obviously are to him. And it may just be a function of his personality, kind of a, you know, I don't know, he's an appealing character and got a nice deep voice

and he presents very well. But what he's saying is if that's appealing to people, that's good news in a place like Maine, which is a swing state, it can go either way. And, you know, if that's something that can be a crossover, I'm all for it. you know, but the problem is, and you know, we're sort of hedging around this in this whole conversation is, you know, yes, you have to go up against the Republicans, you've got to go up against Donald Trump, you've got to be prepared for anything and be ready to act in defiance the minute they do something undemocratic like this and absolutely don't take it or don't say, you know, yes, well, you know, we need to observe the norms or whatever.

But there also has to be a reform plan, and I mean a radical reform plan. And what you're just talking about here is, you know, well, we need to rebuild these agencies. We've got to do all that stuff. I'm actually coming to the point where I think it's got to be more radical than that. It has to be a complete rethinking from the top down about how we do this stuff. Maybe this is the time. Maybe we don't have a choice because the other side is so radical now that they're ready to just burn the place down. And in fact, they may get to it before the Democrats even get a chance to do it.

And I'm not saying I've got any great big, you know, big overarching, you know, strategy to do this. But I'm thinking that maybe we need to think in bigger terms than we have in the past because this just, it seems really, really extreme to me what's happening. And it may require an extreme response. And I'm hoping people like Platner or I'm sure there are plenty more that are in politics from that, you know, from that cohort, younger, you know, coming, having come of age in this period of radical, you know, encroaching fascism, that maybe they've got some ideas.

I mean, I'm eager to hear it. I'm eager to hear what people are saying on that regard. And, you know, and I'm not of that age group. So if people like me are opening their minds to something, you know, really big, I mean, I'm talking, you know, the whole Supreme Court thing, statehood, all of that stuff, and then a complete reordering of the federal government and the way that it works. And I'd be for constitutional conventions, I'd be for, you know, completely eliminating the electoral college. I mean, you know, big, big stuff. And I don't know whether there, there clearly is not an appetite for it right now.

But maybe that's what we have to be building toward. So I think, I think people are recognizing, and Matt said this yesterday, that centrist can't govern. They can't. They're not competent enough to govern. Their ideology isn't working. Zoran Mamdani is governing excellently in New York. And even the way that Steyer is running in your state of California, like I have skepticism about it. But you see that that is where he knows his rhetoric has to meet the urgency of the moment. And that's what's encouraging. And even like a more moderate candidate, Mikey Cheryl, who ended up, uh, becoming governor in New Jersey, she started to update her rhetorics as Mom Dani was running too to say, like, I'm going to declare a state of emergency about the cost of living crisis. Like you're talking about wholesale changes, of course, to our government structure, but I think we're closer than we were before because of the fact that the urgency is being recognized by the voter base. Yeah, that's an excellent point. It's like it's kind of happening. People are

are starting to respond to the idea that this is this is not business as usual. And it won't be solved by business as usual. And whatever incremental ways, people like Cheryl or some of the others that are that are out there that are kind of doing big things or fighting back in a, in a decisive way, you know, a guy like, like, you know, J.B. Pritzker in Illinois, whatever you think of him, he's good at that. He's good at coming out. He's good at, you know, saying that and being, being someone who's, you know, at least sort of rallies the troops, if nothing else. And all of that is, you know, hopefully leading us to a place. But, I mean, I think it's going to be rough for a while here, folks.

I think we are in for a rough ride because the other side is prepared to go the distance, to do whatever they need to do to maintain power because they're losing the people. If you look at the polling, they don't even have Trump anymore as they're, you know, well, at least we've got Mr. Charisma here. I mean, not that I'll ever understand that, but apparently there were a bunch of people who really thought he was cool, and he's losing them too. You know, they're losing that too.

And there's nobody to take his place in the party that has that kind of hole on people. So they're basically fighting this sort of rearguard action to stay in power despite the fact that people do not like it and don't want it. And I think they'll do anything necessary. You know, part of it is the grip, you know. I mean, it's one of the things that's happening, and you mentioned this earlier, Sam,

that, you know, there are incentives, let's put it that way in politics. I think we all know that. There's an avalanche of cash just racing through our political system that has distorted it in incredibly destructive ways. And it's true in both parties. But on the Democratic side, what Donald Trump is showing, you can be openly corrupt and get away with it. No one, you know, you'll just do it.

What are they going to do it for you? You know, what are they going to do you? You've got Trump in there. He can pardon you. You know, there's just this sense of total impunity on those people's parts. It's not quite that way. And Democrats, we're still trying to hide it or work within the system. Exactly.

I mean, the fact is, is that a huge percentage of his base are authoritarian. And, you know, the reason why a Democrat would not get away with that is because Democrats would not, there would be too many Democrats who go, like, hey, what's going on here? You're not allowed to do that. I don't care that you're a Democrat. You're just not allowed to do that. And that's where it starts to crumble because you're always going to have the opposition party. Well, Heather, you know, always cheery to talk to you about this.

I feel like for the past 10 years, we've had some like iteration of this with a brief rest in the, in 2021. I remember, I hold on to the pandemic, though, so there was that. I hold on to like the first eight months of 2021 where I remember how hopeful we were, how excited after the American Rescue Act. And we thought like, oh, my God, Biden's learned the lessons of the Obama administration. And those were great times. And I hope, yeah, maybe someday. Maybe someday.

Heather. No, it's not now. Heather Parton, salon.com. Digby from the blog, hullabaloo. As always, thanks so much. Thanks for having me. Have a great weekend, people. Get some rest.

Thanks, Heather. All right, talk to you. All right, folks. That's it for the first half of the program. today. I think we covered at least a significant portion of the horrors of the week. I know we left a lot on the table. There was a lot of horrors this week. We'll get to some of that in the fun half. That's true. Also, just a reminder, it's your support that makes the show possible.

You can become a member at Join the Majority Report.com. When you do, you only get the free show free of commercials, but you also get the fun half. So sign up today at join the majority report.com. I think have a piece of hair on my nose. Also, just coffee. coop for trade coffee, hot chocolate. Use the coupon code. Majority, get 10% off. I feel like there's some other thing that we should announce,

but I don't know what it is. Matt, what's happening in your neck of the woods? Yeah, coming up at 3 o'clock. Eastern time over on the Jacobin Meg YouTube channel. We talk with Bronco Marcheach who's been going into a bunch of the Epstein emails and specifically with regards to Peter Thiel and how close Peter Thiel was to Epstein and how Jeffrey Epstein said, you should get more involved than you are in politics. So, yeah, the shadow of Epstein lives on through a giant surveillance contractor. Well, and then right after that, didn't Palantir set up a Tel Aviv office?

Yep, it was early in encouraging Peter Thiel to get more of a global sense and connect with... That's not weird. What's weird about that? That's not weird at all. Wind your horizons, man, especially to this guy, Ehud Barak. Yes, right, right. He made that connection. That's incredible.

All right. Quick break. Fun half. Three months from now, six months from now, nine months from now. And I don't think it's going to be the same as it looks like in six months from now. And I don't know if it's necessarily going to be better six months from now than it is three months from now. But I think around 18 months out, we're going to look back and go like, wow. What? What is that going on? It's nuts. Wait a second. Hold on for, hold on for a second.

Emma, welcome to the program. Hey. Fun hack. Matt. What is up, everyone? Fun hack. No, me, Keene. You did it.

Fun hack. Let's go Brandon. Let's go Brandon. Bradley, you want to say hello? Sorry to disappoint. Everyone, I'm just a random guy. It's all the boys today. Fundamentally false.

No, I'm sorry. Stop talking for a second. Let me finish. Where is this coming from, dude? But dude, you want to. Smoke is, um, seven, eight? Yes. Yes?

It is you. First 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 just know what? Libertarians. They're so stupid though. Common sense says, of course. Gobbled e-gook. We fucking nailed him. So what's 79 plus 21? Challenge men.

I'm positively quivering. I believe 96, I want to say. 857, 210,0, 501, 1 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 to satire. On top of it all, my favorite part about you is just like every day, all day, like everything you do. Without a doubt. Hey, buddy, we've seen you. Folks, folks. The week being weeded out, obviously. Yeah, sundown guns out.

But you should know. I 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 a little. Clock, we're already late, and the guy's being a dick. So screw him. Sent to a gulaw? Outrage. Like, what is wrong?

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