The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3660 - Platner Smear Flops; The Screwworm Cometh w/ Jeet Heer

Episode Date: June 5, 2026

It's Casual Friday on The Majority Report On today's program: Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) speaks out against section 224 of the NDAA for 2027 which was suggested by Benjamin Netanyahu and aims to further i...ntegrate U.S. and Israeli militaries. Unfortunately, the section was passed and now Thomass Massie (R-KY) and Khanna will aim to strip the language out of the final NDAA. A screwworm infection has been detected in cattle in south Texas. Elon Musk and DOGE stripped out screwworm monitoring programs in 2025. That can't be good. Jeet Heer, national affairs correspondent at The Nation and host of The Time of Monsters podcast, joins the program to recap the week's news. Topics include the New York Times hit piece on Maine senate candidate Graham Platner, the War Powers resolution, and more. In the Fun Half: Rep. Rashida Tlaib spars with Zionist Rep. Brian Mast over Israel's ongoing Gaza-style destruction of Southern Lebanon. Mast demanding that Tlaib "prove" that the 11 children killed by Israel earlier this week weren't terrorists. Mehdi Hasan humiliates Patrick Bet-David on his own podcast. Hasan corners David over the reality that if David were to attempt to immigrate the U.S. from Iran today. Mark Cuban is hurt that the Democrats aren't begging him for advice on AI and such. To close out the week we savor one last Dave Rubin clip from his massive flop on Jubilee's Surrounded. All that and more. To connect and organize with your local ICE rapid response team visit ICERRT.com The Congress switchboard number is (202) 224-3121. 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 AM Quickie 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: RITUAL: Get 25% off during your first month. Visit ritual.com/MAJORITY. FAST GROWING TREES: Get 20% off your first purchase.  FastGrowingTrees.com/majority SUNSET LAKE CBD: Use coupon code "Left Is Best" (all one word) for 20% off of your entire order at SunsetLakeCBD.com Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattLech On Instagram: @MrBryanVokey Check out Matt's show, Left Reckoning, on YouTube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning Check out Matt Binder's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/mattbinder Subscribe to Brandon's show The Discourse on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ExpandTheDiscourse Check out Ava Raiza's music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, folks. Today's episode brought to you by my favorite sponsor, sunsetlakeseppaday.com. Use the code left as best for 20% off. That means you get 20% off. They're smokables. Things for the entourage effect, as it were. But they also have pre-rolls.
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Starting point is 00:02:38 That's what we call it. And Friday, casual Shabbat. The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Friday. June 5th, 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.
Starting point is 00:03:09 downtown Brooklyn, USA. On the program today, Jeet here, National Affairs correspondent for the nation and host of the weekly nation podcast, The Time of Monsters. Also on the program today, Senate Republicans passed a $70 billion
Starting point is 00:03:28 reconciliation bill to fund ICE more. More money for ICE. Also on the program, today. A very heavily anticipated New York Times report
Starting point is 00:03:46 on Graham Platner falls flat as the paper now tries to defend itself from charges of launching a smear. Rokana's amendment to the NDAA to strip out Section 224 the melding of Israeli
Starting point is 00:04:07 and U.S. military developed and supply chains fails. Also on the program, Russ vote. Donald Trump. They did it. They stripped federal civil service for job protection
Starting point is 00:04:23 as he looks to install unqualified cronies. Job numbers higher than expected, but wage growth weirdly slows again. The flesh eating New World Screwworm outbreak is poised
Starting point is 00:04:43 to cost farmers and consumers, and consumers billions of dollars this after a year after Doge cut preventative measures. Luckily, beef was already cheap anyway. Exactly. DoD decides to no longer recognize 170-plus religions as supported by the military chaplain. Those are the fake ones. Social Security whistleblower reveals that Doge had a plan to label 2.7 Americans dead. Meanwhile, ICE plans to stop reporting actual deaths of detainees in their custody.
Starting point is 00:05:25 Seems bad. As the AP reports that the Trump regime is re-separating dozens of children who were separated under the first Trump administration and then reunited under the Biden. All this more on today's Majority Report. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, it is casual Friday. Casual Friday. And obviously, like, we should say, you know, I don't know if people hang out on Blue Sky or Twitter at all. We do. And we were all anticipating, because we're going to talk to Jeet about this Grand Platner thing, but just as like sort of the meta story of this. we were all sort of like obsessively checking to see when this story was going to drop because there was like sometime today's I've lost track of time sometime on Wednesday afternoon after the show all of a sudden everybody on Twitter seemed to know about this story that was going to drop and it was all the rumors were that it was about sexual assault and whatnot and as if there was a coordinated campaign to get that story out there.
Starting point is 00:06:52 We'll talk more about this later. So we're all waiting. And it was really more of the same in many respects that we already knew about Grant Platner. He had a bit of a drinking problem in the wake of his military service. Yeah. And the only on the record accuser that has... accuse him of anything physical, grabbing aggressively, is a Republican operative. And we'll be getting into that more.
Starting point is 00:07:25 But it was barely a footnote in the New York Times piece. It's not a footnote in this story. It seems kind of relevant that she did the ladies for Kavanaugh thing. Yeah. Well, we will talk about that. But there is a, you know, we'll get into it. the platner was on uh chris hayes program last night and um uh you know uh we will get into this but we should just say like you know that that that in many respects seemed to sort of like at least
Starting point is 00:07:59 dominate my attention over the past day however um the other day we had um i can't remember his name we had the director of the democratizing of foreign policy uh program on the quincy ben freeman right uh to tell us about section 2-4 of the National Defense Authorization Act. This is one of those must vote for bills that end up coming up that they all vote for, and that's the way that it ends up generally ballooning. But there is a provision in there about four pages long that talk about essentially melding the U.S. and Israeli military defense.
Starting point is 00:08:46 contracts, contracting development, logistics, essentially like intertwining our military with the Israelis in such a way that we would no longer give them aid because they would be part of our own Borg. It's a little on the nose. Like, you know, we were just informally having this special relationship with the settler colonial genocidal state. but now we can make it official. Facebook official. Yeah, I mean, it would be, we'd no longer have to give them aid in the same way that we don't have to give different divisions
Starting point is 00:09:28 of the Defense Department aid. It's just part of the budget. And Rokana offered an amendment yesterday to strip that from the bill that apparently came out of the Armed Services Committee. Here it is. The American people are tired of the arrogance and insolence of Prime Minister Netanyahu telling America what we should do. The entire country of Israel has a GDP that is less than a single town in my district.
Starting point is 00:10:07 Yet somehow Netanyahu thinks he could tell the American people what we should do. The person who's most upset with him right now is President Donald Trump. And everyone in America, whether you're a Republican, an independent, or a Democrat, says that we need to tell Netanyahu that America calls the shots, not the prime minister of any other country. They want less cooperation and blank checks to Israel, not more. Only the United States Congress would dream up at this moment. Let's actually do more for Israel, not less. And that's what Section 2024 does. It's a pretty simple thing. Should we do more for Israel than we already do? Or should we do less? If you think we should do more for Israel, you should be against my amendment. If you think we should do less for Israel at the time that he's arrogantly telling Donald Trump what to do, then you should be for my amendment. Now let me just be clear. Mr. Netanyahu actually wrote to the member of Congress to put this
Starting point is 00:11:09 section 224 into the bill. That's important because Netanyahu has been going to going out publicly and saying, you know, we won't have to rely on U.S. military aid much longer in anticipation of this. He supposedly wrote the language. I'm not he personally, but it came from Israel in terms of like, hey, as if, you know, you're headed out to the grocery store. who here's let me just give you the list of what we need yes uh yeah kana mentioned that and it's it's incredible um it's also we should mention that this n d aaa trump initially wanted a 1.5 trillion dollar pentagon budget it's now just a meager 1.14 trillion dollars the year over year increases i don't have it in front of me but in the first two years of the trump administration have been
Starting point is 00:12:09 exponentially higher and the defense budget increases every year and it's bipartisan and agreed upon. The American public is screaming from the top of their lungs to not deepen our relationship with Israel. And yet, we can't get support for something this flagrant from a majority of members of our Congress. There was a poll that came out in Pew recently. It's the same story across all of these reputable polls. 60% of Americans disapprove of our relationship with Israel. currently. And it's higher in some other polls. So do we live in a democracy or do we live in a country
Starting point is 00:12:51 that is beholden to a well-funded lobby and a variety of different lobbies? But this one in particular over our foreign policy is dominating politics because it's insane. We're funding a genocide. And what's going on in Lebanon? It's not getting enough attention either. They're using Gaza tactics in the south of Lebanon as we speak. And we should say now the, uh, uh, Kana's amendment in the Armed Services Committee, I believe that was the Armed Services Committee, failed. What was that? It was. Yes. And, uh, that failed. Um, but the bill passed out of the committee will go to the floor.
Starting point is 00:13:33 And at that point, Massey has said that he will, uh, join with Kana an attempt to strip that provision. from the bill. So this fight is not over. The other day we put the names of all the people on the Armed Services Committee. I think it was into our description with a number and a call them, but now is the time to start calling your Congress people, whether they're Republican or Democrat, and tell them section 224 should be stripped from the bill. Because I just want to add this one point to make this clear, because we already have an agreement. with Israel. It's a memorandum of understanding. Baseline until
Starting point is 00:14:15 2008, we give them nearly $4 billion a year. Although since the genocide began, we have like, you know, tripled, quadrupled that in 2024, 12.5 billion we sent to Israel, at least formally. But what's scary about this is that once this ball gets rolling,
Starting point is 00:14:32 once these contracts are signed, once Israeli weapons technology is integrated into U.S. military systems, it becomes very difficult to roll that back because the integration has already begun. So it's just important to point out that like, this is how they cement their influence when they understand that there's a populist anger coming that could get in the way of that after the midterms and into 2028.
Starting point is 00:15:01 Let's try and do this quickly before Jeet joins us because this is a, it's going to be a story, You know, somebody asked me yesterday, like, what is the worst thing that you think is going out? Like, what's the, what's the thing that bothers you most about this era? And from my perspective, there's a lot of horrible things that Donald Trump is doing, ranging, you know, maybe top on that list is what we're doing to immigrants and the way that we're detaining them and creating this entire mechanism. some of that, much of that can be reversed. You know, there's a certain amount of inertia. But what's happening to our agencies, once you destroy these things,
Starting point is 00:15:53 it's going to take literally at least a decade, it seems to me, of democratic rule, at least. Because when a new administration gets in there, even if it's, you know, if Emma was elected president, in 2028, hopefully that's not going to be the case, like her around here for a little longer. But in the event that that happens, there's only so much resources and bandwidth an administration has, and they're not going to be able to expend the energy to fix every single department. So what we're seeing between Doge and Russell Vote and this attack on civil servants is going to resonate for years and years and years.
Starting point is 00:16:37 and it's going to resonate in a way that most people, the vast majority of them, will not understand it's a function of this. They're going to look at government failing to do things and just assume that's a problem with government as opposed to a direct relationship to this. Here is Brooke, what's her face from the USDA, Collins. Rollins. And here she is testifying on the discovery of the flesh-eating
Starting point is 00:17:07 New World Screw Worm. This is a flesh-eating bacteria that affects beef, a cattle. And a horrible way for cattle to die. But also, at a time where we have a incredible shortage of U.S. beef, in part, at least because of our allowing... Climate change drought. Yeah. Climate change drought, but also in part of our allowing...
Starting point is 00:17:37 for consolidation and antitrust violations take place. This is going to cost farmers and people billions of dollars, and it's going to further, my guess, is concentrate the beef industry. But listen to what she says, because it's lies. Take a moment, Mr. Chairman, to talk about the screwworm detection. And, of course, we can dive in with any of you in your Q&A. Yesterday, we received confirmation for the presence, for the first time in 45 years, the presence of a New World Screw Worm case within the United States, with the exception of a couple in Florida and others in the last number of years. We found that and was confirmed in a three-week-old calf in LaPriar, Texas.
Starting point is 00:18:28 While this development is a serious threat to our livestock and wildlife, it hasn't caught us off guard. we were ready and prepared under the last administration and after having the Dary and Gap, which is the biological barrier between South America and Central America, which held the screwworm at bay since the 1960s that that barrier barrier and gap crumbled under the last administration. Okay. Do you notice how she said we had advance warning of this? This is important.
Starting point is 00:19:02 First off, put up Image number three. This is from Agri- Agri-Pulse. Agri-pulse, they do reporting on agriculture. This is back in the
Starting point is 00:19:20 I'm sorry, yeah, number three. This is from back in the winter of of 2025. Bird flu, screw worm, monitoring among foreign aid programs killed by Trump. Look at
Starting point is 00:19:39 number two. DevX. This is a this is basically an industry journal for NGOs that came out of the Harvard Kennedy School. USAID cuts a spell bleak
Starting point is 00:19:55 for Zutonic disease control. If you scroll down when it comes to international coordination, particularly among lower income countries, the most worrying signals is how U.S. aid cuts are playing out within the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. The agency helped countries coordinate boost their capacity to reduce the national, regional, and global spread of animal diseases. U.S. is the largest contributor to the budget
Starting point is 00:20:22 comprising 14% of total resources in 2024. Why might we do that? Might we have more stakes, as it were, no pun intended in the game? But earlier this year, FAAO received termination notices for more than 100 U.S. funded programs valued at approximately $382 million. Literally the cost of maybe half a day in our Iran project. Keep going, keep that up, because the next line is the health security program, which monitors and prevents the spread of transboundary animal diseases such as bird flu and new world screw worm. Meanwhile, Brooke Rawlins says that we had no idea. You know, we were on top of this like this.
Starting point is 00:21:14 From NBC News, the case is the first confirmed detection of New World Schoolroom in Texas since 1966. It's the only confirmed case identified in the country so far, Rollins said. It follows months of warnings from U.S. and Texas. Agriculture officials and cattle industry leaders as the pest dead of moved north through Mexico toward the American border. For months, the screw worm has advanced rapidly through Mexico in spite of the USDA's existing game plan. Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said, Sid Miller, of course, a huge social justice warrior out of Texas. No, I'm sorry, he's a Republican. Adding that instead of using every available tool, USDA moved
Starting point is 00:22:00 too slowly and relied solely on a partial solution that takes years to fully implement. Well, that's probably because all of the monitoring systems and all of the systems that were to contain this thing had been cut. Miller called on President Trump to take direct control of the government's response. Good luck, buddy. I'm so hands-on. Oh, yes. Oh, I'll definitely stop programming my birthday party to get to the screw worm.
Starting point is 00:22:30 So this is, you know, going to be just another disaster. And you know who's going to pay the price on this, right? It's going to be basically people, this is just going to make our K-shaped economy more and more little K. Yes, the 85% of U.S. beef that's owned by four companies is going to rise because you're going to have companies that get folded in and get, and there will be an even further takeover. Cattleherd smallest in 75 years. It's just going to get worse. Just one more highlight of things
Starting point is 00:23:12 that you probably would never otherwise think about, but we'll make a difference and, you know, very few people in the media are going to put it together and nobody's going to be campaigning on the screw worm down in Texas, although, I don't know. I mean, luckily. Maybe Tala Rico might.
Starting point is 00:23:30 Tala Rico, jump on this here. I mean, I've heard in that race that Texans like meat. I don't know if you've heard about this. That's right. Like hamburgers. That's a big thing. Trump likes them too, but I don't think he's affected by the prices. Telarika's vegan, so he won't want to kill the screw worm either.
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Starting point is 00:28:59 We will put the description in the pot, or I should say the links in the podcast and YouTube description. Quick break. Jeet here, National Affairs correspondent for the nation and the host of the nation's podcast, The Time of Monsters. We are back, Sam Cedar, Emma Vigland, on the Majority Report. it is a pleasure to welcome to the program Nation Magazine's National Affairs correspondent and host of their podcast
Starting point is 00:30:07 The Time of Monsters Jeet here, Jeet Always a pleasure You beat Hassan Pike where Wait a wait Sorry What was that? We're dubbing your audio, Jeep
Starting point is 00:30:22 Figures in everybody Exactly Exactly. Jeet, welcome back to the program. I don't know about you, but Emma and I, everybody in the office has been sort of like abnormally keyed in
Starting point is 00:30:40 on waiting for a New York Times story to drop. Let's just like start from the very beginning of like, did you notice like we did a lot of people seem to be, seem to have knowledge of what was supposedly in this story and we're anticipating it,
Starting point is 00:31:00 like in a way that I haven't really seen before. Yeah, no, no. There were like a lot of people doing, I guess what the kids call it today is vague posting. They were like, oh, something is coming out at the New York Times, which would be of interest to people in Maine, you know, could involve like very serious accusations. And interesting, also like the spectrums,
Starting point is 00:31:26 of people who are like doing this vaguely thing, which included a lot of quite right-wing people. And to the extent that there's a difference, a lot of centrist liberals who all seem to be connected with near a tandem in some way. And Israel. Don't forget, a lot of them are Zionists. I mean, it was it was a Zionist centrist and a right-wing kind of coalition. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's also like Venn diagram-wise. you're looking at basically a total eclipse. That's right, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so, I mean, it didn't seem like there was a bunch of people
Starting point is 00:32:06 with a very distinct political profile who all seemed to know that something was coming out in the New York Times. And actually, like, some of the tweets I saw, I can't quote them for freedom. But, like, you know, like, I was expecting, like, you know, the new volume of the Marquis de Sods, the
Starting point is 00:32:25 Sodom and Gomorrah, like, you know, like stuff involving animals and like total depravity. So I have to say, you know, like it's like going to see backrooms or obsession. Like a lot of buildup, but for me personally,
Starting point is 00:32:44 thumbs down, disappointing. Oh, all right. Well, we can talk about that because all drag me to backrooms. Well, Converterables actually, like, I mean, I cannot emphasize enough. Like the people who are hinting that this is going to be like a blockbuster were like hitting at like like something like completely like horrific is good. That is going to like the earth will shake. That was going to involve like intense violence or or sexual assault or something like this.
Starting point is 00:33:13 And maybe like we're getting ahead of ourselves a little bit here. But well, let's circle back to that because I'm that to me is also sort of fascinating. like where did that come from? Because there is nothing remotely like it. Yeah. In this, I mean, you know, something like, like, there's none of that even remotely alleged, let's say, in this piece. The headline is several women who dated Graham Platner recall unsettling behavior. Now, they didn't all use unsettling.
Starting point is 00:33:53 Really, I think only one of the six women they quoted used unsettling. Three women had some negative things to say, but also some positive things to say. The other three women had all basically positive things to say. And they supposedly interviewed dozens of people. So they may have even left off other women who said positive things. It's hard to believe that they would have left off women who said negative things, because that's the whole point of the story. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:34:25 I have to say, like, you know, if I were like, if the New York Times did a deep dive into my exes, I'm not so sure that, you know, you'd be able to get as good at track record as, you know, grab platinum seem to, like, have. Where, like, you know, there's one particular person who, you know, we can get into, you know, like,
Starting point is 00:34:46 that's very angry. And others, you know, like the more typical and big U.S. disappointment from a failed relationship. And then three, you know, that's a great guy. Right. The ones who weren't a Republican operative. And I, and I just, like, I have to just. Yeah, Emma, please go. Because you've been like, I've been on top of this.
Starting point is 00:35:08 Okay. So, you know, I, this is, I, I, as a woman, I'll, I'll use that card now. I take claims like this incredibly seriously, but I'm also quite supportive, of course. of Graham Plattener's candidacy, especially when we're talking about versus and Collins, okay, but also because his politics are politics that I largely disagree with, or agree with. In the Times, this is just unheard of to me. Here, I'll just read this quote. Mr. Platner strongly disputes any claims of physical intimidation or altercations, his campaign said. The Times could not independently corroborate Ms. Fyfield's account of the altercations.
Starting point is 00:35:48 Now, that's what a tabloid would do. The New York Times is supposed to be able to corroborate claims before they publish a piece with her one-sided claim about his treatment of her, especially when we find out who this individual is. She is a longtime Republican operative. In fact, in 2018, let's put this up here, the New York Post, she was featured in the New York Post, Lindsay Fifeield. She's one of the two millennial women who co-founded the group Ladies for Kavanaugh to show their support for the nominee when they felt that view was being left out of the public discourse. Their day jobs are in conservative politics, Stepman, that's the other woman, at Independent Women's Forum. And we'll get back to the Independent Women's Forum in a second.
Starting point is 00:36:39 And Fifeield at the Heritage Foundation, their pro-Kavanaugh group was formed on their own time. This is a quote from the woman who accused Plattenure here. In the wake of the baseless 11th hour accusations orchestrated to stop Kavanaugh's confirmation, we couldn't stay silent anymore. Okay. Now, you hear about that independent women's forum. We should say she's used that construction of I couldn't stay silent anymore. Also in the New York Times piece. Yes.
Starting point is 00:37:11 So this independent women's forum, can you just show my caption first? second here because it explains who this person is. This is in 2020. Let's fast forward to this clip because now Fivefield at the time she was at the Heritage Foundation, but in this current moment, she is a fellow at the Independent Women's Forum. They seem to be circling around Kavanaugh a lot and not just Kavanaugh, but the key vote in that confirmation for Kavanaugh, which was Susan Collins. Now listen to the chair of this group. which this woman is a current fellow act bragging about how they basically scripted Collins's remarks when she was justifying to the public how she was going to support Kavanaugh.
Starting point is 00:37:58 Here it is. I will tell you, I'm extraordinary proud of IWF. It's not well known, but after Jeff Flake got caught in the elevator, a moment I think none of us will ever forget, absolutely paralyzed by the activist asking him questions and not knowing what to say. We were approached and they said, can you tell us how to talk about supporting Kavanaugh without alienating the Me Too movement? We wrote a memo. It was used by a lot of members of the Senate and the House and Fox News and elsewhere. But most important is Susan Collins told me that without that memo, she could not have seen how to support him.
Starting point is 00:38:37 And if you look at her speech that she gave on the Senate floor, it is entirely the playing out in architecture of how we said to destroy. structure the argument and what to say and how to say it, which is just so gratifying. We're watching too much. That's our. So gratifying. That's ours. Okay. So that's the group where this woman, which it was like a footnote in the New York Times, the only woman who's accusing him of anything physical at all, which is intense grabbing, hard enough to leave marks is what she said, and also locking her in a room when they were in the middle of an argument. She felt intimidated by him. And the times, as I just read, could not independently corroborate it based on what they found.
Starting point is 00:39:19 And yet they still printed it anyway. And I just have to say one more thing. Because I actually think that they rewrote the story. And we could get the more recent version because they've actually strengthened their, the assertion that they could not corroborated. They've actually reworded that to make me more clear than in the original story that this is something that we have one person. saying it and there is no other evidence that we can okay math's pulling that up now but i have to put
Starting point is 00:39:46 this out there because this is really important this isn't just us because we like plattener's candidacy and we support his candidacy on this front i heard i've been told from a long time new york times reporter yesterday who gave me permission to share this that many others at the times including this person who i spoke with have said that this and they know internally that this is a gross hit piece and beneath their reporting standards. And to hear that from somebody who's a long time New York Times reporter and say that their colleagues also are in agreement on this, I think says everything. Yeah, no, I mean, it's a remarkable thing.
Starting point is 00:40:28 I don't necessarily think we have to go to great detail. But, you know, the reporter or one of the co-writers of this piece, it has two bylines, you know, kind of has a record of writing hit pieces, particularly against Memdadi. So I think, so there's both the question of the authorship and then also the primary source for the only serious allegations in this article. You know, it absolutely, and even at that, they could, they had to put in the proviso that they could not like corroborated. So it seems like a really stunning example of, um, a character assassination. And, uh, you know, like, um, I think it was a Rick Wilson. You know, basically said, you know,
Starting point is 00:41:28 like I'm someone who specializes in, uh, Republican, GOP smear campaigns in the past. I know one when I see one. So I think if we have the authority of Rick Wilson, also on this, that should count for something. There's a couple of things about this that, you know, when Platner said there's nothing else coming out, and he said that in a couple of contexts. Because, you know, people are very concerned. I think people are, you have a couple of different sort of like
Starting point is 00:42:04 types of concern associated with this. Some people are concerned that there's going. going to be evidence that is consistent with the idea that, you know, that he's a Nazi. And there is obviously none of that outside of the tattoo, which is, you know, I mean, people who have tattoos, like. People get tattoos. People get tattoos. And then, you know, there was concern that there would be more.
Starting point is 00:42:39 damaging stuff that was you know like the the rumors that were flying on Twitter that you know that would be just sort of like really make it impossible to be supportive of somebody and create some type of crisis before the primary and like this is somebody
Starting point is 00:42:55 we got to pull back but when he said went out and said you know there's no more information coming out I know what my life is like one of the things that I find encouraging about this is that this is consistent with that.
Starting point is 00:43:11 Like the information that he drank too much, that he went through a very dark period, this is, we knew all this. Much of this stuff was out there. The stuff about what goes on in his marriage is also, seems to me, exactly something that you would not anticipate
Starting point is 00:43:28 coming out because it's between you and your wife. And all you've told about is the campaign. You never thought, like, one of the campaign people would be working to leak this information that's private information. I think most people, I think, are like, maybe the guy, you know, you know, sort of a jerk, but he's working it out with his wife.
Starting point is 00:43:51 And that's between two, you know, adults in their marriage. And she, you know, it's not like she found out because of the campaign. I think Platterner, the one reason why, like, even according to the most recent polls, even according to, like, a poll from somebody who's like, GOP poster with Susan Collins. Like, it's actually, that poll actually showed him, like, improving by 1%, as against what he was doing earlier, by that same pollster.
Starting point is 00:44:21 The reason my planner has, like, remained viable is that he actually has, like, a pretty compelling narrative, which is that, you know, like, I was young, I was patriotic. I, you know, went into the military service. I, you know, suffered a lot of post-traumatic stress disorder, you know, did a lot of drinking, did a lot of foolish things, which, you know, the tattoos are consistent with. And this is like, you know, like, it's not a unique experience. Like, I think, you know, America's a heavily militarized culture because we have people like, you know, Susan Collins at Donald Trump, we're constantly sending Americans off the war. And one of the consequences of the war is you get a lot of very messed up people. And Plattenor's story is consistent with that and consistent with also someone who is trying to work this out and is trying to improve himself.
Starting point is 00:45:10 And consistent with like taking a more anti-establishment, anti-system politics so that other people don't have to suffer what he did. So I think like on all that level, like it's a pretty compelling story. and, you know, like, to stop about, you know, like, I'll be frank. I've never been, like, you know, ride or die with Platner because, you know, like, the Blackwater stuff has always given me caution. But having said that, like, if one takes it as he's presenting it, you know, like, I had these things that happened to me, and there was a lot of damages on, and I did things that I shouldn't have.
Starting point is 00:45:51 But, you know, I know that they were wrong and I'm improving. Like, like, you know, like, just as a human story, it's very compelling. And if like it's also it's consistent the argument that they're using against him is consistent with that Susan Collins exchange with the reporter that we played where she abdicates as you said on Twitter Sam responsibility for her vote and support for the Iraq war and basically says yeah well he decided to sign up he should have known better and and everything you're saying about the PTSD that he face the culture of misogyny and violence that is in the military that is encouraged and by the way by people. Hegeseth and Donald Trump is now saying this is our policy. We're going to purge the military of all wokeness and women and black people or whatever so that we can have more of this kind of culture, that the idea that Susan Collins and the rest of this media class is turning around and using his experiences with his mental health struggles against him, it's so much more convenient for these people that have supported the war machine that has
Starting point is 00:46:56 ruined the lives of so many young people in this country, for them to blame him individually, then look internally at their own support for that system. Like, this, all of the, the, the behavior that is described is entirely consistent with PTSD. And so, you know, I just don't think this works. I don't think it works, uh, because I think people want to look at things more systemically. Let's just, uh, I would think. And I also had the sort of GOP, Auburn. It was the main source of this.
Starting point is 00:47:27 It also seems to be the main source of the tattoo story. Well, let's. Okay. I want to. I don't want to emphasize. Like, you're not just Republican women. Like, she had a closet podcast with Bethany.
Starting point is 00:47:40 Okay. Gee, this is exactly where I wanted to go. Hold on one second. Let's play this clip. Let's play this clip from Chris Hayes. Platner came, went on Chris Hayes's program last night. It was an extended interview. I would encourage everybody to watch it because Hayes really goes in on him.
Starting point is 00:47:59 This was not a softball interview. And I think Platner answered every question very directly. And so I think this is, you know, very important for people to see the whole thing. But here's the beginning. And it speaks directly to the tattoo where the original tattoo story came from. because people should remember, well, play the clip first. This is from the Times. Mr. Plattenor could be rough with her, as Fifeield said,
Starting point is 00:48:29 particularly when they were drinking, leaving her shaken and sometimes afraid. In the interviews, she grappled with how to process her experiences. She was quick to note, he never hit me, never punched me. She said irregular grabs her by the shoulders, sometimes hard enough to leave marks. On one occasion, yanked her out of a cab by her wrist after an argument and she wanted to stay in the car. During one argument, she recalled, he pressed her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom and held the door closed from the other side so she couldn't get out,
Starting point is 00:48:52 telling her to remain there until she was calm. Eventually, Ms. Fyfield said, she fell asleep and left the next morning. It hurt, she said, but she added it didn't cause any injury. It didn't break my arm. Did that happen? No, it did not. There are some allegations in this piece that I just want to be kind of unequivocal about are simply not true.
Starting point is 00:49:14 Anything alleging physicality, anything alleging that I knew what my tattoo was, these are the statements of someone who's politically motivated. In this piece, there's a lot about my struggling, not being a good boyfriend, certainly self-medicating with alcohol, and I've been very upfront just the beginning of this campaign. That was a pretty dark period of my life after I came back from my combat service, and that's what that kind of life looks like. And so there are things in this that I absolutely will take responsibility for
Starting point is 00:49:48 and have been speaking about openly for months now. But those serious allegations are just not true. Okay. So here is Bethany Mandel confirming exactly what Jeet said that the original story about him knowing about the tattoo, which was in, I think it was in the foreword. Where was the? It was in Jewish Insider.
Starting point is 00:50:15 Jewish Insider. And they did not disclose in their. that she was a Republican operative. It was one anonymous source who said, oh, he knew what it was. And here is that we put up that tweet. And here's where Bethany Mandel, like, I think. Good friend of this individual. I mean, Mandel is a nasty person in her own right.
Starting point is 00:50:41 We don't need have time to get into that. Yes, but inadvertently reveals in a, you know, and trying to go ahead with Michael Tracy. Bless his heart. Bethany Mandel says, Lindsay is loved, respected, and trusted by everyone in town who has the pleasure to know her. It's telling that Michael finds this concept confusing.
Starting point is 00:51:03 She came forward with the Toten Kampf many months ago, naively believing that a Nazi tattoo would be disqualifying. Unfortunately, that was not a bridge too far much to our dismay. Now, first off, are we really to believe that a Republican, operative thinks a Nazi tattoo is disqualifying? Like, how many people in the administration get put it? You specifically wrote an article saying that we need to befriend Nazis. And that's the best way to deal with the problem of the far right.
Starting point is 00:51:34 Yes. So I absolutely do not think that she has an issue with a tattoo. But she's been on this beat for a while, apparently, in trying to tell reporters who would listen and only one outfit was willing to use that one corroborated. I think CNN later picked up. Okay. But yeah, yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:52:00 And so this woman was the one who supposedly, you know, said that he knew what the tattoo was. And I don't know, like, gee, let me ask you this. because I want to move to the War Powers Resolution and some other sort of more substantive stuff, but this is obviously a big deal because Tuesday is the main primary
Starting point is 00:52:24 and there's still, you know, I mean, if Grand Platter was a drop out after Tuesday for whatever reason, the party would then just appoint somebody. And it sort of feels like that's what's still going on. Like the party wants to appoint somebody. Yeah, it's kind of curious because
Starting point is 00:52:41 I mean, if the, you know, like let's say, you know, one thinks that all of this stuff is just too much. You don't want somebody who's potentially risky the way plan there is. You have to have a plan B. Well, you know, like, first of all, they already had a plan B, which like Chuck Schumer
Starting point is 00:52:59 and all the establishment support. It was Janet Milt. And she's still on the ballot, and she had an anonymous source talked to like CNN said, you know, Janet Mills is still on the ballot. So this is your plan B. Somebody who's like not willing to campaign and has some friend, like, announced that she's still alive.
Starting point is 00:53:20 That does not inspire confidence in me. It does not inspire, like, the idea that, like, this is the person who's going to take down Susan Collins. Like, it would be, you know, if the Democratic establishment, like, willing to offer someone halfway plausible, you know, like, I might think, like, well, you know, like, Platterner is not the one, but, like, it's quite remarkable to me. that they are you know their plan B is someone who's not even willing at this date the campaign like that's that's amazing
Starting point is 00:53:52 amazing they just want to they just want this on a platter they just want the voters out of the system they just want to be able to say you know this is our nominee uh love it or lump it just like mills had driven and the thing is there's a democracy that anything one could accuse plopter of She was the plan A, and she and Schumer big-footed all other candidates, from what I understand, from people in Maine, that there were other people considering a run back, you know, at the beginning of 2025. And Schumer and Mills kept them out, said, you're not going to get fundraising. Don't go up against the Democratic establishment. And so that's why we got a bunch of people running for governor on the Democratic take. Like that's not a coincidence. And but, but what's weird to me is like, why now?
Starting point is 00:54:51 Because if I'm the Republicans, like, if this is all I got, but even if I have more, why am I even waiting? Why am I not waiting until after the primary? Because we're, listen to me, the bottom line is we're five months out. And this story, this not, it really is a non-story. In fact, like, people are already talking about the story itself being the story, as opposed to the substance of the story. You're five months out. And Graham Platner is still like, if he runs like he ran during the primary, he is going to be visiting places in Maine three or four times more than Susan Collins.
Starting point is 00:55:37 And like people are going to have like an upfront look at him. and every time he does that, he picks up more support. This feels like a desperate ploy to get him out of the race, as opposed to, you know, we're going to fight the actual campaign against Collins. Like, that's what it feels like to me. Like, this seems more desperate than it, because it just, the timing doesn't make sense. No, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:56:08 I accept the sense that, like, I think there's a bipartisan, you know, alliance of sort of, you know, centrist establishment, heavily pro-Israel people who, like, just do not want Plattenor running at all, right? And I think that if they, and, you know, like, they have constantly tried to throw dirt at him. And they've constantly, and this is what, you know, going back to the tweets that were going out, they're hinting at much more like serious like, you know, like real crimes, I would say they're not able to substantiate. And so to me, like, it's almost like one shouldn't credit them so much as strategic with them. I mean, when the Bethany Mendel thing, like it's like that they're constantly trying,
Starting point is 00:56:53 they're trying to see what they can come up with to take this guy down. And like I said, like I have my own like, you know, sort of doubts about Plotner, but like I'm being negatively polarized to think like, if all these people, you know, everyone from Bethany Medell to near a tendon, like, hate this guy so much, then like, you know, maybe there's something to them.
Starting point is 00:57:14 And that's the way anti-system politics works. I mean, this is actually why I think, like, you know, a lot of the stuff against Trump didn't work, a lot of stuff against Marion Barry didn't work. Because if you're seen as like, I'm the person that's going to stand up to the establishment, then the fact that they keep on trying to come up
Starting point is 00:57:30 with these cockamamie stories, like, just like, reinforces your status as the I'm the guy that's fighting the man. And I know that we have to move on, but I just have to say in this, if we're for all of the talk about how the Democratic Party needs to win back young men and how they've lost young men and how the excesses of woke 1.0 included like this over cancelization and a no, no opportunity for people to redeem themselves, then the fact that this is the tactic that's being used by the Democratic establishment to quadruple down on what was really not a good political
Starting point is 00:58:10 orientation, regardless of whether or not it was fair to attribute that to the Democratic Party. And there were a lot of people who had, you know, good intentions, of course, when Me Too was happening. And we had to listen to women, of course. But like, if the Democratic Party acknowledges that perhaps, you know, there were some messaging issues at that time period, the fact that they are using those exact same tactics against Platner for things that are shaky accusations in and of themselves and don't involve sexual assault, for example, is like better for him probably in the long run because that is the exact kind of orientation that has not helped the Democrats politically. Yeah, I know. I think that's right. Although I mean, in this case, the very shaky, the shakiness
Starting point is 00:59:00 to me is the primary. Like, I think there are cases of like a politician who, you know, like I've broadly, like, agreed with, you know, Al Franken being one where, like, thought about, well, it's better, you know, not to go forward with this. But, I mean, I don't, I don't think with Dr. Like, like, I'm actually shocked that, like, you know, like, like, the, like, just how shoddy this particular story is. Like, it is really, like, on a, on a whole different level. Yeah. And so, yeah, I mean, I think that's, uh, all that can be. Like, I have to me that sort of primary.
Starting point is 00:59:38 And then I guess the more politically interesting thing is the coalition, this coalition of centrist Democrats with people who are like, really like on the case of Mandel, people like openly gloat like, you know, I wish we could drop a nuke on Gaza, but it would spread some radiation into Israel, which is what she tweeted, like, you know,
Starting point is 00:59:56 this alliance between centrist Democrats with people like that. Yeah, it's a Zionist smear campaign. This is a Zionist right-wing smear campaign. We didn't even get into one of the authors of the piece and what her past history is with pro-Israel groups and the fact that her parents literally live, I think, in Haifa. Yeah, yeah. I wonder if that influenced her and her past coverage of Zoran Mamdani as well, by the way, at the New York Times. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You would imagine the Times would say, like, we got to make sure that we're not accused of bias in this instance.
Starting point is 01:00:30 Nope. Nope. I know. I mean, to go back, I mean, this is a bit of a historical thing, but, you know, one of the leaders of the American far right and, you know, the far right in Israel, Rabbi Merrick Kahan, like, you know, there's a fascinating story in the American prospect about how in the 60s it came out that he was leading this double life of having an affair with a woman who got pregnant. I was pretending to be this other guy named Michael King and then she committed suicide, you know, driven by his second. bad behavior. And the Times had that story and they decided to like, Abe Rosenthal, the editors that like, you know, we can't run this. Like, like, you'll encourage anti-Semitism. So like, I actually think, like, you know, like it's a very bad situation. The Times is like, you know, so willing to let the, this sort of politics guide their coverage. It's not great. Yeah, it's shocking.
Starting point is 01:01:26 I mean, I don't know if it's shocking. I mean, it's shockingly consistent. from them. Let's put it that way. There's a long history of this. All right. Let's turn to the War Powers Act because Congress had Mike Johnson had essentially dismissed Congress
Starting point is 01:01:47 two weeks ago in an attempt to avoid this vote that they took two nights ago, I guess it was, Wednesday night. Wednesday night, yes. And the House the War Powers a resolution passed in the House. A version had passed in the Senate, I guess it was like two weeks ago,
Starting point is 01:02:08 or three weeks ago. And I think it's going to have to go back to the Senate, but there's no reason to believe, particularly like, you know, now that Cornyn laws, too, that it's not going to pass in the Senate. I know you just came out with a piece. I haven't had a chance to read that, But what's your sense of this? It was reported with such little fanfare that no one seems to think that it's actually, like, relevant. Yeah, well, I mean, here's the thing. Under the War Resolutions Act, would they have something that's called sort of a concurrence or a legislative veto, which means that you just have to have the House and the Senate vote for something,
Starting point is 01:02:55 and that this then becomes, goes into effect. And it's consistent with the Constitution, because the Constitution, Because the Constitution says that only Congress has the right to declare war. And so obviously it doesn't make sense that if Congress has no war, that the president has a veto over, you know, something that is a power of Congress. But having said that, the Supreme Court, it's a little bit weedy. But in a 1983 decision, INS versus Chata, they said legislative vetoes can't apply. They really, you know, empowered the imperial presidency. but there's a lot of questions as to whether Chata applies to the War Resolutions Act.
Starting point is 01:03:31 And even Lewis Powell, who had voted for Chata in his decision, said it doesn't. So it's actually a real constitutional crisis. But I mean, I think the broader issue is like it's as clear as clear can be in the Constitution that only Congress can declare war. But we have this crazy system where the president often declares war and then Congress after the fact has to restrain him. So I think it's a real constitutional crisis. And this is why, you know, J.D. Van said war powers resolution is fake and unconstitutional.
Starting point is 01:04:06 And my worry is that it's going to go to the Supreme Court and they're going to just eviscerate what little check there is. But I think it's a battle worth having. Like, I think it's actually worth getting everybody on the record. Like, do we actually, like, believe what the Constitution says? Or are we just going to have, like, be like late imperial Rome of, like, the emperor can do whatever he wants? And we could be a month away from that kind of decision from the Supreme Court, it seems to me, right? I mean, the Senate's going to take this up at one point. I think it's a privileged bill, so someone's going to introduce it if they haven't already.
Starting point is 01:04:44 Yeah, no, the Senate has to decide in the next two and a half weeks under like the War Resolutions Act. So it's going to go to the Senate. I think it is you're right. It'll probably pass. I think maybe the Supreme Court will just bunt on this. say we're not going to take up this issue. Because, I mean, the question is, like, how do you, like, you will have, like, you know, Congress basically saying, you know, we're exercising our constitutional power. You have to end this war.
Starting point is 01:05:08 But then the question becomes, will the courts allow them to enforce that. I will say, like, you know, in the early 70s, Warren, I think it was just as Black actually enforced the congressional statement on Cambodia. He ended the bombing of Cambodia saying like, you know, like, but I don't, but it's a very different court, you know, like, so, so, so, but I do think that the constitutional issue of presidential power is absolutely at the head. And I think it is a crisis. And I think like people like, you know, Roy Kana, who are like pushing this, you know, would do well to like, actually, like, let's, let's make this. Like, you know, like, this is a fundamental issue. It really goes to the heart of the system. And like, you know, allowing Trump. to wage all these wars, not just with Iran, but, you know, like in the Caribbean, like, like, I think it's, it's like flagrantly unconstitutional, and it's worth having this fight. The stuff we've done in the Caribbean, I don't, I don't know how you characterize it other than
Starting point is 01:06:07 murder. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's not war. We're just randomly bombing ships that even if we stipulate what the justify, what, why the administration says they're doing it because there's drugs on board that still, That's not war, and it's not legal. And it's murder. We're just to have a state-sanctioned murder program, essentially.
Starting point is 01:06:34 Well, which the Pentagon itself is worried about. I mean, I think, you know, a lot of the leaks coming from the Pentagon were from the idea that, you know, like the stuff is murder. And, like, you know, Trump's out of office, you know, like, we're going to be held liable. Like, the military commanders who did the double tap are going to be held liable. And I think it's a hard fight. I mean, I think there's a lot of Democrats that, you know, will not want to have this fight. I think it's an absolutely crucial fight to have. Like, I don't actually see how you can have, you know, a smaller republic,
Starting point is 01:07:05 democratic regime where, like, a president has that sort of unchecked power. Gee, here, we will link to your piece on the War Powers Act, because this could be the, you know, I mean, the, maybe the latest version of the Supreme Court. court basically saying we're going to just have we just have a king i mean i you know that's and and they may they may end up doing it with like a um you know a shadow docket type of uh thing they may not even touch the case i mean it would be a shadow docket we're not at accepting the case this is a political matter um and uh that's where we'll be and meanwhile Donald Trump and you wrote about this too.
Starting point is 01:07:53 The Donald Trump is sort of like having a tough time with his birthday party America's 250th. And let's talk about this just for one second because he's now, like the reporting is now that he is basically done with the Iran war, not done waging it, just done engaging with it. Because all he cares about is who's going to be performing at his. He is 200, I mean, like, this is like not a joke. I mean, it's a joke, it's like it's real. And, you know, and let me just say, because I want to hear your, you're taking on this. But I am old enough to remember the 200th birthday.
Starting point is 01:08:40 And as a kid, I was a kid. I was nine years old, I think it was. And I remember like the bicentennial train coming. And I remember like in the, and the, and the, and the, the tall ships. And, you know, like, look, you know, at nine years old, I wasn't as sort of like jaded and crumogenely and skeptical as I am now. I mean, slightly, but not.
Starting point is 01:09:05 And I mean, I remember that. It, it, from a civic pride standpoint, it, it meant something. You know, I got to see the Constitution, you know, and, like, none of this. I mean, I'm just thinking in terms of the kids, like, I don't even want to tell my kid, like, you know, it's 250. Like, no. Well, we kind of have like a big issue with this. Because we actually, the nation is going to have a 250th anniversary issue. But we were planning it out, like, you know, like, you know, like, it's hard to think of, like, you know, positive celebration of the American project.
Starting point is 01:09:43 Because unfortunately, Trump is president. And, like, Gerald Ford was president in 1976, but they had the proper thing, which, you know, like, a normal functioning country does, which they had a bipartisan commission. They came up with all these patriotic things of like big parades that we could have. And this actually what had already been planned. Like in 2016, when Obama was president, you know, Congress passed like a whole raft of things to how we're going to celebrate the 250th anniversary. But then Trump, being Trump, created like this alternative organization, which is corrupt,
Starting point is 01:10:18 which has like private donors, funneling money in, which has like, you know, like all these like has been bans that were good. It was even, you know, once they realized that they were being used by Trump,
Starting point is 01:10:31 most of them bailed out. So he actually turned everything into a travesty. I mean, I like, it is, I mean, maybe it's like a redeeming factor that, like, he's so caught up in his own vanity and wanting to like turn Washington,
Starting point is 01:10:46 D.C. into a giant Trump tower. with his name plastered over everywhere, which is, you know, A, it's disgusting and garish and a travesty, but also, like, less destructive than, like, you know, amping up the war in Iran or whatever, but, but still,
Starting point is 01:11:03 I don't know, I mean, there's probably a serious reckoning with patriotism. I mean, I have a little bit, I mean, I do actually think that, like, nationalism, national pride has, like, a value. Like, you should actually be proud of, you know, the great things your country did, as well as also trying to rectify the crimes that your country has committed. But, you know, like, Trump has, like, it is remarkable.
Starting point is 01:11:28 He is, like, kind of killed any sort of patriotism. And then this rally that's going to happen. Now, you know, the July 4th rally that's, they're going to have in Washington, it's going to be a Trump rally. Yeah. It's going to be, like, him talking for four hours, you know, about how great he is and, like, you know, all the real estate deals that he made. maybe like illegally using village people, um, uh, music.
Starting point is 01:11:53 So like, they're going to have to, they're going to have to give a day off to a whole raft of federal workers so that they can, um, attack the capital again. Because half those Jan Sixers have been hired by the administration. That might actually be like, because I think in the, in the bicentennial, they had people reenact the Boston Tea Party. So maybe that is the fitting conclusion.
Starting point is 01:12:16 Exactly. sick travesty. Like this is we enact January 6th. I mean, that is what the country has come to. But, you know, part of me things also like it's worth, you know, just like facing this squarely. Like the worst truth is better than the best lie. So, you know, we're getting the worst truth.
Starting point is 01:12:37 Jead here. National Affairs correspondent for the Nation magazine, host of the podcast, The Time of Monsters. Thanks so much for your time. Really appreciate it. It was great to be on. And I'll tell you to give props to Emma who's been doing everything we talk about Grand Platner.
Starting point is 01:12:55 Like she's like doing the gumshoe reporting. I don't know about that. But I'm just posting online because the Knicks weren't playing last night. So I've got to get my blood pressure up another way. Okay. All right. Thanks, Jeet. Folks, that does it for the,
Starting point is 01:13:18 Three half of the program. I got to say, the IMs are lighting up. So people are starting to realize how old I am. Is it also, are they lighting up because G. implied that Brett Michaels from poison is has been? I think that's just you, Brian. Ryan is livid. Is it the other person they have on there?
Starting point is 01:13:42 Is it ice? Vanilla ice. Vanilla ice. Yeah, another extremely relevant, current. We were really able to score vanilla ice? You know what's so funny? You're kidding. Oh, my God.
Starting point is 01:14:02 If you were to ask me what band Brett Michaels was in, I wouldn't be able to tell you. I know it from a reality TV show that he did. Because I could have probably said poison, but I don't know a poison song. What's it, what's poison? Every rose has its thorn? No. Yeah. I mean, I know that's a song, but I'm sorry.
Starting point is 01:14:21 In 2026, no one's playing. I mean, that era of rock is horrendous. I need everybody to understand that I was kidding and I've never liked poison. No, no. Okay. Yeah, no. Brian the Poison. 1980s American Rock.
Starting point is 01:14:36 I feel like rough time. Rough time. When I'm not wearing a hat, I tease my hair out real big. Yeah, back homes. I wear a scarf and a leotard. deep b-neck oh you know why brett michael's will 100% be the guy he's been on celebrity apprentice no he backed out he canceled oh he canceled yeah yeah he's okay i got confused uh being like i didn't realize how partisan this was holy moly he can't even get him no that's a real example of somebody
Starting point is 01:15:05 who withdrew i i thought we were just joshing what's fascinating is that like the there's nobody's afraid of the backlash from the, like, rock-solid Trump supporters in a way that we sort of saw the first time around. Like, you know, like, culturally speaking, Trump has lost this battle. They're taking his name off of the Kennedy Center, incidentally. Apparently, sent him into a wild tirade. And the thing is, what's also great about this is that they got the court order, and it was like the employees there, I feel like it was like they got the corridor and they're like,
Starting point is 01:15:49 I'm working overtime tonight. I'll be down there with my ladder and, you know, my pride bar. And they pulled that sign down like so quickly that it was like amazing. I think they put everything, all the Trump stuff onto the Kennedy Center. They used Velcro. And they're just like pulling it right off now. But, oh, people are really criticizing. about poison.
Starting point is 01:16:17 I don't like, yeah, hair metal and it's that era of... I'm sure they're criticizing me, not you. No, you're criticizing Brian for liking it. Oh. It is so embarrassing, honestly. Go let him know on Instagram how much you think it's embarrassing.
Starting point is 01:16:32 And he loves poison. And... Just like what Michael said, every rose does have its story. It's such a strong metaphor. Wow. Poet of our time. Do you know that he was born in Butler, Pennsylvania?
Starting point is 01:16:49 Oh, shit. So maybe that's why they could even cancel. Oh, I just realized what that means. Trader, traitor. It goes so deep. You know, known Iranian, known Iranian sleeper cell, Brett Michaels. All right, folks. It's your support that makes the show,
Starting point is 01:17:16 possible you can become a member of join the majority report.com. When you do, you can only get the free show free of commercials. You also get the fun half. So join the majority report.com. Keep this show thriving and surviving. Which is my second favorite poison. Also, just coffee.com. Fair trade coffee, hot chocolate. Use the coupon code. already get 10% off. You can buy the majority report blend.
Starting point is 01:17:53 Matt, what's happening in the Matt Leckian media universe? Yeah, coming up here after the show, New Jacobin show, David Griscom and I talk about Bernie's AI sovereign wealth fund idea. And an interesting question from Caitlin Collins, which reminds us of the McMorrow thing, where she said, you really want Republicans
Starting point is 01:18:11 to be in charge of having a stake in these companies? And the answer is yes, because otherwise it's just up to investors. Otherwise it's just up to Republican investors. Exactly. Like democratically, theoretically, democratically accountable. With zero public mission. Yeah, exactly.
Starting point is 01:18:30 So we talk about that. That's coming up. Jacobin Show. Subscribe to the Jacobin Show on YouTube at Jacobin Meg. Folks, also, don't forget the AM Quickie. Get your days news in email Digest Forum about five-minute read every day. We've got two great writers who work on the A.M. Quicky.
Starting point is 01:18:55 Corey Pine, Whitney Wimbush. You may have seen Corey as a work in the past. He's been in all the lefty spaces. And Whitney is just killing it over at the American Prospect. I cannot recommend the stuff that she's been writing more. But every day, one of them puts the news of the day in basically a five-minute digest, amquicky.com in your email box, 9 a.m. every morning, check it out, amquicky.com. Also, see you in the fun.
Starting point is 01:19:42 Jamie and I may have a disagreement. Yeah, you can't just say whatever you want about people just because you're rich. I have an absolute right to mock them on YouTube. their buggy whipping like he's the boss. I am not your employer. You know, I'm tired of the negativity. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you. You're nervous.
Starting point is 01:19:59 You're a little bit upset. You're riled up. Yeah, maybe you should rethink your defense of that, you're fucking idiots. We're just going to get rid of you. All right. But dude. Dude. Dude.
Starting point is 01:20:09 Dude. You want to smoke this joint? Yes. Do you feel like you are a dinosaur? Think of shit. Exactly. I'm happy now. It's a win, win, win.
Starting point is 01:20:27 Uh, hell yeah. Now, listen to me. Two, three, four, five times. Eight four, seven, nine oh six, five, one, four, five, seven. Two, 38, 56, 27. One half, five, eights, three point nine billion. Wow. He's the ultimate math, third.
Starting point is 01:20:46 Don't you see? Why don't you get a real job instead of steering vitriol and hatred you left wing Limbaugh? Everybody's taking their dumb juice. Come on, Sammy. Dance, dance, dance. Ooh. My first post-coital scene with a woman.
Starting point is 01:21:05 I'm hoping got more moves to my repertoire. All I have is the dip in the swirl. Fine, we can double-dip. Yes, this is a perfect moment. No. Wait, what? You make under a million dollars a year. You're scum.
Starting point is 01:21:17 You're not paying. Excuse me? Fuck you. You fucking liberal elite. I think you belong in jail. Thank you for saying that, Sam. You're a horrible, despicable person. All right, got to take a quick break.
Starting point is 01:21:28 I want to take a moment to talk to some of the libertarians out there. Take whatever vehicle you want to drive to the library. What you're talking about is jibber jab. Classic. I'm feeling more chill already. Donald Trump can kiss all of our asses. Hey, Sam. Hey, Andy.
Starting point is 01:21:50 Are you guys ready to do some evil? Hitler was such an idiot. I think I might be a Nazi. Agree. No. Death to America. Do. Yes.
Starting point is 01:22:05 Wow. Wow, that's weird. No way. Unbelievable. This guy's got a really good hook. Throw our hands. But, Sam, I've got to get off. No worries.
Starting point is 01:22:24 Listen, I want to just flesh this out a little bit. I mean, look, it's a free speech issue. You don't like me. Hey, hey, hey, hey, shut up. Thank you for calling into the majority report. Sam will be with you shortly.

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