The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3665 - Trillionaires, Botched Wars and Midterms w/ Heather 'Digby' Parton

Episode Date: June 12, 2026

It's Casual Friday on The Majority Report On today's program: Elon Musk is set to become the world's first billionaire as Space X launches its initial public offer today. A More Perfect Union explains how this sketchy IPO could destroy many people's 401(K) accounts. Heather 'Digby' Parton, columnist at Salon and publisher of the Hullabaloo blog, joins to recap the week's news. Topics include the war in Iran, midterm elections and more. In the Fun Half: CNN airs a compilation showing the 39 times that Donald Trump claimed that we a deal with Iran is imminent. Trillionaires Trump is now claiming that Strait of Hormuz has been open the whole time, but we just didn't know it because it was a secret. Shhhhh don't tell the Ayatollah. Department of Energy secretary Chris Wright admits under oath that he lied when he tweeted that the U.S. had successfully escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz back in March. That kind of conflicts with Trump's claim that the strait has been open. Elissa Slotkin issues a press release stating that she believes that Michael Martin, a Trump pick for a U.S. district court, would be different from the president's other picks in that he will admit that Biden won the election in 2020 and that January 6 was an attack on the Capitol. Unfortunately for Slotkin, Martin answered those questions in the exact same fashion as all of Trump's other sycophantic nominees. Marco Rubio cites three examples of what make America so unique; our constitution, the moon landing and the UFC. We take a trip back to 2018 to watch Susan Collins on CNN promising that Bret Kavanaugh would not overturn Roe v Wade. 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 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: NUTRAFOL: Get $10 off your first month's subscription + free shipping at Nutrafol.com when you use promo code TMR10 DELETEME: Go to Leesa.com for the Early Access July 4th Sale 25% off PLUS get an extra $50 off with promo code 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.  

Hi, folks. Today's episode brought to you by my favorite sponsor, sunsetlakesebade.com. Use the code left as best. You get 20% off. I don't think a day goes by where I do not use a sunset lake sebiday.com product. For instance, last night, I took my good night gummies, and my sleep regimen is great until I have the crew wake me up. different times in the morning, the cat at five, the kid at 630, then I try and sleep for another 10 minutes. But nevertheless, when I go to sleep, I can get to sleep because of the good night gummies I take. But you could also take the good night tincture. They have gummies with melatonin in Sebadee. They have gummies with a little teherse and sabaday. If you're feeling a little

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back when that floods hit in Vermont. Check them out now. Left is best. Gets you 20% off of everything at sunsetlakesebade.com. And now, time for the show. Should I be joining? That means Monday is casual Monday. Tuesday. Casual Tuesday. Wednesday. casual hump day. Thursday. Casual Thursday. You want me to rejoin? That's what we call it.

And Friday. Casual shot. The majority report with Sam Cedar. It is Friday. June 12th, 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, Trump calls off the Iran War again. Claims a deal has been struck. Iran, of course, says maybe FBI agents raid an Ohio voting rights group as Trump starts getting serious about those midterm elections. U.S. Postal Service proposes Trump's new rule barring delivery of mail-in ballots in only those states that aren't giving their voter rolls up to the Trump regime. Trump nominates a U.S. attorney Clayton from the Southern District of New York to be the new director of national intelligence.

Also Elon Musk to become the world's first trillionaire today. producer inflation pops up to 2022 levels 12-month wholesale inflation would be at 6.5 percent. Epstein survivors announced their opposition to Todd Blanche as the Attorney General because, of course, Todd Blanche was Donald Trump's defense attorney and has protected him from the Epstein disclosures. Top military leader in a closed door hearing admits that the U.S. attacks on boats

in the Caribbean and the Pacific have probably killed many trafficking victims. All this and more on today's majority report. Also, I should add Digby's with us today.

Sorry, I got a little distracted. We've got a lot of technical issues going on today, folks. And it's my fault. I will say that it's my fault. I tried to fix the camera for when Hassan came in, and I may have made it worse. You definitely did. I thought you said you fixed it.

But it's not your fault that we're losing power every five seconds. No, no, that's certainly not my fault. That's because the air conditioning mobile unit is destroying the circuit breaker. Apparently, I am very green today. Okay, well, you told me you fixed it before. So I'm sorry. We guessed. At the end of the day, it's all my fault.

Yeah, we'll see. Well. My greenness, notwithstanding, maybe I'll try and fix it at the break. We got a lot to get to today. This weekend is, I don't know, Donald Trump's birthday or something. And there's going to be a big wrestling match on the White House that Trump has figured out how to monetize or something to that effect. Bare knuckle fighting on the White House lawn,

the dignity and grace of America on display. But in the meantime, Elon Musk has decided to become, or I should say, has become the world's first trillionaire. That is a total failing on behalf of the United States government. We should not allow any of our citizens

to ever accrue that much money. But it is what it is, and his SpaceX IPO went live today. Here is Eric Gardner from a more perfect union walking us through how this happened. In 2022, Elon Musk raised $44 billion, and bought Twitter.

His backers and Drescent Horowitz, Assadie Prince, the co-founder of Palantir, and Jack Dorsey, the guy who founded Twitter in the first place. Musk renamed it X, and within a year, it's worth less than half he paid. That's a problem. There was also a solution. AI was hot. Musk owned an AI company, so he merged X into XAI.

No cash changed hands. X investors received XAI stock. But that solution raised another problem. X-A-I is essentially a money furnace. The solution, Musk has a rocket chip company. He uses it to buy X-A-I. Again, no cash exchange. Three companies, two mergers, $0 actually paid.

Everyone who helped take Twitter private now hold SpaceX shares. Now, SpaceX isn't just a rocket company that sells internet. According to Musk, it's the future. Data centers in space. If something my predictions come true, SpaceX will launch more AI than the cumulative amount on Earth of everything else combined. I see no evidence that it's a viable business opportunity. There are far too many physical challenges with doing this.

But the value has to hold because so far, no one has been paid. Investor shares are only worth something on paper. To turn paper in the cash, SpaceX has to go public. When a company goes public, it opens its doors. Early investors cash out, get paid for the risk they took. Everyone else gets a chance to own a piece of something that used to be off limits. It's called an initial public offering, or IPO for short. It is a very normal part of a company's evolution and life cycle.

There isn't just Twitter investors here. SpaceX's original investors took a big risk. Peter Thiel, Pounder's other co-founder, Google, and Andreessen Horowitz. But SpaceX's IPO is anything but normal. In a typical IPO, 90% of shares go to institutional investors, pension funds, banks, insurance companies. Regular people, you get 10%. SpaceX says they're changing that. 30% to ordinary people, Main Street, not Wall Street. When you see an IPO give a far larger allocation to order investors, it's usually a sign

that they can't get professional investors to buy at that price. The price is nuts. And if you can't sell it to professional investors, well, you sell it to unprofessional investors who don't know any better. If people want to invest in SpaceX's IPO, that's their right. The problem is Musk found a way to make people invest in SpaceX whether they want to or not. How? Index funds. The index fund is one of the rare examples of the finance industry coming up with something that lines the pockets of ordinary people and not Wall Street itself.

An index is a list. Someone decides which companies go on it. A fund is a basket. Someone builds it to mirror the list. When a company gets added to the index, every fund makes. mirroring it has to buy shares, not because they think it's a good investment, but because the rules require it. Index funds have both outperform the vast majority of active managers in every market, in every country over any time frame in the long run. Thousands of indexes exist.

Nearly a third of American stock is tied to one of them. One of the most popular tracks the NASDAQ 100, the 100 biggest non-financial stocks on the NASDAQ exchange. Under NASDAQ's index rules, SpaceX isn't eligible to be included in the NASDAQ 100. New companies have to wait up to a year. It's called seasoning. Seasoning a stock is just the process of having it trade publicly for a while. Public markets tend to be unsure of how to handle certain kinds of investments, novel sorts of companies really quickly.

Like a rocket company that makes most of its money providing satellite internet and wants to build AI infrastructure in space. If Musk could change that rule, he could trigger mandatory buying of SpaceX, by every fund that tracks the index. This spring, NASDAQ changed their rules. This document outlines the proposed changes to the NASDAQ 100 index. The most important, a fast end.

Just a little bit, two more seconds there. Oh, yeah, I was about to, yeah, here we go. Sorry. If a huge company goes public, it gets into the index in 15 trading days. No seasoning. There was a public comment period. Yeah, so basically, I don't know what happened there. It looks good on the screen.

It might just be that filter. But, okay, sorry, we're short-handed today. Just to say here, like, that basically SpaceX started trading today. The IPO price is $135 a share. It's a huge valuation of $1.78 trillion. And $75 billion are going to share in shares to investors through the IPO. that is nearly three times the previous record. And so what they're basically doing here is a pump and dump scheme

for all of the early investors into Twitter, or who helped take Twitter private, who are getting bundled into this as well, and they'll be able to cash out when retail investors pump up the price. That would be bad enough, and I'm telling you how much, like, insane, how much larger this is. It is almost three times the previous record.

It would be bad enough if it was just overvalued like that. But it's worse in that the S&P, or not the S&P, the NASDAQ, appears poised to change the rules to allow for a company that is this green and immature and large without like this long period of waiting to determine if the company is overvalued to potentially enter into these index funds, which means say goodbye to your return. retirement. If it collapses and if all of these big investors sell, which it looks like they're trying to do. I mean, this is the kind of stuff that we saw before the market crash of 1929. So there it is. I mean, we'll see what will happen. I will tell you, though, that I don't know that many super wealthy people. I have none of, no one I have ever known has told me, hey, the person I have working for, we said I can get in on this IPO, except for this one. They were just, like everybody, they were opening it up to every non-professional investor they possibly could.

That feels good. That feels like that's a. I'm sure that's not a scam. I mean, look, Elon Musk invested. in Donald Trump nearly $300 million, maybe more, to get him elected to be president. And it seems like

it paid off. So there you go. All right. In a moment, we're going to be talking to Heather Parton or Digby. But first, we've got a couple of words from our sponsors today.

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the promo code majority support our show let them know we sent you after the checkout again lisa dot com promo code majority we put all that information in the podcast and youtube descriptions now quick break we come back heather parton or digby we are back sam cedar emma viglin on the majority report it is time for some there you go uh ladies and gentlemen it is the The Digby theme song, just in time for Heather Parton or Digby. Well done, Brian. I'm going to jump the gun a little bit on that, but that's all right. We were just talking about the Knicks.

Sam's mad at me. All this Knicks talk. It's gross. Well, I'm wearing black today. In the words of Michael Strahan, ahead of the 0708 Super Bowl, I'm either wearing a funeral for the, or I'm either wearing black as in a, I messed it It's either a funeral for the Knicks or a funeral for the Spurs. Damn it. I messed it up. I messed it up.

Heather, welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Glad to be here. We had some primaries this week. Well, before we get to the primaries, let's just talk about where we are in terms of Iran. I mean, Donald Trump announced a day or two ago was going to, we're going to, we're going to take Carg Island and we're going to bomb the hell out of Iran.

And then apparently there's stories now that there was a mad scramble to convince him not to do it. And now today he's like, we've got a deal. And I don't even know how to talk about this anymore. more. My sense is Donald Trump would love a way to get out of this because the inflation numbers this week, both the consumer and the wholesale producer are off the charts. And the stock market is starting to freak out a little bit because with inflation, they're not going to get the rate cuts that they had counted on. And so they're nervous. And the bond markets are

gone crazy and we have yet to see the sort of like what's going to happen with the oil markets and food is going to go up and with the screw worm that's going to add to the food inflation. So I think he wants to get out of it, but the problem is, and he, I don't think he cares one way or the other as to what deal he has to make to get out of it. But the problem is everybody else around him now, he's opened up this Pandora's box and there is still, this sort of like rump of the blob that is in existence in DC, then is saying, if you leave and give Iran control of the Strait of Hormuz, which seems to be part of the deal, or from the more sort of like Zionist focused group, if you leave and allow Iran to monetize

their oil, we have lost this, you know, and maybe we've lost our. entire sort of like a theory of power in the world, and I don't think Donald Trump gets it one way or another, it cares. I don't know that I do, but they're going to try and pump the brakes on this again. Oh, they're going to try and pump the brakes. It's not just those, the blob. It's also the Iran Hawks. And those exist in both parties, most, you know, primarily in the Republican Party. But there are some still in the Democratic Party as well that are just absolutely hostile to the Iran. Tell. Do tell, take me. I don't know specifically who, but I'm pretty sure there are some. No side deals. But so there's that, too, that, you know, and then, of course, that fits in also with the pro-Israel, you know, a faction as well. So there's that that's pulling him on one side.

Then he's got the MAGA folks who are going, wait, what? What about those Forever Wars? And they want him to get out. And he is seeing the stock market and the economy in general, as you just outlined, just reacting and starting to react pretty strongly. And I think probably that is going to get worse, not probably, everybody, all the experts say it's going to get worse, simply because there's been this backup of events in the straight and then the hangover from the tariffs.

And the whole thing is going to, you know, it's going to reach critical. mass here pretty soon. And so there's no going back, at least before the midterm elections. I think the die is cast on a bad economy next November. There's just no way that he's going to be able to reverse that. And also, there's just, there's Donald Trump's psychology, which is that he cannot stand the idea. I think we know that he is the sorest loser in world history. There's never been anyone in the world who has been unable to take a loss, take a big L, than more unable to take a big L than him. And so he is really stuck.

He does not know what to do. He didn't expect this. And I've read that he tells people that, you know, well, he can sell it as a victory if he does this. But he's got these people on his shoulders, the Israeli people, the Israel people, the Iranhawk people, the MAGA people, the, you know, the Democrats. You know, plenty of people who are going to, you know, he is going to be buffeted from all sides. no matter what he does. And honest to God, everything I read about this is that this is done. It's lost one way or the other. It doesn't really matter from an American perspective. If you believed in the big theory of, you know, the Pax Americana and global security, you know, guarantor and all that stuff, done. That's done. I mean, everything, look at what's happening with Europe and what's happening with the allies in Japan, Australia, South Korea. It's over. And he did that. He did it purposefully. He did it. without having any understanding of what he was doing. And he did it, as far as I can tell, without any kind of support, really, from anybody.

I mean, there were no Democrats or Republicans, Hawks, or MAGAs, or otherwise, who were really signing on for what's happened here. He just went ahead and did it because he's an idiot and had no idea what the consequences of his actions were and didn't care. And he's just going to carry on with that for another two and a half years. So that's over. It's over and I don't, we'll, you know, I guess the country will have to pick up the pieces. Maybe it might be nice if we could reduce our military footprint and reduce our military spending a little bit, but that doesn't really look like it's going to happen.

Since last night, I think the Senate Armed Services Committee approved a $1.2 trillion dollar Pentagon budget. Now, it's not going to happen. I mean, that's not going to pass the Congress. It's at 1.2 trillion. And so, you know, if we, if we. we do end this global security guarantor business that we've had ever since World War II, you would think that we would be able to at least reduce that.

But that doesn't look to be on the menu either for the near future. So, you know, we're just sitting here waiting and watching the whole thing to unfold. And as for the events of this week, it's pretty clear to me that this was a way for Trump to cope by saying that they had a deal. He was clinging to straws that probably didn't really exist. some Steve Whitkoff or Cush called him up and said, hey, looking good boss, you know, we got it, we got them going. They hear the Ayatollah said, gave it a big thumbs up,

and he ran out and posted about it and went on TV. But he also wanted the market rally real bad, and that's what he got. And it was a big rally. And that's what he was really looking for. That's what they're all looking for. In fact, the game that's being played on Wall Street is, to me, one of the most astonishing things I've ever seen because it's all a game.

They know that Donald Trump's full of shit. They know it. But they use that as an excuse to, you know, do whatever they're doing, short selling, buying, whatever it is they're doing in order to take advantage of the fact that they have this freak that comes out and speaks off the cuff and says whatever, you know,

whatever he wants on a day-to-day basis. And this is really a scandal, but I don't know that, you know, I mean, what isn't really? It just hops on the, heap of scandals. Kushner was at the next game with, with Trump, by the way. And I just,

just a small thing. Who he was? Yeah, he was there, the scene walking in with his kid. And it's just a little funny to me that Trump went to the game and said he didn't have time to go to his son's wedding because of the war. Just saying that. But like Kushner,

his chief negotiators sitting there at the game with him. Exactly. Who's negotiating? I mean, well, that's the question. Like, I mean, I think that obviously. Iran is, and Dropside has done some really good reporting on this, that Iran is really sensitive to being humiliated. They have domestic political considerations as well. So when Trump goes out

at, you know, at the end of these negotiations and they think they make any progress and he does this attempt to kind of like bully them on truth social, they're going to retreat because they have domestic political considerations as well. And what is probably driving him nuts is that Iran's position has strengthened, and we can see this by the fact that they bombed Israel in response to Israel bombing Beirut. They're not allowing Hezbollah to be delinked from and Israel and their fighting to be delinked from these negotiations. No, and they shouldn't. And they shouldn't. They should not.

Of course not. But that just shows how as time goes on, Iran's position strength. The economic situation gets worse than the West. We're in weeks away from the reserves being completely depleted. Time is on their side. And you can see that as evidenced by their actions as it relates to Israel. Absolutely. And they've also shown that they are willing to, you know, threaten and, if not, destroy the facilities in the other countries in the Middle East.

And that has divided Trump from his, you know, his Middle Eastern. allies, you know, because they know that they're vulnerable, too, to really getting embroiled in this thing. And they're putting pressure on them, too. That's another area of leverage that's against him. I just don't see how this ends, you guys. I mean, I, other than, you know, an ongoing stalemate that's more or less what we're in right now. I can just, I just don't see how it, how it finally ends. I mean, maybe Donald Trump can, you know, hire, you know, take that plane that Cutter gave to him as a gift and fill it with, you know, $1,000 bills or something, or Trump bills with his face, $250,000 bills with his face on it, and send it to Iran. I don't honestly know how this,

how they get out of this. I mean, Israel is being very intractable. They've got their issues, too, right? I mean, Netanyahu is fighting his own political battles and completely unwilling to back off. Iran is unwilling to back off. Trump, I think, would love to back off. But he just doesn't know how to do it in a way where he can come out on top. So, you know, stay tuned because yesterday, you know, when he came out with the big announcement, right, you know, we've made a final deal. We're going to, he's going to send JD over to Europe this weekend, you know. I think he wanted a signing on his birthday, which would have been just so sweet.

And maybe they could do it and they could put it on the big screen. And he also wanted J.D. Vance not to be at his party, it sounds like, too. Relatable. Who would want him at your birthday? I put a more KD at the party. But, but yeah. So I think, you know, you know, his, when he came out and said it yesterday, it was the first time I just saw everybody go, yeah, right.

Well, we'll believe it when we see it, you know, other than Wall Street, which of course went, oh, goody, you know, and decided to go ahead and do their rallies. Right. That's just an excuse. I mean, yes. I mean, the volatility is fantastic for those institutional players. Absolutely. I mean, it gives them, every new context provides another opportunity for them to,

make more money. And I also wonder how much pressure he was under from Elon Musk to make sure that the news was good going into this day when his IPO came out because you want that context. The Iran war is over and then the, you know, SpaceX goes up. I have to imagine that's not a coincidence. And I guess we'll find out by Monday or I don't know in the next two days as to whether any of this was even remotely real. Yeah. But I'm with you. I don't know how this ends.

But it's quite clear that no matter how it ends, it has weakened the United States. And I'm not sure, frankly, like, I'm terribly upset about that. But it's come at the cost of, it's come at the cost of a lot of, like, you know, thousands of lies in Iran. It's come at the cost of projecting forward food insecurity for God knows how many millions of people around the world and inflation for people. I mean, there's been a huge cost associated with this. And I'm not convinced that the failures of the Iran war aren't going to drive up. I mean, you say $1.2 trillion, and we don't think it's going to

to pass. I'm not convinced that that number won't pass. Like, even during the Biden years, even during the Biden years, they were, they were inflating the hell out of the military budget. And I also think it feels like every time I see Donald Trump put out a press release about voting, he's now including $1.5 trillion for the military. And I think from his perspective, it's like, here's a bribe. Like, you know, things are going to be, you know. I mean, I don't know. It just seems weird to, I mean, like, you know, here's a bribe because the other part of this, as we, as the inflation numbers, you know, increase. And increasingly, we're seeing more and more indication of just tsunami level polling numbers for the Republican Party, despite the fact that, like, I feel like the Democrats have missed an opportunity over the past five or six. years to really bind Donald Trump to the Republicans.

It is quite clear, you know, particularly for a midterm election, because you have almost definitionally a more informed electorate for a midterm than you were for a general. They seem to be aware that the Republicans are a big problem. On one hand, on the other hand, you've got maybe a dozen new House districts that are available for Republicans just because of the Supreme Court and its assault on the Voting Rights Act and Florida changing its maps and et cetera, et cetera. That's just the terrain that we have to play on now. There's nothing we can do that.

But I will also add, like, I think part of like his sense of what actually happens is secondary to what we can do to influence the vote. story today FBI agents rating an Ohio rights group they are prosecuting Act Blue right now which is the mechanism in which people just it's basically a portal that creates a networking effect for donations there's not really much else to it but that has been very effective in helping small donors get to candidates so we have all of this happening. But we also have a tremendous amount of enthusiasm on the Democratic side, despite the fact they don't have enthusiasm necessarily for Democrats. They want to go and vote against Republicans, which leads into California this week. A lot of the results came in. And in Maine, where Graham Platner, his sort of personal past personal failings notwithstanding got the highest amount of Democratic primary votes in the history of a Democratic primary at 150,000 he broke through. In Maine.

In Maine, I should say. Numbers, I don't know if there've ever been that many people who came out to vote, but certainly got the highest number of. voters. So I don't know. What's your sense of what we're seeing there? I'm curious about the Platner thing, too. I want to move into that. But more broadly speaking, let's talk about that. And then we can get into Platner a little bit. Okay. Well, in, let's just talk about California briefly. You know, they're kind of running a preview, I think, of how they're going to, you know, go about contesting the election next November, which is saying that, you know, The vote count is all corrupted, and, you know, there was signs of voter fraud, all the usual stuff.

I fully expect that any election that either comes out to be close or where the results changed from election night to later favor Democrats. This is one of the things that they're going to do. Trump did it in the last election and in 2020. you know, the late votes are coming in, they're cheating, they're bringing in, you know, truckloads of ballots and all that stuff. So they're going to do all that. I think we know that now. We saw it in here, and it's absurd.

It is true that California counts very slowly. There's a reason for it. And that is because there's a dual commitment. The first one is to make sure that everybody gets to vote who is eligible to vote. And, you know, there's so there's this long period of time where people can cure ballots and where they accept ballots that were postmarked by election day and all that stuff. And they give plenty of time for that to happen so that nobody's vote gets discarded for some kind of technicality that everybody who tried to vote and had, and there's a cure on it,

some minor clerical error or something that they can fix it. And also the other side is that it's very transparent and very, very scrupulous about fraud. So they go to great lengths to verify signatures and to go through all this stuff. That takes time. It's a very big state here in L. L.A., huge city, and there are, you know, a lot of votes to be counted. So the idea that it's slow, I mean, I'm sure what they're going to do is, you know, California, even Newsom, you know, came out and said, well, we've got to do something about this because

it's giving the impression that there might be something wrong, which is their new thing, the new Republican thing, which is, well, it looks bad, and we can't have that, even though they can't there's nothing going on, but it just looks bad. So, you know, they had this, this ridiculous guy, Spencer Pratt. who's a clown, a joke. You know, he's a reality TV star, of course. That's the new Republican, you know, avatar. And the idea that that guy was ever going to win in Los Angeles was just absurd.

I mean, that he was going to get in the top two. I mean, I'd never believed it from the minute I saw it. I'm going, that's not happening. No, because L.A. has maybe 20% Republican registration. It's, you know, it is so blue that it's, you know, beyond. blue. And the idea that that guy, that clown was going to be in any way possibly ascend to the mayor's, you know, seat was wrong. And the matchup that we have now, which is between the establishment Democrat, Karen Bass, who's actually pretty, you know, she's pretty progressive.

She was always known in the Congress as being more or less liberal. And then her rival, Raman, who is actually very progressive. I mean, she's kind of got a bit of a momdani pin, you know, tinged to her as far as her politics are concerned. So that's a much more L.A. battle going into the general election, into a runoff, is between those, establishment Democrat and progressive Democrat. That's who we are in L.A. And as far as the governor's race is concerned, you know, we've got another clown, Steve Hilton, a spin doctor from Britain. I mean, I guess the Republicans couldn't find anybody from America to run for governor of California. So, you know, and that's not going to be a battle either. Javier Bacera is going to be the next

governor of California. There's probably no doubt about it. So here we have this blue state. Blue, blue, blue. As blue as it gets, there is nothing, you know, there's no Republican anything here. The days of Nixon and Reagan, who we also produced, are over. However, and so this is terrible. Megan Kelly comes out and says, well, you know, if Steve Hilton and Spencer Pratt aren't on the ballots in California, we will know it's fraud or something to that effect.

No, how ridiculous. It's a blue state. How many red states do you know that vote red, you know, report? Republican slates all the way down the ballot over and over and over again. There hasn't been a Democrat there in, you know, what, 50 years, anybody. And, you know, no one complains about that. No one says there's, you know, anything fraudulent about it. But here we are, you know, blue states aren't allowed to do that.

We have to have Republican representation, apparently. So that's where we stand here. Just everybody get ready. This is going to happen. It's going to happen in the fall. And I think we all know it. And I think the Democrats are prepared for it. I think they understand what they're up against in that regard.

Whether they're up against the legal assault that's going to happen, you know, I'm not sure. I mean, we'll have to see, but, you know, they better be. Let's just put it that way. And so, you know, in the broad sense of it, I think the Republicans know very well that they are on the run, that this is going to be a blue election, totally expected, maybe worse than they thought, because the Senate isn't play, and I don't think they expected that. and you know we're just going to have to fight it out it's going to be a disgusting ugly campaign and what they're doing down in texas is enough to make my i mean it's really it's vomit is what

we're seeing them do down there two things strike me one it was very very clever of you to allow hilton to get into the runoff but not press then you throw people off the scent absolutely because you give a little bit to the republicans there well done. Well, that's thanks to the whole huge, you know, all the cows and rocks that are represented in the east side of California because those are all red districts. And they, and Naval voted for Hilton, of course, but they couldn't vote for Pratt. So, you know.

Right. But also, you have the satellites that work on the voting machines. So I know this is the outcome you're looking for. Of course. The Venezuelan, that Hugo Chavez did his work here. He came back from the dead and did what he was supposed to do. So we did get that done. What was it that Mike Johnson said this week?

He said it was so, oh, I can't even remember. But it was so far upstream. Upstream. That it was something nefarious. Diabolical. It stinks to high heaven. It stinks to high. Like literally like he's saying God level cheating.

Well, that's where Hugo Chavez is, our comrade up in heaven, manipulating the machines from up there. I think you, do we do. did Heather just freeze on the video? But we can still hear you, Heather. So we can hear me. Yeah, we'll work on the on the video. Well, yeah, just see if you can fix that and then we'll get her back in.

But we can still hear you, right? But here's the other thing that sort of scares me about that. And then I want to move on to sort of like these other issues is the the complaining and whining that we hear now is not for our consumption. It is not for the general population. It is for, it is laying the groundwork for their own followers

to justify what they're going to do for the election. Absolutely. Oh, yeah. I'm here. Heather, we're just having you rejoin right now, if you could.

Okay, all right. So I'll leave and then I'll come back. All right. Yeah. All right. So Heather heard that point. But what I'm concerned about is this stuff is not to convince anybody other than to edify the agreement by the same people who like, I don't know if Donald Trump won in 2020.

I mean, that is why this stuff, and we were talking to Josh Orton about it, the other day from demand justice. I had their right. Let's get back in. Well, it harms the trust in in participatory democracy, and that's what they value. I mean, that's what they value. But I was saying that we had Josh Horton on the other day from demand justice and talking about these judicial hearings where, you know, finally Blumenthal and some of the other senators asking, like, who won the 2020?

election asking this of judges and uh we'll play uh you know more clips of this uh later but the the short story is they won't say uh they may say something technical like well you know joe biden was the president etc etc and the reason why they are holding on to this is uh because they want to show fealty to don't trump but the reason why don't trump holds on to this or at least why the apparatus around him I mean, who knows what goes on in his adult brain, is they want their people to feel justified when Trump goes in and shuts down the voting in certain areas. Or when Mike Johnson says, I refuse to see these 15 congresspeople from L.A.

Because of all these shenanigans. they are that is they're not looking to convince anybody they're looking to strengthen the conviction of their own people so that they have the latitude to do something that is extrajudicial extra you know democrat whatever you want to put it and and people should be aware that's what they're setting up here this is not like they're not whistling into the dark they are talking to a specific group of people a large group of people And they are edifying that those people's belief that all bets are off. And if all bets are off, then all bets are off.

And, you know, you've got to do what you got to do. Well, I mean, consider this. I actually wrote a piece about this last week for, or maybe it was earlier this week for Salon. This voting thing, you know, Donald Trump didn't invent this. He wasn't the first one to say that the vote was fraudulent. Remember, we had people like, true the vote. You had all these groups that. were out there saying that illegal immigrants were voting and they were challenging votes all over.

I mean, George W. Bush and Carl Rove were firing U.S. attorneys across the country in 2004 and 5 because they were pressuring them to find voter fraud and they couldn't find any and they would fire them. They fired them. And it was one of the, it was one of the biggest scandals, you know, in the in the Bush administration. So Trump didn't invent this. He didn't invent. He didn't invent anything really, but I mean, he just glommed onto it. He understood it. And of course, it, it fits his personality perfectly because he's a malignant narcissist who, you know, like I said before, the greatest sore loser in history. So, you know, he needs to have somebody to blame and have some way of explaining the fact that he lost something. So that, so he became this perfect

kind of vehicle for the Republicans. I mean, it may be the biggest gift he gave the Republicans, which was to give real life, real feeling and meaning to this. idea that the elections are illegitimate if Republicans don't win. I mean, that is really what it comes down to, that, oh, they are the only people who can legitimately claim to win, because you note that any, like Steve Hilton, he's out there saying, oh, yeah, that's fine, looks good to me, you know, I mean, no problem, even though they're all screaming about the fact that, you know, the vote here in California was fraudulent. So this is something they've been aiming for for a very long time. And Trump just has, you know, sort of put it at warp speed to kind of, you know,

bring, you know, put flesh on the bones of their, of their myth of voter fraud. And of course, this is what they're going to do. And, and there's no doubt about it that they're going to find, you know, new ways to contest the vote. They're going to, I mean, the idea is, is that look at something I just saw this morning. I can't remember who it was. It was ahead of the Republican campaign committee, one of them. the House or Senate, saying, you know, they asked them, well, you know, what do you, what are you feeling about these polls in the fall? I mean, it doesn't look good for you guys. And he just said, well, I don't believe any of the polls. Just don't believe them. So they're telling people the polls

are wrong. And then they'll say that the election results are wrong. And that just sort of, you know, so you can't, because that used to be one of the arguments, right? Well, you know, hey, in fact, here in California, people have been using that argument about the Pratt thing. Kind of going, well, you know, he did what the polls said he was going to do, which is lose. And everybody's going, well, we don't believe the polls. The polls are wrong. So they're creating this sort of, you know, myth around the idea of voting just being fundamentally, structurally fraudulent in favor of the Democrats. And, you know, we just don't know.

I think you're absolutely right that it sets the table for that next level, which we saw, of course, January 6th was our first sign that there were people who were willing to actually, you know, take that to. you know, a violent place. And, you know, Trump's being very nice, you know, telling people pretty clearly that he'll take care of them. They do it, right? Now he wants to give him a million dollars each or more. So, yeah, I mean, I think we'd be foolish not to expect this. It absolutely is coming.

All right. Let's turn to Maine. And thinking about it also in terms of like the, the, you had a couple of. of posts on Digby's blog, Hullabaloo, as it were, talking about and then in one of them featuring a portion of Brian Boytler's piece, which I'll let you describe his argument there, because I think there's, it resonates with me, I mean, at least in the very least, you know, with the premise and you and I know this sort of firsthand from this vantage that the Democratic Party has moved in a progressive direction. I mean, significant portion of that is attrition on some level.

And just sort of like younger people entering into politics with an awareness of how dangerous the Republican Party is and how failed the response of the 90s was to that part. Right. Right. And that's an important historical context, I think. Because if you read any Rick Perlstein's books, you know, about the 70s and Nixon and Reagan and all of that, you know that the Democratic Party was pretty liberal during that period. Not, I shouldn't say the Democratic Party, the majority of the Democratic Party. They had a rump group of racist Southerners, basically, that were still in the party during that period. They all fell off and moved to the Republicans after 1968, but it took a while after the Voting Rights Act passed, Civil Rights Act,

and they moved to the Republican Party, but it took a while for that to happen. There was a churn in that, and again, there was attrition. But the Democrats had been pretty liberal. The response to that to Reagan's ascension in the early 80s was to just completely re-evaluate every liberal instinct they'd ever had. And they started to move pretty seriously to the right. And by the time the 90s came along and Clinton was elected, you know, he had some cultural signifiers. You know, he was the first baby boomer. And, you know, we were all going, oh, he plays the sax and Fleetwood Mac and, you know, all this is all that stuff.

So, you know, he had that that sort of was, he was young, too, you know, so he at the time. And so, you know, he sort of captivated, was able to kind of capture the full spectrum of the Democratic Party. but he was quite conservative compared to the Democrats of 20 years before. And it was a very, you know, there were a lot of conservative, very centrist Democrats that we dealt with for at least 25 years in the Democratic Party. You had the Blanche Lincoln and David. I want to be like even more specific. Like the conservatism that was in the Democratic Party in the 60s was largely, it seems to me, an anti

like a Soviet Union hawks and not necessarily the same group although often similar and sort of like racists southern Dixiecrat types from the first half of the 60s anyways

and then the conservatism really of the 90s was less it almost flipped on some level where in the wake of the 60s, there was a social liberalism, for lack of a better term, but the conservatism came in the form of economics. And in the form of a disposition towards poverty and crime that was very sort of like the race essentialism

sort of like snuck in there and still breathed there, though there wasn't the sort of like same outward sort of racist rhetoric. Well, there wasn't the same sort of like, well, black people shouldn't vote. They should, but there is a cultural problem. You know, like a morning and. And so I just want to make that clear because it's hard to sort of like that inversion, I think became very confusing for people. It was.

And the thing is, is that, you know, It was actually, I mean, they created a whole ideology around it. They called themselves the new Democrats, came out of these think tanks where they were trying to justify this move to the right. And it had little, you know, bits and pieces of culture. It had a strong element of economics, foreign policy as well. There was, you know, some real hawkish elements in there. And, you know, and then this kind of veneer of, you know, younger, you know, you think about Tony Blair and, you know, in England. you know, the New London, you know, they had all that stuff going on.

It was a generational change. Gore and Clinton were the first, like, sort of two candidates of the same generation. Yeah. And they were both Southerners too. And they were both young, both young, Southern. Like, there was a sort of like new. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. Like I said, you know, the whole Fleetwood Mac thing. Yeah. That was a big part of the time when Flewwood Mac was like new. They were young too. Yeah. I mean, you know, but yeah. I mean, this was, this was, you know, everybody was very excited about that.

But, you know, it was also that this was a true ideological program that they had put together in the wake of Reaganism and feel they had, there was the idea then that the Democrats had lost the country for a generation all because of the hippies and the, you know, in Vietnam and the anti-nuke and all that stuff. So that's what they did. Now, we dealt with that. That was very, very, all the way up until, you know, into the 20. tense. I mean, we were dealing with people. I mean, even till recent, Joe Manchin was maybe the last of that, of that, you know, crew of these sort of right-wing Democrats who had certain populists, you know, they had some populist things about them, but they were also, you know, obviously very culturally conservative and often just served as the pain in the ass of the Democratic Party in the Congress, always pushing them to the right and kind of forcing right-wing policies, even when the majority. of the party were against it. So we dealt with all that. And those of us who went through that, it was intensely frustrating.

You know, we had Blanche Lincoln on it, you know, you remember what we went through with ObamaCare. Yeah, Joe Lieberman was also. Joe Lieberman had a weird combo because, I mean, people forget this. But Joe Lieberman and Tipper Gore, Al Gore's

wife, who was were the leads on going after like heavy metal music. for poisoning the minds of kids. But also, Joe Lieberman was the guy who at one point was in favor of a buy-in to Medicare at age 55. And when that came up in the context of like time to put up or shut up, he shut that down in Obamacare. And that would have been a huge deal.

Oh, it would have been so different. Yeah. I mean, that would have. Once you start getting 55-year-olds into Medicare, then all of a sudden it's like, why don't we just have 40. everybody right yeah well yeah it's just it would be easier yeah just why do we just keep uh uh kids on to their parents until they're 30 and then you got 15 years of like well we might as well just go down to 30 but but i'm sorry that's what they were afraid of and that's what he was afraid of and of course he was in the pocket of the insurance companies you know i mean all of this and that

was a big part of it too the big corporate takeover of of the democratic party which was very very strong during the 1990s and the early 2000s and the early 2000s that was really exerting their power over the party. So anyway, going back to the Bightler thing, the reason that what he was writing was is that, look, it's frustrating for progressives because, you know, we have a program. We have a group of policies that we really know

and we really want to see enacted. And we want to have leadership and government that will do those things. And that's always been true, by the way. I mean, progressives have always been that way, the most liberal wing, that's kind of, you know, they're known for that. They're not really sort of a cult-like, identitarian sort of faction the way that the mega, you know, right-wing extremists are.

They really have a program that they want to see enacted in the country. And so his point is, is that, you know, one of the things that we have to recognize, first of all, which was just what we were talking about, the party has moved left. And some of that's just because of the sorting of, you know, the aftermath of what we just talked about the sorting of all the Democrats, you know, the liberals into one party and all the conservatives into another. That's pretty much happened now. And so there's that that's happened. And then I think there was a lot of work done by progressives over the course of the last 20 years that made it possible for someone, you know, an old guy like Joe Biden to come in and pass

things like the, you know, inflation reduction act and, you know, the kind of big programs that he did. and you know the country didn't really blink about that they got we're upset about other things so the party is much more left leaning than it used to be the centrist are much more left centrist than they used to be instead of said they are more center left than center right than they used to be and those of us who've lived through it can see it pretty clearly it's not enough and it's never enough and the progressives in the party have an obligation to push their side of it that's how politics works. You have to use your leverage and there are a lot of young progressives and a lot of people who have big new ideas that they want to. However, when we're in this situation and just

getting into the Platner thing, which is kind of like what stimulated, I think, Brian's piece was as much as, you know, we want to promote, you know, a progressive ideology in our government, we simply have to deal with this threat from the right. We have to. It is extremely, extremely dangerous. And if we're stuck in this situation where a platinum ends up being the guy on the ballot, and he doesn't have bad ideological ideas, as far as I can tell. I mean, it's more of a character problem with him than anything.

I mean, I don't know. You guys tell me, I don't follow the main politics that closely. But from what I've seen, he seems to be a pretty progressive guy backed by a all the progressives. Oh, yes. You know, on a, you know, on a political, you know, basis, he seems okay, not crazy about him as a person. And I never really was. I mean, to the extent that I was aware of him and saw what, saw, knew of him. I wasn't entirely thrilled. But that's what they, that's what Maine put up. So, you know, okay, Maine, this is your thing. But, you know, we have to, we have to recognize,

you know, the, the moment that we're in, which is, you know, on an historical basis is extremely dangerous and threatening and urgent that we deal with it. And if we have the chance to take the Senate, you know, we need to do that. So I think that that's pretty much what he was saying. I mean, I think he was practically trying to put things in the context of, you know, the historical movement of the Democratic Party and explaining that, you know, sometimes this is sort of happening on an organic basis over a period of time. and that, you know, you have to deal with, you know, live and deal with the moment.

Am I getting that wrong, Sam? Well, no, I mean, I think there were two things, though, that struck me about what Boilers said. One is a message for the entire party, which we are seeing, like, even today, there was a piece in Politico about, you know, some senators saying, now, we don't necessarily need Maine to take over the Senate, which is just insane to me. Like, like, like, in terms of like just a sheer investment, return on investment, Maine just has a much better chance of going blue than Texas. I'm sorry. It's just. Yeah, it's just absurd.

And it is, it belies something that I think is just sort of fascinating around Platner. Stipulating Plattner has personal failings in the past. The Nazi tattoo thing is, like, I think just silly. The fact that the part that struck me about boilers was Boiler was saying is that from his perspective as a progressive, there needs to be sort of like an understanding that the way that people sort themselves, the way they identify is sort of untethered in many respects to from policy. And that you as a progressive, his argument would make, would be you have a much better shot of electing somebody who is, has a huge set of progressive policies, but doesn't necessarily lead by saying I'm a progressive, just wear that moniker. That it's that like, you know, people say they want a more moderate candidate, but all of their policies are far to.

left of what a centric they don't mean anything they don't mean anything the thing that i find fascinating about platyner is is i'm quite convinced that platyner will be to the left of every sitting senator in the in the senate today and i include in that even bernie sanders but he does not he his rhetoric and his pitch it seems to me you know from i'm not up in maine but i've seen quite a bit is a populist one that talks about things like single payer health care, that talks about things like, you know, reforms in the Senate to ostensibly allow for more progressive. But I don't know that he comes out and he'll, if he's asked, are you progressive? I imagine he would say yes.

But it's not about at this point, like even his race against Mills was more about like anti-establishment more about change than necessarily I'm more progressive than Mills or it was grounded in specific issues in Maine like her relationship with unions and her relationship with indigenous people

etc and so well you know and I would also just add I think I think that in for instance if you just take California in the governor's race two Democrats that were in it, Steyer and Bacera. I mean, this is as progressive as it gets, right? And Steyer was the progressive.

And he got a lot of votes. I mean, and there's a real signal there, I think, for Bacera about his base, which is that, you know, there's a whole lot of progressives in there who were looking for more progressive policies than perhaps they thought he was going to deliver. So there's that. You know, I mean, even here there is that. Plattenor is coming from a different.

direction. And you could compare him. We could talk for hours about this because it's really interesting that Tala Rico down in Texas also is coming at it from a completely different direction. And I sort of look at those two races kind of in tandem because you couldn't find two more different people, right? I mean, Platner and Tala Rico are like from different planets. But they both have quite progressive policies and are in these, you know, are sort of in the Democratic Party. They're part of the coalition that are coming at this in. in sort of the very specific campaigns tailored to the place that they are living. And that's part of what Boytler was saying.

And they code differently. They code differently. And they're coding very, very, I think very consciously in a certain direction. And in a certain direction for their states. And, you know, in keeping with who they really are. I mean, they're authentically, I think, being the people that they are. And somehow or another, that's capturing attention. One of the things I would say about Platon before we go is just that it reminds me to

a certain extent, you know, when you look at the polling, the thing that's holding that that's really pushing Democrats and huge numbers of independence. You can't just say that it's Democrats because the independents are very hostile to Trump. I mean, it's down to like, you know, I don't know, 20 percent or something of independence are seeing him and the Republicans in favor. They don't like the Democratic brand particularly, neither do the Democrats. The Democratic brand is very tarnished. But they are really very hostile to Trump, and they don't like what these Republicans are doing to Democrats.

They don't like it. So when you see something happen with Platner, and, you know, we can argue about where any of this came from or what the dynamic was that brought him to the place he's at. But one of the things I think that brought people out and that made people vote for Blatner in big numbers in the primary and could do it in November is this idea of the Republicans, of all people, the master's, amount of hypocrisy in them trying to destroy Grand Platner. They have no leg to stand on. And that's a dynamic we saw with Clinton back in the 90s.

It was one of the things that boosted him up. It was, you know, nobody approved of his behavior with Monica Lewinsky. Nobody approved of it. Nobody thought it was okay. But it had been years of absolute, you know, just nonstop, you know, assault by the right wing on him. that by the time that happened, people just said, no, enough. We're not going to, you know, no. We've had enough.

We don't care if, you know, what's going on. You people have no place in doing this. So there is a dynamic that happens to politics. You know, so anyway, yeah, I mean, I just think that's part of it. You know, to some extent, like I attribute part of that, you know, 150,000 people coming out, like the highest vote tallies in a primary to the attitude in Maine, which is like, you know, we don't like any of those outsiders. outsiders from all the way down to from Connecticut coming up around here or something.

But it is true. People forget this. Bill Clinton won with 45% of the vote. 45% of the vote. By the time in his second reelection was, I think he got over 50, but it wasn't by much. And his approval rating was never higher than after the impeachment attempts by the Republicans. That's where the whole, that's where it's where. move on came from.

That's right. Was people saying move on from this. Yeah, they said censure and move on, which encompassed the two ideas, which is he had, you know, was wrong, but that we're not going to do this. We're not going to do this. I have a question for you about Steyer, which is, and, you know, at one point we were thinking about having him on, and I love his politics, as he states them now. and I think we just said like, you know, getting into governor's races is tricky outside of, even outside of New York and whatnot, but be that as it may.

I don't know that we would have made the difference. But I'm curious from your perspective, was one of the hurdles he had was that he was a billionaire? Yes. Like, I mean, it seems to me, because this is going to implicate Pritzker. Like, you know, like, well, I had this discussion. It does. He, Pritzker's a billionaire, but he's also a governor who has run a big state and has a lot of experience in politics. Part of the Steyer problem was the twofold.

He had never, he was a billionaire, and he just had never run in, I mean, California is like running a country. And for Democrats, we look at this guy in the White House now, who absolutely is a devastating failure on every level and has no idea how government works. And you'd hear Steyer talk, and, you know, he's a small. guy and, you know, he had all the right ideas. But there was always a sense with him. And you saw him in the presidential primary back in 2020. He ran that this guy, you know, a lot of good ideas, but does he really know government? Will he, will he be able to do it? And, you know, there's a temptation and everybody kind of, well, we'd like an outsider. We want somebody who's not part of the system and anti-establishment. But it's hard to say that you're anti-establishment when you're a billionaire.

You must have engaged with the establishment just a little bit. Well, and we know he did, you know. Of course. He invested in private prisons. I mean, he did some pretty, you know, he made his money in some pretty not okay ways. So I think that's what it was. And you had Javier Beseta, who we know very well in California. He was the attorney general here.

He sued Trump like 120 times. He's from L.A. And he, you know, he was a guy that seemed that we've known as a good progressive for many years. So I think people were comfortable with that. And he'll be the first Latino governor of California. And that actually has some meaning here, too. But isn't he in bed with those tech guys, though? I mean, he's pretty.

And Stair is too. I mean, you know, what about Rokana? I mean, that guy is Mr. Ultra, you know, it's like, what do we, and especially in California politics, not being in bed with tech guys means, you know, it's like saying you hate Hollywood. It's just, it's part of who we are. Anyway, I just find that interesting. because Platner runs on anti-billionaire.

He's running an anti- oligarchy thing, which doesn't necessarily, I think, translate into I'm a progressive in terms of the ears of the voters. Well, I mean, the ads that he's running talk about the political establishment is coming after me. He's not saying the Republicans are coming after me

because it's actually true. And that's bipartisan. It's bipartisan. And, you know, like, we probably disagree a little bit, Heather, on on Platner's candidacy because I'm a pretty big fan. And I think, you know, for all this talk from the Democrats about how we have to win back young men and how they've lost men, his story of redemption is important. It means that you're not canceled if you maybe supported Trump before or it's not this interoperable. internalize shame that I think sometimes liberals lean on when they should be focusing on a more collective message. And I want to see somebody like him on, and I think Ryan Grimm made this point

before, on the Senate floor questioning members of the Pentagon as somebody who has experienced PTSD and had struggles and admitted to them. But the allegations are not that extreme, by the way. No, they're not. Yeah. And that's part of it is that is that this idea somehow that these are disqualifying. It's ridiculous. But like, yeah, just imagine that for a second, though. You know, you guys, of course, covered the Iraq war so extensively. Somebody who saw so much cost from that war, I didn't realize that he has a machine gunner and his unit was one of the units that were that experienced the most casualties. And he was really on the front lines. And then to come back and really. realize this was for nothing. And then he could be a senator questioning the very people that are choosing to send men and young women that were like him to war for God knows what reason. The fact that the Democrats could potentially reclaim that after we've lost so much credibility with young people, do the Biden's complicity in the genocide in Gaza. I'm encouraged by that

politics. Yeah. Yeah, well, you know, I am too. I mean, I'm fine with it. I actually am. Listen, guys, I've got to go, unfortunately. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. You told me that, Heather. I'm so sorry. No, I forgot. But as always, really great.

We could talk to you for two hours. And I promise you, you get you out of $1.15. And I forgot about that. No, no, that's okay. That's okay. Heather part, ladies and gentlemen. My husband's standing here going, we got to go. We will link, of course, as always, to both your pieces in salon.com and at the hullabaloo.

Heather, thanks so much. You guys have a great weekend. Thanks. Thanks so much, Heather. Bye. Sure. I totally forgot. Yeah. That was on me.

That happens all the time. What with me? Yeah. What do you mean? I forget about it. You get so excited about the conversation that you lose track of the time. Oh, yeah. All I could have done for like two more hours.

But she had specifically said $1.15. And of course, at the time, I'm like, oh, of course. What? Not you're going to get close to that. So what are you going to do? What are you going to do? I guess that's it for the free. show, ladies and gentlemen.

We're going to head into the fun half of the pro. Oh, oh, wait, no, we don't have that today, right? That's coming up. I had a couple of things that I wanted to plug. And, of course, I forgot to once again to put them in the thing. So we'll do that on Monday. Folks, just a reminder that it's your support that can help this show survive and thrive. Uh, we're sitting here in a sweat box.

I don't want to guilt anybody outside of maybe our landlord who's not watching, but I did say in mid-April. Yes. Hey, man. It's not working. A.C. is not working. And then we talked about the portable and we plug in the portable and the entire show shuts down. And even when we're running it at 80 degrees. You know, even when we run that portable at 80 degrees.

No way. Because it's hotter than that out right now. It's 90 degrees. Why would you run it at 80 degrees? You tell me. This is what you do. Oh, oh, oh, it's because it's 90 degrees in here. Yes.

But to try to limit the power turning off, we run the air conditioning at 80 degrees and it still shuts off our power. Well, it's still the way that these work is that it's still operating the exact same compressors and whatnot. It's just it'll turn off once it gets the room. to 80 degrees. But during the time that it's on, it's still drawing the same amount of power. Oh, okay. So then why don't we run it at like 68 degrees? It would be the exact same thing. Oh. Brian, did you not know this? No. Okay. All right. Well, there it is. See, one of the things we try to do around here is learn a little bit about physics. HVAC work. The, uh, nevertheless, that's not my way of saying, please become members. But,

We got to get Emma some type of like, it's hard for me, like my commentary's worse because I'm just thinking about being hot. It is, somebody's going to clip that. Damn it. I mean if the shoe fits. Somebody's going to clip that. We're going to have to bring in like big blocks of ice

and put it in front of the fan every day. That's actually, I have to say, that's what I've done in my apartment is I've got, I put milk cartons full of water in my freezer, and then I take the milk carton out and put it in front of my fan. Yeah. And I've heard that's actually worse because it's of the moisture that it puts into the air, that it actually makes it hotter. Oh, it makes it more humid, but that's why what I do is keep it in the milk cart. You know, either way.

Nevertheless, the point is. big enough that we should, you know, that we should be able to pressure the landlord to come in and fix the TV. What am I supposed to do? I told him the other day and the AC technician walks in, he looks at it, and he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he just walks out. Yes. It was like it took six weeks to get him in here and the first thing he does walk to you, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then walks out.

Yeah, you go all good. The landlord goes, I'm actually a little confused. That was it. That was it? Well, I wasn't in the front. First of all, we're the easiest tenant in the world. Like, they haven't had to do anything in here. That window wouldn't open for years until Brian got here.

I guess it was just a muscle issue. Hell yeah. I'm Graham Platner. Folks, it's your support that helps this show. Keep on, keeping on through the sweat and the sweat. And the tears. And the tears. Sweat and tears.

tears yesterday. It didn't come. The tears didn't come out. It almost came. It almost came out. They didn't. But the, you know, his song was ripping me for the same thing.

He was like, you cried. I was like, I didn't cry. He was like, it's on camera. We'll just cite the other 400 times you've cried on this show.

Fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah, we have 15 amp outlets and the AC unit draws 20 amps. That is my guess. Maybe we need like even like a lighter weight AC or something, but I don't know what's what's going to do. Folks,

it's your support that makes this show. You can become a member of Join the Majority Report.com. We should actually get like a, we should see a level. No, I was thinking we should just get a URL that is like, it's so hot and here. com for the membership. Oh, I was thinking a tier level. Oh, yeah. Air conditioning tier.

Yeah. Oh, that's a good idea. You're a big donor. Yeah. The chill out tier. Yeah. In the meantime, just go to the ones that we have. have at join the majority report.com. Also, just coffee.com. Fair trade coffee, hot chocolate.

Use the coupon code. Majority, get 10% off. You can buy the majority report blend. You can buy a two-pound bag, a five-pound bag. You can buy it ground. You can buy it a whole bean. You can buy single origin, all sorts of coffees, just coffee.coff. Matt, where's Matt? Where is Matt? Matt is on vacation. But as far as Left Reckoning is concerned, two days ago, his most recent episode, Matt and David check in with an old unfavorit of theirs, Sam Harris, and his clinically hysterical way

of denying atrocities. Then Conrad Blackburn talks about State Assembly in Harlem, and finally the Medi-PBD debate. Boom. Folks, see you in the fun half.