The Philip DeFranco Show - The Hasan Piker Gavin Newsom Situation Has Divided The Internet & Trump’s Minnesota Surrender
Episode Date: February 12, 2026SeatGeek: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/PHIL10 use code “PHIL10” for 10% off tickets and “DEFRANCO” for $10 on returning buyers. Use code “PHIL10” for 10% OFF your first SeatGeek o...rder & returning buyers use code “DEFRANCO” for $10 off AND your chance at weekly $500 prizes! https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/PHIL10 Join & Support @ https://DeFrancoForFulton.com Learn more & join Lindsay's newsletter @ https://LindsayForFulton.com LISTEN TO THE SHOW iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-philip-defranco-show/id1278424954 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ESemquRbz6f8XLVywdZ2VWATCH CRASHING OUT w/ PHILIP & ALEX Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCergKLoy-Yv9zlPk3XQYK7Q?sub_confirmation=1 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2DkU87umhGH9mH1z24Bi9w?si=6sSdjhVNQjyVeBQDLiXcyg Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crashing-out-with-philip-defranco-and-alex-pearlman/id1843429519 WATCH/LISTEN TO MY NEW PODCAST w/ MAXINOMICS Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2CePXwDrvdQTes844wflKp?si=55a6b6049c4841ed Youtube: https://youtube.com/acw?sub_confirmation=1 iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-good-faith-with-philip-defranco/id1827016835 JOIN OUR COMMUNITY 📸Instagram: https://instagram.com/PhillyDeFranco 🐦Twitter: https://twitter.com/phillyd 🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@philipdefranco TODAY’S STORIES 00:00 - Trump Admin. Ending Immigration Enforcement Surge in Minnesota 09:05 - Hasan Piker Says He Would Vote Third Party in Vance Vs. Newsom Race 14:22 - Sponsored by SeatGeek 15:23 - House Passes Bill that Could Restrict Voting Access for Millions of Americans 22:08 - Six Republicans Break from Trump, Vote Against Canada Tariffs THE TEAM Produced by: Cory Ray Edited by: James Girardier, Maxwell Enright, Julie Goldberg, Christian Meeks, Matthew Henry Art Department: William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Brian Espinoza, Lili Stenn, Maddie Crichton, Chris Tolve, Star Pralle, Jared Paolino ———————————— #DeFranco #Hasanabi #Trump Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
ICE is finally getting out of Minnesota.
Maybe. We'll see.
Because where we'll actually get started is with this announcement from Trump's borders are Tom Homan this morning.
And also, I apologize in advance.
He has the stage presence of soggy whole grain bread.
As a result of this surge operation, we have greatly reduced the number of targets for enforcement action.
I'm also pleased to report that we're seeing a notable decrease on unlawful agitator activity here in Minneapolis and overall throughout the state.
With that, I have proposed and President Trump has concurred that this surge operation conclude.
With Tom saying that a significant drawdown's already begun this week and will continue into next week, though
he also didn't specify exactly how many agents are leaving.
And that is, you know, at its peak, there were reportedly some 3,000 federal agents there.
Then recently, Homan said 700 would leave immediately and so it's unclear what number will actually remain after all said and done.
Right, and this also comes as you have the White House quietly finishing up all federalized National Guard troops out of U.S. cities last month, namely Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland.
But also, like, to be very clear here, that does not mean that ICE is just disappearing from Minnesota, nor does it mean that Trump's mass deportation
campaign is ending, nor does it mean that the National Guard has gone for good.
Actually, it's quite the contrary.
Holman stressed that the authorities will continue enforcing immigration law and prosecuting so-called
agitators in Minnesota. And as for the National Guard, you had Trump warning.
We will come back, perhaps, at a much different and stronger form when crime begins to soar again.
Only a question of time. Plus, there's still over 2,500 guard in D.C., since technically they
have a non-federal status and More Guard remain in Memphis and New Orleans where Trump funds them,
but the state's governors control them. Now, as for Minnesota, the Trump regime's casting its
intervention as an unambiguous success, claiming that they've arrested more than 4,000 people there.
But also, you've got critics seeing it very differently, arguing that it's not a big number
compared to what they're aiming for. Plus, we have no idea how many of those people were actually
the worst of the worst, though the data suggests actually very few.
Or CBS just reported that less than 14% of the nearly 400,000 immigrants arrested by ICE during
Trump's first year back had charges or convictions for violent criminal offenses. But then also,
you've got to ask, where even the arguably good arrests worth all the chaos, unrest,
civil rights violations and needless deaths and state executions.
Right, I mean, they came in like a tornado left a beaten and battered city in their wake and for what?
And now it looks like the Trump administration is just ramping up its war and immigrants in other ways.
Where with sources telling NBC that over the past several months, DHS has been exploring legal methods of stripping citizenship from naturalized citizens.
Which were some context, denaturalization has been used only in very rare cases, usually when someone can seal their criminal history or human rights violations during their application.
But you've got this source saying that the goal now is to supply the office of immigration litigation with 100 to 2.
200 possible cases per month, and that's also been backed up by previous New York Times reporting.
And that's actually crazy high, because throughout Trump's entire first term, he filed a total of
102 cases. So to pull this off, reportedly officials are seeking shortcuts to speed up the process,
reassigning staff members, and sending experts to field offices around the country. And you've got that
leading to people fearing that they're going to have their citizenship strip based on technicalities
or something trivial in their background that Trump's team can use to argue that they don't meet the
quote, good moral character standard set by law. But also, advocates warn that even if they don't
succeed, the effort alone could create a climate of fear where even millions of citizens have to think twice
about attending a protest, posting on social media, or saying something critical of the regime's
latest thing, and all of a sudden they become a targeted for denaturalization. Because the administration
has made it very clear. They do not care if you are legal or illegal, criminal or not, they want you out.
Trump has asked the Supreme Court to end birthright citizenship. He's revoked people's visas,
he's gone after green card holders, he's halted asylum applications, he's banned travel from
dozens of countries. He even apparently singled out specific ethnic groups like Somalis or Haitians
for accelerated removals. And then of course, Stephen Miller is known to have pressured DHS staff to
deport as many people as quickly as possible. Criminals are not with him setting the infamous
3,000 arrests per day goal. And so many argue that you only take this numbers first,
detail, second approach if you really don't care about actually catching criminals or
making people safer. Or you just want to scrub the homeland of people who don't look like you.
And certainly, both Trump and Miller have at the very least nodded in that direction, right? I don't
to go down the list of comments that they've made about the third world and Western civilization.
But you can see it even more explicitly in some of their lower level underlings, especially
the folks that are running their social media accounts.
Because, I mean, we've talked about it before, but you have different government agencies
posting a steady stream of content that's widely seen by many as Nazi or white nationalist
coded. Things like this latest ICE recruitment ad overlaid with the text,
we'll have our home again, which is the title of a white nationalist song.
Though you had DHS mouthpiece, Trisha McLaughlin, claiming that it's just a coincidence,
except the Instagram version of the post included audio from the song itself in the background.
And well now we know for sure if you didn't already that the people behind this kind of content,
they're not just rogue staffers who got their hands on some social media handles.
Right, because Trump's team just picked one of them out, a 21-year-old kid by the name of Peyton Rollins,
and they promoted him to one of the top media communications roles.
For most of the past year, he's been the digital content manager for the Department of Labor,
a relatively small part of the executive branch, but he clearly has made a name for himself.
With him taking credit for the massive banner featuring Trump's face that you'll find hung over the department's headquarters.
Also, one post that he made featured 11 stars of the same number as a Confederate flag, as well as a font known
as Fractur that was used in early Nazi government documents
and on the original cover of Mine Kamp.
Then by early January, a colleague flagged
nearly 20 examples of posts that included phrases
associated with QAnon as well as violent language
and a recurrent anti-Semitic trope.
You also have the Times reporting
that more than a dozen internal emails
and Microsoft Teams conversations within the department
expressed similar concerns to superiors.
But then did the leadership fire Rollins,
reign him in, even take down a post or two.
No, instead they give him a huge promotion,
plucking him out of the labor department
and making him digital communications director for DHS.
a department with nearly 15 times as many employees and five times the number of social media followers.
And so that tells you all that you need to know about what meritocracy means for this administration, though, it also shouldn't be surprising.
I don't think anyone who watched the Pam Bondi hearing yesterday would claim that she's there because she's the most qualified person for the job.
Though actually, speaking about that, there's one thing that a lot of people miss from that clown show that's now blown up into a scandal around whether she's a creep.
Because you may have noticed that her aids had large white binder similar to the one that she had in front of her.
and they frequently passed her notes or directed her to specific pages in her own materials.
Now, most people they just saw that as kind of pathetic, right?
Who brings opposition research to a congressional hearing?
But then a photographer noticed something.
When Bonnie was sparring with Pramilla Jaipal, she had a document titled,
Jayapal-Promilla search history that appeared to list the things that the lawmaker had searched in the DOJ's secure Epstein files database.
Now you also have Nancy Mays, one of the few Republican women who signed onto the petition to release the files early on, confirming that.
They're tracking every file that we open.
and when we open it, they're tracking everything.
And you can see the way that they're tracking you
when you're logged in if you know where to look.
They give each of us a login with their name attached to it
and every single file that we open,
regardless of if we even read it.
Every single file that we open, that file is tagged with our name.
Now, in response to this, we've seen Democrats losing their shit
with, for example, Jamie Raskin calling it outrageous Orwellian
and a violation of the separation of powers.
We have reason to believe that it was happening to everybody who went over there.
also had Jayapal herself telling MS now.
Why was it that she brought that in her binder, which we call her burn book, right?
Was she going to use that against me?
Did they get that document for every single person?
And what were they going to do with it?
It's really creepy.
And every American should be creeped out by the fact that the Department of Justice
is spying on members of Congress.
Now, with all this, when asked about it, you had House Speaker Mike Johnson saying it would
be inappropriate if the DOJ was monitoring Jayapal's search history, but you
He also added that he hasn't seen the reports and didn't want to comment on unsubstantiated allegations.
And in response to all this, you have a Justice Department spokesperson telling the Hill,
DOJ has extended Congress the opportunity to review unredacted documents in the Epstein files.
As a part of that review, DOJ logs all searches made on its systems to protect against the release of victim information.
But with that, you know, you have critics saying even if you buy that explanation,
it still doesn't explain why Bondi had those search histories in her binder at the hearing.
And for her part, Bonnie doesn't appear to have addressed the scandal yet, though, to be fair, she seems to have a lot on her plate right now.
Right, because now both Pam Bondi and Christy Noem are being sued for government censorship.
With a lawsuit alleging that last summer, the pair began targeting speech related to the locations of ICE operations
and framing the documentation of agents as violence against them.
Specifically, you had Bondi saying on Fox News that the developer of Ice Block,
an app that allowed users to report ICE activity, better watch out and claim that it wasn't protected speech.
Right, and then, just a few months later, Apple removed that and similar apps from its app store,
and Bondi publicly boasted that the move was in response to the DOJ's demands, according to the complaint.
Also around the same time, Facebook disabled a similar group called ICE
citing Chicago land and once again both Bondi and Noam allegedly took credit for that.
So we'll have to see how that plays out. On one side you've got the regime saying that it's defending its agents against
Doxing and on the other side you've got critics accusing it of killing free speech. But also whoever's right
One thing's clear the Trump regime is losing the narrative war right now
Whole after poll is showing a strong majority of Americans agreeing that ice has gone too far and that they're not making people safer
With so many independents souring on Trump now, it looks like he's even lost the political advantage that he enjoyed over Democrats on immigration
Right, because according to this new AP survey, about 30% of people trust Republicans to do a better job on the issue
Another 30% trust Democrats more and the remaining 40% are split. But of course, you know, that's just one issue and if you zoom out and ask by performance as a whole
The picture actually gets even worse for President Trump
Right, because three separate polls this month have all come to the same conclusion if an election between Trump and Biden was held again today
Biden would probably win even Rasmussen the usually Trump friendly pollster found that 48% of likely voters think that Biden did a better job as president compared to just 40%
Who say the same about Trump that is a meaningful 8%
point difference. But also when it comes to real potential matchups for 2028, we should talk about
this backlash and controversy because we're going to see this play out. And one of the most recent
ways it has is you have tons of people slamming political commentator Hassan Piker for how he might
be voting. Right, because on a recent appearance on Jennifer Welch's, I've had it podcast, she brought up some
hypothetical presidential tickets. Let's say that Gavin Newsom becomes the nominee. That we make it
in terms. Devastating. Do you vote for him over J.D. Vance? I don't know. Well, I'd have to vote for
Gavin News, of course, 100%.
I wouldn't blink. What about you, Hassan? I'd probably vote third party.
You would? Oh, yeah. I mean, at that point, it doesn't even matter. Like, because my policy
on this is the same as, like, my refusal to endorse Kamala Harris. The reason why I did not endorse
Kamala Harris was because she did things that were not only unproductive, but also unconscionable.
And that, it prompted a ton of outrage and a lot of, are you fucking kidding me? With a lot of people
thing that Hassan shouldn't be encouraging third party votes to his massive following and some saying
things like insanely irresponsible take given the harm this administration has unleashed just one year
in. As well as, can we move on from these left-wing creators that have built a business on just
hating Democrats? It helps nobody but themselves. You also had tons of people accusing Hassan
of being a grifter arguing that he, quote, wants Republicans in office because he gets to cosplay
a revolutionary which raises his profile and makes him more money. And then separately from
takes on Hassan, you had some pushing back on criticisms of Gavin Newsom. We're saying, I live in California,
my gay friends of basic rights, my girlfriend can access reproductive care,
and we've raised the minimum wage for service workers.
Spare me the disingenuous bullshit.
But then as far as Hassan, he's defended himself in a series of posts saying,
Do you want free healthcare?
Do you want free college?
Do you want to stop Israel?
I'll vote for anyone who sincerely believes in making that happen.
Dying, I never said J.D. Vance is better than Newsom.
You want to believe I said that because you can't comprehend a world
where democracy implies asking for concessions from your elected representatives
before doing loyalty pledges to them like a happy surf.
But the son then saying shit lives who don't care about losing
Trump now want you to obey in advance to their hypothetical establishment candidate, while there isn't even a guarantee there will be an election two years from now, using marginalized people as a cudgel as Gavin threw trans people under the bus. And while he had his supporters, you also had a number of people pushing back at that response. Saying things like no one is asking anyone to obey in advance, so please come down off the cross. Your fellow panelists recognize the material difference for marginalized communities between a hypothetical Democrat and Republican administration. You repeatedly use your large audience to flatten the difference and its abject nonsense. And some others also taking issue with how he framed Newsom's
stance on trans rights. With one person saying, actual trans person here, Gavin Nusa made a comment
about trans athletes that I don't agree with, but California is still one of the best places to be
trans in the country. See the difference? You don't care about what happens to us, so stop acting like
you speak for us. Now, with all this, you actually had Jennifer Welch ending up posting a video in his
defense, claiming, what Hassan is saying is we need to build a party that has an FDR style impact, that
really, really impacts the lives of people instead of this slow-moving incremental change that the
current Democratic Party always proposes. Number one, Hassan's not a politician. Number two,
Hassan gets to think whatever he thinks. Number three, there is a large growing number of Americans
in Gen Z and as millennials that have felt completely unseen and left behind by the two-party
political system who hate and despise how much they suck up to corporations. We have time right now
to have these conversations and to move our politicians to a progress.
progressive populist platform.
With while it's even going so far as to say one of the reasons that Democrats lose is because
they do not listen to voices like Hassan Pikers.
So it's also worth noting that during the podcast, Assan did preempt any potential backlash
claiming that Democrats might lose solely because of him.
I am incapable.
There is no singular force in this country that is capable of making or breaking an election.
And if that was real, then it is the most idiotic thing not to listen to my demands.
But everybody knows that that's not real, right?
But you know, with all that said, I would really love to know your thoughts here.
Obviously, with any election, whether be local or national, I think you should weigh the difference between the two people.
Though ideally, I'd love a ranked choice system that brings in more voices, different voices, but that's a whole other video.
And then, I'm gonna vote for the best or least worst of the two top options.
Right, it's why I voted for Kamala Harris. Does she represent everything I want in the country?
No.
But to think or argue that a government and a country led by her versus Donald Trump would be the exact same thing with the exact same things happening?
No.
I hope most of us can agree when we look at this last year that this seems to be the way worse option.
And I know, you know, this part is separate from the clips that we talked about on today's show,
but it is an argument that I've seen just playing out in public.
But I also think we need to hash out these disagreements very early on.
We handle business disagreements, all the messiness in the primaries,
and then when it's one versus one, picking the best and or least worst option.
And it's more important than ever if you are in a battleground state,
though it really matters everywhere because there's so many local elections that really matter.
Like understand, I don't wake up getting excited to compromise.
But at the end of the day, someone's gonna win, someone's gonna get elected.
And if there's even a snowball chance in hell that my vote can go to the person that I think is the
less worse option of the two main and that changes things, I'm gonna do it.
Right, and I understand the feelings, but I have to think about the practicality.
But again, this is how I'm operating through life, whether you agree or disagree with me.
I'd love to hear you from in the...
I'd love to hear from you in the comments down below.
And then there's more we're gonna dive into in just a minute, but first let me thank a sponsor and say, you know, it's a great start for events,
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But then, diving right back into the news,
the House just passed a bill that could
prevent up to 21 million eligible American citizens from voting.
Supporters call it election security.
Critics call it voter suppression and the truth about what's actually in this bill
is way more complicated than either side wants you to think.
So we're talking about the Save America Act and updated and expanded version of the
Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act.
It's passed the House before but never cleared the Senate and this time it's squeaked
through 218 to 213 with only one Democrat Henry Quay Arab Texas crossing the aisle to support it.
So as far as what it actually does on the surface, it requires photo ID to vote.
You know, the bigger and more consequential piece is that it would be
bar states from registering people to vote unless they provide documents proving U.S. citizenship.
And a driver's license? Almost never enough. For most Americans, we're talking about a passport
or a birth certificate. Right, so here's one of the big problems with that. Only about half of
Americans own a passport and millions don't have easy access to a paper version of their birth certificate.
You've got the Brennan Center for Justice estimating that around 21 million Americans,
roughly 9% of the country, don't have ready access to either document. And those people we're
talking about here? They are disproportionately poor people of color, young adults between 18 and 24,
and this one actually surprised me, married women. Because millions of them have taken their
spouse's name, meaning that their birth certificate no longer matches their legal name.
Now, the bill does technically allow for other documents, specifically mentioning real ID,
compliant IDs. But then there's also a problem there. Real IDs are available to both citizens
and non-citizens, and they don't explicitly indicate citizenship status. So that workaround doesn't
actually work. And to be fair of supporters of this bill, that the White House isn't wrong,
that voter ID is very broadly popular. Polls show that most Americans across party lines support
requiring photo ID to vote, and 36 states already have voter ID laws. Also, a majority from both
parties support requiring proof of citizenship when registering for the first
And you've had the administration pushing hard on the non-citizen voting angle with the official White House account posting
American citizens and only American citizens should decide American elections. And yeah, that is a principle I think most people agree with.
The issue is that non-citizen voting, it's already illegal. Voters are already required to attest under oath that there's citizens and lying
It's a federal crime that can lead to fines prison and deportation
And studies have consistently shown little to no evidence that fraud is happening at scale. Even Trump's own voter verification
Initiative has so far found no evidence of widespread fraud. But then with that you might think okay, well if all that's the case,
well why would people support this? Well with that you have people like the head of the
University of Maryland Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement putting it
this way saying voter ID gets such broad support because large majorities of people have
these documents and have them ready and they don't quite realize that significant
portions of the public don't or that it's hard to get or that the information's
expired or to put it in other words it sounds reasonable until you realize the burden
doesn't fall on you but also beyond the citizenship documents requirement
there are other provisions in this bill that deserve attention.
Re-mailing voters they would have to provide proof of citizenship in person adding
another hoop for people who rely on absentee voting. States would be required to share voter
roles with the Department of Homeland Security and take new steps to remove non-citizens from
existing roles, which experts warn could result in eligible citizens being unknowingly unregistered.
And then here's one that should concern people regardless of party. The bill would impose
criminal penalties of up to five years in prison for any election official who registers an applicant
who fails to provide documentary proof of citizenship, even if that applicant is actually a citizen.
You're seeing the head of the bipartisan policy center's elections project,
warning that this risks creating an environment where election officials,
are almost overly compliant, meaning that officials might reject valid registration simply
out of fear of prosecution.
That's before you factor in that verifying the authenticity of citizenship documents is genuinely difficult.
Right.
Most election offices and DMVs, they do not have the training or the resources to do it reliably.
And also a huge thing is that the law would take effect immediately, which experts say wouldn't
give states enough time to implement it before the November midterms, potentially setting up
massive legal battles over the results.
Now, as far as the bigger picture here, right, realistically, this bill does face an uphill battle
in the Senate.
Democrats are going to filibuster, and right now there's not enough signs that
that Republicans are willing to eliminate that option.
Even Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska's come out against it,
arguing that election issue should be left to the states.
Which by the way, just to throw this out there,
and is exactly the argument that Republicans used
to kill Democratic voting bills in 2021 and 2022.
Mitch McConnell famously said at that time,
there's nothing broken around the country.
There's no rational basis for federalizing this election.
Now, Trump is explicitly calling
for the federal government to nationalize elections.
So apparently that principle was what?
Bullshit, or maybe it had a shelf life?
But also, here's the thing.
Even if the SAVE Act dies in the Senate,
Experts say that it really doesn't matter as much as you'd think.
Or you've got the head of the Voting Rights Lab telling Axios that the bill sends clear marching orders for state lawmakers to enact Trump's extreme elections
All with an eye toward this year's midterms. And in fact, we've already seen what these laws do with the state level
In Kansas, a similar law led to the suspension or cancellation of over 30,000 voter applications about 12% of all applications that were submitted before a federal judge struck it down in 2018
In Arizona, a comparable law was litigated all the way to the Supreme Court, which left new requirements in place only for state and local elections, potentially blocking tens of thousands of
thousands of eligible citizens.
And in New Hampshire,
in 2024,
reportedly turned away more than 200 potentially eligible voters
on election day in 2025.
So then, just imagine these policies
spreading across multiple states
in a federal election year.
Of course, this whole situation,
it's not in its own bubble.
It's not happening in isolation.
Just a few weeks ago,
the FBI raided an election office here
in Fulton County, Georgia,
and we're now learning more about
how they tried to justify that raid.
With the unsealed FBI affidavit used to get the search warrant,
it was largely based on thoroughly debunk claims
about 2020 election fraud.
That affidavit also came from Kurt Olsen,
a guy who played a central role,
in Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 election, and he was also reportedly described by people
inside the first Trump administration as a fringe menace. But now, he is Trump's director of election
security and integrity, with access to sensitive intelligence agency information to search for evidence
a cheating. You had one source telling Politico he will find some super classified report, say it's
evidence of fraud, but really it's just completely out of context. And with that, you had the head
of fairfied action connecting the dots directly. Saying repurposing these conspiracy theories as federal
justification is part of a broader campaign to relitigate the past and lay the groundwork for interference in the
2016 election. As you've got the SAFE Act as one prong, FBI election office
raids as another, an election denier with intelligence access as a third, and a president
who's already preloaded the narrative that any election that he loses is rigged. So when you
take all those things together and you're looking at a world where maybe 21 million
eligible voters just can't participate, or if it's infinitely harder for them to participate,
if election officials are criminally liable for doing their jobs, if federal agencies are
raiding election offices based on debunk conspiracy theories, that's not election security.
That is a system being engineered to produce specific outcomes. One of the really frustrating
things is that there are real legitimate conversations to be had about election integrity.
Most people left and right, they want secure and fair elections.
But these conversations are getting poisoned when one side is pushing measures that disproportionately
targets specific groups of eligible voters while providing no meaningful protection against
a problem that evidence suggests barely exists.
So I know it's a way of ways, but some things you can do, check your voter registration status
right now at vote.org. Do not assume you are registered, there is trickery afoot. Also,
if you live in a state, considering proof of citizenship requirements, contact your state
legislatures and make your voice heard about the concerns that you have. Also, you can support
organizations working on voting access like the Brennan Center, the bipartisan policy center,
and your local League of Women Voters chapters. Really, regardless of where you fall politically,
pay attention to this. The midterms are coming, the stakes are higher than ever, and the rules of the game
are actively being rewritten. Though at least in another act yesterday, the House did decide to
hand Trump a different el. Right, because six Republicans joined most Democrats in a 219 to 211 vote to block
Trump's tariffs in Canada. Trump, if you don't remember, used a national emergency to apply the
tariffs and the House resolution here, it terminates that emergency order.
You had it being brought forward by Democratic Representative Gregory Meeks in New York,
who had been arguing that Canada isn't a threat, Canada is our friends, and also adding,
the question was simple, stand with working families in lower costs, or keep prices high out
of loyalty to Donald Trump. And among the Republicans who joined this effort, you had
Nebraska's Don Bacon, who thought the most Republican choice was breaking with the president
here, writing, tariffs have been a net negative for the economy, and
doubting, as an old-fashioned conservative, I know tariffs are a tax on American consumers,
Real conservatives oppose tariffs.
But also, here's the twist.
This probably won't actually change anything.
Right, you have places like Reuters calling it an important symbolic vote.
Because you see, even if the Senate follows through and they pass the resolution,
Trump can just veto it.
And so you had Speaker Mike Johnson kind of downplaying the vote, defending Trump's tariffs,
and saying that this won't change the president's policies.
But as far as Trump, he seemed more annoyed.
Writing on Truth Social, any Republican in the House or the Senate
that votes against tariffs will seriously suffer the consequences come election time,
and that includes primaries.
Tariffs have given us economic and national security and no Republican should be responsible for destroying this privilege.
And while of course there's an unmoving percentage in this country that takes whatever Trump says kind of ass-to-mouth human centipede style as the truth,
it is undeniable that his trade policy is deeply unpopular.
We're polling from earlier this month shows that 60% of Americans oppose increasing tariffs.
In effect, estimates show that they're costing US households as much as $1,400 every year.
And so the Republicans that did likely voted for this measure in hopes that they won't face consequences from their voters when the midterms roll around.
And you have places like Bloomberg saying that this signals a growing anxiety over the White House's economic agenda before elections that are expected to focus heavily on affordability and, quote, represents an increase in political pressure to change course on Trump's signature economic policy.
And again, even though Trump can just veto this, it does look like the House has even more plans to stand against these tariff policies.
Right, you have Representative Meeks telling Axios that he might try to push votes regarding Mexico and other Liberation Day tariffs.
And so as far as what's next to what matters here, even if none of these resolutions ultimately become a law, they are being used as a sustained pressure campaign.
right, forcing Republican politicians to repeatedly go on the record about whether they support policies that are actively hurting American families. Well, right now, the cracks in the Republican Party, they're small, right? We're talking about six votes here. There is a world where cracks continue spreading when the economic pain just keeps piling and piling on. And while that, my friends, you beautiful bastards brings us to the end of today's show. I have a cool thing to announce. One, for the first time in 2026, tomorrow you are getting your Friday, Philip DeFranco show. So you know, definitely be subscribed and turn on those notifications so you don't miss it. And two, the first episode of season two of my podcast,
In Good Faith goes live on Monday, and it's me sitting down and talking with Adam Friedland.
So if you're not subscribed to the In Good Faith podcast, definitely do it.
I'll even include links in the description, especially because I wanted to start doing something
different with it.
It's old but new.
Main thing, thank you for watching.
I love yo faces, and I'll see you right back here tomorrow.
