The Young Turks - Deporter In Chief

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

Trump Border Czar Tells Fox & Friends He ‘Doesn’t Care’ if Judges Rule His Actions Are Illegal. U.S. Arrests 2nd Person Tied to Pro-Palestinian Protests at Columbia. Trump Debuts New Excuse For Broken Campaign Promises. Is A Recession Coming During Trump’s Second Term? ‘No Guarantees,’ U.S. Treasury Secretary Says. Oklahoma proposes teaching standards suggesting 2020 election ‘discrepancies.’ Hosts: Sharon Reed & John Iadarola SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE ☞ https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER ☞ https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕MERCH ☞ https:/www.shoptyt.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. USA. USA. The guy! Hello, everyone. Hello everyone. You know, every time I see that intro, it just looks like healthy chaos. You know, we're all over it, we're everywhere.

And chaos is a good way to begin the show. John, how are you? Does this mean I get to be with you two times this week? You do. In just a couple days, you'll be joining me on the damage part, holding it down on Wednesdays. Yeah, I love it. So welcome to the show, everyone. What do you say we get after it, John?

Because so much, I feel like we could start every show like this in the Trump error 2.0. We begin with deportations. I think that's his favorite thing other than KFC. Over the weekend, the Trump administration sent hundreds of migrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador, despite a judge ordering their return. Friday, Trump secretly signed a proclamation, invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. It's only been used three times in American history. A law invoked during the war of 1812 and World Wars 1 and 2 requires a president. to declare the United States is at war, giving him extraordinary powers to detain or remove

foreigners who otherwise would have protections under immigration or criminal laws. It was last used to justify the detention. Boy, what an ugly chapter in American history. Japanese American civilians during World War II. AP contributing to the reporting. Now, Trump's proclamation, rather, said he would quickly remove Venezuelans, age 14, and over who allegedly belonged to the transnational gang, Thrande Aragua. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I don't know much about this gang, but apparently it's really bad. Since then, 137 people have been sent out to Sikot, aka the terrorism confinement center in El Salvadorian president, Naibu Kille, agreed to take in about 300 immigrants for a year at a cost of $6 million in his country's prisons. Over 100 other migrants were removed under other federal laws, including 23 people from El Salvador with ties to the MS-13 gang and 101 additional Venezuelan. Trump defended his use of the Alien Enemies Act claiming America is at war. Listen. There's been some criticism that the alien enemies act has only been invoked three other times.

They were all during times of war. Do you feel that you're using it appropriately right now? Well, this is a time of war because Biden allowed millions of people, many of them criminals, many of them at the highest level. They empty jails out of the nations, emptied their jails into the United States. That's an invasion. And these are criminals, many, many criminals. murderers, drug dealers at the highest level, drug lords,

people from mental institutions, that's an invasion. They invaded our country. So this isn't, in that sense, this is war. All right, if he says it, it must be true. But, US District Judge James Bosberg on Saturday, temporarily blocked Trump from using the act to swiftly remove immigrants immigrants without a hearing and instructed officials to return any airplanes carrying them to the United States. Washington Post filling in the details.

His ruling came after lawsuits from advocates who said the administration was denying immigrants due process a fair concern. Considering the fact that Trump administration has not identified those deported provided any evidence. They are in fact members of Trende Aragua or that they committed any crimes in the United States. key to this whole thing. The judge's ruling allegedly came as two planes carrying migrants were already in the air. He verbally ordered them to turn the planes around. But the Trump administration refused. Akiel reposted an article about the ruling with the caption, oopsie, too late. It's really kind of sums it up beautifully, which Secretary of State Marco Rubio reposted. Trump himself sidestepped a question about whether his administration

violated a court order while speaking to reporters on Sunday. I don't know. I have to speak to the lawyers about that. Donald Trump, U.S. President, declared. But others in his administration, including press secretary Caroline Levitt, said they did nothing wrong. The judge's written order, which hit the docket Saturday night at about 7.26 p.m. But he issued a verbal order before that at about 6.45 and 6.48 p.m. based on the court here. hearing, a vote order from the bench. Does the White House feel the need to comply with a verbal order from this judge?

Again, as I said, all of the planes subject to the written order of this judge, departed U.S. soil, U.S. territory before the judge's written order. But what about the verbal order, which of course carries the same legal weight as a written order and said for the planes to turn around if they were in the air? Well, there's actually questions about whether a verbal order carries the same weight as a the legal order as a written order and our lawyers are determined to ask and answer those questions in court. She's really growing into the role. Speaking as if she knows exactly what she's talking about, Carolyn Levitt. Tom Holman, Trump's borders are was slightly more

transparent. He went further saying he didn't really give a damn what the judges rule. judges now what's next another flight another flight every day i wake up every morning loving my job because i work for the greatest president in the history of my life and we're going to make this country safe again i'm proud to be a part of this administration we're not stopping i don't care what the judges think i don't care of the left things we're coming john it feels like being cruel is orgasmic home in Trump, Stephen Miller, sending them to the prison in El Salvador, again, forget about the due process, but particularly there. That's got to be scary. This is where it's happened. It's not happening. It's happened. He's not going to listen to

the judge who, you know, admit. I no longer have jurisdiction, I don't think. It's craziness. Yeah, I get, look, there's so much to talk about here. I'm glad that Caitlin Collins is asking those questions and I think injecting, you know, the important points that like, you know, there's no, there's no question the verbal order versus the rate. That's not a thing. Any more than Trump saying, uh, auto pen is it's auto pen. So his pardons don't get. Yeah, I guess you guys can say anything you want. That doesn't actually mean anything. And she knew it. Carolyn leave it. That's why she gave the crappy little smile after her comment. She knows what she's doing. She knows her role. She knows what she's decided to do with her life. She's a

probably brief mouthpiece for a fascist. That's what she is. Other people have chosen that. They've probably been well paid historically. I'm sure she'll be fine in that way. Looked on poorly in history, I would imagine. But yeah, for the Hohmann's and the Stephen Millers, you know, they've they've spent 30, 40, 50 in Homan's case, I'm going to guess, 60 or 70 years of their life being a combination of utterly terrified of or jealous towards black and brown people and the idea that they finally get to strike back against them, probably provides them some psychological solace at this late point in their life. It's not going to last. For each of them, I do wonder though, like are they, are they like

the base of Maga that they look so down upon that are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll just deport some Colombians or whatever. And then they won't notice that we're stealing trillions of dollars. Homan actually seems like that base. Like he actually thinks, no, this is good. Trump is the best president ever. The others, I think they know that this is just, this is a thing that you promise and a thing that you deliver so that you can do the stuff you actually care about, elite concerns, rich concerns, not this stuff that the peasants they still look down upon are supposed to care about.

But again, to circle back to Caitlin Collins's point, I'm glad that she's pointing out that they're ignoring the verbal warnings. I feel like it's kind of missing the point, though, because they've routinely been ignoring the written rulings as well throughout this presidency. They've ignored that. Like, it's not like if the judge had just typed faster that this wouldn't have happened. Trump is not listening to judges. And Holman writes it off as, I don't care what the judges think.

I don't care what the left thinks. To be clear, those aren't the same thing. You don't have to care what the political opposition cares necessarily. There might be political ramifications to that. But you do have to care in a constitutional republic, as we used to be, and are perhaps not anymore. You do have to care what the judges actually think, except that they clearly don't. And they can just, they can brush it off with, yeah, no, we're at war because jails and asylums, so we're at war. Okay, well, then if it's that easy to come up with, you know,

a facade of an explanation as to why you can pretend that we've just been Pearl Harbor or whatever, then the same thing can be done by a Democrat. AOC can say, well, you know what, what these past administrations have done in terms of the climate has put us at war with Earth. Certainly that's a war that's going to claim a lot more American lives than Trenda Aragua ever will. Cities will be lost as a result of this. They're making up fake apartment complexes that have supposedly been conquered or whatever. And so they're laying out, I think, an interesting roadmap for what, you know, a more moral, I think a more serious Democratic president and the future can do in a similar way, if that's the system of government that they want to have here in America. Yeah, I just wonder, well, I think I know the answer right now. if the other side, the Democrats, had the stomach for it.

Do they have the stomach to just thumb their nose at their fellow Americans, at the rule of law, and everything else? They probably should. You can't keep doing the same thing, and things are so different now. On recent days, Trump administration has continued its crackdown on immigrants who they have accused of being terrorist sympathizers. Here's the deal with this one. One of them, Dr. Rasha Alouye, Lebanese citizen who was working at Brown University under an H-1B visa. After returning from a trip to Lebanon, Alloway was detained. And before a court hearing could even be held under case, the Trump administration deported her to Lebanon.

Federal judge had ordered immigration officials to give him advance notice before moving her, but their court order was ignored. Department of Homeland Security issued the following statement on the matter today. Let's look at this. Last month, Rosh Alloway traveled to Beirut, Lebanon, to attend the funeral of Hassan Nasr. Brutal terrorists who led Hezbollah responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade terror spree. Holloway openly admitted to this to CBP officers, as well as her support of Nazarla. Visa is a privilege, not a right, glorifying supporting terrorists who kill Americans as grounds for visa issuance to be denied.

This is common sense security. Azrallah was indeed a leader of Hezbollah, who even praised to my. for the October 7th terrorist attack. That's true. Trump administration has also deported a Palestinian woman named Leca Cordia. According to the Trump administration, Cordia had overstayed her student visa, which had expired in 2022. In 2024, she was arrested for taking part in protest at Columbia University, which DHS described as pro Hamas. Finally, a doctoral student at Columbia named Ranjani Srinvassen has fled the country after her student visa was revoked and ICE started showing up to her apartment.

Once Thrinvassen student visa was terminated, Colombia canceled her enrollment. Department of Homeland Security issued a statement that characterized Trinvassen as a terrorist sympathizer, They're accused her of advocating violence and being involved in activity supporting Hamas, a terrorist organization. The department did not provide any evidence for its allegations. New York Times filling in the gaps. DHS has stated that when Thrinvassen renewed her student visa last year, she did not disclose two court summons related to protest at the university. It was arrested at an entrance to Columbia's campus the same day that pro-Palestinian protesters occupied Hamilton Hall, university building. She said she had not been a part of the break-in, but was returning to her apartment that evening after a picnic with friends, waiting through a churning crowd of protesters

and barricades on West 116th Street when the police pushed her and arrested her. The case was dismissed. It did not lead to any criminal record. She said that her activity on social media had been mostly limited to liking or sharing posts that highlighted human rights violations in the war in Gaza. And she said that she had signed several open letters related to the war, including one by architecture scholars rather that called for Palestinian liberation. Srinzvassen told the New York Times, I'm fearful that even the most low-level political speech are just doing what we all do, like shout into the abyss that is social media can turn into this dystopian nightmare where somebody is calling you a terrorist sympathizer and making you

literally fear for your life and your safety. So now she's fled to Canada. So let's get into what Christy Noem had to say about this. Secretary of DHS, she wrote this on X. It is a privilege to be granted a visa to live and study in the United States of America. When you advocate for violence and terrorism, that privilege should be revoked and you should not be in this country. I'm glad to see one of the Columbia University terrorist sympathizers use the CBP Home App to self-deport. This is what they want. I would think that as much as they love the cruelty, John, they love that there was a self-deportation. We've scared you enough. We've let you know we can control where we put you if we round you up, that you should probably just go ahead and leave.

Get out of here where go back to one of those asshole countries. Maybe I know she fled to Canada. But isn't this what they're looking for to instill fear that you better not say a single word like they kind of do in North Korea and other places around the world? Exactly. Yeah, and they love that the the requirements necessary to do this to people is incredibly vague. They'll make it seem as if it's extreme, you know, that they've advocated for violence, they've done this, they've done that, specifically what, nothing. They got nothing to say. I mean, even for the people that they, we were talking earlier in the show about those that

they deported to that terrorism like super prison or whatever, they can't even say what crimes they committed. Even though Trump will say that they were criminals of the highest order, you'd think, oh my God, would they kill 10 people? What did they bring in a million tons of cocaine? You'd want to cite that stuff. No, they got nothing. They got nothing. Because they either don't care or doesn't actually exist or both actually. And so when it comes to this sort of thing, do they need to deport these people? No, definitely not. I think that they get off on it. First of all, they don't value students and they certainly don't value doctors.

So getting rid of more of them is not bad at all. And, you know, they know also that their base isn't going to, they're not going to be asking questions. They don't care. They love the idea that all of this is a privilege. And right now they're saying a visa is a privilege. But we also know that apparently a green card is a privilege. They can take that away even without any specific accusations of criminality. They've already preemptively taken away citizenship.

That's what they're trying to do at least with birthright citizenship. That apparently is a privilege as well. They also have a deal with, I believe it's the same Seacot prison to send American citizens there. And so I guess to some extent, the protections that one would think you have from your American citizenship has also become of late a bit of a privilege. And so, look, there's a lot of conservatives that think, yeah, yeah, no, I understand that we're crossing like a lot of lines. And this really does feel like mid-century German, but I'm really white. And so I'll probably be fine. Sure, if you plan on for the rest of your life, never disagreeing with Donald Trump and Stephen Miller or Tucker Carlson or Stephen Bannon or whatever, yeah, you will probably be okay.

But there's been a lot of Republicans that used to be super on the end with MAGA and they're not anymore. They're having security details taken away and stuff like that. They could potentially see all of those things they thought were rights become privileges. And so all of this is this is all pointing in the exact direction that we said it would, the direction that we identified before the election. election and we were scolded. Don't you use the F word? Don't you say such things? Don't you imply that there's some sort of ideological continuance with other movements that we saw in Germany and Italy and that sort of thing. But all of this is consistent with that. We were 100% right. Yeah, but it just makes you wonder. You know, we remember

when Susan Collins after Trump was impeached the first time, he's learned his lesson. It's never going to happen again. When are some of these other voices who were, one time MAGA or at least fine with Trump. And now they know, oh my goodness, what is it ever going to be too much? Because he's not every day he crosses another line. Mm-hmm. We'll see. We're going to take a quick social break and stay with us.

Welcome back, John and Sharon, joining you this hour. You know, politicians say a lot of things on the campaign trail, and we don't always believe them. We're trained not to believe them, but when you're so specific about what will happen day one, kind of tempted to believe a little bit, but maybe it's a joke. But I want to stop the war. I don't want that war to continue. And I'll stop that war, mark my words, I'll stop that war in 24 hours. But we're in a position. A little more than 24 hours at this point.

Donald Trump made numerous promises on the campaign trail, including the major one, ending the war between Russia and Ukraine in just 24 hours. It was a top priority for Trump. But it turns out he was just pulling America's leg. could say that the whole time. At least that's what it seems like right now. Since his reelection, Trump has already admitted this promise of his would not be fulfilled. Even before he took office, Trump said this in December. You know, the real conversations will start on the 20th, but we had a really good conversation. And I think we're going to be in a good

place in the Middle East. I think the Middle East will be in a good place. I think actually more difficult is going to be the Russia-Ukraine situation. I see that is more difficult. I don't think they should have allowed missiles to be shot 200 miles into Russia. I think that was a bad thing. And that brought the Koreans in North Korea. He's admitting it. However, on Sunday's episode of Full Measure with reporter Cheryl Atkinson, Trump was asked point blank, what happened to the 24-hour promise? And basically, he said, what's your fault for believing I was ever serious? So here we have it. Atkinson, not understanding the complexity of all this, but as a candidate, you said, you would have

this war settled in 24 hours. Trump says, well, I was being a little bit sarcastic when I said that. It didn't really sound like that. What I really mean is I'd like to get it settled, and I think I'll be successful. He's allowed to get away with this stuff, I guess, is where I want to start John, where nobody else can do that. He didn't lie to, I guess, people like us who we were never going to believe him anyway. But to his own base, those loyal supporters, members of the conservative, loosely word media, he just kind of shrugs it off. And he's allowed to get away with it time and time again. That wasn't even really tough questioning by Cheryl. Yeah, no, not at all. And yeah, he's being sarcastic. Okay, you did say Mark

my words, generally when people say that they don't mean mark my words for how utterly silly I'm being. That's not what that expression means. It indicates a seriousness, which by the way, your face also had. I mean, not in like the way that you've done your makeup. That's utterly clownish. But like you were kind of frowning. That seems serious. Again, you got to sell the sarcasm. Also, he said it approximately 5,000 times over and over and over and over again. Now, again, as you pointed out, he's not really lying to us, we never believed him. The only people that he can, almost by definition, lie to is the people who are willing to listen to him. And so I feel bad for them. Like I feel bad that they were duped and also just more

meta. I feel bad for them. Like imagine if, you know, Biden set on the campaign trail that he was going to try to cancel student debt and he didn't at all. I mean, in the end, failed because the Supreme Court overturned it and all that. But like imagine if like two months We're like, hey, you said you were going to do that on a day one. And he's like, get off my back, Jack, I never meant it. And then he puts the sunglasses on. If you're Maga, in that hypothetical, would you not be laughing at us for having believed him? I mean, you didn't believe him, right?

So do we not get to do that same thing to you? Why is it that you believe, not just believe this guy, you loved these promises he made. You were so passionate. Oh, my God, he tells it like it is. He's a straight shooter. Oh, he's so honest. The rest of them are so fake. And yet he lies more enthusiastically, more clownishly than anyone else and not about small things.

This is about something huge. This is about one of the biggest conflicts going on in the world. And look, I understand that the fact that he was just sarcastic is just one of the ways that he's like making a mock review in this regard. The fact that when he talks about the worst parts of that war, the only thing he can come up with is Ukraine occasionally fired back. And that was a great injustice. Poor Russia that Ukraine was being so unfair to them after all this time. So it isn't just that he lied to you. And it isn't just that you guys have no capacity whatsoever to see it when it happens or care when it's revealed. But it's that like he's so clearly compromised on one level or another, whether they have information or if he's just, he's got a tiny little chubby for the dictator. I don't know what it is, but some form of being compromised. and none of this stuff bothers you.

And again, at a certain point, he's going to do what he's going to do. I can't lose any more respect for him, but for the people who allow themselves to be duped and diluted and con, that's really sad at this point, Sharon. Yeah, it is. And they're coming to family dinners if they're still allowed to be present and they're being questioned about this kind of thing. And they're still defending him. They're still defending him.

Boy, that one thing you said, now I don't need to worry about my diet. I'm not hungry and I won't be to the rest of the evening. We all want this war settled. Too many people are dying, it's just gotta be over. But now the ball's in Russia's court, which is where things seem to be getting tricky. Ukraine has already agreed to support the US back 30 day ceasefire. President Bolotamir Zelenskyy of Ukraine has accused Putin of purposely delaying negotiations while trying to trap Ukrainian forces to improve his position in the ceasefire talks, just right up to the end. Putin had demanded on Friday that Ukraine's troops in the curse region of Russia surrender.

But by the weekend, after fierce fighting, the Ukrainians had withdrawn from most of the region, leaving them controlling just a sliver of land in Russia. And things are apparently looking good, though, as Trump does continue to move forward with Russia on their end of the deal. President Trump said he would speak with President Vladimir Putin of Russia on Tuesday about the war in Ukraine, noting that there had already been discussions about dividing up certain assets as the president continued to express some optimism that Moscow would agree to a ceasefire proposal. Additionally, U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East, Steve Whitkoff also had a positive meeting with Putin last week. What does that look like a positive meeting with Putin?

You make it out alive? Like, what does that even look like? Stating Russia and Ukraine narrowed the differences between that. Putin accepts the philosophy of President Trump and wanting to see the war come to an end. Whitkoff said, he described his meeting last week with Putin as a, quote, solution-based discussion. And he voiced confidence that a pause in fighting could arrive within weeks. Trump added that when he speaks with Putin tomorrow, we'll be talking about land. A lot of land is a lot different than it was before the war. As you know, we'll be talking about land.

We'll be talking about power plants. That's a big question. But I think we have a lot of it already discussed very much by both sides, Ukraine and Russia. We're already talking about that, dividing up certain assets. And theory Putin seems open to this ceasefire proposal that Trump drummed up. However, he continues to try and get through demands from Zelensky and Keith, claiming the Ukrainian government was part of the war's root cause. So for now, it's just a waiting game to see how Russia responds.

If Putin doesn't agree to the ceasefire, though, Trump very awkwardly told Atkinson. If he doesn't, it's bad news for this world because so many people are dying. But I think he's going to agree. I really do. I think I know him pretty well. And I think he's gonna agree. A lot of what Donald Trump says just sounds like he's talking out of his ass. Okay, he's saying things. He's filling air.

It's hot air. I don't know what to believe, even from his designated official about what really happened in a meeting, what Ukraine's doing, what Putin will do. It just sounds like a lot of just junk noise. Yeah, we understand that in these sorts of negotiations, even when like sane, mature, emotionally stable people are involved, what we hear of the negotiations is 1% of what's actually going on. But I think in this particular case, I think everybody understands that that's even more so.

We're not really hearing anything of substance. That's really going on. Whatever Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are negotiating behind the scenes, like the little stuff that he's doing is like he's barely even pretending that anyone else matters in all of this. They're going to set each other up. They're going to give each other exactly what they want. Putin's going to get the vast majority of all that's transferred. He gets all the land. He gets, you know, whatever. Ukraine's not going to go to NATO. In two years time, he'll finish conquering or whatever. He'll get what he wants. In return, what does Trump get?

I don't know. An OK to invade Greenland and Vladimir Putin doesn't complain about it maybe. a little bit of help with colonizing Gaza. I don't know. But regardless, I do know this, that the considerations of the Ukrainian government, or Ukrainian civilians or the true national interest of America, none of that even enters into this conversation. It's hot air would be, I think, the best case scenario.

I would say corrupt air is what I'm hearing out of him. Yeah, and it's pretty irritating to hear pundits, you know, all over the place. They're irritating anyway, but say, well, you know, the American people, the polls. and the American people care about the Ukrainians and the American people don't like Putin and this and that. It just, he doesn't care what the American people want. He doesn't seem moved by it one bit, Trump. So do you think that the American people will be able to sway any

of this or is it already a done deal? In terms of like changing like the terms of the negotiation or having been swayed back. No, no, no, no, no. If every single elected Republican said so, I don't think that he'd care at all about that. I don't even know how many Republicans there are that actually will have a problem with this. I think there's a lot that Trump is doing that will be very unpopular, even amongst his base. And there are definitely some Republicans that diverge from MAGA in caring whether a single Ukrainian is alive in five years. But I don't think that it's enough of them. And I don't think even for those who do agree on this, I don't think they centred enough in their, you know, evaluation of Donald Trump's presidency or their vote

choice or anything. I think it's like a purely optional thing. He can utterly screw over Ukraine. It can end, you know, its existence as a sovereign nation, as a culture, as a people, whatever. And I don't think virtually any Republicans are going to care. I don't even know how many Democrats are honestly going to care. There are good people. They watch these videos and stuff like that. And, you know, the very fact that you're doing that makes you kind of niche. I don't think that there's nearly as many as we would necessarily like. Yeah, it is what it is. And I think even Zelensky, of course, and the Ukrainian people who are scared to death at what comes next.

After all they've been through about what comes next is probably the most fearful part of it. There's nothing they can do right now to stop it. Secretary, can you guarantee the American people here and now that there will be no recession on President Trump's watch? Chris, you know that there are no guarantees. I mean, I thought the prices were going to come down and we can start buying avocados again. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant admitted during an appearance on meat the press yesterday, There are no guarantees America won't face a recession under President Trump.

Sent did attempt to downplay the admission he just made by claiming if a recession happens, it'll be part of an adjustment period. Listen. There are no guarantees. Who would have predicted COVID, right? So I can predict that we are putting in robust policies that will be durable. And could there be an adjustment? Because I tell you that this math, massive government spending that we'd had, that if that had kept going, we have to wean our country off of that. And on the other side, we are going to invigorate the private sector. I had a meeting with small bankers last week, and they are ready to start lending.

And I can tell you that Main Street is going to do well. So what exactly do you mean when you say adjustment? Could that potentially lead to a recession? There's no reason that it has to. But I can tell you that if we'd kept on this track, What I could guarantee is we would have had a financial crisis. No idea what he just said, utter garbage. Just, it's not even spin. It was, it was worse than that. Just, just talking again out of his, and it's not, you know, he's in sync with the president because Donald Trump himself basically said the same thing during an appearance with Maria Puerto Roma last week. Are you expecting a recession this year?

I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition because what we're doing is very big. We're bringing wealth back to America. That's a big thing. And there are always periods of, it takes a little time, it takes a little time. But I don't, I think it should be great for us. I mean, I think it should be great. I think he's right, it'll be great for about four billionaires, Donald Trump included.

But again, what do you make of any of this? He's never held accountable one day in his life. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, look, I think there's some pushback on this because this is really cutting to the core of why does Trump exist as a politician? Why did he get the support that he did? Not from the MAGA voters or whatever, but the people who bought him, bought his party and all that. It's not to do this to the stock market. That's not why they put him in.

they put him in power at all. And so they have a problem with that. Besant is going to say what he's going to say. He's now, I guess, on the same page with Donald Trump. They had been diverging the way they talked about this as recently as like a week ago. I think it's pretty clear from Trump's body language, the way he delivered that line to bury Bardo that he thinks is a very serious chance of a Trump recession that he is choosing to launch us into, that we were not on path to have. We do now. Bacent said in this, that, you know, there's no reason it has to lead to a recession. Well, no, there might well be reasons. We might be seeing them acted out every single day with Donald Trump's sociopathic,

economic and trade war policy. By the way, he brought up that point about, you know, everything's unpredictable. What's the point of trying to predict? Although Donald Trump, if you've ever listened to one of his speeches, predicts instantaneous success in everything, day one, faster than anybody believe. He's never been hesitant to predict things. All of a sudden, I don't want to predict stuff. But Besant was like, you know, the world's not unpredictable. It's not predictable. Look at COVID. Who could have seen that coming? But I love that example in this particular context. Because he's right. We could not have predicted that COVID would come, nor would I have necessarily predicted that once it was here, Donald Trump would

choose to do hundreds of things that made it worse than it needed to be. And Fox News provided cover for him and other Republican politicians provided cover for him. And all of them, not wanting to either take it seriously or admit how bad it is, admit how bad it was getting under their watch, chose instead to keep making it worse rather than be honest with the American people. And that killed hundreds of thousands of people. We've all sort of forgotten that. We've all moved on. I'm not going to forget. I hope that you watching don't either. And there is an economic version of that that we are in the early days of seeing play out, where he's not willing to be honest that even though he was warned about what effect his trade war would have,

and we're seeing it already, he's just going to keep doubling down and keep making bigger boasts, bigger claims about how wealth is going to come roaring back. And we all know how that worked last time when it came to the public health crisis. Now we're seeing it in economics. Yeah, remember he told Bob Woodward that he deliberately downplayed it? He basically lied to the American people about COVID. Herman Kane should be, here. So recessions are difficult to predict. There's no guarantee. And according to a report from Vox, economic forecasters generally believe that the risk of a U.S. downturn in 2025 has now risen sharply over the course of the past month. When the president took office,

stock values were hitting record highs, unemployment, hovering near historic lows, consumer confidence stable. Wall Street expected that business conditions would only improve improve since Trump's tariffs, the stock markets forfeited six months of gains in just three weeks, while consumer confidence fell precipitously. This was how the markets reacted to Trump's comments about how he can't rule out a recession. The Dow dipped more than a thousand points. It's as if he's been brought here to take us down, the enemy from within. Perhaps he is part of some covert opt from one of our. are America's enemies. S&P 500 fell 3%. Tech heavy NASDAQ composite lost more than 4.5%.

Bank stock slid, along with shares of smaller companies perceived to be sensitive to the economy. Bonds rallied. Will there be a recession? Well, although layoffs around the country are rising, the US labor market continues to create jobs at a decent clip, despite economic growth slowing, it's not expected to fall off a cliff.

In fact, Julia Pollock, chief, Economist at Career Site Zip Recruiter notes that four of the six signals tracked by the NBER. Point two continued economic expansion. NBER or the National Bureau of Economic Research is a group that determines if the U.S. is entering a recession by looking at changes in these six factors. Real personal income, non-farm payroll employment, employment is measured by the household survey, personal consumption. manufacturing and trade sales, industrial production.

But while a recession looks unlikely right now, that doesn't mean we're getting off scot-free. Pollock stated, negative consumption is concerning because consumer spending is the backbone of the US economy. And it's not just that spending fell. Sentiment has fallen. Household budgets are squeezed.

Consumers are more vulnerable to shocks, which has heightened recession fears. Ryan Sweet, the chief US economy, economists at Oxford economics attested to that, but added that things are still okay for now. Right now, things feel uncomfortable given a significant amount of policy uncertainty, the federal layoffs, and we've seen business, consumer, and investor sentiment fray. So to some, feels like the economy is in a recession, but we are not there yet. Your traditional causes of a recession aren't flashing red, but we just have this suffocating effect. of all the uncertainty around trade and fiscal policy and immigration.

You know, this whole thing could be boiled down to just, it's Trump's fault. Everything he's doing is hurting us. It's not helping us. It's not inching back any lost ground. It's moonwalking back, as we said with the stock market, about six months of gains. It's like everything he touches is the opposite of this great businessman. Yeah, and his strategy right now is to just double down on it's going to be great, which in the short term, I understand why you'd want to say that because some people are willing to give you, I don't know, like a honeymoon period, like even some independence maybe. They're like, well, you know, it's still relatively early on. And a lot of Republicans are willing to do that. I do think, though, about Joe Biden, how Joe Biden inherited a far worse economy than Trump has. And he wasn't able to, to solve the inherent problems fast enough, partially because he needed more time, partially because

I don't think that he and the Democrats did enough. But they didn't do it fast enough. And that was an issue. But on top of that, a lot of people felt like he wasn't communicating well enough about it. And I think to the extent that he was, I think he was sort of trying to be honest that it's difficult, we're still struggling and all that. Trump, on the other hand, is choosing to effectively gaslight the entire country. And I do think for a month or two, maybe three, I could sort of see how that might work because we're still in the early phases of it. And it's easy to see the stock market going down. Well, you know, the stock market vacillates or whatever. But if this continues on into six months, into a year, and that has drastically

affected a ton of people's retirement and all that, their ability to start a business, all that stuff, that at some point, I think the gaslighting is way worse than just like Biden in the last year where he wasn't really talking at all. I think it will feel like spitting in your face and calling it rain. I think that's how a lot of people are, and Trump doesn't, Trump does not know how to deal with failure. He can't own up to it, which can buy you, I think, a little bit of credit in some people's eyes. If you're honest about your failings, but he has literally never shown a capacity to do that. He's just a hype man. And I think that people can only go so long being hurt day after day after day before the hype is insult added to injury. We'll see. We'll see the

American economy has proven resilient in some cases before, maybe despite all of the constant needless blows that he's levying against it, it'll do well. But if it doesn't, then I don't think he has the capacity to message his way out of it. Yeah. I mean, I think that conventional wisdom is, you know, at some point the gig is up, right? I mean, the mask comes off, the curtain goes off, we figure out who you really are. But it does feel like we are living in a time where people don't mind being lied to. They might even like it. They might just like the, you know, cheerleading, this baseline stuff. They don't want to get too deep.

They prefer USA Today over the New York Times type stuff. Just the headlines, please, is what it feels like. But we'll see how much longer he could just say, it's great, and I'm the greatest. Much more to come. We'll take a quick social break. Welcome back, John and Sharon. I guess the question is how much propaganda can one country, really one world at this point stand?

It does seem like it's all around us. The problem with Trump is that that's one man. But what he's spurred on in others is the real issue. And this next one is all about the propaganda that's spreading in Oklahoma, which which could be a test case, could be. Oklahoma Republicans are trying to rewrite history, literally a new proposed teaching standard. It would require students to identify discrepancies

in the 2020 presidential election results. Translation, they want teachers to push Trump's big lie in public schools. And you're looking at the man behind it in the state, the Oklahoma State Board of Education led by Trump ally, Ryan Walters, has approved a new social studies, curriculum that would force students to study long debunk conspiracies about the 2020 election, including ballot dumps, security risk of bail in voting, and the contradiction of Bellwether County

trends. It all sounds familiar. It's like it's right out of the Trump playbook. Here's what Walters told the Washington Post. Purpose of the standard is simple. We want students to think for themselves not be spoon fed left wing propaganda. Students deserve to examine every aspect of our elections, including the legitimate concerns raised by millions of Americans in 2020. Like we said, this is straight out of Trump's playbook, planning seeds of doubt in our elections to justify GOP power grabs. And in this instance, it would use taxpayer dollars to fund this indoctrination, which is interesting that Walters, the superintendent there, says that, oh, no, we want people to think for themselves when it seems like that's the opposite of what's going on.

John, how dangerous is this by the Oklahoma Republicans? And can we see it in these other red states? I mean, I'm sure they're always, these state legislatures very rarely spend their time the way that we would think they would by like talking to their constituents, identifying problems, then solving them. They have a lot of free time. So I think they're always looking for something to fill it with. So when they see like a trollish move like this being done, that's a fun thing to pass in 20 red states over the next two months. And then they'll move on to something else. So sure, I could I could definitely see that. I see the reason for the policy maybe a little bit differently. You imply that it's just to propagandize to the kids, which I think is a part of it.

But I think when you say you want the students to identify problems with the 2020 election, I think it's less about propagandizing to them and more about they haven't been able to find them so maybe they're hoping if they crowdsource it with the kids, the kids will be able to. I mean, they put their best lawyers like Rudy Giuliani on it and he came up with Bupkiss, so maybe a sixth grader can do it. They're more put together mentally than Rudy Giuliani's been in the past couple of decades. Maybe these kids could finally crack the case that he and Alina Haba and all of them have failed on. But no, it's, look, they give it away in the thing where they're like, We're gonna make them repeat to us the lies about the 2020 election that we tell them to fight

back against left-wing propaganda. Again, they know what they're doing. They're not clever necessarily, they're not creative or anything, but I think they understand the sort of lie that they're doing. But again, as I said earlier in the show, if now you can just, you can just make the lesson plan literally whatever you want. It doesn't have to have any bearing on reality or any historic import or anything like that, well then we can do that too. And now it's it's being normalized in the same way that Trump normalized all that bad stuff or whatever. Now they're normalizing. I guess we can just teach whatever we want. And if anybody has a problem with it, we just say that we're doing it to fight back against right wing

propaganda. It's as simple as that. Media take notes. And any any bets on whether Trump will have a group of six graders and their dissertations on the 2020 election at the White House, he'll give them some kind of praise, award, perhaps a medal. I, that's, I had not yet thought of that. That does sound terrible, so yeah, that's probably gonna happen. He definitely won't have read any of it. No. And if he has like a public statement or anything, like an award for them, I'm sure it will be signed by Autopenn. Oh, the Auto Pen. But this has been a targeted, coordinated, coordinated effort to go

after the minds of young people, but it's also the way they went about it in Oklahoma. According to the Oklahoma Voice, the Education Department quietly presented the revised social study standards to the State Board of Education. February 27th, without mentioning any changes from the original draft, unlike previous standards, updates. The agency did not post the new version online for public review. The State Board of Education approved the new standards and sent them to the legislature for review. And lawmakers in the House and Senate will now have 30 legislative days to pass a joint resolution determining their fate. So it's not just about Oklahoma. It's a test run. If Republicans can get away with it there, they'll try to export

it to other red states as we discussed. And it's not a one-off. Oklahoma Superintendent Walters has already pushed Trump indoors. Bibles into classrooms supported a publicly funded Catholic charter school appointed the founder of libs of TikTok to a library advisory board. So he's working over time. It's clear that it's not about education, John. It's indoctrination. But how do you even fight this? How do Democrats, independents, sensible people fight this? I mean, look, thankfully in this case, the damage is at least for now going to be mostly constrained to that one state, which is sad for those students. You would think it should be sad even for him that like some of the kids whose minds he's ruining breaking could have ended up being conservative.

Like maybe they would have been thought leaders or writers or policy makers, but they're not going to know how to do any of that stuff. School has become just a place to read Trump Bibles and like engage in these ridiculous propagandistic hypotheticals. Like, that's, again, that's not how you create like the next generation of conservative thought leaders or whatever, although I'm assuming the plan for that is chat GPT or grok or whatever. At a federal level, you're going to have to get Trump out of the White House. I mean, they've utterly destroyed the Department of Education. But honestly, maybe in hindsight that'll be a good thing, you know, since everybody knows that it was destroyed under Trump calls to remake it better than ever will probably, I think, fall on, I think, more receptive ears. Like reforming something that we all know has like sort of problems, but is there, might be a harder sell than just saying, well, he killed all of these things.

We're going to provide for you a government that actually delivers that can actually, you know, educate kids, whatever. Maybe that'll be a little bit easier. I don't know. But again, this is just add this to the list of the many fights that we need to be engaged in. It's just going to be so much, though, to rebuild after Trump. I worry that, you know, we do have access in some areas, but that Americans will say, you know what, we've been without it this long. We don't need it back. We don't need it back.

Maybe. Maybe. That's going to do it for our first hour. I loved being with you, John. I can't wait till Wednesday, although we joke that it comes around, seems to come around the next day. I do. But appreciate it and stay tuned for more.

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