The Young Turks - Shutdown Saga

Episode Date: October 2, 2025

The U.S. government officially shuts down – but who’s to blame, and which party will win out? Trump makes a surprising move against Big Pharma. The Trump admin is preparing for a crackdown on pre-crime, according to a new directive. Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/TYT and use code TYT and get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup! Hosts: Jordan Uhl & Cenk Uygur Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/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. While other money managers are holding, Dynamic is hunting. Seeing past the horizon, investing beyond the benchmark, because your money can't grow if it doesn't move. Learn more at dynamic.c.c.c.c.c. Thank you. All righty. Welcome to the Young Turks, Jane Cougar, Jordan Yule, with you guys.

Jordan's, of course, part of rebel headquarters. He's also got his own insurgents podcast. So guys, we've got a government shutdown, but not a T.Y.T. shutdown. So we're going to give you all the details of it. Who's right? Who's wrong? And you know we're going to be unbiased and tell you the reality of it. And number two, we've got updates on Israel, of course. Flotilla is approaching. Are they going to murder them all? they have called they said they were working with Hamas that is usually what Israel says before they murder you so we will get to that story a little bit later the Trump peace deal there's interesting details about that that you know

are give you some you know sense of whether the deal is gonna work or not and we've got Tom Holman and his bribe and lots to get to so Jordan Let's start. Take a look at this. Donald Trump is at record levels of unpopularity in his tenure. The Republican House is at record levels of unpopularity. They are underwater across the board and they know it. And that is causing them to double down in public, but it is backfiring.

That is why whether it's a shutdown, whether it's all of this, they want us to to blink first and we have too much to save. The United States government has officially shut down and Democratic Party leadership is vowing to keep it that way until Republicans give them what they want. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is promising mass federal layoffs while he posts AI videos of House Minority Leader Akeem Jeffries in a sombrero and we'll get to that a little bit later But first, how did we get here? Republicans in the House of Representatives were able to pass a bill to keep the government funded,

but Republicans in the Senate have not been able to get 60 votes to pass that bill. While some Democrats did vote with Republicans, most are vowing not to vote for any government funding bill unless Republicans agree to extend health care subsidies, which are on the brink of vanishing. Per the New York Times, most Americans enrolled in a plan under the Affordable Care Act have benefited from federal tax credits that were expanded in 2021. But those subsidies are set to expire at the end of this year. And if they do, over 20 million Americans will be facing higher insurance premiums. Kaiser Family Foundation has estimated that Americans' share of premiums could increase by an average of more than 75%. About 2 million people are expected to lose

their coverage next year of the extra funding expires, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office. Health insurers are anticipating that young and healthy customers will drop their insurance plans, while those facing medical problems will stay enrolled. According to analysis by KFF of company filings, insurers are increasing premiums by around four percentage points on average to account for a sicker group of customers next year. They are also raising prices because of increasing medical costs. A small number of Republican lawmakers have stated they are open to keeping these subsidies funded, but Republican leadership has pushed back. This morning, Vice President J.D. Vance spoke to CBS Mornings, and he insisted that this fight

isn't about health care subsidies for Americans, but it's actually about healthcare for illegal immigrants. Take a look. Those subsidies, while many of them are important, Tony, they don't expire until next year. So the idea that you have to shut down the government in early October over subsidies that don't expire for many months is preposterous. Nobody buys it. Not even many Senate Democrats who, of course, voted with us last night to reopen the government. The second point I want to make is if you look at the Democrats' initial demands, the reason why this process really fell off the ramps from the very beginning, they came to us saying that they wanted to give massive amount of taxpayer benefits to illegal aliens. That's ridiculous. And you're certainly not going to shut

down the government because we refuse to give taxpayer funded health care to illegal aliens. But that is the situation that we now find ourselves in. Now, Vance got some pushback on the claims in that clip. Let's watch. On the Affordable Care Act subsidies, people do need to make decisions now. The renewal notices go out on November 1st. So now's the time to think about whether you can afford health care going forward. Two, on this notion that Democrats want to give a bunch of of taxpayer dollars to illegal aliens. Is that a reference to health care? Because when I look at it, you know, illegal aliens are not currently eligible for the Affordable Care Act as is. So what are you

referring to there? Yeah, so I appreciate the opportunity to explain that, Tony. There's a lot of cross talk here. So here's what I mean. If you go back to the Biden era, they did two separate things. First of all, they encouraged illegal aliens and funded illegal aliens to go to American hospitals for health care. That was number one. Number two, they gave a massive what's called parole. They effectively waived an amnesty wand and gave health care benefits to millions of illegal aliens who were in the country without documentation, without proper authorization. We undid both of those Biden era programs to cut off that health care funding to illegal aliens. The Democrats want to re-institute those policies.

Now, Democrats have repeatedly insisted they are not trying to give undocumented. people health care. Republicans, however, insist otherwise. Here's Stephen Miller, Democrats shut down the government to demand free health care for illegals. So who's telling the truth? To find out, we dove into the text of these bills themselves. And we're going to tell you exactly what's inside. The Senate Democrats' proposal to keep the government funded would repeal a section of Trump's quote unquote one big beautiful bill. That section is called subtitle B of Title VII. Of course, you all know and love that part. Inside of that section is an even smaller provision titled Alien Medicaid Eligibility, which reads in part, in no event shall

payment be made to a state under this section for medical assistance furnished to an individual unless such individual is a resident of one of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, or a territory of the United States and B, either a citizen or national of the United States, an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence, an alien who has been granted the status of Cuban or Haitian entrant, or an individual who lawfully resides in the United States in accordance with a compact of free association. And to clarify, compacts of free association have to do with three Pacific Island sovereign states in particular. The alien Medicaid eligibility provision did exclude certain groups from receiving federal health care benefits, including

refugees, asylees, parolees, and abused spouses and children. Republicans are claiming that Democrats wanted to make Americans pay for undocumented immigrants' health care because their provision would have repealed the alien Medicaid eligibility provision. But undocumented immigrants are already unable to receive federal medical insurance in theory. Some states like California use state money to offer insurance plans for undocumented people. But last year, California got busted because they spent federal money on health insurance for residents with unsatisfactory legal status. It seems that the alien Medicaid eligibility provision of the one big beautiful bill was intended

to clarify that states cannot spend federal money on health care for undocumented immigrants. It also revoked certain groups eligibility for federal health care benefits, as we mentioned, And although the Democrats' proposal would have repealed that provision, it would not have suddenly made undocumented immigrants eligible for federal health care. Jank, it seems a little wonky, a little complex. But when you boil it down, surprise, surprise, the Republicans might be misleading American people here. What do you think? I'm shocked, shocked to find out gambling in this establishment. Okay, so look, I'm going to tell you how it breaks down in terms of whose fault it is.

But first, something that I hope we could all agree on. As soon as the government shut down last night, what wound up happening is that federal workers stopped getting paid. So they still have to work, a lot of them, like air traffic controllers, et cetera, but they just won't get paid for the work. They do get the money back later if and when the government reopens. I assume it's going to reopen at some point. But meanwhile, they can't pay the bills, right?

But there is one exception. Congress at I'm sorry overall I think exception categories politicians so it has a couple of branches Congress the White House so Trump will keep getting paid all the incompetent politicians who brought us to the shutdown will keep getting paid because you know pain is suffering that's for the masses but the elites never suffer even though they're the ones making these decisions. So I can guarantee you that if you polled, should they stop getting paid as well, well, we might actually get a hundred percent in a poll for the first time ever. Other Congress people are like, no, no, no, no, keep paying us,

get paid double, pay double. Well, you're not even working, you're the ones who shut down the government. No, we're the elites. Okay, I got it, I got it, dude, we all hate you. Okay, so now let's move on to the hard part of who's at fault here. This was a little bit more complicated than usual. Why? So normally the Republicans come in and go, okay, we're shutting the government down. We don't care. And we don't care if nobody gets paid, blah, blah, blah. And usually by the end, the people realize that the Republicans who are shutting down the government, right?

So in this case, they do need Democratic votes. So normally what happens when you need the other parties votes for anything, including in filibuster situations, you can do one of two things. You can use the Democratic approach with this immediate surrender. They're like, oh, paid family leave polls at 84%. Oh, a couple of Republicans objected, we surrender, right? And that's what the Republicans are demanding now of the Democrats. No, we want unilateral surrender. We want you to get nothing in this negotiation.

And we want you to give us your votes anyway on a continual resolution to keep the government going. And the Republicans say, well, look, this is not about passing bills. We just pass a giant tax code for the rich and corporations. I mean, I mean the big beautiful bill, right? So it's not fair for the Democrats to not vote with us to continue the government. What do you mean not fair? What does that mean? So no, when you're trying to pass anything, there is a negotiation. So could the Democrats say, okay, you know what, let's just continue until November 21st,

as the Republicans want, and it's okay if we don't get anything, at least the government doesn't shut down. Yeah, they could do that. So if you wanna, you know, give them a little bit of blame for not doing that, okay, all right. Now, another end, could the Republicans negotiate like every bill that's ever passed? Yeah, of course they can negotiate, but they're like, Democrats, we don't want to give them anything ever, ever, ever. Well, okay, then you're not going to get the votes. That's how it works. So I don't know why you're feigning outrage over that. I know why because, you know, they both sides are going to do their talking points.

But it's total BS. Get to the, like when you're in politics, politics 101 is at the end of day, you have to pass budgets, bills, et cetera. You get together, you negotiate, and you come up with a compromise. But the Republicans are at this point never ever ever want to compromise my way or the highway well okay then we got the highway so why don't you stop crying about it or get to the goddamn negotiating table all right so and there's no you cannot argue with that now okay now let's get to the specific of what the Democrats want what do they want to negotiate over so Jordan told you health care is a critical one so two million

people are going to lose those benefits a perfectly good thing to negotiate on it's It gets a little wonky and then the Republicans throwing the monkey wrench of the undocumented immigrants, which I'll explain in a second, but overall, it looks like Democrats are standing up for people to get health care, and the Republicans are like, no. Okay, then my favorite part, though, is J.D. Vance's disingenuous reaction there. I mean, this isn't going to run out until the end of the year. Why don't we just continue the government out? That's because the Democrats have like a smidge of leverage.

And shockingly, they've decided to use it for the American people. That's a good thing, right? And so they're like, you think that if the Democrats are like, oh, yeah, let's not negotiate over that. It's okay, it's not going to run out until the end of the year. And we'll just give the Republicans what they want. That when they then say, okay, now we'd like to introduce the bill to make sure that those people don't lose their health care, that the Republicans will be like, oh, yeah, sure, yeah, of course. introduce anything you like, we'll vote on it.

And you know what, maybe we'll vote with it. No, they're not even going to let the Democrats introduce that legislation. So J.D. Vance, are you going to let the Democrats introduce legislation and vote? And you're making it seem like, oh, it's no big deal. Isn't every single Republican going to vote no on extending the health care for those two million Americans? And you know they are. Maybe you'll get one or two. But overall, they're like, oh, Americans, they're not even donors.

They're not even a foreign government. Yeah, no. So now, look, the Democrats, I saw Hakeem Jeffries last night on CNN because Anna was on and so I'm like, all right, I'll bear through this. And God, they're so bad at messaging. They get right into the weeds and they lose everyone. They speak like, bro, just be like, hey, two million Americans. We're giving them health care. And the Republicans are saying, hell no, we'll shut the government down before we give Americans health care, okay?

But they're not even rich. They don't even give us money. They're not even corporations, right? They're not even Israel, right? And that would be a strong way of saying it. Okay, all right. Last thing is on undocumented immigrants for now. So is it true that the states pay, if they want to pay for undocumented immigrants,

the federal government doesn't so the states have to do with themselves? Yes. Is it true, though, that sometimes like California will overcharge the federal government And then when they do an audit, for example, last year, they found out that California had overcharged by about 50 million or so. And so they said, no, no, no, according to the law, and you have to follow the law, California has to pay for this, not the federal government. Wait a minute, who's president last year? I mean, Trump caught him. Oh, right, that was Biden. So the Democrats caught themselves overcharging, because Democrats are in California. And they said, you're not allowed to do that because there's a law that says you're not allowed to do that.

and they got California to pay the money back. So California shouldn't have done it in the first place, but apparently there's a process in place that even Democrats use to make sure that the money does not go to undocumented immigrants. Problem solved. This episode is brought to you by prize picks. You and I make decisions every day, but on prize picks, being right can get you paid.

Don't miss any of the excitement this football season, on prize picks where it's good to be right, and I love being right. Look, I've been diving into the prize picks app all season, and it's fun and simple. You just pick more or less on player projections. Is Saquan Barclay going to get more or less than one rushing touchdown? Super simple, and I got it all figured out. No, I don't. Is Lamar Jackson throwing for more or less than two and a half passing touchdowns?

Everybody's got an opinion, but in prize picks you get your picks right, boom, you cash in. And I love the new features. You can now follow other players and copy their lineups in one click. And if you really believe in a player, you can pick him up to three times in the same lineup with their new stacks feature. His pass yards, his rush yards, his touchdowns, all of it in the same lineup only on price picks. You can follow other price picks players directly on the app and copy their lineups in one click. Whether it's a friend, a celebrity partner or just someone whose picks you like, hit the follow button and check out every lineup they create in the new feed tab on prize picks. It's the best way to put your football takes to the test in over 40 states, including California, Texas, and Georgia.

Download the Price Picks app today and use code TYT to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That's code TYT to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. Price Picks, it's good to be right. I think you're right. They need to simplify the messaging, really hammer home how this impacts everyday people. These subsidies are a vital lifeline. Health care is already too expensive. Despite its name, the Affordable Care Act, the marketplace plans that come from that are typically not affordable for people. So these subsidies help. It doesn't fix the problem. I would argue a much better all-encompassing universal health. healthcare system is the way to go. So people don't have to worry about whether or not they can afford health care the next year starting in October. So I'm glad to see one mainstream media outlet push back on JD Vance on that point. But now that we've explained the substance of the issue, we should discuss whether the shutdown is politically advantageous for Democrats or Republicans. Democratic leadership is likely choosing to take a stand because their voters think the party is weak. Take a look. Democrats on who has strong leaders. Look at this. 54% say neither party, 54% of Democrats say neither party has strong leaders.

Among Republicans, 80% of their base things, Republicans have strong leaders. Yet among Democrats just get this, just 35% of Democrats say their party has strong leaders. Take a look here. Okay, Democrats and who get things done. Again, it's just 50. We get this 50% of Democrats say neither party gets anything done. Just 41% of Democrats say their own party gets stuff done. Well, this is, I think, the real pressure facing Democrats at this particular point.

Democrats who think their parties need major changes or more. Look at this. 57% of Democrats say their party needs major changes or more compared to just 43% who say minor or no changes. Again, very different than the Republican Party, where 21% of Republicans, only 21% say their party needs major changes or more. Now, the Washington Post editorial board is warning Democrats that they won't win this fight. President Donald Trump and his budget director Russell Vote now have extraordinary authority to choose which agencies to close, what spending to prioritize, and even which government workers to lay off. As Trump warned on Tuesday, we can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible. The public has proved to be unsupportive of lawmakers who create unnecessary crises to extract political concessions.

The most likely outcome is that Democrats will come to regret having just walked into a trap. And speaking of Russ vote, he's already made two big announcements today. Roughly $18 billion in New York City infrastructure projects have been put on hold to ensure funding is not flowing based on unconstitutional. DEI principles. More info to come soon. And then elsewhere, nearly eight billion in green new scam funding to fuel the left's climate agenda as being canceled. Again, promising more to come. But the projects are in the following states, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota. The list goes on, but it's many, many states. And according to Politico, OMB, Chief Russell, vote.

told House Republicans on a private call Wednesday that the administration will start mass reduction and force moves or firings of federal workers in a day or two, according to four people granted anonymity to describe the call. Now, time will tell what else vote decides to do, but in the meantime, here's what's still moving as well as what's grinding to a halt. Today, the CDC announced that mission critical activities at HHS will continue. TSA workers and air traffic controllers are still working even if they're not being paid. USPS will keep mail moving as per usual. Social Security will continue, but safety net programs like SNAP and WIC could run out of funds.

Federal workers and active duty military members will not get paid and FEMA is still running, but its funds are growing sparse. Now, Jank, how do you feel about this idea and this concept, this opinion pushed by the Washington Post editorial board that this is a losing battle for Democrats. They always say the Democrats are going to lose. To be fair to them, the Democrats are so bad, they usually do lose, right? But like going into these battles, mainstream media is always like, oh, the Democrats are very wrong, very wrong.

It's the Democrats. They love to pick the Republicans out. Why? Because they're giant corporations. And so the Republicans represent corporations, tiny bit more than the Democrats do. So no, I, Jordan, it's super clear who's going to. to win this showdown, even though I can't tell you if it's Democrats or Republicans,

but when I tell you how you're going to know, you're going to get worried, the stronger side wins, the side with better messaging wins, because you have to be out there from today to the day that it gets resolved out all over media, TV podcasts, every kind of media you can imagine out there going, we're for the health care, they're against American people, against the American people, why did you steal their health care from them? etc, right? And then you would break the Republicans, you know the old days. Now, the Republican politicians are the ones you should target because that that makes sense in this case, right? But will the Democrats do that? They'll probably go, well, according to clause 37 BC, we are,

so I mean, like, as I tell you who's, you know, what the victory is going to be based on, I'm super worried because the Democrats are the absolute worst in getting the message out of any party I have ever seen in any country in my lifetime, okay? So now, and look at the framing though of mainstream media. To be fair, they also have mainstream media against them. Now, like normally, unlike on social issues, mainstream media is on the Democrats side, right? But on economic issues, they're totally against Democrats, even though the Democrats are usually faking it, but anyways. So in this case, they say, oh, well, I've seen tons of reports like this now. Oh, the Democrats and Chuck Schumer are only doing this to appease their base. Because they

Their base wants to fight, it wants them to fight the Republicans. What does that mean? Are they not supposed to listen to their voters? Like they're literally chiding them for, for the first time ever listening to their voters. Like out the Democrats, how dare they listen to their voters? They're just being driven to try to protect health care for Americans because of their voters, right? Yeah, what's wrong with that? Is that what you want?

No, because it makes your media hates the voters and never wants you to write. represent them. And so, okay. Now, how do I know that the Republicans in this case are not full of crap? Like, so they're enthusiastically going, oh, now we get to fire the federal workers. During those, we fired people. Now we're going to fire more Americans. We love to fire people. And that makes sense. Donald Trump's catchphrase was, you're fired, right? So if you're an average American, you're working for the government or something else, they love firing you, right? Why don't they fire any of the subsidies? I mean, we can save a lot of money.

If we stop giving $35 billion to oil companies, that's money out of our pocket. Why don't we stop that? No, can we just, can we stop funding Israel's genocide? How dare you, anti-Semite? No, we fund Israel no matter what, okay? We fund oil companies and drug companies, no matter what. The Americans fired, you're fired. My donors wanted you fired.

Okay, so Republicans, you mean anything? I look again politicians of voters are very different the voters have been misled for a long time on both sides so I know Republican voters don't want to give those subsidies there might be a couple randos that still 68 or 98 and they'll watch Fox News and they're like oh Sean Hennedy told me the corporate rule is awesome please take my money giant corporations who make billions of dollars right but the politicians oh my god monumentally full of crap that's the Republicans now turn to the Democrats now what do we tell you we told you

For 20 straight years here, guys, the Democrats never fight. They never fight for you. And we were the heretics and we were the bad guys. Oh, you're hurting the Democratic Party. You're letting everyone know we never do anything. Well, too late, words out. Look at those results. Everybody thinks you've Democratic voters.

Forget Republicans and the independists. Democratic voters, your own voters, think you are weak and totally ineffective. They caught you. Everybody's getting caught now. Mainstream media kept everything bottled up forever and ever and ever. They never let the truth out while pretending to be objective. Now because of online media, they can't contain things. They're like, no, no, no, don't tell anyone we gave Israel $300 billion.

Oh, God damn it, now they know. Don't say Galeigh Maxwell's dad was an Israeli spy who stole our nuclear secrets. Oh, God damn it, now they know, right? Don't say we give the subsidies all the corporations and screw over the average of all, no, they know. And one of the things that happened is the Democrats got caught. You guys suck to politicians and you never fight for us. And now you have a smidge of a fight.

And so, okay, great. And of course, and they're like, oh, mainstream media is yelling at us. Who cares? You should go on their shows and yell at them. Yell at them. Okay? But no, go no. Let's be civil.

Let's be civil. So you want major changes in the Democratic Party? RebellionPact.com. Not only do we have three candidates now, I've been talking to a lot of folks, some good populace out there like I've never seen before before you talk to Democratic candidates they're all so careful and they'd be told by the consultants you know it's all being this tiny little box now I'm talking to guys that including one today where they're actually regular people and they're like

oh we're tired of this crap and that's it we want to take over the Democratic Party and have them actually do things like yes yes so there is a way rebellion pack.com but Jordan who are Schumer and Jeffrey's going to fold? I mean, probably. I don't know. I mean, my my takeaway in this part is how the media continues to mislead people and has them focused on the wrong things. So this idea that, you know, Democrats are going to lose this battle. When they're the ones, like you pointed out earlier, surprisingly, at least in this moment, fighting for people who need health care. And again, we know the inadequacies of the Affordable Care Act.

And then Harry Anton, with that poll talking about how, you know, people, Democrats don't have faith in their party and they don't see them doing the right things. Thankfully, there's rebellion pack. But I think the problem is much bigger than that. And it's not just a partisan problem. Pew Research did a poll a couple weeks ago that found that 76% of U.S. adults want at least major reforms to our political system. This is both parties and independence. And that, you know, some of that includes people who want a complete overhaul. And the media doesn't want to talk about that. They'll just say, well, no, who's going to win this little battle? Who's going to win this fund? We're having a funding, we can't keep the government open. Like, I feel like CNN focusing on which party is wrong, misses the forest for the trees.

We have a completely dysfunctional system. We have a system that gives too much power to one people or a handful, one person or a handful of people. We have a corrupt Supreme Court with no ethics. We have a president who wants to be an authoritarian. You have party leadership in Congress who is going to sit on their hands on one side and enable him on the other. He's under the White House meeting with the Keem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer yesterday. and they hand them Trump 2028 hats, a flagrant violation of the Constitution, and everyone in the room laughs.

Like, what are we doing here? Who cares whether or not the party is strong enough? The entire system is broken. Throw it out and replace it. I just, I don't know. I feel like CNN and Washington Post, all of these establishment outlets, are just continuing to enable this dysfunctional system that is ruining the lives of millions of Americans. Yeah, my last quick thought on that, if Trump came in and you started giving Trump 2028 hats,

and the cameras are rolling, I mean, that's a gift from the gods. If I was Hakeem or Chuck, I would be like, why are you planning to violate the Constitution run for a third term? You know, that's why people thought you're authoritarian. Do you know that? Do you understand that? You understand that you can't run for three terms? I just want to be clear because you seem to not understand fundamental parts of the Constitution.

Have you ever read the Constitution? They're like, oh, well, you can't say that to Trump. Trump's feelings have been hurt. Good, good, good. Are you crying? Are you crying? There is no Trump 2028. And then I take the hat and I'd throw it.

I throw it on the ground. Oh no, you hurt Trump's feelings. Yeah, goddamn right I did. Look, Democrats couldn't be, these current Democratic leaders couldn't begin to fight. They, they don't know how, they've never heard of it. They're like, ah, they're winging it on the spot. They're like, oh, there's a hat, I don't know what to do with it. Okay, I've been told that my voters want us to fight, okay, all right, we'll ask for this little thing.

Look, I'd ask for a lot more and I, you know, but that's for a different day. So overall though, don't lose focus on it on this issue, the Democrats are right in trying to preserve healthcare for two million Americans. The Republican idea that you're never supposed to negotiate and you just get whatever your side wants and you ignore the other side is not how Congress works, period. One final thing, now the government is shut down. People are pointing fingers. So what is the president doing in this moment?

What is the president of the United States, the most powerful man in the world? What's he doing? He's posting things like this. like this. Look, guys, there's no way to sugar code it. Nobody likes Democrats anymore. We have no voters left

because of all of our woke trans. Not even black people want to vote for us anymore. Even Latinos hate us. So we need new voters. And if we give all these illegal aliens free health care, we might be able to get them on our side so they can vote for us.

They can't even speak English. So they won't realize we're just a bunch of woke pieces of You know, at least for a while until they, they learn English and they realize they hate us too. It's a disgusting video, and we're going to continue to make clear. Bigotry will get you nowhere. We are fighting to protect the health care of the American people in the face of an unprecedented Republican assault. I have no words.

Jank, what do you make of this? Like, look, they're not unfunny, okay, even though it's terrible, right? But I wouldn't go at them with, oh, it's racist and it's big of it. Is it? Of course, why does he have a sombrero on? He's not litre. What is that, right? So it's nonsensical, right?

But I would just tell him, oh, I didn't know the president of the United States was a child. Are we doing trolling? Are we doing sketches? should I do I have to respond to him in a sketch okay and do I have to put a fess on him and go oh ha ha ha ha he's from I never not this and he like just make fun of him because he's a child the president he's the president of the United States the leader of the free world commander in chief and he's like I found a funny superhero video of I'm going to repose that you child do your job all right we got to take a break

guys when we come back more ass kicking let's see who gets it calling all book lovers the Toronto International Festival of Authors brings you a world of stories all in one place discover five days of readings talks workshops and more with over 100 authors from around the world including Rachel Maddow Ketouru Isaku and Kieran Desai the Toronto International Festival of Authors, October 29th to November 2nd. Details and Tickets at Festival of Authors.C.A. All right, back on TYT, Jing, join with you guys. More news.

Take a look at this. Today, Pfizer is committing, as well other drug companies as we go through the weeks, But Pfizer is truly one of the biggest in the world or one of the greatest in the world. Today Pfizer is committing to offer all of their prescription medications to Medicaid. And it will be at the most favored nation's prices. It's going to have a huge impact on bringing Medicaid costs down like nothing else. These drugs will be available for direct purchase online at a website operated by the federal government. We're also announcing that moving forward, all new medications introduced by

Pfizer to the American market will be sold at the reduced most favorite nation costs. President Trump's White House is planning to roll out a website dubbed Trump RX that would allow Americans to directly purchase pharmaceutical drugs. At the same time, Pfizer claims its plans to lower prices on several of its medications in the U.S. Trump RX would allow people to pay cash for certain discounted drugs directly from a government website. The price would be negotiated by the government, but it's unclear how many drugs would be offered or whether the website would be useful for the majority of Americans who are already covered by private insurance, Medicare, or Medicaid. And separately, Pfizer is expected to announce their plan to lower drug costs after Trump pushed

pharmaceutical companies to do so for months. The Wall Street Journal says that other companies are expected to follow suit. Trump called for pharmaceutical companies to participate in a direct to consumer drug buying platform and offer most favored nation pricing, commonly understood as prices lower or comparable to those in other developed nations in a July letter. He gave drug makers until September 29th to do so, although there is concern that drug makers will increase prices internationally to match the price gouging Americans have been dealing with for decades. The agreement involves discounted prices in Medicaid and a three-year reprieve on planned pharmaceutical tariffs as long as the company is building manufacturing

plants in the U.S., which Pfizer seems poised to do. Amy Rose, a spokesperson for Pfizer, says that the drugmaker's chief executive, Albert Borla, plans a $70 billion investment to produce medications in the U.S. Rose also claims that Pfizer's lower drug prices would benefit as many as 100 million Americans. It's a win for American patients, a win for American leadership, and it's a win for Pfizer because it provides the certainty and stability we need to continue advancing new breakthrough medicines for patients. White House spokesman Cash Dessai agreed. President Trump is leveraging the power of the federal government to drastically cut drug prices for everyday Americans.

Democrats talked the talk for decades about drug prices, but only President Trump is actually walking the walk. In the end, this all might be the result of one of Trump's threats. Last week, he asserted that branded drugs that are imported to the states would face 100% tariffs if they're not building facilities in the U.S. Moreless commitments to Trump mean Pfizer will be exempt from those tariffs. Now, Jank, is this a win for Trump or should we also consider the fact that these companies might just be raising prices elsewhere to match those in the U.S.? No, I like it. Now, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't keep an eye out on what you're saying. We definitely should. And if they do raise prices in other places so that we wind up getting to the same price, then we should report on that and tell the American people what frauds they are. Etc. And look, when you're talking about big pharma, it's the biggest lobby. It makes APEC look like a, you know, a toddler. And so it's, and the American people have no love for big pharma. So that'd be easy to call them out. But in this case, I think Trump's doing the right thing. So like Biden, it's not enough. But there is a bill that could fix it. But let's break it down a little bit, right? So these drug companies, first of all, if you don't know, don't allow

to negotiate drug prices and you're thinking what I don't understand what that means. Like so I go into buy a TV, let's say at a Best Buy, and I go, oh, okay, I, you know, I can pay $800. No, you have to pay $8,000. But I mean, I don't have the $8,000. It doesn't matter, you have to pay it. What? Because drugs, you need it, right? And they're like, the government can't negotiate, no one's allowed to negotiate, you must pay whatever the drug company tells you. So if you think, well, that sounds like that's against free markets and against capitalism, no, ding, ding, we have a winner. You are absolutely right. It is some sort of weirdo communism for corporations. Like it's like it's nuts. So this is a tiny

little part of it now that where they say, hey, you know what for one drug company Pfizer for this brief three year period because of the tariff thing, et cetera, they're going to maybe to Jordan's point, maybe lower drug prices a little bit. A, I'll tell you. take it, okay, just like Joe Biden, where Joe Biden said, oh, you know what, I just noticed that we can't negotiate any drug prices. And so I, you know what, I'm gonna negotiate one drug price, okay, on insolent, I think. And then, and then nine others like a decade letter, so we're good. And the press was like, bravo, bravo, we're negotiating drug prices on one, dude, on one.

Again, you gave him credit for later, it'd be up to 10, but he's that Trump won, so none of that's gonna happen. So overall, this is a good thing, but like the Biden one, it's tiny, it's a sliver of a fix. Now, Trump actually signed an executive order that's way better, and I got great news for you guys. It's now a bill that Republicans could all vote for because it's Trump's executive order, verbatim, okay? And good news for Democrats, because it involves most favorite nation status, so to lower the drug prices, so that we pay the same prices as those other developed nations for all Americans. So Democrats love that policy, so it should pass unanimously, right?

A Rokana came up with it. Of course, on Operation Hope that we run at TYT, volunteers are calling their lawmakers, Republicans and Democrats, and saying, well, why don't you pass this bill? It's like it has nearly 100% approval. Why don't you pass it? And you'll be shocked to find out that all of Congress has no interest in passing it. None. The Republicans are like, oh, is a Trump executive memo?

I don't, executive order. Don't tell our base, don't tell our base. We're, of course, we're not going to do that. That's for the average American, right? And the Democrats are like, oh, that's exactly our policy. Oh, no, we're not going to vote yes. Okay, so they can actually fix this tomorrow, pass the bill. Pass the bill, and the whole thing's fixed.

Not just for Pfizer, not just for a limited time, and then we hope and pray that they don't raise the prices elsewhere. And not for just one drug or 10 drugs, for all drugs. So we get back to a free market, we'll get back to sending. No other country does this. The only reason why our country does this maniacal thing, when you tell, and I've been in other countries, and I've given speeches, and I tell them this part, they don't believe me. They're like, that's the craziest thing we have ever heard. How could America that, like, the leaders in capitalism say that you have to pay whatever a corporation tells you?

That's insane, right? So, I mean, look at our country. So have you seen mainstream media explain in this way how insane that provision is? And we've had it now for decades. Bush did it. Then Obama ran a ad saying, well, I'm never going to do that. He got in. He's like, oh, yes, sir, drug companies. I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry. We're not negotiating anything, okay? So Obama did nothing. Trump did nothing in his first term. Biden did the one to 10 drugs. And now Trump's like, oh, I got a sliver for you guys. But am I in favor of the sliver? I am. But we are asking you guys to the live chat poll. Be part of the live show. You crazy 6 to 8 p.m. Then you become part of this. So I'm curious what you guys think. Do does Trump deserve cookies for this? So 70% saying no. Not good enough. Jordan. What do you say? I say no as well. I think the devil's in the details here. And while I don't know, immediately I'm going to be suspicious of anything branded as Trump. Trump RX immediately non-star. non-starter for me, but also I was reading about this on Monday in Politico, and it seems

like these pharmaceutical companies know how to navigate these types of threats from him. So when they're saying, oh, we want preferred nation pricing, they understood the subtext there. It's like, look, publicly, we got to pretend like we care. We got to pretend like we get the best costs. So they see it, and they're raising prices in Europe. That's how they're going to respond. Eli Lilly, according to Politico on Monday, appears to have publicly responded pledging to raise prices in Europe to lower what they charge in the U.S. And Bristol-Myers Squibb announced plans to charge the same list price for its new schizophrenia treatment in the United Kingdom as the U.S. So all they're doing is raising the prices for these drugs in other

developed countries so the U.S. can say, oh, see, we're charged the same thing now that they are charged higher rates. So if anything, it's just going to make other countries and the residents of other countries hate the United States and Trump even more. Yeah, I mean, that is such a classic big pharma move. Oh, no, no, guys, we're going to have the same price for America as we do in places like Canada, the way they pay so much less. Race prices on Canada. God, they're unbearable. But good news, all of our news, networks major multi-billion dollar news networks are all over it. They're constantly talking about what a robbery it is of the American people. This one might not cost us billions. This one might

cost us trillions. And that's why the New York Times and CNN are so out. Oh, I'm hearing they're not outraged. Okay, got you. Okay, guys, you put a spotlight on it and you can fix it overnight because the American people are totally united on this. But our politicians are united against us. All right. So let's take a break then. And then when we come back, Trump has decided that he's going to go after more political enemies. Oh, thank God, I thought we had a little bit of a democracy left. You know what? When I, when my family moved to America, we thought,

God, I hope they go after political enemies. Jesus Christ, man, we'll be back. All right, back on TYT, Jank and Jordan with you guys. I'm gonna read just two comments from our members on TYT.com. Now why do I get to read their comments? Because they actually literally fund the show and make the show possible. So Funkin for fun though puts in an extra element that you should know in terms of like how it's affecting real people. And that's why I wanted to read it.

My wife and my sister both worked for the government. My wife is getting paid right now, but my sister is not. So it has begun. And of course, Congress continues to get paid. And so does the president, because they're the ones who caused this problem. All right, anyways, t.t.com slash join. And in fact, Littert formed 2008 did that. Said, I've been watching for a long time and finally became a member.

You all have saved me from this disaster of a circus show full of hate. I'm so angry, but I appreciate you all. Thank you. Right back at you, because now we're doing this show. because now we're doing the show together. Jordan, what's next? Take a look at this. Tonight, President Trump targeting another former FBI director,

accusing Christopher Ray of lying to the American public. The president posting online, the FBI secretly placed 274 agents into the crowd during the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol and alleging those agents probably acted as agitators and insurrectionists. President Trump saying the justice, department will likely be targeting more people. It's not a list, but I think there'll be others. I mean, they're corrupt. President Donald Trump is making clear that he intends to target

more of his political enemies, including former FBI director Christopher Ray, who served from 2017 to 2025. And remind me again, who appointed him. But here is what the president stated when asked if the Department of Justice should investigate Ray. I would imagine, I would certainly imagine, I would think that they are doing that. Vice President J.D. Vance was asked if we should expect to see more indictments, and here was his answer. Well, there's certainly going to be more indictments coming over the next three and a half years of the Trump administration, but we're always going to let the law drive this stuff and the facts of the case and not political motivations, which frankly makes us so much different from the Biden administration, where they indicted not just the president of United States, but so many people who were just engaged in the basic job of politics, who were engaged in policymaking, who disagreed with the Biden administration, and because they face prosecution from that same administration.

But the Trump administration's crackdown on their opposition is larger than just these individual indictments against public figures. Last week, frenemy of the show, Ken Clippenstein reported the following. Trump's NSPM-7 labels common beliefs as terrorism indicators. NSPM 7 is what's known as a National Security Directive. A National Security Directive is a sweeping policy decree for the defense, foreign policy, intelligence, and law enforcement apparatus. National security directives are often secret, but in this case, the Trump administration chose to publish it, and the directive states, the United States requires a national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts. Now, NSPM 7 instructs the DOJ to assign this task to the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Forces,

or JTTFs, of which there are about 200. And here is what NSPM 7 outlines as indicators of violence. Anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, anti-Christianity, support for the overthrow of the United States government, extremism on migration, on race, on gender, hostility toward those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality. And here's what Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller has to say about NSPM 7. This is the first time in American history that there is an all-of-government effort to dismantle left-wing terrorism. Now, Jank, because of of you, because of this audience, I have an anti-American POS tattoo on my leg.

Am I now going to be arrested? Yeah, well, we're about to find out, and that's where they cross the Rubicon, right? And so, like, no joke, right? Because this is saying, it's the broadest thing I've ever heard. If you disagree with Republicans on family values, Republicans disagree with Republicans on family values. They remember shlippity slap and how he pummeled the crotch of another dude. So is he going to be arrested as a terrorist?

What is this? This is insanity. Okay, so by the way, I will tell you what it is. This comes from the Heritage Foundation. It's called Project Esther. It's really interesting. So because this is folks who are not Jewish at all, but what they're doing is they explain that it's amazing. They made it public, right, along with Project 2025, that they're going to basically use Israel as a pretext.

to start calling America's terrorists and then round up their political opponents. It's amazing. It's amazing. Now, Israel just launched its own version of Project Esther. Thank God. We're going to talk about that later in the show. But for this, and what's funny is that they're like, we're going to say that people are anti-Semitic and then that will transition to terrorists, et cetera, right? And we've seen that unfold already on college campuses. Well, they're anti-Semites, so we should arrest them. I mean, that sounds on American, so they can support, materials support terrorism, just support of terrorism, lock them up,

deport them, et cetera. So, but it's almost scarier in that case that it has nothing to do with Israel, its origin. In fact, some of the things they wrote were kind of anti-Semitic. It was kind of hilarious the irony there, right? Some portions of the paper refer to like Jews as this or that, and you're like, what is that, right? So it's like these evangelicals,

fundamentalist Christians who are like, how do we round up people that don't agree with our way of interpreting our religion while pretending to be worried about terrorism or anti-Semitism? So now it's begun. And so Jordan, to me, the biggest question is, how do people respond? So at some point, they're going to go arrest someone for an absurd charge. And then they're going to do it again, and then they're going to do it seven times, and then they're going to do it to someone prominent, right? And when that happens in the beginning, when the first person gets arrested, nobody's going to say anything.

I mean, we're all going to go nuts, et cetera. But, you know, the independent podcasters are going to be like, I don't know. The third one, Tim Dillon would be like, what's going on, Theo Vaughn, et cetera. I hope, I hope, right? And on the seventh one, maybe we get a couple of more podcasters. And when they arrest someone prominent, if they let them get away with it for, terrorism is you don't support my view of morality, my view of religion, let alone all the other things that Jordan just read to you. No, then we lost the country. Then it's over. Freedom of

speech is over. The constitution's over. I mean, and if you're a Trump voter, what are you doing guys? This is America? No, this is tyrannical government treading on you. And by the way, you think they're going to stop at us? You think they're not going to come for you at some point? When you object to something that the donor class doesn't want? I mean, the Heritage Foundation, yeah, they all talk to this gobbly gook about, oh, Christian fundamentalism, et cetera. But at the end of the day, they're funded by giant corporations. So this is a way of tightening the vice and the grip of the powerful, so no one's allowed to object. Yeah, I mean, these these tenants fly in the face of the First Amendment, just about every single component.

You can't criticize the economic system in this country. You can't be anti-capitalist. Part of that is just showing the role of the elites in this country and protecting capitalist interests, and that is in both parties. I'm sure most Democrats wouldn't want to criminalize or label as terrorists, people who just are simply critical of an economic system, but they certainly want to protect it. Overthrow of the United States government. I mean, come on, the Trump administration doing this, you just pardoned the J-Sixers. What are you talking about? You don't care about this. They want to use this as a cudgel to crack down on the left. But then you get into other things, like hostility toward those who hold traditional American views on family. What does that even mean?

I mean, we can assume what they mean, which is a heteronormative couple with children and mostly white. I mean, you see the things that they're doing. I think it's important to look at what the long-term consequences of all of the things that they're doing. This is just one component. But I keep going back to the DOT under Sean Duffy wanting to prioritize funding in areas based on birth rates. Obviously, it's extremely creepy, but it's unnerving when you think about how all of these things have interplay and how they want to prioritize increasing birth rates. Why are they so worried about how many people are having kids? And then you couple that with their crackdown on people's right to choose for themselves.

banning abortion, banning access to reproductive care in as many states as they possibly can. And when you stack all of these things together, you start to see a clearer picture of this white Christian capitalist nation that they want to bill. That's not what it means to be America. You have a right to disagree. You have a right to be critical. You have a right to dissent. And, you know, it's, I, I also feel like a lot of this is bluster, but I don't want to minimize it. We'll see as things go on. But, you know, part of me is like, I feel like I fall into a lot of those categories. What's that going to look like?

Well, I guess we'll see. And like the first Trump administration, I'll use legal avenues to fight back. Just like I did when Trump banned me or blocked me on Twitter and just like under the Biden administration, when the military He blocked me on different platforms. So if that happens, I'll just do what I've done before and take them to court. Oh, there you go. I like that. So we fight back here.

Now, I want to go back to some of those categories because the more I think about it, the more unbelievable it is. So you're not to say, you're not allowed to say anything that's considered anti-Christian, otherwise you're a terrorist. So are we, I thought I was going to get rounded up for having a Muslim background. But it sounds like we might round up the atheists first. Well, well, I mean, since you don't believe in our religion, I get you're anti-Christian, that's it, terrorist.

Okay. And does that apply to all the religions, or are you still allowed to be anti-Muslim? Let's all laugh here because, of course you are, right? So then anti-capitalists, like I've said on this show, what, hundreds of times that I'm a capitalist, right? And it took some people's great annoyance. So does that mean I think we should ban discussions of from anti-capitalists? Why? Why do you not believe your opinions?

I believe in what I'm saying. So someone is a communist or a corporatist or whatever they are along the spectrum. Oh, let's get it on, brother. Let's have a debate. Let's have a conversation. Let's have a discussion. I'm an American. These colors don't run.

I don't even go. Oh, Ben, the mouse. The mouse will definitely win. I can't argue with a mouse. I mean, what a bunch of losers, pathetic, weak, okay? And finally, my favorite is anti-Americanism. Wait, but being American means you're allowed to criticize the government and then by extension of the country.

So are we not allowed to criticize the government anymore? Is it a terrorist thing to do to criticize the government? And if you're a Trump voter, remember, Democrats do get back in charge at some point. So then will all of you become terrorists overnight when you criticize a Democratic government? What kind of ludicrous un-American trash is this? All right, we're out of time, yep. All right, so guys, we're gonna take a quick break here when we come back.

Tom Homan, how's that bribe going? And then there's a flotilla against Israel. Are they going to be murdered? And then the last one is this amazing. Israel has started to pay influencers. How much are they getting per video? It's going to depress you. I'll do that when we come back.