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Good morning, everybody, Welcome to Breaking Points. Emily, great to see you.
Thanks for having me here.
Crystal, Yeah, of course.
I mean it is your like a whole part of the thing now, so I don't really have to welcome you, and you're just you know, you're fully integrated at this point.
We've been doing so many fun host mix ups lately though it's been a lot of like, it's been really interesting and fun.
Yeah, but I think people are enjoying the different dynamics. I'm enjoying the different dynamics, so you know, the audience has been asking for different nomination, so we've been delivering both intentionally and also through just life events, making it so that we need to swap days around.
So we know we're not the Bro Show, but we can try to compete. We'll try our best.
Tell the story about the guy that you met who was like even the Lady Show.
Yeah, so shout out if if you're listening, but I met a guy the other day who said love Counterpoint, love Crystal, love, Sager, love Ryan, I even love the Girls Show.
They even love the Girls Show. Thank you.
Shout out to that guy. A bunch of stuff to get into before I forget. If you guys are still having challenges with Spotify, just make sure you're checking your email. Premium subscribers, you should have instructions. We're going to continue to send those out and make sure everybody's good. If you're having issues, just send us an email. We'll try to get it worked out for you. Okay, So we've got updates on the trade war Chargery Secretary Scott Besson
out making some interesting comments. He's not too worried about empty shelves out there yet, so we'll get into all of that. Also, people noticing timu arging. Now an import charge. So whatever your basket is, where your card is, when you go to check out, it's more than doubled because of the import charges. So a lot of fallout beginning there.
We've also got results out of Canada, Liberals mounting an extraordinary comeback, and really it does have almost everything to do with Trump, with the trade war, with the fifty first state talk, so break that down for you. We've got updates from Israel and also from Brooklyn. We've got Ben Smith on he had Emily this fantastic scoop about these right wing group chats, which I suspect. I mean, you must have been at least aware that these things
were going on. I won't ask you to reveal whether you were inside of any of these, but some of the dynamics in there turn out to be really interesting.
No, Chris, I was like partially offended that I did not know about this. I mean, I do know that really on the right. Yeah, No, but I was partially like, I'm glad they're not if the fact that they're not adding me tells me that they don't want the journalists who somewhat fare in their chat. But they like the right love signal, there's no question about it, Like I'm in a bunch of signal chats, but nothing like with I had no idea, truly had no idea.
All right, So that's interesting. There's an incredible screenshot that came out of that one with like David Sachs throwing fit leaving the chat, Tucker leaves the chat, a winkle by Twin leaves the chat.
Whatever.
So apparently these things were really influential and forging some of the alliances between you know, the MAGA types and the tech right and some of the heterodox type quote unquote independent thinkers out there. So a lot to get into with Ben Smith, and we also are going to touch on this drama that's unfolding. At sixty minutes, their long time executive producer left and said, listen, I don't feel like I can be independent anymore. And this had
to do with two things. One was some really actually quite strong a little belated, but quite strong reporting with regard to Israel and Gaza and all of their Trump coverage was coming under increasing scrutiny, so he felt like he had to leave the Scott Pellier at sixty minutes gave a monologue, you know, really calling out parent company Paramount. So some very interesting dynamics they are going to see. Ben Smith can stick around to weigh in on that because he is such a great lens on the media.
So a lot of interesting things in the show this morning.
Yeah, Chrystal, we should start with Scott Besson talking about the shelves, because that's what's on everybody's mind.
You get the best reviews of anyone in the administration outside the President.
Your thoughts about the US China stand off right now?
Well, Brian, first of all, it's all the president, especially on the eighteen important trading partners. We're doing bespoke deals, and he's going to be intimately evolved in every one. Two weeks ago when we had the Japanese delegation come in, he started it in the Oval and then we took them into the negotiating room, so he laid the groundwork, told them personally how important the relationship was, but also how important a fair deal for the American people is.
Currently right now, when you are you worried about empty shelves because they say that a lot of these the supply lines and the cargo ships are being held up.
A lot of people are saying, turn it around with the taps is high, I don't want the product.
Are you worried about empty shelves?
Not at present. We have some great retailers. I assume they pre ordered. I think we'll see some elasticities and I think we'll see replacements, and then we will see how quickly the Chinese want to de escalate.
Well, the word bespoke was an interesting choice in that context. Crystal, look the books.
Yeah, you know, don't worry you to throw the next element because I think some of the dynamics here are of money. So you know, liberals talk about sain washing Trump, and I think Scott Bessant is like the ultimate sain washer.
Of Trump's tariff strategy.
And warning to everyone because Howard Lutnik is apparently going to be on CNBC today and they've done analyzes that have found that like when Bestin's out there, the markets are relatively calm. When you get a Navarro, when you get a Lutnik, it goes a little haywire. So in any case, you know Bestent out there being like, I'm not worried about.
The empty shelves.
Think Americans are going to be worried about empty shelves if they do show up, which looks increasingly likely. And we've got here up on the screen. This is the TMU portion, And yesterday we covered Shean has hiked their prices up to like three hundred and seventy five percent on certain items.
Here you can see all right.
You know, I've got an item subtotal of sixty three dollars and sixty six cents. Shipping is free, sales tax is three dollars seventy seven cents, Import charges eighty nine forty six. So that's the one hundred and forty five percent tariff, so larger than the you know, cost of all of the goods put together for a total of
one hundred and fifty six dollars. So instead of paying sixty sixty three dollars, people are paying one hundred and fifty six and TIMU making sure Emily that they know where that charge is coming from.
Right, And you know, I mean, what's what's even more important? I think by our standards. I mean we're talking about the digital shelves here here, but when people start going to Walmart, Target, grocery stores and even you know, clothing retailers that you're sort of walking through looking for things like an old navy. That's where things are going to get particularly interesting because you know, like Timu and she
and are extremely popular, no question about it. I think most Americans would probably say at the end of the day, they're not like essential to their life.
I'm I don't know, I'm not sure about that because I think people have become accustomed to, you know, the things you can get on timuon she and are just remarkably inexpensive. And a friend of mine was also pointing out that some retailers actually, because the cost of goods from timuon she and are so cheap, they will actually buy from you know, almost wholesale from them and then resell in stores as well. So it's not just the
online experience. It's also going to relate to those shelves in Walmart and home Depot and other places as well. So in any case, you know, the fallow in the beginning we've been covering, of course, all of the port traffic decline. You know, we're getting to probably early May, middle of May when you really will start to see, okay, all of the shipping that shut down when these terrafs were put into place, that's when it's really going to
start to bite. And what Besson says there is not wrong that because there had been some level of tariff had been anticipated, so especially larger retailers that could afford it, did a lot of advance ordering so that they could have more in their warehouses to be able to you know, lock in a lower price and be able to be more flexible and adjust when the terraffs actually came into place.
Of course, no one expected the particular tariff regiam that we ended up with, but they may have some flexibility in the early days. And that's what Besson was basically saying of like, oh, I trust our great retailers. They're going to be fine because they you know, probably prepared in advance. And I do think that there will probably be some of that that will help to at least push the shock off into somewhat into the future. And we'll see what happens with the terrafs between now and then.
But you know, increasing I saw Ray Dalio saying this yesterday. We've got Jamie Diamond out now saying even if there was a full like pullback at this point, it's really kind of too late to undo a lot of the damage that's been done, which I think also relates actually to the Canada block that we're going to do and the way that Carney is talking about this kind of
irrevocable break in the relationship with the US. We can put a three B up on the screen here, Jamie Diamond hang in and saying basically, like a recession is kind of the best we can hope for at this point, he said. He was addressing the crowd. He said he believes the best case outcome from the trade war would be a mild recession for the US economy, So that's what he's saying is the best case scenario. Ray Dalio also sounding a pretty big warning. He put out something
on Twitter yesterday saying basically, it's already too late. We're going to have this massive realignment and here from here on ounce is just a question of whether that realignment is going to be executed with greater or less care. And I think we all can guess which direction we're going to be going in don the moves of this administration that's.
Far well, we're clearly going in a bespoke direction. Crystal, Yeah, exact, lessant, No, I mean, I do think that's the most important connecting it to the carniblock. I mean, he's basically saying we'll get to this in just a moment, that this was all about the United States, that this is a permanent turning point for Canada, and he's not alone and thinking
that the rest of the world thinks it. So the question now isn't whether everything has changed and whether it's too late, though I think it's helpful to hear that sort of from the mouth of Raydalio and Jamie Diamond. But basically, like, can the plane be landed in a way, you know, the optimist would say, in a way that's even better than before. But to the Diamond point, can the plane be landed in a way that is as
manageable as possible for most Americans? And if the best case scenario is a mild recession, they're going to have to hope that, you know, well, hope is the wrong word. They're going to have to pray that the benefits that come out of this realignment that they have orchestrated and been the architects of are felt by Americans to offset the political costs of a recession, let alone the substance of costs of people's lifestyles and pocketbooks.
Yeah, and I mean for me, it's just not clear to me what those benefits even are. You know, I know, think various things that have been floated. You know, in my estimation, we're going the opposite direction of all of the you know, the manufacturing, the rebirth of manufacturing in America. We're going backwards certainly on that metric. You know, the Treasury yields that that hasn't worked out the way that
they thought. So you know, the amount of revenue we're bringing in from these tariffs is absolutely trivial at this point. You know, Trump is out there making these wild claims about, oh, We're going to replace the income tax with the tariff rapid. I mean, it's just like ludicrous, utterly ludicrous thing to say or to claim. So, I mean that's always been the piece from the beginning. Is I just short term pain for long term pain? Is what it appears the track that we're on as far as I can tell
at this point. And we can already see, you know, some sectors being really hard hit. We can put this up on the screen, so we already have what appears to be CNBC's describing as a full blown crisis for farms. And you know the headline here, US agriculture isn't nearing a trade war tear crisis. It's in a full blown crisis already. Farmers say, I've been following the numbers around. China has been canceling huge amounts of orders of pork.
You know, things like our agricultural sector had already taken a hit visa VI China from previous trade war actions, and in Trump's first term they orchestrated effectively like an ag bailout. There's some talk of that now as well, because this is you know, it's a constituency that votes overwhelmingly for Trump, so he feels favorable to them. Much
of agriculture at this point is big business. So those are the type of people as well who can get their mar A Lago dinner or get a call from the White House, or you know, throw some money at the inauguration. I know there was like a Chicken company that had given like five million dollars his inauguration, that was getting some perks, et cetera. So you know, I wouldn't be surprised if this is one group that gets another bail out.
Well, yeah, no, I think that's probably right, and this is why American farming is permanently in a state of crisis. The CNBC headline makes me grin a little bit because it's, you know, the tariffs are throwing it further into a state of crisis. But American farming has been thrust into
for decades and that's part of why farmers. You go back and watch interviews that places like INBC did with with farmers earlier in Trump's term, and there was like this this interesting optimism people would you know, reporters would come in from New York and DC with their microphones and cameras would be like, well, aren't you furious, And the farmers would say, no, we think some of this needs to happen. They're probably also felt confident that they
would eventually get a bailout. But Crystal, we're what almost ten years into this now, and they're probably I shouldn't say probably. Their patience is obviously wearing thin for some type of structural solution to the problems in agriculture and that's just not coming. I mean, the administration definitely doesn't have a solution to that.
Yeah, no, doubt about it.
And you know there's a big monopoly element there as well, and it's just you know, increasingly impossible to make it as like a small time family farmer. It's these giant agra business growers that dominate all of those markets. The last piece we have here is the Dallas Fed sury
survey came out and Joe Wisenthal tweeting about this. Apparently the numbers were pretty dire, getting to the point of, like, you know, this is supposed to be improving the landscape for manufacturing and instead the manufacturing survey from the Dallas Fed the levels hit the lowest since May of twenty twenty. That, of course, during COVID all the comments are about tariffs and policy uncertainty added to the list of bad soft survey data, and that gets to the point of, you know,
we're sort of in this period of suspended animation. The tariffs have been you know, have been put into place, but we have not really fully seen in the big meta data, the the you know, macro economic data, what the fallout of that is going to be. Retailers are warning about empty shells. We're not seeing empty shells yet. We're just starting to get these indications from Timu and she and of the way that prices are going up Amazon as well. Amazon sellers are hiking prices as well.
So you know, we're we're in this moment before kind of the calm before the storm, and maybe it won't be as you know, maybe it won't be as significant as a lot of the numbers seem to indicate right now. But I don't think there's any doubt we're in for some some pain here coming up, as those shipments from China that would have arrived do not arrive, and retailers draw down on their stock and we see these reverberating impacts of layoffs and just the logistics sector alone. I
mean you're talking about port workers. I saw the longshoreman put out a statement, you know, really declining the terrorist and impact on them and their workforce, the trucking industry, which is incredibly important, especially for non college educated men, which is another demographic that has been really supportive of Trump. Those are the areas that are really going to be hard hit early on. So I think we're all waiting to see what that impact is going to be.
Yeah. The point actually even the language that Wisenthal uses there about soft indicators. I mean, that's the list of soft indications about what's happening. That's what's just very hard to ignore even when you look at you know, I read the Trump administration put out a press release this morning about the benefits the economy in the first one
hundred days of the Trump administration. You're reading through this long list of bullet points, and if you juxtapose it side by side with those soft indicators, the list of soft indicators that Wisenthal is a is pointing out and has racked up on his own we cover them here that I think it's, you know, even if again I'm saying, by the most charitable interpretation of the plan here, even if you taking them at their own argument, if you j exuppose those lists side by side and say we're
about a month from liberation day now, the indicators are stacking up in a way that suggests the long term pain is not going to be worth the soft term, the soft term the short term gain, and that I think didn't have to be the case. It speaks to the execution in this case.
Let's go ahead and get to another Joe Wisenthal piece here that I thought was really interesting because one of the questions is like, Okay, the markets are down overall, but not that much, and it seems like maybe they should be down more given all of these soft indicators and the manufacturing index falling off a clip, and consumer sentiment and a majority of Americans saying they expect prices to get higher. In their own financial sitution was to
get worse. We're already seeing layoffs. You know, everybody's looking at the ports in Seattle and in LA and are like, there's no there's no cargo coming in. This seems like it's going to be really bad, and yet the markets are like, yeah, it's okay, It'll be fine. And so Wisenthal has a theory about why that is the case, and he argues, we can put this up on the screen, that the Trump meme coin chart could be the market's most important chart right now. And I'll read you a
little bit of his analysis. But the TLDR is that basically, retail traders, the type that would be interested in buying the Trump meme coin, which you can see is up and you know, has been juiced by this like promotion that Trump is like, hey, the top investors here, they're going to get a special dinner with me whatever, which is grotesque levels of corruption in any case, that those types of retail investors have been trained to buy the dip, and so every time the market goes down they rush
in to say, ah, this is an opportunity of buying opportunity, told to buy the dip, I'm going to buy the dip. So Wisenthal says, one possibility is that retail traders who've been trained like lab rats to buy every dip have piled in like crazy into all the old speculative stuff that's worked so well for so long, and so they're buying SPACs, tesla and random old coins like the trump
meum coin. Pull up a chart of robinhood or anything else you associate with retail, and you'll probably find a line that significantly above its levels from the start of the month. Meanwhile, professional investors are extremely gloomy. A survey of fund managers from April fifteen showed that there hasn't been this much bearishness in thirty years. Other surveys show
basically the same thing. Bearishness is everywhere, and so one story you can tell is simply that serious investors are looking at all those charts of port traffic drying up and calculating the impact of terraces on corporate earnings while retail investors are piling in like crazy, creating some kind of disconnect between the line on the screen and what
a fair value for stocks actually is. I thought that was a pretty interesting assessment, Emily, which would make sense of why perhaps the market isn't moving the way that you would expect looking at these numbers and looking at just what an extreme action one hundred and forty five percent tariffs on China, let alone the terrifts on the rest of the world, What an extreme action that really represents, and what a fundamental reordering of the global economic order that that truly represents.
Well, And I wonder also, I mean, the degree to which this is influencing, you know, the Trump administration's minute to minute policies. Like we remember when Walter Bloomberg that ridiculous X account posted that bessent had indicated it you basically misquoted something that Bessentt had said in a Fox News interview about a ninety day pause, which obviously ended up happening. But I think one of the reasons the
administration probably held out on the ninety day pause. As long as it did is because they saw what happened. Is as soon as Boomberg tweeted that the fake account, the market shot back up. And basically the only connect that anyone made was because of this like fake news tweet that was going super viral on X Yeah, Walter Bloomberg. But like the but that does right, Like that builds
into the decision making structure for the Trump administration. How easy it is to rejuce the markets with like just statements, And I like that sounds really basic, but it just it's it's an important part obviously what they're talking about in the White House. It was the bond markets that Trump said people were getting a little yippie that fundamentally
caused him to do a one to eighty. Whether he was ultimately going to do it or not, I genuinely don't think we know, uh, And so this is yeah, I think I think the weisal theory sounds completely correct. And the last point I'll say this is more abstract. But I was listening to an old zero hedge debate over the weekend and it was like it was it was about bitcoin, and one person on each side of the argument they both disagreed about the state of the economy.
I think it was six months ago something like that, and one of them made the point, this is what's terrifying about the economy is that you can have experts who like spend their entire life studying this and working in this, and they legitimately can't tell you whether we're
in a good or a bad economy. And the Trump administration is coming into that context and saying, you know, this is that means that we can manipulate it in new and interesting bespoke ways to borrow the term from Scott Vessant, And you know what that actually means is it's just a continuation, or it's it's a dramatic manipulation of this experiment, like it's a it's a dramatic new variable and an experiment that nobody really knows how it's
going to end. Like nobody can tell you how this is going to end, partially because nobody knows exactly where Donald Trump wants to take this and how other countries are reacting. But we've had a month long glimpse at that, and it's not good for the administration.
I mean, even the importance of the vibes is even in evidence, just based on what I was saying earlier about apparently the markets do better when it's mostly Scott Besant out there versus Howard Lunne and like. That shouldn't matter because the policy is the same, right. So the fact that one comes in like a more like proper buttoned up Wall Street type package and one is this more like unhinged type of character, also a very Wall Street character, by the way, that shouldn't matter because the
policy is not changing. But the fact that you have bested out there who can come up with, you know, in terms of art like bespoke deals and oh, I'm not worried about the shelves, and isn't spinning tails about millions and millions of armies of people screwing in little little screws and saying ridiculous things like that. The fact that that makes such a difference is in and of itself an indication that so much of the market is just about the vibes of the day, and that ends
up being very unpredictable. And then the other thing that seems to be moving the market appears to be whatever inside info is being given out to, you know, Wall Street traders to front run whatever announcements are coming out of the administration later, which is something you know, we
had talked about. I believe it was Bessett who had given Charles Gasparino reported on how he was giving out this information before it was public at an investor conference, allowing them to potentially profit on, you know, whatever moves we were set to come out, you know, with the Trump coin thing, I just don't want to lose sight of this.
Can we actually.
Skip forward to what is this A eight and put this chart up on the screen. You know, there's so much going on in this administration that it's hard to keep track. He's offering a private dinner to the top two hundred twenty investors in his mean coin. The offer caused it to surge and price his family's latest effort
to profit from cryptocurrencies. I mean, I don't want to hear a word from Republicans again against about Nancy Pelosi's insider trading, Like if you aren't speaking out about this, which is just such naked brazen profiteering, corruption, graft, et cetera. It is extraordinary the level of just pay to play that is out in the open in this administration, and the meme coin is kind of like ground zero for that.
And we already know, we've already have examples of crypto dudes who put a lot of money into Trump shit coin and announced it publicly and low and behold their
enforcement actions get dropped low and behold they benefit. And it is so easy if you're you know, if you are a head of state, if you are a CEO of a company, if you are just some random person who like wants a pardon or whatever, it's so obvious that all you have to do is put a bunch of money into to pump up Trump shit coin, of which he directly personally benefits, and you know, tell him or announce it publicly or whatever, and you stand very
likely to benefit. So, you know, this announcement, as the article mentions, increased his mean coin value significantly, it had fallen off quite a lot. The Malania coin was basically just like a total pump and dump run by some of the same people as Hobvier Malay's affiliated pump and dump scheme as well. And it's you know, it's just it's one of these things that I just can't let go and don't want to normalize because the corruption is
so incredibly brazen and naked. And yes, many politicians they're corrupt, and the campaign finance system needs to reform.
This is at another level.
And one more piece before I get your reaction here, Emily go to A seven the club for the super rich that they are launching, because I really specifically want to get your reaction to this. So this is from Politico. They say, the Trump Aline Club for the Ultra Rich launches in Washington. The launch of Executive branch comes as Trump World looks to remake Washington. New club is coming
to Washington. You probably can't get in. Don Junior, Mega donor Omid Malik and several other investors are launching an invite only club. The costs more than half a million to join, with an exclusive post White House correspondent dinner gathering. According to an invite, brainchild of Malik, will be located
in Georgetown. Their goal, the people familiar with the plans, say, is to create the highest end private club that Washington has ever had and cater to the business and tech moguls who are looking to nurture their relationships with the Trump administration. And by the way, the club already has a waitlist. Emily, just unbelievable that we went from you know, all this rhetoric about drain the swamp yea, to this.
And yet so very believable. Yes, but you know, populists have for a long time and still will decry the quote unquote Georgetown cocktail parties like it is a cliche that is constantly invoked by populists, especially on the right in recent years. But what they just did was create that. What they're trying to do is create their own like
extra special Georgetown cocktail party. Literally they put those in Georgetown, which doesn't really have anything to do with it except for that it's a funny part of them just walking right into this cliche. So, yeah, the drain the swamp is drain the swamp of the left. It's not drain the swamp completely, obviously. It's you know, we're gonna we'll let some people remain in the swamp. It's not a structural change to the swamp. Yeah, it was a structural
change to the swamp. Then you wouldn't have places where you have to pay half a million dollars to rub elbows with.
Uh.
It's it's a listen it's not the same thing as Hunter Biden. But Don Junior is selling this club because he's like the son of the president, has access to the president, has the ear of the president.
Yeah, David Sachs was hosting this party. I mean, this is an administration official. It's just incredibly, incredibly brazen and just one last piece on the you know, latest corruption circuit. We've got some new info about how much Elon stands to benefit from the work of Doge, even as Doge, by their mats or their public metrics, is a complete failure,
has saved the taxpayer effectively no money. You know, even Steve Bannon is calling it out, and Elon is set to pure sort of like slink out of town, but put a nine up on the screen. He stands to benefit to the tune of billions of dollars simply from his companies avoiding the regulatory scrutiny that they were previously under from a whole host of agencies. And you know, this is something Emily that we attract on this show.
You know, there's a particular part of a particular board that was going after Tesla that regulates automated vehicles, and he was very unhappy with them.
Oh, they get gutted.
You know, the Department of Labor was he had all kinds of issues with them and all sorts of allegations against his companies there. They get gutted CFPB. They were set to regulate Twitter if Twitter was doing this deal with Visa, they get gutted. So it was quite naked. And he's got his end engineers in over at the you know, the uh over inside of what's the why am I blanking on the TSA? He's got them or inside the TSA. That's another area that you know, is
a big problem for him. So in any case, this Senate subcommittee found two point three seven billion in legal liability that he is saving just from his efforts to deregulate and defenestrate the administrative state.
No, what he's been doing is sacrificing Crystal nobly, you know. Yeah, And at the same time that's a joke obviously. But we were talking about you and I were talking last week, and you made a really good point that ultimately Elon's not in it for bike is his big goal in DOGE is not moving some you know, money around and saving himself. You know, a couple of billion dollars whatever.
His big goal is like advancing these companies that he thinks are changing the world, and this like techno libertarian way. It's not necessarily about the money. But that doesn't mean the money stuff isn't Incredibly, it's just so it's so corrupt and the precedent that it sets going forward is high. It's a completely different precedent than what we had before with like Pentagon contractors. It's not the same thing at all.
So any way, Yeah, although not the TSA. I'm just I'm sorry, guys. Too many acronyms for me this morning.
That's why we need Doge Crystal. That's why we need DOE.
That's right, they just added another agency. Now I got the digital service whatever whatever that I got to remember as well, though I guess that already existed. Nobody just knew about it or cared about it at the time. All right, guys, it is official. The Liberals in Canada mounted what was an absolutely extraordinary comeback. They will be able to form a government led by Mark Karney, who
was a central banker and now Prime minister. Let's go ahead and take a listen to Carney in his victory speech really talking about some of the fissures with the United States and how significant they're going to be now and in the future.
Take a lesson.
We are once again at one of those hinge moments of history. Our old relationship with the United States, a relationship based on steadily increasing integration, is over. The system of open global trade anchored by the United States, a system that Canada has relied on since the Second World War, a system that will not perfect, has helped deliver prosperity for a country for decades, is over. These are tragedies, but it's also our new reality.
We are over.
We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons. We have to look out for ourselves and above all, we have to take care of each other.
So emily, they are over the American betrayal, but it is not forgotten, and they will be moving in another direction moving forward. And let's just put the results up on the screen when I want to get your reaction. I mean, the shift in the political wins in Canada has been extraordinary. We had David Dole, who is himself Canadian hosts Rational National Over on his YouTube channel. He was breaking down for us just how central Trump really
was in this race. And according to him, it was the fifty first state jabs that really packed the most punch. Obviously the trade war significant as well, but that was the thing that really changed everything. And you know, if you look at the polls and the way that they shifted, it's absolutely extraordinary.
The Liberals were able to make this comeback.
And Pierre pauliev he had been seeing I mean, you can speak to this more than than I can. He had been seen as kind of this you know, right wing rising star media figure. I think the right had had a lot of hopes for Canada. There was a backlash there during COVID, there were the trucker protests. You of course had Trudeau who had just fallen off a cliff and was sort of forced to resign, opening up the possibility for this election. So really a dramatic change of fortunes here.
M yeah, huge. And you know, I think one thing that might happen in the media coverage of this over the next twenty four to forty eight hours is that people think, because because Karney and his party came from so far behind, that this means, you know, Canada has decisively moved, you know, and I shouldn't say move, but
stuck with Trudeau and stuck with the Liberals. But what we ended up seeing is they we just had this graphic on the scene on the screen that showed they ended up five votes short or five seats short of a majority. And it's absolutely a stunning comeback. Is absolutely, no no question about that whatsoever. I mean, Polyiev was up by about twenty points and polls closer to the beginning of the year. So the flip after Trudeau is
like genuinely remarkable. Canada is very, very divided, and it absolutely this is a situation for Canada that's you know, it's not twenty fifteen anymore, where justin Trudeau is on the scene being the future. Polyev really was seen as the to your point, the antidote to that. So if Trudeau is seen as sort of the friendly face of the neoliberal Western future, then Pouliev was kind of seen as the answer to the follies of that era of
Trudeau and Obama and Angela Merkel. He was seen as a figure who could sort of be young and articulate and bring the right into its future in Canada. And the fact that he you know himself, fell so far short well even things were divided for his party, is a real blow to his ability to have a future. Now maybe he still will. Politics are unpredictable, but he was particularly on the assent and this is a good indication that it didn't work out so well for his brand on the campaign.
Yeah, he What you're referring to is he actually lost his own seat. So not only does the Conservatives lose and they won't have a chance to form a government the Liberals will, but he actually lost his own seat, so he will not be a member of Parliament anymore.
So that stings.
What David Dole tweeted out in reaction to this, and David's a lefty, he said, Liberals just short of a majority, putting NDP. Those are the lefties in the deciding seats. Jack Meets saying loses his seat, making an NDP leadership race quick and painless. Pierre Poliev loses his seat. Loally says this is actually the perfect result. So that was his response to all of this. We pulled this reaction from you know, run of the bill, Canadian voter getting her sense of what was going on in this race,
and why she cast her ballot as she did. Let's go ahead and take a listen to B one B.
I think who I voted for would be the best to take care of Trump. Because Trump is I'm sorry to say and ask, and he shouldn't even be president of the United States, but because he is, we need a strong person so that we could stand strong.
And I saw a poll that had Trump's approval rating in Canada something like eleven percent. I mean, he's just like, could not be more unpopular across the political spectrum, and he was not doing much to help them. On day if we can put this next one up on the screen, he posted this on I Believe Truth Social He said, good luck to the great people of Canada. Elect the man who has the strength and wisdom to cut your taxes and have increase your military power for free to
the highest level in the world. Have your car still win, lumber, energy, and all other businesses. Quadruple in size was zero tears or taxes if Canada becomes the cherished fifty first state of the United States of America, no more artificially drawn line from many years ago, you know, And I like when he talks about how the.
Borders are arbitrary.
Look how beautiful this land mass would be, free access with no border, all positives, no negatives.
It was meant to be.
America can no longer subsidize Canada with the hundreds of billions of dollars a year that we have been spending in the past. It makes no sense unless Canada is a state. That forced Pierre Polyiev to have to respond. But b three up on the screen, he said, President Trump, stay out of our election. The only people who will decide the future of Canada are Canadians at the ballot box. Canada will always be proud, sovereign and independent. We will
never be the fifty first state. Today Canadians can vote for change so we can strengthen our country, stand on our own two feet and stand up to America from
a position of strength. But Pierre Polyiev had done enough to, you know, associate himself with Trump and with the American right wing that that was just completely over It was completely impossible to overcome, even as he's clearly doing his best yere to distance himself from Trump and say you stay out of our elections, sir, We will never be the fifty first state. And again, according to to David Dole, that really was a sort of key tension point for Canadians where they wanted nothing.
To do it.
David also pointed out the last several ads that Pierre Polliab's team put out for the election, like they're closing ads did not feature him at all, so which is also not a great sign of how people are feeling about your.
Candidate, that that post is giving Vladimir stop right, like it looks so weak, it looks so weak, especially after pauliev was, you know, sort of probe Trump in some particular ways, like it just to have to then say President Trump, stay out of our election like he's a toddler. The other the flip side of those, of course, is that first of all, the appetite in Canada for indulging the United States. I mean, this isn't just about the
Trump administration. This is about the United States, because Canadians know that there are a lot of people in the United States that support the Trump administration, and so the appetite for Canada now becoming anti US is strong. And
Eric Kaufman wrote about this. I want to say it was the Free Press, but he wrote about how Trump's approach to Canada, Greenland, but also just trade and populism in general actually has the effect of undermining some of his populist allies, people who he would want to build
up around the world. If Trump were engaged in this like robust, ideological, coherent, ideological project to kind of realign the entire world, that actually a lot of this ends up undermining that goal because let's say you could have had quallyev in Canada. You know, there are populist parties in Europe. You know, is Trump hurting an AfD or is he helped an AfD in Germany? Like it? Is this sucking the winds out of Is this taking the wind out of the sale of populism in some of
these places? You know, Mela, is he going to hurt Mala At the end of the day. These are like legitimate questions and something very interesting. We have a story up and unheard on this right now, just this morning about what happened in Canada. You know, what does it like the future of the United States trade relationship with Canada? Does this even work out well for the United States when Canada now has the option to align with other places and the Canadian people do not want to align
with the United States under Donald Trump. To the point we were discussing earlier in the show, Crystal, does the short term pain end up having, even by the Trump administration zone logic, no long term gain because those even in the short term, the relationships were damaged to the point where there are in permanent realignments or at least in definite realignments that happen out, you know, away from the United States.
Yeah.
Now, Canadians did not hate us, and now they hate us. I mean, if you look at the polling, like the shift in attitudes of your average Canadian vs.
A v.
America has dramatically changed and now is incredibly negative. It's somewhere you know, sixty five seventy percent are like, yeah, screw these people, basically, and all of that effectively comes, you know, from Trump, the fifty first state stuff, calling him governor Trudeau, launching the trade war. All of that has just really shifted attitudes and Cans have been very
unifying in terms of like Canadian nationalism and perspective. And just to emphasize again how central Trump and the trade war and whatever is, we can put this up on the screen this next polling just to show you the way that things unfolded here, just how down and out the Liberals were. And you know, unlike here, the blue is the Conservatives, the red is the Liberals. Most other places, that's the way they do it. Anyway, we're reversed here because we have to be special anyway. You can see
where Trudeau resigns. It really is at you know, a nature of popularity for the Liberals, and I do think part of the change in their fortunes is also the fact that Okay, Trudeau's gone, we got a new dude. And you could think of a worse resume than a central banker to be at the helm when you're facing this trade war. There was some potentially Mark Carney sort of like fanfic about maybe he was the one or
organizing the Treasury bond sales behind the scenes. I don't know that that's actually true, but in theory, he would be the type of person who would understand the way that you could, you know, you could utilize whatever leverage that you have. Then you see the Trump threatening to make Canada fifty first state and signing tariffs, and the dramatic pull movement up to the present day where they're
able to, you know, to achieve this, this victory. And then the last thing I wanted to put up on the screen is I'm not sure that Trump is like really that upset about this, even though to your point, Emily, like, theoretically you would think you would prefer to have the more right wing prime minister in Canada there to work with. But he gave an extraordinary interview to the Atlantic, which could be a whole segment in and of itself, but
he got asked specifically about Canada. We can put this part up on the screen, and he seems to just sort of enjoy that he was so central, even if the outcome is the opposite of the one you would think that he would intend. So let me just read this. They say you seriously want them to become a state talking about Canada, he says, I think it'd be great, and then they say a hell of a big democratic state.
A lot of people say that, But I'm okay with it if it has to be, because I think, you know, actually, until I came along, I'm no political genius, but I know which way they're going to vote. They have socialized medicine. Trump says, you know, until I came along remember that the Conservative was leading by twenty five points, and one of the journalists says it's true, and he says, then I was disliked by enough of the Canadians that I've thrown the election into a close call. Right, I don't
even know if it's a close call. But the Conservative they didn't like Governor Trudeaux too much and I would call him Governor Trudeau, but he wasn't fond of that.
So I don't know.
Em seems like he just likes he likes that he was central. He likes that he, you know, overturned what was expected. He likes that he was this troublemaker in terms of the Canadian elections. It doesn't seem like he's too upset. He seems like he's bragging about the fact that he handed this victory over to the Liberals.
Well, there's a more sinister reading of this too, which was the piece that I referenced that we have up and unheard this morning, makes this argument that if you're Donald Trump and you actually want to undermine the stability of Canada, one of the ways to do that might be to take the person who's leading in the polls and just throw it all up into complete chaos and make the government more divided, which it ended up being. So it wasn't a decisive win for the Conservatives, and
it ultimately wasn't a decisive win for the liberals. It's much less of a kind of a state system at
this point. Now. I tend to think what we just heard from Donald Trump in the Atlantic is probably as close to the truth as we can get, which is that, Yeah, he has another quote in that interview about how he runs the world now that there's just something kind of thrilling about being the leader of the United States and being able to kind of wave your magic wand via truth social and throw everything into complete and utter chaos. There's no like coherent strategy to destabilize Canada behind it.
But at the same time, I mean, for like pauliev was running when he was ahead, he was like running against things like carbon tax. This really was a rejection I've sort of left neoliberalism like Democratic Party, Obama, Trudeau, Merkele neoliberalism and Chris I forget this was you who was making this point. Trump also does seem to get along with the cure starmers. Dare I say, Scott Bessen's
the Mark Carney types. So he might not be entirely upset about this result because he now feels like maybe he's someone he can like deal with, that he can cut deals with. He doesn't necessarily want everyone to be like a lap dog. He sort of enjoys the you sare about the Tian Wow. He enjoys the lap dogs too. But he also loves the fights. I mean, he irrelishes the fights, which is why he was talking to the Atlantic Yesterra.
Well, you know, he loves our girl Claudia down in Mexico.
So and he is so right about her.
So I don't know, I mean, I have no insight into I did see somebody making that point. It's an interesting one and one to watch, and I don't know
whether they'll get along or not. You know, because of the antipathy that the Canadian public has towards Trump, specifically into the American public now in general, he's Carney's going to be under tremendous domestic political pressure to be extremely tough when he's dealing with Trump, or at least to project toughness with uh, you know, in fortitude when dealing with Trump. That's effectively what he has been elected now to do and to navigate this situation.
So yeah, I saw some of the right.
Wing cope like, oh, this a week in Canada and now we can roll in the tanks or whatever. It was the insanity that I was seeing on Twitter. But you know, conservatives have to be very disappointed when there seemed to be all of this wind at their back, the vibe shift, all of that, and now you've got liberals winning quite handily here and being able to form a government with the you know, the lefties pretty easily, and Pierre Poliev himself losing his own seat.
So there you go.
No, no, you're right, it's it's it's totally cope. There were all kinds of thing pieces earlier in the year about how this was the end of any of a local era in Canada and populism was a send it. Conservatives were rallying around, American conservatives were rallying around. Polyev really liked him. He was going viral and American conservatives circles apples.
People keep talking about some apple. Tell me I'm mess this.
It was a viral video that he did with and Poaliev did where he was so he was being interviewed by some it was like I want to say, like Canadian broadcast like it was.
It was.
It was a tough, hostile interview, and he was very calmly, kind of owning the reporter while he was munching on an apple, very nonchalant, like he was just in this casual conversation and kind of owning the guy with facts and all of that stuff. You know, I was just gonna say that facts and logic. So that's he went really viral. That's probably the first time he got in a lot of American conservatives radars, and he had other
moments like that that conservatives were loving. So to turn around now and feel like pallyev he was, you know, just this this loser all along, who was you know, driving the Canadian right into the ground. I mean, that's just not how people looked at him six months ago.
The other cope I saw is that, you know, the reason he lost is because he didn't race Trump, and that's what he should have then, you know, he should have embraced Trump and then that would have led him to victory. And I just, I mean, that's just utterly preposterous, given how dramatically unpopular Trump is in Canada.
Yeah, that's obviously insane, but there's something about how weak he looked by, you know, at first saying nice things about Donald Trump and then having to say, I mean he was in an impossible situation, then having to say, mister president or President Trump, stay out of our election.
Yeah, it's just Donald stop, please leave us alone.
Yeah not great.
All right, Well, shall we turn to the Democrats and what's going on with them? So you guys will probably remember there was a significant race for a leadership fight in the House between AOC who wanted to be ranking member on the Oversight Committee, which basically it's a very public facing role. It was a good fit for her because she understands the media, she's feisty, she does well
in these committee hearings, et cetera. So she would be in this prominent forward face role in the Democratic Party. Nancy Pelosi intervened and instead got her man, Jerry Connolly to across the finish line to be ranking member of
this committee. Now, it was known at the time that Jerry Connolly is he's in his seventies and he also is suffering from cancer and apparently that you know, the cancer prognosis has just recently gotten worse, so he is now saying he's stepping away from that role as ranking Member of Oversight that he had just won over AOC. Let's put this up on the screen. This is his official statement. Jerry Connolly, By the way, I've met him
before a number of times. He represents a northern Virginia suburban like Fairfax County District in Virginia and has for a while. He used to be the head of the Board of Supervisors in Fairfax County, so a long time public official. Anyway, he says, Dear friends, I want to begin by thanking you for your good wishes and compassion as I continue to tackle my diagnosis. Your outpouring of love and support has given me strength in my fights
both against cancer and our collective defensive democracy. When I announced my diagnosis six months ago, I promised transparency. After grueling treatments, we've learned the cancer, which was an initially beaten back, has now returned. I'll do everything possible to continue to represent you and thank you for your grace. The sun is setting on my time in public service.
This will be my last term in Congress. I will be stepping back as ranking member of the Oversight Committee soon with no rancor, in a full heart, I'm move into this final chapter full of pride in what we've accomplished together over thirty years. My loving family and staff sustain me, My extended family. You all have been a joy to serve, your friend and public servant. And you know, I don't want to be an asshole here. I've met, like I said, I met Jerry Connolly, you know, interpersonally,
very nice person. But if you truly believe yourself to be which I do, in this existential threat for the future of the country and democracy, you need to put your most effective players forward. And it was always very clear that that would not be Jerry Connolly at seventy years old in battling cancer. It would be someone like AOC who is leading the fight and is out there, you know, touring the country alongside Bernie Sanders and garnering
record breaking crowds and understands new media, et cetera. And so here we are four months into the Trump administration and he's already having to step back emily from this role whatsoever. In terms of the who's going to be the replacement, It's not going to be AOC. She is no longer actually on this committee. She I guess got switched or both committees or whatever. Can put Ken Klippenstein, who's been all over this from the very beginning.
Put the to say the very least about Ken.
I tried, I tried to book Ken for us today, but he's like traveling right now and is just like killing him. Because yeah, all over this at the beginning. But anyway, put this next piece up on the screen. This is who looks to be set to replace him, another seventy year old representative, Stephen Lynch. Ken goes on to say his background is colorful. Lynch was apparently arrested at some point for drunkenly attacking a group of Iranian
students protesting US intervention abroad. There are some other members on this committee who could have been interesting. Rocana is on this committee. Jasmine Crockett is also on this committee, so you don't have to go with another seventy year old. But yet here they are just like, this is the guy who's next in line seniority or leadership can rely
on them or whatever. And it's absolutely incredible. I mean, Democrats have had multiple members die in office this session, which have led Republicans to you know, expand their margins by a little bit, and that little bit can make all the difference in terms of, you know, getting close legislation through the House.
I'm so there's no committee that Democrats should have wanted a like very aware and healthy person on more than oversight for the first one hundred days of the second Trump administration. Like I am furious on be half of Democratic voters just thinking back on how insane it was. Like this is a concession that everyone who was concerned about Connolly getting this position was correct. This is him basically throwing in the towel and saying I'm not up
to the job. Well, if you had had the humility and your supporters had had the humility to say that one hundred days ago, the Oversight Committee could have been much more robustly energetically pushing back on the Trump administration.
It is just completely it's you know, all of this is obvious, what we're saying right now, but it is such a just obnoxious example of how wrong the old guard is, and how stubborn the old guard is, and how stuck in their way as the old guard is, and just how not up to the moment they are. It's just the sort of arrogance of the political class just being I think, you know, to some extent here
put on fold display and again predictable and obvious. But the Oversight Committee is doing exactly what it says, like they have powers to call witnesses, like when Republicans were in the minority recently under Biden, the Oversight Committee, the Oversight Committee is where they felt they were doing their most important work. And it's because you can then call hearings and do Hunter Biden and Benghazi and all of those things come out of oversight. It's very powerful if you use it correctly.
Yeah, and I remember when he won this or was going for this position at the time, which I could remember the exact language that he used, but he said something like I've waited a long time for this. It was very like I did my time. I'm next in line, so I'm getting this seat. And Nancy Pelosi made sure that he had the votes to be able to and again, like we all knew this was the reality.
They knew this was the reality. This was utterly predictable.
And so not only was it really you know, self serving for Jerry Connelly, even to put himself up for this position is extraordinarily you know, extraordinarily short sighted and weak move from Democratic leadership to push him for this spot and just speaks to a lack of seriousness and a lack of meeting the moment that has been characteristic
across the board from the official Democratic leadership. And boy do I have another example of that Senator Schumer, who, of course, you know, capitulated the Republicans the one thing that where Democrats in the Senate really had some leverage. He completely you know, hands Republicans' major victory there. Now he's on CNN saying that, don't worry, he's in the fight. He has sent the Trump administration a strongly worded letter, Emily,
so he will await their response. Let's take a listen to what he had to say.
But it's also going to hurt the kind of medical research and other kinds of great research that has done at Harvard and other universities. So we sent him a very strong letter just the other day, tell asking eight very strong questions about why this isn't just a pretext.
Well, you'll let us know if you get a response to that letter. I do want to I love it, seven not say seven strongly worded questions, eight strongly worded.
Questions, very strong, very strong questions. He said, I love that.
Dana's like, okay, you let me know when they get back to you on that one, sure, buddy, Like, it's just you can't make it up.
It's so pathetic. It is so utterly pathetic.
It's insane that he was on live television and thought that was a good thing to say, Like, are you listening to yourself? You know that you were stepping straight into a joke. Buddy. This is the minority, this is the head of Senate Democrats for how many years, and he can't even get through an interview without saying something as stupid as that. I mean, it's come on.
Man, I miss Harry Reid. That's what I got to say about that. I miss Harry Reid. Harry he would never, No, he would never. Meanwhile, you've got you know, they're just the again, the leadership. They are just thrashing around trying
to figure out where to be, what to say. They've recognized at this point that the base wants them to do more, so you know, their response is things like Senator Schumer sending eight strong questions in a strongly worded letter, and then Hakeem Jeffries and Corey Booker did some sort of a like live show out on the Capital steps, which everything it's just, you know, it's just a little odd. I will say that the Corey Booker speech, it didn't really it really didn't do it for me because of
a variety. You know, it wasn't really about anything. And you know, it's felt to me very performative, although impressive, like listen, to hold your bladder that long is extraordinary, if in fact that's true, just to speak for that long, I can't even imagine. But I have to say, liberals ate that shit up. They loved it. They absolutely loved it. They see him as a hero. And this shows you,
like the bar it is not that high. They just want people to do something, even though something is just like standing and talking for a while, right.
Because that's a great that's a great point because that philibuster didn't have any legislative goal. Like literally, they just were lapping up Corey Booker demonstrating how like passionately he was anti Trump and anti this administration. And it was actually smart because he was like live on TikTok and breaking records and it you know, as I think vapid as it was, it just rallied the troops because people are desperate.
Yeah that's right.
But in any case, it came Jeffrey's Corey Booker do this hangout live stream thing on the Capitol steps. Let me give you just just just a little taste of it them like just a little taste, And I want.
You all to know, I miss Obama, I miss Obama, I miss Obama, I miss Obama, and I.
Miss I miss her husband too.
We'll be pushing back against the Republican efforts to am this far right extreme budget down the throats of the American people, and we wanted to make sure that heading into that fight, we were very clear with our Republican colleagues there will not be a single Democratic vote to take away the healthcare of the American.
People, not a sing law.
Don't worry, Emily, the spirit of Barack Obama is alive and well in the fake ass speech cadence of people like Pete Boodaget and Corey Booker. So never fear. It just feels so try hard, you know, it just feels very like we're.
Gonna be cool. We're going to do a thing. Here, we are doing a thing. I don't know. It just lands weird.
And Hakim Jefferies is clearly his staff has clearly made a considered effort in the last couple of weeks to make sure that he does media mostly out of a suit. So like now they're putting him in a baseball cap and T shirts and his like sneakers. It's just so like, I'm casual every man, Like I'm just you know, your friend.
It's very to your point, try hard, and it's so sudden it looks just cringe and it's again, we talked about this recently, but it's so strange for me because this used to be even like younger Republicans how they came across. And I'm not saying Republicans are like hip and spry either, because they're not. But it used to not be like this for Democrats, Like it used to be a lot easier for them, especially in the Obama era,
to come across as normal human beings. But they're so they're overthinking it so much because they're so thrown off by like the youth shift and working class Hispanic voters. Some changes in the Black electorate, so it's just hard for them to figure out what they should do and they haven't landed on anything, so it ends up looking really awkward and there's no sign of that, you know, there's no sign of the light being at the end of that tunnel at all.
And some of them, I mean, they're just so many of them are just like old and kind of lost at sea in the world of.
Like the new social media.
Like they be like, I should be doing a thing, but I don't really know what that thing is. And so much of this too, is like just stop trying to be something you're not. Like Keem Jeffries. You're never going to be a firebrand. You're never gonna be that like super relatable cool guy. That's just not who you are. I mean, look to go back to the Canada Black Mark Carney is like the ultimate technocrat and he just leans into it and people are like, Okay, that's who
he is, you know. I mean Bernie Sanders, like he's not out there trying to do a thing. He just is himself. That's that's it. That's just stop trying so hard. On the other hand, I'd be remiss if I didn't say, Chuck Schumer's strategy, I'd just basically like wait around and let the Republicans hang themselves is kind of panning out.
Not only have we covered extensively Trump's numbers at one hundred days, obviously they're really bad across the board, even his best issue of immigration, he's now underwater, especially when you ask about specifics foreign policy. But most importantly, his economic numbers have fallen off a cliff, and predictably that is having a major packed on the down ballot races. I think Republicans just basically expect to lose the House
at this point. It's almost like a foregone conclusion, given that we're nowhere near out of the woods with regard to the economic pain either. Harry Enton just did a piece on the unpopularity of the Republican Party and how it may translate to midterm losses. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that.
Democrats versus Republicans. We have three polls out within the last few weeks.
What do they all show?
They all show the Democrats up by two points in the CNBC poll, the Fox News poll that was out on Friday. Look at that Democrats up by seven the New York Times poll that was out this Friday as well, Democrats by three. And keep in mind the House GOP won the popular vote back in twenty twenty four by a little less than three percentage points. So when you see three seven to two averaging four, that is a
tremendous shift. That is a shift of seven points from the November twenty twenty four elections away from the GOP. You look at Trump's net federal rating in October of twenty twenty four coin in New York Times minus nine points. Look at where it is now minus thirty points among independence. That's horrific, that's historically awful. Take a look at the
generic ballot in October of twenty twenty four. The Democrats were ahead, but only by three, well within the margin of our Look at where they are now, up seventeen points. There is no way on God's green earth that the Republicans can hold on to the House of Representatives if they lose independence by seventeen percentage points. My goodness, gracious.
What do you think about that?
M I mean like, this is despite Democrats' best efforts, I think, And that's part of this is interesting too. Did you see Alyssa slock and dropping like F bombs recently.
Did you see the stories about that? I did not see that.
Yeah, The Hill had a whole story yesterday about how Dems are like embracing the F word, and my god, I feel like that happens every time a political party
gets a little bit bestperate. But you know, it reminded me of the Hakim Jeffreys Corey Booker like just sitting on the steps chatting with people moment, because it's like, you, guys, what's working right now is Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Acosio Cortez going to Red States and holding fighting oligarchy, fighting oligarchy rallies, not Alyssa Slockin, you know, thinking that she's like a cool mom for dropping F bombs in an interview, like forcing herself to drop an F bomb in an interview.
It g's just so bizarre. But I think the reason they're doing it, Crystal, is because they, like Hakim Jefferies and Corey Booker can't go full quote fight oligarchy. This is there and that's, by the way, what's good for the party, Uh, what's good for them would be to embrace this anti oligarch message, but because they are also bankrolled by oligarchs, they're uncomfortable with that messaging. And that's why Alissa Slockin is now explicitly pushing back against it.
And I think it's why Hakim Jeffries and Corey Booker maybe they clear the very low bar of you know, looking like they have at least some energy and aren't you know connolly. But at the same time, I think what Trump is struggling with is coming without actually a decent resistance from the Democratic Party, and so that goes to show like, what could this be? Like I mean again, like Donald Trump has barely won a couple of elections.
This man came off being the host of Celebrity Apprentice, Like Hillary Clinton was terrible, Joe Biden was terrible, Kamala Harris was terrible. That's how bad Dems have been. It's not any I think special testament to Donald Trump being super attractive and likable. I think he's a smart politician with his base. But it's not like the entire country loves Donald Trump despite what he may say. It's just that consistently Dems have been worse than Trump, except for Biden.
In twenty twenty in the middle of the pandemic. So they in ten years they have not figured out a way to be slightly better than Donald Trump.
Yeah, well, your point about slock In and Jefferson Booker too, is really well taken. And I've never seen anything more horror manufactured than the like pushing slot Eliza Slockin on us, like no one wanted this. The Democratic leadership for some reason was like this lady, she's the real future of a party. We're gonna have her do the response to
the state of the Union. We're gonna have her lead our effort to you know, tamp down all this anti oligarchy talk that's getting a little too popular among our normy Democrat base. But to your point, you know, I think the I think the things that have really landed with the liberal base has been number one, the Stop Oligarchy Tour, the Fight Oligarchy Tour.
Number two.
You know, people like Jasmine Crockett who just can like dish it out and really is it just has this vibe and this energy. She's not going to take any shit, and she's gonna like get out there and get in your face. Whatever Cory Booker's speech, whether I like it or not. I mean, listen, he did a thing, okay,
the like liberals loved it. The other thing is the Chris van Holland going to El Salvador, which you know, to me is a study in contrast between Core Booker's thing, which was actually basically about nothing about like him positioning himself as a resistance fighter, whereas Chris van Holland, you know, he actually did a thing like he went. It was
a real issue, it was some personal riskue himself. It's a risky political issue, and obviously Bikelly did all he could to make the optics as terrible as possible, et cetera. And you know, I think his actions really kept that story alive and has helped to move public opinion dramatically against the Trump administration, not only specifically in that case, but that's what helped to drag them underwater on immigration
in general. So and since then you've seen some other representatives and senators follow suit and going to visit people who are detained because they you know, published an obed or had some you know, pro Palestine speech or whatever. You saw other members also travel down to El Salvador. So that really set a model for for Democrats moving forward, who actually wanted to do something and not just like sit on the steps of the Capitol and talk about how which they missed Barack Obama.
Well, okay, so I think with the base, it makes sense to me that that would be sort of that all of that would be a shot in the arm. I still think the van Holland and what was the oh the uh yeah, Well, I think the van Holland example in particular is like, I don't think they quite nailed the messaging for a broader audience, but I think he understood that what the Democratic Party's base, like the grassroots type people want right now is someone to like actually take personal risk and sect you.
No, I really disagree with that, and I think it shows up in the polling. I mean, when we were looking yesterday at the best and the worst issues for Trump, his best issue and this was the New York Times Siena polling, which is, you know, considered to be one of the more credible pollsters and they do a large sample, et cetera. Best polling numbers were on immigration, though he was still underwater by four worst polling numbers was the
handling of Kilmara Brego Garcia, So I think. I mean, the numbers I've seen are like twenty percent support what the Trump administration is doing there. So I do believe that the efforts of Chris van Holland and others to shine a light on that and to consistently explain, you know, this isn't really about this one guy, and however you may feel about him, this is about due process for
all of us. This is about protecting all of our rights and your right to have your day in court before being sent for life to this you know, foreign goolog I think it's undeniable at this point that that messaging has landed and that it has dramatically turned people against the Trump administration's handling in that one specific case, with bleedover into how they feel about the immigration program read large.
I think people definitely agree with that sentiment. I don't disagree that that's where the public has landed on it. I think it's a for me, it's an interesting case study and how Dems can misread or not misread that's the wrong word, how they can over maybe overread the public's position. Like it's easy to say, and actually I think Trump does this times too. It's easy to say, Okay, the public is with us, this is a winning issue.
We can't be sending people to see caught on, you know, mistakes that your own administration's attorneys, your own DJ attorneys admit and like sucking up to the CALA and doing that weird stuff like nobody is like here for that. I think what Van Holland did then looked like the Trump administration was able to message it in a way that probably resonated with a lot of people as Dems actively trying to keep people who are not in the country legally in the country, even though it's not what
the case is about. I think it's it's easy to get we probably just disagree on it. I just think it's easy to get caught in that trap of like not sticking on the narrow issue, but then also looking like you're in the position that most people disagree with because you kind of misread where people are on the narrow issue in and of itself. But we probably disagree in that.
I mean I do.
I do just disagree with the assess meant there. And I think at this point the polling bears it out pretty clearly that, you know, because the Trump administration had admitted fault in this case. It made it fairly clear cut of like you screwed up, bring the guy back, like what are you doing? And also because the Trump Trump himself was like, we're going for us born, you know, homegrown criminals next, it didn't take any imagination to go, oh,
this isn't just about rights for undocumented immigrants. This is an assault on all He wants to be able to send anybody he wants and disappear into this dungeon. And you know, I think that really made it easier for Democrats to make the case that this matters for everyone.
And you know, the.
Tariff stuff politically is obviously extremely toxic, and it's also something that everyone is aware of their own material circumstances and the way they're being negatively impacted. So I think they were able to push the message about kill Maara Brego Garcia and the assault on rights and the way
that this the implications this has for the broader immigration agenda. Well, obviously the tariff stuff is there and is not going away anytime soon, but we can we can agree to disagree on that one if you'd like, We'll come back to it.
I'm sure another day.
Oh, Yeah, there'll be plenty to talk about.