Good morning, everybody. Happy Friday, Emily, Ryan, Great to see you guys.
Crystal Crystal for those who didn't see the behind the scenes, was Ryan's tech support this morning.
Yeah, it was pretty impressive and she nailed it.
Geek squad, yeap, got it worked right down.
Fixed we are.
Yeah, I'm a woman of many talents. What can I say. We've been calling these shows internally the mini show, but they're increasingly sort of not really many shows, they're just shows because of so much stuff that's going on. But excited to get both of your reaction to Liberation Day and you know, take your temperature as to how liberated
you're feeling on this Friday. Got a bunch of a bunch of different stuff in regard to that, including new jobs numbers that just came out, which actually came out much stronger than expected, so that's kind of interesting. We also have a new poll, hypothetical poll AOC versus Chuck Shumer and for Senate she's deshrawing him, which is really interesting. Made you turn about in terms of how the Democratic
base is feeling. Ryan also flag for us there's huge protest plan for you know, from the Democratic base across the country, a thousand different protests planned in you know, nationwide locations. We've got a few national security advisors who were officially lumored that U interesting developments there. And we're also really looking forward to speaking to one of the members of the legal team of that marilynd father who
was wrongly deported to the El Salvador prison. So she's she actually represented him in that twenty nineteen hearing where the judge ruled that he cannot be deported to El Salvador, so she knows should know all the ins and outs of like the gang accusations and what they were saying and what the reality was, how the family's doing, all of that sort of stuff. So definitely looking forward to that.
Good show. Like to your point about not calling these mini shows, that's a lot of.
Crystal Yes, indeed. All right, so let's kick things off here. I guess we'll start with the latest on the jobsts. Obviously, Trump has upended the entire global economy, so you know, a lot to get to there. But we also had the jobs report come out this this morning and it actually crushed expectations two hundred twenty eight thousand. Unemployment rate actually rose a little bit to four point two percent.
Joe Wisenthal here saying the economists had expected one hundred and forty thousand jobs unemployment of four point one percent. The reason that the unemployment rate actually ticked up is because you had more people, higher workforce participations, so sort of more people jumping into the market and trying to find a job. Any reflections on that, guys, just before we get into the latest Liberation Day fallout, I mean, what the.
Business press was saying is that this was sort of an interesting but meaningless round of numbers because people were going to say, you know, if it was terrible, they were going to say, oh, well, like one more reason to sell. So terrible report would have been bad and like would have been like another kind of another straw on this camel's broken back. Yeah, but a good report is discounted by the market because they're like, Okay, well
that was a good report in March. That was before Liberation Day and the fall of Western civilization because of the race in Wisconsin, supre Court race. So we're now in a post Liberation Day, post Western civilization world. So the things that happened before that, you know, don't don't actually matter. So it staves off a little additional extra
sell off potentially, and but that's about it. And and it it you know, it bakes in some hopes among these folks that Trump is going to you know, uh, you know, cock things up so badly that the Fed will step in and and you know, lower interest rates a whole bunch of times between now and the end of the year and that and that that'll cushion some of the blows.
Yeah, well, and that's kind of one of the high IQ arguments for the terrorists is like, oh, this is all an effort to bring down interest rates so that also when the US has to roll all of this debt, that it will be at a lower interest rate. And so we need to like destroy the entire economy so that we can bring interest rates down as one of the sort of like high IQ versions of the Trump tariff thing. And it's nine point fifteen when we're recording
this right now. This is what you know, CNBC. You got the ticker up here of the futures what they look like. You know, yesterday obviously was pretty bad in terms of the stock market, although to be honest with you, I thought it could have been even worse. Given the you know the nature of the tariffs, which are just so astonishing and massive and obviously global, and saying in my opinion and you know, we'll really have just I think it's impossible to really gauge exactly what all the
fallout is ultimately going to be. But even with this job's report now coming in higher than expected, obviously future is still significantly down. And you know, China announced this more learning or last night or sometime before I woke up, that they were going to be retaliating with significant tariffs of their own and targeting a few key American businesses
and industries in particular. So you know, the theory is the markets are sort of reacting to that, and that's why they're down even more than they already were yesterday.
Also, really sweet to see you and Kyle dming.
A lot of that.
Yeah, yeah, you know, China's response to me suggests what a difficult spot the US is in. Like I would imagine that she and his advisors are almost paralyzed by the sheer number of different effective ways they have to screw us, and they have a unified system whereby they can come up with an idea and then they can execute on it, whereas in the United States we are literally having chat GPT come up up with our plan. So it's like chat GPT versus you know, she and
his economists. Yeah, when she and his economists are sitting on massive piles of cash and the manufacturing capacity of the world and the knowledge of the supply chains, and they can you know, largely kind of guide a lot of their companies. I've seen a lot of people say that Trump's actual scheme here is He's going to destroy the American economy, drive the prices down to bottom barrel, and that he and his billionaire buddies are going to buy up everything. I don't. I don't think that's right
at all. But I think what he might end up doing is knock the price of everything way down, and then she and his buddies come in with their companies and buy everything up that they that that they can get at a you know, steep discount.
Yeah.
Well that's important to notee. You know, recessions, most people lose, but not everybody loses. You know. Out of the financial crash, there was a massive consolidation. Banks got bigger than ever. It really was the kickoff of permanent capital being such a massive player in terms of buying up housing, and you know, these giant conglomerates becoming basically like America's landlord.
Out of the COVID crash, we all know that the tech barons really consolidated a lot of power, Bezos, Zuckerberg, elon. They all came out of the COVID crash massively wealthier than before. And to your point about China, their markets are not down all that much. They take it a little bit, but nothing like what our markets are down, which tells you that investors are betting that they're actually going to be more or less okay out of this. And you can start to see in the specific retaliation
that they picked. You know, it was not only okay, well, we're going to hit you with the same level of tariff that you're hitting us. It was also we're going to block you from being able to import some of these rare earth minerals that are in you know, all of our modern electronics and are really important. And that China has been to your boy ride about the level of planning for years and years, you know, consolidating their
control over some of those supply chains. So they are certainly not powerless, to say the least emily in this situation.
No, they they aren't. And it's interesting because a lot of this, uh well actually a lot of the like
Liberation Day predicate. I was going back and looking at how people on the right talked about targeted tariffs in the years leading up to Trump two point zero, and it was always through the lens of national security, always like there were that was the sort of justification for protectionism that some of these think tanks like the Heritage Foundation had for a really long time cast as socialist economics, and uh, they've been such staunch champions of quote unquote
free trade, and as they were warming up to Trump and acquiescing to Trump's hostile take of the Republican Party, it was okay, targeted tariffs. You could do targeted near shoring with Canada and Mexico, but it's because of national security and the argument that national security is stronger in these Just like a couple of weeks to come, we're going to get a lot more clues as to whether or not that's really the case. But a China that's not significantly hampered by this.
That was the goal.
I mean, that was an explicit national security ambition of tariffs that some of the people put forward before they joined the administration.
Well, in some of the push to move manufacturing into like Vietnam was also you know, okay, you know, we're not near shoring New Mexico, are bringing jobs back to the US, but this is the country that we have better relations with than we feel more comfortable manufacturing there. Vietnam just got hit with a gigantic tariff, so you know, some of those prior efforts are also being completely undermined by this. One of the things that's go ahead, right, and just.
One little point, China is retaliating against us. We're doing a trade war against the entire world, that's right, which makes China's positions so much easier.
It's stronger, right, Like we're we're doing a trade war against Lesotho and you know that don't even have inhabitants in you know, some island that's largely like British and American military that.
Like, and against people that I am be able to help us in a trade war with China.
That's right, That's exactly right. And that was actually one of the points that like Nate Silvert was making, is are we really going to be negotiating with all one hundred and ninety two countries or whatever it is that
we just tariffed. So yes, if it was a I mean, I hate to just keep repeating myself, but if it was focused, if it's you know, targeted particular industry or even a particular country in terms of China, then you can imagine a plan that where we could come out on top, where there would be there would always be minuses, potentially short term pain for sure, but there could be something that was work fit on the other side. You know, I'm someone who thinks that tariffs can be useful and
important tool in certain instances. But the incredibly not just chaotic, but you know, insane way that this is done across the board and using chat GPT and pretending like a trade deficit is the same as a tariff just makes it impossible to imagine how this is ultimately going to work out. And one of the things and on that just I.
Think just might help people understand that because I see a lot of people being like, we're getting screwed by all these countries. It's like, imagine California and Oregon, like they trade with each other now there's no tariffs because they're united you know, there's states within the United States. But I promise you that people in Oregon buy a lot more stuff from California than people in California buy
from Oregon. So it would be like looking at that situation and saying, oh wow, like there's a giant tariff up that Oregon has on California. Right, It's like, no, no, Oregon just doesn't make that much stuff. California makes an enormous amount of stuff, right, That's how that's how trade works. Well, so maybe that will help people understand that it's not that they're setting up. Oregon is not screwing California in a slight.
I mean, I don't want to call it a defense of the administration because we haven't seen anything yet. But them telling bessn't well, besn't going out and saying, you know, these will be the higher end of the rate if you don't retaliate, and then the White House saying that is not the talking point, Like there are reports that the White House was saying that do not include anything about these being negotiating points. These are the final numbers
in your talking points. It's hard to imagine the Treasury secretary, especially with something as sensitive as markets being literally off the talking points, so like one eighty degree from what you're supposed to be saying on that. But I like
some of these random, completely random tariffs. I wonder if they like didn't take them seriously, because they don't take them seriously, and if you are the Soto or someone else, maybe Trump just wants to have it look like he was doing eighty deals and successfully negotiated with all of these different countries. So but the like we'll see, I genuinely have no idea. I don't think anybody has any idea.
But the I don't think best has any idea. I mean, like he was completely clueless and terrified in all of those interviews. They're like, so are you going to go to China and talk to him? He's like, nothing on the calendar.
Yeah, it's an interesting idea, but that's the the USMCA exemptions, and what happens with that is pretty critical to what happens.
We used to be China obviously, so you know, if you're you're going to be terrifying the hell out of Canada and Mexico in order to rebalance those relationships at the same time as you're trying to rebalance the relationship with China, the economic relationship with China for national security concerns, then you have to look very differently at your relationship with Canada Mexico, which Besson also said, he got Caitlin Collins and said they're USMCA exemptions, but that's going to
be renegotiated. So who the hell knows?
Yeah, well, and I said this in the show yesterday. But just to drill down on the point Ryan was making to help people understand, like why a trade deficit is not the same as a tariff and does not necessarily represent a country screwing US our noeb but trend lay down the example of Lesotho. This is an incredibly poor country in Africa. They're actually part of a regional
trading block that has uniform tariff policy. So in theory you would think, okay, well, South Africa and Lesotho part of this trading block, have uniform teriff policy, so they should be getting hit with the same level of tariff, right, No, South Africa's is far lower. Why because we do actually import a significant for that country and a significant amount of mostly diamonds and other sort of like, you know,
raw materials, and this is a poor country. So the people there, they don't have the money to buy things like iPhones and Tesla's from our market. So does that mean that they're screwing us, No, it just means, you know, and it's not like we have a domestic diamond market that we need to protect and gin up here. And that's the other part of this. One of the other parts of this that makes no actual economic sense is that there are certain things that we just literally can't
produce here. We don't have diamond mines, that's just how it is, right. We cannot grow bananas outside of a few locations, we cannot grow coffee beans outside of a few locations. Something like fifty percent of our fruits and vegetables come from other markets. And so when you're doing this across the board, not only across the board, with countries across the board, with all of these different products,
all you're doing is creating a massively regressive tax. And that's the other part of this that is wild that I don't think people should just let go is the President has claimed for himself the single handed ability to completely upend our economy. The global economy. You know, these are powers that are supposed to be in the hands of Congress. You know, they're supposed to be the person
raising revenue that is supposed to go through Congress. And so, you know, Jeff Stein was pointing out, he was like, you know, most experts that I'm talking to you are saying that they probably legally are going to go through because the courts have taken a very permissive attitude towards presence, ability to declare national emergencies or natural security situations or whatever and do what they want in the sphere of tariffs.
But compare that to Biden's like comparatively pitdling student loan debt relief that gets struck down by the courts, and you have a you know, you just have a very remarkable situation. And I think it's also fair to say, like, and I believe that the tariff regime that Trump has announced is less about a particular economic outcome and more
about him consolidating more control for himself. And that comes not only from the extraordinary nature of the tariff's largest tax hike, probably in US history, highest level of tariffs, uh since you know, it is much higher even than the Smoot Holly Tariff Act, which vastly exacerbated the Great Depression.
But not only from just like that exercise of power, but also now every company, every country in the world, every industry, they all have to go on bended me to the dear leader and beg and plead their case, which is precisely why these powers were supposed to be with Congress, because that ryan is the way that a king operates. It's not supposed to be the way that a president ultimately operates.
Yeah, I think they there's a chance they might end up taking the powers away from him if if he abuses them too seriously and we see too much pain going around. I could because the Congress or Congress, Yeah Congress, because you saw me, they would need probably two thirds, a two thirds vote because obviously Trump is otherwise.
Yeah.
Right, So I mean, this is imagining a world in which you know, we've seen not just you know, twenty thirty percent come off the markets. You know, that's those
that's still the market. But you start seeing you know, manufacturing plants close and like auto automakers layoff workers, still lants, and I think just laid off a thousand people yesterday, so if you start seeing like significant manufacturing industry layoffs and it's cutting against his the notion that he's bringing manufacturing back, then then I don't know, I don't know, if I don't know if there is anything that breaks the hold.
Well, yeah, oh, I was gonna say. This is the benefit of what Krystal was just laying out, Trump consolidating. I mean, other presidents have used these powers, but Trump using them more boldly than anyone in recent memory. The benefit from his perspective is that he can then cut these deals immediately to back off and try to course correct. He can just call up the folks in the Soto and say like, ah, you guys, you know you're such
great partners. We're taking this right down. You know. He's able to like operate on his whims, which is absolutely for any president, terrifying amount of power. It should belong with Congress. It's an Article one power. But the presidential emergency declarations have ye held up in courts to that point. So I think you're right. There's something that he enjoys about being the guy who gets to have the final decision on such a significant basis because he feels like
he's coarse correct. I mean, this is Trump's deepest ideological commitment. He's generally more transactional than ideological, except for tariffs and immigration, and so this is you know, whether he ultimately backs down from a significant terariff for jam, I think is unlikely, but he's able to. He probably thinks he'll be able to do carve out type deals with the sort of flick of a pen or the picking up of a phone.
Yeah, And I've seen Matt, like Matt Stolar for instance, has been out there saying, like, you know, people on the left need to stop just sounding like CNBC or MSNBC and freaking out at this, like you have to understand, like Trump has a legitimate argument about the nature of global trade imbalances and the way that it is screwed up the middle class over the last fifty years and and undermined our ability to produce anything to an extent that you know, when there was a pandemic, if we
hadn't gotten the supply chains going, we wouldn't have had masks, right, we could, we could, we could barely make like you know, soap. You know, they could, they couldn't. They couldn't make any of the ppe that we needed agree with that, But to me, you don't get points for your virtue and for your correct analysis if what you implement doesn't really
have a chance of working. And the reason it doesn't have a chance of working is that we're we're still a capitalist system, which allows you know, capitalists to decide where they're going to invest their money. The state doesn't. Maybe it should, but the state does not direct in
any considerable amount of investment. And so if you're an investor right now, like, on the one hand, okay, it looks like it's going to be cheaper to relatively cheaper to you know, sell things to American consumers if I build them right here in America. Is that going to be the case two weeks from now, Yeah, that's true. I don't know. And if you don't know, do you drop a one point five billion dollar investment in a
Wisconsin factory. Well, Trump's point is advanswer that is, no, you don't unless you have some some sense of stability long term.
Well, I think that's the flip side of the coin. And Trump would say the uncertainty is the only thing that gets them to do that, because they're so on Trump is the main take the bet on Trump.
Well, yeah, like it's going to take them longer to get the deal together that then the policies will be in place. There'll be new policies in like three days, that's right then, and the new ones after that, and the new ones after that.
Right, So no one would expect that. I mean, this should in theory be Trump's last term in office. No one is going to think that the next president is going to continue with this particular terriff rut.
You're just getting your factory online in like two years, and now Trump's a lame duck, and like that's the problem. Like, if you want to do this, go to Congress and do an industrial policy and buy in, get buy in from the American people and Democrats, like Democrats, you want to build factories in the United States, Democrats, all they're going to ask for is uh, as you know, Barat talked about day care in the factory and and union wages.
Yeah, is that we could do?
We could?
Is that so bad?
You know? This? Also one of the things that bothers me about this teriff for is that I actually do think it is going to negatively polarize many people against Tariff's period, and I think that is terrible, and it comes at a time when there wasn't increasing there was a bipartisan consensus in favor of targeted industrial policy, and Trump could rightly take credit for helping to create that
shift in public policy. I mean, terroris in industrial policy were like, you know, seeing a knuckle dragging kind of stuff in the neoliberal era. And Trump comes in, he does his China terrorists. I supported them, Ryan, I suspect you probably did as well. Yeah, and then Biden keeps them largely in place, expandes that but couples it with actual industrial policies. So in truth, Biden's version of it was much more successful than Trump's version. You can see that with the you know, the.
Chips, and Trump's had some positive impacts on manufacturing and yeah, yeah, and so I.
Drove through the Fox cun Cam.
Oh boy, that was Scott Walker.
Yeah, that was that was a major l But put it. Let's put that aside. But you know, there was this true bipartisan consensus in favor of targeted industrial policy, and we're more, vastly more needed to be done. But Trump seems to have this idea that if you just put in place this giant terror regime. Everything is going to
magically happen after that. And Ryan, you're so correct that he is not factoring into this the fact that number one, the rest of the world is going to get a say, and number two that you're still relying on capital and trying to figure out their incentives. And from the best we can tell, like their incentives are just going to be Okay, We're just not going to do really anything for the next couple of years. See how this shakes out.
I wouldn't be hiring, you know. I mean, even thinking about our little business, the way that we're going to be impacted by this. It's like, I'm not taking on big new risks right now because at.
Drop site, because of people's so like the subscription base and the donation base, Like we could add a couple of people right now, but but we're not going to because we're probably going to see a downturn.
That's exactly right.
And and companies like well we're a nonprofit, uh, But to organizations like hours and and like breaking points, you know, they get hit in a recession because if you lose your job, it's like, hey, I'd love to, you know, help you guys out. I support the journalism that you're doing, but I'm going to watch the free clips on YouTube and I'm going to read the free stuff.
Yeah, family, not at all.
Obviously. If it's a choice between you know, making your bills and this, like this has got to go.
I mean, I would choose my premium subscription over feeding children.
But that's just.
Depends on children.
One of the things that's wild to me is like people are going to get hurt by this. You know, it's it's a massive thing that Trump has just done, like insanely massive. And is he in the you know, the like economic situation room, crunching the numbers, seeing what the market reaction is, making deals whatever. No, he's like I think it's going well, and then he's off to
play golf. Like this is so what. I just I cannot comprehend the mentality of someone who is so casual about doing something that is such a nuclear bomb around the world. I mean, so here, you know, Jake shrim President Trump leaving today for Florida, where he will attend the Live Golf Tour dinner at his Durrell Country club. Here he is yesterday getting asked about like, hey, the markets are completely shitting the bed. Are you, like, you know,
good with this? Like, how are you feeling about this? Let's take a listen to what he has to say.
The markets today our way down. We're saying here.
So how can I think it's going very well?
It was an operation, like when a patient gets operated on and it's a big thing.
I said, this good.
Exactly, so he they love this. It's you know, an operation, it's a patient. The operation went well. But yeah, he thinks he thinks it's going great.
And if I thought a few years from now this was going to turn around American manufacturing and production, like I'd be like, that's the coolest thing ever. Yeah, based like go for it, like yes, like it's it's going to short term pain, long term gain. I just don't see the long term gain.
Well, we understand well and also sorry Emily, it just really quickly is we Also? I agree with that, Ryan, I absolutely agree with that, But we also can't be cavalier about this is a massive regressive tax, massive regressive tax. At the same time as it's not like you know, when he did tarifs in his first term, farmers got hurt and they had a big program to reimburse them.
There's none of it. It's the total opposite of that at this point where you you know, can't get a hold of somebody at Social Security so you can get your benefits there. Republicans widely expected to cut Medicaid and they're also widely expected to give on a giant tax cut.
So the you know, one of the theories they're trying to get the deficit down and do these things, well, no, they're about to blow up the deficit more than they ever abb of war, and so you're doing austerity at the same time that you're expecting people to be able to shoulder this massive regressive tax hike at a time when they already were Inflation was the number one issue for people, like prices. They already feel so stretched because prices have been high, and that's what he was elected
on was to deal with those prices. So while I agree, if there was like you know, okay, and we're gonna it's really going to reindustrialize middle class jobs, like bring back the heartland of America and people are going to be able to you know, have this like solid union middle class job the way things were, Like okay, that's worth exchanging some short term pain for but you also have to help people to get through that period. And there's first of all, it's just short term pain and
long term pain. And second of all, there is none of that policy happening to help people who are truly going to be hurt, whether it's regular ordinary people, businesses, et cetera. In the interim to get to that theoretical promised promised land.
I mean, I think that the tax cut situation is going to be completely crazy, but maybe they come up with something. I have no idea. It doesn't seem like it. Josh Holly said he went to the White House yesterday in secure commitments from Trump not to touch medicator social security again. We will see. There's a White House statement on the jobs report that says, quote, the economy is starting to roar, with a strong two hundred and twenty eight thousand jobs out in the month of March, well
ahead of the market's expectation. There's also a sharp increase in transportation, construction, and warehousing employment. The President's pushed on short jobs here in the United States is working. The Golden Age of America is on its way.
Awesome.
Good luck with that.
The Gilded Age actism, Golden Age. Not so sure about that one Yielded age definitely, And I mean that is their model. Is that era, the Gilded Age is the era that he says he's modeling these policies to achieve.
I think it gets to your point about the not just the optics, because it's beyond optics. It's this optimism from multi multimillionaires and billionaires as markets are completely volatile and people are worried about their savings, they're worried about their month to month that I think politically is going to be incredibly difficult for the administration to continue pulling off.
Yeah. I was talking to a friend last night who the couple is a teacher and a federal worker, and they would they've been doing a little house rehab, like a kitchen in a bedroom, and she said that she just went to order like the sink and the couch and stuff. And I was like, well, first of all, you guys are morons, Like Trump told you a month ago Liberation Day was coming. Yeah, you should have ordered
it stuff. She's like she went back and looked and like a bunch of stuff was like already already up, like one hundred bucks two on her bucks, Like the catch had not moved yet, it was the same price as before, so she like immediately like you purchase on that. Yeah, but like things are moving, like people are. This is not all just the the Dow jumping jumping around, like these price sikes are coming.
Yeah, you know, I respond to that a little bit, Ryan, because that's been the other you brought up Stiller before. I've seen him and others being like, well, the stock market, you know, this isn't really an important economic metric, so stop obsessing over it. And by the way, what it's down to like where it was in the fall or something that's really no big deal. How do you look at that?
I think that's fine. Yeah, Like if you're doing big, long term, huge structural things that are going to benefit the the real economy and you know that and Wall Street has a has a panic attack and and takes off, like like Stoller said, there was this big you know, uh drive up in prices after Trump won because as Jeff Stein keeps pointing out, the Wall Street does not have a subscription to newspapers, like they don't actually they don't actually read the Washington Post or like the other
papers that have been telling them very clearly that this is what Trump's doing. They're like, no, Trump, He's not really going to do this, no way. So they artificially, you know, drove up the price of equities and now
they're shaving that off. So like that's fine, Like I'm i'm I'm on board with that kind of broad stolar critique to to a degree, Like there is a level, there is a level of correction at which counterparties start getting affected and you you start to see a you know, a seize up in in liquidity and ability of of you know, businesses to like access capital, it becomes a problem.
But this kind of stuff, if if it's if it's good for the patient, you know, fine, like you know, run run a little fever killed that killed that virus, but it's your This this to me is the equivalent of like bleeding, like the way that they used to bleed patients in this in like the seventeenth and eighteenth It's like, yeah, you're probably a little bit of bleeding is probably not gonna actually hurt you that much. And if it was actually going to make you better, then sure,
go for it. But it wasn't like that that was wrong. So this is the wrong bleeding. So yeah, okay, little bit of bleeding, you can survive.
But also it was like they're getting out the bad, bad stuff, the bad blood.
Or blood was too hot maybe I don't know. Yeah, yeah, And Washington had like four doctors and they all bled him and he died of losing too much blood. Yeah. So if you lose too much blood and the stock market loses too much blood, you know, it can it can be a problem. But yeah, that's what the real problem is. Yeah, actual prices for sinks are going up like right now, right and when people's washing machines break, they need they need a new one.
Well Mark Cuban was out yesterday. Like, go to Costco, go to Sam's Club, stock up, like whatever storage space you have by phil with whatever, you know, non perishable consumables. You can bet toilet paper's going to be disappearing from shelves at a store near you very shortly. But Emily, on the other hand, he does have fantastic spokespeople like Howard Lutnick, who are making the case here. I mean, would you say that.
I just took a sip of coffee my leftop.
You know, and This is the other part of it, is like the argument that I saw from the cable news heads yesterday was just basically like, trust Trump because he knows what he's doing. And that's certainly what what Lutnik was saying yesterday. I've got a great Janine Piro clip I could show as well. But let's go ahead and take a listen to Lutnick and how he was pitching this.
Let Donald Trump run the global economy.
He knows what he's doing.
He's thirty five years. You gotta trust Donald Trump in the White House. That's why they put him there.
Let him fix it, I understand book.
Let him fix it.
The thirty six trillion dollar deficit, right is going to ruin our children's lives and our grandchildren's lives.
Let Donald Trump fix the American economy. Follow up with you.
So that's you know, we're just about to put our faith in the great leader. Howard Lutnick certainly has. There are others many others who who feel the same way. Emily that and you just, you know, just trust in Trump and he'll he'll work it out.
Okay, But that quote, let Donald Trump run the global economy is a completely insane thing to say, but in true Trumpian fashion, it really is saying the quiet part out loud and so proudly too. I mean, American presidents wield the power basically to run the global economy, much to the chagrin of many people and the rest of the world. And he's just like, this is a wonderful thing. Let the dear leader run the global economy. It's just
an insane way to approach it. But it's really what we have right, Like this is given that best is off of the Trump talking points on something so significant. It's like, I don't know that his closest advisors actually understand where he could take this, where he plans to take this. I think that is entirely intentional. And so the American people are left with the option of trusting
Donald Trump. It's really their only talking point. Because we can all agree, like the three of us from the left and the right, on what's happened and the need for probably some tariffs, like we can probably all get to the table and think that through and Chips Act and all of that, But this particular execution of bringing jobs back to United States, of rebalancing global trade, the only thing you can do because there's so much uncertainty
and so much bizarre tactical maneuvering. Is just say, let's how it all turns out, okay, And that is going to wear very thin, very quickly politically for them. And it's also just like as people are making decisions about kitchen renovations, kind of a it's kind of a fucked up thing to do to people.
And Trump had a revealing and related remark yesterday where he said the problem with the bringing on income tax is that it made the American people fund the American government rather than foreign countries, which should be funding the American government. And you're like, okay, well that analysis is like completely insane because like it's actually you know, people eventually pay the tariffs. But but like hold on record,
scratch reverse a second. You think that in an ideal world, foreign countries are funding the American government, It's like what right? What do you mean? Like could you unpack that for us? Like why why would they fund us? Like why don't they fund themselves?
Like that you touch on some tribute important though, I mean because part of the alliance with Trump and capital, which is verily, very firmly entrenched this time around it does go back to that you know, McKinley utopia that he keeps referencing and and did on the campaign trail. You know, I went back during that time, like brushed up on my McKinley history. Is not a guy that
I like particularly studied all that much. And the whole reason that the income tax was introduced is so you could have a progressive tax, so that rich people, so that capital could you know, would be the ones who bore more of the burden of funding the government. That was the whole idea. But now our income tax is not all that progressive at this point. We can tell that's a whole other can of worms, But that's the idea.
Tariffs are deeply progressive. So what in practice this is not going to mean that foreign governments are funding our government for us, thank you very much, China, thank you very much, eu Fan, thank you very much, Canna or whatever.
It's going to mean that more of the burden of funding our government falls on working class people and less of it, even less of it than currently falls on the rich, is going to fall on the rich, which of course consistent with the tax plan, and why you should never when these people talk about how they have
to get the deficit under control. You should never take them seriously so long as one of their main economic priorities is extending the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which is a four trillion dollar tax cut for the wealthy and is going to greatly exacerbate our debt and deficit. So you know, like how much of this Trump knows or how much his view of tariffs is just like this sort of like kindergarten level. Because also some of the things that he his priorities are directly at odds
with each other. Maintaining the dollar as the world reserve currency is directly at odds with eliminating the trade deficit because you need the world to need dollars, and so you know, those things don't fit together. The idea that these are going to fund the government also doesn't make sense. If everything's being reshored, then you're not going to be getting teriff revenue. Right that you get this back and forth of oh, he's just a great negotiator and these
are just a starting point. Actually the direction is to bring all terrifts to zero. That's some of the cope from the like you know, the chamber type Republicans, is this is actually a tool to get the teriffs to zero, you know, And it's like, well, I cont of that. You should have just done TPP back in the day. You know, they were on a track with a bunch of Asian specific countries to go exactly in that direction. And then you know Trump is out there. No, no, no,
this is the final offer. So all of it is very confused, which is why for me, the easiest lens to view it through is the same lens as the tax on universities, the tax on the media, the tax on the law firms, the tax on free speech, the attacks on protesters, which is a power consolidation play. He is a ceo. He is used to thanking every decision and everyone jumping to his back and call. And that
is the way that autocratic ceo dictatorial style. That is how he wants things to be, and increasingly he is accomplishing that.
I think if if you could, if the president could move tax rates unilaterally but had to go to Congress for tariffs, he'd be out here moving tax rates up and down. Yeah, Like you know, once a week I.
Give people ideas you can declare some type of emergency.
The historical irony by the way to pick up on your McKinley point. McKinley was that in a long running war with the Prairie populist movement and one of their main things that they hated was tariffs because it drove up their costs and it killed them. Yeah, so that our new populace is embodying too McKinley, right, and the enemy of the old populists is amazing.
Yeah.
Completely. And actually when McKinley was assassinating, he was giving a speech announcing that he was rolling.
Back gone with them, Yes, caris because.
The world needed to train and we needed to move forward, and that was an old economic model. So even McKinley at the end realized the error of something.
The shooter there, I guess you know it was Antifa.
We're taking this anti Yeah, So we've all been following the story. Trump administration admitted this week that they made a quote administrative error and deported a Maryland father to that El Salvador prison in spite of the fact that a judge had ruled he could not be deported to El Salvador. The administration, in spite of admitting this administrative error, have still maintained that you know he should have been deported.
They also have maintained that there is nothing at this point that the courts can do to bring him back, even though they acknowledge this error. So we're very lucky to be joined this morning by part of the legal team uh for this man. His name is Kilmo Abrego Garcia and her name is Lucia Curiel, and she represented him in a twenty nineteen hearing where the judge originally ordered said he cannot be deported to El Salvador in that,
of course, is exactly where he is now. Welcome, so glad to have you, Yes.
Thank you.
So, first of all, did I get all of the pieces there right? And can you just give us the timeline of his entrance into the country and you know, his interactions with the legal system, and especially address the allegations that he has been a gang member or in the words of I think Caroline Levitt, the a White House Press secretary, a MS thirteen gang leader.
Yes, so he you know, he was born in Alsavador.
He fled the country when he was around sixteen years old, entered the United States illegally around twenty eleven, and had been living in the uns United States in Maryland until then, until about twenty nineteen, was his first kind of contact with the law enforcement. He was at a home depot soliciting employment with three other men, two of which he had interacted with only in that context of soliciting employment
at a home depot. It turns out one of them, at least unbeknownst to him, did actually have gang affiliation and had actually been convicted previously of gang participation in Maryland. So he but he didn't know that, you know, he didn't really know this guy. They were just standing there chatting, trying to find work when a police officer from the Heatsville Police Department approaches the group. They talked to this
one man that did have this known gang affiliation. Two of the men also agedly kind of dropped something, took something out of their waistband uh and dropped it to the floor, some kind of plastic bottles that were later confirmed to contain marijuana.
This was not kill Mars with some of the other two.
And then this officer calls her backup and arrests all four of them. They don't tell they don't talk to kill Mar at all. They don't tell him why he's being arrested.
Uh.
But they take all four of them to the police station and begin to interview all four of them, and just at the outset, the only thing they interview him about is his gang affiliation. They begin to say, Okay, tell us what gang.
You're part of?
You know, what's your your rank in the gang? Uh, you know what's your what's your name in the gang? And he's he's just totally befuddled. You know, I don't know what you're talking about. I have absolutely no connection to a gang in this case they're talking about.
I'm a certain.
They don't believe him. And the next thing he knows, a n Ice officer is there to pick him up and take him to Ice attention center. This whole interaction is quite brief, so from the there's only one document that kind of documents this whole interaction. It's a gang field interview sheet, and it's the only single source of these supposed link gang allegations.
The gang.
The gang field interview sheet, it's all says that the officer approached the group at two twenty seven pm and the gang field Interview sheet is entered into the system at six forty seven pm, So that means you know, from the time that they apprehend the group, they then you know, call for backup, arrest everyone, transport, interview everything, you know, and then you know, right up the report turned the system is about four hours and twenty minutes, and in that time they have come to you know,
that thorough After that very thorough, thorough investigation, they've concluded that he's an MS thirteen gang member. And in the gang Field interview sheet, it says that the basis for that is that because he was wearing at the time a Chicago bulls hat, which they say is.
Officers no such clothing to.
Be indicative of Hispanic gang culture, the Chicago wearing the Chicago Bulls hat represents that they are a member in good standing with the MS thirteen, And they also say that a hoodie that he was wearing, which his wife had bought him and ordered off the internet, is also indicative of this Hispanic gang culture and that they know that it represents see no evil, hear no evil, and say no evil, which is sort of of one of
the slogans. And I'm as thirteen and the final at least a past, proven, reliable source that they they say they contact, can you.
Talk about that this this alleged confidential informa.
Yeah, all they say is that they contacted a past, proven, reliable source of information that said that he was a member of the Western's clique. They don't say any information there and that's all. It doesn't say who this person is. What they said their reason to fabricate for all we know. You know, it could have been one of the people that you know was seen kind of throwing out some containers with marijuana, because from what we saw, those people were never charged with any crime.
Uh, you know, let me let me get you to respond a little bit to the Vice president, who has been very vocal on this case. So here he is sort of punching back. I guess at Kyle Cheney, who's the legal affair reporter at Politico, and he says he is apparently unable or unwilling to look at the facts.
Here.
In twenty nineteen, an immigration judge under the first Trump administration to determine the deported man was in fact a member of the MS thirteen gang. He also apparently had multiple traffic violations for which he failed to appear in court. A real winner. It's telling that the entire American media is going to run a propaganda operation today making you think an instant father of three was apprehended by a goolag.
Here are the relevant facts. Number one, the man is an illegal immigrant with no right to be in our country. Number two, an immigration judge determined he was a member of the MS thirteen gang. Number three, because he is not a citizen, he does not get a full jury trial by peers. In other words, whatever due process he was entitled to he received. Is what's your response to the framing and the facts also that the Vice president puts out.
Yes, all three of those are incorrect. The judge in the case that was actually very heavily litigated, which was his final hearing where the judge granted him with holding. That was the case that actually took place over two days, which is heavily unusual an immigration court. Those cases often last, you know, one to maybe three hours. This case lasted over two days. And you'll see that. I mean, the the court decision granting him withholding is in the court documents,
and I think two things are notable there. One that the gang allegations don't really even appear in there, and so I think it's it's just a testament to how the little weight the judge even gave them because they were he was questioned very very very very heavily about this, and in advance so that we did also filew a subpoena asking for the officers to appear and also asking for the government to produce any evidence substantiating the allegations.
The government opposed that.
They said that they've spoken to law enforcement partners and they had nothing else to offer. So the again, the only single piece of evidence was this gang field interview sheet that some guy basically no information about who that guy was. Reason to Fabrica, why he was credible. I mean it's kind of an in general, confidential informants are unreliable, and you know, what he said also doesn't really make sense. They said he was a member of a clique in New York, but also number two is he that's.
A pretty key point New York.
Yes, it's Western's clique as far as I.
Have seen, spent much time in New York.
No, he's never lived in New York. Yeah, he's never He's only ever lived in Maryland.
Does MS thirteen have remote work back in twenty nineteen, No, I mean that's more of a that's an in office kind of yeah.
They yeah, right, it's a data day, you know, you have you have to be Yeah, it's.
Not very liberal on the work from Home thirteen.
Yeah, but also number two in that decision, you'll see that he finds him credible, meaning he believed him and what he said, not only about what happened to him in the past in an Al Salvador, which you know, gave him the basis to grant him humanitarian relief and perform with all their removal, but that he believed him when he just vehemently denied being a member of MS thirteen.
Can we talk about the decision in twenty nineteen which I mentioned you were involved with to claim asylum after many years in the country because some critics and I don't know if the Vice president posted about this, but would look at that and say immediately, huh, this seems like a sort of tactic to you know, bolster the case. But I know that he claims and you've claimed there were there were credible reasons to fear Eighteenth Street gang
Paposa business. Could you take us through that decision a little bit?
Yeah, I mean illegal standards are you know, if you've suffered past persecution in the past in your home country, then that gives you a presumption a future persecution in the future.
And he had suffered past persecution.
He had, He and his family had been through a lot by this this gang in the past.
His father I.
Think had been attacked about eighteen times, had been held up at gunpoint, rob he himself. They for many, many many years were really like terrorizing him. On two occasions, they like showed up at the family's home like fully armed, kind of if you do not give us money right now, we are ready to take your son from you, essentially kidnap him and his brother had also been like beaten, you know, lost consciousness from many meetings. They'd threatened to
rape his sisters. The family had gone through, had moved three times to three different neighborhoods, and the threats persisted, so that this wasn't sort of just a one time hey want money if you know, you know, will hurt you if you don't give us money. This was like sustained over basically his his you know, since he was like an adolescent until he left El Salvador.
Yeah, and the criticism, the criticis I saw was that why didn't he apply in twenty eleven for this, Like, why did he wait until he's picked up at the home depot?
Yeah, I mean I think that's he could have if he probably, if he knew he could have probably and had legal counsel. You know, I certainly would have told him if I had heard his story and he had access to legal counsel, I would have told him, you know, apply right now, and then he would have He would have had a very strong kies and probably would have ingranted asylum instead of withholding a removal.
Lucia. To get back to I think the core piece here, which I think can sometimes get lost in these details, not that these details aren't also important, But everybody involves admits this was a mistake.
Right.
The administration admitted in court they made what they describe as an administrative error. And now Kilmar is in this prison in l Salvador, indefinitely a prison that is known for human rights abuses. You know, the whole point of sending them there seems to have been to send a message about, you know, exactly what sort of punishment will befall you. So everybody acknowledges this was a mistake. You should not have been removed to El Salvador period. What
happens now? What is the next I understand there's a hearing it at one pm today. What do you think will happen there? And what sort of remedies do you believe are available? Because I was reading that. You know, administrations in the past have taken extraordinary measures to try to return people who were deported unlawfully or a mistake was made, but they may not be under an obligation to do so. So what are sort of the legal contours of that fight coming up?
Yeah?
I mean this, uh, this is really is pretty unprecedented. Yes, as you stated, Usually, when in the past government does see that somebody was deported erroneously and they see that, they do take as steps to correct that because you know, a government makes a mistake, they should correct that. But here there they're refusing to do so, even though the consequences here much more drastic than him, just like being deported Telshodor and being able to just live a free life.
He is now yeah, as you said, in a torture prison. Where he is he you know, he doesn't even know his names all over the news right now? You know, he is to you.
You and his family have no ability to nobody.
Nobody is able to even contact him. There's no access even to lawyers in there. They can't even receive letters. They are cut off from the world. So he is alone in there and has absolutely no idea that you know, he's making national news that people are fighting for him, and he you know, I'm sure he's very scared and he might be there forever, and so we're fighting to get him out of there. It's true that, of course the court here can't tell El Savador what to do,
but what we're asking is pretty simple. We're telling we're asking for the court to just order the government to stop paying El Savador to keep him there, and to just simply request for him to be released from there. And there really is no reason to doubt that El Savador, which is a huge ally of the United States, would not uh, you know, do what the United States asks, but they're unwilling to do that.
What's his what's his family situation? He's still live in highlights the Hiatts Bill, like kid's wife.
He has, Yeah, he has a US citizen wife. He has a one uh biological child and that was actually uh he actually missed the birth of his son while he was detained.
And uh.
Nineteen Uh that child, you know, potentially because of the stress of on the life of her son, of her husband being detained, on knowing what would happen in son was born with autism. He's nonverbal, he can communicate. He I believe is deaf in one ear and has severe developmental delays.
Uh.
And then he also has two step children that he's they they for all, he's his their father. The biological father is not in the picture. One of the other kids also has special needs, and the other daughter has epale. I believe it's had like an episode recently, Lucia.
My last question for you. If Emily or Ryan have any others, they can feel free to jump in as well. But let's say that the court tells the Trump administration you have to try to get him back, and the Trump administration actually complies and goes to Bucali says, hey, we screwed up on this one. We want this guy back, and he's brought back. What do you expect happens then, Because my understanding of his legal status is he could
be deported somewhere else, just specifically not else Salvador. So if things work out and he is able to be brought back to the country, what do you think is the best case scenario for him then going forward?
Uh?
Yeah, there, it is possible for him to be deported somewhere else or our procedures to follow though to do that. It's also possible, you know, if they want, they might want to reopen is proceedings, which is what they would have had to do have done if they did want
to deport him to El Salvador. In order to do that right, they can do emotion to reopen and to prove that you know, either the he no longer meets the requirements for withholding and in that case, you know, if that happens, you know, a new defense deportation can be presented, or you know, they could decide to do do nothing right and just let him live with the status that he's he has acause he you know, he
has the illegal status here. He is since he was granted withholding a removal in twenty nineteen, he has been in the United States legally.
Gotcha.
Well, thank you so much for helping to break down all of these details because I think it, you know, really helps people to understand the ins and outs of the system and also the you know, the horror of what has happened here with Kilmar and with his family. Lucien, thank you so much for your time.
Thank you very much.
Yeah, it's our pleasure, pretty extraordinary getting to speak with kill Mar's lawyer and get all the details there. You guys, have any any reflections before we move on to some sort of political news here.
It's one of those those interviews that we do sometimes and we both like from both sides, we've all had this experience on our show. It's what makes her so cool. But for me to sort of like, I have such a fundamental disagreement with the entire process that I was like really eager to hear her walk through the steps and how this happened, especially the twenty nineteen thing. But you know, she's it's her job, she's doing her job. So it was I thought it was.
It was pretty interesting, and yeah, it's just appalling that he's in a torture chamber.
Yeah, yeah, for what a disagreement there, Like if you want to go through the court system and you want to deport him, whether to El Salvador, I mean, she says, look, you can reopen the case and say, hey, this particular gang, the Kelly's delt with him, he could go back, who's the business would be fine, you can do that, but you cannot just send him with no due prosit to a specifically to a country where a judge has said
you cannot send him. And then for all of these people, why are they being put in this torture change?
Yeah, like the like the malnutrition, like the the treatment in that prison for a guy who, since he's sixteen years old is probably you know, work, work, works harder every day than I do in like weeks. And for that and raising these his step kids and his and his kid, who's got who's got special needs? To do that for your full life. And then the reward is to get sent to a dungeon where you're tortured and malnourished for what Like it's evil, it's evil.
It is evil. And especially since the administration's position is like, yeah, we fucked up. No, we're not going to do any thing about it. He just asked a rot like we're not even going to ask m kelly when you just had Christy know him down there, like you know, you can bring it into the prison, you.
Know, and then you don't want to him to port him.
Like right, exactly. You don't think that m kelly would be like sure if you were like, well, we screwed up with this one. We need to get this one back. But the thing is that it reminds me. I don't want to say that's exactly now a situation or anything, but it reminds me of the same incentives that Beebe has to not return some of the hostages, because when some of the hostages came back, they said, actually, we were afraid for our lives from the idea of bombing.
And when I saw that, I knew what I mean. He had been indicating from the beginning like his priority was really not getting the hostages back, in spite of what he was saying. But it's the same thing here. You know, it's one thing to know about this man theoretically read an article about him, know he's a father, et cetera. It's another thing if he can actually tell you, like, this is what happened, this is what I went through, this is what that place is.
Actually, right, they don't want him in sixty minutes.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
I mean, yeah, I was just go ahead, No, it's all going okay. I was going to get back into the whole asylum process thing. We don't need to go there.
I'm sure we will on another day, so we'll just put a pin in that for now. Wanted to get in some political news here because this was pretty extraordinary indication of how much the Democratic base has shifted in
Trump two point zero. So data of a Progress admittedly a progressive polling firm, but they put a hypothetical matchup between AOC and Chuck Schumer for Senate in the field and what they got back pretty astonishing here AOC winning handily fifty five percent to thirty six percent for Schumer. And Ryan, I mean, I'm really excited to get your thoughts on this because it truly is a shift for
the Democratic base. You know, is this idea of AOC challenging Schumer in particular, or I guess potentially Kirsten Gillibrand that has been around for a while, but I think even people like you and I were probably like, I don't know if she could actually win statewide New York, Like it's a different deal, and she has has had more of this like niche progressive appeal her district makes sense obviously, but can she actually win statewide, let alone,
you know, national ambitions. And because of the incredible contrast between the way she has taken the fight to the Trump administration versus how Schumer has been the emblem of laying down and playing dead, the Democratic based feeling very differently about this matchup going forward.
And for the same reason that some on the left have gotten upset with her for being more of a Democratic team player, normy Democrats have warmed up to her because she is more of a team player, yep, with
the Democratic Party. And that book right there at the end of it, it finishes not spoiler with a poll in New Hampshire where I think the Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire, you know, had the highest favorability rating for her, Like I think it might have been Bernie actually might have been a number one or something, or maybe she was even ahead of Bernie.
You can think Bernie usually comes in number one of these things, but.
In particularly among New Hampshire primary voters. So the question was, could she, you know, beat Schumer with upstate New York. You know, it's a combination of suburban and rural Democrats, And I think right now Schumer's at his I mean, maybe he has further low to go, but like he's at it sees at a low after, you know, just his complete capitulation. So a lot of the a lot of the lead you're seeing there is probably more anti
Schumer necessary than necessarily prosy. But it shows that there's a majority of Democrats in New York are willing to say, yeah, yeah, AOC, fine, let's let's let's give that a shot.
And Emily, I think it's not just First of all, I don't think it is just anti shum. AOC is such a big name, like she comes with a whole people have a feeling about her, right And I also don't think it's just that she decided tactically to take this approach of I'm not going to be the outsider bomb thrower. I'm going to play the inside game. But it's it's it's not only that that has made Norman
Democrats more comfortable with her. It's also the fact that Norman Democrats are becoming more comfortable with a bomb thrower and they want I mean, what they're disgusted with the Democratic leadership over is you aren't being aggressive enough. So AOC has been critical of you know, Schumer and others for example, and that's exactly actually what they want to
see at this point. And that's what is really a very different dynamic with your average Norman Democrat versus certainly back in twenty seventeen.
Yes, And the reason this is so dangerous for Chuck Schumer, and this is why he knows that, this is why the Democratic establishment has tried to co opt people like AOC and squash any sort of hint of dissent from leadership, is that so many voters make a lesser of two evils calculation, especially in primaries. And so if they start to see Chuck Schumer as the greater of the two evils,
maybe they're not culture warriors. And you can drag up things AOC may have said about the police or ice or something like that back in twenty twenty, and I think those things will genuinely be harmful to her odds in the place like Upstate if she decides to run. But if they look at Chuck Schumer and say, this guy is just a simp. He's not doing anything, sometimes people will side with the culture warriors over the people like Chuck Schumer, especially if AOCS sounds more like the
version of her who unseated what's his name, Joe Crowley. Yeah, in the first place, I love that his name has just fallen away from consciousness.
But I've forgotten.
You can't forget him. But it is really like, this is what happened with the Tea Party. We talk about this like every week now, but the similarities are absolutely true. It's what happened with Donald Trump. Most Republican primary voters did not choose Donald Trump, and that's why there was some, you know, conversation about whether he would actually win the
Republican primary in twenty twenty four. But they continued to see Trump as a lesser of two evils against the establishment, even though people get exhausted with all of the posting and they don't like the way that he talks, They don't,
you know, necessarily love his history with women. It just gets down to a lesser of two evils calculation, and Chuck Schumer is being dangerously is flirting dangerously with being put in the greater of two evils camp, and that's really what could end up undoing him.
And he's not up for another four years, so to Ryan point like this could be his low and he's able to get it back together. But Ryan, I mean, what do you how are you feeling about the AOC like potential national prospects because I was pretty skeptical. I'm still somewhat skeptical because I think Emily's right. I mean, she she did do a lot of the you know, the Latin X and birthing person like, she did do too much of that kind of academic language that doesn't
land with normal people. But her messaging lately has been fantastic. You know, she's been on the Stopballergarchy tour with Bernie. She's been on the like bread and butter, like class war messaging that I personally think is you know, the most political politically both correct and also politically effective. And also she has won over a lot of the Democratic base. I think she's you know, she's grown in a lot of ways. So I am more open to her as
an effective national candidate than I was previously. Where are you on that question?
I think she's in the ballgame for sure.
Yeah.
The virtue that Bernie had is that even people who didn't agree with him would say, you know, he's he believes what he says he's been saying the same thing, you know, for fifty years, and you can find clips of him saying it fifty years ago, yeah, like verbatim. And so AOC will have the difficulty of like, hey, why aren't you saying LATINX anymore? Like what happened to your pronouns?
And will go there?
Or she'll stick with yeah, any of her opponents with the media will or she'll stick with LATINX and stick with pronouns. And you know, so anytime she, you know, you know, tries to move beyond that era, she's going to get pulled back by it. And and will I think we'll feel like she's being asked to throw some constituency under the bus and isn't going to want to do that, right, But then are you going to get wrapped up in the axle of some you know, silly
policy as a result of that. And so so she she still has the kind of thorns of she's kind of she's kind of tangled up in it, and it's going to be difficult, I think, to just to untangle.
I think, honestly, I don't I don't know, but I mean I think it's honestly better to just own it and lean into it than to be like, who me LATINX?
I mean, especially when.
You're AOC I mean or Kamala Harris, Right, you find a.
Way of messaging in a little bit more, a little bit better. She's she's a great messenger. She could maybe find a way. Yeah, give up on LATINX. I mean, maybe that's the maybe that's your sister soulgent because nobody will actually care about that.
Yeah, I mean, you could. You could see her saying, like, I find it interesting that you care more about a particular word that I use than the fact that the working class is getting screwed by Donald Trump and the billionaire you know, like you can you can there.
Were some communities that there's some communities telling me that they wanted that term. They don't want it anymore.
Fine, fine, Yeah, totally related to this, Ryan you Actually this was not actually particularly on my radar, but these protests that are coming up this weekend appear to be quite large Saturday nationwide hands off anti Trump protests. You see the map here. It was pretty extraordinarily broad movement. You said, you knew, you knew someone who was going to the one of the villages.
Yeah, my dad, My dad is on the villages right now. He says he's a Pennsylvania snowbird. He goes down to the villages in the winter.
So it it says more than eleven hundred rallies, they've had nearly two hundred and fifty thousand RSVPs. That was as of March twenty ninth, so I'm sure they have even more by now. So what's the particular messaging here? Is it just kind of everything or is there a particular focus.
It's it's like anti doge Doge, anti doggie, hands off social Security, hands on Medicare and Medicaid, stop destroying the government, make things better, not worse. So it's kind of a broad resistance to what Musk and Trump are doing, kind of rally. But yeah, I think you're you're going to see I think, uh, you know, huge numbers of people I think are going to are going to turn out for this. There are buses coming to Washington, d C. So you know, it could be could be sizable here.
But even for you know, if wherever you are watching this, there's probably a hands off rally, you know, fairly close. I asked my dad, like, is it a Tesler dealership. He said, now it's at a it's a parking lot, which is which sounds very sounds very villages. But yeah, if the villages is able to bring out you know, hundreds or even thousands of people, which is that this is famously the Republican leaning uh you know, retirement community in Florida.
I think part of the village is was in one of these Florida districts. That was last week, right.
Yeah, there were Randy Fine which which and my dad was saying, no, like, nobody down there likes the guy, including all the Republicans. DeSantis was just ripping him. I saw that yesterday. He's pretty it seems like a pretty despicable dude, and that kind of an arrogant guy who was like angered a lot of people with a real haughty attitude on whatever commission he was elected to serve
before this. But you know, when Republicans, you know, win those races by thirty forty points, it's it's going to be hard to lose. And yeah, he ended up losing to his like a middle school teacher, Josh wheel Buy like ten points or something like that. I mean, being a middle school teacher.
DeSantis said something like, you know, they wanted me to put this guy on the Florida Atlantic Board. I tried to get rid of him, and they didn't want him.
It was pretty.
You know, Santas is this guy is unlikable.
Yeah, in a partisan way, like people just do not like this No.
Yeah, well for good reason when you see the horrific, like monstrous things he says about kids getting slaughtered in Gaza. The thing that I think is important about these protests, Emily is it does comment a moment when Democratic electeds have kind of realized like, all right, we gotta up our game, right. That's what Corey Booker holding the floor.
That represents them realizing like, okay, we're not meeting the but we got to do something right and or else there is going to be a tea party with you know, Pitchforks coming for us. And you also had these election results that Democrats are taking a lot of hard in. Obviously you were in Wisconsin. The Liberal there wins by double digits. They made huge you know, fifteen to twenty point made up ground in those two Florida seats. So there's a little bit of mojo re entering the Democratic Party.
And then these protests come in and it's another you know, visible demonstration of okay, we the base of the Democratic Party is fired up, like they are ready to you know, they are ready to go to war. They are ready to go in whatever direction they think makes sense in order to protest what is being done in this country. So, you know, I think, like, I don't think anyone necessarily expects that it's going to change how the Trump administration
is approaching Social Security, Medicare or whatever. But I do think it will probably strengthen the backbone a little bit of the Democratic Party who will see this show of strength.
I mean, it might change how Republicans approach soci security, Medicare because it's a confirmation of Trump's longtime political instincts. And that's why you saw Josh Holly go into the White House yesterday saying I talked to Trump. He says, nobody is going to touch social Security and Medicaid and you know, trying.
To touching it. It's being touched right now.
There's that video of Bill Cassidy this week on Newsmax. Did you see this crystal of him like accidentally saying cut Medicaid and then realized he meant to say reform and correcting it to the camera and giving a big old grin yea, and like it may turn into one of those situations where Trump ends up saying like, you
guys got up stop. We don't know though, and that's probably not good enough assurance if you're just an average American who relies on those programs, Which is why I think this is a study in contrast with the resistance
that bubbled up in twenty seventeen. And Ryan wrote a whole book about this, But I think as this has we've seen this over the first what almost one hundred days, seventy five days, I think as of tomorrow of the Trump administration, it looks this is a much better democratic resistance than the one of twenty seventeen, because I increasingly think the one that came to be in twenty seventeen morphed into something that ended up greatly backfiring on Democrats
because it wasn't based on class criticism, and this one, so far is is much more focused on that, which is pretty interesting for the Democratic Party. And there's there's just like a recognition that this isn't don't talk about grab them by the pussy like talk about actual nuts and bolts, kitchen table issues that will break through with your regular voter every day.
So not hands off my pussy, hands off my social security.
It's like it's such an obvious, It's like it's you would think.
It's been clarifying, I think for the Democratic base to have this multi billionaire, richest man on the planet, literally wielding a chainsaw on stage, hopped up on ketamine, all going after the you know, going after the federal government on cutting you know, and then and then now they're watching all their four oh one k's you know, collapse into into some puddle, and you know that that's a lot worse for somebody in their seventies than it is foreople in their thirties or forties.
That is down twelve hundred points right now today, by the way.
Another twelve hundred on top of yesterday is sixteen. Yeah, that's like those are those are real numbers.
Starts to be real for sure. Okay, last thing here, got to get Emily in particular, but both of you to weigh in on our friend Laura Lumer.
No literally Ryan, Ryan is actually in touch with Laura Lumer.
Yesterday, I'll pull it.
Up did she yeah, so she she so this again like while the while the global economy is in free fall, and like you know from Trump's tariffs, he's not doing He's meeting with Laura Lumber at the White House before going to play golf. Right, this is his this is on his agenda. So anyway, after she visits, he fired what three people from the National Security Council. The way actios frames are come a day after conspiracy theorist Laura Lumer visited the Oval Office press Trump to fire specific
NSC staffer's axios is not confirmed. Where the firings were directly linked to that incident, with the source familiar said they were being labeled as an anti neocon move. So, Emily, what do we know about these people and their alleged sins? And of course, I mean this comes as the whole Signal Gate thing happened, and no one was fired out of that, including Mike Walls, who is definitely a neo Khan as anyone could see for themselves within the signal chats,
as were pretty much everybody else in that chat. By the way, So he's not fired, but these three people appear to have been have been lumored here in the wake of this meeting, like, what do we know about these people? What do you think Laura Lumer, what is her issue with them?
Et cetera.
Well, Lumur is basically doing the Charlie Kelly chalkboard Peppy Silva thing from its always Sonny in Philadelphia the meme. And I don't mean that in a bad way actually, because some of these people's careers actually really have to start piecing together a puzzle in order to get the big picture of Like okay, and Mike Waltz is one
of them. Uh, they may be talking like quote unquote America First Patriots right now, and you know, staunch supporters of the Trump movement, which is you moving towards China and you know, moving away from the same neo conservative position on Ukraine and Russia. But but h Luma is basically showing that these, uh, some of these allies of
Mike Waltz are sort of like him. You know, he's someone who was an advisor to Dick Cheney, founded a defense contracting group that had big business in Afghanistan, and she was she was kind of connecting the dots and showing that these these folks had a similar career backgrounds that went through uh the like the National Security ringer, and they're, according to Lumer, bringing all of that baggage with them and wrapping it in the America first packaging.
So it's she's completely right by the way. I mean, like there's been some ideological uh, there's been some sincere ideological shifts among people in the Trump orbit who have reconsidered their own priors, and some of that is genuine. But if you look at Mike Waltz, I don't think it's really the case with him. Uh And that's what she's saying is look at these guys he brought with him. You know, Ryan, you what does she tell drop Site yesterday?
She's had a very statesman.
Like respect for the White House in President Trump. I'm not going to divulge any details. Blah blah blah.
Yeah, which is uh so we reported over drop Site that inside the administration, Waltz's n sc IS is just colloquially referred to as the Neoconsecurity Council. It's just it's very much known as the kind of leading edge of the of the warhawk element. You know, she went in and got Doug fights NEPO higher. You know, Doug Fight's one of the leading neo cons of the Bush era, and his kid David apparently was. And it seemed it seems like Trump learned about this and moved on it.
Now he sort of denied it, like do we have the Trump clip talking on Air Force one.
On their first one.
It's it's it's it's quite funny to watch because he's like, look, Laura Loomer, gotta see it. Let me, I'll see if I can find But he's like, look, Laura, Laura Lumer very strong. And what's what's amazing.
Is that.
She did this with Michael Waltz sitting there in the Oval office.
Oh really, he was there, and she's the vice president apparently too.
Lee's got some balls, man, I will give.
She's just sitting there. Oh here it is, she's dropping here. Let me let me play this. She's just dropping all of this research, getting these getting these clowns fired, like right in right in front of their bosses. It's like, you gotta you gotta admire that.
Here.
Let me let's play some Trump here. Tell us a little bit about your meeting with Laura Lumer and Mike Woltz today.
How that? Yeah?
So Laura Lumer is a very good patron.
She is a very strong person.
And I saw her, Yes, she has.
She makes recommendations of nats and people, and sometimes I listen to those recommendations like I do with everybody. I listen to everybody, and then I make a decision. But I saw her yesterday. She was at the ceremony, and uh she is. She'll always have something to say, usually very constructed.
She'll always have something to say, usually very constructive. To the administration.
Not well, she'll recommend that too.
Yesterday she recommends some people for jobs. Did she have anything to do with the.
Nsc aids who were housed.
No, not at all. No, No, not at all, not at all.
I always have something to say, usually very constructive.
Very strong, good patriot. That's so good. She sat there and ripped.
These people off of Air Force one. And then that happened on the campaign. Laura was like on the plane a lot unless a strety in the inner circle. And then Susie Wilds came in and they started.
Blamed they blamed her for him doing that embarrassing thing. They're eating the pets, they're eating the cats, they're eating the dogs. They kicked her.
Off for that well turned down not to matter.
So and to what we just watched from Trump him claiming that it wasn't. Lumer just retweeted herself from thirteen hours ago saying, you know how, you know how you know the NSC officials are reported to President Trump are disloyal people who have played a role in stuff. But tashi Donald Trump because the fired officials are being defended
by Jen Saki Andrew McCabe on MSNBC and CNN right now. So, I mean, I think it's fair to take all of the way that she's talking about it and what happened is pretty clear evidence that this was directly connected.
To making much of an effort to deny that. Yeah, that was one of his book casual No.
Of course, Yeah, you said she recommended some people for jobs. Yeah, for those jobs after she told a fire those people.
I mean she also absolutely bodied Dana Bash. I mean, this is nobody. I feel like it just never gets enough attention that Dana Bash's ex husband, they're married. Well, she covered the Obama administration. You guys remember this better than I do.
But Jeremy the c I A, yeah, this is.
Very closely on Panetta and I think what Lumor was pointing out, I didn't verify this, so it's probably true, sounds true, but it didn't verify this, but that one of Waltz's NSC guys worked for Jeremy ash who obviously has been you know, deep state circles.
Interesting, gotcha, Yeah, Laura Lumeercy's never wrong, so no need.
To there's I think, you know, I I trust her her fact checking new york you know, New Yorker level fact checking.
I guess the last thing I'll say about this is, you know, Waltz seemed to have been protected by the fact that Trump hates Jeffrey Goldberg and didn't want to be seen as giving Jeffrey Goldberg a scalp. So instead, Yeahloomer comes in and is like, all right, well, I guess we're not going to take out that guy, but all of these underlings they're vulnerable, so we're going to come in with a knife with them. So that seems to be kind of what played out here.
It's completely insane. I mean, he's Donald Trump. I have no idea why he's not pushing the issue with Mike Waltz because there are This is the point that we were talking about the internal reporting about UH from drop site, about people just calling it the Neo Conservative Security Council. It's there's like a lot of internal irritation with Mike Waltz. He's he's not the most popular person in Trump circles and he never has been.
Even outside of like ideology.
Well, I think it's both that people see it both in the same way that he's someone who wants to he thinks he can steer Trump in the right.
Here's the kind of guy that would have Jeffrey Goldberg in his.
Phone exactly exactly and then go on Laura Ingram when you know he doesn't really have much of a defense to mount and say I got sucked in you like, it's not a But that's why I don't understand. I mean, he hasn't offered to resign, which would have probably been the patriotic thing to do, to borrow a phrase from Trump himself from reference to Laura Lumour. But maybe it's I mean, I don't.
Know ye the start, Emily, but from the perspective of the internal fight between the neo cons and America firsts Mike Waltz staying on but being completely denuded and and like stripped of power and like losing his staff is probably better for the America First Isolationist Crew than are they replaced by another neo kon Well, the Signal Chat, it's so well jad, I mean yeah, jd Vance, whether or not Hexith you know, lives up to that or he just got reverse back to the you know what
we saw in that Signal Chat A lot of the if you look at the all the different people that made it into the administration despite you know, Jewish Insider magazine, you're trying to stop them, like yeah, those those types what's his name, Bridge, Bridge, Colby, like that his whole faction, Like, you know, they're they probably benefit from Waltz having sticking around but having less power. But yeah, but then are they just going to fill the vacuum themselves and get all war happy?
Yeah, fall in line when Steven Miller's like, no, big guy wants to bomb. So that's what we're doing.
I mean, I guess I would rather, like my defense is, I'd rather have those guys in the room than have a room full of Mike Watson, John Bolton, Yeah, yeah.
No doubt, all right, guys, anything else, Ryan I know you had a story you were following it in God.
Yeah, we're at drop site where we're working on a piece about the medic massacre, which has kind of broken through. It's not out yet, so I'll well, we can talk about that later, but it's like, look for that. People have been following that, probably pretty closely. It's utterly, utterly incredible, utterly unbelievable.
Yeah.
Well in March twenty third dose too. I mean, if this happened at the early stages of the Onslaught and Gaza, there would have been huge press attention. There would have been an effort, a mass propaganda campaign coming from the Israelis compelling, yeah, slide shows and here's a you know, fabricated document that remember the fake folk call, Yeah, the fake audio that was released. That there would have been a whole effort. Now they don't feel like they don't
even have to really do it. Yeah, I mean not to say that they didn't claim they were Hamas or whatever, but uh, there was much less less effort required at this point.
Yeah.
Yeah, all right, guys, Well, thank you as always, and thanks to all of you watching out there. By the way, guys, you know we're able to do these extra Friday shows with your support. So if you're able to become a premium subscriber, we do really appreciate it helps us to be able to, you know, continue, because we've really been trying to be as on top of the news as possible given just how much things are breaking, like all
the time every hour. By now, when I go and Twitter, there'll be like five more stories that we should have covered just right right now, that'll be ready.
Your quote unquote, vacation seemed very relaxing, like a great respite from.
I wasn't spending hours every day doom scrolling, dough worry. Yeah, I totally wasn't doing that. Doesn't sound like you, well, you know seriously, though, I don't feel like I could with my daughter, Okay, Byron, I don't feel like I could step away from the news for a week, Like I feel like I would be lost when I came back.
I feel like I would be completely lost. So I will say I'm glad it was that week and not Liberation Week, because then I just would not have taken a vacation at all, honestly, because it's just too wild. But in any case, yeah, those are the times we live in so we appreciate you guys support if you're able to.
And now we have these Friday shows to work through some of the stuff that happens throughout the week.
Yep, indeed, indeed all right, thanks Emily, have a great weekend, guys. We'll see you soon