Trump faces push-back as he sinks in the polls

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Gatorade, is it in you? I'm Dr. John Gartner. And I'm Dr. Harry Siegel. And welcome to another session of Shrinking Trump. Feeling stressed out? Had a hard week? As a matter of fact. The news has been bringing you down, John. I'm saying this to our viewers, too. Listen, I want you to pretend that you're walking up the stairs to your therapist's office.

Right. And there's a little waiting area, but there's no one there. And the door to your therapist's office is open. You go, you have that mixture of. looking forward to it, but also knowing you're going to have to talk about your true feelings and experience them and life gets more intense. But that's why therapy is good for you. And you walk in, but you have two therapists, not one.

you have you have john and me we are both clinical psychologists we have been talking about and thinking about donald trump his his severe narcissistic personality disorder, his malignant narcissism. And in the last year, we've been really keeping track of his worsening. dementia that has been deteriorating for the past year or two. And we've been doing this every week. This is our 65th episode, John. And each week seems to be more difficult than the week before, sadly.

What do you think? Well, that's true. I mean, I keep joking about it keeps getting worse and it's going to keep getting worse, but it does keep getting worse. I mean, part of part of therapy. is facing reality, even when that reality is dire. And I think we are facing a dire concatenation of his power, a dire aggressiveness on his part. And as we're going to talk about a real failure by the Supreme Court. to be a backstop of any kind.

And we will talk a little again about his dementia and what the updates are on that, as we usually do. And we're also going to talk about our resistor of the week, which is Pritzker. But we should also let people know that I'm going to be on special assignment next week. special shrinking Trump undercover assignment. So we're going to have as our guest host, one of the favorite guests that we've had, Ahmed Baba. Yes, you'll be the co-host, which...

I'm really looking forward to having him back and he'll be our guest as well. So it will be a different kind of show. But John, you know, John's very committed to the muckraking work that we do on this show. And so he's. taking the week to do some undercover work, and we hope to hear back from him in a couple weeks to see what he's found out. You seem very excited about seeing another co-host.

You know, Dean Martin loved Jerry Lewis, but I think he enjoyed taking a break from him once in a while. I just didn't know that we were seeing other co-hosts. I just didn't understand that that was part of the... Part of the arrangement. So we have to have a talk. I see. So it's...

There's a kind of poly quality to it. Is that what you're saying? Well, yeah. I think we're going to get the rules straight so we all know we're all on the same page. That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying I'm jealous. I think Ahmed, you know, Ahmed really respects you. And he understands the role that you play in my media life. And I'm your primary. That I'm your primary. Yeah, you're my primary co-host. But from time to time, when you need to do work, you know.

It's good to have someone who can take your place. And listen, the same thing may happen, and you'll bring in someone to replace me, and I'll be very upset about it. Yeah, we'll see how you feel about it. I'll talk to you about what my feelings are. that's right that's that's what we do folks we're psychologists we talk about our feelings yes even in our spare time we love it Even when they're neurotic feelings or maybe especially when they're neurotic. Especially, yeah.

All right. Well, speaking about nervous breakdowns, our country seems to be having a breakdown and Trump seems to be breaking down and they seem to be happening simultaneously. So there was a little movement. were you gonna say something that's just not a coincidence that they're both that's right there's a cause and effect uh relationship there um

So we've been talking about trying to get this story into the news. And one of the things that's been frustrating us is that it started to be reported on in England and in Ireland. The Daily Mirror, the Daily Mail had actually almost weekly stories. about Trump's dementia. And they're actually starting to follow our show weekly and talk about things we say in the latest episode. But the frustration has been the message isn't getting out to people here in America.

Well, this week we had a little breakthrough, which is, as you know, some of the news services like Apple News and MSN reprint articles from other publications. Well, this week, MSN... and Apple News reprinted an article from the Daily Mirror are talking about Trump's dementia. So let's see that. Psychologists reveal Trump showing, quote, dead ringer symptoms of horror disease getting quote worse and worse a pair of psychologists have claimed that donald trump has been displaying a

dead ringer telltale sign of an uncommon brain disease as they say the symptom is getting worse and worse. And we never said it was an uncommon brain disease. That is a little bit of an error on their part. I just need to say that because dementia is not uncommon, as the audience knows. Clinical psychologists Dr. John Gartner and Dr. Harry Siegel have sounded the alarm over the president's psychomotor performance as they claim the 79-year-old is exhibiting clear signs.

dementia speaking on the latest episode of their shrinking trump show dr gartner explained some of the more evidence that we've been talking about recently has been his psychomotor performance that we're seeing deterioration in his motor performance, which also goes with dementia, because with dementia, there's a deterioration of all faculties, all functions. It comes as Trump, quote, desperately tries to hide the back of his hand and as fears...

for a thinned out president's health sore. Here's a picture. I like this still that they took from Shrinking Trap. We both look very confused. i think we look like we have dementia like what what we look disoriented there um but uh anyway i'm not complaining he continued quote the language and the verbal dysfunction is what we notice first and also what we

notice in terms of his public behavior, but now his motor performance is starting to get worse and worse. Is that the confused look? Concerned. Get that. Get that. There's Harry with his confused look. Now that your picture is showing up in the paper, you're practicing different facial expressions. No, it's flattering. It's not that we enjoy quoting ourselves. I mean, okay, we do enjoy quoting ourselves, but that's not why we're doing it.

we really are just trying to make people aware of this issue but also make them aware of how aware the world is of this issue whether it's being reported or not and actually um it's not a good thing to be honest that we keep being the ones who are quoted because we would like to see more voices right among the professional group right to come forward so it starts to seem like more of a consensus or more of a shared opinion so actually it makes my wife extremely

uncomfortable that we're the spokespeople for the trump the trump dementia telethon see that's what jerry lewis is that your jerry lewis has gone on to host the trump dementia telethon Everybody loves somebody sometime. I think that, no, no, I remember about a year ago, Tim Miller on the Bulwark. said i'm not going to get into psychoanalyzing trump there are two guys who do that already and i was sort of pleased that tim miller mentioned us but not by name but i wanted to say to him

And so say something about it. It doesn't require clinical training to talk about what's obvious. And I think, you know, we saw it during the campaign and now it's, it's.

It's just there's no holds bar. He just he says whatever he says. It just keeps getting worse. Let's show the videotape, as they say. This is well. um i think he's talking about governor gretchen which whitmer whitmer whitmer whitmer yeah whitmer but um he's talking he's talking about christy whitman uh but it's it's all very confused

Everybody standing there, as we know, you don't have to be doing any studies. They should be saying, please come in. Pritzker should be saying that. You know, I did a favor for Christie, for Christie Whitman. Whitmer. A good favor, I think, with the fish, the carp, the China carp. Did you ever hear of it? China carp. And it's taken over your...

Great Lakes, you know about that, right? So he did a favor for Christy Whitman. You've heard of the China carp, right? It's taking over. Yeah, you know about the carp, right? carp it's and it was a good favor yeah yeah they're really good of a bad favor by the way just between you and me but also he doesn't even explain what the favor is he just starts meandering about the chinese carp

Yeah, and Christy Whitman, of course, had been governor of New Jersey like 25 years ago. Right. So again, from a psychological point of view, he was trying to remember something that he did. He kind of slipped because Whitmer and Whitman are close. So it derailed talking about Gretchen Whitmer and then suddenly it got replaced in his brain by Christy Whitman. Then he caught it.

And then he kind of found Whitmer, but couldn't remember Gretchen. Right, right. Who had been in the Oval Office, what, last month? And then starts talking about the carp, the Chinese carp, because it's China. something you can be angry at because it's coming from China. And this all happens in about, what, three or four seconds? Right. And here's another example of him just, and this is the thing, just meandering off topic.

He's asked if he's going to punish Maryland by withholding funds to rebuild the Key Bridge. I don't know if everyone around here knows this, but there's a bridge collapsed in Maryland, a major bridge, the Key Bridge that connects the... port of Baltimore to the rest of the city.

smashed into it so this is like a major catastrophe and obviously it's a federally funded uh in part project to rebuild this bridge in a hurry so people said well if governor moore doesn't play ball with you on immigration are you going to withhold funding for the bridge no no john i'm going to set it up a little bit differently that's not okay go ahead no it's really cool wes moore who deserves

Unbelievable kudos for this. They said that they could rebuild the bridge in six months. He got it done or a year. He got it done in like four or five weeks. He was on it all the time. And now they're asking Trump if he's going to withhold. funds that will reimburse them for what happened. The bridge has been fixed a long time, right? And this is a real kind of stick in the, like a knife, a knife in the back of Moore if he does that.

That's why they're asking. Now let's hear if his answer in any way relates to that question. On Baltimore, you said that you are going to have to reconsider bridge funding. Is that contingent on Westmore cleaning up the streets? No, we were very generous to him on a bridge. You know, a boat ran into a bridge and the bridge came.

down like i've never seen anything the boat was just it just shows you the mass of that boat the power of that boat you know people were up on that bridge painters they were painting the bridge and they were watching it happen and they thought they were very safe they all died

They were painting the bridge. Can you imagine? And they watched the boat. The engines were off. And they watched the boat. And the power of that boat, the mass of that boat, went right through that steel, just like it was nothing. It's amazing. It's called mass. Mass is a big deal. But the mass of that boat, those people all died. But they thought they were totally safe. Two of them were eating their lunch. They were, you know, watching it. They could have gotten off.

Somebody did a very good job. A police officer called in and said, close the bridge. And he did it with with power. Get everybody off the bridge. Close that. That guy should get a medal.

Because he stopped the bridge. A lot of people would have died. A lot more people would have died. The ones that died were the workers on the bridge. And they thought there was no danger. Because, you know, it's a big steel bridge. And it came down like... like toothpicks it was incredible to watch that it was just and they died they all died but that police officer again the police do a great job the police officer did an amazing job and I heard the tapes

He would say get everybody off. Most people wouldn't have said that. You know, when you see a thing like that, you assume it's going to, you know, tap the bridge and it's going to be rebuffed. The thing just came down. I've never seen anything like it. So he did a good job. In fact, I think we should get him in for a medal. The man that gave the warning, I listened to him. Everybody get off screaming. Everybody off. He had the sense to realize that this could be a catastrophe as opposed to it.

ship that's it because the engines weren't working it's just floating it's an amazing thing that a thing floating like that with no power just knocked it right down like it was like it was nothing let's do that let's give him a medal I guess that answers the question.

And again, I just want people to sort of understand that this quality of speech, right, when somebody is just meandering and going into detail after detail, losing the thread of what... the original conversation is about telling this kind of anecdote about the painters on the bridge and they all died and someone warned them but he should get a medal but they didn't listen but it's a complete digression

And mass is a big thing, John. You got to know about mass. Yeah, it's a big thing. I think what's interesting about that is when he starts talking about the policemen. who called with great force and power to get off the close that bridge right now close that trump was identifying with him uh-huh that's what we call a self-object in psychology right right was him you know we should we should reward him just as i should be rewarded from my power and my strength

And indirectly, he's the one getting the medal. Unlike in the case of FIFA, where he just stole the medals from the soccer players. Just took them off. Just stole them. Talk about stolen dollar. One of the soccer players went on social media and really got angry about that. We showed the clip of it a few weeks ago. It's amazing.

All right, so that's it for the dementia update. But there still are these larger issues about Trump's health. you know a couple weeks ago he had these swollen ankles and they said it had to do with um a circulatory system disorder that's not that uncommon for people's age but suggests that circulation is poor

Now people are trying to understand why he keeps having this bruised back of his hand. So let's just show you a visual of that. Someone's put some, I think it's Midas Touch has put together some footage on that. For those of you who are just listening, they're just showing pictures of his bruised hand, showing pictures of him hiding it, and then they say Trump is not well. By the way, I was incorrect. It's not Midas Touch. It's obviously the Lincoln Project.

um so i realize people who can't you know who are just listening uh don't see that but those are pretty dramatic pictures of his bruised hand right and so this led to a lot of speculation people were asking questions so let's see uh what questions were asked and what kind of answers were given trump 79 spotted with new bruise on his other hand so now there's a bruise on the other hand you'll see why that's important in a minute levitt first attributed the discoloration of his hand

to the fact that the president, who is right-handed, quote, shaking hands all day, every day, back when the bruising was first spotted in February. Later, Trump's physician, Navy Captain Sean Barballa. expanded on the explanation saying that bruising, quote, is consistent with minor soft tissue irritation from frequent handshaking and the use of aspirin, which is taken as part of a cardiovascular prevention regimen.

However, here's the problem with that explanation. A new bruise has appeared on President Donald Trump's left hand. adding to the one he had on his right hand for months amid mounting questions about his health. Barbella's elaboration came the same week the White House announced that Trump had been diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, CVI, after going...

undergoing an examination due to having swollen legs. The condition which is common in people over the age of 70 occurs when damaged veins slow blood back to the heart. Now, look, there's been a lot of speculation. Some people have speculated this might be syphilis, those kind of... bruises and actually reduction in circulation can be due to that. But we really don't know. But that's the point. We don't know. We know he's not in good health. We know he's got the...

Venus insufficiency. We know that he's got the swollen ankles. We know he looks tired. Now he's looking bruised. And we know they're lying to us. Oh, yeah. It's all because of his hands shaking. except he doesn't shake hands with his left hand a little problem with that explanation no no well none of his medical examinations are are detailed or or accurate remember when ronnie jackson was oh yes i do he was you know he was 50 pounds less than he looks and in perfect health

He made him taller than he was. And he said that he had amazing genes and he could live to be a thousand. You know, it's interesting. You know, we're going to go later over the cabinet meeting where people are falling over themselves to be more full. some and.

in their North Korean-like praise of the great leader. But even the medical doctors, you know, have to do that. You know, they can't just be like, you know, he's in good health or he's, no, he's an amazing specimen. He lived for a thousand years. He's an incredible.

genes uh and then lying about the fact that actually he lied about the fact they had heart disease uh if somebody had those kinds of numbers while they're on a statin technically they have a heart disease um and he lied about that too and of course we will never know

what really happened with that cognitive exam because I wouldn't put it past Trump either to cheat on it or Ronnie Jackson to lie about it. We already know that Trump has been lying about it for eight years as if he passed a Mensa exam when all he did was pass a screening device that showed

he wasn't grossly demented um yeah no we can't trust any data that comes out of any reports of his medical examination or treatment look they lied about him having code they lied about the fact that he almost died when he had covid That was all kept from the public. So we don't know. Certainly when you see swelling in the feet, you have to think edema, which is what that means. And it means that for whatever reason.

whether it's congestive heart failure or it's difficulties with arteries whatever it means there's a problem of the heart pumping blood both down and and up from various limbs Well, we can only hope, Harry, we can only hope that they're lying to us about the severity of this disorder. Yeah, I'm sure that we can depend on that.

So I hope this is one of their biggest lies ever. So tell us about the resistor of the week. Okay. So, you know. We usually talk about the resistance of the week at the end of the show, but we wanted to give Governor Pritzker...

more prominence at the top of the show. And also I had picked out a bunch of clips from his press conference, but you pointed out that Rachel Maddow had actually had a very long excerpt, a seven minute excerpt in her show. And so we decided that we never shown a clip this long before but she describes it as a historic speech and so i wanted to actually give people a chance we you both did you you suggested this actually that to give people a chance to um really hear

the speech, because every part of it is great. It's still edited, but every part was great. And, you know, we're looking for leaders, right? We're looking for people who will lead the resistance. And here is Governor Pritzker basically saying, do not come to Chicago. Yeah. In case you haven't heard, Trump is threatening to send National Guard and military to Chicago to stop the killing fields. We said killing beds. He had some kind of weird.

I forget what metaphor he used, which is illegal. And it's part of his authoritarian moves. You know, if you start putting soldiers in blue cities with African-American mayors. Who knows how that's going to affect voting in the midterms? For example, it's part of setting up military control of the country, which is what all authoritarian leaders need to develop as they gain power. Yeah, this is sort of like pre-martial law. Right. It's kind of like martial law foreplay. Yeah.

I think that's exactly right. It's getting us comfortable from martial law. It's just getting us to relax and to feel good about it. It's not so bad. Yeah, it's fine. I mean, look, it's reducing crime.

Yeah, not. All right. Well, with no further ado, let's hear Governor Pritzker. Now he wants to send them to the great city of Chicago. The Democratic mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson, and the Democratic governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, have both aggressively and very publicly pushed back against those threats from Trump. Today, the governor in particular made the kind of, I guess it's, I guess you'd say, the kind of formal, forceful shove back.

That might very well go down in the history books. Watch. I want to speak plainly about the moment that we are in and the actual crisis, not the manufactured one. that we are facing in this city and as a state and as a country. If it sounds to you like I am alarmist, that is because I am ringing an alarm.

one that I hope every person listening will heed, both here in Illinois and across the country. Over the weekend, we learned from the media that Donald Trump has been planning for quite a while now. to deploy armed military personnel to the streets of Chicago. This is exactly the type of overreach warned against. And it's the reason that they established a federal system with a separation of powers built on checks and balances. What President Trump is doing is unprecedented.

and unwarranted it is illegal it is unconstitutional it is un-american this is not about fighting crime This is about Donald Trump searching for any justification to deploy the military in a blue city, in a blue state, to try and intimidate his political rivals. This is about the president of the United States and his complicit lackey Stephen Miller searching for ways to lay the groundwork to circumvent our democracy.

militarize our cities and end elections. Look around you right now. Does this look like an emergency? Look at this. Go talk to the people of Chicago. who are enjoying a gorgeous afternoon in this city. Ask the families buying ice cream on the Riverwalk. Go see the students who are at the beach after school. Talk to the workers that I just met taking the water taxi to get here. Find a family who's enjoying today sitting on their front porch and ask

if they want their neighborhoods turned into a war zone by a wannabe dictator. Ask if they'd like to pass through a checkpoint with unidentified officers in masks while taking their kids to school. To the members of the press who are assembled here today and listening across the country, I am asking for your courage to tell it like it is. This is not a time to pretend here that there are two sides to this story. This is not a time to fall back into the reflexive crouch.

that I so often see where the authoritarian creep by this administration is ignored in favor of some horse race piece on who will be helped politically by the president's actions. Donald Trump wants to use the military to occupy a US city, punish his dissidents and score political points. If this were happening in any other country. We would have no trouble calling it what it is, a dangerous power grab.

Earlier today in the Oval Office, Donald Trump looked at the assembled cameras and asked for me personally to say, Mr. President, can you do us the honor of protecting our city? Instead, I say, Mr. President. Do not come to Chicago. You are neither wanted here nor needed here. Your remarks about this effort.

over the last several weeks have betrayed a continuing slip in your mental faculties and are not fit for the auspicious office that you occupy. Most alarming You seem to lack any appropriate concern as our commander-in-chief for the members of the military that you would so callously deploy as pawns in your ever more alarming grabs for power. I know Donald Trump doesn't care about the wellbeing of the members of our military, but I do. And so do all the people standing here.

So let me speak to all Illinoisans and to all Chicagoans right now. Hopefully the president will reconsider this dangerous and misguided encroachment upon our state and our city's sovereignty. Hopefully rational voices, if there are any left inside the White House or the Pentagon, will prevail in the coming days. If not, we are going to face an unprecedented and difficult time ahead.

But I know you, Chicago, and I know you are up to it. When you protest, do it peacefully. Be sure to continue Chicago's long tradition of nonviolent resistance. Remember that the members of the military and the National Guard who will be asked to walk these streets are, for the most part, here unwillingly. And remember that they can be court-martialed.

and their lives ruined if they resist deployment. Finally, to the Trump administration officials who are complicit in this scheme, to the public servants who have forsaken their oath to the Constitution. to serve the petty whims of an arrogant little man. To any federal official who would come to Chicago and try to incite my people into violence as a pretext for something darker and more dangerous.

We are watching and we are taking names. This country has survived darker periods than the one that we're going through right now. And eventually the pendulum will swing back. maybe even next year. Donald Trump has already shown himself to have little regard for the many acolytes that he has encouraged to commit crimes on his behalf. You can delay justice for a time, but history shows you cannot prevent it from finding you eventually. If you hurt my people, nothing will stop me. Not time.

or political circumstance from making sure that you face justice under our constitutional rule of law. Yeah, I knew you were going to say wow.

Yeah. He's so great. I love this guy. I really love him. I would love to see him run for president. Absolutely. And it's, it's, I mean, it's heartfelt. He's being protective. He's insisting on the rule of law. And he's not afraid of Trump. Yeah. Just not. Yeah. No, he's combative in the best way. He's not.

bowing down, he's being defiant, and yet at the same time, as you say, protecting the values that he stands for. And by the way, did you see that he said that Trump has declining mental faculties? He got a big laugh at that line. Like people like, oh, finally someone said it. So I like the fact that he's not afraid to say it. If only all the people in the Democratic Party would echo that message.

Yeah, if only journalists really in America. I'm glad that MSN and Apple News clipped that stuff about what we were saying from a British newspaper. It would be nice if people just followed up on this here. Yeah, yeah, it sure would. And I liked what he said when he sort of chided the press. He was talking more about the authoritarianism, not about the mental decline. But he was saying, hey, come on, guys, up your game.

Don't fall into the reflexive, you know, two sides to every story. And it's all about a horse race. And you got to break out of that mold because otherwise you're in denial of reality. Right. And you're colluding with Trump. i mean yes you're not an impartial you're not a a partial a partisan journalist if you say this person is amassing power illegally that's what he's doing

You just described the behavior, right? That's not partisan. That's just reporting. Right. In fact, what they're doing actually normalizes.

the criminal and the and the insane and the criminally insane uh they just never like well you know i guess it must not be so bad because nobody's hair is on fire i mean you know i thought it was crazy that you know he's speaking swedish now but i mean i guess you know so it it it it it unfortunately the calm sort of you know both sides i think we talked about this last week when they were talking about

that Todd Blanche was going down to meet with Ghislaine Maxwell, you know, to intimidate her, obviously, and to tamper with the witness. And they kept saying, it's very unusual. It's very unusual for the assistant. And the woman used the word unusual like nine times. It's like a hostage video. She can only say unusual, but she's blinking her eyes.

It's really bad. It's really bad. Yeah. And there were a few reporters who said, you know, clearly this gives Ghislaine Maxwell the chance to reassure them that she's not going to. uh to spill the beans on trump and in fact um what um michael wolf has recently said i didn't bring us the clip but that from his sources you remember that birthday card

Yeah, I do remember the naked girl where he says, let's keep our secrets. Yeah, Trump did that, right? According to Michael Wolff, it was Ghislaine Maxwell's people who released that. as a threat that there's more yes i see and then all of a sudden they're flying down to have a conversation with her and then she says oh well i never saw anything that caused me to have any concern yeah And then, oh, she's transferred to a spa prison in Texas. Yeah, exactly.

So that's, you know, we, we see the quid, we see the pro, we see the quo. Okay. Like, like we, how can we miss the quid pro? Whoa, it's right in front of our eyes. Well, but if we don't have a Democratic Party screaming about it and we don't have a press that explains these actions, which really are not hard to explain.

They're just unusual, Harry. I mean, you know, unusual things happen. You know, you have certain eclipses that only come once in a while. And, you know, the cicadas only come every 16 years. Some things are unusual. That's our hard-hitting press. They'll tell you something unusual. Such courage.

Yeah, right. Well, speaking about courage, there was one other speaker in Chicago that I want to highlight. You know, this has been a issue of my pet peeve of mine i am not willing to concede religion in general or christianity in particular to the to the religious right i just won't do it okay and here i want you to hear from this guy is a chicago priest and i want to remind people that our new pope pope leo

is a chicago priest who has already been quite critical of the trump administration well let's hear how they preach the gospel from the from the dais in chicago Rather than exploit our men and women in uniform for your own political theater, look into the mirror and address the acts of violence that you have ordered from your golden oval office. creating violence and chaos throughout this country. Take the wasted money in sending the National Guard and the wasted money.

used on threatening commercials by your Homeland Security Secretary, and use it on real violence and prevention programs that will bring peace. The only one we have to be concerned about is violence is you, Mr. President. Send the National Guard to 1600 Pennsylvania. Yes. Whoa.

I know that was a little rough, that recording. I think someone recorded it from the TV, so you hear them talking in the background. But nonetheless, I really wanted people to hear what that priest had to say. Because there's supposed to be...

people who speak from conscience, right? And, you know, we look at periods like the Holocaust, right? And the complicity of the Catholic Church. You know, Pope Pius did nothing to fight Hitler. And, you know, I have some, you know... close colleagues and friends and people I know who are priests here in Baltimore, and they're concerned that is the church going to really take a stand?

in support of immigrants and against authoritarianism. So I think it's important that we heard his voice. Anyway, the other thing I think that people need to understand, which is important, is we keep talking about bringing these troops into the city. as being illegal and unconstitutional. One of the problems with normalizing these outrageous things is then people forget what used to be normal. People forget what was the traditional or constitutional or legal.

just a few years ago right so i want to give people just a very brief history lesson first of all okay there's a a latin law in latin it's called posse comitatus let me tell you something about it The Posse Comitatus Act is a United States federal law signed on June 18th. 1878 by President Rutherford B Hayes that limits the powers of the federal government in the use of federal military personnel to enforce domestic policies.

within the United States. Congress passed the act as an amendment to an army appropriations bill following the end of reconstruction, and it was updated in 1956, 1981, and 2021. So going back to the post-Civil War, it's been a matter of law, affirmed three separate times, that we do not use the U.S. military. We do not use the US military to enforce the law. We don't do that. We just don't do that.

It goes against our DNA. It goes against our law. It goes against our tradition. It goes against our constitution. It goes against our temperament. It goes against our character. It goes against our values. It is the most un-American thing you could possibly imagine. I don't think... you can name anything more un-American. And just to support that point, let me point out that this issue came up before the Constitution. This issue is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.

So in the Declaration of Independence, there's a series of grievances that they outline that are the justification for declaring war on England and demanding independence. Grievance number 11 is this, quote, He has kept among us in times of peace standing armies without the consent of our legislatures. Exactly what Governor Pritzker is talking about, imposing troops in the streets of their cities without the approval of the local political rulers, in this case, the governor or the legislature.

this goes back to why we fought a war of independence with england to not have this happen in our country john john john He's the chief law enforcement officer of the United States. No, he's not. And he's just trying to make America safe again. That's how he justifies it. Has nothing to do with law or tradition or individual rights as president. It's all made up. All made up. All made up. It's all a lie. It's a total lie. There is no emergency.

He's declared like eight different fake emergencies, and the lower courts have stopped him. We're about to get into this, but not the Supreme Court. And also, it's just, even if there were... problems in the street. It's illegal to use the military to deal with rioting or looting or crime. It's against the law. Well, the National Guard was used during the civil rights movement when governors were not allowing the integration of schools and universities. They weren't federal troops.

They were National and State Guard, which is still only used very, very rarely. But he's sending Marines to... to Los Angeles was just unprecedented unprecedented it just crossed it crossed the line and across the line behind the line It's just so beyond the pale. And people need to understand this. You know, it's like when we talked about the masked ICE agents, it's just beyond the pale. Sending troops to cities is beyond the pale. It just is.

And by the way, the irony is they're not making people feel safe. First of all, they're not actually preventing much in the way of crime. We're going to talk about this, but their arrest statistics are really pathetic. There's actually pictures of the National Guard picking up trash in the parks. I had video, but we didn't have time, so I'm not showing it today. There's a video of them picking up trash in the parks because they have nothing to do.

And the other thing is not only are they – and, you know, of course, Stephen Miller had a tape of this, but I just couldn't stand the little weasel, so I couldn't put him on the show. But he was saying, people can finally – in Washington, they're coming up and thanking me. They can finally go out to dinner again. They can finally walk the streets.

again. Really? Well, in case if you're a restaurant owner in Washington, D.C., that comes as a surprise to you because their business is down 30 to 40 percent since the troops arrived.

Nobody is going out to dinner because they feel unsafe on the streets. Okay? Nobody wants to go out. And I have patients and friends and colleagues who live in D.C. They're all... freaked the hell out by this they're always talking about i just went off my office to get some coffee and there are these soldiers and they had guns and it's like nothing happened to him right but it freaked him out and it should it should

No, no, it's terrible. People are feeling less safe. And they should feel less safe because we're going to talk about this later, but they are trying to encourage these personnel to be... uber aggressive and intrusive about trying to find some crime to fight um but they're but they're still not going into the worst neighborhoods of dc either

They're not going into the really bad neighborhoods, the neighborhoods where there's crime everywhere. They're in the tourist areas. I mean, it's really, it's so corrupt. I mean, I don't believe a word of Trump wanting to clean up Washington. He just wants to exercise power. But he's not even making it look real.

Well, I am worried, though, because I think we did show a video of an African-American in an African-American neighborhood where these troops came up and asked for his ID when he was sitting on his own stoop smoking a cigarette. flash their flashlight to make sure it was a real cigarette not a marijuana cigarette even though it's not illegal to smoke marijuana on your own property in washington dc um so

I think that this could be another stop and frisk kind of thing because he hates minorities. And he's been saying, oh, you know, the slums, it's not popular. We're going to clear out those slums. We're going to get rid of the slums. What do you mean to get rid of the slums? What does that mean? What are you going to do with all the people who live there?

I think wait for phase two, Harry. I think they are going to start moving in on these minority neighborhoods in a kind of stop and frisk mode where they're just going to look for any technical violation that can up their arrest statistics. Yeah, now I hear you.

So I know we're talking a lot about rule of law and that's not necessarily a psychological issue, but we know that the law is really where this battle is being, one of the places where this battle is being fought right now. And one of the things that we've been pointing out is all of these cases.

where lower court judges, even some Trump judges, but as you've pointed out harry um and maybe i'll have you read the the first case even some this first case we're going to talk about is is a trump judge have been ruling against trump in fact virtually every case that's been brought against him before a lower court judge, he's lost.

Because what he's doing is so blatantly illegal and dishonest and unconstitutional that anybody with a brain in their head and even one eye in their head can see that this is absolutely a flim flam, a crime. bullshit, an attack on the Constitution than just an excuse for an authoritarian takeover. They're not stupid.

okay you can't just and so at every level they've been saying no you can't discontinue the funding to harvard no you can't outlaw all foreign students no you can't um you know stop giving grants to cities or you can't stop giving money that's already been appropriate. No, you can't fire the whole federal workforce. Can't, can't, can't, can't, can't. And you can't throw a ham sandwich at an ICE agent.

Oh, we're going to get to that. All right. Let's look at the at the first. Judge dismisses Trump administration's suit against federal bench in Maryland.

the judge used the ruling to take President Trump and some of his top aides to task for having repeatedly attacked other judges who have dared to rule against the White House. In escaping 39-page ruling, the judge thomas t cullen called the suit quote novel and potentially calamitous unquote saying that the administration had simpler and clearly more legal ways to contest the standing order aside from bringing a suit against all 15 federal judges who sit in maryland over the past several months

principal offices of officers of the executive and their spokespersons have described described federal district judges across the country as quote left-wing liberal activists radical politically minded rogue unhinged outrageous and overzealous and unconstitutional crooked And worse, Judge Cullen wrote, although some tension between the coordinate branches of government is a hallmark of our constitutional system.

This concerted effort by the executive to smear and impugn individual judges who rule against it is both unprecedented and unfortunate, he concluded. A Trump judge. And this was outrageous because the, I forget which judge had ruled that against some of their more aggressive immigration procedures that Trump wanted, he decided to sue. the entire federal bench of maryland which has never been done before which is insane

And which makes no sense. And so any fair-minded judge, this judge is actually from Virginia. They had to bring him over because they were suing all 15 Maryland judges. There was no Maryland judge who could rule on the case. And it's so obvious. and it's so obviously just an attack on the rule of law itself you don't just

Sue a whole state's judges because you don't like the ruling that one judgment. I mean, it's so outrageous. It's such an attack on the judiciary that thank God this guy had the integrity to stand up. And I'm just going to quickly go through some other cases that just happened. This happened this week, okay, where lower court judges ruled against Trump. Let's look at the one with Rodrigo Garcia. The Trump administration is, quote, absolutely forbidden.

from removing Abrego Garcia, judge says. A federal judge on Monday doubled down that the Trump administration is absolutely forbidden, end quote, from removing the one-time wrongfully deported man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, from the U.S. for now. U.S. District Judge Paula Zinnis

An appointee of former President Obama blocked Obrigo Garcia's deportation to Uganda until she can hold a hearing to determine whether the administration will let him contest his removal to the third country. And by the way...

There's another piece of this that I just want to give for color. She had the government lawyers from the Justice Department, she said, i want you to repeat after me because i don't want there to be any confusion this time because remember with judge bozberg he very clearly said you cannot transport these men to uh you know these argentine men to argentina

Argentina until they've had their due process. And then they did it. And then he explored holding them in contempt and nothing ever happened. So this time she's saying, so there's no ambiguity repeat after me i want you to say you are not going to deport this man okay until we have this hearing right okay say it after me good on the record now um yeah this is what they have to do with these idiots okay here's another local judge

Judge blocks Trump from pulling funding to 34 more quote sanctuary cities. The order expanded a previous one in April that barred the Trump administration from withholding federal funds to 16 cities and counties over their local laws. Okay, so you can't do that. Okay.

and then here's something else that that a local judge ruled on so you know now that they've got these thugs uh you know patrolling the streets and they are getting aggressive and they are being more aggressive with minorities they decided to search a guy and the only probable cause was that he was black and they searched his backpack and indeed he did have two weapons however it was an illegal search let's hear what the judge had to say about that

The most illegal search, end quote, judge pushes back against D.C. criminal charges. It is without a doubt. This is the judge talking. It is without a doubt the most illegal search I've ever seen in my life. U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Farquh said from the bench. I'm absolutely flabbergasted at what has happened. A high school student would know that this is an illegal cert. So they are outraged. But of course, here's the problem. These local judges keep getting overturned.

either by Trump-heavy appeals courts. or by the Supreme Court. So at the local level, all of the judges are doing the right thing. They're all putting it on the brakes. They're all calling it fraudulent. They're all putting in stays and stops and dismissing cases. The problem is that...

Things are rotten at the top. Let's look at some of this Supreme Court reaction. So first of all, I want people to know before we do that, another outrage from the Supreme Court happened this week. We have another unsigned order. And it's about something important. Supreme Court lets Trump administration cut NIH grants for disfavored research.

The court's order was fractured with the justices splitting and whether the individual cancellations and policy behind them could be challenged in the federal court. In a fractured ruling, the Supreme Court on Thursday ruled by a five to four vote that the Trump administration could for now.

cancel more than $780 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health that the government said had been intended to explore topics like diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, gender ideology, and vaccine hesitancy. But a different five-justice majority lets stand. For now, the lower court's ruling that the administration's underlying policy directing the cuts was probably unlawful and should be put on hold. Only Justice Amy Coney Barrett was in both majorities.

The court's order is not the last word and the case will proceed in lower courts. The upshot of the scrambled ruling subject to ongoing litigation appears to be that the grants already canceled will not be immediately reinstated, but the recipients may be able to sue in a specialized court.

further cancellations may be barred. In a concurring opinion, Justice Barrett wrote that challenges to individual grant terminations had probably been filed in the wrong court, but she said the challenge to the policy guidance had been filed in the correct court.

So the bottom line is there's like almost a billion dollars worth of medical research that they're stopping in the middle. So all the work that's been done so far will be wasted. So whatever progress they were going to make on any of these diseases is going to be lost. And why? Because they feel in some way these research projects have a DEI.

slant or taint or contamination or bias or they're not about dei these aren't like these aren't like psychology studies you know about like helping minorities to you know feel comfortable or help prejudice you know microaggressions against my no this is like they're trying to solve medical diseases you know maybe some of the grants look at racial risk factors or something like that exactly exactly but that no no no it's it's

The pushback's important. It's interesting that Amy Coney Barrett split on those two. She tends to do what she thinks is right. I still think she's a hope. I still think that Amy Coney Barrett and John Roberts have not fully completed the transition to a zombie. I believe that there is still actually a remnant of humanity, a remnant of conscience in both of them, even though they're wrong most of the time.

Right. I mean, unlike the other four justices who really, I think if Trump passed a law saying that, you know, all Jewish firstborn children must be executed, I think they'd vote in favor of it. Or they would say basically we're going to lift the stay on executing the Jewish children. So in the meantime, he can he can execute the children. But we are while while it's wending its way through the court. So just hopefully.

You know, hopefully not too many of them will be killed before it works its way through litigation, but you know, you never know. And not only are they doing that, but they're sending a message to these lower court judges. You know, one of the opinions, the one on birthright citizenship. where the judge correctly put a stay on Trump's attempt to eliminate birthright citizenship, what they said is that, well,

It really is beyond the ken and the authority of a federal local judge to put a national stay on something. Of course, they didn't mind that when a Texas judge put a stay on Biden's. student loan forgiveness. That was an emergency. It's so hypocritical. It's completely hypocritical. And so now they are basically warning these lower court judges, don't get in our way. Here's what they had to say. Gorsuch and Kavanaugh warn lower court judges in Trump cases.

This is now the third time in a matter of weeks this court has had to intercede in a case squarely controlled by one of its precedents, wrote Gorsuch, who was Trump's first nominee to the high court. Kavanaugh was Trump's second. When this court issues a decision, it constitutes a precedent that commands respect in lower courts.

Other conservatives have been just as harsh this year. Justice Samuel Alito in March accused a federal judge in another case involving Trump policy as committing a, quote, act of judicial hubris and, quote, self-aggrandizement of its jurisdiction. In abiding dissent in the research grant decision on Thursday, liberal justice Kentonji Brown Jackson described the result as, quote, Calvin Ball.

jurisprudence in reference to the popular Calvin and Hobbes comic. Calvin Ball has only one rule. There are no fixed rules, Jackson wrote. Quote, we seem to have two rules. That one. And this administration always wins. So boy, that's telling it like it is. So there's two rules in the Supreme Court, Harry. One is there's no rules. The other is the administration always wins.

And that's coming from a Supreme Court justice. You know, it used to be Supreme Court justice were very reluctant to criticize each other, right? They spoke in, you know, it was really a big deal when Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented on the Al Gore case. And instead of saying, I respectfully.

dissent she just wrote i dissent right and everyone going oh justice brown okay is saying these people are crooks these people are evil these people are enemies of the constitution and they only have two rules there are no rules and the administration always wins i mean this you couldn't really be much harsher

Well, Harry, living near D.C., I really just do want to give people an update and also help to clarify what's really happening in this city and what happens under Trump military occupation. One of the things that you were talking about kind of laughingly, and it does make them a bit of a laughingstock, and they know that, is that they're not really arresting many people, and the things they're arresting them for are such minor...

uh crimes well you know harry there's a solution to that there's a solution to that let me show you what it is let me show you the solution Pirro, who's now the person in charge of the ghost attorney's office in D.C., Pirro orders office to maximize criminal charges on street arrests. The instruction amounts to a declaration that the understaffed U.S. Attorney's Office will seek to ramp up criminal charges arising from the President's takeover of law enforcement in the Capitol.

The U.S. Attorney in Washington, Jeanine Pirro, has instructed her prosecutors to maximize criminal charges against... anyone arrested in the administration's crackdown on street crime and charged them with stiffer federal crimes whenever possible. Ms. Pirro held a staff meeting on Monday. as did her deputy overseeing criminal cases to emphasize that going forward, there would be far less prosecutorial discretion to allow for charging.

lesser offenses in any case, according to the people familiar with the remarks. In line with the President Trump's directive to make D.C. safe, U.S. Attorney Pirro has made it clear that the old way of doing things is unacceptable, said Tim. a spokesman for Mrs. Pirro. Quote, she directed her staff to charge the highest crime that is supported by the law and the evidence. So talk about not feeling safe, right? Not only do you have a roving military force looking.

for some kind of crime, stopping cars with no reason at checkpoints, accosting people, demanding their ID. So not only are you basically subject to unlawful search and seizure, but then if they find anything, They're going to throw the kitchen sink at you.

right so god forbid you happen to be walking down the street in washington dc and some guy comes up to you uh and demands your id and notices oh you're doing something a little irregular there you're breaking the law you're jaywalking i don't know smoking pot somewhere. You're not supposed to buy. I don't know what drinking or peeing somewhere. You're not supposed to, I don't know. And they're going to make it as my father used to say, you're making a federal case out of this.

So that's what they wanted to take any infraction, no matter how minor, and make it a felony. So why would you feel safe? You've got to get those crime numbers down, John, so that Trump can say he fixed it, which he already said, by the way, that he fixed it. right well what he's trying to do is get the crime numbers up right by these is a roving police force looking for crimes uh and looking so so basically everyone in washington dc is a target um no wonder

All the people I talk to in D.C. say the streets are empty. No one wants to go outside. No one wants to visit. Tourists don't want to visit. Foreign tourists don't want to visit. Domestic tourists don't want to visit. You're arguing with success. Look, he's made Washington safe again. Right, right. Well, I guess if there's no people, it's safe. If no one's going outside, sure. That's right. It's like COVID out there. I mean, like everyone's staying home. It's like the first days of COVID.

Exactly. Crime went way down. Right. He is a plague, actually. So it's actually appropriate. So they're trying to ramp up all of these charges. Right.

So what's the result of these inflated charges? Well, let's give you an example. Prosecutors fail three times to charge woman with felony assault of FBI agent. in dc it is highly unusual for prosecutors to fail even once to obtain an indictment from a grand jury given the way the process is stacked in favor of government so let me just say a little bit more about this case so

This is one of these cases where they were roughing up some immigrant and some citizen got in the way, was recording it, was questioning them. So of course they do what... you know was appropriate which is five burly men body slammed this poor woman to the ground i mean that's that's what we do now um and apparently while she was like being manhandled to the ground and flailing her limbs she

kicked or hit one of the agents while she was being accosted and assaulted. And they're trying to charge this woman with a felony assault. Well, it's like, remember they accused the representatives in New Jersey of body slamming an ICE officer? It was like an elderly woman in her 60s. Exactly, exactly. A small elderly woman. And she even said, look at me, look at me. She's on TV. I look like someone who could body slam one of these giant ICE agents. She was a congresswoman.

So just so you know, statistically, the odds of a prosecutor going before a grand jury and failing to get an indictment is less than a fraction of 1%. In other words, like 99 point something percent of the time, I don't know the exact, they will get the indictment. And the reason that's why they have that expression, you know, you could indict a ham sandwich. You were talking about that last night because.

Only the prosecution gets to give evidence. There's no defense witnesses. So the prosecution is totally in charge of the process. They say, here's all the bad things they did. Here's the evidence. Here's the testimony. And I just want you to charge them. They refused. Not once. Not twice, but three times.

and i thought to myself now that's really unusual right if it's less than one percent of the time that they can't get an indictment what are the odds that they can't get an indictment three times well i guess from one sense it would be from if they were independent events right like flipping a coin it would be

0.1% times 0.1% times 0.1%, which would be like one in a quazillion, right? But these are not independent. That's the same case. But I thought it's so unusual. I could never remember that happening. And I thought...

i'm sure you couldn't and i thought well you know maybe i'll ask the audience we have like 50 000 listeners maybe can any of you ever remember a prosecutor trying three times to indict someone failing to well then i realized i don't need to ask the audience i can ask the world's largest audience right i asked chat gpt has it ever happened before that a prosecutor has tried three times to get an indictment and failed. This is what ChatGPT had to say. That would be extremely unusual.

The general pattern is since U.S. grand juries indict in over 99% of cases brought, it's already rare for them to refuse even once. For a prosecutor during the same case three times to a grand jury and still... would be almost unheard of. And I asked in my question, please list all known examples. Known examples. I wasn't able to find any documented cases in which a prosecutor tried three separate times to indict the same defendant and failed every time. So once again, something unprecedented.

Well, you know, when you worship your president as attorney general, as Pam Bondi does, it doesn't matter. You just do whatever you can to please him. Wasn't there a similar case of they couldn't find a woman? Did you look that up? There was a similar case we were talking about. The Justice Department official who threw a sandwich, a Subway sandwich, at the ICE agents. I don't know if... They were hit by the sandwich. I'm reasonably certain they weren't injured by the sandwich.

I don't think we can really say that he assaulted them with the intent to injure them with a sandwich. Okay. And so guess what? I'm not going to show the visual of this, but the grand jury failed to indict sandwich man too. Well, you see, they say you can indict a ham sandwich, but you couldn't even indict a person for throwing a ham sandwich. That's how bad they are. But what you would say, John, if I were presenting this stuff on the show, you would say, but Harry, that's not the point.

The point is to intimidate. Right. Because you still have to be indicted or almost indicted three times. Right. So that's going to get people not to challenge this authoritarian action. that that's why they're doing it in fact the last time i remember a major prosecutor not getting or any prosecutor not getting an indictment was remember durham the special prosecutor who was investigating the russia investigation

He also failed to get an indictment from a grand jury for a number of the subjects. Yeah. So they've got nothing with nothing. OK. And even just the. An average person with common sense can see that they are full of it. They are full of it. But again, look, they're investigating the Russia thing again. after Bull Durham already did it once. They found nothing. See what I did there? But that's not the point. They just want to keep...

making these people uncomfortable. They will keep intimidating their so-called enemies. Well, and some of them, these prosecutions will get through, right? I mean, some of these people will go to jail. I mean, so it's not a joke. This isn't performative. They're really trying to send people to jail. Oh, yeah.

And usually when the state wants to send someone to jail, they do. Unless the cases are so bad that you can't get a grand jury to indict. Exactly, because it could be. Well, you know, and this is the thing, because we now have a. whole administration that's based on lies uh and there is no reality basis for anything that they do okay it's always sort of a shock when reality

pushes back, right? And this is reality, right? This is a jury of your peers. This is reality saying apolitical people with common sense. We don't see it.

However, if only they could see what the cabinet sees. You all haven't stopped by the Department of Labor. Mr. President, I invite you to see your big, beautiful face on a banner in front of the Department of Labor, because you are really the transformational president of the American worker, along with the American flag.

President Roosevelt. Working for this government, for you, is the greatest honor of my life. I tell it to everybody and I really do feel that way and I thank you. You have breathed life back into the profession of law enforcement, your respect for law enforcement.

is so incredible. It's making a difference. This is just such a great opportunity really to recognize your leadership as a true champion for working people. Well, everyone knows there's no stronger advocate for hardworking American families than you. First of all, thank you for the opportunity to work for you. Our country has never been so secure thanks to you. You have brought us back from the edge. And there's only one thing I wish for, that that noble committee.

finally gets its act together and realizes that you are the single finest candidate since the noble piece this noble award was ever talked about to receive that reward it's pretty great to celebrate labor day with uh with builder who loves labor. The great Trump projects have come from the very men and women we're going into this weekend to celebrate. Thank you for saving college football, by the way. We're all very grateful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

you're just a transformational figure it's just so amazing what you've done it's just incredible Nobody ever deserved the Nobel Prize as much as you. Nobody since they had a Nobel Prize. Look, the guy called it the Nobel Prize because Trump had once called it that. Yeah. Well, he might be a candidate for the Nobel Prize. No, but you're such a sycophant that when Trump mispronounces the Nobel Prize as noble, then you have to say it? That's funny. That's funny. That's right.

that's a good point from now on from now on it will be called the noble prize From now on, I'm alluding to that movie Bananas where Woody Allen becomes the dictator of a South American country, whereas it's like... castro beard and he goes crazy he has like a manic break and he's on the uh the balcony and he's issuing all these very arbitrary uh presidential directives

the official language of bolivia is swedish from now on everyone will wear their underwear outside their clothes from now on so from now on it's the noble prize but this is the worshiping you know that's it's um it's so uh so it makes me so uncomfortable it's so revolting uh and also it's it's so un-american okay when this is very north korea-esque right oh the dear leader you know he's he's eternal he's supernatural he's uh you know you have to fall over yourself

in effusive, ridiculous praise, right, of the narcissistic, omnipotent dictator, right? This is so un-American, it's revolting. No, and in North Korea, because he withholds education. The people in the north really believe that he's a god. That Kim Jong-un is a god. It's hideous what you can do to a whole population if you just withhold information, education, food.

Yeah. You know, they'll worship you if you tell them that's what they should do. And if you tell them that if they don't, you'll kill them. That's always a good incentive, too. You know, it works wonders. You know what President Johnson said? It was a little risque. He said, well, you've got their balls in your pocket. Their hearts and minds will follow. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's true. When people are under threat, their hearts and minds will follow. I mean, if you're withholding food, if you're threatening people's safety or livelihood, their hearts and minds will follow. That's unfortunately how human beings usually work. Not always, but usually. But Johnson changed minds about civil rights. That's true. That wasn't his only technique.

That's true too. Okay. I actually want to show a couple more clips from this revolting meeting for a particular reason because just to show, we had other clips that we were going to add to show the contrast between what they are saying. and what the reality is but instead i'll just narrate the reality so here is scott um besant talking about how he has restored faith in the federal reserve

Sir, as we've said very often, economic security is national security, and our country has never been so secure thanks to you. You have brought us back from the edge. You have the overwhelming mandate. from the American people you're restoring confidence in government a topic that is on the front of everyone's mind the Federal Reserve The Federal Reserve's independence comes from a political arrangement between itself and the American public, having the public's trust.

is the only thing that gives it credibility and you sir are restoring trust to government you So by the way, for those of you who are not familiar with my truth to Republican dictionary, it's called opposite speak. So he's doing the opposite. Independent Federal Reserve is a linchpin.

a linchpin in the american economy a linchpin in what makes the american economy people have faith in the american economy not only americans but even equally important foreign investors because an independent federal reserve is going to regulate the economy according to statistics according to data not according to the whims of a president every president has wished they could control the national the federal reserve every president wished that they could juice up

lower interest rates and create a free credit party that would boost the economy, juice the economy and make them look good. But no president has ever tried to break. the fierce and absolutely legally enshrined independence of the Federal Reserve. Well, right now, they're trying to fire a woman on the Federal Reserve who is...

Right now, it's like five democratically appointed people to four Republican appointed people on the board. And of course, we have Jerome Powell, who was appointed by Trump, but who's been... actually functioning as an independent and capable federal reserve head but if they had five seats on the board and the majority they could exert a lot more power so they're pressuring this um i'm sorry i'm actually blocking on her name

I apologize, but it's an African-American woman to resign and threatening to fire her. So first of all, now they're testing the legality of whether she can be fired. She can't. It's not legal for the president to fire her. It's legal for cause. Now, it's never happened in the history of the United States. So apparently there's never actually been, in other words, it's meant to be a major cause, right? Not a small thing, right?

And this is ironic because Trump was convicted of 34 felonies for lying on his mortgage and applications and his taxes. But they're accusing her of mortgage fraud. What was it she did?

she she lives in one state she bought an apartment in atlanta as a second residence but you get a better interest rate if it's your primary residence and she declared it was her primary residence maybe she was planning to move to atlanta Or maybe she, you know, look, I mean, I don't have any mortgage applications that you filled out, but I mean.

i i got one of those no doc loans you know during the the go-go uh you know 2006's you know when anybody could get a mortgage you know so if you put 20 down they called it a no doc loan didn't have to document your income. So the way I financed my house is I had the 20,000. My income didn't justify the mortgage, but I lied about it. Oops. Uh-oh. Harry, now they're going to know how to come after us.

oh they're gonna come after us harry they're coming after you i didn't lie in a mortgage application but here's the thing have you ever known anyone to be prosecuted for the way they filled out a mortgage application i mean this is but but they she hasn't been prosecuted right this hasn't been this is not a case at all it's just Someone found this, one of Trump's...

you know people in his administration who's going looking for dirt said they thought they saw this it could be justified easily so trump says well it's very serious because you know the federal reserve board is really in charge of mortgages She's really not in charge of interest rates. It's an obscene power grab. Yeah. And she's saying, I'm not going anywhere. Yeah, she's refusing to leave. Good for her.

She got Abby Lovell, who's brilliant. Brilliant lawyer. And we'll see what happens. And I think, I mean, the Supreme Court's been disappointing us left and right. I don't see them.

okaying this one well hopefully not i think there was you it was you harry that said that when they made the decision to let him fire a whole bunch of federal workers or fire the i forget which case it was fire the institute of peace people they explicitly referred to the federal reserve as being because these were independent institutions

that he did not have the authority to fire people but they gave him the authority but they explicitly referred to the federal reserve as being the exception or the case where he wouldn't have that authority so let's see what they actually do you know they have so many ways to intimidate people though you know earlier about a month ago i i wanted to show this in the show but it really didn't go anywhere an an earlier democratic member of the board resigned a month ago no explanation

Okay. She just resigned. Well, there's something going on there, right? I mean, it could be personal. She could have cancer. I don't know. But I suspect that she was being blackmailed or threatened, right? Who just suddenly quits as being on the Federal Reserve Board? And no explanation. It wasn't like I want to spend more time with my family or I'm ill. No explanation. Look, I wouldn't put anything past these people. Absolutely.

And one last one that I want to show is, as many of you know, the farmers have been taking it in the neck from the Trump administration. Now, most of them voted for Trump. Having a little trouble having complete sympathy for them, but they're really getting killed.

First of all, a lot of their income came from USAID because the government would buy their crops and then donate them or sell them overseas. Also, their crops are rotting in the fields. There's articles about this, especially in California. care about california but the crops are riding the field because there's no workers to pick them uh they're they're scared they're running away they don't want to be arrested so

These strawberries are rotting in the field, all kinds of things rotting in the field. And the tariffs are hurting the farmers because they're... crops are being sold for higher prices and so they're not able to compete as much with international competition so um i had a whole sequence about farmers and how they were losing money and blah blah blah but we i didn't want to waste the time but here's

what the Secretary of Agriculture has to say about what Donald Trump is doing for the farmers in the agricultural sector. Part of this effort to represent the farmers, the ranchers, the agriculture industry at this moment in time, which I do believe we're in a revolution. 1776 was the first one, 1863 or so. Abraham Lincoln was the second. This is the third with Donald Trump leading the way. And we are saving America. It's the third revolution. He's saving America.

Sorry, I'm just verklempt. Well, I'm glad you said that, because I think you have to be straight with the audience, you know. that we've come to a legal settlement with the trump administration that just happens to be two million dollars the limits of our malpractice insurance but one of the conditions is that we also have to praise trump so i just want to take this moment to thank him for

This is a revolution. This is definitely a revolution that he is destroying America. He's destroying it better than anybody has ever destroyed it before. He's been nothing like it. Nothing like it. Nobody's ever seen anything like it before. They can't believe it. It's incredible. He's unbelievable. It's amazing. Thank you, President Trump.

Because of all the malignant narcissists, he's the most malignant. Nobody out malignants him. He's the best. I just wish I could have been at that cabinet meeting. I know, I know. And I could have told him to his face how important he is. Okay, well, this is good. So this is just how we, you know, so they don't take our houses.

back to the regular show well the other piece of hope will you say something harry no no no i'm i'm with you i i think i think we had a good public service announcement and now we're going back to the program right there we go back back to reality um another hopeful thing another source of resistance is one of the things that we've been pointing out is that if they don't

grossly rig the elections it's almost a guarantee that we should take back the house first of all that's just what happens in off your elections with the party in power anyway but also There's been a radical shift. We've shown poll data, right? People are angry. His approval rating has plummeted on every issue, on every issue. And Republican...

Congressmen and senators are starting to feel the heat. So I take great pleasure in showing you this video. So Senator Susan Collins has not had a town hall. In like five years. So the town hall came to her. She was at some sort of. small bore, you know, dedication ceremony. I don't even know what it was. She was dedicating a building or something. She was cutting some kind of a ribbon and her constituents decided to show up.

Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame! I wish I could have been there. Me too. And Susan Conner would say, I don't know what you're all talking about. I just... approved of you know everything they did and then i say i was thinking about it she's been doing this for years She was very concerned. Before she enabled The Devil, she was very concerned about it. I thought about it, but I eventually voted with him.

I mean, she's really despicable. And she voted for Kavanaugh after he assured her that Roe v. Wade was settled law. Right. And assured her that he wasn't actually a serial sexual abuser, which he obviously is. But she took a real stand of principle, right? Because she insisted that the FBI be allowed to conduct its investigation.

a truncated investigation in which they were explicitly told not to interview any of the witnesses. Right. And that was convincing. That was enough to allay her concern. and then when he overturned roe v wade she said she's very upset because he had told very disappointed i'm very disappointed um well just because i love it so much here's another clip from the same meeting because i just can't get enough of it Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame! Let's just Medicare! Medicaid!

the Republican Party has made to this big ugly bill. That's what you're saying. Get out of here. So now, if you would let me. Celebrate. There's no celebration. There's no celebration. You're not so slim yourself. You are supposed to do your job. Your votes destroyed our Supreme Court. You refuse to bring that town home. Jesus, you are hurting. Hurting is on my knees. Where are you from in genocide?

Would you just listen to this? You have voted for art, Israel. Every vote. I have a suggestion. Would you listen to the suggestion? Vote Graham Plattner! Yeah! Would you listen to the suggestion? It better include the town hall. Here is my suggestion. I would like the town of Searsport which has worked so hard with state, local, and with me to bring today about, to be able to celebrate. What about Gaza? Why? Why should we wait? Why should we wait? Why?

Can I just make a suggestion? Can I just make a suggestion? Can we just celebrate the time and not think about the fact that you're probably going to die because you're going to lose Medicaid and I voted to destroy democracy? But can I just make a suggestion? Can we just be happy about Searsport and all the good things that it's doing? Talk about not reading a room.

Shame! Shame! And I love the way she says, can I make a decision? So it better be a good one. How about a town hall, someone says. That's a good question, yeah. So the people are getting angry. You know, we've shown pictures from other town halls and these people are getting booed out of the room. You know, they're being they're practically taking a hook and taking them off stage in their own districts. So I'm hoping that she loses reelection. I don't know.

she up again? I think soon, isn't she? I think soon. And the other thing I think people can take hope from, again, if we're able to have unrigged elections, is our optimism about taking the house if the elections are fair here's a canary in the coal mine i'll let someone tell you about there was recently a special election in iowa because a congressman a republican congressman from iowa passed away but let's hear about the results of that election

We've got some massive breaking news. Justin Democrat Caitlin Dre has flipped Iowa Senate district one. This is a district that Trump won by 11 and a half points in 2024. She defeated Republican Christopher Prosh in a landslide special election. broke the GOP supermajority. Dre won with 55% of the vote compared to Prash's 44%, a massive swing towards the Democrats. The seat became vacant in June when former Republican state Senator Rocky DeWitt died.

in office from cancer. DeWitt won the district's last election relatively comfortably in 2022. So this is a massive change in the state. Dre is a 37 year old founder of a group called moms for Iowa. That's a grassroots organization focused on curb.

gun violence and championing reproductive rights. She served on local boards and statewide political committees and wants to increase state education funding in the district. On the other hand, her Republican opponent is as MAGA as it gets and ran supporting trump's immigration crackdowns he's very anti-abortion he says climate change is a lie he spreads anti-vax conspiracy theories trump's 2020 election lies i could keep going but i think you get the point this is a race that the democratic

National Committee put a lot of resources into, mobilizing a team of more than 30,000 volunteers to get out the vote and hosted text banks and phone banks. Democrats have been overperforming in special elections in 2025 by almost 16 points from their 2020... So credit where credit is due. Congrats to Caitlin Dre, the DNC, the DLCC, the volunteers, the voters in Iowa.

Yeah, I actually don't know who it is. I should have researched it, so give him credit. But that's very encouraging. Well, you know, it's a state Senate seat, not a congressional seat. But it's great. It's great. And it's look, if you have a 38 percent approval rating and you're that low on every major issue, including immigration, ICE and the economy.

You cannot win a midterm. You just can't. Unless, as we've been warning, there are shenanigans from people at different states. Now, the good thing is it's. The wider the margin of victory, the harder it is to cheat. And if you do cheat, the easier it is to see it and have real complaints. And Democrats are going to be having. all kinds of lawyers watching the process in 2026. I mean, they're planning it. They have a budget for it. And so if there is a real national movement...

away from Trump and his policies, if there's a backlash and we can get the House back, we have a chance to stop this slide into authoritarianism. Yeah. So here's a little bit of hopium to put in your peace pipe. I know we're often big downers here, and as we document the... fall of civilization week by week it's a tough job but somebody's got to do it

There are sources of hope and resistance and pushback. So we started with Governor Pritzker and we're ending with this Iowa special election. So, John, what... why don't we just go right into shrink wrap let's do it ask me the question all right harry well what have we learned today i think what we're trying to learn today is patience fueled and opposed by anxiety. Like anxiety makes people want to take action. Often it makes people take action that isn't good for them. That's impulsive.

that's violent, that doesn't include thinking about the long haul, about the long game. And one thing as a therapist, and John, of course, shares this with me, which is that... You have to validate people's anxiety, but you also have to help them not act on that anxiety in an impulsive or impetuous way.

And I think with Governor Pritzker's speech, we saw the absence of impulsivity. We saw the absence of... fleeing into action because you're angry or you're scared or you're upset he just came out and said Here's the real process here. There's an attempt here to control the elections in 26. This is a power grab by a president whose cognitive abilities are diminishing, where there's no guardrails.

and i as your governor will not let them do this because in the long run remember he talked about the long game in the long run justice will prevail And I want us all to think about that, even though we're not in a position to protect a state the way Governor Pritzker is. We are in a position every day of feeling terrible anxiety. and helplessness about what's happening. Yeah. And it's almost.

watch tv all day or read the newspapers every day and and and and go to social media and what i want to say to people is acknowledge your anxiety because we're in a terrible position yeah but bring patience too. Don't let patience, don't let anxiety rattle you apart. Feel the anxiety, but have patience. Be vigilant. Talk to your friends.

think about things right call your congressperson your senator but don't let the anxiety rattle you apart acknowledge it but bring it to heel with patients as i believe pritzker did in his speech but you know the flip side harry as you know another response to chronic anxiety

is for people to dissociate or withdraw. And I think that that's actually becoming the more common response, that people are not watching MSNBC all day long. Not that they should be. You know, they do need to listen to shrinking. Trump every week. I mean, that is a minimum. But I don't need to watch MSWBC all day. We'll fill you in, guys. But seriously, people have to protect themselves from being overwhelmed.

It's kind of like what people do when they're being traumatized. And this is actually a form of trauma. We are being traumatized. You know, and actually psychologists will tell you that sometimes it's the small trauma that's repeated over and over and over again that can sometimes be more destructive than one big catastrophic event.

Well, that's what's really happening to us, right? We're being assaulted again and again and again every time we watch MSNBC, even every time we listen to Shrinking Trump, every time we look at the newspaper, right? Every time we pop up out of our hidey hole. Right. We're being assaulted again and again and again. And it is meant to be not only a reign of terror, but waves and waves of waves of terror because that.

paralyzes people that causes people to go into a state of paralysis withdrawal um giving up you know uh it's like you know they don't that no action seems like it will help so they just give up on doing anything Right. And I think John's so right, John, that there's waves of activity all the time.

to get people numbed out and not paying attention. And then there's the kind of the weird line, like Trump says, people say I'm a dictator. Some people want a dictator. I'm not a dictator. I don't really like dictators. We understand, wink, wink, what he's saying. Right, right. John, let me incorporate what you just said into my shrink wrap sermonette. Okay.

Which is that if you let yourself get so anxious that you're just reading frantically and feeling helpless, that's not going to help you. Nor is it going to help you if you dissociate. and just turn away from it all. The real trick is to be aware that you're anxious. Don't overwhelm yourself with information, but stay informed.

Devote part of your day to knowing what's going on. Take action against it. Talk to your friends. But balance that with patience and with enjoying your life because it's very important.

If you enjoy your life and you're actively enjoying your life, you have more to defend. I think in some ways the... the the the error on the other side that i'm talking about the dissociating the withdrawing it reminds me a lot of the selig famous seligman experiment um so for a lot of people who aren't familiar with this experiment what he was trying to show that

Depression is a state of conditioned helplessness and hopelessness so that you begin to actually, through your interaction with the environment. You learn that no behavior you perform is going to work. So you might as well just stop performing any behaviors. Don't waste the energy. That's sort of what depression is.

That's one view of depression. He's a cognitive behavioral therapist, and that was his model of depression. And the way he demonstrated that model, it was a famous experiment. He put a very cruel experiment. He put a dog in a cage.

and gave him an electric shock on the panel on the floor there's no way for the dog to escape the shock so at first he goes crazy you know he's banging at the sides of the cage he's trying to escape he's frantically pawing pushing biting and then there's he's trapped there is no way out and they just keep shocking him and at a certain point he just lays down on the floor and just

receives the shock passively. And then they do something. This is the really interesting part of the experiment. They open the door to the cage and he's laying there on the bottom of the cage being shocked. Now he can escape. Up until now, there was nothing he could do, but now there actually is a way out. And he just keeps laying there on the floor because he has been conditioned.

to feel hopeless and helpless so now that the reality has changed his psychology hasn't and that was his model of depression in other words you actually do have options there are things you can do to make your life better it's not hopeless but you've become conditioned believe that it's hopeless and so now you don't even try to do the things that could help you and the moral is don't let that happen to you exactly don't be seligman's dog

No, don't neither dissociate nor just get frantically anxious. Keep your eyes open, be concerned, but also enjoy your life. The other thing we learned this week is apparently how he's very excited about co-hosting with Ahmed Baba next week. We've learned that John feels very insecure about it. No, that's fine. Fine. Have a good time. I will. I think I'm looking forward to it. I think it's going to be great. So I'll see you guys in two weeks. That is the first all together.

I mean, I might make a different kind of choice. John, listen, you've got a lot of hard work to do with this next week.

Do it and we'll hear her back from you in two weeks. I'll be reporting in for my secret assignment. So today on Shrinking Trump, we thought we'd give you an interview. with a newly trained ICE agent, because we keep talking about these people as brown shirts and Gestapo and, you know, SS, but what's it like really to work for ICE?

And so thankfully, we have a newly trained ICE agent. We don't know his name, of course, because the whole thing is anonymous. An anonymous, really an anonymous, gutless. Coward. So I did have some questions. So what made you want to become an ICE agent? Well, it's time to take America back from the liberals and the communists and the gays and the transsexuals and the blacks and the browns and, of course, the Jews. They will not replace us.

I thought the Trump administration was denying universities fundings on the ground that they're anti-Semitic. Oh, yeah. Well, I hate anti-Semites. The only people I hate more than anti-Semites are Jews. The present company accepted, of course. Oh, well, thank you. I appreciate that, I guess. What are you planning to do in Chicago as an ICE agent? Oh, we're making it great. I mean, we're making it safe to be white again. I hate to ask, but how are you doing that? Well, it's very simple.

we see a brown person and we smash their windows we violently wrestle them to the ground throw them in a black suv so trump can throw them in a third world death camp man How fun is that? And I got a $50,000 bonus to do this job? I mean, can you believe it? That's crazy. What about probable cause? Probable cause, shmable book, pause.

the new standard that we look at is quote the totality of the information like for example you see that guy over there i can see he's totally brown you know what we say at ice if they're brown they're going down Hard on the cold, cold ground. That's racial discrimination, and it's illegal. Illegal, shmillegal. The white man has suffered long enough, and we're not going to take it anymore.

I am Trump's retribution. Get used to it, baby, because I'm coming to a neighborhood near you real soon to help you feel safe. chicago chicago we'll make it hell town we'll make it hell town chicago chicago you're screwed chicago chicago we'll make it hell town we'll make it hell town chicago chicago you're screwed jazz hands chicago chicago Thank you, Mr. Eichmann. Thank you, Mr. Eichmann. That's it for drinking Trump. We'll see you next week. we'll make it hell town chicago chicago