Canada Calls Trump's Bluff, Obama Rips Into Spineless GOP, David Cay Johnston Joins (9/29/26)

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Mark, are you here?
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Yes, he's here. Hello, Mark. Yeah, I am here. Nice
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to have everybody else here. What a show today with
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David K. Johnston joining in just a few minutes. The
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Pulitzer Prize winner will weigh in on any number of
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things going on in the U.S. government, the dismantling of
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the U.S. government and more. Got Barack Obama in the
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show today. And I want David's thoughts on Obama, who
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was weighing in in a panel. Also, the Canadians are done.
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The Canadians are dropping the gloves and the Canadians are
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dropping the states. They're dropping the United States. It appears
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to be like this is something we've talked about a
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lot on this show. You know, I said this almost
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immediately when Trump began the smack talking of Mexico, smack
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talking of Canada, going after the NATO allies, going after Japan.
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I mean, there was all this, you know, he was
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just taking a wrecking ball to everything continues to do it,
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of course. But the thing that we were talking about
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on the show from all of that was that the
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world will reboot. The world will reorganize. These are powerful countries,
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more powerful together. And the together is going to now
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not include the United States of America. And this very
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much seems to be the future, as stated by the
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Canadian foreign minister at the United Nations. So I'll share
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a little bit of that. Cory Booker calls out the gaslighting.
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That's going on when this, you know, 2020 stolen election
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crap is served up all the time. And he calls
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it out during the Jack Smith cross-examination or questioning. It's
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not a trial, so it's not really a cross-examination per se,
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but you get it. Jack Smith delivered a pretty good opener. I'll...
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share a little bit of that. They're hateful figures like
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that Senator Kennedy, I can't even do an impression of him.
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But he does that backwards, you know, you gotta break
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a few eggs if you want to make an omelet,
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you know, that kind of thing. He loves that kind
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of crap. But his, of course, he's not backwards, as
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I told you. He went to Oxford, I believe. Oxford
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or Harvard or one of the, I mean, a definite
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elite institution. So, Yeah, well, we haven't been dumped by
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Canada yet, but there are definite views toward Canada seeking
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independence from the kind of relationship that they've had with
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the U.S., which is truthfully one that's been, I don't
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want to call it, it's not a vassal state relationship,
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but it is one that really has counted on the
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good graces and the good faith of the Americans. And
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I think the good graces and good faith of the
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Americans has left the building. I just don't think that
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you've got that anymore. You've got people in power who
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are looking at their own personal gain, and there is
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an oligarchy that has now taken control of America that
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really only cares about deals, business deals. You see it
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in the Russia-Ukraine situation, that Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff
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are dealing with the top business officials in Russia. And
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that Kushner is even pitching, giving up the Donbass region,
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saying Ukraine just has to give that up and we
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can get on with the war. I mean, get on
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with life and be done with the war. I mean,
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you can't make that pitch seriously unless you only care
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about the transactional business side of things. So this goes
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for the U.S. as well. As you see this government
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sell off parts of U.S. national parks. as you see
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mineral rights and extraction rights granted to all of these
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companies on U.S. land, U.S. forestry, U.S. national parks, the
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waters of the U.S. now being primed for offshore drilling,
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even in places where offshore drilling has been prohibited, been banned,
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like California. Now the federal government, because again, they only
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care about taking care of Their big donors and the oligarchy,
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it's a constellation of big money interests that have taken control.
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We've always had their oversized place at the table, but
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now they have really taken control of government because Trump
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is all transactional. So anyway, to extend what's happening in California,
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that offshore oil ban is very much in question because
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the federal government is going to go after it. They're
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going after the California Coastal Commission. I live in California,
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which is why maybe I'm connected with some of this,
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but this is all happening also in New England with
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the closing down of the alternative energy wind farms. And
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this is your money and my money being dedicated to
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those both legal actions and to any effort. to overturn
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all of these existing bans. So even before they take
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it to a court, they have to marshal the resources
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and the organization to make it happen. That all costs money.
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And speaking of money, more money being spent on the
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ads for Donald Trump. These were his campaign ads that
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are now running during major sporting events. It's getting pushback
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now even from some GOP leadership, but, you know, what
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can you do? I mean, again, it violates all of
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these various laws. The Hatch Act, I guess, chief among
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them will talk to David K. Johnson. I'm laughing because,
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you know, there is total capture of the U.S. government
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on the part of Donald Trump. Who is the person
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at the Justice Department who is going to bring this forward?
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Who is the person in Congress? What is the coalition
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of people in Congress that's going to hold Trump to account?
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It doesn't exist. So, again, I think loathsome though the
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ads are, you're going to see more of them. I
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don't see that changing, I guess is what I'm getting at. Sorry,
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where is my... I think I have a chunk of
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Trump waiting. That might be a fun thing to do
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just to get us... And you're probably thinking, why is
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it Trump all the time? Trump is reshaping American government
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and reshaping America. And if you... Just go, ah, I
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just don't want to know about Trump anymore. Okay. But
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he is the head of the spear. And so all
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of the changes in America, and by the way, I'd
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suggest that these changes, and we've talked about this before,
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represent different coalitions, right? Different interests. I mean, you have
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the fundamentalist Christian nationalists. right? They're part of Trump. You
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have the corporatists. They're part of Trump. You have the
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white nationalists. They're part of Trump. They're all kind of
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under the Trump umbrella. You have those who want to
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dismantle the administrative state. That's all of them. Any regulation
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they want gone. The administrative state is government. That is
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what government is. And so you have This Project 2025
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group headed by Russell Vogt, who's an extremely powerful guy
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in U.S. government, and Russell Vogt from the OMB chair
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is able to claw back money that was already okayed
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by Congress for various social programs. And again, because Trump
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people and loyalists populate all levels of government and all
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these different agencies, there's almost... Nothing being done. That's why
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these midterm elections are so critical. So I'll get to
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my chunk of Trump in a moment. There is an
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ocean phenomenon that is headed toward California. It's called a
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Kelvin wave. And this is a planetary scale Kelvin wave,
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they say, headed for California. It could raise sea levels
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along the California coast by up to a foot. El Nino,
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scientists say, and there are still a few scientists, they're
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not all out of government, most are. But scientists are
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saying as a collective, because they do exist outside of government,
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as you know, that the El Nino is supercharging the
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threat of storm surges and flooding in the coming months.
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It could be a very rough winter. It's an incredibly
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strong El Nino. It's developing in the Pacific. And with it,
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this strange shift in the ocean, this Kelvin wave phenomenon,
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is when trade winds that blow from South America toward
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Asia die down or even reverse in some of these
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El Nino years. And that can be this massive, slow-moving
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wall of water that comes toward California. They're not like
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crashing waves at the beach. They're thousands of miles. And
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they say that when a Kelvin wave kicks off, it
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brings with it untold amounts of warm water. And that
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slowly moves from the Western Pacific along the equator toward
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South Central and North America. You can literally follow them.
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They have all these various satellite imageries and real-time data
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on that warm weather, warm water, I should say. So
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in late August, one of these hit. What's that?
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Are we screwed then in California?
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I mean, they had one hit. at the northern tip
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of South America in late August, and now they're saying
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that could hit California in the next few days. That
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looks like no amount of sandbags is going to help. Yeah,
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I mean, there is a lot of sandbagging and prep
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going on in California, but you're right.
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I mean, it's... I mean, when you look at a
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wave like that, I don't think there's anything we could
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do except just, you know, get to higher ground, maybe.
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The U.S. ban on Canadian alcohol and dairy has taken effect.
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This trade war is dragging on. This is the latest
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measure by the Trump administration because of Canada's implementation of
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tariffs on any number of U.S. goods earlier this month.
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That was after the breakdown in trade talks. Why they
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were having trade talks is bizarre because, as you know,
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they already had a trade agreement made by Donald Trump.
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And now he breaks it and wants to renegotiate it.
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And this is where we are. So now there are
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retaliatory tariffs that have been implemented. And apparently there are
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no trade talks going on right now with U.S. trade representatives. So...
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We'll see. Motorcycle exports to the U.S. going to be impacted.
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I don't think that's a big number of motorcycles, by
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the way, but there are import bans that are in effect. And,
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you know, I think you have to look at the
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fact that so many parts in American automobiles come through
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Canada and back to the U.S. like six or seven
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times often. And so there's tariffs that are built in
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may actually raise the price, if they go into effect
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in 2027 as is scheduled, it'll raise the price of
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a car by about 25%. This as the price of
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operating a car is going to go up because fuel
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efficiency is going to go down because of the announcement
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today by Trump that he's rolling back the Biden-era goals
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for fuel efficiency, so from 50-some-odd miles to now 30-some-odd miles.
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So that means you can, great, You can get one
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of those cars that only goes 30 some odd miles,
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you know, and you'll just have to fill it up more.
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It's a great break for the car manufacturers. They won't
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have to spend as much money to produce these cars.
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They don't have to worry about redesigning and figuring fuel efficiency.
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They can just go with what they've got. So it's
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a gift to them from Trump. But it is a
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screw job to consumers because consumers already hit with these
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gas prices that are insanely high that may go higher.
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are now going to have more of that gas in
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their cars. So, again, nothing good is happening for the
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American consumer under these guys. But Jack Smith testifying before
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the Senate panel today, they called him in, but he,
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I believe, wasn't subpoenaed. He was there on a voluntary basis. And, again,
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this is the wildest kind of Alice in Wonderland thing
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from a group that is clearly weaponizing the Justice Department,
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But they're accusing Smith of weaponizing the Justice Department. Again, Smith,
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on the January 6th riot at the Capitol, subpoenaed the
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records of lawmakers, some lawmakers, and that, of course, got
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them really angry. And that's become a repetitive theme in
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the questioning that's gone on today. And then, of course,
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the hiding of the documents in Mar-a-Lago and elsewhere, probably.
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But the ones in Mar-a-Lago... Trump actively tried to defeat
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a subpoena by hiding it, moving them around, and had
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that guy, Walt Nada, his right-hand man, move in boxes,
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telling the FBI, we've already released everything, we've already given
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you back everything. Meanwhile, he's hiding stuff. So I think
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Smith gave him a break on that. That was the
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big case that was easy to understand. These are national
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security documents, many of them. So it's a real issue.
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but Smith is testifying, and he says, I'd stand by
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the decisions to charge Trump. I'd do it again. And
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he also kind of issued a warning as to what's
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happening to the rule of law in America. In fact,
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run that real quick, if you would, please, Tony. This
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is cut five.
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History teaches that the rule of law is rarely destroyed
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all at once. It's often weakened, by attacks on the
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institutions and the public servants sworn to uphold it. Since
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January of 2025, we have witnessed precisely such an effort,
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including the vilification of the agents, prosecutors, and staff who
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worked on my team, simply because of their unwavering dedication
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to the rule of law. I myself have been threatened
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with jail by the President of the United States. However,
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I remain confident that the rule of law will endure
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because so many continue to uphold it faithfully each day.
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Throughout our legal system, public servants have remained faithful to
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their oaths despite extraordinary pressure to do otherwise. Their example
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demonstrates that while fear may be contagious, courage is as well.
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I mean you've got in that guy a legit courageous guy.
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I mean he's taken on and prosecuted real despots and
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his work at the criminal court, international criminal court is
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I think beyond reproach. There are aspects to this that
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are– seem obvious but there is a party in power,
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the GOP that really is all in for the denial
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of what is clearly the case and that is that–
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you know, the January 6th riot and the subsequent, uh,
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pardoning of all of these January 6th rioters, many violent offenders, uh,
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is just, uh, is an absurd erosion. And that's a
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polite way to put it of our justice system. And so,
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I mean, that's just one sliver of what's going on.
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So I will talk to David K. Johnson about that,
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but the Jack Smith stuff is, is underway now. And, uh,
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It just feels as though it's a, honestly, it's a
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partisan kabuki theater type thing. Everybody's making speeches and trying
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to burn this guy at the stake. That's kind of
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what these, oftentimes these situations end up being. These hearings
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can just turn into that. Before David, let me get
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you a little something. How about a quick check of
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a chunk of Trump?
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Open wide.
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Ready?
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Here comes your chunk of Trump. It's my favorite food.
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With your first bite, here's Mark Thompson.
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I have a feeling it's going to be beautiful. Trump
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is launching a government chatbot. This is while he's urging
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all of us not to fear AI. As the AI producers,
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as those who head up companies that are involved in
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the production of AI models, tell us we should be concerned.
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They're concerned. Donald Trump tells us, no, no, no, no, no,
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nothing to fear here. So now they are trying to
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convince the skeptical public that when it comes to AI,
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you can use it and use government AI. It's america.gov.
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It's a government chat bot. for researching public services. And
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it was announced as, uh, uh, part of, uh, his
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cabinet and tech tech executives took this a day long
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kind of victory lap. So, uh, AI leaders are set
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to meet with Trump, but his big message to us
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is don't worry, use the government chat bot. Everything will
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be fine. Meanwhile, The White House is airing more taxpayer-funded
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ads promoting Donald Trump. The ads are taken from his campaign,
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and now we're paying for the time buys, and we're
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paying for the ads to be reconstituted in any way.
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Not to mention, apart from us paying for it, although
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it does say paid by the U.S. government, it's illegal.
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You can't do it. We'll talk to David K. Johnson
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about it. It violates the Hatch Act and more. Yeah,
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there's a bit of that black and white, and I'll
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run it during David's segment coming up. The farmers are
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suing the United States Department of Agriculture over policies that
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once again screw over American farmers. You know, this plan
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that Trump has had to He always feels like the
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farmers are his friend, but he's done more to screw them.
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I think of the tariffs perhaps top of the list.
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You've lost all those soybean growers forever, potentially. As China's
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biggest consumer, biggest client, they moved to alternative sources. That
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happened early on when Trump was announcing the tariffs. Anyway,
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American farmers filing a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
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after the USDA retroactively cut funding for a solar program. So,
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follow this now. Farmers who had tens and thousands of
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dollars in debt for solar projects they'd already begun and
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the feds had promised to reimburse them Now, the feds
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are saying you're out of luck. This is the quote.
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The USDA now wants to dismantle a successful bipartisan program
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and slam the door on farmers who already spend significant
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sums of money relying on USDA's own rules. That's from
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the attorney representing Iowa Farmers and the Iowa Farmers Union.
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I mean, again, this is all part of the Renewable
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Energy for America program. It was trying to get solar
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on these farmlands so that would reduce their energy costs.
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That's really the way that they've been screwed. And a
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tariff war with Canada has increased the cost of fertilizer
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and pesticides and even farm equipment. So you've cut off
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a trading partner for 30% of Iowa's exports. That's Canada.
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You've cut off that partner for a third of what
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you have to export. And then you've got skyrocketing diesel
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prices and the cost of running a farm and farm
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equipment plus interest rates that are rising on all that
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borrowed money. And it is very tough to be a
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farmer in America right now. And that's not to mention
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the purchase of all of that beef that is now
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undercutting American beef manufacturers. So The Trump policies have been
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a mess when it comes to those that he considers
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his friends, the farmers. And finally, a bill to ban
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Trump from demolishing the Kennedy Center, objected by Mike Lee.
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So this bill to ban, again, the demolishment of the
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Kennedy Center without Congress's approval... Mike Lee objects to the
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safeguard against that demolition. And that Republican senator has blocked
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this bipartisan bill that would have prevented Trump from having
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the ability to demolish the Kennedy Center without the approval
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of Congress. And that is your chunk of Trump.
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That's it for this edition.
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Well, I really enjoyed it.
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But make sure to join us again next time.
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I think you might want to listen. There's nothing wrong
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with listening.
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For another chunk of Trump.
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The Mark Thompson Show. Thank you for being here, all
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of you. The thumbs up button is a thing on YouTube.
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It helps us if you wouldn't mind hitting that. It
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costs you nothing and it helps us. I don't understand it.
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It's an algorithm thing. I don't understand it. But also,
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it costs nothing. The show is free, of course, to you.
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You could become a subscriber. And that's also free. And
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please share the show. We have Facebook pages and everything.
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We have a sub stack and all the things that
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are the cool kids ideas. So please jump on and
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00:23:11.599 --> 00:23:14.500
support us that way. One of the great pleasures we
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00:23:14.539 --> 00:23:17.579
have every week is a Tuesdays talking to a Pulitzer
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Prize winner and a bestselling author, brilliant investigative reporter who
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is now a teacher at RIT. How about the great
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David K. Johnston? Yeah. Hello, it's great to see you, David.
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You know, I was just talking about Trump and the
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rolling back of various Biden-era policies, the solar credits to
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the farmers that he's now left them hung out to
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dry on. So they paid for all this stuff that
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was going to be reimbursed by the federal government. Now
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it's not. There's something else that's happening. There's a big
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announcement that he's rolling back the mileage goals that had
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been set out by the Biden administration as well. These
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are designed to make American automobiles more fuel efficient. So
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they're going from 50 some odd gallons, 50 some odd
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miles a gallon to now 30 something. It's a significant rollback.
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Break that down because there's a lot actually here, isn't there?
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Well, the change in the CAFE standards will cost the
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average American, according to the document that the Trump administration
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put out, $ 1, 600 more.
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And that assumes $ 3 gasoline.
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So you're likely looking at $ 2, 000 plus in additional costs
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for fuel under these lowered standards. As we tell the
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automotive industry, don't innovate. Don't figure out ways to be
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more efficient users of fuel. You know, back in the
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mid-50s when I was a boy, your Plymouth Chevy and
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Ford got either– Seven miles to the gallon if you
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had a V8 engine or the much more common straight
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six got nine miles to the gallon. That we now
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get an average of around 25 is a terrific change.
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But if you want to have all of these big
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pickup trucks that are never used for work, they're for show,
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then you have to build a lot of very high
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mileage cars to and get people like me to drive
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electric cars. My wife drives a hybrid car. But this
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is just, Donald doesn't know anything about economics, the field
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in which he holds his degree. What you were talking
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about while I was waiting to come on, about this
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mystery meat from overseas, that's undercutting American beef producers, cattlemen
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and cattlewomen, It, of course, probably further enhances the power
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of the four companies that control about 80% of the
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beef and roughly the same share of the poultry market
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because we don't have competitive capitalism in those fields. And
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if there's anything this administration is working hard to do,
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it's to make sure that competitive market capitalism, the idea
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championed by Adam Smith, that's gone out the window in
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favor of oligopolies and monopolies that make those who own
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them rich, but all the rest of us worse off.
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And all of this, it just shows that he doesn't
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know what he's doing. And the best evidence you're also
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seeing of this is Donald is so focused on the
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important issues affecting the lives of American people. They tore
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up the tile floor in the men's room at one
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of the men's rooms at the Kennedy Center because he
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didn't like the color. And he's bragging all the time about,
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you know, these things like his ballroom.
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None of this matters.
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And he's doing that because he doesn't know how to
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deal with anything else. And the way that he embarrassed
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himself and our country in front of President Xi, meeting
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him at the airport, suggesting he is an inferior minister.
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Xi did not meet Trump at the airport in Beijing.
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And then his comments about how great China is. While Xi,
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who is an incredibly highly educated, brilliant scholarly man surrounded
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by highly educated people, unlike Donald, makes erudite remarks. It's
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just embarrassing. And as some people pointed out with a
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bit of wry humor, you know, how interesting that the
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first lady of China speaks better English than the first
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lady of the United States.
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Well, you know, the other thing is, David, on this dump,
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We ran this mashup yesterday. Trump was dating all the
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way back to 2011. He was talking about, you know,
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how can this country have a state dinner for these
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leaders who are eating our lunch and beating us and everything?
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They're having a Chinese state dinner. And he was over
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and over. We ran the mashup in 2011, 2016, et cetera.
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And here he is, as you suggest, kind of rolling over.
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I mean, it was embarrassing.
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Well, you know, years ago I used to tell people
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that talking to Donald, and I've spent hundreds of hours
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with Donald, talking to Donald for any period of time
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is like talking to a drunk in a bar. He
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just doesn't know anything, and he'll leap from here to there.
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And it's all bluster and, in some cases, threats, as
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we've seen with his, you know, not allowing CNN on
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to the Air Force One, the Qatari Air Force One. uh,
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because the way the judge wrote his order had to
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do with the press passes for the white house, not
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with being on the plane, all of which he's hoping
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sends a message, not to the journalists. He doesn't care
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about them, but to their bosses to ease up on
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him and back off. Uh, I, I experienced a lot
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of this in my career with people wanting to shut
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off my work, especially when I was at the LA times.
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And I have a term for it. It's poisoning the well. Um, they, uh,
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senior editor or producer sees you coming to their office
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and it's, oh, God, I'm going.
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To have to talk on the phone with Trump.
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He's going to threaten to destroy our business. Maybe it's
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time we send you on a nice story that will
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keep you tied up in Hawaii for a week.
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Wow, that's brutal. But it's funny you mention this because
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Obama waited on this question of the press and what
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Trump is doing. with the press it's cut to please Tony.
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I am not surprised that the current president wants to
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ban newscasts that are critical of him Because he's that guy.
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It amuses me, by the way, look, we can talk
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about wokeness, but remember when everybody's like, why are these
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minorities and women are being so sensitive? And I'm happy
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to weigh in on some of those issues.
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I do think sometimes.
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The strategies behind what became termed wokeness, were not always
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designed to bring people together and actually advance the cause. But,
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you know, the Republicans used to say, you can't, you
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want to silence everybody because some students were protesting.
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This is the President of the United States, can't take
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some criticism.
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And I'm not surprised by his reaction personally The fact
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that you do not have, as far as I can tell,
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any substantial group of Republicans who are standing up and.
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Saying, no, you can't do that because we don't want,
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if there's a Democratic president, to be banning Fox.
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News or.
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Whatever other outlets that are going off on Democratic presidents,
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you can't do that and say that you are still
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living in a democracy.
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That's foundational. This is foundational, is his point. Yeah.
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Yeah.
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And Obama, you know, he had issues with the press.
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Every president has, right?
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Yeah.
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Nine days after he took office, I had a piece
472
00:31:48.109 --> 00:31:51.430
in the Columbia Journalism Review just tearing up his administration
473
00:31:51.509 --> 00:31:53.569
because I called, as I always do when there's a
474
00:31:53.569 --> 00:31:56.599
new president, the White House press office the day after
475
00:31:56.619 --> 00:31:58.319
the inauguration to say, who is it I'm going to
476
00:31:58.339 --> 00:32:02.000
be dealing with? And I ran into the most utter
477
00:32:02.140 --> 00:32:07.880
incompetent hang up on me folks. And I warned that
478
00:32:07.920 --> 00:32:10.680
the Obama administration would be difficult if they don't want
479
00:32:10.700 --> 00:32:12.819
to answer a question, they'll just refuse to answer it.
480
00:32:12.839 --> 00:32:15.029
But there's a big difference between we're not going to
481
00:32:15.089 --> 00:32:20.640
answer your question to what Trump is doing. And we've seen,
482
00:32:21.019 --> 00:32:23.000
at least in my experience, the first time I called
483
00:32:23.019 --> 00:32:28.140
the White House, Lyndon Johnson was president. There's been a
484
00:32:28.299 --> 00:32:35.930
steady deterioration in the relationship with more and more views
485
00:32:36.009 --> 00:32:40.650
by presidents that, you know, they're a power unto themselves
486
00:32:41.289 --> 00:32:44.589
and don't have to be held accountable. That's not the system.
487
00:32:44.650 --> 00:32:50.289
The Constitution makes Congress the dominant force And the president
488
00:32:50.349 --> 00:32:52.210
is there to carry out the orders of Congress. And
489
00:32:52.230 --> 00:32:53.750
if I can just digress for a moment, I noticed
490
00:32:53.809 --> 00:32:55.549
in the feed somebody said they heard I was speaking
491
00:32:55.569 --> 00:32:58.930
in Oakland. I'm flying out to California for a weekend
492
00:32:58.950 --> 00:33:03.910
to give two talks in Fresno to support public radio,
493
00:33:03.990 --> 00:33:10.549
KCFC in Fresno, on Saturday, October 10th. And on Sunday,
494
00:33:10.750 --> 00:33:16.470
October 11th, I'm speaking on behalf of KPFA or the
495
00:33:16.519 --> 00:33:21.160
Pacifica chain in Berkeley. and both their stations at their
496
00:33:21.180 --> 00:33:26.349
website can tell you about my visit.
497
00:33:28.049 --> 00:33:30.549
Look, you're a fan favorite, so I think that there
498
00:33:30.569 --> 00:33:34.349
will likely be some folks that will know you from
499
00:33:34.490 --> 00:33:39.450
this show and will likely show up there. I'm just
500
00:33:40.210 --> 00:33:45.579
seeing this breaking news Kim is telling me that– The
501
00:33:45.619 --> 00:33:50.670
Supreme Court is allowing Trump's third country deportation policy to stand.
502
00:33:50.849 --> 00:33:51.210
Wow.
503
00:33:51.710 --> 00:33:53.269
That's extraordinary to me.
504
00:33:53.349 --> 00:33:57.289
Yeah, we're taking people who come from, say, Guatemala or
505
00:33:57.329 --> 00:34:00.670
Honduras and sending them to somewhere in Africa.
506
00:34:00.990 --> 00:34:01.869
It's so brutal.
507
00:34:02.390 --> 00:34:04.420
And the countries at the other end, why are they
508
00:34:04.480 --> 00:34:08.500
taking people? Because they're getting paid. Your tax dollars are
509
00:34:08.539 --> 00:34:12.820
going to pay these corrupt regimes back. This will not
510
00:34:12.900 --> 00:34:16.780
end well for those folks. It can't unless somebody intervenes
511
00:34:16.820 --> 00:34:18.719
and arranges to get them back to their home country.
512
00:34:18.739 --> 00:34:21.010
And in many cases, they can't go back to their
513
00:34:21.030 --> 00:34:24.429
home country. They'll be killed. And why do we have
514
00:34:24.469 --> 00:34:30.289
people fleeing, particularly the countries in Central America, to come
515
00:34:30.329 --> 00:34:34.150
to the U.S.? Because, A, when Trump was in his
516
00:34:34.190 --> 00:34:37.369
first term, he cut off financial aid to those countries.
517
00:34:37.909 --> 00:34:41.880
The gangs grew in power. One of the Honduran newspapers
518
00:34:42.539 --> 00:34:46.239
ran a chart when we were there. My late sister-in-law
519
00:34:46.260 --> 00:34:49.840
was an American diplomat stationed there when she retired. Here
520
00:34:49.900 --> 00:34:52.280
is a map of Tegucigalpa and these are the different
521
00:34:52.340 --> 00:34:55.599
gangs and a whole huge piece explaining don't cross this
522
00:34:55.639 --> 00:34:59.579
street to that gang if this or that. It was
523
00:34:59.639 --> 00:35:02.280
read to me because it was in Spanish by the
524
00:35:02.320 --> 00:35:09.469
maid at the house. And so cutting off that financial
525
00:35:09.590 --> 00:35:12.389
aid created these financial incentives for people to come here.
526
00:35:12.550 --> 00:35:16.139
And then we got these horrible dictators like the major
527
00:35:16.280 --> 00:35:21.139
drug trafficker, 400 tons of cocaine into the U S
528
00:35:21.320 --> 00:35:25.219
who was the president of Honduras, who Trump pardoned one
529
00:35:25.260 --> 00:35:29.809
of many major league criminals, world-class criminals. Trump is pardoning
530
00:35:30.150 --> 00:35:34.449
because people, you know, he's, it's very clear he's selling pardons.
531
00:35:35.989 --> 00:35:40.260
Well, Most certainly. And again, this is a law that
532
00:35:40.449 --> 00:35:43.630
has been on the books prohibiting us, the U.S. government,
533
00:35:44.090 --> 00:35:47.030
from deporting people to countries where they could be persecuted
534
00:35:47.070 --> 00:35:49.750
in any way. It's part of the asylum deal. And
535
00:35:49.789 --> 00:35:53.590
yet this third country deportation policy now ruled on by
536
00:35:53.610 --> 00:35:56.159
the Supreme Court as legal. And, you know, the other thing,
537
00:35:56.199 --> 00:35:58.119
just as a coda to that, David, you know, your
538
00:35:58.920 --> 00:36:03.159
remarks are so spot on when I think about the Afghanis,
539
00:36:03.219 --> 00:36:07.039
many of whom helped American troops and the American war
540
00:36:07.119 --> 00:36:10.570
effort in Afghanistan over that 20-year period. And they were
541
00:36:11.110 --> 00:36:15.710
promised and guaranteed safety and safe haven in America, translators
542
00:36:15.750 --> 00:36:18.989
and other helpers on the ground. And now we're literally
543
00:36:19.050 --> 00:36:21.710
deporting them back to Afghanistan where they'll be executed.
544
00:36:21.989 --> 00:36:25.050
And, you know, in Donald's mind, I didn't make that promise.
545
00:36:25.130 --> 00:36:27.699
I didn't do that. I'm not responsible for that. Guess what?
546
00:36:27.760 --> 00:36:30.119
When you're the president of the United States, it's the
547
00:36:30.159 --> 00:36:32.840
same as being the CEO of a publicly traded company.
548
00:36:33.250 --> 00:36:39.510
You inherit the policies, practices, and contracts of the prior leadership.
549
00:36:40.199 --> 00:36:44.380
Donald doesn't understand that because of his just complete appalling
550
00:36:44.440 --> 00:36:46.059
ignorance about everything.
551
00:36:47.360 --> 00:36:52.940
In addition to rolling back the Biden-era emission standards and
552
00:36:53.179 --> 00:36:57.380
goals and fuel efficiency goals for cars, which Trump has
553
00:36:57.420 --> 00:37:00.690
just done, He has a back and forth. You were
554
00:37:00.730 --> 00:37:02.949
talking about how expensive it's going to be for the
555
00:37:02.969 --> 00:37:05.829
American consumer. He has a back and forth with the Canadians,
556
00:37:05.869 --> 00:37:08.869
which is bizarre in itself because he had a deal
557
00:37:08.909 --> 00:37:10.909
with them already. Now he's broken it and wants a
558
00:37:10.949 --> 00:37:14.690
new trade deal. And anyway, that could end up with
559
00:37:14.909 --> 00:37:18.909
a 25% tariff going into effect next year on automobiles
560
00:37:18.929 --> 00:37:21.909
and automobile parts. So there'll be parts of cars that
561
00:37:21.989 --> 00:37:25.010
pass the northern border six or seven times in their
562
00:37:25.050 --> 00:37:27.989
production life. And they're now going to be much more
563
00:37:28.050 --> 00:37:30.530
expensive to the American consumer on top of what you're
564
00:37:30.570 --> 00:37:32.730
talking about, which is, you know, how much it's just
565
00:37:32.750 --> 00:37:34.389
going to cost you because your car is not as
566
00:37:34.409 --> 00:37:36.250
fuel efficient as it used to be. And the price
567
00:37:36.269 --> 00:37:37.360
of gas is so high.
568
00:37:37.989 --> 00:37:39.880
You know, Trump would not have gotten to the White
569
00:37:39.900 --> 00:37:42.559
House without the support of a lot of auto workers
570
00:37:43.199 --> 00:37:46.579
who voted anti-union because as one of them said, when
571
00:37:46.619 --> 00:37:49.280
I spoke at a UAW hall some years ago, well,
572
00:37:49.320 --> 00:37:51.409
what's the UAW ever done for me? They just take
573
00:37:51.510 --> 00:37:53.630
one and a quarter percent of my paycheck. And I said, well,
574
00:37:54.440 --> 00:37:56.300
you got a pension plan? He said, well, yeah.
575
00:37:56.440 --> 00:37:57.800
I said, you got a healthcare plan?
576
00:37:57.820 --> 00:37:58.340
Yeah.
577
00:37:58.760 --> 00:38:00.469
You got a paid vacation? Yeah.
578
00:38:00.809 --> 00:38:03.250
You get sub pay, which is 90% of your pay
579
00:38:03.269 --> 00:38:05.090
when they shut down the factory to retool?
580
00:38:05.130 --> 00:38:05.650
He said, yeah.
581
00:38:06.030 --> 00:38:08.349
And I said, you think General Motors did that out
582
00:38:08.389 --> 00:38:13.519
of the kindness of its heart? You know, the UAW
583
00:38:13.579 --> 00:38:17.000
is fighting to keep that for you in the face
584
00:38:17.039 --> 00:38:19.940
of all this competition from around the world. And, you know,
585
00:38:20.119 --> 00:38:24.400
China's automobile industry is going to really just take off
586
00:38:24.500 --> 00:38:27.659
beyond ours. They figured out how to manufacture cars at
587
00:38:27.719 --> 00:38:32.280
much lower prices. In Europe, more than half of car
588
00:38:32.300 --> 00:38:36.059
sales in this year so far have been electric vehicles.
589
00:38:37.239 --> 00:38:40.949
In Norway, where some of my ancestors come from, roughly
590
00:38:40.949 --> 00:38:43.630
90% of new car sales for the last two years
591
00:38:43.789 --> 00:38:48.570
are electrics. And Norway is not exactly a country short
592
00:38:48.650 --> 00:38:51.929
on oil. That's why they've become so rich after being
593
00:38:52.369 --> 00:38:55.610
one of the poorest countries in Europe. The whole rest
594
00:38:55.650 --> 00:38:58.929
of the world is moving away from coal and natural
595
00:38:58.969 --> 00:39:01.789
gas firing. I mean, there's some exceptions and there will
596
00:39:01.829 --> 00:39:07.590
be locational issues in various places. But California now has
597
00:39:07.710 --> 00:39:12.150
managed to run on renewable power 24 hours a day
598
00:39:12.230 --> 00:39:15.630
for a number of days. And with the development of
599
00:39:15.789 --> 00:39:19.329
new and better batteries of all kinds, from hot sand
600
00:39:19.369 --> 00:39:24.920
to hot salt to virtual batteries like pushing water when
601
00:39:24.940 --> 00:39:27.119
there's abundant power up a hill and you can run
602
00:39:27.159 --> 00:39:31.469
it back down through a turbine. Everybody else is moving
603
00:39:31.530 --> 00:39:34.760
away from that. But Donald wants us to go back
604
00:39:34.889 --> 00:39:40.079
to burning fossil fuels. Why? Well, because somebody told him
605
00:39:40.119 --> 00:39:42.920
that's a good thing and he thinks they're good people
606
00:39:43.139 --> 00:39:47.099
and he has no clue to anything he's doing.
607
00:39:47.199 --> 00:39:47.800
He really doesn't.
608
00:39:49.099 --> 00:39:51.659
I'm appalled that I still have people who come into
609
00:39:51.719 --> 00:39:55.019
my social media where I make it pretty much a
610
00:39:55.059 --> 00:39:58.969
free for all. I sometimes ban really obnoxious people who
611
00:39:59.050 --> 00:40:03.130
are crude, but who continue to say he's the one
612
00:40:03.150 --> 00:40:08.570
who's made the country great. And it's just incredible how
613
00:40:09.699 --> 00:40:12.599
incapable of critical thought large.
614
00:40:12.280 --> 00:40:13.329
Numbers of Americans are.
615
00:40:14.440 --> 00:40:19.019
Yeah, it's pretty stark what's happening. And I'll just mention, again,
616
00:40:19.380 --> 00:40:22.119
as an add-on to the question, and it really makes
617
00:40:22.179 --> 00:40:24.739
a point you've just made, which is just as there's
618
00:40:24.800 --> 00:40:27.630
a flow toward electric vehicles elsewhere, there's going to be
619
00:40:27.690 --> 00:40:29.550
a flow here. You can try to prop up the
620
00:40:29.630 --> 00:40:32.570
oil industry all you want, Mr. President, but your price
621
00:40:32.610 --> 00:40:34.849
of gas has now gotten to the point where there
622
00:40:34.909 --> 00:40:38.929
is a premium on EVs in this country. You did that, Trump.
623
00:40:39.110 --> 00:40:39.610
You did it.
624
00:40:40.190 --> 00:40:43.349
I just got an offer from the local Volkswagen dealer
625
00:40:43.389 --> 00:40:46.420
to sell my five-year-old Volkswagen. It'd be six years old,
626
00:40:46.480 --> 00:40:49.360
I guess, now with the new models, to them at
627
00:40:49.400 --> 00:40:52.579
a price that was significantly higher than two years ago.
628
00:40:52.599 --> 00:40:57.460
I'm going to keep it until it's at least 10
629
00:40:57.460 --> 00:41:00.440
years old, but if I wanted to, I could make
630
00:41:00.480 --> 00:41:01.780
a pretty sweet deal.
631
00:41:02.199 --> 00:41:03.679
Yeah, demand is there in a big way.
632
00:41:03.699 --> 00:41:03.780
Yeah.
633
00:41:04.530 --> 00:41:06.590
I just don't want to spend the money on it
634
00:41:06.610 --> 00:41:09.079
to depreciate a new car when I don't want it.
635
00:41:09.130 --> 00:41:10.369
Sure, of course.
636
00:41:10.550 --> 00:41:11.750
I'd rather give it to charity.
637
00:41:13.730 --> 00:41:15.190
I want to ask you about something we talk about
638
00:41:15.210 --> 00:41:18.989
a lot on this show, and it's the reconfiguring of
639
00:41:19.050 --> 00:41:23.070
alliances and the reconfiguring of relationships and trade relationships as
640
00:41:23.090 --> 00:41:25.969
a result of Trump really taking a wrecking ball to
641
00:41:26.030 --> 00:41:29.550
all the existing agreements and all the existing relationships that
642
00:41:29.590 --> 00:41:31.269
America has counted on and a lot of the free
643
00:41:31.289 --> 00:41:34.329
world has counted on. Here was the Canadian foreign minister.
644
00:41:34.369 --> 00:41:35.530
I wanted to play you a little bit of this.
645
00:41:36.449 --> 00:41:40.369
She's speaking before the United Nations General Assembly, and she
646
00:41:40.449 --> 00:41:44.289
states it straight out. Canada is done with America, and
647
00:41:44.349 --> 00:41:52.880
now it's a new day. Mr.
648
00:41:52.940 --> 00:41:56.659
President, Excellencies, colleagues.
649
00:41:57.460 --> 00:41:58.059
And friends.
650
00:41:59.699 --> 00:41:59.980
Bonjour.
651
00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:00.179
Bonjour.
652
00:42:01.469 --> 00:42:05.289
I was born in Nova Scotia on Canada's east coast
653
00:42:05.929 --> 00:42:10.949
and grew up there, the daughter of immigrants. Nova Scotians
654
00:42:11.469 --> 00:42:16.269
all know the same thing. The tide does not wait.
655
00:42:16.929 --> 00:42:21.969
You must move with it. The tide has turned in
656
00:42:22.010 --> 00:42:27.880
the global order as well. As Canadian historian Margaret Macmillan
657
00:42:27.909 --> 00:42:32.750
has observed, we have arrived in a new age of disorder.
658
00:42:34.130 --> 00:42:40.090
We are facing a rupture, not a transition. Great powers
659
00:42:40.210 --> 00:42:48.110
are walking away from global economic cooperation, dismantling economic integration.
660
00:42:49.050 --> 00:42:53.230
Great powers want the rest of us to accept what
661
00:42:53.289 --> 00:42:58.369
we are offered. And too often, State sovereignty, the cornerstone
662
00:42:58.690 --> 00:43:03.650
of the UN Charter, has been treated with disdain. We
663
00:43:03.710 --> 00:43:08.269
are facing serious challenges in the global order. But at
664
00:43:08.289 --> 00:43:12.530
their core, Canadians, and billions of others around the world,
665
00:43:13.429 --> 00:43:19.079
want to live peaceful, prosperous, and predictable lives. That is why,
666
00:43:19.320 --> 00:43:23.429
in the face of this rupture, Canada's goal is to
667
00:43:23.510 --> 00:43:29.920
achieve greater strategic autonomy, greater autonomy to make our own
668
00:43:30.019 --> 00:43:36.679
choices and to determine our own sovereign future. We can
669
00:43:36.739 --> 00:43:42.550
no longer afford to be overly reliant on any one partner. Instead,
670
00:43:43.190 --> 00:43:48.190
we are diversifying our ties and building stronger relationships with
671
00:43:48.309 --> 00:43:50.389
new and old partners alike.
672
00:43:50.980 --> 00:43:54.960
So there you have it, David. In the Canadian politeness,
673
00:43:55.619 --> 00:43:56.980
she has stated it boldly.
674
00:43:57.880 --> 00:44:00.320
Well, you know, look what she cares about. You know,
675
00:44:00.340 --> 00:44:03.440
the Canadians just made clear in this speech by Minister Anand,
676
00:44:03.480 --> 00:44:06.300
I think her name is Anand, they care about the tides.
677
00:44:06.380 --> 00:44:08.739
She's all concerned about tides. You know, they can't do
678
00:44:08.760 --> 00:44:10.849
anything about the tides. Why is she talking about the tides?
679
00:44:13.969 --> 00:44:18.409
I think this is the future. I mean, a nation
680
00:44:18.670 --> 00:44:21.889
like America... being run in the way it's being run
681
00:44:22.469 --> 00:44:26.820
will live, I think, as sort of a transactional outcast.
682
00:44:27.539 --> 00:44:30.019
You must transact with America, but I don't think there
683
00:44:30.039 --> 00:44:31.760
are going to be alliances with America.
684
00:44:31.860 --> 00:44:35.699
Donald is making us a pariah nation, not quite with
685
00:44:35.719 --> 00:44:38.380
the speed and success.
686
00:44:39.159 --> 00:44:41.960
Of Netanyahu in making.
687
00:44:41.769 --> 00:44:46.019
Israel a pariah nation, but he's heading in that direction
688
00:44:46.179 --> 00:44:49.429
very quickly. And the biggest beneficiary from all of this
689
00:44:49.590 --> 00:44:53.010
is president G and his, his communist dictatorship in Beijing.
690
00:44:53.469 --> 00:44:56.769
I mean, Donald is just a heaven sent gift to them.
691
00:44:57.070 --> 00:45:00.369
Although it was communist, they wouldn't say heaven. Um, but,
692
00:45:00.889 --> 00:45:04.949
but the Canadians are going to do just fine without us.
693
00:45:05.179 --> 00:45:08.699
We need Canada for a lot of things, particularly potash for, uh, uh,
694
00:45:09.719 --> 00:45:15.440
fertilizers for crops. And, All of this because of two things.
695
00:45:16.219 --> 00:45:19.679
The number of people who believe Donald Trump's nonsense and
696
00:45:19.739 --> 00:45:22.280
continue to believe it, although those numbers appear very clearly
697
00:45:22.320 --> 00:45:29.610
to be shrinking and shrinking significantly. But the absolute cowardice
698
00:45:30.550 --> 00:45:33.909
of the leaders of what used to be the Republican Party,
699
00:45:33.969 --> 00:45:36.690
it's no longer the Republican Party, it's the Trump Republican Party.
700
00:45:37.769 --> 00:45:40.239
And Even the ones who are sort of trying to
701
00:45:40.320 --> 00:45:43.800
distance themselves from Donald, that's going to last until November 3rd.
702
00:45:44.179 --> 00:45:46.500
And then they're going to be right back to doing
703
00:45:46.519 --> 00:45:50.460
whatever he wants. And this this lack of principle is
704
00:45:50.559 --> 00:45:54.659
just I find astonishing. But I also see it as
705
00:45:54.739 --> 00:45:58.780
part of this high level breakdown of morality in America,
706
00:45:59.440 --> 00:46:03.179
driven by this completely baseless notion that the purpose of
707
00:46:03.219 --> 00:46:05.929
our country is to get rich. There's not a word
708
00:46:05.949 --> 00:46:09.940
in our constitution about rich, about wealth. It is a
709
00:46:10.440 --> 00:46:14.559
document about ennobling the human spirit to see what our
710
00:46:14.639 --> 00:46:20.199
species might become. But equal justice, you know, well, Donald,
711
00:46:20.260 --> 00:46:22.679
equal justice is I get the justice and you get
712
00:46:22.719 --> 00:46:24.360
whatever I want to marshal.
713
00:46:24.099 --> 00:46:24.599
Out to you.
714
00:46:25.400 --> 00:46:35.119
And this also reflects decades of our cutting in American education, arts, literature, drama,
715
00:46:35.500 --> 00:46:38.239
but Hey, we've saved high school football.
716
00:46:39.760 --> 00:46:42.840
Right. And we've got money for, uh, weapons, which is
717
00:46:43.079 --> 00:46:44.860
clearly the priority. If you look at, you know, it's
718
00:46:44.889 --> 00:46:47.070
the old line, don't tell me your priorities, show me
719
00:46:47.230 --> 00:46:49.010
your budget and I'll tell you your priorities.
720
00:46:49.030 --> 00:46:52.329
You know, years ago, there was a, um, an episode
721
00:46:52.610 --> 00:46:55.030
of one of the Star Trek TV series. I think
722
00:46:55.090 --> 00:46:57.409
it was Voyager, but it might've been a different one
723
00:46:57.929 --> 00:47:01.679
where Robert Picardo was was the voice actor for a
724
00:47:01.719 --> 00:47:04.760
whole bunch of nuclear bombs that one society was sending
725
00:47:04.800 --> 00:47:08.780
through space to another one. And they captured him. And
726
00:47:09.039 --> 00:47:13.280
he eventually figures out, because he's somewhat sentient, even though
727
00:47:13.300 --> 00:47:16.769
he's not alive, and that's in the sense we.
728
00:47:16.730 --> 00:47:19.510
Are, that his purpose is to blow up.
729
00:47:20.389 --> 00:47:22.789
And he comes to see that killing all the creatures
730
00:47:22.849 --> 00:47:25.170
or people on this other planet is wrong. And he
731
00:47:25.190 --> 00:47:28.780
goes out to then blow up. the other bombs that
732
00:47:28.820 --> 00:47:33.280
are on their way and fulfill his purpose. You know,
733
00:47:33.440 --> 00:47:35.559
try as I might, I just can't come up with
734
00:47:35.619 --> 00:47:38.329
a purpose for Donald Trump other than to ruin our country.
735
00:47:40.150 --> 00:47:44.809
He has so made self-enrichment the cornerstone of his administration.
736
00:47:46.289 --> 00:47:51.900
I wanted to give you one other chance to weigh
737
00:47:51.980 --> 00:47:54.300
in on something that is getting a lot of play
738
00:47:54.380 --> 00:47:59.409
and pushback, and that's the use of the government platform
739
00:47:59.449 --> 00:48:03.900
and government funds for these commercials about Trump. Let's just run,
740
00:48:04.900 --> 00:48:06.880
run cut eight for me, if you would, Tony, this
741
00:48:06.940 --> 00:48:09.480
ran a lot this past weekend, college football, pro football.
742
00:48:09.780 --> 00:48:09.940
Yeah.
743
00:48:10.659 --> 00:48:11.860
This is the final battle.
744
00:48:12.659 --> 00:48:15.639
With you at my side, we will demolish the deep state.
745
00:48:15.719 --> 00:48:18.940
We will expel the warmongers from our government. We will
746
00:48:18.980 --> 00:48:22.340
drive out the globalists. We will cast out the communists,
747
00:48:22.599 --> 00:48:26.320
Marxists and fascists. We will throw off the sick political
748
00:48:26.400 --> 00:48:29.960
class that hates our country. We will rout the fake
749
00:48:30.079 --> 00:48:33.840
news media and we will liberate America from these villains
750
00:48:34.480 --> 00:48:36.119
once and for all.
751
00:48:38.059 --> 00:48:40.679
How much of that, David, is him trolling or that
752
00:48:40.780 --> 00:48:43.889
paid part? paid for by the U.S. government. I think
753
00:48:43.909 --> 00:48:47.090
that's almost like he's trolling the libs.
754
00:48:47.510 --> 00:48:50.489
If he were a senator, this would be a crime
755
00:48:50.550 --> 00:48:51.409
under the Hatch Act.
756
00:48:51.610 --> 00:48:53.300
Oh, it's not applicable to a head of state?
757
00:48:53.320 --> 00:48:55.280
The President of the United States and the Vice President
758
00:48:55.400 --> 00:48:58.619
are not covered by the Hatch Act. The Hatch Act
759
00:48:58.679 --> 00:49:00.559
is a law designed to make sure the government isn't
760
00:49:00.699 --> 00:49:05.019
used to allow one party or someone in office to intimidate, coerce,
761
00:49:05.780 --> 00:49:09.360
or have anything other than honest debate. But this is
762
00:49:09.590 --> 00:49:14.829
Dictator Donald. This is how you would see things if
763
00:49:14.869 --> 00:49:17.969
you were in another country and a dictator was doing this.
764
00:49:18.590 --> 00:49:21.780
Donald believes he is the only person. And what does
765
00:49:21.800 --> 00:49:24.559
he say? I alone can save you. I alone can
766
00:49:24.619 --> 00:49:28.679
solve this problem when he can't solve anything. I want
767
00:49:28.699 --> 00:49:31.239
to point out there's one thing Donald has done that
768
00:49:31.260 --> 00:49:33.960
I think is very good. And I've been speaking about this.
769
00:49:34.019 --> 00:49:36.619
I'm going to talk to faculty at some meetings about this.
770
00:49:37.219 --> 00:49:42.460
This year, folks, For one year only, this year, if
771
00:49:42.519 --> 00:49:45.659
you make a gift to charity of up to $ 1, 000
772
00:49:45.380 --> 00:49:48.900
or for a married couple $ 2, 000 and it's cash and
773
00:49:48.949 --> 00:49:51.889
you have a receipt from the charity on the dating
774
00:49:51.949 --> 00:49:54.829
it and what it was for, you can deduct that
775
00:49:54.909 --> 00:49:57.530
on your income tax return. Now, fewer than 10% of
776
00:49:57.570 --> 00:50:01.610
Americans itemize anymore. So you don't get to deduct your
777
00:50:01.630 --> 00:50:04.820
mortgage interest. You don't get to deduct your property taxes
778
00:50:04.889 --> 00:50:07.760
or your state income tax anymore. but you got this
779
00:50:07.920 --> 00:50:12.969
one-time deal for $ 1, 000 per person. You give $ 100, you
780
00:50:13.130 --> 00:50:15.889
get a deduction for $ 100. You'll pay a little less tax.
781
00:50:17.030 --> 00:50:20.630
And I hope people take advantage of that. And I'm
782
00:50:20.670 --> 00:50:22.880
glad that Donald Trump signed a law that did that.
783
00:50:22.909 --> 00:50:27.320
I think it's a good thing. Now let's work on
784
00:50:28.099 --> 00:50:32.719
how people who are very wealthy escape all taxes on
785
00:50:32.760 --> 00:50:35.420
their gains when they die by giving 100% of the
786
00:50:35.460 --> 00:50:40.610
money away to institutions that their family will control, we
787
00:50:40.650 --> 00:50:43.269
can reform that. My new book will address that. You
788
00:50:43.789 --> 00:50:45.010
should be able to give all the money you want
789
00:50:45.030 --> 00:50:48.480
to charity after you paid your taxes on about, I
790
00:50:48.500 --> 00:50:50.159
would argue, 90% of the money.
791
00:50:50.679 --> 00:50:54.780
Well, one of your other books in the past really
792
00:50:54.900 --> 00:50:58.239
outlines how the tax code is essentially set up for
793
00:50:58.320 --> 00:51:01.280
the wealthiest to benefit immensely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
794
00:51:01.360 --> 00:51:03.469
And in my White Collar Crime class, we just went
795
00:51:03.510 --> 00:51:07.219
through how all sorts of companies knew that what they
796
00:51:07.239 --> 00:51:10.760
were doing was killing their workers and nothing happened to them.
797
00:51:10.800 --> 00:51:11.099
Why?
798
00:51:11.159 --> 00:51:13.619
Well, because they were able to suppress it until the
799
00:51:13.800 --> 00:51:18.230
people who started doing it were all dead. And then
800
00:51:18.269 --> 00:51:22.690
when the government finally had its eyes open from the outside,
801
00:51:24.110 --> 00:51:24.969
nobody to prosecute.
802
00:51:25.010 --> 00:51:25.710
They're all dead.
803
00:51:25.929 --> 00:51:29.550
You just have all these people dying from mesothelioma, asbestosis,
804
00:51:30.369 --> 00:51:38.280
lung cancer, from nicotine, asbestos, and a host of other things.
805
00:51:38.320 --> 00:51:39.039
That's villainous.
806
00:51:39.199 --> 00:51:41.099
Oh my God, we have to let business do whatever
807
00:51:41.119 --> 00:51:43.519
it wants. The oil companies want to sell more oil,
808
00:51:43.579 --> 00:51:45.889
then let's make cars burn more gasoline.
809
00:51:46.860 --> 00:51:52.190
It's exactly that. It's a takeover. It's a plutocracy or
810
00:51:52.349 --> 00:51:56.530
oligarchy or mix. In my last minute, I want to
811
00:51:56.570 --> 00:51:58.710
share with you something that is just a bit bizarre.
812
00:51:59.190 --> 00:52:05.650
Trump did offer to sell arms, weapons to Xi, the
813
00:52:06.030 --> 00:52:11.269
Chinese dictator. He offered to sell weapons to China while
814
00:52:11.349 --> 00:52:16.769
hosting Xi Jinping last week. President continues to say, this
815
00:52:16.789 --> 00:52:19.530
is a quote from David Perdue from Fox News, President
816
00:52:19.550 --> 00:52:22.170
continues to say, hey, we sell arms to other people
817
00:52:22.210 --> 00:52:25.070
around the world. He actually asked President Xi, would he
818
00:52:25.110 --> 00:52:28.280
like to buy some at one point? Well, then Trump
819
00:52:28.320 --> 00:52:31.320
was asked about this, and he said, oh, I don't
820
00:52:31.360 --> 00:52:35.219
know anything about that. It's cut, whatever cut it is.
821
00:52:36.079 --> 00:52:39.480
And then on the state visit yesterday on Fox News Sunday,
822
00:52:39.900 --> 00:52:45.159
Ambassador to China, Purdue, said that you suggested to President
823
00:52:45.260 --> 00:52:46.619
Xi that the U.S.
824
00:52:46.860 --> 00:52:50.280
Would sell U.S. military equipment to China.
825
00:52:50.389 --> 00:52:51.199
Is that accurate?
826
00:52:51.219 --> 00:52:54.449
Did you make such a suggestion to China? You mean
827
00:52:54.489 --> 00:52:56.230
to Taiwan? No, to China.
828
00:52:56.250 --> 00:52:56.849
That's what he said.
829
00:52:57.070 --> 00:52:58.570
I never heard of that one. I don't have to
830
00:52:58.670 --> 00:52:59.030
ask him.
831
00:52:59.070 --> 00:53:00.349
You mean we're going to sell?
832
00:53:00.590 --> 00:53:02.630
No, they probably like to buy it because we do
833
00:53:02.670 --> 00:53:03.929
make better equipment than that.
834
00:53:03.989 --> 00:53:05.090
So maybe it's a good idea.
835
00:53:05.909 --> 00:53:09.539
But we didn't discuss it.
836
00:53:09.559 --> 00:53:13.539
The tell there, Mark, was they probably like to do this.
837
00:53:13.579 --> 00:53:16.820
So it's a good idea, which is he said something
838
00:53:16.860 --> 00:53:21.670
that broadly fits that. Donald Trump is not interested in
839
00:53:21.730 --> 00:53:24.920
the welfare of the United States. uh, he wouldn't be
840
00:53:24.940 --> 00:53:29.460
doing the things he's doing. You know, he, he, uh, uh, we,
841
00:53:29.559 --> 00:53:32.539
we have incredibly, I think at this point, solid evidence
842
00:53:32.619 --> 00:53:38.130
that Russia has been helping the Iranians target American military
843
00:53:38.269 --> 00:53:42.329
and other assets. And he hasn't said a word about
844
00:53:42.409 --> 00:53:47.940
Russia doing this, not one word. Um, all these other
845
00:53:47.960 --> 00:53:50.960
things we've talked about today, you know, deporting people back
846
00:53:51.000 --> 00:53:54.460
to Afghanistan who loyally served our military for 20 years.
847
00:53:55.840 --> 00:54:01.420
All of this is, he has no principles. You know,
848
00:54:01.440 --> 00:54:03.119
it's the big thing I teach my students. You know,
849
00:54:03.139 --> 00:54:05.420
you can learn mechanics of things, but if you learn
850
00:54:05.460 --> 00:54:09.110
at the level of principle and theory, you'll see the
851
00:54:09.150 --> 00:54:11.550
mechanics and you'll see what other people don't see. And
852
00:54:11.590 --> 00:54:13.610
if you're going to college, what you should be doing
853
00:54:13.690 --> 00:54:17.239
is learning principle and theory and because the world will
854
00:54:17.260 --> 00:54:19.900
make a lot more sense to you and you'll understand
855
00:54:19.980 --> 00:54:25.199
things deeply. Donald often doesn't even understand the mechanics of things.
856
00:54:26.260 --> 00:54:30.179
And we need to keep making sure the public hears
857
00:54:30.239 --> 00:54:34.550
that message that he doesn't know what he's doing. And
858
00:54:34.610 --> 00:54:37.489
this answer, unfortunately, is just a classic of how Donald
859
00:54:38.929 --> 00:54:43.610
muddies waters and creates chaos and lack of clarity because
860
00:54:43.630 --> 00:54:46.570
those are the things that benefit his efforts to be
861
00:54:46.769 --> 00:54:49.610
America's Emperor One. Wow.
862
00:54:49.929 --> 00:54:52.989
Yeah. And it's just matched with the arrogance. So that
863
00:54:53.130 --> 00:54:57.300
arrogance and ignorance meet at that intersection and it's quite
864
00:54:57.340 --> 00:54:59.920
a loud crash and we're all living it. I want
865
00:54:59.940 --> 00:55:02.119
to let everybody know that I'll put a link to
866
00:55:02.179 --> 00:55:06.829
David K. Johnston's appearance in Oakland under this video so
867
00:55:06.849 --> 00:55:08.769
if you want to go see david with ian masters
868
00:55:08.829 --> 00:55:11.210
in oakland uh you can do it it's in support
869
00:55:11.329 --> 00:55:13.820
of public radio there and get up.
870
00:55:13.820 --> 00:55:16.539
The one for fresno which is an npr affiliate.
871
00:55:16.239 --> 00:55:19.059
K yeah can you do i don't know if they
872
00:55:19.099 --> 00:55:20.400
have it up yet or not but.
873
00:55:20.460 --> 00:55:21.940
Okay if we can i've been.
874
00:55:21.820 --> 00:55:24.360
Trying as you know very hard to get more money
875
00:55:24.420 --> 00:55:28.070
for public radio and let me reiterate uh it would
876
00:55:28.130 --> 00:55:30.590
cost a penny a day per household in america three
877
00:55:30.610 --> 00:55:34.260
dollars and 65 cents a year per household to replace
878
00:55:34.599 --> 00:55:38.119
with state-level money the federal money Donald Trump took away
879
00:55:38.199 --> 00:55:43.380
from public broadcasting. And I don't understand why Gavin Newsom
880
00:55:43.440 --> 00:55:48.300
and Kathy Hochul and Andy Beshear and Josh Shapiro and
881
00:55:48.699 --> 00:55:52.800
other at least Democratic governors who say they oppose Trump
882
00:55:53.239 --> 00:55:59.429
haven't moved one finger, haven't raised one dollar countrywide to
883
00:55:59.469 --> 00:56:02.650
provide more money to public radio.
884
00:56:03.789 --> 00:56:08.949
Yeah, yeah. It's a real– it's happening across the broadcast industry.
885
00:56:09.449 --> 00:56:15.070
And this was– seemed like it was an island of
886
00:56:15.219 --> 00:56:18.599
safety in a world that was being– And.
887
00:56:18.739 --> 00:56:22.019
Grounded, sane reporting too. Anyway, I look forward to seeing
888
00:56:22.039 --> 00:56:22.840
you next week, friend.
889
00:56:22.860 --> 00:56:25.980
All right, good. Talk to you soon. David K. Johnson, everybody. Thanks, David.
890
00:56:26.000 --> 00:56:32.329
Appreciate you. Yeah. I, um, well, I know that we, uh,
891
00:56:32.429 --> 00:56:34.570
we have a lot of listeners and viewers in the
892
00:56:34.670 --> 00:56:37.909
San Francisco Bay area and maybe even some in Fresno.
893
00:56:37.989 --> 00:56:41.730
So we will, um, we'll post that to, uh, uh,
894
00:56:41.929 --> 00:56:44.190
to this under this video and under the, the live
895
00:56:44.250 --> 00:56:46.030
show as well. So you can check it out. Do
896
00:56:46.070 --> 00:56:50.289
smash the like button, do it for David K. Johnston. Yeah. And, uh,
897
00:56:50.809 --> 00:56:52.969
subscribe to the show, share the show. If you can,
898
00:56:52.989 --> 00:56:54.829
there's some good stuff in here that you can share.
899
00:56:55.269 --> 00:56:58.400
Like a conversation with David K. Johnston. It's, uh, available
900
00:56:58.440 --> 00:57:02.050
to share on this channel and also on Facebook. So, uh,
901
00:57:02.110 --> 00:57:03.949
you can share it there as well. And of course
902
00:57:03.969 --> 00:57:07.769
we're an audio podcast and I heart radio. We're on Spotify.
903
00:57:07.829 --> 00:57:10.530
We're on Apple podcast too. So all those places are
904
00:57:10.550 --> 00:57:13.769
places where you can find the show and share the
905
00:57:13.789 --> 00:57:17.239
show to others. So, um, there's a, we need a
906
00:57:17.280 --> 00:57:20.539
PBS Jerry Lewis telethon. That's a, yeah. Uh, Jerry Lewis
907
00:57:20.559 --> 00:57:25.559
like telethon for PBS. Yeah. Um, I want to tell
908
00:57:25.579 --> 00:57:29.510
you that coming up, I've got a great conversation about
909
00:57:31.030 --> 00:57:35.369
the oligarchy and about what's happened in America. But it's
910
00:57:35.510 --> 00:57:38.230
not just that because you're going to probably say, hey,
911
00:57:38.250 --> 00:57:43.469
I know about that and I am troubled by that.
912
00:57:44.050 --> 00:57:48.550
We get into the election and we get into authoritarianism.
913
00:57:48.610 --> 00:57:51.380
His new book, in fact, Charles Derber is the author,
914
00:57:51.739 --> 00:57:55.769
is called Wired for Authoritarianism. What he talks about in
915
00:57:55.809 --> 00:58:00.530
this book is, and he's a prolific author, 30, but
916
00:58:00.570 --> 00:58:04.150
he's a brilliant professor of sociology. So Charles Derber is
917
00:58:04.250 --> 00:58:08.070
next up. You'll see him next. And he talks about
918
00:58:10.050 --> 00:58:15.369
America and the ways in which authoritarianism can rise here
919
00:58:15.530 --> 00:58:19.449
and just in general. And then I push him toward
920
00:58:20.289 --> 00:58:25.440
the election. and the ways in which the authoritarian dance
921
00:58:25.639 --> 00:58:29.780
that's being done in America may manifest itself in the election.
922
00:58:30.159 --> 00:58:34.340
It's a great conversation, and we're going to run it
923
00:58:34.400 --> 00:58:36.420
for you. Kim, is there any reason I can't run
924
00:58:36.460 --> 00:58:37.800
it now? Do I have anything else to do?
925
00:58:37.820 --> 00:58:41.900
You can talk about coffee now, or you can talk.
926
00:58:41.739 --> 00:58:42.500
About coffee later.
927
00:58:42.539 --> 00:58:44.070
No, your comments.
928
00:58:44.139 --> 00:58:46.179
All right, one at a time. Coffee, comments, what do
929
00:58:46.199 --> 00:58:46.610
you want?
930
00:58:46.679 --> 00:58:46.989
All right.
931
00:58:47.050 --> 00:58:49.210
You want to comment? Let's do comments.
932
00:58:49.750 --> 00:58:53.960
Quickly, comments. And then I really want you to hear
933
00:58:54.000 --> 00:58:57.940
this conversation. Got my Florida mail-in ballot today, says Wes
934
00:58:58.000 --> 00:59:02.570
in Florida. This is for the general election. So satisfying
935
00:59:02.610 --> 00:59:06.550
as I check all the Democratic options for everything. Screw
936
00:59:06.590 --> 00:59:09.210
those maggots. Well, Wes has got a point of view.
937
00:59:09.230 --> 00:59:15.639
Big shot. out. I just changed my weather stripping because
938
00:59:15.699 --> 00:59:20.349
it's coming. The big push, the big storm, the coming
939
00:59:20.429 --> 00:59:24.650
El Nino, a winter of wet. Thank you, Richard. Big
940
00:59:24.670 --> 00:59:29.360
shout out. Richard, also the $ 5 Super Chat, says, Watch me, children.
941
00:59:29.400 --> 00:59:31.559
Then you'll know what a man will do to sell
942
00:59:31.599 --> 00:59:34.949
his soul, enrich himself by any means. Let the poor
943
00:59:35.469 --> 00:59:40.570
eat their beans. F.U. administration, says Richard. He paid five
944
00:59:40.610 --> 00:59:43.550
bucks for that F.U. History will look back on Jack
945
00:59:43.610 --> 00:59:46.690
Smith with respect and admiration. Yeah, Jack Smith getting dragged
946
00:59:47.150 --> 00:59:51.869
over the coals by Republican senators who are, again, as
947
00:59:51.929 --> 00:59:55.860
I say, it's a theatrical, performative thing going on. But
948
00:59:55.880 --> 00:59:58.340
they're trying to, and this is the wild part, accuse
949
00:59:58.360 --> 01:00:00.840
Jack Smith of the very thing that's happening with this administration,
950
01:00:00.860 --> 01:00:04.130
and that is the weaponization of the Justice Department. Robert
951
01:00:04.170 --> 01:00:06.530
Schwartz says, this election won't matter. Trump is going to
952
01:00:06.630 --> 01:00:09.750
order Mike Johnson and others to refuse to concede elections.
953
01:00:10.090 --> 01:00:12.309
It was a good run, but pretty sure the U.S.
954
01:00:12.369 --> 01:00:15.190
is finished. Well, this is interesting because that's what I've
955
01:00:15.230 --> 01:00:17.650
been saying, all right? And even as I've had people
956
01:00:17.670 --> 01:00:20.409
like Rothman on, comes on tomorrow, and he says, I
957
01:00:20.429 --> 01:00:23.579
can't do that. The institutions require that they be, no, no.
958
01:00:24.059 --> 01:00:27.619
You're wrong. You're wrong. The institutions are people, and people
959
01:00:28.099 --> 01:00:33.530
who are devoted loyalists to Trump, like Mike Johnson, will
960
01:00:33.969 --> 01:00:37.769
do everything in their power to undercut the election. I
961
01:00:37.789 --> 01:00:40.570
think there are any number of ways that the election
962
01:00:40.610 --> 01:00:45.510
results can be undercut, not seating or not recognizing the
963
01:00:45.570 --> 01:00:49.920
legitimacy of of those seats that you've lost is one way.
964
01:00:50.159 --> 01:00:52.219
There are a bunch of otherwise, too. Then we get
965
01:00:52.260 --> 01:00:54.239
a little bit into that in my conversation that's going
966
01:00:54.260 --> 01:00:57.480
to be coming up with Charles Derber, brilliant professor, and
967
01:00:57.579 --> 01:01:00.659
his new book gets into that. Is this the best
968
01:01:00.699 --> 01:01:04.619
show ever or what? Thank you, Richard. Big shout-out. Some
969
01:01:04.639 --> 01:01:06.679
naked sucking up is always a good thing. Let me
970
01:01:06.719 --> 01:01:10.340
get a quick note about the coffee I'm drinking. Someone
971
01:01:10.380 --> 01:01:13.159
told me it's National Coffee Day. Is that true? I
972
01:01:13.179 --> 01:01:19.690
don't know about that. It's so good. That's so much
973
01:01:19.730 --> 01:01:22.170
of the Coachella Valley coffee today. It's the official coffee
974
01:01:22.250 --> 01:01:23.969
of the show. It should be the official coffee of
975
01:01:24.030 --> 01:01:27.570
your life. I've been drinking coffee as long as I
976
01:01:27.590 --> 01:01:29.820
can remember. My mom always had a pot of coffee
977
01:01:29.860 --> 01:01:33.519
going no matter what time of day or night. And
978
01:01:35.880 --> 01:01:38.320
I've had coffee all around the world. Coachella Valley coffee
979
01:01:38.340 --> 01:01:40.989
I was drinking before they were sponsors. I do want
980
01:01:41.030 --> 01:01:43.610
you to check them out because now that they are sponsors,
981
01:01:43.769 --> 01:01:48.809
I can scream it from the rooftops daily. CoachellaValleyCoffee.com, all organic,
982
01:01:49.050 --> 01:01:52.820
ethically sourced from women-owned farms. This is a boutique roastery.
983
01:01:52.860 --> 01:01:56.840
They roast everything by hand, and they have teas that
984
01:01:56.860 --> 01:02:01.699
are curated specifically as well with loose leaf and also
985
01:02:01.820 --> 01:02:04.500
bagged teas. So check it all out. And again, this
986
01:02:04.559 --> 01:02:07.699
is National Coffee Day observed on September 29th. Many businesses
987
01:02:08.039 --> 01:02:11.000
and coffee chains offer free or discounted cups of coffee
988
01:02:11.460 --> 01:02:13.699
on that day. I wish we'd known this ahead of time.
989
01:02:13.719 --> 01:02:16.380
We could have done some promotion. We will do a
990
01:02:16.800 --> 01:02:19.280
holiday promotion coming up, but you'll get 10% off. That's
991
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our daily promotion. Use Mark T at checkout. Because it's
992
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a boutique roastery, so it's not a discount house. Use
993
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our discount code. CoachellaValleyCoffee.com. Again, Mark T. at checkout for
994
01:02:30.570 --> 01:02:38.119
10% off. Put that coffee down. Yes, thank you. CoachellaValleyCoffee.com.
995
01:02:39.900 --> 01:02:46.000
The Mark Thompson Show. The new book is Wired for Authoritarianism.
996
01:02:47.800 --> 01:02:52.860
The American Oligarchs. As they rise to power and the
997
01:02:52.929 --> 01:03:04.219
next election, we discuss it all with Charles Durbin. Love
998
01:03:04.239 --> 01:03:08.360
to invite you to meet great thinkers. And today is
999
01:03:08.420 --> 01:03:11.739
another one of those days. Charles Durbin is a sociology
1000
01:03:11.780 --> 01:03:17.070
professor at Boston College. He is insanely prolific. 30 books
1001
01:03:17.469 --> 01:03:23.309
on politics, democracy, fascism, corporations. capitalism, climate change, war, the
1002
01:03:23.349 --> 01:03:28.070
culture wars, and social changes. Best-selling books include The Pursuit
1003
01:03:28.409 --> 01:03:32.409
of Attention and The Wilding of America. He writes for,
1004
01:03:32.449 --> 01:03:34.710
has been reviewed in the New York Times, the Washington Post,
1005
01:03:34.730 --> 01:03:40.420
the Boston Globe. He is really capable of such brilliance
1006
01:03:40.559 --> 01:03:44.280
and containing it in the leaves of a book, and
1007
01:03:44.320 --> 01:03:47.739
he's done it again. His new book is Wired for Authoritarianism,
1008
01:03:48.199 --> 01:03:53.400
American Oligarchies, and How to Rewire America for the People.
1009
01:03:54.119 --> 01:03:58.530
How about it for Charles Derber, everyone? Welcome, Charles.
1010
01:03:59.449 --> 01:04:02.570
Thank you so much. I'm very happy to be with you, Mark.
1011
01:04:03.170 --> 01:04:06.030
I just feel as though you've written a book for
1012
01:04:06.090 --> 01:04:10.849
this moment in history. And what's interesting, among the other things,
1013
01:04:11.539 --> 01:04:15.039
in this book, Wired for Authoritarianism, American Oligarchies and How
1014
01:04:15.079 --> 01:04:17.300
to Rewire America for the People, and there'll be a
1015
01:04:17.400 --> 01:04:19.219
link to buy the book and to get the book
1016
01:04:19.679 --> 01:04:25.389
under this video, is that you've broken down different eras
1017
01:04:26.030 --> 01:04:31.510
of this oligarchical control. And it's fascinating to see it
1018
01:04:31.630 --> 01:04:33.690
broken down that way. I wonder if you could give
1019
01:04:33.750 --> 01:04:34.909
us a little something on that.
1020
01:04:35.389 --> 01:04:37.949
Yeah, I think the history is really important. You know,
1021
01:04:37.989 --> 01:04:43.269
I think people, Mark, they think, Trump invented American authoritarianism.
1022
01:04:43.389 --> 01:04:45.500
And sort of my view that I try to detail
1023
01:04:45.539 --> 01:04:48.980
in the story of the book is that he inherited it.
1024
01:04:48.980 --> 01:04:51.219
I mean, he made his own changes and I'm not
1025
01:04:51.340 --> 01:04:54.719
minimizing how serious they are. But I do think it's
1026
01:04:54.840 --> 01:04:59.510
very important to know the backstory and the history of this.
1027
01:04:59.550 --> 01:05:01.030
This book is in a way a history of the
1028
01:05:01.050 --> 01:05:03.949
United States. And the reason it's really important, Mark, is
1029
01:05:04.030 --> 01:05:08.170
I write for people who, in a personal way I can,
1030
01:05:08.230 --> 01:05:11.219
so it's easy to read and I can think about it.
1031
01:05:11.829 --> 01:05:16.429
And I think, you know, I'm so happy that more
1032
01:05:16.489 --> 01:05:18.800
people than I thought likely were coming out on the
1033
01:05:18.840 --> 01:05:22.519
streets for the No Trump Kings marches and protesting. But
1034
01:05:22.599 --> 01:05:25.940
I worry that if people don't know this backstory that
1035
01:05:25.960 --> 01:05:28.619
I'm telling in the book, that they might try to
1036
01:05:28.679 --> 01:05:31.260
simply think, or they might say, if we can just
1037
01:05:31.670 --> 01:05:34.110
get rid of Trump, which would be, in fact, a
1038
01:05:34.190 --> 01:05:39.309
wonderful thing fantastically important thing. But it's not enough, because
1039
01:05:39.349 --> 01:05:42.190
if we get rid of Trump, we're likely to go back,
1040
01:05:42.610 --> 01:05:45.719
unless we know this larger backstory, to what we had
1041
01:05:45.760 --> 01:05:48.579
before Trump, which is a sort of set of conditions
1042
01:05:48.599 --> 01:05:52.019
that will lead to a new Trump, inevitably. And my
1043
01:05:52.079 --> 01:05:53.800
argument in the book, as you know, Mark, is that
1044
01:05:53.840 --> 01:05:57.289
the history of America is the history of what I
1045
01:05:57.389 --> 01:06:01.590
call covert authoritarianism. In other words, it looks democratic, it
1046
01:06:01.690 --> 01:06:06.829
sounds democratic, People believe that it has democratic ideals written
1047
01:06:06.869 --> 01:06:08.929
in the Constitution, some of which is true, but some
1048
01:06:08.949 --> 01:06:12.110
of which we might want to talk about is distorted.
1049
01:06:12.699 --> 01:06:15.300
But what I really worry about, I mean, what I
1050
01:06:15.360 --> 01:06:19.320
really treasure is the idea that there's a growing movement
1051
01:06:19.400 --> 01:06:23.559
against Trump and against the kind of overt, you know, extreme,
1052
01:06:23.679 --> 01:06:27.260
visible authoritarianism, putting billionaires in the White House and letting
1053
01:06:27.559 --> 01:06:30.489
these guys that sort of run America be wide open
1054
01:06:30.530 --> 01:06:35.400
about it. directly control the government. Before Trump, these same
1055
01:06:35.440 --> 01:06:38.960
billionaires were running, or different generations of billionaires, were running
1056
01:06:38.980 --> 01:06:41.599
the country from behind a curtain, so to speak, the
1057
01:06:41.639 --> 01:06:44.940
curtain of elections. They weren't generally put into the White
1058
01:06:44.980 --> 01:06:48.610
House or into public office, but they had built a
1059
01:06:49.190 --> 01:06:54.750
kind of cohesive network, a sort of shadow network government,
1060
01:06:54.809 --> 01:06:57.269
I would say. This is not really a conspiratorial theory,
1061
01:06:57.289 --> 01:07:01.239
but just an argument of how the the wealthy elites
1062
01:07:01.500 --> 01:07:05.460
tied to political allies found a way since the first
1063
01:07:05.559 --> 01:07:09.369
Gilded Age of Rockefeller and JP Morgan and Andrew Carnegie
1064
01:07:09.389 --> 01:07:14.210
and so forth, built a kind of consciousness. It started with,
1065
01:07:14.309 --> 01:07:16.530
have you ever heard of the Bohemian Club? It's a
1066
01:07:16.869 --> 01:07:19.510
social club where very wealthy people get together.
1067
01:07:19.550 --> 01:07:21.429
Of course, it's right, I think, is it Marin County?
1068
01:07:21.630 --> 01:07:25.530
Yeah, yeah, it's right around there. And, you know, and
1069
01:07:25.590 --> 01:07:30.170
they built, Think tanks like Heritage Foundation Today, which gave
1070
01:07:30.190 --> 01:07:34.489
the Project 2025, or the Council on Foreign Relations, which
1071
01:07:34.530 --> 01:07:38.699
had the Dulles brothers, the CIA director and the Secretary
1072
01:07:38.719 --> 01:07:43.179
of State of Eisenhower, Henry Kissinger. These guys were all
1073
01:07:43.260 --> 01:07:46.980
part of this shadow network. They were Rockefeller boys. I mean,
1074
01:07:47.000 --> 01:07:48.980
they were trained and funded by Wolf, but they got
1075
01:07:49.019 --> 01:07:51.739
into these think tanks that were created. along with the
1076
01:07:51.780 --> 01:07:54.340
Bohemian clubs and the social clubs and the prep schools.
1077
01:07:54.739 --> 01:07:57.420
And these people, these very wealthy elites, were able to
1078
01:07:57.579 --> 01:08:04.340
build a kind of, like I say, a network of connections.
1079
01:08:04.400 --> 01:08:07.059
The children knew each other. They go to the same schools.
1080
01:08:07.969 --> 01:08:10.849
And they inhabited and picked these people to be in
1081
01:08:10.889 --> 01:08:15.329
these very sophisticated think tanks, which laid out a corporate
1082
01:08:15.349 --> 01:08:18.569
agenda and pretty much wrote the script of what government
1083
01:08:18.750 --> 01:08:21.560
would do. It didn't end whether it was a Democrat
1084
01:08:21.640 --> 01:08:25.699
or a Republican, it largely played within the kind of
1085
01:08:26.159 --> 01:08:31.760
orbit that these cohesive networks had created. And I call
1086
01:08:31.800 --> 01:08:36.050
that system covert authoritarianism. And if I can just say
1087
01:08:36.159 --> 01:08:40.170
one more thing very quickly, Mark, this began at the beginning.
1088
01:08:40.270 --> 01:08:42.409
And this is really important. You know, if you took
1089
01:08:42.430 --> 01:08:44.569
a look at the book, the introduction is about the
1090
01:08:44.630 --> 01:08:48.010
Constitution of the United States. And I hope people will
1091
01:08:48.090 --> 01:08:50.310
read that because, you know, I give due credit to
1092
01:08:50.649 --> 01:08:53.789
to the ideals of democracy that are laid out that
1093
01:08:53.850 --> 01:08:57.569
are very important. But there's a story behind the Constitution,
1094
01:08:57.890 --> 01:09:00.829
which is really important that it isn't quite the democratic
1095
01:09:00.890 --> 01:09:06.800
document that people think it is. And, you know, I
1096
01:09:06.840 --> 01:09:11.079
just very quickly, it was created by people like James Madison,
1097
01:09:11.100 --> 01:09:13.420
who wrote it, and Jefferson, who wrote very democratic things
1098
01:09:13.439 --> 01:09:15.500
like all men are created equal. But these were not
1099
01:09:15.579 --> 01:09:19.029
guys who, They were very steeped in British political theory,
1100
01:09:19.109 --> 01:09:24.119
and their model for the constitution was the Magna Carta,
1101
01:09:24.199 --> 01:09:27.020
which you probably know of, and your listeners probably have
1102
01:09:27.079 --> 01:09:31.279
heard of, a British medieval document which limited the power
1103
01:09:31.380 --> 01:09:35.640
of the king, but concentrated power in the nobility, in
1104
01:09:35.680 --> 01:09:40.039
the sort of wealthy elites. And people, and they weren't
1105
01:09:40.119 --> 01:09:42.579
entirely wrong, thought it was a limiting of the king
1106
01:09:42.619 --> 01:09:45.869
and a democratizing of Britain and the world. And it
1107
01:09:45.909 --> 01:09:47.729
had a little bit of that role. But what it
1108
01:09:47.899 --> 01:09:50.520
really did, I mean, remember, this was the Middle Ages.
1109
01:09:50.920 --> 01:09:53.880
The idea that serfs, you know, they were a different
1110
01:09:54.020 --> 01:09:57.539
order of being. It was absolutely unimaginable to them that
1111
01:09:57.600 --> 01:10:00.619
the Magna Carta, which became the sort of, you know,
1112
01:10:00.739 --> 01:10:04.319
draft of the Constitution. When Madison Jefferson ran it, they
1113
01:10:04.359 --> 01:10:07.880
had the Magna Carta in mind. And they were the
1114
01:10:07.979 --> 01:10:11.319
new nobility. They were against the president becoming a king.
1115
01:10:11.359 --> 01:10:13.720
That is true. And that is very important, as we
1116
01:10:13.760 --> 01:10:16.979
see with Trump trying to become a king. But they
1117
01:10:17.029 --> 01:10:22.560
had no conception of America being run by the people.
1118
01:10:25.560 --> 01:10:29.779
When you had the first election, not only slaves and
1119
01:10:29.960 --> 01:10:32.600
freed Black people couldn't vote, women, of course, couldn't vote.
1120
01:10:33.020 --> 01:10:36.180
Most white men could not vote. You had to have
1121
01:10:36.199 --> 01:10:37.939
a certain amount of property to be able to vote,
1122
01:10:37.960 --> 01:10:40.659
even if you were a white male. And so The
1123
01:10:40.699 --> 01:10:42.800
number of people who voted for George Washington in the
1124
01:10:42.819 --> 01:10:46.949
United States actually in the first election was 0%. Nobody voted.
1125
01:10:48.189 --> 01:10:52.710
Washington was elected by state legislators. They didn't think that
1126
01:10:52.770 --> 01:10:56.689
ordinary people were fit to vote. And James Madison, who
1127
01:10:56.729 --> 01:11:01.260
wrote the Constitution, is famous for saying in ancient Athens,
1128
01:11:01.460 --> 01:11:03.699
if all that which were sort of democracy is thought
1129
01:11:03.720 --> 01:11:07.319
to have begun... He said, even in those democratic councils
1130
01:11:07.420 --> 01:11:11.319
formed in Athens, if every Athenian had been Socrates, those
1131
01:11:11.399 --> 01:11:15.970
democratic councils would have constituted mob rule. In other words,
1132
01:11:16.029 --> 01:11:19.210
he saw those early democratic. And these are the people
1133
01:11:19.250 --> 01:11:22.449
who framed the Constitution and wrote it. And I don't
1134
01:11:22.470 --> 01:11:25.489
want to trash it completely because it created in America
1135
01:11:25.850 --> 01:11:28.569
the ideals that led people to come out on the
1136
01:11:28.590 --> 01:11:31.640
street and say, hey, we have a right. to believe
1137
01:11:31.680 --> 01:11:33.739
we can run this government. And they're right. And there
1138
01:11:33.770 --> 01:11:36.989
are parts of the Constitution that give credence to that idea.
1139
01:11:37.029 --> 01:11:39.350
But if you read this book, you will come out
1140
01:11:39.390 --> 01:11:43.109
of a, I think, I would say, a very different
1141
01:11:43.189 --> 01:11:47.359
understanding of what the Constitution says and how it was
1142
01:11:47.600 --> 01:11:49.619
used than what people think. And if I just had
1143
01:11:49.760 --> 01:11:51.500
one other thing about that, because it's related to the
1144
01:11:51.539 --> 01:11:55.699
elections coming up. What it did partly, the Constitution, it
1145
01:11:55.779 --> 01:12:01.640
gave the president emergency powers which essentially allow him to
1146
01:12:01.680 --> 01:12:05.970
suspend legislative rule, elections, and so forth. I mention this
1147
01:12:06.069 --> 01:12:09.050
only because it's just today, you probably saw the news
1148
01:12:09.630 --> 01:12:12.550
from the White House, that several of his top advisors
1149
01:12:12.590 --> 01:12:16.310
have said, Trump has got to declare an emergency during
1150
01:12:16.329 --> 01:12:19.159
the period of the elections. And he actually has the
1151
01:12:19.239 --> 01:12:24.640
constitutional authority. I mean, it will be litigated. But he's
1152
01:12:24.680 --> 01:12:29.060
been able to declare an emergency 21 emergencies in the
1153
01:12:29.199 --> 01:12:33.800
first year of his second term. They were to enable
1154
01:12:33.840 --> 01:12:38.239
the tariffs, to enable bombing the Caribbean, to go to
1155
01:12:38.279 --> 01:12:41.210
war in Iran. I mean, he mixes, he's very good
1156
01:12:41.250 --> 01:12:45.689
at mixing constitutional and illegal things, but the Constitution does
1157
01:12:45.770 --> 01:12:49.489
give him expansive powers and it gives him the powers
1158
01:12:49.649 --> 01:12:53.239
of emergency that I really worry. I mean, I don't
1159
01:12:53.300 --> 01:12:55.960
know because the guy gives so many threats at once,
1160
01:12:56.039 --> 01:12:58.829
but It seems very possible to me, and knowing what
1161
01:12:58.869 --> 01:13:02.270
I know of history, that he might, in fact, declare
1162
01:13:02.310 --> 01:13:05.909
an emergency at some point if he feels that somehow
1163
01:13:05.949 --> 01:13:09.039
the election is going, the tide is so strong against him.
1164
01:13:09.340 --> 01:13:13.100
Oh, I completely agree. In fact, I'm so encouraged to
1165
01:13:13.140 --> 01:13:15.539
hear you say this because I feel like I'm a
1166
01:13:15.579 --> 01:13:17.800
cry in the night sometimes. I get so many people
1167
01:13:18.090 --> 01:13:21.010
on this show. And I see them elsewhere as well,
1168
01:13:21.090 --> 01:13:23.539
talking about the midterms, talking about the elections, talking about
1169
01:13:23.560 --> 01:13:25.939
sort of old school politics. And I think there is
1170
01:13:26.020 --> 01:13:30.100
a new kind of terrorism associated with the politics of today.
1171
01:13:30.140 --> 01:13:33.319
I mean, you have, there's kind of a vandalism associated
1172
01:13:33.380 --> 01:13:37.869
with Trump's reign, a political vandalism, a governmental vandalism.
1173
01:13:38.670 --> 01:13:43.630
And yeah, corruption, terrorism, violence. I mean, even in the
1174
01:13:43.670 --> 01:13:46.250
university here, Mark, where I'm in Boston, it's a liberal
1175
01:13:46.310 --> 01:13:49.819
university and so forth. There's a lot of fear of
1176
01:13:49.979 --> 01:13:53.539
people speaking. I've got to be somewhat careful about what
1177
01:13:53.600 --> 01:13:56.180
I say in my class. If I were saying exactly
1178
01:13:56.199 --> 01:13:58.399
what I'm saying to you, I would think about it
1179
01:13:58.460 --> 01:14:00.439
very carefully. Of course, it's important to be prudent. I
1180
01:14:00.470 --> 01:14:03.789
don't try to demagogue my students in any way. I
1181
01:14:03.829 --> 01:14:06.250
give them all sides of the story. But I can
1182
01:14:06.310 --> 01:14:10.770
tell you that authoritarianism of the kind that we're seeing
1183
01:14:10.810 --> 01:14:14.039
rising is a very, it's not just in the government.
1184
01:14:14.060 --> 01:14:15.859
I think this is important to say maybe as a
1185
01:14:15.899 --> 01:14:18.739
sociologist and also for your viewers who might not be
1186
01:14:18.779 --> 01:14:22.520
very interested in academic or theoretical ideas. We're talking about
1187
01:14:22.640 --> 01:14:26.470
real life for ordinary people. You know, authoritarianism and fascism,
1188
01:14:26.789 --> 01:14:30.350
we know from the 30s and from history, it's not
1189
01:14:30.489 --> 01:14:33.949
just the way the president acts. He acts in the
1190
01:14:34.029 --> 01:14:37.250
spirit of the way families are organized, the way schools
1191
01:14:37.340 --> 01:14:40.159
are run, the way workplaces are run. And when you
1192
01:14:40.199 --> 01:14:44.119
get into a kind of authoritarian kind of politics, it's,
1193
01:14:44.779 --> 01:14:47.699
you know, I'm sort of introducing a sociology of fascism,
1194
01:14:47.720 --> 01:14:51.060
but it's like a, it's understanding that the whole society
1195
01:14:51.600 --> 01:14:55.970
is being shaped and controlled. You can't get a fascism
1196
01:14:56.109 --> 01:14:59.029
on top unless, you know, when people were, you know,
1197
01:14:59.050 --> 01:15:01.489
there have been endless studies of Hitler and they found
1198
01:15:01.529 --> 01:15:05.479
that the German family was very authoritarian at the time
1199
01:15:05.520 --> 01:15:08.149
that Hitler rose to power and that, There were all
1200
01:15:08.210 --> 01:15:12.130
kinds of authoritarian forces in German society that led to
1201
01:15:12.170 --> 01:15:15.970
that extreme kind of fascism. And the scary thing is
1202
01:15:16.010 --> 01:15:18.020
to feel that in America, and I can feel it
1203
01:15:18.069 --> 01:15:20.920
right now, even in this very liberal environment, you can
1204
01:15:20.960 --> 01:15:23.979
feel it probably just around the fringes of the media
1205
01:15:24.000 --> 01:15:26.439
and so forth. The fact that he banned these three
1206
01:15:27.560 --> 01:15:31.079
big networks from going in, it's just one measure of
1207
01:15:31.180 --> 01:15:36.050
how much this authoritarian culture is spreading through the society.
1208
01:15:36.069 --> 01:15:39.130
So this is not just some abstract theory or political thing.
1209
01:15:39.470 --> 01:15:43.449
It's something that parents are going to see their children's schools,
1210
01:15:43.550 --> 01:15:47.170
their own workplaces, and so forth. And at the heart
1211
01:15:47.210 --> 01:15:51.590
of this, I think, is there is an economic system going,
1212
01:15:51.630 --> 01:15:55.729
which is marginalizing and hurting most people. And I think
1213
01:15:55.800 --> 01:15:58.779
one of the realities of authoritarianism is that when most
1214
01:15:58.859 --> 01:16:03.960
people are squeezed economically, as Americans terms of prices, wages,
1215
01:16:04.399 --> 01:16:09.710
so forth, they find what, you know, leaders are, you know,
1216
01:16:10.590 --> 01:16:13.970
you know, authoritarian leaders promise relief, say they will, we
1217
01:16:14.010 --> 01:16:17.890
will destroy the outsiders and the enemies of the country,
1218
01:16:18.189 --> 01:16:21.279
including the media who are, you know, causing this problem.
1219
01:16:21.380 --> 01:16:25.060
And it becomes very seductive. And it's also tied to
1220
01:16:25.220 --> 01:16:27.680
one other thing. I can just mention it. I focus
1221
01:16:27.699 --> 01:16:29.319
more on this also on a book that I wrote
1222
01:16:29.359 --> 01:16:32.859
called Bonfire a year ago. which is about the breakdown
1223
01:16:32.899 --> 01:16:36.819
of social relationships, where not only are people losing economic capital,
1224
01:16:36.840 --> 01:16:41.060
but what I call social capital, meaning people are less
1225
01:16:41.359 --> 01:16:45.420
tightly connected in community. They're more isolated. They're working more hours.
1226
01:16:45.439 --> 01:16:47.859
They don't have time to be with people. I don't
1227
01:16:47.880 --> 01:16:50.590
know if you know this, but data are showing that.
1228
01:16:50.819 --> 01:16:53.199
Let me just ask you, Mark, what percentage of Americans
1229
01:16:53.270 --> 01:16:56.090
would you guess eat all their meals alone?
1230
01:16:57.250 --> 01:17:03.159
Oh, that's a great question. I'll guess a Wow. I'm
1231
01:17:03.180 --> 01:17:07.399
going to guess half, 50%. Pretty damn good.
1232
01:17:07.479 --> 01:17:07.680
Yeah.
1233
01:17:07.699 --> 01:17:10.829
The data is spread between around 40 to 60%. I've
1234
01:17:11.029 --> 01:17:13.890
seen 65. But the reason I mentioned Hannah Arendt, the
1235
01:17:13.930 --> 01:17:17.369
very famous philosopher who studied fascism in the 30s, she said,
1236
01:17:18.289 --> 01:17:23.439
fascism grows out of loneliness and isolation. People feel afraid.
1237
01:17:23.460 --> 01:17:27.579
They're alone. They don't have strong social support. And when
1238
01:17:27.619 --> 01:17:30.659
people are afraid and when they don't, then they get
1239
01:17:30.760 --> 01:17:33.880
very drawn in to a leader who promises them safety
1240
01:17:33.920 --> 01:17:36.560
and says, look, if you follow my orders, I will
1241
01:17:36.600 --> 01:17:39.520
take care of you and I will take control of
1242
01:17:39.560 --> 01:17:43.479
this country and make sure that it's run to protect you.
1243
01:17:43.579 --> 01:17:46.510
So there's a whole set of social forces that affect
1244
01:17:46.590 --> 01:17:50.470
everyday people listening to our conversation. It's not some abstract
1245
01:17:50.510 --> 01:17:53.529
political theory, although it is that. I mean, it is that.
1246
01:17:53.609 --> 01:17:57.659
Understanding the Constitution, understanding the way Corporate elites have built
1247
01:17:57.760 --> 01:18:00.439
up these networks, which are sign of kind of, I mean,
1248
01:18:00.470 --> 01:18:02.470
they're more visible now. Trump has made them more. They're
1249
01:18:02.489 --> 01:18:05.810
in the White House. You know, Musk and Bezos and
1250
01:18:05.850 --> 01:18:09.170
Zuckerberg are there. You can see them. For centuries, they
1251
01:18:09.210 --> 01:18:13.409
were more hidden, but they exercised this covert power from
1252
01:18:13.869 --> 01:18:16.270
outside of government. Now they're right inside and you see them.
1253
01:18:16.489 --> 01:18:21.340
But they have enormous power and it radiates down into universities,
1254
01:18:21.899 --> 01:18:25.000
public schools, universities. the media, you name it.
1255
01:18:25.279 --> 01:18:29.069
Oh, we're seeing the reshaping of America. I've made this
1256
01:18:29.109 --> 01:18:30.930
point repeatedly, and I think you're right. There's sort of
1257
01:18:30.970 --> 01:18:33.390
a normalcy bias that we have, which is sort of
1258
01:18:33.909 --> 01:18:37.510
associated with, well, this can all happen at the governmental level,
1259
01:18:37.550 --> 01:18:40.899
but essentially it's not going to touch me and my family.
1260
01:18:41.100 --> 01:18:46.060
It happens because people, it's normalized and people really separate
1261
01:18:46.460 --> 01:18:49.319
the political world in some way from their personal life.
1262
01:18:49.500 --> 01:18:53.229
But I mean, I think it's important that people understand
1263
01:18:53.630 --> 01:18:57.949
that big public issues radiate down. I mean, the people
1264
01:18:57.979 --> 01:18:59.760
talk about the trickle down effect, the trickle down effect
1265
01:19:00.239 --> 01:19:04.619
in my sense, sociologically is that these big macroeconomic and
1266
01:19:04.739 --> 01:19:08.760
social issues are trickle down into the internal psyches and
1267
01:19:08.819 --> 01:19:11.319
emotions of ordinary people and for the nature of their
1268
01:19:11.359 --> 01:19:14.460
relationships to the kind of freedom they actually have to
1269
01:19:14.500 --> 01:19:18.020
express themselves. You can throw in the AI, you know,
1270
01:19:18.050 --> 01:19:21.270
element into this knowledge exploding, which is I can see
1271
01:19:21.310 --> 01:19:24.470
is affecting the way students and young people are able
1272
01:19:24.510 --> 01:19:26.770
to think for themselves or have to sort of feel.
1273
01:19:26.789 --> 01:19:30.369
I mean, I've been amazed in my classes, the students
1274
01:19:30.829 --> 01:19:34.159
overwhelm me with how much they feel The algorithms are
1275
01:19:34.220 --> 01:19:37.039
controlling the way they think, what they see, the news
1276
01:19:37.100 --> 01:19:39.520
they hear. They don't know what to believe, but they
1277
01:19:39.600 --> 01:19:43.029
feel they're definitely being manipulated and controlled. And of course,
1278
01:19:43.390 --> 01:19:45.890
the people who are making profit to having them addicted
1279
01:19:45.949 --> 01:19:47.930
to the screen rather than to relate to other people
1280
01:19:48.289 --> 01:19:50.869
are making the most money in human history. You've got
1281
01:19:50.909 --> 01:19:54.710
seven magnificent companies that are big tech, and you're right
1282
01:19:54.729 --> 01:19:58.510
in the middle of those guys. And they have enormous
1283
01:19:58.670 --> 01:20:02.550
authoritarian power. And that's another whole thing we could talk about.
1284
01:20:02.729 --> 01:20:05.640
Well, I want to just do two things. Underscore what
1285
01:20:05.659 --> 01:20:11.439
you were talking about with the crisis that Trump will claim.
1286
01:20:11.479 --> 01:20:16.079
The national security has already been, as you say, he's
1287
01:20:16.180 --> 01:20:18.109
pulled that lever a couple of times along the way
1288
01:20:18.130 --> 01:20:22.279
for tariffs, etc., Also for just most recently the pulling
1289
01:20:22.310 --> 01:20:23.850
of the press passes. It was supposed to be a
1290
01:20:23.850 --> 01:20:24.789
national security thing.
1291
01:20:24.810 --> 01:20:26.010
That's what I mentioned, yeah.
1292
01:20:26.810 --> 01:20:32.010
But more relevant to the overarching theme of authoritarian rule
1293
01:20:32.470 --> 01:20:35.819
is with an election coming up. And I always say, hey, look,
1294
01:20:36.439 --> 01:20:41.500
these are guys who did everything, including– produce fake electors,
1295
01:20:41.760 --> 01:20:45.600
a scheme whereby they could steal the election with fake electors.
1296
01:20:45.970 --> 01:20:48.189
And when that didn't work, they went to the Justice
1297
01:20:48.229 --> 01:20:50.130
Department at that time, which is Attorney General, and said,
1298
01:20:50.449 --> 01:20:53.109
just say there's an irregularity. You don't have to say
1299
01:20:53.149 --> 01:20:56.470
there's an investigation. I'll do the rest. Create the chaos
1300
01:20:56.510 --> 01:20:58.930
for me. And then, of course, January 6th. So when
1301
01:20:58.949 --> 01:21:02.810
you You add this all up. I'm thinking, why does
1302
01:21:02.859 --> 01:21:05.949
everyone think that, you know, somehow, you know, if the
1303
01:21:05.989 --> 01:21:09.090
election is lost, that these guys are going to go quietly?
1304
01:21:09.130 --> 01:21:11.210
There's no evidence they're going to go quietly.
1305
01:21:11.529 --> 01:21:14.149
And they'll do everything they can. I mean, elections have
1306
01:21:14.170 --> 01:21:16.970
been so manipulated, Mark, in this country that, do you
1307
01:21:16.989 --> 01:21:19.560
know the number of the millions of people who can vote,
1308
01:21:19.609 --> 01:21:23.180
who don't vote? How many million Americans are qualified to
1309
01:21:23.220 --> 01:21:26.430
vote at this point but don't? It's unbelievable. It's like
1310
01:21:26.449 --> 01:21:29.789
between 80 and 100 million people, which is about a
1311
01:21:29.909 --> 01:21:32.789
third of the electorate. Why don't they vote? Because at
1312
01:21:32.869 --> 01:21:36.180
some level, I mean, there may be a lot of reasons.
1313
01:21:36.199 --> 01:21:40.319
They're depressed. The things we talked about before are affecting
1314
01:21:40.340 --> 01:21:43.640
their mood and their relationships. But I think many of
1315
01:21:43.680 --> 01:21:47.239
them simply say politicians are just completely in the hands
1316
01:21:47.319 --> 01:21:50.109
of these corporate elites, and they're not completely wrong about that.
1317
01:21:50.640 --> 01:21:53.140
And they just think whichever party I vote for, it's
1318
01:21:53.159 --> 01:21:54.640
not going to make a hell of a lot of difference.
1319
01:21:54.659 --> 01:21:57.770
So I just won't vote. So and you're absolutely right.
1320
01:21:58.050 --> 01:22:02.210
We have a history in this country of interference with elections.
1321
01:22:02.329 --> 01:22:07.829
I mean, around race, obviously, and gender, race. But Trump
1322
01:22:08.029 --> 01:22:11.210
is I mean, one thing is Trump is overtly I mean,
1323
01:22:11.229 --> 01:22:14.140
he's right out front in saying that any election that
1324
01:22:14.199 --> 01:22:18.399
he loses is fraudulent and he will do whatever is necessary,
1325
01:22:18.500 --> 01:22:24.260
including invoke a national security emergency to prevent that from happening.
1326
01:22:24.340 --> 01:22:27.699
So I think it's almost certain that he will do
1327
01:22:27.779 --> 01:22:30.619
that kind of thing. I mean, he's declared already, like
1328
01:22:30.819 --> 01:22:33.760
I said, he's declared scores of emergencies, many of which
1329
01:22:34.100 --> 01:22:38.210
are constitutionally legitimate. Not legitimately, he invents them, but the
1330
01:22:38.250 --> 01:22:42.029
constitution gives him the power to declare these emergencies. One
1331
01:22:42.050 --> 01:22:45.130
of the most important things we could do, again, when
1332
01:22:45.189 --> 01:22:47.939
Hitler in Germany came into power, right after he was elected,
1333
01:22:47.960 --> 01:22:52.199
he invoked Article 48 of the Weimar German Constitution. That's extreme.
1334
01:22:52.279 --> 01:22:56.640
I mean, it sounds abstract, but it was an article
1335
01:22:56.760 --> 01:23:00.520
in the German Constitution which allowed the head of Germany
1336
01:23:00.579 --> 01:23:05.850
to immediately suspend and dismantle the Reichstag, the legislature, and
1337
01:23:05.859 --> 01:23:09.569
the judiciary. And he did it almost immediately after he
1338
01:23:10.029 --> 01:23:14.729
negotiated himself into power. And I worry that those emergency
1339
01:23:14.770 --> 01:23:17.489
powers of the president, tied with a lot of other
1340
01:23:17.850 --> 01:23:20.329
constitutional things that I write about at the very beginning
1341
01:23:20.350 --> 01:23:23.949
of the book, will allow, even as Trump loses popularity
1342
01:23:23.979 --> 01:23:27.079
and becomes weaker in terms of public support, that that
1343
01:23:27.140 --> 01:23:31.600
will push him into using these mechanisms of the law,
1344
01:23:31.640 --> 01:23:34.220
of the Constitution, and of the corporate elites that have
1345
01:23:34.340 --> 01:23:38.779
rallied behind him. Remember, Trump's money, which is very important
1346
01:23:38.800 --> 01:23:42.079
to him and his family, is very deeply intertwined with
1347
01:23:42.140 --> 01:23:44.880
Silicon Valley and the richest people in America and other
1348
01:23:45.100 --> 01:23:48.770
big oil and so forth. And these people, they have
1349
01:23:49.119 --> 01:23:52.010
everything at stake in keeping things going as they are.
1350
01:23:52.130 --> 01:23:56.390
So we are in trouble. And I wrote this book
1351
01:23:56.470 --> 01:23:59.010
partly as a way of trying to help people understand
1352
01:23:59.050 --> 01:24:03.229
the nature of that trouble and also helping to realize that, one,
1353
01:24:03.340 --> 01:24:06.560
it's absolutely crucial to get Trump out as soon as possible,
1354
01:24:06.579 --> 01:24:11.619
but it's also absolutely crucial to understand What produced Trump?
1355
01:24:11.960 --> 01:24:15.380
What he inherited as a guest invented? And I think
1356
01:24:15.420 --> 01:24:18.779
the book really offers some very personal ways of, one,
1357
01:24:18.850 --> 01:24:21.819
understanding that authoritarianism affects all of us. It's not some
1358
01:24:21.930 --> 01:24:24.609
abstract clothing. It is an abstract clothing, but it's also
1359
01:24:25.050 --> 01:24:29.750
a personal loss of our control, of our humanity, really.
1360
01:24:29.890 --> 01:24:33.069
And so the book is really directed to people who
1361
01:24:33.149 --> 01:24:36.270
want to feel how this is shaping them. They feel
1362
01:24:36.310 --> 01:24:38.750
it personally, but give a sense and an understanding of
1363
01:24:38.810 --> 01:24:43.529
how these political and economic forces drive deep into our feelings,
1364
01:24:43.590 --> 01:24:47.130
into our relationships and our families, into our communities and
1365
01:24:47.149 --> 01:24:47.630
so forth.
1366
01:24:47.789 --> 01:24:50.810
And this is just a wonderful sort of way to
1367
01:24:50.869 --> 01:24:53.550
stick the landing in summary, uh, of what the book
1368
01:24:53.750 --> 01:24:55.909
is and, and in the power of the book. And
1369
01:24:55.949 --> 01:24:58.329
I'm not going to, uh, quite usher you out the
1370
01:24:58.369 --> 01:25:01.430
door yet because I did want to, um, uh, follow
1371
01:25:01.510 --> 01:25:03.710
up on, on one of the things that you, you
1372
01:25:03.750 --> 01:25:07.569
touch on because you really do lay out so beautifully
1373
01:25:07.630 --> 01:25:11.069
the way in which, um, And I think I like
1374
01:25:11.689 --> 01:25:14.890
the fact that you use wired. The country is wired
1375
01:25:14.909 --> 01:25:18.850
for this kind of thing to happen. And so you're right.
1376
01:25:18.979 --> 01:25:22.439
Even as we focus on this imminent threat, immediate threat
1377
01:25:23.079 --> 01:25:28.100
from Trump, the overarching aspects of the way the country
1378
01:25:28.159 --> 01:25:34.899
was produced, constructed, and has evolved still allow, in fact,
1379
01:25:35.000 --> 01:25:37.279
encourage what we are seeing now.
1380
01:25:37.539 --> 01:25:37.659
So.
1381
01:25:39.140 --> 01:25:40.720
Give me one more beat on that, but also let
1382
01:25:40.739 --> 01:25:43.399
me just quickly ask you whether you think this curtain
1383
01:25:43.479 --> 01:25:47.039
that has now been pulled back on oligarchical control, you
1384
01:25:47.079 --> 01:25:50.960
mentioned it yourself, now these guys aren't in the shadows, right? Now,
1385
01:25:51.199 --> 01:25:52.439
a lot of what you talk about in the book,
1386
01:25:52.479 --> 01:25:55.390
it's right there in the White House. You see, Musk
1387
01:25:55.430 --> 01:25:58.390
was given the keys to the kingdom. He scraped the
1388
01:25:58.430 --> 01:25:59.369
databases clean.
1389
01:25:59.390 --> 01:26:01.050
He became the co-president, yeah.
1390
01:26:01.149 --> 01:26:04.489
Exactly. I mean, it closed down government agencies, fired tens
1391
01:26:04.529 --> 01:26:07.069
of thousands of people. And he's just one of them.
1392
01:26:07.090 --> 01:26:10.130
There's Palantir. There's Peter Thiel. There's all the rest of
1393
01:26:10.170 --> 01:26:12.930
them and some of whom you've referred to here. So
1394
01:26:13.590 --> 01:26:17.890
I'm wondering if that changes any arithmetic short term. Maybe
1395
01:26:17.930 --> 01:26:23.039
it's a more receptive audience, America, because these guys are
1396
01:26:23.159 --> 01:26:25.779
not popular now. You know what I mean, Charles? They're not.
1397
01:26:25.939 --> 01:26:29.760
People are angry and they're angry at them.
1398
01:26:30.829 --> 01:26:31.449
So true.
1399
01:26:31.550 --> 01:26:33.869
And everything you say is correct, Mark. And you're raising
1400
01:26:34.310 --> 01:26:36.920
the really important question, which is when the curtain is
1401
01:26:36.979 --> 01:26:40.100
pulled back, it's being finally, it's not fully cobbled back,
1402
01:26:40.140 --> 01:26:42.340
but people see these guys who are running things, they've
1403
01:26:42.359 --> 01:26:45.880
seen the billionaires, and they see that America is becoming
1404
01:26:45.920 --> 01:26:48.850
more authoritarian. They know the news media are being banned.
1405
01:26:48.890 --> 01:26:52.210
They know that people are being killed by ICE. They
1406
01:26:52.710 --> 01:26:55.329
see it in the economy and the way in which corporations.
1407
01:26:55.710 --> 01:26:58.310
So will it make a difference? That's the big question
1408
01:26:58.329 --> 01:27:01.970
you're asking. Well, we've already seen millions and millions of
1409
01:27:02.010 --> 01:27:04.310
people out on the street, right? There's a sort of
1410
01:27:04.350 --> 01:27:07.189
saying that a 3% rule that if you get 3%
1411
01:27:07.189 --> 01:27:09.340
of the population, which is America, which means about 12
1412
01:27:09.340 --> 01:27:13.659
million people out protesting, that tends to be associated with
1413
01:27:13.779 --> 01:27:17.939
major changes in autocratic nations. So there's certainly the hope
1414
01:27:18.000 --> 01:27:22.100
of that. And as you say, Trump is getting less
1415
01:27:22.199 --> 01:27:26.260
and less popular. His numbers are really low. That's very encouraging,
1416
01:27:26.300 --> 01:27:29.210
but it also means that he's going to do There's
1417
01:27:29.250 --> 01:27:30.909
no doubt that Trump is the kind of guy that
1418
01:27:30.930 --> 01:27:34.869
when he's threatened and overtly threatened, he will act with
1419
01:27:35.449 --> 01:27:37.250
any power that he can summon. You know, he's got
1420
01:27:37.289 --> 01:27:41.479
a military that's capable of his own personal military and
1421
01:27:41.659 --> 01:27:45.699
ICE and Customs Patrol. He's got Hegsath as his crony.
1422
01:27:46.220 --> 01:27:49.720
I really worry that like in the coming election or
1423
01:27:49.859 --> 01:27:52.220
post that election, I mean, I'd look at what happens
1424
01:27:52.319 --> 01:27:57.350
on January 3rd, 2027, when Congress is supposed to certify Trump.
1425
01:27:57.600 --> 01:28:00.279
the results of the congressional election, sort of like January 6th.
1426
01:28:00.640 --> 01:28:06.149
There's very deep concern that Mike Johnson and who follows
1427
01:28:06.170 --> 01:28:10.390
Trump's orders might, you know, and indeed with, you know,
1428
01:28:10.430 --> 01:28:15.010
Blanchard's Justice Department support, basically say it was a fraudulent election.
1429
01:28:15.250 --> 01:28:17.109
We're not going to certify these votes.
1430
01:28:17.210 --> 01:28:19.970
So This is what I've said. I've said that all along.
1431
01:28:20.149 --> 01:28:23.789
Yeah, it's becoming much more wider. You're right, Mark. And so,
1432
01:28:24.149 --> 01:28:26.699
I mean, I don't like to try to predict the future,
1433
01:28:26.760 --> 01:28:29.979
but we really have to be prepared. And you got
1434
01:28:30.000 --> 01:28:33.460
to really, you know, and like I say, the reason
1435
01:28:33.619 --> 01:28:37.090
I have some hope is that people, when they're isolated,
1436
01:28:37.189 --> 01:28:42.260
are quite afraid and powerless. And we're seeing people mobilize.
1437
01:28:42.279 --> 01:28:45.119
It'll be interesting, October 17th is this big march, which
1438
01:28:45.180 --> 01:28:47.840
is going to be or it's like the No Kings marches,
1439
01:28:47.880 --> 01:28:50.699
but it's oriented toward mobile registering people and getting them
1440
01:28:50.720 --> 01:28:52.739
to vote. And, you know, there have been more of
1441
01:28:52.779 --> 01:28:56.949
these marches which are shutting down, you know, companies that
1442
01:28:56.970 --> 01:29:00.430
are giving their big warehouses to imprison people. you know,
1443
01:29:00.550 --> 01:29:05.029
and tortured, detained people. So I think there is progress.
1444
01:29:05.149 --> 01:29:10.189
We'll see what happens in the October 17th demonstration. But
1445
01:29:10.250 --> 01:29:12.609
I don't think we have any guarantee. I mean, you know,
1446
01:29:12.670 --> 01:29:16.220
there is no, and Trump, whatever happens in Congress, Trump
1447
01:29:16.260 --> 01:29:19.659
will govern unilaterally, even without the Senate and the Congress,
1448
01:29:19.819 --> 01:29:22.979
and do what he thinks is necessary for, and with
1449
01:29:23.000 --> 01:29:26.119
the Supreme Court for, you know, another two years. So
1450
01:29:26.159 --> 01:29:28.930
we have a lot of struggle in front of us.
1451
01:29:29.069 --> 01:29:30.840
On the other hand, You know, I don't want people
1452
01:29:30.859 --> 01:29:33.579
to think if they read this book and follow these ideas,
1453
01:29:33.619 --> 01:29:35.770
they're doomed. I don't think that's true. I mean, there's
1454
01:29:35.810 --> 01:29:39.289
a long history of resistance in this country and a
1455
01:29:39.789 --> 01:29:42.890
long history. And, you know, the fact that the Constitution,
1456
01:29:43.310 --> 01:29:47.430
even though it had these very authoritarian elements, had such
1457
01:29:47.449 --> 01:29:52.279
a strong language of democratic ideas, that made a difference.
1458
01:29:52.539 --> 01:29:55.859
You know, even though blacks and women and they couldn't
1459
01:29:56.000 --> 01:29:59.460
vote and, you know, what Californians have one 10th of
1460
01:29:59.760 --> 01:30:01.520
100th of voter Wyoming person. I mean, there's so many
1461
01:30:01.539 --> 01:30:05.850
things that are crazy, but it did embed a certain
1462
01:30:05.989 --> 01:30:09.850
creed of people have a right to govern themselves. That
1463
01:30:09.890 --> 01:30:12.550
has taken hold of the mind that people, even though
1464
01:30:12.890 --> 01:30:16.689
people see now how openly they don't really have much control,
1465
01:30:16.789 --> 01:30:19.649
but I, the fact that they have those ideals gives
1466
01:30:19.760 --> 01:30:22.159
me hope and the belief. And when I see all
1467
01:30:22.180 --> 01:30:24.960
these millions of people coming out, that we really do
1468
01:30:25.020 --> 01:30:29.529
have some hope of, um, educating ourselves. I feel like
1469
01:30:29.569 --> 01:30:32.310
there is more education going on. You and I, before
1470
01:30:32.329 --> 01:30:35.569
the show, were talking about campuses and college education. I
1471
01:30:35.609 --> 01:30:39.229
see my students are not generally activists, but they are
1472
01:30:39.529 --> 01:30:43.569
loving the engagement with this education, this critical way of
1473
01:30:43.689 --> 01:30:47.260
understanding the history of a country, what America really means,
1474
01:30:47.340 --> 01:30:50.119
what it's been, what its ideals are, how far they
1475
01:30:50.300 --> 01:30:52.739
are from much of the reality of what it's been.
1476
01:30:52.779 --> 01:30:55.939
So the campus, the kind of college life You're not
1477
01:30:56.020 --> 01:30:58.460
romanticizing it in a way because even though I wouldn't
1478
01:30:58.479 --> 01:31:01.439
say we're in the most activist social change period, it's
1479
01:31:01.479 --> 01:31:05.500
a period, at least in my experience, of students really
1480
01:31:05.699 --> 01:31:10.479
hungry to know the difference between the ideals that are
1481
01:31:10.510 --> 01:31:12.859
being put out and why they feel the way they
1482
01:31:12.899 --> 01:31:16.449
do and why things feel as bad as many of
1483
01:31:16.470 --> 01:31:18.069
them do. I mean, many of my students are on
1484
01:31:18.409 --> 01:31:21.029
mental health drugs. They feel very competitive with other people.
1485
01:31:21.329 --> 01:31:24.439
It's not easy for the younger generation at all And
1486
01:31:24.520 --> 01:31:26.399
I think they love the fact of being on a
1487
01:31:26.420 --> 01:31:30.939
campus where they feel they can really come together and
1488
01:31:31.130 --> 01:31:34.609
think together about how to understand this and make a difference.
1489
01:31:35.149 --> 01:31:36.890
Well, it's a credit to you as a professor that
1490
01:31:36.930 --> 01:31:39.140
they feel that engaged. I'm not just blowing smoke. I mean,
1491
01:31:39.149 --> 01:31:41.619
it matters. And I was, it's what Charles was talking
1492
01:31:41.659 --> 01:31:43.750
about is before we came on the air, I said, Gosh,
1493
01:31:43.770 --> 01:31:46.329
I look back wistfully at the college experience and at
1494
01:31:46.369 --> 01:31:49.510
the academic world, and you're just bathed in all of
1495
01:31:49.569 --> 01:31:52.800
these brilliant minds. I used to walk to philosophy class
1496
01:31:52.819 --> 01:31:55.640
with Chris Hedges, who's an extraordinary New York Times and
1497
01:31:55.739 --> 01:31:59.520
bestselling author on so many things. Brilliant guy also. I
1498
01:31:59.560 --> 01:32:02.470
never had any idea he was so brilliant. Otherwise, I
1499
01:32:02.489 --> 01:32:04.529
would have sucked up to him more and stayed in
1500
01:32:04.569 --> 01:32:07.689
his orbit. But, but my point, it was, I said,
1501
01:32:07.729 --> 01:32:11.470
maybe I'm romanticizing it, you know, and Charles was basically saying, no,
1502
01:32:11.510 --> 01:32:13.970
there's still a lot going on in that dynamic of learning.
1503
01:32:35.369 --> 01:32:38.930
I mean, to me, Minneapolis, where those two, you know,
1504
01:32:39.149 --> 01:32:42.890
Renee Goode and Alex Preddy were murdered in cold blood,
1505
01:32:43.329 --> 01:32:47.020
it became a laboratory, which I think is spreading around
1506
01:32:47.060 --> 01:32:49.479
the country to some degree. I don't want to romanticize,
1507
01:32:49.520 --> 01:32:52.680
but there is a sign that communities around the country,
1508
01:32:52.699 --> 01:32:55.479
not just in red states, I mean, in blue states
1509
01:32:55.539 --> 01:32:59.840
and liberal places, but in relatively conservative places, Texas and Florida,
1510
01:33:00.380 --> 01:33:06.430
people are coming together in Minneapolis-style neighborly education and community.
1511
01:33:06.439 --> 01:33:08.829
It reminds me, you know, when the first Gilded Age,
1512
01:33:08.890 --> 01:33:12.130
the robber barons like Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan came together,
1513
01:33:12.390 --> 01:33:16.510
they triggered a movement in agrarian villages of people just
1514
01:33:16.569 --> 01:33:20.550
coming together, bringing in sometimes electors like Chris Hages or somebody.
1515
01:33:21.029 --> 01:33:24.329
And they were called the populist movement. And they created
1516
01:33:24.390 --> 01:33:27.890
a movement of very ordinary people who were doing just
1517
01:33:27.909 --> 01:33:31.609
what we're talking about. They were farmers mostly, Wall Street
1518
01:33:31.649 --> 01:33:34.930
was pushing up the interest rates, making it impossible for
1519
01:33:34.989 --> 01:33:40.729
them to get their crops planted. Vanderbilt's railroads and so
1520
01:33:40.760 --> 01:33:42.899
forth were not able, they weren't able to ship their
1521
01:33:42.939 --> 01:33:47.579
products correctly. And these people came together spontaneously and all
1522
01:33:47.619 --> 01:33:49.779
over the country in the Southwest, these were not liberal
1523
01:33:50.180 --> 01:33:53.279
urban often, and they were quite conservative people, but they
1524
01:33:53.340 --> 01:33:57.329
came together with this sort of understanding that something was wrong.
1525
01:33:57.569 --> 01:34:00.619
They could feel it in their own community and, And
1526
01:34:00.819 --> 01:34:04.600
they brought themselves together. And that became the nucleus of
1527
01:34:04.659 --> 01:34:09.020
a very powerful social movement called the Populist Movement. And
1528
01:34:09.060 --> 01:34:11.300
it led to a new party in 1892 called the
1529
01:34:11.380 --> 01:34:15.060
People's Party, which got, you know, it didn't win the election,
1530
01:34:15.140 --> 01:34:19.220
but it got millions of votes. And it's just one
1531
01:34:19.319 --> 01:34:23.079
of several parts of American history where people have been
1532
01:34:23.100 --> 01:34:26.479
in the situation. We're now feeling bad, trying to understand it,
1533
01:34:26.819 --> 01:34:28.920
feeling a desperate need to change. And we have a
1534
01:34:28.979 --> 01:34:31.600
history of some success. So in that book, I try
1535
01:34:31.640 --> 01:34:34.239
to write about a lot of that history as well
1536
01:34:34.260 --> 01:34:37.739
as about the history of all the problems that we're facing.
1537
01:34:38.029 --> 01:34:41.590
Well, no, it's indeed the case that the guys in
1538
01:34:41.630 --> 01:34:46.390
power now, as you mentioned earlier in our conversation, are
1539
01:34:46.430 --> 01:34:49.149
not popular. I mean, Trump, you know, a lot of
1540
01:34:49.170 --> 01:34:52.750
these fascistic regimes rise on a tide of populism. And
1541
01:34:52.949 --> 01:34:56.060
he certainly got into office on this populism and Enough
1542
01:34:56.100 --> 01:34:59.850
of the American electorate was– I'm sorry. I can't get
1543
01:34:59.890 --> 01:35:01.630
my head around how you could vote for this guy,
1544
01:35:01.670 --> 01:35:02.109
but all right.
1545
01:35:02.430 --> 01:35:04.710
I mean he was– Well, he said he was going
1546
01:35:04.729 --> 01:35:07.710
to shake up the corporate elite and help the workers.
1547
01:35:07.829 --> 01:35:10.069
He betrayed them every step of the way.
1548
01:35:10.210 --> 01:35:10.430
Sure.
1549
01:35:10.590 --> 01:35:14.189
He had– people were pissed off and really hurting, and
1550
01:35:14.210 --> 01:35:17.350
he was speaking. They're saying, I'm going to bring jobs back.
1551
01:35:17.449 --> 01:35:18.989
I'm going to make this a– and so I can
1552
01:35:19.010 --> 01:35:21.090
understand why people would vote for him. Yeah, yeah.
1553
01:35:21.470 --> 01:35:24.029
I'm sorry. You do– and you of all people would
1554
01:35:24.050 --> 01:35:26.989
understand because you understand– the sociology of it all. And
1555
01:35:27.649 --> 01:35:30.630
I just, I guess it comes across as a clunky
1556
01:35:30.689 --> 01:35:33.310
con to me. It never seemed like a slick con.
1557
01:35:34.270 --> 01:35:36.939
It was so like, guys, come on, this guy isn't
1558
01:35:36.979 --> 01:35:41.180
even slick. But just to finish the point, I was
1559
01:35:41.199 --> 01:35:43.800
just saying that kind of what we were talking about before,
1560
01:35:44.180 --> 01:35:48.720
data centers aren't popular. These oligarchs aren't popular. These plutocrats,
1561
01:35:48.779 --> 01:35:51.810
oligarchs who are in charge, who are so close to Trump,
1562
01:35:51.930 --> 01:35:53.909
the curtain's been pulled back. So there is a lot,
1563
01:35:53.970 --> 01:35:57.390
to your point, that may be pushing back against the
1564
01:35:57.430 --> 01:36:01.149
kind of oligarchical authoritarian rise that we may see in Trump,
1565
01:36:01.210 --> 01:36:04.300
a true wannabe king. So I'm hoping that you're right.
1566
01:36:04.739 --> 01:36:07.180
Yeah, I'm not saying it's guaranteed, but there's a real
1567
01:36:07.279 --> 01:36:10.180
possibility of it. And we have a history that shows
1568
01:36:10.239 --> 01:36:13.590
it is possible in America. So we've got something, as
1569
01:36:13.649 --> 01:36:15.350
long as we get out there and do our part,
1570
01:36:15.810 --> 01:36:17.369
We have a real chance.
1571
01:36:17.609 --> 01:36:20.649
Yeah, being engaged matters. Charles Derber, the author of Wired
1572
01:36:20.689 --> 01:36:25.720
for Authoritarianism, American Oligarchies, and How to Rewire America for
1573
01:36:25.779 --> 01:36:28.500
the People. There is a link to get the book
1574
01:36:28.739 --> 01:36:32.390
under this video. I really love talking to you, and
1575
01:36:32.550 --> 01:36:34.970
I hope, you know, although you write, I was going
1576
01:36:34.989 --> 01:36:36.029
to say, I'm going to have to wait for another
1577
01:36:36.069 --> 01:36:38.689
book to speak, but you write them pretty frequently.
1578
01:36:38.890 --> 01:36:43.270
I've written several others in the last year, Mark. Thank
1579
01:36:43.310 --> 01:36:45.329
you so much for the opportunity to talk with you.
1580
01:36:45.369 --> 01:36:48.180
I really enjoyed it. Anytime you want to keep the
1581
01:36:48.229 --> 01:36:51.159
conversation going, I'd be delighted to do so.
1582
01:36:51.239 --> 01:36:51.420
Good.
1583
01:36:51.460 --> 01:36:53.500
Well, stand by, and I'll get all your info so
1584
01:36:53.520 --> 01:36:55.619
we can stay in touch. Really do enjoy it. And again,
1585
01:36:55.659 --> 01:37:00.829
pick up Charles' book under this video. Charles Derber, everybody. Bravo.
1586
01:37:00.909 --> 01:37:04.779
The Mark Thompson Show. Yeah, great interview.
1587
01:37:04.800 --> 01:37:06.079
Really enjoyed it.
1588
01:37:06.199 --> 01:37:10.399
As a matter of fact. And so did... Other folks, too.
1589
01:37:10.439 --> 01:37:10.939
Look at this.
1590
01:37:11.560 --> 01:37:12.380
Hollywood Cowgirl.
1591
01:37:12.420 --> 01:37:13.779
Great guest. Just bought the book.
1592
01:37:14.220 --> 01:37:15.039
That is awesome.
1593
01:37:15.720 --> 01:37:19.359
Also a comment from Arnold Willis. Great show. Charles lays
1594
01:37:19.399 --> 01:37:22.569
it all out. And then one from Obi-Wan as well.
1595
01:37:22.609 --> 01:37:26.810
Fantastic show. Appreciate you and your staff, Mark. I'll take
1596
01:37:27.229 --> 01:37:31.750
the appreciate the staff. Tony, thank you so much. Obi-Wan
1597
01:37:31.770 --> 01:37:34.770
appreciates you and so do I. Thank you so much.
1598
01:37:35.050 --> 01:37:38.189
Tomorrow on the Mark Thompson Show, John Rothman will be
1599
01:37:38.229 --> 01:37:42.340
with us. Also, Jared Yates Sexton.
1600
01:37:41.880 --> 01:37:42.600
Will drop by.
1601
01:37:42.680 --> 01:37:45.380
Always a great conversation with him. We'll talk lots of
1602
01:37:45.420 --> 01:37:48.619
politics and the news of the day. And that all
1603
01:37:48.659 --> 01:37:49.579
happens tomorrow on.
1604
01:37:49.539 --> 01:37:51.739
The Mark Thompson Show. So we'll see you then.
1605
01:37:51.859 --> 01:37:53.189
Thank you for contributing.
1606
01:37:53.869 --> 01:37:54.470
Oh, you know what?
1607
01:37:54.489 --> 01:37:56.970
Before we go, Tony, just really quickly, do you want
1608
01:37:56.989 --> 01:38:00.670
to throw it out? That it is October 2nd, 5 p.m.
1609
01:38:00.729 --> 01:38:05.170
this Friday night. Mark's Monster Meetup. Here's some information. If
1610
01:38:05.229 --> 01:38:10.060
you're a Patreon, PayPal supporter, you're a member at $ 25
1611
01:38:10.020 --> 01:38:12.140
a month or more, it's free for you. You just
1612
01:38:12.279 --> 01:38:15.899
email us, mtsmeetup at gmail.com. Tell us you'd like a seat.
1613
01:38:16.449 --> 01:38:18.850
If you're not a member or contributor, here you go.
1614
01:38:18.850 --> 01:38:23.500
$ 50 donation to PayPal. Send the email mtsmeetup at gmail.com
1615
01:38:23.500 --> 01:38:26.729
and you too can join. I know there's a lot
1616
01:38:26.729 --> 01:38:29.020
of uh of the vip guests that are coming in
1617
01:38:32.199 --> 01:38:36.029
thank you shadow i know spencer christian's coming by it's
1618
01:38:36.550 --> 01:38:39.430
gonna be a fun one bye everybody see you next
1619
01:38:39.489 --> 01:38:42.340
time as mark says bye bye