0:00

have to facilitate an international conversation

0:02

about what is enough. And that

0:05

if there is a number that

0:07

is enough, there is a

0:09

number that is too much. We

0:12

believe that money becomes power.

0:15

And when power threatens your democracy, you

0:17

have to take away power. And the only way to take away

0:19

that power is by taking away the money. And

0:22

the only way to take away the money is

0:24

taxation. Welcome

0:34

to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. My name is Steve

0:36

Scrove and along with my co -host David Feldman. Hello,

0:39

David. Hello, Steve. And

0:41

our producer, Hannah Feldman. Hello, Hannah. Hello,

0:43

Steve. And the man of

0:46

the hour, Ralph Nader. Hello, Ralph. Hello.

0:48

This is a program that's going to

0:51

astonish you and gross you and energize

0:53

you. That's right, Ralph. Our

0:55

first guest today is Erica Payne,

0:58

founder and president of Patriotic Millionaires.

1:00

an organization of high -net -worth individuals

1:02

that says, hey, tax us

1:04

more. You're not taxing us enough. Yes,

1:07

there are people out there who have money who

1:09

aren't hoarding, who know when they have

1:12

enough, and who, for the good of

1:14

the country that made them rich, are willing

1:16

to pay their fair share. HRADIC

1:18

Millionaires' latest project is America

1:21

250, the Money Agenda, a

1:23

framework that they say will permanently

1:25

stabilize the economic lives of working

1:27

people stimulate widespread economic

1:30

growth and ensure prosperity and

1:32

stability for America's next 250

1:34

years. We'll speak to Erica Payne

1:37

about America 250, as well as

1:39

Patriarch Millionaire's recent How to Beat the Bolligarchs

1:41

conference. In the second half of

1:43

the program, we turn to our resident constitutional

1:45

expert, Bruce Fine, who along with

1:47

Ralph has written a letter detailing 22

1:49

counts of impeachment against Trump. It's up

1:51

to 22 now. And as always,

1:53

somewhere in the middle, we'll check in with our

1:56

relentless corporate crime reporter, Russell Moe Kiver. But

1:58

first, yes, there aren't wealthy people

2:00

out there who think longer term

2:02

than just the next quarterly report.

2:05

David? Erica Payne is the

2:07

founder and president of Patriotic

2:09

Millionaires, an organization of high

2:11

net worth individuals who aim

2:13

to restructure America's political economy

2:15

to suit the needs of

2:17

all Americans. Their work

2:20

includes advocating for a highly

2:22

progressive tax system a livable

2:24

minimum wage and equal political

2:26

representation for all citizens. She

2:29

is the co -author with Morris Pearl

2:31

of Tax the Rich. How

2:33

lies, loopholes, and lobbyists make the

2:35

rich even richer. Welcome back

2:38

to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. Erica

2:40

Payne. Thanks so much. Happy to be here. Welcome

2:43

back indeed, Erica. And listeners should

2:45

know that book, Tax the Rich,

2:48

has all the arguments you could

2:50

possibly have to make the case

2:52

with anybody, legislators, friends, neighbors, doubtful

2:55

relatives, business executives. So

2:57

pick it up, Tax the Rich. Having

3:00

said that, Erica, introduce

3:02

patriotic millionaires to our listeners.

3:05

Sure. So patriotic millionaires first came

3:07

together in 2010. It was during the lame

3:09

duck session of Congress when it became clear

3:12

that President Obama was going to cave to

3:14

Republican demands to extend the Bush tax cuts.

3:16

And it really infuriated me that here is

3:18

Mr. Hopi Changi coming in. And the first

3:20

thing he can think of to do is

3:23

to give tax cuts to a bunch of

3:25

millionaires. So I work in politics as it

3:27

turns out, if you work in politics, you

3:29

know, a whole bunch of millionaires. And so

3:31

I called a couple of them and we

3:34

drafted a really short letter that basically said,

3:36

for the good of the country, raise my taxes.

3:38

And we got about 56 millionaires to

3:41

sign the letter. I called

3:43

them patriotic millionaires for a

3:45

very, very specific reason, which

3:47

is, conservatives have been telling a story for a

3:50

long time, which is, it's your money, you made

3:52

it all by yourself, and now the government is

3:54

stealing it and giving it to undisturbing poor people

3:56

who are probably black. There's a racist undertone to

3:58

their tax ideology. There is

4:00

a fundamental misunderstanding about how to

4:03

structure a society and economy. And

4:05

so I wanted to reassert that paying

4:07

taxes is fundamentally part of your patriotic

4:09

duty. And it's embarrassing to all of

4:11

us for people to bitch about it as

4:13

much as they do, particularly people who

4:15

have the level of resources that the

4:17

people who complain about taxes the most have.

4:20

And so over time, we have built

4:22

a university. We started this very

4:24

small, specific thing. Do not extend

4:26

the Bush tax cuts for incomes

4:28

over $1 million. We

4:30

achieved that. President Obama was.

4:32

very unhappy with us for about a year

4:34

when we shut down the White House phone

4:36

lines and constantly challenged him and his administration

4:38

and the media to do the right thing.

4:40

They eventually changed their mind and did the

4:43

right thing. And so with that

4:45

small victory in hand, this group

4:47

of millionaires said, what is really

4:49

wrong with the country that a

4:51

small group of committed millionaires could

4:53

have some positive effect on? And

4:55

what we concluded is that essentially

4:57

the economy of the United States

4:59

is structured in such a way. to

5:02

guarantee that we will become more

5:04

unequal, more quickly over time. We

5:07

are already at the highest levels

5:09

of inequality in human history. We

5:12

have created a game of economic jenga, where

5:14

you pull from the bottom, pull from the

5:16

middle, load all of those resources on the

5:18

top, and the whole thing's about to come

5:20

tumbling down. What we saw on

5:22

January 20th, I believe, was the result

5:24

of a global oligarchial coup who just

5:26

took the Queen on the chessboard. When

5:29

you've got three people whose combined worth

5:31

is around a trillion dollars standing behind

5:33

who is an unethical, at least

5:36

criminal, at worst billionaire president,

5:39

you know, Houston, we have a problem here. And

5:41

the problem is not actually Donald

5:43

Trump. The problem is

5:46

the preconditions led to the

5:48

rise of a vulnerability to

5:50

an authoritarian leader and an

5:52

oligarchy. And that vulnerability

5:55

was brought about by the

5:57

actions of both parties over

5:59

decades. You know, this

6:01

is quite extraordinary listeners. You

6:04

have rich people organizing, not

6:06

just gloviating, organizing

6:08

lobbying Congress, other

6:10

parliaments, saying they're under tax,

6:12

that rich people all over are

6:14

under tax, and they've got

6:17

to be taxed more. And the principle

6:19

of progressive taxation, which is over

6:21

100 years old in our country,

6:23

has to be reinstated in order

6:25

to block the escape patches, the

6:27

loopholes, the poorest nature of the

6:30

present perforated federal income

6:32

tax. So let's go to your

6:34

agenda. Our work is

6:36

in service to a single

6:38

idea, which is you have

6:41

to have a greater level

6:43

of equality to save

6:45

yourself from the threat of

6:47

oligarchy and authoritarianism. So the

6:49

inequality has to be dealt with

6:51

in a few different ways. The

6:54

two things that will fix inequality

6:56

are raising the wage for and

6:58

taxing the rich. That is it.

7:01

You cannot address this problem in

7:03

any other way. Think

7:05

of wages and taxes as the

7:08

bookends of a strong economy. They

7:10

are what holds the whole society

7:12

together. So the goal of the

7:14

patriotic millionaires legislative program is to

7:17

ensure we're never going to be totally equal.

7:19

We don't need to be totally equal. But

7:21

what we need to do is make sure

7:24

that everybody feels like there's an opportunity in

7:26

our society. And we need to make sure

7:28

that the rich people don't have so much

7:31

money that it turns into power and they

7:33

destroy our democracy. So we need

7:35

to raise the wage floor to something that

7:37

a human being can actually live on. And

7:39

then we need to look at taxes, Ralph,

7:41

in a very different way than people have

7:43

historically looked at taxes. How the left likes

7:46

to look at taxes is how you get

7:48

money to pay for stuff. And

7:50

getting money to pay for stuff is the

7:52

purpose of taxes on the state and local

7:54

level. On the federal

7:56

level, we approach taxes very differently.

7:58

We say concentrated wealth is the

8:01

threat to democracy. The only

8:03

way to break up concentrated wealth

8:05

is through taxation. So when

8:07

we do our tax work on

8:10

the federal level, we really look

8:12

at that as democracy preservation work,

8:15

as opposed to us going to get

8:17

some more revenues. to pay for various

8:19

things that the society needs. So,

8:21

and our members do not take opinions

8:23

on how the government spends its money.

8:25

We just want to make sure that

8:28

the extent to which we need tax

8:30

revenues to support the financing of programs

8:32

that people like our members pay for

8:34

substantially more than that. But the bigger

8:36

exercise therein is how do we preserve

8:39

our democracy for the long term? And

8:41

can you actually have a democracy when

8:43

one person has a trillion dollars and

8:45

spends it to buy your political system?

8:48

Erica, let's talk numbers here. First

8:50

of all, remind our listeners what

8:52

the tax rates are now for

8:54

ordinary income, capital gains, and so

8:56

forth as a background. And

8:58

then we'll talk about what you would like

9:01

to see occur. Okay, so

9:03

as a background, here are a few things

9:05

that people should understand. First is,

9:08

if you make money working and

9:10

a millionaire makes money clicking a

9:12

button and selling some stock on

9:15

an E -Trade account, you will

9:17

pay more in taxes on the

9:19

work income that you make

9:21

than a rich person will

9:23

on the income they make off of

9:26

money. That's the difference between what's called

9:28

ordinary income and capital gains income. in

9:31

the tax code as it exists right

9:33

now. Number one, capital

9:36

gains is taxed at about half the

9:38

rate of ordinary income. So people

9:40

who make money off of their

9:43

money pay half the tax rate

9:45

of people who make money off of

9:47

their work. And what that means

9:49

over time is that every single

9:51

dollar a rich person makes is

9:54

actually worth more money than every

9:56

dollar a poor person makes. So

9:58

you see what I'm talking about

10:00

with this mathematical inequality. When

10:03

the dollar that every rich person makes

10:05

is more valuable than the dollar that

10:07

every working person makes, over time, mathematically,

10:09

you become more unequal, even if the

10:11

people are making the same amount of

10:14

money. So if our millionaires are making

10:16

$100 ,000 a year selling stock and

10:18

a working step is making $100 ,000

10:20

a year working, The working person will

10:22

pay about $9 ,000 more in taxes

10:25

than the person who makes their money

10:27

off of capital gains. That's a big

10:29

difference. And this was to

10:31

draconian, even for Ronald Reagan. Ronald

10:33

Reagan wanted companies to be taxed

10:36

at the rate of ordinary income.

10:38

The listeners, after World War II,

10:40

the maximum tax rate on the

10:42

rich reached 90%. It was 70%.

10:44

It was 50%. went down under

10:46

Reagan, and now it's about 20,

10:48

21 % on capital gains, as

10:51

Erica pointed out, and a maximum

10:53

on ordinary income about 37 %

10:55

or so. And what

10:57

Trump wants to do is lower

11:00

the tax rate, mostly on

11:02

the super rich and the

11:05

multinational corporations ramming it through

11:07

Congress in the next month or so. So

11:09

what would you do about the inequality,

11:12

which is the umbrella of your

11:14

agenda, of course? and its effect

11:16

on weakening a democratic society. Let's

11:19

talk about your cost of living exemption. Yeah,

11:21

so we have a four part

11:24

proposal to fix the economy of

11:26

the United States for the long term

11:28

so that we can sustain our society

11:31

in a way that people want

11:33

to live. So number one, we

11:35

are working right now to introduce

11:37

a piece of legislation. that will

11:39

eliminate the federal income tax obligation

11:42

of people up to the cost

11:44

of living and to shift those

11:46

lost revenues to people who make

11:48

more than a million dollars a

11:50

year with a 3 % surtax

11:53

on incomes over a million dollars

11:55

a year and an 8 %

11:57

surtax on incomes over 10 million

11:59

dollars a year. If we do

12:01

those two surtaxes, we will

12:04

more than cover the lost

12:06

revenue. from giving people up

12:08

to the cost of living a

12:11

tax cut. And so right now in America,

12:13

there's a great tool. It's called the

12:15

MIT living wage calculator, Massachusetts Institute of

12:17

Technology. You can Google it. You can

12:19

go on there and you can look

12:21

for the cost of living in any

12:23

state, any city, any locality in the

12:25

entire country. We suggest that we

12:28

look at the median cost of living

12:30

in the country, which is $48 ,000

12:32

by way of illustration. This

12:34

offers a working person about

12:36

$10 per day for food.

12:39

OK, so that's not half -balutant

12:41

money. We believe that

12:43

we should give all of those folks a

12:45

tax cut. We're going to leave Social

12:47

Security and Medicare contributions in place because we

12:50

want those programs to remain really strong. But

12:52

we are going to get rid of that

12:54

income tax for the rest of up

12:56

to $48 ,000 with the idea being, first,

12:59

you've got to support yourself. And once

13:01

you can support yourself, then you can

13:03

contribute to the federal coffers. And because

13:05

every side seems to bitch about deficits,

13:07

if the other side is trying to

13:09

spend money in order to deal with

13:11

the revenue argument, we've shifted all of

13:14

those revenues to people north of a million.

13:16

So again, very simple idea. People

13:19

who make more than a million dollars a

13:21

year pay a little bit more on that

13:23

first dollar after their first million, 3%.

13:26

If you make 10 million, You

13:28

pay a little bit more on that first

13:30

dollar after your first 10 million, you pay

13:32

8%. And with we do that, we

13:34

can eliminate the federal tax burden

13:37

on working people up to the

13:39

cost of living. So that Donald

13:41

Trump's tax code is no longer

13:43

taxing working people into poverty. That's

13:45

the first step. And I think we're going

13:47

to have that bill introduced here,

13:50

Ralph, in probably the next couple

13:52

of weeks. and we are right

13:54

now work people to sign up

13:56

to s for that policy. So

13:58

if s cost of living

14:01

exemption up there to

14:03

show they support that

14:05

into is a really

14:07

active outre to

14:09

demand that they

14:11

support website again, please.

14:14

Cost of live you can also

14:16

go to patri But

14:21

we've got three more steps that come after that.

14:23

So to me, Ralph, this is the easy, easy,

14:25

easy one. If you're looking a

14:27

lawmaker in the face and you're saying to

14:30

them, I'm making 45 grand a year. I'm

14:32

working my tushy off and the federal government

14:34

is currently taxing me into poverty. I

14:36

think that I need to be able to take care of myself. First,

14:38

can you have those multimillionaires

14:41

pick up the difference until I

14:43

can support myself? I think most politicians

14:45

should say yes. a

14:47

politician who will say no is not a

14:49

politician we want an office regardless of what

14:51

political party they're in. So this is the

14:54

first step, the cost of living exemption. There

14:56

are some steps that come after that. Number two,

14:58

we want a cost of living wage. So

15:01

as I said, right now, the

15:03

median cost of living in the

15:05

country is $48 ,000 a year,

15:07

$10 a day for food. It gives

15:09

you about $800 a month for rent, very

15:12

modest living. So let's

15:14

make sure that when people work full

15:16

time, they can actually support themselves. And

15:19

the only way to do that is to raise

15:21

wages. The federal wage

15:23

floor, which is how you

15:25

should think about it, the minimum wage, the wage floor,

15:28

the floor that we all stand on, is

15:30

$7 .25 an hour. And it's $2

15:32

.13 an hour for tipped workers like

15:34

waiters and waitresses. Now, that's what it

15:36

was when I was in college. I

15:39

am currently 55 years old. OK,

15:41

that is weird and not good. So

15:44

the cost of living. is

15:46

around $22 an hour. 40

15:49

% of people in the country

15:51

make less than what it costs

15:53

to support a single adult with

15:55

no children, that $48 ,000 number.

15:58

What we would like to see is the wage for

16:00

the minimum wage to see it raised

16:02

to the cost of living for a

16:04

single adult with no children. So that

16:06

people, if you walk into a job

16:09

and you work 40 hours, you

16:11

can support yourself in a modest

16:13

scale. of living. That requires change

16:16

in that wage for about 22

16:18

bucks an hour. That's step number two.

16:21

Step number three, Raul, which is

16:23

what we just talked about, is

16:25

this differentiation between people who make

16:28

money off their money and people

16:30

who make money off of their

16:32

sweat. The third proposal is equalize

16:34

all tax rates for all money,

16:36

inheritance, capital gains, and

16:39

ordinary income over a million

16:41

dollars. The Equal Tax Act.

16:44

Why is your money any more valuable than mine? And

16:46

then the fourth piece is to deal

16:48

with the gigantic donut hole in the

16:51

middle of the tax code, which is

16:53

the fact that we do not currently

16:55

tax wealth. So if you

16:57

own a home, you pay a property

16:59

tax. If Jeff Bezos owns 10 yachts,

17:02

he does not pay a property tax.

17:04

So our goal is to

17:07

make sure that the very

17:09

wealthiest pay taxes on

17:11

their wealth. and

17:14

on the growth of their

17:16

wealth and on the money they

17:18

leave to their children. What about

17:20

the argument that wealth is now

17:22

very, very fluid, can be

17:25

transported instantly in terms of

17:27

stocks and other assets

17:29

outside the jurisdiction of the

17:31

US into some tax haven.

17:33

And it's a very difficult task

17:36

to tax that kind of wealth

17:38

in contrast to ownership of land

17:40

or buildings in the US. Can

17:42

you address that? Yes. So

17:44

first of all, we don't decide not to do things because

17:46

they are difficult. Okay. That's number

17:48

one. Number two, people

17:51

are hiding their money all over the globe.

17:53

So what we need is an international tax

17:55

system. Ralph, I just spoke at the IMF

17:57

and I called for three things. A

17:59

global asset registry, a conversation about

18:01

what is enough and a commitment

18:04

to taxing people in order to

18:06

make them less rich. You

18:08

are correct. People are hiding their money.

18:11

We can pass laws that require them

18:13

to not hide their money and to

18:15

pay taxes on it. You talk largely

18:18

on income tax. Where are you on

18:20

sales tax of stock transactions, imposing

18:23

sales tax disproportionately owned by

18:25

the rich? Well,

18:27

this is an issue of how are

18:29

you going to tax stock buybacks? And

18:31

we've spent a lot of time in

18:34

our organization talking about stock buybacks. They

18:36

basically it's when the executives of a

18:38

company have the company spend its money

18:40

to purchase the stock to make the

18:43

stock price go up artificially. and that

18:45

there has been a proposal to increase

18:47

taxes on stock buybacks, I think from

18:50

1 % to 4%. Taxing big corporations

18:52

4 % on stock buybacks that deliver

18:54

money directly into the pockets of their

18:56

executives is not a good policy. It

18:59

is not going to fix the problem.

19:01

A better policy would be to either

19:03

ban stock buybacks or limit them significantly.

19:07

Which, of course, listeners, stock

19:09

buybacks were largely banned. until

19:11

Reagan took over because the

19:14

Securities Exchange Commission thought stock

19:16

buybacks expanded the opportunity for

19:18

stock manipulation unfairly. So this

19:21

is something that started in

19:23

1981. Well, Bob

19:25

McIntyre, who for many years

19:27

headed the Citizens for Tax

19:29

Justice before he retired, had

19:31

said that if the tax

19:33

rates that were enforced in

19:35

the 1960s were operating today,

19:37

there'd be no deficit. And

19:39

the 1960s were quite prosperous

19:41

comparatively. So we're not

19:44

talking pie -in -the -sky listeners

19:46

at all here. We're talking about

19:48

often going back into the future

19:51

by seeing how it was years

19:53

ago before the corporations and their

19:55

corporate tax attorneys began to make

19:58

twist cheese out of our federal

20:00

income tax. On the tax on

20:02

wealth, you know, Saul Price, who

20:05

founded the Price Club, which then

20:07

merged to Costco, he lobbied Congress

20:09

and he was very rich. He

20:12

lobbied Congress for a 1 %

20:14

wealth tax and the Democrats ignored

20:16

him. So let's talk about Capitol

20:19

Hill now. Where is the ranking

20:21

member of the Houseways and Means

20:23

Committee who comes from Western Massachusetts?

20:26

And his name is Richard Neal. Is

20:28

he supporting you? So

20:31

Richie Neal got very pissed

20:33

off at us. when we

20:35

called for him to resign

20:37

from Congress and be investigated

20:39

by the Ethics Committee for

20:41

some unseemly and clearly questionable,

20:44

enormous payments that were made

20:46

to his son Brendan for

20:48

lobbying on issues that he

20:50

had no expertise in, in

20:52

a clear indication that it

20:55

was actually hiding lobbying to

20:57

try to curry favor with

20:59

his father's committee. So

21:02

Richie Neal, surprisingly, will

21:04

not call patriotic millionaires back or take

21:06

a meeting. So it is not

21:09

clear to me what he thinks of our

21:11

agenda. It is clear to me that his

21:13

son is unhappy with us calling out his

21:15

ethics and his father's ethics because he confronted

21:17

me at a party on Saturday night. And

21:19

so that was kind of an interesting exchange.

21:22

You know, I think Richie Neal needs to

21:24

resign. You know, Richie Neal

21:26

is 78 years old. He's been a corporate

21:28

show for the entirety of his political career.

21:30

And if he has a change of heart

21:33

now seeing like what he has done that

21:35

has facilitated an oligarchy, you know, I think

21:37

theoretically you always want to believe in redemption.

21:39

So if he wants to stay in office,

21:42

you know, prove yourself redeemed and start making

21:44

some big time noise about what these rich

21:46

folks have gotten away with for all of

21:49

these years. Well, let's look

21:51

at someone who is on your

21:53

side, Congressman Lloyd Doggett from the

21:55

Austin, Texas area, former member of

21:57

the Texas Supreme Court. And Ron

21:59

Wyden, who's the ranking minority member

22:01

of the Senate Finance, are they

22:03

with you on the program? Yeah,

22:05

they love us. We love them.

22:08

Those are two great lawmakers. So,

22:10

yes. And are you

22:13

trying to get an informal hearing

22:15

the way Congress watches the public

22:17

citizen so the Democrats can take

22:19

a committee room, have great witnesses,

22:22

the press there, they don't have to wait

22:24

for the Republicans. It would be

22:26

what's called a shadow hearing. And they've

22:29

had three or four of them already.

22:31

Elizabeth Warren had one on the

22:34

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that's being

22:36

destroyed by Trump as we speak.

22:38

And she got some good press.

22:40

Are you pushing for shadow hearings

22:42

to balance the closeout of any

22:44

dissent as the Republicans try to

22:46

ram through Trump's tax cuts in

22:48

the next few weeks? We

22:51

have not called for a shadow hearing, but

22:53

I think that that's a great tactic and

22:55

something we should explore. Thanks for the idea.

22:57

That's very important. And how about

22:59

back home? You travel a lot

23:02

and are you getting enthusiasm? Or

23:04

do you get people who sort of throw

23:06

their hands up in the air and say

23:09

it's too complex to understand tax reform? Here's

23:11

the thing. Taxes are not that hard to understand,

23:13

first of all. They make it hard on purpose.

23:16

And so that's why we wrote this book, Tax

23:18

the Rich. How wisely polls and lobbyists make the

23:20

rich even richer. And so if you want to

23:23

read the book. then you'll know everything you need

23:25

to know and it has cartoons and it's funny

23:27

and it's super easy to understand. If you don't

23:29

feel like reading the book, you can go to

23:31

taxtheritch .com and there's a video that tells you

23:33

everything you need to know about the tax code

23:36

in 15 minutes. So there are two ways to

23:38

have it not be confusing. I don't have anybody

23:40

throwing their hands up. I have a whole bunch

23:42

of people mad and ready to fight and ready

23:44

to roll up their sleeves and do stuff. And

23:47

I think, Ralph, one of the great things about

23:49

this moment that we're having right now is that

23:51

everything that we've been saying for years, we've been

23:53

telling people we are in the middle of a

23:55

global oligarchy or coup for the better part of

23:58

the tenure of this organization. People

24:00

have not believed us and not

24:02

enough people have believed us. People

24:04

woke up in November when he

24:06

won and then in January when

24:08

you had that trillion dollar picture

24:10

of all of the billionaires taking

24:12

stage and then seeing what Elon

24:15

Musk has done since then and

24:17

they've woken up and they're fighting.

24:19

I've always thought that People generally

24:21

in the US are more anti

24:23

-tax than people in Western Europe

24:25

and Canada, because in

24:27

Western Europe and Canada, much more

24:30

of the tax dollars come back

24:32

to the people in the form

24:34

of universal health insurance, in the

24:37

form of all kinds of benefits,

24:39

maternal child care, paid family, sick

24:41

leave, and other public services. So

24:44

in those countries, they feel they're

24:46

getting their taxes. coming back to

24:48

them. We're in the US. A

24:51

huge amount of taxes go to

24:54

the military budget, bloated like you

24:56

can't believe, and also

24:58

into corporate welfare, handouts,

25:00

subsidies, giveaways, bailouts, and

25:02

corporate tax expenditures. Explain

25:05

this phrase, corporate tax expenditures

25:08

for people. expenditure,

25:11

which I think is a really weird

25:13

way to talk about it again. This

25:15

is like they make it confusing so

25:17

people won't understand it, but tax expenditures

25:20

is just basically another way of saying

25:22

like money they spend through the tax

25:24

code. So it's tax breaks for corporations.

25:26

They're giving them money to create certain

25:29

behaviors, but we have tax expenditures through

25:31

the tax code for other things. Also,

25:33

I mean the earned income tax credit

25:35

and the child tax credit. are basically

25:38

welfare benefits that are administered through the

25:40

tax code. Those are tax

25:42

expenditures. It is money being spent

25:44

through the tax system in order

25:47

to achieve certain outcomes. So there's

25:49

nothing wrong with a tax expenditure.

25:51

It's just that if I'm deciding

25:53

to spend money through my tax

25:56

code, I'm not particularly inclined to

25:58

spend it on Nike. I

26:00

am more inclined to spend it on

26:02

a kid who doesn't have enough to

26:04

eat. No Nike. like two or

26:07

three years in the last decade, has paid

26:09

no taxes, okay? That's why

26:11

people who are making 20 grand a

26:13

year are putting their money into the

26:15

federal coffers. Erica, I found

26:17

one message that really works in front of

26:20

audiences. You ask people,

26:22

do you work for a big

26:24

company? Well, you know, some people

26:26

raise their hands and say, yeah, and

26:28

you find companies that these people

26:30

work for who paid no federal income

26:32

tax like General Electric made billions of

26:35

US based dollars in profit earlier

26:37

this century and not only paid no

26:39

federal income tax but got a

26:41

refund that's so crazy is our tax

26:43

system so when you get someone in

26:46

the audience saying yeah I work

26:48

for companies say like General Electric and

26:50

so did you know that you you

26:52

sent more dollars in actual dollars

26:55

to the US Treasury than your entire

26:57

giant company that employs you. which sent

26:59

nothing. Have you ever tried that

27:01

approach? We have tried that

27:03

approach. I think where I usually do it

27:05

is to say, who drives more

27:08

on the road? Amazon delivery

27:10

people or you? Why are you paying

27:12

more for the road than the Amazon

27:14

delivery person? That's how I do it.

27:16

But I think you're getting at the

27:18

same basic idea. Yeah. Well,

27:20

let's go to Steve. Erica,

27:22

you did this. I noticed you

27:24

did this conference called Beat the

27:27

Brolegarks. And I noticed in the

27:29

intro, one of the topics was

27:31

the psychology of the extremely wealthy.

27:34

What is the psychology of the

27:36

extremely wealthy? Well, it's

27:38

basically the philosophy that I like to

27:41

call it, Fajigma. The philosophy

27:43

of Fajigma is, forget you, Jack,

27:45

I got mine. And what seems

27:47

to happen when people get rich,

27:49

and this has been studied, academic

27:52

studies have shown that when

27:54

people achieve higher and higher

27:56

levels of wealth. They become

27:58

more selfish. They become

28:00

more likely to break laws. They

28:03

become more likely to behave in ways

28:05

that are antisocial. There is a fantastic

28:07

social psychologist named Paul Piff. Go check

28:09

him out. He has done all of

28:11

these studies about what happens when people

28:14

get rich and how they behave. There

28:16

are some interesting studies about people who

28:18

drive nicer cars tend to run red

28:20

lights and stop signs more than people

28:22

who don't drive nice cars. Okay, he

28:24

does a great study where a guy

28:27

cheats at Monopoly, knows he's cheating at

28:29

Monopoly, everybody who's playing the game knows

28:31

he's cheating at Monopoly, and still after

28:33

the Monopoly game that he won. He's

28:35

off in the corner bragging about how

28:38

he won the game. So that's basically

28:40

what happened. That's the disease that infects

28:42

some rich people. And that

28:44

disease is very problematic for all the

28:47

rest of it, even though they're the

28:49

people who caught it. It seems to

28:51

be grounded in some sense of I'm

28:54

deserving. So I have it is I'm

28:56

deserving. I h and if you think

28:58

about it, the more people you have

29:01

to have you and your stuff. And

29:03

so all of to be particularly inclined

29:05

to full of it. And so you

29:08

do would evolve. I mean, I if

29:11

Ralph became a multimil a fabulous

29:13

dude, you kno to that. I

29:15

don't know the is

29:19

that when people achieve levels of great

29:21

wealth, they tend to act in ways

29:23

that are problematic to our society. And

29:25

that is when we have to intervene.

29:28

And by the way, the studies

29:30

show that lower income people give

29:33

a larger percentage of their income

29:35

to charity than very rich people

29:37

give to charity. There's a real

29:39

parsimony of the plutocrats situation in

29:41

our country where they're extremely miserly

29:43

with, of course, luminous exceptions. This

29:45

whole let's rely on charity. This

29:48

is very interesting. So the senator

29:50

from Wisconsin, Ron Johnson, was at

29:52

a Senate Finance hearing the other

29:54

day, and he said that basically

29:56

if somebody needs help, they should

29:58

go first to themselves and their

30:00

families, second to their church or

30:03

to charity, and third to the

30:05

federal government. And that is their

30:07

philosophy. Now, when I hear that,

30:09

what that says to me is

30:11

go first to your family and

30:13

then second, go to some

30:15

entity that may or may not help you.

30:17

And then third, go to the government. When

30:20

I'm ordering my society, I would like

30:22

for people to go first to their

30:25

friends and family, second to the government,

30:27

and third to charity. And

30:29

the reason that I put it

30:31

in that order is that I

30:34

don't want the human needs to

30:36

be optional. I don't want it

30:38

to be reliant on the whims

30:40

of a rich person to decide

30:42

if they should fund a charity.

30:44

What I would rather do is

30:46

solve the problems in our society

30:48

as a matter of a common

30:50

exercise. So I don't want

30:53

to walk down the street and

30:55

have homeless people attack schoolchildren like

30:57

someone did. A mentally

30:59

ill homeless person attacked a group of

31:01

teachers and children in Washington, DC. I

31:04

don't want it to be up to

31:06

a charity to decide if that individual

31:08

gets the help that they need to

31:10

stop being a danger to society. Very

31:13

well said. I used to sum it

31:15

up this way. A society that has

31:17

more justice is a society that needs

31:19

less charity. By the way,

31:21

before we go to David, what's

31:23

your take on Trump and the

31:26

poisonous tusks of Phelan Musk's attack

31:28

on the Internal Revenue Service? Their

31:30

budget firing thousands of personnel. What's

31:32

your take on that? Are you

31:34

taking a position? Yeah.

31:36

I mean, listen, the only position you

31:38

can take is that if somebody is

31:40

trying to increase government efficiency, the

31:43

last thing you should cut

31:45

is the one department in

31:47

government that brings in revenue.

31:49

Cutting the IRS costs the

31:51

US government money. If you

31:53

ran a business, Ralph, would

31:56

you ever fire your

31:58

accounts receivable department? No,

32:00

it would be the last department you

32:03

would cut. So then it says he's

32:05

either stupid because that's what he's cutting,

32:07

which I think is probably inaccurate. So

32:09

if he's not stupid, then why is

32:11

he doing it? And he's doing it

32:14

for the same reason. that lawmakers have

32:16

hacked at the IRS budget forever. They

32:18

don't want their donors to get taxed.

32:20

They don't want their donors to be

32:23

audited. And so they cut the cops.

32:25

So all these folks who are griping

32:28

about black Americans calling to defund the

32:30

police are actually defunding the police that

32:32

is keeping them in line and keeping

32:34

them honest. And so I believe that

32:36

the first police we should fund is

32:38

the financial police. because the machinations of

32:41

the richest people in the country are

32:43

what are creating most of the preconditions

32:45

that lead people to crime in the

32:47

first place. And the Republicans

32:49

on Capitol Hill have led in

32:51

slashing the IRS budget and supporting

32:54

Trump's maraudings on the IRS today.

32:56

It the first bill they took

32:58

in. The very first bill that

33:00

Republicans introduced when they took over

33:02

the House was cutting the 80s.

33:04

And the Democrats have not accused

33:07

the Republicans of actively aiding tax

33:09

evasion by the super rich and

33:11

multinational corporations. That's how feeble that

33:13

Democratic Party is. Let's go to

33:15

David. Thank you. I want

33:18

to return to what you were

33:20

just talking about, the order of

33:22

love, because there was a theological

33:24

dispute between Vice President J .D.

33:26

Vance and Pope Francis this year,

33:28

where J .D. Vance used the

33:30

term ordo amoris, the order of

33:32

love, and said, first you take

33:34

care of yourself and your family,

33:36

and then if you have any

33:38

love left over, give it to

33:40

the rest of the world. And

33:42

the Pope fired back at JD

33:44

Vance that Jesus taught, no, you

33:46

love most vulnerable. You don't

33:48

start with yourself. You don't start

33:51

with your family. You start with

33:53

those most in need. So when

33:55

you focus on billionaires, as much

33:57

as I love to demonize them,

34:00

how do we focus on the

34:02

poor? How do we draw attention

34:04

like Bobby Kennedy did in his

34:07

last year, touring Appalachia

34:09

and forcing the media

34:11

to take pictures of

34:13

children with distended bellies.

34:15

How do we draw

34:17

focus away from the

34:19

lavish lifestyles of the

34:21

billionaires and force a

34:23

discussion about half this

34:25

country that's struggling, dying,

34:28

literally dying? How do we focus

34:30

that energy less on the billionaires,

34:33

more on the poor? Well,

34:35

I guess, David, for me, I

34:37

would ask, like, where is the

34:39

focus going to have the better

34:41

chance of getting the outcome that

34:43

we need? And the premise of

34:46

the exercise of our organization is

34:48

its wages and taxes and the

34:50

distribution of political power, tax the

34:52

rich, pay the people, spread the

34:54

power. So when we do our

34:56

work, it's very useful for us

34:58

to amplify the egregious harm that

35:00

some billionaires are doing to the

35:02

planet and to working people. because

35:05

then the answer to that is

35:07

to make them less rich. I

35:10

think sometimes in focusing, I

35:12

think you can lose people's energy because there

35:14

are so many poor people right now. I

35:16

think people know people are suffering because they're

35:18

the people suffering. I mean, we

35:20

have 70 % people suffering right now who make

35:23

less than the median cost of living for a

35:25

single adult with children. So all

35:27

of those people are aware of the

35:29

suffering. I mean, what we've done When

35:31

eight Democrats joined with all of the

35:33

Republicans to vote against raising wages to

35:35

$15 an hour in the middle of

35:38

a global pandemic, it pissed me off

35:40

so badly at Democrats that I grabbed

35:42

a bunch of my members. We did

35:44

a road trip to Kentucky. We did

35:46

a road trip to West Virginia. We

35:48

stopped people in the Dollar General parking

35:50

lot to talk to them about wages

35:52

and taxes. And then ultimately we started

35:55

a program, an ongoing program. It's three

35:57

years old in one of the poorest

35:59

counties in North Carolina. that is a

36:01

deep red county and one of the

36:03

poorest counties in Wisconsin, which is a

36:05

deep red county. And we went into

36:07

both of those places into Whiteville, North

36:09

Carolina and Richland Center, Wisconsin.

36:12

And we've spent three years talking

36:15

to working people slash poor people

36:17

across the political aisle in those

36:19

two locations about how politicians of

36:21

both parties have rigged the economy

36:23

against them and the power that

36:25

they have to fix it. So

36:27

what I'd like to do is

36:30

not highlight their flight as much

36:32

as to amplify and enhance their

36:34

power, because these folks actually have

36:36

a huge amount of political power.

36:38

And the county in North Carolina,

36:40

for example, that I'm talking about

36:43

is represented by the majority leader

36:45

of the North Carolina House, Brendan

36:47

Jones. He refuses to

36:49

give a hearing to a minimum

36:51

wage bill. The minimum wage in

36:54

North Carolina is $7 .25 an

36:56

hour. We just had about 50

36:59

people go to Raleigh to lobby

37:01

their lawmakers, including Brendan Jones, to

37:03

raise wages. So I

37:05

want to empower them rather than just

37:08

show people how tough their life is.

37:10

I'd rather give them the tools they

37:12

need to help them make their lives

37:15

better. And that better life is going

37:17

to come about with a higher wage

37:19

floor. And that is a matter of

37:22

law. I also think it's worth mentioning

37:24

that this area that we're in in

37:26

North Carolina moved 12 points from Democrats

37:29

to Republicans after Bill Clinton passed NAFTA.

37:32

OK, so I think that one of

37:34

the things that the Democratic Party needs

37:36

to do is hold up a mirror

37:38

and admit to the role that they

37:41

played in decimating America's middle class and

37:43

working people in America. You're quite right,

37:45

Erica. They lost most of their furniture

37:48

industry in North Carolina after NAFTA. That's

37:50

right. Erica, before we conclude, I'd like

37:52

to have the listeners find out whether

37:55

they could get a visit from any

37:57

of your group staff like you went

37:59

to North Carolina around the country. What

38:02

do they have to do to try

38:04

to get a visit so they can

38:06

rally people in their community? Just send

38:09

us an email at info at patrioticmillionaires

38:11

.org. We have a series of presentation.

38:13

We have members who will travel all

38:16

over the country to present to small

38:18

community groups, to large rallies. We have

38:20

a few different presentations we do to

38:23

spark conversation and we'd love to come

38:25

visit with community groups. So just drop

38:27

us an email and let us know.

38:30

The nice thing about these visits listeners

38:32

by the patriotic millionaires is they focus

38:34

attention of the people in the assembly.

38:37

on the members of Congress, on the

38:39

two senators and representatives from the district.

38:41

So it isn't just riling them up

38:43

and have the civic energy go into

38:46

the ether. Directed like

38:48

a laser beam on the

38:50

535 members of Congress that

38:52

can make these decisions for

38:55

the people back home who've

38:57

delegated their constitutional authority to

38:59

these lawmakers who most of

39:01

the time have turned their

39:03

back on the people and

39:05

represented a few hundred corporations

39:07

instead. Any last point you

39:09

want to make before we

39:12

conclude Erica Payne? Absolutely.

39:15

The cost of living exemption .com

39:17

I think is one of the

39:19

single most powerful pieces of legislation

39:21

that has been put forth in

39:24

recent memory. First, to deliver thousands,

39:26

hundreds if not thousands of dollars

39:28

directly into the pockets of working

39:30

people. It will have no cost

39:33

to the federal government. whatsoever, revenue

39:35

neutral, and rich people won't feel

39:37

it. At a divided moment in

39:39

America, I think we can agree

39:41

that the federal government should tax people into

39:43

poverty and to the extent necessary rich people

39:45

should pick up the difference. And

39:48

so if you believe that, then

39:50

please join our efforts for this

39:52

specific piece of legislation and go

39:54

to cost of living exemption and

39:56

put your name on the list

39:58

and we will be in touch

40:00

with you to let you know

40:02

which lawmaker to call when. and

40:04

what you can do to push

40:07

this simple solution for a stable

40:09

country. If you need

40:11

any added motivation, listeners, read the

40:13

book Tax the Rich by Erica

40:15

Payne and Morris Pearl and connect.

40:18

After all, patriotic millionaires and

40:20

multimillionaires and a couple billionaires,

40:22

they don't have the number

40:24

of votes you have. So

40:26

you have huge assets to

40:29

amplify their progressive humane and

40:31

constructive mission. for a democracy

40:33

that works for everybody. Thank

40:35

you very much, Erica Payne.

40:38

Thanks so much, Ralph. This was fun.

40:40

Thanks, Steve and David and Hannah. We've

40:43

been speaking with Erica Payne. We

40:45

will link to patriotic millionaires at

40:47

Ralphnaderradiohour .com. When we

40:50

come back, we'll be joined by a resident

40:52

constitutional expert, Bruce Fine, who's

40:54

going to talk about the letter that

40:56

he and Ralph sent to Trump outlining

40:58

22 articles of impeachment. But

41:00

first, let's check in with our Corporate Crime

41:02

Reporter Russell Mochiber. From the National

41:05

Press Building in Washington, D .C., this is

41:07

your Corporate Crime Reporter Morning, made for Friday,

41:09

May 2, 2025. I'm Russell Mochiber. In New

41:11

York City last week, a

41:13

group of legislators and citizens

41:15

rallied at the New York

41:17

Stock Exchange to demand the

41:19

reinstatement of New York's stock transfer

41:21

tax. The stock transfer tax First

41:24

enacted in 1905 places a nominal

41:26

fee of 5 cents on stock

41:29

sales over $20. Though

41:31

small for individual trades, full

41:33

collection of the tax could

41:36

generate an estimated $14 billion

41:38

to $16 billion annually for

41:40

the state, revenue that would

41:42

be used to fund public

41:45

services. The stock

41:47

transfer tax existed from

41:49

1905 to 1981. It

41:52

raised billions for the state, yet

41:54

Wall Street prospered. That's because the

41:57

tax is so low. For the

41:59

Corporate Crime Reporter, I'm Russell Mokiger.

42:02

Thank you, Russell. Welcome back to the Ralph

42:04

Nader Radio Hour. I'm Steve Skrovan, along with

42:06

David Feldman, Hannah and Ralph. David,

42:08

introduce our resident constitutional expert. Bruce

42:11

Fine is a constitutional scholar and

42:14

international law expert. Mr. Fine was

42:16

Associate Deputy Attorney General under Ronald

42:19

Reagan, and he's the author of

42:21

Constitutional Peril, The Life

42:23

and Death Struggle for Our Constitution

42:25

and Democracy, as well as American

42:28

Empire Before the Fall. Welcome back

42:30

to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour.

42:33

Bruce Fine. Thank you for

42:35

inviting me. I'm delighted. Yeah,

42:37

welcome again, Bruce. You know, you

42:39

have called Donald J. Trump the

42:42

most impeachable president in American history,

42:44

and you've backed it up. by

42:47

drafting 22 articles of impeachment based

42:49

on his first 100 days and

42:51

more to come, it looks like.

42:54

And tell us about the more

42:56

important impeachment articles before we ask

42:58

you what the prospects and what

43:01

the pathway is in Congress. Well,

43:04

let me just update for the audience.

43:06

We had today revelation of further evidence

43:09

of an impeachable offense, namely Mr. Trump

43:11

conceding that he was lying to federal

43:13

courts when he said he he could

43:16

not retrieve Brego Garcia, someone who was

43:18

illegally by an administrative air removed to

43:20

a dungeon in El Salvador that said

43:23

he didn't want to retrieve. Now, prior

43:25

to that, he had his lawyers go

43:27

into federal court say, oh, we're helpless.

43:30

Now, we have no ability to enable,

43:32

facilitate the return of a Brego Garcia

43:34

who was illegally removed without any evidence

43:37

that he was a member of a

43:39

gang. And I say this because it

43:41

heightens, I think, the urgency of impeachment

43:44

when you have a president who no

43:46

longer feels obligated to represent facts to

43:48

federal courts he just makes them up

43:51

but that gets me to I think

43:53

the common theme of the impeachable offenses

43:55

stems from the article two obligation of

43:58

the president to take care that the

44:00

laws be faithfully executed the laws includes

44:02

not only statutes the constitution but court

44:05

judgments and if we go through those

44:07

that are most egregious And maybe there

44:09

aren't any because there are so many.

44:12

I start out with the fundamental idea

44:14

of due process. You simply cannot deprive

44:16

someone of liberty without giving them an

44:19

opportunity to explain or to refute what

44:21

allegations the government has made. And the

44:23

reason why I start out that, Ralph,

44:26

is we've had an experiment in World

44:28

War II with what happens when you

44:30

have no due process. We did that

44:33

with 120 ,000 Japanese Americans. No, we

44:35

just said that they're all likely to

44:37

commit espionage or sabotage, how to put

44:40

them in concentration camps, we made 120

44:42

,000 errors. Later apologized for

44:44

it in 1988. So there's

44:46

a reason due process is not

44:48

simply an academic concept. It's essential

44:50

to preventing these kinds of egregious

44:52

instances of injustice from happening. And

44:54

we know that Trump has, one,

44:56

not only has he removed Abrego

44:58

Garcia to a dungeon in El

45:01

Salvador without any due process, but

45:03

he sent other, those who allegedly

45:05

are members of Venezuelan gang. outside

45:07

the country without any due process

45:09

as well. And their

45:11

allegations made, their terrorists, there's

45:13

no evidence that they are terrorists. If

45:16

they wear a tattoo, they're said that proves

45:18

beyond reasonable doubt that they must be terrorists.

45:21

The courts have pushed back against

45:23

these illegalities, but the idea of

45:25

an impeachable offense is that you

45:27

don't have to wait until a

45:29

president has actually committed a crime.

45:31

As George Mason said at the

45:33

Constitutional Convention, attempts to subvert the

45:35

constitutional order. are sufficient to trigger

45:37

impeachment. It's prophylactic as well as

45:39

remedial. And these are clear efforts

45:41

to destroy the entire concept of

45:43

due process. Tell us in terms

45:45

of not faithful to the execution

45:47

of laws, he's totally wrecking or

45:49

shutting down whole agencies. Give us

45:51

the names of some of these

45:53

agencies. All the firings and

45:55

the cessation of law enforcement. Openly.

45:58

The one thing I want to, before

46:00

I go there Ralph, let me just

46:02

explain why. The issue of due process

46:05

isn't limited to immigration. The rationale that

46:07

President Trump has given and was noted

46:09

by a federal court of appeals judge

46:12

would enable him to deport you, me,

46:14

anybody on this program, anybody watching this

46:16

program and say, well, we made an

46:19

error. It's too late. We can't help

46:21

it. So there's no firewall that prevents

46:23

this violation of due process and immigration

46:26

context from migrating over to any US

46:28

citizen for any reason whatsoever. But to

46:30

go to your larger point, Yes, the

46:33

president has an obligation to faithfully execute

46:35

the laws that created such agencies as

46:37

the Voice of America, the Consumer Financial

46:39

Protection Bureau, the Department of Education, the

46:42

U .S. Agency for International Development, and

46:45

Mr. Trump has just dismantled all of

46:47

them. Sometimes he's done it by just

46:49

telling the staff, you just leave, no

46:51

show up for work. Others, he's actually

46:54

attempting to defy them. Others, he simply

46:56

stopped spending money. courts have uniformly said

46:58

these efforts are arbitrary, capricious, and they

47:01

blocked him. But the effort is obviously

47:03

there. He again goes

47:05

into court and says, we

47:07

gave individualized consideration, no

47:09

to firing thousands of employees, which they

47:12

couldn't possibly have done because they don't

47:14

even have the manpower to do that.

47:16

Again, it's a very, very severe undermining

47:18

of the judicial process because we no

47:21

longer can count on anything from Trump

47:23

lawyers from being truthful. Now, I practice

47:25

law regularly in the court system, and

47:28

there's an unwritten rule that even when

47:30

you're not under oath, if you're a

47:32

lawyer, the judge and your opponent expect

47:34

you to be telling the truth. Now,

47:38

you cannot rely upon that anymore with

47:40

the Trump administration, which is another reason

47:42

why the judicial system is very precarious

47:44

now, because the Trump people are lying

47:46

and then they're saying, you have to

47:49

accept our lies as gospel. We won't

47:51

even let you look at what we're

47:53

saying is true. and proving it false

47:55

will claim executive privilege or something like

47:57

that. But going back to the issue

47:59

of a faithful execution of the laws,

48:02

it's not just shutting down programs. He

48:04

just decided on day one, you know,

48:06

I really don't want to shut down

48:08

TikTok. Even Congress gave it a respite

48:10

to find a buyer. I'll just decide

48:12

not to enforce the law against TikTok.

48:15

Then he decided, I don't really like

48:17

the foreign corrupt practices act. I think

48:19

handicaps have been competing abroad. So we're

48:21

just not going to force the foreign

48:23

corrupt practices act. there's so many laws

48:25

that he's already decided he's not to

48:28

enforce it's hard to keep up and

48:30

then we discussed earlier Ralph with regard

48:32

to regulations that have been issued by

48:34

his own administration or previous ones instead

48:36

of going through the legal process of

48:38

revoking the regulations if you can prove

48:41

they're unwarranted he just says i'm going

48:43

to tell the agencies just don't enforce

48:45

the regulations anymore this this is industrial

48:47

scale impeachable offenses Which is why it's

48:49

legitimate and accurate to call what is

48:51

building as a fascist dictatorship, because he's

48:54

going after people programs, service programs for

48:56

people in need, people who have necessities

48:58

in life unmet, the disabled, the poor,

49:01

meals on wheels, head start, consumer

49:04

protection, exposure to toxic

49:06

pollutants, worker safety, trying

49:08

to head off pandemics. trying to do

49:11

something about climate violence. But there's a

49:13

whole area which he says, take it

49:15

over. And that's corporations. He's

49:18

not going after corporate crime,

49:20

which is a perilously shredding

49:22

a lot of programs through

49:24

fraud from the Defense Department

49:26

to Medicare. Fraud on Medicare

49:28

is tens of billions of

49:30

dollars a year. And he's

49:32

not going after corporate welfare,

49:34

because he's been a beneficiary

49:36

as well as felon muskazz

49:38

in their businesses. He is

49:40

stopping the prosecutions and the

49:42

regulatory enforcement against Musk's far

49:44

-flung corporate empire that were

49:46

pending under Biden. Those things

49:48

have been frozen. And

49:51

he's opening up his own self

49:53

-enrichment with cryptocurrency deals openly, inviting

49:55

him to dinner and greasing the

49:57

wheels, and opening the doors for

49:59

enriching Musk's corporations from Tesla to

50:01

SpaceX and Starlink. as the clinical

50:03

definition of fascism. I just point

50:05

out a couple of things. One,

50:07

Ralph, the self -enrichment that you

50:09

pointed out, that's a violation of

50:11

the domestic emoluments clause. He basically

50:13

is using the White House to

50:15

supplement his salary. That's not supposed

50:17

to happen. You want to make

50:19

sure the president, and part of

50:21

this is the power of the

50:23

purse that Congress has in setting

50:25

the president's salary, is only receiving

50:27

compensation from his work as president.

50:29

And now he's gets subsidiary benefits

50:31

either directly or through his kids

50:33

who own all these properties and

50:35

hotels and all these people who

50:37

want to lobby and curry favor

50:39

with Trump. They obviously know they

50:41

have to patronize all these businesses

50:44

as he takes a daily look

50:46

at who's paying the $1 ,500

50:48

per room at the Trump hotels

50:50

or the golf clubs or things

50:52

like that. But just the other

50:54

point you're making Ralph about is

50:56

cutting programs that are really critical

50:58

to many people's lives. There's a

51:00

story today. Those workers who are

51:02

processing black lung disease claims by

51:04

minors who are almost impossible to

51:06

to be mobile anymore. Trump had

51:08

fired them all. So

51:10

the people who are supposed to

51:12

be benefiting from the government program,

51:14

at least to provide an offshoot

51:16

what the companies made when they

51:18

are mining coal and giving the

51:20

miners all these horrible lung diseases,

51:23

he fired all the workers. So

51:25

it shows you how cruel and callous

51:28

this president is. It also shows that

51:30

the Democrats and a lot of liberal

51:32

economists are not keeping up with the

51:34

horror show that's going on. They don't

51:37

use words like cruel and vicious. They

51:40

don't turn Trump's words like

51:42

deranged, crazed, corrupt

51:44

on him. They're still

51:46

using words like authoritarian practices or

51:48

problematic or distressing or disconcerting or

51:50

concerning. They're not catching up with

51:52

the horror show here. That's why

51:54

Trump continues to have a soliloquy.

51:56

The Democratic Party now having gatherings

51:59

to see how are they going

52:01

to collectively deal with Trump? How

52:03

does the bank deal with a

52:05

bank robber? They let the bank

52:07

robber rob the bank and flee

52:09

with the gold while they deliberate

52:11

how they're going to deal with

52:13

a bank robber they see coming

52:15

into the bank. So how are

52:17

you going to get your articles

52:19

of impeachment introduced by a Democratic

52:21

Party that's just feeble? Well, it's

52:23

hard. I mean, Al Green, we

52:25

had discussed earlier, pledged that today

52:27

was the last day that he

52:29

had agreed that he was going

52:31

to submit articles of impeachment, but

52:34

I haven't seen anything. Unfortunately, he

52:36

tried to engage his office, but

52:38

it's like talking into a black

52:40

hole. So you have some people

52:42

who from one day or another

52:44

will stand up and say something,

52:46

but there's no follow -up. There's

52:48

no consistency here. So how do

52:50

we get them introduced? Only if

52:52

the American people take a look

52:54

at it. on my website on

52:56

your website and call in the

52:58

congress say we want those articles

53:00

introduced if the american people insist

53:02

it will happen that's how it

53:04

happened in watergate it can happen

53:06

again but if you're indolent and

53:09

passive it isn't going to happen

53:11

they understand only one thing threat

53:13

to their office because you're not

53:15

voting watergate referring to the watergate

53:17

scandal which is pretty small compared

53:19

to the impeachable offenses affecting hundreds

53:21

of millions of people here and

53:23

abroad by the Trumpster gang. But

53:25

you do expect that Al Green

53:27

to soon introduce these articles in

53:29

impeachment. And you had

53:31

Jimmy Raskin tell you that it would

53:34

be a good idea to have an

53:36

informal Democratic hearing in the House on

53:38

impeachment. And there's probably two, three dozen

53:40

who will sign on progressive Democrats right

53:43

at the beginning. And that's the way

53:45

to get the ball rolling because what's

53:47

the only tool left to hold Trump

53:49

accountable that he doesn't control. Yeah, it's

53:52

impeachment. The courts don't interfere, the executive

53:54

branch has no rule, and that's why

53:56

the Frounding Fathers thought impeachment, as Ben

53:59

Franklin said. It's the civilized surrogate for

54:01

tyrannicide. That's how those are your words

54:03

used by Ben Franklin. You have a

54:05

trial, but if you're wrongdoing, it's like

54:08

firing the CEO, and I keep repeating

54:10

it like a broken record. There's so

54:12

much misunderstanding to think that impeachments like

54:14

the guillotine and the French revolution. It's

54:17

not. It isn't even come close. It's

54:19

just like firing a CEO. No

54:21

one thinks if CEO is fired, that

54:24

means we have a revolution against July

54:26

4, 1776. So we got to downplay

54:28

this idea that somehow we're giving up

54:31

our rights as free people and we're

54:33

returning to a bloodshed in the street

54:35

if you do impeachment. You don't. This

54:37

a civilized way. You take evidence. You

54:40

have an opportunity to respond and you

54:42

vote. That's the civilized way in which

54:44

you deal with wrongdoing. Okay, let's say

54:46

some of our interested listeners want a

54:49

copy of your impeachment articles so they

54:51

can spread the word back home, summon

54:53

the members from Congress to a town

54:55

meeting on impeachment, and send the copies

54:58

of the impeachment articles to the senators

55:00

and representatives. Give us your website. Yeah,

55:03

so there are two places.

55:05

One, you could get it

55:07

on my sub -stack account

55:10

that's bruce .find at sub

55:12

-stack .com. or at my

55:14

website, which is www .lawofficesabrucevine

55:16

.com. And you can easily

55:18

download them and send them

55:21

in. And it's not

55:23

the dystopia listener from calling the local

55:25

office of your member of Congress, which

55:27

tends to be a little more receptive

55:29

than the congressional office in Washington, and

55:32

ask them if they've read these

55:34

articles of impeachment and whether they're

55:36

going to take a stand on

55:38

it. On that note, thank you

55:40

very much, Bruce Fine, for further

55:43

enlightening and galvanizing our listeners. And

55:45

so start talking up impeachment. Use

55:48

the 22 impeachment articles, listeners. Send

55:50

them to your members of Congress

55:52

and demand town meetings on them.

55:54

There's no better time to start

55:57

than now, and Trump will keep

55:59

fueling the fires of impeachable offenses.

56:02

You can be sure of that. Thank you, Bruce

56:04

Fine. Thank you very much, Ralph. I

56:06

want to thank our guest again today, Eric

56:08

Payne and Bruce Fine. For those

56:10

you listening on the radio, that's our show

56:13

for you podcast listeners. Stay tuned for some

56:15

bonus material we call the Wrap Up, featuring

56:17

Francesco DeSantis, with, in case you haven't heard,

56:20

a transcript of this program will

56:22

appear on the Ralph Nader radio

56:24

hour, substack site, soon after the

56:26

episode is posted. Subscribe to us

56:28

on our Ralph Nader Radio Hour

56:30

YouTube channel. And for Ralph's weekly

56:33

column, it's free, go to nader

56:35

.org. For more from Russell Moe

56:37

Kiber, go to corporateprimereporter .com. The

56:39

American Museum of Tort Law is going

56:41

virtual. Go to tortmuseum .org to explore

56:43

the exhibits, take a virtual tour, and

56:46

learn about iconic tort cases from history.

56:48

And remember to continue the conversation after

56:50

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56:52

at ralphnaderradiohour .com and post a comment

56:54

or question on this week's episode. The

56:57

producers of The Ralph Nader Radio

56:59

Hour are Jimmy Lee Wirt, Hannah

57:01

Feldman, and Matthew Marin. Our executive

57:03

producer is Alan Minsky. Our

57:05

theme music stand -up rise -up was

57:07

written and performed by Kemp Harris, our

57:10

proofreader is Elizabeth Solomon. Join us next

57:12

week on The Ralph Nader Radio Hour.

57:14

Thank you, Ralph. Thank you,

57:16

everybody, and join me with reading my

57:18

new book. After all, I write it

57:20

to be read. It's called Civic Self

57:22

-Respect. and it applies to

57:24

everybody. Very personal, very

57:27

constructive. Hi,

57:29

this is Jimmy Lee Wirt and welcome to

57:31

The Wrap Up. First up,

57:33

we continue our conversation with

57:35

patriotic millionaires co -founder Erica

57:37

Payne. Erica, people would

57:40

want to know how many multimillionaires

57:42

or billionaires belong and how big

57:44

is your staff in downtown Washington?

57:46

Yes, so we have a few

57:48

hundred millionaires in the US. We

57:51

have millionaires in the UK. We

57:53

have a chapter in the UK

57:55

now, and we will be announcing

57:57

another international chapter formally here in

57:59

the next week or two. So

58:01

we have what started as essentially

58:04

a petition signed by 56 millionaires

58:06

has become a global movement of

58:08

millionaires demanding a change to the

58:10

global financial system that includes substantially

58:12

higher taxes on themselves. We've

58:15

got about 20 staff people in

58:17

Washington. We have a few,

58:19

well we actually have them all over

58:21

the country, but we have about 20

58:24

staff people for our operation here in

58:26

the U .S., a few staff people

58:28

in the U .K. and one staff

58:30

person in our next international location that

58:32

will announce relatively soon. We've had about

58:35

a thousand billionaires from around the globe

58:37

from 66 different countries join us in

58:39

some of the actions that we've taken.

58:41

So every year we host a Davos

58:44

protest and about a thousand multi -millionaires

58:46

have joined that call to tax the

58:48

Uber rich at that gathering of Davos.

58:50

We have two members who are billionaires.

58:53

My question is about

58:55

one aspect of the

58:57

oligarchy and that is

58:59

the nonprofit industrial complex,

59:01

private foundations, the

59:03

boards of other nonprofits, their

59:06

places for the ultra -rich to park

59:08

their money and also to exercise soft

59:10

power. If you buy into a nonprofit

59:12

board, you sit on the board

59:15

and you get to dole out charity. Looking

59:17

at America 250, I

59:19

didn't see anything in the Anti

59:22

-Ola Garky Act about things like

59:24

private foundations or strategies to stop

59:26

that element of people hiding their

59:28

money and avoiding taxes. Did

59:30

you speak to that? Yeah, Hannah, I

59:32

think that's a very valid critique.

59:34

The charitable sector of our

59:37

society, the 501c3 tax deduction portion

59:39

of our economy is a vehicle

59:41

that has been abused to say

59:43

the very least. And there are

59:45

organizations of people who run all

59:47

the charities that work very hard

59:49

to make sure they don't get

59:52

reformed. We just didn't put it

59:54

in our agenda. We work on

59:56

it as kind of a secondary

59:58

matter with some great partners at

1:00:00

the Institute for Policy Studies and

1:00:02

other places like that. But what

1:00:04

we wanted to include in the

1:00:06

money agenda, so it's America 250,

1:00:09

the money agenda, just the money,

1:00:11

we wanted to focus on the

1:00:13

very most important things to do

1:00:15

first. The charity reform is definitely

1:00:17

an essential piece of this. And

1:00:19

that's another piece, though, where we've

1:00:21

got folks on both the left

1:00:23

and the right who are not

1:00:26

helpful with that endeavor. Next

1:00:28

up, Steve, Hannah and David carry

1:00:30

on our conversation with Bruce Fine.

1:00:33

I actually have a question. Bruce, after

1:00:36

Watergate, after the Nixon presidency, there

1:00:38

was a spate of legislation meant

1:00:40

to rein in executive power. Assuming

1:00:43

we get Trump to leave office

1:00:45

in 2028, what should

1:00:47

the legislature do in this

1:00:49

case to rein in executive

1:00:51

power? What laws should be

1:00:53

passed? I do not

1:00:55

believe that... there need to be

1:00:57

any new laws. They need to

1:01:00

be enforced. That's what it is.

1:01:02

Right now, the laws are not

1:01:04

being enforced. Let me give you

1:01:06

one example, Steve. Congress has the

1:01:08

power of contempt that they've not

1:01:10

exercised in decades, meaning that they

1:01:12

can hold president or any of

1:01:14

minions in contempt, find them, even

1:01:16

jail them if they do not

1:01:19

respond to a subpoena or testify.

1:01:21

And we know that secrecy is

1:01:23

the child, it's the mother of

1:01:25

all wrongdoing. Congress

1:01:27

could force and enforce these obligations by

1:01:29

contempt. If they subpoenaed and we need

1:01:31

to know what's going on in the

1:01:34

executive, why did we not even know

1:01:36

we're at war with the Houthis until

1:01:38

the signal blunder by Hengseh? These are

1:01:40

great. Where is all this money going

1:01:42

into Gaza? Why are we sending weapons

1:01:45

to Israel? It's violating the lay. You

1:01:47

have to respond. Now there is no

1:01:49

congressional oversight at all. And the reason

1:01:51

in part is because the executive knows

1:01:53

they don't have to show up and

1:01:55

nothing will happen to them. One of

1:01:58

the articles of impeachment voted against Richard

1:02:00

Nixon by the House Judiciary Committee was

1:02:02

he defied a subpoena. So they say,

1:02:04

and if once that impeachment happens, don't

1:02:06

worry, they won't defy subpoenas anymore. But

1:02:08

the oversight function of Congress is more

1:02:11

important than the actual passing of legislation.

1:02:13

You have to make the government transparent,

1:02:15

and that'll deter all of the wrongdoing,

1:02:17

you will. And that's why people are,

1:02:19

they're worried about the side hearses out

1:02:22

there, you know, more than Congress these

1:02:24

days. I don't think, Steve, that you

1:02:26

need new law. I mean,

1:02:28

we've had the War Powers Resolution that's

1:02:30

been unenforced for almost 50 years. Congress

1:02:32

doesn't do anything when they're violated. In

1:02:35

the first term, Steve, Trump

1:02:37

defied over 125 congressional subpoenas,

1:02:39

and the committees who issued

1:02:41

the subpoenas didn't move the

1:02:44

site in for contempt. Yes,

1:02:46

even remember what Ralph is saying. You

1:02:49

remember the January 6th Commission, right? They

1:02:51

issued subpoenas. to Mike Pence and members

1:02:53

of Congress who are talking with Trump

1:02:55

about how they could overturn the election.

1:02:57

They were ignored and the January 6th

1:02:59

Commission did nothing. They didn't even call

1:03:01

Mike Pence as a witness, who's the

1:03:04

one with the smoking gun said he

1:03:06

told me to choose between the Constitution

1:03:08

and him when he's counting the electoral

1:03:10

votes. No subpoena, nothing. David.

1:03:13

A week after 9 11,

1:03:15

Congress approved the authorization for

1:03:18

the use of military force,

1:03:20

giving any president. carte blanche

1:03:22

to fight the global war

1:03:25

on terror. That is a

1:03:27

24 year old resolution. I

1:03:30

believe it's been renewed. And

1:03:32

it's what the Pentagon

1:03:34

cites and its attacks

1:03:36

on the hoodie fighters

1:03:38

in Yemen. So he's

1:03:41

not violating the law. Is he?

1:03:43

He's violating the Constitution. Let me

1:03:45

go back and just add a

1:03:47

few footnotes to your observation. Number

1:03:49

one. It's called the 2001

1:03:51

AUMF Authorization to Use Military Force. It

1:03:53

applies only to anybody who thought to

1:03:55

be connected with a 9 -11 attack.

1:03:58

As far as I know, the Houthis

1:04:00

never were connected. And indeed, they knew

1:04:02

it was limited in some respects because

1:04:04

they came up with a 2002 AUMF

1:04:06

for Iraq. So if 2001 was an

1:04:09

omnibus fight, any war you want, any

1:04:11

time, any place, why do you need

1:04:13

2002? But the second

1:04:15

thing, Steve, is this is not a

1:04:17

declaration of war. There are certain provisions.

1:04:20

that Congress cannot give away. Remember, there

1:04:22

was a line item veto. The Supreme

1:04:24

Court said Congress could not give President

1:04:26

Clinton line item veto. Think

1:04:29

of this possibility, Steve. Congress and

1:04:31

acts of law says the President

1:04:33

shall enact promulgate an internal revenue

1:04:35

code. No, the legislative powers entrusted

1:04:37

the Congress. You just can't say, here, we're

1:04:39

giving it away. And when you think of

1:04:41

the purpose of the declare war clause was

1:04:44

that no one at the Constitutional Convention trusted

1:04:46

a president with deciding on war. the whole

1:04:48

reason why you wanted to force the issue

1:04:50

into Congress because they understood Congress didn't have

1:04:53

any incentive to make up excuses because at

1:04:55

war time they shrink to an ink blot

1:04:57

as I want to say. So Congress cannot

1:04:59

give away the water power. It would be

1:05:01

unconstitutional for Congress to enact the statute saying,

1:05:04

President can go to war anytime he feels

1:05:06

like it and doesn't need to tell us.

1:05:08

That's what makes us unconstitutional. And I don't

1:05:10

even think it's a close question. At the

1:05:13

Constitutional Convention, everyone said you

1:05:15

cannot let the President go to war.

1:05:17

James Madison, the father said, the crown

1:05:19

jewel of the Constitution was entrusting the

1:05:21

war power to Congress, not the president.

1:05:24

And the Congress cannot undo that constitutional

1:05:26

decision by saying, hey, here, just go

1:05:28

ahead and war on your own. Anna.

1:05:31

Bruce, my question is about whether

1:05:34

the Constitution is still as useful

1:05:36

to us as it was at

1:05:38

our founding. We started

1:05:41

with 13 -ish states. We

1:05:43

have a lot more. If we

1:05:45

want to rally a majority, let

1:05:47

alone two -thirds of representatives or

1:05:49

senators, that's a lot more people.

1:05:52

Would it serve the American people

1:05:54

better if articles of impeachment and

1:05:56

you needed a one -third minority,

1:05:59

that a minority opinion to start

1:06:01

to question our executive, you didn't

1:06:03

need to rally hundreds of people

1:06:05

to start the process? Would it

1:06:08

be useful to look into changing

1:06:10

those thresholds? Well, it's a wonderful

1:06:12

question. I think the threshold is

1:06:14

really low. All you need, they're

1:06:16

privileged resolutions in the House side.

1:06:18

You introduce articles of impeachment, because

1:06:21

the real beginning, I believe, is the hearings,

1:06:23

the publicity, the demand that you got to

1:06:26

respond to subpoena, come forth with facts and

1:06:28

evidence. We need to know what you're doing

1:06:30

and why. Now, when it comes to the

1:06:32

actual vote, you need a simple majority. But

1:06:35

I can guarantee you, because I was there

1:06:37

with Ralph every day at the Nixon impeachment

1:06:39

hearings. No, they didn't start out with a

1:06:41

majority. But you started out with the hearings

1:06:44

first, the Senate Watergate Committee hearings, then it

1:06:46

shifted to the House side. And that's the

1:06:48

key. And just to have a hearing, you

1:06:50

don't need a threshold like a majority whatsoever.

1:06:53

But to show you how things have fallen,

1:06:55

and this is, I saddled in part on

1:06:57

Nancy Pelosi in 2006. I was working with

1:06:59

John Conyers to open impeachment hearings on Bush

1:07:02

Cheney, all the violations of the surveillance provisions,

1:07:04

the lies about Iraq and otherwise.

1:07:07

And he was ready to have

1:07:09

hearings on impeachment. Nancy Pelosi approached

1:07:11

them and said, you can't do

1:07:13

that because it could impair our

1:07:15

election chances in 2008. She's thinking

1:07:17

that the Clinton gave impeachment a

1:07:19

bad name. And so she stopped

1:07:21

them from holding impeachment here. So

1:07:23

Congress has got to get on

1:07:25

the ball here. They cannot

1:07:27

substitute their own political ambitions for destroying

1:07:29

and lighting a match to the Constitution,

1:07:31

which that's just one example that happened

1:07:34

in 2006. Unfortunately, there are other war

1:07:36

stories I could tell. Ralph probably has

1:07:38

his own. But we're ready to go

1:07:40

forward. You don't need a super or

1:07:42

even a majority just start the hearing

1:07:45

process, which is the key transparency. And

1:07:47

once members of Congress see their

1:07:49

political skin or Trump, they will

1:07:52

choose their political skin and turn

1:07:54

on Trump just the way the

1:07:56

Republicans did on Richard Nixon in

1:07:58

1974. The one thing

1:08:00

we didn't get to, and this is,

1:08:02

and I'm sure it is going to happen,

1:08:05

this is Trump flirting with an executive

1:08:07

order repealing the 22nd Amendment and running it.

1:08:09

It looks crazy now, but we're dealing

1:08:11

with somebody who's completely deranged. I

1:08:13

mean, his mega crowd is certainly

1:08:15

supporting that. He already is selling

1:08:18

2028 hats. What if

1:08:20

there was just like a standing

1:08:22

impeachment subcommittee? Listen, that's a wonderful

1:08:24

question. I have proposed to Congress.

1:08:27

I wrote a bill. You need

1:08:29

a committee on impeachable. And I

1:08:31

drafted what I would call Hannah.

1:08:33

the congressional resolutions defining with more

1:08:35

granularity than the constitution says high

1:08:38

crimes and misdemeanors. Specific things that

1:08:40

the president can do an inexhaustible

1:08:42

list. You do these things, these

1:08:44

are impeachable offenses and have a

1:08:47

committee with jurisdiction over this resolution,

1:08:49

you know, articulating impeachable offenses. They

1:08:51

just didn't go into place. But

1:08:53

it's a wonderful idea. There ought

1:08:55

to be a committee that does

1:08:58

nothing but police constitution for impeachable

1:09:00

offenses and bring it to the

1:09:02

attention of Congress and be able

1:09:04

to have a process. that they

1:09:06

can force a he just always

1:09:09

there, whether or just make it.

1:09:11

I think it's saying it shouldn't

1:09:13

be so s does impeachable things

1:09:15

and of being impeached, they need

1:09:17

job. It'd

1:09:20

be a standi exactly

1:09:22

right. What's so complying

1:09:24

with the constu joint

1:09:26

committee? Well, it's s

1:09:28

supposed to be more impart you

1:09:32

don't want to mix the accuser with the

1:09:34

decider. So it probably makes more sense to

1:09:37

just start out on the house side. See,

1:09:39

we're working it through. This is the committee,

1:09:42

the exploratory committee

1:09:44

for the House

1:09:46

Impeachment Subcommittee. Yeah,

1:09:49

it should be a subcommittee of the House Judiciary

1:09:51

Committee. It'd be an easy way to just add

1:09:53

a subcommittee. I mean, there'd be so much work

1:09:55

and for sure, turning onto this

1:09:57

present. It couldn't do the three -day week.

1:09:59

It'd have to be seven -day week for

1:10:01

that committee or subcommittee. But it's every president.

1:10:03

I mean, it should appeal. You can be

1:10:05

as petty as you want. When you think

1:10:07

about parliament, those fights

1:10:09

on the floor of parliament, poke

1:10:12

at your opponents, poke at the

1:10:14

opposition as much as you want.

1:10:16

Be on your toes, be sharp,

1:10:19

try really hard to be good at

1:10:21

your job. You should always be looking

1:10:23

at any job. High performance matters. And

1:10:27

now it's time for In Case

1:10:29

You Haven't Heard with Francesco de

1:10:31

Santis. At

1:10:33

the 11th hour, Representative Jim

1:10:35

Jordan, chair of the House Judiciary

1:10:38

Committee, pulled his measure to

1:10:40

strip the Federal Trade Commission of

1:10:42

its antitrust enforcement powers and consolidate

1:10:45

those within the Justice Department

1:10:47

Reuters' reports. Quote, the

1:10:49

House panel had included the proposal in

1:10:51

its budget package on Monday. During a

1:10:53

hearing on the package, the committee passed

1:10:55

an amendment that would remove the measure.

1:10:58

Trump's FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson

1:11:00

opposed Dorn's move and intervened

1:11:03

with the White House. As

1:11:05

Reuters notes, the proposal mirrored

1:11:07

the One Agency Act, a Republican

1:11:09

bill that has gotten support from

1:11:12

Elon Musk, which

1:11:14

would effectively repeal the FTC's authority

1:11:16

to sue companies over unfair methods

1:11:18

of competition. which the agency is

1:11:20

using in cases against pharmacy benefit

1:11:22

managers, Amazon and

1:11:25

John Deere." In short,

1:11:28

the FTC's antitrust power survived

1:11:30

today, but there's no

1:11:32

guarantee about tomorrow. Yet,

1:11:35

while avoiding the worst possible outcome

1:11:37

on the corporate crime front, the

1:11:39

Trump administration is still hard at

1:11:41

work going soft on corporate crooks.

1:11:43

Public Citizen's Rick Claypool reports, quote,

1:11:46

two Wells Fargo execs had their

1:11:48

fines reduced by 90 % related

1:11:50

to the bank's accounting scandal by

1:11:53

Trump's office of the Comptroller of

1:11:55

Currency, quote. Claypool links

1:11:57

to a piece in Radical Compliance

1:11:59

which explains that quote David Julian,

1:12:02

former chief auditor at Wells Fargo,

1:12:04

saw his fines cut from $7

1:12:06

million to $100 ,000 and Paul

1:12:08

McGlinko, executive audit director, had his

1:12:10

fines cut from $1 .5 million

1:12:12

to just $50 ,000. Both

1:12:15

Julian and McLinko were part of the

1:12:17

senior leadership team at Wells Fargo in

1:12:19

the 2010s when regulators, quote, charged the

1:12:21

bank with turning a blind eye to

1:12:24

employees opening bank accounts without customer consent

1:12:26

to hit sales quotas. That

1:12:28

misconduct eventually led to a

1:12:30

$3 billion settlement with Wells

1:12:32

Fargo in 2020. Lest

1:12:35

you think the Democrats are in

1:12:37

danger of seriously opposing Trump's policies,

1:12:39

the Bulwark reports that House Minority

1:12:41

Leader Hakeem Jeffries is putting the

1:12:43

kibosh on the recent spate of

1:12:45

Democrats' trips to El Salvador, exposing

1:12:47

the reality of the CCOT deportation

1:12:49

scheme. This report alleges that,

1:12:51

quote, Cory Booker and the Hispanic caucus

1:12:53

were planning to go to El Salvador,

1:12:55

end quote, but are no longer. Perhaps

1:12:58

worse, Jeffries is not giving clear marching orders

1:13:00

to the party rank and file. One

1:13:03

Democrat is quoted saying, as a member of

1:13:05

a party, you need to be disciplined. They

1:13:08

say, get on a plane, don't get on a plane, that's what

1:13:10

you do. Nine times out of

1:13:12

ten, you do what they ask. You can't

1:13:14

take that approach if you're not having regular

1:13:16

communications. You have to be

1:13:18

clear in messaging what the plan is, and you

1:13:20

have to do that regularly if you want to

1:13:22

keep people in line. This

1:13:24

is just another example of

1:13:26

Jeffrey's weak and indecisive leadership

1:13:29

of the caucus. Advocates

1:13:31

are having more luck resisting the

1:13:34

administration's overreach in court. On

1:13:36

Wednesday, Mohsen Madawi, the Columbia student,

1:13:38

faced with deportation after being lured

1:13:40

into an ice trap with the

1:13:42

false promise of a citizenship test,

1:13:45

was freed by a federal judge,

1:13:47

Politico reports. After the

1:13:49

judge ordered his release, Madawi told the press,

1:13:51

quote, I'm saying it clear and loud. To

1:13:53

President Trump and his cabinet, I'm

1:13:56

not afraid of you, end quote. Madawi's

1:13:58

ordeal is not over, but he

1:14:00

will remain free while his case

1:14:02

winds its way through the courts

1:14:04

and a previous order blocked the

1:14:06

administration from changing venues, meaning the

1:14:08

case will proceed in the relatively

1:14:10

liberal Second Circuit. Mahmood

1:14:13

Khalil also scored a major legal victory

1:14:15

this week. The Huffington Post reports that

1:14:17

the ICE agents sent to arrest Khalil

1:14:19

did not, contrary to their false claims

1:14:22

in court, have an arrest warrant. Amy

1:14:24

Greer, a lawyer for Khalil, is quoted

1:14:27

saying, The

1:14:31

ACLU also

1:14:35

defending Khalil

1:14:38

has now

1:14:42

moved for

1:14:46

this case

1:14:49

to be

1:14:53

dismissed. Despite

1:14:56

these victories though, the repression of

1:14:59

anything pro -Palestine continues. At

1:15:01

Yale, Promtaka reports hundreds of students

1:15:03

protested in advance of a speech

1:15:05

by Itamar Ben Gvir, Israel's radical

1:15:08

national security minister, who has previously

1:15:10

been arrested many times for inciting

1:15:12

racism and supporting pro -Jewish terrorism

1:15:14

in Israel itself. Yet

1:15:17

the university responded by, quote, stripping

1:15:19

the school's Students for Justice in

1:15:21

Palestine chapter of its status as

1:15:23

an official student group, end

1:15:25

quote. If students cannot

1:15:28

even protest Ben Gavir, what will

1:15:30

the college's regard as legitimate protests

1:15:32

of Israel? In

1:15:34

Yemen, Ryan Grimm reports on counterpoints

1:15:36

that the Trump administration has been

1:15:39

targeting strikes against the Houthis using

1:15:41

data gleaned from amateur open source

1:15:44

intelligence or OSINT accounts on X,

1:15:46

formerly Twitter. Unsurprisingly, these

1:15:49

are completely inaccurate and have led

1:15:51

to disastrous strikes on civilians' homes

1:15:53

and incorrectly identifying them as quote

1:15:56

-unquote Houthi bases. One

1:15:58

of these accounts is based in Houston, Texas

1:16:00

and another as far away as the Netherlands.

1:16:03

According to a new World Bank

1:16:06

report, Mexico reduced poverty more than

1:16:08

any other Latin American country between

1:16:11

2018 and 2023. Not

1:16:13

coincidentally, this lines up almost perfectly

1:16:15

with the AMLO years in Mexico,

1:16:17

which saw a massive increase in

1:16:19

the Mexican minimum wage along with

1:16:21

other social rights and protections. These

1:16:24

policies are now being taken forward by

1:16:26

AMLO's successor Claudia Scheinbaum, whose

1:16:28

popularity has now surpassed even that of

1:16:31

her predecessor, her Bloomberg. In

1:16:35

Australia, Virginia Jeffery, the

1:16:37

most outspoken accuser of Jeffery

1:16:39

Epstein and Glenn Maxwell, has

1:16:42

passed away at the age of 41,

1:16:44

BBC reports. Police concluded

1:16:46

that Ms. Jeffery died by suicide,

1:16:48

and her family released a statement

1:16:51

indicating that, quote, the toll of

1:16:53

abuse became unbearable, end quote.

1:16:56

Yet, her death was preceded by a bizarre

1:16:58

chain of events. On March

1:17:00

31st, the BBC reported that Ms. Jeffrey's

1:17:02

car collided with a school bus, sending

1:17:04

her into renal failure, with her doctors

1:17:06

saying she had, quote, four days to

1:17:09

live. The Miami

1:17:11

Herald also reported, quote, at the time

1:17:13

of her death, Jeffrey had been in

1:17:15

a contentious divorce and child custody battle with

1:17:17

her husband, Robert. The

1:17:20

family statement continued, the death is

1:17:22

being investigated by major crime detectives,

1:17:24

but early indication is the death

1:17:26

is not suspicious. And

1:17:28

quote, one can only

1:17:31

hope more details come to light. Finally,

1:17:35

in a different kind of bizarre story, embattled

1:17:37

incumbent New York City Mayor Eric Adams,

1:17:40

who's already given up on the Democratic

1:17:42

primary and was running for reelection as

1:17:44

an independent, will now appear

1:17:46

on two new ballot lines, end

1:17:48

anti -Semitism and safe and

1:17:51

affordable, political reports. Adams

1:17:54

has gone to great lengths to cultivate and maintain

1:17:56

his support in the Orthodox Jewish community in New

1:17:58

York and is seeking to highlight his strengths

1:18:00

undercut former Governor Andrew Cuomo. Apparently,

1:18:04

Adams only needs to secure 3 ,750

1:18:06

signatures from voters by May

1:18:08

27 for each of these ballot

1:18:10

lines, a shockingly low

1:18:12

threshold for the large city in America. These

1:18:15

ballot lines will appear without spaces, coming

1:18:18

in just under the wire with

1:18:20

the city's 15 character limit on

1:18:22

ballot lines. This

1:18:25

has been Francesco De Santis, but

1:18:27

in Case You Haven't Heard. And

1:18:30

that's a wrap. Join us next

1:18:32

week on the Ralph Nader Hour. Until

1:18:34

next time.