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Report. Support this show at

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extra hour of content daily.

0:21

April 24th, 2025, my name is Emma

0:23

Vigeland in for Sam Cedar, and

0:25

this is the five time over. We

0:30

are broadcasting live steps

0:32

from the industrially ravaged

0:34

Gowanus Canal in the

0:36

heartland of America, downtown

0:38

Brooklyn, USA. On

0:40

the program today, Jacob Silverman back

0:42

with us to talk about Trump's meme

0:45

coin scam. And

0:48

later in the show, Abdul al -Sayed,

0:50

candidate for US Senate in Michigan,

0:52

joins us to talk about that race. Also

0:56

on the program, amidst peace

0:58

negotiations led by the U .S.

1:00

that are newly favorable to

1:02

Putin, Russia bombs

1:04

Ukraine's capital, Kiev, overnight,

1:06

killing at least 10. Trump

1:10

asks Putin to stop over -truth

1:12

social. You can't do it,

1:14

Vladimir. You do it. It's going

1:16

to be a bad day. Coincidence

1:20

alert. That's almost exactly

1:22

what he said. He just said, Vladimir,

1:24

stop, please. Coincidence

1:28

Alert. Billionaires including

1:30

Mark Zuckerberg and Jamie

1:32

Dimon apparently liberated themselves

1:34

of billions of dollars

1:37

in shares right before

1:39

Trump's tariff announcement. China

1:43

is dog -walking Trump

1:45

on tariffs, publicly calling

1:47

out the administration

1:49

as Trump quietly caves.

1:53

more than a dozen states

1:55

join California suing the administration over

1:57

tariffs. A Fox

2:00

News poll shows Trump

2:02

is underwater in approval

2:04

rating on every issue

2:06

except immigration and is

2:08

minus 11 overall on

2:11

approval rating. That

2:13

is like pretty unheard of

2:15

in the first hundred days. Pete

2:18

Hexeth had signal installed on

2:21

his Pentagon office computer as well

2:23

as a makeup studio in

2:25

the Pentagon. He's got to hide

2:27

that flush for the cameras,

2:29

you know what I mean? With

2:32

these mirrors to judge these

2:34

sideburns a little bit better. Right.

2:37

Yeah, he missed that. Israel

2:42

kills at least 26

2:44

people, including a family of

2:46

six with four children

2:48

in overnight strikes near Jabalia.

2:51

Far right Israeli National Security

2:53

Minister Ben Gavir was pelted

2:55

with water bottles at his

2:57

talk at Yale University, where

3:00

encampments have once again cropped

3:02

up. Trump

3:04

denies disaster relief to Arkansas

3:06

to help them rebuild after

3:09

deadly tornadoes killed dozens of

3:11

people a month ago. Kilmar

3:14

Abrego Garcia's wife was forced

3:16

to move to a safe house

3:18

with her children, two of

3:20

whom are special needs due to

3:22

MAGA's harassment. Trump

3:25

reportedly strikes a deal

3:27

with Rwanda to accept

3:29

deportees. And

3:32

lastly, the longtime executive producer

3:34

of 60 Minutes is stepping

3:36

down. after Trump

3:38

baselessly sued the network because

3:40

they edited out Kamala

3:42

Harris coughing or something during

3:44

an interview. All

3:46

this and more on

3:48

today's Majority Report. Welcome

3:51

to the show, everybody. It's

3:53

a Majority Report Thursday.

3:56

Yes, it is. Hello, Russ. Hello,

3:58

Matt. Hello, Special in Studio

4:01

Thursday guest. And it will

4:03

be revealed soon who that

4:05

is. mystery. Um, but

4:07

very excited to have this

4:09

person in studio for the

4:11

fun half. Let's get started.

4:14

Um, we have a lot to

4:16

talk about today. Wanted to highlight

4:18

this because this is an enormously

4:21

important development and it's just one

4:23

of the many ways that the

4:25

Trump administration is harming all of

4:27

us. Well, at least 50 % of

4:29

the population. Um, since

4:32

before, since the early

4:34

nineties, 1991. The

4:36

NIH has been studying

4:38

women's health. They started

4:40

this women's health initiative

4:42

because there is a

4:44

major gap in research

4:46

for women's health because

4:48

historically, I mean, there

4:51

are still people alive

4:53

now when this was the

4:55

case. Research on

4:57

medicine and health

4:59

outcomes has largely been

5:01

focused on men. male

5:05

subjects. That's not

5:07

just for women,

5:09

even when they use

5:11

animal studies. It's

5:13

more focused on male

5:15

animals in clinical

5:17

trials, historically. And

5:19

so this has resulted

5:22

in poorer health outcomes for

5:24

women, particularly women of

5:26

color, LGBTQ

5:28

people. There's

5:30

been lots of misdiagnoses.

5:33

less understanding about

5:35

pain. I mean, things

5:38

like hysterectomies were widely

5:40

given out to women

5:42

based on pain that

5:44

they were experiencing that

5:46

could have been solved

5:48

with less intervention. I

5:50

mean, that's an extremely

5:53

painful and difficult surgery and

5:55

that could have happened

5:57

if health outcomes had been

5:59

better understood. And

6:01

so the NIH in the

6:03

90s started to look into

6:06

this and wanted to launch

6:08

a major study to fill

6:10

in the gaps in studying

6:12

women's symptoms and so that

6:14

their health care is better. Trump

6:18

is gutting this study.

6:20

Let's put up this

6:22

article from Science Magazine.

6:27

President Donald Trump's administration appears to

6:29

be killing much, if not all, of

6:32

a historic initiative that was the first

6:34

and is still the largest national institutes

6:36

of health effort centered around the health

6:38

needs of women. The

6:41

Women's Health Initiative, WHOI, has

6:43

enrolled tens of thousands of participants

6:45

in clinical trials of hormones

6:47

and other medications and track the

6:49

health of many thousands more

6:51

over more than three decades. Its

6:54

findings have had a major influence

6:57

on health care. WHO

6:59

leaders announced yesterday that

7:01

contract supporting its regional centers

7:03

are being terminated in

7:05

September and that the studies

7:08

clinical correcting coordinating center

7:10

based at the Fred Hutchinson

7:12

Cancer Center will continue

7:14

operations until January 2026 after

7:17

which time its funding

7:19

remains uncertain. They added

7:21

that the contract terminations for its

7:23

four main sites will significantly impact

7:25

ongoing research and data collection, severely

7:27

limiting WHI's ability to generate new

7:29

insights into the health of older

7:32

women, one of the fastest growing

7:34

segments of our population. There are

7:36

about 55 million post -menopausal women in

7:38

the United States. Science

7:40

is familiar with the initiative, whose annual

7:42

funding is currently just under $10 million. This

7:45

is like the, I mean, this is like

7:47

a penny in your couch cushion in terms

7:49

of what the federal government spends. I was

7:51

gonna underline that for like the type of

7:53

impacts, like just to underline, like the World

7:55

Women's Health Initiative challenged long -held beliefs about

7:57

the benefits of hormone therapy for preventing heart

7:59

disease and postmenopausal women revealed that combined estrogen,

8:01

this is just one example, um,

8:03

progestin hormone therapy actually increased the risk

8:05

of heart disease. Like these sorts

8:07

of things for $10 million, that's

8:09

like a not um high

8:12

-level nba player salary no

8:14

you're coming off the bench

8:16

um it's this is nothing

8:18

nothing for the federal government

8:20

that spends trillions and trillions

8:22

of dollars it's like pat

8:24

pick you picking up a

8:26

pack of gum um at

8:28

the gas station. An economic

8:30

analysis estimated a $35 .2 billion

8:32

savings in medical expenses in

8:34

the decade from the release

8:36

of WHI's hormone therapy results

8:38

due to fewer cardiovascular disease

8:40

and breast cancer cases. That's

8:42

$10 million a year program.

8:47

Yep. This

8:49

trial just taught us an immense

8:51

amount about the prevention of disease

8:53

in women, says Sarah Temkin. gynecological,

8:56

a gynecological oncologist who until the

8:58

11th of April was Associate Director

9:00

for Clinical Research in the Office

9:02

of Research on Women's Health at

9:04

NIH. This is a terrible, terrible

9:06

thing to have happen. Scroll to

9:08

the next paragraph if we could.

9:12

NIH's National Heart, Lung, and Blood

9:14

Institute has largely funded WHI launched

9:16

in 1991 under NIH's first woman

9:18

director, Bernadine Healy. It was hugely

9:21

ambitious focusing on treatments that might

9:23

prevent heart disease, breast and colon

9:25

cancer, and bone fractures from osteoporosis

9:27

in postmenopausal women. More

9:29

than 160 ,000 women participated in

9:31

its initial clinical trials or

9:34

were later tacked into its observational

9:36

study or community prevention extension

9:38

arms. It soon produced key findings,

9:40

including, and Matt just alluded to this, that

9:43

combined estrogen and progesterone pills taken

9:45

from menopausal symptoms did not prevent

9:47

heart disease in women after menopause.

9:49

The follow -up of patients has

9:51

continued to yield insights, such as

9:54

that calcium and vitamin D supplementation

9:56

does not prevent fractures in post -menopausal

9:58

women, which was, I

10:01

remember literally my mother telling me

10:03

about this kind of thing when

10:05

she was going, through

10:07

her own health issues

10:10

with breast cancer. And

10:13

as these things were developing, it gave

10:15

women in that age bracket a better

10:17

understanding of their health care. It should

10:19

be noted that this study, because it's

10:21

been going on for 30 years, is

10:23

now more focused on... postmenopausal

10:25

women, which the Trump administration

10:27

doesn't care about because you're

10:30

no longer a baby -making factory

10:32

for them, because he's talking

10:34

about being the fertility president

10:36

and borrowing all of these

10:38

Victor Orban -style natalist policies,

10:40

and Elon Musk is a

10:42

pro -natalist, basically saying that the

10:44

white birthright in European and

10:46

countries in the United States

10:48

is too low. They're

10:51

eugenicists for anybody that isn't

10:53

in the cohort that they view

10:55

as the dominant race or

10:57

gender or serving to further create

10:59

the dominant race in their

11:01

mind. So once the woman can't

11:04

have children anymore if she

11:06

was never able to, well,

11:08

they're basically useless at that point. So

11:10

why not just cut this study? That's

11:12

couch cushion money for us. This

11:15

was really meant as a makeup

11:17

project for women because women have been

11:19

excluded from research for so many

11:21

years, says Garnet Anderson. a biostatistician who

11:23

runs the WHOI Coordinating Center. Anderson

11:25

says WHOI currently enrolls 42 ,000

11:27

women who update their researchers regularly

11:29

on their health. The contract cut

11:31

will prevent researchers at WHOI's foresight

11:33

from continuing to interact with women

11:36

in this cohort, which has enabled

11:38

researchers to create the country's largest

11:40

data set on women in their

11:42

80s and 90s. Our ability

11:44

to understand what's going on with

11:46

those women will be severely curtailed,

11:48

Anderson says. They have been

11:52

dedicated to this process for 30

11:54

years and provide their data generously.

11:56

They've told us they want to

11:58

be followed. It would be disrespectful

12:00

not to do that. So

12:02

there you go. That's

12:04

just one of the

12:06

ways that the Trump administration

12:09

is harming all of

12:11

us or anybody that cares

12:13

about a woman who

12:15

is post -menopausal, has mothers, has

12:18

family members, has people that they

12:20

care about. let alone what we're

12:22

seeing, the gutting of cancer research,

12:24

research into other diseases just slashed

12:26

for no apparent reason except for

12:28

the fact that this actually pairs

12:30

nicely with what I was talking

12:32

about earlier. A

12:35

fundamentally eugenicist worldview, the

12:38

slashing of USAID is

12:40

going to kill millions

12:42

if they keep this

12:44

up in Africa, across

12:46

different countries there. Because

12:48

of the HIV prevention measures

12:51

that the United States was funding

12:53

in part due to Bush

12:55

by the way Maybe the one

12:57

of the only good things

12:59

that George H or George W.

13:01

Bush did in his administration

13:04

was back up that research Just

13:06

cutting it cutting it sentencing

13:08

all of these children to death

13:10

and to HIV and potentially

13:12

AIDS because the administration

13:14

thinks this is a handout

13:17

to the global south, which

13:19

we already exploit for capitalism, right?

13:22

We, during deindustrialization,

13:25

with the gutting of unions to

13:27

make goods cheaper and with

13:29

all of this focus on consumption

13:31

as opposed to workers' rights,

13:34

we have outsourced the worst of

13:36

capitalist exploitation to the global

13:38

south, almost reifying what we did

13:40

under colonialism and extending it. And

13:42

the Trump administration sees

13:44

the people who are bearing

13:46

the brunt of this

13:48

as takers, as opposed to

13:51

the obvious victims of

13:53

our economy that's so favored

13:55

towards us. Well, that's the

13:57

dirty little secret about this whole birthright

13:59

thing, is that it's a relative issue, not

14:01

an overall issue. I don't believe Elon

14:03

just wants more and more people. He wants

14:05

people that have his genetics. He said

14:07

that. Of course, his genetics. And

14:10

it's, of course, in

14:12

other countries, one way to

14:15

make the Elon -approved birth rates look better

14:17

is just have the other ones come down

14:19

a little bit, and their quality life

14:21

worse, because that is relatively better. But also,

14:24

again, 40 % of births

14:26

in America, and it's close

14:28

to 50 % when you get to

14:30

rural areas, are covered by Medicaid, and

14:32

they're slashing that. They're going after it.

14:34

So like, he does not care about, in

14:37

a way, this is because he

14:39

looked at it as a depopulation

14:41

agenda being approached under the guise

14:43

of some sort of pro natalism.

14:46

Yeah. Sorry to

14:48

interrupt you, but I just like that

14:50

what you're saying is exactly right because

14:53

that that what Elon says that we

14:55

have a population problem in terms of

14:57

like the population isn't increasing, but we

14:59

see the data that shows that it

15:01

is, it is. globally, but it's not

15:03

in certain places. It's not in certain

15:05

places like the United States where some

15:07

women are choosing maybe not to have

15:09

children because it's too expensive. The

15:12

biggest problem is that we

15:14

don't have the capacity to

15:16

support people to have children,

15:19

but they distort that. Here's

15:21

five thousand bucks. Yeah,

15:23

they distort that into, well,

15:27

it's the problem with Everybody

15:31

else it's the immigrants their takers.

15:33

This is why you can't have the

15:35

life that you've dreamed of and

15:37

you want to have children and you

15:39

can't support your family It's because

15:41

of these people as opposed to it's

15:44

literally them scamming the rest of

15:46

us and That this is what the

15:48

agenda the and and and the

15:50

other point and I'll wrap up here

15:52

is that RFK's agenda also also

15:54

fits into this where They

15:57

he essentially views people with diseases

15:59

or disabilities as a price tag

16:01

a price tag and disgusting He's

16:03

disgusted by them. And so that

16:06

is the anxiety he taps into

16:08

he wants People want to feel

16:10

empowered over their health care and

16:12

their family's health care And if

16:14

they're pregnant they have this anxiety

16:16

that maybe their child may have

16:18

a disability He sells you snake

16:20

oil that makes you feel like

16:22

you can control it, but once

16:24

people are born what is the

16:26

administration doing cutting funding cutting support

16:28

for these folks and speaking about

16:30

autistic people in general in this

16:33

really dehumanizing way and you kind

16:35

of see where that's going right

16:37

where if you don't make the

16:39

right choices about your health care

16:41

which i'm giving i'm giving the

16:43

rfks giving people all the tools

16:45

but not the finances in the

16:47

same way that they're approaching the

16:49

global south well it's survival of

16:51

the fittest folks the first thing

16:53

he mentioned was they'll never pay

16:55

taxes that is not an accident

16:57

that is because he views them

16:59

as a cost a burden and

17:02

This is true of when he

17:04

was running for president and he

17:06

wasn't a pro universal health care

17:08

guy because from his aristocratic ass

17:10

a perch He views your health

17:12

problems as too expensive to guarantee

17:14

by Uncle Sam Exactly right clumsy

17:16

poet I had estrogen positive breast cancer

17:19

three years ago I had my ovaries removed

17:21

as a part of the treatment surgical

17:23

menopause now I'm on a med to prevent

17:25

further bone density loss all this has

17:27

impacted my ADHD and autism feels like the

17:29

government is trying to hurt me I'm

17:33

so sorry. I mean, this is the

17:35

reality. Alice in Portland, hi all. I've been

17:37

living with stage four ovarian cancer since

17:39

2022 and I'm receiving care through Medicaid in

17:41

Oregon. I'd love to share my experience

17:43

and talk about all of the different types

17:45

of care that are covered for me,

17:47

highlighting how comprehensive the coverage is, including how

17:49

treatments related to the study you're talking

17:51

about. regarding home loans post radical hysterectomy,

17:53

et cetera. This is something you would like to

17:55

hear about. Let me know. I'll call in. Yes. Alice,

17:57

please call in and just write in what your

17:59

area code is. We will flag it. And

18:03

JD's pants. The nephew of Rosemary

18:05

Kennedy. Eugenesis. I'm shocked. And

18:07

you can, you don't have to

18:09

look too far into the Kennedy

18:11

history to see what their experience

18:13

is with people. I

18:15

mean, but that's what happened to when

18:18

you say you never saw autistic

18:20

people. That's what happened

18:22

to folks with disabilities or

18:24

people that were lobotomized.

18:26

They were institutionalized and warehoused

18:28

and abused. And that's

18:30

the vision that the Trump administration has

18:32

for the rest of us. All

18:34

right. Before we get to Jacob,

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24:49

break. when we come back, we'll be joined

24:51

by Jacob Silverman. We

26:30

are back and we are joined

26:32

once again by friend of the show

26:34

jacob silverman journalist co -author of the

26:36

new york times bestseller easy money

26:38

cryptocurrency casino capitalism and the golden age

26:40

of fraud author of the upcoming

26:42

book gilded rage elon musk and the

26:45

radicalization of silicon valley coming out

26:47

in october jacob thanks so much for

26:49

coming on the show today glad

26:51

to be back I'm glad to have

26:53

you. Thanks for taking the time

26:55

to talk about this meme coin scan,

26:58

a meme coin scan. There

27:00

we go. Not speaking

27:02

so well today. But

27:04

it's just like, you've been of

27:06

course writing about this for so long

27:09

and following this story. It feels

27:11

like it hit a new peak with

27:13

the New York Times report that

27:15

came out last night that said that

27:17

Trump is hosting a quote, intimate

27:19

private dinner. with the

27:21

top 220 investors in

27:24

his meme coin. So

27:26

this is just like essentially a

27:28

way to pay to play to

27:30

get access to the president, but

27:32

also maybe that's secondary to the

27:35

fact that his meme coin price

27:37

surged more than 60 % after

27:39

this announcement because the investors that

27:41

wanted to have dinner with Donald

27:43

Trump, they needed to acquire as

27:45

much of this meme coin as

27:47

possible. And so Trump cashed

27:49

in just by announcing this dinner

27:51

exactly and and that's the important

27:53

dynamic to note and that There

27:56

is some savviness to here I

27:58

guess I mean they know what

28:00

they're doing if not him then

28:02

then the team behind this this

28:04

token so They've already been selling

28:06

access with the dinners at Mar

28:08

-a -Lago and this is just another

28:10

form of that and I mean

28:12

one thing with meme coins is

28:14

they're pretty ephemeral in nature and

28:17

usually there's the Initial pump and

28:19

dump even with a prominent one

28:21

like like trump token, but they

28:23

found a way to breathe new

28:25

life into it by Using it

28:27

to sell access again to him.

28:29

So You kind of got an

28:31

admirer the hoodspuck I guess I

28:33

mean like can you take us

28:35

back to how Trump got involved

28:38

in crypto altogether because he used

28:40

to be pretty against it He's

28:42

more, you know, he's the he's

28:44

the New York guy that likes

28:46

Phantom of the Opera. He's not

28:48

up on the new technology that

28:50

the kids are talking about these

28:52

days. But it seems like things

28:54

turned after he lost the election

28:57

and Melania started getting involved in

28:59

NFTs. Where did this all

29:01

start? It

29:03

started in 2023 probably

29:05

and really came to

29:07

a 4 in 2024

29:09

when First his sons and

29:11

then some of the tech people

29:13

who increasingly gathered around him and

29:15

became some of his biggest donors

29:17

said hey There's a lot of

29:19

money at least in donations from

29:21

the crypto industry He Trump had

29:23

said when he was president in

29:25

his first term that he thought

29:27

Bitcoin was a scam and that

29:29

it compete with the US dollar

29:31

both of which are largely true

29:33

statements But of course once he

29:35

started seeing that that the crypto

29:37

industry was becoming the largest donor

29:40

to Trump and the Republicans by

29:42

industry in the 2024 cycle. I

29:45

think that pretty easily changed his mind. But

29:47

what was different was the

29:49

extent to which he became

29:51

involved in crypto as an

29:54

entrepreneur and as a businessman.

29:57

That started during the election

29:59

cycle and he launched World Liberty

30:01

Financial, which had a token

30:03

associated with it. But He

30:05

has gone so much farther,

30:07

I think, than anyone, even

30:09

in crypto, perhaps, or maybe

30:11

especially in crypto expected. He's

30:14

really in the deep end with lots

30:16

of shady characters. Can

30:19

you talk a little bit about some

30:21

of those shady characters? Who are they?

30:24

Well, first thing is,

30:26

I think it's important to say that

30:28

all of the various ventures that Trump

30:30

has in crypto are just generics. like

30:32

white labeled crypto products with Trump branding.

30:34

And I think that's one reason why

30:36

this makes sense for him. You

30:38

know, this is like putting his name

30:41

on a school or stakes or vodka

30:43

or whatever else, but just of a

30:45

different style. And it's very easy and

30:47

low effort. So he

30:49

had his main company is World

30:51

Liberty Financial. And he

30:53

founded it in part with

30:55

the sons of Steve

30:57

Wittkopf. And Steve Wittkopf himself

30:59

seems to present seems to present himself

31:01

as a backer. He tweets approvingly about

31:04

deals that they make. He is, of

31:06

course, Trump's top diplomatic envoy to the

31:08

Middle East and has done negotiations with

31:10

Russia. It really does seem

31:12

like he's mixing business with politics quite

31:14

a bit. And

31:17

through World Liberty

31:19

Financial, it's become

31:21

kind of this open fun

31:23

for anyone who wants to

31:25

put money in Trump's pockets.

31:28

The most prominent example is

31:30

probably Justin Sun, who's this

31:32

kind of notoriously shady crypto

31:35

entrepreneur who bounces between various

31:37

island nations. And he

31:39

does not come to the

31:41

US, or at least did not

31:43

before. And he was being investigated by the

31:45

SEC for a major fraud. And

31:47

he, in two very highly

31:49

publicized transactions, invested a total

31:51

75 million in World Liberty

31:53

Financial, basically just. bought some

31:55

tokens, gave them the money.

31:58

And this was celebrated by the

32:00

Whitcoff Sons, by Steve Whitcoff,

32:02

you know. And this is

32:05

really someone who is like on the

32:07

Sandbank and Freed end of the

32:09

crypto spectrum. He was actually, Sandbank and

32:11

Freed at one point thought he

32:13

was gonna get a bailout package from

32:15

this guy when everything was falling

32:17

apart a few years ago. And

32:20

then of course, a week later,

32:23

this was in February, I believe.

32:25

The sec pauses case against

32:27

son the the billion multi -billion

32:29

dollar fraud case so The

32:31

pay to play is pretty clear.

32:34

There are other people the

32:36

Guy behind this this company

32:38

called DFW labs, you know people

32:40

who have sort of Who

32:42

have russian or chinese nationality who

32:44

seem to move money between

32:47

various jurisdictions? But our headquartered in

32:49

the UAE or switzerland or

32:51

other places like that um

32:53

and the What's amazing

32:55

is what I was

32:57

reading that this World

32:59

Liberty Financial Company, which

33:02

was created in August

33:04

2024. So right,

33:06

like just months before the election, they

33:09

initially tried to create

33:11

the impression that Trump

33:13

was not as involved.

33:15

And then he got

33:17

more involved publicly. After

33:19

being inaugurated because he's already in

33:21

power and seems like completely emboldened by

33:24

this But they don't even have

33:26

a platform and they've raised half a

33:28

billion dollars is my what I

33:30

read this morning Yeah, there's an extraordinary

33:32

amount of money just kind of

33:34

flowing into these various Trump crypto entities

33:36

there World Liberty financial doesn't really

33:38

do anything and like I was saying

33:40

before there's nothing innovative here and

33:43

most these platforms are just for these

33:45

crypto ventures are just kind of

33:47

notional or you know, like the World

33:49

Liberty Financial Token is what's called,

33:51

without getting too much into this stuff,

33:53

because it's silly, a governance

33:55

token. So you pay, you

33:57

pay to buy it and have them and

34:00

you have, you can supposedly vote on

34:02

changes to the platform. Well, there's nothing to

34:04

vote on and nothing to do, and

34:06

you can't move the token. So this is

34:08

really just like, you know, a drop

34:10

box for putting money in Trump's pocket. And

34:12

then he has a fund, sort

34:15

of a FinTech fund through the

34:17

true social parent company. He's

34:20

got the meme coin stuff

34:22

and this other company called

34:24

CIC that's managing that. And

34:27

there's nothing here except

34:29

just opportunities for minting

34:32

fake tokens and accepting

34:34

money from whoever will

34:36

give it to him.

34:40

I like with with the

34:42

this company or I

34:44

almost it just they're not

34:46

even producing anything it's

34:49

almost like a just a

34:51

shell like who who

34:53

else is involved here because

34:55

I remember reading about

34:57

how I think it was

34:59

either Javier Malay I

35:02

think it was Malay's pump

35:04

and dump crypto scam is involves

35:07

many of the same players and

35:09

for people that don't know who

35:11

that is he's the far right

35:13

anarcho capitalist maniacal leader of Argentina

35:15

who is close with Elon Musk

35:17

it seems like Trump is modeling

35:19

a lot of his actions based

35:21

on this guy who now. Over

35:23

half of the population in argentina

35:25

is in poverty based on some

35:27

of his actions, which also include

35:29

gutting the administrative state And crypto

35:32

scams very similar to trump like

35:34

yeah, what's that? What's that connection?

35:36

How much is he borrowing from

35:38

malay here? Quite a

35:40

bit. So malay is a connective

35:42

figure here. He's made common

35:44

cause with the tech reactionaries who

35:47

love his sort of crazy

35:49

right -wing libertarian austerity stuff and

35:51

and his interest in crypto and

35:53

with with MAGA and he

35:55

endorsed a token called Libra was

35:57

not supposed to be an

36:00

official presidential meme coin but he

36:02

endorsed it and was possibly

36:04

compensated for it. There's a man

36:06

behind it named Hayden Davis

36:08

who's a kind of straight -up

36:11

central casting ridiculous crypto operator who

36:13

has been involved with the

36:15

Melania and Trump tokens along with

36:17

a few other people and

36:19

they There seems to be a

36:22

developing almost network or kind

36:24

of service industry for letting or

36:26

facilitating politicians doing crypto pump

36:28

and dumps. I have a little

36:30

piece coming out related to

36:33

this this weekend in an airmail.

36:35

I've written about Libra and

36:37

Malay and some of the stuff

36:39

for the nation. But

36:42

again, this is

36:44

very easy. You live,

36:46

at least in the United States, there's

36:48

no consequence for Malay is actually

36:50

being investigated by his own legislature. And

36:53

the guy, then I mentioned Hayden Davis,

36:55

who sort of won the operas behind

36:58

these various tokens, they

37:00

are requesting Interpol red notice

37:02

for his arrest, some Argentine

37:04

lawyers. So we'll see if

37:06

that happens. Do

37:09

we have any idea of who's buying

37:11

all this stuff? Like, I mean, I

37:13

know it's all dark money. I know

37:15

it's under the cloud of secrecy and

37:17

the Trump administration is making that easier,

37:19

dropping all these investigations into crypto firms

37:21

that the SEC was doing. Like, it

37:23

seems as if there's

37:26

just all of this

37:28

like underlying information that

37:30

we will not have

37:32

access to. because

37:35

of the way is because of

37:37

the incredibly corrupt nature historically corrupt

37:39

nature of this administration. Yeah you

37:41

have a few things going on

37:43

simultaneously which is the the trump

37:45

impunity and immunity from the supreme

37:47

court basically on down. And

37:49

then he's wiping away

37:52

all these financial regulations and

37:54

and. You know

37:56

what kind of facilitate the passage of crypto

37:58

bills. And then

38:00

he's just brazenly kind

38:02

of. doing what he wants.

38:05

To me, this is the largest

38:07

financial scandal in presidential history.

38:09

Some of this stuff we'll never

38:12

know, but already we know that

38:14

Justin Sun seemed to pay him

38:16

off $75 million. You

38:19

could count some of these other

38:21

numbers that are available out there,

38:23

but a lot of this is

38:25

unknowable without proper investigatory tools or

38:27

resources behind it, which you know

38:29

all the i g's have been

38:31

fired the sdc is obviously not

38:33

going to do anything so uh...

38:35

at congress the democrats are the

38:37

minority in congress i don't know

38:40

how this gets it investigate much

38:42

less you know it prosecuted in

38:44

a comprehensive way and uh... so

38:46

that's why i think it's only

38:48

going to grow i mean he

38:50

has or whit cough supposedly has

38:52

had meetings with finance which To

38:54

me is basically the criminal organization

38:56

at CEO took a plea deal

38:58

and did a four -month sentence

39:01

in federal prison And they agreed

39:03

to pay a four point three

39:05

billion dollar fine, which is the

39:07

biggest corporate fine in US history

39:09

and apparently according to Wall Street

39:11

Journal Bloomberg and others They saw

39:13

the Justin Sun deal because Justin

39:15

Sun and the and the former

39:17

CEO Binance are close. They saw

39:19

that as a model They said

39:22

oh, oh, he was able to

39:24

pay seventy five million dollars. Got

39:26

his SEC situation worked out And

39:28

they've had similar conversations about brokering

39:30

a pardon and then a Trump

39:32

investment. And these are

39:34

really the companies that

39:36

are facilitating cyberprime money

39:39

laundering on a global

39:41

scale. These aren't just

39:43

kind of normal crypto players

39:45

even by the lower standards

39:47

of crypto. Exactly. And

39:50

lastly, Jacob, I'm

39:52

sorry, people really should check out your

39:54

piece. Welcome to the soft world, how

39:56

the hospital internet is driving us crazy,

39:58

but our next guest has a hard

40:00

out, so I gotta wrap up you

40:02

here. I didn't mean to go long.

40:04

No, I went long earlier. It's my

40:06

fault, per usual. But

40:09

do we know how much

40:11

money this dude has made or

40:13

Trump has made from these

40:15

scams so far? It's certainly

40:17

in the hundreds of millions I

40:19

mean they seem to be able to

40:21

cash out and move some some

40:23

amount of some of these tokens that

40:25

the number that's been going around

40:27

is a hundred million dollars in trading

40:30

fees relate to the initial launch

40:32

of the Trump token through this platform

40:34

called Meteora, which was involved which

40:36

involved that the guy mentioned behind the

40:38

Libra token But you're gonna hear

40:40

a lot of big numbers because in

40:42

crypto numbers are kind

40:44

of fake and everything's manipulated. But

40:47

easily, I think a few

40:49

hundred million dollars if they know

40:52

what they're doing. And

40:54

his legal bills were astronomical after

40:56

the over 90 charges that were levied

40:58

against him before he won again.

41:00

So like this isn't this is a

41:02

way to pay that back. But

41:04

also I do think he wants this

41:06

is his legacy. He wants to

41:08

be a real rich guy. Yeah, I

41:10

mean this is how you get

41:12

like ten billion dollars for nothing basically

41:14

is like you start making your

41:16

own tokens supposedly that they're gonna start

41:18

issuing a stable coin which is

41:20

kind of like a digital dollar we

41:22

don't have to go into that

41:24

but like his the ambitions are like

41:26

the willingness he's going he's willing

41:28

to go very far and this is

41:31

not just a dabbler this is

41:33

someone who's like seeking to make billions

41:35

of dollars and maybe run away

41:37

with it. Cuz the the

41:39

the guys at Wall Street think he's

41:41

a joke like the tariff stuff you see

41:43

this right but this is how you

41:45

This is how you become a real rich

41:47

guy in the real room which has

41:49

always been his his ambition He's always his

41:51

eyes have always been bigger than his

41:53

stomach and that stomach is massive. We've seen

41:55

it like he wants to

41:57

uh... he overextends himself whether it's

41:59

by lying uh... or it's by,

42:01

you know, bankrupting his casinos and

42:03

going big, this is just another

42:05

version of that pathology, it seems

42:07

to me. yeah and I think

42:09

probably end badly one way or

42:11

another. uh... I think the next

42:13

collapse will end badly for the

42:15

larger economy, but he's going to

42:17

try to grab as much as

42:20

he can. Well,

42:22

Jacob Silverman, really appreciate your time

42:24

today. Everybody check out Jacob's

42:26

work, including his latest piece the

42:28

Financial Times. Thanks so much.

42:30

Really appreciate it. Thank you. All

42:33

right, folks, quick break. when we come

42:35

back, we'll be joined by Senate candidate

42:37

in Michigan, Abdul Al Sayed. We

43:59

are back and we are

44:01

joined now by Abdul Al Sayed,

44:03

former Wayne County Public Health

44:05

Director, co -author of Medicare for

44:07

All, a citizen's guide, now a

44:09

candidate for United States Senate

44:11

in Michigan's Democratic primary, just endorsed

44:13

by Bernie Sanders. Abdul, thanks so

44:15

much for coming on the show today. Emma,

44:17

thank you so much for having me. Excited to be here. Thrilled

44:21

to have you, really excited

44:23

about your candidacy. Let's just

44:25

start there. I mean, you

44:27

ran for governor in 2018,

44:30

Gretchen Whitmer obviously won that primary.

44:33

What was the reason that you

44:35

decided to jump back into

44:37

electoral politics? I've

44:39

had the privilege of being in a

44:41

conversation with folks in Michigan for the last

44:43

10 years since I jumped into public

44:45

service. And the overwhelming realization that

44:47

you get when you talk to people on the

44:49

ground, Is that it just shouldn't be this

44:51

hard to get by in the richest most powerful

44:53

country in the world. It shouldn't be this

44:56

hard to afford to groceries shouldn't be this hard

44:58

to go to a doctor and not have

45:00

to worry about getting huge levels of medical debt

45:02

because you did. It shouldn't be

45:04

this hard to take a big deep breath

45:06

or take a drink of water and know

45:08

that those things are going to do more

45:10

for your body than the takeaway. It shouldn't

45:12

be this hard to pull your face up

45:15

from your phone because corporations spend billions of

45:17

dollars to keep you looking at it and

45:19

i think for all of those reasons i

45:21

think we need leadership and right now we're

45:23

watching as the very people who've exploited that

45:25

pain. have been making it worse, whether it's

45:27

passing stock tips to your buddies after destroying

45:29

the global economy, or it's destroying the best

45:32

things about American government in the form of

45:34

the NIH and the cancer research that it

45:36

funds, or it's the fact that they're disappearing

45:38

people off the streets. So I'm

45:40

somebody who never dreamed of being a politician.

45:42

I dreamt of being a doctor, and

45:44

I started to realize that the things that

45:46

were making people sick had a lot

45:48

more to do with what was happening in

45:50

our society, which is what led me

45:53

to public service. I'm somebody who has been

45:55

building in government, whether it's erasing $700

45:57

million in medical debt for Wayne County residents,

45:59

or it's putting classes on kids' faces,

46:01

or it's standing up to corporate polluters. And

46:03

I think we need somebody who's got

46:05

the audacity to step up and fight back,

46:07

and I got receipts there, but also

46:09

somebody who knows what to build after the

46:11

wreckage of Trump and Musk and all

46:14

of their supporters. uh... has has come by

46:16

and so uh... i think right now

46:18

is the time for leadership i'm hoping to

46:20

be able to show that and build

46:22

on the conversation i've gotten a share and

46:24

to turn that into public policy that

46:26

works for people and can you speak a

46:28

little bit about uh... health care and

46:30

in your background uh... in providing health care

46:32

for people were in this very scary

46:35

political moment of an assault on science

46:37

and assault on researchers

46:39

and assault on peer review.

46:41

I mean, RFK Junior

46:43

under Donald Trump is spouting the

46:46

most insane conspiracy theories that would not

46:48

would be laughed out of the

46:50

room in any professional setting when it

46:52

comes to health care, except for

46:54

the fact that I don't know

46:56

some podcasters like him. So now he's

46:58

one of the most powerful people

47:01

in the country when it comes to

47:03

determining healthcare uh...

47:05

what do you observe uh... with

47:07

this kind of like anti -intellectualism

47:09

and this anti -science movement on

47:11

the right yeah first i

47:14

i really wanna start at the

47:16

at the central premise RFK

47:19

Junior is what happens when you put

47:21

an internet troll in charge of the

47:23

nation's public health. And that's exactly how

47:25

he's going about it. Now, here's the

47:27

thing. He identifies the problems. Like the

47:29

problems he identifies are actually accurate. A

47:31

lot of us in public health have

47:33

been trying to spend a lot of

47:35

time to call people to action when

47:37

it comes to our extremely broken food

47:39

system and all the disease that comes

47:41

downstream of that. The problem though is

47:43

that the way you get right answers

47:45

in healthcare is to use science to

47:47

rigorously identify, answer to big

47:49

questions, and then to follow where the

47:51

science goes. But when you throw

47:53

away the scientific process because you've got

47:56

to pre -conceived ideological perspective about how

47:58

you solve the problem, you get

48:00

what RFK Junior is doing. And I

48:02

worry that it's extremely dangerous. We've

48:04

got a once in 25 year measles

48:06

outbreak at the Southern border. It's

48:08

now in 25 different states across the

48:10

country. And this guy's out here

48:13

demagoguing vaccines, which are the reason why

48:15

we had kept diseases like measles

48:17

and polio and mumps under wraps for

48:19

so long in this country. What's

48:21

worse though, is that they're gutting so

48:23

much of the cancer research and

48:25

research on chronic disease and research on

48:27

autism. That is one of

48:29

the best things our government does. I know

48:31

folks rag on government all the time, but

48:34

it does some really good things. It just

48:36

usually does them quietly and in the background.

48:38

And the NIH is part of that. But

48:40

I want to help to try and explain

48:42

why I think RFK and all of the

48:44

trolls that have helped put him in this

48:46

place have been able to succeed. It's

48:48

not in this country. We have failed. to

48:50

address the central biggest challenge when it comes

48:52

to health and healthcare, that you get monetized

48:55

for getting sick in this country. We have

48:57

failed to guarantee basic access to quality healthcare

48:59

for our country and people have suffered the

49:01

consequences. And what that means is that in

49:03

the midst of a global pandemic, when you

49:05

come up to them and say, hey, listen,

49:07

here's a medication that didn't exist a year

49:09

ago that can protect you from a disease

49:11

you don't yet have, their question is, okay,

49:13

but what about medication for the disease I

49:15

actually have that I have to get nickled

49:18

and dimed for? And it leaves us looking

49:20

ridiculous because we're not answering the questions to

49:22

the problems that people know they have. And

49:24

until we get about solving the problem in

49:26

this country where too few people have access

49:28

to high quality healthcare that they don't have

49:30

to pay at the point of care for,

49:32

that they don't have to go into debt

49:34

for, then it's going to erode trust in

49:36

the science and the public health that we

49:38

want to do every single day. And so

49:41

those two things go together. I came to

49:43

healthcare activism by way of public health until

49:45

we solve the problem of the fact that

49:47

we pay 20 cents on the dollar a

49:49

lot of which goes to the back pockets

49:51

of corporate CEOs in this country. While too

49:53

many people go without healthcare, I worry that

49:55

that trust is going to continue to be

49:57

eroded and we're going to continue to get

49:59

taken advantage of by demagogues like RFK Jr.

50:03

Medicare for All, central to your

50:05

ideology. You wrote a book about

50:07

it. There was a forward written

50:09

by Bernie Sanders. The Citizen's Guide,

50:11

you can see it back there on

50:13

your bookshelf. Can you expand

50:15

a little bit more on, oh there we go. Can

50:18

you expand a little bit

50:21

more on Medicare for All and

50:23

like how as a United

50:25

States Senator you would attempt to

50:27

reintroduce that back into the...

50:29

zeitgeist into the range of what

50:32

is possible. Because,

50:34

you know, hopefully we

50:36

elect a Democrat in 2028. But

50:38

it seems as though

50:41

the party broadly abandoned healthcare

50:43

enacted like, hey, we

50:45

solved it with the Affordable

50:47

Care Act. And that's

50:49

that. But Obviously there are

50:51

people who are still hurting and even

50:53

turning the snake oil salesman because there's

50:55

a vacuum in terms of health care

50:57

policy with the Democratic Party Yeah, I'm

50:59

a first I want to say I

51:01

look forward to joining stalwarts like Senator

51:03

Sanders who've been fighting this fight for

51:05

a very long time and They've been

51:07

keeping this this flame alive when it

51:09

comes to Medicare for all It is

51:11

it should be simple in this country

51:13

the richest most powerful country in the

51:16

world to guarantee access to high quality

51:18

government health insurance for everybody. That's not

51:20

to say that if your union, for

51:22

example, negotiated a quality private plan that

51:24

you liked that you couldn't keep it.

51:26

That is to say that if the

51:28

factory shuts down, you shouldn't be without

51:30

health care. That you can come back

51:32

to a high quality government plan that

51:34

supports you from cradle to grave. That

51:36

should be something we can definitively afford

51:38

if other countries that don't have nearly

51:40

the resources that we do can do

51:42

so. Now, the reason We don't do

51:44

this thing, even though 60 % of

51:46

all healthcare offered in this country is

51:48

public through Medicaid or Medicare, is because

51:50

we've created a system where private health

51:52

insurance corporations literally garnish our wages every

51:54

two weeks to four weeks so that

51:56

we have the right to pay a

51:58

deductible, which again, they hide behind these

52:00

big words, literally money you have to

52:02

pay. to get the health care that

52:04

you thought you already paid for. And

52:07

they profit off that. Every single dollar

52:09

that corporate CEOs of health insurance companies

52:11

make, every dollar was a dollar that

52:13

somebody spent to provide health care for

52:15

themselves and their families. And they don't

52:17

wanna let go of that. So they

52:19

build corporate PACs, things like 527s and

52:21

Super PACs to corrupt the public conversation.

52:23

Now, Emma, you know this and you've

52:25

studied it more even than I have.

52:27

But anytime there's a public consensus on

52:29

an issue, And then there's a political

52:31

consensus that is way off from the

52:33

public consensus, meaning members of both parties

52:35

say a thing that's not what the

52:37

public believes. The difference is usually somebody's

52:39

money. And in this case, it's the

52:41

money that corporations can pay to buy

52:43

access to politicians to literally write their

52:45

legislation to make sure that we don't

52:47

get that thing that should be so

52:49

easy to provide. And then they spend

52:51

all kinds of money demagoguing us and

52:53

fear mongering over what we would lose

52:55

rather than what we have to gain.

52:57

We can have nice things. We have

52:59

to believe it. And we have an

53:01

opportunity through Medicare for All to finally

53:03

make good on that guarantee for healthcare

53:05

for everybody. We can do it. It's...

53:07

only way that we do it though

53:10

is that we step up to the

53:12

way that corporations have been able to

53:14

rig our system against us so they

53:16

get the profiteer off of us. And

53:18

we've got to focus on what we

53:20

can have, not what they tell us

53:22

we're going to lose. Because at the

53:24

end of the thing that we have

53:26

to gain is access to the rest

53:28

of our lives. The ability to go

53:30

see a doctor without being told what

53:32

doctor you can see or at risk

53:34

in going into bankruptcy to do it.

53:36

Can you talk a little bit more

53:38

about why a government system would be

53:40

more efficient? I think

53:42

that people get scared off

53:44

by the idea that

53:46

because of frankly things like

53:48

austerity or other government

53:50

programs that are needlessly complicated

53:52

just to avoid doing

53:54

something that is broad -based

53:56

and taxes the rich folks

53:58

get scared off, but

54:00

we know that cutting

54:02

out the middleman of

54:05

health insurers does provide more

54:07

equitable outcomes. Talk to people

54:09

about that a little bit. Yeah,

54:11

first, I just want to say,

54:13

I don't know many seniors who graduated

54:15

into Medicare, turned 65, got their Medicare and

54:17

didn't breathe a sigh of relief. Medicare

54:20

operates at an overhead of about 3%.

54:22

whereas private health insurance operates at an

54:24

overhead of about 15%. Literally, 15 cents

54:26

on every dollar we spend on private

54:28

health insurance goes to pay for some

54:30

overhead. So much of it goes to

54:32

pay the tens of millions of dollars

54:34

that go to the salaries of corporate

54:36

CEOs. We didn't pay that money so

54:38

that they could take it. We paid it for our healthcare,

54:40

which is exactly what Medicare does. Now, don't get me

54:42

wrong, corporations are trying to profiteer off

54:45

Medicare through programs like Medicare Advantage. They're coming

54:47

for that too. But traditional Medicare is just

54:49

more efficient. And here's the thing. We rely

54:51

on that program to provide health care for

54:53

people who need the most health care traditionally

54:55

as you age you end up needing more

54:57

health care because it tends to be that

54:59

you get sick or as you get older

55:01

so. When you get older, you get the

55:03

system that's way more efficient, but it's when

55:05

you're younger and healthier, you have to pay

55:07

a ton so that CEOs can make a

55:09

lot more off of it. And the reason

55:11

that Medicare can be so much more efficient,

55:13

the reason Medicare for all could be so

55:15

much more efficient is because, well, in a

55:17

government program, you're not paying a corporate CEO,

55:19

you're not paying for marketing costs, you're not

55:22

paying for all of these other things that

55:24

private companies have to pay for. The other

55:26

part of it is this. There are about

55:28

9 ,000 health care providers in our country

55:30

and there are about 700 health insurance companies.

55:32

You can imagine when they have to bill

55:34

each other, there's a whole rigmarole that has

55:36

to happen so that they can talk to

55:38

each other. And that requires both sides to

55:40

hire armies of billers on both sides. And

55:42

those billers cost a ton of money. It's

55:44

just the crosstalk between them. When you end

55:46

up having not 700 health insurers, but one, now

55:49

the billing becomes easy because everybody just

55:51

bills the government system. And so you end

55:53

up eliminating a lot of the churn,

55:55

the cost that has to go into the

55:57

system. So this could be more efficient.

56:00

It would enable us to see any doctor

56:02

we wanted. It would make us all

56:04

equal healthcare consumers. It would make sure that

56:06

we could have our healthcare covered without

56:08

having to worry about a deductible or a

56:10

copay or a premium. Again, all

56:12

words that they hide behind so that

56:14

you don't know all the different ways that

56:16

they nickel and dime you. We could

56:18

do so much better if we are willing

56:20

to embrace what's possible and not. fall

56:23

prey to the cynicism that folks who exploit

56:25

our pain are so interested in selling

56:27

to us. Absolutely. Let's

56:29

just turn before we have to

56:31

let you go to another topic. Back

56:33

to the race a bit. There's

56:35

two other candidates who have joined in

56:37

or two other major candidates. Representative

56:39

Haley Stevens as

56:41

well as a state

56:44

senator Mallory McMorough. Let's

56:46

play a little bit of

56:48

this clip here. This is

56:50

Haley Stevens being asked by

56:53

a constituent about her,

56:55

uh, getting support from

56:57

APAC, and this isn't

57:00

just standard support. She's receiving

57:02

a lot and also, um,

57:04

saying things like, you know,

57:06

she supports aid to Israel

57:08

unconditionally, basically. Um, she

57:10

was asked about this publicly. Here's

57:12

that clip. Well,

57:22

thank you so

57:24

much for your community

57:26

service. Yeah, yeah

57:28

With all the support of

57:30

Republicans and people who are anti -choice and

57:32

people who are working to disrupt our

57:34

election systems that APAC is doing right now.

57:37

I'm wondering why you're accepting their support.

57:39

I'm a Jew and my family lives here

57:41

in this community and I really think

57:43

that those kinds of candidates are making the

57:45

dream true. I'm wondering why you're accepting

57:47

their support. Thank you so much for coming

57:49

and bringing your kiddo. It's so nice

57:51

to meet with you. nice to meet you

57:53

too. I'm just wondering, I want to

57:56

make life and this country safe place for

57:58

him to grow up and I'm wondering

58:00

why you would want to accept their endorsement

58:02

and $800 ,000 in ads this year. Yeah.

58:05

Guys, I have, is there

58:07

how many endorsements are by receipt of

58:09

this election? A lot. I think I've got

58:11

a lot of local labor. Yes. You

58:14

are a great representative and we really

58:16

appreciate your support. I'm just hoping to

58:18

see you guys. Oh my gosh. Hi.

58:21

Look at the boat. That's

58:24

right in the boat. Okay,

58:26

so she walked walked away

58:28

literally walked away from that

58:30

question Obviously Michigan has been

58:32

a major flashpoint in the

58:34

conversation about Israel's genocide in

58:36

Gaza and some of the

58:38

support or lack thereof for

58:40

Israel in The state that's

58:43

been a bit of a

58:45

dividing line right and of

58:47

course it came up in

58:49

the presidential race What's

58:51

your stance and what's your

58:53

message to voters who may

58:55

hear statements like that and

58:57

seeing her walking away from

58:59

a constituent asking about asking

59:01

that question about how that

59:03

fits into your Senate campaign? Yeah,

59:06

that's hard to watch. I think there are two

59:08

central questions here. The first is, what should

59:10

we do with our tax dollars? And the second

59:12

is, how do we want our democracy to work?

59:15

When it comes to our tax dollars, I

59:17

want anybody to think about their local

59:19

public school and ask yourself, whether or not

59:21

it could benefit from a few million

59:23

dollars more of investment and then ask yourself

59:25

whether or not you think that the

59:27

best use of our tax dollars is to

59:29

be sent abroad to foreign militaries to

59:31

allow them to bomb other kids schools and

59:33

other kids when we should be spending

59:35

it right here on our own and that

59:37

really is the question we just talked

59:39

about healthcare for a while and the big

59:41

thing they want to tell you is

59:43

that we can afford it well yeah we

59:45

can afford it if we're sending tens

59:47

of billions of dollars abroad to a foreign

59:49

military. And I think that's a real

59:51

problem. Then the question about how we transact

59:53

our politics. We know that there's too

59:56

much money in our politics. There's too much

59:58

special interest money. And a lot of

1:00:00

that money is spent across party lines. And

1:00:02

so APAC has become just another vehicle

1:00:04

by which Republicans can spend in Democratic primaries

1:00:06

to pick what Democrats they want to

1:00:08

run against. And I'm just saying that anybody

1:00:10

running in a Democratic primary should not

1:00:12

be accepting money from MAGA. to decide what

1:00:14

democrats win or to beat up on

1:00:16

other Democrats. And so I hope that everybody

1:00:18

in this race will join me in

1:00:20

saying that we are not going to accept

1:00:22

the MAGA money to beat up on

1:00:24

fellow Democrats and that we believe that special

1:00:26

interest money should not be used to

1:00:28

decide who our candidates will be. And I'll

1:00:30

tell you this, I'm proud that MAGA

1:00:32

doesn't want to fight against me and it

1:00:34

tells you something about who they're worried

1:00:36

about. And so, you know, they don't want

1:00:38

to face me in the general election.

1:00:40

They know that if we're willing to have

1:00:42

conversations about working people's issue, about guaranteeing

1:00:44

people health care, about protecting our air and

1:00:46

water, And doing so clearly, honestly, and

1:00:48

with a concise and direct appeal to the

1:00:51

pain that people are experiencing and how

1:00:53

to solve it, that we win elections. And

1:00:55

they don't want that. And so they're

1:00:57

trying to muddy the message. And it's not

1:00:59

surprising to me that they're reaching in.

1:01:01

I just hope that fellow Democrats aren't going

1:01:03

to accept that money to try and

1:01:05

decide who the winner of a Democratic primary

1:01:07

will be. Abdul

1:01:09

Al Sayed, thank you so much for your

1:01:11

time today. How can people support your campaign if

1:01:13

they would like to? I

1:01:15

hope that folks will go to

1:01:17

Abdul4Senate.com. We need your help. If you're

1:01:19

here in Michigan, please sign up to volunteer. Sign up

1:01:21

to host me a house party. I love to come

1:01:23

to your space. And then if you

1:01:25

can, from all over the country, when you're five

1:01:28

bucks, 10 bucks, I don't take corporate PAC

1:01:30

money. Sorry, allowing good people like you. I'm not

1:01:32

taking APAC money that much. And they're gonna

1:01:34

be spending a whole lot of money to beat

1:01:36

me because they're afraid of what I have

1:01:38

to say about common sense foreign policy and about

1:01:40

so many issues affecting Michiganders. So please, Abdul4Senate.com. it

1:01:43

was just a privilege to get to share space

1:01:45

with you and share a conversation today. It was

1:01:48

great to talk to you again. Thanks so much,

1:01:50

Abdul. Thank you. All

1:01:52

right, with that, folks, we're going to

1:01:54

wrap up the free part of this program

1:01:56

and head into the fun half. Fear

1:01:59

Michigan. You gotta be on

1:02:01

that. If we have more time with him,

1:02:03

I would have, you know, asked, okay, what

1:02:05

happens? Because this is, people are getting out

1:02:07

early, right? I mean, Gary Peers is retiring.

1:02:10

The general election will be next year's midterms,

1:02:12

but I'm not sure when the primary is

1:02:14

going to be held sometime next year. The

1:02:18

concern is, is like,

1:02:20

Mallory McMorough and Abdul

1:02:22

El Sayed, do they

1:02:25

split votes and this

1:02:27

pro -Israel Stevens woman? Gets

1:02:30

put to the forefront and like

1:02:32

that's my my one fear but

1:02:34

we have a lot of time

1:02:36

and I'm hoping that it is

1:02:39

She's because of the stance is

1:02:41

more marginalized and then it's a

1:02:43

race between those two options, which

1:02:45

is definitely better than if Stevens

1:02:47

were to come up because like

1:02:49

Slotkin is not my choice and

1:02:51

I do think that Michigan deserves

1:02:54

better than to kind of centrist

1:02:57

foreign policy Hawks for Democrats, honestly

1:02:59

And I don't want to I

1:03:01

don't want to see the state

1:03:03

go by the way of like

1:03:05

Pennsylvania or even kind of men

1:03:07

is saying we need to bomb

1:03:10

Iran because right a window Right

1:03:12

because these are states that have

1:03:14

turned blue and it's been hard

1:03:16

work to turn them more blue

1:03:18

and yet there's been a flood

1:03:20

of corporate cash in some of

1:03:22

the in I would say Colorado

1:03:25

and Pennsylvania to uh...

1:03:27

elevate more corporate is centrist democrats i mean

1:03:30

that's really the key thing and you know

1:03:32

i i'd generally outside with david hogg when

1:03:34

it comes to challenging incumbents of course you

1:03:36

know we support a o c in all

1:03:38

these sorts of things The

1:03:40

real question is, are we going

1:03:42

to continue to allow corporate and

1:03:44

APAC money to buy these elections? Because

1:03:47

if so, like, I'm less, I'm less

1:03:49

positive about how good it is that we're

1:03:51

challenging incumbents, because I think the incumbents

1:03:53

being challenged are going to be like Ilhan

1:03:55

Omar, right? Like, right. We did say

1:03:57

progressive, but he's being, well, I would love

1:03:59

to have David on to ask him,

1:04:02

what's the criteria? Because I'm in favor of

1:04:04

it, but I don't want us to

1:04:06

be squishy about what it is. To me,

1:04:08

it's just downstream of that more fundamental

1:04:10

question is how are, how are these campaigns

1:04:12

being funded, who is allowed to pay

1:04:14

slash play in them, and is it going

1:04:16

to be corporate interests and Israel? And

1:04:18

if it is, then we have a much

1:04:20

more fundamental problem than whether we give

1:04:22

deference to people who are incumbents. Matt,

1:04:25

what's happening on left reckoning? Gosh

1:04:27

you sprung that on me. Well,

1:04:30

actually, I'm very excited our Sunday

1:04:32

show I believe we're gonna release

1:04:34

it for a patrons on Sunday

1:04:36

Vincent Bevin's talking about the MST

1:04:38

Landless Workers Party in Brazil He

1:04:40

had a great piece in the

1:04:42

nation about that. I have the

1:04:44

hat that is actually the one

1:04:47

mentioned in the piece that is

1:04:49

Very popular, so I'll be wearing

1:04:51

that during the interview actually and

1:04:53

so we'll be talking to him

1:04:55

about that All

1:04:57

right. Sounds good.

1:04:59

Check it out. And then you got a big

1:05:01

week next week. Should we bring our

1:05:03

guest in now? You want to just

1:05:05

come behind here so we can do a

1:05:07

preview and then we'll hook you up?

1:05:10

Yeah, sure. Hey, look who

1:05:12

it is. All

1:05:15

right, Brandon. We'll let Brandon

1:05:17

plug his stuff when he gets

1:05:19

on mic. That's the preview.

1:05:21

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just your face.

1:05:23

That's all we needed right

1:05:25

now. On the other side, we'll see

1:05:27

Brandon get them all hooked up in Sam's

1:05:29

chair. You know, when Sam's

1:05:31

away, we bring in the cool kids.

1:05:34

See you on the other side, and Vendor will

1:05:36

be with us soon. 646 -257

1:05:38

-3920 will open up the phone lines on

1:05:40

the other side. See you in the fun

1:05:43

half. Okay, Emma, please.

1:05:45

Well, I just, I feel that my

1:05:47

voice is sorely lacking in the

1:05:49

majority report. Wait, look, look, look, look,

1:05:51

look, look,

1:05:54

look, look, look,

1:05:58

look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look,

1:06:00

I think you need to look, her look, That's

1:06:02

cool. It's her! I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna

1:06:04

pause you right there. Wait, what? You can't encourage

1:06:07

Emma to live like this. And I'll

1:06:09

tell you why. So it was

1:06:11

offered to look, and Polker with the

1:06:13

boys. Twerp, Sushi and

1:06:15

Polker with the boys. it was

1:06:17

offered to Twerp, Sushi and Polker

1:06:19

with the boys. Twerp, Sushi

1:06:21

and Polker with boys. Tim's

1:06:24

upset. Twerp, Sushi and Polker

1:06:26

with the boys. offered to

1:06:28

Twerp, Sushi and Polker with

1:06:30

boys. Twerp, Sushi and

1:06:32

Polker with the boys. Twerp,

1:06:35

Sushi and Polker boys. We're gonna get

1:06:37

I now. I just think that what

1:06:39

you did to Tim Pool was mean.

1:06:42

Free speech. That's not what we're

1:06:44

about here. Look at how sad he's become

1:06:46

now. You shouldn't even talk about it

1:06:48

I think you're responsible. I probably am in

1:06:50

a certain way, but let's get to

1:06:52

the meltdown here. Twerp, Sushi

1:06:54

and Polker with the boys. Oh my

1:06:56

God, Twerp. Wow, Sushi. I'm sorry, I'm

1:06:58

losing my fucking mind. So it was

1:07:00

offered to Twerp, Sushi and Polker with

1:07:02

the boys. Twerp,

1:07:04

Sushi and Polker with the boys. Twerp,

1:07:07

Twerp. I think I'm like a little kid. think I'm like a little kid. think

1:07:10

I'm like a little kid. Twerp, Twerp. I think I'm like a little kid. Add

1:07:13

this debate seven thousand times. Twerp,

1:07:17

Twerp. I'm losing my fucking mean like some

1:07:20

people just don't understand. Twerp, I'm not trying

1:07:22

to be a dim right now, but like.

1:07:24

I absolutely think the US should be providing

1:07:26

me with a wife and kids That's

1:07:29

not what we're talking about

1:07:31

here. It's

1:07:33

not a fun job That's

1:07:44

ridiculous That's

1:07:53

not all good boy. I think he

1:07:55

might be blowing up proportion real thin.

1:07:57

That's not all good boys. That's a

1:07:59

real That's got to poker. Let's go,

1:08:01

Joey. Twerk, sushi, and

1:08:04

poker with the boy. Take it easy, though. Twerk, sushi,

1:08:06

and poker. Things have really gotten out

1:08:08

of hand. Sushi, and poker with the

1:08:10

boy. It's a losing off to Twerk.

1:08:12

Deluded. Sushi, you don't have a clue

1:08:15

as to what's going on. Live YouTube.

1:08:17

and has slayed weight the world on

1:08:19

her I just didn't to do

1:08:21

this show It was It was

1:08:24

so much easier when the Majority was

1:08:26

just you. You were happy. Let's

1:08:28

change the subject. Right. Ranger

1:08:30

is in are getting great. Now, shut up.

1:08:32

I don't want people saying reckless things

1:08:34

on your program. That's one of the most

1:08:36

difficult parts about this show. This is

1:08:38

a pro -killing podcast. I'm maybe it's time

1:08:40

we buried the hatchet. Left is best. Trump,

1:08:43

Trophilot twerk. Don't be foolish. And don't

1:08:45

fucking tweet at me. And don't get changed.

1:08:47

Don't wait. And I'll just cocked all

1:08:49

these people above it. That's where my heart

1:08:51

is. So I wrote my honor's thesis

1:08:53

about it. Oh, she wrote

1:08:55

it on her thesis. Yes. I

1:08:58

guess I should hand the mic to you now.

1:09:00

You are to the right of the actual policy.

1:09:02

We already fund Israel, dude. Are you against us?

1:09:04

That's a tougher question. I don't have an answer

1:09:06

to that. God.

1:09:12

steam song. I Bumbler. Emma Viglin. Absolutely

1:09:15

one of my favorite people. Actually,

1:09:17

not just in the game. like Like,

1:09:19

period.