Today in Politics Chat — Livestream Replay

[0:00] Listen, I'm going to answer some of the questions that you asked to start, but boy, what a week [0:07] and new news just this second dropped. [0:10] I got in from kayaking about eight minutes ago, got a message that there was a new story [0:14] and took the time to read it before I came on because I knew you'd want to know about [0:17] it. [0:18] So we'll see what we can do today. [0:21] Let's start with an easy one that somebody asked me to answer for a number of conversations [0:27] you're having with friends and relatives. [0:29] And that's what is socialism? [0:33] And I will be as quick as I can about this. [0:35] And I will point you to the fact that I am talking tomorrow with Aaron Parnass and we [0:40] will be covering all these terms. [0:42] But the word socialism is one that's getting thrown around a lot in this election, both [0:47] from people who call themselves democratic socialists and people who are accusing democratic [0:52] socialists of essentially being communists. [0:55] So try and forget everything you have ever heard about socialism. [0:58] And I will walk you through it as quickly as I can. [1:03] Socialism is a system of government in which the government owns the means of production [1:10] with the argument that the government represents the people. [1:14] And what that means is the government owns the factories, for example, owns the farms, owns [1:21] the ways, the economy of the country, as well as some of the other services in the country [1:27] in order to allocate resources fairly. [1:31] And it is not the same thing as a democracy, the idea that we have a democracy where, or the United States [1:42] is supposed to be a democracy in which the people elect, I'm sorry, they're both political [1:49] and economic systems, but in which we have private ownership of property. [1:53] And that is divorced largely from the government. [1:58] All right, those two things are different in a socialist system. [2:03] They are not the same thing as democratic socialism. [2:08] So forget all the names and just think about the way a society should work. [2:12] Like, you may have different ideas about this, but from where I stand as an American, [2:18] I like the idea of private enterprise. [2:21] I like that idea for a number of reasons that I won't go into now, but I don't like the idea [2:29] of the government owning the means of production, because I think people can allocate their own [2:33] resources more effectively in private industry than the government can for any number of reasons. [2:40] I mean, when you think about a government, often you think about the best case scenario, [2:43] but you also got to think about the worst case scenario. [2:45] But that being said, there are certain aspects of a society that should not be for-profit industries. [2:53] Healthcare, I would put in that list, communications, roads, schools, hospitals. [2:59] You know, there's a bunch of things that we need to have in order to survive as human beings, [3:05] and those should not be for-profit industries. [3:09] And when people call themselves democratic socialists, what they are usually talking about [3:13] is something that looks very much like Denmark, which is a country where, by the way, your [3:19] ability to rise in society through private enterprise is actually significantly stronger [3:26] than it is in the United States right now. [3:28] But they do, in fact, have government education and healthcare and roads and schools and hospitals [3:34] and protection of their fisheries and so on. [3:36] And that's a system that combines the idea of private enterprise in commercial industries [3:43] and the idea of government that actually works for its people in ways that it needs to in [3:49] order for people to have a level playing field. [3:52] And, you know, before anybody gets all tied up in knots being like, I've never heard of such [3:56] a thing. [3:56] Of course you have. [3:57] This is the system that the United States really worked under from about the 1930s through [4:04] the 1970s. [4:05] Now, not entirely. [4:06] We never got universal healthcare, for example, but certainly we even had the public regulation [4:14] of things like telephones. [4:16] You know, think of Ma Bell if you're old enough to remember it. [4:18] And the world didn't suddenly end because we had a national system of telephones. [4:25] In fact, many of us would argue that our communications got significantly worse when that broke up. [4:30] So when people talk about socialism in this moment with democratic socialism, those are the things [4:38] they're comparing. [4:40] In the United States, though, we have something different as well. [4:43] And that's that in the late 19th century, the idea of socialism became used to represent [4:53] a political system. [4:55] And that meant that socialism in the United States meant that Black Americans, Black men, [5:03] were participating in the voting system. [5:08] And the way that they got to the idea that minorities voting was socialism came from the [5:14] idea that in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, Black men, women couldn't vote in this period, [5:20] Black men did not have property and often didn't have education because it had been illegal, [5:26] both for Black Americans in the South and most states to, no, I shouldn't say that, in the [5:33] American South to own property and to have an education. [5:38] So after the Civil War, those people who didn't want Black rights kept saying, you know, we don't [5:43] really mind Black people voting on the grounds of race. [5:46] We don't want them voting because they're poor and they will vote for things like roads and [5:51] schools and hospitals that cost tax dollars. [5:53] And because they don't own any property, that means that those services will require a transfer [5:58] of wealth from white people to Black people. [6:01] And that transfer of wealth, the idea of private ownership becoming public, is socialism. [6:06] And that was never anything other than a political stance to say, we don't want Black people involved [6:12] in American society. [6:14] Now, interestingly enough, and you did not ask this, but I think it's fascinating. [6:17] The Americans, people in the United States, I can't speak for anywhere else, but I suspect [6:24] this is unique to the United States, begin to talk about capitalism in the late 1880s [6:31] to stand against that kind of socialism. [6:36] And when they talk about that, it's very interesting because they have talked about capital since [6:40] the, you know, the 1830s at least. [6:42] And they've talked about capitalists, people who have capital, but they haven't talked about [6:46] capitalism. [6:47] And when they start to talk about capitalism, what they are saying in the newspapers in the [6:53] late 1890s is, 1880s and 1890s, is that rather than having poor Americans control the political [7:01] system, you should have rich Americans control the political system. [7:05] And that, in that period, is how they define capitalism. [7:09] Nowadays, it's seen as an economic and a political system. [7:12] But in those days, it was pretty clearly a political system, which is way more than you [7:16] wanted to know. [7:17] And I hope that was helpful more than confusing. [7:20] And let's get that. [7:20] So I got that one out of the way. [7:23] But I want to get into where we are today and pull together a bunch of your questions [7:29] in different ways. [7:32] And I'm going to start with something that you're all asking me, and that's what's going [7:38] to happen in the next two weeks? [7:40] What's going to happen in the next two months? [7:42] And what can we do? [7:43] And the answer to that is, I don't know. [7:46] You don't know. [7:47] Nobody knows. [7:49] Everybody is concerned that Donald Trump and his allies are going to pull something. [7:55] Everybody is concerned about that. [7:56] But here's a newsflash. [7:58] You are not the only ones worried about that. [8:00] Lots of people are already taking legal stands, already putting stuff in place to try and stand [8:05] against anything he might come up with or his allies might come up with. [8:09] But my take on this is different than all those lawyers and all those people doing that incredible [8:15] work. [8:16] My take on it is, first of all, stop being afraid of Donald Trump and the people around [8:22] Donald Trump. [8:23] There's a lot more of us than there are of him. [8:26] And the idea that we somehow have to be terrified of whether or not it's okay to vote. [8:32] Screw that. [8:33] We have the right to vote. [8:35] They should be afraid to take that away from us. [8:38] And that's the attitude to go into the next several months with. [8:41] Because the idea that we have to sort of respond to him rather than forcing him to respond to [8:48] us makes a really big psychological difference on both sides of that equation. [8:54] And why am I saying that right now? [8:56] I'm saying that because regardless of what anybody pulls or doesn't pull in the next two [9:03] weeks, two months, two years, the more we as the American people make it really clear [9:12] that we are not going to stand for shenanigans, that we are going to support those people who [9:18] reinforce our democratic guardrails, the more we make that the case, the less likely it is [9:25] that there is going to be trouble. [9:26] Now, why do I say that? [9:28] Because if you look at Trump's behavior, every single time the man has gotten pushback, he [9:35] backs away. [9:37] That's part of the equation. [9:39] The other part of the equation is that think about where Trump is right now. [9:44] Trump has fallen apart. [9:45] I mean, you guys talked about the images of him waving at nothing today that were circulated [9:51] by the Lincoln Project. [9:53] And that's something. [9:53] He's done that for years. [9:55] This is, and often his people will fill those images in with cheering crowds to make it look [10:02] like there's a ton of people around him. [10:04] But in fact, for a long time, he's come out and he's sort of done the whole wave thing. [10:08] And there's no one there. [10:09] But then you can backfill it with crowds and make it look like he's with somebody. [10:14] More to the point is, did you see the video of him walking right past the open door of what's [10:20] known as the beast, the car he travels in the other day and wandering out into a field? [10:26] That's not a sign of somebody who is all there. [10:32] So if you're doing the calculation for where the power in the American government is right [10:37] now, remember I'm always talking about how power is sloshing around? [10:40] Right now, if you are somebody who wants to get elected to Congress, who wants to run the [10:46] country, or a businessman who wants to have control in Congress, you're watching this, [10:52] right? [10:53] And if you're a businessman who has bought into Trump, you got yourself a real problem [10:56] because the guy is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, right? [10:59] So if you are somebody watching this and you're watching him wander into an open field and you're [11:07] watching the fact that he is losing his filter, he is saying all the stuff that should not be [11:14] said. [11:14] And that most people have a filter and you lose as you get dementia. [11:19] And again, I'm not a doctor. [11:21] I don't know if he's got dementia or not. [11:22] But I know from personal experience that older people with dementia start to say things they [11:29] absolutely shouldn't say. [11:30] It's actually one of my great fears that people will suddenly be able to hear what I'm actually [11:36] thinking because I will blurt it out. [11:39] You're watching that and you're watching the fact that he's so unpopular in the country right [11:45] now that people who are running for office as Republicans don't want to be seen with him. [11:49] They, you know, literally one guy today said, I've never met him, which is crazy considering [11:55] how they were all, you know, running and grabbing onto his ankles a couple of years ago. [11:59] So you're watching this and you're making calculations about on which side of the bread, [12:05] the butter sits and you're looking at that. [12:08] And if the American people keep their mouth shut, you're like, well, maybe it's okay to [12:12] go with Trump, you know, because the mega people are really loud and I see them in a lot of places. [12:17] But if you're looking and seeing the extraordinary outpouring of Americans going, you know, WTF, [12:25] we're not going to put up with this. [12:27] That's the direction you're going to jump. [12:29] Imagine what would have happened after January 6th, 2021, if the Republicans had not sucked [12:35] up to Trump, we'd never have heard of him again. [12:37] And making it very clear that we will not put up with that will go a very long way to [12:44] limiting possibly what he tries, but certainly what he gets away with. [12:49] So instead of sitting here being terrified of the next two weeks, which could be a complete [12:53] disaster for sure, or the next two months beyond that, which of course are going to have [12:58] choppy water because he is going to pull stuff in that amount of time. [13:02] Remember that the attorney generals from democratic dominated states are on this issue, that plenty [13:07] of elected officials around the country are on this, and also lawyers are on this. [13:12] Remember that somebody is doing that side of it. [13:15] But remember that we have a real role to play here. [13:19] Calling our elected representatives, especially the Republicans and saying, we are not going [13:23] to put up with anything. [13:24] You know, if you ever want to get elected to office again, do not go against our democratic [13:30] guardrails. [13:31] You know, making your voices heard and making it very clear that Trump's a loser because [13:37] he is. [13:37] And making that clear, nobody wants to be with a loser. [13:41] So before you panic and worry about it, take back your power and just say, no, damn it, [13:45] I'm voting. [13:46] And I, not because I'm asking your permission, because it's my right to vote and I'm going [13:52] to do it. [13:52] And that attitude and making that very clear is extremely important. [13:59] It is extremely important to send the message of where the United States of America stands [14:04] right now. [14:05] So that's the first piece here. [14:06] But you asked as well about an October surprise. [14:11] You know, is there going to be an October surprise? [14:13] And we get this idea of an October surprise from the fact that the Reagan campaign in 1980 [14:21] was extremely concerned that Jimmy Carter was going to pull off some kind of a hostage [14:26] rescue before the 1980 election. [14:28] And the fact that the hostages, the Iranians released hostages on inauguration day for Reagan, [14:36] it has always been a matter of extreme suspicion for a lot of people, right? [14:41] And I'm not going to go into that now. [14:43] But that is generally people are looking to see something that is a game changer, usually [14:49] in favor of the person in office that drops in October. [14:53] And there are also other things that can change an election in October. [14:58] And one of the things that I've mentioned before and that I'm watching like a hawk right [15:02] now is that usually American economic crashes come in October, which is interesting because [15:09] it's usually seems to be a holdover from summer vacation. [15:12] Like everybody goes away for the summer and they're not really paying that close attention. [15:15] You come back in September and you start to look at the books and then you're like, [15:17] oh, we're in trouble. [15:18] And anyway, there are any number of things that can happen to change things in October. [15:25] But one of the things that I think is interesting when you ask about the October surprise is [15:29] that could we have a bigger surprise than the president of the United States turning against [15:36] our European allies and siding with Russia? [15:40] I mean, that's just that's not just a 2026 October surprise. [15:48] That's a century surprise. [15:50] This is a really big deal. [15:52] And I want to be clear, Trump's enthusiasm for Russia has been absolutely clear since [16:01] summer 2016 in politics and since the 1980s in the economy. [16:07] He's made it very, very clear he had connections, both financial and emotional to Russia. [16:12] So it's not like this is blindsiding anybody who's been paying who, you know, has been paying [16:17] attention. But there was, I think, at least on Capitol Hill, the idea that they were there [16:23] were enough people, including in the Republican Party, who still cared deeply about the post-World [16:30] War Two international order that they would rein him in. [16:33] And that's sort of what happened in the first in his first term is he made noises about undercutting [16:39] the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO. But he didn't actually do it. He talked about it, [16:46] but he didn't actually do it. And then in Trump 2.0, he's gone out of his way to do it. [16:51] And now in October, we have gotten his open rejection of Ukraine and his open support for Russia [17:04] in the face of congressional opposition. That is, Congress passed that incredibly long-named act that [17:12] is basically the Lindsey Graham Act, which required the government to put even stronger [17:17] sanctions on Russia in order to stop its war on Ukraine, its unprovoked war in Ukraine. [17:27] And two days before those sanctions were supposed to go into effect, Trump said, [17:31] no, I'm not going to do it. I'm going to waive them. This is an absolute slap in the face, [17:36] not only to the Republicans in Congress, but to Congress in general. This is absolutely his attempt [17:42] to grab power and to align the United States with Russia. Please absorb that. This is a really, [17:50] really, really, really big deal. And then on top of that, Russia came out and said that it wanted [18:00] to have a trilateral meeting with Trump and Xi Jinping of China to decide the fate of Ukraine. [18:12] And that's no small story either, because what that is, is Putin saying that whole post-World War II [18:22] international order, in which the United States, Europe, allies, and partners work together as the [18:30] strongest and most powerful defensive alliance in human history. It has stopped a third world war, [18:39] and it has created freedom of the seas and an open trading system that has lifted more than a billion [18:45] people out of poverty. Remember when we were, some of us who were of a certain age when we were kids, [18:52] there were all the stories about people starving in countries, different countries around the world, [18:56] usually in Africa, but not always. When was the last time you saw one of those? You know why you [19:01] don't see those? Is because that kind of starvation now, which certainly happens, it's happening right [19:06] now in Ukraine, it's happening now in Sudan, that happens during wartime now. But during peacetime, [19:15] the world has developed the kind of trade routes, often going through Ukraine, by the way, that stop [19:24] that kind of starvation. And what Putin is saying is, I don't want that, because central to that system [19:30] is the idea that countries must not invade each other's borders, or threaten each other, either [19:37] politically or economically. But that's exactly what Putin wants to do, because Russia as it is now, [19:43] is a pretty small country. I pulled the numbers, let me see if I can find them. I pulled the numbers, [19:50] because we, the way we've been talking about Putin, we make it sound like Russia is on a par with China [20:00] and the United States. And that's could not be further from the truth. And that's, of course, [20:06] what Putin wants people to think. Here we go. Here are the numbers. Russia has a lower GDP than Poland. [20:12] It also has a lower GDP than California, Texas, and New York. This is this great country that [20:21] Trump wants to make part of this great triumvirate. The European Union, which Trump is abandoning, [20:28] has a GDP of 2.8 trillion. Russia's GDP is 2.8 trillion. So 22.8 versus 2.8. And the GDP of the U.S. [20:39] is 32.6 trillion, and China is 21.5 trillion. So you've got the U.S., and these figures for this [20:45] year, you've got the U.S. at 32, China at 21, Russia at 2. And Trump is allying with Vladimir Putin and [20:56] Russia to get rid of this system that has created a growing and secure world. He's turning his back on [21:08] Europe, including the European Union, which, as I say, is a GDP of 22. It's right up there, [21:15] about the same size as China, a little bit bigger, way bigger than Russia. But what Putin wants is he [21:22] wants to get rid of that system and replace it with this idea that big powers can gobble up their [21:28] neighbors. And when Russia could do that, either as Imperial Russia or as the USSR, gobble up its [21:34] neighbors, it became much stronger and much more powerful. So the reason that Russia wants Ukraine, [21:40] for example, especially those Eastern oblasts, is because Ukraine's industrial sector is powerful, [21:46] and also because Ukraine is a breadbasket of the world, right? That is an important country [21:53] if you're trying to feed your own country, as in give more power to your own country. So he is trying to [21:58] turn the United States away from this system that has worked so well for 80 years. And mind you, [22:03] it's never been perfect. Every time you say something like that, someone's like, well, [22:06] it hasn't been great for everyone. 100%. Always improvements to make. But I promise you, [22:12] it's better than the system that the Russians are living under, where their leader is feeding them [22:17] into a sausage grinder on the front lines, the economy is in the dumpster, and they have no ability [22:27] to critique their government, which is treating them as it wishes. So Vladimir Putin is trying to do this, [22:36] and Trump is going along with it. More than that, he's part of it. He wants to do it, which as an [22:42] October surprise is pretty significant, right? So why is he going to do this? It certainly seems as if he is [22:51] expecting to have beneficial economic deals coming to him from Putin. There is this issue of selling off [23:00] the non-Russian parts of what are called, of this major oil company in Russia called Lukoil. I don't [23:09] know how you pronounce it, L-U-K-O-I-L, that because of US sanctions has been very undervalued. [23:19] And the idea is to sell off the parts, sell it off for parts, essentially. And then the minute it [23:25] goes from Russian hands into non-Russian hands, the sanctions come off, and all of a sudden, [23:30] it'll get extremely valuable. Those pieces will get very valuable. And that means whoever has bought [23:35] them gets a huge wad of money in their pocket. It may be that that's what he's up to. When they [23:40] first floated that idea, they said the Trumps weren't involved, but who knows, right? So possibly [23:46] that, but possibly he simply loves the idea of being a dictator. And then of course, possibly there [23:51] is the issue that we are all hinting at, but nobody has any idea that there's something else. And there [23:57] certainly seem to be an awful lot of connections between Russian modeling agencies and Donald Trump's [24:04] modeling agencies. And who knows? And those of course, are the sorts of factors that went into [24:12] the Epstein, the Epstein's business that became the Epstein files. We don't know all of that is [24:17] speculative, but Trump is taking the United States of America, the mighty United States of America, [24:25] and turning it into, he's selling it off for parts basically, and taking all the cash himself. [24:32] So when you're thinking about an October surprise, I think that qualifies personally. But before I [24:39] keep running that particular size of it down there, that side of it down there, [24:46] I want to talk a little bit about what happened last week in Ukraine with the slowing down of two [24:57] separate systems, Starlink and Starshield. All right. So there are two separate systems. Marco Rubio was [25:07] talking about this yesterday, Secretary of State, and he got it wrong, which is appalling. Let me put [25:13] that right there that he didn't seem to know what the two different systems were. And I'm no tech person, [25:19] but I can read as well as the next person, right? So Starlink is what we're all familiar with. It is a [25:27] communications system that is owned and operated by SpaceX, which is owned by Elon Musk, the billionaire [25:37] Elon Musk, who is shoveling money into this election. The last I knew, the visible money we knew about [25:43] was $366 million. So, you know, he desperately wants to keep Republicans in office, right? So [25:51] that Starlink system is what Ukraine uses, and it's a commercial system, is what Ukraine uses to stop [26:01] incoming missiles and drones that are coming into Iran from Russia. So they use it in a defensive [26:12] capability and they obviously use it for communications. Star Shield is the military side of that. And [26:20] that's what the United States military uses as well. Star Shield is what Ukraine used for offensive [26:28] drones. And what that means is that for the drones to operate, to go where they're supposed to go, they [26:35] have to have an operator and that operator communicates with them through these communication, satellite [26:39] communications systems. Now, what happened was, I believe it was last Tuesday night, although don't [26:47] quote me, I certainly wrote about this, or you could Google it, it's either Tuesday or Wednesday. [26:52] All of a sudden, in the middle of operations, and in the middle of one of the worst nights of [26:59] bombardment in the entire four years of this war, going on five years of this war, it started in 22, [27:06] February of 22, and we're up to 23, 24, 25, 26. We're coming up to February of 27, February of 27. [27:15] In the middle of one of the worst bombardments of the war, all of a sudden, the Ukrainians are [27:19] operating their drones, right? They're trying to keep the missiles out of Ukraine, and they're trying to [27:25] retaliate with offensive missiles. And all of a sudden, the system doesn't work. The system slows down, [27:33] and it slows down, you'll see these numbers, it slows down to anything over 160 kilometers an hour, [27:41] they lose contact with the drones. And that translates in miles per hour to about 100 miles an hour. [27:46] So they're operating in the middle of a bombardment, and all of a sudden, they can't communicate with [27:52] their drones. No warning or anything. And this came after a couple days in which the United States [27:57] had not been communicating information to the Ukrainians either. And the US, of course, [28:05] has a phenomenal satellite system and is very good at intelligence operations. And they refused to tell [28:12] the Ukrainians when there were missiles coming in from Russia. And so in the midst of all this, [28:17] all of a sudden, everything stops. Not stops, they lose control of it. And so they're horrified, [28:24] and they're furious, right? What on earth is going on here? And you can see this on social media, [28:28] if you happen to be on social media at that time, which unfortunately, I was. But the next day, [28:35] as this starts to play out, everyone's like, who did this? What happened? Right? And about [28:44] in the afternoon, I shouldn't give you a time in the afternoon of the next day, Elon Musk, who of course, [28:48] owns these systems, although both of them are subscription services for which it appears Poland [28:56] is paying for the Ukrainians. Musk comes out and he says, well, ultimately, this was a decision that [29:06] was up to the President of the United States. Because at first, everyone's like, Musk did this, [29:09] because he had done it before in 2022. And that is quite well established. Last time I said this, [29:15] somebody said, no, no, no, that was always hoax. It was not a hoax. You can look it up. [29:19] There was an exclusive report from three reporters, I think, with the Associated Press, [29:24] off the top of my head. The article came out, I believe, in 2025, that was definitive about that. [29:29] I wrote about that a week or more ago. But anyway, he'd done it before. So everybody assumed it was [29:34] Musk. And then Musk came out that afternoon and said, ultimately, this is a decision that was up to [29:40] the President of the United States. And then Trump and Musk for days were like passing the buck back and [29:46] forth. Like, it wasn't me. It wasn't me. It wasn't me. It wasn't me. And then Trump says, well, it wasn't [29:51] either one of us. And I don't even think it happened anyway. There wasn't such a thing. [29:55] Well, Congress critters have gotten on the phone now with Zelensky, the President of Ukraine, [30:01] and he's like, we still don't have capabilities back. And then what happened just before I came on [30:08] today was an article has dropped in the Wall Street Journal. And the Wall Street Journal, by the way, [30:14] the editorial page tends to be loopy. All of that's changing a lot these days. But the Wall Street [30:20] Journal's reporters are fabulous. Now, I will say the Wall Street Journal is really expensive. It's [30:27] like crazy expensive. So unless you can get it through a university or something, you may want to [30:32] just just see what other invariably once it drops a story, other people pick it up pretty quickly. [30:39] But one of the people that I always watch, if he writes a story, I read it, is Josh Dossie, [30:45] who writes now for the Wall Street Journal. He was elsewhere before that. His name is on this [30:51] story. And as I said to you before, when you're looking at important stories, look for multiple [30:56] bylines. If there are a bunch of names on it, this is something that turned out to be a really big deal, [31:01] and people are throwing a lot of resources behind it. And this is a three-person story. [31:05] And what they dropped today at 438 was that it was Musk who ordered Starlink to slow down. [31:16] And in the article itself, a number of the sources who are administration officials to whom the [31:25] reporters talked said that Trump was not included. One of them said he was included. But there was [31:31] something else interesting far down in this piece. And that was when they talked to different people [31:41] about what had happened. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday, which is I guess today, [31:52] and I quote from this article, we haven't pulled anything back. But next quote, [32:00] Starlink has the option to make decisions concerning its terms of service. And then he said, [32:08] we haven't made any directives or anything like that. Now, that's all I know. But boy, [32:13] doesn't that sound as if Musk and Hegseth and possibly other people in the Oval Office simply said, [32:21] hey, we can just say this is about terms of service, which by the way, is what [32:25] Musk has said, things like that before. And we can accomplish what we want without having any kind [32:36] of accusations of trying to hurt the war effort. I'm guessing that's not going to fly, by the way. [32:44] I'm not a lawyer. But, you know, this is taking America's foreign policy into your own hands. And [32:51] that's not a good direction to go. These people are absolutely playing with fire. And of course, [32:56] Ukrainians have died over this. And this does not reflect the bipartisan agreement of Congress that [33:03] the United States must be supplying Ukraine for the simple reason that Ukraine is holding the dam back [33:09] from Russia wanting to take Ukraine, take its resources and continue to spread into other [33:14] countries, especially countries that are protected by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which will [33:19] involve everybody because of Article 5 of NATO, which says that if one NATO country is attacked, [33:26] others will follow. So that's really red hot. This article that says, yeah, it was Musk, [33:33] and he just said he was changing the terms of service and expect that that's going to blow up over [33:38] the next couple of days, by the way. But I want to go in a little bit of a different direction. [33:42] And I hope this is interesting to you all, because I might write about this tonight. It's the weirdest [33:47] time to be a historian because you know that the period in which we are living is just historic every [33:59] single day. And it's just really weird to be in it and to be trying to focus on it as it's whizzing by [34:05] you. Anyway, I don't really want to keep going with that because there's something else huge about this that [34:11] is getting some play, but not as much as it should. And this is not rocket science. If you are any [34:20] nation in the world who has relied on the United States for military support or on the United States [34:30] for communications through Starlink, what are you going to do? And the answer to that is you're going [34:38] to develop your own systems yesterday. You're going to be killing yourself to put these things together [34:43] as fast as you can. And that's exactly what Europe and Canada are doing is they're coming together to [34:48] create their own satellite systems so they can leave Musk in the dust. They can just walk away [34:53] from SpaceX, which has prompted the administration to threaten that anybody who walks away from SpaceX [34:59] can be expected to run against the administration in other ways. But it's a no brainer. And the same [35:07] thing with any kind of military supplies to say to the United States, thanks, but no thanks, [35:12] because if you can simply decide you're going to turn things off, or if you can decide as the [35:19] Ukrainians are saying now that the United States is not delivering weaponry that has been promised [35:23] and paid for, you can't trust the United States any longer to do that. And why does that matter? [35:30] It matters a lot in terms of American policies overseas, but back here at home. And again, I'm not, [35:37] I don't have an answer to this, but remember one of the things that Eisenhower was upset about was the [35:44] degree to which our political system had become tied to the military industrial complex, which by the way, [35:50] when he first wrote that he wrote it military industrial congressional complex and his aides made [35:56] him take out the word congressional, but military industrial complex, many of our states, and I'm [36:02] looking at you, Mississippi, and to some degree Maine as well, and certainly other states, depend on [36:08] their defense contracts in order to keep their economies afloat. So one of the reasons we have [36:14] such an extraordinarily bloated military budget is because in a way it's kind of make work for places [36:23] that need jobs. And if we are no longer going to be supplying the rest of the world as we have been, [36:34] what happens to that industrial complex? You know, what happens when all the drones, which are very, [36:43] very cheap, take over for, you know, battles, those battleships that Trump wants to build are going to [36:50] be sitting ducks. And that is a game changer. And it could be a game changer for good. I mean, [36:59] many of us have not liked that military industrial complex for a very long time. And we could use that [37:05] money and energy to go toward other things, building things that are actually good for society, the way [37:10] Eisenhower wanted to schools, for example, he talked about, or, or roads or, you know, taking care of [37:18] the people in our own country. But it's, it is just an astonishing self-own on the part of somebody like [37:27] Elon Musk, to think that he can cut off Starlink to people in the middle of a war, and then think [37:36] or slow it down, not cut it off, which was the effect was largely the same in those circumstances, [37:42] and then expect that people are going to continue to use it. And that downstream effect of what happens [37:50] then to SpaceX, and what happens then to the military industrial complex, speaking of October [37:59] surprises, I mean, it's not going to happen tomorrow, obviously, although Europeans and other countries [38:05] are already scrambling to say we got to find a way to prove to get rid of SpaceX, or to get rid of [38:11] Starlink. But I mean, in terms of going forward and thinking of possibilities, what do we want to make [38:17] of that? I just, I just, as I say, it's a game changer. The, the, if you're going to write the [38:23] history of this era, you're going to write about the rise of drone warfare, which is going to change [38:28] everything all around the world. And you're going to write about Musk as Icarus, right, flying too close [38:35] to the sun, because it certainly seems like he just demonstrated to the whole world why you can't trust [38:41] him. Anyway, to go on from that, you asked if Congress can stop that from happening. That's a [38:50] really good question. Congress is on a bipartisan basis, furious and claiming that they're going to [38:55] push back against what Musk has done, and what the administration is doing. But remember, Ukraine is [39:06] being bombarded now, people are dying now. And with Trump waiving the sanctions for selling oil on the [39:14] global market, all of a sudden, Putin's got money to put more and more money into weaponry. And the [39:22] question is how long Ukraine can hang on under those circumstances. Now, the flip side of that is [39:27] that Trump, I'm sorry, Putin wouldn't need this kind of support if he were winning, like he's on the [39:33] ropes, which is why he has pulled out all the stops to get Trump to come onto his side. So can [39:38] Congress stop it? Congress can certainly try, but they're not in session right now. And they're not [39:44] going to be in session until after the midterms. And I don't know if you if you saw on social media, [39:50] this, this to me, aside, I mean, just don't even start me on the list of how angry I am about this. [39:57] But in terms, aside from anything else, even if you don't care about Ukraine, any of those things, [40:03] is I keep saying the primary function of a government is to keep its people safe. Like, [40:11] obviously, I anyway, want the government to do a lot more than that. But literally, that's job one. [40:16] If you cannot do that, you are not going to be a viable government. And the fact that Congress is not [40:22] doing something now to reverse this destruction of the system that held us safe [40:31] for close to a century is, to my mind, an extraordinary dereliction of duty. And somebody, [40:39] Politico published an article today saying, you know, Republicans are really frustrated because [40:43] they don't want Trump to do this. And there's nothing they can do. And I kind of exploded on [40:47] social media and said, literally, there's a blueprint for what to do. It's to impeach him, [40:54] and to convict him. And they could do it before the end of the week if they wanted to. [40:59] And the answer to Johnson, Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, and John Thune, [41:05] Senate Majority Leader, not calling him into Congress, go stand on the steps of the Capitol. [41:12] Get the news people out there and say to them, we're going to stand here and we're going to scream [41:17] about this until they call us back into session because he is making the United States of America [41:22] vulnerable to attack for our future because he has torn apart this extraordinary defensive [41:32] alliance that has kept us safe for close to a century. And the fact that everybody is sort of [41:39] saying, oh boy, we don't like this. I mean, again, I'm exaggerating. They are expressing that they [41:46] aren't happy. They say they're going to pass new laws. And I'm saying it's not just about that. It's [41:52] about keeping the United States safe. And Trump is absolutely opening us up to extraordinarily [42:02] dangerous vulnerabilities. And they should be out. They should be screaming in the streets about that. [42:08] And, you know, somebody would say the American people should be too. Yes, [42:13] except in the scheme of things, the only people who right now can do something are members of Congress. [42:19] And the only people in Congress who can do something are the Republicans. So I don't want [42:24] to hear about how upset they are that they have no power because they are literally the only people [42:30] in this country who have the power to do something. And standing there saying, wish I could do [42:36] something is not cutting it for me. All right. I will get off that and go on a little bit longer [42:43] to talk about some of the other things you asked about. You asked me to talk about the rise of the [42:49] right, right, the right wing around the world. And I, again, I'm going to emphasize that I'm an [42:54] Americanist. And by the way, that doesn't just mean I'm an American historian. Historians are trained [43:01] in their doctoral programs to do comparative work among at least three different countries. [43:07] I am not trained as that kind of a historian. I was trained in the history of American [43:13] civilization, which means that my three fields were history of America, literature of America, [43:20] and religion of America. So I just don't have that background, except as I have read, [43:27] as I have gone through, through my career. So I can't say intelligent things about anything that [43:34] doesn't have something to do with America. It's got something to do with the United States. I'm [43:37] pretty good. But I can't tell you about what's happening in France as somebody who understands [43:45] French history, because I don't know. But I do think that there are places in which the rise of [43:53] the right around the world have strong similarities to what's happening in the United States. We know [44:00] that Russia has been engaged in what we call hybrid warfare or gray zone warfare now for years. And we've [44:11] seen it in the United States, certainly since I would say the 1990s. Remember the USSR collapses in 91, [44:21] and you get the rise of Putin by about 2000. We get the assassination of Paul Klebnikov, who was the [44:30] American head of Forbes in Moscow in 2004. They blamed the Chechnians, but it was all of the Chechens, [44:39] but it was almost certainly Putin's goons who did that. So by 2004, you've got Vladimir Putin trying [44:48] to consolidate power. And one of the ways to do that really easily is, you can see it around you [44:54] now in the United States, is through propaganda, through feeding people stories that are not true, [45:01] but are believable enough. I keep going back to the idea of Sharia law in Oklahoma, which was something [45:06] that was a big deal in the 90s, and the aughts. And I used to live in Oklahoma. They're in no danger of [45:13] getting Sharia law in Oklahoma, let me tell you. But there's a number of ways that you do what is [45:20] called virtual politics. And that's the or political technology. And that's where you flood the zone with, [45:29] especially now that we have the internet, you flood the zone with so much material, people can't make [45:34] sense of it all. So they tune out. And this was developed pretty deliberately after the restrictions [45:40] on information under the USSR, they knew the leaders in the in places like Russia knew that if they [45:48] restricted access to information, people would revolt and they get angry. But you could do the [45:53] opposite, you could flood the zone with so much stuff they just tuned out. So that's one way to do it. [45:58] Another way is to tell stories that aren't true, but are somewhat believable. And the third way is to [46:05] divide people and to convince them that this that a right wing position is far more popular than it [46:13] really is. And I think you see some of that in the separatist vote in Alberta yesterday, I think it was [46:20] yesterday, when you'd heard so much about, hey, this is our moment, we're going to separate this oil rich [46:25] region from Canada. And the actual vote was was about 75 to 25 off the top of my head, I didn't really pay [46:32] that close attention to the numbers, because again, not America. But that use of the divisiveness, [46:41] and that use of whipping people up against each other, in really subtle ways, and you saw this in [46:47] 2016, when the Russians we know were working the American social media landscape in order to suppress [46:54] in to suppress enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton and convince people to vote for Trump. And I think that attempt [47:05] to use propaganda around the world and to use that gray zone warfare has destabilized Europe, for sure, it [47:14] has certainly destabilized the United States of America, we know that. And I'm sure it's destabilizing other [47:20] countries as well. And one of the things that I would love to see us do is everywhere around the world, and the EU is [47:27] way ahead of America on this, is to start to regulate, not the language, you in the United States, you cannot go [47:37] after government regulation of what people say, that's our First Amendment. But you could go after the algorithms that [47:44] privilege certain speeches over certain kinds of speech over others. And where have we seen that happen lately? In Brazil, [47:51] where Jair Bolsonaro's son is running against Lula, who is more to the left than he is. And in turn, in a court case, [48:04] internal communications from Meta made it clear that Meta was elevating Bolsonaro's posts, [48:16] and suppressing Lula's. And that shouldn't, you shouldn't be able to do that. I mean, that kind [48:21] of manipulation of information is how you win wars without firing a shot, which is, I think, really [48:30] significant. And we have to take that on. One of the reasons I think people really should learn to [48:35] know what to trust is for that reason alone. And by the way, whenever you see now on social media, [48:40] these really, really long posts about somebody doing something heroic or something, they're all AI [48:46] generated. They are not real. They are there for clicks. And there's a ton of them out there about me. [48:51] I did not write them. Most of them are not true. And I mean, they're lovely, some of them, but they're really [48:57] just an attempt to convince people of things that aren't true. And pretty soon, you're not living in the [49:02] real world anymore. So that's where I think the radical right has really been able to concentrate power [49:11] power is through propaganda. And it's very concerning the degree to which in the United States, [49:16] the radical right has taken over so many outlets, so many media outlets. And there are, of course, [49:23] all of us now in the independent realm, but we're concerned because we're operating on platforms that are [49:30] owned by people who are openly on the right. And, and that's an issue. And I promise you, it's not an [49:37] issue that we are ignorant of, or not reacting to, but not doing so publicly. A couple other questions [49:46] that you had. Why, how can Trump decide to give $8 billion to farmers? He is doing so from the [49:57] Commodity Credit Corporation, which is part of the Agriculture Department that, that funds crop [50:02] insurance and natural disaster payment programs. But interestingly enough, on this plan that was [50:09] announced today to hand over $8 billion to farmers, and boy, you got to pay attention to the fine print, [50:17] the payment rates will be announced next month, as in after the election, and the farmers will receive [50:25] the money at a later date. But the other piece of that, that bailout, that is so important for people [50:35] who are in agricultural states, is that every time we talk about a farm bailout, because the rates of [50:45] farm bankruptcy, and even worse, the rates of farm consolidation, that is a little farm gets bought [50:50] up by agribusiness, are off the charts, as is farmer suicide in this moment. And the trick to reading [50:59] all these bailouts, I'm going to go with almost always, the formula for getting a payoff has to do with how [51:06] many acres you have under cultivation. So the family farms are not getting this money. It's agribusiness [51:13] that's getting this money for the most part. I mean, it'll certainly help some family farms as well. [51:18] But this is another one of those cases where our system is really loaded toward corporations, [51:24] basically. So that's what's going on with that. And I wanted to point out one final thing in all the [51:32] stuff that you're worried about. And, you know, with good reason, right, is that, you know, I said, it's a [51:38] weird time to be a historian, as you're watching all this stuff happen around you constantly and quickly. And [51:45] like, in my head, I've already written like four letters for tonight. And I don't know which one's going to end up [51:51] coming to the fore. But it really looks, again, if you're playing the other side of the table, [52:02] the fact that somebody like Vivek Ramaswamy today posted just such an offensive video, or ad that, [52:16] you know, I'm not going to describe it. But that's, that's desperation. That says, I'm in such trouble, [52:23] I'm going to do anything I can to try and pull this election out. And you're seeing the same thing [52:29] with Trump out there, claiming that, you know, children are getting mutilated in school sex change [52:36] operations, and, you know, that the Democrats are going to bring on the great crash of 1929. I mean, [52:44] when you are out there making those kinds of arguments, trying to do what somebody called [52:50] putting fear on steroids, that says you don't have anything to run on. And that you're very [52:58] afraid you're going to lose. At the same time, if you're listening to the new Democrats, especially, [53:05] and you asked a lot of people asked what it's been like to be out on the road talking to these people, [53:10] it's fascinating. Because first of all, these people are crazy smart. They are crazy smart. The [53:16] guy I talked to today is running for Arkansas to Chris Jones. He is literally a rocket scientist, [53:23] you know, and, and their doctors and their CIA, former intelligence officers, and they're, you know, [53:33] they're just they're really, really smart. And what's so interesting about it is that they are, [53:40] I keep pushing, like, ideology, ideology, I want to hear what your ideology is. And what they're [53:49] really saying is twofold. One is that their ideology, which is a word that they are not [53:56] comfortable using, is that the government should help people in the United States of America to have [54:02] the opportunity to achieve the American dream. And by that they mean they should be equal before the law. [54:09] They should have equal access to resources, education, and so on. And they should have [54:18] a right to have a say in their government. And they should have the right to personal liberty, [54:23] which is one that I don't usually talk about. But the government shouldn't be banging on their doors, [54:28] asking about their health care decisions, or deciding whether or not they are going to let them [54:34] use the bathroom, or any of those things. Those are basic American tenets. And it's fascinating, [54:40] because of course, that comes straight from Abraham Lincoln, the Declaration of Independence, [54:44] Theodore Roosevelt, all those classic thinkers. And, and yet there's something more with them. [54:52] And that is, you know, what I bring to this is, it's, it seems to me, and I am not a politician, [54:58] and I never want to be one. But it seems to me that the shift, largely beginning under Biden and [55:04] Harris and moving forward has been to center children in the conversation, rather than centering [55:11] a heteronormative male headed family. And when I say that, they sort of say, yeah, that's right. But, [55:20] but that's not what they lead with. That's me talking. But what is they are leading with, [55:26] to the point that that some of them can't sit still, is urgency. If there's one word that they all use, [55:35] it's urgency, we have to do it now. We have to fix things for people now, we got to make sure people [55:41] eat now. And that, you know, that feels very, very much like the 1930s to me, not the 1850s, [55:49] where I usually go, but to the 1930s. And so it's so interesting that you've got Ramaswamy doing that [55:55] vile thing like he did today. And then you've got, you know, somebody like Abdul Al-Sayed in, [56:03] in Michigan, being like, we got to do this now, we got to get this done now. And it's, [56:10] and it's common sense stuff. It's not, we need to cut taxes. And then in 15 years, you're going to [56:15] have whatever, it's now. And that, that's just a really interesting shift. And one that, as I say, [56:26] thinking about this historically, really feels like a game changer in, in American history, [56:35] in this moment, but also in the long sweep of American history, that we're seeing one sort of [56:41] old decrepit party that has nothing to offer people, you know, it promised for 40 years that cutting taxes [56:47] and regulations were going to help everyone. And all that happened was that more than $50 trillion [56:51] moved into the pockets of, you know, one 10th of 1%. And people aren't buying that any longer. [56:58] So now you have this new group coming up going, we know how to fix this, we have to use common sense, [57:04] we need to make sure people have food. That's not exactly, sorry, but rocket science. But it is, [57:13] they're tied together by almost by their urgency. And that, and by the way, that's not necessarily [57:20] related to their age. Some of the, you know, Ed Markey from Massachusetts is like this as well. [57:28] But it's a, it's a really interesting moment. And, and you asked me to end with hope. And I know I [57:36] sound sort of, you know, deer in the headlights, like here, but as I say, it's a weird time to be [57:42] a historian. This is what I see around America. And I don't mean around cities, and I don't mean around [57:50] the North. I mean, in the United States, around the country, you're seeing a lot of people who [58:00] didn't use to pay attention to politics, or who thought the system was so badly rigged against [58:04] them, they could never get anywhere. And some of them slid into MAGA, because at least there seemed [58:09] to be a rich guy there who talked like he might help them, only to discover, of course, that he was [58:14] only interested in lining his own pocket. But around the country, you're seeing people wake up to the idea [58:21] that they have agency in this government, and that they can do things that are good for everybody. [58:28] And if they do that, that rebuilds the economy. And that makes it easier for people to live. [58:33] And that rebuilds education, because you got to have a good education, if you're going to be an [58:38] entrepreneur, for example. And in this upcoming election, there are things you should do, you must [58:44] vote, you must make sure all your friends get out to vote, and so on. But the United States will not [58:49] change overnight. The Democrats are not going to take all the seats that you expect them to. They're [58:54] going to take more than you might expect in some places, unless in others. But when either the House [59:03] flips, or the House and Senate flips, there's still going to be a Republican President in the White House. [59:09] And he's not going to like anything that they do. And one of the things that we will have to do at [59:17] that point is not stop putting pressure on the Republicans and Democrats both to pass the laws [59:25] that we care about. And there's some real low hanging fruit, extending the child tax credit, [59:30] which lifts children out of poverty. Like, what's the downside? You know what, it is expensive to do [59:35] that. So what do we do? We tax people who have gazillions of dollars. Again, this is not rocket science. [59:41] And by the way, I'm not learning this from my, you know, 16 PhDs in economics. I'm learning this from [59:47] the Republicans in the 1860s, who had to face the same kind of issues. You know, you do that, [59:53] you put more money into SNAP, you make sure that we extend the subsidies for people who are trying to [1:00:01] buy health insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. Now, again, I would love to see that go [1:00:06] even further to get real health care in this country for everybody. But in the short term, [1:00:11] those are things you could bring to the floor instantly, and then demand that Republicans [1:00:17] vote on them. And if they're going to vote no, explain why. So what can we do in the short term? [1:00:23] Who knows? It's going to depend on who gets into office. But we can continue to see that pressure mount [1:00:30] for the next election. And you saw that in the 1970s, when after the 74 election, which [1:00:37] the midterm election after Watergate, the both Republicans and Democrats in Congress did pass [1:00:46] a number of laws that reigned in Nixon. But we had to wait for Carter to get elected in 76, [1:00:53] for there to be an extraordinary slew of legislation in 77 and 78, which we all tend to forget about [1:00:59] because of the hostage crisis and the oil crisis. But in fact, the amount of legislation those [1:01:05] Watergate babies, as they were known, got through is with some of the most extensive legislation in [1:01:13] our history. So what we do going forward is we continue to take back our government and we continue [1:01:21] to insist that it does what is best for all of us. And here's a newsflash. Even if you're [1:01:26] extraordinarily wealthy and a business person, any of those things, everybody does better when [1:01:33] everybody does well. That's just a fact. And we know that now after 40 years of the opposite, [1:01:39] there's no way you can any longer bank on the Republican idea that cutting taxes and regulations [1:01:45] is good for the economy because it is openly not. So that's what we do going forward. I urge you to vote [1:01:52] early, get other friends, make sure all your family members are voting and just, you know, [1:01:59] keep the faith and hang on to each other because this is going to be a rocky next two weeks. The [1:02:04] more pressure Trump is under, the more he crumbles and the wilder things get, the more desperate the [1:02:10] Republicans are going to get, the more optimistic the Democrats are going to get and go out there and [1:02:16] do it. And if you are in a district that is anything less than say R plus 15, go work for your [1:02:27] Democratic candidate because there's some sleeper races out there that are suddenly looking like [1:02:32] they very well might flip, including, I just talked the other day to Beth Macy in Virginia. She's terrific. [1:02:39] Chris Jones, as I say, in Arkansas, but any of these races that seem completely out of reach, [1:02:46] a year ago or two years ago are suddenly within reach. So put some skin into the game, in part [1:02:52] because the tide is changing and you don't want to be left out of it. You know, when your grandkids [1:02:58] ask, hey, what did you do in the Trump era? You don't want to say, I sat home because it didn't seem [1:03:04] important. [1:03:12] You