10/24/25: Venezuela Regime Change, Trump 2028 Run, VA Delegate On Dem Future & MORE!

27:14if that can't really be the logic in terms of going after the resources, like what is the split on this being about the resources and regime change versus just being sort of like a pure ideological project that guys like Marco Rubio have wanted to do for years and years and years. And so they're just hell bent on doing it regardless of what else is on the table. Yeah, great question. Stephen Miller is definitely or sorry, Marco Rubio is in that latter camp, right? He is the ideological. He's been trying to do this since the day he came in. Now, the rest of them are kind of, you know, a little bit all over the place.

27:47I will say, you know, Pam Bondi, Susie Wiles, all these other Floridians, they're more ideologically more aligned with Marco Rubio. Trump was firmly in the resource camp. That's all he particularly cared about. He's also he's the person he hates drugs like any mention of drugs. Rubio can hang his hat on the 2020 indictment around Maduro to convince Trump. You would think that was somebody like Trump, like, you know, I'm the I'm the dealmaker. You know, I can make deals with anybody. You would think he would lean in that direction, right, of Maduro's making me a great offer, whatever. That's what we were hoping.

28:18That's what we were hoping. So is Marco Rubio just that influential or? Yeah, well, I mean, this is part of the, Ryan, you can talk to this. People are not like, he's the most powerful man in national security since Henry Kissinger. Like it is almost no American parallel in modern history. It's really interesting. We thought when Rubio was put in that job that he would be a marginal figure. and boxed out and that Trump would get rid of him by the time his daughter was ready to run for Florida Senate. Instead, he has played the palace intrigue game quite effectively. We report in this story that there's effectively what people internally call a gang of five that run foreign policy, which is entirely unusual because there's an entire national security and foreign policy apparatus that has been set up over decades.

29:09and Trump has basically reorganized it. And so this gang of five is Susie Wiles, the chief of staff. And these are basically the five people that run foreign policy. Susie Wiles, the chief of staff. Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff. Then Whitcoff, Marco Rubio. And who's even the fifth person? Those are the - J.D. Vance. Oh, J.D. Vance, yeah, which is also like unusual, but not necessarily surprising. But that's not, But certainly Kamala Harris wasn't in any, you know, if there would have been a gang of five in Biden, she wouldn't have been in it. So those five on the outs are basically everybody else kind of fighting, fighting their way in.

29:49And so then it just becomes this real game of intrigue inside the administration for who can who can talk to Trump last and what arguments they can make. And also the Florida Hawks believe that if they can topple Venezuela, that Cuba follows. Yeah. Like the reverse domino theory that they've been working on since the 70s. Yeah. And just to explain a little bit more of the National Security Council thing, one of the reasons why you really want an independent national security advisor is their job is to kind of be an advocate for the president to get as many different viewpoints as possible. Now, it's been corrupted, obviously, many times in the past.

30:26But theoretically, the job of the National Security Advisor is to convene something called the Principles Committee, where you take options from the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Homeland Security, and then you say, OK, we need a hawkish option. We need a medium option. We need a latter option. The thing is, is that Rubio, as an ideological actor and the secretary of state, kind of had two different prongs at his disposal. He can control the information that's even getting to the president's desk, and he gets to put the information in there. Right. And so there's been a bit of a breakdown in how the normal process is supposed to work, which explains so much of Trump's movement in this direction.

31:06And there's just a variety of like political convenience inside the admin at the same time. And so that's why I genuinely think this is much closer to happening than Iran. And we got very close. Well, because who's on the other side? Right. That's what I'm saying. I mean, in Iran, you had warring factions and here you've got an alliance. I mean, the innovation of making it about, you know, some supposed war on drugs, like literal war on drugs, not the other type that we've been having for decades. That seems to have brought all of the factions together and also, by the way, seems to have sold by and large the grassroots MAGA base, especially in the opposite in the in the absence of an opposition party to make the case and, you know, press the case in the media that this is absolute insanity on every level.

31:51I mean, I find the connect between the domestic crackdown and the powers there and the, you know, continued like war on terror style expansion of the military industrial complex and the regime change wars, like all of those pieces together, I find to be absolutely terrifying. And you're right. I'm pulling my hair out that we you know that that isn't the national conversation. It's not coming from Democrats. You know, there isn't a loud MAGA faction that's opposing any of this. The decision to make this like somehow about drugs, even though it's preposterous, seems to have really worked to get everybody on board.

32:29It's very it's very important to just, you know, last thing before I have to jump as Mr. Dad daycare is that that is the central part and kind of the political genius is it's just drugs. And I don't know why people don't question this stuff, because even aside from Ryan and I's report, which is current. But before that, guys, I mean, from the day one, Crystal, you remember this? I was like, hey, look at DEA statistics. It took me five minutes. Right. It's not hard. Like you can do a chat CPT or a Google search to go look at DEA analysis. I mean, by the way, you know, one of the sources I spoke to, it doesn't take a genius to say the absolute vast majority.

33:12And I'm saying 99 percent. It's from Mexico with precursors from China. You don't even need to believe me. Go look at previous statements from this administration and previous administrations about fentanyl. Like fentanyl is a very specific substance, which has been obviously poisoning Americans. We have a longstanding understanding of the supply chain and where it comes from. Venezuela was not even tertiary to the conversation until these recent strikes. I really tried this earlier with Canada. Trump said you're putting tariffs on Canada because fentanyl was coming through. Right. Yeah. We sealed that hole.

33:49Yes. One last side note on all of this I was reading yesterday. You know, one of the people that was randomly murdered in the Caribbean was a Trinidadian fisherman. And there's a big, a very disturbing article in The New York Times about how in these areas of Trinidad, like random charred dead bodies are now washing up on the coast. And the locals are like, what the fuck is happening? And yet, even though every other Caribbean nation has said we oppose these random assassination assassinations in the Caribbean, the prime minister of Trinidad has not and appears to be supportive. And it could be a very important military staging ground for the future operations in Venezuela.

34:39I'm glad you said that. Trinidad Tobago is actually one of the destinations for some of these boats. Look, some of these boats actually may be carrying drugs, but one of the things that Ryan and I and by the way, this actually backs up what Rand Paul and others have said about this, who are presumably are read in like at least to a limited extent as well, is that many of the drugs, if they're aboard the boats, there's not a lot of evidence they were coming here. They're more likely heading to Trinidad and Tobago, which could be a way station to Europe, because remember, cocaine is much more expensive in Europe.

35:12And in particular, the Holy Grail is Australia. So for a lot of these drug traffickers, the second part is don't forget, there are a lot of American tourists who go to the Bahamas and you go all over the Caribbean who like to buy cocaine. And so in a lot of ways, actually, that's where probably some of these drugs actually are headed if they are drugs. But the one thing we can also say is that there is no current evidence that there's some mass fentanyl operation, you know, industrial Breaking Bad style vats of chemical, you know, engineers and others cooking this stuff up. That does exist, but it's in a country called Mexico.

35:47And that is not what we are being told about right now. There's no regime change that's being mounted on that ground. Yeah, I can reach into my first book on this. Like the trafficking from South America into the United States used to go through the Caribbean in like the 1980s. In the 70s, yeah. Yeah, 70s and 80s. And George H.W. Bush really cracked down on that and he brought the hammer down in the Caribbean. Didn't have to, you know, launch airstrikes from the air. But what it did is that that's when trafficking moved up through Mexico. So drugs that are coming from South America into the United States are coming through the Mexican-U.S.

36:26border. Like that 99%. Like the idea that you would put them in a boat, take them to the Caribbean, put them in another boat, and then take them to Florida. Like that's – why would you do that when you can just run it? You know, you have these – We have NAFTA. We have millions of trucks a month that pass the U.S. border. It's just – yeah, and now we have a government shutdown. Like you think that these – yeah, go ahead. On a human level, when people keep saying, you know, on Twitter, you'll say, look, look at this boat. It probably did have drugs on it. Who do you think is piloting these ships?

37:00Let's say it is a drug. Let's say there is cocaine on this thing and it's taking it somewhere. Who do you think the cartels are putting on that? They're senior leaders. Random desperate people. Desperate people that they are many people who they're forcing to do it. This is not a put something out on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist. It's not the kingpin. It's not El Trapo on there piloting the little dinghy. Yeah, it's like you're doing this. Either we have some leverage over you or we're going to commit violence against you or your family if you don't do this. And if you do it, you get$100 or whatever.

37:35But these are highly disposable people. Like, can you imagine if we just had people at the border and you could scan the drug mules, the women who have to swallow the drugs? And then we just like if they happen to have drugs, you just sniper them right there. And then you'd have people on Twitter. But, well, don't get them any ideas, Ryan. Please don't get them any ideas. Yeah, and it does look like it would be cocaine. That's what they're announcing. I mean, that's what Trump is announcing that they have that they want to do and that they have the power to do. Ryan's scenario, like literally, I mean, you almost can't come up with a scenario that's too preposterous for these people to, you know, to contemplate and put into action.

38:17So I know Ryan and Sagar, I know both of you guys got to jump. Ryan, do you have time just really quick to break down this government shutdown news that you were taking a look at? Yeah. OK, sorry, guys. Yes, I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. It's your show. No, it's all of ours. It's all of ours. All right. I'll send pictures of P. All right. Yes. I'm gone. All right. Please do. Bye, Sagar. Welcome to the A-Building. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Menelik Lumumba. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. have both been assassinated. And Black America was at a breaking point. Rioting and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale.

38:57In Atlanta, Georgia, at Martin's alma mater, Morehouse College, the students had their own protest. It featured two prominent figures in Black history, Martin Luther King Sr. and a young student, Samuel L. Jackson. To be in what we really thought was a revolution, I mean, people were dying. 1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago. This story is about protest. It echoes in today's world far more than it should. And it will blow your mind. Listen to The A Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

39:42This is Ryder Strong, and I have a new podcast called The Red Weather. It was many and many a year ago in a kingdom by the sea. In 1995, my neighbor, Anna Trainor, disappeared from a commune. It was hard to wrap your head around. It was nature and trees and praying and drugs. No, I am not your guru. And back then, I lied to my parents. I lied to police. I lied to everybody. There were years right where I could not say your name. I've decided to go back to my hometown in Northern California, interview my friends, family, talk to police, journalists, whomever I can to try to find out what actually happened.

40:21Isn't it a little bit weird that they obsess over hippies in the woods and not the obvious boyfriend? They have had this case for 30 years. I'll teach you sons of bitches to come around here and my wife. Boom, boom. This is The Red Weather. Listen to The Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know Roald Dahl, the writer who thought up Willy Wonka, Matilda, and the BFG. But did you know he was also a spy? Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Our new podcast series, The Secret World of Roald Dahl, is a wild journey through the hidden chapters of his extraordinary, controversial life.

41:00His job was literally to seduce the wives of powerful Americans. What? And he was really good at it. You probably won't believe it either. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you, the guy was a spy. Did you know Dahl got cozy with the Roosevelt's, played poker with Harry Truman, and had a long affair with a congresswoman? And then he took his talents to Hollywood, where he worked alongside Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock, before writing a hit James Bond film. How did this secret agent wind up as the most successful children's author ever? And what darkness from his covert past seeped into the stories we read as kids?

41:34The true story is stranger than anything he ever wrote. Listen to The Secret World of Roald Dahl on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Go ahead, Ryan. All right. Yes. So yesterday, Jason Smith, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, was on Bloomberg TV. And I don't know if we have that Mirror article that we can put up with it, we can get his exact quote. But basically what he said was that there's a lot of talk in Republican circles now of the way he described it, extending the CR through December of 2026. And if you extend the CR, that's the continuing resolution, that's the budget as it was, that means you keep the ACA subsidies in place through the midterms of 2026.

42:21To have the Ways and Means chairman saying this on Bloomberg TV is a real signal that Republicans are thinking to themselves, maybe we just extend these subsidies. It's a political albatross around our necks to have the subsidies go away anyway, going into the midterms. Like it's not to me, it's always been strange that they've been stopping Democrats from letting them save themselves. And so I talked to a source in Democratic Senate leadership and and he said that, yes, that he's their sense is that Republicans believed that Democrats would cave quickly. that this would be a, and they had reason to believe that.

43:06That's been the pattern in the past. You shut it down for a couple of days, people get fired, it's chaos, you realize you're not going to win this, you bring everybody back. Republicans are realizing that Democrats are much more solidified in their position at this point. And so all of the different calculations that they've made have turned out to be wrong. And so the sense that The sense among Democratic leaders is that they actually that Republicans might actually cave. And so even if Democrats are wrong about that, the fact that they think that matters because that will then strengthen their resolve to continue with the shutdown, thinking that if we just hold on a little bit longer, Republicans are going to give us what we want.

43:54But and if they and so that's so it is it is tilting, I feel like, in the direction of Republicans saying, you know what, why are we why are we dying on this hill anyway? Like, do we want people's health insurance prices to double on our watch? Like what like what who do what do we care? Thirty two trillion versus, you know, thirty two point three trillion debt. Like, what's the difference to us when, you know, the midterms are coming up? Right. Midterms are coming up. And also, by the way, with the government shutdown, you know, the holiday season is coming up. You have people who rely on, you know, on SNAP benefits, not getting them starting in November.

44:34You know, the longer that this thing drives on, the more real world impacts that you feel. There are also one thing I wanted to mention that. So, you know, I live in this town that has a naval base, Dogger Naval Base, and a lot of the workers there are not actually furloughed because it's a, quote, working capital organization. So they sort of sell their services almost like an internal military industrial complex, like they compete and they sell services to other branches of the government. And there's other entities like that within the federal government. A lot of them, actually, people don't realize.

45:03And they will be funded basically through the end of October. So then in the beginning of November, there's a whole nother wave of federal government workers and services that will stop because a lot of that working capital funded. Those projects will run out of funding at that point and they will be out of work as well. So, you know, I think they're looking at the polls, realizing voters are blaming Republicans by and large for the shutdown. Watching Trump's approval rating is now like the lowest it's been. Democrats approval rating actually has ticked up a bit because people see them fighting.

45:35They've managed to put health care at the center of the agenda, which is obviously a much better issue for Democrats than it is for Republicans. And so, yeah, increasingly the logic looks like, all right, well, I guess, you know, maybe the least bad political option for Republicans is to extend these subsidies and also save themselves the heartache of the vast majority of the subsidies go. So 77 percent, I think, go to red states, go to like, you know, it's a disproportionate number of Republican voters, too. So why don't we just rip off this bandaid? I mean, it does make sense to me. And we've got Marjorie Taylor Greene to thank for all this, don't we?

46:09For breaking cracks in the walls here for Republicans on all this health care stuff. Do you think that created any pressure for Republicans? I think it was more the miscalculation about the strength of Democrats and their willingness to take this to the wall. So did they think the Democrats would just fold under the, oh, they're giving health care to illegal immigrants or whatever, and Democrats would feel the pressure on the immigration line? I think they thought they would fold over the pain to federal workers and the threats to fire and riff a bunch of these federal workers. Which is, as you guys have pointed out before, it's like, they're already doing that.

46:52They were doing that. They're going to continue to try to rip apart the federal government and to fire as many federal employees as they can. So, yes, when you operate in a completely lawless, reckless fashion, you take away the card of, you better hold me back. Like, it's like, Or I'm going to be crazy. Yeah. You're already crazy. Where are we with mass layoffs? Like, the mass layoffs were the threat. Like, how deep into that are we? How many people have been getting laid off? I don't have the data on that. You know, they're doing what they can. Yeah. But I think that they cut so deep into the bone previously that there's less room for them to do.

47:32The Doge stuff seemed more brutal. Yeah. Interesting. All right, Ryan. Well, I know you've got to jump, too, so we'll let you go. And Mac and Griffin and I can I have a few more things I want to say on the shutdown. You guys probably do as well. Ryan, thank you. Have a good one. All right. See you later. Have a great week. Bye, Ryan. All right. But yeah, I actually got I mean, I was going to say, I think I also thought the Democrats would cave quickly because that is my experience with Democrats. And I think they remember there was that reporting at the beginning that Schumer was trying to look for some sort of an off ramp.

48:06You know, hey, can we pass like a short term CR or, you know, the other thing that I think Ryan and Sager had floated on the show they did together was like, let's just get to November 1st. And then we can say like, oh, it's too late for these Obamacare subsidies. So we tried and the Republicans did in our way. Guess there's nothing we can do about it. May as well open up the government. I think that the leadership was very interested in pursuing some weak-kneed direction. In fact, I think leadership didn't want to do this shutdown at all. And they have felt the pressure from the Democratic base that's like, these are fascists.

48:42You cannot fund them. You cannot bend the knee. You will shut down the government. You will not capitulate. And there would be, this again is something I talked to Ro Khanna about yesterday, Like there would be a mass Democratic base revolt if these people caved to the Trump administration. So I don't think so. I mean, it's a it's a rare instance where actually there was some like grassroots Democratic, like small D Democratic input here that I think has completely shaped this entire trajectory from the Democratic Party perspective. Yeah, I totally agree. It does. It feels like they got backed into a corner into doing this.

49:19yeah and especially because it's over something that's pushing the yeah go ahead go for back i'll just gonna say ezra klein's been pushing the shutdown for a while right and he was kind of right in saying like if you do it you got to have one really clear demand it can't be a kaleidoscope of issues and seems like with the help of bernie and a few other people they zeroed on health care. The Republicans just don't have a good answer for that. Yeah, I mean, it's such a direct material thing to be like, everybody's, you know, premiums are going to double or everybody's, you know, health insurance is going to skyrocket in the next couple of months if we don't prevent these subsidies from going away.

50:00So, I mean, it's a pretty cut and dry issue. Although, like, I think, Crystal, you or maybe Ryan has made this point before where I wonder if there is any sort of broader reckoning within the Democratic Party in terms of Obamacare being a failure in general, the fact that it needs to rely on these kinds of subsidies in order to function at sort of like a bare minimum level? Like, do you think there's any sort of lane there with the base or with, you know, some faction in the Democratic Party to like open the door to a conversation about broader structural change to health care in this kind of a moment?

50:34Or is it just we're going to save the subsidies and then, you know, move on with that? I think with the base, absolutely. I mean, I think the base is there. Like that Graham Plattner poll that we saw yesterday, I was like, oh, man, you know, everything that we because this is what we've been saying from the beginning of Trump 2.0 is that the like normie liberal Democratic base has been kind of radicalized. You know, they're they're much more now where we have been. You know, they they see the failures of the establishment. They're disgusted with leadership and the end. You know, they're disgusted with people who can't call a genocide a genocide.

51:09And part of that package is, you know, more radical reform to health care, which, by the way, has been the policy preference of the Democratic base for years at this point. But they were always persuaded by like, oh, Bernie's not electable. We just can't do it. We have to be pragmatic. We have to stop Trump. That all of that calculation appears to be out of the window. I mean, you see it with Zoran's election. You see it with the way Graham Plattner is just wiping the floor with a sitting governor comes out of nowhere. And, you know, Abdul El-Sayed's strength in Michigan again against another establishment approved candidate.

51:41I mean, these are all signs that and this shutdown, the fact that the base forced the hand of Democratic leadership. it's all very encouraging to me about the way that the base wants the Democratic Party to be and that they're not going to be manipulated like sheep the way that they were, frankly, in the past. So now my big question is, you know, are there going to be like free and fair elections that allow for that transformation to happen and create a possibility of, you know, taking the country in a different direction? And maybe now's the time to play Steve Bannon talking about Trump 2028.

52:14But, you know, you have a lot of very troubling things that are happening on the election front. They are openly floating using militarized forces in all 50 states that would be there in time for the midterm elections. You have an executive order that forces all states, mandates all states to send their voter rolls into the DOJ. You have people in key positions in the Trump administration overseeing this, like, you know, elections who are 2020 stop the steal, complete nut jobs. You have the refusal to seat Adelita Grijalva by the Speaker of the House. And now you have Steve Bannon saying, by the way, in 2028, Trump's not going anywhere.

52:57I think we should believe them. Like, I don't think and that's not without even talking about all the redistricting stuff. And the Supreme Court should probably get a hand to the Republicans another maybe as many as 12 seats in the House. We're going to have a guest on from Virginia who can talk about some of the redistricting, like the counter redistricting efforts in Virginia. But, you know, they they are really they're really going for it. Like they are really going for it. It fits with the Venezuela conversation, too. You know, claiming the power to just randomly murder people. Oh, they were terrorists.

53:27They were Antifa terrorists. They were drug terrorists. Do we have any evidence? No, but they're gone now. So you should be happy. So we can imagine what that looks like for 2020. Yes, exactly. And we can imagine like what that looks like in a presidential election. What does that look like for a midterm, though? I don't know exactly. I mean, I think part of it could. So I think the one scenario that Ryan floated is that, no, they allow him to go forward more or less. But then they just don't actually like if there are subpoenas in the House, they just don't listen to him. So they effectively just bypass Congress like it doesn't exist, which is not hard to imagine because they basically already do that right now at the current moment.

54:07It's because Republicans have just completely capitulated to them. But you could see them continuing to just do whatever they want and not actually paying attention to any of the legitimate subpoenas or investigations that are launched by the House. That's one possibility. Another possibility is that they, you know, they're obviously doing all the redistricting efforts to try to tilt the playing field, which would make it so the Democrats have to win by something like five points plus in the popular vote. So we'd have to climb a big hill just to be able to win. Another possibility is that they use some of the tactics they have been using for years but ramped up in the last election where they kick legitimate people off the voter rolls and target, especially minority groups that vote disproportionately for Democrats, usually black voters, kick them off the voting rolls and so skew the results that way.

54:59Another possibility is that they, you know, the elections go forward, Democrats win the House, and Trump just insists it was all rigged and that the mail-in voting was fraudulent and refuses to seat them. And then we're in a standoff who's going to force them to seat these new members of Congress. That's why the thing that's happening with Adelita Grijalva, I think, is important because, you know, Mike Johnson is just refusing. This woman won her congressional seat. He's just refusing to seat her. So where's the forcing mechanism for that? Are the courts going to intervene? Like, how is that all going to go?

55:30And then you also have this little detail of Dominion Voting, which is, you know, they're the makers of voting machines in any number of states that were the center of all sorts of wacko conspiracy theories in 2020. Dominion Voting is now owned by a Trump 2020 stop the steal psycho. So there is a lot here. Nice. There is a lot here to be extremely, extremely concerned about. Should we play Bannon talking about Trump 2028? Yeah, let's get more. If we're not concerned enough, folks. Yeah. Well, he's going to get a third term. So Trump 28. Trump is going to be president in 28. And people just ought to get accommodated with that.

56:09So what about the 22nd Amendment? There's many different alternatives. At the appropriate time, we'll lay out what the plan is. But there's a plan. And President Trump will be the president in 28. We had longer odds in 16 and longer odds in 24 than we got in 28. And President Trump will be the president of the United States, and the country needs him to be president of the United States. We have to finish what we started. And the way we finish it through Trump – Trump is a vehicle. I know this will drive you guys crazy, but he's a vehicle of divine providence. He's an instrument. He's very imperfect.

56:42He's not churchy, not particularly religious, but he's an instrument of divine will. how we how he's pulled this off. All right. That's that's the gist of it right there. Crystal, what do we make of that? I mean, implement divine providence like and they and they get mad when we call it a cult, you know, I mean, the audacity of these people. And here's the thing I saw. I I saw someone on Twitter. I think it was Weigel, though. I don't want to, like, blame him if it wasn't Weigel. But I think it was Weigel who was like, well, listen, if Democrats can't beat an 80-some-year-old Trump in 2028. Like, just wrap it up, call it quits.

57:18You don't deserve to exist anyway. But that assumes that elections, again, are like a thing. And not just—and when I say that, I don't mean that there won't be the trappings of democracy. There's the trappings of democracy in Russia. There's the trappings of democracy in Hungary. There's the trappings of democracy in Turkey. But I'm talking about a more or less even playing field where voters actually get to express their preferences and maybe greater man or the better man or woman win. I think we're very unlikely to have that in 2028 and certainly not when they're talking like this is God's divine will to have this man occupy the White House until he strokes out.

57:58My question for Mac then, Mac, what do you think? Like you think you think that even like 1 % of the people that support Trump now would not support him running again in 2028? Will he have the same exact coalition? well I mean like Crystal said at that point if they're actually making a play for 2028 it almost doesn't really matter like if he has a lock on 30 percent of his base or whatever then that might be enough to to pull it off I guess another thought that I had watching that Bannon clip is I'm you know we've we've covered on the show a few times like some of Trump's health related stuff his hands bruising up his ankles are extremely swollen he has this this reported heart thing or whatever.

58:37And so I'm like, as a broader fascist project that they're trying to build here and dismantling the sort of facade of democracy that we have in this country, like, is this so in a cultish way centered on Trump that they don't even have a backup plan to carry on this project in 2028? Like, it's going to be like a borderline, a borderline, like on death's door, Donald Trump in 2030, who's running this project still? I mean, is that the plan? Like if Trump were to die, does this all this fall apart or like it doesn't seem like they really have a plan outside of Trump? What do you think? 100 percent.

59:18I mean, we I mean, the J.D. Vance vibe check. He's he's been not passing. People have been saying that on both sides of the spectrum. No. Yeah. I mean, all this does kind of go with him, which means that you just keep putting out fake videos of him. This administration's already shown that they're willing to post any fake bullshit, like blatant lies, memes, just completely fabricated video evidence. So like, what's to stop Trump from like being half dead in a bed and then just posting videos of him, like walking around doing the dance? Like, I think there's 100 % a chance that we would see something like that in 2028, you know, a Biden basement strategy combined with AI.

59:59Yeah. Imagine if Biden had had the AI that we have today. He could have he could have like barnstormed the country on virtual tours. I don't think it's quite there yet. Like it's still in a little bit of the uncanny valley. Yeah. Zone, but very likely by the time you get to 2028, they will have figured it out enough that we could legitimately be fooled by it. And certainly there's Trump is so distinctive and there's enough of his comments on record that it wouldn't be hard to, like, come up with things that he's allegedly said. I mean, this stuff sounds so fucking insane, but every day I read some other news article that is equally, if not more insane than the craziest things I could come up with in my head.

1:00:36So it's your question of whether or not this whole thing falls apart without Trump. I am of two minds about it. OK. Number one, I think Trump is a kind of singular figure. I used to kind of reject that. I used to kind of reject that. But now I do think the combination of his celebrity, his comedic stylings, his charisma, his unique pull on the culture, like this, you know, almost reptilian instinct that he has for pushing society's buttons and keeping his name in the news constantly and like keeping us all just agitated about him all the time. Like, I do think he is a sort of singular figure. However, we have to look around the world.

1:01:22Like, we're not the only country that's backsliding on democracy. We're not the only country that is seeing the rise of far-right fascist movements. And there's a reason for that. It's because, you know, you've had a failure of the, you know, the ancien regime, the neoliberal order, which has failed to deliver for people materially, which has turned on a wealth pump that has, you know, immiserated the working class and continues to pump more and more wealth into the hands of a few. And, you know, State Rep Sam Russell has joined us now. I'll just finish my rant here about the wealth pump and inequality.

1:01:56And then we'll chat with you about what's going on, Virginia. But welcome. Great to have you. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, of course. So we were just talking about whether if, you know, when Trump is no longer with us, whether the MAGA cult coalition is able to survive. And I was saying, on the one hand, I think he's singular. On the other hand, we have to recognize the underlying dynamics that brought us to the place where a large swath of the American public is open to effectively a fascist movement. And, you know, I think wealth inequality is at the center of that. And Mac and Griffin, you guys were mentioning AI, like AI is only going to consolidate even more extraordinary powers and in the hands of a few and money and wealth in the hands of the few and to absolutely a misery.

1:02:45I mean, their goal is to put to make human labor irrelevant. So so, you know, I I don't think we like there's even with Trump gone. If we don't respond in a way that's necessary and offer an alternative vision and allow people to share and broadly in prosperity, then we are definitely not going to be out of the woods. So with that being said, State Rep. Rasul, guys, just so you know, a little bit of the background, I'll allow you to introduce yourself as well. He is a longtime state representative in Virginia in the Virginia House of Delegates, also happens to be Palestinian-American, has been attacked by prominent Virginia Democratic candidates and elected officials for his views and his opposition to genocide.

1:03:30side. He is one of two muscle members of the Virginia legislature. And, you know, it's just a really interesting, I think, thoughtful person. So, Sam, great to see you. Yeah, great to be with you. Thanks so much for having me, Crystal. Yeah, of course. I don't know if you remember, but I'm pretty sure we talked back in 2010 when I was running for Congress and you had just run in 2008. Yeah. And probably I'm sure I asked you for advice. I probably also asked you for money. But in any case, it's nice to be nice to be reconnected with you. And there's a lot I want to ask you about. But the first thing is, I just saw this news that the that Virginia Democrats.

1:04:04OK, I think of jumping into the, you know, the redistricting wars and, you know, trying to to redraw the Virginia state map to add a couple more likely Democratic seats. One of them would actually be in the area where I live here in King George County. But in any case, Sam, can you break down for us what is going on here and your view on it? Yeah, I was one of the few who actually voted for redistricting reform because I believe that there needs to be a fair process. I believe that we should try to remove as much as possible the partisanship out of it. The reality, though, is that Trump has ordered these, especially Republican state legislatures, to redraw the maps.

1:04:46This is cheating and it's being done mid-cycle, breaking all the rules as usual. and what we need to be able to do is to keep our options open. The way it works technically in Virginia is Virginia needs to make a decision or pass a resolution before an election. We have an election in about 10 days and it's a long process, but the end of that process has a referendum going to Virginia voters. So all we're doing is a procedural motion that allows us to maybe, if things continue to get out of hand, allow for Virginia voters to decide what we should do.

1:05:28How amenable are your Democratic colleagues to this move? Is anyone squeamish about it? Or is everyone like, listen, we got to fight fire with fire? Look, the reality is, is when Trump ordered Texas and now other legislatures, we saw North Carolina just completed theirs, to break the rules and cheat and say we're going to redraw the maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, And unfortunately, that's just thrown all the rules out the window. And so in Virginia, what we have said is we're not drawing maps next week. We're not doing that in the short term because we can't constitutionally. But what we can do is procedurally keep our options open.

1:06:07And so what we have to have is a vote before the election, a vote after the election with the new legislature. And then that sends a referendum and Virginia voters decide what should we do about this moving forward? Gotcha. So it has to go to the voters before any maps can really be redrawn. I'd love for you to talk a little bit about, you know, you represent Roanoke, which for people who don't know is like in the southwestern part of the state and part of Appalachia. So you're not, you know, up in northern Virginia. I think it gives you a bit of a unique perspective. What are you seeing in terms of how voters are feeling about this administration, how they're feeling?

1:06:44I've seen Virginia has you have an election. Everybody in Virginia, you know, the governor's race is this year as well. How are people feeling about, you know, the state of the country right now? Look, being the only Democratic legislator in the western half of the state, this little blue dot in a sea of red, the reality is I think that there are a lot of folks who don't know the difference between when President Obama was in office, then President Trump, President Biden, now back to Trump. We have been in a place to what you were saying just before I came on about the socioeconomic disconnect.

1:07:18We left so many people behind. Really about 40 years ago, began the trend in earnest in this area with NAFTA, where we said, hey, we're going to outsource all these jobs, but with no plan to make sure that people have an economic future. And so that's what, in my opinion, that is what has given birth to Trump. In 2015, when this guy came down an escalator and says, you know why your life stinks? It's because of those Mexicans, the rapists, the Muslims, the blacks. He said all these terrible things. He used identity politics because people were economically frustrated and needed to place it somewhere.

1:07:56And Democrats need to take that narrative back. How much have you seen, you know, when you ran for Congress in 2008, you know, in an Appalachian district, performed very well. But at that point, the partisan slide in Appalachia had really set it and it was just too big of a hill to climb. And so I'm curious, you've had a front row seat to watching the partisan hardening of rural Appalachian voters into the Republican Party? And, you know, like, are they just gone for good? What would be some of the direction you would take the Democratic Party in that would make it so that, hey, in the future, maybe you could run for that Appalachian congressional district and have a shot at it and not be just, you know, totally destroyed out of the gates because you happen to have the D by your name?

1:08:48Look, you know, if a Palestinian Muslim can get elected in Appalachia, I think that there's a place for all of us at the table. But we have to we have to think generationally here. There's got to be a long term conversation. And the reality is, is it begins with building relationships. We've got to go back and do deep canvassing, get back into these neighborhoods. And people need to believe that the Democratic brand is for them. And what I like to describe to folks is it's not a Democratic party. We are a coalition of many factions. And our faction that believes that social economics has a place, a prominent place in this conversation.

1:09:23People deserve to be inspired by a vision for their future and the future of their children. And we just haven't given them that. We've been playing into the Republican narrative for too long. There's absolutely a play here in Appalachia, in these rural parts. But we've got to put the elbow grease into it. So, Sam, you had the audacity to oppose genocide. I wouldn't think that that would be a controversial position, but apparently among some it is. How has that what is the response to your position there been? Well, we've been through the gamut right from two years ago when when we were saying, well, I mean, how could they be attacking these hospitals?

1:10:05People have said, oh, Israel would never attack hospitals. And now almost every hospital has been attacked. Every university has been obliterated. There's a genocide that we are funding with our own tax dollars. And I think people are frustrated. And there's a thread, and you're seeing it, I'm sure, on the right and the left of people saying, why are our tax dollars going there? And I think if you take a Republican and you ask them, you know, America first or Israel first, I think their heads will explode because they don't know exactly how to answer that many times. But if we can reclaim the narrative and say, look, this is one of the darkest moments in human history to watch a genocide play out piece by piece.

1:10:48When is never again really mean never again? And I will tell you that in my lifetime, nothing has brought the Jewish community closer together to the pro-Palestinian community than this genocide. It has been a silver lining because on the front line of every single one of these protests have been one of my Jewish brothers and sisters saying, this does not define me. This does not make up who I am. What have you made of the, you know, the failures on the Democratic side? You know, Democrats are supposed to be these humanitarians, supposed to believe in international law, supposed to believe in human rights.

1:11:26And I feel like belatedly now you start to see a little bit of a shift. But, you know, we've watched these, you know, under the Biden administration, we were funding these wars. You've had very few members of Congress who are willing to call it a genocide. And Abigail Spanberger, who's the Democratic nominee for governor in Virginia, was critical of some of the comments that you made. Well, look, I have tried to clarify with folks that it's not Judaism. It's not our Jewish brothers and sisters. This is a political supremacist ideology called Zionism. And Zionism wants to destroy everything in its way to get what it wants.

1:12:05And we know that the AIPAC network, as well as a variety of other funders, are coming in and pushing this on us. And so when we can kind of, number one, even like in defense of Judaism, that this is a political supremacist ideology that's been around over the past hundred years that has kind of taken over, saying this is really the enemy. It's not just Netanyahu's war that we've got to push back against. It begins to crystallize things for folks because they framed it as though it's Jews versus Muslims and forgetting that most of the Arabs in America are Christian. But it's not a religious war.

1:12:43It is wanting to steal land and eradicate a people as they try to have this conquest. Right now, we are seeing that Gaza is the litmus test. If you're running for higher office, for U.S. Senate, for U.S. President, where were you during the darkest moment in modern history? Where are you on this Zionist propaganda and ideology that is wanting to control our politics? I'm glad we're having that conversation. Griffin and Mac, you guys got anything? Yeah, I mean, to your point earlier, it seems like it's a unique opportunity here where, you know, you can make a right wing case against continued support, funding, arming, giving diplomatic cover to Israel to the right.

1:13:26And you can also make it to the left, whether it's from the America First angle or it's from a more humanitarian centered angle. And also in terms of the foreign influence peddling and organizations like AIPAC, it does seem like it's a unique opportunity to have a broad coalition on what I think many people used to think of as a super divisive issue amongst the voting base. So where do you think that this could go in a state like Virginia? Do you think there's an opportunity there across the state to build some sort of a cross coalition there at the upper levels? Or is it mostly just consolidated amongst the establishments of both parties right now?

1:14:03Well, there's clearly a thread. And we have seen a variety of folks on the right who have taken advantage of the opportunity to kind of break the chains themselves. I wish that they would talk kindly about a variety of other issues that we care about. But more importantly for us is to not just stand in solidarity with Palestinians. you know, as a Palestinian American, what we want to show is that this is all interconnected. And if you are against the military industrial complex, if you are against war, if you are an environmentalist, if you believe that we shouldn't have paid for American bombs to drop over six times the number, the amount of bombs that we dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima on this little Gaza Strip, then you can see that there's a thread here that's interconnected in the progressive movement where you have, you know, the Israeli military training American police officers, where you've got so much of this that's got to be broken.

1:15:10If we're going to have a true progressive movement, if we're going to talk about lives mattering, then we've got to make sure that we're coming together as not just an in solidarity with all these movements, but to realize it's all one movement as we move forward. And Representative Rousseau, another thing that we hear a lot is like, well, you should just, you know, Americans don't really care about foreign policy. We should just focus on bread and butter economic issues. What is your response to that? Because my experience has been that people actually connect these things quite a lot. First of all, they're just horrified morally to be involved at all in the slaughter that they see on their timelines and their news feeds every single day.

1:15:53And second of all, they're like, wait a second, we have a lot of problems here at home. We're about to see these subsidies expire for the ACA. People's premiums are going to skyrocket. Rural hospitals, probably in areas like yours, are going to be closing. And we're shipping all of this money routinely to the people who are bombing babies? What is happening here? So you described as a litmus test issue. I've also seen it be much more important to the election of Donald Trump, to the success of Zoran Mamdani, to a lot of these Democratic primaries that are playing out. I've seen it be much more central to voters' calculations than perhaps the polls would really suggest and certainly that the establishment thinks.

1:16:32$30 billion plus we have sent during this genocide. That really opens eyes right away. People are saying, man, what would that pay for? You pay for a whole variety of things, not only completely ending homelessness in America, but doing things like being able to make sure we've got all of our kids as I'm the chair of education here in Virginia. And we've got a bill that comes through every year that I hate not being able to fund, which is free meals for all kids, right, in school. You know, so we've got so many priorities and here we are feeding into the military industrial complex. And when you tie it back in, look, it's I think it's very fair for people to ask the question, like, what's in it for me?

1:17:12Why does this matter to me? There are so many problems in this world. And in this case, when you've got our free speech being squashed by the Zionist movement, when you've got$30 billion plus that has gone to this genocide, when you have this authoritarian regime that's working hand in hand with war criminals like Netanyahu and some others, it clearly has an impact on us. And we can't divorce it. And so we've got to say, look, this is part of a broader movement, whether we're sending$20 billion to Argentina, to a right wing authoritarian down there. It's$40 billion now, by the way. The price tag went up.

1:17:55Even worse. $40 billion. The reality is, is we've got our priorities that we've got to figure out here in Virginia, but certainly in the United States. And that resonates with folks. So we need to make that connection and we're happy to do it. And as look, and as as the only Democrat in the western half of the state and being a kind of super minority out here, I have to do that all day and talking with folks. And I think that that's our challenge and our charge as Democrats moving forward. I've got a behind the scenes question for you, state rep. So, you know, we are technically in a tenuous ceasefire right now.

1:18:34Very tenuous. You know, Israel still struck Gaza recently and and we're not sure every day if this is going to hold. Has that given some of the, I would say, more Zionist or people who don't want to talk about Palestine and the Democratic Party, are they relieved? Are they like, finally, we can move on to other subjects? Because, you know, we've done a lot of reporting on groups like the Dem Dark Funded Money Group Chorus. And a lot of the instructions within that were like, you know, just don't talk about Palestine. You know, it's just too divisive. It's not something that brings people together and unites people.

1:19:07So let's just kind of avoid the subject. Are you hearing behind the scenes any sort of liberal relief that they can start to pretend like the issue doesn't exist anymore, that they can move on and talk about other stuff? What are you hearing behind the scenes? Yeah, I mean, what we see on the ground is I think people wanting to release the issue. But it was very, very clear right away. I was in a hair salon the other day and just talking with folks and people were just talking. I told you all that Trump was trying to make that into some kind of real estate development for Jared Kushner. You know, people, I think, saw right past this farce of a peace deal.

1:19:53And that's why you didn't see me and other Palestinians celebrating this at all, because we know the reality that the West Bank is Gaza 2.0. They've already tons of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank have already been pushed out of their homes. We see that Americans are being locked up in Israel, even kids. American children are locked up in Israel right now. You know, what are we doing allowing this craziness to continue? So people would like, I think, to move on in some respect. And I know it's tough. I mean, watching genocide, watching the mass starvation, the intentional forced starvation from Israel.

1:20:34But if we allowed for this neoliberal movement over the past several decades to create space to justify a genocide, to create space to give us Donald Trump, then anything can happen. None of us are safe. And we've got to make sure we keep bringing all of this to the forefront. That is such a great point. I do have one last question, which is about health care in your area. I mean, you have the quote unquote big, beautiful bill, you know, the massive cuts to, you know, to Medicaid. You've got the rural hospitals that are under threat. You have the ACA subsidies, which are, you know, not at this point extended.

1:21:17You know, how does this mess impact the constituents of your district? And, you know, what are you hearing from people about the impact of our broken and wildly expensive and inefficient health care system? Well, having the fourth highest Medicaid utilization rate of all of the legislative districts, I have a district that is very much in need. And we have about 350 ,000 Virginians who are about to be kicked off of Medicaid because of this terrible bill. So it's going to have and is already having profound impact because people are in anticipation, just frantic about what's happening right now.

1:21:56And so bread and butter coming back to how can we be defending democracy? This is what happens when we lose touch. And and this is and I see the establishment of folks wanting to keep pointing at Trump. Yeah, look, I tell him, look, the fight is on two fronts always. Number one, pushing back against the hateful policies from Trump and his cronies. But number two, we have to have a vibrant debate about how we got here in the first place. And not only how we got here, but like Groundhog's Day, we elected Trump, we had this what we so-called reprieve, and now we're back with Trump. And the reality is, is we just lost touch with way too many folks.

1:22:41And while the wind is at our backs right now with the terrible things that Trump is doing, we need to fix the kind of broken establishment as we move forward. All right. Well, Representative Rassoul, thank you so much for your time this morning. We're extremely grateful. People want to check out your campaign or support you. I know you're up for reelection here in just a couple of weeks time. Voters are actually already going to the polls. So where can people find more from you? Yeah, they can check us out on SanfordVA.com for sure. And hopefully we'll continue the conversation and think through how we can approach all these issues in an intersectional way.

1:23:17Yes, agreed. Great to see you. We'll include your links in our description of our video. Thank you, State Rep. Folks, that's going to do it for the first half of the show. In the second half, we have a lot of fun stuff. I have an insane artificial intelligence ad from Andrew Cuomo. We have an Eric Adams endorsement. We've got more Curtis Sliwa. I'm also going to ask these cringe lefties, Crystal and Mac, about the Bernie Borders clip on Tim Dillon. We've got a lot of spicy stuff in the second half. If you want to see that, go to breakingpoints.com. Sign up for a membership. We've got yearly and monthly.

1:23:53And we'll see you all in the second half. See you then. Bye-bye. Over the last couple years, didn't we learn that the folding chair was invented by black people? because of what happened in Alabama. After Montgomery Brawl. This Black History Month, the podcast Selective Ignorance with Mandy B unpacks Black history and culture with comedy, clarity, and conversations that shake the status quo. The Crown Act in New York was signed in July of 2019, and that is a bill that was passed to prohibit discrimination based on hairstyles associated with race. To hear this and more, listen to Selective Ignorance with Mandy B from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:24:31This is Ryder Strong, and I have a new podcast called The Red Weather. In 1995, my neighbor, Anna Traynor, disappeared from a commune. It was nature and trees and praying and drugs. No, I am not your guru. Back then, I lied to everybody. They have had this case for 30 years. I'm going back to my hometown to uncover the truth. Listen to The Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. you know Roald Dahl he thought up Willy Wonka and the BFG but did you know he was a spy in the new podcast The Secret World of Roald Dahl I'll tell you that story and much much more what?

1:25:14you probably won't believe it either was this before he wrote his stories? it must have been okay I don't think that's true I'm telling you I was a spy listen to The Secret World of Roald Dahl on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.