12/11/25: Trump Seizes Venezuela Tanker, Trump Voter Rebellion Over Failures

25:41That's his beef with it. Let's take a listen to A3. Do you disagree with President Trump's ultimate goal of regime change in Venezuela? Look, the bottom line is President Trump throws out so many different things in so many different ways. You don't even know what the heck he's talking about. You know, obviously, if Maduro would just flee on his own, everyone would like that. But we don't know what the heck he's up to when he talks about that. So it's very, very, you cannot say I endorse this, I endorse that when Trump is all over the lot, not very specific and very worrisome at how far he might escalate.

26:15Yes, actually, you can say I endorse this or I endorse that. It is not hard to say. I do not support a regime change war in Venezuela. But the truth is Schumer and other Democratic leaders as well. They're on board with this. I mean, they were all behind the whole Juan Guaido attempted coup. And Biden, this is why I can't, we can't, this is a bipartisan story and any honest telling of it ignores that, right? Is that Donald Trump, yes, the Juan Guaido situation supported by Marco Rubio, but also by the Democrats. Don't forget, he was at the state of the union. They all stood up for him. Nancy Pelosi.

26:47I covered that with you. And I remember saying, I go, man, anytime you see two people standing up at the state of the union, if it has nothing to do with like a veteran or a gold star widow. It's like, we're in trouble. Like we're in trouble. Anytime people on both sides of the aisle are all standing up to cheer something. That's what happened. Chuck Schumer, all these people, they buy the fundamental premise of regime change in Venezuela. And just to again, sit with this, this is an action genuinely extraordinary. She talked about Iran. She's totally wrong. What I have, you know, I did my research in terms of the oil tankers.

27:19Here's how it usually goes. We issue a threat. We say you need to transfer the cargo. The United States Justice Department is going to seize this based on XYZ sanction endorsed by the United States Congress. We do not, like as I said, 2014, last time we physically boarded a vessel. She said we do this to Iranian oil tankers all the time. Completely false. Now, do we run up on them and say, hey, you need to surrender and all that? Yes. But by force like this? No, no, no. Like this is serious. We're pulling down from a helicopter. Right. I mean, this is serious shit. And beyond that, the United States Congress has never once declared, never once war on Venezuela, has not endorsed regime change on Venezuela.

27:59And at this point, I would say, I'd be like, okay, now I think it's a horrible idea, but if you're gonna do this, you need to go to Congress. And I want their asses on the line. I want everybody to vote for it. So if this shit ever backfires, I wanna hold you accountable. But they don't wanna do that. They wanna hold behind the cameras in DC and Chuck Schumer can sit there and say Donald Trump doesn't know what he's doing, But, you know, at the end of the day, he's doing it incompetently, but I still kind of support it. Yeah, well, I can't really endorse or unendorse. Yes, actually, you can. No, you can.

28:28You can. Like, it's not all dependent on Donald Trump. You could have your own view of things. But the truth is he does, and he, like low-key or high-key, supports it. I want to give a shout-out to Roe, gave excellent comments on the floor yesterday. Chris Van Hollen gave excellent comments on the floor yesterday. So there have been some really powerful but potentially minority voices from the Democrats on this. But in terms of the leadership, they are very reluctant. And I don't even understand it because it's not like Democrats win in Florida anymore. You know what I mean? Like Florida is not a swing state anymore.

29:03You don't have to do this shit anymore. Like you could just oppose this and join where the American people are and say, no, we don't want a war for oil. We don't want a war for these South Florida neocons. We are not on board with this whatsoever. You could just do that, even if you're just reading the cynical political calculus. But even that is beyond them because they are so ideologically committed to these global regime change operations. Yeah, and considering, you know, what else is going on, I do at least want to highlight there are rumblings in Congress. And some of this was sent to me by Eric Sperling.

29:37He's over at Just Foreign Policy. This is pointing out that even a guy like Ryan Zinke, he was a Trump cabinet official. He's one of the most hawkish members of Congress. Even he is going on CNN and he's like, look, we may need to pump the brakes here. They don't have unlimited powers to launch war in Venezuela. A8, please, let's put it up on the screen. The president has powers, but he doesn't have unlimited powers. When it comes to using force against the country of action is that this is why we have Article 1 and Article 2. He has to present a case to the Congress. Congress is the only body that can declare war.

30:13Should the U.S. go to a land war in Venezuela over this? Venezuela. You know, I am an advocate of the Monroe Doctrine. You can't have a drug-dealing country like Venezuela in the soft underbelly of the United States, which is the Caribbean. You can't have a country that's running narco-terrorists and drug boats by air, sea, and land constantly running against U.S. policy and the policy of being a safe, secure Caribbean. Is that a yes? I would leave that up to Congress. See, I would leave it up to Congress. Also, again, Monroe. Oh, Monroe Doctrine. It's like Munich, you know, whenever we have to talk about it.

30:53You don't know anything about the Monroe Doctrine. You literally don't know. And it was designed, as I said, in the 1800s to keep the European powers out of Latin America and the Western Hemisphere. Then, and probably you don't even fucking know this, there's something called the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which says the United States has a right to intervene in Latin America, also designed at the time of European monarchies to say that if Germany, for example, was going to intervene or invade Brazil, I think it was Argentina. It was one of those countries at the time that, no, the United States instead has a right to do so.

31:27None of this has to do with an ideological war, again, inspired by emigres, mostly rich emigres, let's be honest, of the Venezuelan and Cuban emigre population to Florida, who now literally are occupying our government. Who will never let the Cold War die. It's not just Cold War. It's like, again, who rules Venezuela is not our problem, period. Especially if they're going to give us oil and they'll accept the money. I mean, what else could you want? Why do I care? Oh, we stole an election. You know how many people stole elections around the world? How many dictators? We just received the Saudi monarchy, right?

32:09Literally. A literal al-Qaeda terrorist. Yes, the president of Syria. Oh, we're dropping the sanctions on them. And Crystal, he seized his country by military force, right? Oh, they're spooky and bad, right, though? I mean, this is what I'm saying. It's preposterous. We deal with bad people all over the world. Not to mention that our sanctions and our program against Maduro and also against the Cubans, like, it's part of what helps prop up these regimes. Because Maduro can blame all of the problems of Venezuela on us, even when some of them are his doing. I mean, I think it also contributes to the authoritarian bent because you're under so much pressure and have so much pressure coming externally.

32:49It makes you want to and need to rule with an iron fist. This is not an excuse or anything like that, but it's just to explain how incredibly stupid and counterproductive, damaging our foreign policy has been and our sanction policy has been, especially with regard to these countries. So, yeah, so, I mean, here we are. Sagar, what's your estimation of, like, are we, is this just happening? Is that where we are? The decision has been made? Because it seems like there's been waffling in the past number of weeks. They continue to believe that Maduro will just step down. Like, that's really what this is about, is this is about a military pressure campaign.

33:29There is one saving grace to this, which is that they are still terrified of U.S. boots on the ground. Now, I'm not saying that can't happen because here's, I mean, look. If the United States oil tanker, I mean, freaking Captain Phillips, who was like a merchant marine captain who was seized by Somali pirates, we sent three U.S. warships, dropped 100 Navy SEALs and sniped three of them in the head in the middle of moving waters just to protect the primacy of the American flag on the high seas. It's an act of war, right? I mean, that's why we treat it the way that it is. This is one of the, I mean, literally the point of the United States Navy is to guarantee the seas, you know, for commerce, for the United States.

34:09This is something we would never tolerate. We would absolutely go to war over something like that. And frankly, we should. We should. Okay. And so my point is, but yeah, but even the Houthis never fired on a U.S. ship. That's right. That was all on behalf of Israel. That's what I'm trying to say. It's like, if this was actually a United States oil tanker and another country, oh my God. Even I would tell you, I'd be like, blow their asses out. We said they were terrorists for what they were doing. And it wasn't even to us. It was to Israel, right? Or to a British ship or whatever, like some other US ally ship, which again, I don't know why that's my problem.

34:41Last time I checked the British Navy's, their pride and joy, let them deal with it. But we can step back. The point remains solely that they are still afraid of actually putting troops on the ground. But how quickly could this all spiral out of control? What if one of those guys fired at a US? What if a US Marine, God forbid, was killed in this action. Can you imagine that? And then the bloodlust here in this country. And this is why, this is just like Iraq. It was an ideological project from the beginning. WMD was a pretext. That's why I've been screaming so much about fentanyl. It's bullshit.

35:13It's complete bullshit. It's literally fake, fake. And it's faker than WMD, to be honest. You know, they had much more of a case that time around. Jon Stewart did a good job of breaking all that down. But it's like the fentanyl thing, you know, created this thing where the narco-terrorist is now in the lexicon. And now that's all over Fox News. And the brain-dead MAGA people, they believe it. And now the oil, they're like, well, just like overthrowing Saddam, it's like, well, it was about WMD, but that's why we need to replace him and de-bathify. It's all part of the next logical conclusion. This has all been part of regime change from the beginning.

35:49Now, the final thing is we should be at least assured they are still afraid of a Libya-style situation. They want Maduro to just hand power over. But let me just even say that. Is even, you know, look at Libya. Let's say even militarily, we don't strike Venezuelan land and Maduro just goes. You think, like, he's, the Chavez people have been in power now for like 20 some years. Just because he goes, what, you think that the people who have a monopoly on the use of force are just going to be like, here, Maria Machado, here's my rifle. Yeah. Right? No, that's not how it works. Or that the people of Venezuela are just going to accept like, Oh, yes, thank you for our U.S.

36:26puppet regime. We accept this and are happy about it. Yeah, I mean, probably not. Maybe some, but maybe not other. What does the history of that tell? What Iraq? Saddam was a bad guy, okay? He killed hundreds of thousands of his own people, literally gassed women and children. Well, guess what? After he left, it was way worse. And you have to just be honest about that. That's maybe what happens in Venezuela. And created new terror cells. It created new terrorism. and security threats to the U.S. I mean, look, you got Venezuela, which they claim is a drug capital. And it's like, oh, let's just plunge the country into civil war.

37:00I'm sure that won't be to the benefit of the guerrillas, right? Oh, civil war in Latin America's never been exploited by drug traffickers. Colombia, oh, right. You know, read a fucking book. I mean, this is where, you don't even have to read. You could watch Clear and Present Danger, like, you know, some movie from 1990. This was long held as some sort of wisdom, wisdom, post-1980s, 1960s to 1980s, like direct meddling in Latin America, which did not work out to the benefit of U.S. interests. Almost everyone in hindsight is like, yeah, man, that was crazy, right? The Sandinistas. And I mean, even going back to the whole Banana Republic stuff, like most people look at that as a pretty shameful part of U.S.

37:44history, which again, beyond that, like, did it work out to U.S.? Like, no, it certainly didn't. And that's why putting this all full circle, the press, I mean, that absolutely normal clip, that should live in infamy for real. It really should. You can't say that. It's not true. And people just don't have the requisite knowledge base or they don't either read or they're not skeptical of the government's claims. And we have a bipartisan wish for expelling Maduro. Again, why? Because he stole an election? Maybe? I mean, can anybody even prove? Maybe he did. Maybe. Okay, and by the way, even if he did, who cares?

38:24It's the very same people. He's willing to leave, too, by the way. Yeah, just not on the same timeline. Yes, he wants to do it on his terms. Right. I mean, to your point about like, you don't even have to have read a book. You just have to have, like, existed in the United States for the past number of decades. This reminds me of why I am fundamentally a populist, because look at where the elites are, and the insane shit they talk themselves into and think they're so much smarter than the population. And then look at the polls. And in spite of all the like, frankly, half-assed propaganda efforts, you have a majority of Americans who are like, no, not on board with this random, like alleged drug boat murders, not on board with Venezuela regime change.

39:02We don't want any of this. What are you doing? So it only takes some sort of like lived experience, frankly, and basic common sense to understand what a terrible direction this is. And yet you have so much bipartisan elite support, including on networks like CNN, including from Chuck Schumer, and of course from the Trump regime and the Miami occupied government, as you put it, that we're in spite of the public being adamantly opposed to this and wanting their politicians to refocus on domestic issues and actually deliver and make their lives better. Instead, we're doing this bullshit. Yes. And again, unfortunately, it's not receiving nearly the amount of attention it deserves.

39:42They are counting on everyone to just look the other way. Oh, it's just another Trump thing. And then it'll explode out on this. I mean, you know, if we think back to Libya, you, you cut, you were, were you on MSNBC at the time? I was on MSNBC then, yeah. What was it like? Like, was it really the headline every day? Because from what I remember, Gaddafi was gone. And then after that, when did people start to pay attention? Chris Stevens, you know, after Benghazi? But there was a nine month period where shit was going bad. And that was more, I mean, certainly MSNBC was covering that, but that was more a partisan, like on Fox News, they were on it all, you know, every day.

40:15But my point is just like most, we don't remember, like even in the midst of a lot of, even Iraq, I lived through Iraq. That's when I really became cognizant of the news. You know, for a while there, after 03, you didn't pay much attention. There were years that went by. But things slide like this. Where there was very little news coverage. Yeah, there was nothing. Very little news coverage. I mean, I remember ISIS, for example, right? The Caesar of Mosul. Nobody in America had thought about Iraq for three years. We left in 2011, and then we just woke up three years later, and they took over the city.

40:43If you were paying attention, maybe you would have learned. But that's my biggest fear with Venezuela is we'll just do something. They'll declare victory, and then nine to ten months – that's how this stuff – nothing happens like this. It's a slow burn, but the results are very predictable. So I wish I could say call your congressman, but the truth is they probably support it. Well, I will say, I will say that, remember, there was, they were pretty close to some sort of a resolution. And then the White House basically lied to them and like, oh, we're not going to do anything. This isn't necessary.

41:17You don't have to pass this. And then they backed away from it. So there is at least some support for, you know, a War Powers resolution, some sort of a check on this administration. But, you know, I would bet on the side of cowardice, they don't want to be on the record. No. They're happy to, you know, even the ones. Especially the Republicans. Exactly. Even the ones who were leery of the action, they would rather just be able to, like, blame Trump if it goes wrong and not have their name on a yes or a no vote, up or down vote. So, you know, I think, look, I am really, really pessimistic because the other piece is by painting this as like, oh, Monroe Doctrine and narco-terrorist.

41:55And as Jesse Waters said, you know, America is literally in the name of South and Central America. Wait, what? Did he say that? Yes. so of course it's america first he literally said that yeah yeah so um you know i mean you don't have the same same level of dissident voices on the right that you had in the build-up to the iran strikes for example or people with access and power and influence and sway who are in the white house trying to make an opposite case or on the airwaves trying to make an opposite case and you know i mean the trump administration doesn't give a shit what lefties like me have to say or any other Democrat for that matter.

42:31And so the fact that you don't have really any competing pressure saying, no, we shouldn't do this to me is why we're in very. Yeah. They don't care about me either. The only person who maybe I wouldn't say he could have stopped it, but he would have been influential on this is Charlie Kirk. But, you know, but I mean, you know, I mean, I don't know if he would have opposed it because so many MAG voices are on board with it. I know. I mean, who can speak to the dead? Is he? Yes, he is. On Venezuela? Yes. Wow. Okay. Yeah. No, it's bad. Okay. Mm-hmm. Wow. Just wow. Welcome to the A-Building. I'm Hans Charles.

43:10I'm Menelik Lumumba. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. had both been assassinated. And Black America was out of breaking point. Rioting and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale. In 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.

43:52This 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. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult?

44:30NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka Neuro Linguistic Programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness. Mind Games is the story of NLP. its crazy cast of disciples and the fake doctor who invented it at a New Age commune and sold it to guys in suits. He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all? NLP might actually work. This is wild. Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, host of the On Purpose podcast.

45:14On a recent episode, I sat down with Nick Jonas, singer, songwriter, actor, and global superstar. The thing I would say to my younger self is congratulations. You get to marry Priyanka Chopra Jonas. And also, you know, your daughter is incredible. That's beautiful, man. Yeah. Thank you. That's so beautiful. I can see that got you a little. Yeah, for sure. our daughter she came to the world under sort of very intense circumstances which i've not really talked about ever growing up on disney in front of million how did that shape your sense of self i went blank i hit a bad note then i couldn't kind of recover and i i built up this idea that music and being a musician was my whole identity i had to sort of relearn who i was if you took this thing away.

46:03Who am I? Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's get to econ. So speaking of those things that Americans would actually like us to be doing rather than new regime change wars, Trump gave a big speech this week trying to tout his economic results and also giving us some advice about how to navigate the current economic waters. Let's take a listen. Our economy is unbelievable. There's never been anything. But the Democrats go out. Prices are too high. Yeah, they're too high because they caused them to be too high.

46:41But now they're coming down. One of the most important ways we're defeating inflation is by unleashing American energy, including oil, gas and clean, beautiful coal right here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. They gave you the highest inflation in history and we're giving you we're bringing those prices down rapidly lower prices bigger paychecks you're getting lower prices bigger paychecks we're getting Inflation we're crushing it and you're getting much higher wages I mean the only thing that you it's really going up big it's called the stock market and you 401ks You can give up certain products You can give up pencils

47:26Because under the China policy, you know, every child can get 37 pencils. They only need one or two. You know, they don't need that many. But you always need steel. You don't need$37 for your daughter. Two or three is nice, but you don't need$37. Throw back to some of the Liberation Day rhetoric about like, your kids don't need that many dolls. You don't need that many pencils. I think he's used both of those examples before. I also love that, of course, the prices are high, he says. But then in that previous interview with Dasha Burns, he was saying, oh, the economy is A++++. Also, as a father of just not even one-year-old girl, they do need a lot of dolls.

48:06Each doll has a very specific purpose, okay, in terms of when specifically and what mouthfeel the infant is looking for. So sorry, President Trump. We do in fact need lots and lots of dolls. He's the expert on parenting, I'm sure. That's true. He has a lot of kids. He's very involved in raising all of those children. Other big economic news yesterday. Everybody is watching this closely. The Fed announcing that they are moving forward with a quarter point rate cut. Let's take a listen to a little of that. Total PCE prices rose 2.8 percent over the 12 months ending in September. And excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core PCE prices also rose 2.8 percent.

48:47These readings are higher than earlier in the year as inflation for goods has picked up, reflecting the effects of tariffs. In the near term, risks to inflation are tilted to the upside and risks to employment to the downside, a challenging situation. There is no risk-free path for policy as we navigate this tension between our employment and inflation goals. A reasonable base case is that the effects of tariffs on inflation will be relatively short-lived, effectively a one-time shift in the price level. Our obligation is to make sure that a one-time increase in the price level does not become an ongoing inflation problem.

49:28Accordingly, we judged it appropriate at this meeting to lower our policy rate by a quarter percentage point. So a quarter rate point cut is a very modest cut, less than what certainly President Trump is looking for. All expectations are Jay Powell's term expires in May. Either then or even before then, Trump will be putting in his own person. He has said explicitly that what he wants from that person is for them to cut rates aggressively. Powell seemed to be indicating hesitation and nervousness. And I think the Fed was divided in terms of even this quarter rate cut because you've got those competing pressures he's talking about.

50:04On the one hand, you have inflation concerns continuing. That would argue against a rate cut. On the other hand, you have unemployment concerns increasing. So that would argue for a rate cut. So that's why they took this sort of middle ground, but signaling that future rate cuts are not a guarantee whatsoever. So, you know, what do you make of this move and how Trump will feel about it, what it'll do with the economy? Well, he's already gone after the Fed chairman. But, I mean, I think what it definitely shows you, first of all, for the Fed, this is part of the danger, is because they have more unreliable data that they have because of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and because of the government shutdown that previously happened.

50:39But beyond that, what Trump and them are doing right now is just so Biden-esque to me because very recently on their affordability tour – so he went to Pennsylvania. I believe the vice president will go to Allentown, Pennsylvania very soon. It's all built on – from what I remember the first Trump administration doing on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is they would be like, well, remember I told you that story about Paul Ryan was like, well, over a year, it should save you enough to buy a new sink from Ikea or something. That's basically what they're doing. It was a Costco membership. Yeah, Costco membership.

51:13That was a little, right. Yeah, Costco membership. Love Costco. I don't want to shit on Costco. But the point is just that they're trying to find these little things and statistics, which even if they may be true, don't really fit with inflation and are very much Biden-esque in terms of, well, we saved this amount of jobs, people do not need to hear about whether they're doing well or not. They just don't. You can never convince somebody who is financially struggling that they're actually doing better than they are. They have to feel it. And that comes from a vibe. It also just comes from basic like facts.

51:48And if you look at the balance sheet of the everyday American, it does not comport with what Trump is saying. That's why I think it's such a failed strategy. I mean, beyond the, look, Look, maybe the MAGA folks will buy it. You know, there's a lot of evidence around economic sentiment that people feel better who are Republican voters about the economy when a Republican is president and vice versa with Democrats. But I still think that much of that is beginning to erode because the economic picture of fundamentals is getting so bad. And we're about to talk about health care. I mean, it's look, ACA premiums and all of that aside, even employer sponsored health care, which the vast majority of Americans have, is way too expensive and it's bad.

52:26And most people know that. And it goes way up. Healthcare, education. You know, I was doing the 529 math recently for my daughter. And I was looking and using ChatTPT to track education inflation. And it's like, you know, I mean, I'm pretty wedded to in-state tuition because I just don't think there's that much of a difference. But even that, when you look at it, you're like, uh. Like when you're looking at 17, 20%, you're like, so I'm going to need 200 grand. This is going to outpace the S &P 500. just to send your child to a state school and just track if things don't change. And I mean, would anybody take the bet that things are going to change in higher education?

53:07No, it's the most corrupt industry in the world. So everybody can feel that, everyone. And groceries. I mean, don't we have some of the polling about how people are feeling? I mean, that flight vacation one really stuck out to me. Yeah, we can go through that. Let's put B7 up on the screen. And by the way, I don't think we pulled this, but in this affordability polling that Politico did, they found that a majority of Americans say the cost of college is not worth it. Now, if you still look at the wage premium that you achieve with a college degree, it is quite significant. It's actually growing.

53:39But that is the sentiment among the American people increasingly is like this level of debt that I have to take on. It's not worth it for college anymore. And listen, I have a daughter who's going to college next year. So I'm looking very closely at all of these things. I said the same thing to her. I'm like, we have good in-state colleges here in Virginia. Why would we even look anywhere else when the tuition is so incredibly, this is insane for an in-state school, but it's utterly insane to go out of state. In any case, okay, here are some of the findings here. They say that nearly half of Americans said they find groceries, utility bills, healthcare, housing, and transportation difficult to afford.

54:17The number one issue that people had affordability-wise was actually groceries. And I think that's because that pain point is there every single week when you're going to the grocery store and trying to figure out how you're going to feed your family. That is with you every single week. And it is so in your face and it's so in recent memory you are connected to how much cheaper groceries used to be. Let's put B8 up on the screen as well. 27 % say that they have skipped medical checkup because of costs within the last two years. So a quarter of Americans saying, you know what, I just can't go in and get a checkup.

54:54We all know what that leads to. When you delay care, then you end up in the emergency room getting the most expensive care. And it's obviously much worse for your health. So this is a little window into why we spend the most on health care and get the worst results. Let's put the next piece up on the screen. This is the one you were referring to, Sagar. 46%. So almost half of Americans. in what is supposed to be, you know, this wealthy, glorious country. Say they can't pay for a vacation that involves air travel. And I couldn't help but think about Sean Duffy telling us all we got to dress up and improving the flight experience starts with you.

55:31Like, just imagine how galling that is for 50 % of Americans who are like, fuck you, I can't even afford. Like, I can't even conceive of going on a vacation that involves air travel. And you want me to, like, show up at the airport, you know, and you're lecturing me about how I should be dressed in this theoretical air travel that I can't even afford to partake in. And then the last one we have here is food. Half of those surveyed said they find it difficult to pay for food. Majority, 55 percent, blame the Trump administration for the high price. So half of Americans saying they find it difficult just to pay for food.

56:08And people, of course, are not buying anymore that it's, you know, it's all Biden's fault, which is, you know, the two lines that Trump has are basically like the economy is amazing. A plus, plus, plus, plus. I think he actually believes that. He does. I think he believes that because all he really looks at is the stock market. And he's like, what? The stock market is up. And, you know, I'm doing all these deals and all these CEOs are coming and kissing my ass and telling me how great everything is. I don't know what's wrong with you people. I think that's what he actually believes. And then when he's sort of cajoled by his aides into talking about affordability, he calls it a con job.

56:40Or if he's going to acknowledge anything like he did in that clip we showed, he'll say, oh, well, any problems are Biden's fault. Right. People just aren't buying that anymore. And it's two things. Number one, look, you're the president. You've been the president for a year now. We're on your watch now at this point. But number two, he has been so extraordinarily active himself directly over and beyond, you know, going over the heads of Congress with his tariff policy. He has been so actively messing with the economy that, of course, that's going to land in your bucket. Not to mention all of the, you know, destruction of the federal government, all of those layoffs, which do have a significant impact on the economy as well.

57:19I think, you know, the air travel. Yeah, first of all, as I said, I do agree with the secretary. But have you seen his most recent gambit where he wants to put pull up bars in airports? So you're going to be in your suit doing pull ups? The last thing on earth you want when you're at an airport is more performative, antisocial behavior. Anybody who wants to do a pull-up in an airport, you are a fucking loser, okay? 100%. Can I be honest with you? Go ahead. I actually wished at times when I have like a long layover that there is a gym at the airport. No, that's not the same thing. Okay, a random pull-up bar that you're doing.

57:52Yeah, but like to have a gym at the airport where you can actually work out and take a shower, like, yes, I actually like that. How many people have that more long layover? I mean, who's that? over from unless you're flying internationally, you have never more than a two or three hour layover. I mean, sometimes you fly internationally. Right. But then you're going to be international. You're not going to be in America. So it doesn't even apply to us. You're probably going to be in Europe on your way somewhere else. Okay. Whatever. I'm just saying there have been times where I've like, I've thought like, I wish there was a gym here because then I could, you just feel better after you work out and get a shower.

58:19Yes. As long as the shower is involved. I'm not trying to like dress up and do some pull-ups. Who else is going to, that's right. But I'm saying who's going to do that? I mean, who's actually going to shower? Have you been on an airplane? You ever been on a flight to Florida, people don't even wear deodorant. Okay, they wear those cut shirts down here with fucking flip-flops and your disgusting smelly toes, all right? So yes, he's correct about people. Did you watch the Tim Dillon bit about Sean Owe? No, what did he say? Oh, was he good? Okay. Yeah, definitely check it out. Yeah. Let's bring it back.

58:47I have very strong feelings on air travel. All of that said, you are correct in that when you can't, look, vacation and air travel, air travel actually is a current proxy for the current U.S. economy. Because if you saw this, you would think that air travel is very cheap right now. It's actually not. It's very expensive. Part of the reason it's very expensive is because the top 10 % of Americans are actually flying and vacationing more than ever. The luxury resorts and all that are booming internationally off of the backs of rich Americans. But the poorer Americans, and this is the thing about democratized air travel itself, it's supposed to exist for everyone.

59:26That's actually one of the coolest parts of the United States is almost a third of people go on an airplane every year. And it's because of vacation to visit family. I mean, that's the purest form of like democratized travel. And to the extent that we defend budget travel, that's why people are always like, oh, Spirit Airlines. And listen, I mean, I don't want to fly it or any of that. I hate Southwest, you know, if I'm ever forced to fly it. But it's good can go visit their sister on the other side of the country. Right. And if you can't do that, you're really robbing people of a lot of experience.

59:58So 2000 Thanksgiving, the Thanksgiving was the most amount of people this year on the road since like the year 2000. Right. Yeah. 20 years or something like that. And mostly people can't afford to fly and people were afford are afraid also of the whole government shutdown TSA situation. I just think when you put that all together, uh, when you have to make trade off choices about things that you, which look, Like, you know, nobody deserves to be able to go on a European vacation, for example. But somebody deserves to be able to fly to the funeral of a family relative or to visit their – at least in my opinion.

1:00:33In my opinion. I think that that's part of the foundation of being able to live in this great big country of ours. It's also just like – I mean I feel like there used to be a real sort of aspirational celebration of like, you know, the ability for families to take the vacation. And that was understood as part of just like living, you know, that you're not just surviving. you're able to live this like fulfilling life. 100%. And complete life. And so, yeah, now people are just increasingly priced out of the possibility of that. Not to mention if you're actually, I mean, God forbid, you want to go to Disney World, forget about it.

1:01:04You better be like, have saved for years, you know. I've done the math. It is cheaper to go to Japan and to go to Tokyo Disney than it is - Than to go to Disney World. Well, the high price, like if you want the full-fledged experience, you are, it is orders of magnitude cheaper to go to Tokyo Disney, to fly to Tokyo and to go to Tokyo Disney than it is to go to Florida and to some grand Floridian. And there's, there's no little undiscovered cheap beach town. Everything is multimillion. Anyway, we're getting, getting sidetracked here, but in any case, let's go ahead and take a listen to Kevin Hassett, who was asked by actually, interestingly, a number of hosts, but Laura Ingram was kind of pushing him in particular.

1:01:44And remember, she did that interview with Trump that was kind of tough as well, where she was like not really impressed with what he was selling her. And he says, well, you know, these bad numbers that are coming out, maybe the reports are wrong. Maybe the reports are off. Maybe that's the real problem here. This is B3. Take a listen. Layoffs reached one point nine million. That's the highest since 2023. So what is that? Is that AI? Is that migrants leaving the country? Is that, you know, automation? We still have to get the government data that we lost because of the shutdown. And one of the things we're seeing is that payroll surveys, where they call up firms and say, hey, how many people do you have working with you, that they're showing much lower growth than household surveys, where we ask people, do you have a job?

1:02:32And so it could be that what's going on right now is that there's a problem with the way the surveys work. And I'll be able to talk to you in a week or so when we finally get the data we need to assess that. incredible. So blame me. Oh, maybe the surveys are wrong. Maybe that's the real problem here. She also asked him about the president's comments that the economy is a plus plus plus plus, which I really think that comment, Sagar, is going to live in infamy because talk about being out of touch. I mean, as much as the Biden administration tried to sell the economy as being better than ordinary people are feeling, no one there ever said, oh, we give ourselves a beyond perfect score.

1:03:08It's amazing. It's spectacular. And yet that's exactly what Trump is trying to sell. American people when their experience of it is wildly, dramatically divergent from that sentiment. So let's take a listen to how Hassett handles that question. President gave the economy an A++++. But you know this, I know this. The November Fox News National Survey found that 76 percent of voters still view the economy negatively. And that's up from 67 % who said the same thing in July. So you've watched these trends over the years. You've seen the ups and downs. What explains that in particular? Well, first of all, don't forget that because of Joe Biden, then a typical family buying a typical home would have to spend$1 ,200 a month more on their mortgage.

1:03:57Because of Joe Biden, groceries went from$400 for the typical family for a month to$525. And we're making an enormous amount of progress. People's purchasing power has gone up by$1 ,200 already this year, but there's still room to go. And the fact is that Joe Biden dug a big hole and we're filling the hole really fast. Biden, Biden, Biden, Biden, Biden. I mean, good luck with that. That might sell on Fox News, but not many other places. Biden tried it too. Biden tried it a year in. We covered it right here. He was like, oh, Donald Trump, Donald Trump's economy, we inherited a mess. It's December 11th, bro.

1:04:32People don't want to hear it. This is exactly when, it is amazing how quickly stuff, everything just repeats. Like that Mark Twain quote about history rhyming. Like almost exactly four years to the day, the Biden administration was doing the exact same thing. This is when Bidenomics and all of that was born. Right now, when their approval was in the shitter after Afghanistan, post-October, that's when things flipped. The vibe was totally nuked. OK, it's like all the ingredients are all right there. Well, and let's think, too, about like what was the central promise of the tariff policy, right?

1:05:04I mean, a big part of that was rich. Yeah, it was manufacturing jobs. There's going to be, you know, companies are going to be bringing back jobs. There's going to be this incredible manufacturing surge. Instead, we are seeing a dramatic. We've now had nine straight months of manufacturing decline. It's been, you know, a complete reversal of any of the gains that were made during the Biden administration in terms of manufacturing. has just been completely destructive in that regard. So whatever the promise was of the tariffs, you know, you could say, OK, well, we didn't completely nuke the entire economy, but it certainly hasn't delivered on any of the promises that were made as part of that policy.

1:05:40And to the point about, you know, whether this is even selling on Fox News at this point, I have seen polling that, you know, of course, a majority of Republicans still support the president, still support his economic approach as well. But there is starting to be some significant slippage on some of these issues, on health care in particular, on inflation, on just the sort of focus where he's placed his time and his attention. Let me play for you an interview with actually a Trump voter talking about the struggles that she is having in this economy. This is B5. My kids' daycare went up, can't afford the cost of food, using credit cards for everyday expenses, no money left after their bills are paid, pretty much just a whole bunch of financial mess.

1:06:24We changed presidents at the beginning of the year. We did. And the guy who moved into the White House said that he was going to fix it. Several times he said it would be easy. Absolutely. Has he fixed it? Absolutely not. I'm definitely waiting for him to fix it. Jones is a three-time Trump voter, but she says he has simply failed to keep his promise to lower the cost of living. I'm very let down by that. Very, very let down because I feel like it's only gotten worse. And like this lady, I don't know, you know, if she's going to vote for a Democrat, but is she going to like enthusiastically show up to vote for a Republican again in the midterms?

1:06:58And maybe she is going to vote for it. I don't know. But, you know, it doesn't take a lot of slippage with your own base to have a real political problem and also to have a real problem with apathy where people are like, yeah, you're telling me to go vote for these people. Like my life hasn't gotten better. I'm busy that day. Sorry, I'm not going to be bothered with it. And that's a lot of what they're facing politically is there is increasingly a reckoning that is happening, certainly among independents and among Democrats. In fact, the people whose sentiment has shifted the hardest against Trump are Latinos, who we have found, you know, are a key swing block and are very economy sensitive, tend to be, you know, strong economy voters.

1:07:36And also young people who are, you know, trying to trying to get their foothold in the world, trying to establish themselves, trying to imagine a future for themselves, potentially, you know, get married, have kids, like imagine that life for themselves. and they're just getting hammered and hammered and hammered. And their whole future is being sold out to these tech oligarchs too, by the way. Yeah, it's not good. It is certainly not. And look, voters, they're paying attention, convincing them otherwise. It never, ever works. 1969, Malcolm and Martin are gone. America is in crisis. And at Morehouse College, the students make their move.

1:08:09These students, including a young Samuel L. Jackson, locked up the members of the Board of Trustees, including Martin Luther King Sr. It's the true story of protest and rebellion in Black American history that you'll never forget. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Menelik Lumumba. Listen to The A-Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Black history lives in our stories, our culture, and the conversations we still have in today. This Black History Month, the podcast I Didn't Know, Maybe You Didn't Either, digs into the moments, perspectives and experiences that don't always make the textbook let me tell you about garrett morgan bro had to pretend he didn't even exist just to sell his own invention listen to i didn't know maybe you didn't either from the black effect podcast network on the iheart radio app apple podcast or simply wherever you get your podcast

1:09:08what if mind control is real if you could control the behavior of anybody around you What kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. Mind Games, a new podcast exploring NLP, a.k.a. neurolinguistic programming. Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:09:48This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.