6/29/26: US & Iran Trade Strikes, Trump 250th Fair Flops, Zohran Freezes Rent In NYC

19:35Emily Jashinsky:So a couple of things there, Crystal. First, you have Shapiro doing the move where he's comparing the Vance and Rubio foreign policy. You all interviewed Maggie Haberman and John Swan on Friday's show. Worth remembering, of course, they reported in that big New York Times piece around the beginning of the war that both Vance and Rubio were against it, that Rubio privately was saying it was his preference not to go to war at that moment. So it's always interesting to hear that continue to be invoked. But also, I think what you just heard is that Shapiro wants a very different version of the MOU, right?

20:07Emily Jashinsky:He said very bad MOU. And that's kind of exactly along the lines of what I think ultimately happens is that it falls apart, but it does so in much less high-profile fashion. And that's the—if you're Mark Levin, if you're Ben Shapiro, if you're firmly in the, like, pro-Israel camp of this, that's kind of what you want to see is the contours that originally came out be gradually changed. Eroded. Right, yeah, exactly. Well, first, we just have to pause and note how, I mean, the genuine happiness coming off of that man over a return to bombing is worth taking note of. Quote, Trump is back. Trump is back.

20:44Ben Shapiro is very happy. I'm sure this morning he's less happy now that there's, you know, back to talks and potential ceasefire negotiations. But the joy that people like him and Mark Levin get from an American bombing campaign is something I really cannot relate to. He talks about there, though, this peace with Israel and Lebanon, which is extremely, extremely significant. And of all the potential stumbling blocks, and I think this is part of why he's so happy, of all the potential stumbling blocks that could cause this whole thing to fall apart, this new there was this new supposed agreement between the U.S.

21:24and Lebanon's prime minister and Israel that did not include the significant political player in Lebanon, Hezbollah, which people have to remember is not only a fighting force, they have representatives in government. In fact, the speaker of the Lebanese parliament was very upset by this deal being struck. It has all kinds of provisions in it that really undermine Lebanese sovereignty. So for example, they're not allowed to pursue any sort of legal action against Israelis for war crimes that they have been committing. And as a result of this deal, there were actually put A11 up on the screen. There were actually protests that broke out in Beirut with some significant scenes.

22:09There were all these motorcycle groups that occupied the roads. There were some fires that were set. There was some, you know, some genuine upset and protest over this deal that was struck. We can put a 10 up on the screen. This is the Barack Ravid version of what happened here. The U.S. asked Israel for two changes in order to secure the deal, including Israeli withdrawal from a village in southern Lebanon currently under Israeli occupation. Clear statement that this would mark the beginning of a broader process of redeployment out of Lebanon. But notably, just to be clear, we asked for them to leave this one particular village, but put A13 up on the screen.

22:46There was a long list of villages that Lebanese citizens still cannot return to and have been expelled from. And yes, there is some language in here about, oh, Israel should start to withdraw in general, but nothing to fully compel them to do that. Netanyahu, A13, is very happy with how all of this went down. He said that Iran and Hezbollah have no role in Lebanon under the deal, and Israel can maintain their security zone. That is diplomatic speak here for occupation. So his view and what he's selling to the public in Israel in press conference is that this framework accord with Lebanon allows them to stay in Lebanon, occupying southern Lebanon indefinitely.

23:36So in any case, this is, you know, this is obviously going to be a major problem for Iran. They've been quite consistent, Emily, from the beginning that there is no peace deal without including Lebanon. There is upset for the public. There is a possibility, certainly, of even a potential civil war. This, again, is something that the Ben Shapiros of the world would have no problem with. And I think part of his delight is not just the return to bombing over the weekend, but the seeds of the destruction of this entire deal being planted through this mechanism.

24:06Emily Jashinsky:Yeah, I think that's right. And he basically said that in the clip that we rolled. He started with the bombing and pivoted directly to Lebanon immediately afterwards. So I think that's absolutely correct. And I think it's probably another sign. Again, we saw this over and over again with the Gaza deal. This is playing out so similarly to how that paid out. But what's interesting about that is it really did fade to the background of the media cycle. And I think that's what Trump knows. Well, here's the problem, though, is that the global economy does not depend on Gaza. Right. Yeah, no, absolutely.

24:40And so Iran, I think you're right that that may be what he's hoping for.

24:45Emily Jashinsky:It's probably why he's now moving towards separating to the extent that he possibly can Lebanon and the Iran deal, which the Iranians know they don't want. But that's, I mean, that would make sense from his perspective, how he thinks this could play out. But as long as ships and their insurers do not feel that things are all good to go in the Strait of Hormuz, the economic clock is going to continue to tick. So all of those calamitous outcomes that Trump was so concerned about that brought him to what is by, you know, any reasonable measure, a very humiliating memo of understanding and state of affairs where basically the U.S.

25:22has to acknowledge the world that we lost this war. It was the economic calamity that brought us to that point. All of those pieces continue maybe at a slightly slower pace, but continue to ramp up the pressure. Strategic Petroleum Reserve is reaching bottom of the barrel. There's only so much that China is going to be able to save us. They really curtailed their imports of oil and gas. That's part of how we were able to get to this point. And so if you continue to have a situation where it's unstable and you do not have the Strait of Hormuz open in the way that it was before, then it's going to be very hard to keep Iran on the back burner forever.

26:03It's different from Gaza in that regard. I mean, that's why you can unfortunately kick Gaza off the front pages and get people to pay attention to other things. But Iran has demonstrated they have this powerful economic weapon, and that's something that's hard to push in the background.

26:16Emily Jashinsky:Totally. It's sort of in the same way I think he saw Venezuela and got this hubris about Iran based on that. It's not that it's necessarily an accurate reading of the situation, but I think it fueled his sense of kind of arrogance about what would be able to be accomplished. And if it's not clear from everything we've just run down, this is nobody is out of the woods on this. Like this is not really a ceasefire. Obviously, we've seen that pretty clearly over the last couple of weeks. But even the MOU itself is on enormously shaky ground. I mean, yes, they signed the points and all of that, but whether the 60-day nuclear conversation is even able to happen in this context, they can keep having the meetings.

26:56Emily Jashinsky:They can keep going to Qatar. They can keep going to Switzerland if they end up back there. But it doesn't really mean much unless ships are able to keep going through the Strait of Hormuz. And so far, we haven't seen that. That is exactly right. But to your point, I think Trump, he doesn't really want to have to deal with this anymore. He has other things on his mind, Emily. Well, he doesn't want to keep hearing the candidates that are actually campaigning and trying to keep their seats chirping at him about gas prices. So he wants to get that out of the way. And to your point, Crystal, focus on the beautiful celebration of America's 250th birthday.

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29:05Emily Jashinsky:I turned off news altogether. I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything. It's the rage bait. It feels like it's trying to divide people. If we got clear facts, maybe we could calm down a little. NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News, reporting for America. The 4th of July is right around the corner and celebrations here in Washington, D.C. are off. Donald Trump's Great American Fair, Great American State Fair, I should say, is now officially open. And the early scenes could be better from his perspective. Let's roll some of the clips.

29:55Emily Jashinsky:It's very, remember the military parade that was like really pathetic. It's very much that coded. Yeah. So you see here a smattering of people. this is actually interesting. So this has been going pretty viral. I'll talk about it in just one moment. But if you saw the Israeli flag, we'll finish that in just a second. Just download that into your mind. Yep. We'll be there in just a second. But here's what it's looked like. This is pretty consistent across the last weekend, obviously the last weekend before July 4th weekend. And there have been all kinds. I think at one point the power went out and all the ice cream melted.

30:27Emily Jashinsky:So, yeah, there have been all kinds of problems and not huge crowds that may change over the course of the week, but so far just really a smattering of people. That image from inside the tent has been going mega viral of the Israeli flag and the American flag together under this big tent on the National Mall. You saw the big baptism pool there. I will say that is a tent that is always on the National Mall. They have like some type of permanent permit. It's called David's Tent, and I actually don't know much about it. How do you get a permanent permit? I don't know. It's actually really odd. Like it's always been there for the last...

30:59Emily Jashinsky:Always sent for when are we talking? Probably the last like five to 10 years. It's been pretty consistently there. So people have said, oh, it must be part of the state fair because the Great American State Fair, because it's like an official tent. It's always there. The Great Plattner administration is going to clean this up. Yeah, I don't think Plattner would stand for that permanent permit on the National Mall. But yes, if you've seen the pictures going viral. Now, that doesn't preclude Israeli flags being in other parts of the Great American State Fair. I haven't seen it yet. Not impossible.

31:29Emily Jashinsky:Wouldn't rule it out. Yeah, for sure. I bet if you walk around and see enough of the attendees, you got to have somebody there. You know how they have those shirts that have like the American flag and the Israeli flag put together? I bet you could find one of those. I'm sure you could. It seems like it should be there. Yeah. I mean, like I said, it reminds very much of the military parade, which I was all like, oh, my God, this is going to be some powerful fascist display. And then it was the most embarrassing thing you've ever seen. Sponsored by Coinbase. Oh, my God. And then the the squeaky like old tanks rolling down the street and then just like someone walking, holding this tiny drone.

32:08It was really pathetic. And this very much has that energy to it. And here's the thing is, look, I mean, I'm not the biggest like rah rah America kind of a gal. There are some things that are special about America that, you know, at our best and the ideals that I really do value and treasure. And the idea of being a country where we could all come together and celebrate the 250th anniversary, we just feel so far from that. Yeah. Trump, of course, had to make it all about himself and personalize it the way he does everything, makes it political. You had certain states that didn't even send any official sort of information or set up their booths officially.

32:51This happened with - Even Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania. Yes, that's right. Right. And North Carolina, which Josh Stein is the Democrat, is the governor of North Carolina. They didn't send an official like thing for their little state area. And so some private organizations took control of it and they put up a freaking Confederate flag.

33:12Emily Jashinsky:We have this B3. Let's roll this in the background. Let's just pause for a second that at this nation's 250th anniversary, we're going to put up the flag of a bunch of traitors who tried to break up the country, a bunch of immoral slave-holding traitors who tried to destroy the country. And so this became a whole thing. The Washington Post wrote a piece about it. They ultimately were forced to take it down. The fact that this was put up at all is just so embarrassing and egregious. But yeah, it's a sign, I would say, of where we are right now as a nation. It's a sign. It's putting Trump aside.

33:48And yes, of course, he makes it political and makes it about himself and also executes everything incredibly incompetently. Just see the reflecting pool for another trivial example of this. But this is an empire that's in decline, that people do not feel like things are great and I'm ready to go out and cheer for America. And this is part of, frankly, what Trump ran on. I mean, when he ran on American Carnage, that was an acknowledgement of how people were starting to feel about this country. And now we have this defeat in a war against Iran. It is becoming abundantly clear that our position in the world is not what it used to be.

34:24So it's sort of appropriate that this is what this lackluster, pathetic, incompetent, cheap, slapped-together display is what we are using to celebrate the 250th anniversary.

34:36Emily Jashinsky:We have some numbers, actually, that we'll get to in just one moment on just to put a finer point on the mood of the country that Crystal was laying out. But, yeah, I actually don't dislike the concept of like a great American state fair. I feel like you could actually do that. I've been to many wonderful state fairs. I'm a fan of a state fair. Yes, yes. And like to have, you know, if we were in a different place as a country to have every state represented would be actually I think you could do that in a way that's pretty cool. We'll see if the crowds pick up over the course of the week. I doubt it.

35:05Emily Jashinsky:It's going to be so hot. Crystal's doing a full meteorology breakdown later in the show, so stay tuned for that. But yeah, let's look at how Fox News handled it. So they've set up a studio on the National Mall. This is something they've been doing more and more recently, probably trying to invigorate the imagery of cable news as podcasting kind of eats away at the audience a bit. But this is B2. This is how Fox News handled it on a broadcast over the weekend. Happy early birthday, America. We're celebrating already at the great American State Fair. Man, we've got thousands of people celebrating this birthday with us, Tommy.

35:41You and I had a chance to go out. We got to see some of the exhibits. I'm sure you got what I got, which was a lot of people going, hey, love to watch it on Fox. I hope a lot of them left the mall, went home and turned on their TV. Get to watch this right now.

35:53Emily Jashinsky:Thousands. Okay. It didn't really, it looked more like hundreds in that video. Always, always hard to count these things. Let's put up the next element here. Before President Trump's highly touted Great American State Fair got off to rough start Wednesday night, with NBC News estimating only slightly over 1 ,000 attendees showed up for the opening rally on the National Mall. And Crystal, as you were talking about the mood of the country, it was making me think, actually, of Ronald Reagan, because Trump took the Reagan slogan about Make America Great Again, repurposed it in 2016 and thought that he could have that influence on the mood of the country.

36:33Emily Jashinsky:Even though he was always very polarizing, the idea was that he spoke for some type of, to borrow Nixon imagery, silent majority that would be invigorated by his platform and that would unify. Everyone could sort of see finally the unheard people feeling more heard again, and this would have a rally around the flag effect. And during the Reagan administration, I mean, by 1984, President Reagan won in a landslide. And that actually did kind of happen. Whether you like or dislike Reagan, the mood of the country over the course of the 80s, debating the policy is a different thing. But in that moment, that did happen.

37:09Emily Jashinsky:There was a confidence that came back. Yes. Morning in America, a successful Reagan ad campaign. That is not happening for Donald Trump at all, at all. It's not happening for Donald Trump in one—it's actually going the opposite direction. So this is where you can see his frustration building, building, building. He put out a true social post over the weekend. This is B5. It is a gargantuan post. This is the one we popped into a word count calculator. 600 words, according to— I wonder if he's ever written anything longer than this. If you're not watching this, you can barely see the text on the screen because it has to be so small.

37:47Emily Jashinsky:It begins, I just returned from a tour of various statues, monuments, fountains, and most importantly, an old and run-down golf course located through Washington, D.C., our nation's capital. Almost all the statues, monuments, and fountains have been completely renovated and restored and are in after suffering years of graffiti, abuse, vandalism. Perfect shape. He goes on to say, I mean, everything is in here. Golf courses, the course architect. He says it will be built through the Department of the Interior and designed to the highest standards of golf, but also in such a way that the general public will love it.

38:16Emily Jashinsky:Thank you for your attention to this matter. Chris, I think, yeah, he's talking about East Potomac Golf Course, which if you haven't been to D.C., it's like a cheap, fun, local course. Like, it's actually, it has its own little charm to it. People are very worried that he's going to totally, like, upend that. It is a beautiful piece of land. I don't even know why I'm getting sucked in this conversation about the golf course. I was going to say, like, I could see it being, if you do it right, like, I could see it being pretty cool because you have a view of the National Mall. It's actually already kind of cool, though.

38:46Emily Jashinsky:I get why people are, again, I don't know why I'm talking about this. Yeah, I have never played golf there because I just took up golf relatively recently. But that area, too, is very popular with cyclists because there's like sort of like a loop you can do that's relatively long that doesn't have much traffic. And so in any case, he wants to change all of that. But more to the point, how do you feel about the golf course and the cyclists? This is what he spends his time on, like genuinely. And this was something else we got from Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, which is abundantly clear. Washington Post did an analysis of what he talks about the most.

39:24And it's the ballroom, like the ballroom, the arc to Trump. Now the golf course is the reflecting pool. These are the things that he is fixated on and genuinely spends his heat. This is the most powerful man on the planet. He is the commander in chief. We are continuing like in this sort of like maybe we're in a war situation. There are a lot of big problems going on in the world. And he is fixated on the color of the reflecting pool and the, you know, further gilding the White House and the ballroom and picking out the tile for the walkway. This is what he spends his time on. And it does make a sort of sense with him, given both that his background is developing and he obviously has an interest in the fixtures of his buildings or whatever.

40:14Yeah. But also because he wants to leave this indelible mark on the world and specifically right now on D.C. So that when he is gone, people will have to remember that he was there. So, so much of this term has been spent on these physical, you know, manifestations of his power. That's what he is trying to impress upon this city and upon the world. And to tie it in with the Iran war, which is obviously vastly more consequential here, that is how he was persuaded to get us into this disastrous mess to start with, because he wants to be this world historic figure. This is what, again, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan talked about.

40:58He wants to shape the world in a way that is undeniable, that makes him consequential. I mean, he's already done that. He has done it. He has absolutely done it. And he would, I probably prefer that at the end of all of that, people go, and it was good that he did that. But if they go, and that was horrific, but he genuinely did change the world, he would rather have that than have just been a sort of unremarkable blip.

41:24Emily Jashinsky:And I think it's also part of it is he sees it as easier. Like, it's easier for him to come in and do landscaping in Washington, D.C., some of which is genuinely, like, the fountain at Union Station looks beautiful. Just drove past it this morning. Wonderful. Thank you, Mr. President. You voted for this. Yeah. But anyway, it is, like, it looks good. But that allows him then, I think he sees this as that allowing him to say, well, how could you possibly have a problem with this beautiful restored fountain in Washington, D.C.? How could you possibly have a problem with the beautification of Washington, D.C.?

42:01Emily Jashinsky:And he thinks then it makes it look like he is doing work for the people and everyone opposed to that can't even say a nice thing about a fountain. And so it's kind of like this. He's historically been good at kind of setting traps for his opponents in the battle of public opinion. Yeah. And I think he thought he set up something that was really good here. But when you combine it with all of the self-dealing enrichment, like the Albanians out in the street in the thousands protesting the Ivanka and Jared investment project. That's in another country, obviously, but I think especially after the midterms, if Democrats retake the House, maybe even the Senate, but if they have like subpoena powers, the news cycle is going to be focused every single day on these self-corruption stories or these self-dealing corruption stories.

42:46And when you couple the literal gilding with, and at a certain point, it does start to look

42:53Emily Jashinsky:obviously almost like he's not almost, but it does start to look very egotistical and narcissistic. It is for us. Like, obviously we get that. But if you're a casual observer of the news, you start to see a lot of it happening. And then you couple that with gas prices being extremely high, this war looking like a mess, being at war period, that is not going to work in the way that Trump thinks it was going to work. Let me strike a contrast that will help to set us up for the next block, which is Zoran has spent a lot of time in New York City thinking about beautification. Yeah, absolutely. And New York Post is very upset about him for jumping in the pool to mark the beginning of the pool season in New York City.

43:33But his beautification is very much centered around, I want to make the city wonderful for you to enjoy, for the residents of the city to enjoy, for the visitors who come to the city to enjoy. Put together, you know, this whole online schedule of here's various free events throughout the city that will help you enjoy it throughout the summer. So it's about here's what we're doing to make the city wonderful because we care about you versus Trump. This is all about him, right? But sure, it's nice to see the Union Station fountain made beautiful again, which I haven't seen, so I haven't checked it out.

44:07I can't render a decision here myself. But it is very clear that in all of these monuments he's building to himself in a literal ballroom that he can't stop talking about. These are things that he wants for his ego. It is not making the life of Americans better. It's not even making the life of people in the city better. In fact, it's causing them certain problems. So that is really the distinction in the way that they're operating.

44:31Emily Jashinsky:Union Station is a really interesting example. Again, I don't know why we keep taking this bait, but I will take it because I am a petty bitch. The weekend that they reopened the fountain, which does really look good, and it's something that should have been done a long time ago. So it was, I think, really pathetic that the way we let the gateway for so many people to the capital of the United States become totally decrepit. It looked really, really bad. And the fountain looks excellent. Just within like 48 hours of them having this big ribbon cutting ceremony, I went down there and was taking – like it's still – there's literal shit on the ground in front of the door to Union Station.

45:05Emily Jashinsky:So like you can focus on the fountain all you want, but there are not a lot of structural changes happening. And that's actually, I think, a decent metaphor for what he's doing, like liberal gilding all over the White House. He was talking about why he went to Versailles because that's real gold last week. Remember, like he was literally saying they have real gold at Versailles. That's not that's not gilded. That's real gold. Sagar's been making the Versailles comparison for quite a while at this point. Yes, he nailed it. But and here's the other thing. You talked about how you think he felt that he was setting up like a trap for his opponents of like, they can't even give me credit for the fountain.

45:36Yeah, that's beautiful. They hate me so much. I also think that these are things that he can control, which is also part of why, and Trump is not unique in this as president, now that he has lost—he doesn't have much ability to control. Well, I mean, Congress will pretty much do what he wants, but you've got a filibuster there. He's preferred to take just executive action. There is some limit to what you can do through executive action. He's very unpopular. You know, his immigration agenda even has been subject to a massive backlash and he had to pull back on some of the more maximalist aims of that.

46:11In any case, the things that he can control are foreign policy, has tons of power and these like local beautification projects because of the nature of D.C. and the way that the city is structured. So I think that's what he sort of collapsed to.

46:25Emily Jashinsky:Yeah, no, that's a great point, because actually Mike Johnson today is going to send this bipartisan Tim Scott Elizabeth Warren housing bill to Trump's desk. Trump has said he's not going to sign it unless it's coupled with Congress passing the Save Act. Yes. The housing bill is I mean that it's actually politically a very good piece of legislation. And if he is right now so frustrated that he's holding that bill hostage to the SAVE Act, I think it speaks to this much deeper frustration with Congress's willingness to actually get on board with what he wants to see them do. And obviously, to Crystal's point, there is a filibuster.

47:03Emily Jashinsky:But we have a couple more headlines to get to, too. Let's put B6, for better or worse, up on the screen. I mean, headline in the Daily Mail, MAGA fan accused of masturbating at Donald Trump's great American State Fair. And this is a setback. That is a setback, isn't it? A little bit. Yeah. And this is not just any MAGA fan. He apparently is an influencer. He was live streaming around the time of this incident. There were several women reportedly. Some of them were performing and they were like dancers and they were performing. and they saw him apparently pleasuring himself and told the cops and the cops got involved.

47:44And then he started this whole like free manny campaign and his followers were like, oh, he was wrongly accused. He's a victim. He's being persecuted for his political views. I'm like, this is trust DC. What are we talking about here? But anyway, so.

47:57Emily Jashinsky:He lusts for America. He lusts for America. Unlike you, Crystal. Yes, unlike me. Definitely unlike me. All right. B7, let's roll through some of these numbers as promised. A little palate cleanser here. A little more innocent content. In case you want to feel better about the country. CBS News has new polling out. What's best about the American way of life? 44 percent of people say people in America, 20 percent land, resources and climate, 17 percent economic system, trade and business, 10 percent system of government. That's not a resounding yes for the American system of government. Sure isn't.

48:36Emily Jashinsky:We can keep moving here. We've got all kinds of different slides. What is America's greatest invention? Democracy slash freedom running two points ahead of the light bulb. Which makes sense since we didn't actually invent democracy or freedom. But, you know, I like I like the energy. I like the spirit of that. There you go. Ten percent is the Internet. I would. Who is saying that? Oh, that's not. That is like our worst invention. Six percent automobile, 5 % telephone, 4 % airplane. Interesting. Sagar would be absolutely all over this if he were here. He would be in a debate that would be an epic, historic, world historic breaking points debate.

49:12Yeah. I'm trying to think. I don't know what I would even say for this. What are we best at? Light bulb is not a bad answer, actually. It's a pretty good one. 58 % say we're best at movies and television. Social security.

49:23Emily Jashinsky:That's our best invention. Oh, there you go. 56 % say technology and innovation. 41 % say music. 38 % sports. 31 % food. Do we have another one, guys? Yeah, we got a few more of these. Which food best represents America? 33 % hamburgers, 25 % barbecue, 19 % apple pie, 40 % hot dogs, 6 % pizza. I think barbecue is the appropriate answer, right? I think hamburgers, just when you think of like how dominant McDonald's is both here and globally, it's like one of our chief exports is our horrendous diet. Yeah, that's true. So yeah, probably hamburgers. Yeah, yeah. But barbecue he was like the best of the American.

50:00Yes. It's more, yeah, sort of aspirational.

50:04Emily Jashinsky:Uniquely American, really, really good. Yes. That's OK. We were agreed on that. Are you excited about the upcoming America 250 celebrations? 23 percent say very excited. 29 percent say somewhat excited. 47 percent say not too excited or not at all excited. I think we have one more here. Will you fly the U.S. flag at home on the 4th of July? 48 percent say yes. 52 percent say no. And Crystal, I think this is actually an interesting question because particularly because people our age don't have houses to fly a flag outside of speaking of the housing net if you're living in an apartment you you don't have a flagpole and a lot of people especially like gen z and younger millennials want to have houses but don't have houses and so they're not even going to have the option to fly a flag unless it means like sticking one to your apartment window yeah but it is a sign of the times and the declining vibe in the country that a majority are like, even on the 4th of July, they're like, no, not flying the flag.

51:08None of us were live hosts on this show for the 200 year, the bicentennial. But from the historical reviews that I've seen, people in the country were genuinely excited. There were not just events here, but there were events in towns across the country. It was a whole thing. And we're just, you know, we're just not there mentally anymore. You know, I haven't in my normal life, I haven't talked to anyone about the, oh my God, the 250th celebration. What are you going to do to celebrate it? It's just not really something that is, you know, center of mind for people or something that they're super enthusiastic about.

51:45Yeah.

51:46Emily Jashinsky:And people will probably increasingly, as this discourse escalates over the course of the week, blame podcasters and populists for this. And I just want to say, if that's your instinct, you're missing the mood of the country enormously. Like this is totally a bottom up, not top down phenomena. And I think one of the reasons that actually when you and soccer started hosting the show a long time ago, that you guys tapped into something is because you were picking up on a sentiment that a lot of the rest of the elite media was not. And it was, again, that's just an example of how it's bottom up and not top down.

52:19Emily Jashinsky:So you can blame people all you want in the media or in populist spaces, but it's completely, I mean, Bernie Sanders almost beat Hillary Clinton in 2016. Donald Trump did beat Hillary Clinton in 2016 by talking about American carnage. So yes, people are not, the sentiment, it's actually kind of self-defeating if you think about Donald Trump being the man who actually pointed out American carnage and then turning around and looking at why people aren't happy about America's 250th birthday. There's a contradiction and a retention in that, actually. Yeah. Well, he sees it as a verdict on him, which in a way it is, because you did promise that you would make America great again and restore that vibe and that confidence.

52:59And that obviously hasn't happened. It's not unique to America. I think the entire sort of Western world is you have this yo-yo effect of people who are very unhappy. They're looking for change. You know, they're ping ponging between different candidates looking for something to be different and have yet to find an answer to the frustrations that they have with the current system.

53:21Emily Jashinsky:A great segue to the next segment, Crystal, on Zoram Amdani's Sunday show appearance this weekend. This is Tony Ayo from The Real Report with Tony Ayo and Uncle Murda. You ever notice how everything keeps going up? Rent's going up. Streaming services are going up. Even your favorite burrito spot suddenly thinks salsa should cost extra. But with Boost Mobile, you and your phone bill don't have to play the will it go up soon game because Boost Mobile has an unlimited talk, text and data plan at a price that'll never go up. It's the same price you'll pay for life, meaning you're set to never worry about your bill increasing again for as long as you're on the plan.

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54:28When it comes to advancing your education, you have more options than you think. At Rasmussen University, we find ways to remove barriers, not build them, like a new laptop if you're eligible, and enroll in select online or on-campus programs. That means flexible and engaging online courses and resources, tuition savings options if you qualify, exceptional student support, and much more. Online nationally or check out their 20 campuses across six states. Start when you're ready and get the support you need. Visit rasmussen.edu.

54:58Emily Jashinsky:I turned off news altogether. I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything. It's the rage bait. It feels like it's trying to divide people. If we got clear facts, maybe we can calm down a little. NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News, reporting for America. Fresh off some highly significant political victories last week and also off of a highly significant policy victory, Zoran Mondani, mayor of New York City, sat down with Jonathan Karl for what was a very interesting interview. Let's take a listen to some of those highlights.

55:45Republicans are going to make you the poster child for the Democratic Party. Let them. We don't have to ask ourselves what life looks like if a socialist wins. I won last November, and over the course of these last six months, what we've delivered for working people are the very things we were told were impossible. We've delivered free child care for two-year-olds for the first time in New York City history. We've delivered tens of millions of dollars back to tenants who were taken advantage of by bad landlords. We've delivered 165 ,000 potholes being paved. And we've done all of these things while also delivering the lowest recorded crime in our city's history.

56:21That's what it looks like to have democratic socialism. And what you're seeing is that New Yorkers experienced this for six months and made the decision that they wanted to see more of it on the national stage as well. And you're hearing some not just dismissive, though. There's resentment. And this is from fellow Democrats who think that this could jeopardize Democratic chances in the fall. I mean, you've got Josh Gottheimer, a Democratic member of Congress, says, Many of us believe, as do I, if you're a socialist, you are not a Democrat. And in fact, they put out a manifesto today. Have you seen this thing?

56:52Sounds pretty socialist to me. It's not a communist manifesto. It's a moderate manifesto saying we are capitalist, not socialist. We believe in a growing, fair and competitive economy, entrepreneurship, ownership. And this is a direct response. They've made it clear to what you did here on Tuesday. Well, I mean, you know, that's great. But what's a party if not its voters? And I'm proud to sit in front of you as the mayor of our city, having received more than a million votes a little over a little less than a year ago. And when we're talking about these incredible congressional candidates, they won their races and they won their races with the vision of what politics should be and one that actually speaks to working people.

57:31And for a lot of people who ask themselves, what does democratic socialism mean? And you can tell them the answer at a theoretical level. It's the choice to extend democracy from the ballot box the rest of their lives. But in terms of what it means over these last seven months, we've seen a city with democratic socialist principles at the heart of it within our administration. And what we've delivered has been record lows when it comes to murders and shootings. So is it pragmatic democratic socialism? I think democratic socialism at the heart is pragmatic. And I actually think that is a good characterization of how he has governed pragmatic democratic socialism.

58:06And what he says there is actually really important. He's basically like, show, don't tell. Right. I delivered free 2K preschool. I delivered all these potholes filled, all these millions back from bad landlords. Now he's got his rent freeze. You have all of these beautification projects going on in New York City that make the public see what his governance has meant. He has an extraordinary communication style, so they're very much aware of what he is doing with regard to them. He comes up with these things, you know, that he'll do that you're just like, why did no one ever think of that? You know, in his first, I think, week of governance, he pressure washed the entire subway system just to make it a little bit nicer for New Yorkers and people who are visiting.

58:45I mentioned before they put together a whole calendar of, OK, here's all the free events in the city. I mean, that does takes very little, especially with AI, to be able to pull together. But just thinking about how are people going to experience the city and what is it going to be like? And so now, rather than having this sort of theoretical, ideological debate about what it would mean to have this type of governance, he can say, just look here. This is what it means. And you can bet if it had been a mess and a failure, all the Josh Gottheimers and everybody else of the world would be saying, see, this is what it means.

59:15when you have socialist governance. But on the contrary, he is able to offer this up as a model of, hey, this is not that scary. Like, people are freaking out about me being mayor. And guess what? The longer I'm in office, the higher my approval rating goes, the more people like what is on offer here. And this is what democratic socialism actually means in practice.

59:36Emily Jashinsky:Yeah, let's put C6. Let's jump ahead here up on the screen. There's a new poll, actually, that found Mom Donnie's favorability rating is jumping. So this is from USA Today. It's a Siena University poll. They report it showed that Mamdani's favorability edged up from earlier this year. And the Siena poll, which was conducted the 17th to 23rd of this month among 1100 New York state registered voters, looked at the favorability of HOCUL, the legislature, Assembly. It's found that since April, Mamdani's favorability has gone up. His favorability is at 45 to 34 percent. That's an increase from April, where it was at 43 to 40 percent.

1:00:14Emily Jashinsky:In New York City, his favorability is actually 58 percent to 26 percent, which is up from 56 to 34 percent. So actually just even looking at that change from 34 percent unfavorable to 26 percent unfavorable, that's even more significant from the two point jump of people who find him favorable. That's true. Yeah. So big, I mean, that's a, to your point, he's what, like six months in. So there's a long time to go in his term. But for six months, it looks like people are responding favorably in New York City to the experiment. Yeah, no, that's absolutely right. And I just, I think it's so funny for him to be making fun of the centrist manifesto too.

1:00:52Because it is so socialist coded to be like, oh, we have our manifesto of our 12 principles or whatever. And he's like, I don't really have time to read your manifesto. But I delivered low crime rates and your potholes are filled and your kids can go to preschool when they're two years old and you can you know, it's it's free. It's you can afford to live here again. I'm working in that direction. You know, we froze the rent. And that was one of the this was a major, major win for him because I don't know if you guys remember. But right after he got elected, there was some member of the housing board that was adversarial to him.

1:01:24And it looked like an Eric Adams was trying to screw him over in terms of being able to get his rent freeze. Well, Zoran was able to work politically behind the scenes to make sure that he got what he wanted from the housing board and was able just to announce that for two years, for two million apartments in New York City, rent stabilized apartments in New York City, the rent will in fact be frozen. This is C2. Let's take a look. New York, the Independent Rent Guidelines Board just froze the rent. That means if you're one of the more than two million New Yorkers who lives in a rent stabilized apartment, your rent's going to be frozen next year.

1:01:56so for all the people who were like oh he's not gonna be able to deliver all of this hope and you guys are going to be disappointed i don't think the people that voted for him are too disappointed right now not to say that he's not a magician you know the housing prices are not going to come down in new york city overnight but you can see on his key promises which he was very clear about what they are he is notching win after win yeah and that's an example of something where

1:02:18Emily Jashinsky:like you and i would probably disagree on how it plays out over time and i could see it hurting him ultimately in the next couple of years, but it will take a long time. And also, by the way, just people have to remember that if the alternative looks like it's worse than what happens under Momdani with a rent freeze, I'm really skeptical of rent freezes, especially for people who live in lower income housing that end up because the landlords already suck in so many cases having even less nice accommodations, like having even more things that go unrepaired. All that is to say, if the alternative, though, feels like even less hopeful, then he will still have success with the rent freeze, the politics of it, because people at least say he's doing something.

1:03:00Emily Jashinsky:And historically, that's where, I mean, the entire philosophy of communism and socialism emerged during an incredibly bleak period, literally Dickensian period of rapid industrialization that was leaving a lot of people out while a lot of people were thriving. If you go back and you look at, I shouldn't say a lot of people, a few people were thriving. And if you go back and look at the way that Gilded Age, like, quote, robber barons were coping at that time, they were starting to realize, like, decades into that experiment, holy smokes, we are our biggest enemies because we have turned, like, some of the sharper ones were noticing that.

1:03:35Emily Jashinsky:We have turned people into enemies of the system that we're thriving off of. And some of them tried to, like, atone for that and do different things. Whether they were sincere is a different question. But they realized that oftentimes the capitalists were the biggest enemies of capitalism. It wasn't the communists and socialists. It was the capitalists who were creating the communists and the socialists by benefiting off of the system and perpetuating the system. And so if the alternative still looks worse, people will be, like, still clinging to socialism, maybe even communism, because it feels like a better option.

1:04:09Well, and because there was such a freak out over Zoran, and continues to be, by the way, I'm about to play you some Josh Shapiro comments. You know, it was like, oh, my God, there's going to be Sharia law and executions. And so they're going to be bread lines. They literally they literally thought like said that that would be the case. And instead, it's like, no, he seems like a charming guy who's just like doing his best in the city. And people seem pretty happy in the next one. And, you know, like the vibe is very positive. It does. It kind of all goes together. Like everyone is looking at New York City.

1:04:40I mean, I can tell you me personally, I'm like, oh, my God, I wish I still live there. It looks so much fun. Everybody's happy. It's going really well. So all of the doom and gloom that was supposed to befall and everybody is going to leave the city and it's going to be chaos, et cetera. That obviously has not come to pass.

1:04:55Emily Jashinsky:Yes, but Ken Griffin is very uneasy because now people know where his penthouse is. My heart breaks for him. My heart breaks for Ken Griffin and all of the landlords of New York City. I'm so so sad for the people who, you know, bought property in the 1970s when it cost three pennies and now are multimillionaires like a strawberry. Yeah, right. Exactly. I'm really I'm really my heart breaks for you guys. Let's take a listen to Josh Shapiro's obviously fellow Democrat governor of the state of Pennsylvania and how he characterizes Zoran's approach here. Democratic voters in New York chose three candidates backed by Zoran Mamdani, far left and Democratic socialist candidates.

1:05:33Emily Jashinsky:What message do you take from that about where your party is? Well, you know, those were races in individual districts in a whole other state. I think you're seeing very different looking congressional races and certainly different Democratic candidates here in Pennsylvania. I think what is important are the people who are making a lot of noise, who are engaging in these performative policies, have to now figure out how to deliver results. It's one thing to speak in platitudes during a campaign. It's a whole other thing to actually deliver for people who are genuinely hurting, who genuinely need to see cost of living go down, meaning their ability to make ends meet, you know, go up, fixing a broken health care system, reining in excesses, being able to, you know, give people the promise of liberty that we've talked about.

1:06:25I think we as a party need to find our way to lead candidates who actually can deliver for people and make their lives better. Performative politics, we've got to find a way to actually deliver. I mean, that's what Zoran is showing. Like, OK, well, I delivered my rent freeze. I delivered my free 2K. You know, they're moving forward with the grocery stores that were promised, this pilot program. So he's saying, I am actually delivering. And just a fact check, too, on his, well, Pennsylvania is different. Pennsylvania is about to have two of the most left-wing congressional representatives in the country.

1:06:58Chris Rabb in Philly. And Summer Lee is already there in Pittsburgh. So, you know, him attempting to help, well, Pennsylvania said, oh, this New York City is just like a weird place. I'm going to really have to pay attention to it. New York City is also the home of Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, the leaders of the party. It makes it very hard to dismiss as some weird one-off, especially when you couple it with what happened in the main primary. especially when you couple with what is happening in the Michigan primary, you're going to dismiss Michigan as like, oh, this pie in the sky, like weird, you know, one off sort of a situation.

1:07:31It becomes increasingly difficult for people like him to dismiss that, you know, his politics, the way that he has positioned himself is increasingly out of step with at least where the Democratic base is, but more dramatically with where the public is at large. And look, he's very popular in Pennsylvania. People are happy with his governance there. But I think when he goes to run for president, he's going to find that his positions are not tenable in a Democratic Party that wants to see a lot more fight, that wants to see a very different orientation vis-a-vis Israel, that wants to see the fight taken to the oligarch class as well.

1:08:05And he has not shown that he is that candidate.

1:08:08Emily Jashinsky:It does remind me a little bit of the Tea Party movement era when it was like, you know, Rand Paul's winning in Kentucky, Marco Rubio in Florida, and all of these Tea Party races around the country. You had the Dave Bratwin in Virginia. And you could say, oh, these are just the red states. And then honestly, what was it, 2010? Scott Walker won in a very pro-labor, historically a very pro-labor state, Wisconsin. Yeah. It was not just relegated to some of the deepest red places in the country. Republican voters were able to make persuasive cases because people were furious about Obama. And that was not just in deep red Kentucky.

1:08:48Emily Jashinsky:That had ramifications around the country, too. And I think to some extent what Josh Shapiro is missing is that some of his kind of ideological enemies inside his own camp are better reading the mood of the country. Yeah, there's no doubt about it. Chris Robb in Philadelphia was in a very difficult primary against two candidates who had sort of more establishment backing. And he didn't just win. He won overwhelmingly. And that's another thing that I want to dig into more. I might do a monologue on this this week. I'm suddenly feeling very, like, monologue-inspired in this moment. But, you know, the knock, which has had legitimacy on DSA and the Bernie wing more broadly of the party, because not all these candidates we are talking about are technically DSA, but the knock on them has been that they have been unable to reach outside of this sort of, like, white activist space.

1:09:37Now, it's always been a bit of bullshit. But Bernie, for example, did really well with a multiracial coalition, especially at the younger level. He won Latinos overwhelmingly. But older black voters were and I think continue to be a genuine stumbling block. And so there was a lot of attacks on you just have these like college educated young white people, more affluent that they can afford to sort of dabble in these radical politics. Or the old white hippie boomers. Yeah. But it's like, you know, the Brooklyn commie corridor. Right. That was sort of the that was the knock on DSA from a coalition, a coalitional perspective.

1:10:14Now you have a bunch of right wingers like Stephen Miller and Matt Walsh and Jesse Waters who are saying, oh, no, the problem is that there's too many like black and brown immigrants who are voting for them. And obviously, you know, it's disgusting and it's racist. That's what goes without saying. But I think it's noteworthy that they had to shift because guess what? The coalition is growing. You know, Daria Leza's district, which is one I actually used to live in and I'm quite familiar with. And this is very diverse district. You cannot win just with like Columbia students who are not even there at the moment to come out and vote.

1:10:47Most of them are, you know, home and schools not in session. It is a, you know, a very split demographically district. You have to win a lot of black voters. It looks like she won a majority of black voters. And even though Espiot is the co-chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and thought he had a lock on the Dominican voters in this district, she came very close to 50-50 with him, even with Hispanic voters in the district. It was like she got like 47 percent. So as DSA grows, as you have more figures like Zoran that make it less like a scary, weird, radical thing.

1:11:25Emily Jashinsky:It's really him. I mean, I genuinely is a lot of it, because now when you think of this wing of politics, that's who you think of. And you're like, you're telling me this guy's terrifying. I don't think so. Right. And so you have a very different situation as that coalition grows and expands. And the limitations that existed previously start to fall away as you start to make inroads with a larger demographic group. And as the housing crunch and all the affordability crisis and the concerns over the wars and all of these things hit home with everyone, regardless of your skin color, your background, even, you know, increasingly up the income ladder, whether you're college educator or non-college educated, you're going to have more of a cohesive base that you can draw from.

1:12:08Emily Jashinsky:Yeah, it's clear that DSA is learning a lot from especially the Zoran exam. It's not the same DSA of like 2018 by any means. And I don't think the right is at all prepared for what that means. I think voters, Mom Donnie, I think, played a really big role in giving voters like permission to feel, what's the best way to put it, like it was mainstream to get behind some of these different candidates that are just treated as though they're not mainstream. And in some cases, they genuinely are not mainstream, maybe in like Brooklyn. But if we're talking about the entire country, they're closer to the mainstream on questions like health care than a lot of the quote unquote like centrists actually are.

1:12:46Emily Jashinsky:But I think it was like a cultural permission instructor. It also looks like it's fun to be involved with it, which is so different than 2018. It looks like so different. You know, the cool kids are here. Like, it looks like it would be fun to go out and canvas for a DSA candidate. And, you know, that's one thing that he has really brought to his approach to government. It's a very communal approach, which actually we can put up our last piece here on the screen, put C3 up on the screen. So this is a tradition in New York City. The mayor always, I guess, shows up and jumps in the pool at the opening for the pool season in New York City.

1:13:17Zoran, I need to check with Sagar how he's going to feel about this because he wore a full suit and tie. Good checkmark. But it's in violation of the dress code for the swimming pool. So we get an X on that from Sagar. But in any case, you know, it's like a sort of silly way. It's very consistent with his brand. It draws more attention to this opening. New York Post was very mad about it, which is funny too. C4 put this up on the screen. They have found every way to try to knock this guy. And it just has become, you know, very memeable because it's increasingly pathetic, the things that they picked to try to hit him with.

1:13:53Oh, you took his shoes off. That's good. Oh, OK. Yeah, that is good. Zoran Mamdani jumps into New York City pool to kick off summer tradition while violating dress code rules. Oh, my God. How dare you? But, you know, it seems like he's having fun. It seems like the city's having fun. It seems like he could be part of something that is communal. I think Zoran Mamdani may just be the cure for the male loneliness epidemic.

1:14:12Emily Jashinsky:Well, do you remember last summer when he had the canvassing, like, scavenger hunt? Yes, yes, yes. And it sounded so cringe. And then tons of people turned out for it. Yes. It was like on a Saturday and it got like hundreds of people out doing a thousand. No, there were thousands of people doing this political scavenger. Yes. Yeah, it was crazy. Yeah. And nobody saw it coming. But people are hungry for some sort of community. And, you know, if they feel like they can get that through Zoran and through DSA, that's going to be a very appealing selling point. Not through Josh Shapiro, you don't think?

1:14:44He should write more of another manifesto than I can judge.

1:14:49Emily Jashinsky:He should do live readings of his manifesto. Yeah, we've reached out to you, by the way. We'll cover more of this Promise to America centrist group with the manifesto, which is very interesting to me. We're trying to get somebody who actually one of the representatives on the show to be able to talk about it. So we'll see if that if that ends up happening. We'll skeptical they're going to join us, but we'll see.

1:15:25When it comes to advancing your education, you have more options than you think. At Rasmussen University, we find ways to remove barriers, not build them. Like a new laptop if you're eligible and enroll in select online or on-campus programs. That means flexible and engaging online courses and resources, tuition savings options if you qualify, exceptional student support, and much more. Online nationally or check out their 20 campuses across six states. Start when you're ready and get the support you need. Visit rasmussen.edu. Hi, it's Karen in Georgia from My Favorite Murder. We cruised around L.A.

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