9/16/26: Bessent Defends Terrible Economy, Massie Says Impeach Hegseth, Trump Mail In Ballot Smackdown

22:05You can see a real possibility for Trump to oversee a pretty strong economy

22:15Emily Jashinsky:throughout his entire term. I'm like, all the numbers were heading in the right direction now. Even with the trade war. And I actually think that's an important point. There were a lot of dire forecasts about the trade war. And it's not as though there haven't been some negative externalities and consequences behind it. Or I should say negative consequences behind it. That obviously has happened. If you look at the chart, you get a significant bump because of Liberation Day in April. Yes. But manageable. And then it starts trending down again. So a bump. People were scared. Then it starts coming down again.

22:45And then, boom, he goes to war. And the number has just been up, up and to the right since then.

22:53Emily Jashinsky:And they've been now over 7 percent. Like yesterday, it eclipsed an average of 7 percent, which is puts housing out of reach for just so many people. So many people. I mean, you have to be like rich, live in a really low cost area or be pretty comfortable with debt to take part in what we always considered the American dream homeownership right now. And so especially for people in their 20s and 30s who are trying to enter that with the boomer homeownership where it is right now, there are just not a lot of single family homes. Rates are really high. So all these things that they were trying to tackle, they were touting this report yesterday to just bring in what Bessent, this came out while Bessent was testifying.

23:38Emily Jashinsky:It was a Census Bureau data that found real median household income rose by 2.6 percent to$87 ,460 last year. According to that Census Bureau report, the poverty rate fell by a nearly half point to 10.2 percent. The poverty threshold for a family of four last year was$32 ,970. Besant celebrated the data CNBC reported. But they also note the census data covers 2025 and doesn't account for recent changes in inflation or other economic shifts since the Iran war started. So, Ryan, this gets to exactly your point about how all of the economic indicators were trending in the right direction for the Trump administration until February 28th when he decides to launch this war.

24:18Yeah, and we didn't know which block to put this in, but might as well talk about it here and then transition to the next one. We put a B4, actually. So this is Shanghai crude oil hitting a new record,$135 per hour. And what you're seeing here when they say Shanghai crude or otherwise they identify it by a location, that's what people are actually paying for it, like when it's delivered. And you see the huge gap between how it's trading in the market, which can be heavily manipulated by speculators and by Scott Besson, who's out there constantly trying to, you know, using American money to short it to try to keep the pressure down, which is basically just constantly losing bets, deliberately losing bets to people on the other side of the bet.

25:14We're just basically handing people money to keep that number on the screen a little bit lower. But then when somebody has to actually buy it at the port, they have to shell out Shanghai crude$135 a barrel.

25:28Emily Jashinsky:Yeah. It's a tough case for Scott Besson to have to make, which is why you're seeing him strain and saying it's what people are telling the pollsters. The Democrats who are being polled are polluting the data, essentially. Yeah, so stop lying about how great things are and everything will be great. Suck it up. Yeah. Can't you also buy a mansion in Charleston if you put your mind to it? Right. And also think about this. You don't need a mortgage if your parents just give you the money for the house. Why don't you think about that? That is a good point. Have you all not considered this? Make that call.

26:02Emily Jashinsky:Just ask nicely. Come home for Thanksgiving. See what happens. Yeah. Or your grandparents. Yeah. Diversity of ways to succeed in America. Well, we should move on to Iran because there's a lot of news coming out of the Middle East right now as well, Ryan, that intersects with everything that we were just talking about. But Thomas Massey moved to impeach Pete Hegseth yesterday. Let's get to it. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months. I survived and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files.

26:41I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

27:25Hey there, everybody. Amy Robach and TJ Holmes here from the Amy and TJ podcast. With midterm elections just around the corner, We're breaking down the biggest political stories leading up to November. And some of those big political stories aren't just what's happening on Capitol Hill. Yes, we just saw Lindsey Graham, the death of a longtime senator. Also, we've got a couple of missing members of Congress. Also, we've got a lot of members of Congress behaving badly. We've got accusations, allegations flying all day long on Capitol Hill. It's just like a reality show. We're going to cover everything you need to know during this heated political season.

28:01And it starts with our morning run. Yes, go for a run with us. Maybe you can take us along when you're on your actual run outside. Or if you don't feel like going out still, you get what we're saying. It's our morning run. It's our daily news rundown of the top stories that will get you going before you even finish that first cup of coffee. Listen to Amy and TJ on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Every case has a story. Every victim has a voice. But will it be heard? I'm Nancy Grace on Crime Stories. We go beyond headlines to examine evidence, challenge the story we're fed, and pursue justice for victims and their families.

28:44Please join us at Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you find your podcasts.

28:53Emily Jashinsky:Hope you join us. I'll see you there, friend. outgrain Republican Congressman Thomas Massey moved to impeach Secretary of War Pete Hegseth yesterday on war power grounds. Basically, let's take a listen to what Representative Massey said on the House floor. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Clause 2A1 of Rule 9, I seek recognition to give notice of my intent to raise a question of the privileges of the House. The form of the resolution is as follows. Impeaching Peter Brian Hegseth, Secretary of Defense, for high crimes and misdemeanors. Resolved that Peter Brian Hegseth, Secretary of Defense, also referred to as Secretary of War by the administration, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate.

29:43Articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in the name of itself and of the people of the United States of America against Peter Brian Hegseth, Secretary of Defense, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against him for high crimes and misdemeanors.

30:00Emily Jashinsky:A little spoiler, actually, I have Tucker on After Party tonight, and I asked him about that yesterday, if he would support the impeachment of Hegseth and of Trump. Massey also said, by engaging in hostilities in Iran for more than 90 days without congressional authorization, Secretary Hegseth is breaking the law and must be held accountable. Congress must not turn a blind eye to Secretary Hague's unconstitutional and illegal actions. And so, Ryan, this is obviously not going anywhere in the Mike Johnson-controlled House of Representatives. It could go somewhere in a Democratic-controlled Congress.

30:32Well, the problem is it would have to go somewhere in the Senate. Yeah, that's not happening. Because you need a two-thirds vote to convict.

30:39Emily Jashinsky:Yeah. But I don't want to rule out the value of it because we're all raised, taught about the checks and balances that make our government worth preserving. That's the thing that makes us a republic, we're told. And we very clearly in the Constitution delegate the power to declare war to Congress. The War Powers Act itself specifically outlines the way that Congress can intervene on questions of war and peace. In pretty much a first, Congress passed a War Powers Resolution demanding that the Iran War be ended. like this this is not the kind of thing that you need fancy constitutional scholars to debate no we're referring to it as a war the president refers to it as a war it's right there and congress actually a republican controlled congress shockingly did its job voted on the war and voted it down and they pursued it anyway, which is, and so then, okay, the next check in the process is we're impeaching you.

32:01Like that is not a radical move. That is, that is just, that is the process that we have set up to try to maintain checks and balances. The party nature where people are more loyal to a party than they are to the Constitution is the thing that doesn't have a check in the system other than complete and total lack of popularity. If Republicans lose in Kansas, we're going to talk about Kansas in our midterm block. If they lose in Kansas and they lose in Nebraska and they lose in Texas, maybe there are some senators who just demand he resign. And maybe he just resigns as the fall guy, like Donald Rumsfeld resigned after 2006, the 2006 midterms, which were understood to be a referendum on Bush's war.

32:59But Congress at that point had not ordered it ended. And Bush wasn't continuing illegal.

33:05Emily Jashinsky:There's way more public support for that war. It was illegal kind of generally. In 2006, there was way more public support for the Iraq war at that point, even as it was going down dramatically. Probably still, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And additionally, we can put this up next. This is from The Washington Sun. A CBO report is saying that President Trump's war with Iran has cost the U.S. nearly$40 billion, consumed as much as two-thirds of some critical U.S. missile interceptors, and is expected to push inflation higher into next year. The CBO on Tuesday released its first projections for the war, finding that the conflict had directly cost the U.S.

33:42Emily Jashinsky:$38 billion through August 1st and will continue to cost roughly$2 billion to$3 billion each month. Each month, those costs could rise during periods of heavier fighting. The sun adds more than half of the cost so far,$21.7 billion, comes from replacing munitions, including$13 billion worth of missile defense interceptors. And that, first of all, the CBO estimate is lower than what different news outlets have come up with, trying to do the math itself. But it is the CBO. It's an acknowledgement from the CBO that, yes, inflation is being caused by the Iran war. Not that anybody needed a CBO report to tell them that, but it also goes with this report that came out of the Pentagon watchdog.

34:30Emily Jashinsky:We have government reports now acknowledging what the administration is not acknowledging. So from NBC News, they reported on September 14th, two days ago, the Defense Department's Inspector General released his first report on the war with Iran on Monday, saying the conflict has resulted in a shortfall of U.S. munitions and bottlenecks in supply chains as the Trump administration works to replenish weaponry. The word bottlenecks is a direct quote from the report. And so you now have a CBO report saying, yes, the war has worsened inflation. And you have a Defense Department IG report saying, yes, the war has caused munitions shortages.

35:06Emily Jashinsky:That sounds obvious if you're watching this show, it is something the administration is outright being deceptive about. Right. And so the report found hundreds of buildings were destroyed across at least 15 bases, dozens of aircraft, added up to well over$30 million, as their estimate. But that is before, and they're clear about this, that's before the cost of rebuilding all of this, Right. Which would we can hopefully forget about, because can you imagine us rebuilding any of this? We have pictures, right, of some of the recent damage. Yeah, we should get to this. Let's put up. This is CBS News, CBS News.

35:52Emily Jashinsky:To their credit. Look at them doing some journalism. There you go. CBS got its hands on these pictures showing damage to buildings and vehicles at several U.S. positions. I'm calling that plane damaged. Yeah, damaged. Just put it in the shop for a couple days. It'll come out good as new. Ryan, this was, where was this? I think that was Jordan. Jordan, yeah, that's what I was thinking. Okay, so look at that. I mean, if you're listening to it, utter destruction. Yeah. So the rebuilding costs will be significant. Yes.

36:25Yes. Yes. And that doesn't count the number of munitions that we fired off. Remember how we had said, was it last week or the week before, whenever it was that Iran launched that salvo at our Jordan base, that it looked like at least 50 anti-ballistic munitions were used in order to stave that off, including some THAAD missiles, which are the most expensive. Turns out it was 70. you didn't know we were conservative broadcasters here right we're like under selling to you you know how bad it is going 70 and they estimate something like 20 iranian ballistic missiles which are you know much much less expensive than the 70 and forget the price the time it takes to make them is in the months and years.

37:22Emily Jashinsky:Yes. And we shot them off in a span of like five minutes. Yes. Quite an opening for Xi Jinping should Xi Jinping want to take Taiwan. Yes, Putin as well, as allies in Europe are well aware at this moment. CBS News reports that picture we showed you of the plane was at Prince Sultan Air Force Base in Saudi Arabia. And that is the back half of a Boeing E3 Sentry four-engine aircraft. As CBS says, quote, its tail severed from the charred fuselage that also supported a rotating radar that is essential for collecting mid-air intelligence. That one that looks like a tent everyone was looking at just a moment ago, that's Kuwait.

38:02Emily Jashinsky:And they have pictures of U.S. military trailers being absolutely destroyed by an Iranian strike at Camp Bering in Kuwait as well. So we haven't seen a lot of these images. in, I think, Ryan, that does change the mindset of the public when you can physically review the destruction. It's kind of abstract. You're like, oh, that's what it looks like. Yeah. That doesn't look good. Doesn't look good. It looks like your ability to get health care just going up in smoke. We'll talk about this probably more in the Iron Beam block if we can put up B5 too. Tucker did some reporting on this as well. So Trump is now, and also we, hey, mainstream media, you've got to do something about the use of the word sale in these headlines and leads.

38:50So this is a Washington Post article, Trump's planned sale of controversial bombs to Israel is largest in years. And so Congress was notified at some point yesterday or the day before that Trump is planning, and I'll read from the Washington Post, what they say, quote, the largest single sale of the controversial ammunition in recent years. Again, it's not a sale. We're giving it to them. We are paying for it. So the$2.8 billion package, which would be purchased with U.S. taxpayer dollars, this is from the same Washington Post article, includes 40 ,000 bombs that weigh 2 ,000 pounds each, including 20 ,000 MK84s and 20 ,000 BLU-117s, said the official, who like others spoke in the condition of anonymity.

39:41The sale also includes 20 ,000 I-2000 penetrator warheads. So in what world does the word sale belong in the headline in the lead when in the second paragraph we learn that it's going to be, quote, purchased with U.S. taxpayer dollars?

39:59Emily Jashinsky:Yes, sale, sale. So we have a block later in the show where you get into the quote-unquote sale related to iron beam you just are coming out of a deep reporting project on this which is why i think it touched a particular nerve but it is absolutely ridiculous that you what you're pointing out is insane yeah and to the post's credit and john hudson's a very good reporter who wrote this i think this is just how the paper requires them and every other msm outlet to cover this but it says he writes among the most destructive munitions in western military arsenals an mk-84 explosion sends metal fragments in every direction for thousands of feet, can rip through metal and thick concrete and often creates large craters in the earth.

40:40What would Israel need that for?

40:43Emily Jashinsky:So Tucker wrote on this, I do talk to him about this in the episode that airs tonight, but I just got his daily newsletter. He wrote on to this, how big is this shipment? It amounts to 40 ,000 tons of bombs. This is actually kind of helpful. He says, for perspective, the largest American air raid of World War II was the Eighth Air Force's attack on Berlin in March of 1945 combined the 2 ,000 allied aircraft involved dropped about 3 ,000 tons of bombs. That's seven and a half percent of what Trump is sending to Israel. For what? Like southern Lebanon? There's nothing left to bomb in Gaza. However, they still continue to bomb.

41:17Emily Jashinsky:I was going to say, yeah, very well could be for Gaza. I'm sure you saw this. They did another double tap strike yesterday. They killed a boy and then another boy is running up. And we have rare footage of the actual second strike. and recall that a few months ago, the IDF bragged and sent a video saying they were about to bomb a gathering of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, but were able to see that there were like curly sideburns and they recognized that, oh, these are Jewish Israelis, so we're not going to bomb them. And they said this publicly as evidence of their ability to be restrained.

42:07So what they're telling you is that they can see the contours of a person's hair from the sky before they strike. So they clearly saw this child running up to this other injured person and struck anyway. And so that is the military that we are going to be sending 40 ,000 tons of new weapons to for free.

42:36Emily Jashinsky:And Tucker's reporting, I don't know if you have any on this, Ryan, as well, that it originated at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem and then went to the State Department where Rubio, I think Tucker said, enthusiastically approved it. Chain of events. I can only imagine. Sounds accurate. Yeah. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months. I survived and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart and these are the Survivor Files. I just remember this low taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything.

43:16Every week I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, everybody. Amy Robach and TJ Holmes here from the Amy and TJ podcast with midterm elections just around the corner.

44:00We're breaking down the biggest political stories leading up to November. And some of those big political stories aren't just what's happening on Capitol Hill. Yes, we just saw Lindsey Graham, the death of a longtime senator. Also, we've got a couple of missing members of Congress. Also, we got a lot of members of Congress behaving badly. We got accusations, allegations flying all day long on Capitol Hill. It's just like a reality show. We're going to cover everything you need to know during this heated political season. And it starts with our morning run. Yes, go for a run with us. Maybe you can take us along when you're on your actual run outside, or if you don't feel like going out still, you get what we're saying.

44:39It's our morning run. It's our daily news rundown of the top stories that will get you going before you even finish that first cup of coffee. Listen to Amy and TJ on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Every case has a story. Every victim has a voice. But will it be heard? I'm Nancy Grace on Crime Stories. We go beyond headlines to examine evidence, challenge the story we're fed, and pursue justice for victims and their families. Please join us at Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you find your podcasts.

45:21Hope you join us. I'll see you there, friend.

45:25Emily Jashinsky:Well, as a very tough midterm cycle looms ever closer, actually election day, I should say, looms ever closer. Donald Trump continues to be extremely frustrated with the Supreme Court. Here's a true social post from yesterday. He said Republicans just got another bad decision from the U.S. Supreme Court, one that the court system took forever to give and then blamed it in part on no time left to implement a solution to a totally corrupt and out of control mail-in voting disaster, which is a laughingstock all over the world. He goes on to say, Justice Alito and Thomas, legends both strongly disagreed with this horrible, highly political ruling.

46:01Emily Jashinsky:It is a big loss for Republicans and America itself. It makes cheating by the radical Democrats on mail-in ballots, a much easier thing to do. Now, what he's talking about is the Supreme Court ruling that, as CNBC reports, blocked a controversial in the U.S. Postal Service rule on mail-in ballots from being used for the upcoming midterm elections. Let's go down a little bit further here just to say CNBC is saying on Monday, this was three liberal justices, Chief Justice John Roberts. It's catching folks up if they didn't see this decision yesterday. They said that you have to leave in place what this Boston court judge's injunction said that prevented the Postal Service rule from the Trump administration from being applied to ballots mailed in for November's election.

46:51Emily Jashinsky:That is a mouthful and complicated, but that's the process. It was it leaves in place an injunction from a federal court in Boston on the Postal Service rule that was came from an executive order. It was trying to have standards, a CNBC reports for ballot envelopes. And then it required states to enter information about voters and ballot envelopes into a Postal Service portal. So the injunction on that is standing. Yeah, basically what they were doing was trying to produce a system that would be unworkable. Like you'd have the state would have to send a list of like, say, for every tranche, like 10 ,000 voters.

47:34And then they would send 10 ,000 ballots to the post office that would be to be mailed out to these 10 ,000 people. and if the postal service could find an error in the spelling of any of the names or a hyphenated name or one person doesn't live at this place anymore then they would be ordered not to deliver the entire 10 ,000 tranche and so clearly like somebody was told to sit down and figure out a way to basically use rules to make mail-in balloting impossible for the states to actually effectively roll out. Hopefully for voting, this is early enough that states can get their ballots out on time and get everything done.

48:22It does suggest that the Supreme Court, after kind of playing footsie with allowing this to go through a couple weeks ago, is now saying that was a procedural ruling. And now that we're getting closer to this being coming real, we're going to, we're not going to allow this to happen.

48:37Emily Jashinsky:And it seemed to be a procedural ruling at the time. But you never know how these things go when they're actually voted on. So this comes as, let's put this New York Times, this is C8 New York Times tear sheet up on the screen. New York Times Siena polling has found, quote, even some Republicans are losing faith in Trump's economy and Democrats were favored on the top issues as the sprint to the midterms gets underway. So you You can see right there some of their polling on this question. If the 2026 general election for Congress were held today, which party's candidate would you be more likely to vote for in your district?

49:09Emily Jashinsky:So this is the Times-Siena generic ballot. Democratic candidate, that is at 51 percent. Republican candidate is at 43 percent. So pretty significant gap there. Democratic voters, or I'm sorry, voters overall are giving Democrats a 60 percent to 36 percent advantage on health care, 52 percent advantage on immigration. Very unusual in recent years, by the way, for Democrats to have the advantage on immigration and on the economy, 51 percent to 45 percent. So that's Democrats plus seven on the economy, according to New York Times Siena polling. So, yeah, I think there are plenty of principled objections to mail-in ballots that people in the administration have, but there are practical ones that they have as well right now, which is they're in rough shape and they know those mail-in ballots are not going to not going to go their way.

50:00Emily Jashinsky:And so anything they can do to tamp that down. By the way, we're not having a debate here about mail-in ballots. I generally hate widespread use of mail-in ballots. But all that is to say, this is more pragmatic, I think, right now than it is principled. Yes, I think they're against ballots. They're against people at this point. Yes, because as Besson said, people are out there saying the economy is lousy when it's actually incredible. And they're, they're, yeah, Democrats are going to go in and they're going to poison the ballot box by voting against Trump. Um, let's, before we get to the news out of Michigan, um, C7 put that up.

50:37So Republicans are, uh, a Republican pollster is out telling Republicans how to talk about data centers. The only, um, issue that Republicans on that New York, in that New York Times poll even had any advantage. It was plus two was on AI. So what is the what are the GOP maestros telling their candidates to say on data centers to survive?

51:00Emily Jashinsky:They're trying to. And actually, by the way, this is good advice. It's good advice. They're saying basically to acknowledge. It's good advice, but it's sneaky to acknowledge concerns. I feel your pain. Yes. hear the voters. Yes, it's bad. Say, we are going to, because we hear you, because we acknowledge that these can be real problems, we are going to squeeze everything out of these companies that is possible to bring money into the area. So it's a three-step process, but those first two steps from this Fabrizio, Tony Fabrizio memo, are the important ones saying, we hear you, and we're going to put the screws to these companies as they come into your neighborhood.

51:41Emily Jashinsky:We're going to get so many concessions. Politically, I think, again, good advice, but it's a sneaky way for Republicans to basically back data centers to the hill. Right. Yeah, that's the question. And it comes out of credibility. People trust that you're actually going to get any concessions that make it worth what the data center is going to cost your community. Right. And cost it in terms of noise and pollution and water usage and all the things that people are concerned about. Which the companies building the data centers can afford. They could always afford it. They never needed the tax breaks ever.

52:13Emily Jashinsky:They never needed the incentive packages. Never had to happen. So now you can see it's pretty clear they're working hand in glove with Republicans just to figure out how to sell this better so they can keep building the data centers and hyperscaling to fuel the AI boom. Yeah. So we have a couple of Michigan-related stories we can get to over at DropSite. The first is from Alexander Zajic, great reporter. You can put this element up on the screen, his headline, Got Oxy, How Michigan's Mike Rogers Helped Fuel the Opioid Crisis. And so we were looking at this, we took a look at this because Rogers in the 2024 campaign was hit by Slotkin a little bit for his work on fueling the opioid crisis.

52:58And Abdul El-Sayed has made some kind of over-the-top allegations about what his role was, which turned out not to be really that accurate. And so we're like, let's take a look at exactly what Rogers did. And I, frankly, was stunned. I did not realize how tied at the hip Mike Rogers was as a member of Congress to the Sackler-Purdue Pharma-funded effort throughout the 2000s to basically push this idea that there are 100 million people in America who are living with untreated pain, and it is cruel to deprive them of Oxy, basically. And we need the NIH and we need the federal government pushing so that doctors understand that they should be basically much looser with how they're prescribing Oxy to people around.

54:01It was extraordinarily effective campaign run through the American Pain Society, the American Pain Foundation. And one congressman was the lead champion of this in the early 2000s up through it getting into a lot of it getting into law through the Affordable Care Act, actually. And his name was Mike Rogers. We put up C3 here. So this is in September 2003. You've got Mike Rogers appearing with the American Pain Society, announcing that, you know, declaring that like the headline in the UPI here, pain is the biggest U.S. health problem, and announcing that he's going to tackle legislation. they write here UPI writes Congress is aware of the problem and has declared this the decade of pain control and research but the legislative body looks unlikely to do anything significant soon to address the problem Representative Mike Rogers Republican of Michigan has introduced a bill in the House called the National Pain Care Policy Act which seeks to improve pain treatment but it does not look likely to pass this year and as yet, there is no companion bill in the Senate.

55:16Despite the small chance Congress will pass any significant pain legislation this year, Rogers said he is not deterred and remains committed to improving pain treatment. If his bill fails to pass this year, Rogers plans to reintroduce it in 2004. Quote, I'm like a bad rash. I'll keep coming back year after year, he said. That is Mike Rogers promising to be a rash.

55:42Emily Jashinsky:and hopefully someone could get some oxy for the rash he made good he made good on his promise it did not pass that cycle he reintroduced it again the next cycle he reintroduced it again the next cycle and continually got more support for it more co-sponsors uh there was more of a public pr campaign uh around it and then eventually uh through the affordable care act they put most of the legislation through at that point. We'll get to that in a second. But one thing that Zajic found, we can put a C4 here. So this is a PowerPoint presentation given at the 2004 American Pain Foundation Conference, and where they're listing their quote-unquote advocacy accomplishments.

56:27And they write here, developed mobilization project description and proposal, piloted mobilization strategies resulting in increased co-sponsorship of HR 1863, that's Mike Rogers' bill, contributed to HR 1863 strategic planning, conducted Hill Days advocacy training. If it's not clear exactly what they mean by that, it means they helped Mike Rogers write the bill, they helped him strategize how it was going to get through the Hill, they helped him get co-sponsors to build support for it. And they brought people to Congress and trained them how to talk to members of Congress so that it didn't sound like it was the Sacklers saying, we feel like we could make billions of dollars a year if we get people addicted to opioids.

57:18That's not going to work. Here's what we're going to say. Pain is what they call the fifth vital sign. This is the organization, the group of organizations that came up with this idea of the fifth vital sign. And then you come up with this number that 100 million people are in untreated pain. And they would always say in their lobbying, it would be good if there are some pain treatments that are not addictive. However, they were constantly against medical marijuana and they never put forward treatments that were non-addictive. And so they, but they would say, in the meantime, let's use what we can.

58:04And so when Mike Rogers started this, I think the number of people who died of a overdose was in the low thousands. you know last year it was 70 plus thousand and there were there have been many years it was over 100 000 and that doesn't count the people who um you know brain dead or went into a coma or you know weren't revived in time were revived in time that they didn't die but they're they're going to suffer lifelong uh consequences from this there is just no question that this american pain society Sackler-Purdue campaign was responsible for the increase in opioid use throughout the 2000s and 2010s.

58:58And there's no question that Mike Rogers was their lead champion in the House. And I actually, I hate to say it, I did not know that he had played that central role in this. And And it took Alex a decent amount of work to go back and look through the congressional records and everything else. Because in 2011, Rogers, after it gets pushed through on the ACA, Rogers joins the Intelligence Committee. And after that, he pivots politically. And from then on, he's this national security guy. So the Mike Rogers that you know is this deep state national security tough guy who's going to fight terrorists.

59:38Emily Jashinsky:He came from the FBI. Right. He did like four or five years in the FBI. And so he basically dropped that entire thing. American Payne Society dissolved in like 2011. And for, you know, the 2010s were they were they were in retreat. The numbers are still going up, but they're getting sued by everybody. like they're getting you know dodging prosecutions or getting their names taken off of buildings as the consequences of what they did become you know impossible to ignore and so I think Rogers as a savvy politician was like okay a decade of this was was good I don't I don't need to have my name associated with the opioid with opioids anymore yeah that's that's that's not gonna be Well, it just gets to the point of like we have buried so much of the history because there was genuinely a reckoning for the Sackler family.

1:00:37Emily Jashinsky:They did face a reckoning. Right. But they had all kinds of— Didn't go to prison, still have some decent amount of their money, but they faced a huge social reckoning. Social reckoning, yes, exactly. And they had to pay some money as well. They had to pay. Yeah, they did have their name stripped off, those sorts of things. Yeah, it's probably not fair to call it a total reckoning because they didn't go to prison, frankly. But they faced social consequences, some financial consequences, but they had a whole lot of people in an apparatus boosting them in Washington, Wall Street. And Mike Rogers was a big part of that.

1:01:08And what they were so good at doing. So by the time they got a lot of this through the Affordable Care Act, it created a couple of pain commissions, basically, at the NIH and Institute of Medicine. And by that point, Purdue Pharma and the Sacklers had so thoroughly seeded this pain industry with their people that put up the next element, put up C5, that basically all the commissions then became stacked with these industry people. And so these questions would go, what should the prescription levels be set at? How should we write the guidance to doctors about the risks and the benefits of these medications?

1:01:52And the people writing all of these things that were put through the Affordable Care Act that came from Rogers' bill, all themselves were getting paid off for the most part by this quote-unquote pain industry.

1:02:06Emily Jashinsky:It makes your blood boil. Yeah, it's bleak. It's really bleak. You know, there was this detail in the Times-Siena poll that we were talking about. It's actually really interesting. They say those earning less than$50 ,000 were more than twice as likely to say they would vote for a Democratic congressional candidate this fall rather than a Republican. Those numbers are 63 % to 31%. The Times says that would represent a dramatic shift from 2024 when Mr. Trump narrowly carried that group, according to exit polling. I bet this is similar in Michigan if we were able to zero in on Michigan voters to what the Times and Siena are finding nationwide, where you have people earning less than$50 ,000 a year who actually supported Trump, according to exit polling in 2024, flipping for Democrats.

1:02:56Emily Jashinsky:The Rogers story is—that's tough for him to try and make any more inroads. It gets to this idea that there was a trajectory of this working class realignment that was going to outlive Trump for the Republican Party. It's actually not even lasting through the second Trump administration. It was growing previously, and now it has been just halted in its tracks. And part of the reason is probably their insistence on running people like Mike Rogers who have such baggage. Yeah, how do you present this guy? Right. And so Rogers did not respond to our request for comment. But in the past, when he's been asked about this, he has cited his support for a bill called the National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act of 2005 PDMP.

1:03:43It created a national prescription drug monitoring program. He'll say, look, I was trying to do that. But the industry is generally supportive of the pain industry, generally supportive of this measure, because what it did is it pretended to address the problem. and it would use this database and it would find some people who were addicted to opioids by measuring the amount that they were getting and how long they've been getting it and then just boom just cutting them off most of them then go to the street yeah uh what it but what it didn't do is focus on purdue pharma or the other uh distributors like the whole service of distributors In other words, all the data was right there.

1:04:24Emily Jashinsky:Who were telling doctors to overprescribe it. Yeah, and this stuff was being made very publicly. You're not making this stuff in a back alley. They're making it in a facility that is FDA approved. So the other approach that people were calling for was, no, investigate these companies. They know which pill mills they're sending millions of pills to. Yeah, that's what we want to know. Find these and then shut them down. And then you have to come in with a holistic project as well. Otherwise, everybody's just going to turn to to heroin or which is now flooding in from Afghanistan at that time. So, you know, triple, quadruple whammy going on.

1:05:12But this database was is a very common Washington tactic. OK, there's pressure to do something. Yeah. Let's channel that pressure into something that looks like we're doing something, but actually doesn't do anything about the system. Now, we don't have this article up yet. It should be up maybe by the time this goes up. We'll have it up. But since we're picking on good old Mike Rogers, this one's wild. Tom Perkins is a great reporter in Michigan. He wrote this for DropSite News as well. So if you remember, there was this group called Michigan Jews Against Extremism, which was roughly 400 people who said that they were Democrats and wanted to support Abdul El-Sayed, wanted to support the Democrat, but they were so infuriated by El-Sayed's quote-unquote anti-Semitism or his criticism of Israel, that their consciences dictated that they were going to have to support Mike Rogers.

1:06:08And this creation of this 400-person group ended up creating enormous amounts of media attention nationally. Is El-Sayed going to lose all of these Democrats who are supportive of Israel? So what Tom did is he looked through the list of people. He found that roughly 50 of them were involved with Jews for Mitt.

1:06:35Emily Jashinsky:This is crazy. Which is a 2012 thing where people said that they were Democrats, but that Barack Obama was so anti-Israel that their consciences insist that they were going to have to vote for Mitt Romney. So people who are saying that they're really hardcore Democrats are saying that Barack Obama was too anti-Israel for them. And so at least since 2012, they've been voting Republican. So then he looked through the rest of the list and you find enormous numbers of people of the 430 on this list who have donated to Donald Trump, donated to Republicans, been involved in Republican causes. You even have.

1:07:23So the chair, the finance chair for Mike Rogers's campaign. So in other words, this is not a Democrat. Yeah. He signed the Democrats for Mitt thing this time.

1:07:38Emily Jashinsky:And now he's the Rogers finance. Now he's a Rogers finance chair. This time he had the good sense not to sign this letter because he's publicly the finance chair for the Mike Rogers campaign. Yep. So don't pretend that you otherwise were going to vote for El-Sayed. Six of his family members are on this, who have Republican links, are on this list of supposed Democrats. So subtle, subtle. You look very closely. You've signed tons of tons of Republicans. He also looked, this is less surprising, over 90, I think roughly 90 % are highly active with pro-Israel groups, which you would expect, although it wasn't really, it wasn't put forward as like an APAC project.

1:08:22Emily Jashinsky:Because Mike Rogers has nothing to do with APAC. He's not interested in APAC's help. Please, APAC, stop associating with Mike Rogers. Yeah, so if you want to... A little joke about Mike Rogers trying to actively distance, if you haven't seen it he's trying to like do everything he told him please don't spend publicly even after they said publicly yeah that they were going to spend publicly for him he said actually please don't do that um because that's gonna make it look really bad for me then that weekend he goes to california for uh three different fundraisers um yeah bobby show stack is the um former head of the michigan republican party uh and the finance chair for the mike rogers campaign so yeah hardcore Dems here.

1:09:07Emily Jashinsky:We'll look forward to that over at DropSite. Yeah.

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