1107: Trump Targets Minneapolis, the Fed, and Greenland

24:32Exactly. And, you know, the White House website now includes a section about January 6th that says Ashley Babbitt was, quote, murdered in cold blood, that she posed no threat, despite the the fact that she broke into the Capitol and then tried to climb through a window to get into the Speaker's lobby. So like, I'm not an expert on law enforcement procedure, but we've all now read like a million, you know, former ICE officers or cops talking about what this individual did in this in the case of Renee Good. And like this guy, this ICE officer clearly screwed up. He never should have stepped in front of her car.

25:04He never should have shot her in the face three times when clearly he could get out of the way and avoid getting hit by her car because she was not trying to hit him as we all saw from the video. And I think mostly I've been just disgusted by the total lack of humanity or empathy from elected officials who could have all just said a woman died. She's an American. It's a tragedy. Let's investigate before commenting further, but they did the opposite. And you can see how it's emboldening other ICE officers because there's videos all over social media of them beating up people, beating up Americans, detaining Americans, threatening people who film them or otherwise observe them.

25:39And then saying things like, Like, didn't you learn your lesson? Didn't you learn your lesson last week? Like talking about the Renee Good shooting? I've seen two videos where they say that now. Yes, it's very chilling stuff. Yeah, I was thinking about this over the weekend, which is sort of, why is this important? Why is this one incident important? If the officer had been justified in the moment in shooting Renee Good, it wouldn't make their crackdown any less extreme and egregious and beyond what is required. It wouldn't make their immigration policies any less heinous. And had they just said, we don't believe anyone should be killed simply driving their kids home from school and whatever the specifics of this case, we're going to investigate, but we want everybody to feel safe and you have a right to protest and to write, right to know that our agents are going to enforce the law faithfully, right?

26:30It would actually have been a less important, less important incident, right? But that's not what they did. They decided to defend it. And in defending it, by the way, they've been forced to, because they can't admit error, and that's part of their sort of effort to dominate, they have to continue to defend using words like domestic terrorists that they used from before they had any information. If you go back to Christine Ohm's first statement, when she had the cowboy hat on, what she said just has absolutely no bearing, no relevance, no connection to what actually took place in the moment. But they had to keep it up and keep defending it and keep saying it.

27:02Right. And so they've just like they are radicalizing each other. They are radicalizing these people on the streets. And by the way, they are radicalizing people in Minnesota who are are feeling threatened and unsafe in their own communities. The administration leaked a video and then they amplified a video where after the ICE agent shot Renee Good in the head three times, you hear an ICE agent say, fucking bitch. Yeah. And Jake asked Kristi Noem about that. And there's just nothing to say. She basically like smirked. She said, I don't know, sir. And they seem to think that was helpful for them.

27:35Helpful to their case. Yeah. Which is stunning. Okay, J.D. Vance. Well, it's telling. I mean, Trump administration has responded to the unrest by doubling down. They're sending, quote, hundreds more federal officers to Minneapolis. Those sources told CNN that around a thousand border patrol agents are expected to be deployed to the region. They also instituted a new policy limiting congressional access to ICE facilities a day after the shooting. There's a law that allows Congress to do this, but they are changing the policy anyway. Meanwhile, local and state officials are asking the public to submit videos, eyewitness accounts, and photos of the incident in order to gather evidence after federal authorities, including the FBI, shut them out of the investigation despite initially agreeing to cooperate.

28:20Do you guys think the administration just doesn't see this as a political problem for them, doesn't care, or actually sees doubling down as politically beneficial in some way? I think the lying, like the amount of lying and dissembling they're doing about this, it does suggest like they are they know that the facts are bad for them. They're trying to tell a story about it that's less politically damaging. But behind all their bluster, like these are not these are not images that like it's still America. And we have a suspicion of police states, of too aggressive law enforcement, of infringements on our basic liberties, on what it should feel like to live in an American city.

29:02And that continues to be true. And they know that. They know that. So I do think the lying is a sign that they view this as a risk. Yeah, I can see it a few different ways. is like, I think their primary, if we really think they're thinking about this politically, like their primary political frame of reference is often strength versus weakness. So not backing down would fit into that. And also they think like nativism, anti-immigrant, anti-Somali rhetoric is beneficial for them or making that the focus of the debate is beneficial for them. And we also know that racism and xenophobia are Stephen Miller's passion and the reason he is here.

29:36And he's surrounded by like white nationalists throughout the government who are advancing that project too. So Miller seems like the most powerful person in the White House besides Donald Trump. He's never going to back down. I don't think any amount of data will convince him that he's taking the wrong course either on the merits or politically because he went from random racist Hill staffer to, you know, someone called him the prime minister of the White House. Or at least the intellectual force behind the Trump project. Yeah. I think the darkest version that might be the most accurate is that Trump doesn't care about the politics and he likes violence.

30:10Like he likes violence against political opponents. It's more than just tolerating it. Like he told people at rallies that if he paid their legal bills, that they beat up protesters. He's sick to the January 6th mob on the Capitol. He's hosting an ultimate fighting event at the White House. He just loves this stuff. And so I just, everything you see from him, he just doesn't seem like he cares at all that someone was killed. Yeah. I mean, if you think about their, their, their goals, right. One goal is to increase deportations by a lot. And they're clearly having trouble doing that because it's hard.

30:46They think, first of all, they think that there's like tens of millions of more undocumented immigrants in this country than there are. And also they see as targets, people who aren't just undocumented, but like legal residents with visas or temporary protective status or here on parole or anything else. And so finding all those people is difficult. And so there is a hope for self-deportations. And so what do you need to do? What do you need to do to get people to self-deport? You need to instill fear that you're going to, you know, you also need an excuse to send even more federal agents to places like Minneapolis to just start stopping everyone and checking everyone, setting up checkpoints, which they are also doing.

31:26And then the other thing you don't want is you don't want people to film what you're doing. You don't want eyewitnesses. You don't want protesters because then the country is going to be alerted to what you're doing. And so you want to delegitimize protest and stop the protest from happening. And by dragging protesters, by killing protesters, by not that I'm saying that the killing was intentional, a part of some plan. But if there's violence against protesters, then maybe it sends a message, which is what those ICE agents were saying to some of those people like didn't didn't you learn a lesson and i do think they want to kind of focus on one incident and do all the freeze frames and all that kind of stuff when i really would encourage everyone to watch a lot of the videos from over the weekend in minneapolis and love it and i did a youtube reaction on monday to some of these videos but the clips are all over social media and you know you see uh they're going up to people in random parking lots who are charging their electric vehicles and just asking them they're demanding papers you know they rammed into a car.

32:24They literally hit a car, demanded papers from the driver. And then when a bunch of people showed up, they sped away. You know, they're dragging protesters out of cars and beating them. Like, it's just, it's taken, each individual incident is enraging and, you know, deep injustices being committed. But when you see them all together, it's nuts. It's also, it is the first. So this week, Homeland Security has been celebrating that they were able to double the number of agents in ICE in a year. Now, it was only a few months ago that ICE officials were saying it takes 18 months to recruit, train, and deploy somebody.

33:06Yet in a year, they've doubled it. So there's a lot of people on the streets that just weren't in ICE before that have been recruited as part of this program. And by the way, a lot of the people that are part of these deployments, even if they've been in ICE for a long time, it didn't look like this before. Right. And by the way, we're also losing the distinction between Border Patrol, which has a different mission, but is now being kind of co-opted and used as part of one kind of amorphous single mission in these things led by Greg Bovino. And in many cases are much worse than ICE. Yes. But I do think like the doubling of ICE, you know, we're in Los Angeles.

33:38They've done, you know, surges into Los Angeles. They've, you know, tried to instill fear in Los Angeles, There's a giant place. This is the first time they've gone to a city with the numbers. There are, what, two times, three times now as many ICE agents and Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis as there are police officers in this city. This is the first time they've done it at a scale where it is like it is something that is being felt across the city in a big way. And that I do think is like fundamentally different than what they've done before. And I think Chicago is pretty. Chicago is a big city, too.

34:11But I think the force there was massive. Yes, but this is a huge number of people that are, you hear it from people that you know in Minneapolis. You hear it from people that are just saying they're from, like this is, how it feels on the ground is that this is everywhere. And you have a bunch of people that are radicalized, that are angry, that feel under threat, that feel, have been trained by their superior or sort of instilled in by their superiors to be afraid of the community, to be worried about what they're seeing, to feel isolated like pilgrims in an unholy land. And it's just a powder keg.

34:38It is incredibly dangerous. us. ICE is not recruiting the best and the brightest from the United States. I mean, these people are barely trained. Like, they're lowering standards. These are people that are not looking to deescalate, who are not acting professionally, who are, you know, chanting like MAGA slogans at people, who are threatening random protesters or people simply observing them, who don't seem to know the rules or the rights of the individuals that they're yelling at or maybe don't care, who don't like they're going to win, don't look like they're going to win the road race against the fleeing suspect if we're being honest like these people are just like are these ice these new ice recruits look like idiots and they're not effective and they seem pretty dangerous and i like to your point i think there is a counterpoint which i think steven miller and trump want protests because they want clashes like i think personally that's my view and well and also i mean the we've obviously the renee good video is you know he he got in front of the vehicle and she was driving away but like you get enough protests and you get enough ICE agents, some protester is going to do something stupid.

35:40Right. And they are going to be at fault for start like starting the vile. Really? That's just just the law of averages. Right. Of course. And they're betting they're very excited for when that happens, the Trump administration, because then they can point to someone and say, see, that's a bad person. That person was doing this. I just like the, you know, Trump's thing is like, look, you don't have to like me, but look how tough I am. Right. Immigration enforcement is ugly. And look at these crazy people trying to stop me, but this is what you elected me to do. Like that, whatever, that is the kind of lens to see that through.

36:07And no, like, even if these things are in the, in and of themselves, like unpopular on their own, you say you have this as one set of images, plus all these sort of the claims of all the things they're trying to do on the economy, the kind of populist things they're trying to do on the economy. And then you put those things together and that like, I'm really tough, even on shit that looks ugly. Here's this thing I'm doing over here. I think that's like the story they're trying to tell. The Times interviewed the current Minneapolis police chief today on the Daily. It's really good. People should listen to that.

36:35Great episode, really worth your time listening to. And it's just, you know, he talks about how much time they've spent trying to dig out of the whole Left by 2020 and the George Floyd protests and the lack of trust between local law enforcement and the population. And he just, he feels like what ICE is doing and the subsequent protests and tensions are going to completely unravel like five or six years of work. And so there's just a real question of like, Donald Trump is selling this as making us safer, but the police chief of the city where this enforcement operation is happening is saying it's making the entire population less safe.

37:07And he's scared that it could light the place on fire. And no one's listening to him. It was also striking how when asked about the actual situation with Rene Good and what the ICE officers did, it was so matter of fact and obvious from him. He was like, you never stand in front of a vehicle. You never put yourself in the position like that ICE agent did. You know, it's just it's like an obvious thing. Democrats are now in the situation where there's a funding bill. We get another government funding deadline and a number of senators have said, you know, they don't want to fund DHS budget with ICE like this, especially an increase for ICE after ICE got more funding already without some new restrictions on ICE.

37:46Chris Murphy has already is preparing to propose a bunch of reforms for the agency. Obviously, we've been down this road before. Like, it's very hard to get something done, even if there were enough votes to shut the government down. We've seen how much the Trump administration cares about this. Shutting the government down would not necessarily stop any of these enforcement operations. They still have plenty of money that they got from the big, beautiful bill. So I don't see that is happening. But, you know, it's worth pointing out that YouGov poll conducted the same day that Renee Good was killed, found that Americans overall are turning against ICE.

38:22Plurality support the protests. We'll wait to see a bunch of other polling. It's still early. But how do you think Democrats should handle dealing with this issue? So Fox News asked Benny Thompson whether Congress should use appropriations to rain in ICE. And he said that it's above my pay grade. He's the chair of the he's the ranking member on Homeland Security. So it felt like it seems like it's sort of right smack in the middle of his pay grade. So she's getting paid the right amount to answer that question. So I think the Murphy answers have been better. And it is also, by the way, complicated.

38:50Part of this is there's still the Obamacare funding fight that's ongoing. There's a bunch of other bills and funding built. They're trying to do actual normal appropriations. One of them is for the Justice Department. I think we're kind of watching the full politicization of the Justice Department. It seems as though that would be a place you might want to think about some fucking reforms about how this kind of rogue Department of Justice is operating. but put that aside. We're heading towards January 30th. There's either going to be a standalone home-planned security funding bill. I do not understand how anybody could get behind funding this agency right now, given that Noam is kind of out of control, ICE is out of control, Bovino is out of control.

39:29Like you're going to just put more money in this that you're going to vote to fund. But what is acting like kind of like Trump's pride, like state police, that seems insane to me. And then you end up talking about what happens on January 30th. if you funded most or some of the government, but haven't done Department of Homeland Security. And I agree, like it's complicated, right? Like, well, they'll still be able to do certain things and they'll actually be able to move money around. But before you even get to the kind of political and kind of strategic machinations, what are the reforms that you think are necessary right now that you would want to have on a funding bill for ICE, for border patrol, even knowing that Donald Trump is president, Republicans control Congress is only so much you get.

40:10What do those look like? and how far are you willing to go to fight for those? Because before we get to kind of answering our own threat with how it might not work and the challenges of a shutdown, I do think it's worth saying, like, what would we actually think is the right thing to do in this moment? And if that requires talking through a shutdown, I think that that's worth doing because this is, we are kind of, we keep going like up the escalatory ladder every single time. The next deployment will be worse. The one after that will be worse. And I don't know how, look, if I were in Congress, I do not know how I could vote to fund this Department of Homeland Security regardless of the political implications.

40:46I just don't. You probably wouldn't have to. And I wouldn't vote for it either. And then someone, some Democrats are going to have to walk the plank and actually vote for it. Yeah. Like I bet most of them won't vote for it. But it's just going to be just like, look, I was way out there on this and saying like, don't fund the government last time. Make it over ICE. Make it over immigration. And then watching what happened and watching how the administration just doesn't fucking care. and is not going to accept any restrictions whatsoever. I'm like, yeah, they should talk about it all the time. They should push this issue.

41:15They should not be politically fearful of this issue. But I do think we should just be, our expectations of what they might be able to do should be in check. Yeah, I mean, I agree with Lovett. I'd like to know what the reforms are. But there was this sort of sentiment in the wake of the Renee Good shooting that the video had become a political Rorsak test and that everyone who saw it only viewed it through a partisan lens. I just don't think that's true. I think that's just like a broken – that's how Twitter has broken all of us because there's a bunch of people that respond in ghoulish ways and make everything partisan and the algorithm rewards it and that's all that we see.

41:50I bet you that 95 % of the country sees that video and thinks, oh my god, that is horrifying. That is a tragedy. I can't believe that happened to this woman who doesn't look like a domestic terrorist, Kristi Noem. And so if you could use this funding debate to talk about reasonable reforms, I think you can make the argument. I think you might be able to convince the voting population. I don't think you can convince MAGA or Donald Trump, but you could have a conversation or make a political fight in a way that I think would be beneficial. I definitely agree with that. Yeah, but the lesson of the last year or so is to make these fights salient, you have to actually – you have to be willing to push for the shutdown.

42:30You have to you have to raise the stakes on it because that's why we ended up we're we're going to have an Obamacare vote because they shut down the government. By the way, we were we've talked about a million times like making that fight about health care, I think, was more successful than a lot of people, myself included, thought it would be. We're watching a paramilitary group, poorly trained, itchy and twitchy on the streets of a city, like terrorizing people. There's no consequences. There's no government response to half of these incidents. We're now back. Because of the decimation of local news, the media more broadly, we are now just parsing through videos one at a time, hoping they're reliable because there's so little reliable information about what the government is doing.

43:10And we can't trust what they're saying. We are so far down this path. And to the like the idea that the Democrats in the Senate are going to that there's going to be whatever, you know, a 10 of them, nine of them that are going to go along with this. Just like, come on, at least lay down a marker for what you want to see in it. Make a threat that you think you can stand by and see if we can have like at least a debate about what restrictions or some guardrails could look like, even if it's not enough. I don't know. Do you have ideas on guardrails? I don't know. I don't know. I would like to see what Chris Murphy's cooking up.

43:42I would like to see. One thing is we have Border Patrol. It's supposed to operate within 100 miles of the border. that already includes most of the U.S. population. Minneapolis is not within 100 miles of the border. And there's legal reasons they're allowed to operate in that way, but actually disentangling what border control's job is, what ICE control's job, that's great. What happens in the event of an incident? What happens when you arrest American citizen? What's documented, what's not? Why are these guys holding up phones but not wearing body cams, right? Like there are a lot of simple things you could start to - Masks.

44:11Masks, get the fucking masks off. There was a great, actually - The CBP stuff is like, they're counting the Great Lakes as the border. And so that's how they're willing, that's how they were operated in Chicago. And it's fucking bullshit. But there was a, you know, look, I know it's Tony DeCoppo's in the barrel, but from inside the barrel, he did an interview both with Border Patrol, but with someone, a spokesperson for DHS, I'm not sure who, talking about why they're wearing ice. And then some protesters about why they thought it was ridiculous. And watching these sort of protesters saying, our faces are out here.

44:45We're at risk of getting doxxed. You're a public official. You're serving the country. Of course, you should put your face in front of the public. It's so obvious that that's something that we should sort of put in a reform. I also think that just more people, more prominent people who have been quiet up until now for the last year and maybe were less quiet in the first Trump term, like it's time to fucking speak up. and they could tell themselves that like well it doesn't matter and you know more people who are seen as elites that speak up the worse it is but i do think we're in a situation where being quiet about this stuff speaking up is not going to necessarily fix it it's not any kind of magic bullet on this stuff but not saying anything is letting everyone else know that maybe maybe it looks bad but maybe it's not as bad as it seems like i do think more people saying something about this and and and being not being afraid to actually fucking speak up is is worth doing right now

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48:26Lots going on in the rest of the world right now, most notably in Iran, where the regime has responded to massive anti-government protests with a brutal crackdown that has reportedly killed at least 500 people and led to the arrest of more than 10 ,000. Trump is weighing military strikes. He told reporters on Air Force One that, quote, the military is looking at it. And we're looking at some very strong options. He also claimed that the Iranian leadership called up his team and wants to negotiate over their nuclear program. And it seems like Iran's foreign minister has been in touch with Steve Whitcoff.

48:55Who else? Over the weekend. On the plane, Trump said a summit of some kind would happen. But that, quote, we may have to act before a meeting if the regime keeps targeting protesters. Trump cares about protesters now. Publicly, Iran is vowing to retaliate against American military bases or Israel if we do something. Tommy, where do you come down on all this? And what do you think is actually going on? So, I mean, the protests themselves, they started in late December. It was a bunch of merchants who were pissed because the currency suddenly devalued. And they were mad about other economic grievances.

49:26And then they quickly just grew in size and geographically. And the demands became pretty radical, including calls for the regime change. And what is so interesting about these is they're not, it's not just cities. It's not just women. It's like poor people in rural areas. It's like all across the country. And they're massive. And so initially the regime tried to seem reasonable and suggest they would sit down and talk. And now they're cracking down. There's been – they cut off the internet a few days ago and there's just been massacres it seems. So about two weeks ago, Trump clearly laid down what one might describe as a red line where he said, quote, if the regime kills protesters, quote, the United States will come to their rescue.

50:04We are locked and loaded and ready to go. So now he has a meeting on Tuesday when this podcast comes out where he'll reportedly make a decision. And the range of options are like military strike, cyber attack, more sanctions, maybe some like communication support for the protesters. I'm sure there's some like covert action stuff the CIA is pitching him on that we don't know about. The Journal says that J.D. Vance is pushing for diplomacy. Steve Wyckoff, as you said, is in touch with the foreign minister. I don't I have no idea what he's going to do here. I mean, he clearly said, if there's a massacre, I will respond militarily.

50:37So it seems like he's on the hook to respond. But it's just like there's not an obvious solution here to the problem. Where does the nuclear program fit into all of this? And like, do you think that these protests were in any way like fueled by the strikes on their nuclear facilities that Trump ordered last summer? I mean, I think the Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iran showed the weakness of the regime militarily and they couldn't defend their own people. I mean, I think the difference here is like the Iran nuclear program strikes were discreet. It was like a clear objective. They hit three sites that were all nuclear related in some cases.

51:12Like the planning on those targets had been ready in practice for decades. Like I remember being briefed on one of the strike packages for the Fordo strike. And so the risk in those was pretty low. It was like, you know, Israelis had already taken out the air defense systems. we have overwhelming military superiority. And it was easy to explain to the American people why bombing Iran's nuclear program keeps us safe, right? Even if we disagree on the efficacy of the strikes. In this case, how do you do an airstrike that deters a crackdown on protesters? Like that doesn't make sense to me. There's not universal opinion on whether it would be helpful or welcomed or not.

51:49There's some people who think the Iranians might rally around the flag if we bomb them again or the Israelis bomb them again. And then you just don't know who comes next. If the regime is toppled? Like, is it the IRGC? Is it hardliners? Is it chaos? Is it civil war? We don't know. And this, this threat to retaliate, like, you know, I can see Trump maybe thinks it's, they're a paper tiger, given that the retaliation last time didn't do much to US targets. But what if the regime thinks this is existential and they're about to be toppled? Like maybe they go a lot harder. And so Trump has gotten really lucky, like only by the grace of God were service members not killed when he executed Cosmos Olamani in 2020.

52:26Remember, they fired a bunch of ballistic missiles at a US base, 100 service members got traumatic brain injuries, but no one died. We have since learned that in the Venezuela raid, one of the helicopter pilots got shot in the leg three times. And if that person had been killed, and that helicopter down, like this would be a very different mission. So one of these days, something really bad is going to happen, this won't be cost free. But I, you know, it's just it's not, it's not clear to me what he's going to do or what a good option even looks like you see lindsey graham said he hasn't slept in three or four days because he's so excited about the possibility of regime change yeah jesus christ man that guy therapy for that guy just such a i think this is his therapy yeah yeah it's funny to think that trump used to make fun of him all the time remember you say like there's no war he didn't want he's a he's a neocon warmonger who wants to invade everywhere and now Now he's just executing his foreign policy.

53:23I will say some of the videos that I've seen from Iran of just like, you know, when the internet has been on or people have been able to get videos out of just what they're doing to protesters and like the bodies is just horrific. If this weren't Trump and all that goes along with this being Trump, a U.S. president threatening a dictatorship with retaliation on behalf of a protest, like a protest of the people against the evils of the regime. Like, you know, if one outcome of it is the regime is afraid to kill more people in the streets, that isn't a bad thing. Absolutely. Look, people are probably looking at, screaming at their phones right now being like, this is Obama and the Syria red line and he failed to implement it and it's been, like, look, I have a lot of, I hear you.

54:07Like, I think with the benefit of hindsight, he probably should hit some targets and, you know, sent a message about chemical weapons and why it mattered. I just think for the Iranian regime, if this is an existential fight against being toppled, no number of American airstrikes is gonna slow them down, in my opinion. Like if they think that they are no longer to be in charge, like they're dead anyway. So I think they're gonna battle. And so the question is like, if you look again at Syria, Syria ultimately had a change in government that came from within. It took, you know, a decade plus 15 extra years, but that's how it happened.

54:41And the question is like, even Netanyahu is kind of being restrained in this moment, Like kind of not talking about Iran, not talking about intervention, talking about how this needs to be an Iranian led regime change, because there is concern that if internally it starts to be viewed as kind of jiving with the regime propaganda, which is that this is the U.S. and the Zionists, you know, trying to topple the Iranian government that could weaken what is actually a completely organic set of protests. One thing to know is the turmoil in the Middle East isn't distracting our America's first president.

55:16Now, America's first from his plans for hemispheric domination over the weekend. Trump said he'd love to make a deal with Denmark, but that one way or another, we're going to have Greenland. Wait, is it America's first? Is that a real thing? I just I just I just I thought it was real. That's what it seems like now. He also added whether they like it or not. so that's nice uh trump officials are apparently going to meet with danish officials on wednesday i think there's a congressional delegation bipartisan delegation that's also going to meet with them so everyone's meeting with the danes uh meanwhile bloomberg is reporting that the uk and germany are talking about putting together a nato troop presence there to discourage an invasion by us another nato member if they think minneapolis is cold wait till this administration gets to fucking Greenland.

56:03Wait till the videos of guys slipping on ice in fucking Greenland. Send ice to Greenland. I have to admit, I don't quite get the explanation that if we don't take Greenland, Russia or China will take it since Greenland is currently part of the NATO alliance. Am I missing something? Here's the thing, John. You are missing something. This is what Trump's been saying. Russia or China is going to take it if we don't take it. As if it's like up for grabs. In the game of risk, Greenland is a key point to access Europe. If you can hold Greenland, you can put a lot of your troops into Greenland so that even under withering assault from the European continent, they'd have to roll six after six after six to be able to reduce the number of troops you have in Greenland.

56:47Did you notice on that map too, in the game of risk, because I went back and looked at it when all this was happening? Oh yeah, well people have been like posting about it. Venezuela is much bigger and takes up many more countries in South America than it actually does. It's just like, it goes from Central America to Mexico right to like Venezuela taking up basically like a quarter of South America. Well, that's the thing about South America. It does make you wonder like, has Trump really been just looking at risk this whole time? Because if you can hold Brazil and Venezuela, those two spots, you can keep the whole continent of South America.

57:17The other theory along these lines that I've heard that I actually buy is the Mercator map. The Mercator projection. Yes. Yes. So it's a way of drawing maps for those who don't know that makes Greenland look really big. Like anything around the poles looks really big. And there are some people who think maybe Trump thinks that Greenland's like the size of the continent of Africa. Yes. Here's the thing. He definitely either does or if he knows that it's not that size, he still thinks that owning all of it would be cool because on most Mercator maps, it will look like we have more territory. I am sure the map in his mind.

57:47It's either one of those things for sure. The map in his mind is the same map that was in our elementary schools when we were kids with that big blob of USSR. He's an 80s guy. And the plasticity in his brain dried up in like 1988. And so that's what he's got. He's got a big fucking Greenland there. And he wants it. It's why he also thinks like Canada's the 51st state because Canada looks pretty big up north on the Mercator map as well. But to your question, I mean, not only is Greenland part of Denmark, which is part of NATO, under an agreement that dates back to the 1950s, the U.S. has troops in Greenland and it has the ability to put in more.

58:21All we have to do is talk to them first, but we can construct, install, maintain, operate military bases across Greenland if we want. We could put personnel there. We can do anchorages, moorings. There's already a base there that monitors missile launches. And so, again, we just have to consult them. And so if the Russians or the Chinese tried to take Greenland by force, they would be starting a war with NATO, which is why it's probably not going to happen. But if Trump wants to unravel NATO by taking Greenland, he might make that actually an option. So did you see that the Times, the interview Trump did with the Times, I think, gave up the gain on Greenland.

58:54He said owning Greenland is what he feels is psychologically needed for success. Dan and I were talking about unfrighted. Right. So like this is he just wants to be the dude, the president who added a lot of territory. Like this is a legacy project. This is not about security in any way. It's real estate, right? It's like, well, you don't want to lease a building. You want to own a building. That's basically what this is all about. Yeah, and he's got in his mind the expansion of the country, who got the Louisiana territory, who went west, who made America bigger. I also think it's worth pointing out, you're all listening to this probably on Tuesday, which is Trump's kicking off the next stop on his affordability tour.

59:33And what a tour it is, because he wants to pay each Greenlander up to$100 ,000 that's been floated to buy Greenland. So to make things more affordable for Americans, we are trying to arrest the Fed chair so that we can keep inflation high. He just said that we're ruined if the Supreme Court rules against him on tariffs. He also just added more tariffs, 25 % tariffs he just announced on any country that does any kind of business with Iran, which is quite a few countries. So we're trying to do more tariffs. We're trying to spend$100 ,000 a piece on Greenlanders while Americans can't afford most things.

1:00:12And also he did threaten aboard Air Force One to veto a potential ACA extension on the subsidies if it happens. So he is just crushing it on affordability day. Whose nightmare do you think we're in? Are we in Kamala's nightmare where she wakes up and realizes he has to give a different answer on The View? Are we in Merrick Garland's answer where he wakes up after becoming attorney general and realizing he has to move quickly to make sure Donald Trump can never seek higher office again? Whose nightmare is this? Hillary Clinton's. Could be Hillary Clinton. That's a long, she's been asleep for a long time.

1:00:42Who's sleep demon? Who's sleep demon is this? Yeah, who's perilous demon is troubling us today? Oh, boy. As for Venezuela, because we're not done with that yet, on Sunday, Trump posted an image of his Wikipedia page mocked up to give him the title acting president of Venezuela. And he also said that he's, quote, inclined to keep Exxon out of oil development in the country because he didn't like their CEO statement at the White House the other day that it's too dangerous to make investments in Venezuela unless there are big changes in governance. The sin of telling the truth. Trump seems to have his eye on Cuba as well, posting that they won't be getting any more Venezuelan oil or money and that they should, quote, make a deal before it's too late, all caps.

1:01:23Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel wrote back that Cubans are, quote, ready to defend the homeland to the last drop of blood. These all seem like healthy developments, no? I mean, what's crazy about Trump being mad about the Exxon CEO's comments is he's talking about their assets getting seized when the Venezuelans nationalized the industry in the 70s and then again under Hugo Chavez. And he was criticizing the laws and the political climate under Maduro. And Trump just told us that he toppled the Maduro government and installed Delce Rodriguez to change the exact political climate that this CEO was complaining about.

1:01:59But Trump is like angry that it sounded negative. Yes, it's because it's like, hey, hey, you're making me feel, you're making it sound like what I did isn't going to work. I don't need that right now. I want positive people at my table. I want people that can see. I want to hear yes. Yeah. Let's yes. And my invasion of my not invasion of Venezuela. This is toxic, guys. Yeah, that's right. It's toxic. It's toxic. Yeah. I just, again, I can't get, I can't believe it's been like just over a week since we invaded Venezuela. We bombed Nigeria on Christmas. He bombed Syria again over the weekend. They're talking about toppling Cuba.

1:02:33We're talking about taking Greenland by force. We're talking about bombing Iran again. Actually, there's two different pitches in the hopper for bombing Iran. There's the bombing to support the protesters. Then Netanyahu has been saying, hey, let's bomb the ballistic missile stuff. So maybe we'll get a two for one. I don't know. Also, like Marco Rubio, who's out there just getting, you know, blowjob profile after blowjob profile. From my friend in the barrel. And everyone else. He's taking great pains to be like, all we're doing is using our oil embargo on Venezuela to sort of, you know, nudge them towards the right direction and the right policy.

1:03:09And then Trump's like, acting president of Venezuela. It says so on my Wikipedia page. Ha ha ha. We're so far from the things I think we should be doing to make America succeed. And I just was like thinking like, like, okay, well, I don't think this is good for the long-term health of the country or the short term. And it's like, well, what would be some things? Like, I don't know. Not invading Venezuela? STEM education. Better schools. maybe some some some better transmission lines for clean energy i'm dunkleman pilled as you all know and they uh and just we're just abundance bro over here but it but it just like what the there's such a it's i know it sounds stupid but and we're so far from it but they have such a lack of understanding of like what made america a powerhouse in the first place and it like it like power and force and there listen there's plenty of hegemonic america america kind of asserting ourselves on the world stage.

1:04:02But, but in the country, like, why are we, why do we have such a big economy? We had really smart people inventing really amazing things that transformed the world. And there's something about our culture and our people and all the people who came here and all the people who were forced to come here that have something magical about them that makes, make amazing things happen. And there's just absolutely no, there's no thought to like a bet that the success of America was about like growing America. It's about how we slice the pie of what like fucking oil derricks in the south america i'm sorry growing america isn't taking greenland and venezuela that's yes i guess you're right i guess you're right sort of geographically there would be more i do think i think we do do do great uh with we're kicking out a bunch of people we're building a fortress around a much bigger country i think that's that's let's take some of the failing schools here in the u.s and build them on greenland you know and then you can be like james k polk yeah that just just to be a baby for a minute the rubio profiles are making me so crazy it's like i've never seen a group of people spike the football on first down before like don't you guys remember mission accomplished in iraq and everything like the the venezuela operation the the delta force raid day one will almost will very likely be the best day the uh the first profiles do not matter the first profiles they they become a joke in history donald rumsfeld was the remember how much they loved him the press would get they would love his little questions little snowflake briefs that he was dropping all about the building that's the same vase you're seeing it twice.

1:05:22Like people thought he was a cat, a fun, a fun guy. What an old, old fun geezer up there. My favorite is there's a, there's a political profile and, um, there's a quote in there from someone that says like, you know what though? Rubio is building up a lot of capital right now inside the GOP. And you know, it really, he really could make a run at 2020. I'm like, oh yeah. Oh yeah. Because we all know how valuable the capital inside the GOP is and has been in the Trump era, right? Yeah. No, usually it's the insiders in Washington who didn't really want to see Trump to come to power in the first place.

1:05:58They're the ones who are going to decide 2028, right? Marco Rubio building a beautiful kind of cathedral of his ambitions. And Donald Trump just tweets, Rubio, fartamugi, it's over. He truly is one post away from being eviscerated by this guy. Ridiculous. Oh, gosh. All right. When we get back from the break, you'll hear Tommy's conversation with lael brainert about why it's so crucial to have an independent federal reserve bank i can't wait to learn uh but two announcements before we get to that i'll be so different joy thank you for your question what a great question how different from joe biden let me count the ways you won't believe it it's what would you have done differently so many things oh so many things joy i honestly i don't think we have time i don't think we have time to talk about how many different things I would have done than that old fuck.

1:06:49Fuck him. I'm different.

1:06:53Two announcements before we get to that. The interview. Strict scrutiny is coming to the West Coast in the spring. The show in San Francisco is sold out, but you can join Kate, Melissa, and Leah in Los Angeles on March 7th at the Palace Theater. You think we can get tickets to that? Yeah, we can get. Worst case, we can just sit backstage. Oh, look, it says in brackets, mention if you plan to attend. Thank you. Yeah, we'll be there. Okay. Grab your tickets at cricket.com slash events. Also, Lover Leave It is back with a whole new slate of shows at Dynasty Typewriter for 2026. Love it. Here's when I ask, who do you guys have coming up?

1:07:29And hopefully, you know. We've got Ted McGinley, Legend, Michael Urie. They're both in Shrinking. Robin Thede is coming. We have Frankie Quinones. We have Lisa Rinna coming up. We have a bunch of amazing shows coming up at Dynasty. Go to cricket.com slash events. Come to the show Thursday nights. It's very fun. We cut a lot of the stuff that we can't include in the pod. You mean future Fed chair, Lisa Rinna. That's good. It's good. Depends how she does on traders. Depends how she does on traders. Go to cricket.com slash events to check out the lineup. We're always adding guests.

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1:09:06Today, I'm lucky to be joined by an economist who's held several of the most senior economic posts in the U.S. government, including Director of the National Economic Council from 2023 to 2025, Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve from 22 to 23, and you had a bunch of other roles at the Treasury Department, Deputy National Economic Advisor during the Clinton administration. The list goes on. Welcome to Pod Save America, Lael Brainard. Great to see you. Well, it's great to be here. Thank you so much for doing this because I don't know much about the economy. So let's just start with a quick Fed 101 for listeners who might be like me and aren't that familiar with what the Fed actually does.

1:09:40Can you just give us the quick description of what the Fed's mission is and why it's so important that it be independent and what it needs to be independent from exactly? Yeah. So look, the Fed is really important to keeping inflation under control and also having a strong job market in the U.S. Back in the 1970s, when the Fed was being pressured by the White House, they lost control of inflation. Inflation went up to double digits. It took a decade, Paul Volcker, and double-digit unemployment to get inflation back down. So the Fed is just central to affordability in the American economy, to people's ability to plan their budgets over the next few years and have a sense of what they'll be able to afford.

1:10:37And it's also really important for the long-term economic stability of our economy. You asked about independence, independence from what? So politicians generally operate on electoral cycles. And in every country, and certainly in US history, heads of state, elected presidents, they are very focused on their next election. And so they often just want interest rates to be low. And that leads to longer term high inflation. And that's the reason that central banks all around the world, but particularly in the US, are asked by Congress to operate in a way that is independent of the president, independent in order to make sure that inflation stays low over many years rather than juicing the economy for the next election and then living with high inflation for many years after that.

1:11:44Yeah. So President Trump, he wants Chairman Powell to take steps to cut interest rates. Could you just talk about why Chairman Powell is hesitant to do that and what the impact could be, you think, of a premature rate cut? And then are there international examples from other countries where maybe the Fed got politicized or the central bank got politicized and it created some sort of economic challenge or disaster? Yeah. So the reason that the US Congress established really important protections for the independence of the Fed, including that the members of the Fed should not be able to be fired by the president, except in very limited cases, is because we can see historically and around the world what happens when short-term political considerations drive interest rates, what happens in those cases.

1:12:38And we've seen this very recently in Turkey, where not only does inflation go up to double digits, but it can soar. And it's really hard to get very high inflation under control again. So once you lose that credibility of the central bank, then inflation starts to go higher and people lose confidence that the central bank can bring inflation back down. And it ends up costing the economy just a decade of lost growth. And we've seen that in Argentina, we've seen it in Turkey, But we also saw it back in the 1970s after Richard Nixon famously pressured Arthur Burns to juice the economy for Nixon's reelection.

1:13:27And then the American people paid the price in terms of unaffordable houses, unaffordable groceries for more than a decade. Hmm. So Chairman Powell released this video Sunday night talking about this investigation into essentially a plan to remodel the Fed and whether or not he misled Congress about it. But we'll set that aside. But, you know, he released this video basically saying, look, this is not really about whether or not I misled Congress. This is about Trump wanting me to do his bidding and I won't. Were you surprised that Chairman Powell pushed back so forcefully? He seemed like someone who is pretty reticent to kind of get into the political fray like that.

1:14:08Absolutely. So the chair has been, I think, very much characterized by restraint, by trying to stay out of the political fray, which is, of course, the hallmarks of a good independent Federal Reserve chair who was supposed to really not be swayed by short-term political consideration. So to see that kind of a forceful statement coming out, I think took everybody, certainly took Fed watchers, people who are in the financial markets by surprise. But of course, it comes after a series of actions that are all very unprecedented that this White House has taken to pressure the Federal Reserve. And so in the context of a series of unprecedented steps, it does really raise the alarm that the Fed could lose its independence, and that would be bad for inflation in America.

1:15:12Yeah. So, I mean, Powell's term as chair ends in May, but he could remain a Fed governor through 2028. Do you think this fight makes him more or less likely to want to stick it out through, I think January 31st, 2028? It's a good question. I mean, I think the thing that you kind of have to ask, given that he only has a handful of meetings at which interest rate cuts will be debated before the new chair comes into the Federal Reserve, it's really a puzzle why the Trump White House would be taking these actions at this juncture. The Federal Reserve just cut rates three times in a row in order to help strengthen the job market and cushion the U.S.

1:16:01economy. And the most recent GDP data is strong. So it's a real puzzle why they're so close to getting what they want, which is a new chair, why this extraordinary move now. And I think it goes to what you're asking about, which is the chair can stay on as a regular member of the board, just a voting member, which he was before he became chair, for another two years, which is until 2028. And so the real question, Mark, given that he's going to step down as chair in May anyway, is are they trying to persuade him to leave the board altogether in May with this kind of extraordinary threat? And many people might actually counsel that But in these extraordinary circumstances, it's important not to bow to that kind of pressure.

1:16:56So I don't think we know what's going on behind the scenes, but it certainly raises that question of what are they trying to accomplish here? Yeah, I ask that about this administration often. Here's my idea. I was thinking maybe just between you and us that you could relate to Chairman Powell. I think he should threaten to raise interest rates a thousand basis points if Trump doesn't back off. What do you think? Good idea. Great idea. So let's just say that the Federal Reserve is best when they are doing their job, looking at the data, boring, nonpolitical, and certainly not in a kind of political back and forth with the most powerful person in America and maybe the world.

1:17:44So much better for the American people to have the Fed just continue doing their boring job, which is to keep inflation low and to keep jobs plentiful. That's what they're really good at. And if Americans are focused on affordability, and I think this is their number one concern on the economy right now, Americans want a more affordable set of prices. The Fed is central to that, keeping affordability front and center over multiple years, not just with a view to the next political election. All right. I'll take that as a maybe. So ever since the financial crisis, I feel like, look, I'm like a casual kind of stock market observer, but I felt like ever since the financial crisis, like the Fed's decisions have been the primary mover of the stock market.

1:18:46It's been Fed decisions around rates or bond purchases. They had a greater impact on the stock market than like earnings or the economy or unemployment, like the things you would think are really the scaffolding of the economy. And so it seems strange to me that today, Monday, January 12th, the markets and other kind of market indicators seem to be kind of shrugging off this attack on Chairman Powell and the Fed's independence. Do you have a theory for why that is? You know, I think you're exactly right that the kind of threats to the Federal Reserve's independents that the White House keeps engaging in should really have a lot of people who are in financial markets who are trading stocks and treasuries.

1:19:34It should have them very worried because it's not a today's story only. It really goes to the fundamental stability of U.S. financial markets and the ability of the Federal Reserve to keep inflation predictable and low. It goes to the strength of the dollar. People who are investing in dollar assets really depend on low inflation in the United States. And so you saw a little bit of a move right after that video came out in the kind of direction you would think you would expect, stocks down, treasuries down, and the dollar down. But you're right, the markets rebound. And I think the markets are just getting to the point where they're overwhelmed by just very unprecedented actions on the part of this White House.

1:20:28If investors do start doubting the Fed and the health of the US economy, are there places where you think it might begin to show up, like the dollar? Is it people buying gold? What should we be watching for? Yeah, absolutely. So we have seen some of that concern about the dollar in the value of gold and the fact that central banks in other countries are holding relatively more gold compared to their treasury holdings than they were just a year ago. You also will see it in long-term interest rates on treasury securities because people get more nervous that their treasury securities are not going to hold value if inflation goes up a lot because the Fed loses its ability to be independent.

1:21:20And that's bad, not just because we're already paying a trillion dollars of interest on our national debt, and we need some relief there, but also because that then translates into higher mortgage costs, higher car loan costs. So it's bad for American households. This whole thing seems bad. Every day, there's something to do that's bad. You know, it was about a week ago, we were bombing Venezuela, and all of a sudden we're doing this. I mean, it's just, it's hard to keep up with this stuff. It's madness. Well, it is really hard to keep up with and it is so unprecedented, but it's really important for Americans to stay focused on it because if they care about affordability, they really do care about the Fed's ability to control inflation.

1:22:06And if the White House can go after this chair, they can go after the next chair. And that makes it much harder for any chair and any federal reserve to actually do their job, which is to really promote long-term affordability for Americans. Yeah. Well, good for Chairman Powell for pushing back. I was glad to see it. Lael Brainard, thank you so much for helping me understand this stuff. I really appreciate it. And it's great to see you again. It's great to see you. Thank you.

1:22:38That's our show for today. Thanks to Lael Brainard for coming on. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Can I read you my favorite rum-swelled snowflake memo? Yeah. Two, Doug Fythe, subject, issues with various countries. Body the memo. We need more coercive diplomacy with respect to Syria and Libya, and we need it fast. If they mess up Iraq, it will delay bringing our troops home. We also need to solve the Pakistan problem, and Korea doesn't seem to be going well. Are you coming up with proposals for me to send around? Thanks. I remember that memo. It is so funny. It's like, hey, hey, listen, if I don't see it before the end of the day.

1:23:08South Pakistan. South Pakistan. That's a great boss, defense secretary. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to crooked.com slash friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts. Also, please consider leaving us a review. That helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Crooked. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo, Emma Illich Frank, and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reed Churlin is our executive editor. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics.

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