DC Residents Protest Trump Takeover

21:49Jason Johnson:Congressman Jasmine Crockett, thank you so much for the work you do. And thanks for coming on the beat tonight. Absolutely. Later this hour, Trump officials are already decimating FEMA. their disturbing next steps are coming into focus. Plus, why Obama's history-making 2004 DNC speech is back in the news tonight. But first, critics warning a, quote, MAGA partisan handpicked by Steve Bannon is now empowered to corrupt government data. For on that, we're back on The Beat. Ever notice how life's best stories don't happen in your living room? They happen on the open road, out on the water, or parked under the stars.

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23:57Jason Johnson:Trump is continuing to not hire the best people. The administration is tapping a MAGA loyalist for the top job at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. You see him there. E.J. Antony, Project 2025 contributor, an economist at the Pro-Trump Heritage Foundation, who Steve Bannon urged Trump to nominate after Trump fired the previous jobs data chief because he didn't like the data, accusing her of manipulating stats without offering any evidence. And Tony has been a vocal critic of the agency and said this right before Trump fired the previous administrator. Have we put in our own person into BLS? Is a MAGA Republican that President Trump knows and trusts, are they running the Bureau of Labor Statistics yet, sir?

24:45No, unfortunately, Steve, we still haven't gotten there. And I think that's part of the reason why we continue to have all of these different data problems.

24:55Jason Johnson:Steve Bannon calling for a MAGA Republican to run the agency, but experts say the job is about instilling nonpartisan trust, which explains the instant backlash, including Barack Obama's top economist Jason Furman saying, quote, I don't think I have ever publicly criticized any presidential nominee before. But E.J. Antony is completely unqualified to be BLS commissioner. He is an extreme partisan and does not have any relevant expertise. Today, Reuters reporting on worries among economists about the reliability of jobs numbers due to potential political interference and staffing cuts. Joining me now to discuss is Justin Wolfer, economist with the University of Michigan and host of the Think Like an Economist podcast.

25:42Jason Johnson:Justin, thank you so much for joining us today. I want to start with this because this seems to be the basic thing to me. I don't think there are Democratic numbers. I don't think there are MAGA numbers. Aren't labor statistics just numbers? Tell us a little bit about what that job actually entails. I don't see why it's a partisan position. Right. So let's try an analogy here. Say you wanted to figure out what the president's weight was. We could get a scale and we could put him on the scale and that would tell us in pounds. That'd be pretty good. And if it was a doctor, an honest doctor who read the scale, you'd know exactly what the president weighed.

26:20Now, here's the problem. What if I told you that Carolyn Levitt, the White House press secretary who has a tortured relationship with truth, was the one reading the scale, all of a sudden, I reckon that president's going to be about 100 pounds lighter. Now, in this case, it might mean he gets the wrong cholesterol drugs, but when it comes to the economy, it means that the folks at the Fed are driving blind. It means that businesses don't actually know which parts of the country are booming and which are in recession. It means job seekers don't know what occupations to join and on and on and on it goes.

26:53It is just a number. This is a job that I want to be clear about this. It's the most important part of this. This is a job that has never been filled by ideologues. It's always been filled by number-crunching nerds who understand all the wizardry of statistics, the complications, and how we can make data speak in a way that they tell the truth most clearly.

27:15Jason Johnson:You know, Justin, this is the thing that gets me to extend your metaphor about the scale. The worry is that Trump steps on the scale and Antony and Pete Hegseff are holding his arms up. So he appears to be a lot lighter than he actually is. What are the potential consequences of unreliable numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, both domestically and internationally? Right. So these are data that are used for all sorts of things. Businesses use them to figure out where should I open my next branch? They use it to figure out whether they should be hiring or whether they should be contracting.

27:47The Federal Reserve uses it to decide whether to raise interest rates or lower them. Banks use it to decide whether to expand lending or whether it wouldn't be safe to do so. You and I might use it to figure out which occupations we should be directing our kids to be going into and so on. These are data that have already been collected. And all we need is to be told the truth in order to make the best possible decisions for our families, our businesses, and our government. Look, it's worse than you said, because even if Pete Hegseth isn't holding the president's arms, metaphorical arms here, the very suspicion that he might be is enough.

28:23I no longer believe what the scale says. This is a job that's always been occupied by a wonk because you want to eliminate any suspicion that the data is not worthwhile. And so the moment you allow the possibility of doubt, you've all of a sudden taken the hundreds of millions of dollars. We, the taxpayers, have invested in these data and you've made them a whole lot less valuable.

28:47Jason Johnson:You know, I want to say this. There's a story now about Trump saying that Goldman Sachs should fire its economists who said terrorists would slow economic growth. You know, obviously, this is a president who is allergic to the truth. But what's the impact, Justin, of also not only does the president seem to want to manipulate his own data, but he is now threatening. and we've seen him go through these threats, threatening economists that don't even work for the government. What can that do to our economy? Let me look him right in the eye and say, tariffs are going to raise inflation and slow economic growth.

29:19Come at me, brother. But this is actually more pernicious than that. What this is, is a president telling a bank on Wall Street who to hire as their chief economist. After he told Intel who to hire as their CEO. After he told Harvard what to put on their curriculum. after he told Coca-Cola what kind of sweetener to use in their drinks. This is command and control. This is a single man in a room deciding all the different levers about what should happen in the economy rather than letting individuals make their own choices and individual experts and businesses compete with each other in the market to produce the best possible goods at the best possible prices.

29:59This is central planning. This is the thing Reagan fought against. And it's a beautiful irony, Jason. You and I are on MSNBC right now. arguing for market forces over this excess of central planning from an administration crazy on power.

30:18Jason Johnson:I got to tell you, it is always clear when you explain things to us, and it always sounds great, too. Justin Wolfers, thank you so much for joining us this evening on The Beat. Your pleasure, mate. Still ahead, Trump's mishandling of FEMA is affecting communities like this one as they struggle to rebuild. But first, Obama's vision of America turned on its head as party power struggles escalate. More when we get back on The Beat.

30:52Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America. There is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America. There's the United States of America.

31:15Jason Johnson:Barack Obama in 2004 with a vision of a united America. But now, Gallup surveys show that the two parties are more polarized than ever. and the Texas redistricting fight has escalated into a national brawl between red states and blue states. If they show back up in the state of Texas, they will be arrested and taken to the Capitol. We are talking about emergency measures to respond to what's happening in Texas, and we will nullify what happens in Texas. They fled and went to leftist blue states that may be more aligned with their personal philosophy that is not welcome in the state of Texas. We are at war.

31:53And that's why the gloves are off. And I say, bring it on.

32:00Jason Johnson:This feud may only deepen existing divisions in this country. Right now, 40 states have governments controlled by one party or another. And the anxiety about where this all could lead was expressed in last year's thriller Civil War. Nineteen states have seceded. The United States Army ramps up activity. The White House issued warnings to the Western forces as well as the Florida Alliance. The three-term president assures the uprising will be dealt with swiftly. There's some kind of misunderstanding here. What? Well, you're American, okay? Okay. What kind of American are you?

32:41Jason Johnson:Joining me now is David Daly, journalist and author who's written extensively about politics and voting rights. His latest book is Anti-Democratic Inside the Far Right's 50-Year Plot to Control American Elections. David, thanks for joining me this evening. I'm going to start with this. I am a political scientist by training. I teach political journalism to students, and I've always been skeptical of the idea of purely red and blue states. I think there's a lot of purple in there, but they've been gerrymandered into red and blue states. Do you think that we have actually does the data show that we are actually more ideologically polarized today or is it simply the leadership of our country is more ideologically polarized and it's dragging people in their directions?

33:26I think that we have been polarized by gerrymandering. We've been polarized by redistricting. We have 25 states that voted for Donald Trump three times. Those 25 states all have Republican governors, Republican state legislatures, and they have 50 U.S. senators. We have, in many ways, the exact opposite of what Barack Obama hoped for in that speech. And so much of it goes back to the question of redistricting. When Obama was elected in 2008, Democrats had a supermajority in the U.S. Senate, a huge advantage in the U.S. House. Republican strategists recognize that as historic as the 2008 election was, the 2010 election would be much more consequential.

34:13It was a census year. It was redistricting year. And that if they were able to win trifecta control in purple states, and that's what they've taken over to really have the upper hand in redistricting. North Carolina, Ohio, Indiana, Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan. That's where the Republican gains on redistricting were made. So much of this stems from that strategy.

34:39Jason Johnson:And a lot of the data shows that it was in 2012, where I think Democrats got over a million more votes, but ended up, you know, losing seats when we had sort of our midterm elections and during the presidential election of 2012. How does that happen? So what is the process that Republicans have taken slowly over the last 50 years, 40 years, 15 years, seven years to make sure that they can gerrymander out power, despite in some instances not having the majority? Republicans had a really sophisticated strategy heading into the 2010 midterms. And what they wanted to do, and Karl Rove outlined this in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that March, he said, the party that controls state legislatures can control Congress.

35:26And the Republicans had a strategy called the Red Map, short for the Redistricting Majority Project. And what they set out to do was to control every seat at the table when it came to redistricting in 2011. this was focused really in purple states in North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. And as a result, you're absolutely right, in 2012, not only did 1.4 million more Americans prefer Democratic candidates than Republicans for the U.S. House, Republicans held a 234-201 advantage anyway, but all of these purple states that voted to re-elect Obama in 2012, Republicans took 64 of the 94 congressional seats from those states.

36:12That is how you can control this country from the minority through redistricting.

36:19Jason Johnson:So, David, I'm looking down the road. We've got Abbott saying he's going to eliminate five Democratic seats in Texas. You've got the governor in South Carolina saying we're going to get rid of one district. You've got these sorts of plans happening. And then you've got Democratic governor saying, hey, we will do this in response. Play this out. Give me some back of the envelope math here. If we look at all the solidly blue states that don't have, you know, independent electoral commissions, if all the blue states gerrymandered out Republicans and all the Republicans gerrymandered out the Democrats, who would basically end up winning?

36:53Jason Johnson:If there was an extreme gerrymander off, who ends up winning that contest in America? Well, voters lose, first of all, but I think then Democrats lose as well. Democrats and Republicans could fight this off to a stalemate if this just stayed in Texas and California. And I think that this by no means would pass in California if it goes to the ballot allowing the legislature to go ahead and gerrymander. But this is not going to stay in Texas. Republicans are going to move on to Ohio, where there's only a four-year map in place, two Democratic districts there that they could wipe off. It's going to move to Florida, where Ron DeSantis has already said he's going to reopen these maps.

37:32Three seats in South Florida, as well as Tampa and Orlando, that he's going to take a look at. This is going to go to Missouri, to Indiana. If Republicans really want to continue, they could go to Kentucky, to New Hampshire, to Kansas. The Supreme Court today is taking on this additional case. They're going to hear arguments October 15th on the Voting Rights Act case out of Louisiana, majority minority seats, could allow Republicans to rip up maps next year across the South and destroy majority Black seats in Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana. Democrats could, they just don't have a lot of room to go after California.

38:11New York, it's 2028 until the state constitution can be amended. Democrats have already pretty much maximized their gains in Illinois. The governor of Oregon has said that they're not going to touch this. Maryland attempted to do an 8-0 map. The state Supreme Court said no. Democrats are trying to talk tough here about bringing a gun to a gunfight. The trouble is they're out of ammo. They're out of targets. If Republicans want to push this advantage, they can do so.

38:38Jason Johnson:They'll end up. Yeah. David Daly, thank you so much for giving us raw data, even if it's sort of depressing news. Thank you for joining us this evening on The Beat. My pleasure. Thank you. Up next, new worries about hurricane season under the Trump administration. When we're back on The Beat.

39:02Jason Johnson:Tonight, new scrutiny on the Trump administration's plans for FEMA as hurricane season begins. Last year, there were 24 major weather and climate related disasters in the United States, each of which costs more than a billion dollars in damages. Instead of preparing for this, Donald Trump is trying to defund FEMA, a judge recently blocking the administration from diverting $4 billion away from disaster prevention funds, as Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have both called for completely eliminating FEMA. It comes as FEMA workers have been reassigned to work for ICE during hurricane season.

39:42Jason Johnson:All of this while Donald Trump plays politics with life and death matters, approving disaster aid for devastating flood in deep red Texas and rejecting aid requests for states with Democratic governors, including Maryland, Washington state and North Carolina, where residents in remote rural areas of the state are still recovering from the devastation of Hurricane Helene. Joining me now to discuss this is Andrew Aiden, a former aide to civil rights icon, Congressman John Lewis. Aiden also co-authored Lewis's graphic novel memoir called March. Now he's working on the Appalachia Comics Project, raising awareness by creating a graphic history of Hurricane Helene through partnerships with local artists.

40:26Jason Johnson:Andrew, thank you so much for joining us this evening on The Beat. Look, everyone knows that I'm a comic book fan and I find them to be a great way to communicate. But tell us a little bit about this Appalachia project. You had a write-up in Forbes talking about how this is uplifting Appalachia and also helping with Hurricane Helene. Yeah, we took a terrible blow. And what scared me the most is once we got back online, because remember, we were completely cut off from the rest of the world for almost a week. No phone, no Internet, no television. We get back online and we see so much misinformation going around on the Internet.

41:03And part of what we're trying to do is tell the story through comics. We're trying to give survivors like myself, my neighbors, my friends and colleagues the opportunity to write comics about their experiences during Helene so that people who didn't get the full truth understand what happened and that people from Appalachia have the opportunity to give voice to their story. I mean, you know, what we're dealing with out here is unprecedented still, and we're not getting the help we need. And the way we're doing this is that the survivors who write their comics, who write their stories, they get paid as the writers.

41:41And a lot of my colleagues who make comics for a living, they're donating their time and they're giving their labor free so that these survivors can get a little bit of help.

41:50Jason Johnson:Andrew, first off, that's amazing work and gives people an opportunity to also make money talking about what they've suffered from. I want to point out here, the Trump administration just as recently as last Friday, the Trump administration is delaying aid on hundreds of already approved projects in North Carolina. Are people in North Carolina aware of this? Are voters there aware of the fact that this administration that that some of them voted for is now denying them the aid that they need to recover from these natural disasters? You know, I think some people are aware, but I don't think they have any idea of the scope of it.

42:24I mean, I saw somewhere recently that only 6 % of the cost of the disaster has been covered by the federal government. And if I recall from my days on Capitol Hill, that was usually somewhere between 50 and 70 % of the cost covered by the federal government. So the gap we're talking about is tens of billions of dollars. And we're just starting to feel this in different ways. I mean, for instance, out here in Edneyville, where I live, you know, this is the Apple Valley. We're all farmers. And we have something called the Debris Removal Program. And it was supposed to clear debris around waterways and homes and structures that could be damaged because a tree is fallen but hasn't fallen all the way or something like that.

43:06When they came out to actually do it, we were informed that less was covered, that the federal government had mandated a change and that not all of the debris would be removed. And this complicates things in several ways. One, you've got people who have these piles and piles of drying and rotting wood that's going to be fuel come fire season. And two, you've got waterways that are going to be blocked. So the next time we have a flood or a storm, the floods are going to be even worse. These are investments that should be made now to prevent further damage in the future, but they're cutting back and they're just creating a problem that's going to get even worse.

43:40Jason Johnson:Andrew, thank you so much for the work you do creatively and what you're doing in the community in North Carolina. Appreciate you coming on The Beat tonight. No, thanks for having me, Jason. It's good to see you. Good to see you, too. We'll be right back with one more thing.

43:57Music he played made life work and made him a legend. Cool DJ, Kirk.

44:07My back to school party that I gave, 1527 Avenue, August 11, 1973. That was the birth of hip hop.

44:19Jason Johnson:At The Beat, we'd be remiss to not take note of a special birthday this week. Go hip hop. It's your birthday. 52 years ago yesterday, a back-to-school party by DJ Kool Herc and his sister Cindy Campbell changed America. No one could have predicted that a small rec room in the Bronx would be the birthplace of hip-hop. Two turntables and a microphone became the music of a generation. Today, hip-hop is a global industry influencing fashion, sports, food, and most importantly, politics. as hip-hop is often the anthem of the unseen and unheated in America. Hip-hop is now older than Star Wars and just short of the median age in Congress.

45:02Jason Johnson:So let's pour one out for hip-hop and welcome the music of our youth to middle age. That does it for me. The Weeknight is up next. Ever notice how life's best stories don't happen in your living room? They happen on the open road, out on the water, or parked under the stars. At Progressive, they get that you want to focus on the experience, not worry about the what-ifs. That's why they offer quality insurance designed for your ride, whether that's a boat, RV, or motorcycle. Adventure with confidence. Visit Progressive.com and see how easy it is to protect your favorite way to get away. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates.

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