"Trump Shutdown" Sparks Outrage as Food Aid, Air Travel Take Hit

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0:48But if you have the TV on before you get out at night or get ready to go, we do have a big show. So we begin with something important. I will mention by the end of the hour, we have something fun and even a little spooky Halloween stuff. So, you know, we're aware of what day it is. But we begin with something that matters, whether Donald Trump wants you to know about it or not. Food assistance in the United States is now about to expire tonight because of a government shutdown. And while this is not the first time we've heard parties blame each other for the shutdown, and this has happened before, Donald Trump is not uniquely unprecedented in presiding over one.

1:25It is a fact that the Republicans control the White House and Congress. And it's also a fact that Donald Trump promised, above all else last year when he was campaigning, to improve people's daily lives, prices, groceries, food, basic stuff. And maybe he was effective on the messaging, but it is now also a fact that he is failing on delivering the results. And what does failure look like? Remember, there are still rules in this country. There's still some emergency mechanisms. when we say there's a government shutdown. It affects a lot of people, but it doesn't mean the federal government stops doing anything.

2:01And the courts are still open, of course, which brings us to the news late tonight. A federal judge in Rhode Island ordering President Trump to go forward and release the funds which are available for food assistance next month. So a November's worth of funding for what they call SNAP. Because the judge says that's necessary and available, the funds exist, And Trump, for some reason, didn't see people going hungry as an emergency enough reason to free up those funds. Now, here's exactly what the judge said in the ruling. There's no doubt that the$6 billion in contingency funds are appropriated funds that are, without a doubt, necessary to carry out the program's operation.

2:43Again, as I mentioned, some things get paused in the shutdown, but here the money's available. and hungry children are not the first thing that under law, the Congress wanted to be sacrificed, even when there is a shutdown of part of the government. Another judge in Boston found the administration's suspension of those benefits is probably unlawful. They said likely unlawful. They are still weighing a final ruling over there. Now, this matters to 40 million Americans. Food pantries are seeing huge demand. We are here on a holiday evening. Republicans control the Congress and the White House. And there are many ways to respond to this.

3:17For example, you could say, this is bad, but we need to reopen the government. Or this is regrettable. Let's all come back to Washington and try to fix it. But that's not exactly the main response we're hearing. Again, we just do the news. We'll just tell you what they're saying, right? A House Republican said the people on food assistance who haven't pre-saved groceries are basically smoking crack and they should stop. J.D. Vance had this to say. we're going to find out the hard way with SNAP benefits. The American people are already suffering, and the suffering is going to get a lot worse. The suffering is going to get worse, he says.

3:5924 million Americans are also looking at what could be higher health care prices because Obamacare's marketplace reopens tomorrow. Premiums could more than double going through next year. That's on average. And the reason is government policy. Republicans won, and they are exercising their power to cut the funds that subsidize that. So that's the direct result. Now, when you ask the public, how's this going right now? People do not like the shutdown. Nobody likes higher health care prices. You don't really need a poll for that. But the most recent polling shows more people are blaming Trump and the Republicans for this shutdown right now as opposed to the Democrats.

4:39And I can tell you again, calling it straight, we've seen a lot of shutdowns where there is blame to go around. But this time you do have one party control of Congress and the White House, the Democrats condition. The main thing they wanted was to keep those health care costs affordable, which also is pretty popular. Nationwide, we're seeing the reaction. We're about to lose our food stamps. Mind you, we both work. My son won't have his milk and we won't have food. I did everything right. Everything right. I was in the army. I'll go without eating or anything as long as my kids eat. Over 4 million people are going to lose their health care through the marketplace.

5:24There's four of y 'all. It's not feasible. We don't know how long this is going to last. Some of the real people affected, the real voices out in real America tonight. It is a holiday. We're going into the weekend. But a lot of people are not able to enjoy it carefree because of the failure of this president and this Congress to keep the government open. I want to bring in Juanita Tolliver, Democratic strategist, author, host of the Archival Podcast. Welcome, Juanita. Happy Halloween. You see there a kind of Republican anger or even threat. It's going to get worse is sort of their messaging. And I understand that in shutdowns, the blame can go around.

6:09I mean, so many things are unusual in the Trump era. This actually isn't. We've seen this before. But there doesn't seem to be any great empathy or concern about fixing it against that polling. How does this all play out in your view? Ari, I appreciate you defining what J.D. Vance said as a potential threat because based on the reporting, it's been clear that this contingency fund was earmarked by the USDA before the shutdown began as a resource to continue to provide SNAP benefits during the shutdown. That$6 billion was there. I appreciate the judge in Rhode Island saying the Trump administration made an erroneous decision to not use those funds to continue to supply SNAP.

6:53And calling that out emphasizes that this crisis is effectively manufactured by Trump and Republicans' decisions to not proactively engage and use those emergency resources that were already earmarked by the USDA. I think emphasizing that for the people, especially the people that you just highlighted, emphasizing the very real impact this means for them missing meals, for their children not to have the milk that they need. It highlights the human face and impact of the 42 million people that will stand to be hurt at a moment when the losses feel compounded, Ari, because people are already struggling to pay for their groceries each month.

7:34People are already turning to credit cards more. I think back in March, it was announced that even collaborations like Buy Now, Pay Later between when Klarna and DoorDash were introduced because access to food has long been an issue for people to be able to pay from their accounts regularly. And so this response to SNAP, what JD Vance saying, it will get worse. That pain I don't think can be understated at all because it's not something that food banks can just backfill. They cannot meet the response of the need that's going to be presented when these benefits might not be there on cards as people are typically expecting every single month at the beginning of the month.

8:20Yeah, that makes sense. We're not until November. We've got, of course, Thanksgiving is the largest travel day of the year next month. But air travel has been taking a hit under the same shutdown effects. Airports have grounded flights, shutdowns, air traffic control, safety issues, staffing shortages. workers want a deal to reopen the government and they want to be fairly paid. Air traffic controllers worked over 120 hours now with no pay. I'm a real person. And this is very, very, very difficult. You know, it's effective today. Every air traffic controller across the country wakes up to a paycheck that says zero dollars and zero cents.

8:59Our elected officials need to come together. They need to find a way to reopen this government. and it needs to be done today. We don't need to wait to see how long our air traffic controllers can last without money. Juanita, you know, I don't want to be unfair and I don't want to hate, certainly not on a holiday, I don't want to hate on this or that airline. But the reason that we've always had the federal government involved in airline safety is everyone feels a little better in the air having our taxpayer-supported experts, supposed to be nonpartisan government officials doing safety rather than some company that might cut a corner.

9:38That's why we have federal air traffic control. And yet here we are, I don't want to say cutting corners, but certainly putting the pressure on those people to work for nothing and keep us safe while we have our fingers crossed. Is this any way to run the government? Absolutely not, Ari. And what I recall from the 2018 government shutdown under Donald Trump is that it was air traffic controllers and airline employees banding together to demand their pay that stopped that shutdown. And so I'm anticipating what it's going to look like in airports. And I'm not even sure if it'll have to wait until Thanksgiving another 25, 26 days from now for them to start to take that action.

10:22There have been more reports of increased call-outs. There have been more reports of people not coming on shifts. And they have good reason to not show up when they're not getting paid. And so I know that Donald Trump had spent the first part of this year really working to denigrate the faceless individuals who run operations within the government, including these air traffic controllers. And I'm glad that they're speaking out, making it clear that they're real people, making it clear that they too have bills to pay, that their services will not be rendered indefinitely for free. And so I'm looking to see how they organize like they did in 2018.

10:58And, you know, people talk a lot of trash about the government or the DMV or this or that. I don't know many people who say, you know what, we don't need anybody doing airplane safety. We don't need anybody checking on it. Let's just fly blind, you know, literally. I want to show you something, Juanita, about where the buck stops, because I've mentioned there's a debate here in the shutdown and that happens. But whether you put it all on the opposition party or the majority party or the White House, here's what Donald Trump said the shutdowns always boil down to back before he was in office. Take a look.

11:35If there is a shutdown, I think it would be a tremendously negative mark on the president of the United States. He's the one that has to get people together. I would get everybody together and we'd have a budget. They've all gotten together. Well, that's because they don't have the right leader. You don't have the right leader. This is the president of the United States has to get this done. It's up to the president. Juanita, I want to get your response when we're back. Respond to that in 90 seconds.

12:09Of all people, Marjorie Taylor Greed. She's been challenging her party and the Speaker of the House, which is so interesting because there's a woman, Marjorie Tilley Green, who didn't just drink the Kool-Aid. She chugged it. Sometimes you go so far right, you come out on the other side. The jokes about what is to the right of MTG as she goes after Donald Trump. Well, she made headlines for taking on Trump and his biggest enabler in the House, Speaker Johnson, because the shutdown strategy she says is a failure on health care. Some Republican senators want at least some kind of bipartisan effort to work on the Senate side to get the government open.

12:45They're pushing back also on Trump's demands, which, while the filibuster has long been derided, he views it as one more thing he could try to break to get even more power. And even Republican senators are saying no to that push. Juanita is back with us, as promised, and in an era where we see more and more political conversation and engagement online and in the podcast space. I want to bring in Micah Erfman, host of the Micah Erfman Show and the Three Walks podcast. Welcome to you. Excited to get you in on this. At first, as promised, Juanita, your thoughts on OG Trump saying it's always up to the president to fix this, as well as the MTG of it all.

13:26I mean, he's a failure by his own definition, Ari. And in this failure, he's dragging down the American public in the process and threatening access to basic food for children, for elderly people, for for people with disabilities. And he doesn't seem to care. I point back to that contingency resource fund, Ari. And when you mentioned the MTG of it all, I'm like, sure, I don't have anything positive to say about Marjorie Taylor Greene. But I will say that she clearly sees what the rest of the Republican Party doesn't see. And that's the real impact on regular people, the same people who elected them to their positions.

14:05And so I guess the question to the Republican Party at this moment is how bad does it have to get for you to actually do something to deliver for the people that you were elected to protect? Hmm. Michael? Yeah, I mean, I think what you're seeing right now is Marjorie Taylor Greene is speaking for the MAGA base, which was promised an affordability agenda, which was promised a golden age. And what have we actually received? Unemployment is up. We see inflation is up. Trump has given us the largest tax hike in American history and the largest benefit cut in American history. And he still managed to increase the debt by$2 trillion in 10 months.

14:43He promised us a golden age, and that's not what we have received. I think the reason why Marjorie Taylor Greene is getting so much traction is she's speaking to the real economic frustration which is going on right now that a lot of Trump voters were betrayed. Micah, as you know, the Speaker has kind of been leading from behind, to use the old phrase. I mean, he's not exactly out here clearly pushing or negotiating. He seems to be a little bit afraid of Trump and frankly unwilling to bring the Congress, the House together. And yet here he was saying this. I've been a little busy, as you know.

15:18The frustration of the pressure that is being felt, the anger by the president and by me and all of us that we're in this situation at all. Do your basic job. OK, so he's busy. Do your job. The fact check here is early October. House will stay out of session next week, Politico was reporting, while the Senate still worked on the shutdown. October 10th, Speaker Johnson keeps House lawmakers away, canceling another week's session. And now back up to this week, keeping the House absent, Johnson marginalizes Congress and himself. That's at least the view of the Times. What do you see there, Micah?

15:57I mean, he's not doing his job, as you're saying, right? He won't. He refuses to swear in a newly elected Arizona Democratic congresswoman because he knows that if she's sworn in, she's going to vote to release the Epstein files. and the Epstein files are going to come out, whether they like it or not. They refuse to negotiate with Democrats, and yet they want to blame Democrats for the shutdown. They control the House, the Senate, and the White House, and they believe that they're entitled to Democratic votes for a budget which essentially allows huge cuts to health care, the Affordable Care Act, and Medicaid that they've authorized to go through.

16:34Democrats are not going to support that. They're not entitled to Democrats' votes, and they should be doing their job of negotiating with the Democrats to get a budget forward that actually keeps vital health care programs intact. What do you do? I feel like when I see those statements like that from Mike Johnson, I am confused about why people don't understand how the general public is losing confidence in government, confidence in Congress, confidence in the leaders of this nation. because they say things like that, do your job. It's literally his job and responsibility right now to keep the government open or get it open to provide basic services.

17:15And it's just, it goes back to the question I asked earlier, Ari, like how bad does it have to get for people to start actually delivering for the public? I do wonder also in response to that, how this is gonna show up in elections. We have them next Tuesday, especially in Virginia, where we know that a lot of federal employees who are at home not being paid right now are going to show up at the polls as well as in the midterms next year when they're even with rigged maps is a chance for voters to show up and cast their ballots against the very individuals who are explicitly causing them harm this is a manufactured crisis it does not have to be this way and trump and republicans are dictating how bad this gets yeah i hear you on that uh wanita michael Thanks to both of you.

18:04Happy Halloween. By the end of the hour, we have something special. It'll take you all the way back to the rock and roll classic, Almost Famous, The Power of Rebellion, and this. Have you seen the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High? That's a classic. I lived it, man. I didn't just see it. Yeah.

18:26Obama lived it, and director Cameron Crowe is here to unpack it by the end of the hour. Also, the immigration agents who are trying to bring Halloween into their enforcement. It's a controversial move. It's the way we live today. We have that coming up. But also, new revelations on Jeffrey Epstein and the sweetheart deal he got from Republican prosecutors as Trump continues to run from what looks like a looming vote to release the Epstein files, whether he's in them or not. That's next.

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20:14New evidence released in the Jeffrey Epstein case. which continues to haunt Donald Trump. What we have now tonight are reports from two outlets, the New York Times and Bloomberg, that raise the stakes and show how there were people years ago who doggedly tried to follow the money in the suspicious, mysterious world of this financier, Jeffrey Epstein. The New York Times reports that the banking giant J.P. Morgan had alerted the feds to more than a billion dollars in suspicious activity and transfers by Epstein, The kind of money transfers that could show the kind of basically financial building blocks of a human trafficking regime?

20:55Only one problem. They waited and waited and waited. That powerhouse bank, which by the way has ties to Democrats and Republicans, only flagged what they called the suspicious billion dollars of transfers after Epstein died. This was over 4 ,000 transactions and related to all kinds of different individuals. Some might ultimately be completely legitimate or not crimes, but others clearly raise the question of money laundering and human trafficking. In a related report today, Bloomberg reveals that in 2007, federal prosecutors had a case on Epstein. This is one that wasn't charged, and it doesn't mean he was guilty of it.

21:34But when people used to ask, why didn't they go after more stuff with this guy? Well, some people did. Indeed, there was a lying prosecutor working doggedly to build a money laundering case against Epstein. This was previously undisclosed, and it looked at the large amounts of cash, which could be both dispersed to women around the world, which he was suspected to have victimized. The probe included grand jury subpoenas, target letters, went not only to the women who might have received money before and after certain incidents, but it would look at the transactions of all of these very wealthy people who paid Epstein sometimes suspiciously large sums of money for no clear service.

22:13So there was, this is what I mentioned to you, a 53-page draft indictment. This was not filed in court, to be clear, but it could have been because it got to the stage of drafting and a prosecution memo that ran 80 pages. And it said in the memo that the Bush DOJ had the receipts and the goods and they should go forward, indict him on money laundering, money laundering, I should say, and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. If you think about how the taxes fouled up Al Capone, this was a strong prosecutor saying, if we can't get him on the really bad stuff that isn't yet proven, let's get him on the money piece.

22:48That is following the money at the heart of the Epstein pro. And yet for all of those written documents that could have made the case, that prosecutor was held back by more senior people in Bush DOJ. And there was, of course, infamously a sweetheart deal which delayed any justice for Epstein's victims for a long time. Now, there's also rumors about blackmail. We don't just throw that term around. Indeed, to be clear, there has not been a legally proven blackmail case against Epstein or an extortion case against others. This is one of those things that is a open question, although I can tell you that it looks like the DOJ never ran down the leads aggressively.

23:28And that raises questions of whether they were tied to too many important people or some other corruptive issue. but Trump's own commerce secretary talked about Epstein's blackmail. That's what his MO was, you know, get a massage, get a massage. And what happened in that massage room, I assume was on video. This guy was the greatest blackmailer ever. Blackmail people, that's how he had money. I assume way back when they traded those videos in exchange for him getting that 18-month sentence. I have no knowledge. But my assumption is there was a trade for the videos because there were people on those videos.

24:09What you hear there is the voice of one Trump cabinet official completely contradicting another Trump cabinet official because A.G. Bondi said there's no blackmail whatsoever, while their boss, Donald Trump, just wants everyone to stop talking about it. But thanks to the intrepid reporting there of Bloomberg and the New York Times, we have more evidence than we had yesterday, and frankly, more questions facing the Trump DOJ. We're joined by New York Times legal writer, Emily Bazelon. Welcome. Thank you. Good to have you. Both of these new accounts raise a lot of different questions. But first and foremost, they suggest that this level of alleged human trafficking couldn't really operate without some intermediaries.

24:57That, yes, sometimes women and girls are abused on an individual basis and there could be money involved. But this level was something that involved banks and banks that didn't do a very good job of what they're supposed to do. That's one thing that comes through. Your thoughts on it? Right. Well, this story today is red flags that J.P. Morgan says that it was showing to prosecutors, reports that the bank was sending. And the red flag nature of this was that there were huge amounts of money changing hands going through the bank in these transactions, and that that in itself can be a mark of human trafficking because when it's done on a large scale, it can be associated with huge amounts of money like this.

25:41I think what you can see here is that J.P. Morgan, which has been criticized in past New York Times coverage, has not looked good for continuing to handle Epstein's finances for so long. Now J.P. Morgan is trying to say, hey, we did flag these transactions for the Justice Department, for the prosecutors. We were trying to help and no one did anything with this information. Then that leads to the work of the career prosecutor you were talking about who was trying to track the money laundering and start, you know, really keep an investigation going. That is a time and labor intensive kind of investigation to run.