Populist Pop Off - November 25, 2025
Transcript
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Cairks, Jane Cougar, Anna Kasparian with you guys. Look, there's a lot of interesting stories, of course, today in the news, more revelations about who Epstein was working for on behalf of who we wanted to start wars with, et cetera. But I think the main story is actually the first one we're gonna start with, so good news, which is that we've won. Okay, let's- The progressive vision for the Democratic Party. Has won, okay. Now, does that mean that we're going to get everything we want? No, hold. I know, I know you thought tomorrow, right? Okay. This is driving at it crazy. No, it's going to have a ton of fun with this. It's like, and we've talked about this multiple times off air, but I'll just say it on air, so maybe it'll stick. I don't want to be lumped in with any political group. So yes, when I too, look, so let's be clear, let's be clear. When I say we, I mean me. Okay, but literally, and probably 99.9% of the other hosts at the company. But like, I just feel uncomfortable being lumped in with the progressive label. Okay, I- Or any label, I wanna be clear about that. Okay, look, I- Because I'm independent, I genuinely am. There's a lot of things I agree with progressives on, but there are a lot of things I disagree with progressives on. Okay, we're gonna go on to the story, but give me this, okay, so I understand why you say that, and so- Everybody's upset with the Democratic Party, including apparently James Carville. Okay, but do you agree that the things that Carville is saying in this story we're about to tell them? Yeah, but let me talk about the story. No, hold on, but are policies that you agree with? It's complicated. Ooh, okay, well then, let's give them the story. Okay, all right, let's get to it. Thanks, Jake. What President Trump is trying to sell the American folks aren't buying, and we can see it pretty simply here. Take a look here. This is consumer sentiment, their current conditions. Consumer sentiment can be the current conditions or can be future expectations. We're looking at current conditions. And get this, according to the University of Michigan, we are dealing with the worst ever. The worst ever view of current conditions dating all the way back since 1951. And get this, Kate, it is down 30% consumer sentiment of current conditions, down 30% from January when Donald Trump took office. No bueno. The American public's sentiment toward the economy is absolutely tanking. They are not happy with continuing inflation, the fact that it's just harder to make a dollar stretch. And that could be good political news for the Democrats, considering the fact that the Trump administration is currently being blamed for our current economic situation. Which is why political strategist James Carville is now saying. You guys need to double down on populism and you need to do it now. He makes his case by essentially arguing that Democrats need to run the most populous economic platform since the Great Depression. Jank your two cents. Yeah, look, we won. So the progressives that one of these policies have won over even the most establishment figures like James Carvel. Now, of course, there are two other parts to winning.
So I want to get to those two parts, but first, get a lot of what Carville's saying, and then later what Tucker Carlson is saying, and how this country and its politics is changing so dramatically. This story shows it perfectly. So the piece is titled James Carville, Out with Woke, In With Rage. So in this instance, what he does is he couples an argument he's been making, you know, the argument that wokeness has actually hurt the Democratic Party with the argument that, hey, you guys need to focus on economic populism. Put those two together and we're going to have a winning political recipe. So the op-ed was published in the New York Times and he makes a few key arguments in it. For one, he says that the woke politics, as he calls it, damaged the brand of the Democratic Party. He gives a few examples of what he considers woke politics, terms like BIPOC, Latin X. I think the, you know, Latin X thing is kind of beating a dead horse at this point. I think there's universal acceptance that Latin X was not popular. No one liked it. And I think the Democrats have dropped it for the most part. And to be fair, I haven't heard BIPOC used in a while. The other argument he makes is that the defund the police platform is unpopular. I agree with him on that. And I think the messaging from Democrats and even progressives has kind of. moderated on that issue. But in terms of actual policies that are being implemented and carried out in certain municipalities across the country, that's still continuing. And I think that's a disconnect with the national Democrats and the local Democrats that I think the Democratic Party as a whole needs to come to terms with. Because if you're experiencing an anti-police type policy agenda locally, And you don't like it, you are likely going to blame national Democrats for it as well. And I think that's what played out in the last presidential election. Yeah. I mean, look, guys, out with woke and with rage. How could it be any more TYT than that? I mean, that's literally what we've been telling you guys for the last couple of years, if not the last 10 years, right? Who was the first against Latin X? Who was the first against the phrase defund the police? Not because we weren't enraged about police abuse, we talked about it all the time. But we said that is not the right strategy. to go after police abuse, it'll be counterproductive, right? No, I think going after actual examples of police brutality and police abuse is fine. I don't think that hurt the Democrats. No, I'm saying the phrase hurt the Democrats. Oh, we went after the actual abuse. Yes. That doesn't hurt Democrats at all. That's you fighting for the average guy. Correct, yeah. And we did it in the way that now everybody's coming around to like, oh, maybe we should have done it that way, which is, look,
It what happened to the black citizens in this country was horrific and we covered it and we covered it with rage. And you all saw it for the last 10 years, right? But whenever a white guy was also shot by the cops in a similar way, we also showed that and we're like, This isn't just a race problem. This is a class problem, and this is a systemic problem, right? So that way nobody's getting isolated and feels like, oh, we're not addressing them, et cetera, because we should address everyone. We should be fair, right? We should fight for everyone. So this is exactly what we've been saying. And I think that that is correct. And he's going to show you polling that we've showed you a thousand times. And to me, what's interesting, Anna, is not that. They're coming around to an obviously correct position and the polling has always indicated it. But why they're coming around to that now, right? So that's what's so interesting. But let's give them more. Okay, so as I mentioned, he makes a few key arguments, including just kind of running away from the woke politics. He also says Democrats can't just energize their usual voters in the coming elections. They need to win over new voters, which is. Absolutely true, particularly independent voters, right? The swing voters. Those are really the individuals who determine our elections, especially those who live in the swing states. And then finally, he wants to put one and two together. Democrats can shed their old brand and win over new voters by going all in on economic populism. He writes that it is time for Democrats to embrace a sweeping, aggressive, unvarnished, unapologetic, and altogether unmistakable platform of pure economic rage. We should not fear. that running on a platform of seismic economic scale will cost us a general election. We've already lost enough of them by being afraid to try. I think he's right about that. What do you mean? I think that's TYT 101. That's exactly what we've been saying. The story's not about us. No, but it is because it's important because Anna is going to lead to the second part, right? Okay. So we won on message. The question is, are we going to win on Messenger? And are they do the Democrats mean it? And are they actually going to deliver? Okay, that yeah, we'll wait and see. And also the question is. Which economic policies are we talking about here? And are they going to actually be beneficial? Because look, when you and I think about economic policies that make sense, I think about the new parents who need to get back to work but they can't afford childcare. So universal childcare, I think, makes a lot of sense. And it has to be universal. Policies that are universal have widespread support and they're harder to repeal in upcoming congressional agendas. And so I like that idea. We actually have the highest minimum wage of any state. And for good reason, obviously we have an insanely high cost of living. So I was very much supportive of the minimum wage increasing in California, but it's had mixed results, including a lot of, yeah. So you're worried about $20 minimum wage. No, I mean, it depends on the context, guys, because look.
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We don't need the jingle twice. What about a third time? Stop it. This is about vacation inflation and how Priceline negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights, and rental cars. Seems like you just added. Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to 60% off hotels in the Priceline app. Time to read the timeline. Fine. No one deals more deals than... Priceline. Please stop. Priceline. Toucher. Price line. Price line. So of course it depends on the context, but Anna, if the, if the now the new range that we're arguing over is $15 to $20, that's a beautiful range. I know, I know, look, it doesn't even matter. I don't want to get into the nitty gritty. My point is, my point is just be smart about what you're pursuing. And don't just go like full steam ahead on policies that you haven't thought through and would be implemented in a weird like ham handed way. Yeah, but they're not even look, we'd be lucky to have them implement any of these policies that my real concern is that they're not going to implement them. So guys, look, the reason why I'm telling you we were right is not just for like unbearable bragging or whatever. That's not that interesting at all. That's about egos, right? It's because they're going to tell you the right message. They finally figured it out. Right? But then what I'm worried about is they're gonna come back and tell you the right messenger is Pete Buttigieg. And when he wins, the right way to approach this is to do nothing. That it was a nice marketing campaign to win. But when you win, you really shouldn't do any of this. If I had to bet on what what is likely to happen if the Democrats take his advice seriously. What you just laid out will be the outcome, right? It'll be a great marketing strategy. Pete Buttigieg has been a corporatist, he will remain a corporatist, that'll never change. That's who he is to his core. Yeah, I'm 100% with you. And that's why I'm telling the audience, for whoever of you are out there who used to believe in the Hillary Clintons and the Joe Bidens, guys, if you now come around to the Carville position that we were correct about the message, forget us to Anna's point. It's not about that. The point is that that message was correct, right? The messenger matters. It matters a lot. Please don't pick a corporatist. Please trust us. It's not about us. It's about you. If you make the wrong decision and you pick a corporate suit to deliver this message, no one will believe it. And then we won't be able to win. And if you pick someone who is not earnest and they get into office and they don't deliver, it'll destroy the Democratic Party. It'll be over. Carville's messaging here also leaves out a huge. puzzle piece that I think is very relevant to most voters. And most voters would like to stop sending their resources abroad to other countries. Okay, especially for war. And so Carville doesn't get into that at all, but if the Democrats think that they can just go along with business as usual as it pertains to foreign policy in the Middle East, even with the way that our government has handled Ukraine, whether Biden administration, Trump administration, the American people aren't happy with it. And so Democrats have to address that. They need to- Yeah.
provide evidence that they're actually rethinking the way they've approached foreign policy in recent years. Yeah, so look, as we're gonna get to, I think, Tucker Carlson is attacking the Republican and Democratic Party as a concept from the right. We've been attacking from the left for about 20 straight years now, because the reality is a great percentage of the American people actually agree. on about 70% of the issues. There are 30% we definitely disagree on and vehemently so, right? But the job of the Republican and Democratic Party's historically in our lifetimes has been to keep us fighting and never realize that we agree so they could actually serve their donors instead. So if this is Carvel, and look, I'd love to have James Carvel come on here and have a real human discussion about this. I would hope, I mean, he says we should go with economic populism. We're the epicenter of economic populism, right? So does he mean it? And that goes to the very, very core of the Democratic Party and whether it can be salvaged. And we're gonna find that out in this election. If they go in this direction and they go with the right messenger, then they're going to run headlong into the number one issue that they never talk about, which is yes, but when you win, are you gonna deliver further your voters or for your donors? And if they're- plan is to trick the voters and deliver for the donors anyway, that will absolutely obliterate the Democratic Party. It won't exist anymore because people will be so furious at the lack of action. I'm so curious whether the James Carvers of the world understand that or if they just think this is a new trick. I have no idea what's in his mind. But I do think that this is a way better strategy than what he had suggested early on in Trump's second term, which was sit back, do absolutely nothing, don't fight Trump, just let Trump and the Republicans hang themselves. The Democratic voters have spoken, they did not like that strategy. So James Carville himself has clearly regrouped and has a better strategy for how the Democrats could move forward. Finally, I just want to give you the specific examples he gave of economic populism. I already mentioned the minimum wage suggestion, but there were others that I do agree with wholeheartedly, including what he says in graphic five here. We should not fear an America with free public college tuition. public college being the main wording here to focus on. I totally agree that public colleges should be tuition free. But let me for Americans, let me continue on with 63% of US adults favored in a 2021 poll. And then he also says, or when 70% of Americans say, Raising children is too expensive, we should not fear making universal childcare a public good. Yeah, I mean, being fearful of that is insane to me, considering the fact that it has widespread appeal among the American people, both on the left and the right. People are having a difficult time raising children in this country. It is too expensive. It is too difficult. You have to have a dual income household to make ends meet. So both parents have to work in this economy. What do you do with your children? They're young.
couples who are asking themselves that question as we speak. So this is something that again is gonna have a broad appeal for voters. And when you're talking about trying to convince the swing voters to come onto the Democratic side, I think that these are the types of policies that could make the difference. Yeah, so those polls are literally in my book that I wrote five years ago. Right? And it's injustice is coming. So it's not like the polling changed. People have always wanted universal childcare. They always wanted higher wages. They always wanted lower drug prices. These things are super obvious. So why now? Because the establishment finally realized, oh, the pulp that we're giving them, the garbage, the obvious talking points that we're giving them is not working. So why don't we actually, for the first time in our lives, look at the actual polling and go, Oh, it turns out our policies are actually really popular. That's true, that's why I'm on the left. If your policies weren't better, I wouldn't be on the left, because I have no attachment to partisanship or labels at all, okay? So now we, and another great piece of news here is, for you've seen us say for years now, guys, this whole thing of progressive, what does it mean? You have to separate out economic populism from the culture wars, right? So if you lump both of them in together. then you've got a problem because they may use the unpopularity, whether you like it or you don't. The polling is clear, the unpopularity of the cultural wars, and they use it to smear economic populism, which is also under the progressive tent, right, when we talk about labels. So now for the first time, Carville and establishment figure is going, oh, wait a minute, those are two totally different things. We should actually talk about it as different. So the cultural wars, by the way, oftentimes. almost always started by the right. And I tell people on our side, much to a lot of folks' chagrin, don't fall into that trap. It's a trap, right? So that's totally different than Bernie's economic proposals, which have always been massively popular. And what attracted us to that side of the political spectrum in the first place. So that's great news that the establishment has finally figured that out. Then that now, of course, the next question is. Do they mean it? And that's what we've been talking about here. And so, but Carvel also talks about new voters, as you pointed out, right? And guys, that's the other thing that Carvel's now finally correct on, which is, and what, where a lot of us have to be. When we're winning the popular vote over and over and over again, as was the case for at least 20 years, right? Then, okay, you don't need as much persuasion. Maybe you could use other tactics, et cetera. But when you lose a popular vote and you lose all seven swing states, it is incumbent upon that party, that side, to win over new voters. If you don't do that, you're not going to win the race. So for a while, some on our side had this ludicrous idea of no.
We just yell at the voters and that'll show them, right? That doesn't went over anyone, anyone. You yell at the people in power. You don't yell at your fellow citizens, right? You welcome your fellow citizens in because guess what? They also love these policies. That's why they polls so high. That's not a poll of Democrats. Those are polls of the whole country. Let's give them what they want. It's not that complicated. Now, when we come back from the break, we'll talk a little bit about how congressional Republicans have basically stopped President Donald Trump from doing something that would have actually lowered healthcare premiums. We'll tell you what that policy was and what Republicans did to stop him when we come back. There is a war breaking out between Republicans on what to do about healthcare premiums. Let's get into the details. We're learning President Trump is planning to unveil a new health care proposal. And at this point, we're still waiting to know exactly what's in it. But we're told it could include a temporary extension of the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies, which are due to expire at the end of the year. They were at the center of the government shutdown. Sorry, Zach, we're getting breaking news while I'm talking to you. I have learned that the White House has postponed. It's inspected unveiling of this new health care proposal. That's because there won't be a health care proposal, or at least there won't be even a temporary fix on the exploding health care premiums that Americans will be forced to pay now that the Republicans have refused to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies that would have kept health care premiums lower. So Speaker Mike Johnson reportedly warned the White House that Republicans were not on board with any extension of the ACA. subsidies and that was after Trump was considering extending them for a few years in order to probably avoid the political fallout that Republicans are about to be confronted with. Your two cents, Jank? I give you my whole two cents right now. One is, oh, the Republicans lied about extending the health care subsidies? That is so surprising. And the Democrats took them at their word and now, golly, gee, they feel betrayed. I mean, how many times have we seen this movie, Anna? I don't think the Republicans were ever going to cave. I don't think they care about the American people or the fact that these health care premiums are about to double and people aren't going to be able to afford, you know, subpar health insurance in this country. I don't think they care at all. But I think the biggest foible that the Democrats made. was caving and then trying to sell the Americans a completely BS story that they themselves don't believe. There's no way in hell Democrats believed that Republicans, congressional Republicans were gonna come back to this debate in earnest, in good faith, in order to pass a bill to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies. They know the truth, so they're messaging after they cave should have been, listen.
Obviously, these Republicans don't care about you. They were not going to concede to the extension of the ACA subsidies. They don't care that your premiums are about to double. We can't add insult to injury by allowing, you know, snap recipients to lose their benefits as well. Instead, they tried to pretend like we're all idiots and we're gonna buy this story about how no, no, we promise and Republicans promise we're gonna come back to this. And I don't know if the Democrats, no, I do know, they never understand anything. Look, I interviewed somebody in move on leadership a couple of days ago and I asked him, what's Chuck Schumer's plan to get rid of the Republicans? As far as he knows, the plan is to wait for three years and when Trump is out, he thinks the Republican Party will return to normal. And it'll go back to business as usual. We're looking at a new day. There is no more normal. No, do you don't know how much of a dinosaur you have to be, how stupid you have to be, how out of touch you have to be to believe that nonsense? And what did the Democrats just do? To Anna's point, eight of them came out and said, no, we're working with the Republicans because we're sure the Republicans are such good guys. They're going to do what they promised and not double your health care subsidies because we gave into them without actually getting it. with getting nothing in return. We gave them our votes in exchange for useless promise, right? So that way what they're saying is we're weak and we're stupid. And so you should try, we trusted the Republicans, you should trust the Republicans, they're daddy, and we're dumbasses. So we told you that was a terrible strategy. The good news is for the voters now, you're all caught on. Now we don't have to beseech you guys. You get it. The only people that don't get it are Chuck Schumer and his merry band of idiots in Congress. So let's go back to the Republicans and what's happening in regard to congressional Republicans, essentially pushing back on Trump and getting him to back out of any real healthcare solution here. So Trump has been promising to address health insurance prices, which are about to skyrocket as a result of the failed effort to extend the ACA subsidies. Now about 22 million Americans who get ACA tax credits will see their monthly premium payments more than double on average if the subsidies are not extended. And that's according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, which has nothing to do with Kaiser Permanente. I just want to make that clear. Now, an enrollee who is paying 888 in 2025 will now be paying $1,904 in 2026. That's an increase of $1,016. That's insane. Most people can't afford that. That's absolutely crazy. Especially in an inflationary economic environment. Go ahead. I just want to make sure that people aren't confusing what I say. Look, the Democrats are weak and spineless, and we've known that for a long time, right? But it's the Republicans that are raising your rates. We can't stand the Democrats give in to them. But Republican politicians come out and go, oh, we're gonna screw you. And we're not gonna hide it. We're gonna, we're gonna pretend to be populous during the election. But whenever we're in charge, we're gonna help our corporate donors and we're gonna give them endless subsidies and tax cuts. And we're gonna, like, I don't even wanna get super dirty. But you know how they're doing you.
So I should also note that an estimated 2 million more people will be uninsured next year. And that's according to the Congressional Budget Office, which is nonpartisan and has put out data that was not favorable to the Democrats. And in this case, has put out data. I would say is not favorable to Republicans, but I don't think Republicans care that two million people are gonna lose their health insurance. And I'm not saying that to attack them because of partisanship. I'm saying that because their behavior makes it clear. Okay, so let's just call it as we see it. Now let's get to what Trump was gonna propose, but then backed off of after Speaker Mike Johnson made clear that there wasn't support among the Republican caucus to pass this legislation. So in order to avoid this disaster of premiums doubling, President Trump was weighing a two year extension of the ACA subsidies, but there were added conditions. Namely, the proposal would limit subsidies to individuals with income up to 700% of the federal poverty line. So basically, it would be means tested even more strictly than you know, before. It would mandate minimum premium payments, which is kind of hilarious, right? Like the Affordable Care Act capped your out of pocket expenses, like that was the thinking of the Affordable Care Act. But in this case, you have Trump saying, no, you need to make a mandatory minimum payment on your premium. They also plan to propose an option for enrollees to receive part of their tax credit in a tax advantage savings account if they move down to a lower premium health plan. So Trump has also publicly said that his long term plan, which he dubbed Trump care, is to just give money to Americans and tell them like be on your way, figure it out for yourselves. Great plan, very imaginative. But let's take a look at this video and see if we get more details on that. Obamacare, which is the unaffordable care act, it is totally unaffordable. You see the kind of money the insurance companies are making hundreds of billions of dollars. We're going to give the money to the people to buy their own health care. And the kind of money that we give to the insurance companies is more than going to take care of it. People are going to be able to buy their own health insurance. Okay. The reason why that doesn't make much sense is because one of the ways in which, let's say, anyone has any leverage in this healthcare market is when you're buying healthcare as a group, right? So if we allowed Medicare, for instance, to negotiate prices for pharmaceutical drugs, that's a lot of leverage there. We're talking about a massive group of Americans that are on this system. And so knowing that. the government would have far more leverage to negotiate drug prices if there weren't literally laws banning the Medicare system from doing it. But having a bunch of individuals go out and fend for themselves in this healthcare market, I don't think is a real solution to our broken health care system. Now, many Republican lawmakers said that they were on board with some of Trump's vague ideas. But behind the scenes, they are not on board with extending the ACA subsidies. And when the proposal was revealed,
in reports just this past weekend on Sunday, they went into absolute panic mode. Speaker Johnson called Trump officials to warn them that their plan would not have the backing of most House Republicans. Some GOP lawmakers predicted only a fraction of House Republicans from a dozen to a couple dozen would back a bill extending subsidies with other concerns including abortion coverage weighing on support. Okay. Abortion coverage has nothing to do with this. Abortion coverage has literally nothing to do with this. Federal money is not to be used on abortion services, period. There's a literal law banning that from happening. But okay, let's pretend like this is still a debate. By the way, just real quick, the reason why they're using that talking point, even though they know that it's not pertinent to this, is because it's another way of tricking their, trying to trick their own voters into being against their own interest. Oh yeah, your premiums are going to double. But we have your best interest in line in mind because, fill in the blank, abortion. But wait a minute, abortion is Anna told you there's a literal law against it being intertwined here. So they're purposely lying to you. But these days they're getting caught even by their own side, which I'll get back to in a sec. So I'm gonna skip ahead a little bit because, all right, they don't want to extend the ACA subsidies. And by the way, let me just say for, I don't know, the millionth time, the fact that the Affordable Care Act needs federal subsidies in order to be affordable for somewhat affordable for Americans. obviously points to inherent flaws within the Affordable Care Act system. That needs to be fixed. The problem is, while Republicans have wanted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, they have failed in providing solutions of their own. Now, in this next video, I want to skip ahead to B4, you're gonna hear a little bit about the terrible proposals for solving health insurance by members of the Republican Party. What is the Republican plan for health care? So I've engaged the president on this, and I'm putting forward my own plan. But in my plan, what it allows for is people to buy their insurance through a collective, basically to buy their insurance through Costco or Sam's Club or Amazon. There are a number of ideas being batted around association health plans, bringing back high-risk pools, which have been outlawed under the Affordable Care Act. I think a lot of young people who are very healthy in between jobs would like to buy a high deductible health insurance that's not necessarily long term. You're going to have to create high risk pools again. You know, just go back where Minnesota was before this failed affordable, unaffordable care act. I think the first step in fixing our broken healthcare system, and I mean this, I'm being very sincere in what I'm saying. The first step and the most important step is to remove all health insurance benefits from every single member of Congress. They have to purchase their own health insurance.
Period. End of story. That is the most important step. They live in a completely different world. We pay for their health insurance. They're good, they're taken care of. They don't care about us. They don't care about offering real solutions. Congress is ineffective. They have totally avoided, they're negligent. They've avoided their responsibility to the American people. Those are, those are. solutions to our broken healthcare system? What was that? Just go to Costco, maybe if you go to Costco, you can buy health insurance. Wow, okay. So Anna, I'm so pessimistic about this that I've come all the way back around to being optimistic. Okay, of course you have. Let me explain why. Because it's so bad that now Republican voters are beginning to see it. And you, and some in their media now no longer controlled by Fox News and corporate media. are beginning to say obvious things. And in fact, the establishment is freaking out over it. So this is a discussion of Tucker Carlson to Nick Fuentes arranged having nothing to do with Israel, okay? What they are saying on other issues, including this one is, hey, why don't we serve, and this is my term, Americans first. Right? But they're saying essentially the same thing through different words, which is, oh yeah, if we want to, A, serve the American people, be popular, why don't we do things they want? Now, this is not complicated. The only reason why it didn't happen before is because corporate media. purposely divided us and wanted us to fight and not realize that we have the same interest. So in this case, guys, especially if you're on the left, you have to be ecstatic about this development. Why? Because it empowers Tucker Carlson or Nick Fuentes. No, no, no, no, no, no. Because now the Republican voters and Republican politicians are splitting. And they're splitting in the same way that we asked. the Democratic voters to split from the Democratic leadership because those guys are not serving your best interests. They are never delivering for you. So now we're in a situation where the Republican politicians are diametrically opposed to the Republican voters. So what they're saying is we want to go back to the bad old days before the Affordable Care Act. Now, do you remember why we did the Affordable Care Act, which is a tiny, tiny improvement on a disgusting system? Because it was about to explode. Because of being denied because of preexisting conditions and all the other atrocities of the earlier system. The American people were in a rage and they were about, they were so angry that they're like, okay, okay, the Heritage Foundation, a right wing think tank came up with a band-aid. Oh, why don't we do a mandate? So they have to buy from private insurance and we'll say we fixed it. But we'll get rid of the pre-existing conditions, et cetera. So people don't commit a literal revolution against this disgusting corrupt system that we have, right? So this Band-Aid has a ton of problems. It doesn't actually fix the problem. But if you want to go on before we put the bandage on to stop the bleeding.
That's ludicrous. These high risk pools, why were they eliminated? Because what happens is you go into them, they barely cover anything, they're not real insurance. And if you get sick, they go, ha ha, you don't get anything. And then people get so angry, I gave money to insurance. They're like, well, it's a high risk pool. You know, that you paid so little because we never give you anything, right? So it's a scam. The Republican politicians are like, no, we're gonna double your premiums. We're gonna give you scam on top of scam as a replacement theory, but we're not even gonna propose it. We're gonna give you the same thing we've been giving you for the last 20 years. Nothing, nothing. Why? Because they 100% work for health insurance companies and big pharma. By the way, so do most of the corporate Democrats. That's why they play these silly games. Oh, we had to give in to the Republicans. There was nothing we could do. There was nothing we could do, right? And the Republicans are like, oh, we are such populists. We're gonna double your premiums. And we're gonna mean we might bring back preexisting conditions. So that's why there's a populist revolt against both parties because And the people who were the biggest maintainers of the system, as I've been saying, all along is corporate media. And now corporate media is losing its power. That is why there is a great awakening on both sides going, oh, these guys are never going to serve us. We got to get a whole new government. When we come back from the break, I want to switch gears a little bit and revisit what we've been learning from the release of some of Jeffrey Epstein's emails by the House Oversight Committee. Turns out that he was very much involved in strategizing on geopolitics and international relations, especially alongside prominent members of the Israeli government. That and more coming up, don't miss it.
All right, let's move on to our next story. As journalists dig into the Jeffrey Epstein emails that have been released by the House Oversight Committee, well, we're learning quite a bit about his hawkishness and his involvement in various geopolitical plots. Are you surprised by that, Jake? Look, we already had some of these emails, but now as you're gonna see, we have even more emails. And in all the emails, EPSC is trying to help one country. I'll let you take a minute with it and try to figure out which country it might be. And then of course after we find out all the actual facts, then I want to ask the question as I usually do. So all of legacy media hasn't noticed this? Why are they covering up the facts we're about to tell you? Right, well, of course we can speculate on that. But let's just talk a little bit about what we're learning from Bronco Marcia's Marcha Cheat, Marcia Teaches reporting over at Jacobin. So drop site news has done a fantastic job, you know, kind of like. focusing on Epstein's ties to the Israeli government. This piece is published in Jacobin, though, and the reporting here is fantastic. And I'm gonna focus on main elements of the reporting, but definitely check out the full report, because I think you're gonna have some tidbits in there that you're gonna wanna learn about. Now, Marcia Cheech. finds that over the years, Epstein exchanged emails with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who apparently is very close with, opposing the Iran nuclear deal and favoring military action against Syria, meaning US military action against Syria. He also expressed concern about Israel's intensifying turn away from the two-state solution, which I found a little surprising. And he counseled Donald Trump advisor and China Hawk, Steve Bannon, on how the Trump administration could best take on this leading global rival of the United States. So go ahead, Jake. Yeah, real quick, guys. I was surprised by one thing that I saw in the emails, and it gives you a better sense of how Epstein might have been working with the Israelis. But I also wanted to clarify for you guys, when he says that there should be a bombing of Syria and Iran, these Israeli figures, including the former prime minister, never mean Israel. They mean the U.S. should do it. for Israel. Israel doesn't want to get its hands dirty. It wants it wants to force America into it. And that's what they're conspiring about. So in 2013, Epstein encouraged Ehud Barak. to add to the mounting pressure that then President Barack Obama was facing in regard to, you know, engaging militarily in Syria after news stories started being published about how Bashar al-Assad was using chemical weapons in that civil war. Now at the time, if you guys can remember.
Obama had said that his red line as it pertains to Syria was the use of chemical weapons. Then these reports start periculating about how Bashar al-Assad is using chemical weapons. And the real question was, okay, well, is Obama going to engage militarily? Luckily, he didn't, although Obama did fund. effectively terrorist groups in Syria instead. And that's how you have a former Al Qaeda leader now serving as the new leader of Syria, which I don't think is a win for the United States by any stretch of the imagination. But nonetheless, at that time, this is the email exchange between Epstein and Barack. Time to write the wait until too late op-ed. Epstein emailed Barack on August 31st, 2013. That was the day that Barack Obama delivered a major speech, responding to news that then Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had deployed chemical weapons against his own people, something Obama year earlier had said would trigger a U.S. military response. Now, the other thing I should note is that Israel very much wanted Bashar al-Assad to fall. They were part of that proxy war, and they were also part of this covert CIA strategy. of arming the terrorist groups within the country in order to fuel the ongoing civil war. Yeah, I want you to pay attention to that first line that Anna read. Time to write the wait until too late op-ed. So that's the same strategy they used in Iraq. You can't wait till it's too late. It'll come in the form of a mushroom cloud. So he's telling the former Israeli prime minister, let's use that same strategy again on behalf of Israel to get America to go into a war that they don't need to be in just like Iraq. And so the Israeli officials hated Obama. Why did they hate Obama when he gave them Iron Dome? Everything that they asked for, gave them all the funding they asked for, because he didn't do one thing that they really wanted, which was to bomb Iran and make a force Americans to fight that war for Israel. So they were furious because he disobeyed them. Right. And that's, and by the way, since he's the one American politician that's disagreed with them once, I guess Obama wins for most courageous. It is a very low bar. Epstein went on to advise Barack on what, no, I'm not giving any, no, I'm not giving Obama any credit for anything, okay, none. On the Iran deal, you have to give him credit. Whatever, okay. Epstein went on to advise Barack on, I'm sorry, pause for a second. Obama didn't know that his senior speechwriter was a supporter of genocide and Holocaust as long as it doesn't happen to the Jews. He didn't because back then she hadn't said that. So now look, what I'm telling you, Anna, is don't get upset. Full to the brim with vipers, okay? That's the reality of that administration. So guys, just give you a little bit more context and why Anna is that upset about it? Because we've covered other emails from Epstein and Ehud Barak before, where Epstein calls up random people in the Obama administration.
and ask for things. And they're like, yes, sir, right away sir, we will serve you, sir, right? So why is Obama hiring all these guys who are Israel first when he's supposed to be big change guy? Why does he do 99% on what they wanted? So you're right to be frustrated about that. It's just that all of our other politicians do 100% of what Israel wants. And he did defy them once. And I mean, it's such a low bar. He wouldn't bring us into a disastrous war for no damn reason. And on that, they're like, how dare you? And it shows you how much control Israel has that they're so furious that one president wouldn't do one thing. Obama gave Israel the Iron Dome. It's never enough. It's never enough for that government. Never enough. Exactly. And because, and he gives them Iron Dome and they go, no, you owe us. That doesn't count because you owe us. Why? Why do we owe you? This is a scam. Let's move on. Let's move on. For the love of God, Epstein went on to advise Barack on what such an op-ed might look like. I would use the opportunity to compare it with Iran, he wrote. The solutions become more complex. By the way, Epstein was a total idiot. Like his writing never made any sense. Random capitalizations throughout the sentences, no grammar, no spelling, no grasp of reality, and a disgusting predator to boot.
But anyway, he says the solutions become more complex with time, not less. And then bizarrely, he added that Barack might point out the gassing of women and children is in expressions from the 20th century and that women are no longer, no longer acquive to children. So that one is also super important because even though he's saying, tell him how terrible it is that Bashar al-Assad is gassing his own people, including women and children. He's like, but you don't want, don't emphasize the women. Why? You want it for propaganda purposes. Because Israel knows they're killing women in the occupied territories and they don't want that to be counted as terrorism. What Epstein didn't know is later they would murder 20,000 children anyway, so it didn't really matter. Yeah, how about killing innocent people is wrong? period, whether they're women, whether they're men, whether their children, it doesn't matter. But whatever, we're talking about monstrous people who don't have a moral bone in their bodies. Epstein was also similarly aggressive when it came to Iran. So he did not favor the JCPOA, otherwise known as the Iran nuclear deal, which Trump later ripped up in 2018. diplomatic discussions were taking place between the United States and Iran, Epstein kind of started to panic. In fact, he started to panic when Iran opted for a reformist. you know, pro diplomacy leader as opposed to someone who was a hardliner against the West. So in February of 2013, for instance, Epstein emailed another friend and associate, Larry Summers, seven articles about Middle Eastern geopolitics, the top one being a Wall Street Journal op-ed charging that Iranian leadership wasn't serious about a deal and merely viewed negotiations as a pretense for buying time to develop a nuke. By the way, I honestly think developing a nuke would probably be the only thing that keeps the Middle East safe at this point. Because I mean, look, does Israel go after Pakistan? No, they leave Pakistan alone. Is it because Pakistan has nuclear weapons? The only way to prevent a war with Iran at this point is if Iran races against time and manages to develop a nuclear weapon. That's how devastating this situation is at this point. Look at all the power players. They're all against peace. It's amazing. If there's one thing that Epstein was more consistent on than his love and support of Israel.
was that is love and support of war in general. Yes. That also applied to China and he was trying to start a war with them as well. So my theory on that is either he was connected to defense contractors. Absolutely. And or he was invested in defense contractors or oil companies that would have gained from those wars. So that and he's, and we're gonna get to in a second how incredibly powerful he is in the world overall. So he is pushing all the power brokers war, war, war. Yes. Now the subject line of that email to Larry Summers was prep for dinner, Israel Prez briefing, which was likely a reference to then Israeli president Shimon Perez. And so. Summers, by the way, was an economic advisor to Obama at the time. So reaching out to Larry Summers meant having some sway potentially over Obama as it pertains to potential diplomatic discussions with Iran. Obviously Epstein wanted to dissuade Obama from engaging in those discussions. Later that year, Summers was even favored by the Obama administration to be the Federal Reserve chair. But Summers voluntarily took himself out of the running. I don't remember why that was. Do you? No, it's not clear why he did. But what happened was he was the Treasury Secretary under Clinton. He was a top economic advisor under Obama, and then they thought they might even make him, you know, put him on the Fed. For whatever reason, he backed out of it. But it gives you a sense of how much Obama trusted Summers. So Epstein thought perfect, let me use Summers to manipulate Obama. into war and helping Israel. So then years later in 2017 and with the with Trump as president, Epstein expressed unease about Iran electing a pro diplomacy reformist over like a hard line you know. anti-nuclear deal candidate. And so he said something along the lines of, I told you this what happened. It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. And this is an email that Epstein had written to Ehud Barak at the time. This is in 2017. So understand, he's panicking because Iranians voted in a reformist rather than a hardliner who would not want to approach. the United States and the West diplomatically in order to reach an Iran nuclear deal. He did not want any diplomacy. He wanted flat war. full blown war between Iran and the United States on behalf of Israel. And if you're wondering why, why does Israel want us to go to war with Iran? Wouldn't a peace deal suffice? That way Israel's safe if we have a peace deal. They can't develop uranium and it can't develop a nuke. Israel safe. Why would they be against that? Because Israel believes that any weapons in the Middle East is a threat to them. And Iran still has conventional weapons and supports Hezbollah and Hamas. Iran is a threat to Israel. You want to know why?
Because look, if Israel wanted to respect borders and didn't want to continue annexing land from Lebanon, which they're doing right now, from Syria, which they've already done, obviously there's the West Bank and Gaza, which they're salivating over as we speak. If they actually respected borders, well, then Iran wouldn't be a threat to them. But Iran is a threat because it's the only country that will fight back against Israel as it engages in its expansionist greater Israel project. That's why the lies about the nukes and the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. were always a distraction. They were to rile you up and make you worried that, oh my God, maybe they could use a nuke against us, America, right? When that was always a lie, the whole point was destroy Iraq because they were helping Hamas at the time and destroy Iran because they're helping Hamas and Hezbollah. And that way no one could ever help the Palestinians as the Israelis took more and more land. You neuter the entire Middle East, you destroy all of their governments, all of their military, except you don't do that. You make the Americans do that by manipulating them through actions just like this. Exactly. But later when it became clear that Trump was going to have an adversarial relationship with Iran, Epstein was elated about that. Let's go to Graphics 6, where he wrote, Trump threatened Iran with a happy face. Epstein wrote to Steve Bannon in July of 2018 after Trump had made headlines with an all caps tweet threatening Iran's new president. Yes, I saw that and immediately remember our conversation. Steve Bannon replied. The following evening after Trump announced that, quote, we're ready to make a real deal, end quote, with Iran. Epstein called it nuts. So he's having a little bit of an emotional roller coaster, I think, as. most Americans were experiencing under Trump's first term. And then when Steve Bannon informed Epstein a year later that Trump's eldest son had been summoned to a meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee over potential perjury charges, Epstein dismissed the story's importance. Focus on Iran, he wrote. Yeah. So what you get out of these emails when it comes to Steve Bannon is Steve Bannon and Epstein were a team. Yep. They were constantly conspiring together. How do we get to do Trump to do this, America to do that. So the thing that they agreed on was war. And yes, Steve Bannon was super friendly towards overtures of helping Israel unfairly. What happened to America first? Okay. And so the second thing you get out of it is that Steve Bannon is such a hilarious racist. So they're talking back and forth now about China. And when they do, Steve Bannon's like, oh, they're just a bunch of peasants. They won't be real competition.
That is preposterously stupid. And I guess it stems from his racism. Like, oh, Western civilization, bunch of peasants in China. Have you seen their cities? Have you seen their high speed rail? I know, in fact. Have you seen their technology? I think if most Americans saw what China looks like and compared their infrastructure to what our infrastructure looks like, you would be raging right now. And you should be raging. You should be raging. We pay a lot in taxes in this country. We get barely anything in return. Okay, I'm just telling you the truth. It's disgusting. Anyway, let's take a break. When we come back, we've got more on the partisan war in this country. In this case, Pete Hegseth is launching investigations over a group of congressional Democrats who put out a video that was meant to be provocative. It did provoke Trump, and now here we are. We'll be right back.