Mamala For America, Dictator For A Day
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Rise and shine, fever dreamers. Look alive, my friends. I'm V Spear. I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Dream, presented by Betches News. Where we explore the absurdities and oddities of our uniquely American experience. Today we are in person, together, bringing you a temp check on the Mamala controversy, a major breakdown of Donald Trump's plans for a second term, and how achievable they are—hint, kind of achievable—

And for today's Americant, we have Miss Americant, and Bea has a rant. You'll understand later. Plus, later this week, we have an episode with the hosts of the podcast Strict Scrutiny, where we delve into the dysfunction of the Supreme Court. Lots to get into there. So be sure to check that out on Thursday, and let's get into it. Hey, Bea.

I love that we're in person. I love it. I feel like we just like get each other going. It's like stepbrothers. We don't rile each other up. We do. Exactly. And we were like, you know, sitting next to each other. It's just, it's a perfect, perfect vibe. And Sammy got us treats. We have hats. We have preachy females and democratic politics hats. Corduroy. Corduroy.

Navy with white embroidery. For those of you who are, you know, listening, all of you classy, classy, check them out on our Instagrams. We're also, we have three more of these and we're going to give them away to three fans of the show. Yes. So how do you get them? So you are going to preachy female. You're going to pick a topic that you care about. You're going to make some content or it could be a tweet. It could be any number of things. And then you're going to have a story, a thread,

a thread, something that you want people to know about that makes you a preachy female in democratic politics.

And then you're going to just hashtag American Fever Dream. We are going to see them. And then we are going to just democratically elect three people to get the hat. Yes. And you're going to tag Betches News and our accounts. And Under the Desk News. And Under the Desk News and at Sammy so that we can see them all. Select our winners. We're going to be fair. Don't worry. Yes. But post online about how much you... Any topic. Yeah. Any topic. Any thought you want. Hashtag American Fever Dream. And tag us. And that's it. Tell us your favorite down ballot girly of the week. Like whatever...

Anything you want. If you want to do an Americant rant, like whatever you need to do. Yeah. Like it doesn't even need to be like, oh, my God, this is my favorite show. Although we would love if you did that. But it can be really any comment with our hashtag and our three tags. Done. And then we will get you one of these gorgeous hats. And we'll put that in the show notes so it's easy to find. And if you like them, maybe we will.

We'll, you know, maybe we'll do something more with them. You know, it's a rolling thing. We're not trying to make too many merch items because of sustainability. Like, we don't like that. So we're trying to make them good. This is timeless, though. This isn't going anywhere. This is also high quality. I was like, we're going to do only five of these. Nice ones. Nice ones. And three very special listeners will get to have the hats to match the two of us. Yeah, yeah.

So what's going on? Yesterday was the Met Gala. No one wore this hat. No one wore this hat. I was supposed to go to like a Met Gala party, but I got to tell you, honestly, the news was so difficult last night. I was exhausted. I did not feel like partying, looking at celebrities dressed up like chandeliers. It just was too dystopian. So me and Sammy stayed home. Instead, you had to do that on your phone. I did. Yeah. I got to watch E! News from my hotel, which is such a treat, you know, and...

I'll tell you something stupid I did. I was like, I'm going to watch the actual footage. I'm going to watch the stream this year.

And so I'm like, I Google, oh, Met Gala live stream. And I'm watching it for like an hour and I'm like, this is the loudest, most annoying thing ever. All I hear is photographers screaming at people being like, Dua, Dua, Dua, look at me, Gigi, Gigi, Gigi. Like, this is so annoying. How is this the live stream? Like, this is must be what it's like to be in there. And then like about an hour later, I realized I'm like, wait, this is the independence live stream. This is not the Vogue live stream. So I switched to the Vogue live stream and it's like,

Quiet, you know, like quiet, perfectly sound edited interviews of like Kim Kardashian, Lana Del Rey. I'm like, I can't believe I've been watching these like loud men scream at celebrities for an hour or just kind of listening to it in the background when I could have been watching these fashion takes. It is the weirdest thing to do a red carpet is an exercise in insanity because you have to just.

to it being so weird because the way you pose... Like, I remember the first time I did red carpet, I just, like, panicked because I'm like, nobody wants to take my picture. This all feels weird. And then I, like, ran through three different people's pictures. But the way they have to, like, they have them all back to back and they're just, like, mugging for the camera and it looks...

absurd in person, but the pictures come out nice. They do. And on your first red carpet, you have to be a little delusional. You have to pretend you're a celebrity. You have to pretend that people care. Yeah. Even if you're like, no, no one cares about me. Otherwise it shows like my deer in a headlight for a skinny images. Go look those up. Oh my God. Humble. I am so bad at faking until I make it.

You're great at red carpet pictures. You've really got it down. I think, I think, yes, I think I've seen several of yours and I feel like you nail it. I feel like you know how to do like the angles and the smile. Oh my God. Thank you. I don't think I do.

do, but I will. I'm going to work on lock in. You lock in. Thank you. Thank you. I thought what they did to Lizzo was terrible karma. What she did to those backup dancers. Somebody put her in that dress with like, don't put anything on people's heads. That was unfair. And Kim Kardashian was the sweater and add on or like what was going on with that? That is a great mystery that people are trying to solve. My feeling is like

I didn't necessarily assume it was like an afterthought until I noticed how pilled it was. Like you're not even, you're kind of fucking nice. But I was like, are we trying to get a weight, a lint razor? But this is what pissed me off about it is. So she's got like plain Jane from RuPaul's drag races, hip pads on. Right. And then she's got this metal corset, which is like, you know, it is what it is. She creates the effect. Yeah. It's,

This is what I learned because I couldn't figure out how her body worked. She is very small. She just adds to it. Oh, okay. Adding, not taking away. Okay. But we all think she's taking away and that's why we all have eating disorders and problems. Yeah. So she had this metal corset thing, which was, you know, whatever it is, what it is. And then she throws on this pilled sweater and I was like, is she cosplaying like poverty again? Is she trying to be relatable or did like, she just pick up somebody's like nookie blanket and throw it over her because it was,

It didn't make sense to me. Well, because the theme was like sleeping beauties. I think it was maybe like I'm trying to be like cozy. It was not. Well, we'll find out. I bet she'll say it. And was it sleeping beauty or garden? So Gardens of Time was the party theme. And then it was in honor of the exhibit, which is called Sleeping Beauties. Okay. I would have come dressed.

as Jacqueline Kennedy's rose garden with like hedge headpiece, because that's a garden of time to me. You could have. You could have. And then that would have been I think that would have counted. That's a garden of time. Here's some hot tea on the on the rose garden that you all like. Yeah, this is good. It's going to happen. Ricky, if you're listening, forgive me. So my very good friend Ricky Natchetta was the social secretary under Trump. And before you all get persnickety.

She said if there was one welcoming face in the Trump White House, it would be hers. And we love Ricky. She quit on January 6th. She's all. Yeah, she's everything. She's anti-coup. Yes. Very. We love Ricky. So she was married to this guy, Thomas Lloyd Mellon. His like as in Carnegie Mellon. M-E-L-L-O-N. Yes. His grandmother is Bunny Mellon. Bunny Mellon. Exactly what it sounds like. Georgetown social lady was Jackie Kennedy's.

Best friend, florist. She owned like an estate in Virginia and all this business. So that rose garden she put in is something that really only a woman named Buddy Mellon could cultivate. Okay. This is a difficult rose garden to manage. Over the years, it fell into disrepair. The Obamas put some box plants in there and then...

Thomas cheated on Ricky. Thomas is Ricky's husband. Yes. And Thomas is Bunny Melon's grandson. Right, right. So the grandson, the legacy of her husband who had an affair was this rose garden that his grandmother put in.

And Ricky took it out. So that's the true story behind Melania removing the Rose Garden. And it wasn't supposed to be permanent. It was because it really had fallen into disrepair. It wasn't the Rose Garden of the Kennedy's 1960s. But also, don't mess with a woman. It was convenient revenge. Do not scorched earth, literally. What I think sometimes people underestimate in history is how many events they

Sometimes I think people assume that events are driven by macro forces when in reality they're driven by micro forces. For example, the social secretary at the White House

gets cheated on by her husband whose grandmother designed that garden and then you have days of coverage of melania ruining the rose garden and it wasn't it wasn't melania at all i mean we can play a game where we want to play she what was she gonna do i mean one thing she could be like no i like this shit what she did not i mean one thing about melania is she really took the barbs

of things that were like aesthetic like oh i don't like her christmas decorations oh i don't like this that the other you know what i mean she doesn't really care do you i really don't care do you i know so anyway that's the true story of the rose garden and i hope uh that our listeners enjoy that little learning nugget yeah you don't even know what you're gonna get on this podcast you never know that's the stories people stories from the butler's pantry they do not know i know we could even make that a segment no we don't want to promise that then we'll be reaching into like too many things we might say things we regret

Anyway, speaking of things. How we managed sex workers at the 2012 RNC. That'll be a future episode. Okay. When we do our 100th episode, I'll reveal that. Just tease that. You're just going to tease that. Okay. Okay.

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Well, speaking of saying things that you regret. Yes. Let's do our temp check. We have the Mamala controversy. Does anyone know what this is? V, I know you know. I do. So as a person who often questions the things that Drew Barrymore does on her show, famously questioned her potentially crossing the picket line during the SAG-AFTRA strikes.

I stayed out of this one because you know what? We love Drew. She provides a great service. She's got a lot of nostalgia for a bunch of people. I think she's doing the best she can. But her way of interviewing people just might not be a match for things that are really serious like the vice president of the United States.

Not everybody wants to have Drew Barrymore crawl into their skin and weaponize a very endearing term that their stepchildren used for them to basically basically Drew Barrymore ask the most powerful black woman in the United States and probably the world if she would be the mammy of the country. Gosh, she did. She did ask that.

I mean, we are rewriting a little. Okay, let's give them the breakdown in case people are like only kind of vaguely hearing that. Okay, so our vice president went viral for her appearance on the Drew Barrymore show of all things. In case you haven't seen it right now, we will play a clip of the viral portion in a second. And I'm sure there's also people who have only seen the viral part, but it was honestly kind of worse within context than out of context. So Drew starts off this interview saying that they have their first all-female audience. It's giving the wing.

Don't even with the wing. I have such trauma with the wing.

Honestly, we should talk about do an episode on that. Yeah. Episode number 95. Where you had to like get extra dressed up to go to the wing. And then I was like, do I even belong here? And the salad was like $70. No, I'll just go to Soho house and work. I never once went to the wing. I went one time. I was just like, I don't, I don't know. I went one time and they were all mean to me. That was what the reporting said. That's what it was. So Drew starts talking to the vice president about how she's so invested in her relationship with Doug's kids because she too is a stepmother.

And it's like, are you kidding me? This woman is the vice president. So the first question she asks is about Kamala's experience meeting Doug's kids for the first time and if she remembers that day. And the vice president's a sport about it. She says it was one of the most special days of her life. And then we have the moment that went everywhere. Play the clip. I keep thinking in my head that...

We all need a mom. I've been thinking that we really all need a tremendous hug in the world right now. But in our country, we need you to be mamala of the country. And as a woman who respects so much and wants to share and wants to be confident and has no...

Ounce of meat that has competitiveness. Yeah. When we lift each other up, we all rise. That's exactly right. That's right. That's right. That's right. However, we need a great protector. Yeah. Well, you know, part of it is I think that sadly over the last many years, there's been this kind of perverse approach to what strength looks like.

Everybody shake off the icks. So this had come up because she was commenting that their family doesn't use the word step and they call her Mamala, which...

Look, I want to tell you guys, I interviewed the vice president recently. She does not share personal details. So it was already super vulnerable to allow this line of questioning to come her way because she doesn't like to talk about her personal life. She's here to do a job. You know what I mean? And so often we put women in a place to talk about how they're a caregiver and a wife. And she's like, I'm the vice president. So, I mean, you could see just...

Madam Vice President was also super icked out. She leaned way back in her chair. She said the, yeah, no, which is the part that I caught. She never even like answered the mama thing, really. No, because she was paralyzed with cringe. And everyone was clapping.

That was the weird part. Like, everyone's clapping. There was applause signs. Come on. Right. Honestly, it wasn't even just that comment. That's just the part that really went viral. But the whole interview I found to be deeply uncomfortable because I've never really seen two people with such mismatched personal energies. Like, this wasn't the right venue or the right person for her to be talking to about this. And I...

I just think it would have been a less awkward if it had been only audio, no video. If Joe Biden had been the one speaking to Drew Barrymore. Joe is like a buddy. He'll go back and forth. He'll give you a hug. Yeah. He likes to talk about his family. He does. And it's different when you ask a man to talk about their family because they're not always being asked to talk about their family. Oh, how do you do?

at all. But there were just so many sexist forces that went into this conversation. And I do believe that there is an effort right now to humanize Vice President Harris. And maybe not everyone in politics has to be so vulnerable and cutesy. Maybe that's the lesson we learned here. I mean, Kamala's been on the road as part of a reproductive freedom tour, meeting female governors and other legislators, getting state-level commitments to protect maternal health. And that's the kind of maternity mom stuff I would have wanted to hear about, not

can we commandeer your stepchild's cute name for you? Right. And it's like, this is really emblematic, I think, of a bigger problem that she constantly faces in particular, being the first woman, the first black woman, the first Asian-American woman. And you would think that

People would maybe assume that simply by virtue of being in this position of becoming the vice president. And I mean, not like the Sarah Palin way where she was just like plucked out of obscurity. She is extremely accomplished, which is why she was chosen to be his VP pick in the first place. So this would have been a great time for Drew Barrymore to expose the vice president's actual work to a more casual, less probably engaged in the news audience.

And like, for example, she is the first sitting vice president or president who has ever visited an abortion clinic. She went to visit the Planned Parenthood in Minnesota. It also she doesn't even have to talk about repo rights. There's plenty of things that have to do with families and affect people's families that are not having to do with reproduction or kids in any way. When she was attorney general, she was one of the earliest proponents for the queer community before way before that was a given. And.

And in California, when voters passed Prop 8 to ban gay marriage in 2008, she was the attorney general at the time. And she promised that her office would not defend it. And she urged the circuit courts to overturn it. She also led the effort to ban the gay panic defense, which is like this crazy thing. It's almost hard to believe it was real, where like if people would commit a violent crime against a gay person, they could basically say they were afraid that they were

making a flirting with them. Yeah. And they could like defend themselves for like assault or murder on this. The basis of this defense. Kamala Harris was on the forefront of making California the first state to ban the gay panic defense. All that is to say there are so many angles that we could have taken about the vice president. Andrew Barrymore chose to go with like, please nurture me, Mama. Kelly Clarkson would never.

No, she wouldn't. She wouldn't. Kelly Clarkson is. I love the Kelly Clarkson show. I love the Jennifer Hudson show. I think they really get it. And this is to me. She should have gone. It's not that a performer and actress or a singer can't also be a successful talk show host. I think Kelly Clarkson and Jennifer Hudson are proving that you absolutely can because they include, you know, their singer stuff and their fun stuff. But they really do take seriously these talks in these vulnerable spaces that they get these important people into. Yeah.

She could have done Howard Stern too. Oh, I would love that. I think she could have done almost anyone but Drew Barrymore. I don't know why they put her on that in particular because I think you know what Drew gets you and-

It could have been Joe Biden. He has that kind of very cuddly type person. I think the all-female audience also, I do believe this set the vice president back. And I don't know what conversations were had after this interview, but I can imagine her staff getting an earful. And I hope that Drew finds a way to sort of make this right with her because she's

Kamala already has a hard time overcoming, you know, the competitiveness that women have and the way that she doesn't pull super great with women. And this kind of I don't think it did it. I don't think we got there. And that's too bad. I do see why they thought, oh, Drew Barrymore is super like comforting. Maybe she'll be a good match for that. But I think maybe, you know, when people talk about Drew Barrymore and like how she sits, it's like a little unboundaried.

Well, she went off script is what my guess is. My guess is that they were, because I just interviewed her. My guess is that you had to do all the things I had to do, right? You had to provide, you know, what are the topics you want to talk about? What's this? How's that? This is the way that, you know, she won't answer this or she will answer that. And I'm going to guess that when she started to tell this Mamala story, Drew in the moment made the decision to have this like sort of like unscripted

Maybe not the Mamala thing, but the first question she asked, I assume was scripted because it was the first question. I'm sure that they allowed her to ask that, but then we're like, will you move on to policies? And she didn't. Never. She allowed like her own kind of, you know, as we do, but you can't on that level of a stage. And I have empathy for that too. Temp check. Not good. Very high fever. Very high fever in icy waters. Yeah. Should we talk about the big news of the week? Yeah.

What we want to talk about is Donald Trump's time interview of last week and within the context of what his future administration and his team are actually planning. And the main thing we want you to take away from this is that they are much better prepared this time. They have actual plans. Donald Trump knows how the government works. He knows how to accomplish what he wants to accomplish. So the things that we are about to share are things that he is...

preparing to do. You've got the Heritage Foundation behind this. You've got Stephen Miller. It's not just the president, it's the cabinet and everyone else that surrounds them. And these people learned from what they didn't get away with last time. Global fascist, Steve Bannon. And it's due for

stewed for four years about it. Yeah. Okay. There's a lot of people behind this. So let's start with the, the time interview because that's kind of like his external messaging of, of what really exists on the internal policy. So last week he gave an interview to time magazine journalist, Eric Cordelessa, where he detailed his plans for a second term. They published the transcript of the interview in full.

Not only is it an important preview for what the second Trump administration will be promising, but it also reflects prior reporting on the plans, which you've probably heard referred to under the moniker Project 2025 or Agenda 47. We're going to break those down in the second half of the segment. But first, let's talk about the time interview, which is what he is publicly communicating. So the one big headline that you probably have already heard is that he wants to track people's pregnancies. So here's what he specifically said.

He says that it should be left up to the states to decide whether they want to prosecute women who have abortions or if they want to track their pregnancies. He was repeatedly pressed on whether he would support a federal ban on abortion, a question which he continued to skirt by saying, quote, you don't need a federal ban or that it doesn't matter because Republicans would never be able to get to 60 votes in the Senate to pass one anyway. He has also said states' rights.

And that is before we knew what the states did. As we've said before, the states create national abortion bans. So-

You cannot in one breath say that I am the architect of the end of Roe v. Wade, and I'm proud of that. They couldn't have done that without me. And then also try to not be for the abortion ban. And when they're doing it, they're pissing off the evangelicals who are like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I thought we were doing the ban, man. So, like, can't have it both ways. Totally. He also was campaigning in Michigan last week, and he did take credit for overturning Roe v. Wade, and he called the GOP the party of fertilization. So...

So like, but let's dissect this specifically for a second. I'm sorry. The party of fertilization. Oh my God. Just picture grass fertilizer. I'm going to have to picture something else. That is...

Horrible. Oh, my God. And they say the Democrats are bad at messaging. I mean, these people are perverse. They think that this is like I think this is like God. I'm saying everything is a kink. Them and their breeding is a kink. It is. Yeah. So, OK, let's dissect this like for real. So in a world where states can decide whether they want to prosecute women who have abortions or if they want to track people's pregnancies, that means that will happen in many places and cases. Yes.

Not to mention the array of other problems for the health care system. Like, for example, we just interviewed Colin Allred, who is going to be on the episode on an episode next week. And he was talking about how the Texas abortion ban has really changed the way employers are able to get people to come into the state. People, students who do or don't want to go to the schools, people who don't want to be OBGYNs or doctors there. It has bigger effects.

All of this hand-wringing about whether Donald Trump would do a federal ban or if he wouldn't is all irrelevant because there is a strong chance that if the Republicans won the Senate, they would just kill the filibuster anyway and get rid of that 60-vote threshold. So I would just simply never trust that. Donald knows that if he says he supports a federal abortion ban, that that will harm his election chances. He has indicated that he's conscious of this. And he said on Truth Social that the abortion issue

caused Republicans to suffer election losses in 2022 and that the six-week ban in Florida hurt Ron DeSantis. So he knows to stay away from this

really strict abortion ban language. Yeah, no, he'll do an executive order to track pregnancies. And if you think we don't have the technology for it, we absolutely do. And if you think that other people wouldn't be complicit in helping him do this, you're wrong. They're going, any app tracking service is going to take the government money to force women to like input this information. We saw it with COVID tracking, even like the technology exists to do it. Speaking of tracking where people are and the repro issue,

He said in this time interview that he's going to make a statement within the next 14 days on what he plans to do with the Comstock Act, our favorite, because and that would prohibit the mailing of abortion medication. Just as a reminder, he said that he has, quote, pretty strong views of.

on whether people should be able to access the abortion pill Mipha Pristone, but he is not going to explain in the interview. He instead said, I have a big statement on that. I feel very strongly about it. I actually think it's a very important issue. So stay tuned about a week or two.

Till when? This is the thing. He does that a lot. I'll tell you within two weeks. I know. Hang on for the next episode. And this man treats everything like it's a television program, you know, and it works just as addictively for some of his fans and has built a cult following, obviously, but...

I just, Donald Trump will do a national abortion ban period at the end. There is no reason to believe anything else. And that's either by empowering the states or by appointing more federal judges that will break down Roe v. Wade even further and further and further. Yeah. Or by getting rid of abortion medication, which is how most abortions are happening now, even in, you know, states where abortion is legal. Yep. So there's a lot there.

The other major segment falls under what I'd like to call immigration and policing. On law enforcement, he accused the FBI of releasing fake numbers when the interviewer said that crime statistics were improving and homicides had gone down. He said, quote, no, it's a lie. It's fake news.

He also said that the police have been treated very unfairly and he wants to give police immunity from prosecution. And this is why I think you should have to know basic laws before you run for office, because the police already have immunity from prosecution. You don't need to give them more. They have unions for that.

They're good on the immunity. They are so good on the immunity. You're jealous of their immunity, Donald. They have more immunity than anyone. Than ivermectin could give you. They're lit with immunity. And don't do that, by the way. And then, of course, there's the anti-migrant rhetoric, which has been central to his platform since 2015. So as you can expect, his next term would see an escalation in these policies. In his interview with Time, he promised to reinstate and expand the Muslim ban, build more of the wall...

electrify the wall and deploy the National Guard and the military, as well as allow local police departments to opt in to deport millions of people. He estimates that there will be about 20 million people he'd want to get rid of by the end of Biden's term. He's denied that he'll build new migrant detention camps because they're going to be bringing them out of the country. They're not going to be putting them in camps. They're going to be bringing them out of the country.

But he wouldn't rule out building new prisons for migrants either. Yeah, this is confusing. I might do it. I might not do it. I don't know. He's like, we don't want them to be in. We want them to be out. This is the thing. It's like it's all a little bit confusing. He doesn't want to like commit to anything. He doesn't want to not commit to anything. This interview was an 83 minute read on time dot com.

He does not want to admit to some of his campaign promises that he's made, even though he said them multiple times. And I think that that's because he knows that these things either cause controversy or he wants to be able to say like, no, I didn't say that. Because during this, he keeps denying that he said things he had said. The gaslighter in chief. Yeah, like that he was going to prosecute Alvin Bragg.

Overall, though, the interview was like classic Trump. It's long. It's winding. It's inconsistent and only is directionally helpful in understanding what's on the table for him to do, which is honestly like probably everything he can think of, if possible, if he can actually possibly manage it. He also called Biden a Manchurian candidate. Does he know what that word means? Like, here's what he wants to be on the plane. He is Putin's Manchurian candidate. He just.

He took a break from the YMCA and Gloria song, and he watched a movie on the plane, The Manchurian Candidate. He got a new word. We love that for him. Yeah, he probably fast-forwarded all the parts with dialogue and shit. Yeah. He refers to Biden as a Manchurian candidate. Obviously, like, someone taught him that word. He said he will consider pardoning everyone involved, anyone who was convicted of something to do with January 6th. Mm-hmm.

He continues to insist that he won the 2020 election and claims that there's nothing wrong with the fact that the RNC is now vetting job applicants based on whether those people agree that he won the 2020 election. And this is after the RNC fired those exact people only so that they could be re-interviewed based on the question of whether they believe the 2020 election was stolen.

It's kind of like we have some grace for people who voted for Trump in 2016, but by 2020, we're kind of like, okay, you either learned or you're in the cult, right? Right.

And the same thing with working in the administration. I like have some grace for people who worked in the administration in 2016 because I believe that there were some genuinely patriotic people who thought, I cannot let the country devolve into madness. So I'm going to have to sort of like hold my tongue here and try to like at least keep an eye out for folks. But if you're joining now, you're joining a completely different circumstance. You've made a choice here. They won't let a normal person join. No.

You're pledging allegiance to a man, which is completely against the Constitution. The military pledges allegiance to the Constitution. We do oaths to the Constitution. We don't... Eric Hovde doesn't. Eric Hovde doesn't know it, but like...

This is a significant difference. This isn't a little joke. It's not placating the toddler candidate. A loyalty pledge is not a joke. That's that's straight up fascist dictator stuff. No, this is telling people I am going to be a dictator. Yeah. You are electing me under that premise. There's a lot of people in Biden's world who don't.

a lot of shit on him and he is, you know, he probably doesn't like it, but he doesn't say that because like, what are you going to do, man? That's, that's the job. The job is critical. I will bet that 75% of the people who ultimately vote for Biden have criticized him. Myself included. Yeah. A lot, like a lot. Yeah. And to his face and also said, did you see my TikTok? Yes, I did. And that's okay. You know what I mean? You have, you get to talk about what you want to talk about. So, you know, that's.

That's democracy, baby. That's democracy, but that's also leadership. Leadership is understanding that people need to complain about you or want to complain up because they believe in making things better still. Otherwise, they wouldn't waste their breath complaining. They would leave. So you have to be able to take those barbs as a leader and hear that constructive feedback. Unless you're a dictator. Unless you're a dictator. Then you don't have to. Then you get loyalty pledges. Speaking of dictators...

He said that he's going to be tough on Russia and that Biden isn't, which is so cute because so many Republicans spent the 4th of July in Moscow. Let's not forget that. Oh, yeah. Remember Helsinki? Yeah, exactly. Trump said he wants to ditch our NATO allies unless they, quote, pay up and continues to threaten to pull out of NATO.

He doesn't want to give Ukraine more aid unless Europe is going to pay him as well because they are, quote, more affected than we are. And he says that we get hurt by Europe on trade as well as China. To that end, he wants to put a 60 percent tariff on Chinese imports, 60 percent tariff on Chinese imports in this economy, as well as put maybe more than a 10 percent tariff on all imports that he is calling a ring around the country.

Yeah. I mean, lots of detailed policy, lots of it's going to be expensive. It's going to be expensive. And it's also just like a completely punitively based government where you are punished if you're another country and America will punish you. If you're not loyal, Donald Trump will punish you. It's completely punishment based, which we know from Cesar Millan, dog trainer, doesn't

Doesn't work. No, we need a rewards based economy, a rewards based government. You do good things, good things happen. Positive reinforcement. We love that. But that's enough about the time interview and our musings on that. Let's get into the nuts and bolts of Project 2025, which is also known as the Mandate for Leadership, the Conservative Project.

Promise. It's a 887-page policy guide compiled by the Heritage Foundation, but with written contributions from dozens of ultra-conservative thinkers and activists. It bills itself as, quote, a unified effort to be ready for the next conservative administration to govern at 12 noon, January 20th, 2025. You may also hear these plans referred to under the moniker Agenda 47, which is a package of policy proposals that Donald Trump is promising to put forward if he is elected.

These are their formal policy plans. They are available on his campaign website. And in this series of videos, this is something that is aggressive because these conservatives understand that their policies are not popular with the public. And this is probably actually their last chance to get them through. If we get another four years of democracy...

The cult will dwindle. It will have to. I think you're right because there's no losing. And like Rep Allred said, which you'll hear next Thursday, people get sick of losing and they get sick of being called a bigot and a racist and a bad person. People inherently want to be seen as good. I think that's true of most people. But yeah, this is this is their last chance. I really think this is this type of conservatism. Yeah. Agreed. Because after that.

You know, especially if Democrats win all three branches of government or win the presidency in both houses of Congress.

you know, there's real chance for reform there. Hopefully they will take it. And if you look at the ages also, most of the people who are driving this policy are people who are still butthurt from 1973 when we started to get rights for women and stuff. And so they're trying to undo all of that. The moral majority, Christian right, Jerry Falwell of it all. When you look at even young Christian conservatives, they don't fall in line nearly with the fascism that the people did before. This type of legislation doesn't make sense. And I think

Like to that point, this is the last chance for these dinosaur folks to get their plan through.

So let's see what they're going to do when they take their last stand. Yes. Okay, we're obviously lowering corporate taxes. We're obviously doing lower taxes for the rich people, higher taxes for the poor people. Nothing that original. But a big cornerstone of their plans are with regards to the consolidation of executive authority, meaning the president. Kind of making the president into the closest thing that you can get to like an absolute, I don't want to say dictator, but like... It's a monarchy at least. Monarchy vibes. Like...

you know, maybe it doesn't get passed through the bloodline, but I don't see how you ever overcome this executive on with some of these proposals. I think he would pass it to the bloodline. You're going to tell me once he becomes dictator, he's not going to air it down like King John Ung or something to one of the boys. Yes, he would. He will, but he doesn't say it in these proposals. That's true. Yet. Yet.

Okay. One thing has to do with the, uh, relationship between the DOJ and the white house. So as we know right now, the white house, the executive appoints the attorney general and, you know, many people who are in, uh, the upper echelons of the DOJ, but they're supposed to function separately. So like the president isn't supposed to be telling the DOJ what to do. And the DOJ is not supposed to be, um,

doing making legal moves at the behest of the president's personal interests, maybe at the request at the behest of the president's policy interests, but within the confines of the law still. So what they want

is they want the DOJ and the White House to work very closely as a team, even when they're supposed to be distinct, in order to avoid corruption. And they say that when the executive agenda and the law conflict, they expect that the law should submit to the president's priorities and that the DOJ should not thwart the administration's agenda by providing, quote, erroneous legal positions that do not just essentially create... What does that even mean? They mean is like,

The DOJ can't or they don't want the DOJ under their policies to like come out with an opinion or a ruling or or any sort of like policy that would undermine what the president wants to do. So like if he wants to put migrants in a detention center, his attorney general can't be like, well, actually, you can't do that. Yes. Yes. He has to make that law work for him. Like what they did with immunity and all that stuff.

Some other things that they would do would be Congress would lose oversight. So they would, you know, Congress is supposed to confirm certain government officials in the in their under their policy. Those individuals would just be installed in acting positions and they would sort of be just like working in good faith while the Senate doesn't confirm them or maybe does confirm them. It doesn't seem it seems to basically just marginalize that entirely.

Congress also would not be able to review U.S. foreign arms sales unless, quote, unanimous congressional support is guaranteed, meaning they can't look at the arms sales unless they're definitely already going to approve them. Forget it. And then they want to give the Department of Homeland Security the power to select and limit its own congressional oversight committee. Stop. So a lot of this is about getting immigration passed.

But also about potentially being able to exile or deport political enemies, anyone. You could say, oh, now you're a terrorist. You're on a watch list. And they could put Joe Biden on one, right? Now you're not allowed to fly, use public transportation, move states. That would kill him. You could house arrest people in some ways or state arrest people in some ways or just arrest them, I guess, if you wanted to. But dismantling the administrative state or what he is now calling the deep state, he's going to use Schedule F.

These are the people who keep the government running. They are nonpartisan employees that keep the trains on time. Like literally he's talking about remaking bureaucracy and administrative, the administrative state in his image. He wants to do what he is doing at the RNC to like all the employees of government who work in all the various agencies. He wants to get rid of a lot of agencies like all the civil rights agencies, environmental justice, you know, anything to do with gender, anything to do with

climate. He wants to just get rid of those altogether. But the agencies that he does want to keep, he wants to make sure that those people are loyal to him and his agenda. Oh, my God. Sammy reading ahead here. He's going to replace the Department of Health and Human Services with the Department of Life.

which would enact the most robust protections for the unborn. This despite Donald's media training to let us know that abortion policy would be left up to the state. It's right here in line, you know. So but that's the thing that, you know, the Department of Health and Human Services certainly doesn't believe in providing services to people. You know, this would just be mostly about continuing this like attack on women and forced birth.

Yeah, and this is where we get into the, like, policy weeds of his plans to track people's pregnancies. Because part of these policies have to do with what kind of data is collected. And, for example, like, every state would be required to report all abortions. But...

They would not want government agencies to record stats like things about gender identity, race, ethnicity within the census because they don't want those stats. They don't want things to be able to be measured. And they do this in some of the states where Florida refuses to collect a certain amount of data. So they said we had zero COVID cases or whatever. It's like they didn't measure them. Nebraska did that, too. But they want to do it everywhere. Sammy, tell me the Department of Life. Mm hmm.

What's their stance on the death penalty? They love it. They love it. They love it. They're going to hasten the elimination, I think, of those individuals. Cool. Yeah. They also, I mean, there's more on, there's of course, they want the death penalty for drug dealers and people trackers. They want to label Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations. I don't like hate that one. I mean, there could be, there's definitely worse things in here. Yeah.

They're planning for the indefinite curtailment of refugee admissions. They want to complete the wall, deploy active duty military personnel and the National Guard to assist in arrest operations along the border. So Texas won't even need to supersede federal law anymore. And they also want to create a new immigration related revenue stream that would charge asylum seekers for premium processing of their claims.

Getting predatory. This, okay. This is something that is happening in the Middle East right now that has been really internationally looked down upon. And the fact that like Egypt to process refugees from Gaza, it's like a couple hundred bucks in paperwork and time, like totally understandable. It's somebody's job that you have to pay for that. But now, because it's such a desperate situation, Egypt has one agency that is like processing these refugee requests and

And it's $5,000 for an adult, $2,500 for a child. Now, where are the Palestinians supposed to get that kind of money from? So they're doing like GoFundMes. There's like a whole campaign on TikTok at one time that was trying to get involved with that that I'm not sure is still happening. But like,

That's what he wants to do. He's essentially taking something that we know is corrupt, that's been internationally condemned, war profiteering, and you're going to bring it to the United States of America and say the countries in South and Central America that we participated in destabilizing, now we're going to war profiteer from? I doubt he wants to even war profiteer. He wants to personally profiteer. I bet you Jared's going to start one of these businesses. Oh yeah, he gets a finder fee for everybody who comes across the...

Well, this this leads to the next one of his plans here, which is to end automatic citizenship for people born in the United States. You will now have to prove that one of the parents is a legal resident or a U.S. citizen, whereas like across the world, like if you could be two Americans vacationing in Ireland, if the baby's born in Ireland, it gets dual citizenship. Right, right. That's just like how it is. This is this is a really fundamental change. I know it seems like.

Seems like, well, why wouldn't they prove that they're an American citizen? Because that's not how it works. It's just very, it just really undermines a lot of sort of like assumptions, not just here. Well, it creates a whole other line of paperwork too. Like what are we supposed to, so are you going to make everybody do it? Can you imagine the red tape when birth is already? They're not going to make everyone do it. I know, but birth is already so expensive and annoying. Now I got to like provide my, you know, like citizenship status. Your revenue stream. Ugh.

I bet you they're going to make one of those too. I'm sure. Here's one. Yeah. Cash for kids. Cash for kids. Cars for kids. Cars for kids. Cash for kids. Introducing a baby bonus to try and spur on a baby boom. So I guess all those women who are forced to carry their rapist pregnancies will at least get a check like all the other women Trump has given a check to that he's assaulted. How much? $130,000. Yeah. $130. Ugh.

just trash just out of you know he's like we'll pay her off you know yeah goof oh yeah the worst coke dude dude

And then he's doing something with protectionist trade policies. Yeah, this is, this is goes to the tariffs, you know, classic tariffs. One thing I did find interesting was that he wants to construct, construct 10 freedom cities on empty federal land, which will have empty federal land. We probably mean protected indigenous federal land. Yeah, that, I mean, I don't know what, I haven't seen the blueprints yet, but he's claiming. It's going to be like bear's ear. Yeah, this is, I mean, this is not, look,

He says there's going to be flying cars. I think this is going to be about as real as the wall. Yeah. So maybe we'll get a car that tries to fly. It's going to create a freedom city, a utopia that's just for loyalists. Yeah. We don't really know much about these freedom cities, but they, it's kind of vague. They're

They're a little vague on the freedom city. They're obviously going to, you know, be company stores for the federal government. If that's what he's saying, we're going to put houses on federal land in national parks and stuff like, come on. He said empty. That's all development. Well, I promise you the man considers these places empty, like Leavenworth park where I live up in Western New York. I'm telling you, he considers all those trees, uh,

We could cut the trees down and make products, and then we could put premium housing. Okay. Well, Jared Kushner, I bet, is going to be getting the contracts for these Freedom Cities. No doubt. And then he's going to build schools. So we've been asking him to build schools. We've been asking for better schools. These are not the schools we asked for. He said that he wants to build the American Academies.

He will tax the endowments of universities, established universities, to generate money to create patriotic higher education. It will be strictly nonpolitical, he says.

But there will also be no wokeness or jihadism allowed. And the credits you earn from these American academies will be accepted by the U.S. government and federal contractors. Again, it is a loyalty pipeline. It's like a, you know, accelerated performance program for MAGA kids. Well, it starts before then because he's got a deal for you homeschool parents to $10,000 in a free spending account per child. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money to homeschool your kids. I love that. Except I'm not quite sure how it would work.

And he said that he will ensure that every homeschool family is entitled to the full access and benefits available to non-homeschooled students, including participating in athletic programs, clubs, and after-school activities. What are you going to do when you have charter schooled and homeschooled all of the money out of public schools? There ain't going to be no educational field trips or sports teams. We don't have any money in public school, and you're continuing to chip away at that.

What do you mean? But they're promising they'll get the same thing. Yeah, we don't have those anymore. We don't have them anymore. We don't have arts programs or sports programs like we used to. And now you're going to, you know, chip away at it even more. He's saying that he is a champion for the homeschool families and then said, do not vote Democrat.

They are looking to destroy you. If you don't mind my saying that Joe Biden can't put two sentences together and yet he's looking to destroy you. Do not vote Democrat. Do not vote for Crooked Joe. Vote for Honest Donald. That was his message to the homeschool families. Honest Donald. Honest Donald. Damn. I mean, overall, this is, you know, we just did as quick a summary as one can do for an 83 minute interview and 900 pages of policy.

But ultimately what he wants to do is he wants to codify a dictatorship. And now he knows how to do it bureaucratically. He was asked by Time also about saying he was going to be dictator for a day. And he said he was going to be joking. But maybe he was speaking more truth than he meant to because he is going to codify his own authoritarian power legally.

And I mean, on the military side, he said that he's going to take money away from the woke schools and give it to the military and that he wants to see grand military parades like other countries have. That's dictatorship. He did that already, remember? Yes, but that's dictatorship. Yeah. That's absolutely authoritarian. Oh my God, remember his parade? Yes. Oh, there's so many memories. It's such a cost to the country and like,

It just is so unfair. Remember when he wouldn't go to the Memorial Day thing because he didn't want to get his hair wet? Yeah, but he also calls folks who have died in service losers. Yes, losers and suckers. We cannot forget that. This is the bone spurred draft dodger. Like lots of opinions said that that John McCain was a loser for getting captured. I mean, that's one of the worst things he said.

I think so. Like, how does it not break the trance for some people, though? You know? I do not know. It's been a mystery for about 10 years. All right. We are back and we are in our down ballot era. Our down ballot girly of the week this week is Caroline Gleisch. She is running for the Senate in Utah to fill the seat that Mitt Romney once occupied. Caroline Gleisch has climbed Mount Everest and by Mount Everest, Mount Everest is the

she's climbed that more than once yes that's crazy this is a woman with some determination yep one could say one could say you've met her tell me about her i met her in like for for my millennial and gen x audience listening back there it was like meeting the real life tracy flick from the movie election remember that movie starring like matthew broderick and i remember okay except not the weird parts okay just like that kind of ambition she's also like blonde and like

super driven, but I was like, oh my God, this is great. So nothing can stop her. She's an incredibly dynamic person. Climbed Mount Everest twice, but also is the first woman to ski every one of the 90 trails on the mountains of Utah.

Just chilling. Okay. I will say at least she's willing to share her love of outdoors with us as part of her platform. Yes. One of her promises is that she wants more access to the outdoors. She says she wants to develop more parks, green spaces, and trails to encourage outdoor recreation and enhance the overall well-being of the community. She's also a huge supporter of the American Public Lands and Waters Climate Solution Act of 2019, and she testified in Congress to support the bill. Yep.

She also protested the TikTok ban with you. Yeah, with me. And she's I mean, she's a pretty committed activist. We love her. She's a powerhouse. We love her. I think, you know, Mitt Romney had binders full of women. It's time for the state of Utah to have a woman senator. And I just I can't think of a better person than Caroline. So if you get the chance, go ahead and find out more about her. Chip into her campaign. She has a chance at winning. She is very liked.

It's caroline4utah.com. And, you know, we could do an interview with her, but I wouldn't want to coop her up in this hot podcast room. I think we should go do a hike. We'll go to the hike. Oh, my God. We should hike with her. Just me breathless with my asthma. Can you tell us about your fall? With my asthma and my trick knee. Yeah.

Sorry. Caroline will carry us. Yeah. She'll be like, I got you guys. Yeah. I got you guys. Totally cool. Yeah. No, that would be fun. Like, you know, let's get outside. Avi would be so into her. He's going to like move to Utah and vote for her. She loves the outdoors. She's the coolest. The coolest.

I love this. I think it's very pro-social, pro-democracy. I love a pro-social candidate. And I love the fact that she's talking about getting back outside, touching grass, something that we all need to be reminded of and we all need to do. Go look at a tree or something that's not just about these like heavy, heavy policies. It's about play, recreation and enjoying the American experience and all of the riches this nation has to offer. Her platform is literally go touch grass. It is. I love her. We love her.

And now it is time for what is quickly becoming my most favorite segment, AmeriCan't. And this week, it's the newly crowned Miss USA that can't. And she won't. She quit. Noelia Voigt of Utah also can't.

Look at that. We got two Utah girlies this week. This is a big, big week for Utah. Miss Utah, who was crowned this past November, has resigned as Miss USA, citing her mental health. Now, her platform was anti-bullying, and she claims that she was bullied for being in pageants as a teen and even authored a book for

for children called Maddie the Brave, which is inspired by Madison Wissett, a nine-year-old who unfortunately died by suicide after being bullied at her Alabama school in 2018. Oh my God. Yes. I remember the story specifically. She was a young African-American girl. She was...

systemically and ruthlessly bullied at her school. And she ended up hanging herself. It was a terrible, terrible sport at just nine years old. Oh my God. So, you know, this Miss USA was very affected by that. Co-authored this children's book talking about the importance of anti-bullying.

And now she got in, she won Miss USA and said, this is not actually good for my health. And I've interviewed beauty pageant queens before. We had Miss Tennessee on my old show one time. And it is a ton of pressure. You're out there with very limited resources, not a lot of money. You're expected to look a certain way all the time, speak a certain way all the time, all while people criticize you. Now, Miss USA is not Miss America. Miss USA was previously owned by Donald Trump. I know. And he was really creepy in the dressing room. He was. He was.

So now owned by a trans woman, which is better. Oh, yes. A Taiwanese trans billionaire. But she said this has never happened before that somebody has stepped down from the Miss USA organization. And they said they're reviewing plans for a transition of responsibilities to a successor and they will announce a new Miss USA soon.

All right. Yeah. So we might get a new one. I didn't really know about her before this moment. I don't follow the pageant circle as closely as I did when Toddlers and Sears was on the air and I was like obsessed. But I do know it is tough to be a pageant person. Just look at Raquel Levis. I'm saying. Yeah, exactly. There's too much pressure. Destroyed her. There is. So Savannah Gankiewicz of Hawaii placed as first runner up.

So she might be a candidate to be the newly crowned Miss USA. I'd love to see Hawaii represent USA, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Texas rounded out the top five. Could be any of them. If Hawaii says aloha to the drama, you know, one of those other girls is like, I will do it. A mayor. I can. If I were the next one in line, I'd be like, girl, how bad was it? Cause maybe I don't want it. Right. You got to check. Maybe I'm okay. Yeah. Look, I respect a quit for the mental health. I,

am pro quitting. I think quitters are self-aware. Quitters are winners. Yeah. Quitters are winners. I love to quit. Yeah, me too. And I love a canceled plan, which is core to our friendship. Yes, of course. Sammy and I were supposed to go to something last night and she was like, I don't think I can. I was like, don't worry about it. We have to make our outline tonight. We have to make our outline. To all the little girls out there who are listening, who are looking at Miss USA and even us as role models, quit.

You can. You can do it. You can quit. Quitting is for winners. And there are a few things that I love more than quitting. I think quitting is a good sign of character. It's where you got to know what you want. But you also got to know what you don't want. Agreed. Agreed. Agreed. It is. Don't waste any time. Nothing we love more than quitting. Quit right away. And with that, we're quitting the show. We're done. That's it. See you later. Until next time, I'm Bea Spear. I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Dream. We're not really quitting the show. No. Please come back. Yes.

American Fever Dream is hosted by Vitus Spear and Sammy Sage. The show is produced by Rebecca Sous-McCatt, Jorge Morales-Picot, and Rebecca Steinberg. Editing by Rebecca Sous-McCatt. Social media by Bridget Schwartz. And be sure to follow Betches News on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Betches.