USAID Cuts, The Future Of Telemedicine, and Trump Eying Canada
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Rise and shine, fever dreamers. Look alive, my friends. I'm V Spear. And 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. Hello.

Bon jour. Sammy, I'm so excited for today's episode because we get to start with a little hot political gossip. Hot political gossip. This is quaint. This is like 1992 shit. We haven't had this in so long. And you know what? I think as a country, we deserve it. Thank you. We deserve it. Thank you.

Thank you very much to Democratic Senator Chris Murphy and his new GF, CEO of Courier Newsroom, Tara McGowan. Yes. Now, look, Senator Murphy separated from his wife, you know, several weeks ago. Where they were caught canoodling, I think, I think is intentional. I don't think anybody goes to the red hen if you're not trying to get caught cheating in D.C.,

But it's interesting. Yeah, we haven't had a senator. Well, we did have that. Who was the one over the... Remember that she was like... She was having an affair with RFK, she was claiming. Olivia Nuzzi? Yes, that was the last one we had, but that one sort of blew over quick. Well, I think that was like an actual embarrassment, and these two are being intentional. They're like soft launching. This is being...

Not even. I would call it hard launching because... Hard launching? So it was reported in Semaphore that she posted a selfie of them on her private Instagram last week and captioned it, not postponing joy. So I think that's as hard a launch as you get. Yeah, true.

Yeah. So what I love about this gossip is as a person who used to live in D.C., there are just certain things that happen in that city that let you know what the intention is. Very few accidents happen in D.C.,

If they were cheating, right, and this was a big scandal and it was a big affair, you would never go to the Red Hen in Shaw. That's like a very trendy restaurant in a very trendy neighborhood. It's a famous – like it's a reference. It's where Sarah Huckabee Sanders was famously berated. Like if you don't know any restaurants in DC but you – You've heard of the Red Hen. Maybe you have kind of heard of some. That would be one you know. Yes. So I –

looked back in my notes, because if you're cheating, you don't go to a restaurant and call the caterer. Come to your house, baby. You could have private dinners with however many people you want. But the thing that I was thinking back on is when I was working in DC was the height of Ashley Madison.

And it was when Ashley Madison, that website where you could like sign up to cheat on your spouse, kind of got caught out and the list of names of people got released. And I actually had a couple of friends that were on it. And I was like, why are you on here? So Ashley Madison was very popular when I was working in D.C. And they reported that 10.4% of all Capitol Hill residents were registered users.

It's it was like the highest of any city that they recorded in. It was like Washington, D.C. was first. New York City was second. Then it was like Pittsburgh, San Diego, like random weird other places. But D.C. was number one for Ashley Madison. You know what I find interesting about that? It's such a buttoned up city. Yes. That they would have like a. Yeah. They would have like a lot of shady shit going on that they're hiding poorly. Yeah.

Well, the CEO of Ashley Madison put it really well. They interviewed him about why they think people in D.C. are so likely to cheat. And he said, quote, first, most people who achieve a high level of success do so from taking professional risks that for the most part have paid off. And this underlying personality trait may then lead these individuals to take personal risks as well.

Second, cheating is directly correlated to opportunity. The more successful you are, the more you tend to travel for work and pleasure and more often are removed from your family and interacting with individuals with whom commonalities surface. So...

That sounds accurate, especially because when you think about it, a lot of people who live in DC actually maintain two residences. So I think there's a much more mobile sense within DC. People are way more transient in and out. And they're like, it's like, I don't know. It's like what you see on TV. It's like sexy DC cheating, like affairs, like scandal, like all this business. There's a whole

There's a whole restaurant – well, it's a lounge in D.C. called Saks Lounge. And the entire place is themed for political scandals of the past, like political sex scandals of the past. It's also a burlesque club. I think that that's hysterical. Should we go? Let's go. We'll do a live episode from the Saks Lounge. I think that would be great. That sounds actually so fun. Yes. But places that I have seen people –

or be around that would be better if you were trying to hide it, which is why we think they're not trying to hide it. This is like, obviously. No, she posted it on Instagram. It's out. It's out. She actually like successfully orchestrated her own hard launch that felt soft. Yeah.

I'm excited about it, too, because honestly, Chris Murphy has been killing it with a digital strategy. Maybe more Democratic senators and Congress people should be dating publicists or marketing girlies or something because he's been doing a great job, man. So that's actually what I was wondering. Do you think this is why he's suddenly gotten smart on messaging? Because he has a youth in his ear? Yes, absolutely. That chart he did, like the calendar of all Trump's crimes and grifts since the election. She thought of that. Absolutely.

Absolutely, she did. She's good at her job. Courier News is good. They're great. So yeah, but no, if you're going to cheat, these are some of the places if you and if you're in DC as a tourist, and you want to like see if your senators cheating, you want to check the Rigsby Hotel, Fiamma, the Duck and the Peach, Centralina or the Blue Duck. The Blue Duck was Obama's favorite restaurant. I'm not saying he cheated. I'm just saying it has a lot of privacy to it.

Right. Well, those are my hot picks. Go to any of those after we go to the snacks lounge. Yeah, that's my my hot picks for places you'll you'll catch a senator with a publicist. Or not because we're not. Yeah. Okay. Well, if you know, maybe we could match make some some single senators or.

with some single people. We should. We should do, you know, it's too bad Valentine's Day passed because we could have done an American fever dream speed date where we like put people who need help with messaging who are lawmakers with single and eligible marketing girlies and seen if we could have improved our messaging. Maybe it's up to us, Sammy. I think that should be our next project. It is. It'll be a reality show.

Like love is blind, except it'll be called like message me, message me, Sammy. See, this is why you own a media company. Cause you got just like this names, names. I could probably do better. All right. When we get back from the break, we are going to talk about Canada. Oh, Canada. Yeah.

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We're so excited about creating this new bonus content, talking to more of you, hearing your stories, sharing some of our own, and reminding us all to calm the fuck down. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop. With Mint, you can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments, but that's weird. Okay, one judgment.

Anyway, give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of $45 for three-month plan equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only. Then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at mintmobile.com. Welcome back, friends. We are here to talk about America's top hat, America's 51st state, all of these things. No, don't say that.

No, for real. Oh my gosh, why? I thought we were doing jokes today. No, it's dangerous. That's like a joke that is going to cause issues. I love Canada. As a person who lives in Rochester, we go to Canada quite frequently. Toronto is just over the border here. My wife played in a trio in Montreal. We're very close to Canada up here and I don't want them to be mad at us because I really enjoy that sort of like

It's called the friendship bridge, you know? Like, I don't want that to go away, the friendship. You're going to hate the rest of this segment then. Oh, no. You really will. Okay. Well, let's just start with the lighter fare. A Canadian senator from Quebec named Patrick Brazeau. They always have the best names. They do. Brazeau. I know they like French. Yes. At least in Quebec.

That side. In there. Has challenged Donald Trump Jr. to a boxing match for charity, tweeting... In light of these bogus tariffs, I challenge you to a fight to raise money for cancer research or an organization of your choosing. He later told CNBC that he is 100% serious and he would come to the United States for it. I mean...

I don't think... If only it could all be this lovely. You put Junior on enough blow, and maybe he could land a couple jabs, but he does not... Enough blows? Yeah. He does not strike me as a fighter. I would almost think Eric Trump could fight better than Don Jr. Don Jr.'s... I don't know. Either way... He's got weak little arms. He's like...

He's like a Muppet to me. There was some very alarming reporting in the New York Times late last week that suggests that Donald Trump and his administration have made some serious moves towards what looks like a strategy of wanting to annex or, should it come to it, invade Canada? Yeah.

Really? Oh, no. Well, look, that's kind of like the worst case scenario. And there is, you know, there's an assessment from Malcolm Nance that I'll get into in a second, which I feel confident enough to repeat. But let's talk about this reporting first. So as he's been joking about this, supposedly, calling it the 51st state, calling him Governor Trudeau,

The reporting in the New York Times talks about what has been going on kind of behind the scenes, you know, behind all of that. And it goes back to early February when Trump was just coming into office or he had already been kind of calling Trudeau the 51st.

the governor in Canada, the 51st state. So they spoke in February, February 3rd specifically, about tariffs, where Trump also laid out a long list of grievances about the U.S.-Canada relationship, specifically that U.S. banks have a hard time doing business in Canada, Canadian consumption taxes make American goods more expensive, and he also brought up issues with the fact that

Canada's dairy sector is protected. Basically what that means is they regulate dairy heavily to prevent foreign competition. Sure. They're not the only country that does this. But the most alarming thing that he said was that he does not believe that our border treaty with Canada, which was established in 1908, is valid and that he wants to revise the boundary without saying specifically how, but according to the reporting, there was no other explanation. Right.

He said that he wants to revisit the sharing of the lakes and rivers, like the Great Lakes, which are regulated by a number of treaties. He'd actually brought that up in the past, but it was obviously a renewed issue. And then later...

His Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, before he was even confirmed, had a call with Canadian Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc, where he said, where Lutnick reiterated, saying that the treaties governing the relationship between Canada and the U.S. are relatively easy to abandon and that Trump is planning to do that.

He also said that they want to review military cooperation between the two countries and eject Canada from the Five Eyes intelligence sharing group, which is a group of five English-speaking countries, Canada, the US, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. Little do they realize they have probably already started a Four Eyes group chat without us. Marco Rubio supposedly softened some of this later, maybe like walked a little bit of it back

But there's also reporting that Rubio is kind of Secretary of State in name only. Yeah, he's got no power at all, really. Yeah. So what are you thinking?

I think it's really concerning. I think Canada only got full independence in 1982, but this border has been negotiated with the United States since literally the 1700s and 1800s. I think it was finalized in 1908. This has been a really longstanding tradition that we've had. Anytime there's even been a little thing, Canada's been cool with us. When we got Alaska, there was a little, well,

well, how much is Alaska and how much is Canada? They sided with us and gave us a significant portion of

I think that this is ugly and unnecessary. I think it causes a lot of issues that don't need to be there. There is a lot of just regular American life that is dependent upon Canada and US being great friends. Everything from energy that comes into these states to auto parts. There's something I heard one time, like a piston crosses the border four times before a car is made or something like that. It just, it feels unnecessary. It definitely feels like

chaos and destabling for the sake of chaos and destabling. Um, I think that all narcissists do this kind of shit where they isolate you from your friends and we just have a narcissist president and he's treating all the people of America like, uh, his, the abused, uh, partner. And, um, I wish that there was something that we could do because what I worry about happening here is like I said, I go to Canada, you know, probably like 10 times a year. Um,

the American passport is going to become less and less valuable. Our ability to travel freely between Mexico and Canada could be impacted if Trump keeps this bullshit up and Canada's like, look, we don't trust you coming in here. Like we don't trust Americans or we're going to do some kind of like block of tourism or, um,

make it hard for you to enjoy, you know, the freedom that we've had. And I just think it's another thing he's done to hurt the country. Well, you now need a visa to get into Mexico. Yeah.

So that's already starting. I'm so worried. I have to go to Italy in April and I'm like, good Christ, if they mess this up, like, and I get, I'm afraid, I have started to be afraid to leave the country, not just based on the fact that I'm visibly queer and I don't want to be harassed at the border, whichever way, but also, I mean, I've always had F on my documents just because I never trusted the government to give me an X and stick with it. So I always stuck with F. But I am just so worried every time

this trip to Italy that's coming in April, I'm like, God, like, am I even going to make it? You know what I mean? Like with how quickly we're deteriorating with our allies and other countries sort of marching towards potential greater war in Russia, Ukraine area, like, uh,

I don't know. You're giving me a little bit of PTSD from five years ago when I was supposed to get married on April 19th, 2020, and supposed to go to Italy for my honeymoon after. And I was like, I don't know if I'm going to be able to go to Italy. This is how I feel. This is how I feel. I know. Well, I'm supposed to go. And then I'm supposed to go to Mexico for an event. And these are work trips.

So like I have like, you know, work handling. These aren't just like fun ski guy things. I'm supposed to go to Mexico at the end of May for a work trip. And I'm already like where they're trying to figure out because I'm technically a speaker. Like how would that work with the visa? Do I just say I'm there for pleasure? Like would that be enough? Like what's going on with Mexico? I don't know. I just feel very icky. I feel very scared. I think you're right to feel icky and not to make you feel ickier. But do you know who Malcolm Nance is?

So he is a former U.S. Navy senior chief petty officer who specialized in naval cryptology. Now he's an intelligence and foreign policy analyst who I've been listening to for several years and found him to have gotten a number of things right.

So he put out a piece this weekend where he basically gave an assessment that he thinks the Trump administration seems to have already sort of decided that they will attempt to annex or invade both Canada and Greenland, but they just haven't necessarily decided or taken on the course of action yet. He's basing his assessment on what he calls intelligence indicators, which include reporting and public statements between Trump and Trudeau.

He said that he's putting this on a timeline of six to 18 months, first with a period of political and economic destabilization in Canada, that the U.S. would carry out some of these destabilization efforts, including identifying and making contact with Canadians who are willing to betray their country.

And specifically that they're going to target or are targeting young white men who they believe they can kind of turn into their own Canadian manosphere. I'm sure with the help of Elon Musk. They do have Canadian MAGA. Remember those trucker rallies and stuff? There's big Canadian MAGA. And one of their Canadian MAGA leaders is coming down to D.C. to do a speech pretty soon.

Her name is Danielle. Gosh, I just read about it. I can't remember exactly, but they've got like one of the female members of like MAGA Canada coming down to do something in D.C. So I believe it could happen. I know that they're having their federal elections pretty soon, too. They just got a new liberal leader. But to that point about the Canadian MAGA, Musk tweeted at the end of February that Canada is not a real country. So there will be support for that.

But what Malcolm Nance specifically predicts is that it could, it could,

There's a few ways that this could happen. It could involve an attempt by the U.S. to occupy Canada akin to the Russians' invasion of Ukraine, which would then likely devolve into a high-intensity insurgency leading to thousands of deaths on both sides, while also collapsing the American economy and likely precipitating a civil war in the U.S. because the U.S. isn't going to – I'm not in favor of this –

And then the same goes sort of for Greenland, where it would be likely a path of public statements making demands for a referendum amongst the people of Greenland to no longer be part of Denmark, which you can expect will be coupled with a social media campaign by Elon Musk. And I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think...

Greenland is important not just for the mineral resources, which they could access via contracts and deals like they're doing with Ukraine, but located strategically for a potential invasion of Canada, and all of this being a broader campaign to kind of own the northern hemisphere. Potentially, he did mention that this could make

the United States, a global pariah. But most importantly, because you said, what can we do? He thinks the best chance to marginalize the campaign and prevent the chain of events from actually going is that making this public so that people are aware of these potential efforts and therefore cognizant enough to thwart them, whether it's things on the internet and so that these foreign leaders can react appropriately.

Well, here we are making it public. Please talk about it. I wonder if they're saying six to 18 months is what it would take for them to start doing invasions because they still have to get the Pentagon straight. There's a lot of people who won't do illegal orders in the Pentagon and they're messing up the military right now looking for loyalists.

promoting loyalists, people that we normally wouldn't have put into like chain of command positions. So maybe they're thinking it'll take them that long to get a loyal, magified army to be able to, that would even do this kind of stuff. Part of his piece does actually address that.

Because the military is, he talks about what the military is trained to actually, the process by which they determine whether they're going to carry out a campaign. Like, is this necessary? Is this helpful? Is this more harmful than helpful? And he described that there needs to be, that there is a project within the Pentagon in order to prime it to be in that place. Also to carry out sufficient economic destabilization and

And psychological destabilization so that people in Canada would be divided, that they would be sort of worn down to this idea and time for Trump to make promises to these young men of Canada that being an American and also this opportunity for young men to like move to the US and become an influencer, be part of the manosphere, it's like a very helpful recruitment tool.

That makes sense. While you were talking, I looked up the Danielle woman, MAGA Danielle. She's actually the premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith. And she and Mr. Wonderful from Shark Tank, Kevin O'Leary, the Canadian, who's apparently super MAGA, were working to try and get some love from Trump and were sort of part of this Canada MAGA movement until five days ago when they realized that, in fact, there are no special programs

No one will be special to him. You're all disposable. And so now they're both sort of slamming Trump for starting this tariff war. And we were all supposed to be cool and we were supposed to be doing this together. He will never love you. Look at Marco Rubio, okay? Selling your soul at the altar of MAGA will never get you a bishop position. It will simply make you a usable character. He will suck the life out of you.

and then he will throw you away when you're done. And that's exactly what he did to a lot of the people who are in his cabinet who are now railing against Elon and being like, I thought we were going to get to be the boss. No, bitch. No, you weren't. No. No. You trusted the wrong man, and now you're just as much a victim as the rest of us. And same goes for this premier in Alberta and Mr. Wonderful. It's quite astounding to watch no one learn from other people's mistakes. Yeah.

No, because they always think it's not going to happen to them. That's silly. At least just know that it is going to happen to you and you're allowing it. Yeah, of course. One little bright spot of hope. Canada is getting a new prime minister for a little bit. Mark Carney has won the race to lead the Liberal Party and...

he seems like a real heavyweight to be honest. He has never been in elected office. So for that reason, and because he's not a member of parliament, they are calling for federal elections where he will be up against the leader of the conservative party, Pierre Pallievra, who is a MAGA-E Trump like figure. And so there will be an election where he will have to win again. But, um, he seems to be quite well liked a real heavyweight on economics and

Lots of Canadians actually joined the Liberal Party so they could vote for him. Oh, okay. Yeah. So he's really – he steered the Bank of Canada through the 2008 global financial crisis and the Bank of England through Brexit. He was chosen to do that because of how well he had performed in Canada that they then made him the central banker in England.

He's also very socially progressive and an evangelist for green investment, despite having a very institutional background. He's a 59-year-old white man, went to Harvard, Oxford, very wealthy from making money in finance. He's held a seat on tons of boards, on lots of economic councils.

Again, because he doesn't have that seat in parliament, he does need to be reelected. But he seems to be quite a well-liked person, very smart, quick on his feet. So my sense is that they might have kind of hit the jackpot, assuming that they elect him again. My sense is that they will because of his lack of alignment with Donald Trump and his

Yeah, I think they might have gotten like their one chance. It sounds like the Mark Cuban of Canada kind of, right? Like a super wealthy business guy, liberal leaning, good on his feet. Yeah, yeah.

I like him. Also, he's got a good campaign messaging here. He is saying that the conservative guy's plan for Canada will leave Canada ready to be conquered. And I think that must be a fear of all Canadians, whether you're left or right, you have national pride. If you're a nationalist, a Canadian nationalist, even if you're MAGA, you're not going to want to be conquered by America. That's not going to work.

Yeah, and you see that they're not happy about that possibility because look at the reactions at hockey games. They're like using that as an outlet. Yeah, they're going hard. Absolutely. Well, Canada...

We're with you. We're with you. We should get like a, I don't know, if you're Canadian and listening, call us. Oh, that's great. Yeah, everyone forgets I'm Canadian. I am Canadian. So I'm with us. You're so nice. That's why I'm so nice. I would love to interview Mark Carney if we could. Oh, that'd be fun. Mark, I'm a citizen. Mark, are you there? I'm a citizen.

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Well, that brings us to our next topic. We are about to lose some virtual access, not in the political way, but in the healthcare space. Telemedicine for Medicare is ending on April 1st. And a lot of folks are very concerned about this because without congressional action, key telehealth flexibilities that have been in place since the COVID-19 pandemic will expire. And so we're going to have to

meaning that Medicare beneficiaries may no longer be able to receive reimbursed telehealth visits from their homes. Rural and facility restrictions will be reinstated. Critical programs like hospital at home could face disruption. And federally qualified health care centers and rural health clinics will lose their ability to serve as distant site providers for most telehealth services. So this is bad, and...

Again, I think a short-sighted decision from the Trump administration. Isn't telehealth cheaper than everything else? Oh, it is. No, it's extremely successful. It's boosted like a ton of startup communities and stuff. Like, okay, for example, I had to do a sleep study. And for me to do the sleep study in the facility here in Rochester, there was an eight-month wait list.

But they were like, oh, but you could do it telehealth if you feel comfortable doing it at home. We'll send you the equipment. You put it on. It's like two little stickers and a thing that monitors your heart. And then we could do it right now. And I was like, oh, that's great. And so I went from an eight-month waiting time to literally having this done within four weeks. That kind of stuff will be affected. And that's obviously been hugely successful for healthcare and propped up a bunch of businesses. I've always felt like Donald Trump's demand that like,

shutting down telehealth, return to work, all has to do with the fact that he's a real estate guy. And he feels like, oh, all these real estate places, all these doctor's offices are sitting empty. All these office buildings are sitting empty. If we make people go into the office, then those real estate developers' properties would be valuable again.

That's true. I also think that they just actively like to encourage the inshittification of America and the American experience that they don't care. Like they don't want people to be healthier. They don't see this as like their job is to make things better for America. Like think about even just the fees on Ticketmaster, right?

Like saving people hundreds of dollars at a time, that means something to people. It doesn't mean anything to him. He also has this idea that if he could erase everything that Joe Biden did between 2020 and 2024, it's like he didn't actually lose the election because he is like erased any gains.

Because even things like Joe Biden signing that order and getting done that credit cards could only charge you an 8% maximum interest, he did an executive order to do away with that, and now they're proposing 10% maximum interest. And it's like, just some of the stuff, just leave it alone, but he won't. He won't leave any...

We have on the sub stack, we talk about the way that he does executive orders and so many of them are fuck you Biden orders, which is just like taking his exact ones and writing an undoing of it, even if it was beneficial, even if it was, you know, Republican supported. But ending this hospital at home thing is very bad because there was...

You are at more risk to get an infection or have an issue if you're in the hospital as opposed to recovering at home. And for a lot of people, you can recover at home and you get greater care. And now that could end, which would just be catastrophic. There's not enough beds. There's not enough ability. Have you ever spent time in a hospital like it is so loud you can't sleep? There are constantly bells going off, noises, people coming in, people going out. You have a neighbor. It is crazy.

so bad for your health. Like I really believe it is so bad for your psychological health to be in a hospital physically, unless you're in like a really nice situation, which is no one is like, you know, it's rare, very rare that that happens. But I mean, even there are so many procedures that you are better to recover at home and, you know, you could do your telemedicine check-ins and whatnot. So that could be ending, um,

There are – but the big deal is the rural people that were already medically compromised not being able to do telehealth medicine check-ins. And also, like, my sister's got kids, right? And she can use telemedicine sometimes to talk to the pediatrician. Yeah. She doesn't got to drag my niece in there. You know, she don't feel good. She don't want to put her in the car, drag her over there, sit there with other sick kids. This is just for Medicare. Well –

this is the thing, what Medicare does is what the rest of the down funnel does. So they're saying if insurance won't cover Medicare, that insurance sort of has the ability to say nobody gets it. So this, because the bulk of care is Medicare, oftentimes that makes, it makes it worth it for insurance to do it for like the non-Medicare people. So they're saying they're going to get rid of it. If they actually get rid of it for Medicare, you can expect that your insurance company will get rid of it for everybody else too.

Because they don't want to pay for it. They don't want to do the reimbursements. Yeah. They don't want to have a two-tiered system in that way where they're like, some people get it, some people don't. It'll just be nobody gets it. But that's what Jen was freaking out about because she's like, I don't want to – doing the telemedicine for the pediatrician is like great. Yeah.

And you could bet if it's coming away from Medicare, it's coming away from Medicaid too. She's not on Medicaid, but a lot of people are and they use that. It's one of those things that just improves the American experience and they don't care about improving the American experience because they're like, go get measles.

No, I mean, and in New York City, I remember I was trying to get a therapist. And it was so hard until I had telehealth because then I could like meet with somebody who was like based in Michigan, but she had the time to meet with me on the phone where you can't get in telehealth or otherwise in Manhattan. So, you know, and that was good for her business too. I'm sure that woman in Michigan that I talked to like during COVID, you know.

to pick up extra clients. So it's just, it's crap. But the whole health thing is going down hard. He just revealed that we're getting, he wants Dan Weldon, a well-known anti-vax whack job from Florida, to run the CDC. Dan Weldon has called for the CDC to be completely eliminated in the past.

And RFK Jr. is offering $25,000 buyouts to anyone in the health department who wants to quit, which seems crazy also. And something like, I've never heard of all these buyouts. Like, this isn't what I want my tax dollars going to. It's also definitely assuming they will pay you, which there's no assumption they will pay you. So follow your union guidance if you are one of the approximately 80,000 federal workers that this impacts. Yeah.

And all this is happening as there are massive measles cases in Texas. We talked about this on the Substack with Dr. Rubin, who was saying he as a, you know, he's in his mid-30s, a doctor, immunologist, allergist. And he's like, I don't even, I did not really learn a lot about measles because it was an eradicated disease. So we're having to go to doctors who are like in their 80s and be like, how do we deal with this? Because we're

All the modern – this has been gone for 50 years. This has been no cases, no treatment, no – you get the vaccine, you're good to go. So they're having to go to these like retired doctors to figure out what to do about measles, which is an extremely painful disease. Marjorie Taylor Greene is out there saying, well, back in the day, they used to have measles parties. No, the fuck they didn't. She's referring to chickenpox parties. Which is totally different and also is bad. Which is totally different.

Entirely. Yeah. Now there's a measles case in Maryland, which is difficult because that means it's spreading. And we know that they're not reporting as many measles cases as there are. We're only hearing about the ones that make it to the news. And to me, it's child abuse. If you are intentionally not vaccinating your child against polio, measles, tuberculosis, stuff like that, that is a child abuse thing. You know that that's a deadly disease. And-

horrible thing. And it wipes out your whole immune system if you get measles, basically. And we don't need to have this because we got rid of it. Nope, exactly. And now on top of that, tuberculosis is back too. They found a case of tuberculosis at a New Hampshire shelter. Tuberculosis is another terrible disease. There is no cure for it. The cure for tuberculosis was herd immunity through vaccines. Otherwise, you know, it affects your lungs and you'll

Like, why are we doing this? Why are we doing this? And they're saying that there are new dangerous forms of tuberculosis for which there is no treatment could emerge as a result of USAID cuts.

A doctor at the Stop TB Partnership said that she fears interruptions to people's treatment will allow the airborne bug to mutate into a new untreatable form. And that lack of diagnostic services, which have also been badly affected by the Trump administration's USAID cuts, will allow TB to spread more easily. So like, what the fuck are we doing, guys? This is one of those things, and I might make a video of it. I just want to like hone in on my exact points.

is that when the Democrats protest something like cuts to USAID, they need to get better at articulating why that's bad. And one of the reasons why it's bad is because diseases don't have borders. I think we might've learned that a few years ago. And for that reason, when

a virus or a new type of bacterial infection starts in a foreign country. For example, Ebola, SARS, the avian flu, all these things that people have gotten freaked out about over the past decade. Those things start in foreign countries. And the reason that we give money is because we want to prevent that from coming to us.

And there's a reason that people die of malaria and Ebola and all these other things in these other countries. And we generally don't. And it's because we take steps to protect ourselves. So I don't really know why they can't articulate something like that. I don't know. I just, it does feel like cruelty is the point across the board. And at what point does this end? And it's hard because people are like, oh, we need to do an impeachment. We need to do whatever. Yeah.

We don't have the numbers, babies. We don't have the numbers. There are still people who are hard MAGA who believe in this. Not without control of the Senate to convict. It's not going to matter. An insurrection where they physically had to be the ones running away. So if they are not going to do it for that, they're not stopping any of this.

And we knew that. It makes me so mad that people are like, oh, maybe he's not going to get his cabinet nominees. Of course he was going to get all his cabinet nominees. The only reason he didn't get Matt Gaetz is because those people were his colleagues. So they hate him personally. They knew it. Yeah. They saw it as an opportunity to not deal with him too. Yeah. It's not that they...

Like, it's not that they have any sort of – they weren't standing on principle. They just hate Matt Gaetz. Yep, exactly. It's why they got rid of Madison Cawthorn. Remember the congressman who said that the Republicans were having orgies? All of a sudden, he was no longer elected. That was the end of him. Right. Like, they think that he reflects badly on them. RFK Jr. is no better than Matt Gaetz. Neither is Pete Hegseth. And yet, you let those guys in.

I don't know. I think Marco Rubio, I don't, how long do you think he stays at this? Do you think, I don't think he'll quit because he's just that way, but like what a legacy to be saddled with Rubio, like stand up, do something. You got, you're on, for being such a China hawk, for being so anti-Russia, all of a sudden now he's like, well, no, maybe the Ukrainians did start the, well, I don't know, like,

We're going to cancel 83% of USAID. We're going to go to Saudi Arabia. Like, we're going to negotiate with terrorists. There will have to be an incident that would spark either...

just like a parting. But also, there's no reason it can't just continue like this, where he's sort of like the figurehead and no one really knows what's actually going on. And he just sits there and doesn't ever go out of line or step up. So he just keeps being the figurehead. How about Trump saying to shut up about the price of eggs?

Reposting a tweet from like Charlie Kirk or somebody that said you need to – Oh, Gavin Newsom's friend? Fuck that guy, huh? Way to lose your chance at the presidency in one podcast episode, Gavin Newsom. He could have even navigated it differently. There was no reason to have Charlie Kirk on. Look, no one on the left is saying, hey, we need to find more middle ground with the far right. He could have had a Republican. He could have had like Adam Kinzinger.

I'm sick of him, too. I'm sick of all of them. Adam Kinzinger actually has lots of good ideas that he tweets about what Democrats should do, but no one listens to him. But let's have on some people who are progressive thought leaders from the left, Gavin Newsom. Use your platform to boost your own people. Him saying his 13-year-old son is a huge fan of Charlie Kirk, I'm questioning your parenting.

Here are the people I'm sick of hearing from. Beto O'Rourke, Stacey Abrams, Gavin Newsom, Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney. I'm sick of like – I feel like it's always the same kind of people that they're like – like Jen Psaki the other day had Stacey Abrams on. I'm not saying that she's not a talented person. She absolutely is. She's incredible.

We have heard from her. Interview the head of the Working Families Party. Interview some of the folks who are, you know, like at the- Sean Fain. Sean Fain. Give me somebody else, okay? Because it is feeling very much like circular. You know who did a great interview this weekend? Who? Amen from the MSNBC show, which I was on. Now, I'm not- I missed this because I was not on. Okay, honestly-

I thought I slayed. But – Send me the clip. Yes. Who I was more excited was there was the editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue, Varsha. She – interview her. What she's doing with Teen Vogue and getting young people interested in politics and mixing it with sort of pop culture, Teen Vogue is doing some of the best political reporting out there right now. We should talk to her. We should. We should.

Talk to her, Jen Psaki. Talk to her, Gavin Newsom. Like, let's give people like that a platform. Our friend Tara Palmieri is coming on the show sometime soon. So is Ali Vitale. Ali Vitale. These are people who were in legacy journalism who have struck out on their own in some way. I mean, Ali Vitale still is MSNBC, but she has a great social media account as well. Like, let's talk to some of these people. I'm sick of talking in circles to the same folks over and over and over and over. I agree. I'm with you. 100%.

Just get some fresh blood. Yeah. That said, Elizabeth Warren, please come on the show. Yeah. I will never get sick of hearing from Elizabeth Warren. She is because she knows her shit and that's never boring. She stays young. She stays young. You know who else I'm excited to hear from? Who? New Ski Guy. We've got her on the show after the break.

Senator Slotkin from Michigan. And she's going to break down why she chose those talking points, what she thinks Democratic leadership needs to be doing, where we're failing, why she succeeded in a state like Michigan, where people voted for her to be the senator and voted for Donald Trump. So we've got an interview with her next because, guys, people know us. Yeah, we're beating CNN's numbers in Michigan. So yay for us. We'll have Senator Slotkin next.

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I wore my blue for Michigan. I was like, okay, I want to make sure you feel comfortable coming into the space, recognizable figures. You know, and you've got purple or blue behind you. Oh, yes. And then Lincoln just staring right at me. Yeah, so I feel very comfortable.

I like demanded that this shop in Virginia give this to me. So, you know. That, you know, we're about to move in. This is maybe not what you wanted to talk about, but we're moving into our permanent office on March 13th. And we received in the like lottery thing, J.D. Vance's office. Oh, you're getting new furniture? Yeah.

Senator, I hope so. We're moving. They had moved all the furniture out. You know, new paint on the walls. Very nice. New vibe. But you do kind of have this weird inheritance system on furniture from like your former senator, Debbie Stabenow. So there are these eagle lamps that are apparently just like yours. I honestly, maybe someone walked out of the U.S. Senate with that one day and sold it to a guy in Virginia because it looks ridiculous.

real similar to that. I'm telling you. And, you know, we get two. And the staff were like, this is a big deal that you have two Eagle lamps. I'm like, okay, I'm into the Eagle lamps. Let's do it. That is good lore for me. Yeah, it was like literally the shop, this like vintage shop was using it. And I was like, Nabeer Price, I must have it. And they were like, they like the show, so they hooked me up. But it was...

That's awesome. It is a prized possession. So the next time, one time when we talk, after we've moved in, I will do my shot with my eagle lamp in the background, and you can do your shot with your eagle lamp, and they'll think that everyone's getting an eagle lamp. And then when you're done being a senator, we'll start a podcast together. We'll call it The Eagle's Nest, and we'll just comment on everything from our purchase. It'll be perfect. Great.

Great. But thanks for being here today. This is a pretty big get for me, I gotta say. It's not often that you get the senator who did the response to the joint session, so I really appreciate y'all taking the time. Do you want to know why we came on? Because, so, I did your show when we did that all-nighter, right? That Voterama all-nighter. And I'd never done your show before, and I did it, and we went in in 10 minutes or whatever it was, and then I stayed up all night, and then

I really had to get going at 11 a.m. the next day, kind of without sleeping, because I had to get myself to almost the furthest part of Michigan, Iron Mountain, Michigan, for a ski jumping competition in our upper peninsula. So I had to fly through Minneapolis to get up there. You know, I just pulled the all-nighter. We had a big ski jump competition. And for us, it's like a lot of tailgating, a lot of... And I'm at the tailgate.

very far away from the flagpole of Washington, D.C. And they're like, we saw you on the podcast. Like they had seen me and you got name checked in the upper peninsula of Michigan. Those are my people. They're everywhere. And so I was like, look at that. You know, they probably didn't see my CNN hit or whatever I did that day also. And so I was like, proof is in the pudding. And so we wanted to come back on. I appreciate that so much and shout out to the furthest

points of Michigan. I feel you. I love you, Iron Mountain. Yeah, I think it's because they know I can endure the cold. As a Rochester person, we're on the same little level here, so it's working out. Well, I'm glad that you're here. I watched your response. I don't know how you were as composed as you were because after that night, I mean, I just felt... I felt...

I felt exhausted. I was like laying on the floor, which isn't uncommon for me, but this wasn't a fun laying on the floor. This was like a God. And then I watched you and I have to say, I appreciated that you were able to like really hold it together. I think a lot of folks wanted to see like fire and brimstone, but where I was, I think it really met the moment. How did you prepare for that? What, what made you like choose that's how you were going to handle it?

Well, first of all, it was a surprise that I was asked to do it, right? I had, you know, six days, seven days ahead, not even. Senator Schumer asked me to do it. And he called me into his office. I didn't know why he wanted to meet. And I'm like, I'm in trouble. It's a huge honor, but it's also a bit of a cursed speech. I mean, the number of people who have done that speech and then become a Saturday Night Live skit, like immediately, Saturday afterwards, is high. And

So I decamped to my farm. I live on my family farm in Michigan. And I had a few close advisors around me. My brother did me a huge favor and played like house manager so I didn't have to cook for everybody. I love that. So I could focus on the speech and not cook three squares a day for everyone. And we just were on my back porch. The farm is covered in snow. It's still very cold in Michigan. And we just...

worked on that speech. And, you know, we purposely found a place. There's lots of communities in Michigan that Trump won and I won. Right. We wanted to make that point. Right. And so we found the place. And and but it was a lot of like sitting around in jeans and, you know, eating three squares and talking about speech for three straight days. I love that your brother was there to cook for you. That is the best.

You got to have that family support, you know, some of the stuff that you talked about that I found particularly interesting is that, you know, the Democrats, this is not going to surprise you. A lot of people complain the Democrats don't have like easily repeatable messaging. I thought that you came out with three things that I was like, boom, that's it. We could just keep saying that stuff. And that makes sense.

The middle class is the engine of the country. Strong Social Security protects us from harm and democracy, though messy, is worth it. Like, can you tell me a little bit about like how of all the things you could have said, you kind of brought it down to like, hey, we are people and made that happen. Well, look, I mean, you're writing the speech before you hear from President Trump, but it's not his it's not his first State of the Union. So we sort of knew what it looked like. I've been in the chamber when he's delivered speeches.

his previous states of the union. And like, I know what it's like. It's just sort of like a rally being assaulted. Yeah. It's like a rally, you know? Um, and, um, so we, we knew we weren't going to be able to rebut everything that he said. Um, and so to me, it's just always trying to find a core set of things that like the vast majority of Americans, Democrats and Republicans agree with.

And those things, you know, middle class is the engine of America. Like, there's just not that many people in the country who are like, I am angry about that statement, you know, and or that our democracy is is worth investing in and saving. Like, that's again, even if people voted for Donald Trump, like the average person still feels that we have a special form of government that we should protect.

And then, you know, for me, also national security, like we have nothing if we don't have our safety and our security. But I think even more fundamental to, you know, the issues you mentioned was this idea that whether we like it or not, the message of the election was that things aren't working for people and they want it to change.

And I think that's not just a Republican feeling, right? You know, the young folks who work for me, like they have a totally different outlook than the one I was raised on, which is like, of course, you're going to do better than your parents. And like, of course, you're going to be able to buy a home. Of course, you're going to be able to do all these things. And like I, you know, talking to my 22 year olds, like they're just like in a different headspace and we need to answer that.

Like, and so I wanted to say, like, look, the message was change, but there's responsible change and reckless change. And, like, I'm on team responsible. Like, you want to cut fat? Okay. I saw fat with my own eyes in the federal government. Just do it so you don't make us less safe and, like,

Yeah, we don't do it by cutting 70,000 jobs at the VA. We don't do it by cutting the USAID completely and abandoning Americans and removing Ebola funding and stuff. The thing that you said, of all the stuff you said that really stuck with me, that I like opened my door and shouted it to my wife, was when you said, if you work in an auto plant, you ought to be able to afford the car that you made. And I don't know if that's true.

as a person who used to be in the culinary industry, we used to joke, okay, I can now order off the menu, but I'd have to work like two hours before I could afford to order off the menu. And that's just, and that was years ago, you know, and that's still the issue now. People count how many hours they're working to see if they could afford that basic thing that they're serving. And it's so unfair. What sort of like about you helped you to come to that place? Well, you know, I think

Michigan, like, that's our thing. Like, when I said it in the speech, like, we believe we invented the middle class, you know, with the auto industry, with people who came to our state, you know, again, now many, many years ago, but they came because they wanted a secure job where they could, like, you know, have...

and their kids could do better than them. And so it's like very foundational to Michiganders. And in Michigan, like we make things, we grow things, we still have a huge part of our economy that like work with our hands. And so we are proud of that. We are proud of our mastery of manufacturing. And so it's just fundamental to us. And I knew that at least,

My whole approach to the speech was like, I don't know every corner of the world. I don't, or of our country, but I know Michigan and Michigan's usually a pretty good bellwether for where the average person in the country is. So I spoke to my state and just expanded the aperture, but being able to work 40 hours a week at one job with good benefits,

so that you don't have to piece together 12 different jobs. That's who we are as a state, and that's become harder, not easier.

And we should be able to do it because the next thing you said was we need a tax system that works for people who don't make a billion dollars. And I was like, that's just like a better way of saying it. Like it just like stuck out to me as like, obviously that makes sense. There's so much focus on he wants to give tax breaks to his billionaire buddies, the billionaires, the billionaires. We see them all in the cabinet. We see them all behind him constantly. We see them in Doge and all of this different stuff. What would a tax system that works for the average person who doesn't make a billion dollars look like?

Well, look, I mean, I think it just it's it's not radical. It's just like pay your fair share. Yeah. Like like pay your fair share. And I think the thing that is coming to a theater near us is this tax proposal from the Republicans. And I just I just to put it in like very, very clear terms, people who make, you know, let's say one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year or less, they'll get some money back a couple hundreds of dollars, which is ridiculous.

You know, it's not nothing. Right. But if you make, I think it's if you make $3 million a year, you will get $300,000 back from this system.

Yeah. And so what I think they're doing is like throwing you, throwing people enough so that they feel like, oh, I'm getting something. But it's like, look who's getting it all. Right. And I, so I just, and that's, that's hard to say to people like that they're distracting you with kind of a couple hundred bucks, which again, it's good. But man, the guys who make the most money are getting massive discounts.

So I just that to me is out of whack. That's a system out of whack. And so I especially if, you know, their salesmanship is that like we're for the working man. Come on, B.S. Like just this is such B.S.

Especially now with how many jobs they've gotten rid of. I mean, typically the president wants to brag about how many jobs they make. And he's out here like we fired 100,000 people. We fired 6,000 people. Folks couldn't believe they're like, how could he fire 70,000 people and go back to 2019 staffing at the VA? Did Joe Biden really create 70,000 jobs in the VA? I'm like, yeah, babies, the pact act. There was a lot of really great legislation that folks, you know, it wasn't properly, uh,

to people who benefited from it. And that's like part a media problem, part like Republicans in those districts will take credit for things but not give the credit to who it's due to. And Democrats. And Democrats. Also, I mean, let's just be honest. There's no, you know, it's like it

admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery. We have a messaging issue. Hello? Like, that's not radical to say. I mean, you just got on here, but I don't know if you saw yet. There's 10 Democrats who voted with Republicans to censure Al Green. And a lot of people are very upset about this because they wanted what Al Green did, where he disrupted the lie that he has a mandate and, you know, did a protest. And whether that was decorum or the right thing to do, or are we supposed to be the bigger person or not? There's a lot of folks out there who are like,

I want to see the Democrats stick together. I want to see them have walked out behind Al Green when he started to lie. I wonder if we will get to that point or if there's still this idea of trying to like play the middle. This is a big thing for you because like you say, people voted for Trump and they voted for you. There's obviously something to that combined ticket that we're missing. What do you think is like the secret sauce there? I mean, I think that you got to appeal to things differently.

that are more universal than any one party's platform. Sure. And I think that you also have to be ruthless in prioritizing what you care about. I think often the Democrats are for everything. Yeah. Like,

like we have a million and that's like part of our appeal, right, is we're a big tent. We're an empathetic group. Everyone's welcome, you know, like and that's part of our strength. But it then makes it really hard to understand what our priorities are. And so in Michigan, in this last election, you know, people felt like I don't know, you know, what the Democrats, Big D are are really about. And like that guy, Trump is saying he's going to lower my

pocket costs. And let's put aside that it's completely false and he's not bringing down their costs. In fact, they're going up. He told them that that's what he's religious focus on.

And we didn't have a similar tight discipline message. And I think, look, I don't think I hide this. Like there's winning arguments, especially online. Right. And then there's winning elections. Right. And I'm like here to win elections. Yeah. That's what we have to do. Yeah. Right. And so I think, but there's no reason for us to pretend like

like everything's great around democratic messaging and that we're a well-oiled machine. We're on our heels and it's our responsibility to get our crap together. And, you know, all I could do with the platform that I was offered is say like, this is what I think we should be doing. This is what I think we should be focusing on ruthlessly, economic security, national security, democracy. And also that no citizen is off the hook

And thinking that someone else should fix it for them. If I could say another thing I like about you, I like that you tend to be able to look at like a big picture with a lot of complicated, horrible, terrible, awful things and then be like, OK, listen, here's what I'm saying. The man is walking us into a recession. Yeah.

Let's put everything else aside. What are we going to do to not go so far down the recession path? Can you talk about how that made it into your speech and why you thought that was important? Well, math. The math. You can't, you know, you know, you can't like prices are going up on all the big things and, you know, his plans, you know, the whole thing he's trying to do is find trillions of dollars.

in the couch cushions, cut a bunch of programs, cut the government, do all the stuff so that he can give big dividends, tax dividends to the wealthiest people. That's the game here. Like if you're wondering like what is all this stuff for? What is Doge for? Like that's the central crux of what he's trying to do. And he's going to make you pay in every part of your life. Prices are going up. Tariffs, especially like sloppy tariffs like this, are going to hit my state and a lot of others globally.

Very badly, very badly, right? His plans, the math on his plans does not work without coming after your health care. So the ACA, Medicaid. And while he protests and he knows it's like politically bad to be like, I'm going to cut your Medicare, Social Security, VA benefits.

You know, Doge is over there. Elon's like, it's a Ponzi scheme. Social Security's big Ponzi scheme. So they're going to make you pay in all the categories of your life, every place where you pay bills, so that they can give it away to other people. And I think if you do the math on all that,

Not good things, right? So I just think, I know there's some people out there who think that the best plan should be like let Trump screw up the country so bad that people feel pain and then he pays a price.

Maybe that's an approach. I'm a public servant. Like, to watch your own people hurt and do nothing about it and just wait, I think is malpractice. I agree. I mean, and I know, I think we're about the same age when they started talking about taking away Social Security and calling it a Ponzi scheme. I mean, I'm looking at, like, my sister and her kids, and she's like, okay, I gotta, you know, figure out how I take care of my kids. And then we're like...

I don't know if I'd be able to swing mommy's mortgage if she were to lose that income. Like, how am I going to make that up? And then you start talking to a lot of your friends. And Kamala Harris called this the sandwich generation, the people who are like, you know, you're trying to take care of kids and take care of your aging parents or take care of other dependents. And there's just not enough to go around. And this idea that like somehow someone else or families will pick up the slack. It's like we're already working as a village.

There's no way that any of us could pick up our boomer parents' medical expenses if they don't keep those negotiated Medicare prices, could pick up a mortgage or even part of a mortgage to try and keep our parents in our houses if they end up cutting their Social Security.

There's a lot of people that are scared out there right now. Is there anything that you can say that kind of like gives them hope that we are going to be able to fight back some of this? So I just, you know, I'm an analyst by training. And so I think past behavior is the best indicator of future behavior.

And what we have seen in the short time that Trump has been in office is that he'll make a decision if it's really unpopular and breaks through in a broad way, not just the base on Twitter, but in a broad way. If people don't like it, he reverses it.

Right. So most recently, yes, yesterday, today, tariffs. Right. He was like, huh. You know, seems like tariffs would be bad for the autos. So now I'm going to exempt them from this. But before that, it was the total freeze on federal funding.

red states, blue states, purple states, everyone just like lost their minds and were like, hey, so here are the things that are going to be lost immediately. There was such an uproar that and so many calls came into all of our offices, Democrats and Republicans broke the system. It like shut down the Senate. 16,000 a minute or something. Yeah, it was like insane. He reversed it in less than 48 hours. And yes, there was a court case that came, you know, and also said you have to stop this. But that teaches me

that when there's a broad response, the man's a populist. So if there's a broad response or if one of his friends complains, then he reverses himself. So I think that's, this is why I want to be ruthless with our priorities because we can't stop everything. I would love it if we could. We can't stop everything. But the things that are core to us, we have, and so like VA, right? Like

screwing over the 9/11 generation that I served with in Iraq and their benefits bad. And that's where you start getting people across the political spectrum speaking up at town halls and taking it, you know, calling and saying, "Hey, look, like, I'm a Republican, but you can't take away my access to care at the VA." He reverses himself. So that's, I was trying to say that at the end of my speech, like, we have agency here.

But it has to be on issues that have broad appeal, not niche appeal. Totally. I know. Every little win leads to the next win, too. And that's why I think we're so anchored, I'm so anchored in on the show, especially about what he's doing with the military, because even renaming bases has

has caused like a lot of people don't like that. Like to rename Fort Moore and disgrace the legacy of Lieutenant General Hal Moore and Julia Moore is like, come on, Pete. This is why we didn't want you because you don't understand the chain of command or the history or tradition of what really people care about. You just want to like try and do these like meme things all the time. And I also think, first of all, it's a distraction technique.

If you're focused on those kind of culture war issues, you're not remembering that you're actually paying more for groceries, more for energy, more for more for more for more. So it's a tactic.

And then secondly, most people, at least in my state, there's a base of people who are like diehard Trump supporters and they're going to support everything that he does. But to win that swing voter, that middle that decides elections and swing states, those voters elected him to lower costs.

Yeah. Feeling pain. And so they're like, what are you doing, buddy? Like, what is this whole thing? Like, so I, you know, what I didn't, I had an earlier version of the speech is like, look, you may not know the ins and outs of the federal budget. Very few people in the world do, but you know your own budget. Keep book on this man.

Keep book on him. Like, just you know how much you spend on groceries, on gas, on your health insurance. And just keep tabs. I went to the grocery store the day he was sworn in at Holly Foods, and I said, what is the price of all the key things that I'm buying, the milk, the eggs, the bread? And I'm just going to keep book. Yeah. Yeah.

You got to have those points. I mean, for me, it was a picture of my grocery store out here that didn't have eggs because they were like, look, they're 14 bucks and none of you guys are going to buy $14 eggs. So we're not even bringing them in because there's no way to do it. I mean,

Just nuts-o-banana stuff. The last thing I want to ask you about, if you've got just a couple more minutes, because you are an analyst, you work with the CIA, very smart, understand national security, and you have like a protectiveness about you. That's why I like talking to you. You feel safe in the little moment when you're here with Senator Slotkin. Elon Musk, the Doge stuff. You said, are you comfortable with him using his own computer server to go through your bank accounts, health history, oversight with his 20-year-old, you know, minions? We need to cut waste, but change doesn't need to be chaotic.

What can we do about Doge? Is there any, what do we do? I don't think people like it. - No, and the reason why I led with your privacy issues, right? That he's got your tax information, your Medicare, health information, bank accounts, is because again, the average American's like, "What now? "Like, what are you doing?" - Y'all just wanted to ban TikTok, and now we're gonna let this guy into the Doge? - Right, and so I think

That is something that people are like, no bueno. That is not good. But I think, again, this is where the seams that we can exploit are like this weird relationship between Musk and Trump, right? I mean, I don't think most people from the outside, I don't understand. Like, why would a president do this? What is the value of Trump?

sort of looking weak and subservient and like you're being led around by your nose by this guy who I'm sure, you know, does amazing things with his companies, but is kind of like

the guy at the party you don't want to talk to. He's super weird. He's super weird. Yeah. And so, and people get that. Like, human beings have good EQ. They can feel that. And so I don't totally understand it, but exploiting the seam between them, I think, is good. And I think, like, it's his decisions. If you see the feedback loop that's happening right now with some of my Republican colleagues, it's like, Doge will do something.

really like based on feeding algorithms into an AI, you know, soft piece of software, they'll cut a bunch of people. It'll like, let's say at the VA, it'll hurt a bunch of veterans. A bunch of folks often in Republican places will call into the Republican legislators and be like, what are you cutting from my VA hospital? Those guys call the White House and they're like, you're killing me here, guys. Like you're doing that stuff. And then it,

Often we've seen things change or be suspended, right? Action happens. And so that feedback loop of like, Doge is bad, go complain to your Republican elected. They go complain to the White House. That's a good loop to Greece. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I know so many people, because I did a tour of like,

the Midwest because they were like, gay people never come to the Midwest and there's so many gay people there. And we would do like meetings and talk about what was going on during the campaign. And,

And I know that some of the stuff that they cut when it comes to like cancer research and development, health things, that stuff's based in St. Louis. That stuff's based in Des Moines. Like that stuff is not – it's not some coastal elite thing. I mean sure, Johns Hopkins does some great stuff and we love them for it. But it happens everywhere and I think that they just didn't think it would happen to them or that they somehow weren't included in the things that would be seen as like a target of Trump. There's a lot of betrayal people are feeling out there right now and I think that's good to sort of like recognize, give people a soft place to land. Like, yeah, he lied to you.

And that's okay. And, you know, if you want to change your mind on how you support somebody who lies to you, then there's plenty of room to leave that, you know, abusive relationship in many ways. Is there anything that you didn't get to say during your rebuttal that you wish you could say that you want to share with us now? It's important to remember that Trump can only do these things if like a huge group of Republican lawmakers sit on their hands and do nothing, right? Like if he was just...

alone and all the rest of the Republicans were like, we don't really agree with this. He'd be done, you know, and changing his behavior immediately. It's the acquiescence. It's it's their being complicit in this. And I got a lot of texts from Republican colleagues who have retired from the House, the Senate,

who, you know, saying that was good speech and like they're not there because they didn't want to be complicit because they didn't want to be part of the story in history that looks back on this time and says they could have stopped these really hurtful things that he did and they didn't. That is a center of gravity that we need to focus on, right? At the end of my speech, I was like, look, here are three things you can do. People are sitting at home wondering, like, how do I help?

I sort of had more pointed versions that were like,

Look, if these guys turn, even if they don't turn publicly, but at first they turn privately, that's how we start to get out of this hole. And, you know, Democrats are important, but please don't leave our Republican colleagues blameless. Like a lot of times there's a lot of like Democrats are at fault for everything and we have a lot of issues. OK, we have a lot of issues. But the Republicans being complicit.

is so central to the storyline going on right now. And we got to find ways to continue to make them feel that heat. I hope so. I'm hopeful things like him saying he's going to put hotels up in Gaza or stopping intelligence to Ukraine. You know, we don't have time to get into all of that today, but like,

I'm hopeful that there's some things that are core values to Americans, like that we are the protector of the world, that we are supposed to be the good guy. When you hear an American voice, it's supposed to be a good thing in a war zone, not something that's telling you, hey, we're leaving you behind. And so I know that there's a lot of folks who share that value with me, and we just have to keep pushing.

I appreciate you being here so much and taking all this time with us. Come back anytime. And, you know, I'll see you in Michigan in the summer when the weather is better. Please. There's such good stuff to do in Michigan when the weather is better. People are like, I go to Florida on a beach vacation. I'm like, no, no, no. You need to go to Michigan. We have more coastline than Florida. And it's nicer. And our water is cleaner. It is. It is.

Fresh, fresh, shark free, yet cleaned up, invested in recreational. And we're a place that still just believes in this country. And so come and visit. Absolutely. You could get on a boat and it doesn't have to be your Republican dad friend. Liberals with boats visit Michigan. Liberals with boats and trucks and all that and snowmobiles. Hell yeah. Yeah. All right. Great to talk with you. Thank you, Senator. Have a good one. Bye now.

I love that. And I love that you got to speak to her. I'm sorry. I had a conflict. Right after her response. Yeah. She did great. And you know what else I liked about it? Was they had space for her to speak. It was well lit. The audio was good. The video was good. I don't know. I think the Senate Dems are maybe up in their digital game. They're being prepared now. I think the format could have been... I think the setup, to be honest, could have been better. Could have been a little more creative. But she...

She 100% cleared the bar that she needed to clear. She did a good job. Her messaging was interesting. She gets it. She didn't end up as a Saturday Night Live spoof. That was her goal also. No, literally, that's actually pretty key because those are just so primed to be mocked. I know, like the Katie Britt one. So good job, Senator Slotkin. Thanks for coming on. You're welcome back anytime.

And we'll see you on the beaches of Michigan. We should mention that Alyssa Slotkin is possibly going to be on the front lines of the war with Canada as a Michigan senator. Oh, yeah. Until next time, I'm V Spear. I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Dream.