00:04:01.720I would say of all of the headlines of the Trump administration, of which there are infinite shocking headlines, I would consider this to be the most shocking and most egregious.
00:04:13.620It's like very it's a very, very bad red line that has been crossed.
00:04:17.260So Trump, the Trump family sued the IRS for 10 billion dollars because his taxes were leaked by a contractor.
00:04:27.300And without ever litigating the case, DOJ didn't even show up to defend the IRS.
00:04:33.660The Trump family then suddenly said, actually, we're going to dismiss the case because we have a settlement that we're going to do with DOJ.
00:04:40.280And, of course, Trump is in charge of both his family lawyers and the IRS lawyer.
00:04:47.000And so there's this, quote unquote, settlement that has been reached in which our taxpayer money is going to be used to create a one point seven seven six billion dollar fund.
00:04:57.7401776. That's clever. That's clever. The sesquitennial is coming up.
00:05:53.380We learned yesterday that the attorney general has also made a private settlement with the Trump family, that they will never have an IRS investigation.
00:06:04.840None of Trump's personal, none of his kids personal, none of their businesses will get audited for past or future.
00:06:11.440So New York Times has already said that if Trump were audited, this was like in 2024, he would probably owe at least 100 million.
00:06:17.460Right. And like, who knows what hijinks they're doing now?
00:06:20.240And so this is just like a massive gift to the grift of the Trump family.
00:06:25.880And again, this is about the past and the future.
00:06:33.240If you think about it, if you think about all of the things that past presidents, past politicians and their families, to be honest, have been castigated for and investigated for, it just it feels like this massive get out of jail free card for everything with the Trump name on it.
00:06:53.180And why is Trump creating a $1.8 billion settlement fund for his loyalists? His words, not mine. You know, the main reason I would say is because he's trying to send a message that if you break the law for me, there is a pot of gold at the end of it.
00:07:11.400You know, the insurrectionists, part one, they're getting at the end of the day, maybe some, a couple of them had to serve a little time in jail, but whatever.
00:07:18.620They're going to get five, ten million dollars.0.92
00:07:20.580And so, hey, when it's 2027 and I'm asking you to do some illegal shit, you should do it, too, because I'll reward you.0.98
00:07:28.380I am an I'm an he's I'm an orange leprechaun and I have a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for for my most rabid, fervent supporters who break the law.
00:07:39.360And I think I actually think that we should be terrified going into the midterms because of this, because it almost feels like no matter what the Dems do right now, it might not even matter because he will fight it to the death.
00:08:02.380There are probably only 15 competitive seats that are going to be up this year because of gerrymandering, which has been legalized by the Supreme Court overturning the Voting Rights Act.
00:08:14.680And and so it is it is a hard battle, but we will win it, especially if like there is a blue wave because of tides of opinion that go against Trump.
00:08:24.220And that is critical because he's going to need the House of Representatives to get a third term at the presidency.
00:08:31.980And if Republicans maintain control of the House, then we're in big trouble.
00:08:38.260Right. Right. And. I'm curious what you think if they do, do you think he's actually going to push for a third term?
00:08:50.360Yeah. No, I mean, that makes that also makes the most sense to me.
00:08:54.360So. Is there also another thing I'm curious about, I mean, just because you're my expert in all things this and is there a real chance that we might not see a blue wave or we'll see a blue wave, but that some Trump voters will just sit out because they're so frustrated about, I mean, they just they love gas.
00:09:13.940OK, like the gas like they want gas, they want free gas and gas prices are very high right now.
00:09:19.260So, I mean, public opinion on Trump is spoiling, including in sort of small ways amongst Republicans.
00:09:28.520But we are seeing increasingly in Republican primaries that Trump voters are showing up and people who go against Trump are losing their races.
00:09:38.540Bill Cassidy, Thomas Massey. And, you know, so I think that Republican fervency is going to
00:09:48.640continue, though it's going to be hard. Like, I don't think there should be any assumption
00:09:51.660that gas prices alone will do it. But I do think that there's a huge swath of people who are
00:09:57.960undecided, moderate, independent, anachronistic voters, right, who are not 30 percent of the
00:10:05.920country is MAGA Republican. Right. But there's a lot of people who are not. And those people
00:10:10.920are all gettable. OK. OK. That's good to know. And today I really want to focus on a particular
00:10:17.900group of these people that I think helped get Trump reelected this time and had enormous influence.0.83
00:10:24.840The Maha Moms. Now, are those are those particular folks starting to sour on him?
00:10:30.920You know, that is one of the most interesting questions. There has been a lot of media coverage saying the Maha moms are leaving Trump because the Trump administration, right, like it is only Maha in words, not in action.
00:10:47.280In reality, Maha is a political movement to facilitate the election of Republicans so that Republicans can help corporations earn more money and pollute and hurt Americans. Right. And like that's what Maha really is. And like so RFK can do some anti-vax stuff. But they've done bad stuff with Roundup. Of course, Republicans in Congress wanted to make it so you couldn't sue pesticide manufacturers.0.71
00:11:14.400And oh, yeah, I mean, this pesticide fight feels like something that would really tee them off.
00:11:20.240And they've been pretty mad about glyphosate and Roundup. But also Alex Clark and other people have been in the White House because they're owned properties. And I think that's, you know, when we talk about how is Maha going to react, you can't act like Maha is an independent body. Right.
00:11:42.360So I think individual Maha adherents and followers and people who I think there's a lot of Maha moms who are genuinely in it because they care about their children.0.97
00:11:54.500And I think they've been, you know, misled and sold literal snake oil.0.92
00:11:59.760But like they are in it for the right reasons.
00:13:54.180And I do want to talk a little bit more about what she's been up to, because I think that that shows us a little bit about where we are at right now.
00:14:39.180She like blew up and gained her following by taking the side of men in like Amber Heard
00:14:45.140versus Johnny Depp and Harvey Weinstein.
00:14:47.480First, I think her first one was Free Britney in which she was on the side of Britney. But then after like that's where she realized like her court coverage methodology that like felt like you're participating in a reality show worked. And then she quickly became an agent of the patriarchy.
00:15:05.200Yeah, well, and this is a way to grab attention in the current attention economy, right? Like, I know a lot of people who are like, I just want to build up a TikTok following. And they just start talking about whatever the controversial topic of the day happens to be to insert themselves into the algorithm, whether they believe it or not.
00:15:22.660Yeah. I mean, she grew a massive audience and a sub stack that made her boatloads of money. And then she used that to become at first RFK Jr.'s de facto social media lead. And then a really like key ally in in everything.0.99
00:15:40.860She took the side of Ghislaine Maxwell in the Epstein fight, which is like the fact that this woman has been able to maintain her professional standing as well as like her audience after taking the side of Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted child trafficker, is fucking bananas.0.97
00:16:01.960It's insane to me. It doesn't make any sense. But why do you think that is?0.98
00:16:04.860Why do these people stay so loyal despite the fact, again, and let's remind everyone that the right is obsessed with pedophiles, OK, or allegedly they used to be obsessed with pedophiles when they thought that the Democrats were pedophiles.
00:16:17.820Right. I mean, the thing is, like, or like Wayfair was trafficking kids. You know, it's all just tribalism. And like, I think that Jessica is very good at like weaving a yarn. Right. And her followers love participating in the narrative that she's building. And they're not consuming outside information that would be critical of that. And in fact, what they are consuming is like this idea that there's a war against them.
00:16:42.920I mean, so much on the right, you hear them talking about people who are against them as, like, evil and diabolical and all of these things.
00:16:50.880And if you've been raised to believe in, like, religious warfare, how could you ever believe or agree with anything that evil and diabolical people say?
00:16:59.640Right. And these words make sense to you.
00:17:00.960This kind of narrative makes sense to you because you're like, of course, you know, the whole story of the world is a fight against good and evil and God and the devil.
00:17:09.860And I'm clearly on the right side of this.
00:17:11.860And look, you know, like it's not like Jessica's the first pick me girl in the universe. Right. Like he's really the ultimate pick me girl. Right. Like that's the whole shtick. The whole shtick is, you know, oh, these men are being picked on. And I'm a good type of woman, the type of woman that doesn't think that like fake claims are valid. And don't I don't believe women. And, you know, she there's other women who are like that, who are right.
00:17:37.380Like, you know, she's not the only one. So she's been managed to find 400,000 pick me's who subscribe to her sub stack.0.58
00:17:45.360And she's making a fortune off of it. I mean, she truly is.
00:17:48.760In addition to being financed in so many different ways by by various political groups.
00:17:54.900And so do you think that her influence is still as high as it was at the height of when she was working with RFK directly?
00:18:02.460No. She's also has a lot of enemies now on the Republican side. Like she's she's fought with a lot of other Republican influencers. And so I do not think she has the this sort of gravitas in her community anymore. She's not getting invited to things. I know other Republican influencers who like actively work to get her disinvited from places, which I find deeply amusing.
00:19:44.960I mean, you have an enormous place in this world.
00:19:48.680I mean, you were you were doing God's work.0.94
00:19:50.420Now is a good time to plug your book, Democracy in Retrograde, because if you're a person who wants to mobilize against all of this bullshit that we've just been talking about.0.61
00:19:57.000And Democracy and Retrograde is your guide.
00:20:00.900And I'm sure a lot of you have picked it up.
00:20:03.420I've been recommending it since it came out in hardcover.
00:20:05.580But now it's in paperback, which means you can slip it in your back pocket.
00:20:08.520You can slip it in someone else's back pocket.
00:20:10.780Or you could slip it in someone's beach bag.
00:20:16.400And I think it's such a good guide to how we can get through this dumpster fire of shit with some hope and actually mobilize our communities to make a change.1.00
00:20:26.680Yeah, I mean, like, the only option is through, right?0.99
00:20:38.620And I am, like, not a histrionic person.
00:20:42.800And in fact, because I have been doing this for so long and seen, like, the same fights over and over again, I'm perhaps, like, a little too low.0.99
00:20:51.100But, yeah, shit is really bad right now.0.98
00:20:53.500And the reality is the only way it's going to get better is if more good people tap in.0.99
00:21:17.880But if you were going to come back in, I say come back in now and don't wait.
00:21:22.040A lot of people are like, oh, it's just midterms. And I'm like, no, no, no. They're like, when is when is Trump up again? And I'm like, OK, no, now is the time. Now is now is now is this is when we ride at dawn.
00:21:33.100Yeah. If Democrats don't win these midterms, Trump will get a third term. And like I like I believe that. So like, you know, it's unconstitutional for sure. But like we're fucked. So it is nothing more important.
00:21:50.340But I think it's also, you know, a lot of the book, Democracy and Retrograde, is about, like, finding your place in your community and finding joy in this work.
00:21:59.740And the other thing you and I talk a lot about is, like, how the phones of it all and social media has sort of, like, made life less fun to live.
00:22:08.540And you need to be with your community and people who share your values.
00:22:14.760And it's about finding ways to do that that improve your life.
00:22:18.440Don't just like it's not just doom scrolling and thinking about the hellish 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
00:22:26.380Exactly. Exactly. It is. I think it's I mean, it's two things, too.
00:22:29.260It's taking it's finding your community and being off your phone, being in real life and then also taking time for yourself.
00:22:34.920You you are you're actually being really good about that.
00:22:37.960I'm so proud of you because you have been taking care of yourself.
00:22:41.100You took you took some time off. You went to the Bahamas and you just you just were.
00:22:46.420You decided to just be for a little bit. And I think you needed that.
00:22:50.640Yeah, I think that like the constant strum of daily modern life is very hard.
00:23:00.300And we are pulled a million ways and getting 40 headlines and our family is reaching us in every single moment.
00:23:07.880And like, I don't know, group texts make me lose my mind.
00:23:12.720And people, we need to invest in ourselves. You know what I mean?
00:23:16.100And, like, your cup needs to be filled so you can fill other people's.
00:23:20.100Like, it's sort of trite, but it is nonetheless true.
00:23:22.760And so, yeah, I mean, as your listeners probably know, if they know anything about me, I've had a number of health struggles over the last year.
00:24:42.740and and so like it is nice and and i think for a long time as you also know people would ask me
00:24:49.580how i was and i would say i was doing better and that was not true that was long but but i have
00:24:54.560always believed that like you have to believe right you know what i mean like believing you
00:24:58.680will be better believing that tomorrow is good like that's especially when you're very sick
00:25:02.420that you have to believe that or else you give up and so so it is nice to now be saying that
00:25:08.800And to like genuinely be feeling better and to like be able to go outside and go on a walk and not start blacking out, which really is only something that's happened pretty recently for me.
00:25:20.740I still have to be careful. Like I still if I go on a walk for like more than 45 minutes, maybe I shouldn't be driving myself home.
00:25:30.240But it is nice to like be be able to go through the day without feeling like I might die.
00:25:38.540Yeah. No, that is a really great feeling. And I think, you know, I mean, that really sums up a lot of what we're talking about, right? Like you take care of yourself so that you can then get back into the fight. And also, you have to believe you're going to get better if you're going to get better. We have to believe that America is going to get better if it's going to get better.
00:25:56.560That's right. Yeah. The only way to fix the massive political mess we are in is for all of us to believe it is possible and to help try to make it possible in our own little way. I think one of the big things about this book is saying that, like, you don't need to do everything, but you need to do something.
00:26:13.680All of us just do a tiny little thing that will make the big changes. The problem is when the only people doing things are like crazy extremists.0.85
00:26:23.280Exactly. Which is what keeps happening.
00:26:25.080Which is what keeps happening. Because normal people have normal lives and don't want to deal with this vacactimus.
00:26:30.380Exactly. Exactly. OK, let's take one more quick break. And when we get back, I want to talk a little bit about Spencer Pratt.
00:26:48.020So I have a good friend, and we released an episode about this already, and just talking about the general reality show influencer pipeline to politics.
00:27:03.160But I have a very good friend who is voting for Spencer because she is a rabid dog person.
00:27:09.760She's a rabid animal rights person, and Spencer is promising to support legislation to end no-kill shelters and to support animal rights activists.
00:29:41.660And so she's like she's one one of these last remaining swing districts.
00:29:47.120There's going to be only about 15 left in midterms because of gerrymandering.
00:29:50.520Like there's very, very few competitive partisan districts left in this country.
00:29:55.220And so because she represents this purple district, she votes against Democrats sometimes.0.88
00:29:59.940And she's done this like big thing about how you can't peel bananas in daycares because of government regulations.
00:30:05.700And then like Democrats are really mad because they're like, we have bigger fish to fry and this isn't really necessarily true.
00:30:11.080And I'm like, I love it. Number one, I love this lady. She's so pretty. But number two, it's like exactly the type of narrative that people like because it's the idea, like the concept of government regulations are so stringent that they don't allow daycare workers to serve children bananas because they aren't allowed to peel bananas, but they're allowed to open a bag of chips.
00:30:32.540it gets at this like this idea that all of us hold which is like the government's not doing
00:30:38.320things right right now and like we're not able to live the way we should and it's like a very
00:30:43.180resonant narrative that clicks in people's brains and i'm like i love it like i love it i love i want
00:30:49.140more of it i want i want this i want more that it's hard to peel bananas in daycare and it's
00:30:54.160and it is not the most pressing issue for the democratic party and i don't think anyone0.59
00:30:58.760fucking thinks that right i don't care but i don't care how you win votes so that democrats0.69
00:31:03.940can win elections and then enact large-scale policies that people don't really want to hear0.99
00:31:09.420about like your audience does not want to hear me talk about the iran war powers resolution
00:31:15.560right like no one wants to hear me drone on about that you want to know that you have an elected0.98
00:31:20.860set of representatives who can deal with that shit because it is so boring um but like but0.98
00:31:28.200we've got to get people elected first gotta get people elected gotta get elected yeah and i mean0.99
00:31:32.540i was talking to someone the other day about the spencer prep thing and i'm like oh i'm like can't
00:31:37.200the dems just put our own reality people forward now but i don't want them in office i'm like i
00:31:42.080don't care if they're in office we just need the votes right now people well yeah i mean and i hear
00:31:48.140that all the time about like we we need experience and da da and i'm like those people can't win
00:31:54.080elections. They can't win elections, okay? They just can't win elections. And also, I just want
00:31:59.220to say this. As a former political staffer, you're delusional if you think that the elected
00:32:03.520politician is the one doing all the labor. Exactly. Of course they aren't. We just get
00:32:07.200these people elected and then surround them by really good people, okay? I'm trying to think.
00:32:11.360I'm like, what reality stars do we have that could do this? Because we know Clooney's not
00:32:14.400going to do it now. He would have done it pre-em all, but he's not doing it now. And
00:32:19.020And Oprah just has too much on her plate.0.99