The Signorile Report : Recent Episodes
Michelangelo Signorile
As many listeners know, MAGA callers to my SiriusXM program have been few and far between since the beginning of the Iran war, the upswing in inflation, and the overall plunging of Trump’s poll numbers. What used to be a Trump defense or two a day has turned into a trickle—and that’s deprived us of some much-needed laugther.
Rob in Oregon, who called in yesterday, certainly betrays the reason why: They can’t defend Trump when given what are simple facts that everyone knows and realize how pitiful they look.
At one point Rob became speechless, unable to respond to my swatting away his claims. But he did eventually go back into the grab bag and take out yet another empty defense.
I just had the end the pain, as he was just repeating his feeble talking points.
Take a watch and let me know your thoughts!
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As we head into the November elections, Donald Trump’s numbers continue to plunge, and New York Republicans in the U.S. House are sweating. One of them is Nick LaLota, a MAGA Republican who has been all in for Trump. He’s the congressman in New York’s first congressional district, in Suffolk County on Eastern Long Island.
And he will face Chris Gallant, who won the Democratic primary last month and is gearing up for the battle in November. A poll from earlier in the year had Gallant within three points of LaLota—and that was before Gallant won the primary in June.
Gallant joined the New York Army National Guard at 17 and deployed several times to Kuwait. He’s been a union leader and a volunteer firefighter, serving his community for years.
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Gallant is also gay—he and his fiancé both serve in the military—and has been vocal on civil rights for LGBTQ people at a time when the GOP has been passing horrendous bills. LaLota likes to speak as a moderate Republican on queer issues, but his scorecard with the Human Rights Campaign is typically zero, and he’s voted to strip LGBTQ people of healthcare funding.
He also opposed New York’s Proposition 1, a ballot measure that passed in 2024 and enshrined abortion rights, LGBTQ rights, and other rights in the state constitution. LaLota sided with the “Coalition to Protect Kids,” specifically targeting transgender people.
Gallant spoke with me on my SiriusXM program about his campaign, the issues facing folks in his district, and why he believes he can beat LaLota. You can check out his campaign here.
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Joe Sudbay, host of “State of the States” on SiriusXM Progress and someone who knows Maine politics inside out, joined to talk about the terrible mess that is now the Maine Senate race—an important race that could decide if Democrats take control of the Senate this fall.
After a bombshell report yesterday alleging sexual assault, Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner is facing calls to drop out of the race to take on Susan Collins. Prominent Democratic supporters—from Congressman Ro Khanna to Senator Elizabeth Warren—have pulled their endorsements, and the DSCC has said it would not provide any funding for his campaign. Platner has put his campaign events on hold while he “reflects.”
This came about after a Maine woman, Jenny Racicot, told Politico and CNN that she had dated Platner on and off and that he entered her home one night in 2021 and sexually assaulted her while she was in bed. She said he was intoxicated and would not leave as she tried to push him off and told him to stop. She complied—which is not consent—for her safety.
This comes after many other allegations had surfaced in recent months, from the Nazi tattoo and the toxic, bigoted posts against gays and women on Reddit to reports from other girlfriends of abusive behavior, including one that said he locked her in a room. Supporters dismissed most of them as Platner, an Iraq war veteran, admitted he was struggling with PTSD and apologized. But this is the first actual rape allegation—and it is credible, with documentation from the time including Racicot telling friends and her therapist, and including emails—and it came after Platner had promised supporters nothing else was out there.
Platner denies the allegations outright but said in a video he understands the realities of the allegation’s impact and thus is pausing and reflecting on what to do. It’s hard to see how he continues, with all funding sources and endorsements drying up. What will happen now?
Joe Sudbay, who has been quietly predicting this outcome for some time, spoke with me about it and about how Democrats can still beat Susan Collins.
Thank you Jools, kathiallyson, Natalie Hunter, Susan Von Tobel, Sharon Pettit, and many others for tuning into my live video with Joe Sudbay! Join me for my next live video in the app.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.signorile.com/subscribe
Well, for weeks I’ve wondered why no MAGA were calling into my SiriusXM show to defend Trump, since for years we’d usually get at least one or two calling every day to try to take me on regarding their Stable Genius. I’ve even trolled them to call recently.
But except for Mark in Texas in early May (who defended Trump on immigration) and Lisa in Michigan in mid-April (who praised Trump on Iran and defended him on the Jesus meme), they’ve pretty much disappeared.
But now here comes John in Arizona, and you have to watch this to get the full sense of the fantasyland he is living in.
He wondered if I’ll be praising Trump when inflation comes down, defending Trump on his comments this week in which he astoundingly said, “I love the inflation,” giving a huge gift to the Democrats. I said that’s likely not going to be happening—certainly with gas prices—for at least a couple of years, and Trump will be on his way out. And people will still have suffered and lost a lot of money.
But why, I asked, are we talking about some hypothetical situation in the future and not the here and now? Trump could launch a bomb or might die in the future. Anything could happen. What do you think about what Trump has done so far and right now?
Did John give Joe Biden that kind of leeway, wondering about the future when inflation eventually comes down rather than focusing on the present? He didn’t want to answer those questions, of course, and then, when I finally, just for the sake of it, gave him his hypothetical—and focused on all the horrible actions Trump has engaged in other than causing a surge in inflation—he veered into other stuff.
By the way, John actually claims he didn’t vote for Trump—I’ll let you be the decider of that—and that he listens to my show “every day.”
But he couldn’t give me any details what I talk about every day, just spouting out a word salad of kookiness. Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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Thrilled to collaborate with Lincoln Square on this live video, with Joe Sudbay. Great conversation and some bells and whistles. Sorry to say that shortly after we taped this live—which some of you might have seen—Virginia Democrats decided not to go with the most aggressive approach we discussed to throw out the Virginia Supreme Court decision.
The fact that it was in the discussion at all, however, means we’re at least getting them to consider just what this fight means. But we have to keep pushing. Joe and I talked about all that and much more.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.signorile.com/subscribe
“I never listen to you, but I do pass in from time to time.”
That was how Mark from Texas began in a call to my SiriusXM program as I was discussing the so-called “Save Act” and the GOP’s bogus claim of “voter fraud. “
It’s the usual passive-aggressive MAGA approach. They don’t want you to think they care what you have to say—but they care about what you have to say.
This one, unlike most, was polite enough, though he did accuse me of “cherry picking” facts when it came to Trump’s brutality. Even just one act of brutally is bad enough, of course. But if we were cherry-picking all the terrible things Donald Trump has done, we’d have over 1000 bushels of cherries!
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First Mark tried to imply that Democrats want undocumented people to come into the country so that they would vote for Democrats. This, of course, is a variation of the racist Great Replacement Theory. But you can’t vote unless you’re a citizen—by law—yet Mark seemed to be implying these people were, when there’s no evidence, and wanted a law against it (though one exists) and then wanted people to promise not to vote for 20 years. It made no sense!
I believe I gently wiped the floor with him in my response, and he then said he just had one thing to add and would get off the phone and “let” me “go.” In fact, he said this more than once, yet just stayed and kept asking questions, all of which I hit back at with truth in my answers.
Twice he called me “intellectually dishonest.” I’ll let you be the judge of which of us met the definition of that. Watch and let me know your thoughts!
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Trump’s numbers just continue to plummet. An AP poll now has his approval at 33% among all Americans. A Fox News poll shows even 31% of Republicans disapprove of him, which is massive.
The numbers reflect a divide in MAGA, and it has deepened after the war in Iran and events of recent weeks. Trump’s threats to “wipe out” a whole civilization, his attacks on Pope Leo, and his sharing an AI image of himself as Jesus have some in MAGA now calling him the “antichrist.” Some of the same people—and others—are also promoting conspiracies that his assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania was staged.
Beyond that, even among those not pushing these extreme narratives, we’re seeing other MAGA figures coming out against Trump, such as Tucker Carlson, clearly worried about their own futures, and the fact that many of their followers are angry at Trump—and they don’t want to be behind their own followers.
David Gilbert of Wired, who covers the extremes within the MAGA movement, wrote all about it and joined me on my SiriusXM program to talk about it.
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Lisa from Michigan called my SiriusXM program, claiming she accidentally was listening and didn’t know how her radio had been on the progressive channel.
You have to watch and listen to this one. I did eventually go from zero to 10, and some listeners thought I should have given her more time to make her positions heard. They have a point. But honestly, I was quite nice—even called her smart—until she refused to agree that it was stupid that Trump attacked the pope (and wouldn’t even even name one thing Trump’s done wrong). That just astonished me, and yeah, the temperature just went up.
Watch and let me know your thoughts!
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Joe Sudbay, host of “State of the States” on SiriusXM Progress, where I host my won show each weekday afternoon, joined me in this Susbtack live to talk about the dizzying events of the week.
The bottom line: Donald Trump is more dangerous than ever—and losing—while the GOP is in the toilet and Democrats are surging. Meanwhile, Melania’s trying to get out ahead of something while Pope Leo is telling Trump, in the most solemn and pious way, to go screw himself after the Pentagon threatened the Vatican.
Watch and join the conversation!
Thank you Maura, kathiallyson, Natalie Lago, Karen B, Suzanne Forster, and many others for tuning into my live video with Joe Sudbay! Join me for my next live video in the app.
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This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.signorile.com/subscribe
John Byrne of Raw America hosted me in a great cross-posted Substack Live. Raw America is from the same folks who bring you RawStory, but now here on Substack and teaming up with Really American .
We talked about my piece on the Epstein files about Steve Bannon working with Jeffrey Epstein—per their email exchanges—to take down the Catholic Church by trying to turn the book “Inside the Closet of the Vatican” into a movie.
We also discussed the new media landscape for progressives on so many new platforms, some of the history of queer media, and much more.
Sign up for Raw America, another great place for news.
Thank you Sue Henger, Angel, Deborah Word, Brenda Schaefer, Victoria, and many others for tuning into my live video with Raw America! Join me for my next live video in the app.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.signorile.com/subscribe
Donald Trump has us knee-deep in an illegal war while his ICE thugs have killed people in the streets and are now at our airports. Meanwhile, the economy is dipping toward recession under the weight of his tariffs and his war.
It’s time, once again, to march! Protest always brings enormous attention to the issues, galvanizes more people, and helps turn people out in upcoming elections.
Ezra Levin, co-executive director of Indivisible, one of the groups mobilizing people, joined me on my SiriusXM program to talk about the upcoming No Kings protests this Saturday, March 28th.
He is expecting it to be the largest of the No Kings events and the largest mass protest in U.S. history, with millions joining in over 3000 events nationwide. You can find an event near you right here.
And he has a simple ask. Bring someone who hasn’t gone before or who might not normally attend protests. Make the numbers as big as possible.
Bring people together so that they connect and organize, and then help turn out to vote in November.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.signorile.com/subscribe
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Great conversation with Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, who represents California’s 37th District in the great city of Los Angeles.
You’ll remember when she asked the very relevant question of Kristi Noem in a congressional hearing, about her alleged affair with Corey Lewandowski—a question Noem wouldn’t answer, decrying “tabloid trash”—while Kamlager-Dove read to her some of the headlines, like my favorite, “ICE Barbie's mile high private chamber with alleged lover exposed.”
Kamlager-Dove was of course talking about something legitimate: Conflict of interest in having a relationship with an insubordinate.
I spoke with Kamlager-Dove about Markwayne Mullin, who Trump is replacing Noem, as well as about the war in Iran and the World Cup, taking place Los Angeles.
This interview airs today on my SiriusXM program all across America and globally on the the SiriusXM app.
Thank you Cary Grace, Roger Helbig, stephen, Kathleine Cole, Kathryn MacWhinney, and many others for tuning into my live video with Sydney Kamlager-Dove! Join me for my next live video in the app.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.signorile.com/subscribe
Independent journalist Jonathan Larsen joined me on my SiriusXM program to discuss how the war against Iran is being promoted by commanders to American troops as a full on Holy War—a crusade—which he wrote about on his Substack yesterday. He spoke to an advocacy group receiving complaints from members of the military, and he saw some of the emails complaining about statements to troops pulled right out of the Book of Revelation.
Trump, troops were told, was anointed by God to bring on Armageddon.
It’s an illuminating and alarming conversation. It underscores how reckless and dangerous the current Pentagon is, and how this will come all back to harm the United States in so many ways.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.signorile.com/subscribe
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.signorile.com/subscribe
The terrific Susan J. Demas, longtime journalist and executive editor of Lincoln Square, a great news site here on Substack with a lot of names you’ll know, interviewed me for Lincoln Square, and I’m cross-posting here for you all to watch.
We got into Trump’s attack on the Pride flag, Esptein files and lots more!
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.signorile.com/subscribe
“My faith is what drives to veto anti-LGBTQ laws.”
It’s great to hear that from a red state governor. Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, who joined me in studio for my SiriusXM program, has won statewide twice as governor (last re-elected in 2023) and previously as attorney general—a Democrat in a state that voted for Donald Trump by 31 points in 2024.
But he hasn’t done it by being a centrist on issues that MAGA sees as red meat. And the fact that he’s the most popular Democratic governor in the country and is in a deep red state makes him very interesting and surely someone who has a lot to say to other Democrats about how to win.
We discussed that, as well as what the next president needs to do—and his own discussion on whether he will run in 2028.
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This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.signorile.com/subscribe
Senator Raphael Warnock pulls no punched in our interview, taking on Trump, JD Vance and the authoritarian regime. “They’re people who know they’re losing,” he said.
Discussing negotiations in the Senate on funding the Department of Homeland Security, Warnock said, “certainly the presence of ICE around sensitive locations, to including polling stations, churches, schools…those are things I will have my eyes on as we talk about whether or not there is a path to fund the Department of Homeland Security under Donald Trump and JD Vance.”
And on House Speaker Mike Johnson pushing back on the demand for ICE agents not to wear masks, Warnock called Johnson, “pathetic.”
“Here is a man who is the Speaker of the House, saying without evidence that there are questions about…voting my mail,” Warnock said, calling Johnson, “deeply irresponsible.”
Watch the full interview.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.signorile.com/subscribe
Trump is scared about the mid-terms—let’s be clear about that. He knows if Republicans lose control of the House and possibly the Senate he will be investigated and bogged down, unable to do many dangerous things. He’ll be held in check on much.
So it’s not a coincidence that he went on Dan Bongino’s podcast and called for elections to be “nationalized” as he saw more losses for the GOP.
As I discuss in this Substack Live, Trump’s threatening proclamations are a measure of our success. His other schemes—like mid-decade gerrymandering—aren’t working out. We’re winning, and he’s going to further extremes.
That doesn’t mean, however, that we shouldn’t take him seriously.
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The execution of protester Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse at the VA in Minneapolis, has stunned the country and the world.
Ten bullets fired on him AFTER the licensed gun owner was disarmed by a gang of masked ICE goons. (Minnesota is an open carry state, and video shows he never brandished the gun.)
Donald Trump is ramping up state terror. Join Joe Sudbay joined me for Substack Live at 2 PM ET today.
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Back from a brief vacation, joining readers in a Substack Live for discussion of the latest madness imposed on the world by America’s debilitating dictator.
I’m back on my SiriusXM program on Tuesday, Jan 20th, 3-6ET
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.signorile.com/subscribe
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.signorile.com/subscribe
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.signorile.com/subscribe
A lot here as we talk about the MAGA closet today—some the names you’ve heard and much more—as Trump assaults LGBTQ rights.
And we look back on the GOP gay scandals of the past.
Pam Spaulding was at the forefront of those with Pam’s House Blend, her terrific blog, as was Joe Sudbay, then at Americablog.
And for more reading up on our discussion, see below.
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Retired Army Major General Randy E. Manner knew many of the generals in the room in Quantico, Virginia when Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth gave unprecedented speeches that sounded alarms throughout the military and the country.
For over three decades Manner served the country in many positions in the Pentagon and around the world.
Prior to retiring from the Army as a Major General, he served as the Deputy Commanding General of the United States 3rd Army in Kuwait, as the Acting Vice Chief of the National Guard Bureau, and as the Acting and Deputy Director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
General Manner has come on my program regularly, and this week we spoke about the gathering, at which he said the generals were used as “props” and which he said showed “our president seems to be slipping quite a bit, even from the campaign, let alone from years ago, into the depths of, quite frankly, self-serving dictatorship.”
And that was just the beginning. Listen in to the full conversation.
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This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.signorile.com/subscribe
Joe Sudbay, host of “State of the States” on SiriusXM Progress joined me on my SiriusXM program yesterday to talk about the Trump’s military occupation of DC, where he lives, and where he has experienced the intimidating, chilling atmosphere.
And we tried out something new. We did the interview live on Sirius XM and as a Substack Live. Something fun to try out, but of course we had some kinks to work out. For the first minute and a half or so, Joe couldn’t be heard on the Substack Live, while he could be heard on SiriusXM.
But in short order we worked it out, and Joe could be heard on Substack. So just realize that, as I’m posting the conversation here. You won’t hear Joe at first, but will you hear Joe after the first couple of minutes—and it’s worth waiting for his take.
Always a great conversation and a lot of smart discussion about what’s happening in DC.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.signorile.com/subscribe
There are so many strands to this discussion with Joe Sudbay, host of SiriusXM Progress’ “State of the States,” and it seems like we’re jumping around several times from the Epstein saga and Trump’s lack of control, to the economic warning signs and the jobs numbers to the GOP’s rigging of elections and the big, bad bill.
What ties it all together, however, is both the danger of the moment we’re in and Trump’s unraveling as he has strong headwinds against him while he’s trying to destroy democracy. And Democrats are fighting back!
Watch and let me know your thoughts!
Thank you Randy Scobey, Hirut Kidane-mariam, Michael deCamp, Jenny Benjamin, Kevin Paquette, and many others for tuning into my live video with Joe Sudbay! Join me for my next live video in the app.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.signorile.com/subscribe
So glad to have a discussion about the chaos, corruption and brutality we’re all witnessing with the always astute and indefatigable Joy Reid. Since leaving MSNBC, Joy has been doing so much in this multi-media universe we’re all in now, and it’s all great.
She came on my SiriusXM program and discussed Trump’s war on Los Angeles, and his the real goal in trying to take over cities, rounding people up and building concentration camps.
Joy always brings the history, and the facts, and you’ll want to watch this.
Joy launched The Joy Reid Show on YouTube, and you can also get there via Joy’s House, her terrific Substack where you can access her writing, get it in your email box by subscribing and get her takes on every insane thing happening now.
The Signorile Report is free and reader-supported. If you’ve valued reading The Signorile Report, consider becoming a paid subscriber and supporting independent, ad-free opinion journalism. Thanks!
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.signorile.com/subscribe
Earlier this morning, Joe Sudbay and I discussed just how bad all of this is as the GOP rams through the most destructive bill we’ve seen, and how Democrats need to respond to the impact of the big, bad bill.
It’s always a great conversation with Joe, who hosts “State of the States” on SiriusXM Progress, and who comes on my SiriusXM show often and guest hosts my show. So please watch our Substack Live and let us know your thoughts!
Thank you P. J. Schuster, Jason Dyer, Jools, and many others for tuning in to the live video with Joe Sudbay!
The Signorile Report is free and reader-supported. If you’ve valued reading The Signorile Report, consider becoming a paid subscriber and supporting independent, ad-free opinion journalism. Thanks!
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.signorile.com/subscribe
Thank you Callie🇺🇦🇨🇦🇬🇱🇲🇽, Deanna Laquian, KB, Mona, Cathy Holmes, and many others for tuning into my live video with THE LEFT HOOK with Wajahat Ali! Join me for my next live video in the app.
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My conversation with Joe Sudbay, host of “State of the States” on SiriusXM Progress 127 (every Saturday).
We discussed Trump’s war on LA—and America—Governor Gavin Newsom’s response, and the over-performance of Democrats in special elections—and what’s to come.
Joe will be covering the No Kings Day protests this Saturday on SiriusXM Progress 127 beginning at 1 p.m.
Thank you Charlie, Linda, Jesse bie, Ann Brooke, Nancy Rea, and many others for tuning into my live video with Joe Sudbay! Join me for my next live video in the app.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.signorile.com/subscribe
President Biden on “Late Night with Seth Myers” last night, joking: “You gotta take a look at the other guy. He’s about as old as I am... but he can’t remember his wife’s name."
Last week, Dr. Charan Ranganath, a University of California, Davis, neuroscientist who focuses on the the study of memory, came on my SiriusXM program to discuss the issue that had blown up in the media: President Biden’s age. He’d written an op-ed for the New York Times that was a rare bit of solid media coverage in a sea of sensationalism.
There is a lot of misunderstanding—and a great many stereotypes—about aging and the brain. That is certainly clear if the polls are to believed (or even are close) regarding Americans’ concerns about President Biden (even if it’s not going to change the way they vote, according to most of those same polls). And our media hasn’t done much to enlighten people, choosing instead to feed their worst fears.
So I invited Dr. Ranganath on my program to give us some insights. You can listen to the full interview here. A transcript, slightly edited for clarity and space, is below. Let me know your thought!
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Michelangelo Signorile: I'm so looking forward to this conversation. Why are so many people thinking about President Biden's memory and age, and that includes the majority of Americans—if we're to believe polls—in the wrong way?
I'm really glad to have on the program Dr. Charan Ranganath, who is a professor of psychology and neuroscience and the director of the Dynamic Memory Lab at the University of California, Davis, and the author of a book soon to be published, "Why We Remember: Unlocking Memory's Power to Hold on to What Matters." Doctor Ranganath, thank you so much for joining us.
Dr. Charan Ranganath: Well, thank you for having me. I'm always excited to share the word of memory with people.
MS: Yeah, it's really been dispiriting seeing a lot of the way this has been discussed, because the media coverage has been just overwhelming, the discussion of President Biden's age and then how that connects to the issue of memory and the issue of decision making, which connects, obviously, to memory.
And what's been dispiriting is not necessarily the discussion of it, because obviously it's something that Americans are concerned about, at least a certain number of them. But there really hasn't been a sort of moment of education about what it really means. And you provided that in an op-ed that you wrote in The New York Times. Talk a little bit about the way that we're looking at this and why it's not quite getting it right. People are not separating out the different kinds of memory, or, as you say, forgetting with a small f and Forgetting with a capital F.
CR: Yeah, I think this is a very important issue. And, you know, I want to be clear that this isn't—this is something that cuts across party lines. I mean, Donald Trump is also fairly advanced in years. And, let's face it, 1 in 6 Americans are over the age of 65. So I think when I read Special Counsel Hur's report, or at least the quotes from it, and have gone through a little bit of it, it just seemed to be hitting at people's stereotypes about aging. And when I actually read the piece, a lot of the examples of what they were talking about with Biden's forgetting were not actually the kinds of things that I would worry about as someone who studies memory.
So, as you pointed out, I say that there's forgetting with a lowercase f and there's Forgetting with the capital F. So we all do both. Let me be clear but let's first talk about the first one, which is really what researchers would call retrieval failure. And this is when the memory is there, but we just can't find it. So these would be things like, you know, I had a conversation with you yesterday and oh, what were we talking about again? And then a day later it comes to you.
So that's one of the memories there, but you can't get it. That happens a lot as we get older. On the other hand, there's Forgetting with the capital F, which would be like, I had a conversation with you yesterday, and I have no memory of it whatsoever. And that would be Forgetting with the capital F.
Everyone who's been studied shows some kind of Forgetting [with a capital F], but it does happen a little bit more as we get older. But really, if it happens a lot and it happens for things that happened just a short while ago, then I would be worried about that. The examples that I've seen from Biden, however, they don't seem to be forgetting with the capital F.
So, for instance, there's nothing that indicates that he couldn't remember anything from his last year of his vice presidency or, around the time that his son died. And yet he just couldn't name the years in which these things happened, which is something that does happen a lot with age. People will remember what happened, but they start to lose some of the details about the context, or they just have trouble pulling it up when they need it.
Some of the other issues that I think were brought up weren't even memory issues at all. They're things like, you know, mixing up in the media. People made a thing about mixing up, instead of saying the president of Egypt, he said, the president of Mexico. And it's not like as if the president doesn’t know the difference between Egypt and Mexico, right?
It was what people would categorize as one of Biden's gaffes, which is not finding the right word when you need it. And again, this is something that happens to many people. As you get older, you make more of these verbal mistakes, and you can't necessarily correct it as quickly. But that doesn't mean that there's a memory problem there.
MS: I speak three hours a day every weekday, and this must happen to me every day or every couple of days. I mean, you pull up the wrong word, you pull up the wrong name. I think I just did it with neurologist versus neuroscientist. Right. So, I mean, it does happen to all of us. And there's also, I mean, I speak to people who I've known for many years and tell me about something that happened like 30 years ago. And like, I realize I've forgotten that whole thing. And yet I remember it when they tell me. That’s pretty normal, too, right?
CR: Oh, yeah, that's a perfect example of lowercase f forgetting. Because often the memory is there, and we just can't find it when we need it. I have all sorts of experiences like this, too, both with the kind of mixing things up. In fact, just yesterday I did an interview where I was literally talking about Biden, and I couldn't find the right word, and I said the wrong thing, and I had to correct myself and do the take over again, so I can relate.
MS: So that's where I think there has been an enormous amount of misunderstanding in the public and not enough educating. And it's such a moment to educate people about memory and about aging and how they are not understanding how it works, because if we're to believe some of the polling or the interviews, people seem to believe that because somebody, doesn't have of the word, you know, correct at a particular moment in talking about a country or, doesn't seem to be speaking at a certain speed or is speaking in a slower cadence or something, that it means that it somehow affects their ability to make major decisions, major, complex decisions about foreign policy, or other issues.
I even heard people in a focus group saying, it makes me worried that he'll forget where the nuclear codes are or something like that. So talk a little bit about that and how that is just a complete misunderstanding of how this works.
CR: Well, yeah, I mean, first of all, I don't know much about how the presidency works. I imagine that he doesn't really have to seriously memorize nuclear codes and keep them at a moment's notice. I'm sure there's more of a process to it than that. Right. But I don't know. I think that struggling with remembering the right thing is the kind of thing that we often rely on others, you know, and we can often rely on devices to do these things. And so, we often outsource what we're trying to remember. I don't know about you, but, you know, my phone has a photographic memory. And so I take advantage of that and just put any names, phone numbers, and all these things I need.
MS: Right —to that point: There was a time when we all had on the tips of our tongues, maybe ten phone numbers that we could recite, at least those of us who have been alive for a while. And now you couldn't. I couldn't say the phone number of even the people closest to me.
CR: Yeah, exactly. And we don't have to. That's the thing. And that doesn't mean we can't. And outsourcing these things doesn't necessarily mean that there's going to be some atrophy in our brains. It's just lightening the load. As long as we can focus on what we need to focus on, we're good.
MS: Why do people believe that because somebody flubs words, because somebody, forgets the name of a country, that it somehow means they could not lead the country and make complicated decisions.
CR: I think that there's two factors involved. You know, I can't get into the voters heads, per se, but I think there's two factors involved. One is that, I think that there's a stereotype out there, that aging is this progressive, progressive decline, and we just get worse and we're just marching towards dementia. And that's not really true. In fact, if you look at studies where you follow the same person over time, there's some people who do really well and maintain their thinking and memory and so forth, well into old age.
And then there's others who do show a decline, and sometimes it can be a sharp decline. And I've seen people who are relatively young, I mean, you know, maybe in their 60s, for instance, who are extraordinarily fluent and can speak, you know, eloquently, but they have clinically significant memory disorders that would lead them to not be functional. Actually, if you even listen to late interviews with Ronald Reagan and, uh, former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher from the UK, what you'll find is, is that when they were probably—and again, I can't say for sure —but when they were probably in the early stages of Alzheimer's, they were still exceptionally articulate.
So often people's perceptions don't match up with the realities because we're seeing somebody who might look weak, they might be straining to speak in certain ways, or they struggle to find the right words. But that's not memory. That's something else.
MS: When you look at the schedule of someone like the president, any world leader or even any candidate and what they're doing every day and the amount of information they're processing, talk about that and how, again, looking at them tripping up a word doesn't comport with what they've probably been experiencing.
CR: I think that one of the things to keep in mind is that when people are under stress, the best way to put them under stress is to have them do a press conference. I mean, literally, this is what we would do in the lab when we study the effects of stress on memories. We tell them they're about to give a speech, and it dramatically raises people's cortisol levels.
So, I would say that those, especially that kind of communication, stress will make it harder often to pull up the right word because it tends to shut down areas like the prefrontal cortex, which help us get what we need and focus us on the right information.
And the problem is that as you get older, that function tends to decline a little bit, and then you're under stress. And for someone like Biden, he also had a stutter from a very young age. And I think that's relevant, too, because that makes it harder to find the right word. I know listeners will be thinking, Yeah, but the president has to function under stress. So and I totally agree with that. I think, though, that the stress and the situation of public speaking doesn't necessarily comport with many real situations where it's really about the knowledge of how to get things done.
And then there's other factors that come into play, like, you know, regulating your emotions as one, emotional intelligence and compassion as another, because a lot of the important decision making is influence, and memory is a very big part. But there's all these other parts, too, that go into making good decisions that are good for the people. And I think we just need to think about this in a more holistic fashion.
MS: What you're pointing to is something we've seen in some reports of those who know the president or have been interviewed, who work with the president and say that in private or, you know, in a room full of people making decisions, he’s completely lucid and he's clearly, very much aware of everything he's talking about. He's taking a leadership role.
And yet when you're under the pressure of public speaking or the campaign, it is a time when mistakes are made. And it really points to the difference between governing and campaigning and how superficial, in that sense, campaigning is because it is about performing. Right.
CR: I mean, I'm a scientist, so I can't tell people how to think about things. But what I would say is that often we miss people, mistake confidence for, you know, cognition. And so sometimes if people are extraordinarily confident and are communicating in a confident way, it's easier to give them a pass on the kinds of gaffes that we've been talking about. And I think if people don't communicate in such a confident way, and then we think, oh, wait, especially if they're older, you know, then there's kind of a tendency to say there's something wrong with them. And I think that's very misleading, and I think it can send people in the wrong path.
MS: Well, that's interesting too, because it might explain why some people seem to think that even though Trump makes all of these flubs all the time, that he's not old enough or that he's not too old but they think Biden is. But maybe Trump just says it with more confidence and just brushes past his flubs.
CR: I don't want to come off as kind of a partisan person here, but I do know of, like, you know, there's a famous incident where in a Trump speech where he mixed up Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi. Right? I'm sure he knows the difference again, between these two people. But then later, when he was questioned on it, I think he actually had said that, oh, I knew what I was doing.
MS: It was on purpose. Right. And he said the same thing about Obama. When he switched up, he mixed up Obama and Biden. He tried to create this idea that he means Obama is really running the country. I guess a certain number of people will believe him.
CR: Yeah. You know ,and again I don't necessarily know how people end up coming up with these impressions. What I would say is, if you come off as if you know you have mistakes like that and you can be confident though, and say, well, I really meant to say that, then maybe people like voters will look at that and go, oh yeah, he's this is a strong person. This is a person who really is with it. And they're just messing with us or something. You actually see this in older adults—-that some are just very good at being able to mask some of the difficulties they're having and some are very not good at doing that. And so we just don't know from external appearances.
MS: Well, I really appreciated this conversation and really glad to have you on the program to help people understand it. Thanks so much for coming on today.
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Time for another dose of the MAGA mania I sometimes experience on my SiriusXM program when Trumpers call in. Not sure why they listen, but they’re always pretty feeble, even though I’m happy to have a normal conversation.
Just a warning that this one is a bit loud and full of F bombs. It’s hard for that not to happen with MAGA!
Robert from Massachusetts called in during a discussion about the nauseating media saturation coverage of President Biden’s age after Special Counsel Robert Hur’s political hit job.
And yes, I went really hard at him.
That was partly due to strategy: I wanted to put Robert under the pressure that politicians and policy figures are under to see if he made a flub.
And boy did he, when he told me about what Donald Trump did—or wasn’t able to do—in his second term.
Except Donald Trump didn’t have a second term.
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Robert hemmed and hawed but never could come up with anything as I pressed him for one example of a policy decision on the part of Biden that reflected mental decline.
His latching on at the outset to the pullout from Afghanistan was ludicrous, since it was a brave thing for Biden to do—supported by the vast majority of Americans—and it was something Trump promised to do himself.
In fact, Trump began the pullout recklessly in his last weeks in office, attempting to sabotage Biden, and making it that much more difficult.
Robert was also slow on the uptake in responding, as I noted to him, and made a fool of himself.
I know there are those who will think I’m too tough on people like this. But I’m not going to put up with idiotic logic.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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It’s Friday, dear readers, always a fun day to look at the twisted logic of MAGA—and also how they often reveal their worst fears when they call into my SiriusXM program!
Patrick from Cape Cod called in as I was discussing Nikki Haley verbally wiping the floor with Donald Trump in recent days.
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First, he tried to hit me with hypocrisy for holding up Haley. But I had already explained that I believe Haley is as bad as the rest of them but is very useful—certainly to Joe Biden—right now.
And that simply gets to the fact that Trump is weak. Patrick couldn’t grapple with that, as he insisted that Haley drop out but couldn’t explain why it was so critical for her to do so.
I haven’t called on Maryann Williamson or Dean Phillips to drop out, after all. Let them stay in until the end. Same with Haley—unless, of course, she’s a threat to your candidate!
This was a funny call, but it also showed how scared they are of Haley because she’s exposing how weak Trump is. (One correction: I meant at the end that Trump lost Iowa and then came back and “won” New Hampshire and South Carolina—not lost, just jumbled my words—meaning to underscore that he didn’t drop early either, even though he lost the first state.)
Listen in, and let me know your thoughts!
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What would a Friday be without a little bit of MAGA idiocy to laugh at?
While discussing the war in Ukraine, Billy from Oklahoma called my SiriusXM program to say the world wasn’t “on fire” under “45.”
Really?
Of course, the world is always “on fire,” as it’s a complicated planet with many conflicts, some of which get little attention. So the statement itself is just plain dumb.
I seem to remember a once-in-a-century global pandemic, however, that became a raging inferno for the world, one that included massive lockdowns, a disruption of trade, horrible losses of life, and terrible economic decline—all of which Donald Trump mismanaged.
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We all remember Kim Jong Un firing missiles even after Trump’s love letter to him.
And we can’t forget how Trump attacked NATO, trying to break up the coalition. There was also the botched Yemen raid early on—Trump’s first military action, which cost the lives of a Navy Seal and civilians—and the continued war in Afghanistan, which ground on and cost many American lives.
Trump only decided to move on ending the war weeks before he left office, in what appeared to be an attempt at sabotaging President Biden (who promised in his campaign to end the war) by withdrawing troops too quickly—and Trump was intent on then inviting the Taliban to Camp David.
There was so much more. And of course, as I mainly focused on with Billy, there was Trump’s embrace of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who would become emboldened to go on to invade Ukraine.
Have a good weekend. And listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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On my SiriusXM program, I discussed an astounding report from the IRS: it has already collected $520 million from millionaire tax cheats, using money for tax enforcement allocated from the Inflation Reduction Act, which Republicans have been intent on cutting.
Michael from Florida called in to say, “I am skeptical about numbers coming from the IRS” and that he'd like to see a “spreadsheet.”
This was pretty rich because Donald Trump makes a zillion false claims and no one in MAGA asks for a “spreadsheet.” And the information came from data that was audited and checked inside the IRS and via the IRS commissioner, who was confirmed by both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate.
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Then Florida man said that with what’s happening in “cities with crime,” the money would be better spent on “beat cops.” When I explained that crime is down dramatically and murders are at a low not seen in decades—with the largest one-year drop in history from 2022 to 2023—he went into his grab bag and pulled out, “Then why are businesses and companies pulling out of buildings in downtown Chicago?”
I had to educate him on the ludicrousness of that too. Many businesses are shrinking their office space in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic as more employees are working from home, while office buildings are now being converted into residences.
This was a textbook example of how the MAGA arguments are crumbling beneath their feet, as the economy surges and consumers are now saying they feel it, and as crime is way down. Not to mention the hypocrisy of trying to halt money for the IRS that is bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars. They’re scrambling, and calls to my show like this help to clarify that.
Listen in, and let me know your thoughts!
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Another one of those gems called my SiriusXM program. But first, some background.
The New York Times columnist Ross Douthat has been banging the drum on how Donald Trump supposedly can’t be removed from the ballot per the 14th amendment, as the Colorado Supreme Court ruled—something that the U.S. Supreme Court will decide—because January 6th wasn’t an insurrection.
He goes on about the “lawless mob” not being organized and not out to subvert the Constitution. Many people took him to task on social media, and as Greg Sargent noted, “You have to be in willful denial to not see that Trump initially summoned the mob, incited it, pointed it at Pence, and ignored entreaties to call it off as part of his scheme to illegally sabotage the transfer of power.”
Douthat is one of a cadre of conservative pundits who put forth the same argument. And clearly, Paul from St. Louis, who called my SiriusXM program to argue that “you guys” have to stop calling those who pleaded guilty and were convicted "insurrectionists,” even if Trump is wrong in calling them “hostages,” is been parroting those pundits.
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Everything that critics hit back at Douthat with regarding Trump and his intentions—and his being an insurrectionist—is true. But there is one other element as well that underscores it: Organized militia and white supremacist groups, whom Trump had summoned to the “Stop the Steal” rally and who we know Roger Stone was working with, were plotting an insurrection.
As I told Paul, the Oath Keepers leader, Stuart Rhodes, convicted of seditious conspiracy, bought an arsenal of weapons before January 6th. The Oath Keepers had a “Quick Reaction Force" that had put the weapons in a Comfort Inn in Virginia. The plan was to ferry the weapons up the Potomac after the Capitol was secured and hold the building. Per CNN, covering the trial:
Up until now, it hasn’t been clear whether the QRF was aspirational or was a real-world effort to stockpile weapons to be potentially used in the streets of Washington.
Harrelson texted a group chat on January 5, asking for the location of the “QRF hotel,” according to court filings. Kelly Meggs, another alleged co-conspirator, said they should talk over private messages instead of the group chat. Hours later, Harrelson arrived at the Comfort Inn, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors have obtained text messages from Oath Keepers discussing their plans and their goal of ferrying weapons across the Potomac River. Prosecutors later told a judge that they believed the planning turned into action on January 6, with real weapons at the ready in Virginia.
Were there people who attended the “Stop the Steal” rally who didn’t intend to be part of an insurrection but were used by the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, Donald Trump, John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani, and others, and found themselves assaulting the Capitol and calling for Mike Pence to be hung? Yes (though they are responsible for their own actions). But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a planned insurrection, as I told Paul.
Listen in, and let me know your thoughts!
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It’s Friday, so yeah, some fun.
During a discussion about the dangers of Donald Trump, Joe from Texas, a hard-core MAGA Trump supporter, called me on my SiriusXM program and asked, “What privileges or rights did we ever lose under Donald J. Trump?”
I gave him a quick answer, offering just three examples of how Trump stripped the rights of groups—and it took all of 30 seconds. I then said, “But I’m not here to answer your questions—you’re here to tell us your thoughts,” giving him the stage to offer an opinion.
He responded by saying, “Well, you went on a diatribe there!”
And yeah, I just blew my stack at that point. I mean, I was answering a question he asked me in 30 f***g seconds!
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As he tried to inject MAGA b**t and disinformation, I directed him to tell me what rights Joe Biden took from him. He then proceeded to claim that his wife lost her job because she wouldn’t get vaxxed.
I then had to attempt to educate him about public health and ask if he got a measles shot and if his children did—or were they thrown out of school?
Of course, he didn’t answer any of these questions as the f-bombs flew from both of us. That’s because he wasn’t interested in having a discussion—he was just interested in pushing garbage. And I wasn’t having it.
I’m sure I sounded a bit nutty to some, and this did get very silly by the end! But when more MAGA called in but didn’t want to come on the air—cowards!—and just told my producers to relay that I’m a “dick,” I knew it was mission accomplished.
Listen in, and let me know your thoughts!
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Another Friday, and, like last week, I’m ending with a laughable example of the MAGA mindset.
So, Brian from Wisconsin called my SiriusXM program, and he took a slightly different tack.
First off, he was civil. And he falsely posed as non-MAGA, saying he was going to try to help me make sense of why Republicans still support Donald Trump. (He even went so far at one point as to call Trump an “egotistical, maniacal lunatic” and “probably a jerk.”)
You have to stick with it a little bit, because at first it seems like he's in agreement with me.
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Then he began to make his case, and it was sounding like the same old crap. Trump is an “anti-establishment guy” and an “outsider.”
“If he comes back a second time,” Brian said, “knowing how the levers of government work,” he “could be more effective.”
Ok, that’s when the MAGA cult was totally evident. I, of course, refuted the nonsense about Trump as anti-establishment and an outsider.
And I asked Brian what Trump did for the average person. At first, he didn’t come back right away, so I asked again, and I asked him to list five things Trump did for the average person. I swear it seemed like he then read them from the Trump campaign web site—or they were just well-rehearsed mantras in the cult brain.
I told him all were completely false—including Brian’s claim that Trump “brought peace and prosperity,” and I asked about COVID and the over a million people dead from COVID and the economic calamity that ensued.
Just a couple of things I want to point out: Sometimes when I have calls like this, I’m obviously responding rapidly and collecting all of my thoughts—and yes, getting worked up in the face of someone throwing out distortions—and later I think, wow, I should have said this, and this, and this!
So, in that vein: President Obama didn’t just grow the economy dramatically, as I told Brian when he said Trump grew the economy faster than any president; he took us out of the Great Recession, which George Bush and the GOP helped create by deregulating banks and pouring trillions into Iraq.
Brian also said, as one of the five great things Trump did, that Trump allocated money to historically Black colleges and universities, and I pointed out that so did President Obama and even President Bush.
But in fact, Trump simply signed a bill “restoring” $250,000 million that lapsed when Republicans in Congress failed to renew it, and Democrats in the Senate pushed for it. (This came after Trump himself threatened to cut $20 million from HBCUs in 2017 and backed off after supporters implored him not to do it.) President Obama, over the course of his presidency, allocated $4 billion to HBCUs.And Bush actually increased funding by 30% in his budgets, which recklessly cut many other programs.
Also, when I said that if Trump had actually handled COVID well, he’d have won in a landslide, just like Bush after 9/11, that obviously was a misstatement. Mea culpa. Bush didn’t run right after 9/11 (he’d just been elected to office the year before); his approval, which is what I meant, soared because of the way he spoke to the nation about 9/11, unlike the way Trump spoke about COVID. (Bush of course would see that approval tumble because of the reckless, criminal Iraq War, and he barely won re-election in 2004.)
Also, I don’t really think Trump would have won if he handled COVID well, because of all the other terrible things he did as president. It is, of course, unknowable, because if Trump had handled COVID well, he’d likely have handled a lot of other things better, as it would have shown him as a better president and a better person. He is simply a horrible human being.
All of that said, listen in and let me know your thoughts. And have a great weekend!
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Happy Friday! Always a good day, as we end the week, to check in on the idiocy of the MAGA cult, as I try—try is the key word—to make sense of these people.
David in Nevada called into my SiriusXM program this week and showed us another example of how the MAGA base not only thrives on misinformation but really doesn’t care even if you get them to admit the truth about Donald Trump’s horrendous actions.
“Apparently, I'm one of those people that you're saying is a cult member,” he said, adding, “The more I listen to you the more I want to support Trump. Just because you say it was an insurrection doesn’t mean it was.”
I love when they tell me I’m the reason why they’re supporting Trump!
Sorry, don’t blame me for your willfully giving yourself over to a con man. (And why are you calling to tell me this anyway?)
“Well, that's the cult speaking,” I told him. Then I recited all the crimes Donald Trump has been charged with or found by a jury or a judge to have engaged in.
Those are facts, David, I said. Are you supporting a rapist and a man who engaged in massive fraud?
David had no idea that in fact a jury and a judge ruled on those issues in civil trials, believing it was still all to be decided.
Cornered by the truth, he switched to…the worth of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, and the judge in the New York fraud case concluding it was worth $18 million rather than, as David said, “hundreds of millions.”
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David didn’t know that Trump had actually said it was worth $1.5 billion, which I informed him about. I asked him, Do you believe it’s worth that much, yes or no? He replied, “I don’t know and I don’t care,” even though he was the one to bring it up, switching to that topic just seconds before.
That’s precisely it, I said: you don’t care—even if Trump engaged in crimes. And that’s the cult speaking.
David even had to admit that Trump said he grabs women by their genitals, when I asked him about it. “If he said it, he said it,” David replied, but “here’s the thing: in 2019, the gas prices was less than…”
Gas prices? I had to cut him off on that one, and I took it back to the insurrection. He was forced to admit he was “not okay” with it, but, but, but….Joe Biden blah blah.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts. And have a good weekend!
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Ron from New Mexico called into my SiriusXM program as I was discussing George Santos and the newest indictment against him, positioning himself as above it all.
Ron remained calm and cool, as he tried mightily to promote a false equivalency between Democrats and Republicans, claiming that "it's all politics” and they’re all the same. “I’m not a Trump fan, by the way,” he said. Yeah…right.
He kept this up for quite a while—focusing on newly-indicted-again Senator Bob Menendez and what he believes Democrats would be saying if the New Jersey governor were a Republican. Ron believed he was duping us into thinking he wasn’t MAGA and was just a “they’re all corrupt” guy who is disgusted with “both sides.”
I let him continue to put out his claims, as he was just giving me more to work with. I debunked them while also asking him to give me evidence of them—which he never did—and he just kind of had to quietly concede on this or that point, though he wouldn’t give up, continually going on to something else.
Eventually, Ron’s true inner-MAGA surfaced after he was getting nowhere, and he desperately switched to—you guessed it!—Hunter Biden and “shell companies” and “how did Joe Biden make all of his money?”
Honestly, this call went on for a while because he was probably the most reasonable Trumper I’ve had in a long time—even if he was dishonest, posing as a “both sides” non-MAGA guy.
I’m happy to speak with people who are oppositional, as long as we can have a civil conversation. It does get tedious, however, when they’re clearly just trying desperately to find something, anything they think can’t be debunked, and going into the grab bag. I had to eventually let him go.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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Warning: I really became kind of crazy and aggressive with this guy who called my SiriusXM program.
But there is a method to the madness!
I wouldn’t treat a guest to the show this way, even if they were a conservative. But a caller who represents himself falsely? Sorry, he’s not getting any such courtesy. And, again, there was a reason why I went in this direction.
James from California claimed to be a Democrat and said "we" were treating Donald Trump terribly. But it became clear he was not only a lying Trumper; my radar was detecting a major league far-right Christian nationalist extremist and Qanon cultist.
The conversation on the program at the time had been focused on the GOP’s bogus impeachment inquiry of President Biden, but James brought the discussion to the impeachments of Donald Trump—of course—and then shifted to election fraud.
I can’t say I knew exactly what he’d eventually blurt out, but something told me if I took him on hard, he’d crack and reveal his true agenda. And sure enough, when confronted forcefully, he went there: "Democrats are legislating abomination. You’re legislating homosexuality and the murder of innocent babies."
Just some nutty fun for your Thursday. Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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After the GOP debate, Don from New Orleans called my SiriusXM program to say, well….a whole bunch of stuff.
And really, it was a sort of wacky and meandering six minutes, though interesting and not heated, unlike what almost always happens with Trumpers.
Just about every question I asked was like giving him some more rope and letting him hang himself.
Don eventually claimed that he is suspicious of everyone who goes into politics as a career, versus those without political experience. That why he thought Vivek Ramaswamy won the debate, he said, because he’s an "outsider" and thus isn’t power hungry (like Trump). I know you’re probably laughing hard about that one. Don explained why:
I'm a local elected official. Okay. Very local. Elected official. Um. And I am very skeptical of anybody who spends a lifetime in politics.
So, the argument he’s making, I said, is that there’s something sinister about someone who made politics their life. But, I asked, there’s nothing sinister about someone who achieved wealth and fame, like Donald Trump, and then used that to get into the White House and grab power?
He responded by saying, "by the way, I’m enjoying this conversation"—which I don’t think was true—and then went on:
The way I look at it is, if you've been in politics and you've worked your way up and you've spent all of this time in the Congress, the state legislature, the federal legislature, and the executive branches, you've become so accustomed to power. You're more concerned with keeping that job and keeping that power than just doing the job.
“Come on Don,” I responded, then rhetorically asking, "Trump was not obsessed with power? And keeping power?" explaining to him that he was completely undoing his own argument.
"He helped other powerful people,” I went on. “How many people did he pardon? They did a lot of sleazy things, didn't they? Terrible things. Even the guy who was governor of Illinois, what a terrible thing he did. He sold a Senate seat to somebody. Right. Wasn't that terrible that Donald Trump used his power to pardon that guy, Rod Blagojevich?"
Don responded that, it’s "not right," and then added, "they all do it." Which again, completely undermined his case. Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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Is Donald Trump already ineligible to run for president in 2024, no matter what happens with regard to any of the 91 counts against him in four indictments?
Delightfully, there’s been so much discussion about it! Surely that alone is riling Trump, which is always a good thing. The talk really ramped up in recent weeks after two conservative Federalist Society constitutional scholars’ pending law review article—concluding that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution disqualifies Trump—went public.
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment states:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Former judge Michael J. Luttig, a respected conservative jurist who testified before the January 6th committee, and the esteemed legal scholar Professor Lawrence Tribe also agree that Trump is ineligible under the 14th Amendment.
And there has been some movement in the states. In New Hampshire, an effort is already underway within the GOP itself—with Republicans feuding—as the secretary of state is seeking legal advice from the state attorney general on removing Trump from the ballot. A Florida attorney has filed suit in that state, seeking to disqualify Trump. For months, two civil rights organizations have been pressuring secretaries of state in several states—Nevada, California, Oregon, Colorado, and Georgia—to disqualify Trump from the ballot.
All it will take is one state to remove Trump for the issue to be challenged in court and get to the U.S. Supreme Court, which would have to rule that Trump is disqualified in all states—or in no states. It’s high stakes, as no one knows what the court will do, and there are definitely scholars and political strategists who have their doubts. So what is the most ironclad way to go about it and get the Supreme Court aboard?
Professor Edward Foley, Ebersold Chair in Constitutional Law at Ohio State University, former Ohio solicitor general, and contributing columnist for the Washington Post, believes the strongest case would come from a state where the state legislature gave express powers to the secretary of state or other election officials to remove a candidate under the 14th amendment. And he says that it’s thus imperative that a state legislature pass that law now and a governor sign it well before the 2024 presidential election.
Foley points out that the Supreme Court in the recent Moore v. Harper decision—in which the high court thankfully in large part ruled against the dangerous "independent legislature theory," the idea that state legislatures, not state courts, decide elections—left too much wiggle room. Others have agreed that the Moore decision wasn’t a complete win for those who want to protect elections, as it left too much open.
Foley wrote in the Washington Post that the Moore decision signaled that "if a state statute has not already authorized administrative officers to seek disqualification of presidential candidates," then the Court might view an attempt by a state official to do so as a "usurpation of the state legislature’s prerogative to determine the ‘manner’ of conducting presidential elections."
So again, he believes a blue state that has complete control of the legislature and the governor’s mansion—say, Michigan, California, or New York—should pass a law right now, well before the 2024 election. Professor Foley joined me on my SiriusXM program last week, and you can listen in here to the fascinating and important discussion.
A transcript is provided below, slightly edited for space and clarity.
Michelangelo Signorile: We've been talking about this for a for a while and discussing it with those who've written on it from a more left political perspective or progressive, looking at the Constitution. And then we had two Federalist Society constitutional scholars who you talk about as well in the piece that you wrote, who are publishing a article in a journal, making the argument from obviously a very conservative point of view. Talk a little bit about their piece.
Edward Foley: As you mentioned, these two scholars, who have a high reputation in the law school world in general, but are known to be on the conservative side of the perspective on things, are using the methodology of what's called original meaning of the Constitution to interpret it according to how the framers or authors of the Constitution understood it at the time it was adopted.
And so they're applying that approach to this part of the 14th Amendment. The 14th Amendment was adopted during Reconstruction after the Civil War, has lots of important provisions in it, like the equal protection clause and the due process clause. But it also has it's Section 3, which is this disqualification provision aimed to disqualify people who joined the Confederacy during the Civil War, betraying their oaths to the country because they had served in the federal government and then betrayed their oath to the Constitution. And so this provision disqualifies them from ever serving in government again at the the end of the Civil War, as part of Reconstruction. But what this law review article does with these two authors, from this original meaning perspective, they said, looking at the text, it's not just about the Civil War, it's about any insurrection or rebellion. And so that has meaning and they said that the authors meant it to apply broadly and in perpetuity, if you will. For as long as we have a Constitution and as long as this provision is in it, it means that if anybody, having taken an oath to uphold the Constitution and served in government, betrays that oath in a way that's engaging in an insurrection, then they can no longer serve in government again.
So they go over it—I think it's about a couple of hundred pages—their law review article explaining all the original intent behind that language in terms of its drafting during the reconstruction era, after the Civil War. They go into great detail about its initial applications and then explain why the January 6th attack on the Capitol qualifies as an insurrection event. And then Trump's role, because he obviously wasn't one of the people who breached into the Capitol that day, but his fomenting of the riot and the insurrection and then his role, in particular, as commander in chief and as president on January 6th, 2021, he had a constitutional responsibility to to take care that the laws were faithfully executed, including to stop that kind of riot and to stop people from preventing the lawful counting of the electoral votes.
And he did none of that. He tweeted some [comments] that seemed to encourage the folks who were against Mike Pence at the time, as I know you know. And so these authors say that both his actions ahead of the riot and the insurrection and during it constitute engaging in the insurrection for purposes of the original meaning of this provision.
MS: Right. And they certainly responded to what they knew would be the criticism of their argument. And they clearly see it—that Donald Trump did engage in incitement, did engage in fomenting that insurrection.
EF: Yes, I think it's correct to say that from their perspective, they see it as clear. I think at one point they say it's not a close case from their perspective. That's where I would differ with them a little bit, although I'm of the same view that, properly applied, this provision should be understood to disqualify Trump because of his conduct that's on the public record as a result of the January 6th committee hearings and so forth. I think it is more debatable than they characterize it. You know, there are plausible arguments on both sides in particular of whether what Trump did was sufficient to count as engaging for purposes of this provision. Again, I come down on one side of that debate and the same side that they do. But I think I've got to be candid to acknowledge that there are already other people in response to this article who are coming down on the other side of that issue.
MS: And so it would be something that the courts would decide. And ultimately the Supreme Court, which has not ruled on this particular issue and this interpretation of the Constitution, because obviously we haven't been at this place before. And so what you write about in the piece, which I found very informative and fascinating, is that it basically needs to get to the Supreme Court.
And the process to do that would mean that a state would have to move to take Donald Trump off of the ballot, arguing that he's not eligible to be on the ballot. And that sounds easy, but in fact, it means that a state legislature actually has to give the power to an elected official, a statewide elected official, to do that. Thus, it really needs to be a blue state, a state that at least has a legislature that is in control by the Democrats and and an elected official who is a Democrat as well. Talk a little bit about that.
EF: Yes, I think that's right. Unfortunately, it's not so easy. Maybe it should be in our democracy that all the rules for running elections should be pretty straightforward. But unfortunately, our rules for presidential elections in particular are very complicated because of the whole electoral college mechanism. And also, you know, we should—even though it's important to go down this road—we should recognize the momentous nature of it. If you believe in the right of citizens to vote, as I do, and the equality of voting rights, you want to be careful about denying the right of citizens to vote for the candidate of their choice. But we have provisions in the Constitution that do that. In other respects, there may be many Americans today who would like another opportunity to vote for Barack Obama, who think he was a great president and he'd be great again and maybe would prefer to vote for him as the Democratic nominee instead of Joe Biden next time. He's younger than than Joe Biden, but he's not eligible because of another part of the Constitution that is much more straightforward. If you have two terms, that's it.
And so there's no factual dispute about that. We're not allowed to vote for Barack Obama for president anymore. The question about whether or not Americans are allowed to vote for Donald Trump if they want to is more complicated because the only basis to disqualify him would be this provision that was in the aftermath of the Civil War. And that does require applying this old text to a new problem, as you said, that we haven't faced.
So the question is, who in American government should make that determination if indeed he's not allowed to be on the ballot?
And one point that I really tried to stress in The Washington Post piece is that it's imperative, I think, to decide this in advance of the November 24th election, because I think it would be terrible for Congress afterwards in the next January 6th [certification] meeting. This would be January 6th, 2025. If you think hypothetically that Trump is on the ballot, perhaps wins the Electoral College narrowly, but the Democrats controlled the House of Representatives, as they may well do. The House is very much in play for 2024. The Senate is very close. I think for Congress to try to disqualify Trump on the grounds of this Section 3 of the 14th Amendment provision would be terrible because that would be taking people's votes away from them after they've cast them.
And I just think that would make the next January 6th even more perilous than the previous one. So I think the time to do this is now before the Republican convention in July of ’24. And the method, as you say, needs some clarification. I think we're going to see litigation on this issue anyway. There are a couple of interest groups that have announced in effect publicly—there’s news reporting on this—that they're going to try to get election officials to do this. So this is going to happen one way or the other.
MS: They're pressuring election officials in Nevada, in Georgia, Michigan, places where they hope to have, you know, somebody obviously thinking in the same way. And these are battleground states.
EF: Correct. And so what I tried to contribute was the best method to do this in an orderly way, in a fair way, would be for a state legislature to establish with a new statute exactly how this gets to court. So there's rights to cross examination and due process and so forth. That would then give a finding, you know, one way or the other: Trump is eligible or he's not eligible under this provision, and that would be immediately appealed and would quickly get to the US Supreme Court, which I think is the institution that has to decide this for the entire nation. Because if one state like Nevada does it, you know, he should either be on the ballot in all the states or not all the states. And if the US Supreme Court was to say he is indeed disqualified, the supremacy clause of the Constitution would require other states to follow that. So so let's get one state to create a good procedure, a clear procedure, because there's also the possibility that if you don't have this kind of new law, state officials will interpret existing law is not really suitable for this kind of factual issue. I mean, yes, they can tell pretty easily if a candidate is 35 years old or not. That's an eligibility requirement to be president.The issue of citizenship, you know, is pretty straightforward factually, but this one would require a more lengthy trial.
MS: A a state official like a secretary of state couldn't do this on his or her own? And the legislature would have to pass a law giving them that power? And then it would obviously be appealed and go through the courts.
EF: Yes and no. The state official, like the secretary of state, absolutely has to have this power from the legislature. No question about that. Under Article 2 of the Constitution. The trickier part is whether any existing law—without a new law—could be interpreted as already granting that power. And that's on a state by state, 50 state basis. And that's also a debatable proposition, I suspect, in some states, given the way they write their rules. There's a more plausible argument that an existing official already has that power. But this is an issue of such importance to the country. I don't think we should leave it in doubt. Right. And it's easy for a legislature to clarify that they want their officials to have this power.
MS: So you say a swing state controlled by Democrats such as Michigan could and should do this, but any single blue state would suffice because even if New York or California did it, it would be challenged. And as you said, if the Supreme Court ruled that he were ineligible, that would be it—ineligible in every every state in all 50 states.
EF: Exactly.
MS: That would be quite a quite a task for the Supreme Court. Going by this Supreme Court's track record, what do you think they might do?
EF: Yeah, I think it could go either way. I think these two [Federalist Society] scholars who have written this new article are very, very respected. One of them clerked, I believe, for Chief Justice John Roberts. Now, that doesn't mean, you know, Chief Justice Roberts is necessarily going to agree with everything he writes. But, you know, independently of that, he's known as a very respected scholar. Both of them are in the conservative legal world. You know, the court today is 6-3 inches terms of conservatives to liberals. And, you know, Justice Roberts is the one who’s not often, but sometimes with the liberals on the four side of 5-4 splits. So it's not a guarantee either way.
But I think this argument would be taken seriously, very seriously. I agree with you. The court would probably be reluctant. I mean, this is a momentous issue and they would, you know, tread carefully, but they are the highest court in the land and they exist for difficult cases. And so I think if a lower court, say the Michigan Supreme Court, for example, disqualified Trump, I think they would feel that it's incumbent upon them to resolve the question.
MS: And you're so right about it needing to be done now because not just looking back at, 2020 and of course, what happened there and what might happen. But also even thinking back to 2000, having the Supreme Court coming in at the very end after voting had happened, and then basically saying, sorry, it ends right here. Obviously, that left a very bad, taste and a lot of people's mouths and real division in the country.
EF: Right, Right. I mean, sometimes disputes after the voting are unavoidable. I mean, the Bush versus Gore situation was obviously very difficult and did leave a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths, as you say. But in that context, when you're fighting over 500 or so votes in the swing state of Florida with hanging chads, I think it was going to be a difficult issue, whatever. And the goal is to try to avoid difficult issues. And with hindsight, we know we should have replaced the kinds of voting machines with hanging chads to avoid the problem in the first place. Right. And sort of what I'm trying to do is, is I'm imagining there could be a problem afterwards that can be settled in advance so that we could avoid the worst kind of problems. So so I think your reference to Bush versus Gore is correct in that sense.
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When last I spoke with Wayne State University translational neuroscientist, psychologist and PTSD expert, Dr. Seth Norrholm, he explained how the entire country was suffering from a collective trauma.
We focused on now the GOP, following on Donald Trump, became the party of Marjorie Taylor Greene and George Santos, and the psychological toll MAGA has had on us all. It was an illuminating discussion that made sense to so many listeners to my SiriusXM program and subscribers to The Signorile Report—putting it in the frame of PTSD and collective trauma—about what they’d been experiencing.
We discussed toward the end of the interview what would help people to recover. And the answer came down to one word: justice. This is so true, he’d said, of those who’d suffered physical and psychological abuse for so many other reasons—including man of the people he treats—and it’s true in this case as well.
“You need to have Trump face consequences for his role in the insurrection,” he told me. “So without some kind of sweeping accountability to remove what I've called the cancer that is in our political system, there's not going to be any meaningful healthy change.”
Now that we have seen Trump indicted four times I decided to check in with Dr. Norholm about we were stand now, and if people were viewing possible recovery and better mental heath. We also discussed a concept he wrote about in a recent article, “contagious sociopaths,” who include those politicians who know better—or once did—but who mirror Trump because of the benefit they see, like Ted Cruz, Lindsay Graham and Josh Hawley.
Clearly we’re far from out of the woods, and the GOP has only gotten more extreme. But do the indictments give us hope and thus help us recover? Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
Below is a transcript lightly edited for clarity and space.
MS: When my guest last came on the program, we discussed PTSD that has lingered collectively since Trump's presidency that so many people were experiencing.
And, of course, those who experienced the brunt of Donald Trump's brutality experienced that even more deeply. [And we discussed] what is the best the way that people could heal?
Justice is what we talked about [as a way to heal]. And maybe we're starting to see that a little bit. So I thought it would be great to speak with Dr. Seth Norholm once again. Welcome back to the program. Dr. Norholm.
SN: Hi Mike. It's good to be here again.
MS: I invited you on the program [in January] and you talked about how Americans on the whole had really experienced PTSD, Trumpism, the Trump era, Covid, all of it, and what impact it had on them. And I just want to recap that before we go further, Talk a little bit about that.
SN: Well, when we think about traumatic stress, you know, you think about the events that lead up to somebody experiencing a post traumatic stress response. And these are things like, you know, terrorist attacks, natural disasters, obviously war time conflict. And we know that in the population, about 70 to 80% of us are going to experience a traumatic event in our lifetime. And then the question is whether or not that traumatic event leads to mental health problems, psychological distress and things like that. So what we discussed last time was in the face of these potentially traumatizing events like the pandemic and like the natural disasters like Hurricane Maria that hit Puerto Rico and the hurricanes that have really devastated large parts of our Gulf Coast.
These are all events that can lead to mental health problems. And if they're severe enough and impairing enough, post traumatic stress disorder. And so what we were seeing in that administration was that any kind of buffering against those traumatic effects that may be provided by the government, maybe provided by FEMA or the Red Cross was really being thwarted from the top.
And so what we discussed was, rather than providing a lifeline or a support system for us as citizens, we were getting an antagonistic response. And this antagonistic response was really based on where you came from, where you lived, whether you were in a red state or a blue state, whether or not you were a female of color leading a particular place like Puerto Rico. And so suddenly there was a targeted approach as far as who we're going to protect and help and who we're just going to continue to traumatize and continue to do harm upon.
MS: And you talked about your concerns that Trump had ushered in so many other people, a Republican Party that had become a place for people who are engaging in pathological behavior, who were just exacerbating that PTSD, people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, people like George Santos, people who had the same kind of extremist tendencies and personality issues as Donald Trump.
SN: Correct. And if you look at the evolution of the Republican Party since 2015, you know, initially during the run up to the election, you had other candidates on the GOP side who were saying it like it was. They were telling you exactly who Trump the candidate was and who potentially Trump the president would be.
And that he was somebody who was galactically unfit, who didn't have the temperament, who had criminal tendencies already, and had the qualities of what we call malignant narcissism. So at that time, the GOP was really calling that out. And then when it became clear that Trump was the frontrunner, you saw many of these same individuals fall into line behind him to the point where they became enablers.
And as you mentioned, you know, they began displaying these really—what we call sociopathic tendencies, which is inflicting harm upon your fellow man for some sort of gain without showing any kind of remorse. And so, what we saw over the last month now with these indictments and now the one that just came down last night [in Georgia] is you see glimmers of hope, right? So you saw a tweet or an X or whatever we're calling tweets now from [Georgia Governor] Brian Kemp and from [former Lt. Governor] Jeff Duncan, saying, look, this this is criminal activity. The election was not stolen. This was all a big lie.
So you're getting some glimmers from individuals who identified as Republicans and members of the GOP. But I really draw your attention to the responses of Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio and individuals who intellectually know better. Ted Cruz being another example, who intellectually know better, but are continuing to perpetuate the big lie; they’re pretending, continuing to act in this sociopathic manner.
So I wrote a piece a couple of weeks ago where I talked about this concept of “contagious sociopathy.” And the idea was they saw that it worked for this individual who was a frontrunner in Trump. They saw that this MAGA approach, this sociopathic approach, was working. And so they decided to mimic it. And so I make the point in this recent article: it doesn’t matter if you are a true sociopath with a personality disorder who's inflicting harm on on somebody else, or if you're pretending to be a sociopath for political gain. The end result is the same, which is bringing harm upon us as American citizens.
MS: It can be learned behavior and obviously people can see rewards that come with it in that party. And certainly, as you pointed out, that party has a long way to go.
I wanted to ask you, though, about what we are seeing with the indictments and what it may be doing for the majority of Americans who have experienced this PTSD. Because when we spoke the last time, at the very end of our interview, I asked you, what is it that could help people heal from this collective post-traumatic stress? And you said justice one word, right? People need to see justice. And all people were seeing and this is back in January, it seems like not long ago, but really at that time, all people were seeing was you know, a lot of foot dragging or nothing happening in the Justice Department. We hadn't seen any real action and there was a lot of anxiety.
People were talking about that. And now with these indictments coming down, and we were able to see how Jack Smith has operated and certainly Fani Willis and Georgia, people do seem to be feeling differently. And I'm wondering if you're seeing at least the beginning of that healing. And obviously it's going to depend on what happens next.
SN: Yeah, that's right. And I think the example I used last time we spoke, you know, I deal a lot in my field with individuals who have been victims of of abuse. And the analogy I gave was, you know, you've got this abused spouse who calls law enforcement and they come to the House and law enforcement says something to the effect of, you know, we spoke with your husband and, you know, we just don't see enough to do anything about it. And, the abused spouse watches out the window as law enforcement pulls away and just having this profound sense of dejection because of this injustice.
And so what we had to observe for at least four years was, the Mueller report was a potential inflection point for accountability and justice. And that was watered down by Bill Barr. And then there was the first impeachment where there was compelling evidence provided that there were high crimes and misdemeanors, and he was acquitted in the Senate. And then another impeachment after inciting the insurrection on the Capitol on January 6th, which also did not provide any conviction by the Senate.
And as you noted before I came on today, you know, Mitch McConnell gave a very spirited rebuke of Trump and said, let's leave it to the legal system. And so for that few minutes when McConnell gave that speech, there was this idea that, well, wait a second, maybe the tide has turned and we're moving towards accountability and justice. And then there really nothing happened. And like you said, there was foot dragging. So when you talk about what the response is to this latest round of indictments, I really look at it in terms of three camps, and these are loosely defined, but three general camps.
One is those of us who knew all along what was happening, you know, those of us who had been gaslit into thinking that, you know, we were we were crazy and we were, you know, “libtards” and all these other terms that were applied to us. And we were just, you know, we were the ones that were out of our mind and these things weren't happening. So for that camp, who knew the criminality and corruption was there all along? You know, this past month has been vindicating and validating in the sense that much like the abused spouse, somebody has called out what has been going on for years and we're finally starting to see some accountability. So for a lot of people, especially last night [when the Georgia indictment were handed down], there was this validation, this big collective, I told you so about what was going on.
The second camp would be those who identify as Republican or GOP, who have been toeing the line and really closing their eyes and holding their nose at what's been going on to to stick to that party line. And I think it's that second group that is probably the most able to see the sea change that is occurring and potentially, you know, the more moderate Republicans to see as Jeff Duncan said yesterday, it's time to separate themselves from Trump.
And then the third camp. I had described this a few weeks ago in an article as being really much like a cult. And I even went as far as to say it was, you know, the largest and most dangerous cult in American history.
And it is because it is tearing at the fabric of our democracy and really jeopardizing what has been built for over 230 years. And I describe it in this these cult terms, because what you'll see in this third group after these indictments and again, call your attention to the Lindsey Grahams and the Ted Cruzes, they're going to dig their heels in to this cult like thinking.
And they’re, regardless of the objective evidence that's presented in front of them, they're going to dig in their heels. They're still going to cry foul. They're still going to cry rigged election. And, you know, you might ask, well, how can they still cling to this in the face of all these indictments? And all of this evidence? All they need is a just a shred of some possibility that there was wrongdoing or there was some malfeasance with the election to to cling to the overall big lie. So it really is a matter of closing off whatever remnants remain. As far as you know, I think Trump put on his his Truth Social today that, you know, he's going to have a big press conference on Monday to present all this evidence of how it was a rigged election. And we know that's a lie and there is no evidence otherwise it would have been presented. But that still provides red meat to the cult following that we still have hope in our our lord and savior who's going to, you know, show us the the way, even though he's hit some obstacles along the way.
MS: They are not getting out of this anytime soon. I ask you this as somebody who's a member of the first group, as you are, too, and many of our listeners. I've seen in the media and I've not been someone who has believed we've been served well by our media in covering a lot of this. But I've seen this line, in the last indictment and this one ,that Americans are becoming immune to it all. You know, they're becoming numb to these indictments. They can't tell the difference, this or that. And, you know, I think each time [there’s an indictment] we see something unique and different and new allegations and certainly the way Jack Smith went about it and certainly what we learned now in Georgia. [The media] are not using any empirical evidence. They're just claiming this. I feel like it's probably illuminating for a lot of people. But I wonder if am I overplaying that? So I just wanted your thought.
SN: You know, the fact that they've come, you know, sequentially in a rapid fire fashion, can be overwhelming. But I think you're right. I think the details are different enough. You know, one was classified documents. One was, you know, business fraud, one was the insurrection. And now we have specifically the efforts that were done in Georgia. So I think they're different enough that if you're paying attention and you're digesting, you know, the media reports as they come out, you can make that distinction.
I think what is really more of a danger than that first group becoming numb and immune to it is that third group becoming numb to immune to it and or not necessarily numb and immune, but avoiding the topic altogether and kind of lumping all of these indictments into, you know, political persecution and election interference by the left against the right. And so I think there's a tendency more to lump them together and have them be kind of this amorphous thing on the the extreme right and then on the more left leaning individuals. I agree.
MS: And I think sometimes the media is paying attention only to those people. Obviously, to heal further we need more justice. We need closure. We need to see convictions. And nobody knows if that will happen. Nobody knows if Donald Trump will actually serve time or if he will go to jail. And of course, if he does and this does bring him down, that third group that you're talking about is really going to have a complete and total meltdown. So just give us a thought about where we go from here and and what happens with regard to what may happen.
SN: Well, I would agree with you that that third group would have a meltdown. But I do want to point out that, you know, the law enforcement in Atlanta are really preparing for much more than what is transpired so far since this fourth indictment came down. I mean, they had barricades erected and they were, you know, priming for some smaller version of January 6th. And the honest thing is we just haven't seen that. So getting back to what you were saying a second ago, there is some, again, numbness and and lack of reactivity on that far right group because they're not responding the same way. Some of that has to do with the fact that time has elapsed. I mean, it's been two and a half years since January 6th, and they've heard a lot of the same rhetoric but seen no differences in terms of results. So I think they'll have a meltdown of sorts, but I honestly don't think it's going to be as extreme as anything we've seen before. Now, if there is some sort of incarceration, maybe that changes. You know, there's the real possibility because of Trump's continuing to badger witnesses and intimidate prosecutors and DA's, that maybe he's remanded into custody in Georgia because of the risk that he poses to the case and to the security of witnesses and and grand jurors who will be identified.
Maybe an incarceration or jailing him will tip the scale. But again, if you read the comments and if you read the revelations of those who have been indicted following January 6th, you'll see a lot of them have come to the realization that we would hope they would come to, which is, you know, “we believed the big lie. We thought we were the ones being patriots.” And then when they're slapped with prison time, they're slapped with fines, they're slapped with court cases. That realization becomes that much clearer. So I think you're right. I think there is going to be some element that loses their mind and tries to act out. But I also think there's going to be some element that says, “wait a second, you know, court cases and prison time are real. We can no longer live in this fantasy world because look at these real world consequences.”
MS: Obviously, that’s why we need justice, and closure.
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I don’t even know why I engaged in a discussion on my SiriusXM program with this guy, as he had no facts—literally didn’t know the names players or politicians, just referring to them as “that guy”—but he is emblematic of many in MAGA world.
So sometimes you do have hear them, so we know what we’re dealing with, as painful as it is. They will just defend Donald Trump no matter what, even if it means calling a radio program and embarrassing themselves.
And you have to just call them out. (I’m from Staten Island and am Italian-American, so, yeah, I can call him a “goombah.” And I did.)
He is every stereotype of place, the only borough of New York City that voted for Trump—and where there was a rally over the weekend to stop migrant asylum-seekers from being sheltered there even though just about everyone living there, a place dominated by Italian-Americans, descended from immigrants. (And let me tell you that not everywhere there is like this!)
This exchange, by the way, took place on Monday, as the grand jury in Georgia was meeting but before the Trump indictment came down.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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In a discussion on my SiriusXM program recently after the damning recording surfaced in which Donald Trump admits he’s sharing classified war plans with people —and said could have declassified them when he was president, but didn’t—Jeff from Richmond, Virginia called to defend Trump.
He had to concede begrudgingly that it was all not good, that indeed Trump left the White House with classified documents and didn’t give them back….“but, but, but….”
But, but, but…if they were so worried about secret documents or highly classified documents in those boxes then they should not have left the White House...They should have gone through those records and made sure there were no top secret records….
They? Who is they? “The archives people,” he responded.
This was ludicrous because Trump isn’t a five-year-old. He’s an adult—who was the President—who should be honest and certainly responsible with government documents, and in fact must be so by law. It was the job of Trump, sorting through all boxes before he left the White House—and we may find out that in fact the staff who were helping him tried to stop him—not to take the documents with him. And then certainly to give them back.
Jeff was simply infantilizing Trump—the latest excuse.
He then began quoting Trump’s lawyer as the authority—which was hilarious—and had a lot of non-facts, clearly not having read much about the case. had to bring him up to speed and say good-bye. At least this one remained civil.
After the call, I explained that it’s not the government’s job to make sure Trump doesn’t rob a bank either. He simply shouldn’t rob a bank.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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Eleanor Clift was a groundbreaking journalist for publications such as Newsweek in its heyday—she is now a columnist at The Daily Beast—and who many will remember on TV’s The McLaughlin Group every Sunday in the 80s, 90s, and beyond. There she battled, often as the only woman and a liberal feminist, against Pat Buchanan and other conservative white men.
Clift comes on my SiriusXM program every Friday, and it’s her experience and knowledge of history that are so fascinating and interesting when we talk about the issues of today. She’s covered every presidential campaign and every presidential administration since 1976.
So on the anniversary of the Dobbs decision, she gave us the long view of how Roe v. Wade was handed down and how conservatives accepted it—including the Southern Baptist Convention. But she also remembers how evangelicals, coopted by Ronald Reagan from Jimmy Carter began organizing fiercely to reverse it.
Listen in to the interview and let me know your thoughts. Below is a transcript edited for space and clarity.
Michelangelo Signorile: So on this day, the anniversary of the fall of Roe v. Wade, lots of discussion looking back on how things have changed in a year.
And we now have 15 states that ban abortions completely. I wanted to ask you as a journalist who's covered this issue for many years and as a woman, about your experience looking back at the trajectory of this issue, going back to, of course, when Roe v. Wade was affirmed was decided by the Supreme Court, and then, as you saw, that movement within the conservative movement and the Republican Party. And if you ever thought we'd come to this, this day happened a year ago today.
Eleanor Clift: Well, to start at the beginning, I guess, when Roe v. Wade was passed, it was not all that controversial in the sense that you didn't have two very distinct camps that saw each other as enemies. You had the Catholic Church clearly opposed, but you had the governor of California, who was Ronald Reagan, sign a very progressive abortion rights law. New York also had legislation along those lines. And the Southern Baptist Church even put out a statement sort of acknowledging that. For some people, ending a pregnancy was the right thing to do, considering their circumstances. I don't remember exactly how it was phrased, but they basically gave a positive nod to the legislation.
And there it was for some time until the conservative right recognized that they could bring Catholics and Southern evangelicals together on the issue of opposing abortion. And those were two powerful blocs of voters that were then politicized around this issue. Before that, the right had been campaigning against tax exemption, ending tax exemption for, in particular, Bob Jones University was the evangelical university that was getting huge tax breaks. And that came to an end actually when Gerald Ford was in the White House. But Jimmy Carter was kind of blamed for it. And when Carter ran for re-election in 1980, he realized that his whole base of evangelical voters had drifted away or been stolen away by the Reagan camp. And that became the beginning, in my mind, of the partisan right division on this issue.
MS: A lot of people don't know that Jimmy Carter was an evangelical Christian, and evangelical Christians had not really been involved in politics much before that because they saw politics as, like, the devil's doing right? And he brought them in, you know, because he was an evangelical Christian. And then the Reagan Republicans really saw them as an organizing force.
EC: That's right. And I think in 1984, when Reagan ran for re-election, the Republican platform was much clearer in its opposition to abortion rights than it had been before. And then in 1994, now we're sprinting ahead here in terms of politics. But when the Republicans took the House for the first time in 40 years, they elected a lot of women or certainly compared to previous standards, and women who had been trained as activists in the anti-abortion movement Before that, as a reporter covering these issues in Washington, there was kind of an assumption that the women who made it to the House of Representatives were generally liberal on what we call women's issues. The Republican women were pro-choice.
And that began to change when you had pro-choice being on the Republican side being challenged from the right. And so, you know, it was both gradual and it was sudden that this issue became incredibly partisan. But but what you said at the beginning of our conversation here, there was an assumption that Roe v. Wade was here to stay, that it was nailed down into our constitutional rights.
And so Republicans could say the most outrageous things about abortion rights and knowing or believing that they would never be held accountable for those statements.
And Democrats were nervous about shining too bright a light on the issue because they didn't want to lose more moderate voters. And they assumed again that Roe v. Wade was here to stay. So when Roe was overturned, I think that was an earthquake for both parties. And politically, it has benefited the Democrats. And I hope that continues into the next election. And certainly, Democrats are doing everything they can to highlight all the problems that these really draconian laws about abortion have brought upon women.
And Republicans are trying to squirm their way out of the worst impact of the Roe decision. And politically, it's a problem for Republicans. But beyond the political problems, every day women really have to fight in some of these states to get basic health care because clinics have shut down, not only because they provide abortion care, but because when they're gone, they don't provide any other kind of care either. So it's really created a lot of health problems in certain areas of this country.
MS: I want to come back to what's happening now among Republicans, but I wanted to ask you again, as a journalist covering this and, obviously, as a woman, did you believe that Roe v. Wade would be overturned? Did you think we'd ever meet this moment? And obviously, we saw it coming for some time. I guess my question is, at what point did you start to think, Wow, this could really happen?
EC: I think at the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and Susan Collins’ really over the top half hour speech, insisting that she had gotten private assurances from him that he would not vote to overturn Roe because he was the fifth vote. Right. But that was not enough until Amy Barrett got on the court. And she, being a woman, kind of gave the male five some cover. And Justice Roberts tried strenuously to narrow the decision to keep it at 15 weeks and not completely uproot Roe. But anyway, you could see it coming with Kavanaugh. And I think Senator Collins later said she used the word lie, that she was lied to. But looking at Kavanaugh's background, his religiosity, even the way he framed some of his responses, you could get a good sense of where he was going. And it seemed only a matter of time. And then getting the woman on the court, rushing her through in the wake of Justice Ginsburg's death, really, really set the stage for this court to take this lurching turn to the right.
And in terms of just doing away with precedents, which they had all said they were committed to, you could say they were all lying or maybe we all should have known better because they were all on the lists provided by the Federalist Society. Right. Which was committed to fulfilling Donald Trump's pledge that anybody he put on the court would vote to overturn Roe. So you're right. It was right there written quite plainly, except it still seemed unbelievable to a lot of people that it could happen.
MS: When I think back to the McLaughlin Group, and you on The McLaughlin Group with Pat Buchanan, if you were to say to me, okay, whose political worldview is going to be the one that dominates and which one's going to shrink, I would have said yours would and Pat Buchanan's would shrink. Of course, yours has in the sense that we know where the majority of people are. But Pat Buchanan's agenda has really, much of it, largely come into being a success, being successfully implemented.
EC: Now, as Pat has often said, I didn't make it to the White House, but my issues did. And on trade, on nationalism, on isolationism, and certainly on the issue of abortion. Yes. All of those issues made it to the White House in the body of Donald Trump, who in many ways was the most unlikely carrier of these issues. I mean, he didn't show any signs of being anti-choice when he was, you know, gallivanting around New York. And so there's that. And as an aggressive businessman, he didn't hold the views on international trade that he later exhibited. And who would have thought that he would end up being, you know, pro-Russia and that this would be a significant element of the Republican Party as it's newly constituted by Donald Trump? And I guess I would put Buchanan in that camp.
MS: Absolutely. But of course, as I said, your views are where the majority of Americans and certainly the majority of Democrats are today. And that gets to the problem that the abortion issue is for the GOP.
EC: And the only thing that changes it is if you can get the turnout of voters that is out there and just be mobilized.
MS: And we saw Republicans initially very afraid of this. The extremists now want a full abortion ban in the country, a federal abortion ban.
EC: Right. And the Susan B. Anthony group—you know, liberals feel like they have, you know, stolen her name and that she really wouldn't be where they think she was then and would be today. But they have been considered a kind of moderate, big umbrella group on the right. They are now really forcing the agenda further and further to the right with the apparent goal of virtually eliminating abortions in this country.
Chris Christie, he's an anti-abortion Catholic from a pro-choice state. And he seems to think that a 15 week federal ban would work, but there's no way his party or the Democrats are going to get there anytime soon. Short of that, the safest position for Republicans is one that they have held on a variety of issues until they don't hold it: And that is to leave it up to the states. So I think those are the two positions that the candidates are going to hold, and they're going to be pushed towards the federal abortion ban by the anti-choice groups. They have a bigger problem on their hands.
They're divided, and anytime the opposition is divided, that's a good thing. Democrats are very united on this issue and just about every other issue because they realize that their strength comes from unity.
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In the wake of the killing of Jordan Neely, the homeless black man who was choked to death in a New York subway car, MAGA extremists online have not only made the killer, Daniel Penny, into a hero; They’ve also promoted vigilantism and violence.
And John Knefel, a writer who covers national security and writes for Media Matters, has been monitoring them, and reports that they’re deciding that certain people should actually be killed and are becoming increasingly open about it.
He joined me on my SiriusXM program to talk about it.
Listen in here. Below is a transcript slightly edited for space and clarity.
—-
Michelangelo Signorile: You did a lot of research, obviously listening to a lot of these people, these pundits who, as you say, they're very upfront about who they think should be killed.
And you point out that while there is seemingly more of it now, it's nothing new. Talk a little bit about some of these pundits, what they've done in the past and how it's kind of built to a head now.
John Knefel: So the viciousness and sort of semi overt calls for violence from right wing media is nothing new. One of the standout historical examples, of course, was when Bill O’Reilly, when he was still at Fox News, went after abortion providers, especially Dr. Tiller.
But what we're seeing right now is really much more comfort with an open embrace with the vigilantism that we saw Daniel Penny enact against Jordan Neely.
But then in addition to that, there's another story that I think hasn't received quite as much attention that makes the point. [In May] Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill that would expand the death penalty as an available option to people who have been convicted of child sexual assault and child rape. And this new Florida bill was cheered on by many, many figures on the right. And so what I did was, I looked at the way that they were openly embracing this expansion of the death penalty. One of the pundits I looked at at The Daily Wire, Matt Walsh, said, "Just execute them all. This is the first right step. There's a lot more that needs to be done."
So you get that kind of rhetoric around this expansion of the death penalty. And it maps almost exactly alongside all of these right wing figures on Fox and The Wall Street Journal op-ed page and elsewhere who are calling Daniel Penny a hero for committing this homicide against Jordan Neely. And I think that what they both show together is a really, really dangerous escalation of the anti-LGBTQ and anti-Black rhetoric that is really always present in right wing media. But it's taking on an increasingly openly violent, and you could even say sort of murderous, angle to it.
MS: I want to talk about DeSantis and that law that he signed in a little bit, but I want to focus in first on Jordan Neely. Tell us some of the things they were saying, almost rationalizing or legitimizing what Daniel Penny did.
JK: Yeah, it’s really been quite astonishing to see and this kind of rhetoric was there both prior to Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg bringing charges against Penny and afterwards. It's accelerated. So early on you have Heather McDonald who frequently is an apologist for racist policing. She's of the conservative think tank, the Manhattan Institute. She was on Laura Ingraham's podcast. Laura Ingraham, of course, is the Fox News prime time host as well. And she said—I’m just going to read a quick quote here because I think it captures the overall tenor —McDonald said, "For these activists now to be playing the race card here is preposterous. The government is unwilling to protect its citizens. You are going to have a certain degree of vigilante justice, as far as I'm concerned. And from what we know, this guy is an urban hero."
And that is the kind of rhetoric that we saw on Fox News as well. A contributor named Leo Terrell said that the Marine is a hero. You have people like Charlie Kirk, who is the founder of Turning Point USA, which is this sort of youth outreach group, who called Penny a hero. And the list really just goes on and on.
The Wall Street Journal op ed page, after charges were brought, published a piece called “Free Daniel Penny” by William McGurn. The Wall Street Journal's editorial board wrote a separate piece referring to Penny as one of the good Samaritans, echoing DeSantis’ own tweet about Penny. And so it's essentially ubiquitous in right wing media right now that not only was Penny sort of like forced into what he was doing but that there is a full on endorsement of his actions.
You're not seeing very much hedging of it, like, "Well this is a tragedy', or "Any loss of life is tragic." You're seeing, "We need more people to do exactly this kind of thing." And that, I think, is different than what we have seen in the recent past. And I think it's very alarming.
MS: Right, Because, as we've explored it and as has been reported in much of the media. Jordan Neely was loud. He suffered from mental illness. He was abrasive. He was saying a lot of things that obviously might have unnerved people. But he never raised a hand to anyone, from what any witness said, and never threatened any one person directly.
And Daniel Penny went up from behind him and took him down. And the fact that he died. The fact that he was killed—these people find that it's totally legitimate, that you don't need any due process. You shouldn't even have a trial to look at it. It's really quite alarming.
JK: Yeah, absolutely. And what you're seeing from some corners of the right is not only a defense of Penny, but actually celebrating the fact that Neely is dead. And just to give you one example, again, to cite Matt Walsh here, Walsh responded to Neely's death by calling him and I'm quoting here "a terrible person." And Walsh continued, "The community is better off without him. Everyone is safer without him."
This is an affirmation, an endorsement of a white ex-Marine killing a Black person and saying that society is better because of this act. And I think that opening the door to that kind of response is just incredibly dangerous.
And I think that one of the things that Matt Walsh has really been doing in the right wing media for the last year and a half or so is he's been leading the charge against LGBTQ people and has really defined a lot of that. And so hearing him say things like the community is better off without Neely I think may be a kind of preview of the kinds of things that we will hear more and more from other conservative pundits.
MS: And then DeSantis, with that bill that he signed, which, like some of the other bills he signed, is unconstitutional, according to legal scholars. But he admitted he wants to bring that back up to the Supreme Court—having the death penalty for sex offenders. And as you point out, several of these pundits, Alex Jones, Steven Crowder, Matt Walsh, Michael Knowles, they really glommed onto it. And my first thought when he signed that was how he spent the last two years demonizing LGBTQ people as pedophiles, as groomers. And so has Matt Walsh and the rest of them. And then you come to now—here's what should be done to these people. It's basically promoting open season on LGBTQ people.
JK: Absolutely. There's the long history of conservatives saying gay people are a threat to children that dates back decades but the more recent history, really in the last couple of years, is they have escalated so much, where you've seen openly fascist gangs disrupt pride events, threaten drag performers.
And DeSantis has been absolutely leading that charge from his seat in Florida. I think you're right in terms of signaling to the broader public that not only will the state attempt to carry out this violence, but as we've just been talking about, any vigilantes or fascist groups who, you know, take the law into their own hands, are also almost certainly going to be welcomed by the conservative movement. And so I think that's another absolutely crucial aspect to keep in mind.
MS: You point out, Alex Jones said to Steven Crowder: hang them in the public square as a deterrent because these damn predators are everywhere.
JK: Yeah. What you're seeing already from Jones is threat inflation. "These predators are everywhere.” Certainly wanting to kind of make a spectacle of this and targeting demonized populations.
It never stops with that. They always go after the most hated and maligned parts of the society first. And I think that's what also is important to remember here is that what DeSantis is doing runs absolutely contrary to what advocates who actually work in the best interest of of sexual abuse survivors want. You know this will make it much worse for children. It will make it much more likely that children wouldn't want to come forward. We know that the vast majority of sexual abuse happens either within the family or the friend of the family or somebody who's known to the family in the community. And it's already incredibly difficult for survivors to come forward. And the idea that somebody that their family knows could be potentially put to death because of them coming forward--it's completely contrary to what you would want to do if you were actually addressing the mental health of the children and of society at large.
It's purely about vengeance. And so I think that kind of gives up the whole game here.
MS: And the way they discuss it — you rape a child, you deserve to forfeit your right to life. Nothing about due process, the fact that there are often charges that aren't true and there are, you know, mistakes made and misidentifications. And we've certainly seen that with regard to rape and DNA evidence that comes back and shows that people have been completely innocent and put in prison.
JK: Right. The entire premise of the the DeSantis bill and of the right wing media response to it, I think is completely flawed and is based on an understanding of abuse of children that is essentially adjacent to the kind of QAnon conspiracy, the way that the right wing media has defended this is that there's a kind of external evil that is out there that can be found and punished in this spectacular way as a deterrent. And that is that a cabal of child traffickers can be killed. And then that eliminates the problem.
And, that is a completely incorrect assessment of what actual child abuse is. It's this bizarre QAnon adjacent almost fantasy that externalizes the problem, that blames it on some liberal elites or something as opposed to understanding the actual dynamics here.
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photo: Tyler Merbler
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Ruth Ben-Ghiat, New York University professor and author of "Strongmen: Mussolini to Present," is one of the most important scholars on autocracy and fascism and continually gives us a window into the authoritarian mindset. Her newsletter on Substack, Lucid, is always enlightening.
I invite her on my SiriusXM program often. And I spoke with her last week to help us make sense of what’s going on at this time as a MAGA-radicalized GOP holds the debt ceiling hostage while Donald Trump and his imitators like Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis are running for president.
Listen to the full interview. Below is a transcript slightly edited for clarity and space.
Michelangelo Signorile: So we've been talking about the debt ceiling and what's going on, of course, and what Republicans are doing and how the president is interacting. And this is something that has a history going back to the Obama years. Previously, the debt ceiling was routinely raised. And it was routinely raised even under Trump. But in terms of Republicans using it in this way, that is about hostage taking. It's been something that's gone on back into the Obama administration. How does it fit into this authoritarian absolutist mindset that we're seeing, and how is it different now, perhaps than it was earlier?
Ruth Ben-Ghiat: Well, unfortunately, we're dealing with extremists and Trump, you know, most of all. And these are people who have no moral code. Trump himself does not care about mass hardship. If you recall when he was asked on camera about when COVID hit a death toll of 100,000, he just shrugged and said, "It is what it is." And he didn't care if Americans lived or died.
So the kind of care, that they couldn't possibly do this because it would cause too much hardship, does not factor into the thinking of somebody like Trump and his extremist MAGA faction. So there's that. The other thing is extremists who already had a violent coup to try and step around the system of democracy to get to power. These are people who will do anything, including crash the economy, to hurt Biden. And I firmly believe that.
And the other thing is that there is a precedent for a Republican administration crashing a national economy to prevent socialism from taking hold. And that was in Chile in the 1970s. I write about it in my book, Strongmen. Nixon and Kissinger, they had a meeting, and they said, "make the economy scream." And so they used truck convoys disrupting supply chains. They used every possible economic warfare and political warfare, psychological warfare tool to create a system of a situation of crisis. And they crashed the economy. And these were Republicans not so long ago. Kissinger is still around. So think about that as well.
MS: I think hitting his 100th birthday as well. I saw you speaking about some of the hearings we've seen that have been all about the weaponization of the government supposedly, by the Republicans, you know, their point of view, against Donald Trump, against Republicans. And how much of this is about them trying to undo the history, the documentation, the facts of January 6th and the insurrection, and rewrite what happened. You talked about how important that is to strongmen to do that, to control that narrative.
RBG: Yes. And one of the reasons the GOP is so dangerous right now is they are a party in damage control mode, in panic mode, and they're doing like this. Jim Jordan, Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government —its purpose is to weaponize government, to shut down any exposure of secrets, any exposure, further exposure of complicity of the party in the coup attempt. And that's why they're going after the "deep state."
And Donald Trump has said, and I believe him, if he comes back to the White House, there are going to be massive purges. I'm writing about that today. I’m going to publish tomorrow for Lucid an essay about how intelligence agencies who have, you know, they have their own history of anti-democratic activity of course, but with the right or wrong leader, they can become targets because they are dedicated, dedicated to investigation and inquiry so they can become targets just like journalists and prosecutors. And so we saw this last week when they were trying to kind of taint the FBI and they consider it part of the deep state.
So is just the start of all kinds of waste of taxpayers money and time. It's supposed to exhaust you. It's supposed to distract you from the GOP's corruption. And I call this garbage politics. And Jim Jordan is the perfect person to strew garbage. And by the way, these talking points are circulated all the way to Moscow. So it's a kind of a larger crusade to take down Biden's administration, to take down any non-loyalists of Trump that's going on.
MS: And people should go to lucid substack.com. They can read that piece but also subscribe to Lucid.
Ron DeSantis is going to announce any day now his run for the presidency. We've talked about him before and you've talked about what motivates him and what he's doing. He just finished signing a slew of extremist bills worse than the previous batch. You know, a license to discriminate law that allows doctors to turn people away based on their moral beliefs. They can turn away gay people if they want. Of course, the six week abortion ban, the horrible bathroom bill, the anti-trans bill, the anti-drag queen bill, all of it. And a lot of people talk about whether he believes these things or not, if he's just posturing for the base of the party. But in terms of being an authoritarian, that doesn't really matter because he's willing to do it, right?
RBG: Yes. It doesn't matter. I've been writing about him since 2021. And one of the things that worried me is that I saw him as a kind of empty shell of a person who, in the classic strongman tradition, would become anything that he needs to become in order to get power.
And Trump is like this too. Trump's a marketer by profession, among other things, as well as a money launderer, etcetera. And Trump kind of read the political marketplace, and he found he could, you know, kind of sell his product as white grievance, etcetera. And Ron DeSantis studied this very carefully. And he has made himself, of course, a mini Trump, but he has no moral scruples either. And so both of these people are letting themselves be led by the most extremist tendencies of the Republican voters. And once you go there, you see that. Trump’s become more and more extreme. He's now, you know, he always was soliciting, soliciting neo-Nazis, telling them they were good people. But now he's like exacerbated this.
And that's what Ron DeSantis is doing, too. They double down even though it's unpopular what he's doing. And I think there's a whole kind of grassroots and lawmaker alliances that have come out in Florida. It's becoming actually a laboratory of interesting resistance, but they don't care. They'll do anything they need to do, no matter how how many people they demonize to get power.
MS: Well, and it's similar to what we're seeing in the states. And you said Florida is the laboratory. We've seen, of course, other states now pushing the same horrible don't say gay laws and anti-trans bills. And of course, we've seen anti-abortion bills and bans on abortion all through the states. And there's a lot of discussion about how Republicans, a lot of them know this is disastrous for them and they saw what happened in 2022 and how, you know, Roe v Wade being overturned really galvanized Democrats.
And yet they still, at least in many of these states, in fact, even after some abortion bans were beaten back, South Carolina, North Carolina, Nebraska, they went back and they got it done, pushed it through, and used procedural moves. Talk about that. How even the environment and the political reality, at least how it seems, doesn't really matter to them.
RBG: Well, there's two things going on. One is their profound arrogance, and often authoritarians’ arrogance does them in. Not before they've, you know, caused enormous grief and often loss of life, unfortunately. But they don't understand that or they think they can just have more and more repression, more criminalizing protest.
They're not seeing; they're so blinded by their arrogance that they are causing an enormous army of resisters to come to the streets to be allying with lawmakers, as in Tennessee. They're sparking this whole countermovement.
The other reason they don't care is that they have doubled down on what we call electoral autocracy. Now, when you keep elections going, but you game the system in myriad ways, which the GOP has a long history of doing because of racialized voter suppression for many decades. And it's all about this trickery. And so they feel that—they don’t care if things are not popular because they're not depending on the vote anymore. That's where [Alabama Senator] Tommy Tuberville, when he said, well, we should just not have elections anymore. You know, he said the quiet part out loud because they're not depending on the popular vote anymore.
They just become like autocrats, like in Turkey and in Hungary. So in that sense, they don't have to care either. So it's quite a fateful moment we're in.
MS: What should political leaders and Democrats be doing? I mean, certainly we see the movement and, as you said, the resistance. And we're seeing incredible people like Justin Pearson and, you know, Justin Jones, and people who are just galvanizing people across the country. But then you see President Biden, you know, going into these talks with McCarthy, still trying to talk about bipartisanship, negotiation, giving things up, give and take, compromise. Is that the way to do this?
RBG: I think it's not either/or. And he has a different role. He's been so strong on democratic ideals, both in terms of keeping the U.S.—he’s tried to repair the U.S.'s profile abroad. He has all these democracy summits, and I know that people will be like, okay, well what about us here? You know? But I think that it's not either or. I think he's doing what he has to do now as the head of state.
I do find really interesting, you know, Nikki Freed, the chair of the Florida Democrats, who was recently arrested. It was very interesting to see her and the Florida state minority leader. They were arrested, and they were locking arms with activists. And this kind of optics of this lawmaker and grassroots activist alliance was very strong.
And we're seeing this in Tennessee, too. So I think that we know from studies of nonviolent protest, you have to ally with what's called the pillars of society. If you're a grassroots activist, you have to get people who have power, influence, and money involved, and you create a broad based coalition, and that's how you succeed. There's all kinds of research about this in different countries, and that's what's going on here slowly. So that's one thing. And what Biden is doing right now with the debt ceiling is another. It's a very specific and scary circumstance.
MS:What is your thought on these other candidates who are putting themselves out there? Tim Scott, the South Carolina senator, put his hat in the ring. Chris Christie is going to jump into the Republican primary. DeSantis has kind of deflated, but I don't know that anybody should rest on their laurels. And of course, Donald Trump is still there.
RBG: Yeah, it's really interesting. I think they're all quite deluded. Maybe for good reasons, because Trump is a is a cult leader. The thing about Trump, and I have an essay on this, and he's not a conventional politician. He's a cult leader. And everything that's going on in the GOP is because they are a party domesticated by this cult leader, and they became his personal tool. I mean, it's incredible. The guy hasn't been in office for a long time, and they're still taking orders from him. This is not normal. Except if you're a cult leader.
Jim Jordan is like a total—these people are lackeys of the Trump cult, and they can't seem to find a way out. So it's really interesting that anybody at all is declaring, DeSantis aside, because DeSantis, you know, a long time ago, he already had like 40 or 50 billionaires backing him, and a few of them have left. But he's always had a big war chest. And so he's a little bit different than the others.
But Chris Christie etcetera, I don't know how they would go up against the Trump cult or the alternative of DeSantis, who somehow, some people, it makes me crazy this, they want so badly to have a, quote, normal politician that they want him to be like the moderate one. And you still see, like, even New York Times headlines that say, "Oh, he's he's very conservative." Well, there's nothing conservative about him. He's like demonizing, LGBTQ populations so that there will be violence against them. That's not conservative. That's extremist.
So it's a very interesting dynamic field right now. But the cult leader dynamics show that it's very difficult for anybody else to prevail.
MS: And Trump certainly was able to just use CNN in that town hall, have a platform to cement that cult status even further and sort of set the terms of this Republican field and the nomination fight.
RBG: Yeah, and the thing is, if we look at everything he does, start with and being a cult leader. His campaign events have a different function than other politicians. His campaign events are radicalization venues for people to become radicalized.
Since 2015, he's been telling people that they should be full of hatred, that they should hurt each other, that, you know, compassion is bad. So he's emotionally retraining them. He's radicalizing them.
And he's circulating his propaganda. And they have to have loyalty to him. So those are what he uses his rallies for, as well as, you know, fleecing people, you know, ripping them off, of course. And that's a little different than other politicians. That's because he's a cult leader.
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In a discussion on my SiriusXM program about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ attack on civil rights and free speech—from criminalizing drag shows to his war with Disney over its criticism of his “don’t say gay” bill—John from North Carolin called in to say I have distorted the First Amendment.
But he had nothing — truly—and was a textbook example of the ignorance we’re dealing with.
John claimed I ignore part of the First Amendment when I discuss it:
Why is it that you always ignore the second part of the religion clause in the First Amendment, which is “nor restrict the free exercise thereof?..
..Every time that you talk about religion and government, you say there's a separation of religion. The First Amendment, when it was written—
I jumped in, stating, “Let’s be clear,” and paraphrasing the First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise. Right. That's the part you're saying that I'm ignoring?
Yes, he said, I do ignore it. I denied that, saying it was a given: Of course you can worship whoever you want in your church, synagogue, mosque, wherever. But you can’t force your religion on others and use it to pass laws, I told him.
Then he claimed that that I say “people can’t do anything with their faith in public” and that I “shout down anyone who mentions God.”
That is preposterous, since many people of faith are regular listeners to the show and call the program, including pastors of churches who embrace full equality and work on behalf of the poor and the sick, and who talk about their faith.
John gave no examples, even after I said, “You have to give me an example.”
I then asked if he agreed with the bill Ron DeSantis signed into law in recent days that allows doctors and all medical professionals to turn away any patient, even in an emergency, based on their religious or any other “moral” or “ethical” beliefs.
John replied:
I have to admit, I had not seen any of that.
“Well I’m telling you about it now,” I said. “He passed a law that allows doctors to turn away anybody who they believe is is against their religious faith. Could be an emergency. Someone needs a doctor. They can turn them away.”
John then just slunk away:
I come to take anything that you say with a grain of salt. I'll look it up. I will give you a call back. Okay.
This is a primary example of how most of what these people believe are distortions and conspiracies—and the rest is simply about not even knowing what it going on in the world.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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photo: Tyler Merbler
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There’s a great mash up of Fox News hosts saying no one was charged with “insurrection” or “sedition” on January 6th, part of Fox News hosts’ attempts to say an insurrection never happened—before some of the major players were charged.
But then came the Oath Keepers leaders’ charge and conviction on seditious conspiracy, and then just recently four Proud Boys convicted of seditious conspiracy.
You have to watch the mash up to see how foolish the Fox News hosts look now—it’s on Twitter and I can’t embed it here as Twitter is fighting with Substack, so you just can go to this link to Twitter and watch it.
But what’s pathetic is that Trump followers still believe that the fact that no one was charged with “insurrection”—even though several have now been convicted of seditious conspiracy—proves there was no insurrection. What it actually proves, however, is how stupid they are!
And Mark in Kansas, who called SiriusXM program, thought he was engaging in a gotcha moment when he actually was showing his ignorance.
Insurrection is simply the act of overthrowing the government, even if spontaneously, while the charge of seditious conspiracy involved, well, a planned out conspiracy that is premeditated.
Seditious conspiracy is worse than insurrection:
Q2: Is it a federal crime to commit “sedition” and “insurrection”?
A2: It is a serious federal crime to commit seditious conspiracy or to participate in an insurrection against the government.
Under 18 U.S.C. § 2384, “seditious conspiracy” occurs when two or more persons:
conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof.
Individuals charged with seditious conspiracy can be fined and could serve up to 20 years in prison.
It’s the part about preventing or hindering the execution of any law—in this case the certification of an election—that is also a serious part. Seditious conspiracy includes insurrection, but conspiring to do it.
Insurrection alone, however, is a lessor offense:
Insurrection is captured by 18 U.S.C. § 2383 and applies to “[w]hoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the law there, or gives aid or comfort thereto.” Charges of insurrection, or the incitement of insurrection, involves fines and imprisonment of up to 10 years. Individuals charged with insurrection are also ineligible to hold public office in the United States.
Anyway, listen to MAGA Mark and my response and let me know your thoughts!
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In a discussion about President Biden’s announcement that he is running for re-election, Joy from California called in to my SiriusXM program.
She declared that as a "lifelong Democrat," she would not be voting for Biden because "age is an issue." She said she didn’t vote for Diane Feinstein for re-election to the Senate—and "left it blank"—and she won’t vote for Biden because "the 80-year-olds are a bit selfish" and "won’t turn over power" to a younger generation.
Whatever you think of the issue, it’s just idiotic to say you won’t vote for Biden for this reason — not when the stakes are so high and we could have Donald Trump back in power, Ron DeSantis, or another extremist.
Readers here and listeners to my show know my stand: Biden has done a great job, continues to do so, and showed his energy by going toe-to-toe with Marjorie Taylor Greene at the State of the Union. So, no, this is not an issue regarding Biden— and besides, we have a qualified vice president who can fill the job immediately should something happen to him.
Dianne Feinstein, on the other hand, has shown signs that she cannot fulfill her duties and shouldn’t have run for re-election. And if she’s going to hold up the appointment of judges because she's been out sick for weeks, she should resign.
But to say that Biden is "selfish" when he has in fact earned the right to be re-elected, having accomplished so much, just because you don’t like his age, is stupid. And saying you won’t vote for him for that reason makes you the one who is selfish.
And that’s what I told Joy. Actually, I called her “f*g selfish,” to be precise. I was glad she at least didn’t live in Wisconsin or another battleground state where her vote would matter greatly and where it would be profoundly destructive not to vote for Biden.
Joy later confronted me on social media, distorting what I said and claiming I attacked her for no reason. So here it is for everyone to hear. Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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In a discussion about gun violence—and the shootings last week across the country in which people mistakenly went to the wrong house, opened the wrong car door, or drove up the wrong driveway and were shot—Anthony from Albany called in to my SiriusXM program.
He said he lived not far from where a 20-year-old woman who killed recently when she and her friends mistakenly drove into the driveway of a man who came out with a gun and shot at the car. He also said he was a gun owner.
At first I didn’t know where he was coming from, but soon it became clear: We were too focused on these shootings, he said, and not focused on urban crime.
Of course, the Kansas City shooting of 16-year-old Ralph Yarl, who mistakenly went to the wrong house to pick up his brothers, occurred in a city.
But we know what Anthony was really trying to focus on:
… Sadly, we start cherry picking the the incidents that kind of meet certain areas. I'll give you an example. What happened in Washington County [New York], which is like 20 minutes from me, was horrific with that teenager who was turning around in the driveway right through the area very well.
Horrific. So was the young man who was going in the wrong house. Both of them were tragic, but equally tragic. Look what happens in our city streets each and every weekend at proportions far greater than those of these two individuals. And I'm not dismissing their deaths. They're all horrible. But we don't like to talk about the other ones. The children get mowed down by gang activity every single week.
I had to jump in at that point and explain that statistically, there’s more crime and higher murder rates in red states than blue states, both in rural areas and in cities.
"Well, actually, Anthony, proportionately, it's just not true," I responded. "It's not happening at the same rate. It is much more dangerous to live in rural Oklahoma than in New York City. Do you know that? It is much more dangerous to be living in rural Oklahoma or in Columbus, Ohio, or Cincinnati than New York City."
He then asked me for statistics, as he couldn’t believe that to be true, and I just had to tell him, "Google it," since, "I don’t have time for you."
I know—it was harsh.
I should, as a radio host, give a caller the facts. It’s just that I’ve spent weeks going over the statistics and they’re now all over the place and he could find them.
And in truth, I did eventually send him in the direction of some sites, which are easy to find, that show that the 25 states Trump won have higher murder rates than the 25 states Biden won for 20 years. But it does become tiring. And even after I told him of a site to go to, he still didn’t believe me:
But what you're doing is you're comparing New York State to certain cities. Well, New York State land mass is huge. New York City, when you start looking at their crime, you are 100% incorrect in saying there's a dramatic drop in crime, crime and violent crime in almost every category in the last two years in New York City is up.
Um, no. You can compare New York City to any city or rural area in Oklahoma or Ohio, and New York City is safer.
I eventually just had to tell him: "I have the facts and you don't. You just admitted you don't have the facts. I've given you websites. Go and play Google. I don't have time for you now."
Too hard? Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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During a discussion on my SiriusXM program about the expulsion of two Black legislators—Justin Jones and Justin Pearson—Kevin from Bowling Green, Kentucky called my program to make a comparison between the peaceful protests by students inside the Tennessee Capitol and January 6th.
This was something we saw the Tennessee Speaker of the House, Cameron Sexton, outlandishly claim following the protest by thousands marching on the Tennesee State Capitol—and he rightly got a lot of pushback.
Kevin, right out of the gate, called the protest something that "turned into a semi-riot." I had to stop him in its tracks on that one, as it wasn’t anything near a semi-riot, just a peaceful protest. He continued:
But the policemen were there. They let some people get through so they didn't get injured. But on our beliefs of January 6th — and what if a couple Republicans went with those insurgents, quote unquote —What would have happened to them because of their beliefs?
"Wait," I interjected. "Are you really making a comparison between this and January 6th? Seriously? ‘We have our beliefs. You have your beliefs.’ Wait a minute…"
“…January 6th was an insurrection against this country. People came armed and people came with plans. White supremacist groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers had a plan to bring guns up the river and hold hostage members of Congress."
I went on, schooling him on exactly what happened on January 6th.
He managed to mumble out:
Some were bad, don't get me wrong.
Oh wow. I then just had to ask if he was "that insane" or just watches Tucker Carlson.
Kevin had nothing more to say, or he realized he was not going to get anywhere, and said, "Thank you for your time," before hanging up.
You have to hear this one to get the full sense of it.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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Shortly after a caller to my SiriusXM program lambasted evangelicals as hypocrites, Mike from Pennsylvania called in.
He was outraged at the previous caller attacking “all” evangelicals, though the caller had been referring to Christian nationalist leaders.
When Mike didn’t win that argument, he switched to another topic — after accusing me of not letting him speak, which is a common tactic among the Trumpers who call in, not wanting me to respond to their crazy statements — and claimed Trump was the victim of a “witch hunt” by the Manhattan district attorney, parroting Trump’s claims.
First of all, yeah, it is a witch hunt on him with the Stormy Daniels thing. It's BS when they do that. Why do they do that to Bill Clinton? Why didn't they do that to Dick Morris?
When I explained that they did do it to Bill Clinton — they impeached him — though he didn’t commit any crime, and surely didn’t pay Monika Lewinsky, and do so by funneling it through his business to cover it up, violating New York business law, Mike switched to another topic: How does Joe Biden supposedly have so many homes (he has two, one of which he bought many years about for $350,000) and supposed wealth?
The point is Donald Trump. Okay. He has a business and he feeds people now. Oh, now how did Joe Biden get all the money that he had? He's just a politician. How does he got all these homes at all? How did he do that? How did he do that, Mike?
I then explained that he could go and look at precisely how Joe Biden earned his income, as a politician, a consultant, an author, a speaker and whatever else, by looking online because Joe Biden has released all of his tax returns for many years. Unlike Donald Trump, who has refused to release his tax returns, Biden is not a shady businessman who has tried to cover it his sources of income.
Lost on that one, Mike then meandered into another direction, and it was like swatting flies.
The point here is that Trumpers who actually do engage — most of them just rant — have nothing but distortions, conspiracy theories and untruths, and when you expose them they have absolutely nothing to say. So they change the subject, only to have the next lie exposed.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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How extreme has the “manosphere” become, and why should you know all about it?
Justin Horowitz, a researcher at Media Matters, took a deep dive into it, reporting back on the misogynistic “micro-influencers” who are proliferating. He came on my SiriusXM program to share more of his reporting and insights, and explained why it’s something we need to keep a sharp eye on.
These micro-influencers are taking forward the message of mega-influencer Andrew Tate, notorious for promoting ugly and vicious attacks on women to millions of followers on social media platforms, some of which he was eventually banned from. Tate was arrested and detained in prison last December in Romania for alleged rape and human trafficking, and he’s still being held in jail. But that doesn't mean that what he’s promoted is gone from the Internet, as an army of young men take up the cause and bring in many more.
Listen in to my conversation with Justin Horowitz on my SiriusXM show. Below is a slightly condense transcript that is also slightly edited for clarity.
Michelangelo Signorile: So you wrote all about the misogynistic “manosphere.” And before we get into that, [tell us] about Andrew Tate, who I think a lot of people know about, but a lot of people probably don't know about him. For a lot of people, they first heard about him, in fact, when he was arrested, because that really got a lot of news. And there was that great moment with Greta Thunberg that just became a viral phenomenon. So talk a little bit about him first for our listeners who may not know much about him.
Justin Horowitz: Sure. So Andrew Tate is a former former professional kickboxer. I'd say he's a British media personality. And I think most people started to really hear his name is when [he] started to show up on their social media accounts. So what Tate was doing was he was paying this army of young men to to repost his content. He was banned on pretty much all social media. And he had all of these young men reposting his content, whether that be TikTok, YouTube, anything like that. So people started to realize who he was once they were hearing all of the vitriol and misogynistic rhetoric that was coming from him.
MS: And he was arrested. As I said, it became quite a big news moment. And there was some discussion about whether or not he actually set a trap for himself because of the pizza box that was there and the address. Whatever happened, the Romanian authorities closed in on him for human trafficking. Talk a little bit about that.
JH: So he was arrested by Romanian authorities for alleged rape, human trafficking and organized crime. He and his brother are currently sitting in a Romanian jail waiting to face trial.
MS: And obviously he can't be online. But as you discuss the army of people who have been promoting and spreading this hate are out there and in the manosphere. These influencers who are proliferating across social media. Tell us a bit about that and Andrew Tate's influence on these young men.
JH: So the manosphere is kind of this umbrella term to understand this online community of right wing websites, bloggers, influencers that sort of cultivate a worldview based on conservative and outdated gender politics, kind of repackaged for the Internet age. It valorizes pickup artists, violent misogynists, incels men's rights advocates. What the group really focuses on is that they blame women for all sorts of societal woes, and they treat them as this inferior sex. They believe that men have the right to own and berate and be horrible to women because that's their worldview. And Andrew Tate is kind of like the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the manosphere. There are a bunch of micro-influencers across social media that are sort of repackaging his violent misogyny for their own sort of profit and social media fame. I feel that Andrew Tate is the one that most people know when it comes to someone in the manosphere. But there are other right wing pundits, people like Matt Walsh or Mike Cernovich, who have been part of the manosphere for years. But Andrew Tate has really been the one that's been in the news most recently as kind of a manosphere influencer.
MS: Some of our listeners will be familiar with Matt Walsh and Cernovich, but tell us a bit about what they're doing now, what they're promoting and what you're seeing as obviously Andrew Tate is no longer able to be online.
JH: So these micro-influencers are repackaging Andrew Tate's violent misogyny for their own audiences. And what they’re doing is they're really kind of speaking to the fears and the real lives of young men. So things like rejection, alienation, economic failure, loneliness, all of these worries that young men usually don't talk about in person or some that don't talk about. They're looking for influencers to look up to. That kind of speaks to those issues. And there aren't a lot of influencers that can speak to young men in that way that these young men also respect. So whether it's talking about picking up women, monogamy, non-monogamy, how to make money or make a name for yourself online, these are the sort of these are the sort of topics these manosphere influencers are really pushing. And they oftentimes draw in these viewers and these audiences because they'll start talking about things like weightlifting or working out. It's a really good way for these influencers to really draw in an audience of young men.
MS: Talk a little bit more about that, because I think it's quite fascinating and I think not something a lot of people really get in terms how these young men are almost indoctrinated into something that is is filling a void, some sort of need, something that went on maybe in their own lives, something that's missing that they can't fill. And it kind of puts them into a different direction.
JH: So it's kind of similar to the way that people fall into conspiracy theories. I wouldn't say that they're the same, but when there's a whole missing in the information that someone is trying to learn about, sometimes it's easier to lean on something like a conspiracy theory where there's a straightforward answer to why something is the way it is. Obviously, things usually have more nuance to them, but this feels the same in a way. Oftentimes when people are thinking about like, why am I getting rejected by women? Like why? Why can't I be as social as the other people I see around me? Why can't I be as strong or as motivated to work out as some of these other people, these influencers? They're really giving these young men an answer to their problems and the answer to their problems that they're telling them is that women are the problem. They have this phrase in the manosphere called the red pill. I'm sure that some of your audience has heard of the red pill before. And the idea of taking the red pill means you're going further to the right. But in the manosphere particularly, it means that you come to this understanding that women are the root of all problems and all evil. If you take the red pill, it's a way for you to kind of understand life from the point of view of women are are the reason that I'm not getting laid or women are the reason that I'm not getting paid more at my job. So it's just a really easy way for men to see the world through a really, really misogynistic lens.
MS: And a lot of them are lonely or, as you said, maybe they felt rejection. Something happened. And as you discussed, a lot of these podcasts will focus in on fitness and how to remake your body and obviously homing in on masculinity. This is a major part of what's going on here and insecurity about masculinity and how to somehow repackage themselves while still blaming, of course, others.
JH: Yes, it's definitely a way to completely rebrand yourself. I think that men that are looking up to these influencers, they see it as a really easy fix for a lot of different problems in their life, whether that be physical or mental or emotional.
MS: One of the ones you mentioned, Fresh and Fit podcast, sounds like something, you know, innocuous, right? But how is it something that draws people in to something a more nefarious?
JH: So the they call themselves the number one men's podcast in the world. And they say that their show is about females, fitness and finances. But it's not to say that they don't talk about those things. They do. But I think that why people go to them and listen to their podcast is because it's for this insane misogyny. I mean, after listening to hours of this podcast, I don't think I've heard another show that is, I would say mainstream like this, that has such vitriol. I think that a big part of it as well is that it's very edgy. You're not finding a lot of podcasts like this out there, so when you're able to kind of bring people in, like we're going to talk about fitness, we're going to talk about finances. And the other thing is they have a lot of women on their show. A lot of women volunteer to go on this show, which may make you think that there's a possibility that they will be able to, like, speak their truth as well and be able to hold their own.
But a lot of these episodes, they’re the hosts just berating and belittling these women. And I can't really wrap my head around why some of these women would want to go on the show. But it happens. And I feel like it kind of seems like a way for some people to say, well, women are going on the show, so it can't be that bad. But actually listening to it and taking the time, it's it's it's pretty disgusting.
MS: Well, among some of the podcasts that you talk about and some of the people who are hosts of the podcasts, is a female misogynist. H. Pearl Davis Tell us a bit about H. Pearl Davis.
JH: Yeah. So she's actually a really interesting influencer among these manosphere influencers. She, I think, is a unique case because her rhetoric is the same kind of rhetoric you would find on the Fresh and Fit podcast, as you said, or some of these other extremist platforms. I mean, she recently invited someone like white nationalist Nick Fuentes on her show where she let him ramble on and on about, you know, like his vision for an ethnostate and his anti-Semitic views. And she agreed with some of them. And it's just it's interesting because it almost doesn't matter that she's a woman. The fact is that she's pushing the same toxic anti-feminist men's rights rhetoric, like I said, with the women that go on the Fresh and Fit podcast. Maybe it seems like it would be different because she is a female, but it's really, really the same kind of rhetoric you'll find on the other platforms as well.
MS: After listening to these and just seeing the reach of these audiences, what what do you kind of take from it in terms of what can be done about it? What do we as a society do?
JH: So I would say one of the one of the most important aspects that's going to come down to is, these people are using social media to further their message. So the social media platforms have a responsibility to not have this violent misogyny on their platforms. A lot of them have policies against hateful content or violent content speaking about violence. And a lot of them are just — they’re not they're not doing their due diligence, for example.
MS: This is beyond the ones that are on Telegram, which allows all this. You're saying the social media platforms that claim to have all of these policies like Twitter, like Facebook, like others.
JH: Yes. And I would say TikTok in particular is one that is the easiest for young people to be radicalized into these manosphere spaces. For example, like to the Fresh nd Fit podcast and another influencer I wrote about, Nico. They are both banned on the platform, yet there are so many burner accounts and fan accounts that will continuously repost the content. And that's what Andrew Tate did after he was banned from all these platforms.
Like I said, he had an army of young men reposting his content. So when you have people like Fresh and Fit podcast and there's, you know, billions of views on TikTok under hashtag fresh and fit podcast, TikTok has a responsibility to flag these things and understand you banned the fresh and fit official account.
And then I would also say for young kids, I would say parents have to do their due diligence as well to make sure that their kids aren’t listening to and watching these influencers that can lead to really toxic rhetoric. I know that I linked to one story in my report about how a kid as young as 11 years old was repeating rhetoric from Andrew Tate. So parents really need to know what their kids are listening to, especially on platforms like TikTok.
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The conspiracies among anti-vaxers reached a fevered pitch around ivermectin, a drug mostly used as a de-wormer for animals, as Covid vaccines began being administered.
There is no study showing ivermectin prevents Covid-19, but plenty of evidence that it can be harmful, particularly when using veterinary strengh grades of it.
But even now, after the height of the anti-vax Covid conspiracies, there are many people ingesting large doses of ivermectin not just to ward off Covid; they’re taking it as an all around cure for many ailments and as a general health remedy — again with no evidence it cures cancer or the vast array of other ailments and diseases they’re using it to treat — and in dangerous doses. And some are giving it to children as young as three and four years old.
Meanwhile, politicians and Fox News pundits talk about ivermectin as if it was and is a legitimate alternative to Covid vaccines — when there’s with no science backing up any efficacy and health authorities have warned against it.
It’s become a cult, and one man who was an “ivermectin influencer” with a Telegram channel with hundreds of thousands of followers, Danny Lamoi, recently died after his heart grew to double its size, an outcome of ingesting too much ivermectin.
David Gilbert of Vice came on my SiriusXM radio program to talk about it after he reported on this dangerous online culture, and the death of Lamoi as well as the tens of thousands of people who have followed him, many of whom are panicked, experiencing terrible pain and symptoms themselves.
Since Lamoi’s death, Gilbert says, the administrators of the channel have done what they can to both censor those who are expressing painful symptoms of the drug’s damage and bring new people in, fearful of losing the audience.
“There's a lot of parents in the group who are asking for advice about how they give ivermectin to their children,” he says, “which is deeply worrying because that's something over the course of the last week while I've been tracking the group that seems to be increasing in number rather than decreasing.”
Listen in to the discussion. Below is a transcript, slightly condensed, and edited for clarity.
Michelangelo Signorile: So talk a little bit first about ivermectin — because I think a lot of people have just forgotten about this — how, [it emerged as a false cure] at the height of the COVID pandemic, when there were people arguing about vaccines. And a lot of that has died down now. There was all of this talk about people taking ivermectin, but in fact, people have continued to take it. And this individual who died actually was taking it before the COVID pandemic.
David Gilbert: So yeah, Danny Lamoi, who ran a telegram channel called Dirt Road Discussions. He started taking it a decade ago as an alternative treatment when he was diagnosed with Lyme disease. He was at the time speaking to doctors and he was getting the typical treatment for Lyme disease, but he heard about Ivermectin, and there's not only a human version of ivermectin or formulation of ivermectin. There's a veterinary one. He chose the veterinary one. Among conspiracists they believe that all diseases are caused by parasites in the body and therefore ivermectin —the veterinary ivermectin — is going to target those parasites and bring them out.
So he decided to treat Lyme disease he was going to use ivermectin and he created this protocol, as he called it, or a dosage where he decided that this was the right amount of ivermectin to give himself. Now, the FDA, the CDC, everyone else has repeatedly said that veterinary ivermectin should never be taken by humans. It's highly concentrated to work in large animals and can be toxic for humans taken in large doses. But throughout the last decade, he continued to take it.
But it was only at the height of the pandemic when people began looking for alternatives and the anti-vaxxer movement had very successfully managed to create this kind of undermining of the legitimacy of the the vaccine in many people's minds. So people were looking for alternative cures. And so ivermectin became a hugely popular one. And because he had a decade experience of taking it himself, he set up this telegram channel. It quickly amassed over 100,000 followers. And if you look through it and look through the chats, there are tens of thousands of people who all testify about taking ivermectin and following the protocol that this guy, Danny Lamoi sets out.
MS: So yes, you call him an ivermectin influencer because he obviously has this massive following and 100,000 people and tens of thousands who are talking about it and taking it. What would he tell them about it?
DG: So like, just to be clear, the there has been some research done into the how well Ivermectin could treat COVID. And there's absolutely no evidence to show that either the human formulation or the veterinary formulation is effective against COVID 19, but that, you know, such facts don't don't really matter in these universes. So what he would do in his channel is he would create recipes effectively, which he called protocols, which were telling you the exact amount of the veterinary ivermectin paste that you should ingest per day, how many times you should take it per day. And then along with that, he came up with his own concoction or recipe for hydroxychloroquine. So he told people how to make that and they took that as well.
Another key part of his protocol was lemon water because that would flush out the parasites once the ivermectin had kind of brought them to the surface. And one other thing is he also created an eye drop that included ivermectin that people could drop directly onto their eyeball, again to take out certain parasites, which is all extremely dangerous. But as I said, tens of thousands of people, you know, swore by this, But at the same time, they also wrote in the chats complaining about headaches or complaining about fevers or pains in their bones or, you know, their heart was beating out of their chest or they were constantly having hot flushes, loads of different examples of side effects of ivermectin that have been documented down through the years.
MS: And they believed, as you describe it, that these were simply, I guess, positive side effects, That it was “herxing,” something called “herxing,” which is a real thing that is a side effect of taking a drugs that cure Lyme disease, antibiotics. Talk about that.
DG: This was a way of — obviously if people continuously wrote in the chats about how they're having headaches and nausea and dizziness and blurry vision, all these things, then people would quickly turn off ivermectin and they wouldn't take it. So to overcome that, Danny Lamoi and the admins on the channel would constantly push the idea that what people were experiencing was a thing called herxing. And as you say, that is an actual real word for a reaction that you get during the treatment for Lyme disease. What they said is if there were any negative side effect that people were experiencing, they simply dismissed it as herxing, saying that this is the parasite's last dying dance, that this is what they are doing on the way out of your body. You just have to go through this one extra step of even worse pain than you were in before, and then you will be fine.
MS: Tell us about [Danny Lamoi’s] death and what happened and how ivermectin had affected his heart.
DG: On the 3rd of March, just last Friday week, he posted on the channel a message about, you know, ‘Happy Friday to all you poisonous horse paste survivors,” I think is how he described it. And then a meme showing sheep basically. So the rest of us are sheep because we're all following western medicine. But then sadly, a couple of hours later, he was dead. His family, two.
MS: Hours after he post, two hours after he posted that?
DG: A couple of hours after he posted that. Yeah. So his family put up an obituary, and they simply said that he passed away suddenly. They didn't reveal any more information about how he died. And when I tried to contact the family, they didn't respond to me. But the admins in his channel then, who have been in touch with his family, who had talked to them, they posted a message saying that his heart had been overworking and had grown to almost double the size than it that it should have been.But they dismissed out of hand the idea that that had anything to do with the fact that he had been taking ivermectin for the last ten years. They criticized anyone who dared suggest such a thing.
MS: Wow. Now, since then, a lot of his followers are worried because, as you say, they've been having pain. You quote one person saying, “I'm four months now and all hell is breaking loose. All pain has hit my wrist, my waist down with sciatic shin splints, restless leg syndrome, tight sore calves. And it feels like some pain in the bones”. And that, again, people thinking it's herxing, but then others talking about other kinds of things that are happening to them. And some of them are are worried, obviously, that something similar is happening that happened to him.
DG: They are. In the days after, Danny Lamoi died, the channel was just — people initially were grieving and posting how much they, you know, loved him and how much they valued his, his advice. But then slowly over maybe a week later, they started posting messages questioning how he died or why he died. And then they started posting more messages like the one you just read out where they're, you know, detailing the pain that they were going through.
And while some of those messages remain, a lot of them were actually deleted by the admins and the channel who had announced that they were going to continue running the channel even after Danny Lamoi’s death and that they were going to because there's hundreds of thousands of people following us, or 130,000 people or 140,000 people at the moment following it. And so there's a huge amount of power there for the admins to control where the conversation goes.
So when people posted saying that they were worried about the side effects of this thing, you know, “What had happened to Danny, we have lots of questions” those posts were quickly deleted and some of the people were kicked out of the channel. The channel is continuing to push this information about ivermectin. It's continuing to give out advice.
There's a lot of parents in the group who are asking for advice about how they give ivermectin to their children, which is deeply worrying because that's something over the course of the last week while I've been tracking the group that seems to be increasing in number rather than decreasing.
MS: And it's so dangerous. And you talk about how he he formulated this regimen for children and you write about one member who wrote that she had established another group for parents of children on the spectrum, cerebral palsy, panda, downs, et cetera. These are serious issues and they're using Ivermectin for it.
DG: And it's just really worrying to see the number of people who are asking for information about kids as young as three and four years of age. Wow. And how to deal with that and how to deal, as you say, with with conditions that are, you know, really complex and very, very difficult to treat by experts. And you have people in these groups, running these groups who are not medical experts and who are giving out advice as if they know exactly what they're saying.
MS: Is there anything legally that can be done about this when you have people putting out information that is harming people and they're not medical authorities?
DG: Doesn’t seem like there is. Telegram is is a wild west. It. It allows much, if you can imagine, much worse stuff than this. There is very little moderation. Unless they're specifically breaking a law. which, at the moment, it doesn't appear that they are, then they're going to be allowed to continue to, to run this channel without any objections.
MS: And people can legally get ivermectin. That's the other issue as well.
DG: Yeah. Ivermectin, there's no problem getting. They even offer in the channels themselves. They have two or three brands of veterinary ivermectin paste that they recommend and they post links to websites where you can get it. And they're also advertising apricot kernels as a cure for cancer, even though eating large quantities of apricot kernels risks cyanide poisoning inside the body.
MS: You can't see my body jolting like, you know, every 30 seconds through this entire interview. It's horrifying. And it's important to to reveal it and talk about it. And I'm glad you're covering it. Thank you for coming back on the program. I realize we've had you on before. Thanks so much for coming on today.
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During a discussion about Tucker Carlson’s reckless claim that there was no insurrection — and the GOP politicians who emboldened him, like House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, giving him video surveillance footage — Roger from Dayton, Ohio called my Sirius XM program to say “all politicians lie.”
It was the classic “all sides” argument — or “many sides,” as Donald Trump himself infamously said about the Charlottesville white supremacist march.
“Ah, you know, I just think that all honestly all of our politicians are nothing but liars,” he said, “and I don’t think it makes a difference which side of the aisle they’re one. None of them are working for us as they should. And they all lie.”
Claiming he didn’t vote for Trump, Roger then sloughed off the fact that all lies aren’t created equally. He then bizarrely shifted into an attack on the Russia election interference investigation and Trump’s collusion, saying “Adam Shift” didn’t prove anything — a mispronunciation of Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff’s name used by the right and which has an anti-Semitic tinge to it — and that Special Counsel Robert Mueller didn’t prove anything.
I had to jump in to correct the record, and ask Roger to back up his claims with facts and explain himself. But each time he respond by going on and on about how I don’t let people talk, using his time to criticize me rather than tells us the supposed facts.
And that’s because there are no facts — just more b**t from a Trumper posing as something else. But hey, maybe I’m wrong — maybe he did vote for Joe Biden, as he claimed! You tell me. Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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Amid the recent discussion about the House Homeland Security Committee’s Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and her demented demand for a “national divorce” — a clarion call for a civil war, secession or complete dissolution of the United States —once again the question was thrown into stark relief: What the hell has Trumpism done to the Republican Party?
How has a party allowed for people like Greene to come to the forefront and be given enormous power, and how has it now completely absorbed someone like George Santos, a fantasist who appears to be deranged, disconnected from reality entirely?
And what is Trumpism continuing to do to the rest of us? What are the psychological effects of the the mental battering we’ve experienced?
To discuss all of this, I turned to Dr. Seth Norrholm, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences at Wayne State University School of Medicine. He’s a translational neuroscientist and psychologist, and one of the world's leading experts on PTSD and fear.
PTSD in fact was very much a focal point of the conversation I had with him on my SiriusXM program last week. In addition to discussing what is fueling a new wave of Trumpists, we discussed the collective trauma that millions of us have experienced, and continue to experience.
What will heal us? The simple answer — yet something that’s been elusive — is justice.
“Accountability,” he said. “Without some kind of sweeping accountability to remove what I've called the cancer that is in our political system, there's not going to be any meaningful healthy change.”
Listen in to the discussion. Below is a transcript, edited slightly for clarity.
—
Michelangelo Signorile: So I wanted to talk a little bit first about -- and it's something I don't think a lot of people have discussed -- what the entire country has experienced collectively, and how it has affected people emotionally and mentally. With regard to Donald Trump's administration and certainly the kind of brutality that he emboldened —the fear he created for a lot of people. A lot of people still feel that. They don't want us to even play clips of him speaking [on this program]. And also, of course, there are the people who emulate him as well.
Dr. Seth Norrholm: If you look at the last seven years now, the way it was before, you could really look at your life in terms of two views.
One, I call a micro scale, which you think about as your family situation, your housing situation, your job, the things that you have a lot of control over. And there's also the macro scale, which is your role as a citizen of the United States, the citizen of the world, your role in terms of your stewardship of the earth and its environment for the next generation. So there was a time pre-Trumpism where you could really focus on your micro scale and then maybe if you were interested in politics, if you wanted to affect change, if you wanted to dive into that that storm, you could, but you could live pretty much in your micro scale.
And maybe there would be issues like taxation or prices rising and things like that that might affect you, but you could, as a citizen, remain in your micro scale and not engage with politics and just let it be. And if somebody said, “Let's talk about the upcoming election,” you could appropriately say, “I don't want to talk about politics or I don't follow politics.” And that was pretty well accepted and appropriate.
But what happened with the ushering in of the Trump age is suddenly what was happening on the macro scale in terms of our government and elected officials and their policies and their beliefs and their actions was suddenly having a strong influence on our micro scale. So we could no longer separate those two parts of our life where they were making decisions that were detrimental to our health, that were potentially deadly in terms of consequences.
One of the first examples I point out is the response to Hurricane Maria in 2017, in which the Trump administration slow-walked the response and in many ways was racist in their response because they viewed Puerto Rican Americans as being somehow different and inferior in much the way you would if you thought like a racist. And what happened then was 3000 Americans lost their lives.
And that was really a precursor to what we saw with the pandemic, where, again, this self-serving malicious form of government was anti-mask, anti-vaccine, anti-closing. You know the famous words, “We’re going to open up again by Easter of 2020,” where policies were actually potentially deadly to Americans. And so you suddenly just couldn't ignore what was happening politically because there was such a potential for it to be dangerous to you.
MS: And you talk about this as a collective PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder, that many people in the country have experienced. And I'm curious: Is that something everyone experienced, whether they are those who fear and despise Trump, or those who are in his cult?
SN: So let's let's first define PTSD. It is an illness related to your experience of a traumatic event in your life and then it has consequences that affect you mentally and and behaviorally.
And it's usually, you know, the prime example is a combat veteran who was traumatized while they were deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. They come back to the states. And even though they're in a safe environment, they still act as though they're in the war zone. And so there are elements of the collective psychology that are similar to PTSD.
But I just want to be clear that relative to your question, not everybody viewed Trumpism as a traumatic event. But there were certainly hundreds, if not thousands of people with real PTSD related to Trumpism. For example, if you were in Puerto Rico during Hurricane Maria, or if you were on the front lines in March and April of 2020 and you saw all these traumatic deaths because of the the start of the COVID pandemic.
MS: Or what he did to people at the border and separating families and putting kids in cages.
SN: Right. Right. So it's a collective PTSD or traumatization in the sense that there was suddenly this danger we all had to be aware of. And whether that was domestic terrorism through people who were, you know, Trump loyalists or MAGA-ites who carried out — you know, the gentleman who blew up a city block in Nashville.
And in situations like that, the loyalists follow this dangerous path. So suddenly there was this new fear and threat in America, which is “What is going to happen to my life and my livelihood based on what I'm seeing?” And it was really almost on a daily basis for that four year term.
One of the things that you see with PTSD is what we call hyper-vigilance, where you're constantly on guard and on alert for something threatening. That is very much the situation that many of us found ourselves in during that presidency because we just didn't know what the next thing was going to be.
And in fact, we had leadership that was opposing all the positions that would potentially keep us safe, like pulling out of the Paris Accord, like, you know, international relations, courting Putin, courting Kim Jong Un, so actually seeking out danger.
It was completely justified and appropriate for people to have this newfound sense of fear because we had never seen this before from our leadership. Sure, we had presidents you may not have agreed with. There was the example of Nixon where there was corruption — but never on this scale and never on such a consistent basis.
MS: Right. And even still with, of course, Trump losing the election, Joe Biden winning, we had the insurrection. We have the Big Lie. We have these people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and others in power. That fear and that PTSD is still there. For many people it hasn't gone away.
SN: Yeah. The analogy I like to use a lot is Trump was an abusive president, meaning he did not care about the well-being of Americans unless they were loyalists or said nice things about him, to use his words. And so, you know, there was a situation where you're at risk and there are potential dangers surrounding you. And what you see now is these parrots and these mouthpieces who are imitating Trump because they saw that that approach could be successful.
And so if you think about Trump as being the abuser and the American people as being the abused spouse or partner, what's happened now is there's been no accountability.
The analogy I like to use is the abused spouse who sees the police outside their house and they're walking up to the door and the abused spouse opens the door and the police say, “You know, we have no evidence,” or, “You know, it's your word against his. There's nothing we can do.”
And so the abused partner or spouse watches the police walk away and just has this fear and dejection because their abuse is being completely ignored and there's been no accountability. So that's what we've been seeing in the wake of January 6th, as there's been no accountability for upper level leadership, including the president and his cabinet and and his advisors.
There's been no accountability at that level. And so what you've seen is there were 147 Republicans who voted to overturn the election of Joe Biden, and many of them are sitting members of Congress. They're getting in front of microphones and they're basically telling the abused populace, “Oh, we're going to keep abusing you, and there's nothing you can do about it.”
MS: And that's so important. And something I hadn't thought about. How the lack of justice, seeing any justice, any indictments, anybody going to jail, how that has traumatically affected people, how that has had a mental and emotional effect on them.
Very important. And I'm glad you brought that up. And you talk about the Republican Party now, and you just were alluding to it as becoming this place where people with pathological behavior can thrive. So we had Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar, and others who were incredibly extreme and erratic and promoting white supremacist and QAnon ugly lies. And that's bad enough.
But then we get George Santos, who is completely and totally fabricating his background. Now, we also have another freshman member in Florida, Anna Paulina Luna, who also seems to be in the same vein — changed her name, changed her biography, used to be an Obama supporter. I mean, everything that comes out about George Santos, like we don't even know who he is. You're putting that in an even newer category the Republican Party is accepting. And you talk about him as having a personality disorder.
SN: Yes. So I look at the genesis of individuals like George Santos in terms of what we saw unfold over the past seven years. Certainly if you were paying attention to the campaign in 2016, you saw who Trump was.
You saw him insult John McCain as a war veteran. You saw him mocking a disabled reporter. You saw the the Access Hollywood tape come out. So you were given all kinds of information as to how unqualified this person was. And I would even go further to say we recognize as mental health experts how dangerous he was. And what you saw was he ultimately got elected.
And for the most part, the mainstream media did not call him out on these things. Sure, there was, you know, MSNBC. And what people would call the left media would address these things. But it was never publicly called out and clearly wasn't disqualifying.
So what that did was, it created a level of permissiveness in terms of candidates, in terms of what they could get away with. And in a large sense, what was being rewarded now was this malicious, ill intent and self-serving bias and deception that we equate with people who have personality disorders like antisocial personality, which is by definition doing things that are against the interest of other people and in some cases taking pleasure in it.
And before the age of Trump, if you are talking to friends or family and said, “I think I'm going to run for Congress, but I'm going to lie about who I am back in, let's say, in the 90s and early 2000s,” that you would think that that family member or that adviser would say, “You can't do that. They're going to vet you. You're going to be caught in the lie.”
But what we saw over the years of Trump was, you know, if you watch Seinfeld, you remember George Costanza. His stance was, if you believe it, it's not a lie. And what we saw with Trump was, if you tell it enough, it's not a lie.
So there was this permissiveness of lying. You get to the point where people that I have classified as personality disordered, meaning they have no moral compass, they have no thought about consequences. They lie with impunity. You know, it was inevitable that you would have somebody who can completely create a caricature of themselves and get elected because they would use the Trumpism approach, which was just keep lying about it and push back. And if there's any accountability, you know, you can do your best to evade it. And sometimes you can evade it for years.
MS: Right. And it's interesting, you mentioned people around them who might say, hey, don't do this and how it kind of becomes a collective thing, perhaps. I mean, we don't know that so much with George Santos, but I mentioned the other congressperson, Anna Paulina Luna. In her story, her mother seems to be part of this, too. Her mother vouches for her story. But the rest of her family, everybody else says, no, none of that is true. So it's it's sort of like someone else is in on the lie and the promoting of this permissive behavior.
SN: Right. And you can imagine a situation where when Santos was putting this idea together, he had people to look at as models and potentially reach out to in Marjorie Taylor Greene or others who are openly free with deception and lying and basically rewarding him and encouraging him by saying, “Yeah, you can do that. And in fact, we value your votes [in Congress]. So we'll we'll take you.” And you need to look no further than the election of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House to see how a small group of deceptive loyalists can hijack Congress for days.
MS; Absolutely. And it’s so important to talk about what this means from the perspective of a neuroscientist and a psychologist about what has happened to the Republican Party and what has happened to all of us and the entire country in terms of what we're experiencing. I really appreciated talking about this and getting into this angle of it. I think it's very important.
SN: I appreciate having the time to speak about. If I can make one closing comment: I often get asked, you know, what's the future of America look like or how do we get quote unquote, healthy again?
And I think what we were talking about a few minutes ago with accountability, you know, that needs to be the fixed —- you need to have the insurrectionists face consequence. You know, banishment from Congress. You need to have Trump face consequences for his role in the insurrection. So without some kind of sweeping accountability to remove what I've called the cancer that is in our political system, there's not going to be any meaningful healthy change.
MS: Perfect way to end it. What do we all need to do? And yes, it's about justice and and hoping that we see that happen — in Georgia, or in the Justice Department, somewhere soon.
.
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During a discussion on the my SiriusXM program about QAnon cultist Marjorie Taylor Greene’s demented white supremacist fantasy of a “national divorce,” Laura from Alabama called.
Of course, Alabama is one of the red states that Greene sees as part of the New Confederacy, or New Gilead, or whatever she wants to call what she wants to create. And like most of the red states, it would bleed out without federal money, most of which comes from 10 or so blue states. Red states would be destroyed.
The whole idea — the dissolution of the United States — is absurd. But it’s all about feeding a rabid base on secession and civil war as they take last a gasp of being the white majority — and grab for their guns to rule from the minority.
Anyway, Laura and I didn’t get into any of that. She was instead stuck on our supposedly “complaining” about Donald Trump “all these years” after he’s left office.
As if Trump is not running for president again.
Well, the four-letter words flew. No patience for this!
Listen to the short clip and let me know your thoughts.
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This one is a doozy. You’ll have a laugh — but you’ll also see how deeply immersed these people are in the MAGA cult. The best you can do with people like this is use them to show others the dangers of self-delusion, letting them flail and embarrass themselves.
In a discussion on my SiriusXM program about the mania on the right over the Chinese spy balloon, David from North Carolina called in to demand the “evidence” that there were Chinese balloons flying over the U.S. under Donald Trump’s administration.
But not only did Pentagon officials tell the media about three balloons, at least two of which flew over Texas and Florida during Trump’s administration, and others that crossed over Hawaii; intelligence officials and even Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee, like Marco Rubio, confirmed it (even as he tried to downplay it), as did Republicans on the Intelligence Committee in the House, like Rep. Michael Waltz.
The Biden administration reported per intelligence reports that, in fact, there was quite an advanced Chinese spy balloon program for at least five years, and the Trump administration seems to have been clueless about it — or just decided these balloons weren’t a threat.
David denied it all, saying Rubio is an “idiot” and the rest of it the sources are some of sort of conspiracy by the Biden administration and the so-called liberal media.
“I don’t trust — do you understand? The AP? The New York Times?” he said.
Of course, when I further underscored the diversity of the sources with evidence, including Republican politicians, David tried to shift the discussion to — you guessed it! — Hunter Biden.
LOL.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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In a discussion on my SiriusXM program about Direct TV and AT&T deciding they no longer wanted to broadcast Newsmax on their cable and satellite platforms — largely because it’s not profitable, but also, it’s a disseminator of misinformation, hate and lies — Andrea from California called in.
It was unclear what her point was on Newsmax. She managed to veer the conversation to Twitter and Facebook — and the bogus “Twitter Files.” Yes, in which we learned that Twitter decided to listen to the Biden campaign’s urgings not to allow revenge porn — dick pics — from Hunter Biden’s laptop.
It always comes back to Hunter Biden’s laptop, of course. Not only did it completely escape Andrea that this is not government censorship — Twitter is a private company and can listen to the urgings of anyone, and the Biden campaign wasn’t the “government” but rather a campaign — she seemed to think the FBI was involved. But in fact, the FBI had no involvement whatsoever in telling Twitter what to do — just another right-wing conspiracy. And the Trump campaign — and administration — also urged Twitter not to allow certain topics on its platform.
(By the way, if you listen carefully , when I asked Andrea, “Did you want to see Hunter Biden’s dick pics?” she actually answered, “Maybe.” )
It’s hard to argue with people when they have a different set of facts. More so, I rarely let people change the subject to their own topic — and it was bad enough that she did that — but then she was trying to direct the show with questions to me about Facebook.
As she engaged in this claim that people were “canceled,” I explained that many people on the left have been booted from Twitter and Facebook for doing nothing but criticizing Trump — and, as wrong as that might be, the companies are private entities that can do what they want.
Andrea claimed that it is conservatives who are “overwhelmingly” suppressed, which is not only ridiculous when we look at all of the stories of people on the left booted off the platforms; it doesn’t acknowledge that many “right-wing” users are white supremacist, and neo-Nazi trolls, and thus of course they should be banned and shouldn’t be seen as people on the right innocently booted.
Anyway, I probably got way too snappy and angry with her, and maybe this was one of those cases where I should have pulled back. One could argue she was trying to calmly engage, even if veering off, and I was shutting her down. I was frustrated at her changing the subject and having a false set of facts — and just won’t let conservatives commander the discussion to their liking.
But I’ll let you be the judge. Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
( There’s about 40 seconds of me setting up the topic first before going to the call).
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They are “more radical than they were” in the past. “And Kevin McCarthy is a weaker speaker” than those in the past.
“This is a crew that almost has to touch the oven to know that it’s hot.”
“The GOP caucus is one where Marjorie Taylor Greene almost doesn’t stand out anymore. And that’s pretty remarkable.”
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Democratic Congressman Colin Allred, who represents Texas’ 32nd Congressional district in Dallas, came on my SiriusXM program this week. It’s always a great conversation, as Allred is thoughtful and fully focused on the issues for which Democrats are fighting.
We spoke about the new GOP-controlled Congress and the extremists who are now sitting on powerful committees — Marjorie Taylor Greene on both the Oversight Committee and the Homeland Security Committee, for example — and we spoke about the plans Republicans have moving forward.
In particular, we discussed the threats from the GOP on not lifting the debt ceiling and sending the economy globally into chaos. Allred talked about strategies Democrats have, including the use of discharge petitions, in order to get around the GOP’s reckless tactics and get several Republicans onboard with Democrats. And we talked about how the GOP, when they did this previously during the Obama years, got Democrats to make concessions which were ultimately bad for the country. He doesn’t see that happening now.
“I think President Biden, who was vice president when many of these negotiations took place during the Obama administration, I think he is one of those folks who’s learned you can’t negotiate around this.”
We also talked about the border and the need for real immigration reform. And we focused on the Inflation Reduction Act and, in particular, the cap on costs for insulin which he fought for — and which Republicans in the Senate severely narrowed — and how we have to expand it.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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This one is a real beauty from my SiriusXM program.
In a discussion about Congressman George Santos, his fabrications and why should resign, George from Georgia called in.
“How can we justify going after Santos when we have people who’ve done essentially the same thing?” George asked.
Before he gave an example, I replied, “Oh you mean Donald Trump. Well we did of course impeach him...for inciting an insurrection against the United States and for engaging in extortion of a foreign leader. But you’re right, he did lie about his his entire resume and his businesses.”
George immediately began saying, “No, no!” trying to interrupt me.
He then went to Senator Blumenthal of Connecticut, who did lie about serving in the military in Viet Nam.
I asked, What else did he lie about? George couldn’t come up with anything, as I explained that every Republican senator and House member has lied about something, and even many Democrats have — and none of it is right or defensible. But if they cop to and apologize, one distortion or falsehood about a background can be tolerated.
But nobody comes close to George Santos having fabricated his entire resume.
I then shifted the discussion — in making an example of how two people could do something similar but for one it’s much, much worse because of the severity and intent — to classified documents, and Trump stealing hundreds of files and refusing to return them while Biden appears to have had files in an office and his residence he didn’t know about and returned them promptly.
Well, that lit a fuse for George, and then I only had to escalate further.
Warning: Lots of F-bombs, (on my part!).
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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“These are arsonists intent on burning everything down!"
I thought you’d all want to hear this conversation I had on my SiriusXM program with Congressman Ritchie Torres, who represents the South Bronx — New York’s district 15 — in New York City. We chatted while he was on the floor of the House as Kevin McCarthy was forced to go through 15 ballots — giving away whatever was left of his soul — to become Speaker.
Torres, is a brilliant young voice, standing up against bigotry and speaking out loudly — and he’s can be bitingly sarcastic. And yes, we need more of that.
He was elected in 2020, when he and former New York Congressman Mondaire Jones became the first openly gay Black men elected to Congress. Torres is the first gay Afro-Latino elected to Congress.
“I introduced a bill know as the SANTOS Act — the Stop Another Non Truthful Office-seeker Act. It will punish fraudulent candidates who tell lies to voters. ”
Torres, who is often burning up Twitter and other social media platforms, has called out the GOP for caving to the far-right extremists, as McCarthy made concessions to election deniers and insurrectionist defenders
And he’s been all over the George Santos scandal — seeing this fraudster con his way into Congress — both in speaking out against Santos and in filing an Ethics Complaint.
“During the debates around the Speaker’s vote, at one point Elise Stefanik said that Republicans are the most diverse legislative conference. When we heard her said that I said, ‘By what standard is that true?’
“I guess she must be counting George Santos. If you factor in the lies of George Santos, you might have a gay-Afro-Latino-biracial-Brazilian-Belgian-Ukrainian-Jewish-Catholic Republican.”
Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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Moody College of Communication from Austin, USA. Licensed under Creative Commons
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As Twitter continues to meltdown — with the latest news last night of owner Elon Musk suspending accounts of prominent journalists who have criticized him, as well as an account promoting one of his competitors, Mastodon — you’ll be interested to listen to this interview with NYU professor and prominent media critic Jay Rosen, who himself is a force on Twitter.
This interview was conducted last week on my SiriusXM program after Musk has engaged in many chaotic actions. It’s been weeks of Musk firing employees, attacking former employees, bringing back white supremacists and bigots of every stripe who’d been banned from the platform, pushing conspiracies and allowing right-wing journalists to have access to Twitter’s internal emails to supposedly expose a left-wing bias from before Musk took over.
Rosen discussed what’s been happening, and what may or may not be motivating Musk. And we also talked other platforms people are migrating toward and what he thinks about them, how functional they are and whether or not they will take off — primarily Mastodon and Post.
It’s an interesting conversation and one that I know a lot of you who use social media will want to hear if you didn’t hear it on my SiriusXM program.
We also had spoke a bit about media coverage of politics, and a media still unable to deal with properly cover the political world as Donald Trump has declared his presidential run.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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photo: Tyler Merbler, license: CC BY-ND 2.0
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This week I had a discussion on my SiriusXM program about the text messages obtained by Talking Points Memo between 34 GOP members of Congress and Donald Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows in the days after the 2020 election and leading up to January 6th and the attack on the Capitol.
They included a text from South Carolina Representative Ralph Norman calling for Trump to declare “Marshall Law.” He is now facing calls for him to resign, and not because of his misspelling of martial law. Surely a bombshell of a story which all Americans who care about democracy should want to learn about.
That’s when Evan from Texas called the program. He claimed to be a “constitutional conservative” who wanted to have a “civil discussion.” But he then followed that with the accusation that I’m “obsessed” with “inflammatory” topics — like the discussion we were having about January 6th.
Not very civil.
He claimed that January 6th was a “terrible thing,” and said “nine out of 10 intellectually honest Republicans” would agree with him. (How many “intellectually honest” Republicans are there again?) Thus, we should just move on and talk about other issues — like “the border.” He then admitted that, even though he didn’t believe the 2020 election was stolen, he still voted for election deniers.
He got really mad, by the way. Listen in and see if you can make sense of out. And let me know your thoughts!
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PHOTO: PHILIP FRIEDMAN; PEACOCK
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On my SiriusXM program, I spoke with the enormously impactful Soledad O’Brien, the award-winning journalist and executive producer whose illuminating documentary, “The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks,” is currently streaming on Peacock. The film challenges the narrative about the civil rights icon, and corrects the historical record in a way that echos so much of O’Brien’s work in righting the wrongs of journalism.
Rosa Parks is ensconced in the American imagination as a middle-aged seamstress who somehow got caught up in the civil rights movement when she just was tired and wanted to sit down on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955. In fact, Parks was deeply involved in activism, a radical Black liberationist in the mold of Malcolm X and the Black Panthers. The documentary uncovers so much, including how Parks and other women in the movement didn’t get credit for the work they did, and is a must-watch.
Soledad and I spoke about the documentary, how she came to it and what Rosa Parks means. And, having been an anchor at CNN for many years, as well as having worked at NBC and MSNBC for years before that, Soledad discussed her work then and how the industry has changed.
She also offered her relentlessly on-target critique of the terrible political coverage by corporate media today — both of President Biden and Democrats, and Donald Trump and Republicans. Many of you know Soledad’s criticisms well if you follow her on social media, where she has over 1.3 million followers on Twitter.
This was a terrific conversation, and I was glad to get chance to speak on air with Soledad, as we’d been planning to do it on the show for a long time. Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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This is part of an ongoing series focusing on Democratic candidates I’m interviewing on my SiriusXM show as Democrats fight to keep the House and Senate, and even gain seats, in the 2022 midterms. (Read some other recent entries here, here and here.)
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This is another one of those races that could decide the House, as Democrat Christy Smith, a former member of the California Assembly, is taking on Republican Mike Garcia for a third time.
The first race between them was in a special election after Democrat Katie Hobbs — who took the seat from far right-winger Steve Knight in the 2018 blue wave — resigned in 2019. Garcia pulled it out in the special election in early 2020, and then in the 2020 November election, he won by just 333 votes.
Redistricting has benefitted Smith, as the the newly-created 27th Congressional district now includes part of Los Angeles County.
Garcia has shown complete allegiance to Donald Trump, voting to overturn the 2020 election. He voted against supporting the Capitol Police, against the Inflation Reduction Act, and against codifying access to contraception into law. And he supported the “Life at Conception” Act, showing he’s an extremist on abortion.
That has made Garcia vulnerable but as an incumbent he has an advantage. The race is close but Smith is feeling the energy on the ground.
Smith speaks forcefully on reproductive rights and transitioning to green energy, as well as on economic policies to bring down the cost of living and battle inflation. In an interview on my SiriusXM program she also laid out her ideas on defending LGBTQ rights and voting rights, fighting attacks on immigrants, and preserving democracy.
Listen in and make sure to check out her website where you can help her in this important race.
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This is part of an ongoing series focusing on Democratic candidates I’m interviewing on my SiriusXM show as Democrats fight to keep the House and Senate, and even gain seats, in the 2022 midterms. (Read some other recent entries here, here and here.)
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Democrat Robert Zimmerman is running for an open U.S. House seat in New York’s 3rd Congressional district, a seat currently held by retiring Democrat Tom Suozzi in northern Nassau County on Long Island, and, after redistricting, parts of the borough of Queens in New York City.
It’s vital that Democrats keep this seat blue, but the race has been close in what’s considered a suburban swing district. A September poll has the race neck and neck, while the Cook Political Report rated it leaning Democratic, which means Zimmerman is perceived as having an edge but that it’s competitive.
Zimmerman grew up on Long Island, and is a long-time fighter for progressive values, working in movements for justice — from labor rights to anti-war protests — and working as an aide to members of Congress, as a Democratic strategist and as a TV commentator.
And he’s openly gay. As noted on his website, where you can check out more about him:
Robert, like many other closeted gay young men, struggled to find his voice. Coming of age in the suburbs was a lonely and isolating place. A trusted educator even once assured him there were doctors who could “make you well.” Conversion therapy was never an option, but the notion of “not being well” was tough to shake and helped Robert find his voice. He began to use it for others that society marginalized, left out, and refused to recognize.
Like so many, Robert joined arms to protest oppressive wars, march for civil rights, demand social and environmental justice, and advocate for causes that mattered to the community.
His opponent, Republican George Santos, is also openly gay, and the race has been noteworthy because it’s the first time two gay men face off for a House race.
But that’s where the commonality stops, as Santos is complete and total MAGA. He’s a Big Lie-promoting extremist who actually praised the January 6th insurrectionists, cheered the Supreme Court in “correctly” overturning Roe v. Wade and defends Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law.
Yep, a gay man supporting a heinous law demonizing his own kind. You can watch his video on Facebook to see if for yourself. This is the most grotesque kind of self-loathing we’ve seen — and someone like this should not be anywhere near the levers of political power.
Listen to the interview with Robert Zimmerman to hear about the work he’s done and what he’d do if elected, as well as about the dangers of his opponent. And check out his website, where you can also help out in this close race.
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This is part of an on-going series focusing on Democratic candidates I’m interviewing on my SiriusXM show as Democrats fight to keep the House and Senate, and even gain seats, in the 2022 midterms.
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Annette Taddeo is a Florida state lawmaker who’s fought hard against the GOP’s radical agenda, standing up for immigrants, LGBTQ rights and abortion rights. She’s running for Congress in Florida’s 27th Congressional district, which is located entirely within Miami-Dade County.
Taddeo is the daughter of a Columbian mother and an American father who was a World War II fighter pilot, and she grew up in Columbia before her family fled to the U.S. when she was 17. Taddeo became the first Latina Democrat elected to the Florida State Senate in Florida history when she flipped a Senate seat held by a Republican in 2017.
Florida’s 27th Congressional district is a true swing district: Hillary Clinton took the district in 2016, but Republican Ileana Ross-Lehtinen kept her seat. In 2018, Democrat Donna Shalala won the seat in the blue wave, but in 2020 Republican Maria Eliva Salazar beat Shalala, even though Joe Biden won the district.
Now Taddeo is running neck-and-neck with Salazar in recent polls.
In a close mid-term election in which no one knows anything about what will happen, as the polls are so tight, this could be one of those seats that help Democrats keep the House.
Taddeo is passionate about politics and connects with voters in a way that is genuine. She spoke with me on my SiriusXM program about the issues she’s running on and how her opponent is enabling the extremist GOP agenda.
Listen to the interview above, and check out her site where you can learn more about her.
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This is part of an on-going series focusing on Democratic candidates I’m interviewing on my SiriusXM show as Democrats fight to keep the House and Senate, and even gain seats, in the 2022 midterms.
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In Montana’s 1st Congressional District, a newly-recreated district that encompasses a third of Western Montana, including several liberal college towns, Moncia Tranel could beat Donald Trump’s former interior secretary and scandal-plagued grifter Ryan Zinke.
A recent poll showed the race tied. Tranel has burnished her reputation fighting on behalf of the people of Montana as an environmental attorney taking on Big Oil, corporate monopolies and utility companies, while also standing up for the rights for Native peoples.
Zinke, a former at-large House member from Montana, served as Trump’s Secretary of the Interior but resigned in January 2019 in the midst of a blizzard of ethics investigations, including using government aircraft for private travel and spending $139,000 on his office doors. Reports released this year by the Inspector General’s Office found Zinke lied to investigators.
Political analysts, who for a long time said Zinke was the strong favorite to win, have moved their projection of the race toward the Democrats — showing they truly don’t know what will happen and are engaging in some CYA. Per the Daily Montanan:
A poll commissioned and released earlier this month by the Big Sky Voters PAC showed Zinke with a 41 percent lead to Tranel’s 40 percent, Lamb’s 8 percent, with 11 percent undecided. The poll of 840 interviews was conducted by Victoria Research, which counts Democratic organizations and candidates as clients, and it noted a 3.4 percent margin of error, according to a memo from the firm.
It also said Zinke had a 49 percent unfavorable rating and 41 percent favorable rating; it said Tranel had a 37 percent favorable rating and 32 percent unfavorable rating, with an opportunity to still introduce herself to 31 percent of voters.
“Zinke is underperforming the general partisan leaning of this district significantly,” said the memo from Victoria Research. “Voters in the survey say they prefer a generic Republican candidate over a Democratic one by five points: 47 percent to 42 percent.”
I interviewed Tranel last week on my SiriusXM show and she exhibited the reasons why she’s been able to close the gap, speaking clearly about her agenda and why she’s a theat to Zinke and the GP.
You can check her out here and help out if you can. And you can listen to the full interview above. Let us know your thoughts!
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In a discussion on my SiriusXM show about the Hershel Walker denying he paid for a former girlfriend’s abortion, Billy from Oklahoma called in to defend Walker.
He demanded to see the proof that Walker had a child with the same woman as well, a fact that the woman reported days after Walker denied paying for the abortion.
The only problem with that is that Walker admitted he did have a child with the woman — just not the abortion.
In fact, Walker has admitted to being the father of all the children who’ve surfaced who are reported to be his children.
So then Billy tried to shift it to the abortion, and the proof of it — which Walker does deny — but there’s the receipt from the abortion clinic and Walker’s personal check to the woman a few days after.
Walker first denied sending the check, but on NBC this week when it was presented to him, he acknowledged it was his check — after first questioning it. But, he said, it didn’t prove anything because it’s not unusual for him to send the woman money because she’s the mother of his child.
The problem with that is that he had the child with the woman years after the abortion.
But back to Billy, the caller to my show. He was an example of how Walker is even making it difficult for his supporters defend him. Even as I explained it all to him, he still couldn’t wrap his head around what I was saying, and was still asking for proof of that Walker fathered the child.
I think you’ll find this one quite amusing, though it’s awfully sad.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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In a discussion on my SiriusXM show about John Stewart’s masterful take down of the Arkansas attorney general on the state’s banning of gender affirming care for young people who identify as transgender — which you have to see if you haven’t watched it —a woman named Katherine called my show from Florida.
The tip-off that Katherine was a fraud came when he told our producer she didn’t understand why there was so much attention on this issue, since we’re talking about such a small percentage of the population, and she wanted to discuss that.
But then when she got on the air, she hijacked the discussion, going into a whole other direction. Katherine said she used to agree with me but that after watching “TikTok videos,” she was afraid that kids today would feel pressured to believe they’re transgender. This is the right-wing lie that tries to take advantage of the fact that there’s more affirmation and acceptance for the those kids who are trans and who can now come out as trans.
Katherine claimed, however, that she was a “straight up tomboy” as a child and that in today’s world she’d think she was trans. This is silly, as no one can make you transgender no matter how you express your gender. Just as no one can make you gay, lesbian or bisexual — or heterosexual — if you are not.
So I asked Katherine if in fact she thought she was a lesbian when she was a kid since she was a “tomboy” and, in her time, that was coded as “lesbian” — and surely if she were a tomboy people called her a lesbian or a “dyke” or queer or whatever, since that’s how kids bully other kids.
It all escalated really, really quickly — and you can criticize me for getting too hot — as I just will not allow people to spread lies, especially after they used deception to get on the show, and I demand they answer questions.
She refused to answer the question and I had to shut her down — until finally she did answer. And no, she said, she didn’t think she was lesbian. And the reason is — she’s not a lesbian. (I wonder if she really was a “tomboy,” by the way, or if the whole thing was a fraud.) You can’t make someone a lesbian just because you tell them they are, or they appear to be, just as you can’t make someone transgender.
No one is encouraging kids to be transgender. The world is simply more open to accepting those who are — something that appears to threaten a lot of people. It’s true that some young people, as they feel out expressing their gender, might question if they are gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgender, and determine that they’re not. So what? Why can’t we let kids think about possibilities and conclude on our own?
There is no surgery or hormone or other physical treatments offered to children (or even most teens, except for puberty blockers), as those decisions are made when they are older. It’s true that there have been a small percentage of people who, as adults, have found that transitioning wasn’t right for them. But just because of that small percentage it doesn’t mean you condemn or stop others from becoming themselves and leading full and productive lives.
Let people make their own decisions. And let parents, informed and led by medical professionals, make decisions with their children.
Again, I warn you again — I went hard on this one, and feel free to say I was too harsh. I explained after the call here, that part of the reason was because she deceived us.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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This is part of an on-going series focusing on Democratic candidates I’m interviewing on my SiriusXM show as Democrats fight to keep the House and Senate, and even gain seats, in the 2022 midterms.
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When a poll last week revealed that Democrat Adam Frisch is in a statistical tie with GOP House eletion denier and QAnon cultist Lauren Boebert it created a frenzy among progressives and all Americans who stand up against the extremism.
Former Aspen City Councilman Adam Frisch’s campaign commissioned the survey that showed him trailing Boebert by just 2 percentage points. Forty-seven percent of those polled in the Keating Research survey of 500 likely 3rd District voters said they would vote for Boebert, while 45% said they’d back Frisch. Seven percent of those polled said they were undecided.
As Frisch explained in an interview with me on my SiriusXM program this week, he commissioned the poll precisely so that he could go to donors, big and small, and the make the case that he can defeat Boebert, who has promoted hate on social media, has mocked school shooting victims, and has gotten no legislation passed.
Frisch said he looked at the election results of others in the House’s extremist caucus in their 2020 elections and saw an interesting difference.
“Our district is about 25%, 31 % Republican and 43% unaffiliated,” he explained. “I looked at Marjorie Tayler Greene, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, Mo Brooks, all of these kind of extremists on the right. And you see that they all had 65% to 75% wins in their general election in 2020. And Lauren Boebert only had 51% of the vote in 2020. She did not win her home county. Those who know her best do not care for her — and a lot more people know her now than before.”
He believes he’s building a coalition with Democrats, independents and some Republicans, and is hearing from Republicans he says want to see Boebert defeated. Even Boebert’s GOP primary opponent has now endorsed Frisch.
Frisch and I had a discussion about Frisch’s background in politics in Colorado, and his positions on the issues energizing voters. The son of an OBGYN who worked with Planned Parenthood and lived with bomb threats, the issue of abortion access is enormously important to Frisch.
“ Since [the] Kansas [referendum on abortion] we’ve seen a huge uptick in voter registration, he said.
Boebert seems to be afraid of that momentum and of the independent poll that Frisch commissioned.
“She’s scared,” he said. “Up until a few weeks ago, she was proudly presenting her travel schedule to go visit Sarah Palin in Alaska. She was rallying for some young Trumper up in New Hampshire…{She attended] extremist rallies outside of our district. Now, in the past four or five days, she actually has been canceling her out of state travel. She is going on tour. She tried to submit a serious tweet where she wasn’t yelling and screaming.”
Listen to the full interview above, and go and check out Adam Frisch’s website to read more and help him out. Surely. beating Boebert would be a great service to America.
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This one is an example of how deep in the cult so many of these Trumpers are — to the point where they contradict themselves literally within the same sentence — and have sort of calmly accepted giving themselves over to an authoritarian.
Debbie from Connecticut called my show after I played clips from Washington DC Metro Police Office Michael Fanone, who was brutally attacked by the MAGA mob of insurrectionists on January 6th. At the sentencing of the thug, Kyle Young, an IVAC worker from Iowa who pleaded guilty to assaulting Fanone — which included stunning Fanone with a stun gun — Young’s mother apologized in court.
But after Young was sentenced to seven years in prison, his mother called Fanone, a “piece of s**t.” He relayed this to Don Lemon on CNN, and Debbie called to respond to it.
The gist of what she wanted to say was: a) we’re not all like that — even though she still supports Trump and his movement and; b) I didn’t hear this or that fact (such as that Trump wants to pardon the insurrectionists).
That’s pretty basic for Trump supporters — ignorance in bliss. What was more scary about Debbie, however, was that she wan’t belligerent or nasty, but rather robotic yet slightly perky, like she was in a hypnotic trance.
And there was absolutely no way to speak with her rationally because she believed all facts were “opinions.” She contradicted herself on a statement before she even finished making the statement. None of it made any sense, but she just wanted us to accept that and just chill.
Honestly, you have to listen to this one, as describing it is both not easy and won’t do it justice.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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On my SiriusXM show, Roy from Oklahoma —a Trump supporter —called in while I was discussing Donald Trump’s weekend rally in Youngstown, Ohio, and the horrifying, Hitlerian salute that his supporter gave him, raising their arms out front and upward, with one finger pointing.
All over TV and social media people made references to “Heil Trump!” as his supporters were showing they were deeply loyal to him in a frightening way.
The music playing while Trump was speaking was a QAnon anthem, as Trump, desperate for support, has gone full QAnon. The one-finger salute was a show of loyalty by those immersed QAnon, who believe a hideous, dangerous conspiracy in which Trump is a messianic figure who is going to save them from the demonic forces of pedophiles and perverts in the Democratic party.
Whatever you want to call it, you can’t deny it reflects flat out fascism and authoritarianism — people following the dictator blindly — and the salute just made the Nazi comparison all the more apt.
Roy professed shock at my pointing all of this out, asking if my comments are “actually for real.” I couldn’t quite understand what he meant, so I pressed him further.
He then denied the salute was anything like a Nazi salute and tried to compare the Trump rally attendees to people “in church, holding their hands up.” That of course only proved the point further: they see Trump as some God-like figure.
Roy then told me the story of a salesman he met who told him the secret to being successful: “People are stupid; treat ‘em that way.” His point, I guess, was to say that I was like a salesman. But, as I pointed out to him, he was perfectly, brilliantly describing Trump’s strategy: People are stupid; treat them that way.
Roy then got completely stumped when he tried to tell me Trump never misled anyone on COVID — why he picked COVID, I don’t know — and I pointed out the facts, the lies, the “inject with bleach” suggestions and the numbers of deaths due to COVID because of Trump. Roy couldn’t refute the facts at all, just kind of meandering, and I just had to tell him the obvious truth, that he was just like the people the salesman told him about: “Stupid.”
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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Hollywood, Florida, October 10, 2020. YES Market Media
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During a discussion on my SiriusXM program, Paul from Florida called in, claiming that he and many Republicans have changed their party affiliation to NPA (no party affiliation, or independent) because of a “loss of anonymity” and being “targeted for who you are” and what you “may or may not believe in.”
I found this at first confusing, then fascinating — then just an outright bonkers lie.
First off, most Republicans who’ve switched to become independents have done so because the GOP has become so extreme, and, as I told Paul, independents nationwide now lean more Democratic than Republican.
But then, this claim that Trump-supporting Republicans are afraid to be known as GOP in Florida, of all places, is completely laughable.
The Villages, the sprawling and massive retirement community, is crawling with people in MAGA hats and Trump flags on their golf carts. All over the state people are walking around with “ULTRA MAGA” t-shirts.
The truth is, as callers to the show from Florida confirmed later, Democrats are the ones targeted, including those who had Biden signs on their lawns. One woman said a man came to her door because she had a Biden sign and proceeded to eviscerate her and tell her to vote for Trump in 2020.
Paul claimed that the threat against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh by a man with a gun near his home was proof of what he was saying. But, I told Paul, unlike him Kavanaugh is a public figure — and of course it’s wrong to threaten him — and Democratic public figures receive death threats daily, including the president, vice president and members of Congress.
According to the Department Homeland Security, however, the overwhelming terrorist threat to average Americans right now is from right-wing white supremacist groups and individuals. DHS issued a bulletin in June warning Americans about such threats and the bulletin is in effect until November of this year.
There have no no left-wing terrorist groups or planned violent attacks — as what happened on January 6th, when groups like the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and others coordinated an attack, which right-wing political leaders appeared to know about — but it is the Trumpists right now who are threatening more violence, targeting the FBI and anyone on the left.
Anyway, as I explained a lot of this to Paul, the snowflake hung up.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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While discussing the the FBI search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort on my SiriusXM program, Tim from Alabama called, claiming he had been in the “intelligence end” of things.
According to Tim, what Trump did is done “all the time” by people “at that level.” When I explained that no one had done this — taking a truckload of boxes of top secret documents, including about weapons programs to their home after leaving the presidency — he said, well, we don’t know that, and they could do it they wanted.
As you can imagine, all roads eventually led to….Hillary Clinton’s emails.
Tim then said we don’t know a lot about this — and I countered that we certainly do, and that Trump had lied when he said Obama had taken documents home after being president. The National Archives put out a statement saying it was patently false.
Tim then pulled what all Trumpists do when trying to rebut something: “Well, I have no idea ]about that]. I hadn’t heard that.” It’s as if, because they don’t know the news and the truth, then it doesn’t matter. And he still insisted Obama couldn’t have done it if he wanted to — as if the Republicans wouldn’t have gone completely and totally berserk if that happened.
It went downhill from there for Tim. He ho was trying to present himself as objective but was clearly deep in the Trump cult, and could not defend Trump’s actions though he lamely tried.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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In a discussion about protesters who gathered peacefully outside a Morton’s SteakHouse in Washington DC while Justice Brett Kavanaugh ate inside, Steve from Minnesota called my SiriusXM show.
Immediately he asked what if the “other side” got this idea, and began “harassing” AOC in a restaurant, referring to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
That can only draw a laugh. I pointed out, first off, that no one was “harassing” Kavanaugh, who never even came into contact with the protesters and slipped out the back door. But more than that, Democrats have faced protesters — and harassment and violence — from the right for decades. Anti-abortion radicals have long been harassing women at abortion clinics — and doctors and healthcare workers have been killed.
No one should face violence, I said, like what we saw on January 6th. But everyone in public life has faced peaceful protests, and should expect that.
Steve kept going back to his same talking points, about the “slippy slope” and the “other side.”
It was almost like a threat. And it also shows how pathetically scared the right is when it comes to protest. The fact that Kavanaugh slipped out the back door, unable to face the people who stood up against his ripping a right from millions, spoke volumes.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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In a discussion of high gas prices, Brian from Colorado called into my SiriusXM program to say President Biden is a hypocrite for asking oil companies to use leases they have but are refusing to use because he promised during the presidential race to “destroy” their industry. This is a talking point of the right, and it needs to be debunked.
Of course, Biden made no such promise, as I explained to Brian, but he did talk about and has talked about getting us off of fossil fuels to save the planet and also helping oil companies transition to green energy — something some of them are doing. So no, there wasn’t any claim during the campaign of “destroying” oil companies but of transitioning them, something that might take a few decades.
What Biden is doing now, however, is demanding the companies pump oil in the short term, while we’re still dependent on fossil fuels, because supply shortages and the war in Ukraine have driven up prices. The companies have the leases to drill in new areas but are refusing to use them because they want the prices — and their profits — to soar.
Brian first tried to pose as someone who was a supporter of Biden — or perhaps neutral — when he was in fact a Trumper, as I dragged out of him.
This is a lie that that the right keeps pushing: That Biden is somehow engaged in contradictory behavior by asking the companies to stop price-gouging by pumping more oil. Doing so doesn’t mean you can’t stick to commitments to get the country off of fossil fuels in the long term and move on to green energy.
Let me know your thoughts!
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In a discussion of the Uvalde, Texas massacre, Bob from New Jersey called into my SiriusXM program — a “gun rights” defender of the Second Amendment as an amendment that is absolute — to say “you guys are out there, man.”
Bob said the Aecond Amendment was written to protect us from a “tyrannical government.”
If that’s the case, shouldn’t he be able to buy a surface-to-air missile, since the “tyrannical government” could be coming to his home in black helicopters?
Bob didn’t want to answer the question, nd claimed it was “apples and oranges.” He tried to change the subject. But when pinned down, forced to offer what is the only logical conclusion to his claim, he said, “Yeah,” he should have surface-to-air missile.
“Why not? If it’s protecting me,” he stated.
So Bob walked right into Crazyland. And once there, it’s hard to leave.
“So should you be able to have a nuclear weapon?” I asked
Bob then claimed he “doesn’t need” a nuclear weapon, but didn’t say the government should ban it.
I had to then just explain that this is where showed he is a “clown,” since many amendments to the Constitution has regulations and laws written around them.
The twisted reasoning and hypocrisy in these individuals’ arguments must be challenged, because, when pushed, they are forced to admit ridiculous and dangerous things, which only shows how radical and extreme they are.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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During a wrenching discussion about the Uvalde, Texas child massacre, Chris in Indiana, a “gun rights” supporter, called my SiriusXM program. He initially tried to change the subject to the school not being completely locked down, as well as the confusing and questionable response of law enforcement.
Those are not issues to be discounted, and investigations are underway, and we need answers. But the fact that things broke down shows that Republicans’ claims that the answer to this horrendous mass violence is more security are bogus. The GOP is also the party of incompetence and greed, and it doesn’t even fund or enforce the very measures it claims are the antidote to gun violence. Governor Greg Abbott has blood on his hands for the response by law enforcement, in addition to his having signrf laws that loosened gun restrictions in Texas.
More than that, the focus by Republicans and callers like Chris on security — and turning schools into maximum security prisons — takes the discussion away from the real story: The 18-year-old shooter had 2 AR-15s, weapons of war. And those weapons are marketed to teenagers.
When I brought it back to that, Chris then asked what laws would prevent this shooting?
I went through at least three: a) banning assault weapons; b) not allowing 18-year-olds to buy guns and; c) background checks which would pick up the violent behavior of this and other killers, including the Buffalo mass shooter.
Chris then tried to change the subject to….Chicago, and shootings there.
I didn’t allow it, as it’s the right’s usual diversion, and I shut him down. But of course, there wouldn’t be so many guns in Chicago or anywhere if people couldn’t go out of state, to Indiana or Iowa or lots of places, and buy guns easily — or buy them on the black market, which are guns that ultimately come from the manufacturers.
Anyway, listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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Okay, one more call from my SiriusXM show this week from the “Overturning Roe is No Big Deal” crowd.
Why do I take these calls? Because we have to refute these people and do it forcefully. And it’s great that we can do it publicly, so that we learn from one another. I also know there are many other people who are out there listening who have these opinions and if we could burst a bubble with even one of them — even if it riles them up and makes them think — that’s good.
In actuality, the calls to my program this past two weeks were overwhelmingly from people who were angry over the draft ruling from the Supreme Court. It was non-stop, and the energy was amazing. I’m going to write on that and post some of the calls because I think pundits are missing how this issue will drive the mid-terms.
But it is important to take on the Joes in Florida of the world.
Joe actually claimed that legislators are smarter than us and smarter than judges. But he then refused to respond when I asked his opinion on the Supreme Court sending many other things back to the states (like contraception) and those “smart” legislators deciding on them, claiming he doesn’t “do hypotheticals” and stating I was “going off on tangents.”
Oh, please. Joe is a coward for not engaging on those issues — and I told him so. Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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As the discussion over pro-choice protesters gathering in front of the homes of Supreme Court justices heats up, conservatives have been citing a 1950 federal statute in claiming its illegal to protest in front of of judges’ homes with the intent of influencing them.
And a man named Lance from North Carolina who is opposed to abortion called into my SiriusXM show, thinking he was going to pull a “gothcha” by citing the statute.
Nevermind that it is hard to prove that protesters are trying to “influence” a case rather simply expressing outrage at a ruling — or a draft ruling, in this case. The law, a McCarthy Era relic, actually bans such protests at or near any building where a judge or a jury would be, including their residences but also included the courthouse. That would include the Supreme Court, which has been the site of countless protests — including by anti-abortion activists — over the decades. Here’s the law, 18 U.S. Code § 1507, italics added for emphasis:
Whoever, with the intent of interfering with, obstructing, or impeding the administration of justice, or with the intent of influencing any judge, juror, witness, or court officer, in the discharge of his duty, pickets or parades in or near a building housing a court of the United States, or in or near a building or residence occupied or used by such judge, juror, witness, or court officer, or with such intent uses any sound-truck or similar device or resorts to any other demonstration in or near any such building or residence, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.
So, theoretically, all of those people who protested at the Supreme Court against abortion broke the law. Yet only now, with pro-choice activists (in one example, one hundred protesters in Justice Kavanaugh’s neighborhood, who are his own neighbors), are we hearing calls to ban or lock up protesters, using a a McCarthy Era law meant to silence Americans. Even some Republicans are opposed to arresting the protesters — though not Senator Tom Cotton.
And this is coming from a right-wing that has been so absolutist on “free speech” that many, including Ted Cruz, defend on free speech grounds the January 6th insurrectionists, who of course engaged in destroying property and engaging in violence against police.
The courts have actually narrowed the scope of the 1950 statute, by the way, allowing banners or signs, for example, which I pointed to as well when Lance called in. Having lost his ability to pull a “gotcha” moment with me, Lance then went on to make some ridiculous statement promoting his anti-abortion views, to which I just had to say, “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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This one got a little bit heated — mostly on my part, I admit — but I really just can’t deal with people saying the Supreme Court leaked draft decision doesn’t “ban” abortion, and that women can just go to another state for an abortion.
But that is what Dustin from Wyoming called into my SiriusXM program to say — starting off by saying “you’re really making me mad.” He also didn’t understand my assertion that states could ban contraception if the Supreme Court ruled that way, and stop contraception at states’ borders (He seemed to think I was talking about the U.S.-Mexico border, because I guess they’re all just obsessed with that border).
Why should anyone have to go to another state to exercise their rights? That’s the logical question, and I course I posed it. (And of course, some states, like Missouri, are now moving to ban women who reside in the state from getting abortions in other states.) But Dustin still felt states should decided.
Okay, then how would he feel if his sister were raped and forced to have the baby. Would he be okay with it, since most of the laws in states banning abortion have no exception for rape or incest, or, in some, even many medical emergencies? Suddenly, he thought there should be exemptions and, suddenly, he thought maybe the states shouldn’t decide.
I also asked how he’d like it if the Supreme Court allows bans on contraception — as this decision’s reasoning sets up, and some Republicans in states like Michigan have called for that to happen — which wold force Dustin would to drive out of state to get condoms.
Dustin was pretty stumped. He threw out insults, hemmed and hawed, deflected, laughed, asserted his rights as the “father” of a fetus that a woman might abort, claimed my hypotheticals — of which I put out a few others — were not realistic.
But he couldn’t answer the question.
Listen in, and let me know your thoughts!
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State Senator Mallory McMorrow of Michigan last week dropped a bomb on the GOP’s vicious attacks on Democrats as “groomers” and sexual predators because they stand up against bills targeting minorities.
Her floor speech then went viral. And she provided a blueprint for Democrats moving into the midterms and energized progressives all across the country.
In an interview on my SiriusXM program days later, McMorrow explained that her response didn’t actually begin with her righteous anger over a fundraising email pitch by Republican senator Lana Theis that targeted McMorrow by name as a “groomer,” as has been reported.
It really started she said, a week prior, when Theis gave an eyebrow-raising prayer at the start of the Senate’s session. An invocation isn’t out of the ordinary, McMorrow pointed out — it “generally is something to set the tone” of the work legislators will do together. But what struck McMorrow as ugly was the content of the prayer this time.
She used a prayer to plead with God for protection because our children are under attack from dark forces that would have them hear and know and see things against their parents will. And it was such a thinly-veiled replica of language like Florida’s “Don’t say gay” bill that I walked out with few of my other colleagues.
Cut to a week later, she decided to single me out in a fundraising email and accuse me of grooming children, kindergarteners ,supporting pedophilia and sexualization of children, and making eight-year-olds feel like they were responsible for slavery. And it was just gut-wrenching to see that.
McMorrow had a lot to say in our interview, both about how Republicans are demonizing Democrats and how Democrats need to respond. This week the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee sent out a fundraising email written by McMorrow — and it was their most successful pitch of the year.
McMorrow is a young leader, a suburban mom who embraces her faith and is not afraid of the GOP attacks, as so many Democrats appear to be. She said the Republican strategy to attack teachers, LGBTQ people, the teaching of history on racism in schools and to demonize all Democrats are all thing to which Democrats must forcefully respond.
It’s no longer a fringe idea or a conspiracy theory. It’s real. It’s a real strategy being used by one of our major political parties in this country….Call out the nonsense. Because the issues the Republicans are putting forward are non-issues. They’re made up. They’re making up issues to scare and fearmonger and scapegoat to avoid taking on any real issues. Because putting forth policy in government is really hard.
Listen in to the full interview, and let me know your thoughts.
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Jeff from Atlanta, clearly a card-carrying Trumpist, called my SiriusXM show as we were discussing the McCarthy tapes last week, which revealed the minority leader lied and had supported Donald Trump resigning.
Let’s just say Jeff was the brightest bulb among the MAGA minions.
Calling McCarthy a RINO (Republican in name only), he tried to change the subject to Hunter Biden — but of course.
I had to to shut that down quickly, as well as his name-calling of Nancy Pelosi.
Getting him back on who will be House Speaker if Republicans win, and if McCarthy will be challenged, I asked him about the possible candidates, throwing out a few names after he at first couldn’t name any.
Jeff said Marjorie Taylor Greene, the QAnon cultist who testified last week that she couldn’t remember anything surrounding January 6th, would be “fantastic.”
Yes, the same Marjorie Taylor Greene who lied on the stand last week, saying she thought Black Lives Matter or Antifa were breaking into the Capitol on January 6th but was revealed today to have texted Trump’s chief of staff on that day, panicked and trying to get Trump to “calm down people” among his supporters who were attacking the Capitol.
Matt Gaetz? “Sure!” exclaimed.
Madison Cawthorn. “Who? I’m not familiar with him.”
Any other candidates? [Lauren] Boebert would be fine.”
Jeff then tried to change the subject to Black Lives Matter and where the “investigations” were of that group. I had to explain that there’s no investigation of any other group trying to overthrow the government because only those who attacked the Capitol on January 6th have tried to overturn the election and the government.
Soon, I had to just let him go but told Jeff I did appreciate the “humorous” conversation.
This one just completely revealed the caliber of idiocy we’re dealing with on the right, and I’m glad I allowed him to just undo himself.
Let me know your thoughts!
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A caller to my SiriusXM show, Kevin from Long Island, New York, argued that I wasn’t telling the truth when I said a teacher couldn’t discuss his husband, or a student, couldn’t talk about being “gay” or “trans” under Florida’s and other states’ “don’t say gay” bills.
This is a major talking of those who promote the bills — and they’re lying because they want to have it both ways and confuse people. Kevin might be the kind of person they’re trying to confuse. He claimed he is not in favor of the bill, and “disagrees” with it, and that it’s an example the “government imposing on teachers.”
He then claimed that, nonetheless, he read the bill and that wouldn’t prohibit a student, for example, to say he has two gay fathers, an example I’d used on the show.
But this is just parroting the claims by the sponsors of the bill who say it wasn’t about that, and that the bill reads there should be no “instruction” about sexual orientation or gender identity. That term “instruction” makes it sound like the bill is only banning discussion of sexual activity.
But in fact, when one Republican in the Florida legislature tried to change the bill to simply prohibit discussion of of sexual activity, the sponsors opposed it:
In Florida, State Senator Jeff Brandes of St. Petersburg thought he had found a compromise: He tried to amend the education-related legislation to effectively ban sex education through third grade without singling out L.G.B.T.Q. people. When Republicans voted down the amendment, Mr. Brandes said, he became convinced that the legislation was meant to “impact” the L.G.B.T.Q. community and create a political wedge.
The bill is not only purposely vaguely worded in the body of the bill, but it’s specifically worded in the preamble to ban “discussion” of sexual orientation and gender identity — which would clearly ban talking about being gay or trans or talking about family members who are. Surely no teacher is going to take a chance when the bill allows for lawsuits if parents believe they’ve crossed the line:
In its preamble, the bill’s authors write that their aim is to prohibit “classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity.” But later, the actual bill states that “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur”….
…”Well, what’s the scope of that term called ‘instruction?’” [University of Miami Law School Professor [Charlton] Copeland said. “And the preamble seems to have a conception of what is prohibited that is much broader when we might think of a cramped conception of ‘instruction.’”
When I tried to explain this to Kevin from Long Island, he seemed adamant that I was wrong. And then he said he was opposed to teaching “partisan” ideas to students, which I took as an insult — and told him so — since being gay or trans isn’t “partisan.”
That made me believe he wasn’t really someone who is opposed to the bill, and I told him I thought he was spouting b**t. But whatever the case, this is the confusion that proponents are trying to create, sucking people in on their “parents rights” ruse.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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Jonathan from Texas called my SiriusXM show to express shock when I said the majority of Americans don’t support Florida’s “don’t say gay” bill and do support teaching children in elementary school about sexual orientation and gender identity.
“Where did you get that? How is that even possible?” he asked.
I then read him just one among several polls, an ABC News poll showing 62% of Americans are opposed to the bill, when the question is is asked clearly.
Jonathan then claimed to be a teacher and said even in his city of “liberal Austin” he couldn’t believe that was true, and that discussing these issues was “confusing kids.”
I then raised several hypotheticals about kids who have gay parents, and how they would talk in school about their families. He kind of just stammered along — until he just hung up.
Guess he couldn’t have an actual conversation about it. I also wonder if he was really a teacher.
Let me know your thoughts!
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Don from Los Angeles called in to my SiriusXM show to tell me that it was a “waste of time” to call for the impeachment of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas because Republicans would never allow it.
I agreed, but said that didn’t make it a waste of time to focus on it. In fact, I said, it is a “gold mine” for Democrats to use against the GOP. This is the most corrupt thing we have seen with regard to the Supreme Court, and yes, we need to tie Republicans to it.
Anyway, it got pretty heated — or rather, I should say I got pretty heated — because it outraged me so much that he suggested we should just dismiss this. If it were a liberal justice whose was texting the president’s chief of staff to overturn an election, the GOP would be going ballistic.
Some will say I had little patience here — and the truth is, I didn’t.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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This is part of a series focusing on Democratic candidates Im interviewing on my SiriusXM show as Democrats fight to keep the House and Senate in the 2022 midterms.
Jamie McLoed-Skinner is exactly what Oregon’s 5th Congressional District needs. And in the newly-redrawn district she has a great shot at beating incumbent Democrat Kurt Schrader.
Schrader has been one of the nine or 10 so-called “moderates” among House Democrats. But I call them obstructionists because there’s nothing moderate about what they’ve done in attempting to block President Biden’s agenda. Schrader voted against the president’s coronavirus relief bill — one of only two Democrats who voted no — and voted against reduced drug prices via Medicare, as he’s in the pocket of Big Pharma, taking over $140,000 from drug companies.
Back in January of 2021, Schrader called Donald Trump’s “rushed impeachment” after January 6th a “lynching,” and several political strategists dumped him over the remark (though he did ultimately vote to impeach.)
Jamie McLeod-Skinner is an elected Jefferson County Education Service District board member who ran for Oregon secretary of state in 2020. The newly-redrawn 5th district now includes the county where she’s one every time she’s been on the ballot. Schrader has underperformed in his races, and the new district bodes worse for him in running against a Republican.
McLeod-Skinner haw the endorsement of former Oregon governor Barbara Roberts, and other Democratic leaders who previously endorsed Schrader. This month she also received an endorsement of Senator Elizabeth Warren.
McLoed-Skinner spoke with me about her background, and the issues she’s focused on, including education, climate change, the attacks on American democracy, abortion rights, student debt and affordable housing. An open lesbian, she is committed to equality for all and has been working in the community throughout the district on a wide variety of issues.
McLoed-Skinner also took on Schrader’s obstructionism as well as why she’s well-placed to win the primary in the newly-redrawn district and will galvanize the base of the Democratic Party in the general election.
Listen in to what Jamie McLoed-Skinner had to say, and please check out her website where you can read more about her and help her out.
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This is part of a series focusing on Democratic candidates Im interviewing on my SiriusXM show as Democrats fight to keep the House and Senate in the 2022 midterms.
Missouri’s GOP Senator Roy Blunt is retiring. And Democratic candidate Lucas Kunce, a Marine veteran running as a populist, is electrifying voters, taking on corporate greed and corruption.
The attorney and Director of National Security at the American Economic Liberties Project, whose mission it fighting against corporate monopolies and economic inequality, is making Republicans in Missouri nervous, particularly as their own state party, like that of the national GOP, continues to fracture amid Donald Trump’s demands of full allegiance. Kunce has raised more money than any of the Republicans vying for the open U.S. Senate seat. A Democratic win would be a big upset and surely help Democrats retain the Senate.
A recent GOP poll showed Kunce within 4 points of beating former Missouri Governor Eric Greitens, who announced he’s running for the open seat. Greitens resigned as governor in 2018 while facing criminal corruption charges and accusations that he was trying to blackmail a woman with whom he had a sexual affair, an allegation that an investigatory committee in the Missouri Legislature later determined was credible.
Greitens is a hard-core Trumpist, though Trump hasn’t endorsed a GOP candidate running in the primary. Republican leaders in the state are so scared of Greitens on the ballot that even Missouri’s Senator Josh Hawley, Mr. Insurrection himself, decided to endorse a candidate even though he’d initially said he wouldn’t. He backed Missouri Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler, a viciously anti-LGBTQ House member who, like all the candidates in the race, is as full-on MAGA as Greitens, having voted against certifying the 2020 election.
Kunce’s powerful economic messages and his focus on the urgency of dealing with climate change are resonating with Missourians. And having served in the Marines working with the Joint Chiefs on issues related to Russia, he’d be a senator who has experience focusing on both domestic and foreign policy issues that the U.S. faces.
Missouri has been a solidly red state in recent presidential elections, but has elected Democrats to statewide office, like Senator Claire McCaskill, who served from 2007 until 2019. Democratic Secretary of State Jason Kander, challenging Blunt in 2016, came within three points of ousting the GOP senator even as Donald Trump won the state by 16 points that same year. So, a dynamic Democrat who connects with voters can certainly win in Missouri.
Listen in to my conversation on my SiriusXM show with Lucas Kunce, and check out his website.
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In a discussion on my SiriusXM program about mask and vaccine mandates — and angry Canadian truckers — Jeff from Washington, DC called to say it’s an “invasion of privacy” issue and people don’t want to be forced to show “their papers.”
When I asked if he had a driver’s license or just drove without one, he bafflingly stated, “You don’t need a driver’s license if you drive on your own property.”
Guess he never leaves his driveway?
And when I asked if he wore a seatbelt, he said no — to which I pointed out that he’s breaking the law and if stopped by the police he will have to show his “papers,” his license (and will be punished).
Just like the way you’ll be turned away from a restaurant that requires vax proof or fired from your job if your employer has a mandate, I explained. Any difference, I asked?
Yes, Jeff said, because when driving you’re on a public road when a police officer asks you for your license. But when you go into a restaurant they’re not an agent of the state.
Put aside the fact that he’d just previously implied it was wrong for the state to require a license and enforce seatbelt laws — but now was defending it and differentiating it from a restaurant, which is following health department rules.
A restaurant having to protect patrons by not serving food that is rotted or by curing a rodent problem is different, he said, from a restaurant having to enforce a vaccine mandate because the former is a “health department issue.”
But so are the vaccine mandates — enforced by the health department to protect patrons.
It just went that way, on and on, with Jeff contradicting himself and spinning in circles.
It’s always a treat listening to these people twist themselves up and having to deal in logic — and it just sharpens our arguments. This one was pretty ridiculous. I ended it by telling him to wear his seat belts.
Listen in and let me know your thought!
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Rob in Seattle called into my SiriusXM show with the predictable argument that the left is “canceling” Joe Rogan. This, even as I explained that Rogan hasn’t been thrown off Spotify but in fact musicians have made a choice to remove their own music.
That, he still said, was a call to “censorship,” even though the musicians are engaging in their own free speech in the free market, and deny Spotify the right to their music.
Rob then seemed oblivious to the fact that the GOP are banning books in several states and subjects in classrooms, including teaching the history of racism or talking about sexual orientation.
But back to Rogan, when I asked him if everyone should be saying the N-word on TV, say, on CNN or other channels — as Rogan did on his podcast — he said, “No — it is free speech but there are consequences, repercussions” for free speech.
Well, isn’t that what Rogan is experiencing in the free market? Rob didn’t have too much to say to that, as he basically undermined his whole argument.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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Earlier in the week, on my SiriusXM show I discussed the controversy over Joe Rogan’s Covid vaccine misinformation and his platform, Spotify, facing the actions of artists taking their music off the platform in protest.
I also focused in on the latest fake cure being promoted by anti-vaxxers: A tea made from pine needles, which, miraculously, was supposedly proved effective back in 2011, according to it’s backer — long before Covid-19.
Don’t even ask. You can watch this video in which the Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody interviews a purveyor of this new conspiracy, which like all anti-vax conspiracies, is dangerous because it prevents people from getting vaccinated.
Shortly after my discussion, Steve from Utah called my program to say that Joe Biden and Rachel Maddow have peddled “misinformation” for saying the vaccines will protect you against Covid-19 and from transmitting it to others — apparently because there are breakthrough cases and thus they were supposedly not telling the truth.
I asked, If I tell you to take two aspirin for your headache is that a guarantee that your headache will go away?
No, of course, not. But quite likely, and much more probable than if you didn’t take aspirin. He couldn’t really answer questions about how the vaccines are 85% and 90% effective but that means, yes, there will be breakthroughs.And even if there are, those people are less likely to go to the hospital, per all the studies we now have.
The conversation devolved into idiocy, as it does with these people, to the point where I asked him if he was taking animal urine — another conspiracy cure — and drinking the pine needle tea.
He then accused me of “gaslighting.” LOL.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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This week the FDA revoked two monoclonal antibodies, from Regeneron and Eli Lilly respectively, because they have no affect on the Omicron variant.
People with Covid-19 were being given false hope by some hospital and doctors, as the treatments are as useless as ivermectin.
And Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, who’d boxed himself in by wildly promoting monoclonal antibodies over vaccines — hardly giving any events over recent months urging people to get vaxxed, as he played to the Trumpist anti-vax base — went ballistic.
He accused the Biden administration of allowing people to die, which is ludicrous because it was the drugmakers themselves that announced the treatments don’t work against Omicron:
The regulatory move was expected because both drugmakers had said the infusion drugs are less able to target omicron due to its mutations…
..Omicron’s resistance to the two leading monoclonal antibody medicines has upended the treatment playbook for COVID-19 in recent weeks.
As I discussed this on my SiriusXM show this week, a DeSantis supporter called in to both try to clarify that DeSantis is “not an anti-vaxxer,” even as DeSantis has not promoted vaccines in months and bans vaccine mandates, and to excuse DeSantis on several fronts.
Doug from Florida couldn’t explain why DeSantis stood next to a QAnon-inspired anti-vaxxer at a DeSantis event who claimed the vaccines “change your RNA” — and DeSantis didn’t correct him.
And when I pointed out that DeSantis has a major donor with a big stake in Regeneron, Doug blew it off, stating, “"He is a politician, and that's what politicians do."
So, it appears totally okay to DeSantis supporters in Florida that DeSantis is pushing a useless, expensive therapy — paid for by your federal tax dollars — which one of his donors makes a killing on, even if it puts people’s lives at risk by giving them false hope there’s a treatment for Omicron rather than just urge then to get vaccinated.
You’ll want to hear this one, as the guy remained level-headed — while being completely delusional.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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The proof that Trump supporters are immersed deep in a cult becomes so clear when they call into my SiriusXM radio program to spout ludicrous non-facts with such confidence. It brings me back to CPAC, and the golden calf of Trump that was wheeled down a corridor while worshipers looked on. They bow to the authoritarian and give up all independent thought.
MAGA follower Dave from California called into my show to claim that Congress has no power over elections. I literally read from the Constitution to him, from precisely where it says Congress has a lot of power.
Dave was jarred, in the way that cult followers often are when their counter-logic is exposed. After referencing Trumpist radio host Mark Levin — which was hilarious — he then tried to change the subject to the Electoral College.
But I held him to what he initially called about and asked him to counter what I stated, or to admit he was wrong. He said he didn’t “have a copy of the Constitution to read,” so “I don’t know.”
Then he tried to change the subject to voter ID, which is a straw man because the Freedom to Vote Act, which Senator Joe Manchin helped write (yet he wouldn’t allow a filibuster carve out to get passed), would allow states to ask for ID and lists the kind of ID people can use.
So, that didn’t work either.
Dave then just started babbling about something else. And then something else.
It was quite something to behold.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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f you’ve been enjoying The Signorile Report, consider becoming a paid subscriber and supporting independent, ad-free opinion journalism. Thanks!
This is part of series focusing on Democratic candidates Im interviewing on my SiriusXM show as Democrats fight to keep the House and Senate, and even gain seats, in the 2022 midterms.
Vermont has just one Congressional district and it’s not in danger of falling into GOP hands. Yet the small progressive state has great influence, represented by Senator Bernie Sanders in the U.S Senate, a several-time presidential candidate who has helped move the agenda in a dramatically progressive way for Democrats.
So I wanted to focus in on Becca Balint, president pro tempore of the Vermont Senate, who made history as the first woman elected to legislative leadership in that state.
Ballint will also make history as the first LGBTQ person and first woman representing Vermont in the United States House of Representatives if elected in 2022, bringing even more change to Washington from the Green Mountain State. Democratic Congressman Peter Welch, currently representing Vermont in the House, will now run for the the U.S. Senate after the announcement of the retirement of Senator Patrick Leahy.
Balint has a lot of great ideas, enormous passion and will be a powerful addition to progressives in the House. So I thought you might want to hear my full interview with her from my SiriusXM program. And you can check out her campaign site here.
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Once again, a person who claimed to have been vaccinated — though had been “hesitant” previously — called in to my SiriusXM program to argue against vaccine mandates.
This time Shelly from Virginia claimed to be a health care worker.
She also claimed that people should not be mandated to get vaccinated by employers and should in fact collect unemployment if they lose their jobs — as some Republican governors are now offering — because many people have been “vaccine-damaged” in the past. She particularly pointed to veterans.
That is anti-vax terminology that has been floated among the anti-vax conspiracy theorists, going back to a video in 2020 about “vaccine damage” that has proven to be completely false.
On a list of vaccine concerns for many different vaccines over decades, the CDC found no long-lasting “damage” proven to anyone, though there were many investigations of vaccines after people claimed problems.
Regarding veterans, there have been many health outbreaks among them while they served on active duty military and later, some related to infections caused by needles that weren’t sterile, but there’s been no proof of any damage by vaccines. There have been numerous illnesses reported by veterans, particularly during the Gulf War, but none were proven to be caused by a vaccine, even though there have been many such claims.
It might be true, as Shelly states, that many are afraid of vaccines based on these past beliefs and claims, but that should not warrant scrapping vaccine mandates to protect the greater public.
If people need psychological help in dealing with getting over a fear of a vaccine they should seek it, as I told her.
I finally had to just end the conversation with Shelly when she began to go back to the boilerplate anti-vax argument — that few people are supposedly dying of Covid-19 — as I won’t allow disinformation to spewed on my show.
Why do I talk to these people at all?
So that maybe someone on the fence who might be listening can see how foolish they sound. And also so that others who are promoting vaccines can be as forceful in rebutting these people — because they truly must be forcefully rebutted.
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During a discussion about the horrific school shooting in Oakland County, Michigan last week, Jeff from South Carolina called into my SiriusXM program to express that he was a “at a loss” to hear me hold Trump supporters responsible for this extremist, violence behavior we’re seeing, which is emboldened by GOP leaders.
An obvious conservative and Trump supporter, he was shocked — or at least claimed to be— at the idea that one is responsible for actions of politicians in a party one supports who aren’t punished for their violent actions.
I’d explained, as I wrote here yesterday, that Jennifer Crumbley, mother of Eathan Crumbley, was an avowed supporter of Donald Trump, and how she and her husband James bought the gun for their son and had seen warnings that he’d engage in violence.
I went through Jennifer Crumbley’s open letter to Trump, vowing allegiance to him, and I went through the calls to violence by Trump-supporting right-wing Republican politicians, such as North Carolina’s Madison Cawthorn, who commanded all mothers, regarding their sons, to “raise them to be a monster!”
And I talked about how Cawthorn and other extremists in the party are now in control of the GOP in the House, because the supposed leaders of the party — like Kevin McCarthy — not only don’t condemn them; they reward them.
And let’s not forget the glorification of guns. Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie sent out a Christmas tweet with this hideous photo last Saturday, following the Michigan school shooting. It was on the very day that the Crumbleys, having become fugitives, were on the run.
Jeff became angry at the insinuation that he was supporting hatred and violence. He expressed ignorance at hearing Cawthorn’s comments, and said he is a “middle of the road” guy who “looks at people like Madison Cawthorn and Marjorie Taylor Greene as “nutbags.” This was the attempt to absolve the rest of the GOP.
But, I explained, the extremists are the GOP now, because the leaders don’t condemn them. And if you support the GOP — now completely owned lock, stock and barrel by Trump, who enables the extremists — then you are enabling the agenda of the “nutbags,” including their promotion of violence.
This abdication of responsibility is typical of many Trumpers, who try to minimize the violence by saying they don’t support it — while they support the party, and the leadership that embraces it.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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I got into quite a scrap with Shannon from South Carolina, who called my SiriusXM program to claim that because the Covid-19 vaccines aren’t 100% effective, and thus people could still theoretically transmit Covid if vaccinated, the government “doesn’t have a right” to mandate the vaccine.
I then asked him if he knew the efficacy of the measles vaccine or polio vaccine or others, all of which are and were under 100% effective (and some not nearly as good as the Covid vaccines), and yet are mandated by governments with mandates upheld by the courts.
He said he knew nothing about that but deferred to his wife, who he said was in the “medical professional.”
When I said he’d not taken up an education from his wife very well if he didn’t know that, he accused me of attacking his wife!
Shannon called me a jerk for allegedly saying his wife “is not educated.”
But that’s not what I said, I told him, I said, “your wife did not educate you well.”
“I’m not insulting her — I’m insulting you,” I said.
Yes, by the end of the conversation I called him “dumb as a rock.”
Was I too hard on him? Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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This stunning and horrible account underscores how deep and dangerous the anti-vax Trump cult is.
A listener to my SiriusXM program, Joe from New Jersey, called in to tell us about a childhood friend who contracted Covid-19, was hospitalized and put on a ventilator, and tragically had both legs amputated — and still refuses to believe it’s a good idea to get vaccinated.
She was lucky to survive, but after an experience like that how could anything not have any regrets about not getting a free and effective vaccine?
Joe said his friend had moved back to New Jersey from North Carolina, and he eventually had to un-friend her on Facebook because she “became an anti-vaxxer, she became a total Trumper.”
She then contacted him three months later.
“She finally reached out to me last night,” Joe said. “She wound up getting Covid, wound up on a ventilator, and then wound up having both of her let’s amputated due to Covid.”
She still believes all the conspiracies.
“It’s horrible but I was more angry with her — I don’t fee sorry for her, I can’t, I don’t mean to sound heartless — I’m more angry with her, because we argued so much, back and forth. about having the vaccine, and her right not to have it, and this is where she wound up,” Joe explained.
He’s speechless now, he said, because this 55-year old woman lost both of her legs because of Covid and has no regrets.
“I point blank said to her last night, ‘Do you regret not getting the vaccine?’ And she wouldn’t answer me.”
Joe said, “I love her to death. She’s a good friend, but I’m more angry with her than feel sorry for her.”
The story makes you realize that for many of these people it’s a hopeless cause. They will keep the pandemic fueled and do harm to themselves and others.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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This was pretty bizarro.
On my SiriusXM program I was discussing Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers having lied about getting vaccinated for Covid-19 — and then saying he was on ivermectin, used largely as a dewormer for livestock and other animals, and promoted by antivaxxers, Fox News pundits and Joe Rogan.
That’s when Steve from Virginia called in.
Rather than focus on Rodgers’ lie — or even Rodgers refusal to get vaxxed, and defend that if he wanted to — Steve shifted away from the topic other callers were weighing in on to claim my discussion of ivermectin was “childish.”
He explained that it’s been used for humans and that this was “human grade” ivermectin. I explained that while it’s true humans have used it there are now a variety of other drugs, much more effective for treating parasites in humans, and that ivermectin was used mostly in animals and has been for many years.
But one question Steve refused to answer was why he was defending ivermectin. The conversation went around in circles, and Steve both refused to say he wasn’t taking ivermectin nor address Rodgers having lied.
It was quite amusing. Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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A California man named Ed called into my SiriusXM show and claimed he was “not trying to give away a position one way or the other” but that a Southwest Airlines pilot can be excused for saying “Let’s Go Brandon!” — code for “F**k you, Biden!” — to passengers from the cockpit because of the “mental illness” foisted on Donald Trump by the “media and Hollywood.”
Ed said that “he had to listen to four years” of it, but added “not that I’m trying to take a position” —as if he weren’t a Trump supporter — and thus he doesn’t have sympathy for Biden and thinks calls for the Southwest pilot to be fired or punished are wrong.
Ed implied there was no difference between media pundits, celebrities or even politicians criticizing the president and a pilot of a private airline doing so on a flight with passengers and using code for a profanity.
“Oh, yes there was,” he said, when I said that there hadn’t been anything like this against Trump that wasn’t punished. “Sure there was,” he shot back. “Are you blind?”
“So wait — there was a pilot who did that?” I asked. He then deflected.
“It doesn’t matter,” Ed responded, trying to say this was the same as the media and Hollywood figures criticizing Trump, which is ludicrous.
In fact, I pointed out, Kathy Griffin, working for a private company, CNN, was fired for tweeting out a photo of a mask of Trump with ketchup on it — and by the way, she is a performer, meant to be provocative and make us think, and not an airline pilot, whose only job is to fly a plane.
It got pretty ridiculous. And it was a window into these people’s (non) thinking.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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This is one that you just have to listen to.
I’d been talking to a caller on my SiriusXM show about the right-wingers and Trumpers who listen to the show and claim they just are cruising down the dial and find it —- when, lo and behold, Dan from Omaha calls in and claims just that.
He was absolutely shocked that we could say the “good people” at DonaldTrump rallies were doing anything bad, even as they’re belting out violent and racist chants.
Oh and he defended the January 6th insurrectionists too.
Poor Dan just wasn’t up to answering questions, however, and ultimately we had to say bub-bye.
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As I was discussing the hate coming from far-right extremist GOP House members, including North Carolina’s Madison Cawthorn, who told a group of moms that they need to raise their boys to be “monsters,” Marie from South Carolina called in to my SiriusXM program to defend Cawthorn.
Marie was indignant, a true Trumper’s Trumper. At first she asked, “I would like to know where your information comes from, that you were saying Madison Cawthorn is telling moms to make their kids be monsters…?”
I had just played the audio clip and said, “Didn’t you hear the clip? It came out of his own mouth.”
She then switched to: “He meant to raise them to be real men, to stand up for their women, to provide for their families…”
Yep, stand up for “their” women, as if we are back in the 1800s.
I asked Marie if she was raising her children to be monsters and I read the dictionary definition of a “monster.”
Then she called Joe Biden a “monster” — which made no sense, since, if Cawthorn is telling people to raise their children to be monsters, whatever the definition he “meant,” then he’s telling them to be Joe Biden.
When I pointed that one out, it went over Marie’s head completely.
There’s only one thing that Cawthorn, a radicalized Trump loyalist who’s promoted white supremacist ideology, meant, of course: Raise your children to be violent. Monsters scare people and hurt people — and that’s certainly what children believe monsters to be.
Marie then changed the subject to my having said, “They’re trying to start a civil war.”
I did say that, having pointed out that Cawthorn held up a gun at an event recently and said there will be “bloodshed,” and having pointed out that he’s defended the January 6th insurrectionists. And he’s clearly telling mothers to prepare their boys for doing battle, in the form of physical violence. Oh, and he posed for photos at Hilter’s vacation retreat.
When I explained that to Marie, she got pretty discombobulated and confused, throwing out random comments.
Sometimes you just have to allow these people to walk out to the edge of a cliff with their comments, and then they have no where to go.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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Bill from Ohio called my SiriusXM show claiming to be “channel surfing” and was supposedly shocked by how “irresponsible” I was by saying that half of the Republicans in the U.S. House are “anti-vax.”
I pointed out to him that 100% of Democrats in Congress reported getting vaccinated, while nearly half of Republicans in the House wouldn’t say.
He continued to say that I have “a microphone” and that I was not being “responsible.”
I got rightly pissed at this guy’s nerve — and yeah, a four-letter word came out — and asked if he called Sean Hannity, and Tucker Carlson, as well as Donald Trump, who told people to inject bleach, and told them they were irresponsible.
I pointed out that if politicians aren’t announcing that they are are vaccinated and that everyone should get vaccinated — in the middle of a pandemic — then they are anti-vax. Anyone who isn’t telling people to get vaccinated and won’t discuss their own status is anti-vax.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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Yesterday, all but nine House Republicans voted against holding Steven Bannon in contempt of Congress for defying a lawful subpoena to speak before the January 6th Select Committee. That lawmakers — people who are sworn to uphold the law — would embrace lawbreaking is extraordinary and dangerous. But this is where we are as Donald Trump orders the GOP to do his bidding. This is how would-be dictatorships work.
New York University professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat studies authoritarian leaders. Her book, Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, was published last year and is a must-read. I had her on my SiriusXM program several times, including last week, to discuss Donald Trump and what he has in common with dictators and autocrats of the past and present.
The GOP and the Trump base have lately been holding up Hungary and its authoritarian leader Victor Orban as a model for the U.S. Fox News’ Tucker Carlson went to Budapest with his show for a full week. The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is heading to Budapest for its next gathering.
This is a breathtaking open embrace of anti-democratic, authoritarian, corrupt and criminal leadership. Orban and Hungary are on the brink of being expelled by the European Union because of human rights abuses — attacks on LGBTQ people and immigrants — and the stripping or rights of citizens.
In our interview last week, Ben-Ghiat noted:
With this kind of strongmen personality where they are so arrogant and they need to be in power, because they’re very corrupt and they need immunity from prosecution, they will stop at nothing to get back in power. And then once they do, they make sure that nobody can touch them again.
She was talking about Orban, but she may as well have been talking about Trump. Orban lost an election and then spent his entire time out of power claiming that he really had won and was a victim of voter fraud — his own Big Lie. When he rose to power a second time he stripped rights and consolidated power in a way that made it difficult if not impossible for him to ever lose power again. Trump is clearly modeling himself on Orban among others.
Ben-Ghiat and I discussed the current trajectory of the GOP and Trump, and why we can’t just push him aside or stop focusing on him. Every day they are organizing to subvert democracy.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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James for North Carolina called in to my SiriusXM program to say he “recently had Covid” and “it was rough” but that he “still fully agrees” that “you should not be forced to get the vaccination” even though he’s “going to choose to get the vaccination.”
James then went into some random story of someone who was vaccinated who supposedly died from Covid-19. (Of course, this has happened in extremely rare circumstances — such as the case in recent days of the immune-compromised Colin Powell, who suffered from multiple myeloma. But 99% of those who die from Covid-19 are unvaccinated.) And I had to cut through that distortion.
His bottom line was that if people don’t want to get vaccinated that is “their business” and about “their body” and yada yada.
I explained the you’re being vaccinated to protect other people — the public health at large. He admitted that he was vaccinated against polio, measles and other illnesses.
Why did he want to see this vaccine given some sort of exemption?
He claimed we don’t know enough about the Covid vaccines, which is just another bad talking point of the anti-vaxxers. We know more about these vaccines than we did about other vaccines before administering them. Emergency authorization for Covid vaccines required more rigorous testing than approval for past vaccines. And now Pfizer has full approval.
James then tried to claim the government is forcing people to get vaccinated — which is false. A mandate is in place to work in a specific job — a job requirement. You don’t have stay in that job if you choose to put your and others’ health at risk and stay unvaccinated.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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This is the second in a series focusing on Democratic candidates Im interviewing on my SiriusXM show as Democrats fight to keep the House and Senate, and even gain seats, in the 2022 midterms. (See the first installment here.)
Buncombe County commissioner and North Carolina Democratic Congressional candidate Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, who I interviewed on my SiriusXM program recently, views her mission to unseat North Carolina GOP Congressman Madison Cawthorn as exceedingly urgent.
Cawthorn, Beach-Ferrara said, has become “radicalized,” and is a danger to democracy as a Trump loyalist who has promoted violence and defended the January 6th insurrectionists being held without bail.
As executive director of the Campaign for Southern Equality, Beach-Ferrara has the passion of an activist who helped in the successful fight for marriage equality. As a pastor for the United Church of Christ she’s driven by her faith in seeking justice. All of that, as well as being openly lesbian, draws a sharp contrast with the extremist right-winger Cawthorn.
"He trafficked in false conspiracy theories for months after the [2020] election and helped incite the violent insurrection at our Capitol on January 6th," Beach-Ferrara said in announcing her run. "He has continued to lie about his resume and multiple women have had the courage to come forward with serious accusations of sexual misconduct."
When she announced her candidacy back in March, Beach-Ferrara astoundingly raised $100,000 in 24 hours, and while other Democrats have jumped into the primary race, Beach-Ferrara has outraised them all — and brought in over $320,000 in the third quarter, considered a strong quarterly number for the district. All of which shows enormous enthusiasm for her candidacy, as well as the drive to get Cawthorn out of office.
Beach-Ferrara and I spoke a lot about Cawthorn and the danger he represents — to the district and to the nation at large. But we also talked about her unique background and what she brings to race. And we discussed the big issues facing the country, like the Covid-19 pandemic.
I found her to be dynamic, passionate and very smart, and I know you’ll agree. It’s a tough Republican-leaning district, but creating enthusiasm is the key to winning.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts. And you can check out Beach-Ferrara’s site and help her out at JasmineForCongress.com.
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Matt from Houston called in to my SiriusXM show to “push back” at the supposed “celebration” I was having over health care workers being fired in New York because they wouldn’t be vaccinated against Covid-19.
In fact, I wasn’t celebrating those who were fired — I was celebrating the thousands who got vaccinated at the last minute last week, when faced with actually losing their jobs as a vaccine mandate deadline arrived. In the end, only a small percentage of people have been fired when vaccine mandates have gone into effect in cities and states across the country, as people realize it’s a requirement for the job.
Matt thought it was terrible that people had to “relent to keep their jobs, to make a personal choice about a vaccine.”
I explained that this a now a requirement, like many other job requirements for various fields, and they can make a choice to stay in the job or get another job.
I told Matt that, with regard to health care workers who refuse a vaccine, it was good to “weed them out,” as they don’t believe in science and are not qualified for the job.
That seemed to really irk Matt. “Who are you to judge people on what they are and are not willing to do with their own bodies,” he said, with a flash of anger. “You’ve gone — that’s way too far. That’s ridiculous.”
You can do whatever you want with your body, I told him. But I don’t have to hire you if you want to put people in danger by transmitting a communicable disease.
Matt then grabbed for boilerplate anti-vax talking points about how vaccinated people can still get infected with Covid — without highlighting the fact that they are relatively rare incidents and those with a breakthrough infection are highly unlikely to get seriously ill and not as transmissible as unvaccinated people.
His arguments were pretty feeble, and I think it showed the the anti-vaxxer claims are wearing thin even with the unvaccinated. They’re losing the larger battle, as people are getting vaccinated when it becomes about keeping their jobs. Matt ended the conversation by saying we’ll have to “agree to disagree,” which in this case seemed like a surrender.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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This is the first in what will be a series focusing on Democratic candidates Im interviewing on my SiriusXM show as Democrats fight to keep the House and Senate, and even gain seats, in the 2022 midterms.
Joseph Rocha is an Army and Navy veteran who fought to overturn the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which banned gay and lesbian servicemembers from serving openly. He actually served in the Army first, and, after his discharge in 2007, used his story to fight against the discriminatory policy, testifying as a witness as the ban was challenged in federal courts. During that time he attended law school. After DADT was repealed ten years ago, Rocha joined the Marines, rising to the rank of Marine Corps Captain and prosecutor.
He spoke with me on my SiriusXM program about his personal story, his passion for justice and what made him want to run for office. He’s focused on jobs and infrastructure as top priorities, supports a $15 minimum wage and believes we must address climate change urgently.
Rocha has what it takes to win against incumbent Republican Darrell Issa, a complete lackey to Donald Trump and someone who Cook Political Report deems one of the most vulnerable Republicans in Congress.
Issa, you may recall, has a history as one of the GOP’s most far-right and antagonistic bomb throwers, viciously attacking Democrats at every turn. He served for 18 years in California’s 48th and 49th Congressional districts, until he threw in the towel in 2018, fearful of the coming blue wave amid the backlash to Trump.
But Issa, then the richest person in Congress (now he is number two), came back in 2020, running in a district he saw as more winnable at the time, California’s 50th district, which includes part of San Diego and Riverside counties. It was a year when Trump brought out GOP voters because he was on the ballot himself, and yet Issa didn’t win the margins of other GOP candidates in the district.
One of the first things Issa did in office was to support the Big Lie and the insurrection, voting to overturn the 2020 presidential election on that day when mobs stormed the Capitol.
Issa, who engaged in gay-baiting in political ads in 2020, and who still supports repeal of Obamacare, is running on Trumpism, which California Governor Gavin Newsom, in resoundingly beating back a recall effort, showed is toxic for GOP candidates across the country and certainly in California.
Joseph Rocha had a lot to say about Issa, and why he must be beaten. And we talked about so much more.
Take a listen to the full to the interview. And check out his website here.
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Lee McIntyre is an MIT professor, a philosopher who went out and to speak with those who deny science, and authored How to Talk to a Science Denier: Conversations with Flat Earthers, Climate Deniers, and Others Who Defy Reason.
The book is obviously particularly relevant as we’re in the midst of a pandemic in which millions deny the science of vaccines — and the coronavirus itself. The same is true of climate change, which is an existential threat.
I interviewed McIntyre on my SiriusXM program to get his insights in the hopes they could help others, in particular family and friends who have been hesitant of getting vaccinated against Covid-19.
Though we’ve come into a time when the vaccinated are fed up and angry — rightly — at the unvaccinated for their role in keeping the pandemic continue, McIntyre says anger is just not going to work, and neither is “fact-flinging.”
He says trust is key — the denier needs to trust the person speaking with them — and that you need to ask the denier a lot of questions, allowing them to verbalize their own answers, frustrating as it can be. This is why, he says, that politicians can’t really change people’s minds even if they’re admired by those people — even Donald Trump, who got boo’d by his own supporters for telling them they should get vaccinated:
It’s a funny thing because when you’re talking about family and friends, the trust is already there and so that’s half the battle right there. Sometimes I think people are reluctant to have these conversations because they don’t want to make it worse. They don’t want to have a rift with a family member. And they’ll say it’s not worth it to do it.
On the other hand, sometimes people go at it way too hard. There’s something about the fact that it’s a family member that leads to disrespect rather than respect. People will be insulting sometimes with those they’re closest to in their lives.
Both of those [approaches} are a mistake.
Those who listen to my show, know that the approach I take with anti-vaxxers who call in after hearing me talking about Covid-19 and vaccines is indeed very hard. Sometimes it’s completely nuclear!
But I’m not someone these callers trust, so there’s no way I’m going to convince them anyway. They’re not calling me to get insight or just to chat about what’s going on in their lives, like they would with a friend of family member. They’re calling me to do battle, feeling their worldview threatened. They are calling to try to use my show to disseminate more misinformation on the airwaves.
My goal in engaging with them is to expose their lies and conspiracies for many other people across the country — some of whom might be misinformed and even on the fence, who might see how ridiculous these people sound. So, it’s a very different interaction — on both sides — than a one-on-one discussion with a family member or friend.
I think McIntyre makes a good point about trust and asking questions — and answering questions — and giving it time. After the interview, several people called the show who either used this approach themselves with people they know and were successful, or were themselves previously resistant to getting vaccinated but eventually did because someone they trusted approached them this way.
So, I know for many of you it’s the end of the rope with some family and friends and you’ve given up. And maybe you’ve tried something similar to what McIntyre advises.
But I think it might be good to hear him out. And I’d love to hear from those of you have in fact convinced people to get vaccinated. What worked? Others will certainly appreciate the advise.
Listen in and let us know your thoughts and experiences.
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While discussing President Biden’s mandates last week, a regular caller to my SiriusXM, Linda from Virginia, called in.
Usually Linda talks politics, as she is someone who is out organizing rallies and door-knocking at election time. But she called now to tell us the terrible news that sister and her brother-in-law both recently became infected with Covid-19, because they refused to get vaccinated. Both very quickly were on ventilators and died, leaving what she described as a “mess” for their children and the rest of the family, not having written wills or made plans for others who depend on them.
“I’m real damned pissed,” she said.
Linda said her sister and her husband were Trumpers in Florida who followed the lies of Governor Ron DeSantis and have now paid for it with their lives.
“She knew how I felt, she avoided the science, she followed the politicians — and now she is dead as they come,” Linda angrily said, stating she has no sympathy for her sister. “Sympathy is a word in the dictionary between s**t and syphilis.”
Linda explained her feelings, and said she was sorry her sister is dead, but that this could have been prevented.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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Source: AFGE, Licensed under Wiki Commons
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I didn’t want the week of Labor Day to end without posting my full interview with the amazing dynamo that is Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA AFL-CIO. Nelson has been a nonstop force for workers during the Covid-19 pandemic. And she’s created a lot of excitement among progressives — some even calling on her to run for office — as she injects a progressive energy for the labor movement and brings the voice of a woman to union leadership.
Speaking with me as part of our Labor Day special on my SiriusXM show, she outlined how she makes sure workers aren’t exploited, are paid fairly, and are treated with dignity and respect. Representing workers on the front lines who’ve been putting their lives at risk, Nelson made sure both the government and the industry protected workers in every way possible.
“Many people, when those hours were cut back, they took a 25 to 50 percent cut in pay because those hours no longer exist,” she told me about the early months of the pandemic. “Demand for air travel fell off overnight, like 97%, so we were immediately looking at the collapse of the entire industry. But flight attendants started to feel the brunt of this, as we were first learning about coronavirus, and still working on the planes and being on the front lines from the beginning.”
Nelson said she knew from looking back at the airline industry directly after the 9/11, when the industry suffered a devastating blow, “that if we didn’t set the demands right away, and make sure that relief [in government rescue programs] was defined as relief for the workers, that this would be another crisis that would be put on our backs.”
Nelson worked with government leaders closely, as well as industry executives. American Airlines CFO Derek Kerr recently said he was “most proud of saving jobs” and thanked the unions, including Nelson’s.
Nelson and I discussed that and so much more, from how flight attendants are dealing with mask-defying unruly passengers to the future of union organizing and the labor movement in America.
Listen in.
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President Biden has made important, and sometimes sweeping, pledges to American workers and, according to historian Nelson Lichtenstein, has strongly backed labor unions, and union organizing, more vocally than any other president in American history.
For someone often viewed as a moderate, Biden’s positions on unions and workers, the professor notes, are far to the left.
“One of Biden’s most radical things he says is, ‘Look, we want a society where companies compete for workers,’” Lichtenstein told me. “That’s actually quite radical. It’s sort of full-employment plus. He’s said that more than once. He means it.”
I spoke at length for a Labor Day special on my SiriusXM program with Lichtenstein, Distinguished Professor in the Department of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he directs the Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy.
The author of 16 books on the labor movement, Lichtenstein talked about the history Biden is making in many areas affecting workers, including in his appointments to the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice — “young, liberal-left lawyers” who are “taking anti-trust seriously.” The appointments, Lichtenstein says, “speak as loud as his words,” as he has brought people into government who view Big Tech as having “too much power.”
“Biden is re-orienting anti-trust, and making it a much broader concept,” Lichtenstein notes. “And that’s remarkable.”
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The professor discussed all the ways that change is happening, with the promise of more change. Lichtenstein is a brilliant historian and a vibrant, passionate educator. We had an energetic conversation about Biden, workers, unions, corporations, infrastructure, the Democrats and the future.
You’ll learn a lot and also enjoy the conversation — I certainly did on both counts.
Let me know your thoughts.
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Continuing in my new policy on my SiriusXM show, in which unvaccinated people may call in to argue their case if they first pledge not to be hospitalized if they get a bad case of Covid, I took a call from Jeff in Mississippi.
As I explained in a previous post:
I have a new policy for anti-vaxxers. It arose after many other listeners called the program in recent days with heartbreaking stories about friends or relatives who had non-Covid emergencies in places like Florida, Texas, Georgia and Mississippi, where ICU beds are over capacity, as hospitals are swamped with Covid patients.
Jeff immediately said he will not go to the hospital — because, he said, most people with Covid who go to the hospital and go on ventilators die. At first I couldn’t believe he was making this claim — that it is ventilators that cause death rather than Covid — but he persisted.
We had to strike up the “Twilight Zone” theme.
This was just astounding, and shows how deep in the cult these people are.
I explained how it is Covid that is putting people on ventilators, and that it’s your last chance, as your lungs are giving out, and the ventilator is actually keeping you alive, hopefully long enough to survive. But Jeff eventually said he was “afraid” of hospitals altogether, and explicitly took the pledge again, saying that he will not go to the hospital if he gets a bad case of Covid.
He was actually the first unvaxxed person to take the pledge. Most stopped calling altogether, while others refused to take the pledge, like Roz from California.
I’m sure a lot of you will say, “Great. If he isn’t vaxxed and won’t go to the hospital, I’m fine with that.”
I have a hard time, however, believing that when it all goes bad people like him will not seek hospital care. The same thing happened with many prominent vocal anti-vaxxers, like conservative radio talk show hosts Phill Valentine and Dick Farrel, both of whom spouted anti-vax lies only to change their minds, telling people to get vaccinated as they were hospitalized and went on ventilators. Both eventually died.
But maybe Jeff is an exception. Whatever the case, it’s truly sad and demented, an example of how the right-wing has put so many lives at risk by promoting dangerous lies about Covid-19.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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As the listeners to my SiriusXM show know, I take calls from people from many different perspectives and backgrounds.
That includes many in the MAGA crowd. I’m not sure why they listen, or why they call. But I’m happy to engage in dialogue, and always eager to challenge lies and distortions. With most I wouldn’t call it dialogue though, as they try to push conspiracies, refuse to listen or answer pertinent questions, and ultimately have to be slammed, as I won’t allow misinformation on the program.
The same has gone for anti-vaxxers, whatever their political beliefs. I think it’s important to use my platform to debunk their claims with facts and allow them to expose themselves as dangerous conspiracists.
But, I have a new policy for anti-vaxxers. It arose after many other listeners called the program in recent days with heartbreaking stories about friends or relatives who had non-Covid emergencies in places like Florida, Texas, Georgia and Mississippi, where ICU beds are over capacity, as hospitals are swamped with Covid patients.
One man talked about a friend who’s son was a in car accident in Florida, had severe injuries and was in a hallway in a hospital because there were no beds. Another man called from Georgia and weeped as he relayed the story of his friend with cerebral palsy who experienced respiratory illness and had to be rushed to a hospital. The man was turned away from three hospitals, which were filled to capacity, as his wife drove frantically to find emergency care.
So the policy I have for anti-vaxxers now is: They must pledge that if they get infected with Covid and it gets bad, they will refuse hospital care. Of course, they could lie. But amazingly, they just stopped calling, for the most part.
Except for unvaccinated Roz from California (well, and Abigail from Texas, who shouted at me angrily, saying I was “crazy” for asking her and others to take the pledge). Roz called in this week claiming she was a “medical professional” because she previously worked in the pharmaceutical industry — in “marketing” — and now is a “vet nurse.”
I honestly misheard and didn’t realize she said vet nurse, and thought she’d said she became a registered nurse. She started talking about “dogs and cats” — which obviously confused me — and how people come to her for advice on clinical trials. And then she started going down the road of saying how she, as “a medical professional,” is asked by family and friends about “long-term side side effects” of the Covid vaccines — and then claimed to know of two such side effects.
I cut her off right there and demanded that she take the pledge. It was fascinating because she just wouldn’t take it, wouldn’t address it, even while announcing she was unvaccinated. She kept trying to change the subject. I had to become very forceful, as you can hear in the clip.
But Roz adamantly refused to take the pledge. So I hung up on her. These people are selfish and cruel — though some people called in afterward to say I was “rude” to her.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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While Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida has banned mask and vaccine mandates to prevent Covid-19 infection, he’s been pushing a monoclonal antibody (MAb) treatment that was used to treat Donald Trump during his Covid battle last fall.
But DeSantis has downplayed the narrow eligibility criteria and effectiveness while embracing it as a sort of lockdown-defying, mask-screwing, MAGA-crazed solution to Covid-19, which is exploding in his state.
Who could forget Trump falsely touting MAb as a “cure” in the days after he returned to the White House, defiantly and frighteningly ripping off his mask from the Truman Balcony?
The treatment, developed by the company Regeneron with funding under Trump’s Operation Warp Speed, while experimental when it was administered to Trump, currently is the only MAb that has emergency authorization from the Food and Drug Administration — though, like the Covid-19 vaccines, it doesn’t have full approval yet. (Eli Lily, the only other company given authorization for an MAb product, lost authorization because its MAb isn’t effective against the delta variant.)
A lot has been written about Regeneron’s connection to one of DeSantis’ biggest political donors, a Trump loyalist of course:
As DeSantis ramps up his reelection bid, the largest donation to his political committee this cycle is a $5 million contribution from Kenneth Griffin, the CEO of hedge fund Citadel, which owns $15.9 million shares in Regeneron, according to a regulatory report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission this week.
Shares of Regeneron have gone through the roof as DeSantis has touted it and the opening of treatment centers in the past two weeks around Florida to administer it. At press conferences — where he mentions vaccines, but then points to how even vaccinated people get infected, seemingly emboldening vaccine resistance — he stands in front of a sign that reads, “Early Treatment Saves Lives.”
But who among those currently becoming infected with Covid-19 in Florida exactly qualifies for MAb, enough to walk into a Florida treatment center and have the antibody cocktail — hundreds of thousands of doses of which were purchased by the Trump administration last fall for $450 million and distributed to the states — infused into their veins for 20 minutes?
Actually, not many people at all.
A caller to my SiriusXM show, Curt from Utah, identified himself as a doctor who has been deeply involved both in the research and administration of MAb. He called in as I was discussing DeSantis’ recent actions. (You can listen to the enlightening call above; at first, we discussed an Alabama doctor who is refusing to see unvaccinated patients, but our discussion about MAb, and both the Florida and Texas governors, begins at about the one minute mark).
After explaining the reality of the treatment, the caller, Dr. Curtis Andersen, an assistant associate medical director and urgent care physician, emailed me a case study article he co-authored on administering MAb over a wide geographic area, which was published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine-Catalyst.
MAb received FDA emergency authorization, he said, after a trial showed that people who received it within seven days of infection who were “high-risk for hospitalization” saw their “hospitalization rate drop from 15% to 4%.”
As he explained, regarding the treatment in Utah, “If you’re outside of 7 days [of being infected] you’re not qualified and it’s not even offered.” (Florida and other states are offering it within a 10-day window of becoming infected, and the treatment has been federally authorized now for those at high risk of hospitalization who have been exposed but haven’t tested positive yet.)
We have infused just about 1600 people here [in Utah] and we think we’ve saved 150 hospitalizations and probably saved 25 deaths or more.
That’s great. Any treatment that can save lives in this pandemic is powerful. But the fact that you must have the treatment in the early days of infection, and that you only qualify if you are at high-risk of being hospitalized — are over 65, or have underlying conditions, for example — means the treatment is pretty limited. It is not authorized for anyone who’s already been hospitalized either.
And yet, not only does DeSantis obscure this but Governor Greg Abbott of Texas, who went on MAb after he tested positive for Covid-19 last week, hasn’t explained that in any statements, while he’s touted the treatment.
Andersen, reacting to Abbott’s announcement, said:
I’m sure now many people are going to want those — they won’t even qualify. I’ve even heard some people, when they hear a politician say that, say, “Well ,I’ll just get those antibodies anyway. I’ll just lie about my test results, and let me get those so it will protect me.” And that is not science. And we don’t provide any monoclonal antibodies like that.
He added, responding to DeSantis’ press conferences touting the treatment:
It’s embarrassing. It sounds just so uneducated and naive. It’s hard to believe that these are our leaders — their leaders, I should say.
Andersen described how states decide who gets MAb, using a score system. If people are immune-suppressed, have advanced age, are from racial groups that have a higher morbidity and mortality (such as Black, Latino or Native American), there are points that add to a score, which determines if one qualifies:
But the point is this has all been worked out scientifically with the numbers. It’s not political. But these leaders are making it political and trying to use it to their advantage…Unfortunately, I think what’s driving some of this is fundraising. It’s their way of speaking to that Trump base out there.
As Florida now leads the country among younger adults and children with Covid, DeSantis appears to be providing false hope, sending a message that vaccines aren’t necessary because you can simply get this treatment. People may think they can just walk into the treatment centers after testing positive and get an infusion when, as Andersen says, they won’t fit the criteria.
Or, perhaps DeSantis is giving the ultimate middle figure to science and to the federal government.
Perhaps, with a wink and nudge, DeSantis is actually encouraging people to lie in the way Andersen described some people say they will.
I say that because DeSantis had his state surgeon general issue a standing order last week in Florida as he announced the opening of the Regeneron treatment centers, waiving any prescription from a doctor or a referral — which was previously required, and is required in other states — as long as a registered nurse administers the MAb at the treatment center.
“This Standing Order authorizes registered nurses licensed under chapter 464, Florida Statutes…to administer covered medical countermeasures under the PREP Act to provide REGEN-COV…” reads the order.
The nurses, according the order, must “verify that the individual meets the FDA EUA criteria for administration of REGEN-COV.” But, lacking a prescription or referral from a doctor who would know or investigate a patient’s medical history, it seems pretty dubious that any nurse in a makeshift treatment center could fully verify if someone qualifies — and is likely taking the person’s word for it. In that case, the very people Dr. Curt Andersen is talking about could just lie and get the treatment.
Whether that is happening or not, by promoting MAb while downplaying vaccines and virulently attacking masks-wearing and banning mask mandates even in schools, DeSantis is allowing for the continued rapid escalation of the coronavirus pandemic led by the delta variant, in his state and across the entire country.
All of it, for his own political purposes.
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In a discussion on my SiriusXM program about the American troop drawdown in Afghanistan and the takeover by the Taliban, Preston from Colorado called in to claim “this is what liberals do”.
It was Donald Trump, however, who began this process and pulled thousands of troops out, which I pointed out. It was Trump who announced it to the world many months ago, and allowed the Taliban to organize. It was Trump who negotiated with the Taliban, sending Mike Pompeo to meet with the man who is now leading Afghanistan.
And who can forget that it was Trump who wanted to bring the Taliban to Camp David?
But Preston refused to acknowledge it, saying Biden is “letting an entire civilization collapse.”
Honestly, it was so comical that I couldn’t help but mock his cultish allegiance to Trump by saying, “your fuhrer” started this and I asked him to repeat after me.
I know — it’s not nice to mock people, but Preston was one of several Trump supporters who called and who refused to discuss facts. At a certain point you just have to let them know how ridiculous they sound.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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It’s easy to dismiss Trump supporters as largely uneducated, and uninformed — stupid people swept up in a cult of hate that plays upon the biases rampant in American culture.
It is true that Trumpism is a cult of hate, and it’s true that it emboldens bigotry and white grievance.
But most people know some highly educated people who are supporters of Donald Trump, people who have deeply studied science and history.
And when we look at the GOP we see that only a small handful of what we’d call the educated elites of the party, the Bill Kristols and the David Frums of the world, broke away and became Never Trumpers. These people and many others in the GOP of course laid the groundwork for Trump over a period of decades, going back to Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, courting bigots via dog whistles — or looking the other way as others did. Then Trump just came in and said it more blatantly.
While that was just too overt for a few of them, causing their defections, there are plenty of educated Republicans who stayed, grudgingly supporting Trump at first and then often becoming completely enthusiastic backers, giving him lots of money and fighting off any detractors.
There have been many studies on political peer pressure, and how people’s political affiliation and the candidates they support are driven by their communities — family, friends, and co-workers — and how it sometimes changes dramatically as the groups pressuring them change. So it’s not shocking that this happened, as horrifying as it is.
But what then could make otherwise intelligent people who’ve always supported medical science — some of them scientists themselves — become anti-vaxxers amid a global pandemic killing millions?
Not all of the Trumpist GOP is anti-vax of course. Trump himself got vaccinated. Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida has told people to get vaccinated, if not so emphatically.
But at the same time they and other Republican leaders promoted the very anti-science conspiracies about Covid and about vaccines as part of their larger attack on government institutions. It’s almost as if Trump’s having been vaccinated is not believed — or is ignored by his followers — and his overriding attacks on government send a larger message not to trust the CDC and thus the vaccines.
A fascinating and scary example arose on my SiriusXM program last week when Eric from New Jersey, a retired Naval officer who served on submarines, called in. He talked about a Facebook group of fellow former Naval officers to which he belonged. As has happened with many of us, these people found one another on Facebook years after having been in each others’ lives, and then connected regularly. At first it was great reminiscing and chatting.
But then came the 2016 election, and the battles over Trump and Hillary Clinton. Eric explained how, going way back, “we were all Reagan Republicans” (and you can listen to the call above), but these individuals weren’t very political nor talked much about politics. They were Republican, he said, in he way many in the military have tended to be Republican, almost as a cultural identification rather than a political one.
But “when this whole Trump thing started” in 2016 the arguments in the group became tense. He agreed that some were grudgingly behind Trump but then became full on. You can understand how this happens because, while “Reagan Republican” might seem very different, it’s actually just a less bombastic version of a Trump Republican. Surely the road from Reagan supporter to Trump supporter is a lot shorter than the road from Reagan supporter to Hillary Clinton supporter.
Eric didn’t support Trump and was caught in the middle of the battles in the group but stayed in it during Trump’s four years. It was only after the pandemic, when members started to promote anti-vaccine propaganda, that he decided he had to finally leave the group. He had to actually counter conspiracies, and explain that no, “5G, has nothing to do with [the vaccines,] and that vaccine technology has been around for hundreds of years.”
Some of these people were nuclear engineers, educated scientists with multiple degrees. But he said they’d respond with personal attacks, calling him a “village idiot” or saying “I’ve been sick of you since Hillary.” And they’d further push the distortions and lies.
That is a frightening progression, which both explains some of what we’re seeing now, and underscores the dangers we face. It shows that political peer pressure works — not just with regard to party affiliation and candidates, as extreme as they might be, but with regard to even anti-science, crazy propaganda.
These are people for whom it was more comfortable, as long-time Republicans, to stay with Trump than move away. And then, it was more comfortable to hitch on to anti-vaccine dogma that had taken over the Republican Party — and presumably taken over their friends, families and co-workers — even if it went against everything they’d been taught.
I’m just speculating, but perhaps some of these people still know better and secretly got a vaccine — or even more quietly did so, like Trump, saying it while still promoting skepticism of government.
But others probably have so bought into it that they haven’t been vaccinated and have encouraged the same among people they know.
Eric said what he experienced, what he saw, was something like “brainwashing and cultism.”
It made me realize that, even if Trump made a pro-vaccine video urging people to get vaccinated — as many have urged him to do — it would be far too little, too late. He’d need to completely overhaul his message that government — and government science — is evil and go on a speaking tour or do ad after ad, interview after interview. And even then, these people, having so re-oriented their thinking, would have to buy it, making a complete turnaround. Even when he does briefly mention the vaccine at his rallies — and tries to take credit for them — the crowd is pretty silent.
At least with regard to this particular kind of anti-vaxxer, the Trumpian resisters — and Republican men are the largest group resisting vaccines — there really is no turning them around. Vaccine mandates by local governments, employers, schools and businesses such as restaurants, move theaters and indoor sporting arenas are the only answer.
Listen in to Eric’s call, and let me know your thoughts.
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Last week on my SiriusXM show I discussed how the GOP governor of Missouri pardoned Mike and Pat McCloskey, the infamous St. Louis couple who eventually got a deal and pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges after they brandished weapons outside their home — including an AR 15 rifle— as peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters marched by, heading to the mayor’s home.
Greg from Tennessee claimed I made assertions that were “incorrect,” saying they didn’t commit a crime because “American citizen’s who can legally own firearms — or not, for that matter — are allowed by law to protect themselves if they feel that they are under immediate threat.”
“Why did they then plead guilty to a crime?” I asked.
“That’s a fair point,” Greg said, and the meandered into claiming that “the way our legal system is” it was “definitely going to be easier” and “less costly” to do “what they did,” as if this poor, downtrodden couple didn’t have the means or the support.
This is, of course, ludicrous because the McCloskeys are not only well-off attorneys; they became right-wing celebrities, speaking at the Republican National Convention, being feted by Donald Trump and had more than enough benefactors to pay for their defense. And the special prosecutor determined there was no threat from the protesters, who were peaceful and none carried a weapon.
No, the truth is the McCloskeys broke serious laws, clearly and undeniable. And they pleaded guilty because they cut a deal, having been charged with enough crimes — which they committed — that could have had them spending time in jail.
They’d been indicted by a grand jury on felony charges of unlawful use of a weapon and evidence tampering. They walked off paying only fines. And that’s white privilege. (They agreed to give up their weapons — and I was mistaken with the caller, believing they were allowed to keep their weapons. But at any rate, they are now suing to get their weapons back since they’ve been pardoned.)
Greg then tried to pose questions to me — rather than answer my simple questions about both Governor Mike Parson and Donald Trump pardoning people who commit serious crimes — and still tried to argue they committed no crime.
It’s a classic example of how the Trump cult believes they are above the law and only Republicans leaders should decide what is a crime — and pardon people for them.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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Okay, this one would solely be some Friday entertainment (and yeah, it is) if Mike from Texas, a caller to my show, wasn’t promoting detrimental actions.
The discussion I was having with listeners on my SiriusXM program when he called in focused on a former homeland security official writing that it’s time we require Covid-19 vaccines for domestic air travel. I thought it was a brilliant, and vital idea. Juliette Kayyem noted that flying is not a right, the federal government regulates air travel, and, for security reasons, already makes you do all sorts of things — from taking off your shoes to walking through metal detectors and other machines — and that mandating vaccines would accomplish a few important things:
1) Airline personal and flight attendants would be less often put in the terrible position of being public health monitors, berated or even attacked by unruly mask-defying customers.
2) Unvaccinated people would not be able to fly from — or to — hot spots like Florida, and, even if we’re seeing breakthrough transmission among the vaccinated, it’s rare and the unvaccinated are far more likely to transmit the virus. (Sure, they could drive, but flying supercharges transmission — and has throughout the pandemic.)
3) Many people would finally get vaccinated because, while their own health and that of others isn’t enough to make them get vaccinated, sacrificing a Disney vacation might be.
Mike called in claiming I once called him a “racist” when he called a year ago, seeming to take it as a badge of honor — and obviously it means he’s a Trumper, and I’m sure I did — worried about government intrusions. At first, he told our producer before he got on that he was worried that if they mandate vaccines for air travel, they’ll soon stop you from buying “groceries.”
But when he got on the air he stated that the next thing that happens is the government could stop you from driving because it “regulates gasoline.” Not sure where he was going with that, but I stopped him and asked if he was wearing a seat belt — something mandated by government, with penalties if you break the law. He defiantly then said he wasn’t, and that he was driving 75 miles an hour.
Well, it got somewhat comical from there and you should take a listen to the short call, as the snowflake hung up. Obviously there will always be law breakers like Mike, but seat belts laws have saved millions of lives. And so will vaccine mandates.
Listen in, and let me know your thoughts, and enjoy the weekend!
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Earlier in the week, Atlantic writer Ann Applebaum joined me again on my SiriusXM program.
Applebaum, currently living in Poland, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and historian who has studied both communism and far-right authoritarian movements. Her most recent book is Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism.
In Washington recently, she interviewed Mike Lindell over lunch, the CEO of MyPillow, ardent supporter of Donald Trump, and avid conspiracy promoter. He’s laughed at by many of us, seen as a buffoon, but Applebaum strongly warns against dismissing him.
Lindell is currently being sued by Dominion Voting Systems for promoting the part of the Big Lie that claimed voting machines switched votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden.
But he’s so deluded, and so rich, that he doesn’t care how much money he may lose, and is still promoting further conspiracies and is followed by millions of Trump supporters.
Applebaum believes that with his resources and access to the vast networks of right-wing media, and with a grip on the Trump base, he and his newest conspiracy, which involves China stealing the election, are a danger to democracy. She compares him to other wealthy individuals of the past who had profound influence on authoritarian leaders:
Think of Olof Aschberg, the Swedish banker who helped finance the Bolshevik revolution, allegedly melting down the bars of gold that Lenin’s comrades stole in train robberies and reselling them, unmarked, on European exchanges. Or Henry Ford, whose infamous anti-Semitic tract, The International Jew, was widely read in Nazi Germany, including by Hitler himself. Plenty of successful, wealthy people think that their knowledge of production technology or private equity gives them clairvoyant insight into politics.
We talked about Lindell’s background, and the current conspiracy he’s promoting, and lots more. Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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As we discussed the House select committee investigation in the January 6th domestic terror attack on the Capitol on my SiriusXM show, VJ from New Jersey called in complaining.
Using the tired, and completely diversionary tactic of conservatives, he wanted to know where the “outrage” was over claimed violence at Black Lives Matter protests and “people” who were “killed.” And then when I asked if police officers were killed, he said yes, but couldn’t name any. There were in fact no police officers killed in connection with protests; there was one killed in connection with criminal looters after a peaceful protest, but there was no evidence these were protestors who killed him.
Beyond that, I then went through all the debunking we have to go through when these people make this idiotic, racist comparison, all the conspiracies and all the lies told about violence at the protests, the vast majority of which were peaceful and some of which saw right-wing interlopers stirring violence.
But more so, no matter what happened, any acts of violence were random acts of violence that should be condemned, with law breakers arrested, and investigated by local law enforcement — not be the start of an investigation by the House of Representatives, or be part of the one looking into the insurrection, because they had nothing to do with overthrowing the government. Listening to the coordinated way these on January 6th operated, and claimed over and over that they came under orders from Trump to stop the certification of an election, makes clear what it was about.
How anyone equates local violence, looting, and property damage by random people with a coordinated attack by thousands of people across the country in an armed terrorist attack and an attempt to overthrow the government is ludicrous. That this attack was incited by the president of the United States even more so warrants an investigation by Congress.
VJ was forced to agree with me several times, protested that he “reads” on his own when I accused him of just pushing right-wing talking points from Fox News pundits and still couldn’t seem to grasp the larger point.
Yes, a few f-bombs were thrown — by me — because I just lose patience with these people sometimes. Some on Twitter said I remained “calm” — others said I lost my cool.
Let me know your thoughts!
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In a discussion about how many Trump supporters and Republicans are still refusing to get vaccinated as coronavirus cases surge, Steve from Pennsylvania called in to my SiriusXM program.
He said he was fully vaccinated, and, as a Trump supporter, he had a question:
Would you have the same opinion if Donald Trump was president? Would you still be supportive of the vaccine if Donald Trump were president?
The question itself was very curious. I explained we have no idea where we’d be and that we’d likely not even be vaccinated by now if the Trump administration were in charge. I explained a few other things about Trump’s recklessness with which Steve was forced to somewhat agree, though he excused Trump, noting Trump’s “messaging was sometimes way off base” because “he has shown time and time again that he is not a politician.”
I was fascinated that, with regard to public health, these people think it’s all about politics for all of us (because it is for them), and that refusing the Covid vaccine is somehow a legitimate way for “both sides” to respond if their candidate weren’t president right now.
I explained to Steve that it’s actually about science and about basic competence and compassion. Trump was reckless and couldn’t get anything done. Biden is competent and cares about people. There is absolutely no reason — beyond irrationality and hatred — to distrust Biden on this, and every reason to be skeptical of Trump, no matter what your politics are.
And so, I put the question right to Steve, and he couldn’t answer right away on whether Donald Trump was level-headed and showed any “care” for people compared to Joe Biden. Then he finally said Trump (and Biden) both did. When I asked again flat out if Donald Trump has shown “compassion” for people, he replied:
Yeah, I believe he has. He’s, uh, you know, he has done a lot of things, that, um, shows an extreme amount of compassion and human kindness.
“What? You tell me,” I asked. Steve then replied in a way that was meant to make it seem like a ridiculous question — because he couldn’t come up with any answers.
"Oh, come now. Come on.
Then Steve tried to change to subject immediately. But I wouldn’t let him and told him he had to list the compassionate things Donald Trump has done.
No, I don’t, I don’t sit here — I don’t want to get into an argument with you.
Eventually, Steve said, “I’ve gotta go.”
I find these interactions valuable because they reveal something about these people who are listening and feel compelled to call in and argue, yet have little to say. I believe they’re really arguing with themselves, trying to convince themselves, truly unsure about their position. I’m not sure what happens when they get off the phone but they do prove how weak their own convictions are.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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“For Democrats in Washington to be fiddling while Rome burns is incredibly frustrating and it’s frighteningly, frankly. To be facing this kind of unprecedented assault on our democratic system and have Democratic leaders not respond in kind by saving our democracy doesn’t bode well for our future prospects.”
Those are the words — and you must listen to the full interview above — of Representative James Talarico, one of the Texas Democrats, heroes of democracy and members of the Texas Legislature who fled the state for Washington DC so as not to give Republicans in the legislature a quorum to vote and pass horrific voter restrictions.
I keep hearing from commentators on television, when they talk about or interview some of these Democrats, “What is the end game? What is your plan?” The implication is that the GOP will win in the end, as the governor will just keep calling special sessions until there is a vote. That may be true, and the governor may also follow through on his threat to arrest these brave Democrats.
But Talarico, who came on my SiriusXM show yesterday, agreed with me at the outset of the interview that this is the end game. Bringing attention to the issue is the end game. Taking the issue to Washington and putting pressure on Democratic leaders is the end game. And using every ounce of their energy, leaving their families and risking arrest to show other Democrats how it’s done — that is the end game.
Anyone who is asking that question doesn’t understand the dire emergency we are in.
Talarico is a very passionate and powerful spokesperson, and Texans — and all of us— are lucky to have him. Again, listen to the entire interview. In the short clip below he explains why he and other Texas Democrats are sacrificing so much to do this. But the full interview is something you really should listen to as he shows what enormous impact their actions have had and why it’s important to stand up.
And as an extra bonus, watch James Talarico in this clip below take on a Fox News propagandist and wipe the floor with him.
This is how it’s done folks. Let me know your thoughts.
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Dr. Anthony Fauci, citing the growing transmission of the Covid-19 delta variant, said there should be more requirements for vaccinations at the local level, even if there isn’t a federal mandate.
“I have been of this opinion, and I remain of that opinion, that I do believe at the local level, there should be more mandates. There really should be,” Fauci said on CNN on Sunday.
A caller to my SiriusXM program illustrated why Covid-19 vaccines must be mandated by companies, schools and even some businesses open to the public. (Listen in to the call above.) We’re dealing with people who are propagating politically-infused lies or distortions. They think they’re standing against a political establishment, and aren’t about to be vaccinated —unless they must.
And they’re also very privileged: Right now they choose not to be vaccinated, though they have full access, because the pressure isn’t intense enough and they’re following Trumpian anti-vax politics. But if denied service or turned away from a job, they will indeed cave in.
The caller, David from Pittsburgh, made dubious claims about people he knows who were vaccinated, spewed outdated Covid hoax hogwash and got angry about being “shamed” to get vaccinated. And I responded the way we need to respond to every spoiled brat liar: By calling him out harshly.
No, I don’t believe we need to engage in gentle persuasion — at least, not with this certain subset of politics-driven Covid denialist. These people are hellbent on promoting lies and getting away with what they can to own the libs (ironically even if it’s killing themselves and their families). If treated with derision and banned from entry for jobs, stadium events or schools I believe they will go and get vaccinated.
David first said he’s not getting vaccinated because both his grandfather and his “wife’s best friend’s father” developed blood clots after getting the Moderna vaccine — and claims doctors attributed one of the cases to the vaccine. (One of them died from the blood clot, he said, while the other “took his own life” because of the stress it caused.) This, despite the fact that there have been no documented cases of blood clots connected to the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines.
There are of course almost a million cases of blood clots among Americans per year — and over 100,000 deaths — for many other reasons. And that’s what likely happened in these cases — if they even existed.
I told David that only the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was connected to blood clots but that the chances of developing a blot clot after getting that vaccine were one one-hundredth of a percent. And actually, I was wrong! With 75 cases of blood clots connected to the J & J vaccine (only a few of which resulted in death) as of July 1 — out of 12 million of those shots given — it’s actually far less than one one-thousandth of a percent. (Not to mention that almost all of these cases were in young women, and so only younger women have been given an advisory by the drug maker.)
Even if his grandfather and his “wife’s best friend’s father” had the J &J vaccine, the chances of David knowing two men who got a blood clot connected to it (one of whom died) are astronomical. But they didn’t even get the J & J vaccine!
Angry at my dismissal of his claims, David went back to boilerplate Covid hoax material from early 2020, about how very few people supposedly die from Covid — now, with over 600, 000 Americans dead. I explained to him that the highly-transmissible delta variant — which is also believed to cause more severe illness — will get him if he’s not vaccinated. And I explained that if he doesn’t die he’ll likely have long-term debilitating illness.
One study has shown that a quarter of Covid patients going back to early last year are long haulers, with long-term illness, and this could be the tip of the iceberg. And the U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, told PBS NewsHour that they’re finding even more long haulers among those who’ve had the delta variant:
[I]ncreasingly, we are seeing people [ who’ve had the delta variant] with what's called long-haul symptoms, with shortness of breath, chest pain, fatigue, brain fog that lasts for months beyond their infection.
David ended the call saying “we will not be shamed” into getting vaccinated, bizarrely posing the unvaccinated as victims of the vaccinated.
Again, these are not the people you read about who don’t have access to vaccines, or are uneducated and are following myths in their communities (and yes, who could benefit from gentle persuasion and explanation). These are educated, privileged people who are pushing lies based on their extremist, cultish political affiliations.
That’s why Fauci, who said this is a “life or death issue,” is right. At the local level, mandates should be put in place Companies should require all employees to be vaccinated, schools should require vaccinations and businesses with high crowd capacity, like stadiums, bars and clubs, should do the responsible thing and require vaccination proof for entry, as many New York City bars have been doing.
Anyway, you know there are those who say I’m too harsh with callers like this. So listen in to David’s call and let me know your thoughts.
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In a discussion on my SiriusXM program focused on the fact that many Americans are still not vaccinated against coronavirus — the U.S. goal of 70% vaccinated by July 4th was missed — Anthony from New York called in.
He claimed that he’s been vaccinated and that his wife, who is a cancer patient, at first waited, but her doctor then okayed it, and she is now vaccinated.
Why I say he “claimed” this is because everything that followed seemed to indicate he might be an anti-vaxxer but maybe was wanting to complicate his argument a bit. No matter — whether he was telling the truth about himself or not, the rest of what he said was dangerous misinformation.
Anthony went on to say that his 23-year-old daughter was not vaccinated and has no intention of getting vaccinated. He completely respects, even supports, her decision, he said, because the “science isn’t there yet that will illustrate long-term effects or even short-term side effects” of the vaccine.
“If I had a child,” Anthony said, “I absolutely, positively would not allow them to get this vaccination until there’s more science available.”
Again, it does raise a simple question: Why, then, did he get vaccinated — if he did?
But, whatever. His statement is ridiculous for this simple reason: We do know the short-term and long-term side effects of coronavirus and they include death —hundreds of thousands Americans dead, to be precise. And the other effects, for those who live, no matter their age, include debilitating ongoing illnesses, including heart disease and lung problems.
And that had happened in just the first six months of coronavirus.
In the first six months of the vaccines, there’s been nothing even remotely similar in terms of side effects, and millions have been protected from Covid-19, with cases plunging. A tiny number of people who had developed blood clots from one vaccine, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine — only 7 people per million. And mild short term side effects like fever and fatigue occurred for some people from all the vaccines, which subsided in a matter of days.
Anthony was demanding studies, and saying until then his daughter is making a “risk/reward” assessment. But that is completely false. The studies on safety and efficacy were done on the Covid-19 vaccines last fall to warrant emergency approval to fight a virus that is deadly. Those studies shows the rewards of the vaccine far exceeds the risks.
Further studies are being done as the vaccine makers are seeking full approval, but over 331 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been given in the United States from December 14, 2020, through July 6, 2021, and it’s saved millions of lives. And at this point, it’s highly unlikely long-term side effects will develop as side effects emerge in vaccines in the first weeks or don’t emerge at all. Per the CDC:
Serious side effects that could cause a long-term health problem are extremely unlikely following any vaccination, including COVID-19 vaccination. Vaccine monitoring has historically shown that side effects generally happen within six weeks of receiving a vaccine dose. For this reason, the FDA required each of the authorized COVID-19 vaccines to be studied for at least two months (eight weeks) after the final dose. Millions of people have received COVID-19 vaccines, and no long-term side effects have been detected.
Anthony claimed I resorted to an “emotional” argument by strongly condemning his garbage science, a tactic to negate criticism and shut down discussion. And some people might think I was harsh. But the truth is, he was pushing dangerous disinformation and I had to slam it hard and not allow it on the air any longer.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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In a discussion about Texas GOP Representative Dan Crenshaw attacking Olympian hammer thrower Gwen Berry who, after receiving a bronze medal, reportedly turned her back on the American flag — exercising her free speech — Lou from Wyoming called in to my SiriusXM program.
Lou, like Crenshaw, is a military veteran, and defined himself as a “Dan Crenshaw supporter.” He proceeded to elevate Crenshaw’s opinion about Berry — that she should be “removed” from the U.S. Olympic team — simply because Crenshaw served in the military.
I pointed out that Crenshaw had lost all credibility because he defended the insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol (some literally using flagpole with American flags to beat up police officers) by not voting for investigations — and certainly not voting to impeach the inciter-in-chief, Donald Trump.
I was fascinated that Lou believed that Crenshaw had some sort of immunity from criticism because he served in the military. One can serve his or her country, which is an honorable and powerful thing, and then say or do things that are reckless and wrong — and should be called out out for it.
Lou also claimed that being in the military gives a special right to criticize athletes who protest the flag and implied that protest of the flag is an offense to the veteran. I would actually look at it the other way: People have served this country precisely to protect the right of anyone to protest, including protesting the flag, and should be supportive of that freedom they fought for whether they agree with the speech or not.
But beyond that, I’m struck that people like Crenshaw have spent more time attacking a Black athlete who engaged in no violence whatsoever against this country — a country she is holder to higher ideals regarding justice and equal treatment of Black people, engaging in peaceful protest — than those who killed and maimed police officers, tried to kill the vice president and do harm to members of Congress.
Nobody gets a pass, whether they served in the military or not, and anyone who is on Team Trump about the domestic terrorist attack against the Capitol has lost every shred of credibility.
I got pretty worked up with Lou — and yes, dropped an F-bomb — but these people are really both clear-headed and brazen. I also should have rightly called Crenshaw a “terrorist sympathizer” rather than a terrorist. He’s of course not engaged in any violence personally, even if he’s tacitly defended those who have. But you know what happens in the heat of the moment.
Some think I went too far, and yeah, I do go from zero to 10 in 5 seconds sometimes/ (“Take a deep breath Mike!”) Let me know your thoughts.
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I’ve been very hard on Merrick Garland, particularly after the news of the DOJ defense of Trump in the E. Jean Carroll defamation and rape case, something most legal scholars are baffled about. And there are other concerns. And I’m with those legal scholars and experts who share them.
Marcy Wheeler, who I interview often, agrees with the concerns, but also sees more nuance and offered it on my SiriusXM program yesterday. A long-time, indispensable national security and civil liberties journalist at her site EmptyWheel, she made feel a little less worried in what Garland is doing, including underscoring the Rudy Giuliani investigation, the insurrections investigations and other investigations into Trump World. And she cautions that things take times.
Marcy is by no means an apologist for the DOJ — any administration’s DOJ — so I trust her take. I’d rather Biden have chosen someone else as attorney general, but at the same time it may not be as bad as it all seems, and we may see investigations ramp up. We get into it all later in this interview, so listen in.
Early on in the interview, Marcy explains the true nature of the Trump administration’s surveillance of members of Congress, obtaining metadata from House members Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, their staffs and their families, and perhaps others, in a unprecedented abuse of power. We also learned the DOJ obtained the data of White House Counsel Don McGahn and his wife.
But again, Marcy offers details and nuance which explain a lot. Those doing the searching — and Jeff Sessions, Bill Barr and Rod Rosenstein claim they knew nothing about it — didn’t apparently know whose information they were getting, until later when the numbers matched names of prominent people. It was at that point that it should have been put under seal — and instead it was continued even after it turned up nothing.
Again, Marcy explains details you’re just not going to get in much of the media so listen in to what she has to say and let me know your thoughts.
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In a discussion on my SiriusXM program about companies mandating that employees returning to offices be vaccinated against Covid-19 — which companies have a legal right and responsibility to do — Thomas from Texas called in.
I had underscored that federal, state an local governments — per a 1905 Supreme Court ruling regarding the smallpox pandemic — can make vaccinations mandatory for all citizens, subjecting them to fines if they refuse, something that the federal government currently is not doing with regard to coronavirus. But many private companies are making vaccinations mandatory for employees.
Thomas was concerned about the power of the “central government over the individual” and said you have to “hold to principles when it comes to freedom.”
He said we were “normalizing discrimination” against people who choose not to be vaccinated, and then went off on a tangent about children under 12 — who currently can’t be vaccinated anyway.
I brought the discussion back to public health and the “freedom” and “liberty” of the entire community to be protected from disease, and what they should expect and deserve from government. He then went in the direction of talking about the common cold, another ridiculous diversion.
I then asked him if he believes in seat belts and if he was wearing one, since he was driving. He really was stumped by this question — “I’m currently wearing a seat belt,” he said— as well as by my asking him if he was drinking while driving and why he shouldn’t be able to drive while drinking.
“That’s a good point,” Thomas said. But then he tried to say this was different because it’s about being able to"freely breath air,” which made no sense.
I had to just end it there because, well, he lost the supposed debate big time.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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During a segment on my SiriusXM program in which we discussed a Houston hospital suspending employees until they get the vaccine, anti-vaxxer Anne from Washington called in.
She claimed that the vaccines are “experimental” and thus are a violation of the “Nuremberg Code.” This is a dangerous conspiracy that’s gained traction on social media.
While vaccines or any drug are technically considered in the experimental phase when they still have emergency authorization from the Food and Drug Administration — pending full approval — there is nothing “experimental” about these vaccines. They’ve been tested for safety and efficacy in trials. Like all new — and older drugs — trials will continue. But the vaccines are safe and work.
More than that, the Nuremberg Code was about forcing experiments on people in concentration camps — brutal, terrible experiments on Jews and others who were tortured and died. Claiming this about the vaccines is an insult to all Holocaust victims, survivors and their families. It’s an insult to the world. No one is being forced into any experiment.
These vaccines will soon have full approval. Businesses have a legal right to require vaccinations for employees. Actually, the federal and local governments, per a 1905 Supreme Court ruling, can require everyone to be vaccinated — which governments currently are not doing.
The lies and misinformation have to be combatted, and people like Anne are pushing conspiracies that we have to take on. I eventually had to shut her down when she claimed vaccines cause autism, which has been shown to be absolutely false.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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Historian Carol Anderson is a national treasure. I’m honored to interview her often on my SiriusXM program. Speaking with her is an illuminating and gratifying experience — every time. And I know you’re going to come away greatly enlightened after listening to this extended interview with her from this week — a great weekend listen — all about her new book and so many other urgent issues affecting the country.
Professor Anderson’s 2016 book, White Rage, was one of the most important and timely books to be published as we entered the Trump era. Over and over again, she reveals the truths and the hidden history behind so much that is happening in the country with regard to race.
She did it with One Person, No Vote, in 2018, and she has done it again in a powerful, well-researched and illuminating new book, The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America.
Professor Anderson shows how the creation of the Second Amendment was rooted in keeping Black people enslaved, fighting off any rebellions, while a false narrative was created to make it appear as if it were about fighting foreign enemies and an issue of freedom and individual rights. The history of guns and laws around guns ever since has always been about fear of Black people and controlling Black people. Her book takes us from the very beginnings of this nation up to the present, revealing the intertwined histories of race and guns, and is a must-read.
We spoke about The Second, and also about so many other issues to which Professor Anderson brings a lot of insight, including the attack on voting rights in states across the country, and how the GOP is promoting the Big Lie and what it means for the future. Take a listen to the interview and please me know your thoughts.
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In a discussion on my SiriusXM show about vaccine hesitancy, Tracy called to say she is “not vaccinated” but is “very responsible” with mask-wearing. And that people like her are wrongly “grouped together” with “Trumpsters.”
Tracy said some people “are just not comfortable with vaccines” and went on to describe herself as a “naturalist.”
We went back and forth, with me explaining to her that there’s little danger with the vaccine but greater danger from Covid-19. Then she started saying she knows people who had Covid and are not doing bad, and only a small percentage die, etc.
I’ve had many experts on my show who’ve discussed how to talk to the vaccine hesitant. Just the other day I spoke with one researcher, whose firm, Surgo Ventures, produced a study that put them into categories:
Covid Skeptics (people who think Covid is a hoax or not worse than the flu); The Watchful (people who are waiting and seeing what happens with friends who are vaccinated); Cost-Anxious (people who can’t take off from work to get the shot or to recover from any side effects or who have to spend money to travel to get it); and System Distrusters (people who believe the medical system is discriminatory and are wary of how they’re treated).
This piece in the New York Times describes the results of the study.
Some people in several of these groups can be incentivized — whether via employers paying them, lotteries or being unable to enter a stadium — and will eventually get the vaccine, the researcher said. The hardest are the Covid Skeptics while the easiest are The Watchful.
But I don’t think Tracy will get the vaccine, and I don’t even know which group she fits in. When I asked the researcher — who came on the show after Tracy’s call — she admitted it wasn’t so clear cut, and Tracy might fall into a few groups.
In the end, I believe Tracy is with the Covid Skeptics — and thus the hardest group — since she winds up downplaying Covid, even as she claims to wear masks.
Ultimately, I wound up telling she was harming others, allowing Covid to continue to spread, and could transmit the virus to someone who will die. Some experts say guilting or shaming people doesn’t work, and they may be right. But I thought maybe for other listeners, in other groups who might get the vaccine (like The Watchful), this would be helpful. But I’m not sure how successful this was — certainly it wasn’t succesful at getting Tracy to get the vaccine — and wonder what you all think.
Let me know your thoughts.
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photo: Tyler Merbler, license: CC BY-ND 2.0
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As I was playing horrendous audio last week on my SiriusXM show of GOP members of Congress denying at a hearing that there was any insurrection on January 5th and comparing what happened to a “tourist” event, George from Michigan, a Trumper, called the program.
The called showed how much GOP House members are giving talking points to people who want to believe and promote the Big Lie — and also want to deny the January 6th attack on the Capitol.
George spouted the line from the Insurrectionist Caucus in Congress, claiming there was no insurrection — that it was a bunch of “idiots” and nothing organized.
George then claimed that nothing happened to any of the police officers, and that officer Brian Sicknik wasn’t killed due to the insurrection and that any officers who had their weapons taken away — beaten by the mob with their own batons — were “idiots.”
When I pointed out that the insurrectionists were looking to hang Vice President Mike Pence — and had brought a gallows — he said he didn’t “know that” to be true.
Then he argued I was putting words in his mouth, that he didn’t “see” the gallows so didn’t know it was true or not — even though the images have been broadcast around the world.
photo: Tyler Merbler, license: CC BY-ND 2.0
This is the demented brainwashing that has overtaken much of the Republican Party. And it’s sick and dangerous. As he kept trying to change the subject I had to just call out his b**t each and every time, as he got more confused and belligerent.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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Senator Elizabeth Warren, a champion for progressives and women who led the blue wave and the opposition to Donald Trump, is both celebrating the embrace of many of her ideas and detailed plans, and pressuring for more.
And that is the essence of her new book, Persist.
She spoke with me in a wide-ranging interview on my SiriusXM show last week, and we discussed how, as a presidential candidate, she moved the Democratic Party on key issues. Many of those have been embraced by President Joe Biden, who continues to respond to her ideas — like coming out for loosening patents on Covid vaccines to get access to many countries the rest of the world —and who called her early on to access her detailed plans on many issues.
At the same time, she made sure to keep up the pressure, even in our interview, stopping me for a minute so that she could send a message to the president about doing what he can to lower the exorbitant price of prescription drugs in this country.
We discussed Facebook’s continued ban on Donald Trump using the platform, but also the deep reform that needs to happen regarding social media companies, monopolies she’s called for breaking up.
Warren also spoke about her brother’s death from Covid, and how it impacted her family, something she goes into detail about in her very personal memoir. The book looks back on her past and the issues that shaped how she leads today — such as being “A Planner,” which is an entire chapter in her book.
We also spoke about Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s vow to focus “100%” on stopping the Biden administration, and what Democrats need to do now.
Take a listen and let us know your thoughts.
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Thought you’d all get a little kick out of this one.
Tim in New York called to my SiriusXM show to say he couldn’t believe Joe Biden signed so many executive orders — as if that was something Donald Trump never did — and that this made him a “dictator.” Tim must have been following Candace Owens’ Twitter feed. You can call Joe Biden a lot of things, but dictator is just laughable — and so I laughed.
Tim also said that Democrats, by having control of the House and Senate, are being “dictators.” Yeah, right.
I went through all of the extremist things Trump did, and how Biden was simply undoing them and returning us to normalcy.
I then asked Tim if he believed the Big Lie and if he thought it was right what the GOP was doing, purging Liz Cheney from the leadership, in true dictator fashion, because she dared to be critical of their messianic leader, Trump.
Tim then said he didn’t know about it because he’s so disgusted with everyone he doesn’t watch or listen to or read the news.
Oh yeah, a real doozy. Let me know your thoughts!
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photo: Tyler Merbler, license: CC BY-ND 2.0
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I’m starting the week off by exposing more of the lies from Trump supporters who claim they’re “not all like that” — but can’t prove it with a simple phone call.
Last week, in a discussion on my SiriusXM show about the insurrection and the resistance by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and others in the GOP to support a bipartisan commission to investigate, Trump supporter Derek from California called in.
I’d noted that the only reason the GOP is opposing an investigation is that they’re afraid of Trump, and his base. And Trump doesn’t want any investigation of the insurrection he inspired his supporters to engage in.
“What happened at the Capitol was appalling,” Derek said, “but I don’t think it’s fair to tie all Trump supporters to that because that’s only a small handful of nut jobs who went in there and broke the law and killed a police officer and yada, yada, yada.”
I replied that he and all Trump supporters were complicit if they don’t demand an investigation and asked if he’s voting for a Republican in 2022 if Republicans don’t demand an investigation.
“Yeah — better than a Democrat,” he replied.
“Then you are complicit,” I repeated. “You are as bad as them, Derek.”
He claimed, “I want justice,” but then failed to prove it.
“Did you call your congressman?” to demand an investigation, I asked.
And yes, a few F-bombs came out of my mouth. (I know, some will say I got too angry, but man, this guy was so full of crap.)
After I pressed him further, Derek admitted he didn’t call his congress member because, “I was busy.”
I then just had to tell him that he shouldn’t be wasting my time, that in the amount of time he spent calling my show, sitting on the line, and then challenging me, he could have just called his member of Congress and demanded an investigation.
“So just stop the b**t,” I said.
Listen in, and let me know your thoughts.
Hi all, and thanks for reading and following The Signorile Report. Most of it is free to read, but if you’d like to support my writing and independent, ad-free opinion journalism (and join great discussion threads), please consider becoming a paid subscriber for just $5 per month or $50 annually.
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HuffPost reporter Travis Waldron wrote a story this week about the alarming attempt by some right-wing radicals to rewrite the Constitution by triggering a provision in Article V of the Constitution that allows a constitutional convention to be called if 34 states demand it.
With states increasingly controlled by Republican legislatures and governors, the possibility is more real than ever. Still, Waldron points out, there’s been pushback or indifference by some Republicans, including by some Trump loyalists. (And a constitutional convention has also been something some on the left have advocated for in the past as well.)
But at a time when an authoritarian former president who incited an insurrection is leading the Republican Party — a man who would certainly support an effort to take away freedoms and protections in the Constitution, including around speech and equal protections — I think we all agree anything can happen.
As Waldron writes:
Opponents…see a far more nefarious plot: a master class in astroturfing that could open the entire document up to a radical rewrite meant to serve the right-wing corporate interests that already dominate our politics, especially at the state level. The convention, they argue, could lead to the demolition of everything from the social safety net and environmental protections to civil rights laws. Or maybe even the Constitution itself.
I spoke with Waldron on my SiriusXM show about why this effort is closer to happening than it’s been in the past, and exactly what the process is. It’s something very important to be focused on. Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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Scott from Idaho called my SiriusXM program while I was pointing out the glaring hypocrisy of Trump supporters — like GOP Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin — having pushed hydroxychloroquine and other dangerous, unproven drugs to treat Covid but who won’t take Covid vaccines.
Scott said he doesn’t take any drugs of any kind and he’s “not going to take this shot.”
He said, “I don’t believe that makes me a quote/unquote Trumper.” But then he stated, “I did vote for Trump — I don’t just agree with everything he does, but I don’t agree with both sides a lot.”
Scott couldn’t fathom why I “care” if he gets the shot if I’m already “protected” since I got the shot. I had to explain, beyond concern for fellow man, the science behind herd immunity and ending the pandemic, which he didn’t seem to get.
I thought maybe appealing to his pocketbook would work better. So I explained that while the unvaccinated would keep getting sick and dying, we’d be spending billions of dollars treating them and giving booster shots to everyone else — spending all of our taxpayer dollars, including Scott’s.
That’s when Scott responded: “I don’t even agree that the government should be giving you a shot…Why are you charging me for you to get a shot?”
I then explained the government’s interest in keeping millions of people alive — can you believe I had to explain this? —and asked who would pick up his garbage or take care of him when he got sick from something else if everyone else died.
“Or do you live in a cave there in Idaho?” I asked, to which Scott became insulted, told me to “be careful with your words,” and then, out of the blue, stated, “I make a hell of a lot more money than you do, I’m sure of it.”
He then claimed, “I just take care of myself,” and, “I don’t get sick.”
I warned him that by not getting the vaccine he or someone close to him will get Covid, and someone will die, and then he’ll probably get the vaccine. And that it’s sad that that’s how it is going to have to be.
I really do try to listen and find out where these people are coming from — because it only betters our understanding. But this was a hard one! Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
Hi all, and thanks for reading and following The Signorile Report. Most of it is free to read, but if you’d like to support my writing and independent, ad-free opinion journalism (and join great discussion threads), please consider becoming a paid subscriber for just $5 per month or $50 annually.
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Jeff from Wisconsin called into my SiriusXM program yesterday while we were having a discussion about Democratic Congresswoman Val Demings, who was a police officer for 30 years, taking odious GOP Congressman Jim Jordan to task for the GOP’s using the police as “pawns.”
She pointed out how they only care about “Blue Lives Matter,” when it can benefit them, but not on January 6th, when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol and brutally beat up police officers.
Jeff said it was wrong to say Republicans didn’t care about the police and tried to shift the discussion to Democrats and protests. But I brought him back to January 6th.
Yes, I had to tell my producer to “shut him down!” when he refused to answer my questions about what Trump said in videos and tweets after the attack — calling the terrorists “patriots” and “special” — trying to shift to Trump telling people to “peacefully” march before the rally. I’m just not going to let these people take over the show with their talking points — they have to stay on the topic or they’re off.
When finally forced to answer the question about whether Trump was right in calling the vile white supremacists patriots and special people, Jeff blurted out a feeble, “yes,” and then did it again.
I think that said it all about what conservatives, Trumpists and the rest of this bunch think about the police.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
Hi all, and thanks for reading and following The Signorile Report,most of which isfree to read, but if you’d like to support my writing and independent, ad-free opinion journalism (and join great discussion threads), please consider becoming a paid subscriber for just $5 per month or $50 annually.
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Richard from Seattle called into my SiriusXM program yesterday right before the verdict in the murder trial of Derek Chauvin, who was of course later found guilty on three counts in the killing of George Floyd.
I’d been discussing the trial, and in particular at the moment, how conservatives had taken Congresswoman Maxine Waters’ words out of context in their ridiculous claim that she had affected the jury with her appearance at a protest.
Richard said he was glad for that “context” I provided on Waters, and now had more “context” to offer and wanted more “context” from me on the trial. He claimed to be a “big-thinking liberal” who believes in “defunding” the police. But he said that he was persuaded by the closing arguments of Eric Nelson, Chauvin’s defense attorney, because it provided “context.”
I smelled a phony a mile away and reacted with suspicion, at which point Richard admitted he’d not seen the rest of the trial — just the closing arguments — and asked for me to give him the “context” of the rest of the trial. Like I’m going to go through the whole trial for him and waste everyone’s time?
It amazes me how right-wingers will do anything to try to poke holes in justice finally working for Black people who’ve been brutalized at the hands of the police. But this seemed utterly ludicrous.
Perhaps I’m wrong about his motives, though — take a listen to the short clip and let me know your thoughts.
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In a discussion on my SiriusXM show about resistance to the coronavirus vaccines among evangelical Christians, the conversation at one point focused on businesses and other venues requiring proof of vaccination for entry.
My position is that everyone should get the vaccine to protect themselves and others —and help bring us to herd immunity — but if they choose not to, no business or public venue should be required to allow them entry.
In fact, it would only be responsible for operators of open public places, including private businesses, to require proof of a vaccination. And government has a responsibility to make sure they do — contrary to the reckless efforts of politicians like Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, who’s moved to ban businesses from turning away those without proof of vaccination — if we’re to stop the transmission of coronavirus and end the pandemic.
Rob said “I’m a 40-year-old male” who is healthy and I’m not going to take a vaccine that was “spit out” in less than ten months, and claimed Covid-19 posed him little risk. Never mind that the basics of the coronavirus vaccines were actually developed over 10 years ago, going back to the SARS epidemic, and Covid vaccines would have been developed even more quickly if not for the Trump administration’s defunding of the National Institutes of Health and then, later, the botched rollout of the vaccines; Rob’s claim that Covid-19 isn’t a concern or a threat to his health — and others he might infect — is ludicrous and dangerous.
I told Rob that it was his choice not to get the vaccine, but he should not be allowed into any public place where he could transmit it to others. This was met of course with outrage, as he complained, as a “libertarian,” about the “government” encroaching on his rights.
But then Rob couldn’t answer why he should be required to wear clothes into a store — and why he didn’t walk around naked — nor why he follows the speed limit while driving.
His reasoning completely fell apart, and exposed the anti-vaxxers as devoid of logic or consistency. For many of these people, it’s about fears and phobias and myths — and they all have to be addressed as we need as many people as possible to get vaccinated — but for others, as Trumpers, it’s simply attempting to own the libs.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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I spoke with Adam Jentleson on my SiriusXM show again last week. He’s a former deputy chief of staff to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and author of Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy,” an excellent and important book about the dark history of the Senate filibuster.
The pressure has been on to end or change the filibuster, as even President Joe Biden has agreed it is a Jim Crow relic and that something has to be done. And Jentleson, who I’d first had on the program a few months ago, described that history again in this interview.
The main reason I invited him back, however, was to hear his take on what he, as a former staffer to a Senate majority leader, thinks will really happen, particularly as he hears Democratic senators putting out statements or giving interviews about their positions on the filibuster.
Every Democrat will have to vote for any change to the filibuster, since there are only 51 votes with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking a tie. And the only way we’ll see voting rights legislation, immigration reform, the Equality Act and a slew of other laws passed is if the filibuster is curtailed.
It’s often felt like whiplash in recent weeks, however, in which we hear moderate Senator Amy Klobuchar come out for reforming the filibuster and Senator Joe Manchin proposing change, only to then hear Manchin backtrack or hear Senator Kyrsten Sinema once again throw cold water on the idea. This has spun a lot of people — yes, myself included — into social media outrage many a time. And I do think that’s not a bad thing, as we’ve got to keep the pressure up.
Jentleson suggests, however, that we watch the Senate Democrats collectively, and not get hung up on the comments of any one senator. And he believes we’re seeing the Democrats moving toward reforming or ending the filibuster. It’s notable, he says, that just three months into the Biden presidency, various senators have been talking about it no matter the details of their statements, when they could be shutting it down and just uselessly searching for Republican votes.
“I think there’s a reality sort of setting in among the Democrats, where they’re saying, ‘Well, man, we’re not just going to give up on our agenda three months in and sit around and twiddle our thumbs for next two years,’” Jentleson observes. “I’m very pleased with what I see in the caucus. They sort of reach a point where they start to move as a unit, and I think that’s what we’re seeing…I wouldn’t be concerned about the backtracking [by individual senators].”
Listen in to what he has to say — and keep the pressure up, nonetheless. And let me know your thoughts.
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In a discussion on my SiriusXM show about Senator Bernie Sanders stating in an interview that he wasn’t “comfortable” with Twitter banning Donald Trump indefinitely, a Sanders supporter called in and said he loves Bernie but joked that he’s “not all there” if he really thinks Trump should be allowed back on Twitter.
I told the caller that I agreed that Sanders was wrong to suggest that maybe Twitter should allow Trump back, and that I feel totally comfortable about banning Trump permanently. Another caller, Jack in Minnesota, then called in to disagree with the previous caller and with me.
I’m not sure if Jack was secretly a conservative or truly a “liberal,” as he identified, as he said we weren’t being consistent by protesting a baker turning away a gay couple but not Twitter banning Trump. But he just couldn’t grasp my point, as you’ll hear: Trump broke the rules of Twitter — over and over — while gays who want a cake baked aren’t breaking any rules in the shop. Both Twitter and the bakery are public accommodations that must treat all groups, and all people, equally. Trump actually was being given special treatment, because others have been tossed off Twitter for breaking the rules Trump broke almost every day.
A gay couple such as the those in cases we’ve seen in the news in recent years is turned away from a bakery, however, simply because they are gay and want a cake for their wedding — before even talking with the baker about what kind of cake or what it should say. They’re being singled out for who they are, not for breaking rules — such as walking into the shop barefoot.
I think this is pretty clear-cut. Trump inspired an insurrection, and promotes hate and violence against groups. Trump has free speech and can exercise it whenever he wants — including by having a rally — but Twitter has no obligation to give him a platform.
Anyway, what do you all think? Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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Republicans have been in culture war hysterics, lacking any policies and trying to change the subject from the insurrection and white supremacy. They’re in the grip of Donald Trump, QAnon and religious nationalists.
One major line of attack has cruelly been attacking trans kids, and, in particular, trans girls in school sports. Some of these attacks have come as the Equality Act — which would add LGBTQ people to the 1964 Civil Rights Act — has been debated, having passed the House and now coming up for a vote in the Senate.
So I turned to Dawn Ennis, the executive editor of OutSports, a Forbes columnist and a former ABC News assignment editor, to help cut through the lies, interviewing her on my SiriusXM show this week. Ennis has been at the forefront of this issue. As a transgender woman she speaks from experience. And as a journalist she speaks in truths and facts. She’s also very engaging and helps make an issue some pose as complicated into something much easier to understand.
The assaults on trans kids have been coming for some time, with over 78 bills being pushed in the states against transgender people, many of them attempting to ban trans girls from school sports programs, though researchers say they are not backed up by science.
In recent weeks Trump himself, who attacked transgender people throughout his administration, has joined in on the attack on trans girls in sports. He railed against “Joe Biden and the Democrats” in his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando last month, claiming they’re pushing “policies that would destroy women’s sports. Trump claimed “young girls” who would be forced to compete against “biological males,” using the haters’ derogatory term for trans girls.
The GOP has grabbed on to this issue because — like the transgender “bathroom bills” of a few years ago — it’s one that many Americans have little understanding about, often believing lies and misinformation that is promulgated by transphobes. Even well-meaning people have bought into some of the distortions, including blanket claims that trans girls have an advantage over cisgender girls in sports.
I think it’s important for everyone to have as much information about this issue as possible, and to be able to argue with family, friends and co-workers who may be misinformed.
So listen to what Dawn Ennis has to say, and let me know your thoughts.
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In a discussion on my SiriusXM show about the high approval numbers we’re seeing for President Biden and the $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill — and what people thought of the job the president is doing so far — Mike from New York called in to say he’d give Biden a B+. He liked the “change in tone.” He liked his “operating in the institutional framework” and the “show of respect” and turning away from the “high-fevered nonsense” Trump.
But he said there are things he’s not in favor of, and noted he is “very worried” about the Equality Act, the broad LGBTQ anti-discrimination bill that would add LGBTQ people to protected groups under the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Right now, 29 states don’t have such protections in employment, housing, public accommodations and many other areas. And Biden has championed the bill, which passed the House in recent weeks, saying during the 2020 campaign that he wanted to sign it within his first 100 days.
Mike, clearly someone who is more conservative but who nonetheless liked Biden, was ready to move on to something else — but I had to stop him in his tracks and make him explain. Mike said he was worried about “unintended consequences,” and then under questioning raised the right-wing false claim suggesting churches would have to “perform gay marriages.”
I explained that the Civil Rights Act protects religion — and doesn’t force churches to perform weddings of people who are not part of their faith, for example. The claim he made has been part of the hateful agenda of those opposed to LGBTQ rights, distorting the issue as an attack on “religious freedom.” It’s an outright lie.
Mike first claimed he had “read the Equality Act,” and admitted that maybe he “misread” it — though he later admitted he had “gotten that [interpretation] off the National Review” website, the longtime right-wing publication that is hostile to LGBTQ rights.
And Mike said he could be wrong and was willing to go back and read more. He let it be known he was open to being educated.
I thought the call was instructive not only about how the far-right distorts issues, and how people might be sucked into it. It was also interesting because someone who likely is a social conservative expressed his support for Biden, a man who’s now signing the most progressive stimulus bill in decades, growing the social safety net in a bigger way than anything since the Great Depression. I think Mike underscored the challenges Republicans have, as many of their own voters support Biden’s efforts.
It was one of those calls in which not only the caller learned something but hopefully a lot of people listening did as well. And I learned something too.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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At first I thought this was a put on, a far-right nutty supporter of Governor Greg Abbott of Texas just engaging in some trolling. Maybe an anti-mask zealot.
After listening again, however, I’m thinking that, no, it’s for real. (And that, yes, he’s nonetheless a nutty Abbott supporter and an anti-mask zealot.)
But whatever — it’s whackadoodle.
Al called in to my SiriusXM show during a discussion about Abbott lifting the mask mandate, which caused outrage across the country.
Al explained that a few weeks ago he decided that he couldn’t possibly vote for Abbott again — after previously voting for him — after the monster winter storm that knocked out power across the state, largely because of bad, greedy decisions by Abbott and the GOP for years. Al was sitting there with no power or water, and telling friends there was no way he could vote for this guy again. I thought that was a good assessment, and was glad to see Republicans can change their minds.
“I spent three days in a hotel, but I don’t want to spend three years in a mask.”
Al then surmised that Abbott lifted the mask mandate to change the subject and to assuage the base of the GOP in Texas (which I’d actually suggested to him, because I think that’s true).
And, Al said, it worked — because now Al totally supports the governor again, and was “ecstatic” as he walked Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport maskless along with many others.
“I spent three days in a hotel [because of the power outage], but I don’t want to spend three years in a mask,” he said. “He’s won my vote in 2022 enthusiastically.”
I just had to stop him and tell him that he is an “idiot” and that his power would go out again, and his pipes would freeze again, if he helps re-elect Abbott, and, that, “frankly you deserve it.”
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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Billy from Virginia also said kids won't know Dr. Seuss depictions are racist if you don't tell them.
And he voted for Trump because, "I don't believe in gay marriage"
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So, Billy from Virginia called in to my SiriusXM program to comment on our discussion about Dr. Seuss Enterprises deciding not to publish six Dr. Seuss books because of racist depictions of Black people, Asians and others.
Billy claimed that children can’t know that Dr. Seuss depictions are racist unless you tell them — completely oblivious to the fact that demeaning images teach children bias about certain groups. I went over that several times, but he just couldn’t grasp it.
He then switched the conversation to Ronald Reagan — because when a conservative is in doubt, I guess, they go to Reagan. He claimed that Republicans are now called racist but that that couldn’t be true because he’s a Republican and he’s been voting Republican since Reagan. And, I guess, Reagan couldn’t have been racist.
As you can imagine, this opened up a whole new discussion about Reagan’s racist policies, political ads and tropes, and Reagan caught on tape with former president Richard Nixon calling leaders at the U.N. from African countries “monkeys.”
Billy couldn’t address those issues — though had to admit, after I told him, that Reagan’s comments about African leaders were racist — so he changed the subject to, “I voted for Donald Trump because I don’t believe in transsexuals” and “I don’t believe in gay marriage.” Yet, he claimed he’s not discriminating against anyone because he knows “what it’s like to be down.” (By the way, this proves how Trump was a driving force against LGBTQ rights and followed through on promises, since people like Billy saw him as fulfilling their agenda.)
When I explained that his comments were discriminatory, Billy fell back on the bible, and said “but I don’t hate them.” When I pointed out that the bible says he shouldn’t be eating all kinds of food, he said he eats bacon but then prays every night to be forgiven for it.
I’m not kidding!
It got even more ridiculous after that and I just had to really slam him as “weak” and “pathetic.”
Some people might think I went too hard on him, but I’m just not going to put up with illogical arguments.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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Nelson from South Carolina says calling the Proud Boys white supremacist is “one of the dumbest statements on earth”
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As we discussed the January 6th insurrection in recent days on my SiriusXM program, Nelson called in from South Carolina to say that describing the Proud Boys as white supremacist is “one of the dumbest statements on earth” and then, when pressed for an answer, said he “kind of” likes the Proud Boys.
But never once did he explain how they were not racist as I went through some of their beliefs and involvements.
Actually, Nelson didn’t really mount much of a defense of anything — he shifted to trying to ask me questions — and I had to call him on the carpet (or rather, call him a “lying piece of s**t.”).
Some of these people think they can just call the show to hijack discussion and yet they have no facts, so they’re not very effective.
When I told Nelson the ideology of the groups like Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and other far-right extremist groups behind the January 6th attack, he attempted to shift to Black Lives Matter and Antifa. I think he was trying to claim they really were behind the January 6th insurrection — which we’ve heard from other conspiracy theorists on the right — but I didn’t let him go there. Nelson claimed not to even know what QAnon is, even though the Proud Boys organized with QAnon personalities for the January 6th attack.
Nelson was a white supremacist, I’m sure, and the only arguments that people like Nelson have now is whataboutism — and it never adds up. He eventually tried to go to what I call Charlottesville trutherism — recreating the facts of Charlottesville. That’s when I had to let him go.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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Moralism about “bailing people out” isn’t going to help our economy and get people back on their feet. And it’s bad politics too.
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Last week on my SiriusXM program, a listener named George from Colorado called in to say that student loan debt forgiveness is a “terrible idea.”
Why?
Because these students “took out the loan” and “they should understand how to pay it back” and if “they haven’t figured that out” they’re “too stupid to go to college” and they’re “not going to be able to get a loan for a house if they’re that ignorant.”
Listen to the clip yourself. When I explained how callous that was — that no one took out a loan with the intent of not paying it, but that we’ve faced massive economic challenges that have hobbled people — George wasn’t having any of it. When I asked if he received a check from the government in Covid relief bills he accused me of changing the subject.
He then just repeated, “they signed a loan.”
This seems to me to be the main argument against student loan debt forgiveness, and it’s steeped in moralism. And when you dig deeper they’re making an argument about not wanting to “pay for” other people — when in fact we’re all paying for each other as a way to keep the economy afloat by keeping each other afloat.
The topic came up on the program after Joe Biden told a woman at a CNN town hall last week that he didn’t support canceling $50,000 in student loan debt per person, something Democrats from Senator Elizabeth Warren to Senator Chuck Schumer have been urging — and they and other Democratic politicians spoke out again.
Biden opted instead for $10,000 — and honestly, that would be a positive, no question about it — and said college should be free to all. But after pushback from many progressives saying that we can do so much better, the White House said it is reviewing whether or not the president “has the authority” to cancel student loan deft — legal scholars say he does, under a decades old law — and that though he didn’t favor $50,000 for everyone he could see targeting that much money to those in most need. Progressives have only made the case more forcefully since, and state attorneys general came out with a strong statement of support for $50,000 in student loan debt forgiveness.
After George’s call to my show, the phones lit up with people calling in to tell their stories. They were from all walks of life — young and old, students and parents, all saddled with enormous debt. The stories were angering, frustrating, and sometimes heartbreaking, and showed the depth of the issue.
Young people can’t get a start — and many, going to state schools, are saddled with way more than $50,000 — while people who would like to retire, in their 60s and 70s, are still paying upwards of $100,000 in student loan debt, and the interest is well over 6%. They’ve paid a lot already. Parents who can’t save for their own retirement are paying their own college debt and the college debt for two or more children, who can’t both pay the loans and their rent with their entry-level jobs.
The government shouldn’t be making money off of people. And economists argue that at a time when you’re trying to stimulate the economy, unburdening people from these debts would add some fuel, allowing people to put the money into other areas.
As Daily Kos’s Kerry Eleveld said when she came on my program, it’s also a political mistake on Biden’s part if he doesn’t go big:
A Civiqs survey this week found that 58% of voters age 18 to 34 support the Biden administration canceling $50,000 in federal student loan debt. It is also wildly popular among Black (83% support) and Latino (69%) voters—demographics that both carry the greatest debt burden and are most impacted by it. As a report last year by the Student Borrower Protection Center found, racial disparities in the effects of student debt perpetuate a "vicious cycle of racial and economic inequality." At its core, this is a civil rights issue—or rather a "crisis," as the report put it—and canceling debt is a relatively easy way to chip away at the systemic racism that has burdened generations of people of color.
Young people and people of color came out to vote in large numbers for Biden, and Democrats should want to make sure they keep as many voting as possible — by following through on promises. With majorities of important demographic groups supporting forgiveness of $50,000 or more there’s not much political downside.
I know this affects a lot of you and I’d like to hear your stories.
The only way to push hard on this — and show that’s it’s both a good economic decision and a good political decision — is for people to talk about how it would affect their own situations, such as the many people who called my show. So, let us know your thoughts. I’d like to read some of them my program in coming weeks.
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Steve from Philly thinks we’re just spoiling all his “fun,” and that there’s no “proof” Limbaugh was a racist.
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Steve in Philadelphia called in to my SiriusXM program to say it was wrong of me to call Rush Limbaugh, who died this week at the age of 70, a racist. And then Steve continually tried to change the subject or engage in whataboutism.
When I forced him to respond to some of the racist things that Limbaugh said — which are well-documented — he began to pick and choose what he would excuse.
Then at one point, he defended Limbaugh playing a song over and over on his show — “Barack the Magic Negro” — by saying it wasn’t racist, but rather "we were just having fun making fun of people.”
Steve then defended Limbaugh’s vile smearing of African-Americans as violent criminals by saying, “Go take a walk in Camden [New Jersey].” His point I guess was to recklessly charge that Black people will rob or attack white people who go into downtown Camden — though, as one caller later responded, the problem in Camden these days seems to be “white youth strung out on drugs.”
This was so bigoted and disgusting, as the people who are in most danger while walking, driving, jogging, bicycling and just about any other activity are Black, brown and Asian people, who’ve been attacked and killed by thugs on the streets based on pure hate —and, in the case of Black Americans in particular, have been killed by white police officers over and over again.
This one really pissed me off, and I angrily just called him an “a*e” a couple of times, using some choice four letter words, before hanging up on him and then explaining to listeners why this was pure white supremacy.
As I noted to the listeners, Steve will now be identified in our caller ID to the show as “Steve the white supremacist.”
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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His presidency was devastating to many of us. And his loss has driven many of his supporters into violent rage.
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In the days since the 2020 election a lot of people called my SiriusXM radio program to express their relief over Donald Trump’s loss of the presidency, and Joe Biden’s win. Of course, it wasn’t a clean date or cut off, since Trump was continuing to try to overturn the election results through the Big Lie of massive voter fraud, and causing increasingly more stress.
Nonetheless, as the reality came closer, more people called, and many of these listeners said the program had been a way they connected with others across the country, finding community and literally staying sane. I was struck by one, Steven in California, which you can listen to here, who called and opened up on the day of Biden’s inauguration about having “hurt myself”— referring to a suicide attempt — after the 2016 election, a time when he’d recently graduated college.
Steven said he’d been dealing with other issues that affected his mental health, but the Trump presidency (and in particular, Trump’s heinous Muslim ban, which affected Steven’s girlfriend’s family) was a trigger that pushed him into an even darker place. He sought professional help, and over time thankfully got well. I was so glad to hear from him and to know connecting with others via my program had helped and that he got himself to a better place.
We know there are so many more for whom that did not happen. During the four years of Trump’s presidency I had thought about prominent individuals in the news who were reported to have taken their own lives, which happens all too often in America — writers, artists, political activists, entertainers and others — and often wondered if Trump and one or several of his abhorrent actions, from the Muslim ban and child separation to environmental degradation and misogynistic attacks, had been a trigger. It was a horribly depressing, ugly time in America and it badly affected millions.
Surely we know entire groups were terribly affected in a much more brutal way than others, including immigrants, LGBTQ people, Black Americans, Latinos, women and others who saw threats to themselves and their families’ lives and rights. And millions of Americans of every background experienced the terrible day-to-day stress created by an unpredictable authoritarian president — a stress that continued well after the election.
Addressing Trump’s effect on Americans’ mental health, Anna North at Vox fleshed out some of the data and analysis from mental health professionals:
Some of those feelings have also been reflected in nationwide surveys, with a significant increase in stress about the country’s future and political climate after the 2016 election. And in 2020, 68 percent of Americans said the election was a significant source of stress in their lives, up from 52 percent in 2016…
…While Trump was able to energize a core of supporters with his mix of bravado, defiance, and racism, for many others, his presidency was, quite simply, scary. In the American Psychological Association’s 2016 “Stress in America” survey, 63 percent of Americans said the future of the country was a “significant source of stress,” and 56 percent said they were stressed out by the current political climate. In the 2018 version of the survey, those numbers went up to 69 percent and 62 percent, respectively.
Clinical psychologist Jennifer Panning even coined the term “Trump anxiety disorder” to describe the stress many people were feeling in the weeks and months following the 2016 election. “People tended to experience things like ruminations, like worries of what’s going to be next” as they awaited each new tweet or action by the president, Panning told Vox.
Certainly I felt all of this myself — the horrible dread, the sleepless nights, the worry about rights being taken from so many (including myself as a gay man), the brutality and the violence, the fear that the planet might quite literally erupt. All of it was overwhelming. I’ve said it many time: hosting my radio program was cathartic for me. Being able to vent, but also being able to connect and having to (mostly) hold it together for other people who were listening helped me immensely.
And I heard from so many people who were terribly affected and struggling. So many are still feeling the aftereffects as there’s something similar to post-traumatic stress occurring.
“If you have any intact reality testing, you're going to be horrified and highly anxious, if not afraid for your life,” psychiatrist and Yale University professor Bandy X. Lee, whom I’ve interviewed on my program, told the San Francisco Chronicle in December. “This presidency itself had brought stress levels and anxiety levels to record levels, even before all the chaos. People are going to be suffering greatly and traumatized after this presidency.”
And for so many people, their lives and their families’ lives — I think about immigrant children put in cages, or transgender people’s lives destroyed after being ejected from the military — were caused such trauma that even policy changes and a new president can’t reverse the immense mental harm that was caused, which will linger for the rest of their lives.
Lee, who edited the book, “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President,” also discussed the effects on the mental health of Trump supporters, brought into this delusional world of lies and demented cults and now dealing with a loss they can’t fathom — and which drove some of them to violent actions, such as the storming of the Capitol.
Lee’s comments came before January 6th. Her observations help explain why some would be led to violence, and why we may be just seeing the beginning:
We know how some of them reject facts and reality, even currently. We know how painful it is for some of them to face reality. A fair percentage will experience the trauma after this presidency. If there were another President Trump to appear, they would be vulnerable to attaching to him, as to avoid facing reality. A lot of them will be simply clinging to the delusions. They cannot face letting go of their wishful thinking and their image of a savior or rescuer would be shattered. The more harmed they are, the more difficult it becomes to accept even the possibility that he could be harming them. There's a psychological collusion that's happening. His followers in particular were primed for someone with similar developmental defects to come around and entice them. There's a kind of narcissistic symbiosis that happens between him and his followers.
So, clearly, we’re going to face much more with regard to how Trump’s supporters deal with what has happened — and refuse to face reality.
And for the rest of us, we’re still dealing with the fallout of the Trump presidency even as we celebrate him gone from office.
I’m sure many of you have experienced and are still experiencing a lot of very mixed and powerful emotions, and I, and I’m sure others, would certainly like to hear from you in the comments, as I think there needs to be a lot of discussion about this topic. Trump is gone — and that’s a great thing — but the effects of his presidency on political life and culture, and Americans’ mental health, has been profound.
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Kevin from Indiana said he, too, is “angry” and “disappointed” with Trump, and has been from “early on.” So did he vote for him again?
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Kevin from Indiana called in to my SiriusXM show on Monday to say he’s a “conservative” who was coming “in peace,” and explained that he has been listening to Rush Limbaugh “for 30 years,” and listening to my show for "about three weeks.”
He opined that I’m missing “a big opportunity” to “unite us,” because there are a lot of conservatives like him who are “very angry” with Donald Trump, and “very disappointed” with Trump, and are “sick” of being called “racists and white supremacists.”
Well, this must be something positive, I thought to myself: Kevin sounded like someone who saw the light, saw the terrible impact of Trump, right?
Indeed, when I asked Kevin what made him “turn on Trump,” he replied that Trump “blew his credibility,” and it was because of the “way that he acted and tweeted and spoke,” which had “ruined” anything “good” that Kevin thought he might have done.
“Beating up on John McCain, beating up on gold star parents, exaggerating and lying,” he said. “A lot of people group a lot of conservatives together with Donald Trump and they think we all agree with that. We don’t agree with that.”
“It was cumulative for you,” I replied, asking, “When did you finally say, ‘Ok, I’ve had enough?”
Kevin thought about it for a second and then replied that, “um, it’s tricky,” adding, “I would say, early on.”
Well, early on, wow. So of course he couldn’t have voted for Trump again in 2020, right?
Wrong.
It all took quite a turn. You really do have to listen to this one.
(One correction: AOC was born in The Bronx, not Brooklyn.)
Listen in and, please, let me know your thoughts.
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David from Tennessee, a “Christian nationalist,” claimed “Christians” grow and deliver our food
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David fromTennessee, a Trump supporter who identified as a “Christian nationalist,” called in to my SiriusXM show in recent days to provide an “opposing view” while we were discussing the insurrection at the Capitol last week.
He first talked about “election reform,” diverting from the topic, but when I brought him back, he said there’s violence on “both sides.” He then didn’t seem to remember Trump praising the terrorists in a video he tweeted out during the siege.
He then tried to claim it was only a “few” people who were trying to storm the Capitol when in fact it was thousands of people.
David then went on to say: “Christians right now are not talking about violence — we don’t have to. We’re the ones that deliver the food to the cities, we’re the ones that grow the food for the cities. All we have to is quit.”
This idea that that white “Christians” grow our food and drive it to the cities is ridiculous. Of course, most of the people actually growing and picking crops are immigrant workers — people of color — and truckers who deliver food products across the country come from all backgrounds.
But more angering to me was this idea he had that all they have to do to harm those of us in the cities “is quit.”
As I told him, my state of New York, like many other urban states, pays more in taxes that then goes to places like Tennessee, which is much more dependent on federal programs — number 15 in ranking, along with many other Southern states — and pays out far less in taxes to the federal government. New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts pay almost 17% of all federal receipts despite being little over 11% of the population. When you add in California and other urban, high income states it’s even far more disproportionate.
Tennessee’s populations is comparatively poorer than New York’s and the other states I mentioned and with many (white people) on welfare, as well as great health challenges like obesity and diabetes, and thus needing access to health care.
I’m all for it — all for making sure people across this country have access to health care and are fed and live productive lives, with government help, which we all foster as taxpayers in this society. But to have someone from Tennessee threaten to withhold food from New York when I could say — and, for effect, did — that I’d like to withhold my tax dollars from Tennessee is ludicrous. (One thing I was wrong about: New York’s infrastructure is far worse than Tennessee’s. But that’s precisely because there is much more infrastructure — 17,000 bridges, for example — and the federal money doesn’t come back to New York in great numbers to address it.)
While it started out friendly with my correcting his misinformation, I eventually really had to go hard on David from Tennessee.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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Marty from Wisconsin claimed Trump didn’t incite violence, won “80 million votes.”
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Marty from Wisconsin called in to my SiriusXM radio program as I discussed the insurrection at the Capitol. He started out weirdly referring to Princess Leia from “Star Wars,” and saying “we’re gonna be stronger.”
Obviously living in an intergalactic fantasy, Marty claimed that Trump “got 80 million votes,” which is completely false. When I went on to correct him and tell him that Trump received 74.2 million votes and Joe Biden got 81.3 million votes he shot back at me like I was nitpicking, and said, “You guys are doing all this stuff, you’re pulling all this s**t.”
Marty offers a window into the minds of Trump supporters who are still slavishly devoted to Trump even as they claim to oppose the violence that occurred at the Capitol. They tell themselves that it was just a few people and that Trump doesn’t support it nor did he incite it. And they believe Trump when he says, as he did today, that his speech was “totally appropriate.”
Marty claimed that “we’re not like that,” pointing to the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol — even though there were thousands of people there, including leaders of groups Trump has condoned and which are violent white supremacist groups, like the Proud Boys.
When I pointed that out, Marty began defending the Proud Boys, saying they were started as a “joke.”
He denied that Trump incited the mob, condoning his speech, and said I was taking it “out of context” when I quoted Trump’s video which he tweeted out during the siege, in which he said we “love you” to the insurrectionists and that they are “special people” and “patriots.”
I really had to break everything to Marty very gently because he was truly losing it.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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James Fallows, former speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter and staff writer at The Atlantic, lays out a plan
Welcome to The Signorile Report, where you’ll read hard-hitting political commentary and exposés, hear interesting conversations, join in great discussions and get lots of other stuff.
Last week I interviewed James Fallows, who’d spoken with many people over a period of a few months who’d been involved in or studied previous investigations of presidents, for a piece he wrote on how Joe Biden should investigate Donald Trump.
As he noted to me, “there’s never been anything quite like this,” even as many presidents have previously been investigated for wrong-doing. Trump is in a league of his own. And it will take a lot of work to investigate him.
Fallows explained that, “when a new president takes office there is just this enormous onrush of all the normal stuff a president has to do.” And with the Biden administration, it’s going to be even more intense as President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and their team deal with challenges greater than most presidents, including “economic catastrophe, the pandemic, international relations.”
Fallows laid out several tiers to investigating Trump.
1) Tier one is “straight out corruption,” which would include the violations regarding Donald Trump and his family and their businesses, and Fallows said many experts concluded “the judgement on these corruption issues is [that] most of them you leave to the states.”
Those that do involve federal law, like the postal service, “you make sure you have a good, eminent attorney general who makes sure you have have good inspectors’ general” at the various government agencies.
Tier 1 is: “let the process work at the state level and within the departments.”
2) Tier 2 is what Fallows identifies as “corrosion issues.” These are issues in which “the government has been eroded.” He notes that, “we’ve seen this in public health, the State Department, the [National] Weather Service” and many other areas. “This is something the president can deal with,” he said, because, of the 4000 political appointees the president will make, “about 3000 will not get Senate confirmation.” These are people a president can bring in who may have more expansive ideas and can move quickly and don’t need a Senate confirmation which might block them from being appointed because of their backgrounds or perceived intentions in doing their jobs.
3) Tier 3 includes “three big areas where you want to have national commissions.”
Commissions have often been viewed skeptically, particularly because they’ve been used by some administrations to just kick something down the road. But when used with good intentions, Fallows noted, “commissions have been effective tools.”
In 1968, he pointed out, the Kerner Commission was important in taking on racial injustice. The Space Shuttle Commission, he noted, is another effective example. And he viewed the 9/11 Commission as having done a “surprisingly impressive job.”
Commissions that are run not by the federal government but rather through universities and other institutions have had major impact, he said. The three commissions would look at, respectively, the coronavirus pandemic, the human rights abuses at the border, and “attacks on democracy itself.’
“These warrant special treatment,” he said. “There’s leverage in each of them.” Regarding the coronavirus pandemic, for example, “there’s what happened, and the certainty that new viruses from new parts of the world will emerge. What have we learned and how can this not happen again?”
For the border and the abuses of immigrants, Fallows noted that John Allen, the retired four star general who is now president of the Brookings Institution, told him the rest of the world views us a state-sponsor of child abuse, so it’s also about America’s standing in the world. That commission needs to look at what went wrong. What brought this country to violate human rights in a such a horrific way and allowed for separating children from their parents and putting them in cages?
And the commission on attacks on democracy would look at “the structure of democracy” and what led to white supremacist violence and domestic terrorism.
I liked the way Fallows laid this all out, and I had questions particularly about how we make sure abuse like this never happens again.
Regarding what to do about preventing any president from doing the things Trump did, we discussed how much of what Trump did violated norms that presidents in the past knew to follow and not cross, and whether we need new laws limiting the president’s power. Fallows interestingly noted that he asked historians and others, and “[they] generally concluded that norms can’t be codified.”
“You need to demonstrate them,” he said. “The exemplifying of standards. But in this third commission there are a number of people with ideas in mind of how you would reduce gerrymandering, have fixed terms for the Supreme Court justices, things you would practically do to restore norms.” Personally, I think there are laws thqt need to be passed to limit the president’s power after Trump, because we don’t know what the GOP will do next. What other authoritarian might they get behind and help elect president, and what if they nominate Trump again in 2024 and he gets elected?
We also discussed how President Obama, even after making promises during the 2008 campaign, didn’t investigate George W. Bush’s actions in the Iraq War nor investigate big banks after the mortgage crisis and economic collapse in 2008. Fallows believes that was a mistake, and on that we certainly agree.
He believes Biden and his team will be different, pointing out that Biden saw it all under Obama and, and for that reason, will be inclined to make sure he doesn’t let it happen again. He also pointed to how Biden has nominated people to his Cabinet who seem like they will take on the challenge of investigating Trump. (You can of course listen to the full interview here.)
Let me know your thoughts.
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Cameron from Georgia is so deep in the cult that he’d convinced himself he wasn’t
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Okay, well this one started out calm but devolved into F bombs — yes, on my part.
I’m just not going to allow lies to be spewed on the air and, frankly, am not going to put up with racists claiming they voted for Trump not because they like him but because they had to stop the “left-wing agenda.”
In a discussion about Joe Biden commenting on whether or not Donald Trump should attend Biden’s inauguration, Cameron called in from Georgia to my SiriusXM show, and began by saying he didn’t want to “start any arguments.”
But that was in fact the purpose of his entire call, soon getting combative and hurling false charges.
Cameron tried to equate Trump’s refusal to concede the 2020 election with Democrats opposing Trump’s fascistic presidency — even as Democrats acknowledged Trump won in 2016, an election that was much closer than 2020.
I posed a series of “yes” or “no” questions to him — for example, “Did Hillary Clinton concede the election [in 2016] the day after the election?” — and while forced to answer “yes” to all of them he then veered off and claimed Nancy Pelosi did’t attend the inauguration, which is a blatant lie.
After pushing disinformation, Cameron then tried to divert to other issues, and soon claimed, “I am not a Trump supporter” but said that he just had to vote for Trump.
It got pretty heated from there. Some people will think I went too far, or lost my cool, and maybe I did.
Also, I’m sure some would say that someone who says they don’t like Trump but had to vote for him “to stop the left-wing agenda” isn’t necessarily racist. But I disagree completely. Anyone who voted for Trump in 2020 voted for a racist and bigot who engaged in horrendous actions against so many groups. No excuse to vote for such a candidate absolves the voter, who voted for a racist. End of story.
Listen in and let me know what you think. Thanks!
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Bob from Connecticut called into my SiriusXM show to say he once “was a Democrat”
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Bob, a Connecticut resident, called in to my SiriusXM show to say he was a Democrat at one time but his “mind has been changed” over the last four years, and he now supports Donald Trump.
And regarding the election, he said, even in response to Bill Barr, the attorney general, loyal to Trump, saying there was no voter fraud to overturn the election, that, “I don’t think enough people are looking both sides of it.”
This was preposterous and his argument just got weaker and weaker as he tried to explain — and couldn’t respond to my clarifications.
I’ve talked with many Trump supporters, but there was something grasping and desperate about Bob. He was on a ledge — but not quite near jumping —and I tried to talk Bob off the ledge.
He seemed mildly reachable — and I could be wrong, and you’re welcome to tell me your opinion. Perhaps he called the program to test out some theories and wanted to be pushed back against because he knows where things are going — and I surely pushed back. Maybe it’s actually better that Trump keeps trying and losing, so it shows the Bobs of the world how ridiculous this all is.
I finally had to tell Bob:
‘You need, like, a hobby, of some sort, that will help work you through this…You have to either decide you’re going to move away from this cult or you’re sucked in, you’re done, you’re finished. You’re gonna lose family, you’re gonna lose friends, your children, everybody. So make your decision, Bob.”
Listen in, and let me know your thoughts!
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Kirk from North Carolina called into my show to argue that we should accept his vote because he’s a “man of God.”
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In a discussion on my SiriusXM show, celebrating Joe Biden’s win and talking about how people are dealing with family members who supported Trump and are now having a meltdown because he lost the election — but also how it was demoralizing that so many people still voted for Trump — Kirk from North Carolina called.
He was coming from the opposite place: His daughter voted for Biden, but he voted for Trump, and he thought we should all accept it.
“I voted for Trump,” he said, and then, in a pre-emptive manner, said, “Thank for not being mean to me” even though I’d not even responded to him yet. He was a nice enough person, and I was nice back — up to a point.
Kirk identified as a “very conservative Christian” and a “holy roller,” and kept using his religious beliefs to defend his support for Trump.
But he would do two things when presented with facts that showed Trump to be anything but Christian: 1) he would admit he didn’t approve of this or that one particular thing Trump did, or; 2) would say he doesn’t know about this or that thing, using ignorance or not being informed, particularly about the most egregious things Trump has done. And he never actually explained what great thing Trump supposedly did.
I frankly then just got impatient with his b**t, and told him that Trump has harmed people and harmed our country, which isn’t Christian — and he interjected, “well, I’m a man of God.”
I responded, “No, you’re not — you’re a man of a false God. Don’t you dare hide behind religion and besmirch faith like that. Don’t you dare.”
Well, Kirk kind of melted after that, and said there was “nothing malicious” in what he did in voting for Trump, seeming to want forgiveness — but I had to explain how malicious his actions in fact were.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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An expert on authoritarians says this is the "most dangerous time."
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As Donald Trump rages on with vengeful firings by tweet, fizzling court battles and useless recounts more than two weeks after a presidential election he clearly lost to Joe Biden, we see our democracy under attack in brutal ways.
Trump and his enablers in the GOP are sowing doubt about our election system. And they’re denying President-elect Joe Biden the ability to obtain funds and access for his transition during the most deadly pandemic in over 100 years. It’s a time when we have to be alert to what Trump might do as he becomes more desperate, clinging to power while lashing out.
So I turned to an expert on authoritarians to get more insight.
New York University professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat has studied authoritarians the world over, looking back over the past 100 years — from Italy’s Benito Mussolini and Chile’s Augusto Pinochet to Russia’s Vladimir Putin and yes, the U.S.’s own Donald Trump.
In her new book, Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, she looks at the different motivational circumstances and ultimate outcomes of various authoritarians, but, more interestingly, homes in on the similarities among them, from overt displays of virility to the vicious use of propaganda.
“I’ve never thought that Trump is governing according to a normal democratic frame of reference,” Ben-Ghiat said in an interview on my SiriusXM show last week about her book, and in particular about Trump’s loss in the election. “He’s used this authoritarian playbook. His personality and his temperament check all the boxes of all the leaders that I’ve studied.”
In Trump’s case, she explained, “He’s been in office to build his personality cult and to stay in office as long as possible.”
Trump, like other authoritarians, sees a loss of power as “psychological annihilation," something for which he’s not prepared.
“They surround themselves not with professionals, with experts who can give them the best policy, give them critical feed back,” Ben-Ghiat explained. “They surround themselves with flatterers and sycophants who tell them what they want to hear. And this is counterproductive in the long run, and this is why most of them end up badly.”
For Trump that meant losing the election. But, like other authoritarians, the loss is unacceptable.
“They don’t go quietly,” Ben-Ghiat said. “They’re not capable of foreseeing a future without them having this kind of hold over people. So this is the most dangerous time, when they feel that their power is threatened.”
Listen in to the entire interview and let me know your thoughts.
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Brent from Missouri says Biden can’t be called “president-elect” until the votes are certified by electors
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Trump-supporting caller Brent from Missouri first claimed that we can’t consider Joe Biden as having been elected president until the election is certified in December. When I explained that that wasn’t the case in 2016 — when Donald Trump was called “president-elect” the day after the election was called for him by the networks — he switched to claiming that only if Trump “concedes” can Biden be considered president-elect.
When I then asked him where it says in the Constitution that the president must concede to finalize the election, he couldn’t provide it.
Basically, he was a jumble of Fox News talking points and Trump’s Twitter feed.
I know — I was probably a bit too aggressive with him but I really can’t take this b**t, especially now. Let me know your thoughts!
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Laurie from Pennsylvania claimed I said Barrett nomination was “illegal” when I didn’t
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Laurie from Pennsylvania called into my SiriusXM show on Thursday to claim I called the Barrett nomination “illegal,” when I did not.
I then explained to her the extraordinary breaking of norms Republicans engaged in by pushing through this nomination, and how Democrats now have no choice but to expand the Supreme Court.
Having run out anything to really say, she diverted to calling me a “very angry man.”
Yes, I’m angry at the GOP for the recklessness they’ve engaged in, moving to strip my and millions of others’ rights.
And I’m angry at Trump — whom Laurie claimed she didn’t vote for, but then didn’t seem to have a quick answer regarding whom she actually cast her ballot for.
Take a listen!
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Neil from North Carolina not only had the numbers wrong on Covid-19 deaths; he couldn’t add
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I was away for the long weekend, but back on my SiriusXM show today and looking forward to being back!
And thought I’d put up this call from Neil in North Carolina, a man who had some ridiculous numbers and couldn’t seem to add them up — and also seemed not to know that Trump’s press secretary, now with coronavirus, never wore a mask.
After refuting his numbers, we then got into the discussion about masks, in which he asked if I actually wear a mask everywhere. He couldn’t seem to understand that many people where masks out in public all the time.
He then tried to change the subject and wouldn’t answer my basic questions about Trump not wearing a mask, as well as his now-coronavirus-infected press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany.
I know — I lost my temper with him! Sometimes it happens. And I just got angry a little while ago with two men not wearing masks on the New York City subway, believe it or not. And I let them know exactly how I felt. I guess I was also angry watching the Amy Coney Barrett hearing. It’s one of those days! We’ll be discussing that on the show.
Meanwhile, let me know your thoughts to this!
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Mike from New Hampshire was aghast at hearing listeners discuss the coronavirus pandemic
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Describing himself as “patriotic, Second Amendment strong," Mike from New Hampshire claimed that he “stumbled across” my radio program while going down the dial on SiriusXM and couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He was the epitome of a right-wing crybaby.
Specifically, listeners were calling in to discuss the latest, most horrific actions of coronavirus-infected Donald Trump, and the implications for the pandemic nationally.
Mike began by trying to refute the number of coronavirus deaths, claiming it’s all inflated, and showing himself to be a Covid-19 denialist.
It ended with my telling him about the great mental health programs he can avail himself of under the Affordable Care Act.
Listen in, and let me know your thoughts!
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The CDC urged against trick-or-treating, parties and haunted houses. Robert from Pennsylvania called me a liar for saying so.
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Last week, I pointed out that the Centers for Disease Control, which has been terribly inconsistent and dangerously unreliable on the coronavirus pandemic because of the way Donald Trump is manipulating the agency, seemed to be doing the right thing in urging families to cancel traditional Halloween festivities.
Those included door-to-door trick-or-treating, wearing costume masks (which can complicate the use of face masks), parties of any kind, trunk-or-treating, indoor haunted houses, hay rides or tractor rides, and well, a bunch of other things.
“Many traditional Halloween activities can be high-risk for spreading viruses,” the CDC said. “There are several safer, alternative ways to participate in Halloween.”
But because I used the word “cancel” for the traditional Halloween activities, it drove Trumper Robert to call my SiriusXM show and accuse me of lying, and well, it just went downhill from there: I admit I just lost it and used A LOT of four-letter words!
It enrages me that, while we’re in the middle of a pandemic, this anti-science, anti-mask, anti-restrictions group of people is hellbent on doing whatever they want. A selfish, reckless element is infuriated that we’ve even suggested “canceling” traditional Halloween festivities — while people are sick and dying and our president claims all is fine and is helping the virus to transmit at his rallies.
I know — I probably should have kept my temper on this one. But sometimes it’s hard!
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Clark from Missouri then tried to push Trump talking points
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Seems a week doesn’t go by without a Trump supporter calling my in to my SiriusXM show in claiming to want to talk about one thing and then pushing another.
Clark called to say he was volunteering at a Trump campaign office where everyone was “happy” about the attacks on Trump because it only means he’ll get more support.
That made little sense. But of course, this is a Trump supporter.
When I asked if we just shouldn’t criticize him at all if we’re opposed to him, and if he criticized Joe Biden, he switched into a rant of Trump talking points.
I had to shut him down and make him address the issues — nonetheless it ended the usual way it does with Trump supporters.
Take a listen and let me know your thoughts!
(And btw, the photo above has nothing to do with any of it, but it’s just another photo of Trump looking like an idiot with adoring fans looking on.)
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"The negative coattails of Donald Trump" could bring down John Cornyn, he says. "There's real political justice in what's going to happen."
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Beto O’Rourke is on a mission to turn Texas blue this year, and he spoke with me on my SiriusXM show about the work he and his group, Powered by People are doing to make that happen at every level of government. Some in the political class have said it’s a stretch — that Texas will eventually turn blue but might not do so this year — but then again, those same people didn’t think O’Rourke’s surge in 2018 was probable either.
The former Texas Democratic congressman came within three points of beating the odious Senator Ted Cruz in 2018, and created a movement across Texas, bringing along races down ballot that were part of the blue wave — in the U.S. House and in the Texas Legislature — and laying the groundwork for 2020.
When O’Rourke’s bid for the presidency didn’t work out, he declined another Senate run, challenging John Cornyn, and committed himself to grassroots organizing in his state.
Now, Joe Biden is running even with Donald Trump in several polls, as Biden staffs up in the state. More GOP-controlled House seats across Texas are endangered, as are GOP state legislators. And Air Force veteran and educator M.J. Hegar has a shot at taking down Cornyn, coming within single digits in polls. Even O’Rourke to me he was surprised at how quickly Cornyn has seen his approval tank and is facing a strong challenge.
So, anything can happen. But it’s not going to happen unless people work hard.
O’Rourke spoke with me about the horrendous actions of Donald Trump and the revelations in the Woodward book, as well as about how much Cornyn is tied to Trump. He discussed the ways his group is working at all levels and how people can help out in turning Texas blue.
I posted the full interview here, as so many listeners, and so many followers on Twitter who heard some of the clips, asked me to post it all. So take a listen. And of course let me know your thoughts.
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“It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump”
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Recently I interviewed former Republican strategist Stuart Stevens on my SiriusXM show about his new book, “It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump,” and how he left the GOP, having diligently working in it for many years, after he realized it was a sham. (You can listen to the entire interview here, and I really think it’s worth hearing.)
Stevens has been a GOP strategist for decades. He has served as strategist and media consultant to dozens of House members governors, senators, presidents and presidential candidates, including Bob Dole, George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, John McCain, Chuck Grassley, Rob Portman, Dan Coates and others.
Unlike some others who’ve left the party, Stevens concludes in his book that Donald Trump didn’t take over the Republican Party but is rather the embodiment of it — that the GOP has always been racist to the core, and Trump was readymade for it. I found that admission more refreshing than others Never Trumpers, even if it sometimes is hard to fathom the rationalizations people like Stevens made.
Stevens said he came to realize that the things he believed the GOP stood for — strong defense against Russia, free trade, personal responsibility, taking on deficits, among others — were all just a facade. Racism was and is the main issue, and he admits he used it in elections to win, though was almost unconscious about how he used it.
Stevens described to me that it was easy not to think that race was the the primary issue that motivated most Republican voters, because those around him — a bubble of elites, if you will — cared about all those other big issues much more. He said Trump winning the primary and then the election in 2016 woke him up to the reality.
Some have criticized him, saying he couldn’t be that naive, or that he’s still not answering to his work for Mitt Romney in 2012, which wasn’t that long ago. But his insights into the GOP and what drove it and drives it — and Trump — now are illuminating and important. So I thought you should hear the entire interview.
Here’s an excerpt:
“A lot of it was a feeling that we were on the right side of history. And there was almost an inevitability of the party. Plus, we did acknowledge failures. And that’s very important to note. In many ways this is all about race. In 1956, Eisenhower gets 40% of the Black vote. In 1964 with Goldwater it drops to 7%. And it never comes back. So since 1964 the Republican Party has failed to attract African-Americans.
“Now, we used to admit that that was failure. And I think that mattered. I think what you aspire to is important. Now the party is — you don’t even hear about it being a big tent anymore. And it’s jut really become comfortable with white grievance.
“So I guess, when I woke up in the morning I felt I was working for the side of the party that was the more positive and brighter side. And I think I probably was — I just thought people would fight, that they would fight for what they believed in. I think national parties should serve as circuit breakers. And that never happened. Republicans never pulled the circuit on Donald Trump.”
Listen to the entire interview, however, and let me know your thoughts.
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The caller to my show claimed the “real God” backs Trump
Welcome to The Signorile Report, where you’ll read hard-hitting political commentary and exposés; find interviews with newsmakers; hear me “engage” with right-wingers who call my radio program; and connect with like-minded, passionate people everywhere committed to fighting against hate and corruption. Subscribe now to get all of this in your email box a few times a week.
Clark from Tennessee called into my SiriusXM show and began by saying that Donald Trump has kept most of his promises and that that’s why he’s voting for him and that any “God-fearing American” should, or the country will go to hell in a hand basket.
He said, when he’s talking about “God-fearing” Americans, “I’m not talking about phony evangelists or phony Christians” — like Jerry Falwell Jr. — but the “real God.”
How did he square “real God” backing a rapist and adulterer and liar? Well, you have to listen to this to believe it.
And yes, I had to completely eviscerate this poor, damaged soul, who, unfortunately, is an example of many people in our country. (There’s always the hope that some of them are listening who might be wavering, who might hear how ridiculous they sound.)
Whatever made them this way, they are dangerous to our rights and freedoms when they use their vote to hurt others.
Let me know your thoughts!
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Cowardly Matt from Kansas City pretends he’s anti-Trump to get on the show, gets creamed
Welcome to The Signorile Report, where you’ll read hard-hitting political commentary and exposés; find interviews with newsmakers; hear me “engage” with right-wingers who call my radio program; and connect with like-minded, passionate people everywhere committed to fighting against hate and corruption. Subscribe now to get all of this in your email box a few times a week.
Ellie Burgin from Pexels
Listeners to my SiriusXM show know that I have no problem taking calls from Trump supporters and debating them — or more so, refuting their idiotic but often dangerous claims. I’m all about more speech, more discussion, airing out views.
But the thing I really can’t stand is someone who fakes who they are and what they want to talk about when they’re screened. They’re cowards who won’t say they’re Trump supporters — and then think they’re pulling some kind of prank when they get on, even though it’s totally lame.
That’s what Matt from Kansas City did, calling in as we were discussing the Republican National Convention (and the Open Thread on the convention continues here), and I had to just hand his ass to him.
[Sorry the audio is distorting out a little when I raise my voice, as I was really going over the level and didn’t adjust for it. Yeah, was seeing red!]
Take a listen. Let me know your thoughts!
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Marty from Minnesota called to defend Chris from Long Island, but only further dug a hole for both of them.
Welcome to The Signorile Report, where you’ll read hard-hitting political commentary and exposés; ,find interviews with newsmakers; hear me “engage” with right-wingers who call my radio program; and connect with like-minded, passionate people everywhere committed to fighting for equality and justice.
I promised in the last post with the call from Chris in Long Island, New York, that I’d send this follow up call. Marty from Minnesota called my SiriusXM show last week in response to my conversation on the show the day before with Chris, who’d called to explain how truly offensive it was that I’d called Donald Trump a “b*d.”
Marty protested my entire tone, and how I respond to Trump supporters in general.
Then he claimed he was actually on “the left” until “cancel culture” came into being. This was pretty hilarious considering that this right-wing myth of “cancel culture” is a relatively new phenomenon, certainly arising until well after Trump’s presidency —and hasn’t received enormous attention until recently, with Trump using it in speeches and tweets.
He then tried to claim Joe Biden was a bad as Trump when it came to making offensive remarks. Yeah, this was quite a joke. Let me know your thoughts!
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Chris from Long Island said he couldn’t “remember” Trump using any offensive language like that.
Welcome to The Signorile Report, where you’ll read hard-hitting political commentary and exposés; ,find interviews with newsmakers; hear me “engage” with right-wingers who call my radio program; and connect with like-minded, passionate people everywhere committed to fighting for equality and justice.
On my SiriusXM show last week, I called Donald Trump a b*d for canceling the Republican National Convention in Jacksonville — and protecting all his GOP buddies from coronavirus — but still demanding children be sent to school, even in states surging with Covid-19 cases and where parents are adamantly opposed.
Chris called in from Long Island, New York. He’d previously called in to defend Trump. He said, by calling Trump a b*d and using such foul “language,” I lowered myself, or some such thing— to which I replied I’m not the president of the United States. I’m a radio host. I’m doing my job. It’s Donald Trump who has denigrated the office of the presidency — and is certainly not doing his job.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts. I’m particularly interested in hearing if you think I don’t give him a chance — as he claims — and am too hard on him.
The next day Marty from Minnesota, another Trump supporter, called to take issue with me for this call. I’ll send that one out shortly too.
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He also defended Trump’s latest racist fear-mongering attack on Joe Biden.
Welcome to The Signorile Report, where you’ll read hard-hitting political commentary and exposés; ,find interviews with newsmakers; hear me “engage” with right-wingers who call my radio program; and connect with like-minded, passionate people everywhere committed to fighting for equality and helping each other out.
Roger from Ohio, a Trump supporter, called in to my SiriusXM show this week to respond to my noting that Donald Trump’s Rose Garden press conference — which was really like a campaign rally slamming Joe Biden — was incoherent, 53 minutes of blathering, directionless ranting. Reporters were stunned that Trump used the Rose Garden in such a partisan way — frankly I’m not sure why they were surprised — and the consensus was that it was a confusing mess, a “meandering monologue.”
But Roger claimed it was only “incoherent” to me because I couldn’t understand Dear Leader.
When I said I understood just fine, including Trump’s coded racist attacks, he blew his stack.
Roger then began defending Trump’s latest hollow on Joe Biden claiming Biden is going to harm “property values” in suburbs because of a push for “low-income housing.” This simplistic and inaccurate line of attack stemmed not from anything Biden said recently, by the way, but from the fact that the Obama administration was actually enforcing the Fair Housing Act — yes, a civil rights statute.
It’s a message of Trump’s that promotes segregation and discrimination against black people — something Trump did himself as a real estate developer in New York in the ‘80s, caught red-handed — that is just not landing in the suburbs during this campaign because, as I told Roger, it’s blatantly racist and the country has gone through a dramatic shift.
He floundered and flustered and it got heated as I tried to give him some facts. Let me know your thoughts and if you think I was too hard on him.
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This is some real Progress, which is of course the name of our channel.
Welcome to The Signorile Report, where you’ll read hard-hitting political commentary and exposés; find interviews with newsmakers; hear me “engage” with right-wingers who call my radio program; and connect with like-minded, passionate people everywhere committed to fighting for equality and helping each other out.
Nick in Michigan called my SiriusXM show this week and, unlike the majority of people who call and say they support Donald Trump, he actually rethought some of his positions, listened to facts and seemed to have a real moment of clarity.
At the very least, he’s going to be thinking some more, which is a good thing. The call focused mostly on Trump’s response to coronavirus, with Nick initially claiming there was a media conspiracy against Trump. But I did lay out some of the details of what Trump has done — and what he said in his own Twitter feed, which is directly from him and not the media. And there seemed to be a breakthrough.
In the past few weeks the Trump supporters who call the show have been fewer and farther between, and they’ve been more sheepish, not so strident, even when they are very disagreeable. But this was an actual rethinking — within a phone call.
Who knows how much it represents many others, but it’s something nice to think about on a holiday weekend. Take a listen and let me know your thoughts.
P.S. I’m off from the show today for the holiday, but we have a great “best of” show. And I’m taking off Monday and Tuesday, but the great Joe Sudbay will be guest-hosting, so listen in!
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Welcome to The Signorile Report, where you’ll read hard-hitting political commentary and exposés; find interviews with newsmakers; hear me “engage” with right-wingers who call my radio program; and connect with like-minded, passionate people everywhere committed to fighting for equality and helping each other out.
Mike From Washington claimed that Trump says a lot of “stupid things” but that he doesn’t pay attention to them.
Mike from Washington called my SiriusXM show to respond to Trump having retweeted a video of supporter chanting, “White power!”
Mike said “there’s a lot more to it than what’s really going on” regarding controversies involving Trump, and that he’s a Trump supporter but “I don’t support 100 percent of everything he does.”
He then professed ignorance of Trump’s racism because “I don’t tweet” and “I don’t have a Facebook page. I don’t do any of that stuff.”
When I explained to him that this was a cop out, he decided to then defend Trump’s racism, but again, making like he just was not informed. He asked, in trying to defend the “white power” chant, what about someone chanting, “Black power? That’s not the same?”
Yeah. Completely lame.
Mike then told me about “a very good friend of mine” who is black.
I’ll stop it right there, but there’s a lot more. Listen in. Let me know your thoughts.
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An interview with his husband, David Webster, on the AIDS activist’s life and work
Welcome to The Signorile Report, where you’ll read hard-hitting political commentary and exposés; find interviews with newsmakers; hear me “engage” with right-wingers who call my radio program; and connect with like-minded, passionate people everywhere.
The pioneering, fiery and life-saving AIDS activist, playwright and author Larry Kramer died on May 27th, leaving us when he was still deeply involved in his work — including pushing Dr. Anthony Fauci on coronavirus and working on a play about the HIV and covid pandemics.
In his first interview since Larry’s death, his husband, the architect David Webster, spoke with me for a one-hour special which I was honored to air on my SiriusXM show. (And by the way, through July 6th you can listen free on your phone or online to the show — 3-6 ET, weekdays —our entire progressive political channel, Progress, and 100+ news, music and entertainment channels, right here, with no credit card or info. Just listen free).
Larry was a friend and mentor — we met in ACT UP back in 1988 — and an enormous inspiration for much of my work as a writer, columnist and author, particularly in those early years.
Here you can listen to the full interview with David Webster, on Larry’s life and work and their relationship. Let me know your thoughts.
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It was the bible photo-up that did it.
Welcome to The Signorile Report, where you’ll read hard-hitting political commentary and exposés; find interviews with newsmakers; hear me “engage” with right-wingers who call my radio program; and connect with like-minded, passionate people everywhere.
Happy Juneteenth to everyone! Let’s learn as much as we can about this day in history that commemorates the end of slavery, educate others and let this day be a wake up call to white America, as Brandon Tensley writes.
I’ve owed you guys this call from the last week to my SiriusXM show — and mentioned the call in a few posts — so here goes.
Mike from Pennsylvania, a hardcore conservative Trumper’s Trumper who has called my show frequently from before Trump’s 2016 election, has flipped on Trump. This is in line with other callers to the show who had friends and neighbors flip, and with other reports we’re seeing, and even in a Michigan poll, pointing to Trump’s bible photo-op, and tear-gassing of protesters, as a breaking point for some Trump supporters.
Why that and not the myriad of other ghastly things Trump has done? It’s horrific enough to me that people stick with Trump, so whenever they have a breaking point it’s good, no matter how it’s hard it is to believe they stuck so long.
Now, Mike still weighed in on defending the police in their actions against protesters — and I had to school him hard on that — but it was quite fascinating that this Trumper’s Trumper has jumped ship on the cult leader.
Will it last? Let’s hope so, but let’s not count on it. Trump is reeling — let’s double down and continue to pummel him until we beat him at the ballot box this November. Listen in to the call, meanwhile, and let me know your thoughts and if you’re hearing similar things.
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He claimed Trump was tough on China, but doesn’t “remember” Trump praising President Xi
Welcome to The Signorile Report, where you’ll read hard-hitting political commentary and exposés; find interviews with newsmakers; hear me “engage” with right-wingers who call my radio program; and connect with like-minded, passionate people everywhere.
Brian from Massachusetts called into my SiriusXM program on Monday after I remarked that Trump supporters haven’t been calling the show lately to defend Trump. In fact, we’d even recently gotten a call from a hardcore Trumper who’s been calling for years — Mike in Pennsylvania — who said he’d flipped on Trump, who won’t be getting his vote this year. (I’ll post that call shortly.)
This one is even more relevant after the bombshell from John Bolton’s book which reports that Donald Trump pleaded with President Xi Jinping of China to buy farm goods from states Trump needs for his re-election. Brian actually called before the book was obtained by The New York Times and reported on yesterday, a book that now shows Trump asked an adversary to interfere in the election on his behalf — just as he asked Ukraine to do so, and just as he accepted Russia’s help in doing so.
But still, it was fascinating — mind-boggling — that Brian had not known of Trump’s boot-licking of Xi, since Trump must have tweeted air kisses to the Chinese president, and made positive public comments about him, at least 10 times. We now know it was all about trying to get Xi to help him win re-election. This seems to show how Trumpers not only watch Fox News and nothing else for information, but they selectively filter out Trump’s tweets — not “remembering” certain ones while retaining others.
Anyway, listen to the call — it begins with Brian claiming the economy is great, and then veers into his saying Trump can’t be blamed for his coronavirus response because of big, bad China. And let me know your thoughts!
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The “conservative libertarian” admitted he’ d let his mother be pepper-sprayed if they had to “move” her
Trumper Sean from Louisiana called into my SiriusXM show, saying he occasionally listens and is a “conservative libertarian.” And he wanted to clarify, regarding Donald Trump, that “I hate some of things he says,” but Trump hasn’t done “anything fascist.” When given examples, he kind of just sputtered — and lied.
“He didn’t gas anyone — there were smoke grenades and stuff like that,” Sean claimed about the peaceful protesters in Lafayette Park last week, negating the fact that protesters — for the sake of Trump’s photo-op in front of a church with an upside down bible — were hit with pepper spray, a chemical irritant designed to cause pain, and rubber bullets.
After repeated questioning — and after dodging several times — he eventually, pathetically admitted he’d allow his mother to be pepper-sprayed and hit with rubber bullets if she was holding a sign on a street corner and authorities had to “move“ her.
Then he basically threw in the towel, perhaps realizing his arguments were feeble.
It boggles the mind that anyone who calls himself a “libertarian,” who supposedly believes the federal government is too-powerful and should be out of people’s lives, would be fine with the government gassing people, threatening laws to silence the media, and well, a whole slew of other things.
Another nonsensical caller who hadn’t thought things through. Listen in and let me know your thoughts.
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New York State Senator speaks out after being pepper-sprayed, handcuffed and arrested at a protest, as police brutality surged on the 10th night of demonstrations.
New York State Senator Zellnor Myrie protested this week at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. His experience, which he shared with me, is vitally important to listen to as we have witnessed 10 nights of protest across the country and as Thursday night saw a wave of violence by police in cities and localities all over America — much of it caught on camera.
The state senator, who represents a district in central Brooklyn among the hardest hit by coronavirus, knew many of the police captains, connected with them at the start of the protest, and wore a bright-colored shirt with his name on.
None of that protected him, however, as an African-American man, from being brutally treated at a peaceful protest — where there was no provocation by protesters — by police who pepper-sprayed him and then handcuffed him as his eyes burned, rendering him unable to do anything about it.
“One of the worst pains in my life,” he told me on my SiriusXM show this week. “I had every credential you would want someone to have. My degrees didn’t save me. My upbringing didn’t save me. My title as an elected official representing 300,000 people didn’t save. So imagine those of us who don’t have any of those things. It would be just as bad — and it is just as bad.”
We discussed what happened, and talked about the police reforms he and other Democrats are trying to get passed in Albany. (Listen to the full interview above; there’s a short clip below as well).
It’s astonishing and frightening that the police across the country have brutalized and beaten protestors into the 10th night of protests, even as they know they are on camera.
In Buffalo, New York, a 75-year-old man simply asking the police a question was thrown to the ground by police, who then walked right by while he lay on the floor bleeding. (The two police offers have been suspended, following outrage that had the mayor speak out for justice.) In Tacoma, Washington, the mayor has called for officers to be fired after a black man was killed while retrained and pleading, like George Floyd, “I can’t breathe!” Indianapolis police are being investigated for horrifically striking a woman with batons.
In Los Angeles, police viciously attacked peaceful protestors with batons, while in New York protestors were thrown to the crowd and arrested.
This is the police state Donald Trump has promoted and emboldened — but it was here long before him.
That police feel empowered to engage in these acts of brutality even after the officers who killed George Floyd were arrested, and even while caught on camera, underscores how brazen many of them are, and how confident they are in engaging in brutality.
It also shows why the protests are so important and why the pressure has to continue until lawmakers create true reform that reins in violent, racist cops.
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He’s worried about his manliness, and believes it’s all a conspiracy and a “scam”
Trump supporter Bill from Illinois called my SiriusXM show this week claiming that he won’t wear a mask amid the coronavirus pandemic —“Thank God Trump is making fun of Joe Biden” for wearing a mask, he said — because he doesn’t want to look “weak.”
I asked what he feels so insecure about, and why his manhood is so threatened by a face-covering to help stop a pandemic. Hilarity ensued as he tried to answer with typical Trump supporter nonsense.
Bill also insisted that mask-wearing is some sort of media conspiracy, I guess meaning that the media is trying emasculate Trump supporters by making them wear masks and look “weak.”
I had to pretty much take him to school.
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Cindy from Austin, Texas called into my SiriusXM program this week to cheerlead for Donald Trump. It was a conversation that exposed the deep denial many Trumpers are in, and also how deeply Trump has drawn them into his perverse cult. She did not get an easy ride from me.
Cindy was triggered to call by hearing criticisms of Trump from a guest on the show. And yet, she had no facts, just adulation — it was not about convincing anyone but herself that Trump is a savior sent by God. She eventually talked about being a Christian, but then devolved into a boilerplate conspiracy about a “coming one-world system.”
And, yes, lots of other Austinites called to say, no, she doesn’t represent those of us who live in Austin.
Please weigh in on this one.
(Just a reminder that if you’re not a SiriusXM subscriber, through May 31 you can listen for free to my SiriusXM show — live each weekday, 3-6 ET — and to a ton of other talk and music channels by downloading the SiriusXM app and streaming on your phone, or you can listen online here. I’m on SiriusXM Progress, channel 127, where you’ll catch all of our great progressive political shows. No credit card info taken or trial, just sign up and listen.)
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I interviewed Benjamin R. Teitelbaum, a professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and an expert on the radical right, about his new book, War For Eternity: Inside Bannon’s of Global Power Brokers, on my SiriusXM show recently. It’s a fascinating discussion, definitely worth a listen.
Many view Bannon as a failed White House advisor who keeps flailing about around the world. Certainly he spins his own web of grandiose ideas and claims, many of them false or overblown.
But Teitelbaum, who extensively interviewed Bannon and his global counterparts influencing authoritarian presidents in Brazil and Russia, explains how Bannon’s previously little known movement of “Traditionalism” — a strange, quasi-religious, philosophical movement — has already had an impact here and in other parts of the world, wreaking havoc. And he believes this will continue whether Donald Trump wins the White House again or not, which is all the more reason to be informed about it. The book is interesting, very detailed and well-reasoned, an important exposé of the underpinnings of the movement. Take a listen, and let me know your thoughts.
(Just a reminder that if you’re not a SiriusXM subscriber, through May 31 you can listen for free to my SiriusXM show — live each weekday, 3-6 ET — and to a ton of other talk and music channels by downloading the SiriusXM app and streaming on your phone, or you can listen online here. I’m on SiriusXM Progress, channel 127, where you’ll catch all of our great progressive political shows. No credit card info taken or trial, just sign up and listen.)
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Tim from New York called in to my SiriusXM show to defend Donald Trump’s response to coronavirus, focusing predictably on Trump’s claim that he shut travel from China to stop the virus. When I debunked that and asked him about Trump and testing, he claimed Trump did ramp up testing adequately. And when that was debunked, and after I raised other issues, he eventually switched to…Bill Clinton.
It’s a classic Trump cult call. Let me know your thoughts.
(A reminder that if you’re not a SiriusXM subscriber, through May 31 you can listen free to my SiriusXM program, “The Michelangelo Signorile Show” — live each weekday, 3-6 ET — and to a ton of other talk and music shows and channels by downloading the SiriusXM app and streaming on your phone, or you can listen online here. I’m on SiriusXM Progress, channel 127, where you’ll catch all of our great progressive political shows. No credit card info taken or trial, just sign up and listen.)
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Independent journalist Frank Smyth, spoke with me in depth on my SiriusXM show about his illuminating new book, The NRA: The Unauthorized History, in which he does an amazing job of unearthing the relatively secret history of the National Rifle Association — that is, a history the NRA itself has done a lot to try to hide.
He details how the group began in the late 19th century as a marksmanship group and was an organization dedicated to gun control, fighting organized crime and terrorism in the early part of the 20th century. That was true even right up until the assassination of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King, when the NRA helped spearhead a new federal gun regulation. It was soon after that, however, that a revolt took place at the NRA, and the shift began to occur, which turned the group into the dangerous lobbying group that is today very much a pillar of Trumpworld.
As the NRA has experienced some recent debilitating scandals, as well as financial damage and layoffs amid the coronavirus pandemic — even as it uses the pandemic to fear-monger among gun owners — it’s a good time to look at its history. Take a listen to this eye-opening interview.
(A reminder that if you’re not a SiriusXM subscriber, through May 31 you can listen free to my SiriusXM program, “The Michelangelo Signorile Show” — live each weekday, 3-6 ET — and to a ton of other talk and music shows and channels by downloading the SiriusXM app and streaming on your phone, or you can listen online here. I’m on SiriusXM Progress, channel 127, where you’ll catch all of our great progressive political shows. No credit card info taken or trial, just sign up and listen.)
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I meant to post this clip shortly after that last call I posted from a Trumper to my SiriusXM show (Michael in Alabama), as they’re like two bookends of idiotic know-it-all-ism. Tim from Midland, Texas said he was a new, “short-term” listener to “progressive” radio and he wanted to call in and school us with a “conservative view” on coronavirus, because, you know, we just weren’t fully informed of things.
He told my producer he wanted to explain how this was all China’s fault. So I had ready all the facts about what Trump had said about China. He became kind of befuddled.
Listen in.
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He called Kayleigh McEnany “pure” and “all-American”
What would a weekend be without posting those combative calls from Trump supporters to my SiriusXM show? (I’ll be posting another one later.)
A lot of people couldn’t believe Michael in Alabama was real. But yes, he was — a true cult follower, unhappy with me for not “giving credit” to the president, whom he praised. I must say, however, he was much more on the mellow side than most of those who call.
But he surely sounded like a white supremacist when he called Trump’s new press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany — a hard right, religious extremist who has lied over and over again for Trump — a “beautiful, pure, all-American” woman.
Take a listen, and of course comment with your thoughts.
(And just a reminder for those who aren’t subscribers, much of SiriusXM is free online until May 31. You can download the SiriusXM app, or listen online, and hear my show each weekday, 3-6 ET on SiriusXM Progress, channel 127).
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He also claimed there’s a “cure” for coronavirus, and that I’ve been distorting facts about it.
This one underscores the dangerous misinformation about coronavirus that Donald Trump peddles to his supporters — in addition to their cultish loyalty.
John from Pennsylvania called into my SiriusXM show to defend Trump’s complete reversal on Georgia governor Brian Kemp’s lifting of stay-at-home restrictions in his state.
First he claimed that Trump really didn’t flip-flop, only to admit it after I pointed it out — and admitted it was “stupid” of Trump to say he had “total authority” over the states.
I then bombarded him with facts —- which always confuses the cult followers. But jarring them is a good thing.
In between insulting me, he also claimed that I’m also not telling the truth about the “cure” for coronavirus, promoting the drug Trump has promoted, hydroxychloroquine, which has now been shown to have no benefits and dangerous side effects.
Then he said I should have “real” medical experts on my show — like Dr. Oz.
Listen in and let me know your thoughts!
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After Jason from Georgia called in on Monday SiriusXM to show to say “freedom” is more important than “death” regarding stay-at home orders amid the coronavirus crisis, Zack from New York called in to back him up.
Zack then called governors enforcing public health laws are “authoritarian,” but claimed Trump wasn’t an authoritarian — even though Trump said a week ago that he has “total authority” over country. Hilarity ensued.
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Jason from Georgia calls in….
On Monday, Jason from Georgia called in to my SiriusXM show saying it was time to lift stay-at-home restrictions amid the coronavirus crisis — and his reckless governor has decided to do just that, as rates of infection in the state rise — even if it means people will die: “Open it back up and let people decide — eventually people are going to choose freedom.”
We got into it. I know, I got a bit snappy with him — I’d just about had it with these arguments as people are dying. And the logic of these individuals, whether their demeanors are friendly and cheerful or not, is vile and offensive.
His call was followed up by that of Zack in New York, who supported him. I’ll send that one out later!
UPDATE: Here’s the call from Zack in New York.
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Welcome to The Signorile Report, where you’ll read hard-hitting political commentary and exposés; find interviews with enlightened newsmakers; hear me slay right-wingers who call my radio program; and connect with like-minded, passionate people everywhere.
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Listener Michael from Texas called my SiriusXM Progress show last year and the first thing he said, after, “How are you doing today?” was, “It’s amazing to me you still have a job.” (Listen to the call above.)
This was in the days after the Mueller report was released and showed various instances of obstruction of justice. Michael decided to try to change the subject to — you guessed it! — Hillary Clinton’s emails.
Some people think I’m too harsh when the Trump supporters call into my show to challenge me, even when they veer off into insults, propaganda and lies. I don’t know why so many listen, but I’m happy they are, I guess, and glad to debate them. Often though, they tell our producers one thing when they call in, and then get on their air and say another, hurling insults. Which is what Michael did.
And here’s the deal: I’m happy to debate anybody with any point of view that is different from mine. But no one is going to be allowed to push propaganda, changing the subject. That will be aggressively challenged. And anyone who insults me will get hit back hard.
Again, some will say I’m too mean, too harsh, or that it’s not “productive” or it’s “childish” or “sinking their level.” You know the criticisms.
And I get that. But when I soon realize someone is deep in the cult and their mind isn’t going to be changed no matter what, I decide the more productive thing is to actually lay out the truth, boldly and simply, for many other listeners — including some conservatives who might be reachable — and, yes, shake them like hell.
It might work. But whether it has an impact on the caller or not, it does make us feel good. So basically, I decide to use them for our satisfaction, and to our advantage.
And I believe that helps us to be galvanized, to get in the fight, to organize and beat them big time at the ballot box —- and to not be afraid of these cowards!
Honestly, none of this is planned when someone like this calls in. It’s all in the moment and often it’s a manifestation of my blood boiling over regarding the lies.
Let me know your thoughts.
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Many listeners to my SiriusXM Progress show will remember Laura from Michigan who called the show on March 18th. You can listen to it in this clip.
(And actually, I promised listeners I’d sent out the clip in this newsletter once I launched it — and they’ve been writing me over and over asking for it!)
On that day, Donald Trump had promised two navy ships that are floating hospitals would be deployed amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
"So those two ships are being prepared to go,” Trump said that day, explaining the ships are in "tip-top shape” and would arrive in a week.
Except it wasn’t exactly true.
According to the Pentagon, one of them was undergoing maintenance at the time, and they wouldn’t be able to be in operation for several weeks. (It appears they were then rushed out after the story became public, arriving in two weeks in ports in New York and Los Angeles.)
The issue of the ships, however, was just one example I brought up to Laura, a Trump supporter who wanted to express “positivity” about the pandemic response. She was pleading with me not to “look back” regarding Trump’s response.
“There’s nothing productive” about it, she said.
It was yet another way that Trump supporters excuse Trump for engaging in horrendous actions that jeopardize the lives of millions of people.
By the end of the call, after I admittedly got harsh with her, commanding her to “snap out of it,’ Laura revealed that her support for Trump was based on her Christian faith.
“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, sir,” she said.
Happy to hear your thoughts on this one.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit signorile.substack.com/subscribe