S2 Ep1056: Catherine Rampell: Slow Burn

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Speaker 42 Hello and welcome to the Bulwarks Podcast.

Speaker 3 I'm your host, Tim Miller. A few quick programming notes.

Speaker 44 Reminder: it's this Friday.

Speaker 45 We're doing the World Pride fundraiser, us and crooked media in support of Immigrant Defenders legal team that is working on behalf of these Venezuelans who have been sent to El Salvador.

Speaker 47 Obviously, since World Pride, we are going to focus in particular on the story of Andre Hernandez-Romero, the makeup artist who has been disappeared for no good reason by this administration.

Speaker 32 And so, we're going to have a little bit of, you know, maybe some tears, a little serious talk, but also some laughs and some revelry and some gayety, if you will, since it's World Pride.

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Speaker 59 Not that many.

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Speaker 60 It's Friday night in Washington, D.C.

Speaker 14 at the Lincoln Theater.

Speaker 61 I hope to see you all there.

Speaker 63 Just a couple other quick things.

Speaker 65 I did a video last night with Will Summer about Curtis Yarvin, the so-called philosopher that has inspired Peter Thiel and Mark Andreessen and J.D.

Speaker 64 Vance and all these other tech bro oligarch types.

Speaker 56 And it was because there's a New Yorker profile of him that was very, very long, and it sunk me into the depths of despair.

Speaker 56 So, if you want to learn more about Curtis Jarvin and how fucking stupid the supposed philosophy is behind techno-fascism, you can check out the Bulwark Takes feed on your podcast, Player of Choice, or go watch me and Will on YouTube.

Speaker 69 And just another reminder while I'm doing this about FY Pod, we're hitting our stride.

Speaker 2 I taught the youth about Bin Laden's porn stash on last night's episode.

Speaker 19 Last week, we had The Mooch's son, Mooch Jr., who's got a new movie out.

Speaker 69 And we talked to him about what it was like being in high school when his dad went to work for Trump and then bailed on him.

Speaker 61 And we've got a bunch of other good guests planned for Flypod.

Speaker 17 So go ahead and check that out if you haven't.

Speaker 70 Today, our guest is a syndicated opinion columnist covering economics at the Washington Post.

Speaker 44 She's co-anchor and co-host of MSNBC's new show, The Weekend Primetime, on from 6 to 9 p.m. Eastern on Saturdays and Sundays.

Speaker 69 It's Catherine Rimpel.

Speaker 63 Hey, Catherine, welcome back to the show.

Speaker 71 Thanks for having me back.

Speaker 22 I brought you on because you were popping off on the various lies the administration is telling about their econ agenda.

Speaker 60 So I kind of want to tick through those one at a time.

Speaker 33 But first, I thought I'm really most interested in your take on the macro view on the state of the economy because I, well, I know about the lies, but I'm confused about the economy.

Speaker 52 There's some things happening.

Speaker 60 The Atlanta Fed is projecting a Q2 rebound.

Speaker 56 Stock market looks stable on the one hand.

Speaker 67 On the other hand, Jamie Dimon's concerned about the bond market.

Speaker 52 UBS says recession possibilities ticking back up.

Speaker 56 Job growth forecasts are down.

Speaker 52 I read one analyst said we may be entering a structurally high rate, high cost era with no off-ramp.

Speaker 60 That seems bad.

Speaker 18 So I don't know.

Speaker 45 What do you make about what's happening out there?

Speaker 71 You are not the only one who is confused if that makes you feel better. Maybe it makes you feel worse.
I don't know. Nobody knows what's going on.
And that's partly because

Speaker 71 there are

Speaker 71 so many

Speaker 71 question marks about where federal policy is heading.

Speaker 71 So, there's the tariff stuff, and that has obviously had a huge effect on businesses and will potentially have an effect pretty soon on consumers and workers, meaning that if the tariffs stick around in high levels and they may well change by the end of my finishing this sentence,

Speaker 71 you know, that will lead to higher prices for consumers. It will lead to lower profits for businesses, it will lead to those businesses potentially having to resort to layoffs.

Speaker 71 So there's a big bucket of question marks there.

Speaker 71 Then you also have a big bucket of question marks over this budget bill that you alluded to, which will add trillions of dollars to our deficits going forward.

Speaker 71 In addition to cutting taxes and gutting parts of the social safety net, but on what timeline that is still sort of to be negotiated. So there are a lot of wildcards there.
So, like, for example,

Speaker 71 the

Speaker 71 tax cuts could potentially boost the economy in the near term, particularly, you know, from a demand side perspective, if nothing else, because if people have more cash in their pockets, they're going to spend that cash, maybe even if prices are going up quite a bit.

Speaker 71 On the other hand, if they lose a lot of these safety net benefits, and maybe that won't even happen until after the next midterms, but maybe it'll happen sooner.

Speaker 71 Depends how negotiations shake out in the Senate.

Speaker 71 That means, well, if they have fewer food stamps, they'll be spending less money on food.

Speaker 71 So how does that

Speaker 71 affect the macroeconomy? Because all of these things have knock-on effects too. If people spend less money at their grocery store, then maybe the grocery store has fewer people it can hire.

Speaker 71 And then those people, or maybe ends up laying off people, who knows? And then those people end up spending less elsewhere.

Speaker 71 So it's, you know, this multiplier effect that you might hear economists talk about.

Speaker 71 And besides all of that, if we do have a recession, which I very much hope we do not, to be clear, and I do not think it's a guaranteed outcome, but

Speaker 71 the more turmoil we have with the trade stuff, the more likely that outcome is.

Speaker 71 If we have a recession and we have just gutted the social safety net, then that would make any recession potentially worse and longer, like more painful and longer, because normally,

Speaker 71 you know, more people become eligible for food stamps and Medicaid and all sorts of other safety net benefits when

Speaker 71 they lose their jobs, when the economy turns south, and that kind of automatically stabilizes the U.S. economy.

Speaker 71 So, again, like a lot of these things independently add a lot of risk and uncertainty to the economy, but then in combination, it's even worse.

Speaker 71 So, that's why you hear all of these complicated and equivocated forecasts for where things are going because

Speaker 71 if we had just kept the economy that Trump inherited and he didn't do any of this stuff, we probably would have had that coveted soft landing that the Fed was looking for, meaning that we keep growing as an economy, inflation comes down, et cetera.

Speaker 72 But now rates come down.

Speaker 71 Yeah, rates come down for mortgages, among other things. Now, who knows?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 22 A lot of that stuff is like middle distance, right?

Speaker 25 I guess I wonder what people are looking at in the short term.

Speaker 60 You know, there was probably the last time we had you on,

Speaker 69 the tariff stuff was so insane that there were a lot of folks forecasting like recession this year, like this fall.

Speaker 8 And the taco response from Trump has, I guess, stalled that.

Speaker 56 I was looking at Carl Kenton over at CNBC was talking about how one signal is that travel plans for the summer are kind of soft compared to what folks had anticipated, you know, coming out of those companies.

Speaker 53 So that's one indicator. At this point, are we kind of in a wait and see, do you think?

Speaker 48 Or do you think there might be a change in the environment over the course of the summer?

Speaker 71 Well, again, a lot of it depends on who has

Speaker 71 our Mad King, who has last whispered in the ear of our Mad King.

Speaker 71 And

Speaker 71 even if he doesn't ultimately do the most destructive possible scenario out there, which might look like something he has proposed and temporarily implemented in the past of, you know, like 145% tariffs on China, et cetera.

Speaker 71 The uncertainty over everything itself is a drag on the economy. So when you say like wait and see mode, as if that's a, I don't know if you were actually saying that was a good thing, but

Speaker 71 I think that implies some optimism.

Speaker 71 And I guess it's a good thing compared to, oh my God, like the house is on fire and it's actually the owner of the home that's setting the fire in the hopes that they get insurance like that's where we were two months ago right but we're still now watching a guy like huffing gasoline fumes and lighting matches wandering around the house to extend this metaphor great job

Speaker 71 and that is also not good because if companies don't know what the rules of the road will be, do not know

Speaker 71 what their costs will be,

Speaker 71 whether consumers are going to still show up, whether tourists are still going to come, et cetera. That in and of itself, that leads to a sort of paralysis that can also really weigh on the economy.

Speaker 71 I mean, I guess it's not

Speaker 71 as bad as

Speaker 71 like setting the thing aflame today, but it's like a, I'm really torturing this metaphor. It's like a very slow burn that also

Speaker 71 is not good. So, none of these scenarios are great.

Speaker 71 Again,

Speaker 71 I don't think a recession is a fait accompli, and I don't want to suggest that, but certainly the odds of recession or at least a significant slowdown, the dreaded stagflation, meaning that you have inflation and really slow, torturously slow growth.

Speaker 71 You know, there's a high probability of that, is what I think.

Speaker 64 That's possible.

Speaker 16 Okay, last thing on the current economy.

Speaker 52 Some of the tariffs, despite the taco strategy, some of the tariffs have still been implemented.

Speaker 76 And we've had a significant increase in,

Speaker 77 if you look at the charts, how much people are paying in tariffs over last month versus obviously last year.

Speaker 45 So are we seeing any actual evidence, like any impact of that?

Speaker 48 Or is it still kind of small in the grand scheme of things in a really big dynamic economy?

Speaker 71 Well, when you say some of the tariffs, As a reminder, we have 10% global tariffs,

Speaker 40 which

Speaker 71 at one point was considered the worst case scenario. Trump promised 10% global tariffs during the campaign, and markets did not believe him because they thought that was too stupid, right?

Speaker 71 Like even Donald Trump would know better than to have 10% global tariffs because it would be really damaging to the economy.

Speaker 61 To be fair, we've carved out, you know, Rolls-Royce engines, some iPhone equipment.

Speaker 71 Well, no, I think Rolls-Royce engines, I still heard, I think they, if I, if memory serves, I think they're still at 10%.

Speaker 72 They're just not at 25% or whatever it was.

Speaker 71 There are some carve-outs. You know,

Speaker 71 you mentioned, what did you say, semiconductors and

Speaker 71 iPhones?

Speaker 71 But there may be more tariffs coming that are like a little bit on more legally solid ground. So there's still a lot of uncertainty.

Speaker 71 We haven't seen any of this show up yet in consumer prices.

Speaker 71 If you look at the latest numbers anyway. And I think that's partly because a lot of companies tried to front-run the tariffs.

Speaker 71 So they're still working through the inventory that they already have and haven't necessarily raised prices.

Speaker 71 If they bring in the stuff and they're paying a lot more for it, they will pass along at least part of those price increases.

Speaker 71 So it could very well be that next month the inflation numbers look way worse depending on how businesses respond. Sure.

Speaker 16 All right, moving over to Capitol Hill.

Speaker 66 I want to get through some of the lies that you're debunking, but just first, I would like to get the global Catherine Rampell Rampell take on the big, beautiful bill slash reconciliation bill slash turd.

Speaker 71 So the way I have been describing it is that it is essentially a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich, from the young to the old, and from the future to the past, which I think is

Speaker 71 a nice way of summing up. basically all of the moving parts in this bill.

Speaker 37 Great news for old rich.

Speaker 71 Yeah, exactly. Congrats.

Speaker 13 We've got some old rich listeners out there.

Speaker 66 All right. This is your lucky day.

Speaker 71 And in the White House and buddies with people in the White House. Well, in the sense that, you know, there are tax cuts in this.

Speaker 71 They go technically to everyone, but they are most valuable to people at the very top end of the income distribution.

Speaker 71 And then they are partly offset by cutting programs that most benefit people at the bottom of the income distribution. So cutting Medicaid, cutting food stamps,

Speaker 71 other safety net programs, etc. And Democrats have been, have finally caught on to some of this and have been talking about it.

Speaker 71 But there are also a lot of cuts to programs that disproportionately affect children, for example. And some of those are the same programs that I mentioned.

Speaker 71 You know, children are disproportionately large participants in... in the food stamp program, as well as Medicaid and CHIP, which is by definition a program for children.

Speaker 71 All of those things will be affected as well.

Speaker 71 And then there are like changes to the child tax credit that Republicans will say increase the child tax credit, but it also takes it away from millions of

Speaker 71 kids because

Speaker 71 if one of their parents is an immigrant

Speaker 71 and doesn't have a social security number, then they don't get it, which by the way, affects children of legal immigrants as well, not only those who are undocumented.

Speaker 6 You don't count as a human if you're a child of two parents and one is an immigrant and one is an American citizen.

Speaker 32 I'm sorry,

Speaker 64 you're a half-human.

Speaker 71 There are a lot of things that they are doing to go after that particular group, including trying to claw back birthright citizenship and things like that.

Speaker 71 That's not related to this bill, but that's part of a broader agenda. And then robbing the future for the past.

Speaker 71 Some of that is about literally future generations of taxpayers, again, today's children, who will have to pay off the additional debts that are incurred because of this bill, either in the form of higher future taxes or lower future spending on programs they might otherwise be able to access, but also taking away a lot of renewable energy related tax credits, which are, I would say, an investment in the future of our energy security and not just how our energy sector will be structured, but how the rest of the economy will be structured.

Speaker 71 So there's a lot of like very short-termism at the very least.

Speaker 71 And as I alluded to before,

Speaker 71 There are intra-party debates within the Republican Party about a lot of these pieces. So we don't know what the final bill will look like.

Speaker 71 We know, for example, that it'll probably have some degree of heartlessness when it comes to Medicaid, but how much heartlessness? And

Speaker 71 when will it materialize? Will it be before the next midterms? Will it be after, et cetera?

Speaker 61 Yeah, some listeners have been giving me feedback.

Speaker 57 There's a lot of like random Christmas tree stuff in the House bill.

Speaker 22 Yes.

Speaker 18 Like I really just don't think it's going to get through the Senate.

Speaker 64 Like I did, we did, we were talking about AI.

Speaker 57 I forget if it was on yesterday's podcast or recently.

Speaker 65 And people are like, well, there's this bill that like guts AI regulation for a decade.

Speaker 64 I'm like, is that going to get through the Senate?

Speaker 61 I don't know.

Speaker 47 You know, there's some things overseeing what the judges can do.

Speaker 46 Like, none of that is technically reconciliation.

Speaker 53 Like, it's possible that the Senate will break their own rules and jam through a bunch of stuff that does not fit in reconciliation, which would be functionally ending the filibuster that Republicans have said that they're for.

Speaker 53 Maybe that'll happen, and that'll be something that we'll watch. But I think that the economic stuff is the most likely to get jammed through.

Speaker 33 The thing, you talked about the intra-party, there's a lot of time spent on kind of like the intra-party like cleavages and issues, right?

Speaker 17 Like, you know, the Josh Hawley's of the world don't love the Medicaid cuts, the Ron Johnson's The World Don't Love the Debt.

Speaker 46 Who likes this bill?

Speaker 11 It sounds like a sarcastic question, but I'm kind of serious.

Speaker 9 Like, who is really excited about it?

Speaker 61 Like, I don't see on my social media anybody that's like, I am the biggest BVP stan because I represent this part of the MAGA faction.

Speaker 78 That's the most confusing thing about it to me.

Speaker 71 Well, Donald Trump says it's big and beautiful. And so to some extent, everybody else in the party has to fall in line with that.
And you'll hear people like Speaker Johnson sing its praises.

Speaker 71 And this is

Speaker 71 the best thing we're going to get.

Speaker 17 What do they like about it?

Speaker 70 Just that it extends the Trump tax cuts, I guess?

Speaker 71 I think it's mostly that.

Speaker 71 But they could have just done that. Well, that would be extremely expensive.
So that's part of the issue here. It's already extremely expensive.

Speaker 68 And then there are a bunch of other tax cuts they added on top.

Speaker 71 Yeah, that Trump had promised on the campaign trail, which make it even more expensive.

Speaker 71 And then there's like the whole fight over state and local taxes, which were capped in the 2017 tax overhaul that is now being extended.

Speaker 71 So if you live in a state with, you know, high property taxes or high state income taxes, et cetera, you can only deduct up to $10,000.

Speaker 71 But that is expiring this year. And that was kind of a knock on blue states, right? It was a way to shake down blue states because those are the ones that tend to have higher state taxes.

Speaker 71 But there are some Republicans who live, who represent swing districts like in New Jersey or Maryland or California whose own constituents are also hurt by this.

Speaker 71 And so if you raise the cap as they have agreed to do, then that makes it even more expensive.

Speaker 76 So I guess they really like it.

Speaker 69 That's the answer to the question.

Speaker 57 Mike Lawler really likes the bill.

Speaker 71 Well, I know that they compromised to,

Speaker 71 I forget what the latest is, but it was like a, you can deduct up to $40,000 if your household makes up to $500,000. I don't remember.
It was some kind of compromise.

Speaker 71 I don't remember if he was super jazzed about it or he was like, this is the best we're going to get. But I think it puts him at less risk in any event in the next midterms.

Speaker 71 So there are a lot of these warring constituencies.

Speaker 71 They want kind of mutually exclusive things, whether that might be even more tax cuts or potentially lower hit to the deficit. So it's a trade-off.

Speaker 71 And again, it's not clear to me necessarily which faction will win out in a lot, like on the Medicaid thing in particular.

Speaker 71 But I think their main motivation, besides they want to cut taxes, is they want to keep Donald Trump happy.

Speaker 66 Which is why I think it's interesting. The corporate Republican faction was pretty excited about the original Trump tax cuts.

Speaker 64 Like you remember them singing the praises.

Speaker 48 And that was true in the Bush era, too.

Speaker 46 This one is just, it's a little

Speaker 18 confusing. You know, you usually think they're like niche constituencies of people.

Speaker 61 You're like, oh, yeah, Grover Norquist was really happy about this.

Speaker 64 But like, you're not seeing this this time.

Speaker 39 Okay.

Speaker 71 Again, there are also some really weird things tucked in there, even on the tax side, like these kind of punitive taxes.

Speaker 71 So even the tax guys are worried about like some smaller provisions here, how they might be weaponized. will they make it harder for foreign investors, for example, to buy U.S.
Treasury debt?

Speaker 71 Like there's a lot of other weird stuff in this bill. Yeah.

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Speaker 2 We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.

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Speaker 61 Going through a couple of their claims, I want you to debunk.

Speaker 50 So I had Russ Voda this weekend was pushing back on the critiques from the reality-based community about the Medicaid cuts.

Speaker 61 I don't want to play a little bit for you of what Russ had to say.

Speaker 102 Look, one out of every five or six dollars in Medicaid is improper. We have illegal immigrants on the program.

Speaker 102 We don't have, we have able-bodied working adults that don't have a work requirement that they would have in TANF or even SNAP.

Speaker 102 And those are something that's very important to institute. That's what this bill does.
No one will lose coverage as a result of this bill.

Speaker 66 No. nobody will lose coverage.
Is that correct?

Speaker 71 No, that's that's bull.

Speaker 71 Again, Congressional Budget Office, which is a non-partisan

Speaker 71 sort of like scorekeeper referee research group within Congress, they have said something like: from the Medicaid provisions alone, I think around 8 million people will become uninsured if you include a bunch of other provisions and policies related to health insurance, like the Affordable Care Act, enhanced medical premiums, expiring, like other boring things like that.

Speaker 71 The numbers are like double. Anyway, yeah, so yes, people will lose their insurance.
That is not up for debate. I think what's interesting here is that

Speaker 71 now that Democrats have kind of caught on to the fact that, hey, there's some stuff in here that's pretty bad for the public and that we can use as a, you know, as a political cudgel, including on Medicaid.

Speaker 71 More people in the public seem to be worried about Medicaid, quite understandably. And they're showing up at town halls and asking about it.

Speaker 71 And the response from Republicans is one of the three following answers. One, no one will lose coverage, as you just heard.

Speaker 21 Two,

Speaker 71 okay, some people will lose coverage, but it's only the freeloaders and welfare queens, not deserving people like you.

Speaker 71 And then three, we're all going to die anyway, so who cares? That was Joni Ernst who responded that way. So I'm not sure any of those are in the realm of both truth and a winning political strategy.

Speaker 71 It is true we were all going to die anyway. Not sure that's going to get you a lot of voters.

Speaker 51 Well, if you converted to Christianity, that wouldn't be a problem for you because you would have everlasting life in heaven.

Speaker 39 I guess.

Speaker 71 I don't know what

Speaker 18 to get that.

Speaker 71 In heaven, though. So maybe you're still worse off.

Speaker 81 I'm sorry.

Speaker 73 Sorry that you're godless.

Speaker 61 Or not the right God, at least.

Speaker 68 Okay.

Speaker 13 Well, Mike Johnson was making the same claim.

Speaker 51 We don't need to listen to him. But,

Speaker 67 you know, I guess the point of it is you're not in a particularly strong place when you just have to baldface lie about

Speaker 54 what is in the bill.

Speaker 53 And like, that's where they're at.

Speaker 45 And I guess the bet here is that they can just lie.

Speaker 51 And this really, you hate to hand it to Ron Johnson, but this is kind of the case that Ron Johnson is making, complaining about this bill over in the Senate, is that what they're going to do in the House is they're going to tell you that they're going to cut everybody's health care, but like after the midterms, right?

Speaker 49 And then who knows, 27 might come along.

Speaker 47 And, you know, assuming we have elections in 2028, like whether that's J.D.

Speaker 67 Vance or Donald Trump Jr.

Speaker 61 or whatever will decide they don't want the baggage of it.

Speaker 17 So they kick it down the path.

Speaker 61 and end up not actually doing it, which I guess is possible.

Speaker 55 So you can lie about that now because you end up keeping kicking the can,

Speaker 51 and anytime it's actually going to happen, you don't do it.

Speaker 64 And then the result of that is the massive skyrocketing of the debt, which

Speaker 68 has the other problems that you just laid out.

Speaker 17 And so I guess that's a critique of the bill from Ron Johnson.

Speaker 75 Like, there's no way to

Speaker 55 make the case for the bill that doesn't just acknowledge the cut. Right.

Speaker 71 Well, that's sort of why I summarized it as: how heartless are they willing to be?

Speaker 71 And all of these choices have trade-offs.

Speaker 71 If you don't want to take health insurance away from poor people, then you're probably going to add more debt unless you decide not to cut all of these taxes, which it seems like that's the red line, right?

Speaker 71 Already, even before this bill, our deficits were not sustainable.

Speaker 71 And politicians at some point will have to make really hard choices about reducing deficits that might mean higher taxes, that might mean lower spending, or some combination of the two.

Speaker 71 Everybody wants this, you know, elusive get out of jail free card, which is just like, we'll grow our way out of it, which, you know, it's just not going to happen based on our demographics, among other things, especially if we're deporting all of the immigrants.

Speaker 71 Because you need a large workforce, you need future generations of children, all sorts of other things in order to grow the economy.

Speaker 71 So, like, that just assumes a bunch of fairy tale things that are not going to happen.

Speaker 18 The on the dead thing, you were on a panel.

Speaker 54 I was watching to prepare. I've watched a couple of your things recently to prepare.
We're going to get to one of them at the end.

Speaker 18 But the panel,

Speaker 69 you were saying that you think it's very unlikely that Democrats kind of take up the mantle of caring about the debt and deficit

Speaker 53 if these guys go forth with this deficit exploding bill that might create issues in the bond markets and all the other issues you just laid out.

Speaker 70 I'm kind of inclined to agree with you on that, though.

Speaker 51 I'm doing a one-man journey to make that not happen.

Speaker 18 Every Democrat I have on the podcast, I asked them if we can negatively polarize you, can we negatively polarize you into caring about the debt and deficit

Speaker 45 in an actual way, not in a Bill Clinton did a good job with this 30 years ago kind of way?

Speaker 46 Because that's true, but like not really relevant to what would be required now

Speaker 20 to address the debt and deficit.

Speaker 71 And also,

Speaker 71 part of the reason why we had a temporary budget surplus coming out of the Clinton years was about

Speaker 71 the demographics of the country. Like boomers were in their prime earning years, so they were paying a lot in taxes.
Now they are retired or retiring, and birth rates are low.

Speaker 11 The good news is they're sticking around and working a lot.

Speaker 18 You know, they're not just quitting working at 65, they're rolling 81, 82, running for president again.

Speaker 71 A small subset of them refused to retire, but I'm not sure how much additional productive capacity they are adding to the U.S. economy.

Speaker 63 Okay.

Speaker 49 So anyways, here's my counter pitch about why we can maybe get back to the Simpson Pulse glory days is that like your point in that panel was that

Speaker 45 it's hard to get people to care about debt.

Speaker 25 It's not tangible.

Speaker 55 It's not affecting their lives, but it kind of is starting to affect people's life right now, right?

Speaker 73 Like that if the yield stays stays high and people, so already people's eyes have closed, glazed over, so let me not use the word yield, but you know, if we get into a place where no matter what happens with the economy, the interest rates on people's car loans, student loans, mortgages stay high, like that

Speaker 55 is going to impact people in like a real way.

Speaker 54 And it's impacting people now.

Speaker 64 I talk to people all the time that like want to move houses, either upsize or downsize, or have an issue with their house and can't because they're like,

Speaker 18 how can I move?

Speaker 77 Like I'm, I'm kind of stuck given the interest rate environment.

Speaker 64 So, that will affect people. They just have to learn that the debt is part of the reason that that's affecting them.
Maybe that's the challenge.

Speaker 71 I think that's part of the challenge.

Speaker 71 The bigger part of the challenge is all of the things that would be required to solve the problem, you know, to get deficits down, are just fundamentally unpopular.

Speaker 71 And again, that includes soaking the rich is popular. Okay, it is popular, but

Speaker 71 even Democrats are like, well, we're only, the rich are only the billionaires, you know?

Speaker 71 And look, I agree, billionaires could probably afford to pay higher taxes, but there's just not enough money on that money tree to

Speaker 71 get the amount of revenue we need.

Speaker 25 How about making all the boomer assholes that want to keep working into their 80s, you don't get Medicare as long as you're working, you know?

Speaker 59 Well,

Speaker 76 how about that?

Speaker 53 That would save us some money.

Speaker 71 Would be very unpopular. All of the things.

Speaker 18 That's not going to be.

Speaker 72 No, no.

Speaker 71 I don't know how you would carve it out just for politicians or something like that.

Speaker 37 I'm talking about private sector workers, too.

Speaker 78 There's no problem.

Speaker 72 No, we need more people working.

Speaker 71 Like, I think probably we should not be leaning so much on 80-year-olds to fulfill that role. But yeah, it's like everything that you would do to solve the problem is really unpopular.

Speaker 71 Neither party wants to take the short-term political hit to get those things through because it's a it feels like a long-term problem.

Speaker 71 It used to be that politicians feared that it would become a big issue in the short term, right?

Speaker 71 That, like, who was it was James Carville who said he wanted to come back, die and come back because the bond market was

Speaker 71 so powerful. And this is kind of what he was referring to.

Speaker 71 But what's happened in the many years since then is that the rest of the world has continued lending us money, even when we have these huge deficits.

Speaker 71 So they're kind of like keeping us in the habit, you know, of spending more than we take in and never having to deal with the consequences, or it feels like never having to deal with the consequences.

Speaker 71 And at some point, it will become a problem, but nobody knows when that point is going to be.

Speaker 71 As you pointed out, like interest rates, yields are rising and that's painful, but it's not like Greece level or Argentina level or other places that really had major debt crises.

Speaker 71 And, you know, the United States has our own exceptionalism and maybe we'll be different.

Speaker 71 And so far that has been the case in part because people have trusted us and the dollar is the global reserve currency. And that basically makes it more likely that people will keep feeding our habit.

Speaker 71 When everybody else changes their mind, and at some point they, I think they will, but I could be tomorrow, could be 30 years from now, that's the only thing that I think will get politicians to act.

Speaker 71 And probably by then it'll be way too late.

Speaker 15 Right.

Speaker 18 This is why we have Catherine on. This is why you're an economic analyst of choice.

Speaker 36 Just the darkest possible.

Speaker 71 Well, because I depress everyone.

Speaker 63 Yeah, the darkest possible comes. Well, I've got good news for you.

Speaker 55 I was listening to the all-in podcast, the tech bros, and I was encouraged that they did not like the bill, and they have concerns about the debt and the interest rates, among other things.

Speaker 48 And David Balsacks, the like the most willing to carry Trump's water, was like, AI is going to solve it.

Speaker 61 And then just kind of like moved on.

Speaker 74 I was like, how? It's like, we don't know yet. We don't know.

Speaker 34 It's the nice thing about the techno-optimist crowd is they can just be like, AI will solve it.

Speaker 55 So I can do whatever I want right now.

Speaker 73 And

Speaker 60 the super intelligent computer will figure it out later.

Speaker 84 Hi, I'm Martine Hackett, host of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a production from Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenix.

Speaker 88 This season, we're sharing powerful stories of resilience from people living with MG and CIDP.

Speaker 92 Our hope is to inspire, educate, and remind each other that even in the toughest moments, we're not alone.

Speaker 84 We'll hear from people like Corbin Whittington.

Speaker 91 After being diagnosed with both CIDP and dilated cardiomyopathy, he found incredible strength through community.

Speaker 97 So when we talk community, we're talking about an entire ecosystem surrounding this condition, including, of course, the patients at the center that are all trying to live life in the moment, live life for the future, but then also create a new future.

Speaker 101 Listen to Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 2 We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.

Speaker 4 These words are more than just the opening of the Constitution.

Speaker 7 They're a reminder of who this country belongs to and what we can be at our best.

Speaker 8 They're also the cornerstone of MS Now.

Speaker 13 Whether it's breaking news, exclusive reporting, election coverage, or in-depth analysis, MS Now keeps the people at the heart of everything they do.

Speaker 21 Home to the Rachel Maddow Show, Morning Joe, the briefing with Jen Saki, and more voices you know and trust, MS Now is your source for news, opinion, and the world.

Speaker 28 Their name is new, but you'll find the same commitment to justice, progress, and the truth you've relied on for decades.

Speaker 34 They'll continue to cover the day's news, ask the tough questions, and explain how it impacts you.

Speaker 36 Same mission, new name, MS Now.

Speaker 39 Learn more at MS.Now.

Speaker 58 I've got some other issues.

Speaker 16 People are bored with Yield Talk.

Speaker 81 I can already tell. I know.

Speaker 72 CRT.

Speaker 71 It's important, but

Speaker 72 it's really hard to get people bored.

Speaker 27 You're in the TV business.

Speaker 7 What is it called when you look at the ratings for like every three-minute segment, whatever that is?

Speaker 57 That just was tanking during that period.

Speaker 75 So we're trying to recover it.

Speaker 49 Immigration, I want to talk to you about some science stuff.

Speaker 45 You wrote recently for the Post about how Trump has created a surge in illegal immigrants.

Speaker 75 It's kind of a cute way of putting it because he's taken away the legal status of many immigrants, particularly the Venezuelans who are given temporary protected status.

Speaker 79 That is happening for the Afghans as well.

Speaker 68 Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti are on the chopping block.

Speaker 25 So we've got that happening on the one hand.

Speaker 65 Well, actually, let's just sit with that for a second.

Speaker 53 I want to get into some Stephen Miller stuff.

Speaker 46 This policy is pretty crazy.

Speaker 71 Yeah. Well, Trump has been warning, fear-mongering for years that the United States is being overrun by illegals, you know, illegal immigrants.

Speaker 71 And he is now manifesting those fever dreams into reality by literally taking people who are here legally and rendering them illegal so yes in the past week and a half two weeks we have added something like 800 000 more quote-unquote illegal immigrants or undocumented immigrants but that's because he dedocumented them and um and i think people don't realize this besides this being inhumane and

Speaker 71 destroying lots of people's lives, including the lives lives potentially of many of our friends and allies and

Speaker 71 people who assisted our military in Afghanistan, etc.

Speaker 71 That will also have big effects on the economy because when he's taking away these people's status, what if they're on these programs called like temporary protected status or their parolees or whatever, that comes generally with the ability to work.

Speaker 71 So he has now effectively taken 800,000 people potentially out of the labor force. Now, like when employers will start to realize that, I don't know.

Speaker 71 I don't think it's, I don't think that happened overnight, but that's going to have big effects on the economy. In addition to, again,

Speaker 71 you know, the human effects that I'm more concerned about. And then he's also done a bunch of other things to try to make it harder for

Speaker 71 legal immigrants to come into the country, whether we're talking about refugees, people who may be more penniless and desperate, and we want to let in because it's the moral thing to do.

Speaker 71 It helps our moral standing in the world, or for that matter, scientists and students and you know, quote unquote, higher skilled people who are also very critical to the U.S. economy.

Speaker 71 He has made it a lot harder for them to come in legally. The line from Trump is always, or Trump and Trumpers is always, we don't hate immigrants.

Speaker 71 We only hate those who haven't followed the law, the criminals, you know, the gangbangers, the people living in the shadows. But the truth is he has taken away

Speaker 71 every legal pathway to come in here, quote unquote, the right way, and is stripping legal status away from people who did, in fact, do exactly that.

Speaker 54 Yeah, I want to get to the scientists, but one thing on this point on the criminals, there was a Washington Examiner story.

Speaker 49 You know, I hate citing some of these outlets, but it's kind of like in Men in Black, where you get the real news from the National Enquirer.

Speaker 68 That's kind of where we are right now.

Speaker 64 Sometimes Sometimes we get the real news from these places because they.

Speaker 71 Or the onion, you know.

Speaker 15 Yeah, because they actually talk to the fucking freaks that are populating our government.

Speaker 49 But apparently there was a report from inside a meeting between Stephen Miller and ICE and some DHS officials where Stephen Miller was yelling.

Speaker 54 You can really picture this.

Speaker 50 I want people to kind of get this scene in their head because he gets really mad.

Speaker 64 I'm thinking about the scene.

Speaker 47 Have you ever seen the scene of him in high school where he's screaming about how he doesn't want to have to clean up his food?

Speaker 65 Like, what the hell do we pay the janitors for?

Speaker 33 Why do I have to clean up my own food?

Speaker 25 Have you ever seen that video?

Speaker 66 So I'm picturing, okay, that's a good one.

Speaker 61 It's worth googling.

Speaker 17 So I'm picturing him in that kind of tone, shouting at the ICE officials, you know, who actually are people that have experience as police, right?

Speaker 69 As opposed to him.

Speaker 25 What do you mean you're going after criminals?

Speaker 18 Why aren't you at Home Depot?

Speaker 30 Why aren't you at 7-Eleven?

Speaker 16 So I guess in private, they belie the idea that they actually even give a fuck about whether or not the people they're deporting are criminals.

Speaker 73 They don't care.

Speaker 71 And in public, in many ways, they're arresting people when they show up

Speaker 71 for their routine check-ins with immigration agents, which by definition means that they are trying to follow the law.

Speaker 71 And so you'll see stories like I think in this past week or the week before, there was a high school student in the Bronx

Speaker 71 who showed up for his regular ICE or immigration court hearing, something like that, had no criminal record. He had come in with permission under, I believe, a Biden-era program.

Speaker 71 And he was arrested and detained. And there are a lot of stories like this throughout the country.
The issue is,

Speaker 71 besides the fact that, like, Stephen Miller wants to just round up everyone, whether they're criminals or not, when ICE has these quotas to fill, which reportedly they do, you know, how many arrests they have to make per day,

Speaker 71 The people who are abiding by the law, who are showing up at their hearings, et cetera, they're the much lower-hanging fruit.

Speaker 71 It's hard to find the rapists and gangbangers and drug dealers who are, you know, actually public safety threats, who are in the shadows and not voluntarily going to ICE offices.

Speaker 71 It's really hard to hunt those people down, even if I think there's widespread bipartisan support for finding those people, it's really easy to find people who are voluntarily telling the government where they live, where they work, they're here legally, or they have some kind of temporary status that allows them to be here legally and to work legally.

Speaker 71 Those people are, ICE knows where they are, so just arrest them. And so you can see that in the numbers.
Actually, if you look at the ICE detention data

Speaker 71 from January before Trump took office versus sometime, I think, mid-May,

Speaker 71 the number of people in ICE detention who have criminal records has gone up. You know, it's like one and a half times what it was when Trump took office, so it's higher.

Speaker 71 The number of people in ICE detention who have no criminal records and no criminal charges, they're only there because of some alleged immigration violation, which is generally a civil violation or, you know, maybe may not even exist at all,

Speaker 71 has gone up sevenfold. So the biggest increase in detentions is among people who are by definition not criminals.

Speaker 84 Hi, I'm Martine Hackett, host of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a production from Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenix.

Speaker 89 This season, we're sharing powerful stories of resilience from people living with MG and CIDP.

Speaker 92 Our hope is to inspire, educate, and remind each other that even in the toughest moments, we're not alone.

Speaker 84 We'll hear from people like Corbin Whittington.

Speaker 91 After being diagnosed with both CIDP and dilated cardiomyopathy, he found incredible strength through community.

Speaker 97 So when we talk community, we're talking about an entire ecosystem surrounding this condition, including, of course, the patients at the center that are all trying to live life in the moment, live life for the future, but then also create a new future.

Speaker 101 Listen to Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 2 We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.

Speaker 4 These words are more than just the opening of the Constitution.

Speaker 7 They're a reminder of who this country belongs to and what we can be at our best.

Speaker 8 They're also the cornerstone of MS Now.

Speaker 13 Whether it's breaking news, exclusive reporting, election coverage, or in-depth analysis, MS Now keeps the people at the heart of everything they do.

Speaker 21 Home to the Rachel Maddow Show, Morning Joe, the briefing with Jen Saki, and more voices you know and trust, MS Now is your source for news, opinion, and the world.

Speaker 29 Their name is new, but you'll find the same commitment to justice, progress, and the truth you've relied on for decades.

Speaker 34 They'll continue to cover the day's news, ask the tough questions, and explain how it impacts you.

Speaker 36 Same mission, new name, MS Now.

Speaker 39 Learn more at MS.now.

Speaker 70 From one depressing topic to one, it's even maybe more.

Speaker 49 There's a New York Times story out this morning.

Speaker 61 I'm going to read a little bit more from it than I usually do just because it's so affecting.

Speaker 80 It's like Kate Zernicki.

Speaker 7 The story is about how the U.S.

Speaker 53 used to light a beacon for science for immigrants throughout the world, and now some fear it's dimming, maybe understated there on the subhead from the New York Times.

Speaker 43 Here's how it starts.

Speaker 49 Ardem Potapuchian's story is not just the American dream, it's the dream of American science.

Speaker 80 He arrived in L.A.

Speaker 33 at age 18 after fleeing war-torn in Lebanon.

Speaker 64 Shout out to the Lebanese. I'm a quarter-Lebanese.

Speaker 69 He spent a year delivering dominoes to become eligible for the University of California.

Speaker 66 He went on to get a postdoctoral fellowship in neuroscience.

Speaker 49 He started a lab in San Diego with a grant from NIH, discovered the way human scents touch, and in 2021, won the Nobel Prize.

Speaker 69 The Trump cuts got rid of his federal grant to develop new approaches to treating pain.

Speaker 34 He posted about this on Blue Sky.

Speaker 47 He said within hours he had an email from a Chinese official offering to move his lab to any city, any university he wants with a guarantee of of funding for 20 years.

Speaker 51 Patapuchin declined, said because he loves America, but he's worried many other scientists just setting out on their careers, however, are not going to have any option but to leave.

Speaker 32 That's pretty depressing. Yeah.

Speaker 51 And the story goes on with many more examples of it.

Speaker 77 Yes.

Speaker 71 Look, over the past century, science and research have basically been America's golden goose

Speaker 71 in the sense that they have contributed way outsize to

Speaker 71 their actual part of the economy, to the broader economy.

Speaker 71 That's why we lead in tech, in science,

Speaker 71 in a lot of other fields. And that's why it's been so easy in many ways to attract the best and brightest to come here.
Like it feeds on itself, that we attract the best and brightest to come here.

Speaker 71 They do cutting-edge research, and that is an engine for the U.S. economy.
And then that begets more and more scientists to come here.

Speaker 71 And those who do come here not only are successful in their own right, but there's a lot of evidence to suggest that they make American-born talent more productive as well.

Speaker 71 There's a lot of research from an economist at NYU named Petra Moser. that looks at

Speaker 71 how changes in immigration law have actually affected all of this over the years. And

Speaker 71 among other things, like the arrival of a lot of

Speaker 71 Jewish, German Jewish émigrés who fled the Nazis, revolutionized U.S. science and innovation, and

Speaker 71 probably the Manhattan Project could not have existed without them. So it's not only about the economy, it's also about national defense, whatever you think of the Manhattan Project.

Speaker 71 And that if you look at the quota acts in the 1920s, when we really clamped down on external immigration, disproportionately immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe,

Speaker 71 the scientists who came from those places were more likely to be in some fields than others. And as a result, those fields in the United States suffered disproportionately.

Speaker 71 So basically, like, this is not a hypothetical concern about this brain drain,

Speaker 71 you know, solely on this,

Speaker 71 for now I'm just talking about immigration here.

Speaker 71 We actually have lots of evidence that American innovation, American productivity, American research benefits when we are able to bring in global talent and suffers when we're not able to.

Speaker 71 You know, that's like you can see it in the patent records, for example. And then on top of that, you mentioned the grants.

Speaker 71 And this is another example of slaughtering the golden goose.

Speaker 71 Trump has purged a lot of scientists from within the federal government who work on research, work on medical research at NIH, agricultural research at the USDA, et cetera, has pushed a lot of those people out, has made it much harder to get grants or explicitly cut off grants from private research institutions, whether that's related to like supposed DEI concerns.

Speaker 71 There were a lot of grants, science and research grants frozen because of that initially. And then there's more punitive stuff targeting specific institutions.

Speaker 71 All of that is going to affect our ability to cure diseases, to come up with the next iPhone. You know, the iPhone is based on lots of research done by scientists, researchers at private universities.

Speaker 71 It's, you know, Steve Jobs, brilliant guy, Apple, very innovative company, but a lot of what went into innovations like that comes from research being done at these public research institutions.

Speaker 71 So we are going to basically turn off this spigot of talent, turn off this spigot of research that we're developing here. Some of that's going to move abroad.
Maybe

Speaker 71 we'll have new labs set up in China and they'll be nice enough to give us, to lend us the results of those

Speaker 71 great discoveries.

Speaker 71 I think Europe is also poaching a lot of our scientists right now.

Speaker 71 Canada, I think Canada actually, one of those papers that I mentioned, I think Canada was like a big beneficiary of the Quota X, as I recall, from the 1920s, because a bunch of scientists went there.

Speaker 71 So, you know, other countries will benefit, but probably on net, the world will be worse off because we have been proven ourselves to be really good at this stuff in ways that benefits us,

Speaker 71 that has spillover effects for the rest of the world, particularly when it comes to medical breakthroughs. And for what, I have no idea.

Speaker 103 Yeah, the kicker quote in that story, all the medicines, this is from a biologist at Harvard who is an immigrant from Czech Republic,

Speaker 103 or probably Czechoslovakia at the time he came.

Speaker 54 All the medicines that people take, they were developed in the U.S.

Speaker 51 There's essentially nothing developed by anywhere else.

Speaker 54 We're on top of the whole thing, and we're really risking it all.

Speaker 17 Yeah.

Speaker 103 So that's a pretty ominous assessment.

Speaker 84 Hi, I'm Martine Hackett, host of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a production from Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenix.

Speaker 88 This season, we're sharing powerful stories of resilience from people living with MG and CIDP.

Speaker 93 Our hope is to inspire, educate, and remind each other that even in the toughest moments, we're not alone.

Speaker 84 We'll hear from people like Corbin Whittington.

Speaker 91 After being diagnosed with both CIDP and dilated cardiomyopathy, he found incredible strength through community.

Speaker 97 So when we talk community, we're talking about an entire ecosystem surrounding this condition, including, of course, the patients at the center that are all trying to live life in the moment, live life for the future, but then also create a new future.

Speaker 101 Listen to Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 2 We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.

Speaker 4 These words are more than just the opening of the Constitution.

Speaker 7 They're a reminder of who this country belongs to and what we can be at our best.

Speaker 8 They're also the cornerstone of MS Now.

Speaker 13 Whether it's breaking news, exclusive reporting, election coverage, or in-depth analysis, MS Now keeps the people at the heart of everything they do.

Speaker 21 Home to the Rachel Maddow Show, Morning Joe, the briefing with Jen Saki, and more voices you know and trust, MS Now is your source for news, opinion, and the world.

Speaker 28 Their name is new, but you'll find the same commitment to justice, progress, and the truth you've relied on for decades.

Speaker 34 They'll continue to cover the day's news, ask the tough questions, and explain how it impacts you.

Speaker 36 Same mission, new name, MS Now.

Speaker 39 Learn more at MS.now.

Speaker 4 You just mentioned a lot of the Jewish scientists that have come here.

Speaker 53 Do you have any, and I'm sure you have many thoughts on kind of the spate of anti-Semitic attacks we've seen recently?

Speaker 50 Yeah. Anything in particular that strikes you?

Speaker 71 It's very ugly. I'm Jewish and I've been getting a lot of it lately from both the far left and the far right for very different reasons.

Speaker 71 And one thing that's very scary about all of this stuff is, you know, if you have, if you're a journalist, if you're somehow in the public eye, you get a lot of hate mail no matter what.

Speaker 71 But in a country where it's very easy to secure weapons, firearms, it's really hard to know when these kinds of threats are people just blowing off steam and when they are actually

Speaker 71 going to act on their express desire to do harm to various outgroups, whether that's Jews or anyone else.

Speaker 71 I guess in Colorado, the guy used a Molotov cocktail or, you know, flamethrower or something and not a firearm.

Speaker 59 But,

Speaker 71 you know,

Speaker 71 it's very disturbing. Personally, I find it disturbing from the perspective of like everybody should feel safe at night when they go to sleep.
It's very disturbing.

Speaker 71 And I wish I knew what the solution is. But meanwhile, as we are seeing a rise in anti-Semitic incidents

Speaker 71 here in the United States,

Speaker 71 the Trump administration has been sort of weaponizing that rise to do completely unrelated things.

Speaker 71 Right. So, you know, to punish Harvard, to punish Columbia, like say international students can't come here.
And none of that makes me feel safer as a Jew.

Speaker 71 You know, having people kidnapped off of the streets and punished for their speech, historically

Speaker 71 not good for Jews.

Speaker 72 You know? Yeah.

Speaker 38 We're going to be targeting students at Ivy League schools because we want to protect Jews.

Speaker 72 It's like,

Speaker 59 wait a minute.

Speaker 71 Oh, well, the administration actually sent a survey to all of the professors at Barnard, which is part of Columbia, asking them if they were Jewish.

Speaker 71 Like, ostensibly because, you know, like they were trying to identify if there was a rise in anti-Semitism on campus. But, you know, my view is when the government is making a list of

Speaker 71 Jewish intellectual elites, it usually does not end well, whatever their stated purpose is. So, yeah,

Speaker 71 I don't know what to say, except it's terrible. And we've seen this story before.

Speaker 71 Again, it's not only Jews who are at risk right now, but if you are a Jewish person and you want to go to synagogue or like the JCC or whatever, it suddenly feels a lot more dangerous than it used to be.

Speaker 71 And nobody's doing anything about it. And instead, I feel like you have politicians capitalizing on it.
You see these mobs on the internet. cheering it on.

Speaker 71 And I do worry about more copycat behaviors and also this sort of like glorification glorification of political violence, not only being used against Jews, but against other groups, whether they're like pro-Palestine students or anyone else.

Speaker 71 And I just feel like the whole country right now feels really on edge and feels like any match could be lit and

Speaker 71 you could have something really disastrous happen. And that's not a great feeling right now.

Speaker 64 All right.

Speaker 54 We're running out of time. I just want to close with something really quick.

Speaker 103 I would feel remiss not to mention this doing down here in Louisiana.

Speaker 49 We had a story from Reuters yesterday.

Speaker 61 The staff of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was left baffled on Monday after the head of that agency said he had not been aware that the country has a hurricane season.

Speaker 103 According to four sources familiar with the situation, David Richardson, the newly named FEMA director, has no disaster response experience.

Speaker 64 So there you go.

Speaker 20 You feeling feeling good now? You ready to sleep?

Speaker 66 Are you feeling good about sleeping at night now with this guy

Speaker 20 with the best and the brightest in charge?

Speaker 71 Yes, the meritocracy meritocracy at work all right bring back dei i don't know whatever whatever concerns the public may have had with dei it seemed like it resulted in slightly more competent people running the department of transportation and the military and fema for that matter than whatever we have now dei versus foxy i you know i don't know exactly how that works final thing you were with ezra uh you did ezra's show as well as mine which i appreciate and uh you know we're just monitoring ezra right now.

Speaker 61 He's maybe gone dark Ezra.

Speaker 56 He's flipped.

Speaker 18 He's the foil of the left on the internet now.

Speaker 62 He's grown a beard.

Speaker 103 He told Hassan Minaj.

Speaker 33 I think he's taking the creatine.

Speaker 25 He's working out.

Speaker 54 You know, what did you make?

Speaker 63 You were in his presence.

Speaker 26 Did you feel kind of a dark energy or a glow-up coming off of podcast host competitor Ezra Klein?

Speaker 71 I think Ezra has always been glamorous. So what can I say?

Speaker 66 Do I need to grow a beard, do you think, to compete or

Speaker 18 start taking any supplements?

Speaker 71 I think intellectual curiosity is the best glow-up one can have. And you have it in spades, and Ezra has it in spades.
And

Speaker 71 this fight with the left is a whole other issue that we could do a different conversation on that

Speaker 71 I feel like Democrats kind of learned nothing from the last election, but that's a whole separate issue.

Speaker 18 We should do another group on that.

Speaker 66 We can have a little.

Speaker 71 Oh, my God. I have much to say that's going to get me in trouble, but whatever.
I'll say it anyway.

Speaker 18 That is a nice tease for your next

Speaker 45 visit to the podcast.

Speaker 12 And I'm going to endeavor to get you in trouble when you come back.

Speaker 13 Thank you so much, Catherine Rampell.

Speaker 78 Thanks, Tim.

Speaker 43 Everybody else, we'll be back here tomorrow for another edition of the podcast.

Speaker 75 See you all then. Peace.

Speaker 75 But this still is voice that's

Speaker 75 telling you you don't deserve this kind of love. I'm trying

Speaker 75 crying in a bad street

Speaker 75 of a city I don't know.

Speaker 75 And I'm trying to go to parties

Speaker 75 in a place that I don't belong.

Speaker 75 You said it's just a bad day

Speaker 75 Trying not to fix it But I'm crying in the back seat

Speaker 75 Of a taxi in Tokyo

Speaker 75 In the bar, I asked you why you're always on your phone and

Speaker 75 you told me that you think you'd like me to be more confident.

Speaker 75 Think you meant it like a good thing, but it sounded so me

Speaker 75 like you wish you were with someone with a different body.

Speaker 12 The Bulwark podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.

Speaker 104 I like things my way.

Speaker 5 My coffee, my schedule, and my treatment.

Speaker 104 So I talked to my doctor about self-injecting with the Vivgard Hydrulo Pre-Filled Syringe, which contains F-gardigamon alpha and hyaluronidase QVFC. It's injected under your skin subcutaneously.

Speaker 104 It means I can inject in my space on my time.

Speaker 5 It's my treatment, my way.

Speaker 104 Visit VivGuardMyWay.com. That's V-Y-V-G-A-R-T MyWay.com.
And talk to your doctor about Vivgard Hytrulo, brought to you by Argenix.

Speaker 105 Are your AI agents helping users or just creating more work? If you can't compare your users' workflows before and after adding AI, how do you know it's even paying off?

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Speaker 105 Start improving agent performance at pendo.io/slash podcast. That's pendo.io slash podcast.

Speaker 106 I earned my degree online at Arizona State University.

Speaker 106 I chose to get my degree at ASU because I knew that I'd get a quality education, they were recognized for excellence, and that I would be prepared for the workforce upon graduating.

Speaker 106 To be associated with ASU

Speaker 106 both as a student and alum, it makes me extremely proud. And having experienced the program, I know now that I'm set up for success.
Learn more at ASU Online.asu.edu.