China Strikes Back at Tariffs by Roasting JD Vance & Selling Out Luxury Retailers | Sen. Tammy Duckworth

Speaker 1 This is an iHeart podcast.

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Speaker 3 From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Central, it's America's only source for news. This is the Daily Chart with your host, Ronnie Sand.

Speaker 3 Welcome to the game show.

Speaker 4 I'm Ryan Chang. We got so much to talk about tonight.
TikTok is making offers you can't refuse.

Speaker 5 America makes Canada an offer is definitely refusing. And Trump and China are fighting so hard they should just make out already.
So let's get right into the latest developments in trade wars.

Speaker 3 My favorite word.

Speaker 7 My favorite word. Tariff.

Speaker 8 It's been two weeks since Liberation Day and we're in a full-blown trade war with China.

Speaker 5 With tariffs now at 145%, which means the trade war has officially moved from shower to grower.

Speaker 5 And some people are concerned about this trade war because they like want the economy to be like good or something. But you know what? Trump is not stressing about it.

Speaker 1 Yesterday, the White House press secretary, reading a statement, she said President Trump dictated. China needs to make a deal with us.
We don't have to make a deal with them.

Speaker 1 There's no difference between China and any other country, except they are much larger.

Speaker 5 Yeah, that's kind of a big difference, though.

Speaker 5 It's like saying, why should I be scared to fight The Rock? He's just like any other person, except much larger.

Speaker 5 Yeah, that's the scary part.

Speaker 5 But I guess Trump's people must be confident that they can push China around because they're not just throwing around tariffs, they're throwing some shade.

Speaker 1 Vice President J.D. Vance is caught in a firestorm of his own making, calling the Chinese peasants.

Speaker 9 To make it a little bit more crystal clear, we borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture. That is not a recipe for economic prosperity.

Speaker 5 Oh, shit!

Speaker 5 He's really calling Chinese people peasants. Nobody likes to be called a peasant.
Even legit peasants are like, actually, I consider myself more of an agricultural entrepreneur. But yeah, J.D.

Speaker 5 Vance called the Chinese peasants a couple weeks ago and now that the news finally got to their villages by donkey cart, they are pissed.

Speaker 1 Tonight we are seeing China trading insults with the vice president J.D. Vance in the latest knock against President Trump's trade war.

Speaker 5 That went so hard.

Speaker 5 Oh no, are we the Drake in this beef?

Speaker 5 Are we the certified peasants?

Speaker 5 At the same time, though, saying your 5,000-year-old civilization doesn't intimidate Americans because half the people here don't even think the earth is that old. Also, let's just be real, okay?

Speaker 5 There's no way Americans are the peasants here.

Speaker 6 Do peasants have medical debt?

Speaker 5 Didn't think so, checkmate China. But it's not just Chinese officials who are mad.
China has extremely online losers, just like our peasants, and they're mad too.

Speaker 15 On China's tightly controlled internet, government censors are allowing Vance's interview to go viral, amplifying the outrage, igniting anger and sarcasm.

Speaker 15 Look, this is their true face, arrogant and rude, as always. We may be peasants, but we have the world's best high-speed rail, the most powerful logistics, and leading AI and drone technologies.

Speaker 15 Aren't such peasants quite quite impressive? One hashtag about the Chinese peasants remark shot to the top of China's Twitter-like platform Weibo.

Speaker 5 Wait, is that Michael Costa?

Speaker 5 How did the third whitest host of the daily show go viral in China before the Asian ones?

Speaker 5 That's fed up.

Speaker 5 That's the same triangle and everything.

Speaker 5 Wait, is China watching this?

Speaker 11 Oh, okay. Well,

Speaker 5 hey, thanks for watching this.

Speaker 5 Hi, Tung Go, the Panyong.

Speaker 5 I was just talking tough to China.

Speaker 5 But words are not China's only weapon in this trade war. They're also using, you know, trade.

Speaker 16 China's retaliation now includes suspending exports of rare earth minerals and magnets to the United States.

Speaker 16 Those materials are essential to a number of American industries, including car makers, makers, aerospace manufacturers, and semiconductor producers.

Speaker 1 China produces 90% of the world's rare earth minerals.

Speaker 5 Okay, so rare earth metals are critical.

Speaker 5 Well, maybe we should have thought that before we launched a trade war against a country that had them all. I mean, where are we going to get our gadolinium now, huh?

Speaker 5 We're going to buy Congolese gadolinium?

Speaker 5 That shit's mid.

Speaker 5 What else are they hitting us with?

Speaker 17 China has reportedly told Chinese airlines to stop buying parts from American companies, and it says it will no longer accept deliveries of Boeing jets.

Speaker 5 Oh, come on, you're not going to accept our Boeing jets? Well, good luck finding another plane with self-crashing technology.

Speaker 13 Is there

Speaker 6 anything else?

Speaker 1 China could strike back in other ways, like urging Chinese students to study elsewhere, telling travel agents to steer tour groups away from U.S. cities.

Speaker 5 Oh no, if Chinese students stop coming to the U.S., who are Americans going to lose their spots to?

Speaker 11 Indians?

Speaker 5 Yeah, yeah, that'll work. Yeah, actually.

Speaker 5 Actually, yes.

Speaker 5 But look, Americans have to stay strong, okay?

Speaker 1 I don't want to hear any whining.

Speaker 5 Oh no, China's not buying our Made in America products. Well, suck it up, patriots.
Certain industries are just going to have to suffer, and that's how it is, because this is war.

Speaker 1 China announced they're restricting imports of Hollywood movies to their country.

Speaker 7 Okay, f that.

Speaker 5 This war has gone too far.

Speaker 5 Some of our finest, most likable Chinese Malaysian actors have built a career in Asian themed movies that depend on the Chinese market, all right?

Speaker 5 It's called crazy rich Asians, not crazy just getting by Asians.

Speaker 5 And don't forget, this affects you too, China. If you ban American movies, how will you ever find find out the ending to all these remakes of movies from decades ago?

Speaker 5 But as drastic as some of these trade policies are, they're nothing compared to the awesome power of Chinese propaganda. And luckily for China, we all have a Chinese propaganda app on our phones.

Speaker 1 They're the videos seen by millions of Americans. TikTokers claiming to work at Chinese factories that make high-end products and offering to sell them directly to Americans for much, much cheaper.

Speaker 1 Products like Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton. Do you like this this bag or this?

Speaker 18 Two dollars.

Speaker 18 Two dollars. Two dollars.

Speaker 5 Yeah, good news, honey. I am getting you that Gucci bag for your birthday.

Speaker 5 But forget about the designer products because these TikToks aren't just offering cheap Chanel bags. They're offering cheap everything.

Speaker 19 Do you want to buy laundry pots?

Speaker 19 Do you want a laundry capsule?

Speaker 11 Do you want laundry beat?

Speaker 19 One pot costs only five cents. Ding, ding, ding.

Speaker 1 Just to ship customer-sented candles to the U.S. for only two dollars.
Do you need a house? We can build it for you in just 48 hours. Please an order and we will deliver it to a country.

Speaker 5 Good news, honey. I am getting you that prefabricated house for Memorial Day.

Speaker 5 For more on the trade war, we go live to the White House with Troy Iwata.

Speaker 5 Okay,

Speaker 5 Troy, that's a lot of designer clothing.

Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 19 And I got it all for $8.

Speaker 20 Thank you, Trade War.

Speaker 5 Okay, Troy, please don't think the trade war, right? If tensions keep building, it could be economically devastating.

Speaker 19 Okay, I know, but the longer this trade war goes, the more incredible deals I'm finding on TikTok. So, personally, I think tensions could get like 5 to 10% higher.

Speaker 19 Even a dumb peasant country like China could understand that.

Speaker 5 Okay, Troy.

Speaker 5 No, Troy, that's exactly the kind of talk that could escalate the trade war.

Speaker 19 Okay, and I'm fine with that.

Speaker 13 Look, look.

Speaker 19 This is like 400 Tide Pods,

Speaker 19 and it was 15 cents.

Speaker 19 I had to break a dollar.

Speaker 19 I have a lot of luxury clothes to wash, and these are extra nice, so I'm going to wash them on extra hot with my towels.

Speaker 5 No, no, this could cause a global recession.

Speaker 19 All right, then we'll buy our way out of it. For the first time in our lives, we can get Hermes scarves in bulk, like all those dumb people in China

Speaker 5 Troy those aren't real Hermes scarves they're real if you believe Ronnie

Speaker 5 okay but if everyone can afford to get them are they even really luxury goods anymore uh yeah Socrates, okay.

Speaker 19 Just wait until Christmas. You'll change your tune once we're stuffing our stockings with Gucci.

Speaker 5 Aren't you Jewish? Not at these prices.

Speaker 13 Okay,

Speaker 5 this is still a huge risk, alright? Is it really worth a market crash just to get a washing machine for 20 bucks?

Speaker 19 A whole washing machine for $20?

Speaker 19 Okay, let me speak to China.

Speaker 3 Hmm.

Speaker 19 Jango, to Xiangba, Ni De Chang Chun Oibe, Uncle Sam's penis yakwa.

Speaker 19 Damn, I f ⁇ ing nailed that.

Speaker 5 Troy, I speak Chinese. I have no idea what the f ⁇ you just said.

Speaker 19 Alright, do you need me to explain Uncle Sam to you or a penis?

Speaker 5 Yeah, you know what? Get out of here, Troy.

Speaker 4 Troy, water, everybody.

Speaker 3 When we we come back,

Speaker 4 Michael Costa, this is our newest state, so don't go away.

Speaker 2 Welcome back to the daily show.

Speaker 5 Donald Trump might be in the middle of a trade war, but we shouldn't forget his other wars. Michael Costa checked in on them just to find out what's going on.

Speaker 1 For decades, Canadians have been wasting away in a country known best to the world as America's Hat.

Speaker 8 But that's all about to change.

Speaker 16 Canada was meant to be the 51st state.

Speaker 1 It's just an artificial line that was drawn in the sand

Speaker 20 or in the ice.

Speaker 5 But not everyone's so sure about that.

Speaker 8 Meet Stephen Shane Bart, American political refugee.

Speaker 22 Night that Trump was elected in 2016, I started looking into becoming a Canadian citizen and I moved here in 2020 full time. I gave up my apartment in Brooklyn, moved to Toronto.

Speaker 23 A lot of people said they were going to move to Canada when Trump won.

Speaker 24 And that's bullshit.

Speaker 5 But you actually did it.

Speaker 22 So I wrote, I actually did it, becoming Canadian because of Trump.

Speaker 23 Is that the book where you admit that you killed O.J.'s wife?

Speaker 7 No, it's not the book. No.
It's not.

Speaker 24 I didn't.

Speaker 13 Hmm.

Speaker 2 Exactly what OJ said.

Speaker 6 And just like a white Bronco chase cut short, Stevens worried his escape from America might have been a feudal gesture. Just look at history.

Speaker 22 Austria was the first country that Hitler took over when he was expanding, and it was very similar to Germany, the way Canada is similar to the U.S., and they just kind of absorbed it.

Speaker 22 And that was the beginning of Hitler's expansion.

Speaker 24 If you think Trump's Hitler, then why would you move to America's neighbor? It's like, well, I'm going to ride this whole Hitler thing out over there in Poland.

Speaker 22 I'm not saying at all that Trump is Hitler. He's not.
But if Trump is 10% as bad as Hitler, that's bad enough.

Speaker 24 Well, Stephen, Trump didn't want to invade Canada until you moved up here. So are you flattered in a way? No.
No. You fled America, but America's coming, and you can't stop a bulldozer.

Speaker 24 We're going to take Canada. That'll be a 51st state.
Then we'll go to Greenland.

Speaker 23 I think we should get Hawaii. That's nice over there.
That would be sweet to have Hawaii.

Speaker 24 What are you going to do? Keep running away from it?

Speaker 22 There's nowhere to go.

Speaker 6 Well, of course, Steven hates this idea, but I bet every day Canucks couldn't wait to trade in their free healthcare to join Team USA.

Speaker 14 How excited are you to be the 51st state of the United States?

Speaker 8 Not that fired up about it.

Speaker 20 You need stronger language than that. We have guns.

Speaker 14 Can you look in that camera and tell Donald Trump how you feel about becoming the 51st state of the United States?

Speaker 11 Come on, I mean,

Speaker 21 you're throwing a lot of words around, but I think like that's yeah we know what you're doing.

Speaker 5 It's not going to go anywhere.

Speaker 20 That's the meanest you can get. Yeah.

Speaker 14 Maybe they just didn't know what they were missing.

Speaker 2 This is a bottle of our syrup.

Speaker 23 That's not maple syrup.

Speaker 20 I don't know what there used to be a black woman on it but that kind of became a whole thing.

Speaker 21 We love our country. We really do.

Speaker 14 Don't you want to dominate the Olympics?

Speaker 8 You do dominate the Olympics.

Speaker 20 I'm telling the Summer Olympics, the one that people care about.

Speaker 14 This is what the new flag would be.

Speaker 5 I don't know, man.

Speaker 14 I thought the maple leaf was going to be with the stars, but I should have had this thing made in China.

Speaker 6 Canadians of all ages, races, and species seemed united in their rage.

Speaker 17 It's a good thing Christy Novem isn't here.

Speaker 6 And this trade war is getting messier than a plate of poutine at a Celine Dion concert.

Speaker 8 Thousands of Canadian hockey fans booing our national anthem.

Speaker 1 Liquor stores have removed American distilled alcohol from their shelves. Polls show 90% of Canadians do not want to be part of the United States.

Speaker 6 But what about the other 10%?

Speaker 6 The silent majority, the most elite and intellectual Canadians take a different view.

Speaker 5 I'm just trying to make Canada great.

Speaker 8 So let's make it the 51st team.

Speaker 6 Finally, a normal f ⁇ ing person.

Speaker 25 You got to make a stand. If you believe in what you believe, and I believe and I want to become an American, I'm going to do it.

Speaker 5 I mean, just think about the possibilities.

Speaker 8 You could be sentenced to the death penalty.

Speaker 24 You could drive over a bridge not knowing if it's going to collapse.

Speaker 24 Cheese coming out of a spray can.

Speaker 25 I've never tried spray can cheese, right? But I'm looking forward to it.

Speaker 6 And after living under Canada's jackboot, Josh is eager to speak his mind.

Speaker 25 First Amendment, right? Freedom of speech. Really like freedom of speech.

Speaker 24 And the thing about the First Amendment is that that thing is ironclad.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 24 I mean, unless you're a protester or a legal firm or a member of the media or a Democrat or a green card holder.

Speaker 7 But other than that, huh? It's good.

Speaker 6 And in case you couldn't tell by the way he looks, there's another amendment that that Josh is way more excited about.

Speaker 5 So Canada doesn't have a second amendment?

Speaker 25 We do have certain guns, but not the ones that we do in America, the AR-15. Right.
We can't have any guns that have over, I think it's five rounds.

Speaker 24 Five rounds? That means that you can't even have a mass shooting.

Speaker 25 Well, you know, you can't even mass shoot at a deer, right?

Speaker 24 That's why American hunters are so good, because they can pop off 200 rounds in five seconds.

Speaker 8 You're going to hit something.

Speaker 7 This Quebecanon shaman shaman was almost passing for an American but there was just something that was off about him look at that get it get it let's go like the Canadian dollar it's close but just not quite there what is monopoly money

Speaker 1 in fact there was something off about this whole country

Speaker 22 the differences are subtle but but really significant. Like when I go get pizza, they ask me, you know, what kind of sauce I want on the pizza.
If I want like sweet and sour sauce or Chipotle sauce.

Speaker 22 Wait, wait, wait, what the f did you just say? They give it to you and they say, what kind of sauce do you want on it? And I said, what do you mean? I'm from New York. We don't do that.

Speaker 2 These bastards, sweet and sour sauce on pizza?

Speaker 5 Not even little Caesars would do a thing like that.

Speaker 1 Anyone know what they put on pizza in Greenland?

Speaker 4 Thank you, Michael. When we come back, Senator Tammy Duckwolf will be joining me on the show, so don't go away.

Speaker 4 Welcome back to the Daily Show.

Speaker 5 My guest tonight is an Iraq war hero and Purple Hot recipient who currently represents Illinois in the U.S. Senate.
Please welcome Senator Tammy Duckworth.

Speaker 5 Thank you.

Speaker 5 Oh wow.

Speaker 13 They're having fun. Yeah, well Nat, if you cheer for Illinois and New York, that's tough.

Speaker 5 Senator, you're a war hero, you served in Iraq, you sacrificed so much for your country, but you're also a Democrat. Why do you hate America?

Speaker 1 I actually love America so much. You know, maybe we have too much liberty and freedom.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 That seems seems to be what this administration thinks.

Speaker 5 Yeah, like

Speaker 5 you were a war veteran and then you decided to go to Congress.

Speaker 11 Yeah. I mean,

Speaker 5 what was harder, the war or Congress? I mean, it seems very tough.

Speaker 1 They gave me body armor and bullets when I went to war, so I think Congress is harder.

Speaker 3 I know.

Speaker 4 But you're in it.

Speaker 13 I'm in it. You're in it right now.
I'm in it.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I used to fly missions in Iraq.

Speaker 13 I did. You were a helicopter?

Speaker 1 I was a Black Hawk helicopter pilot. Loved it.

Speaker 3 that's better.

Speaker 4 That's

Speaker 3 amazing.

Speaker 13 Yeah, it's better.

Speaker 5 And you decided to run for Congress and you won?

Speaker 1 I did.

Speaker 1 I was pissed off that we were not taking care of our veterans, so I decided to run.

Speaker 4 Yeah, and

Speaker 5 so

Speaker 5 how are we treating our veterans?

Speaker 1 Well, we were doing really well until Trump decided to fire 6,000 of them from their federal jobs in the last three months.

Speaker 5 Yeah, and

Speaker 5 why do you do that?

Speaker 1 Well, you know, I guess this is a guy who hugs the flag, says he loves America, but then fires 6,000 veterans. I don't think he cares about us.

Speaker 5 Yeah, so what, like, what was the,

Speaker 5 what was the, um,

Speaker 5 would he give any reason for firing?

Speaker 1 There is no reason. It's part of their cuts across federal government.
Veterans, after they serve in the military, tend to want to serve the country continuing to.

Speaker 11 As civil servants.

Speaker 1 As civil servants. So 30% of the federal workforce are veterans.
And so this president has fired more veterans than any other veterans, than any other president in modern history.

Speaker 5 Okay. 6,000 and counting.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 5 how is that? Okay, we get it.

Speaker 3 All right.

Speaker 5 They don't like it.

Speaker 5 And that's specifically, was it Doge or was it something else?

Speaker 1 There were Doge's across the board cuts. When you fire this many federal employees, you're going to lose that many veterans.

Speaker 1 But Doge has also come out and they've announced they want to cut 80,000 personnel just from the Department of Veterans Affairs. That's their next target.

Speaker 5 But, okay, and that,

Speaker 14 it

Speaker 5 I don't know. Are these people they can lose or is it going to run fine? Is it running fine now? What's the situation in the Veterans Affairs?

Speaker 1 It was getting better. We passed the PACT Act,

Speaker 1 which was bipartisan, which

Speaker 1 basically signed up a million more veterans who were exposed to cancer-causing toxic smoke from burn pits. They're finally getting the care that they need.

Speaker 1 And now we have those folks on board, and now they're going to fire all the people who take care of those folks.

Speaker 5 Okay, and

Speaker 1 so I'm pissed. Okay,

Speaker 5 can anyone stop this?

Speaker 1 Well, we can try to stop them.

Speaker 1 We are fighting them every step of the way. In my case, I've been able to get some veterans their jobs back.
They fired veterans from the Veterans Crisis hotline.

Speaker 1 These are people who answered the phone. When a veteran is contemplating suicide, they pick up the phone and they get an answer within eight seconds, or at least they used to.

Speaker 1 And so some of the folks who work in that hotline were fired, and they reached out to me, and we were able to get them their jobs back. So we are fighting back.

Speaker 5 Like

Speaker 5 one at a time.

Speaker 5 So there's jobs. There's jobs that were lost, but then there's overall just like veteran health care, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 they've had to cancel operations.

Speaker 1 The spouses, the family members of disabled veterans are not getting support through their hotline.

Speaker 1 Appointments are being canceled or now they're having to wait even longer. We were just turning the corner.
We were actually reducing the number of homeless veterans.

Speaker 1 We were just adding more veterans, getting more benefits. But remember, this is a president who says people who are wounded or died for this country in uniform are all losers and suckers.

Speaker 1 He doesn't care about us.

Speaker 8 Okay, so

Speaker 5 just

Speaker 5 to put it out there, this is also a guy who arguably a lot of veterans would also vote for at the time. So how do you reconcile that? I mean...

Speaker 1 Well, I think what they bought was this rhetoric from him that he was gonna you know he wants to make America great, strong and powerful and yet all he's done is made us weaker, sicker, and less secure.

Speaker 5 Okay so yeah.

Speaker 5 So I mean I guess the relevant question is do you think it's changing the opinion of the people who voted for him?

Speaker 1 Oh definitely. Have you seen what's been happening at these Republican town halls where people across the country are showing up in town halls and saying, what are you doing to our veterans?

Speaker 1 I'm a veteran. Why did you cut my benefits? I had a veteran reach out to me from Tennessee because he was declared dead

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 didn't get his regular checks. Was he dead?

Speaker 1 He didn't reach out to me through the Ouija board. He actually reached out to me.

Speaker 5 But again, the question is, okay, so we all have...

Speaker 7 Obviously,

Speaker 5 you know, what kind of preaching to require here? Obviously, the people who didn't like, who didn't want to vote for his president still,

Speaker 23 we maintain that we shouldn't have voted for this guy.

Speaker 5 The question is: what about the veteran specifically? Because you're more in touch with that community. Yeah.

Speaker 5 Do you feel that there is a change in sentiment that was previously overwhelmingly in his favor?

Speaker 5 Do you think it's changing a bit, or is it still very much, no, he's doing the right thing, we don't see a problem, the issues are exaggerated?

Speaker 1 I mean, is that I think it's changing. I think there's two things that are happening.
One, the fact that he is basically kissing Vladimir Putin's

Speaker 1 grain,

Speaker 1 you know, means that

Speaker 1 these are people who spent their entire military careers getting ready to oppose Russia. And now they see the commander-in-chief basically doing whatever Putin wants him to do.

Speaker 1 So that is changing the sentiment. The other thing that's happening is all of this rhetoric against women serving, against LGBTQ veterans serving.

Speaker 1 People forget that there's been a generational change within the military.

Speaker 1 Gen Xers are now the old people. Millennials are now the upper management.
And they've only ever served.

Speaker 5 And we're happy to be here.

Speaker 1 They're now the field greatest people.

Speaker 5 It's like these Gen X people.

Speaker 13 Yeah, I'm Gen X. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 1 No, so millennials.

Speaker 1 Millennials are now the majors, colonels.

Speaker 11 They're now.

Speaker 11 They're now colonels.

Speaker 13 Oh, wait a go.

Speaker 3 Yeah, right.

Speaker 1 They're not sergeants, majors. You know, they're now higher ranking.

Speaker 11 And So

Speaker 5 you say this, but then it's like... But they fought.

Speaker 5 He kind of said what he was going to do before he ran. Pete Hegseff was Pete Hegsef before he got appointed against women in military.
They still won.

Speaker 5 So my question is, is anything that's happened changing the sentiment?

Speaker 1 It is, because I think a lot of them didn't believe that that was what was going to happen. And they saw the reality of the fact that the military cannot do its job without women in service.

Speaker 1 The military cannot truly do its job without diversity in the force, with people who can speak different languages around the world. You want soldiers who can speak Swahili without forces in Africa.

Speaker 1 You want soldiers that can speak all the different languages. And so the millennials have only ever been in a military where there was equal service with women and LGBTQIA.

Speaker 5 Are you saying that white people can't speak Swahili?

Speaker 11 Well, you know.

Speaker 1 But you want native speakers, right? You want more diversity. You want that

Speaker 1 diversity and inclusion is a good thing. You want people who have those backgrounds.
You want somebody like me who speaks Thailand and Indonesian to be able to go in and speak those local languages.

Speaker 1 And we also have people in charge of the military now, the millennial generation, who have only ever served equally without Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

Speaker 1 So they know the lie behind, oh, LGBTQ people are not good for the military. Well, no, they know that we've always served equally and we can't go to war without each other.
Okay.

Speaker 5 I mean, that's...

Speaker 4 That deserves an applause. That's a nice sentiment.

Speaker 5 I hope you're right because we cover the news every day here and I just feel like nothing changes, moves the needle either way.

Speaker 5 I do a lot of jiu-jitsu. All the jiu-jitsu guys are like

Speaker 5 a lot of

Speaker 5 veteran people. So I'm not connected to that community at all.
Let me just say the ones I have met are very MAGA.

Speaker 13 So I don't know how.

Speaker 1 A lot of them are very MAGA, but they're seeing the reality behind the betrayal and they're seeing what's happening to veterans with the cuts at the VA.

Speaker 1 They're also seeing what is happening with Trump bowing down to Putin. Just watch those town halls.

Speaker 1 A lot of them revolve around people standing standing up and saying, what are you doing for our national security?

Speaker 5 Right, and on the subject of DEI, so another thing you've recently had to,

Speaker 5 you were on the front lines of hiring, because they had to, you were in the Senate when people had to get confirmed, and so you were part of the committees had to have hearings on who to confirm.

Speaker 5 And so I guess you're kind of on the front lines of this, like, I don't know what you want to call this, a backlash against DEI towards meritocracy. And

Speaker 5 you had to basically appoint, approve the Secretary of Defense.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I voted against him.

Speaker 1 He's the least qualified Secretary of Defense in our nation's history.

Speaker 1 The least qualified.

Speaker 13 Just give him a chance.

Speaker 1 Give him a chance.

Speaker 1 This is the least qualified.

Speaker 5 What do you not like about this guy?

Speaker 1 Well, let's see. The largest budget he ever was in charge of was something like $13 million, and he screwed that up so badly they had to bring in forensic accountants to figure out what he did wrong.

Speaker 1 And now he's in charge of an $825 billion budget. You're talking about a guy who used Signal Chat to plan

Speaker 1 a strike, a military strike.

Speaker 17 Right.

Speaker 11 Exactly.

Speaker 11 Exactly.

Speaker 1 Who basically put in an unsecured channel 30 minutes after the drones hit, our F-18s would be on target, basically telling the bad guys this is where those F-18s are going to be and exactly what time.

Speaker 1 He put those pilots' lives in danger. He does not deserve to be the Secretary of Defense.

Speaker 5 You've never planned an outing with group chat before? Trying to get people into embarrassing?

Speaker 1 I never planned an outing for the military involving weapons of war.

Speaker 5 So, what do you say to the people who are like

Speaker 5 who think that the DEI thing in the military is inappropriate if you can't use DEI categories in the military for hiring?

Speaker 1 What I say is that's not true. It never was.

Speaker 1 This is a fake argument on their side because it was never done. Remember that this president fired

Speaker 1 a Secretary of Defense who was a pilot, highly decorated, 40 years of experience, commanded major units, and replaced him with a guy who was a platoon leader, who had never run a budget larger than $10 million,

Speaker 1 and who couldn't even mention parts of the world

Speaker 1 where the U.S. has huge troop presence, who didn't understand where the nations of ASEAN were for crying out loud.

Speaker 1 And this is the guy that's going to be in charge of our nuclear submarines that transition

Speaker 1 those sea lanes. Are you kidding me?

Speaker 7 Okay.

Speaker 5 So

Speaker 5 he's he got confirmed though he got confirmed right party line vote party line vote and and i guess a couple people a couple people crossed party line but not enough oh okay so that brings me to the next question i mean you're you're actually on the front lines of congress yeah you have to talk to republican congressmen all the time like what is it in congress are people

Speaker 5 Are your colleagues, Republican colleagues, are they seeing the same reality behind closed doors and telling you like, hey, listen, I know this is crazy, but whatever. Or

Speaker 5 are they true believers, drinking a Kool-Aid?

Speaker 5 What's happening in there?

Speaker 1 I think the Republicans who are willing to stand up to him were the ones from the first term. They're not back, right? And so the ones that are there are becoming invertebrates.

Speaker 1 They've lost their backbones and they're hiding in their shells.

Speaker 11 Okay. This is where they are.

Speaker 1 They just roll over for this president.

Speaker 5 Are they true believers or are they, you know what I mean?

Speaker 6 No,

Speaker 1 they're worried about their own re-election. And at a certain point, you need to say, you know what?

Speaker 1 Come at me. Go ahead and primary me.
My country is more important than this job.

Speaker 11 Right. And unfortunately, most of my Republican colleagues don't think that.

Speaker 1 They're not acting in that way.

Speaker 13 Sure.

Speaker 23 So, I mean, you know,

Speaker 7 again,

Speaker 5 you have been, you've always kind of, I think you've kind of led with integrity. You've always stood by your word.

Speaker 11 Me too. Yeah.

Speaker 5 How do you,

Speaker 5 the Democrats, like,

Speaker 5 have lost a lot in the last they've they don't control any branch of government They don't control the popular vote They don't have any cultural momentum So clearly they were doing something wrong like what is

Speaker 1 what should they be doing like what what what message isn't getting through here, you know I think the message that that's not getting through here what Trump did was he spoke to a group of Americans who were disaffected who really felt that this country was leaving them behind and he made these promises and a lot of people were watching the reality TV show and I get from a a lot of people, it's like, oh, I voted for him, but I didn't think he was going to come after me.

Speaker 1 I didn't think he was going to deport my wife. I didn't think that he was going to cut funding to my kids' public school.

Speaker 5 Because he said specifically he was going to deport that guy's wife.

Speaker 1 Well, no, no, but because he said he was going to do all of these things, right?

Speaker 1 He said he was going to cut the Department of Education.

Speaker 1 You know, people were saying, well, yeah, but we didn't think that he was going to go after my special needs kids' funding, right?

Speaker 1 They just thought that it was all an act. Sure.
And it's not. And it's not.
And now people are being fired. They're losing their jobs.
They're seeing the reality of where we are

Speaker 1 with the economy tanking, with us less safe than we were before.

Speaker 1 And they're realizing, oh, I made a mistake. This is why you're seeing people talk about, I voted for him, but I wish I had.
I made a mistake.

Speaker 1 And what Democrats need to do is talk to all of those people and say, you know, Illinois, where I'm from, is 102 counties. Only six are blue.
96 are red.

Speaker 1 And I go into the red parts of my county of my state and I say, listen, it's about loving this country. It's about putting America first.

Speaker 1 It's not about a guy who hugs the flag and then shits on America by starting trade wars and cutting funding for veterans. That's not what this is about.

Speaker 1 This is about making sure that we support our farmers who grow the food that we eat. A country that can't feed itself is not a country that can defend itself.

Speaker 1 This is about making sure that our veterans have the services that they earn.

Speaker 1 This is about making sure a military has capable, competent leadership who knows better than to plan war plans on group chat, unsecured group chat. This is about putting America before yourself.

Speaker 1 And this president has never done that.

Speaker 1 And Democrats need to start talking to the heartland and talking to people and saying, we are here to fight for you and we're going to fight for you every step of the way.

Speaker 1 And that's why you're seeing folks like me getting out there, especially from the Midwest, talking about industrial America, about what we need to do to regrow our economy, and what we need to do to stand up to this president, to make sure that we make those investments in this country and not in the oligarchy billionaires that he surrounded himself with.

Speaker 1 Because that's all they care about, themselves. Sure.

Speaker 4 Do you think that message is coming across?

Speaker 1 I think it is. You know, when I talk to the ag sector, for example, they've seen body blows after body blows.
Farmers tended to vote for Trump.

Speaker 1 But when I go to talk to him, they're like, well, these tariffs are killing. I'm not going to be able to hand my family farm off from my generation to the next generation.
I'm the seventh generation.

Speaker 1 There will not be an eighth generation. The tariffs are going to hurt me.
John Deere is losing jobs because the steel coming from Canada is now going to be more expensive.

Speaker 1 And so they're seeing the difference, and we need to just continue to pull all those people together and let people to understand that the way that we make America great, greater than she already is, is to come together and work together, not by dividing us, which is what this president is trying to do.

Speaker 5 Okay, well, I hope you're right, Senator.

Speaker 3 Thank you.

Speaker 4 Thank you so much for coming to speak to me. Thank you, sir.
Thank you for serving your country. Thanks for serving with integrity.

Speaker 4 And thanks for representing Asian people and Southeast Asian people in America. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 4 Senator Tammy Duncan, everybody. We're going to take a quick break.
We'll be right back after this.

Speaker 4 That's our show for the night. Now, here it is.
Your moment of Zed.

Speaker 1 You have all heard the five-second rule, right?

Speaker 8 Let's put it to the test, shall we?

Speaker 10 Oh, right, no.

Speaker 3 Banana from the green.

Speaker 10 No, uh-uh. No.

Speaker 7 No, but that's that bottom of our shoes. Walk around New York City.

Speaker 10 No.

Speaker 7 Okay, should we go ahead and call out Sick Forum next week? Yeah.

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