Trump's Manufactured Government Shutdown

Hey, everybody.

Welcome back to the Find Out podcast.

Another shutdown has occurred.

We are currently in a government shutdown.

Republicans and Democrats could not reach an agreement yesterday, and so we are now now in a federal shutdown.

Guys, get excited.

Yay!

Hooray!

People lose their services.

I have lots to say about this.

Yeah, so

let's dig into it.

Well, hang on.

Do federal employees who are furloughed, do they get paid?

Is this a paid vacation like the Doge layoffs?

So

typically what happens is that as part of the agreements, they get their back pay.

But I don't know this time.

I don't know.

They may actually not.

They would have to pass in the budget bill basically saying they got to.

So when I was in the federal government in 2013, I think that's when we had our shutdown in the Obama administration.

We were not getting paid during,

but we did get the pay back.

Now, that's with a Democrat in the White House.

So I don't know.

in this particular instance.

And there's already discussions about how Russ vote, the head head of OMB Office of Management, budget.

We say Vought, we say Vought here.

Yeah, that's the bad guy company from The Boys.

Okay, I don't know what that is.

For anyone who doesn't know what

it is,

I have one cultural reference.

One cultural reference ever.

It's the last one.

So, can you name the hit record?

Listen to the show.

Yeah, get this.

We're going to come up with this.

The Boys

an excellent Amazon series where they are doing a parody of the fascist state that we are living in today.

It was written and all of the acting and the writing happened years ago.

So when people see these anti-heroes rising up, they're like Superman kind of.

powers rising up and they've got like these alt-right tendencies, MAGA flips out because they're like, oh, this is like, this is imitating us.

And it's like, no, this, this was written before.

This was written before you guys were doing this.

So you guys are just doing the

fascist shit.

It's not a parody of you.

You're the parody of yourself.

So, Chris, are you saying that while, you know, when you take your breaks from doing Find Out and hunting Nazis and taking care of a baby, your way of unwinding is to watch a show about fascism?

Nice.

Is that correct?

Okay.

That is.

Okay.

where, this is where we are.

So, okay.

So,

uh,

so basically, the Democrats have said, you know, we do not want 15 million people kicked off their health care.

We do not want to fund

the military in our streets.

Uh, I believe that has been, uh, and we talked earlier this week about there not being a plan.

This, this kind of crystallized more recently.

Um,

who's gonna?

I hate to say who's gonna win because basically the American public is just losing in this, but

where do we go from from here?

I think that the bigger question is how long is this going to last?

Like how much the big question, the only thing that I think really matters to most people is how much damage is going to be done.

Like,

I think that it's under the current climate,

Democrats are going to have a hard time shaping the narrative.

You know, it like, look, we've got Schumer and Jeffries out there who are supposedly leading the party.

Not an ideal set of messengers.

I would refer to Jeffrey's recent press statement, like congratulating Eric Adams, the most corrupt criminal mayor in New York history, which is really fucking saying something.

High bar.

Yeah, that's like, that's bad.

So

who's going to win?

Nobody's going to win.

How much damage do we think is going to be done?

Do we think this is going to last a week?

Do we think it's going to last a month?

I think right now

the

Republicans are not seeing stripping Americans of health care as a losing proposition.

They've wanted to do this for, I don't know, when was Obamacare passed?

Like 15 years ago?

2010, 2020, 2010.

Yeah, like they've, they've been obsessed with stripping Americans of their health care for 15 years.

I don't think that they're going to change

just because, I don't know, everyone's suffering more.

Like they seem to like this kind of shit.

Well, let's not forget that they've got an added little benefit in it, that they can't vote on the fucking Epstein shit until they come back.

That's true.

Never forget about the Epstein files.

Well, no, I was just saying.

And they,

the newest congressmember from Arizona, Arizona 7th,

I'm forgetting her first name, but Gruhalva, Mike Johnson has not sworn her in yet.

And partly is that is because I believe they are one or two votes away.

Once she's the last one, So that will be, that will, for the first time in a very long time, meaning a discharge petition, which requires 218 votes, it's the only way that actually anybody other than the speaker can bring things to the floor for a vote

will be triggered.

So yes, Luke, you're 100% right.

I think the Epstein thing is part of this.

And we also found out

last week that Peter Thiel and Elon are on the Epstein list, which ramps up the pressure.

Why is it always the ones you most suspect?

I don't know.

I don't know.

My jaw stayed firmly in place when I heard that.

I really prefer a good twist.

Like, can Eminite Shyamalan rewrite this whole Epstein thing?

Like, it would be so much more fascinating than just being like, yeah.

I saw that coming from like seven fucking weeks, from seven months away.

I saw that coming.

Like, this is the most boring plotline ever.

True, but the twist could also be bad, right?

You wouldn't want to know, like,

Tom Hanks was on the Epstein list or like Mr.

Rogers or somebody.

Like it would like

would be awful.

I think we actually did an episode once where we said who was the person we missed for.

And I think I said Tom Hanks

would be, would be pretty devastating.

But Chris is right.

Like, I mean, part of the.

The challenge here is that Republicans have always tried to shut the government down to keep people from having health care.

And Democrats have always tried to keep the government open to give people health care.

And in this particular case, it's actually reversed.

So So we haven't seen this.

And I think.

Well, it's the same thing.

It's just you're on different side, like in different sides of the power lever.

But yeah,

that was the big shutdown in 2013 was Ted Cruz and the teabaggers trying to keep Obamacare, trying to defund Obamacare after it was passed, which the Affordable Care Act is still widely popular.

And then Donald Trump, you know, he

wanted to, or he had the government shut down over the border wall in 2018 and 2019 after claiming for a year that Mexico was going to pay for it.

And then when the Republican-controlled Congress couldn't get the votes to get over a filibuster, then he shut the government down himself over border wall funding.

This is just a Republican problem because now, once again, the Republicans have every lever of Congress and or every lever of government.

And once again, they're trying to shut down government, or they did shut down government because they don't want people to have health care.

They pick the worst possible battles to lose was it 2013 that that we heard ted cruise going i do not like green eggs at ham like that sounds right do you remember that reading dr seus yeah

i think so i mean he is the biggest is that a shutdown or filibuster i think it was a filibuster that sounds like a filibuster yeah yeah yeah i mean if we're going to talk about ted cruise there's an elephant in the room that i feel we need to talk about did you see his freudian slip yesterday

that the government needs to stop attacking pedophiles.

We need to stop attacking pedophiles.

Oh, that's a fucking insane thing to say because I think what he was intending to say was stop attacking the president, but it came out, stop attacking the pedophiles.

No, no, no.

So he was trying to say, like, we need to go after rapists.

We need to go after murderers.

Like, we need to be tough on crime.

And instead, he said, like, we should be tough on rapists and murderers, but pedophiles should get a cross

that was

crazy it's crazy it was actually

he didn't catch himself in the moment so he didn't fix it either biggest freudian slip ever that's why he's happy the government's closed because he can't clean up after that he's just like i'm gonna go to texas i mean i mean when you take

vacation man he's on vacation when you have nothing inside I guess it is hard it is harder to like remember the good the things you're supposed to say to make yourself look like a normal human being.

Instead, you say shit like that.

He is, he is one of the worst.

Oh my God, I can't.

So, so on the shutdown, so I, people are always like, well, what does this mean?

And

in the short term, generally speaking, there's, there's not a, not a lot in the first few days because money gets shifted around and things like that.

But, you know, the national parks will theoretically close.

I think we talked about this before, but red states, they will probably keep them open, but I cannot stress enough how much you should not go to them because they are going to be manned by sheriffs or police who do not understand these places.

This is not like patrolling on a road.

And so

people will be putting their lives at risk if they go into some of these places.

They are wild for a reason.

They mean you can't handcuff a grizzly bear?

Yeah.

Well, it's like when you see all those people

taking trying to take selfies with bison, which by the way,

don't pet the fluffy cows.

Do that.

Do not

When I worked at Interior, which oversees National Park Service, the amount of times we had to say, do not go up to the giant wild animals was staggering.

And it still is.

I don't think you should have to say that.

I think you, if you're dumb enough that you walk up to a fucking bison, you get what you get.

Natural selection.

Natural selection.

But we got to drag that person out of there in whatever shape they end up in, right?

So like

I agree with like the taking the Darwin Awards approach generally, but you have to think about the first responders.

That's true.

I mean, they could just be a good person.

Especially someone's going to have to go clean up the mess.

We don't want to.

If you leave it long enough, it actually, nobody does have to clean up the mess.

Yellow starters are an important part of the ecosystem.

We should make sure they are well-fed.

I don't think leaving

the aftermath of what happens when you pet a bison on the side of the road is probably a great advertisement to get families to come in.

They used to spend heads on the stakes outside of the castle so you know what happened if you fucked up.

That's true.

Why are we talking about this?

This is like, this is just crime prevention 101.

Did you guys see Hegseth's F-A-F-O thing?

Oh, yeah.

But

we got a shout-out.

We did.

Chris,

let everybody know what is this.

We're recording this on Wednesday for release on Thursday.

On Tuesday, Pete Hegseth gathered all of the generals in the world, not the United States, all of the American generals in the world.

So the greatest national security threat to America created the greatest national security threat to America by putting the entire military chain of command in one fucking room so that he could give them a speech about saying there should be no UGOs in the military.

Yes, don't be like that.

No fantasy thing.

The commander in beef gets no bigger, though.

No biggie.

This guy

who is standing next to the president of the United States,

who has eaten more cheeseburgers than any living person,

is saying he doesn't want anybody with a thicker waistline and he doesn't want people who have shave

exceptions.

So for context, I know a lot of people probably don't.

understand this.

Certain people are allowed to not shave their beards in the military.

It has been a long like cultural fight, but it's stupid.

I, as a white man, am not as likely to get like severe razor burn and acne and ingrown hairs, real like threat, like health threats from shaving.

That is just the way that my facial hair works, right?

Black people tend to, black men tend to have a higher rate of these shaving exceptions.

And this

like conquest against beards, despite all of like the special operators having beards and it generally looking cool, Pete Hegset's version of this is just pure white supremacy.

Like, he just wants to get black people out of the military.

So, do you mean the guy who has tattoos that could be interpreted in a white supremacist way also has an interest in putting in policy that might be interpreted in a white semester, white supremacist way?

I think that would be an accurate uh roundup of course.

I don't know how that works.

Odd.

The irony, of course, being yeah, right.

The irony, of course, being that

our military is about 50, 51%

Black, Asian, and Hispanic men and women.

And our population is only about 35% Black, Asian, and Hispanic men and women.

We need diversity more than ever in the military because it is a volunteer armed forces.

And he is going and attacking it because he wants our military to look like it did, what, 60, 70 70 years ago uh sorry the uh the department of war he wants it to look like it did 60 70 years ago even though all of our population growth is coming from

non-white people can you can you imagine this is just a bad strategy being a four-star general and being lectured by a fox news host and a draft dodger weekend host weekend host weekend host yeah

i i would have walked the out i don't know how well did you see did you see the photos oh yeah they're literally sitting there like this it was dead silent too yeah so they're like that is.

That is the military standard.

They are not allowed to clap or cheer or stand up.

Trump begged them to.

The commander-in-chief begged them to loosen up and laugh and have a good time because he just so badly wanted it to be an authoritarian rally.

And I was actually really speechless dog shit.

Dude, it was so fucking bad.

He was talking about TV shows.

He's rambling.

He decided he was going to speak like three days ago because he found out Hegseth was going to have a bigger micro or bigger spotlight than him and he's like wow so he gets in there for an hour plus long speech that he just makes up on the spot and meanwhile it's like russia knew this was happening like five days ago they're just looking at a building full of generals going nah it's too easy not this time yeah

genius but no he got his he got his like this is our american independence day moment you know the he got his bill pullman speech in there and It's like, you know, we are a body of war.

What did he say?

His closing line that was definitely written by like a Hollywood writer?

And then he looked around.

Hegseth looked around and nobody did anything.

And he was like, he was expecting like, fucking America.

There were so many moments in that speech where he like paused for applause or laughter and nothing happened.

It's almost like he doesn't know that the military isn't the military in a movie or a TV show.

And this gets to like the

stolen valor of our Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.

Like this guy was a reservist major, nothing against people in the reserves, right?

But he has always been like assigned to units or attached to units, not assigned to units.

So that means like I

am

a rich kid who's going to college, joins ROTC because I look at my life as I want to maybe run for Congress one day.

That's the reason that I'm serving.

So I'm serving in the reserves.

I want to make sure that I have a bullet on my resume that says that I went to war.

So I'm going to volunteer for a public affairs role in, say, the green zone, Baghdad, and go spend four months, six months over there.

So I get at least one little stripe on my army uniform indicating I've been there for six months.

And then I go home, right?

That is who Pete Hegseth is.

But Pete Hegseth wants everyone to believe that he's like, you know, somebody from the Hurt Locker or from American Sniper.

Like this guy is the biggest cosplayer in the world.

And

I can't imagine him feeling any way but humiliated to have stood in front of that crowd and been so absent of the real military culture that he realized in the moment that, oh, actually, they're not supposed to clap and they will not break their military bearing for me, the performer.

I think that what happened yesterday probably deeply hurt in his soul because Pete Hegseth is a man with a lot of insecurities and i don't think he will ever get over it so that is the only thing that i am happy about what happened yesterday is i i know that he felt that inside do you think his imposter syndrome was worse before or after that speech

I don't think he had imposter syndrome until after that speech.

So now he's recognizing what so many millions of us deal with every day.

He's like, oh my God, humility.

It feels weird.

So Chris, he's got any of that.

What are you,

I mean, I think I know, but what are you hearing from veterans about this speech and the performance?

So I would love to say that

every veteran in the world roundly rejects it.

But the truth is, is that a plurality of veterans voted for MAGA and a plurality,

not a majority, so not 50% or more, but a big, heavy chunk of veterans are fully down the MAGA pipeline.

Now, while the ICE stuff and the National Guard deployments have not been popular among veterans broadly, even MAGA veterans,

I think that there is a sizable percentage of the veteran population who is 100% like, yeah, no fatties, who are sitting at home, like drinking a beer.

definitely not physically capable of doing the things that they could do when they were ET.

So

with that said, you know, my community, the people who actually

appreciate democracy and understood the oath that we swore, like, we were pretty disgusted by what happened.

They

pulled active, so

I was looking this up yesterday or a couple of days.

Well, yeah, after the speech, because it's like, okay, how is this?

Is this actually going to move the needle?

They pulled active duty.

troops in 2020.

So that's people who are just, you know, actively serving, not

trying to overexplain here, but not all veterans, because yes, veterans are much more heavily Republican.

Donald Trump left office in 2020, 2021 with a 38% approval rating among active duty

men and women, people in service.

And that was when he had actual military people leading the military.

He was still attempting to appoint generals and like real military leaders to be in charge of the military.

So I would ask people to just think, has anything gotten better?

Because people are looking at this and thinking, well, is this, were they going to try to get a loyalty oath?

Are they going to, is he trying to stage the Insurrection Act?

Like, is this the beginning of martial law?

Like, no, no, no, no, no.

And most importantly, I think the reason why for me is

members of the military would have to choose to violate their oath to the Constitution and to the American public in order to, you know, have some sort of new oath to Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth.

And I don't see that in the numbers in the active duty.

There's no way that that 30%, 38% approval rating is better today under Pete Hegseth and all of the shit that they're doing, sending them into American cities than it was among active duty

service members back in 2020.

So I think that's a good sign, but

there's no data.

newer than five years ago.

So we're definitely flying with a lot of assumptions.

Well, and I think, um, you know, I think those poll numbers are gonna

continue to stay down because, as we were talking before, um, we just got uh a jobs report from ADP today that is really, really bad.

Um, I think I'm if I'm reading this collect correctly, the economy lost 32,000 jobs in September, and and the revision for August, uh, as I'm reading this, was goes from 54,000 to negative 3,000.

So that means that

there are 35,000 job losses since

in August and September.

If I'm doing, actually, no, it's way more than that.

It's like 80 something thousand jobs that they took out.

Sorry.

I do this, guys, because math is not my strong suit.

But, you know, is going back to the shutdown for a second, you know, there are some benefits for the Republicans.

to have the government shutdown right now because this is the ADP report, which is the private sector report that the company ADP does.

And what, but what most people are always looking for is the jobs report coming from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that comes on the first Friday of the month.

And they're not going to do it on Friday because there's no way to punch the numbers.

And I think somebody

said before that they also, it's going to be hard for them to collect data.

So this actually kicks the can down the road on those BLS reports.

So they don't have to talk about how, whoops, the economy lost another 80,000 plus jobs under our watch after a tax cut, which was supposed to rain down profit, you know, all like all wonderful things were supposed to happen with these tax cuts.

And you usually get a little bump on those.

And we're not even seeing that this time.

Like we are

economically headed to a bad place.

It's not harder to collect data.

They announced they will not collect data during the shutdown because they don't want to.

And E.J.

Antoni, who was Trump's Heritage Foundation economist, just was withdrawn as the leader of BLS.

So BLS doesn't have a commissioner because he fired the last commissioner because she told the truth.

They don't have a replacement.

There's not even a nominee right now for BLS commissioner.

And the BLS won't release the jobs report on Friday because they don't want to.

They already collected the data.

They just don't want to send the email.

And they aren't going to collect any new data into October until the government reopens, which means the government report for October will be corrupted already because it's October 1st.

And if it continues into November, we'll go through what is reportedly a terrible job season for seasonal hiring, the worst since 2009, without any economic data from the department that traditionally reports the flagship data that guides the global economy when it comes to inflation and job creation.

So really in six, seven months, he's done a really wonderful job and he's earning every point of that economic approval rating that he has, which is like 32% right now.

I mean, the tariffs, the tariffs were always going to be seen, like seemed the worst during holiday season, right?

Because that's when people are spending money.

On Chinese imports stuff, too.

Yep.

More imports, lower price war, like price wars, like everybody's cutting costs so that they're cutting margins, importing as much as possible.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so these guys have all the incentive in the world to hide the reality.

Yeah.

And they're just not going to do it.

Now, the flip side of that also is that then no one is going to, no one in the business world is going to invest in anything or take any chance.

They're not going to do anything and they're just going to hold what they've got, which maybe in the short term helps then instead of them seeing like hundreds of thousands of jobs lost.

But in long term, like that kind of sets up Q1 to be a disaster or potentially a disaster.

So happy holidays, everybody.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Maybe the girls will have to make do with just two dolls instead of $25.

That's what Trump said last time about this bullshit.

Oh, that's right.

He did say that.

What a fucking stupid thing to say.

Of all the people.

It's going to be temporary pain.

That was the doge line.

Man, I'm getting real tired of this temporary pain.

It's not that temporary.

This shit feels pretty consistent.

This just feels like America now.

This is just America.

So long as you're not much money like Trump, then

comparatively, it's not that long.

Just play golf.

Just ride it out on the golf course.

How do we win the shutdown, you guys?

Like, so we picked a political fight, right?

Like, and I don't think you should pick political fights unless you know you can win them.

Um, Chuck Schumer has 27,000 followers on TikTok.

I just checked.

Um, oh my god, that's that's less than all five of us individually and significantly less than our three-plus million reach across our platform.

So

let's just say right now, if we had a say in winning this shutdown political fight, which is what it is, it's a political fight.

We're trying to extract

concessions.

We're trying to rebuild Obamacare that they, that they cut.

If we can't, we at least need to make it look like we fought for Americans, right?

So how do we make it look like that?

That isn't, that isn't how Jeffries and Schumer have done it so far.

In typical Democrat fashion, they took a simple argument and made it complicated.

Like the simple argument is the Republicans are against health care for people who need it and Democrats are for it.

The side arguing for more expensive or the absence of health insurance is winning the fight.

That's how bad Democrats are at messaging.

It's not a hard one to win.

You just got to come out and just say exactly what's happening.

You don't have to do this whole dog and pony show about it.

Be like, they are literally shutting down the government so they don't have to make health care affordable or accessible for 22 million people.

That's it.

I was at a conference in D.C.

yesterday.

It was called Persuasion 2025.

And it was a lot of progressive activists, pollsters, strategists,

politicians.

And pretty much everybody said exactly that.

You know, it was like, look, guys, we are the party that is for Americans have, we believe that healthcare is a right and that everybody has a right to it.

And Republicans are trying to take it away from 15 million Americans.

We are going to hold the line.

until they give.

And I think that's all they have to say.

I think they can also say, we are not going to fund ICE coming into our streets masked and rounding people up.

These are the two things.

These are the things.

And, you know, I just think we miss, like, even with that, like, just as somebody coming from the middle, hearing health care as a right is not the correct approach.

We need to say Republicans are trying to make it more expensive.

It's not about the rights or like trying, because people on our side are going to hear that and go, yes, I like it.

And people on the right are going to have a visceral negative reaction to it.

You need to hit a number, hit something that both sides can look at and go, yeah, I don't want that.

Do you want more expensive health insurance?

no nobody wants that nobody we shouldn't make this a debate on morality it should be a debate on function and if we can pop in and go look they want more expensive health care for people who don't have money that's the argument it's not about whether or not they deserve the health care because that's going to create a whole fucking like essentially a culture war within healthcare it's like that let's get as far away from that as humanly possible right this is about expense that

because they go to well medicaid is for they won't say this out loud unless you just are talking to them on the golf course or in a locker room but medicaid is for for marginalized they won't use that word medicaid is for poor black people right um that's what they say and they'll tell you that and they'll say well those people should go get a job and this makes the work requirement so yes i i totally agree um

entertaining a culture war even though we're right is not the way to to win the political argument.

Luke, you, you were, so we talked about this a little bit in the last episode and we were, we all were like, well, theoretically a shutdown could be used as the right leverage, but none of us had confidence in the Democratic Party leadership to win the fight.

And so I think we kind of all three came down on the side of just don't pick this battle because I don't think we can win this battle.

You wanted a shutdown.

What is the outcome?

So we're not going to litigate that.

What is the outcome that like to you would look like a win?

I mean,

I mean, even if we fucking lose, like, we have to concede.

At at the very least, it looks like you did something.

Yeah.

I mean, the amount of times Chuck Schumer writes a strongly worded letter and then fucking capitulates, nobody feels like he's fucking fighting for them.

Not a single person.

So at the end of the day, if even if we get nothing out of this, at least it looks like we did something.

And I mean, people are looking for that desperately.

Yeah, I think

I've been thinking about this a lot because it's like, well, the shutdown is stupid.

I hate shutdown politics.

I hate this artificial deadline.

And I think most people, like, I think polls show that most people do.

It's like 70, 80% are just like, what the fuck are we talking about here?

So like, you already start out with a bad argument with a shutdown.

But

where I've kind of landed is like, if the Democrats just came out and said the big bullshit bill is trash, the polls show it.

The American people are like two to one against the big bullshit bill.

We are going to go to the mat to try to undo any of it possible because it's shit.

And the American people are instructing us to fight the big bullshit bill.

When they peel back any of that horse shit that they forced on us, we will come to the table and we will vote on whatever they, you know, put in front of us.

I like that.

Yep.

It's

if we make it all about the bill, because the bill is terrible, they have specifically not talked about Obamacare, even though they're repealing Obamacare.

Like that is literally what that bill was, was a partial repeal of Obamacare.

They just didn't say it because it's incredibly unpopular.

We have to take it back to the things like the big bullshit bill is terrible.

Affordable Care Act is popular and that's what we're fighting for.

But are they going to get there?

I mean, they're saying the right words behind closed doors, but are Democrats capable of saying a two-sentence argument that is emotional and charged instead of, well, 17.2 billion people?

Well, there are.

I just, the question is, are they going to be put into positions to be up front?

And I think that is the challenge.

I mean, I think, you know, even Chris Van Hollen, who I heard speak yesterday at this conference,

who most people before the Trump administration kind of, you know, looked at as a sort of a normie Dem,

very good, but, you know, not a rabble raiser or anything.

And then this year, he's actually really stepped up.

He got, he went and visited Abrego Garcia in El Salvador and got basically got him released.

And he basically

said that, like, from a morality perspective, he had to stand up.

And so I think we are looking for other people to also do that.

I mean, there are, there are wonderful people that are on the, on the Democratic side that are good.

And I think the question is, does their voice break through, you know, in explaining the situation, which is if we capitulate, 15 million people are going to lose their health care and costs will go up because they'll go to the emergency rooms, which is incredibly inefficient.

They will get sicker before they go, which is incredibly inefficient.

And I think, Zach, you're right.

I think you have to, you know, you throw a bone to some of the other folks as well.

And it's really like, it's not just about the 15 million, because we obviously also understand that Americans need to know how it's going to hurt them.

Right.

And this will hurt them, whether you are on

insurance through

your

job, because the premiums are going to go nutso in the next few months, like bonkers, because not as many people are on insurance.

So then that raises prices and then it becomes more inefficient and it will hurt everybody.

Unquestionably.

It's going to damage everybody.

And you know, Republicans are losing this argument when they're trying to go, it's illegal immigrants.

Democrats want to save this money for the future.

It's a fucking gibberish argument.

It's the stupidest thing ever.

They don't even qualify for subsidies.

And they're like, well, look over there at the illegal immigrants.

It's them again.

Like, holy shit.

When is this going to run out of fuel?

I want to play by their rules because it's just like how they say that, well, we'll cut all these taxes for billionaires and it'll pay for itself in economic growth.

And it never hasn't, it never will.

And they still say it every single time.

Why can't we just say that?

By giving illegal immigrants free health care, it'll pay for itself 10 times over in economic growth.

Just make up shit and just say whatever we want.

Americans will be safer.

Everyone will be so happy.

We, I mean, this is part of the problem.

Well, but what's way easier.

It's

easier, which is why they do it.

But this is again why we need a left-leaning media operation to blast this.

Republicans have been doing this since Ronald Reagan, where they say taxes are bad.

They are the evil of the earth.

And if you just give rich people a little bit more, and then literally, like

the way they describe it is almost like your money will rain down on you, trickle-down economics, right?

It's not money that rains on you.

Well, yeah.

I mean, here you go.

Here you go.

Vance on television this morning.

There's a lot of emergency health care at hospitals that are provided to illegal aliens.

That was funded by the federal government.

We turned off that funding because, of course, we want American citizens to benefit from those hospital services, not to be taxed, and then have those hospital services go to illegal aliens.

Jesus Christ.

First of all, how does that

brown person to die in the parking lot of the emergency room?

That's exactly what he wants.

Right.

But the doctors.

all take an oath.

Yes.

Right.

Like,

it's not.

It's like you already lost them at oath.

These pricks have taken oaths too.

They don't give a fuck.

I know, but I guess what I'm saying, I'm saying it doesn't work because it's a brown person.

If somebody goes into the, do they really want to create a world where somebody walks into the hospital or the ER and they're turned away?

I mean, I know the answers.

Yes.

But like to be turned away, somebody with like, yes, you know, a broken arm or like, I don't know, an injury on a farm, like all these things, or just every normal day shit.

Like you can say and vilify these people all you want.

It's not actually going to change what happens in the hospitals other than just having more people in the fucking hospital.

I think the thing that we're all missing right now is the democratic

discipline that should be

inspired in this moment is to say, listen, the government is shutting down because Donald Trump wants to protect his pedophile buddies.

Yes.

That's it.

Right.

Like

how Zach said that they always just bring up illegal immigrants.

Like that needs to be the Trump card that Democrats bring out.

Yeah, I like that.

Every time that we get caught in a, in a policy discussion, we know that our policies are better.

That's what the data says and the science says.

We're never going to convince MAGA.

But

one message that does resonate is the government is being shut down because Donald Trump and Mike Johnson are trying to protect a cabal of pedophile billionaires, which five years ago was like a giant conspiracy theory, right?

But we know enough about Jeffrey Epstein and his friends to know that Peter Thiel and Elon Musk and Donald Trump were all like really buddy-buddy with this guy.

And that was after he had already been convicted of pedophilia, right?

Like his relationship with Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and Peter Thiel was not when nobody knew that Jeffrey Epstein was a pedophile.

It was after

it was after he had gotten a sweetheart deal, but still a conviction from a guy who Donald Trump ended up bringing into government and being part of the first Trump administration.

This is the exact thing that I heard yesterday from Sarah Longwell, who works for the Bulwark and is a conservative pollster who does not align with MAGA or Donald Trump.

She literally said that yesterday in front of a bunch of Dems.

It's kind of funny to see this Republican basically like begging us to change course but she was like

say donald trump's protecting his billionaire pedophile friends a billion times over 100 just say it because because it's true yes like two minimum feet they might not be his buddies but they're he's still protecting them but like we know like just say it and i i think this is where there is a disconnect between the older members of congress yes on the democratic side and the younger members yes and i think that the younger members have absolutely no problem doing that because they understand the media.

This is all about media.

Right.

Like, and Sarah made a good point yesterday with the cabinet.

As bonkers as those people are that he picked for his cabinet, they're good on TV.

That's why he was picked them because they can go out and say that crazy shit.

RFK is so insane that he'll sit in front of Congress and lie for three hours about vaccines and Tylenol and all this crap, but he looks good on camera and he's got the and he's got the Kennedy name.

Kenneth looks good on camera.

I mean, I'm going to agree to disagree with you there.

I mean, Trump.

No.

No, I said RFK.

Oh, RFK.

He doesn't look good anywhere.

I'm going to agree to disagree with Mel Gibson.

Sorry, maybe I went too far.

Maybe I went too far.

But my point is, like, you know,

Democrats always pick policy people in those roles, which is smart to implement policy.

But Trump takes people who know shit about nothing.

And actually is fine with the weekend anchor of Fox and Friends being the Secretary of Defense because he looks the part.

He's, you know, and he's, and he's good on TV.

And Democrats just that were like, oh, and the press, we're going to like, and I think there was something that Schumer said this morning that was like, we're going to be everywhere, including the social medias.

Oh, my God.

Tell me.

He didn't.

That's painful.

I mean, look, like,

I understand it for the age that he's at, but

we are in an information war.

No.

Yeah.

I mean, I.

It speaks to two.

Like, I think there's two things every single Democrat running in 26 should do for their campaign.

Two simple things.

One, hire a Republican to be part of your team that puts together how you communicate.

Because that, Sarah, as an example right there, is exactly dead on of like, they understand the ecosystem of how to convince people, even if your message is complete fucking bullshit, they know how to do that.

Have somebody on your team doing that.

And also have an influencer who understands the internet and doesn't call it the social medias and understands how to actually penetrate into an audience as opposed to going like, well, I'll just make a video with bad lighting and say a couple of funny things and it's going to work.

Wait, shut the fuck up.

It's not.

It's my authenticity.

Right.

You need like every single

thing should literally have an arm where their entire thing is just hiring those two roles for every fucking candidate because it would be so beneficial.

I am a firm believer that, and this has happened a little bit, but that people who have come up through digital are the ones that should be campaign managers.

in 2026.

100%.

Especially as we have seen, I'm going to get some heat for this, but like

TV ads are no, not as

you should run them, but they're not as effective as they used to be.

So it's not the ad people that should be at the center.

Field, we have a serious problem with how we engage with people

door knocking because we had an army for Kamala and it didn't fucking matter at all.

And so.

What is the thing that is at the center of all of this?

It's the digital.

It's communications.

It's fundraising.

It's organizing.

People who are smart will do this.

And I want to clarify what's, and maybe we disagree, but clarify with like when having Republicans advising Democratic candidates, I am not referring to that meaning, like, well, you can't call, you know, Gaza a genocide, and you got to, no, I don't know.

But it's the, it's the tactical status, it's not the words.

Because she was not somebody, she's like, look, your best people, she's like making fun of them because she's Republican, but she's like, you know, Gavin Newsom's a performance artist at this point, which I disagree with.

I think he's got both things.

She, but she's saying that, but she's saying it in a positive that, like, put him out front because he's hitting Trump.

Right.

Or Memdani is also like, he's a very different approach because it's a different place, but like, is talking to people

that are there that they represent or hope to represent and they speak like them.

This is what Democrats need to do, but you have to be good at the digital stuff.

Like, I don't want to hear about any candidates that do not understand the difference between TikTok and Instagram ever again.

It's 2025.

Like this stuff spinner, I have done social media since

it started.

Since 2005,

20.

Yeah, it was.

Well, internet's

Al Gore invented the internet.

Well, the series of tubes.

There was a job that was called Webmaster, which I always thought was a cool name.

But, you know, I'd like to be the webmaster.

That was Spider-Man's first name, actually.

Which was basically meant you ran the website.

But we are 20 years into social media.

Like, it is bonkers to me that we.

that there are still leaders who don't, some don't even have a phone.

And two, many of them do not make time for digital they'll record ads they'll call fun for fundraising during call time and they won't do anything else and it has to change or we're just never going to get through this i mean and the ads are terrible too like that's because i because i come from a marketing background and every like even during the election like i agree tv ads aren't what they used to be but trump's tv ads fucking bang dude those were incredible tv ads and kamala's tv ads were fucking trash they were the most put me to sleep it's gonna be fine kind of fucking ads like dude wake up and smell the reality.

Punch.

She just refused.

And it's like the beads everywhere with that.

The Conda Forever TV ad that Kamala did might have been the worst one.

Oh, dude.

That was a bad one.

Did you see that?

That was a moment where I was like, yeah.

Awful.

Just awful.

I mean,

I see it every once in a while where there's like cringe compilations of U.S.

politics.

And it is overwhelmingly Democrats.

Overwhelmingly Dr.

David.

So part of the problem is that Democrats, and I can't believe this is somebody who is a big data person, but Democrats have over-relied on testing and data and focus groups.

Because the problem with the focus groups, and for those who don't know, generally speaking, they run, they'll make an ad, they get people in to watch them and then they gauge their reactions, both positive and negative.

They try to bring Democrats and Republicans.

Generally, a lot of them, I think, get paid to come in because it's.

But the challenge, the thing that we need to get away from, though, is that when you're sitting and watching an ad, first of all, you're self-selected that you showed up to this thing in the first place.

Second of all, there are no distractions.

You are there to look at the TV ad or whatever ad it is.

That's not how people consume media.

And

to be honest, most of the ads people don't even pay attention to because the second there's an ad, anybody under 45 pulls out their phone and doesn't even look.

Yep.

Right.

Yep.

And so, how are but the Trump ones

were first of all, they were transphobic and racist and

awful in content, but well done.

But but But

they hit a very like a big point that he wanted to make.

Also, it got people talking online because everybody was like, and we helped to elevate it.

It's saying, look at this dog shit, transphobic ad.

That was the most effective ad in 2024 by a mile.

Hands down.

By far.

And that's why we all saw it 400 million times.

Right.

I don't even have it in TV.

Even in New York.

Even in New York, I saw it.

I'm in a swing state.

I saw it.

Like, it was the only thing on TV.

That's all it was.

Every football game, I watched more ads for Donald Trump than football.

It was painful.

Right.

You know, you know what I want to see Democrats do?

And it could be social.

I mean, it needs to be done transparently, but

I want to see Democrat leaders, Democratic leaders put some of this back on voters because voters took all control from Democrats.

If you don't like what is happening right now, stop fucking voting for Republicans.

Like that's step one.

Step two is, well, if you're going to give Democrats nothing other than the filibuster to shut down government, understand that the reason why Democrats are where they're at, the reason why they're doing what they're doing, is because that's where they were put.

And this is the only lever we have.

I would go to the Republicans.

I would take a mic, you know, get a podium and say,

they need our votes to pass a budget.

They knew that they would need our votes to pass a budget.

They've known this for 50 years because of the filibuster.

They know how to get our votes.

And that's by repealing some of the big bullshit bill because that's what Americans want.

Until then, until they're ready to do that, they know where we're at.

And if they just walked away and said, this is our, we got our one little lever and that's the lever we're going to pull because it matters.

Say that into a fucking camera, say that into a smartphone instead of into a press release that then gets like distributed to like politico people.

And I think they would find it's significantly more effective.

Because whether it's Gavin Newsom or Mom Danny, I don't think we'd accuse them of being on the same page politically, but they're both picking fights and they're both winning.

And so, if you just pick a fight and you deliver a clear message, you can still win.

Yeah,

I mean, we, you know,

in the absence of leadership, people will follow leadership that's bad, right?

And right now, Democrats are not standing.

I mean, there's their stands.

I shouldn't lump them all in, but the strategy doesn't feel very

angry.

Like, no, this is a big deal.

Like, what the Republicans are doing is going to ruin lives and cause people to die because they don't get preventative care or they don't like go to the doctor.

Like this is bad.

And like, you know, standing up there and saying like, well, we won't back down.

I'm like, I want, I want anger.

I want you to, I want you to channel what not only the base feels like, but like the country as a whole, Rich, as you said, his numbers.

are atrocious across the board like in the high 30s which you really have to suck and try to suck to get to that level.

Yeah.

In your first year of a term, too.

Yeah.

Right.

When there's all real bad.

Yeah.

I mean, he didn't have any of that hangover effect from the election because he went straight trash from day one.

But

we just need to stand up and fight.

I saw some members of Congress talking yesterday who can do that.

I'm hoping and I'm hopeful that those ones are going to take matters into their own hands and go to their constituents because, you know,

there does not seem to be a real rallying cry from Democrats about this right now.

They're standing up.

They're standing for the right things and I support them 100%, but like, I need some more anger.

I think what we need to see is for the people who are not capable of messaging for this moment to just fucking step aside.

Like, hey,

we have people that are capable.

One of the most like overplayed jokes, but absolutely fucking true on the Hill in Washington, D.C.

is you never want to stand between a microphone and Schumer.

Like you will get run over.

That needs to end.

Like his staff needs to sit down with him and just say, your time communicating in front of a microphone and filibustering for 20 minutes at a press conference is over.

Give it to the young people.

AOC lives right in your state.

Just put her on the microphone because she is going to communicate in a much more effective way than Schumer ever could.

And like the anger that you want to see, Tim, that is the way that we're going to get it.

We can't get the fake anger from people who've been in Washington for 50 years.

People don't have anger.

It makes their blood pressure go up.

They're not touched by any of this stuff, right?

Like all of the people who are millionaires in Congress are not actually going to be affected by any of this.

And even if they're empathetic, like it's not going to touch them.

When AOC came to Congress a few years ago, like she couldn't afford rent in D.C.

This stuff is still very visceral to her.

And that is why, that is one of many reasons that Schumer's never going to be able to communicate like she can.

So he just needs to get out of the out of the way.

I don't even know if that's true, but I think his time is gone.

His time

communicating like her is gone.

He's insulated.

He doesn't remember what it's like to be like that.

He's never going to have the same oomph.

Well, guys,

do you know what I want right now?

Schumer to come on the show.

Some Find Out merch.

A good pivot.

A new hoodie.

Schumer is, we've talked to him.

He's welcome to come on.

Rich, what are you wearing?

That's pretty funny.

I have a watch.

I'm wearing my wedding ring.

I have shorts on.

What's that yellow?

That's a very nice hoodie that you've got there.

I peed myself.

It looks comfortable.

Oh,

this yellow.

Sorry.

Sometimes these episodes go long and, you know, it's too much comfort.

I can't get up.

Yeah, you know, it's it's really soft.

My friends just bought like a pile of them,

our most loyal fans.

They are amazing.

And they just sent me a picture with like eight different things strewn across their bed, and then followed by many selfies wearing all of the things.

So I love it.

Did they order right before the new hoodies came online, though?

I think they might have.

I think they might have.

I'll tell them they need to order a second batch.

Maybe we can get them like 3%.

I don't know if we have told folks that we have new hoodies yet.

Oh, that's right.

We haven't.

I don't think because they just, they are in the store.

And one of them has

this.

to find out faces our most popular gear which is still very weird to me that people are wearing my face

i just choose to walk out

someone someone took a photo and sent it to us of them using working out in the gym with it which i thought was cool which was really cool

um so yes there is now the tree uh the tree logo or design and the faces are now uh on sweatshirts which they are super comfortable actually it is cool in new york today i actually wore it outside this morning it is lovely They're all lovely.

And you can get those plus shirts, stickers.

People buy the stickers, by the way.

We get lots of people buying the stickers, which I didn't think would sell.

I think technically we're paying people to buy the stickers because they set the price so low.

But I'm not going to change it.

I want more people to have our hair together.

Get your stickers now, guys, before we change our minds.

They're all union printed.

And they all, everything is made in America.

Unlike Donald Trump, who, if you go to his online store, I think a lot of that stuff's made in China, or at least it used to be.

We live our values here.

So, you know,

wear our stuff proudly.

I'm still waiting for the moment that I see

somebody in real life wearing one.

And I'm not sure what I'm going to do because I'll probably scare the shit out of them by like being like, no shirt.

They'll be like, who the hell are you?

Be like, I'm the clown on the floor.

Yeah,

and I'm not wearing my glasses.

So you probably can't tell.

But yeah, there's all that.

And look, like we talk about needing democratic messaging to step up and organizations on the left to step up.

And that's part of why we're doing this show.

And by wearing the merch or buying the merch, you're helping to support us, get to in front of more people, develop more shows.

We're talking about building an online community for everybody.

Buying that stuff really helps us.

And also being a subscriber on Substack helps us as well for the low price of $6 a month.

So you can go to findoutpodcast.substack.com for that.

And the merch is findoutpodcast.com.

Rich, you look like you want to say something something desperately.

I just, well, I had a weird realization.

You're talking about our faces being on clothes at the gym.

And I realized like the Republican caricature is exactly right.

All I ever wanted was my face on the chest of a sweaty man, it turns out.

I didn't know it was a man.

Women go to the gym.

It's true.

The photo I saw was a,

they did not show their face, but it appeared to be.

a man that was in pretty good shape because we keep being told well right we originally were going to call this the soy boys boys because that's what the that was the right

thing that was

there's still time there's still time we can set it

maybe we can create a new a new show

help us help us get all five of our faces on the chest of a of a sweaty warm man just about to go into the uh what is the steam room into the steam

whatever we want to be we want to be part of that whole journey um and it can't happen unless everyone buys our clothes that's right that's right is that the pitch that's a good pitch

i mean i think i think we're going to be sold out tomorrow.

We're getting into the holiday season.

Yep.

Hanukkah's right around the corner, guys.

It's coming.

Yep.

Yep.

This is a Thanksgiving dinner table conversation starter, and it's also a conversation stopper.

So it actually works both.

It works both ways.

It works both ways.

You know, if you sit next to

your drunk uncle who's screaming about MAGA, maybe you shouldn't wear that, or maybe you should.

It's totally up to you.

Can we get

Pete Hegseth saying

F-A-F-O?

Can we put that somewhere on our website just so people

really know where it's going?

You guys have seen those man wipes, the wipes that men put, the flushable wipes men put next to the toilet.

Food wipes.

We could get, I didn't want to say the brand name, Luke.

Oops.

Free F.

That's what I'm supposed to do.

We could get Pete Hugseth's face on those and then sell Fafo man wipes.

You know where I can put the audio.

Where?

Oh no.

It's not working.

Don't do it.

Oh no.

Oh shit.

Fuck.

In my audio toolbox on this platform.

Boy, I screwed that up royally.

I screwed up.

You really fucked it.

Yeah.

I think

after trying to make the same joke eight times in a row, I would have figured out how to use the tools, but I have you.

No one's still listening to us at this point.

You use those tools like Chuck Schumer uses TikTok.

Damn Damn,

I was going to say,

that is the perfect time to end.

Everybody, hang in there.

We know this is not the easiest time.

Thank you for joining us.

Hopefully, we made you laugh a little bit about the completely absurd world we live in right now.

We will be back next week.

Have a great weekend, and we'll talk to you soon.