123. The Shutdown Cover-Up: Epstein, Trump, and the Hidden Agenda

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Speaker 2 I've been promoted. I'm bringing us in.
Welcome to the Rest is Politics US with Anthony Scaramucci.

Speaker 1 And Katie Kaye. Feeling a little under the weather.
Not that that's why you've been promoted. You've been promoted because you're so good at what you do.

Speaker 2 Soon to be demoted again as I rumble through this. But Katy, here's what we're going to talk about, okay? We're going to talk about the trade war.

Speaker 2 Trump is on tour in Asia, kicking off with Malaysia. He's going to meet with Chinese President Xi later in the week.
Things are getting ugly with Canada.

Speaker 2 I don't know if we're allowed to use butt-hurt on this podcast, but let's just use the words butt and hurt together because that is the president right now.

Speaker 2 Never have truer words been been spoken about tariffs from Ronald Reagan. And of course, they are playing those ads all throughout the American World Series, the baseball World Series.

Speaker 2 And so he's got tariffs. We're shut down.
We're not going to be talking to Canada for a while. And there is the indomitable Mark Carney.

Speaker 1 Indo what? Say that again?

Speaker 2 Did I say it right? Indomitable?

Speaker 1 Close enough. Indomitable.

Speaker 2 Indomitable. All right.
Look, you're going to help me with my language, okay? Last week, you blew me up. My wife has bought Caddy a shirt.

Speaker 2 I'm with stupid as a result that's going to be my halloween costume as as a result of me misusing the word randy if you didn't hear that you can go back to last week's podcast where i i'm glad deir enjoyed it fully embarrassed myself but here we are we're back uh we're going to talk about the government's shutdown in the second half the problems there

Speaker 2 caddy let's go right into it here for a second trump is in asia He's got a tremendous amount of energy. You've got to give him credit for that.
He's 80 years old. Comes off the plane.

Speaker 2 He's doing his little little YMCA dance as he gets into Malaysia. He's signing some small trade deals.
He got a deal done with Albanese, which we didn't talk about, which I think we should.

Speaker 2 It's a mineral rights deal. It's a very smart thing for the Australian government to go in prepared as they were.
Here's the deal, Mr. President.
It's going to make you look good.

Speaker 2 We're going to sign this thing, and it's going to give you rare earth minerals into the U.S. economy away from China.
So he's got a couple of wins he's

Speaker 2 clicking with right now. But where do you think things stand for Trump in Asia? And how do you think it's going to go with President Xi?

Speaker 1 Look, it's interesting that you look at the cover of The Economist from last week, which has two basketball players, and the cover is that China is winning the tariff war.

Speaker 1 It's the Chinese player that is about to score and not the American player.

Speaker 1 And I think the White House has realized that the Chinese have cards and know they have cards and are prepared to pay those cards.

Speaker 1 So every time Donald Trump ratchets up tensions with the Chinese, he very quickly rows them back again.

Speaker 1 So when the Chinese said that they were going to limit exports of rare earth minerals, which is part of the reason he did this deal with the Australians, by the way, and it was so smart, because the Australians do have some rare earth minerals, but the country with the big amount of rare earth minerals is China.

Speaker 1 China has them. They know they could grind the American economy to a halt if they really did did limit exports, because they are needed in everything from our washing machines to our missiles.

Speaker 1 And then the Americans say, the White House says, okay, we're going to put 100% tariffs on China. And within a couple of days, Rose back again.

Speaker 1 And now you have Scott Besant coming out saying, okay, we've got a good framework for a deal. There aren't going to be limits to mineral exports.

Speaker 1 There aren't going to be 100% American tariffs on Chinese products.

Speaker 1 But the sense we've had ever since Liberation Day is that the one country in the world that knows it has cards and is prepared to play those cards against America is China.

Speaker 1 And they've done a good job diversifying their economy. They've set up other markets.

Speaker 1 They've realized they're in a strong position. And they know that the markets react badly when the White House threatens to hit China.

Speaker 1 So I think there's a whole load of reasons that Donald Trump goes into this meeting with President Xi this week, which will be a kind of historic meeting, as a partner, not as the stronger character that he is in all of these other trade negotiations.

Speaker 1 And that's an unusual position for Donald Trump to be in, right? I mean, tariffs for Trump are power. This isn't really a tariff war.
It's a power war.

Speaker 1 And if you frame it like that, China is an equal. player in this power war.

Speaker 2 I'm going to bounce a few things off of you. First of all, I think Xi is way more prepared for Trump II this time than he was for Trump 1.
Number one, he anticipated all this and he's parried well.

Speaker 2 I think that there's two things going on that I'd like to analyze. One is U.S.
consumer market, largest consumer market in the world.

Speaker 2 Chinese manufacturing market, largest supply chain manufacturing market in the world. Ergo, these two countries need each other.

Speaker 2 They need each other like you and I need oxygen. So the real question is, they really can't can't avoid doing some type of deal without harming each other's economies.

Speaker 2 But my question to you is really related to the underlying surface cracks in China. So as an economic analyst, again, I'm not a China hawk.

Speaker 2 There are China hawks in America that would say, hey, the real estate market is crumbling there. There's lots of zombie buildings all over China.

Speaker 2 The seven provinces of China are balkanizing to an extent. Xi has to make concessions from the Chinese Communist Party to keep this sort of balkanizing from happening further.

Speaker 2 And so there's underlying surface cracks in the Chinese economy where he needs to do a deal with Donald Trump.

Speaker 1 Two things can be true at once, right? Yes. Yes.

Speaker 1 Of course, there can be problems within China in terms of debt, the housing market, unemployment, and unhappy youth.

Speaker 1 But at the same time, China can have spent four years preparing for Donald Trump 2.0 and be in a stronger position than they were four years ago and have things that the Americans need.

Speaker 1 And Xi is patient. He's playing the long game.
This is a guy who survived the Cultural Revolution. I mean, he spent time in a cave during the Cultural Revolution.

Speaker 1 He was pilloried on stage by his classmates and his own mother. He's pretty resilient.
This is not somebody who caves easily.

Speaker 2 Look, I have an enormous amount of respect for him. He's done a great job.

Speaker 2 If you are an authoritarian listening, he's done a great job of consolidating. He's a guy.
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 There's a lot of authoritarians in the audience. We would like to propose somebody for you.

Speaker 2 Yeah, no, he knows how to consolidate power.

Speaker 2 There's a lot of authoritarians listening. Yeah, we do.

Speaker 2 I don't know, Caddy. You know, I don't know.

Speaker 2 There could be some authoritarians on.

Speaker 1 He sweet his own, right?

Speaker 2 There could be some authoritarians on this podcast, okay? If I if you if you if you see me if you're on YouTube and you see me mouthing help, you know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 2 But anyway, he has quieted dissent, and he has definitely put to bed issues of him not going anywhere. I mean, he's going to be the premier.

Speaker 2 I mean, I think it would have to be something very difficult.

Speaker 2 I'm always careful about saying that, though, Caddy, because the CIA said that the Shah, about three months before he was deposed, he said, we're in a permanent state of

Speaker 2 political tranquility in Iran. So I don't want to overstate that.

Speaker 1 In that meeting with Putin and Kim Jong-un, they were talking about living to 100 and whatever.

Speaker 2 And replacing their own body parts.

Speaker 1 I don't buy that necessarily. He's an old guy.
At some point, he's going to move on. But I think the phrase authoritarians like to use is he has effectively consolidated power at home.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and quieted dissent. But

Speaker 2 let's go to TikTok for a second.

Speaker 1 I wish I could do that on this podcast.

Speaker 2 You're doing that. Trust me, you're doing that.
I was like a rag doll last week. I was just getting slammed around like a ragdoll.
It's fine. But anyway, TikTok.
I don't see TikTok

Speaker 2 going into the hands of the U.S. government.
I don't see TikTok's ownership. There's no way that the Chinese government is going to give their algorithm this weapons-grade

Speaker 2 intelligence gathering, this weapons-grade propaganda device, where now white males below the age of 30, 25% of them believe that the moon landing was faked.

Speaker 2 You remember those screeds on TikTok last year praising Osama bin Laden,

Speaker 2 which people took to in the United States quite favorably. This is weapons-grade intelligence algorithms.
This is weapons-grade propaganda algorithms.

Speaker 2 This was supposed to be shut down by the legislature in the United States, the Congress, and the Supreme Court. Trump blocked that.
It's still going.

Speaker 1 Is that illegal, what he did, by the way?

Speaker 1 Because when I talk to lawyers, the one thing they point to is the fact that TikTok is still operating in the States as a sign that Donald Trump is in defiance of the law.

Speaker 2 Yeah, well, no, of course it's illegal. Yeah, no,

Speaker 2 he was ordered by the Supreme Court to shut it down, but nobody has pressed the case. No one has gone to a U.S.
Marshal and said, here is a court order.

Speaker 2 I'm suing on behalf of the people of the United States pursuant to this Supreme Court decree.

Speaker 2 Trump has the seven, the MAG seven tech companies companies in his pocket. They line up behind his family members at his inauguration.

Speaker 2 They're giving him all different types of money. They're helping him desecrate the White House and build this ballroom that's larger than the White House itself.

Speaker 2 And so they're all in cahoots with him. They're not going to do anything to him.
And no one's pressed the case.

Speaker 2 And of course, there's a lone wolf Republican in the Senate, Ram Paul, who's being eviscerated by Trump. He's being left out of all the reindeer games, Caddy.
But he's the only one speaking up.

Speaker 2 He's the only one truth to power. Here's what the Constitution says.
Trump is way outside the boundaries of the Constitution.

Speaker 2 But you tell me. So you think Besant said on Face the Nation this weekend, the TikTok teal is done.
It's just a formality now.

Speaker 2 So the Chinese government, the People's Liberation Army, is giving up this weapons-grade

Speaker 2 algorithmic technology to the American government. No problem.

Speaker 1 You think that? So, no. Besomp went on and said that it was, I don't know why he used this word, but anyway, he said the deal was about to be consummated and that the details had all been ironed out.

Speaker 1 But what he didn't do was get into the specifics of what had been settled and whether there had been substantial changes in the deal.

Speaker 1 I find it very hard to see the Chinese giving up something that is enormously useful to them. I mean, we don't have the evidence that the Chinese have weaponized TikTok,

Speaker 1 but it is an incredibly powerful weapon that they have over young American public opinion if they choose to use it.

Speaker 1 So why wouldn't they want to hang on to the algorithm, which is what it looked like was originally going to happen? Whatever Scott Besant said, I'm not sure I see this deal getting done.

Speaker 1 Maybe they'll pull something out of the hat, but I don't see it being getting done in a way that the Chinese relinquish something that both gathers enormous amounts of data on Americans for use by the Chinese government and also gives the Chinese government, should it so wish, an extraordinarily powerful way to influence American public opinion.

Speaker 2 Something is happening right now, though, Caddy, that I'd like you to address. Because when I look at the raw data, the Chinese

Speaker 2 we used to talk about this before the global financial crisis, that there was going to be a decoupling. That never happened.
If the U.S. caught cold, the rest of the world got pneumonia.

Speaker 2 But the Chinese right now, their year-over-year shipments to the United States have fallen by 27%,

Speaker 2 yet their exports have risen 8.3%.

Speaker 1 When I said to you that they had done, they have figured out how to have alternative trade routes and trade markets, that's what they've been doing.

Speaker 1 So they actually are managing to diversify their markets. Yes, they still need the American market.

Speaker 1 But by the way, the American producers, clearly, in the form of American farmers who produce soybeans, need the Chinese market as well.

Speaker 1 And when the Chinese say they're not going to import any soybeans and don't import any soybeans, it hits Donald Trump's base, which is why that's an important part of this trade deal that needs resolving as well.

Speaker 2 Well, you got a depression. You got to honestly down 35%

Speaker 2 in terms of the farm.

Speaker 2 revenues, farming revenues, down 35% across the farmland. That's huge.

Speaker 1 And those are Trump voters. Yeah, Yeah, you have a mini.

Speaker 2 Many of them are Trump voters. You have a mini depression going on across the farmland because of the pressure.

Speaker 1 I think the trade war has made Xi more popular at home and stronger at home. Trump bullying him has helped him, as it does in many cases.

Speaker 1 When an adversary lays into you, you rally around the flag, which is what Chinese seem to be doing, according to what...

Speaker 1 I mean, it's hard to measure public opinion fairly in China, but that's what Chinese experts are saying.

Speaker 1 And I think this is a pause in tension, not a a resolution.

Speaker 2 To finish off on China in a war of attrition, they are going to win that war. The Americans don't have the patience for that war.
And the Chinese, no problem. They know how to suffer if necessary.

Speaker 2 So I got them. They take the long game.
Yeah, I got them edged up. They have slight upper hand to Trump right now.

Speaker 1 Should we move on to the real national security threat, though, facing the United States? I mean, there is a massive national security threat coming at America from its northern border.

Speaker 1 And that national security threat is Ronald Reagan.

Speaker 1 And I think it's going to be a little hard for Donald Trump to go to the Supreme Court and say, I have to have the right to subvert Congress, go round Congress. I have to have the power.

Speaker 1 I, me, Donald Trump has to have the power because there is a national emergency threat to the United States. And it comes in the form of Ronald Reagan's words being used in a Canadian ad.

Speaker 1 I don't know. I'm not sure that even this Supreme Court is going to buy that argument.
Explain what's going on, Anthony. I'm

Speaker 1 being a little opaque.

Speaker 2 Premier Ford, basically, of Ontario, he basically launched this ad or just took the words of Ronald Reagan.

Speaker 2 It was interesting that the Reagan Library reprimanded him for it because he left a few sentences out. But the whole gist of what he said was there.

Speaker 2 Reagan had learned from the depression that high protectionism and high tariffs cripple the U.S. economy, cripples the global economy.
And Reagan was, by and large, a free trader.

Speaker 2 Now, I have said on this program that no trade is free, Caddy.

Speaker 2 And so we have to understand that there's always going to be economic interests of different parties where they're going to ratchet some levies on each other.

Speaker 2 But we have to generally have free trade if we're going to promote what the great economist David Ricardo once said about the world, is that we can't, in our own nations, produce at the lowest cost everything.

Speaker 2 But if we can find the other nations that can produce at the lowest cost and trade with them, then we create this win-win and way more economic bounty, way more economic prosperity.

Speaker 2 That was Reagan's whole philosophy. So now the Ontario government is out there saying what Ronald Reagan would say, and I'll use the exact quote.

Speaker 2 Tariffs hurt every American. And they took, of course,

Speaker 2 Reagan had this very famous thing that the presidents don't do anymore. Trump doesn't do it.
He had a radio address every Saturday morning. And so he would record it on Friday night.

Speaker 2 And it was a five or six minute philosophical radio address. This is what the government of Ontario took.
And Trump went crazy.

Speaker 2 Trump said that this is a fraud, that this is a lie, and Reagan was a protectionist and all this other stuff.

Speaker 2 What is true, like every president, Reagan did go through trade agreements and say, well, I've got to protect our steel manufacturers here or auto manufacturers there.

Speaker 1 He used tariffs as a scalpel, right? Exactly. He was horrendous about it.

Speaker 1 Yes, surgically about it. He didn't like them.
He didn't like the impact of them. He used them surgically.
Trump likes tariffs because they are unchecked power.

Speaker 1 Because he doesn't have to go to Congress, because he believes he can put tariffs on his adversaries,

Speaker 1 even on his allies, to get what he wants. But he likes them as a form of wielding power in the way that he likes pardons.
He likes pardons because he doesn't have to go through Congress.

Speaker 1 He likes tariffs because he believes he doesn't have to go through Congress.

Speaker 1 And at the moment, the Supreme Court, which is going to hear this case and rule on whether this use of tariffs as a tool of national security is legal or not legal, at the moment the Supreme Court is kind of sitting on its hands, which is allowing Trump to use tariffs in this way as an extension of foreign policy, which is something that Reagan didn't do.

Speaker 1 He didn't use them as a way to hammer adversaries or allies into doing his will as a form of foreign policy.

Speaker 1 And I think that by having the hissy fit, frankly, that Donald Trump had over the weekend about this ad that came out of Ontario that played at the World Series in Toronto in the baseball game, I think he makes it harder for the Supreme Court to side with him.

Speaker 1 Because it's so clearly not

Speaker 1 slapping an extra 10% tariffs on Canada because of this ad and linking them to this ad in his Truth Social Post

Speaker 1 is so clearly not an issue of national security.

Speaker 2 So I'm with you, and I think it's a fairly clear-cut case.

Speaker 2 If you look at the district court, the president lost in the district court related to the tariffs, the appellate court said, no, no national security reason. These are actually tax levies.

Speaker 2 These are tax increases on the American public. Of course,

Speaker 2 no taxation without representation. And so, I mean, the Constitution is all very clear.
Ram Paul has made this very clear. But I want to empathize with the president for a second, if that's possible.

Speaker 2 And I want to say that he sees this as a leverageable tool against everybody. That would be our allies and our adversaries.

Speaker 2 He also believes that these sort of punitive tariff measures have incentivized people to do things that he wants. And so before the court will be, does the president deserve some flexibility?

Speaker 2 Here's the law. It's black and white in the law.
But now here's the reality of the world. Does the president deserve some flexibility? What do you think, Caddy?

Speaker 1 You and I have talked about this before, and I actually have spoken to a few constitutional lawyers who think this court will side with Donald Trump on this.

Speaker 1 This is a court that believes that the executive, the president,

Speaker 1 actually does deserve a large amount of latitude when it comes to issues of national security and presidential authority. And it's a court that likes the expansion of executive power.

Speaker 1 So my feeling has been that this court probably will side with Donald Trump on tariffs.

Speaker 1 But I think this kind of thing,

Speaker 1 reacting to an ad of Ronald Reagan's words, doesn't make the court's job easier. It doesn't make it easier for the Trump presidency to side with him.

Speaker 2 So I asked my

Speaker 2 former colleagues, and some of these people are still, I consider friends, even though we're ideologically opposed. I've asked some of the people in the MAGA world,

Speaker 2 what is the be in President Trump's bonnet related to Canada? And, okay, you ready? Okay, he believes that the Canadians have gotten a quote-unquote North American free ride on our military.

Speaker 2 That's what he believes. He believes U.S.
taxpayer is subsidizing Canada. Now, he uses $200 billion, which I think is a wildly exaggerated number.
But the question really is,

Speaker 2 is there a number, Caddy? And I believe there is a number of subsidy.

Speaker 2 from the American military in the sense that if anything happened in North America, the American military would be there to protect both nations. So

Speaker 2 what do you say about Trump's claim to this?

Speaker 1 I would probably remind him that Canadians fought in Afghanistan. 165 Canadians died during Canada's mission to Afghanistan.

Speaker 1 And as far as I remember, the attacks of 9-11 were against the United States, not against Canada. And that in times of need, Canadians have stood with Americans.

Speaker 2 I think that's well said, and I think that is a very, very good position. And that's obviously Carney's position.

Speaker 2 But you're not going to move Trump on this.

Speaker 2 You're not going to move Trump on this unless you get into the middle here. And this is where I think Carney is going to do a good job.
I do believe that,

Speaker 2 you know, listen, the Canadian government said, okay, no problem. We're going to apologize for the ad.
Trump said, hey, you apologize too late. I'm such a baby saying that, but that's fine.

Speaker 2 But I do think Carney will find a way to meet him in the middle. But I will say this.
I think the relationship between the U.S. and Canada could be generationally changed.

Speaker 2 Just hear me out for a second, Caddy. If I were a prime minister in Canada, I'd be like, hmm, the Americans, are they really doing this?

Speaker 2 I mean, we had this great cohesive relationship for 100-plus years. I've got to build trading relationships.
I've got to build free trade relationships with other parts of the world.

Speaker 2 I've got to do exactly what China has been doing, which is working the rest of the world for my goods and services, products, raw materials, rare earth materials, et cetera, and be less reliant on the once very dependable United States.

Speaker 2 Am I wrong in thinking that, Caddy?

Speaker 1 Yeah, no, I think that's right. And I think that's what the Canadians are doing.
They are talking to the Europeans.

Speaker 1 They're trying to diversify their supply chains from the United States to get them instead from Europe, to get more from Europe of the supplies they need, and do what the Chinese are doing, diversify their markets as well.

Speaker 1 So I think they're trying to do that but the reality is they share this incredibly long border with the united states they of all countries really need that trading relationship to go well and i mean the the thing is the premier ford of ontario understood how to get under donald trump's skin donald trump moved a massive portrait of ronald reagen from the hallways into the oval office if you look at shots of writ of trump in the oval office reagan is kind of looming over his shoulder every time he likes to be compared favorably to Reagan.

Speaker 1 He hated the idea that he and Reagan were not, you know, aligned on the policy of tariffs. And it just showed how easy it is.
It's so personal with Trump.

Speaker 1 And that makes it easy for America's adversaries to get under his skin in a way that is not particularly normal with American presidents who...

Speaker 1 who tend to be a little bit more dispassionate about these things.

Speaker 1 So maybe now what they have to do is run an ad favorably comparing Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump or something. I don't know.

Speaker 1 It's kind of easy to play him because you can play him either way. So let's go for the flattery next time around.

Speaker 2 It's sort of insane that we're saying it that way. But again, if you said to me, who has the upper hand, China has a slight advantage right now over

Speaker 2 the U.S. just in terms of its ability to win the war of attrition and also the diversity of their exports now.

Speaker 2 And believe it or not, Caddy, I actually think despite the difference in the size of the economies, economies, Canada has economically a slight advantage. And Carney does know this.

Speaker 2 And so just if you took the land mass of Canada, land mass of the United States, and you dialed into the balance sheet and you said, okay, here is the worth of the minerals.

Speaker 2 Here's the worth of the oil. Here's the worth of the aluminum, et cetera, in each of the countries.
On a per capita basis, Canada has more per capita than the U.S.

Speaker 2 because it has more or less similar size land mass with 10% of the population.

Speaker 2 So weirdly, I think Canada has a slight advantage as it relates to also energy exports and as it relates to electricity going into places like Southern California, all coming from Western Canada.

Speaker 1 But do you think poking the White House bear is the way to leverage those advantages? Or would you advise them to now run a nice ad comparing Donald Trump to Ronald Reagan favorably?

Speaker 2 When you're telling the truth about something in a world right now that's loaded with mistruths and disinformation, where do you actually really want to go?

Speaker 2 Okay, Premier Ford is basically telling you, hey, man, you're in the Republican Party, and here is one of the elder statesmen 40 years ago telling you how bad this is for your society.

Speaker 2 I don't want to bore people on this program with the economic data, but I could show slide after slide where the American consumer has really been hurt by these tariffs.

Speaker 2 I could show slide after slide where the American corporations on the margin, less factory and equipment capital allocations, less incremental employees because of the tariffs.

Speaker 1 And it's about to get worse, not better.

Speaker 2 Let me push back on my own argument. Oh, the economy is doing quite well, and the inflation is really not that bad.
Yes, but it could be doing so much better.

Speaker 2 He inherited a much faster-growing economy from the Biden administration than the economy is growing right now. And again, it's because of the tariffs, Caddy.
And so we're in this dilemma.

Speaker 2 I will tell you, in my mind, as a business person looking at this, he's done irreparable damage to the Canada-U.S. relationship.

Speaker 2 There can't be a young politician in the Canadian government somewhere that's eventually going to be the prime minister that says, okay, you know, everything's fine with our relationship with the United States.

Speaker 2 They've got to be looking around saying, okay, we're going to push our exports into other countries, which is actually going to make those exports more expensive for Americans.

Speaker 2 And so I just think it's a really stupid way to go about things. But Trump thinks he's a genius, and Trump's going to run for a third term, apparently, according to Steve Bannon.

Speaker 2 And if you look at real clear politics, Trump's blended number is 45%. That's probably the highest he's ever been at, believe it or not.

Speaker 2 People have said he's got a 37% approval rating, but go look at Real Clear Politics. So Trump wants to run again.
We'll see, Caddy.

Speaker 1 And if you would like to know more about what Reagan actually thought about... tariffs and national security, we of course did a series on Reagan for our founding members.

Speaker 1 You can find the series if you join up and become a founding member at the restispoliticsus.com.

Speaker 2 We're going to go to the break, and when we come back, we're going to talk about the shutdown, the implications for the American citizens, but also how the Epstein files are linked to the shutdown.

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Speaker 1 Welcome back to The Rest is Politics US and day 27 of the American government being shut down for business, which puts us close to the record. The record is 35 days.

Speaker 1 That was in 2018 of the American government being shut down for business. So it looks like we are going to break a record because there is no sense of resolution.

Speaker 1 I've spoken to Republicans and Democrats about this, and nobody seems to think that we're resolving this anytime soon.

Speaker 1 And as we just said, the president's in Asia this week, and it's probably going to take Donald Trump getting involved

Speaker 1 to make this actually happen. But the reason I think it's interesting to talk about the the shutdown is because you and I were both shocked by something that is about to happen, Anthony.

Speaker 1 And that is because of the shutdown, Americans are going to lose access to something called the

Speaker 1 Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, otherwise known as SNAP in America, which is basically

Speaker 1 food vouchers for poorer Americans who can't afford to buy groceries themselves. And the thing that I was really surprised by, I hadn't quite realized how big this program is.

Speaker 1 42 million Americans rely on SNAP, on those food vouchers. That's one in eight Americans who are getting SNAP at the moment.
And they won't be getting those food vouchers when the program

Speaker 1 runs out of money effectively because the government is not operating, so the government can't put the checks into the SNAP program.

Speaker 1 Donald Trump has decided not to use emergency funds to carry on funding SNAP.

Speaker 1 And so as of next week, you are going to have one in eight Americans potentially having to find alternative sources of groceries.

Speaker 1 Already in states like Arkansas and Oklahoma, deep red states in the south

Speaker 1 and in the center of the country, people have been advised to go and find alternative forms of food.

Speaker 1 Food banks are having to ramp up distribution of food around the country, but food banks are also running out of food because they're not getting enough donations.

Speaker 1 So I think this government shutdown, which for the last 27 days has seemed like something theoretical, unless, of course, you're a federal worker who hasn't been paid for the last 27 days, is suddenly about to hit millions of people across the country in a way that for a very wealthy country like America to have so many people depending on government handouts for food just is shocking.

Speaker 1 And when they don't get that food, I think

Speaker 1 it's... It's really hard for people who depend on that program for their food and they're not going to get it because of politics.
I

Speaker 2 am appalled by this whole thing and I just want to point out to people

Speaker 2 that we have a safety net in the country.

Speaker 2 The Great Society programs in 1965, unfortunately, the country has great prosperity through the economic engine of capitalism and there's a wealth diversity.

Speaker 2 There's a lot of working poor. in the country.
And so these programs that the government has put in place, Caddy, have helped so many people.

Speaker 2 We have billionaires, Howard Schultz and others, that have said that they've used these programs, the parents had to use these programs to tide them over from a layoff, to tie them over from a bad situation, a financial hardship in the country.

Speaker 2 And I want you to react to this because the conservatives, some of the conservative members of the House of Representatives are saying, 41 million people, that's too much. Shut up, go get a job,

Speaker 2 and you're a bunch of freeloaders. So go ahead, react to that.
And then I'll talk a little bit more about SNAP and the percentages you're.

Speaker 1 Well, I think this gets to this gets to the question of affordability in America at the moment right now.

Speaker 1 And we're going to have an election that is basically a referendum in New York City on the question of affordability, which is why Zora and Mamdani is likely to be the next mayor, which is that even if you have a job in this country, paying rent, paying grocery bills, which are still high, many grocery bills, I think it's beef is

Speaker 1 15% higher or something than it was a year ago. Lots of groceries cost more today than they did a year ago.
So grocery bills are high. Rent is very high.

Speaker 1 People who have jobs are not managing to make ends meet in the country. They're living paycheck to paycheck.
And we see unemployment ticking up in the country.

Speaker 1 So there's a lot of food insecurity in America, even amongst people who are working.

Speaker 1 So I think the argument, well, just go and get a job ignores the fact that a lot of these people actually have jobs already, right?

Speaker 1 I mean, it's not just people who are, I don't know if your family ever took snap benefits or food assistance, but plenty of working class Americans over the decades with full-paying jobs have also used food benefits.

Speaker 2 I think this is very, very important to explain to people. So just give me a moment.

Speaker 2 We have structural problems in the society, a result of which it becomes hard for low-wage workers with geographic limitations, meaning they can't move around the country.

Speaker 2 They've got health problems. They've got caregiving issues if they're moms that they rely on these programs.
And so this is the great irony. Follow this loop, Caddy.

Speaker 2 We're going to wildly deficit spend.

Speaker 2 Deficit spending, for everybody listening, that's unfunded tax liability. Never forget that.
There's no free lunch. It's got to get paid for some way, somehow.
U.S. government, perhaps the U.K.

Speaker 2 government, has decided the way we're going to pay for it is through inflation. That is the most pernicious, most regressive tax that you can put on poor people is inflation.
Hits them the hardest.

Speaker 2 Wealthy people own assets, so their assets go up in nominal dollars to protect themselves.

Speaker 2 But people that actually work with their time and energy are losing a portion of their lives through inflation.

Speaker 2 And so you have a situation now where you're running high levels of inflation and you're knocking the working poor out of the ability to sustain themselves.

Speaker 2 So what you're doing is you're giving them this SNAP program to protect them. Okay, now the high peak for SNAP in the United States was 47 million people in 2013.

Speaker 2 So this isn't even the high peak number for SNAP.

Speaker 2 And I just think it's a very dangerous thing, Caddy, that we're in a situation now where we have 12.6% of the population that needs this from the government.

Speaker 2 And you've got people in the Congress that are bullying those people, and they want tighter work restrictions and they want tighter qualifications for SNAP. Now, by the way, I get it, okay?

Speaker 2 I get it that people need to rely somewhat on the government, but don't misunderstand the structural issues in the economy. Either fix the structural issues, Caddy, or help these people out.

Speaker 2 Because if you don't help these people out,

Speaker 2 you're going to have even greater anger and greater political tumult. And I think that's what we're facing right now as a civilization.

Speaker 1 I think you're right. And the other thing that is causing that is, of course, health care costs.
It's not just food costs and rent costs, but healthcare costs.

Speaker 1 And that's something that Democrats say they are trying to keep down, which is why they won't have a vote to open the government.

Speaker 1 We've had Marjorie Taylor Greene actually side with Democrats on this one, saying that she knows that people in her district are suffering, including her own kids, because their healthcare premiums, the amount they pay for their health care insurance, is about to go up in some cases by about 200%.

Speaker 1 And you're going to see that come into effect.

Speaker 1 starting November the 1st as well, which is when people start buying the healthcare exchanges open up and people start buying their healthcare premiums.

Speaker 1 So I really think we're heading into Crunch Week next week over the whole issue of the government shutdown and whether Donald, and the question politically is does Donald Trump come back from his Asia trip and think that he has to negotiate, that this is a question of urgency, or does he think that actually having the government shutdown lets him hit democratic-led jurisdictions by freezing billions of dollars in funds that were meant to go to those districts, that he can lay off federal workers, which is what is part of Project 2025, and that he can kind of shift money around to pay for the federal workers that he likes, the weapons-carrying law enforcement federal workers, but not pay the other federal workers.

Speaker 1 I suspect he comes back and he doesn't think long-term about this. He thinks short-term about this.

Speaker 1 And he thinks that at the moment the government shutdown is probably going to help Republicans more than Democrats, because as poor people start suffering more, it's going to be the Democrats that feel the whiplash from this.

Speaker 1 But the sad thing is that this is going to be a... an entirely sort of political football calculation rather than what is good for the country.

Speaker 1 Maybe he'll come back and surprise us and say, okay, I'm going to negotiate with Senate Democrats and we're going to do a deal that is actually good for all Americans and try and get this sorted out.

Speaker 2 I'm going to say, and I do agree with you, by the way, I think it is an accurate assessment. I'm going to say that the primary cause of the shutdown is the budget/slash funding impasse.

Speaker 2 But my question back to you, is there an Epstein file component to this?

Speaker 1 I think there is an Epstein file component to this because at the moment you've got all of the Republican members who have been told by Mike Johnson to stay away from Washington and not take any votes.

Speaker 1 The last vote that was in the House, Anthony, do you know when it was? September the 19th. We're almost in November.
They haven't voted since September the 19th on anything.

Speaker 1 So he's keeping them out of the House because he doesn't want to have the House vote on releasing the Epstein files.

Speaker 1 The reason that he's not swearing in a new congresswoman from Arizona is because he doesn't want to have a vote on the Epstein files that could go the way the Democrats want and release, and some Republicans want and release the Epstein files.

Speaker 2 So Caddy, I want you to play a Republican pundit now, talking head on television. Okay.
And I'm going to ask the following questions. So,

Speaker 2 shocking. September 19th, last time that the Republicans have had a vote.
There's some criticism now that the House of Representatives is becoming the Russian Duma.

Speaker 2 It's owned by the president the way the Duma is owned by Putin.

Speaker 2 What say you, my Republican talking head on this program, go?

Speaker 1 This is all the Democrats' fault and all the Democrats have to do is have a vote on a CR that would reopen the government and it's the Democrats that are holding it up and it's the Democrats that are stopping people getting snap

Speaker 1 food supplements and it's the Democrats that won't reopen the government. Of course, we'd be happy to do that and then we'll talk about healthcare one day in about a few years time afterwards.

Speaker 1 Which, to the American people listening and worrying about their healthcare costs and worrying about their food costs, means absolutely nothing.

Speaker 1 It's the kind of language that both sides are using, by the way, but means nothing and does not help Democrats.

Speaker 2 So who's winning or are they both losing at this point?

Speaker 1 So at the moment, I mean, the latest polls, I checked them just before we recorded.

Speaker 1 At the moment, Americans being polled still blame Republicans more than Democrats because Republicans control Congress and the White House, but the margin, the gap between them is slipping slightly.

Speaker 1 And I think that as more poor people start suffering,

Speaker 1 that could slip even more. I mean, I think, honestly, this is a slightly epox on both their houses from the American public.
Like, why can't they just keep the government open?

Speaker 1 It will help Democrats in the race in Virginia, the gubernatorial race that is just coming up, because there are a lot of federal workers in Virginia who are very unhappy about this.

Speaker 1 But the Democrats don't have much leverage because the reason this shutdown is so different from previous shutdowns that I've covered, I mean, previous, I have covered many shutdowns.

Speaker 1 I've never known one, for example, where the president thought the shutdown didn't matter so much that he was prepared to travel abroad during a shutdown. Shutdowns were seen as urgent.

Speaker 1 President Trump doesn't really place a high value on reopening the government because it gives him a chance to fire the workers he doesn't want, save money and act unilaterally.

Speaker 1 He just sees a government shutdown as another way for him to amass more power, I think. And so that makes it very difficult for Democrats to have every any leverage of this.

Speaker 1 And the base of the Democratic Party doesn't want Democratic leadership to negotiate because they want the kind of more left of the party wants to see Democratic leaders fighting.

Speaker 1 I think the challenge for Democrats now is they've shown they can fight, but they have to show what they're fighting for. And that is not a message that has necessarily got out there.

Speaker 2 So Caddy, again,

Speaker 2 I agree with you you on

Speaker 2 everything that you just said, but there is a gentleman that just dumped $130 million US dollars into troop pay.

Speaker 2 And the gentleman is actually a melon

Speaker 1 of the famous Mellon family.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so you live in a town where Andrew Mellon, the former Treasury Secretary back in the 1920s, donated a lot of money, donated a lot of money to the National Portrait Gallery, donated a lot of money to build all these beautiful buildings up and down the mall.

Speaker 2 His great-grandson, Timothy Mellon, gave $130 million U.S. dollars to pay for the troops.
Number one, is that even something we should be accepting or doing? And then number two,

Speaker 2 it turns out that his dad, Paul Mellon, is all over the Epstein flight locks back and forth to Epstein Island. So go ahead, square the circle for me.

Speaker 1 Well, that raises a whole can of worms, right? First of all, whether it's okay to take Tim Mellon's personal money to pay the troops.

Speaker 1 This $130 million, my understanding is, doesn't actually go terribly far to pay the troops, but it's clearly a huge, big donation. He's done it to make Donald Trump happy.

Speaker 1 Donald Trump has said that he's a patriot, hasn't actually named him, but has said that he's a patriot. You sent me that flight, that tweet about the flight log

Speaker 1 and Paul Mellon being on Jeffrey Epstein's, what was it called, the Lolita Express. I think that has to be looked into.

Speaker 1 First of all, you've got to verify that flight log and check that it's real, but then what does that actually mean? Who else was on that flight?

Speaker 1 And is Tim Mellon in a position where he doesn't also want the Epstein files released because of something around his father?

Speaker 1 And would that be another reason he wants to try and keep the government shut, but the troops paid? I mean, it raises a whole...

Speaker 1 can of worms. You also sent me something from a democratic strategist saying that they thought the government could be shut down until the end of the year.

Speaker 1 I've run that by a few people on the Hill, a member of Congress, a Senate staffer, and a reporter that I know who covers the Hill every day. They don't think that the U.S.

Speaker 1 government stays shut down until the end of the year. They say it's possible, but they don't think that it goes on that long.

Speaker 1 At some point, there will have to be a negotiation because the hurt that is done to federal workers and to people, and to actually to people flying around the country.

Speaker 1 Every flight I've taken in the last couple of weeks, I've taken a few has been delayed because of the shutdown. People will start complaining about it fairly soon.

Speaker 1 But I mean, the Epstein stuff is the big shadow hanging over the White House at the moment and the big thing that Mike Johnson doesn't want voted on.

Speaker 2 Okay, so I have my bingo card out. Go on.
And here are the things that are on my bingo card. November, is the government going to open? Yes or no.
But that's on my bingo card.

Speaker 2 So are we going to have an open government before Thanksgiving? Yes or no?

Speaker 1 I think yes, if the flights carry on being delayed as they are being at the moment.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 I like this game.

Speaker 2 And then is the woman representative from Arizona going to be sworn in to the House of Representatives? Yes or no?

Speaker 1 Ever. You mean ever?

Speaker 1 Or will she try and be careful? She will be sworn in at some point.

Speaker 2 Okay, so there's a yes on that one as well. Okay, so then she's voting for the release.
She's the deciding vote. She's voting for the release of the Epstein files.
And so this is two questions in one.

Speaker 2 Will the Epstein files be released? And then how much of the Epstein files will be redacted, Katie?

Speaker 1 My Christmas present to you, Antony Scaramucci, is going to be the released Epstein files.

Speaker 2 Okay, so they're going to get released.

Speaker 1 I think they will be released. However, I think your second question is the key one.

Speaker 1 They will be redacted so much that we may not learn what people want to learn from them.

Speaker 1 The pressure from people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and even Republicans who want the Epstein files released will be too strong on Mike Johnson.

Speaker 1 He will have to have them released, but the way they get around it is they redact them.

Speaker 2 So Cash Patel gave the file to 1,000 FBI agents. He said, we got the smoking gun here.
I want you to scour through the file.

Speaker 2 So when one of those agents or two of those agents get to a microphone and say, okay, I read through the file, and here are the following very bad actors.

Speaker 2 Here are the following very nefarious people in the American government. What happens then, Caddy? Well, I'll give my answer first.

Speaker 2 Nothing, nothing happens.

Speaker 1 Well, except to the poor FBI agent who goes to the microphone.

Speaker 2 Right. But I'm talking about,

Speaker 2 I said this several months ago. You said this.

Speaker 2 The Epstein files, no matter what's in there and no matter what photography they have of Donald Trump and no matter what they have on the travel logs, he's not going to get hit by the Epstein files.

Speaker 1 So, why is Mike Johnson doing everything possible not to have them released?

Speaker 2 Well, because I think they're still working on the cover-up. I still think they're trying to figure out exactly how they're going to get everything redacted.

Speaker 2 I think they're trying to figure out where they're bleach-bidden certain things and making certain videos and photography disappear and so on and so forth. That's what I think.

Speaker 1 So, we go back to Donald Trump was right. He can shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and wouldn't lose a single vote.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Trump said on Air Force One, flying around Asia, I'm open to Steve Bannon on our buds at The Economist.
I listened to that whole podcast. Me too.

Speaker 2 Bannon,

Speaker 2 by the way, if you don't like Steve Bannon and you want to listen to the podcast, watch it on YouTube. Okay.
I mean, this guy is falling apart, the poor guy. Okay.

Speaker 2 But I'll just say this: if Trump is open to the Bannon plan

Speaker 2 for

Speaker 2 getting himself elected again in violation of the Constitution, where will the Congress be? Where will the Republicans be? And I'm going to say something contrarian here, Caddy.

Speaker 2 They're going to stop him.

Speaker 1 I do believe that. I think that's the Rubicon they won't let him cross.

Speaker 2 I think that as well. Well, we'll see.

Speaker 1 I think Steve Bannon is, it's a kind of wishful thinking thing, was my interpretation of that, having listened to that too, but it is worth a listener.

Speaker 2 Are you sending him like a pint of hard liquor for Christmas, Steve Bannon? I mean, what's your Christmas gift?

Speaker 1 I don't know that he needs it. He probably has a good seller for.

Speaker 1 My voice is running out. Talking of hard liquor, it's time for me to go and have a whiskey, too.
We will see you guys later this week. Thanks for listening.

Speaker 2 It's great to be on. We'll see you guys later in the week.