Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar3/18/25: Trump Tells Judge GTFO In Deportation Standoff, Treasury Sec Celebrates Market Crash, Social Security Sabotage, Jon Stewart Shreds Schumer
Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump tells judge to gtfo on deportation standoff, Treasury Sec celebrates stock crash, Social Security sabotage, Jon Stewart shreds Schumer as he hides from angry liberals.
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So, as Saga and I debated extensively yesterday, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act over the weekend. In this set off a mad scramble and a lot of questions about whether or not.
They openly defied cored orders.
So I'm going to give you some details about the timing that is coming out now with regard to when a judge issued a temporary restraining order saying you cannot move forward with deportations under these powers, when planes took off where they were when he issued his ruling from the bench, saying, even if planes are in the air, you need to turn them around where they were when the final order came out, et cetera. We'll get to that in a moment, But yesterday there was another court hearing with the same judge who was demanding answers from the government about what the hell happened here? Under what justification did you not listen to my order? And how did we get to where we are? So let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. This is from Kyle Cheney, who is Politico's court reporter and has done a good job tracking the many lawsuits against this administration at this point, so.
He says the hearing is over.
Boseborg was incredulous that DOJ claimed he had no authority to order the plane to turn around just because it crossed out of US airspace, something he said was well established in many contexts. He wants details about whether DOJ openly defied his order on March fifteenth when it ordered planes to take off and leave US airspace, even after he orally ordered the government not to do that. The remedy for an order they don't like, Bosborg said, is to appeal or seek to modify it not simply to ignore it. He wants a sworn declaration by noon tomorrow with details about how this played out. Can put the next tear sheet up on the screen. It has some additional details here ties together some of the different places where the Trump administration has at least tested the bounds of defiance of court orders.
Will say.
The headline is Trump already on a collision course with the courts hits the gas. This is kind of the most combustible situation with regard to potential, like just outright direct defiance. And part of what they write in this article, which is also by the same guy, Kyle Cheney, along with two other co authors, is on Monday afternoon, the Justice Department urged Boseburg to call off his scrutiny of Trump's decision to label some Venezuelan migrants as terrorists in order to quote de escalate the grave incursions on executive branche authority that have already arisen. When Bosberg refused to cancel that Monday afternoon hearing, the dj asked a federal appellate court to remove this judge from the case altogether, an extraordinary step to circumvent judicial scrutiny. The White House, for its part, is dismissing arguments that the presence actions are pushing the country toward a constitutional crisis. Officials agree the nation is in one, but they blame it on the courts, framing recent rulings as the moves of radical leftist judges, though some of those judges were appointed by Republican presidents.
Quote.
The constant pitutional crisis is not in the executive branch, it's in the judiciary branch, White House spokesperson Harrison Field said, adding that the pushback to the administration's weekend deportations quote speaks more of democrats loyalty or lack thereof, to this nation than anything else. So the government has made a few claims here, you know, to claim that they are not defying court orders. One is they say that while you issued the order to turn the planes around from the bench, and we don't really think that that has the same weight as.
A written order.
The judge judge very much yesterday and that hearing rejected that particular claim. Another claim that was made was that, oh, well, the planes were over international waters when you issued your ruling, so that's you know, that's it was too late. Basically, we couldn't or wouldn't once it was over international waters.
We weren't going to turn them around.
Well, one thing that came out yesterday, I can put this up on the screen, this chart of the flights. At least one of the flights was actually still on the ground at the time in Texas when the initial order at six forty eight was read from the bench. Okay, So another claim that the government has made is well, actually that particular plane, the third one, and by the way, the other two had not yet reached their destination, either when that initial order was read from the bench or when the final ridden order came down. So the other claim was, well the third plane, that one was subject. That wasn't Alien Enemies Act, that was different powers. Of course, we don't know who was on the plane, so we have no idea and basically Savary yesterday the government pretty much stonewalled.
It just wouldn't answer any question the.
Government aside in Title fifty authority, which is intelligence, like you said, on the third plane. The result of the hearing yesterday basically is Judge Bosberg is demanding that the government issue a sworn affidavit that the third plane was not invoked under the Alien Enemies Act and was used under a different authority. They said none of the plaintiffs of the five plaintiffs that were ordered under Judge Bosberg were on board that plane. It was the other two. So this is almost certainly rocketing to the Supreme Court within the next two weeks. The authority over Alien Enemies Act. Over the ability of a federal district judge to order something what I think is extraordinary. We debated it extensively yesterday. To literally force a plane that is outside of the United States to turn around and come back to the United States. There's both legal scrutiny over that specifically, and as I understand it from Boseburg, this is not a ruling on the Alien Enemies Act whatsoever. He is asking for a declaration of who is covered under the Alien Enemies Act. But the Act provision is not itself the one that is under a legal scrutiny. It's the removal authority for deepprocess under the government for the specific plaintiffs that were named by the ACLU. But I was just saying, in terms of what I read yesterday from the review of the Alien Enemies Act, the judge. It's complicated, basically, they It's not as cut and dry, I think as saying this was up to the judge as to whether this was the Alien Enemies Act or not, as to whether it is employable. It is these specific individuals, the legitimacy of applying that to these specific individuals under the ACLU of the plaintiffs were this car with this action that the planes took off, And I know this is incredibly complicated. I've genuinely tried to read for hours about something called like judiciability or something judicity, which is the ability to apply judicial review, which is what the government is also claiming. That came out in a Steven Miller interview anyway.
So here's here is the timeline, and this will help clarify some of what happened here. So obviously Trump has been saying for a long time, including on the campaign trail, I'm going to use the Alien Enemies Act. So lawyers with the ACLU and other groups were like ready to go, like, okay, when he does that, we're going to challenge that.
And they started to.
Get There were news reports that he was moving towards invoking the Alien Enemies Act, and some of the people that they were in touch with started to get moved around. Some Venezuelan migrants started to get moved around and all shipped excuse me, to this Texas ice detention facility. And so they suspected, okay, this is imminently coming. So, knowing that the government was going to act really fast, they filed an initial suit with these five particular migrants as their as their clients involved in this suit.
Then once it became.
Completely clear and perhaps even waited for the official declaration, then they expanded it to the entire class of migrants, so that this was now not just about these five individuals. This was about the entire class of migrants and who were held undocumented migrants who were held in DHS facilities, so that it would apply to everyone who might be put on these planes and shipped down. So that's how this ends up. The judge the court system actually in this instance acted quite quickly.
The judge from the bench.
At six forty eight says, you cannot issuing a temporary restraining order. That is not a finding on the merits. But his view was it is likely that the use of the Alien Enemies Act is going to be found to be illegal, and so in order to prevent harm in the meantime from occurring, issuing this temporary restraining order. So this can work its way through the courts on the merits and decide whether it's appropriate invocation. You know, it's never before, like he's claiming that Venezuela, by dint of their proxy, this gang trender Aragua has invaded the country. It's never been issued before outside of like Clearcut wartime instances eighteen twelve, World War one, World War II. So a lot of legal questions, to say the least, about whether this is appropriate. You know, what it led to is the Trump administration being able without any due process to take people. They sent them to this foreign prison notorious in Nol Salvador for torture and human rights abuse. So anyway, all of this is very is legally dubious, to say the least. So he issues the temporary restraining order. It's meant to apply to all migrants, not just the five that were specifically originally named in the lawsuit. And that's where these you know, timings come in. So six forty eight is when he issues the ruling. Those planes are two of the planes are in there one of them still on the ground.
Again, the.
Government has refused to say who was on these planes. They've refused in the hearing yesterday. They refused even to reveal when the planes took off, when they landed their citing national security, et cetera. So the very latest from judge out of this hearing was, you have to tell us by noon. I believe today the answers to these questions and if you need to do it under seal, Okay, that's fine, and we're going to have another hearing on Friday. But the judge is very perturbed, seemingly at the government's stonewalling and defiance of what the judge ultimately asked them to do.
Yeah, that's incredibly well said. That's exactly right. So I know it's really complicated for people to stick with. It will eventually come down to a ruling on Friday, It will almost certainly immediately be appealed, and then it is going to rocket its way to the US Supreme Court, where it is almost certainly that the meta questions around this are going to be solved. And it is one that is now like this is always the issue. Like I'm not a lawyer, so I can't speak to everything. I've done my best to look at the TikTok, Like I said, to look into the title fifty authority, the judicious judice, the ability to apply judicial review, reading the Statue of the Alien Enemies Act itself, which by the way, is actually worth reading because it's from seventeen ninety eight. But the point being is we are in a situation where this is almost certainly going to get resolved at high level, and that is it appears, just from what I've been able to see, that's kind of something that they want because this is a fight that they are very comfortable picking with the public. As you said, Tom Homan, who is the White House Borders are appeared on television immediately afterwards and was defiant. Let's take a listen, probably be a part of this administration.
We're not stopping.
I don't care what the judges think, I don't care the left things we're coming.
So I mean, pretty defiant there for you, Tom Homan. This is the thing at the end of the day, there's a lot of messaging war that's also happening here because that's not even really true, Like they do care what the judge thing because they're not continuing the deportation flights. They keep saying they're going to, it's not actually happening. And it's one of those where they're both trying to placate an incredible amount of frustration in the administration over the numerous amounts of temporary restraining orders and other things have come out. This one is a fight that they feel very comfortable both picking and getting the precedent set at the Supreme Court to resolve it in the incoming years of the administry or the outcoming years of the administration, to try and resolve these and to basically try and basically force a fight on the ability for tro district judges to intervene on every individual deportation case. But I think what's happening is that we're watching a fight that they feel very very comfortable picking, in particular on this one. And it's actually kind of noteworthy to me that this is the one that's been the most high profile one and it's not doge where Look, they've talked a game in the past and Elan has said what we need to impeach judges, etc. They have never really gone all that far. There's been some questions over like I would say like modern compliance or whatever on USAID, et cetera. But like this is the one where this is the big one, and for them they I think it too. Just yesterday a poll came out showing border and immigration is actually the number one issue that Trump has right now. Unfortunately for him, he's underwater on the economy. We're about to talk about that in a second. It actually maybe I've been thinking about this. I think one of the reasons that all of this is happening right now is it doesn't take a genius to look at the news and say, oh my god. Every day we're getting pummeled on Doge and on the stock market, our tarif stuff not working. Now we've got a full born war in Gaza. It's like, well, what do we have left? Well, this is the immigration promises, which we literally have not even kept for the first fifty days of the administration. Any serious immigration person could have told you that the numbers were basically on par and for actual deportation with the Biden administration, and they were using Doge excuses saying, oh, these flights are too expensive to carry that out, which you know, as we talked to us like oh things are too expensive for source security, for immigration, but we have unlimited missiles that we can fire into Yemen. So it was a priorities mismatch. And this is clearly political ground that they feel very strong fighting on.
I think your political analysis there is correct, and I suspect the same that they wanted to provoke a reaction with this invocation at this moment, because look, the market shit the bed last week. There is you know, incredible upset and concern as we're about to talk about with regard to the economy, there is probably even more upset and concern with regard to the attacks on social security. Elon is dramatically underwater. Trump's approval rating in almost every poll is on the downslide. It's still very early in the administration, and I think that they feel that they are on very firm political ground to pick a fight over people that they describe as Venezuelan gang members. And you know, so I think you're right that they welcome this fight and they feel politically that this benefits them. You can watch our lengthy debate yesterday. I just will remind that what we're talking about here with regards to you know, in this particular case, they're arguing, not only that, you know, can they invoke the Alien Enemies Act and then just deport whoever they want with no due process, where we don't even get to know who they are, whether they're actually gang members, whether they're even Venezuelan migrants. And by the way, can go and look at some news reports already of US citizens who have gotten mistakenly swept up by ICE, which now, because of upset over the relatively low deportation numbers, now has had a quota institute, which of course leads to them being more aggressive about, like, let's just sweep up anyone who looks like they.
Might be undocumented.
So in any case, what they're trying to claim is that the president has sole discretion to deport anyone he wants at any time.
And as I.
Said yesterday, they have offered no proof that these individuals were actually gang members. We actually don't even know one hundred percent that they are migrants, that they are Venezuelan. I suspect that that is the case, but we don't know who they are. Some of the people who we've been able to learn who they are, their family members and their legal counsel insists they are not gang members. One is a teen who happened to have a rose tattoo that he thought looked cool that he got in Texas, according to his sister. Another is a tattoo artist. Again, one of the common themes is there's just seems to be an assumption that if you have a tattoo, you are a gang member. Another thing the Washington Post uncovered with regard to some of the gang members alleged gang members in Quantanamo Bay is that they also were not gang members. They were just from the state of Ragua, which is where this gang originates, and were actually fleeing gang violence. So all of this is to say, that's why I think due process is important, so that look, the government can make their claims and people have a chance to robut them. The fact that they've been put into this El Salvador prison that is quite notorious means that journalists, family members, lawyers, no one has access to them, No one could determine the veracity of the claims that are currently being made by the government whatsoever. And so if I'm also not a lawyer, so I can't say whether which direction the courts are likely to go in with this extraordinary claim of power. But what they're trying to assert is that they can literally remove anyone that this government decides to remove with no scrutiny whatsoever. And so I agree with you, Sager, that I think it is an intentional provocation. But the reason why I think it's important to fight is because that is an extreme breach of civil rights, constitutional rights, not just visa VI, you know, migrants, undocumented immigrants, et cetera, but genuinely has consequences for all of us because again, if you have no due process, you don't even have to prove that they're undocumented immigrants, let alone gang members, let alone criminals, let alone anything else.
And so in any case, that's why I view this as.
Quite an extraordinary moment and an important one to follow, even though I do think it is a political provocation to try to cover up from some of the things that they're doing that have become profoundly unpopular.
Yeah, but I I take what you're saying. I spent a lot of time thinking about it yesterday. I do think, however, that this, you know, and I think the new press process claims etc. Are fair. However, you know, I think that missing the context of the broader illegal immigration situation, the extraordinary developments that have happened over the last four years, not just to mention the last twenty five years even before that, not to mention as well, much of the legal precedence as to why I don't think it will lead to what you're saying between Homdi so I actually looked at some case law Homdi v. Rumsfeldt, which previously talked to the US government's detention who was a US citizen who was captured in Afghanistan. This cannot actually be applied, you know, to a United States citizen, which the Bush administration wanted to in the past, for both indefinite attention and the removal of due process. US citizens specifically have much stronger and male litigated due process rights than those who are present in the country, especially who are present in the country illegally. And then secondly, there was a second case here, which was Alwiki v. Penetta, which followed the drone strike after Amar Alwiki and his family were struck by the United States. Now, I still think that's an insane thing that happened there in the past, but the court basically basically ruled through dismissal that they do not have the ability to challenge national security authority. Now, the solution here is staring everybody in the face. If everybody thought that the law was so terrible, they should have repealed the law. I think they keep it on the books, you know, because they want the ability to be able to use it. Trump did telegraph this previously. I think that the case law there is actually quite strong and that there are enough backstops. You can disagree with me, that's fine to protect US citizens. We just have a big disagreement, I think, which comes to the treatment of how we should think of people who are president in the country illegally and whether that's a country problem and or not. I think it's extraordinary and in particularly that these laws asylum, tps, etc. Have been dramatically abused to facilitate mass illegal immigration, have put a huge amount of strain, and I don't think it's surprised to me as well. On the political front, you know, looking just back at the approval numbers that I have in front of me. Here, the issue breakdown is Donald Trump has got border security and immigration literally higher than and he's the only issue area where he is more popular than not on foreign policy, on the economy, on inflation, and on Russia Ukraine underwater on all four of those things. I could be wrong. It could be that there is a genuine change in the way that the United States has happened and thinks that this is an extraordinary action. But part of me also feels that the administration wants to pick bread fights about this, not even to facilitate mass deportation. What I have heard from many is that guys, you're an idiot if you ever believed mass deportation was going to happen. We have to do these stunts effectively to facilitate mass self deportation, which is not a surprise considering the launch just a few days ago of a CBP home app by the administration the two hundred million dollars add buy. I was watching Fox News the other day and I Christy Nome popped up on my TV and I was like, who is watching Fox News? That is going to self deport You know, that was another thing, just as it's another basic level.
And escape that dose scrutiny that we've been talking.
Can you tea me it costs two hundred million? Right, I thought I was watching that, I'm like, is this not just basically like feel good propaganda. That's the government. So yeah, I'm not, you know, cheerleading all this stuff. And I don't even disagree that the government should handle this differently. I think I said that yesterday they absolutely should have released the dossier and or whatever they're doing it to the maxixkinding because they think that this is a fight that they can win and they want to try and set that legal president basically like all presidents before them who are beefing with the courts. I was reading a little bit about the Bush administration response to hamdiv Rumsfeld, where Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzalez actually told Bush to keep colding Homdy for unlimited detention and not ignore We're not talking about district cut judge. We're talking about the Supreme Court of the United States. So anyway, some historical and reading other things that I put and thought into the case, which I know is very emotional and is a difficult topic.
Let me go ahead and play Pam Bondi, the Attorney General who was on the shows last night on primetime on Fox, I think with Janine Bureau maybe who indicated that the flights similar to this one under the Alien Enemies Act were quote absolutely going to continue.
Let's take a listen to that.
The amazing thing about this Attorney General is that you've got a local district court judge now who is saying that he can stop the president from enforcing his powers under Article two to protect the America?
Can people? Number one?
Will his order this temporary restraining order on the on the Alien Enemies Act? Will that be you know, respected going forward? And where does he get this power to stop the president engaging in national security and foreign policy?
Well, that's it.
He's attempting to meddle in national security and foreign affairs and he can't do it. What he's done is an intrusion on the president's authority. You know, this one federal judge again thinks he can control foreign policy for the entire country, and he cannot. And right now we're evaluating our options.
Okay, so you made the administration may continue doing these flights.
Absolutely, these are foreign terrorists that the President has identified them and designated them as such, and we will continue to follow the Alien Enemies Act.
So she says, the flights will absolutely continue, we will if that is the case. I'll just last thing I'll say about this is I think it can both be the case that it is a stunt, which I tend to agree with you, Sager, and that it is extraordinarily important and dangerous development, because there actually is no backstop from anyone getting swept up, especially if they're being sent to this prison where we have no access to them, that is known for torture, where Bkelly is out there bragging about the way they'll be used for slave labor to make the prison quote unquote financially sustainable. So if you don't have due process, is not even an ability to check that these are not American citizens, that these are not legitimate Green colored holders, or legitimate visa holders. There's certainly no check to verify that they are actually gang members and terrorists as is being claimed, and in fact, the government has been caught in those lies with regard to people being alleged gang members in the past. As I mentioned yesterday, there are The estimate is there are a few hundred trend de Iragua members in the entire country, So they're purporting to have deported to this El Salvador prison several hundred just with these flights, so the numbers don't work out. There are almost certainly people who were part of this, and you know, family members and lawyers are already asserting as such that were part of this deportation that had nothing to do with trend de Iragua, and who have now been put indefinitely into this prison where no one can reach them, no lawyers, no family members, no journalists, et cetera, and they're actually without due process. Is no backstop from this being able to happen to anyone. So if the courts rule on the merits in Trump's favor, that means he then has claimed these wartime powers to disappear anyone he wants to disappear. And that's why this is to me. Yes, it's a stunt and also extraordinarily dangerous, troubling abridgment of not just the rights and the human rights of you know, people who are migrants, of people who are here without papers, but also of American citizens who could easily easily and have already been mistakenly snatched up by ice, who could easily be caught up in this as well. If the courts don't take a stand here and enforce say, look, we are not at war, this is not an invasion. You don't get to claim these wartime authorities. And the other thing is I mean they've also been they've also floated in booking the Insurrection Act. This would be another sort of like wartime authority that they could claim. And the trend with this president, which yes, other presidents have done similar things, certainly George W. Bush comes to mind, but the dramatic, rapid expansion of the powers that he has claimed is something that I think is quite extraordinarily extraordinary and deeply troubling.
I think that's understandable. As I said, I think there's a lot of case law and a lot of differences, especially withholding any of this from happening to a US citizen. But will continue to cover it here. Why don't we move on to the economy. Let's talk about consumer sentiment, which is not very good right now. Let's put this up there on the screen. Came out a couple of days ago. It was absolutely you know, it's actually kind of missed. We weren't able to cover it in the last couple of days. But there's a University of Michigan survey which is very closely watched, which looks at consumer sentiment. Now, what is consumer sentiment? That's actually a very important question. The way the consumer sentiment is basically defined is your want and think about how you're going to spend money and how you're feeling about the economy. So it is a subjective thing, but overall actually has a pretty good track record about people's subjective view of the economy. That can then obviously have a lot of impacts going into retail. So the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey showed an eleven percent decline in mid March to fifty seven point nine from sixty four point seven the last month. Quote a downward trend that has taken hold since office. That is the single lowest level since November of twenty twenty two, when inflation was rampant, and compared with just one year earlier, it is down some twenty seven percent, so nearly third drop in overall consumer sentiment. Now why does that matter? Because consumer economy spending is seventy percent of our economy. We'll put the next one up there on the screen. The long term inflation view within that consumer sentiment also jumped the most since nineteen ninety three, meaning that people's feeling that inflation will continue for the foreseeable future has had such a precipitous incline that I thought, more than the consumer sentiment was the biggest headline is not not only do people have bad consumer sentiment in their wont to spend money in the overall economy, they also believe that right now that inflation will be higher in the future. Now, when you do that all kinds of downstream effects. People hoard cash, people or even worse, you know, for our economy, they just don't spend any money, or they think that because their bills and all that are going to go up, they basically lock it in place. And if you don't spend money, money is not being spread around. Then everybody's overall income is beginning to go down and the aggregate and we're going to watch stocks go down, retail businesses collapse, vacation, etc. And probably the worst outcome is that the only group that's not going to pair back consumer spending is rich people. So we will only increase the pyramid function that we already have in the economy right now. So overall, it's not a good trend. And this is the piercing heart of this will pierce the heart of any successful Trump administration. You can overcome a lot, but you cannot overcome a bad economy as Joe Biden did, especially not we're going to talk about social security that stuff in the future. If people feel like their services are getting cut and stuff is going to get more expensive, you're done, you know, I mean, put mid terms and all of that aside. Just in terms of a political movement and strategy, you will lead yourself down the George W. Bush path of destruction of legacy administration and put yourself in the wilderness for a decade, just like they did.
Very possible, very tall.
I mean that seems to be like what they want to do. I don't really understand any of it.
I mean, there is a theory that they want a crisis, because a crisis again, what your presidents do in a crisis, they are able to claim more powers and you know, a certain more authority. So you know, as you see these things that you're like, this is insane. I mean, especially around the economy, You're like, this is insane. It feels like you're trying to trigger a stock market crash and a recession, et cetera. You know, there's a theory that first of all, recession, who comes down on top as you said, the only people who don't really suffer are ultimately the richest. And when and everything crashes and prices are at rock bottom. We saw this with COVID, We saw this with the financial crash. We saw this even out of the dot com bubble. The richester are able to buy up more assets and then they're the ones who are able to benefit. On the other side, you know, even with the DOGE cuts on the National Weather Service, the FAA going after Social Security, all these things that could also precipitate either mass public resistance or some sort of an active crisis. Again, those are times when presidents are able to claim more power. So that is one thought that is out there. Is that to your point about like it feels like they want this, one theory is that they do.
Now.
I don't know if that's true or not, but that is one theory that is out there. Just to go back to the economic numbers here and why when you look at these consumer sentiment what do they expect about inflation? Like, why does that matter? Part of the reason that there was so much difficulty getting inflation under control in the seventy was because of consumer expectations of inflation. So it had a self fulfilling aspect to it. Once people thought prices are going to go up, then for one thing, you get you know, corporations like we saw coming out of COVID that are like, oh, well, people think prices are going to go up, so I can get away with hiking prices. That was actually big part the greedflation was a big part of the inflation, not one hundred percent, but a significant chunk coming out of the COVID crisis. But it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Not to mention retailers who many of whom Target reported soft sales big lots forever twenty one actually filed for bankruptcy. I think this is their second time filing for bankruptcy bedback. A bunch of retailers have been warning that their sales are soft and are seeing a pullback from consumers already, and then when you layer on top of that, they're watching these indexes very closely to determine how much stock are we going to buy, how many people are we going to hire, how many people are we going to lay off. All those sorts of things are based on these types of metrics and expectations of what consumers feel now and what they're likely to do in the future. So that's why when you see these metrics, it's not just about like, oh, how's Billy feeling about shopping this week, how's his sentiment. It has a real impact in terms of the way that business reacts in the immediate term and can then, like I said, have a self fulfilling prophecy aspect to it, especially at a time when the White House's economic policy is we'll just call it chaotic, Okay, if there's a plan, no one can figure out what the hell it is. It's all over the place. You've got mass austerity in the government. But meanwhile a tariff policy, which if a tariff policy is going to be effective, you actually need government spending, industrial policy, investment, etc. The teriff policy's on, it's off, it's here, it's there, it's coming in April, it's back again. It's all over the map. So there's no clear direction there either. And then you also have, you know, coming down the pike, the Reconciliation Bill and what all of that is going to mean. You've got these cuts happening at the government level, which really do reverberate in a way that I don't know.
That people have fully anticipated.
You see already universities pulling back in terms of their spending and hiring. You see healthcare pullbacks in terms of their spending and hiring because of the cuts and the threats of those cuts to come. So all around it is a There are a lot of giant red flags and warning signs. Even as you know the stock market did better this week, I don't know the markets. I think right now it's nine twenty seven, so bad. Yeah, it's stock futures have edged down. We'll see what happens for the rest of this week. But there is still a lot to be very concerned about it.
Yeah, let's play Secretary Treasury Scott Besson. He was asked about the market crash. Let's take a listen.
Let's talk about what happened in the stock market this week, worst week for the market in two years. Does that worry you, mister Secretary, not at all.
I've been in the investment of business for thirty five years and I can tell you that correction are healthy, They're normal. What's not healthy is straight up that you get these your ford markets. That's how you get a financial crisis. It would have been much healthier. If someone had put the brakes on in six oh seven, we wouldn't have had the problems in eight.
So I'm not worried. Well, you know, Okay, it's one of those where, look, it's bad optics. I'm not even saying it's funny the best and I like best and I like a lot of the stuff that he says. And if it was just somebody like him, and it was a total you know, a government approach which was tariff and it was studied, and he was also out there saying, you know, the American dream he keeps saying is the American dream is not flast screen TV. I totally agree on all of this, but when it's coupled with literal just madness and chaos that is back and forth, obviously no real plan at all, then you're getting into territory where people are like, no, well, if all I've got going for me is a flat screen TV, then yeah, and you're going to try and make that more expensive and not sell me on some big broader plan, You're going to find yourself in real trouble. Having a not billionaire I don't know what he is, several hundred millionaire Secretary of the Treasury basically trying to lecture consumers and downplaying a stock market return. That's how it's just simply going to come off. Even though I agree with the guy on a lot a lot of things that he says, but just generally five hundred.
Million, it's poor in the context of this is poor.
That's right, he is a poor man. Yeah, it's just bad optics over and over again, and I don't think that it's being received in the way that they want. I mean stuff like that. Imagine you know, if you you probably agree maybe I think a lot of people agree the who flat screen thing and all that, But you gotta feel as if your country's getting a whole lot better and you yourself in the immediate and in the long term, are buying in to a real plan that's going to change overall in the future. The chaos when you're also making stuff more expensive and nuken consumer sentiment and the stock market in the immediate term, you're just making it so that people are more stressed out in their day to day life, and people hate that, and they should.
I think it was our now who made this point on Twitter about like, yeah, I mean there he's.
Not to your point, he's not wrong.
Yeah, he's right that if you have you know, our economy is way over financialized. It is almost certainly these tech stocks are almost certainly overvalued in anticipation of AI. I mean, Tesla's stock has been wildly overvalued. Just come back to earth a little bit. But it's still you know, we likely are in a giant sort of everything bubble. And if you look at an analogous situation, you know, we actually covered here on the show how China intentionally let the air out of its real estate development bubble and did that because they wanted to focus financial resources in other parts of their economy. So they had a priority to you know, maintain their manufacturing industrial base. Also, we're going to talk probably on Thursday about the way they have just technologically developed at an astronomical pace. Now they have byd has an EV that can charge almost three hundred miles in five minutes like that is astonishing, And so they wanted the tech investment, they wanted the you know, to maintain the industrial base. So they intentionally let the air out of this giant real estate bubble. But it had it was done in a like planned and concerted fashion. If you're just causing a stock market crash and a recession, but there's no like here's how we're going to build back better on the other side, then you're just causing pain.
That's it.
You're taking from people what has been created as the American dream. We've had decades that have been directed towards making this a consumer driven economy where basically what you get instead of having a vibrant factory in your town and middle class union jobs, et cetera, is the flat screen TV. You're going to take that away from people, and you're not going to offer anything else. And on the contrary, you're cutting their Social Security and you're cutting their.
Medicaid, etc. Then yeah, that's not going to.
Be a plan or a program that anyone signs up for, especially when it's being sold by a bunch of billionaires and a near five hundred millionaire in this particular case, and go.
Yeah, that is that's the issue. Let's put D five up there on the screen. This is US shoppers cutting spending as their economic outlook concerns mount. This goes exactly to the same problem. And overall, you know, if we have inflation, tariff on off changes to people's retirement status quo, possible cuts to services, or at least the appearance of cuts to services. One thing I remember talking about this with Biden. Sometimes the facts don't actually matter. And yes, I know that that's disconcerting a lot of consumer sentiments, stock market and all this stuff. It's bullshit. It's just feeling. You need to feel confident. People feel confident, they change. Everybody knows that. Think about your own life. Well, if people feel as if there's chaos, that will do just have downstream effects that feed more into bad market. So even if the reality and all that doesn't change, it won't even matter in some cases if people feel as if you're going in the wrong direction. This consistently happened under Biden. You know, liberal economists and all that world like actually everything is fine. It's like that's literally never worked in all of history. Same thing here, Trying to sell a false vision of what people feel never works.
At Yeah, politically, there's also just big structural like the cost of living crisis is incredibly real, and it was real before inflation hit. I mean, the cost of healthcare, housing, and education has been skyrocketing for decades, vastly outpacing any any wage gains that the American public, minimal wage gains that the American public has experienced over the past let's say thirty to forty years, and so you know, it really has reached a point where so many people housing is just an unbelievable burden. Rent is so incredibly high, and so yeah, the you know little bit of this or that that they did, or the unemployment rate being low, whatever metrics that they're pointing to, it's like, you don't get it. I am still struggling. And the price increases. The inflation that came, you know, in the wake of COVID for a variety of reasons and was not dealt with effectively by the Biden administration just pushed people past the brink. So you know, all of those things are incredibly real and not well captured by some of the macroeconomic indices. But you know there's again like if the Trump administration was like, here's how we're going to deal with that, and you know, yes, there's going to be rebalancing, but we're going to make sure like you're gonna be able to afford a home, and here's the plan. Here's how we're bringing down the cost of education, et cetera. And here's how, here's how we're going to get you healthcare. But on the contrary, you know the minimal reforms that were made by the Biden administration to try to bring down, like, you know, drug prices for example, some of those have been rolled back by the Trump administration. So there if anything going in the opposite direction on those key pieces that I still think.
Are like the major drivers of.
Economic discontent, and then they're just laying layering on top of.
That extra chaos, playing with fire.
I think we're getting more clarity on what the plan is here from Doge and from the Trump administration. And just to back up before I show you this memo that has been now revealed by a couple of different news outlets about the plan. With regard to Social Security, Elon has been targeting Social Security for a long time. He went on Joe Rogan's podcast called it a Ponzi scheme. He's retweeted Mike Lee, who's a libertarian, who calls it a Ponzi scheme and a fraud, etc. Trump has long positioned himself as an anti austerity republican basically didn't care about the debt and the deficit until this term, and has always said I will not cut Social Security Medicare. He really distinguished himself from the Republican pack by making those particular pledges. However, in his Stay of the Union address, he echoed some of the same fraudulent claims made by Elon Musk and the DOGE people, claiming that there were all these people who were dead who were receiving Social Security benefits and painting a picture of widespread fraud within the Social Security system that is just not true. So that was very troubling because it seemed that he was joining in with Elon in laying the groundwork to cut Social Security whilst claiming they were just cutting the fraud from social Security. So now we have, like I said, some more clarity from this memo that was leaked from inside the Social Security Administration that reveals what they're planning to do and can put this up on the screen. Axios obtained a draft of this memo. It was signed by the Acting Deputy Social Security Commissioner for Operation, someone named Doris Diaz on March thirteenth, and it was written on behalf of the agency's Operations department. So it was first reported by Popular Info. Show you some more details from them in a moment. That's Jed Legums outlet. But Axios here confirming the reporting, and they say that this memo was sent one day after the agency had denied a report that they were scrapping their toll free phone line. Well, so they denied that, and now in this memo they say that they are actually moving forward with getting rid of most phone service for Social Security beneficiaries. Now why does this matter? As I was reading through this, apparently what happens frequently is people have to go through a process either online or currently by the phone, to verify their identity. Okay, that seems like a good thing. A lot of old people and a lot of people, remember social securities for people who have disability as well, a lot of people struggle with that online process, and according to some people who are at the Social Security Administration, for some people, the online process just literally doesn't work for whatever unique circumstances they have going on, and so then they either have to go to a Social Security field office to reserve all those problems, or are more commonly to call the toll free Social Security line and get help over the phone. And verify their identity that way, So that is what they're planning to get rid of. This comes at a time also when they're cutting the funds for the Social Security field offices, so that avenue is also becoming less available. So officials are really sounding the alarms. You had one person who said these proposed changes are a way they're trying to use red tape to literally block people from getting benefits. Another one said the money that it would cost to implement these changes would dwarf any savings that would come from cracking down on quote unquote identity fraud. They also said that the proposed limitations would be really a problem, in particular for people live in rural areas who may have either no internet or poor internet access, and for whom the field office is far away and difficult to access. We could put put the E one slideshow back up on the screen here so we can go through some of the details that we review by jud Legam as well.
Well. So he says exclusive.
Internal Social Security Administration memo lays out a plan to sabotage the agency, predicts service disruption, operational strain, and budget shortfalls that will result. It's going to put the next piece up on the screen here, revealing additional details. He says, under the new system, this would force these populations to visit an office to have their clean process. The memo estimates it would require seventy five thousand to eighty five thousand in person visitors per week to ssay's offices to implement the policy. They do not have the resources to handle and influx. These concerns are raised in this memo. I think we have one more piece of this that we can share with you as well. A source said there are no significant concerns about frauded intake because multiple layers of ID verification takes place before a claim is approved. The source said they believe the new steps are an effort to create additional hurdles to filing claims and quote overwhelm the system. So to back up and take this all in, Okay, this change is not going to save any money because implementing it is going to you know, the program currently, like the way it's administered in the phone system, it's not that expensive. Making these changes is actually going to cost money, So you're not saving any money. You're just making it more difficult for people who are entitled to the benefits to be able to access the benefits. So does it matter that social security exists and it hasn't been officially quote unquote cut if more and more and more people are unable to get access to the benefits, And so that seems to be the plan here is basically to hobble the system and strangle it with red tape and with cuts so that it is more and more difficult for people to actually get the benefits that they are entitled to.
What's so dumb about it is they're not wrong that the ID dot ME you know, verification is incredibly difficult to use and is not a very good system. So why wouldn't you, when you phase it out implement a new system That seems like rolling something out that makes something easier is exactly the way that you would want to show efficiency and access to service. And instead, what basically from what I have seen and I looked as much as I could into this is that it basically is trying to reduce the amount of phone reliance while at the same time, as you said, increasing foot traffic to these offices. Now, you know, our debate, notwithstanding on whether we're coddling old people too much and all that You're not wrong that there are They are entitled to this money and they did pay into it is the right of every American citizen. So I guess, you know, we have to provide customer service in any way, shape or form. But the promise originally was to create a new system which would make it more accessible. They've recently come out and said that they're cleaning the data or whatever to reflect that one hundred and twenty year olds, etc. Are not getting it. I mean, that's one of those where I'm like, Okay, thanks, Like I didn't know that was a huge problem in my life and in the government right because there wasn't there was a lot of money that was so like, yeah, I'm not I'm not saying that the US government is not archaic, doesn't use as stupid systems, doesn't need database, et cetera. But I mean, I'm not a political genius. I would just say screwing with old people's money or making it more difficult to get with them seems like a bad idea just in general. Yeah. In fact, what you would want to do is to be a very easy way for dose become much more popular would be to roll out or implement something that makes it way easier to get access to your Social security Yeah, I will say, though it's not that fricking hard. I actually went I myself. I don't know if you've ever done this. I once logged into my Social Security account. I be like, I wonder how much money I'm going to have, you know, whenever I'm old, just inflation adjusted. It's not that difficult to set up. So I will say that that's my only my last swipe at the at the elderly. Just ask somebody and you could figure it out.
I want a base on this, but I will say that the experts indicate that for some people, you literally this online system doesn't work. So you're right though, if you know, in the idealized, hypothetical version of DOGE, in which they're actually interested in efficiency and not just like an ideological project to consolidate power for Elon Musk and his billionaire buddies. In the hypothetical version of DOGE, they would look at that and say, well, we got to fix that. Right, everybody should be able to get access to social security online. It should be straightforward and easy, and then that eases the burdens on the field offices. And then maybe we can cut the fat and trim some of these field offices because they're just not needed as much. Maybe we can trim the phone lines after we get a new system that allows people to enroll in this way, that's like super easy. But of course you want to maintain the phone lines at least to some extent, so that some people who struggle or don't have internet access or whatever can get access. But that's not what we're talking about here. I mean, it just becomes very plain that there's an ideological vendetta against social security. They realize it's a political problem to say we're cutting social security, and so instead they're making it impossible for some people to be able to access it. And then with regard to the cleaning the data, we may have some potential fallout from that cleaning of the data where some people are getting kicked off who are rightful beneficiaries. We could put this up on the screen. There have been two news reports thus far. You've got one person who was marked dead but is very much alive.
You could see him pictured here.
It was hell on earth for him to be able to This one is extraordinary because they actually went into his account and clawed back some five thousand dollars that he was right had rightfully received through Social Security because they marked him dead. Perhaps as part of this quote unquote data cleaning, they're actually you know, revoking some people who are rightful beneficiaries. He tried calling the phone lines. There were hours upon hours wits because they are flooded and they have cut back on staff, so they're understaffed. They're flooded with calls right now, probably from other people who've been marked dead, and whatever goes to the field office, the line is out the door. Hours of wait there before he can finally talk to someone and figure it out and get it fixed. But even then he still has these like lingering effets, because once the government marks you as dead, it creates all sorts of problems. Your bank assumes you're dead, your credit card issuers assume you're dead, like, all sorts of problems that he's now going to have to deal with. The other one just put it back up on the screen there for one more second. The other one, the benefits weren't clawed out of his account, but normally his Medicare payment comes directly on of his Social Security check, so he gets a notice. This is a man who lives in Oklahoma City gets a notice from Medicare of like, oh, you know, we're not getting your payment. So he's like, okay, well, what's going on here? So he goes on looks and finds that he has is also been kicked off of Social Security, is not getting the benefits that he is entitled to receive. He thinks it's because he was actually born his dad served in the military. He was born overseas on a military base in Germany. Now that, of course he's still an American citizen, like being born on an American military base means you were born in America, etc. But he thinks that's what caused him to be marked as you know, probably like a fraudulent beneficiary or whatever, because some idiot saw that he was born in Germany and just assume that meant that he wasn't entitled to these benefits. That's his theory of what's going on here. But if you start to see more and more of these rightful beneficiaries just getting kicked off, these two individuals were lucky that they were financially secure enough that this was not their entire income, but given the time it took to resolve, and the fact that those five thousand dollars were clawed on the account. Like if this was someone who this was their sole source of income and they were entirely dependent on this would have caused a massive, massive financial disaster for an elderly person for no reason. So those are some of the things that are starting to happen here, you know, to get to the political fallout, this looks to be one of the biggest pain points and fears and concerns that has been incited by the Trump administration overall. Indulged in particular, could put this up on the screen. This was the line at a town hall for Chuck Edwards, Republican congressperson in Asheville, North Carolina. This person says there were seventeen hundred and seventy people lined up for this town hall. The space holds around four hundred. There were some extraordinary images and outraged constituents who were filmed at that town hall. I think that's the one where a veteran was yelling at him and got escorted out, etc. But the very first question put the next hair shade up on the screen. The very first question at that town hall had to do with social security benefits. The first questionnaire said, would he ensure the protection of our social security benefits? And apparently the room erupted in applause. They also have to impost tracks another town hall with a Michig Republican where some of the of the thirteen questions that this representative took, nine were related to social security. In a nearby mid Michigan district, they say that was among the most competitive US House races last year. A poll taken at the beginning of first term GP Rep. Tom Barrett's telephone town hall showed social security and medicare as the top issue for attendees. So this is a major political fault line, and they are trying to use backdoor methods to cut this program without coming out and saying we are cutting the program. But people are wising up to what.
Is going on.
Yeah, I mean, Ashville is very liberal area, but still I mean it's one of those where.
They've got a Republican congressman and they can't be that liberal.
It's I think it's one of those very gerrymanner districts if I recall big But anyway, look, you don't want it no matter where you are. If people are liberal, whether they're Republican, if they're old, you don't want to be hearing this and there, you know, aside from the Israel lobby, the only other lobby that you don't ever want to mess with in Washington is what aar and I can guarantee you that if you start coming and stories like that start to go viral on Boom or Facebook, you're gonna have yourself a real problem on your hands. Senator Chuck Schumer, he's canceling a bunch of established book events citing security concerns, even though there's no evidence of that. In reality, he just doesn't want to face any tough questions. John Stewart, as always sounding off. Let's take a listen.
Did Schumer get anything from Republicans in exchange for those dumb boats?
He did not.
Senator Schumer, no disrespect, but you are a disgrace to Jewish stereotypes about financial negotiations.
You're going to keep out it.
Keep at it, keep out it, keep pat it at what.
This was it?
This was the it that you would have been keeping at the keeping of the it.
It's not the keeping of it.
That's the issue, it's what.
The it don't you have to start it to keep at it.
If this wasn't it, then.
It's what is it?
If this not be it?
But apparently the grand plan is Dems keep fecklessly complaining until the forty eight approval comes down to forty which is a plan, but it's forgetting one crucial piece of information in Schumer's popularity.
Calculation, devastating cascading poll numbers for Democrats. Only twenty seven percent of voters have a positive view of the party, the lowest favorability rating in the history of NBC's polling.
You're a twenty five person, You've got to get Trump to lose eight points of popularity just for you to get to the point where you're thirteen points below him.
Thirteen points below he shredded him as only Stuart Kenny did a good job. Yeah, I mean it's one of those with Schumer his I just don't get what is going on on a policy level. I genuinely do understand it. As I said, They're like, look, if we shut the government down, then Elon and Trump will get to decide who's essential or not essential. Let's actually pretty good argument. But the issue is that it just is all couched for Schumer in this like in this sense of he's trying to pretend that he's standing up for Trump, but he's also not even dispositionally planning anything months ahead of time. Like if we had come to this outcome, I think with the liberal planning for you know, two months or so before this, and this still is how we ended up. But at least people would say, Okay, we thought we tried this, we extracted concession. It would be a very very different scenario. But here especial, as they got caught flat footed. Now they look like idiots. And then even worse, Schumer is now doing what they're accusing Republicans are doing, which is hiding from angry constituents. Right, you're a hypocrite.
Oh you're not buying his security concerns. Come.
I mean, that's the thing is he's just he provoked a mass liberal, moderate progressive, like whole of party backlash. I think he's got madgal asis on his side. And that's about it at this point, because across the board they want to see people fight. This is the only moment when you have leverage. You have known that for months to come. Where was the plan? Where was the fight? I mean to me, we played this on the Friday Show and Zagery probably saw it too. Chris Hayes laughing in his face, Oh yes, yeah. When he says basically like we got to fight him at every step, and he's like, what are you talking about? You're literally here on my show. This is not how he frees it, but this is how went in my head. You're literally here on my show to announce your intention to not fight, so fight every step of the way, Like where is the fight? Where is this theoretical fight? And so I think there are in my estimation, three things going on with Chuck Schumer. Number one, he's old as an outdated mental model about politics. He thinks this is all just like politics as usual. Shutdowns are bad, like he's still operating on a mental model from circle let's say nineteen eighty four. I think that's number one. I think number two, that idiotic James Carvell op ed in the New York Times that instructed Democrats to lay down and play dead and let Trump make his own mess and not make any sort of affirmative case against him or fight him in any way. I think that Carvell and others actually buy into that, which is idiotic, the polar opposite of the way that Republicans have effectively fought Democrats whatever Democrats get any semblance of power. So I think that's part of it. And number three, Yeah, I do think the fact that it was Chuck Schumer and Kirsten jelibrand the two senators from New York who led the charge to cave at a time when Wall Street was very on edge. Stock market went on down a lot last week. We're worried what our stocks might do if the government shuts down for a period of time. Yeah, I don't think that that is an accident when you look at the fact that both of those centers senators drive a lot of their power and their campaign contributions from Wall Street to like, I don't think it's a conspiracy theory to say they would have been responsive to those concerns and that it's not an accent that those two that.
Ultimately lead the charge here.
So yeah, New York Times even skeptical of him on his strategy here, but they also asked him so his book tour is supposed to be about this whole like, you know, anti Semitism thing, and he was supposed to have his first event with Richie Torres, etc. And they asked him about, well, you know, isn't it legitimate to criticize Israel? And isn't it legitimate even the UN body has suggested that these were genocidal acts. Take a listen to what he had to say in response.
Hummas made it much to and no one blames him us. I mean, the news reports every day for a while showed Palestinians being hurt and killed. And you know, I see the pictures of a little Palestinian boy without a leg where I saw one sticks in my head. There was a little girl like eleven twelve crime because her parents were both killed. I ache for that, But on the news reports they never mentioned that. So much of the time Hamas used the Palestinian people as human shields. And so when these protesters come and accuse Israel of genocide and said what about Hamas, they don't even want to talk about Hamas again. Genocide is a vicious, vicious word to use.
I will say it's a word that a UN special committee has used police.
The UN has been anti Israel, anti semitically, against Israel, double standard. Moynihan was my idol. He became famous when in nineteen seventy six they tried to pass the resolution Zionism is racism. To say that the Jewish people should not have a state when every other people should have a state is anti semitism. The old double standard ipso fact dope, and the international organizations. I have no faith in them being fair.
I mean I get spend an hour disia like there is nothing like, there's nothing wrong proposing at no states.
Number one. Number two.
His claim is that the news reports are too pro Hamas, Like have you read these news reports the way that they twist and turn themselves and tie themselves into knots to avoid laying any responsibility for the mass slaughter of women and children and non combats and innocent civilians and starving them. I mean, Israel's currently starving them, has institute of a complete siege.
And the way these news reports.
Seek to avoid laying any blame and responsibility isn't okay. So to claim that they're too pro Hama, that's insane. Not to mention his whole thing about like, oh, people never want to talk about Hamas and how they're using them for human You know why the focus of the protests is is our government is funding Israel, we are not funding Hamma. So yes, we take a great interest in the way that we are sending bombs to a country that is dropping them on top of innocent civilians. I think that's reasonable. And then the claim O, you know, genocide is anti Semitic and the un is Hamas like just it's just you can't make it up, like it's he hits every single note. And I almost have to say, Sagart like to insist that the one of the largest problems that the country faces right now is the scourge of anti Semitism, like there is no evidence to back that up, and to the extent, and I think it's probably true that anti Semitism has spiked. Perhaps it has to do with people like you who are constantly tying all Jewish people to the actions of a state that is currently starving and bombing babies. Maybe that has something to do with the spike, alleged spike in anti Semitic sentiment.
It's a moral panic complete it's that you change the definition of anti semitism to include criticism of Israel. Than sure, anti Semitism is a huge problem, but if you're talking about actual hatred of Jews. It's ridiculous. This idea that there are literally like raving, roving gangs of anti Semites across America is so preposterous. And beyond that, you're obviously watching how many of these Jewish students themselves are called anti Semitics. So the whole thing, you know, by by Schumer's own standard, a lot of these Jews are anti Semitic, which I love watching people twist and turn in the wind on that one. But yeah, you're absolutely right. It's complete and total false moral panic, and it is one used to basically use the legacy of that from the past to bring this insane you know, censorship and dialogue, you know, restricting dialogue here in America to create a political environment that is beneficial for a foreign government. And you put it that way, that's when people start to get real quiet and real uncomfortable.
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Alright, Okay, great counterpoint show for everybody tomorrow. We'll see you all then,
