Some More News - Even More News: Trump's Terrible Tariffs... Seems Bad!

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

Hi. Katy, Cody, and Jonathan dig into Trump's tariff chaos, the confounding formula used to come up with the rates, why they will drive prices higher, and how they don't really help anybody. They also discuss Elon's big stinky L in Wisconsin, Cory Booker's record-setting* speech, and JD Vance's miserable excuses for deporting an immigrant with protected status. Get the world's news at https://ground.news/SMN to compare coverage and see through biased coverage. Subscribe for 40% off unlimited access through our link.PATREON: https://patreon.com/somemorenewsMERCH: https://shop.somemorenews.comGo to https://www.cookunity.com/MORENEWS for 50% off your first week. Thanks to CookUnity for supporting the show!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi, hello, and welcome back to Even More News, the first, the only news podcast. I'm Katie Stoll. Yeah, you are. Thank you so much for welcoming me and only me to this only news podcast that's ever been, I'm Cody Johnston. Cody Johnston, unfortunately, I was not only welcoming you, I was welcoming our listeners. People are listening to this?

And watching it, presumably. Oh! Yeah. Jonathan is also here, by the way. Hi. Yeah. Jonathan is also here by the way. Hi. Yeah. Good. Why not?

Why not? Why not show up for another one, I guess. You've made it this far. Just one more. I love economics, so I'm raring to go. Excellent. Everybody loves economics. We all love econ.

Understanding it, doing it, those are the only two things. Participating in it, I guess that's doing it. Doing it, exactly. I just wanna take a moment up top to shout out Jonathan, who is also here, for writing this week's episode about Joe Rogan. If you haven't seen it yet, you should check that out.

With plenty of contributions from Dave Bell and Cody Johnson. Absolutely. It should be said. Sure, sure, sure. But you bit that bullet and you listened. I watched all the Joe Rogan. You did. Yeah.

You did the heavy lifting here, which immersed yourself. We've only trimmed stuff from it. There are so many clips of him being comically wrong and frustratingly wrong. That was a thing for you, I know, wanting to include everything, but also keeping it to a certain purview

to argue a certain point. But there's a lot to choose from when you are tackling Joe Rogan. There are two to three clips a week that go viral. And then you're like, oh, I saw that. I remember that viral clip. I definitely want to include that in this. And then you watch a few extra minutes and be like,

how do I not? We could do a whole episode on this. On 10 minutes right here. Right. Exactly. In every episode. Yes, that actually happened. That's one of the reasons there are extra bits that I put in where I'm like watching the clips

that you had the thing to say about. And then like, he keeps talking and like, oh, we gotta include this next to 20 seconds because he's wrong in another way about another thing. It's like, it's like he's- That's what happens when their shows are so very long. There's a million pieces to take, but you did a great job. There was a little bit of Joe Rogan news

that broke the day before we released. I wanted to address this a little bit because people even mentioned that, so at the end of our Joe Rogan episode, there's, I guess, a plea to him, a fruitless plea to Joe Rogan to basically harken back to the days when he was a little more grounded in reality and a little more accepting of being able to see something that was wrong with his eyes and recognize it and call it

out, particularly a lot of the immigration stuff that Trump did in his first term. And he gave some impassioned speeches back then. And basically, we plead with him, he's doing it worse now. It's worse now. And you helped him get elected. He told you that you got him elected. So like, open your eyes a little bit and recognize the terrible things that are going on that you have sort of helped usher in, to be honest.

I think, Eli, come back to reality, you know? Come back to reality, come back to your team, which is just, again, not promoting the king of morons, his words. And like a day, I think the day before the video came out, he kind of did, he was basically confronted with some of these deportations that maybe shouldn't be happening right now

of people who aren't affiliated with a gang, aren't convicted of gang activity, anything like that, and being deported anyway to El Salvador. And he sort of was like, that's fucked up, we shouldn't be doing that, is there any way to get him back? Oh my God. And there's this really short clip

and people are being like, oh, Joe Rogan's waking up. I don't think he is, folks. No. It is like, I encourage Joe to like keep going, but he doesn't take that moment to like consider like, oh, I did vote for that. I did want this. Cause he frames it like, you know, this isn't what we,

like, this isn't part of the plan. It is part of the plan, Joe. You need to recognize that it's part of the plan. There is maybe opportunity for him to still go on that journey. The plea still stands. But yeah, if you actually, before we started recording, I said this,

I tried to listen to the episode. As I do sometimes, I try to listen to the episodes to get the full context of clips. And I think at FAR, because it just out of the gate, he starts off, you know, mocking all the different politicians, but the only politics,

he's like, can you even believe it? Like, oh, you know, these are who we have to choose from. And then he only lists Democrats. To me, that's just case in point. You've got a whole host of wild characters that you could choose from as an example, but his brain doesn't even go there. It's just so knee jerk.

I'm going to mock Democrats. And there's plenty to mock for sure, but he's not equal opportunity here. Well, yeah, the fact of the matter is, Joe Rogan is an establishment shill, so he wouldn't criticize Republicans. They're the ones who are running the government right now. Anyway, we just wanted to take a moment to address that up top and promote the video.

Go watch it, it's great, Jonathan did an amazing job. It is great. There are some appearances in there, top and promote the video. Jonathan did an amazing job. There are some appearances in there with me and Warmbo. It's a fun one. Okay, holidays. Oh, cute. Oh.

We had a completely opposite reaction. Well, this looks good. Friday, April 4th, National Hug, a news Person Day. I rescind my disgust. Right? Happy holidays, everybody.

Although I don't know if you should just go up and hug people you don't know. That feels a little bit like an invasion of- Well, it's not National Go Up and Hug a News Person Day. But how are you supposed to hug a news person without going up to them? Yeah, I mean, I assume that consent is implied, or like asking for consent is implied,

but I probably shouldn't, because that's not how we do things these days. I think you should just do a virtual hug like that, and go, mwah. Don Lemon, if you're listening, we're virtually hugging you right now. This goes out to you, Donnie. Thank you, specifically Don Lemon.

Oh, I assume that's just who it's talking about. This goes out to you, Donnie. Thank you, specifically Don Lemon. Oh, I assume that's just who it's talking about. I couldn't come up with any others. Guys, this has nothing to do with the news or the holidays, what I'm about to say, but I think that there's a skunk living in my ceiling and every so, I'm not joking. I hear little scamperings at night, and it smells like I've been, the house has been skunked

in sometimes, it's like I can tell where he's been. Do you just have like really, really good weed? No, it's not that kind of skunk. Oh. Here's how you test it. Get some white paint right down the back of Benny and see if Benny starts getting romanced by whatever's in the ceiling.

If that happens, there's your skunk right there. No. if Benny starts getting romanced by whatever's in the ceiling. If that happens, there's your skunk right there. No. He is a little honeypot though. Aw, that's cute. Speaking of honeypots, should we talk about the news? Yeah. I don't know.

Gold at the end of the rainbow. There we go. Yeah, so the Trump tariffs, they were announced yesterday or Wednesday officially. Most of them go into effect over the next few days. Trump held up a couple of charts. He loves his charts. A couple of columns. It has a list of countries in I don't know what order,

and then a column that says, tariffs charged to the USA, which is not how tariffs work and also this is not what they are and a bunch of percentages and then USA discounted reciprocal tariffs and then the number is just half whatever the number was in the previous column. Just get out ahead of this and say I don't understand it at all and I think partly that's their fault because it's wildly stupid. It is entirely their fault. Yes, I mean, where to start?

Couldn't tell ya. Where to start is this, I think, this idea that Trump has that because we import more than we export to these countries, we're getting swindled. Yes, he's saying a trade deficit is in itself bad. That's it, and then it's unfair. And like, he seems, I think he's conflating

a lot of different words. Like he's using the word deficit in how he understands it in different like areas to apply to this. And he's like, oh, trade deficit, that's bad. And he sees that, well, we're importing more than we export to this country. And so we're getting cheated by them simply because we buy more stuff from them than they do from us.

And I want to point out that that is not really how being cheated Works if you are buying something from another country and they like for example, Indonesia We have a trade deficit with Indonesia because we buy a bunch of stuff from them including Coffee and other things that we want and they buy less stuff from us Presumably because they can get a lot of it from closer places, China, Australia, what have you. But it's not like we're getting swindled, we're getting something for that money, goods, right?

We pay them and then we get something. And if there is a tariff that they've placed on imports from the United States. First of all, it's not what they're listing there. But also, that doesn't mean that we're getting screwed. It means that Indonesia wants to protect its domestic supply of X. The same way we have small tariffs on certain other things if we want to protect our supply of that thing. So making tariffs specifically reciprocal doesn't necessarily make a lot of sense because we trade different things.

We're buying different things, right? And there's like a fundamental shift. I mean, it could be wrong. I'm not in my field of expertise, but in America, in our workforce, or the things that we have decided over the last 100 years, less manufacturing, more white collar jobs, and more investment into tech industries, different types of jobs. Our economy is just fundamentally

different than this. We do not manufacture. It'll take so long to shore up, to build the infrastructure, to replace the goods that we are, if that's the actual goal, you know, to bring more manufacturing domestically. But also, just American-made goods are more expensive, which isn't inherently a bad thing, you know, but people can't afford them. People can't afford this. Yeah, our country, I mean, part of this is organic, part of it is those blue collar manufacturing jobs became a lot less attractive once the unions were all crushed and destroyed. We, over decades after World

War II, became much more of a white collar society and then people with their purchasing dollars for better or worse decided that they wanted cheap stuff from China and Japan instead of buying American. And so the economy shifted and changed and people got different kinds of work. So having a booming manufacturing industry in this country, great. That's not a bad thing. I would hope all those new jobs would be high paying union jobs, but whatever. Since unemployment, like if the idea is we're gonna replace all of these,

everyone who's forced to be a door dash driver now, you're going to get a great blue collar union job. If that really was the goal, they would be doing other stuff than just the tariffs. They would be incentivizing, say, the Ford Motor Company to bring all of their materials to create their materials here to bring their manufacturing processes here. The point is bringing

Manufacturing back to America if if that's going to bring on some new manufacturing Renaissance Great, if that was really the goal they would be doing other stuff than just blanket tariffs on everything with the Percentages being completely arbitrary. I mean, it's kind of what they do a lot for a lot of stuff This is not really related to the tariffs I'm so sorry, but similarly with like voter ID stuff where they're like, well, if you wanted to like actually ensure everybody gets to vote and do this voter ID ID thing,

you would also be putting in place a system to ensure that everybody gets an ID. Like you would be like, well, we're going to, you have to have an ID to vote and we have this new system that like gets you an ID and has a sort of robust plan for that. Again, not exactly the same thing, but to your point, their goal doesn't line up with their action because they don't they're not doing that. And like, again, he's just like, it's that thing of like, what are the tariffs for? Because if you you're like, well, maybe if you get rid of your tariffs, then we'll get

rid of ours. But then then you're not getting the thing that you say that we need to do. Like, what is the purpose of these? Yeah, the fact that the Commerce Secretary and the Treasury Secretary are still out there saying different motivations for this makes it clear that there is no through line.

This is just, he likes tariffs, he gets to have CEOs of companies groveling to him now. Yes, that's it. That's exactly. And that's another key part of it is that, like, if you're in with Trump and you like kiss the ring, he will let you out of this. He will carve out places for you to not be affected by this because... You think? He did it for oil and natural gas already, right? And semiconductors?

Semiconductors do. I guess what I'm trying to say is this isn't good for so many industries. This isn't good for automobile manufacturers. I don't care if you're a domestic automobile manufacturer. This is going to dramatically hurt you. Also just like things like, you know, various agricultural things like foods and stuff where it's

like, well, we don't need, we can't even grow that stuff here. Most importantly, I think at the moment, at least it's nonsensical and arbitrary. It's not an arbitrary, they have a system, but it's stupid. How they determined these numbers. It is truly absurd how they calculated this and what the number means and how it is in direct conflict with some of the actual tariffs

that some of these countries have. And kudos to the brain people last night who figured this out. John, you want to go through? Yeah, John, I think you have to act with it. You can explain it, explaining this. You did? In the mirror?

No, not in the mirror. Good Lord, no. Oh, no. I don't like this right here, where I can see myself. So yeah, some people figured this out, because none of the numbers match with what the actual tariff rates are, even though it says in that column, like these are the tariffs charged to us.

No, they're charging their importer. It doesn't matter. Right, right, right. So it appears that they are just taking the total trade deficit. So like the total amount of their exports, the total amount of our exports, what's the deficit there divided by the number of our total imports from them. And from that, you get a percentage. And then they're taking that percentage

and cutting it in half because we're so nice. It's a discount. That's what they're saying. So it's like the discounted tariff. So in the Indonesia case, they did the math and it comes out to 64% because we import a lot more from Indonesia than we export. So we're saying that that's a big deficit and they're cheating us because it needs to

be even even though there's no reason that every country needs to import the exact same amount that they export to a country, right? No, of course not. What do you like? So that's the formula. It only includes trades in goods and not in services that the US provides. And it doesn't make sense to do that

to try to even it out. So two things about this. One, if you have a, if we have a trade surplus with a country that is we export more to them than they do to us, you're still getting slapped with a 10% tariff at a baseline, which doesn't make sense if we're matching them beat for beat. And then the other thing is that it really looks like they got this formula from ChatGPT or DeepSeek because if you go to one of these LLMs and

say, how would you go about balancing the trade deficit with each country using tariffs, they always reply with, well, here would be the formula you would use to do that, dot, dot, dot. But this would have a lot of negative effects, like raising prices for everyone, like starting a trade war, ruining reputations across nations. And that's not confirmed, but it really looks like they... But it sure seems like it. It seems like it because what a...

Like, starting from, well, that's a weird way to calculate this. This is so stupid. This doesn't make any sense. What does this percentage even mean? Starting from, well, that's a weird way to calculate this. This is so stupid. This doesn't make any sense. What does this percentage even mean? Like, what does this represent to you? Yes, it's a ratio of deficit to imports,

which is not related to tariffs. It's not, it's just like, I remember like, watching as people figure this out, like, oh, this is what they're doing. And just like looking at it and like, but why? Like, but why? It's so absurd, and then you have what, the White House, the Deputy Press Secretary being like,

that's not how we calculated it, we calculated by this. And he shows a screen grab of this equation with a bunch of epsilons in there. It's the same thing, it is the same thing. Right, once you cancel the stuff out. The extra bits is four times 1 fourth, which is one, and if you multiply one times anything, it's the same fucking number,

so it's just what people are claiming is stupid, and you're saying no, it's actually very smart, look at this new. Allow theta to equal the like. We came up with it ourselves, we did not consult JattGTT. Right, so like it's absurd because like, okay, so this thing that doesn't make any sense and why are you using this?

And the fact that their god, chat GPT, also recommends that, it makes sense that they would do that. They're like, their whole doge, like, system, maybe they grok'd it, maybe it wasn't chat GPT, I don't know, but it's so silly and so absurd it's just not true and it's one of those and another one of those things where it's like lying

Every politicians lie it is so brazen and so insulting it is disgusting how much they lie To everybody they hate everybody so much. No Cody, they're the most transparent administration ever. Fun bit, it's disgusting. Like they're like. Fun bit, I just threw up in my mouth a little so. If you do this stupid fucking equation, for example, Vietnam, you get 92% because of the trade deficit divided by

our imports. That number is 92%. Well, you cut that in half for the discount. I love they put discount because he's the he's the fucking used car salesman. The discount makes it 50%. So it's actually really reasonable that they're charging 50%. The tariffs that Vietnam have are 9.5%. The tariffs that they're saying the other countries have is a lie. They're making it seem like,

oh, these countries are being so unfair to us and they're not, especially because we're buying all the, we buy all their stuff. We buy the stuff. It's absurd. It's a lie. It would be like,

let me know if this doesn't make sense. It would be like- None of it makes sense, so. Well, of course it doesn't make sense, but let me know if this analogy doesn't make sense. It would be like, there's like a golf club, right? It's a fancy golf club, and all the rich people at the golf club go and they have their a fancy golf club. And all the rich people at the golf club go

and they have their caddies and they have their servers and the restaurant at the golf club. And if they were like, wait a minute, we're paying all these people a bunch of money, but they're not paying us any money. The caddy and servers aren't paying me. So we need to charge ourselves 25% more and pay it to the mayor of the town

because this is an imbalanced relationship. And maybe there is an imbalance because of Gosford Park stuff, but how does charging people extra, also we're not all rich people at a golf club, like it fundamentally breaks the brain because you're trying to find an analogy that doesn't sound like you hit your head.

It's so silly. I mean, people pointed this out, you know, maybe like a year ago when he was running for president and talking about these tariffs and pointing out like, that's not what a trade deficit is. Like that's not how this works. That's not the relationship that you're describing. But here we are.

I am alarmed. I'm, I think that we all are. It's just so hard to understand what the point, what we're doing here. Is he trying to bully, intimidate other countries to do what? Stop fentanyl? No. what the point, what we're doing here. Is he trying to bully, intimidate other countries to do what? Stop fentanyl?

No, that's bullshit. What is the, you know, a lot of people, I just- The penguins are sending the fentanyl from the McDonald Islands. I don't even know what- To be fair, fuck those birds. Fuck those birds. But I don't, there's so many different ways that I see people trying to break this down.

And people that you, that voted for him or economists or financial people, worried about it. Even they are worried. Like nobody's stoked on this, except for the most MAGA who are going, just trying their hardest to make us seem like we're cry babies or something or worried? Like, what is this? From the quartering. You do not need the new iPad. You do not need the new cell phone. You do not need the new video game console. You want them. There is a big difference. And if you look at the people whining about the terrorists, I challenge you to ask them how their lives have been affected in any way.

What are you talking about? Actually, maybe they do need the new phone. Maybe theirs isn't working. And you need a new phone. We built our entire society around it. Around these things. And it's the Republican idea. Free trade, buy stuff.

That's our whole thing. It's perplexing. But they're like, my life has not been affected. It's just starting, man. I don't like the total about face on like the price of eggs, for example. He owns a coffee company. The quartering?

Yeah, you don't need the new iPad. Is that the only thing that's going to be affected? You sell coffee. Where do you get your fucking coffee beans? The quartering. Exclusively Hawaii? I hope so. Yeah, I bet not.

I bet you don't get- Hawaii's got good coffee. Yes, they do. So I hope you get it all from there. Has there ever been a campaign promise from a presidential candidate where he talked about it all the time? I'm going to do this thing.

And then when he did it, caused that amount of chaos. I don't know if there's ever been such a big campaign promise that all the supporters were like, well, he's not really gonna do that. Oh yeah, promises made, promises kept, oh no! Yeah. Promises, promises. It's so absurd.

Yeah, I've also seen people be like, you know, you don't have to agree with, just because you voted for him, you don't have to agree with everything they say. Well, or like everything they do, like, you know, you don't have to agree with, just because you voted for him, you don't have to agree with everything they say. Well, or like everything they do, like, you know, you voted for Obama, but like, did you agree with like all the bombing of brown people or like jailing journalists?

Did he campaign on that shit? Like, what are you talking about? Trump talked for a year about his dumb as fuck tariff plan, and then he did it, and you're like, well, I don't agree with everything, but he said he was gonna do it like Obama didn't say that droning people was his third favorite word Trump said that tariff is his third favorite word after religion and love This is October 30 2024 a week before the election.

God, that was like nine years ago, man. And I will use a thing called the most beautiful word to me ever, ever. Not quite. Well, let me say this. How about third? Let's put religion number one and love number two. And then, and then we'll put the word tariff number three. Tariff. And Trump's favorite word, religion. It is funny, it is a funny clip. Yeah, he's funny. He's hilarious.

He's an idiotic monster. Like there's this, there's this category of voter who sees that. It's like, he's not really gonna do it. And yeah, he's funny. What a stupid idiot. Ha ha ha. And they vote for him. And then he does the thing.

And then like, whoa, yeah. Like, my brain is broken. I'm so sorry. I think we should move on to another topic, maybe. Thank goodness. This is, this man and the people he surrounds himself with and the things he believes and says and does. I just want to say one more thing, I'm sorry.

Is it the Harris Faulkner thing? And those 401k people who were depending, those retirees, all of that, just talking plain speak with them. Look, when this nation used to go to war, people in this country would support the war effort with their materials at home and making things for weaponry and all of that. We got to do 100% buy-in over this bumpy period.

Just communicate. Well, it's not specifically that, but the idea of, hey, when the going gets tough, Americans are asked to sacrifice. You know, after during World War II, we had to sacrifice and give up some things we were used to for the greater good. And why don't Americans want to do that today? Are we at war? Is it World War II? Is there an economic crisis that warranted this?

A lot of people consider it an economic war. I think that there are more people than I realized who consider that the new way you fight wars. I think that there are, cause I heard that- Against everyone? Right, I mean this is, it's fucking wild, it's nonsensical, but I do think that some people

consider it a different type of war. And to respond to that, just this whole idea, like, you know, pull up your bootstraps, do it for the greater good. I'm sorry, you didn't want to do shit for COVID. But okay, that was another greater good argument. I don't know how this plays out. None of us do. We don't know.

We don't know. Maybe he is just being some bully and trying to get some concessions. Maybe this is 10 years of economic upheaval, or as someone else has said, like a century of economic, it doesn't matter. Down before. I don't want to put that in people's brains, but this obviously has very immediate effects on everyday people.

All of us paying for the price of goods, the fact that it's just we're playing Russian roulette with the stock market and like I don't know I don't have stocks but lots of people do. Lots of retirees depend on that and their Social Security and now the price of goods are going up. This is bad. Yes, that's the thing. Because if you look at it holistically, all these things are happening at the same time. Aside from everybody saying Trump, these tariffs are a bad idea, it's going to cause a lot of problems and make things worse for a lot of Americans and other people too if they even matter To you but so you having this happen and you have all like everybody in the administration sort of giving different reasons for them And some of those reasons are contradictory. So clearly they don't know why or what they're doing

So they're just sort of doing this for Trump that will have these really, really negative consequences. And during that time, they're also like doing this other like antagonistic stuff to other countries and talking about absorbing and like take like colonizing other places. They're also gutting all of these social programs, they're slashing the federal workforce. They're whittling down the government to loyalists and sycophants and opportunists. They're, again, slashing things like social security. So they're creating hard times on purpose. They said that. Trump said it, Musk said it, this idea that, yeah,

you're gonna have to go through hard times to achieve great times or whatever. But also, like he was promising contradictory things. I'm definitely going to do the terrorists, but also we're going to bring prices down on day one. Yes. But sort of my point is, if you look at it altogether, mass deportations now building, you know, like building up the private prison system, which they're still going to be doing. And, you know, deporting people without due process.

And you have the entire state media, which is Fox News, the state media now, it's the establishment mainstream media, talking about how like, well, they don't deserve due process. How do you know if they don't get it? There's no way to determine that deserve due process. How do you know if they don't get it? There's no way to determine that without due process. So you have all these things, all the deportations, rounding people up for speech issues. It just becomes very clear that they are creating a crisis to take advantage of that crisis and entrench themselves in power.

The news, it's like tears and rain. The news is the tears and then the rain is the more news that keeps happening. Sorry. Why did I say it like that? The news, it's like tears and rain. The news is the tears and then the rain is the more news that keeps happening. You know what? Forget it. Ground News is a website and app we sought out

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There were some election results this week and there was cause to celebrate, to enjoy a moment of peace. And then all of this kind of superseded it. But I want to bring us back there because you guys, Susan Crawford won the Wisconsin Supreme Court special election. Jonathan, tell us a little bit more about what happened and how embarrassed Elon Musk must be. Well, no, he intended to lose. Oh, he intended the whole time.

He just wanted to give away $25 million. Yeah, he spent $25 million to try to elect Brad Schimel, who lost by 10 points, and Musk said, I expected to lose, but there is value for losing a piece for positional gain. What positional gain? What position that is is unclear. Universal hatred.

His positional gain is apparently like leaving the White House and like watching his company's tank more. Let's give some space to that part. Sure, but he framed it like the, I actually intended to lose. It's actually good because the real victory is the voter ID. Because they have a voter ID entrenched in their constitution now, which it was already a law.

They already had that. And to my point earlier, a lot of organizations had to sort of step up to help people get these IDs because the Republicans who wanted voter ID did not want to have a plan in place to ensure that everybody has an ID to vote. So it's just like the victory is that the law is now more of a law. Great point, Elon. Okay.

Sounds like a good use of money. And he also has replied to someone who said that the election was stolen though, right? Yes, he retweeted Alex Jones and his source was Roger Stone. You know that's some good shit right there. Do you mean Oliver Stone? He's helping Oliver Stone.

You do mean Roger Stone? I mean literally Roger Stone. Fancy hat guy. Not Oliver Stone. I am not Lauren Boebert in Congress making that mistake. To the man's face. Sorry. But just as an aside, I remember distinctly

about two or three years ago, Elon Musk saying he would never let Alex Jones back on his website because he disgustingly used children for his own gain. And Elon held his dying child in his arms as they died and felt his last heartbeat, which was also a lie as his ex-wife pointed out briefly after that. And then he let Alex Jones on and is saying that,

according to Alex Jones, according to Roger Stone, the election was stolen. You spent $25 million on it, man. Maybe people just fucking hate you. Maybe you suck, maybe you suck. Bring this back to a positive zone because this is a good thing. This is, I mean, this is also a referendum in general

on what's been happening and on Elon Musk specifically. Also this week, there was special elections in Florida and the GOP maintained control of those two seats but by a significantly lower percentage than Donald Trump won just a few months ago. So I do think we can focus on those things as being a little bit of a bellwether as to how people are reacting to this administration just a couple months in.

And as Cody alluded to already, fun little tidbit developing yesterday is that Trump apparently has been floating the idea that Elon Musk will not be around much longer in terms of the administration or having an official capacity. that Elon Musk will not be around much longer in terms of the administration or having an official capacity. Because yeah, like it's one of those things where obviously Trump's got his base, they will never ever abandon him.

And people, some people who aren't his base also seem to like him. But people seem to hate Elon Musk. I would be very interested to see the impossible, which is how this election would have gone if Elon Musk wasn't involved. Him bringing attention to it and pumping money into it and having a lottery for people who voted,

the illegal lottery that he did. If that wasn't going on and he wasn't such a dumb piece of shit that everybody hates, I'm curious how it would have gone. I assume still in this positive direction, but he seems to be poisonous. I'm interested. So something that I've been thinking about

these past couple months, Elon's kind of taken the heat for a lot of things, the public ire, and Donald Trump, while always repulsive and offensive and saying ridiculous things, it's almost like Elon sucks up the oxygen and more of the attention, and so there's some amount of blame getting thrown his way as opposed to Donald Trump's.

So I'm curious how that shifts, you know, because certainly he's the person that we're gonna be talking about more if Elon does exit. Oh, we'll still have plenty of things to say about Elon. I'm sure he's not going away completely. But I do think that there is some amount of Elon taking

the brunt of people's frustration at this point in time. And he's doing this very specific things, kind of independent of Trump in a way, where Trump's sort of like, just go do it, I don't care. I'm the king now, I don't care what you do. And Elon's project will continue once he's gone. And even once he's gone, I assume he's still gonna have his little fingers in there because he doesn't allegedly run Doge. It's Amy. I can't remember her name because she's never like, I've never seen her in an

interview. No one's ever. Yeah. She's not talking with Brett Baier being like, actually, I mean, she does talk like Elon Musk. Actually, this is uncovering tremendous amounts of fraud. Here's my first lie of the day. It's just Elon in an Amos suit. Yeah, it's so absurd, and it does seem like he's just not likable and will take a back seat, which isn't to say he won't be involved.

Also, he did say temporary hardships on October 30th. I just wanted to clarify that. Maybe Trump wasn't. A couple days before the election. Before the election, very clearly, you're gonna suffer, and it was specifically referring to ordinary Americans. Did he say maybe?

I don't think so. The same day Trump said the. I also don't think that matters. Religion's his favorite word. No, I'm just curious. I said it would likely entail temporary hardships. That necessarily involves some temporary hardship is what he said.

But by that, I think that all of our points stand because most of the campaign is done. A lot of people have already voted by that point in time. And they said the exact opposite up till then. And then it was like, uh, anyway, but yeah, uh, it doesn't take away from your point at all is my point, except that they did start saying it more often after the election, which, oh yeah. Um, they admit it. I mean more often after the election. Which was like, tell us now.

Oh yeah, they admitted, I mean, it's the Project 2025 stuff after the election. Well, obviously, yeah. But my point is, it was always out there. It was always clear what they were going to do with their little lies, which they just cannot stop spouting. Well, we keep trying to put it into this good news territory. I mean, the Wisconsin thing is great.

It is. That is very, very good news. It's just hard to be like, look at that, when all this other stuff is going on. And they're out there just like lying all the time. I won't get into the details of this. They just can't stop spouting these lies. It's so frustrating.

On Sunday, Elon went up and talked about social security and how all these immigrants are taking social security and how like, look at this scandal. And it's all information that is readily available. It's all policies that have been known to be in place. All the charts are lies. He's talking about how like, oh, immigrants are getting social security numbers.

Non-citizens with work permits can get social security numbers. That is just how it works. They're paying into social security. They're not getting it back. There's this system in place from the Trump era. There's a new program that makes it easier to apply, which is why 2024 was so much higher. It's just a big mess of lies.

And then it gets out there. They also said that they're getting social security. They didn't specify numbers. They suggested that just non-citizens are getting social security checks. Which they are not. Of course not. Yes. And so again, it's just like the conscious view of blatant lies.

This is a cliche at this point, I'm so sorry. It's not normal. It's so fucking gross how easily it comes to them and they don't care and they hate you so much. They hate everybody so much. Can I bring us into a more positive zone again? More positive, there are things. Let's do it.

I wanted to highlight Cory Booker's filibuster I wanted to highlight Cory Booker's filibuster that happened this week, where he spoke for 25 hours and five minutes, very long time. I don't know how effective anything ever is, but I appreciate the energy and the spectacle of it, because we've been sitting here saying, where are our leaders? Who is standing up and saying what needs to be said?

And he took control of that situation and he did it. I didn't love that it was happening and I was getting, Katie, it's Cory Booker here, texts, here's a link to donate or what have you. And I've seen other people posting it. Also, he apparently prepared by not eating for several days and dehydrating himself, which I don't think is a healthy thing to do.

Or something that we should celebrate, but he took it seriously. That's the thing. It's an incredible feat to accomplish. It's really impressive and it is aesthetically very cool. Also, Strom Thurmond, rest in piss. That's a very cool thing that happened. He beat Strom Thurmond's record, the segregationist.

Right. So there's a lot of symbolic positivity about this. And I've seen a lot of people of a certain generation be like really excited about it. Like it's invigorating. It's like, it's so exciting to see them do this. And that is true. And there's some value in that.

Absolutely. It is a little, it's a little like frustrating in a sense because, you know, you can say the same thing about like Bernie's oligarchy rallies that he's doing. He's just going out there and talking. He's like trying to like whip people up, get the energy going and like talk about these issues. That is what he's doing.

And he's getting some donations probably for whatever, AOCs there now. And that is in a similar way, that aesthetic, like, look, we're talking about this stuff and we're talking about this stuff and we're getting people involved and energetic and it's hopeful. In Cory Booker's case,

that's what it's doing, but it's using a mechanism that does have a function and a purpose in government. And so when you're not using it for that function, it feels a little like you could have done this like for the purpose of a filibuster, right? Like you could have done this to pause a certain thing. You could have used it a little more strategically instead of just for vibes, which I don't want to discount vibes. That's certain thing. More strategically? Used it a little more strategically instead of just for vibes,

which I don't want to discount vibes. That's the thing. Like I understand the argument for vibes, which vibes are important. But when it's using this tactic specifically, it would be nice also if it was used for a purpose other than only vibes. Sure. I understand that there's a limit to what can be done.

Obviously, I want them to grind everything in the Senate to a halt if they can do that. We've been calling for a fight. This showed a little bit of fight. A little bit of vigor. A hundred percent. Exactly. And I think the... I also like know going for a record to unseat the segregationist that feels good, although

Wikipedia the editors must have determined that they have removed Cory Booker from the number one spot and it says Since it was not filibustering a specific piece of legislation It doesn't count as a filibuster. So it is now the longest solo speech in Senate history, but it's not on the list of the longest solo filibusters. So they've asterisked it. They've said he was on HGH and that it doesn't count. I'm sorry, HGH?

Human growth hormone. It's what the athletes take to- Yeah. Wikipedia said that? No, that's me making an analogy. It's what the athletes take to be stronger. Wikipedia said that? No, that's me making an analogy. Okay, I was like, wait, what? Did I sound that serious?

No, I'm mapping it over to what it is when they put an asterisk next to Barry Bonds. Honestly, anything is possible. Sorry, I forgot my audience here. Anything is possible, so I don't know. I don't know how you prepare for something like that. Maybe you got to, you know. Maybe, other than starving yourself for days and not drinking, severely dehydrating yourself.

I'd pass out. I pass out over way less than what he did. I guarantee you I'd still have to go pee. Oh. You, yeah. I mean, not to single you out. But you do. I have to pee, I have to pee right now.

Do we need to take a break right now? 100%, I know you have to pee. No, we're close to the end of the show, so I'm gonna wait, but it's just not a chance. I would beat Strom Thurman's record, I can tell you that right now. Don't vote for me to do it, because that won't happen. I don't wanna discount it, but Wikipedia did.

You know, like that, so like to my point, I guess, like yeah, exactly, like it would have been nice if he combined the positive, hopeful vibes and standing up and saying what needs to be said with the actual function of a filibuster. Yeah, but it's tough to filibuster legislation when Trump just gets to do whatever he wants

and there is no legislation. Exactly. So damned if you do, damned if you do. I would love to talk about Kilmar Abrego-Garcia for a few minutes and the Vance-ness of this. But the Trump administration sent someone, sent someone, they deported someone to that torture prison in El Salvador. He's a Maryland man named Kilmar Abrego Garcia. He came to the US in 2011 when he was 16,

fleeing gang threats from El Salvador. There was an incident in 2019 where he was detained by ICE and an informant said he was a member of MS-13 and there's no evidence that that's true and even the police didn't believe this informant. Because of this, a US immigration judge gave him a protected legal status called withholding of removal, saying he would face threats from these gangs in El Salvador if he went back. He's allowed to stay here with his status.

But then a few weeks ago, he was detained, deported. He stuck in this prison in El Salvador. And in a court filing, the Department of Homeland Security admitted that he was, quote, removed to El Salvador because of an administrative error. And then they argued that since he's no longer in the United States, he's not part of their jurisdiction anymore. And they have no authority to bring him back, which is messed up, horrifying, gross and terrifying. I mean, obviously, like disgusting and tragic for this person. And maybe you should try to like get this person back.

It is horrifying in terms of the implications for the future because they're not going to be more careful. That's not their project. Their project isn't to like sift through people and like determine like we've talked about it for many, many weeks and months and I don't know how long about the lack of due process for these deportations. So they're not, this isn't't gonna make them more careful about this. And so if you are deporting people and then you say, well, they're gone, we can't, they're out of our jurisdiction, that is horrifying.

Because once they're gone, then they're gone. So you can't make mistakes, but they A, don't care if they make mistakes and B, are really incompetent and really good at making mistakes. And C, they kind of want to do this. Like it's not just criminals, it's not just gang members, it's everybody.

It's not kind of, of course it's not kind of. They, right, they want to do this. This is what they've been saying all along. And there is absolutely no movement or indication that it matters to them whatsoever that they make a mistake or there's no one to make them fix it. There's court injunction, they're just defying court orders.

Yeah, and then you have, again, you have obviously like the ex Twitter masses who are like, awesome! But then you also have, again, state media, the establishment mainstream media, everybody involved in Fox News and that whole ecosystem is like, tough shit. That's just what happens. Sometimes something like this is going to happen and it's bad, but like, that's just the price you got to pay. And it is just again, it's sort of indicative of the entire project. Like, they don't care. They kind of like it.

They laugh about it. They joke about it. They make their little their little comments because they're doing it with glee. It's gleeful for them. It's why the White House shares their little AI, like, Ghibli bullshit, because it's gleeful for them. They like that people are upset when they accidentally deport somebody who shouldn't be. It's fun for them.

Yeah, it's like the cruelty is the point and the incompetence is the point. Yes. Like, we wanna rub it in your faces. Jon Favreau from Pod Save America not the film made Shared this that's the only way you guys know John Favreau right is the film made So he so Pod Save America's John Favreau shared that Atlantic article about the story tagged

Elon Musk Marco Rubio JD Vance. He's like Marco Rubio, JD Vance. He's like, any comment on this? JD Vance responded and wrote, my comment is that according to the court document you apparently didn't read, he was a convicted MS-13 gang member with no legal right to be here. My further comment is that it's gross to get fired up about gang members getting deported while ignoring

citizens they victimize. Wrong. This is so wild. Wrong, wrong, liar, liar, liar. To say what you apparently didn't read. Sir, you just told on yourself that you're the one that didn't read it or the article at all. No, and this is his job. I don't know, I get that. Like, I'm very, very angry at this situation.

But at this man specifically, who I think did read it and just chose to lie about his own administration's court filing, saying, we screwed up. It was an error that sent him out of there. If this was a convicted MS-13 gang member, what's the error? It wouldn't have been an error. Sir, what's the beef, sir?

Mr. Vance, I believe you have not read this. It's so, it's so disgusting. And also I'm I really he's he does this like weird, like millennial therapy speak kind of thing. And all of his like little whiny fucking tweets, his like is even with the Zelinsky's like, have you even thanked us once? He is trying to present himself as like this. I'm actually where the finally men are back. The masculine nature of JD Vance.

You didn't thank me. You haven't thanked us once. It's so gross, you're so gross. Like it's just, it's just. It's petulant. Well, I mean, I think we should follow up and really dig into Springfield, Ohio and see if he's gotten rid of all the people eating the pets.

They're eating, but Zach does deserve a follow up. Is there an update on that? Are there any pets left? Update on the pets? JD? Any of our listeners from Springfield, Ohio, let us know. Are your pets still around?

Are they safe? Or did you eat them? Or did they have to start eating them in other places? Maybe other places in Ohio. Maybe Toledo is getting their pets eaten. I don't know. There's no cats left, so all the litter boxes are just being used for kids who identify

as cats peeing in them. I've got some skunks over here that I'd love someone to take care of for me, so if anyone wants to come eat a skunk, I'm pretty sure it's crittering around up in my attic. You gotta get some paint, Get the animal control guy. Paint a white stripe on his back. The skunk is gonna think he's a lady skunk.

This is very easy to take care of. You're encouraging the skunk to sexually harass. If that's what it... Maybe I could be a skunk person. If that's what it takes. I can be a skunk honeypot. You don't wanna do that, Katie. I don't. You don't. All do that, Katie. I don't.

You don't. All right, well, we've come full circle. Big journey today. Big journey today. From a dream of becoming a skunk removal person to having that crushed by Cody telling me I didn't want to do it. I'm just...

It was a short journey, but a big one. I don't think you want to. You can, and maybe you do. Don't put me in a box. Like we're gonna put that skunk in a box. Not, yeah. Hopefully. Then get him out of there.

How do you keep it from spraying in the box? I mean, a skunk removal person, you must just get sprayed all the time. Anyway. I don't know. What a rousing end to this episode. Oh, thank you guys for- It's a skunk in a box. It's a skunk in a box. Ah, the kids.

The kids love the 18 year old SNL skits. We love 20 year old SNL skits and the film made by John Favre. Oh sure. I should try for that record. I'll break the record of most completely anachronistic references. Even our audience will say, can he stop?

Can he stop, please? Are we still doing this? All right, guys, we done it. Yeah, we made it. We've done it, we've did it, we've done did it. And... What? We love you very much.

Peace out. I mean, much. Blushing. Hey girlies, I'm Cody Rigsby and I'm Andrew Chappelle. We're here to announce our brand new podcast, Tactful Pettiness. Stream now, pay never. If I have to scroll more than 10 seconds, he's not cute. Settling gets you an ugly boyfriend. So we're going to help you out. We sure are because we have the life expertise. We have mastered throwing shade with intention. We are in the business of helping you find and keep your man. And we're here to teach you the fine art of tactful pettiness. Join us each week as we traverse the world of pop culture,

chat with our celebrity friends, and show you how to accept yourself without taking life too seriously. Get new episodes of tactful pettiness with me, Cody Rigsby, and me, Andrew Chappelle. Every Thursday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and anywhere you get your podcasts.

Stay petty, bestie.