The Professional Left Podcast with Driftglass and Blue Gal
"Fiercely and unapologetically progressive, and definitely NSFW. 'The Professional Left' features award-winning bloggers Driftglass and Blue Gal as they skewer right-wing absurdities and dismantle mainstream media mealy-mouths with razor-sharp wit and zero filter. From mercilessly mocking partisan hacks to elevating stories the media ignores, it's the profane, unflinching political commentary you didn't know you needed. More at http://ProLeftPod.com."
The Professional Left Podcast with Driftglass and Blue Gal
Ep 1030: Rolling Out The Trump-Off Machine
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Episode 1030 catches Marjorie Taylor Greene mid-rehabilitation tour, exposing how her media-friendly break with Trump is laying the groundwork for a “Trump Off Machine” that lets unrepentant election deniers stay angry at Trump while still believing their original lies. Driftglass and Blue Gal then dig deep into what Build Back Better actually promised versus what survived Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema’s gutting, tracing the bill from its original $2,100-page scope down to the much smaller Inflation Reduction Act, and then watching Trump’s administration dismantle even that. It’s about watching reputation-laundering in real time, mourning what two senators’ betrayal actually cost real families, and naming what Trump’s "policies" really are: treason against the working class.
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SPEAKER_02This is the podcast for October 13th, 2026, which we are recording a day earlier, because October 13th is the night of the gubernatorial debate here in Illinois between our incumbent governor, JB Pritzker, and the Republican challenger and evolution denier, Darren Bailey. And since we're big fans of one-sided beatdowns of Republican meatheads, that's what we'll be watching on Tuesday night. Also, we are still not safe for work.
SPEAKER_03Still not safe for work. And we're still recorded live from the Cornfield Resistance, where you can now clearly hear the hammering and drilling coming from the workshop where Republicans are building an armada of lifeboats. It's the professional left with Driftglass and Bluegal.
SPEAKER_02And what do we say, kids? Burn the lifeboats. Burn the lifeboats. Burn the lifeboats. So gather around because we're going to tell you some stories today.
SPEAKER_03I love stories.
SPEAKER_02Some will be scary, some will be hopeful. With any luck, you'll find them useful or at least entertaining. Like all the best stories. Our first one begins with Once Upon a Time.
SPEAKER_07Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_02Once upon a time, your pal Driftglass wrote a post entitled, Now the Bush Belly Sneeches. And that once upon a time was 16 years ago in September of 2010.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, when all your favorite never Trumpers were just fucking Republicans.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And it turns out it was a pretty popular post. Uh it went viral, whatever viral meant in 2010, and I had the arrogance to narrate the thinking, thinking that someday that might come in handy. Well, kids, today is that day.
SPEAKER_04Now the Bushbelly Sneeches were backers of Bush. The plain belly sneeches thought Bush was a tush. The bushes weren't so big, they were really quite small. You would think such a thing wouldn't matter at all. But because they backed Bush, all the Bushbelly Sneeches would brag plain bellies or nothing, but commies in drag. They hate our great nation, the bush bellies dead, they're Marxist white flaggers who want us all dead. They hate our dear leader. They hate our great troops. They mindlessly hate everything, those socialist poops. It's their lack of bush bellies that gives them away. They're America haters and probably gay. For years this went on, it's faux patriot shucking, as they conveniently forgot years of Clinton rat fucking. They marched and they cheered and sang lots of brave tunes about how great Bush was and how lefties were loons. There was no need to be careful or watch their own words. They would now win forever sore the blossom of turds. But the day finally came when Bush began looking crummy. And that was not a good day to have Bush on your tummy. His policies were failing, his economy crashed. He had left the great nation quite thoroughly trashed. His lives were all melting like snow in a stove, and no one could stop it, not even his rove. This made bushbelly snetches look like ignorant tools, and their bushbelly screechings sound like the ranting of fools. First the Senate fell down, then the House fell down too. And if that weren't enough to make bushbellies boo-hoo, in 2008 the very worstest blow came. When they lost to a Negro with a strange Muslim name, the bush bellies became very confused. How could they fail? Had they merely been used? Fox had told them for years they were righteous and shrewd. That plain belly snitches were stupid and crude. Now their bush-bellied tats made them look shit-house rat nuts. Their own words had damned them. No ands, ifs or buts. And then out of the West came their own gin-soaked Moses who swore all their shame could be turned into roses. His name was Sylvester Dick Army McBean, inventor of the fabulous, debagulist, bush-off machine. For the price of their souls and a couple of bucks, the bush bellies could now buy some nips and some tucks. From the bush-off machine, they tumbled like fresh laundered sheets, screaming about deficits and taxes, and those awful elites. They had never liked Bush. No, not even a little. They shrieked from mouths flecked with patriot spill. They never voted for him, nor swallowed his dirt. You don't believe me? Just look at my shirt. They hate our great nation, the T Belly's dead. These Marxist death panelists who want us all dead. They hate our great founders, they hate Sarah Palin. They hate all good things, and they're why we're failing. It's their lack of tea bellies that gives them away. They're America haters, and probably gay. They marched and they cheered and sang lots of brave tunes about how great Beck was and how lefties were loons. For one thing, of course, had remained just the same. The left in their schemes were always to blame. Because there's no need to be careful or watch what you say when your past is as squashy as modeling clay.
SPEAKER_02Since long before Trump showed up, we were explaining that the Republican-based voters' version of dine and dash that'd be slash and burn their way to power, lie constantly, screw everything up, then with the help of the legacy media, duck out and rebrand themselves, leaving rubble behind while continuing to blame liberals for the rubble.
SPEAKER_03Why won't Obama lead, Bill Gail? Why won't Obama lead?
SPEAKER_02Bush isn't president anymore in drift class, and why isn't Obama leading to get rid of the rubble? It's his rubble, you know. Uh, since that's how it's done, and since we are the experts on noticing it when it's in the early stages, and this is a very exciting time to be alive, I'm telling you. It is a little frightening, a little scary, but it is a little frightening and scary, but this is the time to watch for the lifeboats to be built. Oh, you can just and the rebranding, and I was never, and I'm this now. Yeah, keep watching for it, and please send if you see any examples of that, send them our way. Uh, but we've been asked many times since we know how to watch for this and how to hammer it. Anything purple, purple strategies. We're a purple nation. Right. Nope. Hammer that.
SPEAKER_03That's a light vote. Just just I'm gonna put something in the uh parking lot as the corporate people, or put a pin in it. Uh the uh the the center party. The center party was on our ballot when we voted today. Yes. Um, and we're gonna do a little bit of a deeper dive into the existence of that thing probably on Thursday.
SPEAKER_02I think that's a very good idea. Somehow the center party got enough signatures in Illinois and you know where they got them to.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, of course we do.
SPEAKER_02It wasn't south side of Chicago. I promise you that.
SPEAKER_03No.
SPEAKER_02Uh all right. Well, we let I I can't wait to talk about that on Thursday. That's gonna be a lot of fun. Anyway, uh, we have been asked many times when we thought Republicans would start to roll out the Trump off machine, given that Trump's still walking around.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the the the Bush off machine painted and retooled for the 2026-2027 year. And we have spotted the Trump off machine as it's being assembled and gassed up for future use. We we've seen it. As you all probably know by now, this is a bit of a transition, so bear with us. Marjorie Taylor Green has been a high-profile person who's been making a legacy media-sponsored Republican rehabilitation tour ever since she broke with Trump last year.
SPEAKER_02Yep. And it's also her reputation rehabilitation tour.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah. Yeah. And she's she's making the most of it, man. It was almost exactly a year ago she got a disturbingly warm welcome on The View, where she dialed way back on the partisan rhetoric and just focused on populist policy issues like healthcare subsidies and the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, which who could disagree with that, Blue Gal? It was all so very chummy that Joy Behar equipped, Maybe you should become a Democrat, Marjorie, to which Green immediately shot back, I'm not a Democrat, while the audience applauded.
SPEAKER_02Yay. Well, and Wolf Blitzer told her she was a wonderful mother because her kids lost Obamacare subsidies.
SPEAKER_03Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_02It affected her family directly what Trump was doing in a bad way.
SPEAKER_03It wasn't just wars and it wasn't just the Epstein Files, it was the personal hit to her. So why isn't she a Democrat? Well, all of that will be revealed shortly.
SPEAKER_02In December of last year, she scored a long 60-minute interview where she shed crocodile tears over the toxic political culture that she helped create. And when Leslie Stahl tried to push back, pointing out that Madge was a leading contributor to that toxic culture, Madge showed she had learned the Beltway Media's own magic, get out of jail free conjure words. Both sides do it.
SPEAKER_00It's the most toxic political culture. And um it's not helping the American people.
SPEAKER_01But you contributed to that. You. You you were out there pounding, insulting people. Leslie, you've contributed to it as well with your own program. Yes, you're accusatory, just like you did just then. I know you're accusing me, but I'm smiling. I am accusatory. But we don't have to accuse one another. I want you to respond to what you have done in terms of insulting people, yelling at people, and then saying I'd like for you to respond for that. I don't know, you can respond to the people.
SPEAKER_00I don't insult people you do, and the way you question, and you are you're accusing me right now.
SPEAKER_03And since her initial softball appearance on The View in October of 2025, she's been invited back to that show twice. Uh, she's shown up on CNN's Day of the Union, the Situation Room at the Source, on the PBS News Hour and PBS Firing Line, on Politico's The Conversation. And of course, she's all over the podcast universe. And it's important to note she's not just whitewashing her monstrous and well-earned reputation, she's also setting herself up as the go-to expert about what's really going on inside the Republican Party and the MAGA influencer world. And this is where the Trump machine starts to be unveiled.
SPEAKER_02Right. The Trump off machine is gonna be unveiled through Marjorie Taylor Green. This is from Madge's own Facebook page. And we're gonna play it in two parts because when you listen to the first part, you might think, oh wow, she actually gets it. She gets how corrupt and incestuous the mega influencer world is. It's the blueprint for how the right built its media ecosystem. And frankly, it's also a stark reminder that liberal bloggers and podcasters have never gotten anything like that kind of support from the so-called liberal media or the Democratic Party establishment. That's the first half.
SPEAKER_00I've been in the very inner circles in every single room of every level of MAGA. Um, and there is an influencer class that is paid by the campaign and supporting PACs and super PACs. Um, they're given talking points, they're given access, they're invited to events, parties, all every level access. And this is what this group of influencers gets addicted to. They they love it that they can text some staffer in the admin every single day and ask questions and get attention back. They love it when they get a pat on the back, oh, you're the best, you know, thank you for posting this. It's they they get this relationship that fills their purpose. When they're being dishonest, they're not holding accountability, they're not staying with the agenda that they were screaming about on the campaign trail, and then all of a sudden they're supporting something totally hor horrible. It's how they lose credibility. And I'll argue that they should all lose credibility. They don't deserve credibility anymore.
SPEAKER_03But then you listen to the second half, and nope, she's still horrible.
SPEAKER_00Um, and I talk a lot about, you know, I first off, I'm not a Democrat. The Democrats haven't given me anything to support. So it's not people like me haven't just like shifted over, oh, now we're gonna vote Democrat. No, that's not what's happening here. For me, it's the Republicans totally failed 100%. Like, here's an example. Trump goes on the campaign trail, and I'm I spoke at more rallies than any elected Republican did in 2024. And he would constantly say at his rallies, I'm your retribution. You know, as people were beyond furious about parents being arrested at school boards. People were just done with COVID vaccines and masking and lockdowns. People, J6 was such a major issue. And I mean, the issues go on and on and on, and lawfare like was just continuous. And he was saying, I'm your retribution. That's where he comes into office and he holds no one, no Democrat accountable at all. Zero. And the only major arrest they have is a black autistic man named Brian Cole Jr. that has clearly been set up, and this is who Cash Patel is paraded out as we got a bad guy, the January 5th pipe bomber. And it's just really hard to support that.
SPEAKER_03Sure, Trump betrayed the true believers with his illegal war and his Epstein-File cover-up, but his worst betrayal of all was not being their retribution by not throwing Democrats in jail. See, this bitch still thinks the 2020 election was stolen and that somehow it was Antifa, which doesn't exist as a thing, that was behind the insurrection. Remember, she was one of the 139 House Republicans who voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election. I will not certify a stolen election. This is what she wrote January 3rd, 2021, on a post on Twitter X. And this is her saying, I fully believe they were Antifa Black Lives Matter rioters. She said that in November of 2023, when she appeared on Triggered, which is Donald Trump Jr.'s very own podcast.
SPEAKER_02Yep, that's right. And in October 2024, when Hurricane Helene struck parts of the U.S. Southeast a month before the presidential election, including the battleground state of North Carolina. This is what Madge posted on Twitter on October 3rd, 2024. Yes, they can control the weather. It's ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can't be done. What you just listened to was one of the foundation stones of a Tea Party 2.0 Trump off machine being laid. And, you know, don't forget that during the COVID surge, Marjorie Taylor Greene said, you know, none none of us can live forever.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02We gotta un we gotta unlock the doors here and reopen America.
SPEAKER_03Oh, the the list of the horrible, horrible lies she just spouted and the screaming and the insulting and standing up during the State of the Union and behaving because she was a child throwing a tantrum.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Because that's what the base wanted to see. They wanted to see her get up on the stage like a holler monkey.
SPEAKER_02State of the union, yeah.
SPEAKER_03And screaming. And she did all of that. And then, of course, when Leslie Stahl asked her about it, well, Leslie, you did a lot of it too. You know, it's you know, it really is.
SPEAKER_02And Leslie didn't have her seats. Leslie, Leslie should have had 10 pages of everything she'd done. Wouldn't have mattered and read it and read it and read it. I didn't do this, I didn't do this, I didn't do this. And then and it and let her walk out on her. Right. Let her walk out, and that's what they will not do.
SPEAKER_03But I agree. Yeah, and she should have done that. That would have been good journalism. Uh it wouldn't have mattered in the slightest because she's not a sort of sort of shield to do. Yeah, she's a bulletproof shield, which is, you know, we don't have to disagree. You know, we we can both admit we were wrong. We can both, you know, proceed forward. She wants that both sides do it, sweet, sweet redemption. And she's gonna get it because that's all the legacy media has left to offer to anyone.
SPEAKER_02Yep. Yep. The building of a political safe space for the tens of millions of Republican voters who are still deeply committed to the ridiculous racist garbage they believe and will not give it up, but still they want to be angry and disappointed about Trump, but still also want Democrats to be the real villains and want to be told that none of what's happening is their fault.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02They're not perfect, they're just forgive it.
SPEAKER_03Yes, forgive it. And it's like shopping for a house for them. These are the four absolute bottom line thing features that their new home has to have. It has to let them believe the bullshit and the racist nonsense that they always believed. It has to let them still be angry at Trump and yell about Trump and be disappointed in Trump, but Democrats still have to be the fucking villains. And it still has to be not their fault. And Madge has found that combination. She has. She's found that exact thing that they they crave. And so I swear to you, this is the beginning of the Trump off machine. Yeah. Being rolled out to save these people from themselves and and let them continue being awful long into the future unless we burn the fucking lifeboats.
SPEAKER_02So stay tuned to this podcast for future developments because you know it's gonna be we're we're gonna keep an eye on Madge and we're gonna keep an eye on other forms of lifeboat building that are going on.
SPEAKER_03Because there's a bunch of people who are in that profession at this point. But now on to the fun policy stuff, because we love talking about policy, and we got some very positive feedback on the episode we did, which focused largely on healthcare and health insurance policy, which uh Blue Gal Fran led the way and did a spectacular job. I love podcasts when I can just sit back and go, you know, she's right. You know you should just listen to her. She's right.
SPEAKER_02Uh well, it's so fun. You and I have talked about this many times before.
SPEAKER_03I miss this so much.
SPEAKER_02To debate policy and talk about it with someone who, you know, may feel differently than you do. And right now, all of that serious conversation is only going on within progressive circles. Right. It's only going on with center to left of center people. Precisely so everyone on the right is just not capable or interested in actually figuring out how to make things better.
SPEAKER_03And the smart candidates, the John Ossoffs, if you will, or or the uh the Al-Said, Abdul Al-Saeed, are are weaving together really blunt, clear, fuck you language to the people who are destroying this country and weaving in my three or four policy ideas, not in great depth. Right. You know, these are my priorities. And this is my opponent wants to talk about X, and that's bullshit because you know better. I want to talk about what I'm gonna do for my neighborhood or my community or my state or my country. And and a good candidate can do both of those things. We, however, are not paid by anybody except you guys. So we get to do whatever we want. And that means we get to talk about policy as long as we like uh until you hang up on us and say, please stop talking about it.
SPEAKER_02And I want to say thank you to the those of you mid-show. Yeah. Those of you that are sharing the podcast, we are now, I haven't even told this to Driftglass yet. Oh. So this is news to him. Oh no. We are now consistently getting 10,000 listens a week. And that is not per show. That is over, you know, because people catch up. Right. So people will listen to three podcasts and then and then stop listening for a while and catch up and listen to three podcasts. And that's great. We don't we have no problem, that's why we keep archives. We pay extra to keep all of our archives uh online. Yeah. Um, but seriously, we are getting people clicking play on our podcast 10,000 times a week. And that is so exciting. And that's because of you guys sharing the show.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it it is. This Wednesday, I'm gonna be on with Bob Seska again. I think we're gonna, I don't know that he puts it out live. We're we're gonna do that about noon our time. And I'll also be on with Nicole Sandler and I I uh I dropped Brad Friedman a note, um, not saying put me on your show, goddammit, because they're very generous with their time. And they're very all these people are extremely generous with with promoting the professional podcast and having us on and talking about stuff. But I put down a number with Brad uh a year ago, year plus, about the number of house seats that are gonna get flipped. Oh, yeah. And he was like, you gotta be kidding me. And now it's looking more and more like this guy is gonna win that Cadillac car.
SPEAKER_02So what number did you say?
SPEAKER_03Uh I think it was in he gave me a range of 30 to 40.
SPEAKER_02Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_03And I'm like, you know, I I know the second prize, set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired. But I'm fired, yeah. I'm shooting for that Cadillac car. I really am.
SPEAKER_02Well, it was 41 seats in the house in 2018. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And things are cheaper.
SPEAKER_02I think we can get to 38.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think you're right.
SPEAKER_02But um you know, I'm shrugging now. So we'll see what happens.
SPEAKER_03I just reminded him, and that of course will mean I'll never appear on the Brad Friedman broadcast ever again because he can't bear to be shown up by yours from by the way. If you if you don't know about it, it's just a great chat. It's a great hang. Um, it's it's me and Desi Doyen and Brad and Digby. I mean, I'm talking to frickin' Digby. I grew up and now I get to talk to Digby on the regular, which is amazing. Um and and I really I would have one suggestion for Brad, which is because it's a radio show. It it is is it's timed to the minute. We have breaks, we we go through things rapid fire. It's very different than our format here because we can talk as long as we want about whatever we want. But um I I have begged him to keep the microphone on after our time is up.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Because the show after the show.
SPEAKER_02The show after the show where you and uh Digby and Desi and Brad can let loose and drop the F-bombs and whatever.
SPEAKER_03When the FCC is no longer an issue, yeah. Um, we can talk uh talk among ourselves as bloggers as as opposed to people who are in church and have to mind our language.
SPEAKER_02Up I don't want to overpromise and undeliver, un underdeliver, but uh once again, the people from the Hal Spark show have reached out to us as well. Yes.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So we no nothing in stone yet, but we did get text from them. So at some point, uh Driftglass will definitely be on with Hal, and we'll see what happens.
SPEAKER_03Well, and and this is something that we have we all have in common. We all have this in common, whether it's short form or long form, especially with Hal. Yeah, we love talking about the nitty-gritty of policy. Hal Sparks was a freaking policy expert on the Affordable Care Act and healthcare back in the day. He really does.
SPEAKER_02Hal is now the go-to expert on AI. He's just amazing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03No, he's this is and this is the thing we have, not just you and me, darling, but yeah, this community of us, this type of podcasters. We do have a depth of knowledge on a bunch of stuff, and we can we can relate topics together, and we can bring politics and policy together and have really interesting conversations about, and this is what we're doing on the show today, which is we're talking about the future we might have had, what was taken away from us by whom, and so forth. But I want to get back to the fact that we just thoroughly enjoy talking about policy. Um, we love talking about uh something other than the orange shit gibbon and his minions are doing to our country and how the legacy media is enabling it. This is a we we recognize that's happening and that there's plenty of podcasts out there who just are screaming about Trump all the time, and that's fine. But every now and then we like to sit back and talk about something like hey, how about let's talk about build back better, darling?
SPEAKER_02And and let's talk about build back better because we do want to build back after Trump.
SPEAKER_03Yes, we do.
SPEAKER_02And there are certain people who are quite the expert on how to rebuild uh government after a Republican has ruined it. Uh, our governor, J.B. Pritzer, is very good, has had excellent experience and success. He has rebuilding a shit pile that a Republican left behind for him to clean up.
SPEAKER_03And doing it from a policy point of view, be clear about his priorities, and and having a supermajority of Democrats. Let's not let's not forget that. But also being clear and blunt about who the villains are in this equation and what they've done.
SPEAKER_02He's not shy about saying who the villains are. Um, but we're we are going to have Build Back Better Day here at the professional left. Yeah. Specifically, we're going to talk about what was contained in the original landmark legislation at the beginning of the Biden administration, how much of it survived the Senate, how it was passed, how it's faring under the current fascist regime, and not to put too fine a point on it, what we lost because a couple of Democrats stabbed us in the back after they got what they wanted. To understand what happened to Build Back Better, we need to remember what the country was promised, what actually passed, and who made the decisions that determined the difference. Because those are three very different stories.
SPEAKER_03Right. So first thing to understand is that Build Back Better wasn't some wild-eyed communist proposal that appeared out of nowhere. It was part of Joe Biden's response to a country that had spent decades gathering problems and ignoring them while its political leadership patted itself on the back about being fiscally responsible. We had and still have deteriorating infrastructure, childcare costs that makes working parents feel like they're in a hostage situation, an economy that depended on workers who couldn't afford to get sick, a healthcare system that is just broken and is still broken, and a climate crisis that's been discussed for decades while Washington argued whether or not weather was a partisan issue. I can't remember the name of the senator who brought the um asshole senator, who's no longer in the Senate, but who brought the snowball in for the city.
SPEAKER_06Oh, the snowball, yeah.
SPEAKER_03See, climate change ain't real, it's snowing outside. Those people gotta go. Uh the pandemic now made it all of that harder to ignore. Uh, it also demonstrated something that conservative movement had spent years insisting was completely impossible, that the federal government could put substantial money directly into people's lives, and in doing so, could make an immediate and beneficial difference in their lives.
SPEAKER_02The American Rescue Plan passed in March 2021. March 2021, that is two months after inauguration day, right?
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_02Helped stabilize the economy during COVID. It provided another round of stimulus payments, expanded unemployment assistance, which is a huge help to the states, supported state and local governments, and temporarily expanded the child tax credit. That last provision was particularly important because it reduced child poverty massively by giving families money rather than making them navigate an obstacle course of bureaucratic qualifications.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, cut child poverty in half.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_03Just like that.
SPEAKER_02Just like that. So an obvious question: if the federal government could respond to an emergency, why couldn't it address some of the conditions that made so many American families vulnerable in the first place?
SPEAKER_05Right, right.
SPEAKER_02Biden's answer was build back better. And by the way, Biden was a fucking fantastic president.
SPEAKER_03He was.
SPEAKER_02I will die on that hill.
SPEAKER_03Terrific president. Made some mistakes, um, didn't go far enough, and and we can talk about those on a different podcast. But today we're talking about a specific policy that the Biden administration very tried very hard to push through until they were betrayed by two people in their own camp.
SPEAKER_02Yep. Uh Bill Backbetter was supposed to take the emergency response and turn it into a longer-term investment in American life. The original bill included major investments in child care and preschool, paid family and medical leave, expanded health care assistance, a more generous child tax credit, housing, elder care, clean energy, and efforts to reduce carbon emissions. It also proposed raising revenue from corporations and wealthy Americans to help pay for the program.
SPEAKER_03Oh no.
SPEAKER_02The idea wasn't simply to goose the economy for a few more months. It was to change some of the rules under which the economy operated.
SPEAKER_03Because the economy is broken. And it's broken for most of us. And that distinction matters because a stimulus check is a temporary relief from suffering. Affordable childcare that lets a parent stay employed is a continuing benefit to that child, to the adult, and to the community. A tax credit that helps a family afford health insurance is different from a system that requires a family to cross its fingers and hope nobody ever gets seriously ill. Now, build back better is an attempt to make certain public policy investments part of the ordinary machinery of American life rather than an emergency measure that disappears when the emergency has passed. So naturally, that raises issues and questions about the cost and taxation and inflation and all the rest of it, and the proper role of government. Nothing wrong with that. And a healthy country with a sane government should be able to debate the costs and benefits of major legislation.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but we're not a healthy country.
SPEAKER_03No.
SPEAKER_02And one of our two political parties is insane. So such a debate is impossible because Republicans treat every public investment as an existential threat to Western civilization, where gargantuan tax cuts for the wealthy, military spending, and corporate subsidies somehow are not subject to the laws of arithmetic. And that political problem became acute when Democrats won the presidency and narrow majorities in Congress. We hadn't won a Senate majority large enough to overcome a filibuster on ordinary legislation. This meant Democrats had to use budget reconciliation for a package that primarily changed taxes and spending. Reconciliation offered a route around the filibuster, but it required Democrats to hold together essentially every one of their senators and to have Vice President Kamala Harris break a lot of ties.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And you can, for the sake of discussion, you can just write Republicans out of this picture.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03They stood absolutely foursquare opposed to everything. The votes were unanimous right down the line. There were party line votes.
SPEAKER_02And this is what they do. They learned this during Obama. This is how they behave when a Democrat is in office.
SPEAKER_03Oppose and obstruct, especially when you're in a crisis. Oppose, obstruct, and filibuster and demand and sabotage and then turn around and say, Why didn't the president lead on this? Why can't why look, he's ruined the country. He's not even fixing anything. Because the dumb dums who vote for these people have no idea how anything works, much less how the government works. And it's also important to remember that the House, you get to do things by a one-vote majority. You know, it's not like the fucking Senate. So in the House, having some more, a few more Democrats than Republicans was sufficient. In the Senate, it was not. So but before we move on to the specific heroes and villains, let's talk about what we're talking about. What exactly was in the Build Back Better bill? The bill included around $150 billion for affordable housing.
SPEAKER_02And another $150 billion for in-home care to keep seniors and the disabled in their homes.
SPEAKER_03And looked after and cared for. And over half a trillion dollars in various clean energy investments.
SPEAKER_02$35 billion to stabilize Medicare.
SPEAKER_03$40 billion for Pell Grants.
SPEAKER_02$40 billion for ACA credits.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And it went on.
SPEAKER_03It went on and on. And there's a bunch of other miscellaneous things that you can look up anytime you like in the uh universe where there are fact sheets and things like that. But just in terms of the page length, build back better clock than just over 2,100 pages. And the bill that eventually passed, the Inflation Reduction Act, was around 750 pages. So, you know, a whole bunch of stuff got cut.
SPEAKER_02There is no way for the Republican House to produce a piece of legislation like that.
SPEAKER_03Oh god, no.
SPEAKER_02They don't have the skill set.
SPEAKER_03No.
SPEAKER_02I remember, you know, many, many times. Remember Stenny Hoyer yelling at a Republican congressperson because I think it was uh Colorado person. Um the the one who went to the play and gave a hand job. Oh, yeah, Lauren Bowman. Aaron Job Laurent. Uh, I think uh he was yelling at her on the house floor because she'd put a bill out and it had no funding mechanism in the bill. You know, and literally, how are you gonna pay for this? was a question.
SPEAKER_03Look, in a high school debate, let me just say, when when the the affirmative team proposed a plan to solve whatever problem they had, yeah, we we never talked about funding. No. I had to throw something in there, but uh, but the most popular one was when I was in high school was National Pancake Day. It was just a token, you know, we will figure out how to pay for it. We're not gonna debate how we pay for it. But you know what? It's a real thing.
SPEAKER_02In the House bills, and that's why these things are a thousand pages long.
SPEAKER_03Exactly.
SPEAKER_02You have to talk about who's gonna be in charge of it, how the money's gonna be distributed, what what requirements are we going to give to states and local communities about spending this money? Oh, and who's gonna audit them and who's gonna keep track of this money?
SPEAKER_03If you go back to the Clinton administration, you know, it was all about the payfors.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You know, you know, you have to cut here to pay for that. And the whole thing. That was young guns.
SPEAKER_02All the young guns wanted pay for for everything. Yes.
SPEAKER_03And Clinton obliged them. Clinton had no real choice because he didn't have much of a majority for most of the time he was in office. So, but everything was balanced and paid for.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um it the deficit still went up because the deficit always goes up, but it was axiomatic that if you want to pass anything, you'd better show us how you're gonna pay for it. And if it better be, you know, something we can all agree on.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. Do you remember the Fox News reporter asking in the White House press room, uh, so what if this wasn't paid for? And she said, it's paid for.
SPEAKER_03It's paid for.
SPEAKER_02It's paid for. And and they said, no, no, what if it wasn't?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, what planet would we live on if it was yeah, I I don't deal in those kind of hypotheticals. We're it's paid for.
SPEAKER_03Look, I work for Fox News.
SPEAKER_02I have to ask stupid questions because I I have to pretend it's not paid for.
SPEAKER_03Right. Because the stupids really, really want it to not be paid for. They want to hate your guts. And I know the bill actually, as presented, is gonna help the majority of the benefit in this bill is gonna go to the dumb, dumb MAGA people in in red state.
SPEAKER_02It's gonna go to keep senior citizens in their home.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So they can continue to watch Fox.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Right.
SPEAKER_02Anyway. Um, and of anyway, uh, look, this original bill passed the House.
SPEAKER_05Yes, it did.
SPEAKER_02November 19, 2021, the vote was 220 to 213. 220 members voted yes, 213 voted no, with all Republicans voting no, and one Democrat, Jared Golden of Maine, for some reason, also voting no.
SPEAKER_03Uh who knows? Who knows? But it passed. So now the action moves are the Senate, and the two nominally Democratic senators who made sure it was gutted of everything they didn't like and was turned into a much smaller inflation reduction act. And that'd be West Virginia's Joe Manchin, who's no longer in the Senate, and Arizona's Kristen Cinema, who's also no longer in the Senate.
SPEAKER_02Well, they did their job and got out.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. Exactly. They made their bundle and they got out. Um, and they didn't just gut the bill, they held the bill hostage until progressives agreed that a separate bill, which would contain a lot of what progressives wanted uh that was cut out of the original bill, would be voted on after Cinema and Manchin got their vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, rather than the two bills proceeding in parallel, which is all the progressives were asking.
SPEAKER_02That all they asked is.
SPEAKER_03And it was that and there was never anything in writing, but the understanding was look, we will allow, we will not put up a fuss about separating this, but they have to travel side by side. And Manchin said, nope, nope, nope, they gotta go one after the other.
SPEAKER_02I want the infrastructure spending for West Virginia, but I don't want spending on pre-K. Yeah. And once Cinema and Manchin got what they wanted, they made it clear that, haha, fuck you. We had our fingers crossed, you get nothing.
SPEAKER_03Mm-hmm. And that's when the progressives blew a cork, and rightly so. To be clear, Joe Biden and Speaker Pelosi and House Majority Leader Schumer and the rest of the Democratic caucus.
SPEAKER_02He was Senate Majority Leader Schumer. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, Senate Majority Leader Schumer. They all made strategic choices. They all made the choices they felt they had to make to salvage what they could. But in a 50-50 Senate, Manchin and Cinema possessed this extraordinary leverage, and they didn't much care that people hated them for stabbing them in the back because that's not why they're there. And this is why I will never be president.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Because the bill, oh yeah. No, you and I are of like minds on this because the minute Manchin tried to take the bill hostage, I would have had him up to the White House and I would have explained that starting tomorrow, we're moving every goddamn military base out of West Virginia and we're putting a big sign along the fence line that says this base closed by Joe Manchin. We're also canceling all your highway funding. This pothole axle cracking mess is brought to you by Joe Manchin. Then watch how fast we can close rural hospitals in your state, Joe, and put pictures of your smiling face up in every vacant window. We're going to remind the good people of West Virginia that without the generosity and pity of blue state Democrats, they'd starve to death or die of rickets or black lung or whatever. And every PSA reminding them of their dependence on us will feature a picture of you on your fucking yacht. That's alternative A. Alternative B is you vote for the fucking bill as written.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And if you want to switch parties, go Joe Manchin.
SPEAKER_03Do it.
SPEAKER_02Do it.
SPEAKER_03Do it. Go ahead. Do it.
SPEAKER_02I would give up our majority in the Senate for this because this is all you got.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And the president, as we know, has enormous power to do shit like this that the Supreme Court handed off to uh Donald Trump. So why not use it?
SPEAKER_02From now on, we use it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And if if you come back to me with the women about Kristen Cinema, well, Joe, that sounds like a you problem. I don't care if you have to drag her out by her hair. This is now your problem, Joe Manchin. You are either going to sign the fucking bill or I'm going to make it Kristen to do it too. Yeah. Or I'm going to turn West Virginia into, I don't know, a fourth world country.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And I'm going to let everybody know in your state that this is what you did. Pictures of you on your goddamn yacht, sipping champagne, and uh laughing at the poor people who put your hands.
SPEAKER_02Go ahead and switch parties and see how how good your life is after that. Go ahead. Go ahead. Yep.
SPEAKER_03Yep. But that didn't happen.
SPEAKER_02Nope. Instead, the Senate never passed that version. After months of negotiations, Manchin announced on December 19th that he could not support the bill as constructed.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_02His announcement effectively killed the legislation in its existing form. And I do believe he announced that on Fox. I think that's where he went.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well, that's where he is now. That's uh it's worth remembering what that actually meant. This was not a case in which Republicans defeated the bill after Democrats made a full, you know, full-scale effort to enact it. Democrats had majorities in both chambers and they had a president who supported that agenda. It was Manchin's opposition that was decisive at that moment. And Cinema's position has already had already helped narrow the range of all the acceptable options anyway.
SPEAKER_02Yep. And so once again, the Democratic president and the Democratic majority in Congress had to go back to the majority that elected them and explain why they couldn't deliver on what they'd promised.
SPEAKER_03And that, no, that's a that that's and that was the plan.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Promise all this shit. Well, make sure you can't pass it. And then you have to go back to the people that elected you and go, we couldn't do it even with a majority. And so it was that in the summer of 2022, Schumer and Manchin agreed on a much narrower package, and it would be introduced as the Inflation Reduction Act.
SPEAKER_02Cinema ultimately supported the revised legislation after further changes, including modifications to the tax provisions affecting certain businesses and investors.
SPEAKER_03Sugar daddies.
SPEAKER_02Her sugar daddies. The bill passed the Senate on August 7th, 2022, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote. Think about that. That was the compromise. That's what we got.
SPEAKER_03That's what we got.
SPEAKER_02And Biden signed it on August 16th, 2022. 18 months later.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And and to be clear, not 18 months later, but 18 months after inauguration day.
SPEAKER_03That's what I mean. Yeah. And the Inflation Reduction Act was real live legislation. It had a bunch of good stuff in it, and it with real consequences. But it was also a brutal and public retreat from the original Build Back Better agenda that Biden ran on.
SPEAKER_02What disappeared? The original packages, major child care, and universal preschool proposals did not survive. Paid family and medical leave did not become a new federal benefit. The expanded child tax credit was not extended in the Forum Democratic. Democrats had sought other health care housing and social policy provisions were cut or substantially reduced. The Inflation Reduction Act retained some health care provisions, extended enhanced Affordable Care Act premium subsidies through 2025. We know what happened then.
SPEAKER_03Yes, we do.
SPEAKER_02And included major climate and energy investments infrastructure. But it was not the comprehensive family policy package, you know, soft economy that the Build Back Better had been designed to become. And I have to say, this is where it becomes, you know, the man bill versus the female bill.
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_02This is roads, bridges, wind power, infrastructure, tax stuff that Manchin likes, and child care, elder care, paid leave. The things that what they call soft soft economy.
SPEAKER_03That are what holds the economy together.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, what holds everything together.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_02Helping women and families hold everything together is shocked.
SPEAKER_03Helping people go to college. I mean, affordable housing and improvements to healthcare and paying for college are almost all straight out of the GI Bill.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_03You know, this this is something this is this, and that was one of the best investments the country ever made, as racist as it was.
SPEAKER_02Well, we should we should do a show sometime about bringing the economy back to the 1950s, which is what MAGA always says they want to do. And what they really want is shit on black people and women. That's what they want to do. But they also want the the they they have tied the misogyny and racism to the economy benefits. And what they what they didn't realize, it was simply government throwing money into the economy that brought about all of the prosperity from the 1950s.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and it was frankly, and I've said this before, uh, it was high tax rates.
SPEAKER_02It was rates for wealthy people.
SPEAKER_03If if businesses were doing really well, you can still get fucking rich in this country. You can still do that.
SPEAKER_02The number of movies that you would see where where they're making fun of rich people in the 30s and 40s, especially, um, where a rich person will say, you know, I'm uh I'm glad I had I'm happy to spend 50% of my income on taxes, that's the patriotic way.
SPEAKER_03You know, and and the whole the whole point of those top marginal tax rates were if you're a business and you're doing really well, and a lot of them were, you could, like I said, you could get very rich in this country in the 50s and 60s because everybody else's economy was smashed flat by World War II.
SPEAKER_02And their ability to build things was decimated by the war.
SPEAKER_03I mean, a skilled workforce, and and the number of people who were taken out of the workforce by the war and killed or or wounded in our country was a fraction of elsewhere. So we had we had a we we're leading by a lap and a half on everybody else. But the higher tax rates required that if you wanted, you could either pay those higher tax rates or you could play all that money back into your business. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You can build new machines, add new machines to your factories, exactly. Hire more people.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. And it was like, oh, we're we're gonna use tax policy, which is what tax policy can shape behavior. It doesn't shape attitudes or morality, but it can shape behavior. We can make it an incentive for you to reinvest in your people and your and your plant and this country in a way that builds prosperity over time, as opposed to looting the place and ripping it and gutting the economy for the benefit of a handful of people. And the political consequences of what happened with Build Back Better are really important. A family that might have benefited from national childcare program did not get that program. A worker who might have had access to paid family leave did not get that new federal entitlement. The difference between the original agenda and the final law wasn't just some abstract accounting exercise. It was a difference in what the federal government could actually do for people.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_03Which is the only reason the government exists.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, which brings us to the next chapter. The Inflation Reduction Act was passed in 2022. Donald Trump returned to the presidency in January 2025, and the new administration, backed by a Republican Congress, set about shredding much of the previous administration's climate and energy policy.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah. And that was just that that broke a lot of hearts. This was not just a matter of changing a few executive orders or putting different people in charge of federal agencies. The administration and congressional Republicans used legislation, agency actions, funding cancellations, regulatory changes to weaken or eliminate substantial parts of the Inflation Reduction Act's energy, clean energy program.
SPEAKER_02And don't get us started about doge.
SPEAKER_03No.
SPEAKER_02And the legislative vehicle was the 2025 Reconciliation Law, commonly called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which was rushed through so Donald Trump could sign it on July 4th, 2025.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02The law ended several consumer incentives for electric vehicles, including the tax credits for qualifying new and used clean vehicles for vehicles acquired after September 30th, 2025. That removed a financial incentive that helps some households make the switch to an electric vehicle.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03It also ended the residential clean energy credit for qualifying expenditures after December 31st, 2025, and the home energy efficiency credit for qualifying property placed in service after that date.
SPEAKER_02The Trump administration took back unobligated funds from all sorts of programs that still had years to run. It canceled all kinds of grants and clawed back those funds as well. It's amazing that the deficit had exploded as it has with all this money that Donald Trump just clawed back and clearly stole.
SPEAKER_03I'm sorry, but yeah, though he stole, he stole a big chunk of it, but it was those gargantuan tax cuts.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency had received substantial IRA funding for climate and environmental programs, including the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and Solar for All. These programs were meant to channel financing toward projects that reduced greenhouse gas emissions, expanded clean energy access, and helped lower energy costs for eligible households and communities.
SPEAKER_03And the Trump administration wants coal and oil and pollution for everyone. I mean, that really is their agenda. They moved to cancel or terminate major parts of this funding. The cancellations were challenged in court, and in August of 2026, August of this year, an appeals court restored an injunction blocking the terminations at issue, leaving the funds frozen while the litigation continued. But that doesn't mean the entire program resumed normal operations or the money had reached its intended recipients. They're clogging shit up in the courts. And that's where all the stuff is ending up.
SPEAKER_02The Solar for All program had roughly $7 billion in funding intended to expand residential solar access for low-income and disadvantaged communities. The Trump administration canceled it, along with the other EPA awards funded through the IRA. On September 18th, 2026, a federal district judge ruled that the EPA's termination of that funding was unlawful and vacated the termination. A separate federal district court reached the same conclusion. Trump's EPA was reviewing the rulings and considering an appeal to delay it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Just delay it.
SPEAKER_03Just and and you know, death of by a thousand cuts.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_03You know, the whole point of the project 2025 was gutting the federal government.
SPEAKER_06Yep.
SPEAKER_03So if you're a household that already has the money to purchase solar panels, you can benefit from a tax credit. But a household that can't afford the upfront cost may need a grant-supported program, affordable financing, or some other mechanism to make the project possible. Removing grant programs like that can affect people who could not readily replace it with a tax incentive.
SPEAKER_02Right. From day one of Trump 2.0, Republicans have been working tirelessly to find as many ways as possible to cancel, chip away at, or otherwise destroy everything Democrats had accomplished in both the Obama and Biden administrations. And for many of progressives who had bitten their tongues and swallowed hard as both of those administrations had heavily compromised progressive initiatives or abandoned them entirely because one or two fucking Democratic senators, Joe Manchin with the ACA or Manchin and Cinema with Build Back Better.
SPEAKER_03You mean Lieberman.
SPEAKER_02I'm sorry, Joe Lieberman with the ACA and Manchin and Cinema with Build Back Better could get what they wanted by threatening to blow the whole thing up. We've got to reform the filibuster folks. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_02The abandonment of the Build Back Better and the Cavalier way that Manchin has flipped them all off once he got his pound of flesh was the last straw.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Democrats are done.
SPEAKER_03We're done with this.
SPEAKER_02Progressives are done with this kind of bullshit. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03We have one more to endure, I'm afraid, because as if we needed one more object less than why appeasing these people never works. As the saying goes, when God closes a cinema or a mansion, he opens a Fetterman, Blue Gal.
SPEAKER_02There's no news roundup today, but we do have one story, Driftglass. Via Oregon Public Radio. In one quote, in one of the nation's most high-profile races, U.S. Senator Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, needs to win over Portland voters. Just not the Portland that a GOP group recently bought an ad for. The group supporting her re-election bill bid accidentally bought the ad in Portland, Oregon, rather than Maine. The ad made by defending Main Street Super PAC Inc. and purchased by cross-stream media, cross-screen media, excuse me, criticizes Collins' opponent, Democrat Troy Jackson. It calls him taxon Troy Jackson. Boy, I bet they paid extra for that.
SPEAKER_03I bet they did.
SPEAKER_02It has since been taken down because wrong state. The group has spent nearly $25,000 on ads in the market that spans Oregon and Washington State. According, you know, that's on the other side of the country from Maine.
SPEAKER_03It's a whole different time zone. It's a whole different ocean.
SPEAKER_02Several different several time zones to the West, yes. Uh this is according to news reports. The group says the purchase will be refunded. So no no one who donated is going to have to pay for that mistake.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02NBC News reported, unquote.
SPEAKER_03Well, I if you're going to call him taxing Troy Jackson, I'm going to be calling you losing Susan Collins because, bitch. Now, okay, there might be more than one news item, Blue Gall. I snuck in a few more.
SPEAKER_06Okay, I guess so.
SPEAKER_03Also, this from Ken Fairfax, who was ambassador extraordinary and plenty potentiary to Kazakhstan during the Obama administration. Quote, immediately after Ukraine took out two of the five data centers run by the Russian tech giant Yandex, pro-Trump and pro-MAGA posts on American social media sites plummeted. The same happened to posts boosting Germany's far right AFD. Russia is engaged in massive all-caps election interference. Unquote.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. There's some debate about that on Blue Sky today about exactly how many bots were destroyed by Ukrainian bombs. But the AFD definitely saw a drop. The right-wing Germany party is was Russian bots that were definitely destroyed. That it just dropped to almost nothing.
SPEAKER_03Are they going to be playing the sa the uh the uh uh um I'm sorry, the is it gonna be a funeral for all the bots that were killed, blue cows?
SPEAKER_02And think about all the guys who had Russian girlfriends that all of a sudden disappeared.
SPEAKER_03Sad. So very sad. Oh my god. I didn't even think about that.
SPEAKER_02Also, this we have more drift glass. I thought we were only gonna have one news story tonight, but uh we have more. Uh, this via the Wall Street Journal, and you really should go watch the video of this online if you haven't seen it.
SPEAKER_03It's it's beautiful. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Ken Paxton partied in a luxury Dubai high-rise with two fugitives. He is he was at the time the law enforcement officer of Texas.
SPEAKER_03Yes, he was.
SPEAKER_02And he was partying with Anash Ahmed and Samir Suhail, who are facing federal charges over an alleged $15 million hospital embezzlement scheme. Ken Paxton was at the party alongside his girlfriend, not his wife. And she's on the video too. Ahmed donated $190,000 to Paxton, including $25,000 after Paxton was indicted.
SPEAKER_03It's it's a wise investment, blue gal.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And these fugitives were and we're walking around Dubai partying and and having a good time, and we're clearly not interested in returning to the U.S. to face justice.
SPEAKER_03No.
SPEAKER_02And Ken Paxton didn't care either. His hot girlfriend was there and they're watching firework. Go see that video. It's over for Paxton, I hope.
SPEAKER_03Oh, fingers crossed. All my fingers and toes are crossed. This is from the redoubtable Aaron Rupar, who does the Lord's work every day. Uh reporter asked Donald Trump, quote, you said Russia and Ukraine agreed to a ceasefire, but both sides have said have not agreed to that. Unquote. And Trump replied, quote, well, they agreed. You know why? Because I said you agree. That's why, unquote. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02His brain is gone. All right. Uh, and this more news, uh, this from NPR, quote, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said on Monday that Russia continued missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure hours after President Trump claimed that Moscow had agreed to an energy ceasefire designed to spare energy-related infrastructure in Russia and Ukraine. Russia hits Ukraine gas facilities after Trump claims an energy ceasefire. We did not attack while Russia attacked our gas stations, energy infrastructure, and other facilities, Zelensky said on social media. I think it was Putin's answer to President Trump. And the must message from Russia was very clear. They don't know anything about the energy ceasefire. Unquote.
SPEAKER_03So for the record, in addition to Trump now openly blaming Zelensky for a war that Russia started and lying about a ceasefire to calm the MAGA morons, Trump has also unilaterally lifted oil sanctions against Russia so he could pump millions of American dollars into Russia's war effort against Ukraine. And of course, he lied about that too. The bottleneck diesel problem in the Strait of Hormuz is being caused by the illegal war Trump started. It has nothing to do with fucking Russia. And you know, and why buy Russian diesel that have to be hauled halfway around the world via Russia's shadow network when for a fraction of the price, you could buy all the diesel you want from our longtime ally and next-door neighbor, Canada. And the only possible answer is simple and obvious. Trump is a Russian asset and always has been, and he's engaging in the most crippling act of betrayal and treason in American history, and the entire Republican Party is complicit.
SPEAKER_02Yep. Yep. That's exactly right. And Trump is still hoping for Trump Tower Moscow, where he can escape after he's president. Um, I guess we did do news roundup after all, Dr.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I guess we have one after all. Surprise news roundup.
SPEAKER_02Feel free to write to both of us at prolef podcast at gmail.com. We love hearing from you. Be aware that if you write to us at any of our addresses, we reserve the right to read your email or U.S. Postal Service. Go, Postal Unions letter on the air, unless you say otherwise. And thank you for supporting our show at patreon.com forward slash prolef pod. There are many other ways to support our show over at prolefpod.com. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And as we mentioned at the top of the show, please, if you like this show, share it on social media. It does an enormous amount of good. It doesn't cost a thing. So if you love this podcast, please get someone else to listen to it too.
SPEAKER_02So, Driftglass, how are the Internet Kitties doing this week?
SPEAKER_03Well, Blue Gal, the Internet Kitties hope that everyone had a safe and happy Colombo Day and remind everyone what happens when you try to substitute any other pet food for freshly poured brand cat food, our fake sponsor.
SPEAKER_07An exciting meal has been ruined by the presence of this bigger, baby.