Trump and the people around him are trying to weaken our constitutional protections like due process. But the administration is getting rattled, because people see that the Abrego Garcia story is not about the man, but our rights, and because people keep protesting. We have to keep gumming up the works. Meanwhile, why aren't the Chamber of Commerce and other business groups howling while Trump single-handedly ruins our country's global economic status? Plus, our fully-grown SecDef is blaming the deep state for his troubles, even though they involve his wife, his brother, and his phone. And Dear Charleston: Please un-elect Nancy Mace. Michael Steele joins Tim Miller. show notes Support the Jesuit Refugee Service here More on the Harvard scientist being held in ICE detention
Chapter 1: What is the significance of due process in today's political climate?
Chapter 2: How does the government impact individual rights?
Somehow we're 30 minutes in here and we haven't even talked about our blow-dried Secretary of Defense. Secretary of Defense as we speak, who knows. He was on Fox & Friends this morning doing some damage control, blaming the deep state for coming after him. It's an interesting deep state, you know, when the deep state includes somebody that you hired to run your public...
Public Affairs Department is a longtime friend of yours and a longtime supporter of Donald Trump's. And then he writes an article about how you're a complete disaster. And Trump needs to move on for you to save his presidency. That's an intriguing deep. That's not the kind of deep state that I that I know. But anyway, what what have you made of what's happened with the Secretary of Defense?
It's a joke. It's just proving exactly why there should have been more concerns and alarms about him when his name was proposed. You know, whether it's, you know, oh, everybody focused on Matt Gaetz. And I knew this was going to happen. Everybody focused on Matt Gaetz. And so everyone seems less offensive than Matt Gaetz. Well, at least it's not Matt Gaetz. Yeah, but it's actually worse.
It was obvious at the time, actually, also. It's just obvious at the time, whether it's Secretary of Defense, whether it's the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, whether it's the National Security Advisor, who, it doesn't matter. All of these people are cut out of the same cesspool of stupid. And so I'm not surprised, and nor is anybody else surprised. No one in Washington is surprised by this. No one.
They might have been surprised it took three months.
They might have thought he could last a year or three months.
Really?
I didn't. But I mean, maybe some of those Republicans on the Senate that confirmed him thought they were buying themselves a year. I mean, what are you doing if you're John Cornyn? or Mike Rounds, or Roger Wicker, confirming a complete ass clown to run the US military. And it just boggled the mind.
And so I do think they must have convinced themselves that, I don't know, he'd have good, who the fuck knows what they convinced themselves of. But did they really think that April 22, that it would be one fiscal quarter before he would have totally imploded?
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of Trump's administration on constitutional rights?
Chapter 4: Why should we be concerned about the Abrego Garcia case?
Public Affairs Department is a longtime friend of yours and a longtime supporter of Donald Trump's. And then he writes an article about how you're a complete disaster. And Trump needs to move on for you to save his presidency. That's an intriguing deep. That's not the kind of deep state that I that I know. But anyway, what what have you made of what's happened with the Secretary of Defense?
It's a joke. It's just proving exactly why there should have been more concerns and alarms about him when his name was proposed. You know, whether it's, you know, oh, everybody focused on Matt Gaetz. And I knew this was going to happen. Everybody focused on Matt Gaetz. And so everyone seems less offensive than Matt Gaetz. Well, at least it's not Matt Gaetz. Yeah, but it's actually worse.
It was obvious at the time, actually, also. It's just obvious at the time, whether it's Secretary of Defense, whether it's the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, whether it's the National Security Advisor, who, it doesn't matter. All of these people are cut out of the same cesspool of stupid. And so I'm not surprised, and nor is anybody else surprised. No one in Washington is surprised by this. No one.
They might have been surprised it took three months.
They might have thought he could last a year or three months.
Really?
I didn't. But I mean, maybe some of those Republicans on the Senate that confirmed him thought they were buying themselves a year. I mean, what are you doing if you're John Cornyn? or Mike Rounds, or Roger Wicker, confirming a complete ass clown to run the US military. And it just boggled the mind.
And so I do think they must have convinced themselves that, I don't know, he'd have good, who the fuck knows what they convinced themselves of. But did they really think that April 22, that it would be one fiscal quarter before he would have totally imploded?
He is a complete incompetent. He is a weekend talk show host. And as a weekend talk show host, I can at least say I ran a government. I ran a national party as a co-host. I ran a national party. I did some stuff before I got to that job, right? You were in a monastery.
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Chapter 5: How can citizens influence political change?
There's a point where they cannot pass that cost on to the consumer. and they close. They go out of business. That's part one. Part two, to the extent that they can and do pass that cost on to the consumer. And I'm just telling everybody, you don't have to listen to me and Tim. You don't have to believe a damn word we're saying.
Just pick up an item in your house and look on the bottom and see, oh, made in China. made in China. Picking up a stapler for our audio listeners. I'm sorry, yes. We're doing both, that's okay. I'll narrate. A tape container... A stapler and now the remote control for my television. Oh, made in China.
Look, I could do a lot of people out there clamoring for jobs, screwing in a little screw on the back of that remote control. You know, they just want to sit there all day and screw in a little screw on the back of a remote control. There's a lot of demand out there for those jobs in America.
That's our economy. We are a consumer-based economy. Yes, we want manufacturing in this country, but they're not going to manufacture this remote control here in this country because there's not a U.S. company that's going to stand up the cost to do that. Businesses have looked and moved globally. And that integration is important. Why? Because we are at the leading edge of it.
Everybody wants to be like us. They want to sell us products. They want us to sell them stuff to the extent that we do. But what Trump has done is created this lie that somehow all of manufacturing, everything that we have is manufactured here. That's just not going to happen, folks. It just isn't. And if it does, this stapler that I spent $8.99 for is going to cost me $28 or $30 or $40.
Because that's the cost of having it done here. We forget the labor costs. We forget the production costs, the cost of materials, all these things. So if it's a manufacturer, if I can go to Tim, who is in... in France, who is the one who creates the screws to go into my equipment, and he's done it cheaper than I can get down the street somewhere else, guess what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna go to Tim.
I'm gonna go to where the cost is cheaper to me because it stays cheaper for you. So when you break that, which is what Trump is trying to do, the downward impact is not on the millionaire mamas and the billionaire boys. It's on the mom and pop operation in your neighborhood who has to close now, will not be hiring your kid this summer, will raise its prices.
So now everything you're buying in that community is going to cost you more. And who's going to be held accountable for that? You're going to blame Joe Biden for that? Because that's what Donald Trump wants you to do. He wants you to blame Joe Biden. Joe Biden gave us the worst economy in the history of the world. No, he didn't. No, he didn't.
You're giving us the worst economy in the history of the world. How do we know that? Because the world markets are telling us that. That's why the bond market did what it's done. That's why the Dow is doing what it's doing. And for those of you who are in the market, go look at that 401k. How much did you lose yesterday? Or don't.
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Chapter 6: What role does protest play in democracy?
That seems pretty important. The scientists that developed... The computer scripts to read the images on this microscope has been in an immigration detention center for two months, putting these crucial scientific advancements at risk. The scientists, the 30-year-old Russian-born Kenia Petrova worked at Harvard's renowned Kirchner Lab until she was arrested at Boston Airport in mid-February.
She had some frog embryos, I guess, that she did not declare on her form. She's now being held down here in Monroe, Louisiana at an ICE detention center and is fighting deportation back to Russia, even though she's spoken out. about the war in Ukraine. I'm not a foreigner who comes in who's a scientist who has embryos. So I was curious, like, what is the usual punishment for something like this?
And here's what it is. The border patrol typically imposes a fine of forfeiture of the items. So, you know, the government would get the frog embryos and then you get a $500 fine. That's how things were up until three months ago. Instead, we're holding this woman in a detention center in Louisiana for two months, even though she is like the critical scientist for important cancer research.
And this is insanity.
This is... This is the future if we don't stop it. This is the tip of the iceberg. We've already begun to see the impact by the Doge idiots going in to Department of Health, you know, the national research centers, certainly now the assault on universities. The brain drain that's going to happen, Tim, is going to be staggering, right?
where once we were the place that the elite thinkers, researchers wanted to come to because we had the facilities unfettered, right? Access, the freedom to do and pursue that research. There's no commissar looking over your shoulder. Exactly. And we're now stripping that bear and stripping it away. So where do they go? They won't come here.
When you have someone like this young woman, yeah, made a mistake, had frog embryos, you just describe what would usually happen. They would take the frog embryos, which are being researched on behalf of the government anyway, okay? So they just give them back to the government. It wasn't fentanyl, you know?
She's not sneaking in drugs.
She's doing fucking science research, you know? It's frog eggs. Frog eggs. And she's in a detention center probably because they're trying to figure out if the Russians want her back. And they want to placate the Russians and give her. So that's what that's all about.
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Chapter 7: What is the importance of the 2026 elections?
So this is not just a one-way travel. This is both ways. You know, it's not just the foreign born student or individual who wants to come here or is here. But U.S. citizens who are born here, who are engaged in certain research, in certain types of government actions that they don't like. They're also subject to this. So I just think all of these for me are warning signs.
And how we heed them, Tim, is going to be very, very important because the America that Trump wants in our 251st year It's not the America I think that the founders tried to create and has sustained us for 250.
That would be a beautiful place to end, but I just have a little dessert for you. Yes, I like dessert. Are you familiar with Ulta Beauty? Ulta Beauty Supply Store? Do you know about Ulta? No, I'm not educated. Now that you're in prime time, Michael, you're going to have to learn about some of this stuff. You're going to have to learn about skin care.
You're in prime time.
You might consider the Ulta Beauty Spa. So you can just go there, get some new face moisturizers. We got a sponsor, One Skin. I'm giving them free airtime right now. You use something, you know, straight men.
A lot of times don't know about this. You know, I got to keep it so it don't crack, baby.
Come on now. Exactly. Well, you got some advantages on that front with the melanin that I don't have. So I had to learn a little earlier. But Nancy Mace, our friend, she was in an Ulta.
and uh she sent this tweet yesterday oh whether it's a locker room a bathroom or the face wash aisle at ulta no man has the right to invade our spaces and let me tell you nancy that fucking face wash aisle at ulta is my space as much as yours and if you ever treat me like you treated this man that i'm about to play the audio of you don't know what's coming to you let's listen to nancy mason and ulta over the weekend
You know what? Because you people on the left are crazy. You're absolutely fucking crazy. I'm absolutely fucking crazy. You are. And get out of my face. You're insane. Goodbye. You're insane. Fuck you.
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