Happy Friday! And Valentine's Day! Sam and Emma speak with Jeet Heer, national affairs correspondent for The Nation, to round up the week in news. Then, they speak with Rahna Epting, executive director at MoveOn, to discuss recent reporting that Congressional Democrats are frustrated by efforts to urge them to fight back more forcefully against the Trump administration. First, they run through updates on Hegseth’s struggle with diplomacy, the House GOP’s austerity push, the ICC, Elon’s attacks on the DOE, pushback to Trump and Musk, the State Department’s multi-hundred-million dollar Tesla purchase, and the role of abortion bans in increasing infant mortality, before parsing through the mass resignations and firings developing in the DOJ and the SDNY amid Donald Trump’s blatant attempt to blackmail and extort Eric Adams. Jeet Heer then joins, diving right into Trump’s ongoing attempt to “find the Bork” – a reference to Nixon’s favored DOJ sycophant – and Trump’s alleged threat to DOJ officials who won't comply with his order to tentatively drop charges against Eric Adams, parsing through the obvious “quid pro quo” at hand, not to mention the extorsion, and whether there’s any hope in looking to Hochul to help her constituents. Heer then walks through what he sees as the most egregious actions from the first few weeks of Trump 2.0, from Musk’s coup of the administrative state to the complete freeze of federal funding, and the devastating reality that Democratic leadership simply isn’t taking the destruction of the US Federal Government seriously, exploring their refusal to act with urgency or concern, or attempt to use any power outside of the courts – which have no real political consequences. Wrapping up, Jeet, Sam, and Emma dissect the emergent need for Democrats and progressives to establish an alternative communication network amid the complete takeover of governmental communication and social media by Big Tech. Rahna Epting then unpacks the role of MoveOn (and other progressive organizations) in unsettling Democratic leadership through the simple act of putting them in touch with their constituents, tackling the insanity of Democrats’ refusal to act, and parsing through exactly how Hakeem Jeffries’ claim that the party has “no leverage” is false, wrapping up the interview by emphasizing the danger of this moment, and the necessity for Democrats to take the voices of their constituents seriously.
And in the Fun Half: Sam and Emma unpack RFK’s confirmation, his declaration on exactly which HHS workers should fear his arrival, and Trump reflects on Mitch McConnell’s supposed polio trauma. Bernie Sanders spells out Elon Musk’s autocratic desires for impotent Democratic leadership, Dave Rubin continues to plead for the cold embrace of elite white bigots, and TYT addresses the whole “getting everything wrong about Project 2025” thing, plus, your IMs!
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