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Hello and welcome to the DSR Daily. I'm David Rothkuff.
I'm joined by Riley Festler.
I'm going to assign we here to take a look at what's going on in the news.
“What it may mean, who's going to start us off?”
I'll get us kicked off with a small update about the assassination attempt at the White House Correspondence dinner. We hit now have the charges and cold Thomas Allen who, of course, is the gunman. The question has been charged with trying to assassinate the president. But in other news, Caroline Levitt and other avatars for the administration have already
started to blame the attack on Democrats and the media who Caroline Levitt accuses of quote
a systematic demonization of Trump and called those responsible quote a left wing cult of hatred. I give up. Listen, if Trump has been systematically demonized, it has been because Trump has systematically demonstrated that he's a demon.
“I mean, he's been on the national stage for 11 years.”
If people had it wrong about him who were his critics, he would have proven them wrong. But instead at each and every opportunity that Donald Trump has been given, he has illustrated that he does not have the interest of the American people at heart. He does not understand national security. He does not understand how economies work.
He has focused on his own monetization of the job of president of his family's monetization of the job of president and he is willing to do anything to stay in power. And that includes foaming racism, foaming misogyny, foaming division in the United States of America, aligning himself with some of the darkest forces in our country, tearing the place apart and going so far as to literally not just in courts or in his executive orders,
trying to tear the institutions of the United States apart January 6th being the strongest evidence of that. The idea that they are trying to capitalize on this attack, assuming it was just a random attack from someplace in order to say anybody who is a critic of the president is akin to the attacker, is creating the mood that leads to political violence in America, is turning
the story literally upside down. No one has done more to promote violence in the United States of America to promote political violence, to demonize their enemies, to go so far as to literally call for the execution of his political opponents, to try to put them in jail, to call them traders, to call them the worst of the worst.
Then Donald Trump, Donald Trump is the leading author of the toxic political environment in the United States, and no White House press release, no Caroline Levitt's statement is going to change that fact. Trump has rejected a piece proposal from Iran that offered to reopen the state of Formus and exchange for delaying discussions regarding its nuclear program reports are saying
Trump is very unhappy with this Iranian proposal specifically because it refuses to address the nuclear enrichment immediately, and so the double blockade will remain in place. Notably, this has caused Brent crude prices to climb towards $109 a barrel. He's bad out of shape because the country illegally attacked and has been waging war against
For a couple of months is not doing what he wanted.
He had an ignorant idea of how the Middle East, how Iran works.
He doesn't listen to experts, he barged in against the advice of many in his military. He has created this situation all because he thought it would be easy. And what's the result? The result is turmoil, economic stress, economic pressure, economic hardship for people around the world, not millions, not hundreds of millions for billions of people around
the world.
“And he doesn't know the way out, and I think people are starting to get a message here.”
And the message is that there may not be the exit ramp that everybody thought there would be.
That this thing may go on and on, and I direct your attention to our friend Ed Lewis, who
has a column in the FT today, and the headline of the column is get used to the long Iran War. And if you didn't want to wait to the day to read that from Ed, you could have listened last week to the conversation we had with Ken Pollock, Ambassador Dan Shapiro, and Dan Benayem in the need to know if you haven't listened now three of the leading experts
on the region. And one of the conclusions was, there may not be an exit ramp because Trump won't get what he wants, the Iranians know they can wait it out, that in fact there are reasons
“that drawing this out actually works to their advantage, solidifies their control over”
the straight-of-form moves, and puts constant pressure and constant pressure on the GOP in the United States in a way that they couldn't do in any other way. He has given Iran a lever, a role in global affairs, a role in American politics that they did not have before this, and that's where we are. It's also producing all sorts of changes in the region, the structures that were stabilizing
in the region before multilateral structures are changing. This was not a little blit, like Venezuela was a blit, and in fact I think Venezuela probably helped lead to this because Trump didn't really know what he wanted to do, but I'd get out Maduro, that was a fairly easy thing for special forces to go in and do. They went, they grabbed him, the next up in line we're saying, "Well, okay, we'll deal
with the US." Nothing really has happened there, we haven't had to put troops there, we haven't had to extend conflict there, and the frankly, the regime that was in place is still in place, Venezuela is not in democracy, we haven't done anything to advance the cause of democracy or the interests of the United States at large in Venezuela.
“The only thing we've done is to advance the interests of a few oil companies in Venezuela,”
which was after all Trump's objective, but it's a terrible analogy to what's going on Iran, a much larger country with a much longer history, with much more complicated
relations in the region, and it's just yet another reason why Trump ultimately made the
wrong decision with regard to Iran, against the advice of his advisors, against the advice of countries that were allies of the US, and that is to attack. We may be entering the Quagmire phase of this particular crisis. Florida Republicans led by none other than Iran to Santa's, yep, he's still around. Yeah, good old Iran, he's a little guy, he's easy to overlook.
Meanwhile, Iran, as our president would say, "Oh, Jesus, that seems to be inappropriate." But no, that's all right, Rylan, they've just quoting the president, yeah, it's just a fact, I'm just, yeah, they're recording the facts. No, it's not. You can't solve them.
Yeah, exactly. Okay, okay, Riley. Oh, no. They've revealed a new proposed congressional map in the latest volley in the redistricting war that we've seemingly undertaken in our country.
Not we, we're public and started, we have a press respondent. Right, it started when Donald Trump called up Greg Abbott and said, "Get me five more seats." And we know where it started. And so let's not suggest, you know, it's both sides. Go on.
The new map would change the already Republican heavy map, which was 20 Republicans to eight Democratic seats to 24 to four, however, the House Speaker and Senate President have
Already kind of appeared skeptical about this.
So there's no guarantee of success and local Florida government has been a bit more
“resistant to the Santa's lately as well.”
So we'll see, but not good. Well, yeah, I mean, the real battle in this particular realm right now is a court battle. One with regard to Texas, where the Supreme Court and its shadow docket, okay, Texas's redistricting, which was politically motivated, which would enable the GOP to theoretically pick up five seats.
And of course, there's no guarantee that with Trump and office and a backlash against Republican that it would turn out that way. And the Virginia effort, which came in response to that, like the California effort did, which in the Virginia Supreme Court, looks like it faces some headwinds and that would produce a net for democratic seats, theoretically.
As far as Florida goes, not only is there the skepticism that Riley was talking about, there is the matter of the Florida Constitution. And the Florida Constitution is explicit that you cannot redistrict to serve political objectives. I mean, this is grotesquely overtly, in arguably, unconstitutional under that constitution. That, of course, doesn't stop a little want to be autocrat-like, run to Santa's from
trying. And it must fill you, Minna, with pride with your home state. I'm particularly offended that I wasn't given a true warning that we would be covering Florida, horrible politics. Well, but you moved out, you voted with your feet.
That is true, but nevertheless, disappointing. Yeah, I'm sorry, do you feel strong association with, I mean, on this show, you've got an association with Florida, but do you feel like you're a Floridian when Florida comes up? Do you say I own that?
Oh, yeah, that guy who, that toothless guy with an alligator in his pants who just robbed a 7/11, that's, that's my Florida man, the guy I live next door to. Yeah, I do, I think, much like you just displayed a lot of people have a lot of really negative things to say about Florida, and they get a really nice, and a lot of it wasn't true. A lot of it they deserve, right, like this is messed up, just Santa's is horrible, like
the costs of living is outrageous there. There's a lot of criticism that they definitely deserve, but there's also a lot of really beautiful things about Florida and the people who live there. It's extremely diverse. It's ecologically diverse.
Yeah, you may not 100,000 Burmese pythons that people released into the Everglades.
“Look, here's the thing about Florida, it could have been beautiful.”
It's been screwed up for 100 years.
It is one large strip mall, and the problem is that within the context of that large strip
mall, they have man-eating dinosaurs that are regularly eating people's pets and joggers that go by canals, that is to say, alligators, and there's 100,000 Burmese pythons. Wherever you go in Florida, you could be eaten by an alligator or a python, and it's not that attractive anymore, cause of all the malls, and because of Rhonda Santas. Put those things together, Rhonda Santas, strip malls, alligators, and Burmese pythons.
You were right to leave, stopping so sentimental about it, and if you think I'm being unfair, of course, I'm just kidding, but if you think I'm being unfair about all of this stuff, I encourage our listeners to go and Google, man with alligator and his pants arrested in robbery, and see what comes up, cause maybe I was making that up, but maybe I wasn't, cause that kind of thing happens, they're all the time Florida man is a thing.
Crazy things happen everywhere, but yeah, not New Jersey. Not where I'm from. Nothing crazy has ever happened in New Jersey. New Jersey is the bedrock of America, people don't realize it.
“That's why the boss is from New Jersey, Frank Sinatra is from New Jersey, the Stallone's”
Tom Cruise, you know, all of our heroes have never done anything, that'll raise your
eyebrows. Well, okay, everyone's in a while, somebody gets buried in the meadowlands, but or or or fine barons or someplace, you know, everyone's so well, there's stuff there, okay, well, let's turn on Riley and a while, I mean, Ohio is just going for says, yeah, New Jersey and Florida line up against Ohio and say, yeah, what's the matter with you guys?
You turned all red and crazy and more mega than Florida, defend yourself.
What do you get to say about that?
Yeah, my can, my conflicts are screwed up, yeah, well, that's the truth. Okay, fortunately for all of us, we're just joking around here, because we love each other and to show that we are in touch with America's heart, like, this is not some Eastern liberal elite podcast here, DSR network does not stand for Democratic Socialist Radio, but frankly, I wouldn't
“mind a bit if it did. Anyway, speaking Democratic Socialist Riley, what do you have next?”
I'm actually going to go next and I have a super fun one, the Trump administration fired all 22 members of the National Science Board. And if you're wondering, what does the National Science Board do? Why does that matter? They're an independent body that oversees
the $9 billion, the National Science Foundation budget and approves major research grants?
The mass termination occurred without explanation, just as the board was finalizing or report on U.S. science effectively removing the primary independent check on federal research. So the service designed as a clear way for proposed 55 percent budget cuts to the board and excuse me to the foundation and replacing nonpartisan experts with political loyalists,
“obviously, but it's a devastating story that I feel like it's buried, but it's like going to screw”
us over big time. You're absolutely right to bring it up. The war against science of this
administration is one of the weirdest and most damaging developments that we have seen over the
course of the past year and a half. You wouldn't even imagine that an administration would go against, I don't know, the Centers for Disease Control in the wake of COVID or cancer research or other forms of research that save human lives. I'm not surprised to some extent the degree to which they'd go on after the environmental protection agency and environmental science because that's been a kind of a platform of the Republican Party for a while. But they go after bringing scientists
in our universities, they go after funding for science at our universities. They are attacking research and development where our primary rivals around the world including notably China are doubling down and investing more in an area after area, science and technology are producing more research, more papers, more technological innovations than we are and we are falling further and further behind it. It's kind of like we're saying we want to be stupider. We want to be
less competitive but there's a reason behind it all and you know I mean you might think Trump did badly in science as a kid and for sure he did because it required work and intellect and research and none of the things that he probably did well at but having said that that's not what it is. The Elon Musk's of this world, the tech pros around Trump, they think science should be conducted in corporate R&D labs so that every time there is development it is owned by a company and a company
can profit from it. That's why they're against government support for science. They want companies to own our developments profit from our developments, control the patents, control the direction of development within this country because they think they've got enough for hand. It's a poem. It's dangerous. It's more of the drift towards a divided society run by a handful of
“guards and that's what you should see when you hear a story like the one minute just described.”
Well, the wrap things up. Jimmy Kimmel is back in the crosshairs of the White House and conservatives everywhere after a poorly timed monologue joke calling Melania Trump an expectant widow that aired the day before the correspondence dinner. Kimmel has since clarified that his joke was meant to highlight the age difference between Melania and Donald, but that is not stopped the Trump's for calling for him to be fired once again, which I mean is a regular occurrence,
but now for Donald, but now Melania has joined it on the fun as well. Yeah, Melania's higher profile in recent months is absolutely mystifying to me. She's hugely unpopular. She's a terrible communicator. I have to believe that she has gone to him and said, "Give me X, Y, or Z, or I'm going to make trouble for you."
Because otherwise there is no, I mean, they don't even live together.
much. I don't understand the leverage. As for Jimmy Kimmel, you know, so far he's been protected
by the first amendment, by the fact that he's funny, by the fact that people like him. And everybody understands that the joke was ill-timed. It was not, you know, linked to this.
“Because, you know, how could anybody have known what was going to happen on Saturday night?”
It was going to happen, unless you're a part of a small group in the secret service that said, hey, we're going to let this guy through and then we'll have an incident that'll make the
president look stronger, which could never happen in America. Can't believe that I just floated
one of those conspiracy theories out there. And, you know, made it look as though we're just a casual throwaway comment. I don't believe that. I would say, I'm 100% reject that. Okay, 80%, maybe 60%, I reject the idea that periodically, you know, Trump gets together with secret service and says, hey, get a make. We look good, guys. Certainly, you know, one of the reasons that there are all these conspiracy theories is Trump reacts every time to one of these kind
of attacks. As though he had cooked it out and tries to take advantage of it, currently the insane, absolutely insane conclusion that they're all reaching from this attack is we need more golden ballrooms. That's because that is a national, we have to have golden ballrooms
“for the national security of the United States. That's what'll keep America safe. That was what”
I keep the presidency. From Lindsey Graham stood up yesterday and said, we're going to come up with the money. So after all of Trump, you know, we don't need to have the taxpayers pay the money. Lindsey Graham is like, no, we're going to pay the money. But I thought they had them. So why does Lindsey Graham have to come up with the money? Interesting, right? Interesting question. It's also interesting, whenever Lindsey Graham removes his lips from Trump's ass long enough to speak.
But, you know, this idea that somehow the golden ballroom is the solution for America, you know, does make you ask a few other questions. Like a golden ballroom, for that effective, wouldn't it have been useful to have a golden ballroom at Sandy Hook to protect those kids? Or a golden ballroom, at each of the 83 schools that saw school shooting last year,
or a golden ballroom for, I don't know, the hundreds of kids who we killed on the first day of
the Iran war, and the illegally Iran war. Yes, a war crop. Because if golden ballrooms can protect our presidents, why couldn't they protect other people? And it only $400,000. They're a bargain.
“$400 million. They're a bargain. I have a calm coming in this later today. That's why it's”
under my skin or in my brain or something. Anyway, we love big with you each and every morning. If you have comments, we want to see anything else from this and you're following this on YouTube, which is probably the easiest way to do it, just post a comment. If you're a member, you can do it in our Slack or what is it? What is it? What is it, Riley? It's somewhat of those things. Got our discord. You're on the board. Communicate with each other and us directly. Exactly.
You can show solidarity for men and Florida on our discord or in the comments at YouTube. Subscribe, support us. We've got more coming your way. Real soon. And we hope that you will be there for all of that until then. Thank you, Mina. Thank you, Riley. Thank you, everybody for listening. Bye bye.
