👉 This is an excerpt from the full Weekender episode. Click here for full access and to support the show: Patreon.com/MuckrakePodcast.
On this Weekender edition, co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman break down the latest authoritarian power plays, from Trump’s attempted purge of federal institutions to RFK Jr.’s overreach at the CDC, and connect the dots on how neoliberalism and authoritarianism reinforce each other. They dig into the economic warning signs, the chilling reality of AI gone wrong, and what systemic reform would really look like. Along the way: Godfather analogies, stagflation déjà vu, Gaza’s grim future with Kushner and Blair, and even an Oasis detour.
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I'm just going to take the bottle top and There you go.
There we go.
That was a complete nutter mouth.
I'm I'm Jerry A. Saxon.
I'm in a hotel room opening a beer.
I'm here with my friend Nick Houselman.
How's going man?
This is the weekender The weekender is here and it's going.
Although, again, the sense of dread is overpowering at times based on the creep of authoritarianism that continues to rear its ugly head.
And we have to figure out ways to fight against it.
We do.
And I'm in a weird spot because we're talking about the weekender.
And this is actually, you know, Nick, before we did this i had my therapy session yeah like your boy is getting ready to see oasis which is like something i've wanted to do for forever and it's this thing that i'm so excited to do and i feel so privileged to be able to do it and meanwhile like all of this is going on yeah well maybe it's going to be the thing that saves you There are 25 people who just heard that and
got very excited for that.
So hats off to you.
I'm excited for you though.
Listen, Oasis is, it's not a, it's not, it's not like a painful experience to listen to Oasis.
So, you know, they're, they're, they're incredible and I can't wait and I can't I can't wait to feel feel some good things for a couple of hours everybody a reminder if you haven't already head over to patreon.com slash my break podcast if you want to listen to the entirety of the weekender like we know that you do you listen to the preview on top of that we need your support these are hard times we really depend on your support and we are so thankful for it patreon.com slash my break podcast Nick,
we've been talking over the last few episodes about how we are entering into like a little bit of a new chapter right now.
It's almost like watching low tide and high tide.
And in this case, as.
Trump is constantly referring to dictatorship, and we'll talk more about that in a second, we're also seeing some more institutional moves that have been really pushed forward.
Trump attempted to fire Lisa Cook as governor of the Federal Reserve Board.
Cook has now filed a lawsuit.
Meanwhile, in other instances, RFK Jr. has attempted to fire Susan Monarez, director of the CDC, who is refusing.
to leave.
We're also seeing a purge of a bunch of civilians over at West Point and within the Pentagon.
It feels a little bit, Nick, like the end of the godfather when all of the scores are being settled and a bunch of pieces are moving.
Meanwhile, we are watching the larger authoritarian buildup, which we've been keeping an eye on and been reporting on.
What are your reactions to these institutional moves?
I don't know.
It maybe feels more like Godfather 2 when he kisses his brother and says, I knew it was you as Cuba is falling apart in front of them.
So you can take your pick either way.
But yeah, all these things are, I mean, we've seen this before where someone was fired without being notified properly and they're not going to leave.
I think the SD ⁇ Y has happened as well.
So, you know.
You know, the reason, by the way, and it's not just the head of the CDC who is refusing to leave, but a lot of people did leave over this new thing with the vaccines where they're basically, you won't be able to go to a pharmacy and get the COVID vaccine because you're going to, it's going to require you to see a doctor first.
So that kind of destruction of the confidence, I suppose, in the vaccines, they're only going to make the non-MRNA vaccines like, you know, they're going to declare those, that one is the only one that's safe.
It's only one of those.
And I, you know, would we be surprised to find out that that Moderna, I think is who the company is, is somehow, you know, influencing that to some degree because MRNA vaccines have been around for a long, long time.
Yeah, there's a lot going on here.
First things first, I would be remiss if I didn't note that Lisa Cook is the first black woman to serve as a governor on the Federal Reserve Board.
This is part of a larger story that has been taking place.
Trump has been in a major, major influence campaign trying to talk Jerome Powell, the head of the Federal Reserve, to lower interest rates, which, Nick, it's incredible that our economy is so good, but somehow or another we need to lower interest rates in order to sort of offset what's going on.
And I think in a way, this attempt to fire Cook was, and again, first black woman to serve in this position, that is just, that's like a bee in pollen, right?
The Trump administration is like, oh, this is the weakest link.
We'll go ahead and do this.
We'll see if we get away with it.
What happens with this lawsuit?
When it comes to the CDC, I mean, Monterez was just put in place a couple of weeks ago.
And this is, you know, RFK Jr., much like a lot of the members of Trump's administration, both in the first term and the second term, they are on a seek and destroy mission when it comes to federal infrastructure and institutions.
So in this case, I look at this and first.
And first of all, hats off to the people who are refusing to be bullied in all of this.
And thank God these people are refusing to leave and they're filing lawsuits.
I'm really, really happy in that regard that you see individuals and also organizations there doing it.
But it also highlights the fact that you have like the Democratic Party that is now handing out talking points.
Don't talk about the occupation of Washington, D.C. Don't talk about authoritarianism.
That's very unpopular.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump, like his approval rating, I think is at 37 or 38 percent at this point.
Everyone hates this.
Everybody wants some sort of like a massive response and a fight and instead of seeing the people who should be taking on the fight you're seeing individuals having to take on the fight and having these organizations that have lower resources than the democratic party this is literally part of this slow moving moving coup that we have been like at times it's very very fast and it's very very furious and and overwhelming and at other times it's movements like this that are designed to sort of hollow this stuff out Right.
Well, and don't forget that Monarez was appointed in a new way with the Senate confirmation because the Biden administration, I think, was worried about people like RFK getting involved and taking over things like the CDC.
They made it harder to, you know, to, you had to actually appoint someone that had the bona fide to be able to do that job.
So here we are.
And then what they didn't do, I'm sure they were patting themselves in the back, thinking, oh, great, we took care of that.
But the protection of this job is still not there.
The president can still dismiss them without cause.
Now, to talk about what's going on with the Fed.
you know it is a little frustrating have you ever um well it's a couple of things uh jared have you ever lied uh on a mortgage application not to my knowledge right now you know i come from like, like, you know, my dad was a real estate lawyer, like these things, he takes these things extremely seriously.
You cannot lie.
That's a federal offense, whatever.
Now, we've already had Adam Schiff.
And the thing what's interesting is like they're not necessarily denying this.
It would be nice if she came out just to say, flat out, it's an absolute lie.
They made this up there, like, whatever.
But that's not really happening.
They're just sort of arguing the merits of just cause to being fired.
Now, again, with something that happened, you know, 15 years ago where she said she had a primary residence on that wasn't her primary residence on a mortgage application, is that enough for cause to be fired?
No.
But the next level of this is how do they know this?
Trump let it slip and he says, oh, it's public.
It is not public.
You don't see mortgage docs up on the web like that, that you can just easily find publicly.
So he's instructed the people like Fannie Mae or whoever, whoever is behind these mortgage companies to like go through documents of his enemies to find this kind of stuff.
Now that's the next level where someone's going to have to step up here and figure out how to prosecute for that.
And instead, you know, I don't think, do you think that she's going to be staying in the position or she's going to end up leaving i mean that i i literally have no idea i assume you know i i look at this stuff and And it's almost like betting on sports.
Like you don't win, you know, like you really don't know what's going to happen in things.
Like when it comes to whether or not one lawsuit is going to get upheld or another one isn't, I have no idea.
And I do know what you just said is true, which is there is this creeping feeling.
And we've talked about it a little bit here and there.
We're like, you know, they want to go after Cook and or to send a shot.
Like Trump has talked about firing Jerome Powell, which he shouldn't be able to do.
The Federal Reserve is supposed to be independent, but there are these moments where this administration is more than willing to sort of give a glimpse that something has, you know, that they have an ability that isn't public, that isn't, you know, on the up and up, which we've talked about, like whether it's Doge or whether or not it's like government surveillance or Palantir, anything like that.
And I think the really chilling part, and listen, I don't have any affection for the Federal Reserve.
I don't have any affection for these institutions.
But at the same time, I do think that seeing these moments, we talked about John Bolton in the last episode very very briefly like having this sort of raid like it does become obvious that in the background there are shifting components that there is a larger authoritarian uh technological uh surveillance that is in place and i think that that That is a very chilling thing to understand that everybody who is in the federal government and
anybody who is on the enemies list of this tyrannical regime, that there are things in place that can be used as tools and weapons in order to get to them.
And in this case, like you brought up this supposed mortgage fraud or whatever in the hell they're calling it, it does feel like we are tiptoeing into a more tenuous situation.
Right.
And by the way, fine.
You want to say that she should be fired for cause because she lied on our financial statements?
We got somebody in the White House who was convicted on 34 counts of exactly this.
So great.
Doesn't that mean that Trump's got to go too?
I'm all in.
That's great.
Let's do it.
If we have to sacrifice one person in the Fed for it, all means that someone needs to ask about the same thing.
If you want her to leave because of that, why aren't you leaving your office either?
Well, and by the way, what you're bringing up is actually a point of clarity that I don't feel like a lot of people are very comfortable getting to, which is that we're not, you know, this is a game of chess, sure, but like if that's where we want to go, if we want, you know, like to actually move forward, we have to have reform.
We have to have reform.
I mean, we talked about with the Epstein stuff and people are like, well, what about the Democrats or what about, you know, liberal allies that would be by all means, by all means like if you have done this stuff that's fine but it's the it's the weaponization of it it's the we have one group that is protected from these things we have another group that's going to be prosecuted and attacked for these things i'm all for like a level playing field like you said nick if if we somehow or another were given over all the
documents that donald trump has ever filed and we were able to go through it with a fine-truth comb i guarantee you those convictions are just the tip of the iceberg and that is the thing is like it should be an environment where those kinds of things are are universal otherwise, this entire thing doesn't work.
Oh, yeah.
Remember when he never released his taxes or was going to release his taxes and then never did in a short period of time?
Man, that just feels like asking about, do you remember junior high?
Yeah.
You know, like, oh, yeah, there were some good times.
There were some hard times.
Like, that just feels like so nostalgic at this point.
Oh, I know.
Remember when you used to write notes in your Chandler notebook?
Anyway, that's, here's the thing about the inflation I wanted to talk about or about the interest rates that you mentioned is we've had moments in this country where the inflation was on its way up and they cut interest rates.
Unfortunately, that was during the Carter administration, which turned into stagflation.
It's really, really horrible when you do that.
And that is exactly why Powell is refusing to lower them.
Although he did say that in September, they're thinking about it, right?
And I don't know if that's him finally succumbing to the pressure or not or what he's looking at.
And that said, the market is still doing amazingly well.
And it doesn't make much sense to me on all that.
But there's no question that the fear would very well be that everybody who's not wealthy or extremely wealthy would feel the effects almost to the point of a depression if you did that and you started stack relationship again like we did in the late 70s.
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