Donald Trump just demolished the entire East Wing of the White House so he can build a $300 million gilded “Presidential Ballroom,” even after promising there would be “no structural damage.” At the exact same time, because of the shutdown, the USDA says SNAP will stop paying out on November 1 and more than 40 million Americans (about 1 in 8 people in this country) are about to lose their food benefits while states scramble to set up emergency food banks. This is what “Eat The Rich” actually looks like in real time.
Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman break down how this ballroom stunt became the perfect symbol of American rot: looting the state, starving the public, daring anyone to stop it. They connect it to the shutdown, the coming food crisis, and the GOP strategy of holding basic survival hostage while blaming “Democrats who won’t negotiate.” They also get into what happens next — desperation, crime, crackdown, and why the right actually wants that cycle.
Plus: what’s really happening in Venezuela. The administration is openly talking about oil, U.S.-backed operators are getting grabbed on the ground, and we’re moving assets toward Caracas like it’s 1983 all over again. Why regime change never went away, it just stopped pretending to be subtle.
And yeah, we talk about rage, mutual aid, and what it looks like when people finally decide they’re done letting billionaires build palaces while kids don’t eat.
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He took care of the show as I was away on personal business.
My friends, good to see you.
How you doing?
I'm good.
I'm good.
I'm glad to be back with you to have our normal pitter patter back and forth, if you will.
Our pitter patter.
Wait, time out, time out.
Is pitter patter, is that the sound of small little feet on a floor or is it?
I like that.
Pitter pattern.
I'm going with like raindrops on a tin roof.
That, I mean, if I had to describe this podcast, that's it's it's raindrops on a tin roof.
I agree.
Very, very nice for the ASMR lovers out there.
Everybody, we got a full show.
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Let's get it.
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Live shows are awesome.
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Today, we have to start.
You know, Nick, I was out of town.
I went and took care of some family business, and it was very surreal to me to sort of be out of the constant fire hose of data and stimulus and signals and all of that.
But meanwhile, I still could not escape a constant update of the East Wing of the White House being absolutely razed to the ground, just like live shots of it just being torn up by construction crews.
And now here we are, and we're recording this on Monday, October 27th.
The East Wing of the White House is completely and utterly gone.
And why, Nick?
Because President Donald J. Trump has decided that he is going to rebuild it and create.
Let me check the name of this, Nick.
I'm not sure if I have this correctly.
It says here that he wants to name it the Donald J. Trump Presidential Ballroom.
How is that possible?
That seems way too self-serving.
It's beyond any conception I've ever had before that that's what they would name it for short.
How could anyone predict this?
But here is the man himself talking about this.
I just want a quick follow-up on that question.
You're responsible to people who say that you haven't been translating anonymous operators.
I haven't been transparent.
That's some of your feelings.
I've shown this to everybody that would listen.
Third rate reporters didn't see it because they didn't look.
You're a third-grade reporter, always have been.
So third-rate reporters didn't look, but anybody that asked, these pictures have been in newspapers.
They've been all over the place.
And, you know, we're very proud of it.
It's gotten great reviews.
It's gotten really great reviews.
Oh, man.
I tell you what, that man is in decline and probably dying, but he still has something left on his fastball, doesn't he?
Jared, he is right.
I am here to tell you something because I went through this.
I said, how is it possible?
How do they get to this point where the East Wing is completely demolished?
And then I went back.
And did you actually really, really look at the renderings, the first renderings that came out of this ballroom?
I did.
I did.
If you look really closely at it, there's a walkway that extends out of the White House, the normal part of the White House, and then it dead ends at the East Wing.
Well, the walkway is there, but if you really look at it, maybe kind of move your head around.
It's the three-dimensional drawing, but you can't get in there.
But basically, where the ballroom is drawn is where the East Wing was.
Like they did sneak that in there and they lied about not doing it, but it was there in the drawing the whole time.
And he is, doesn't that make him right?
Well, I mean, listen, I spend almost all of my waking hours paying attention to the political, socioeconomic trends and developments in the country.
I don't spend a lot of time pouring over blueprints.
And this is one of the reasons why he was able to do this.
And by the way, Nick, he started by saying that there was going to be no structural damage to the East Wing.
He did.
And then that there was just going to be a little bit.
And then you look up and it is completely and utterly gone at this point.
So is he lying?
No and yes at the exact same time.
But they're there.
And by the way, for anyone who's not watching this on YouTube, am I wrong, Nick?
Like the drawing, the rendering of it looks like something out of the Palace of Versailles.
If the construction company that did it had lost any and all taste and decorum at all.
It's an interesting take, especially in the, which we'll get to in a minute, in terms of the government being shut down and people on the precipice of losing all manner of subsidies that help them survive.
To have them building this Marie Antoinette style ballroom is what would have been, I suppose the term would have been not recommended politically in days past.
We're beyond that.
They don't seem to care at all as they continue to feed themselves, feed themselves, whatever that French term is, on grapes and wine and whatnot while we are sitting here struggling to pay our bills.
So I'm so glad that you took it in this direction because I want to state something.
And, you know, this is something that you and I, I don't know if we agree on.
I don't, every now and then we'll find these things where we have differences of opinion, all that.
I actually don't give a shit about the White House.
I don't hold it in the regard that other people do.
It is one of the most consequential buildings in the history of the modern world.
Some of the best things that have happened in the United States were signed there and deliberated there and argued about there.
And some of the most disgusting things possible.
And I'm not just talking about the fact that like the seat of the federal government was constructed by enslaved people.
I'm not just talking about the fact that so many decisions happened there have hurt Americans.
I'm talking about how many war crimes have been plotted there.
I'm talking, and the White House is a symbol of power.
That's the reason that it was made and constructed the way that it was.
I understand that that symbol means something to somebody, which is one of the reasons we're talking about this before we talk about tens of millions of Americans losing their financial assistance that is necessary.
But the point here is exactly what you just hit on.
This is a really, really potent symbol that right now, like depending upon Trump, it changes day to day, which tells you everything you need to know.
This ballroom is going to cost $250 million, a quarter of a billion dollars, or $300 million.
We're unsure.
At the exact same time, by the way, we didn't even talk about this because I was out last week.
He's extorting the federal government through the DOJ for $230 million that he will probably get handed over to him.
He has used the government as his own piggy bank, as his own way to enrich himself.
What we're watching now with this ballroom, how it looks, what's happening with it, I cannot think of a bigger metaphor for a simple term, Nick.
And that term, and I think we're going to say it more and more as time goes on, is eat the rich.
This is, and it's so on the nose because he can't handle subtlety.
Watching the United States of America decline and watching the standard of living decline and living conditions decline, and we're about to watch some real human tragedy happen very shortly.
We're already watching it.
It's going to get worse.
But watching a gilded ballroom get constructed onto the White House for this price tag while people are falling behind and suffering and dying, I cannot think of a more potent symbol.
You're exactly right.
Well, I now need to get into, you know, you might not know this about me, but I am a architecture snob.
And like, let me give you an example.
In our neighborhood, which you've actually been to, we have these little signs that establish that's our neighborhoods four blocks.
On the corners, there is a granite post topped by a marble slab with the engraving of the name of our neighborhood in it.
It's a complete folly, is what they would call this.
Mixing and matching and doesn't have anything to do with each other.
It's horrible.
It's, you know, doesn't have anything to do with the history of the, of like what was going on when this neighborhood was founded.
So George Washington, when they built the White House, if I'm not mistaken, I think I was reading this, they made it a bit of an austere design because they realized this is the people's house.
We're not going to spend tons of money and decorating all these things because it's not what it's for, right?
So I really like that in terms of what it stands for.
And to see what he's already done to the Oval Office, and we keep seeing it with the garish gold gilded fake gold, by the way, that's the other word, horrible thing about it.
It's all spray-painted plaster or plastic all over the place.
And then he's hung paintings all over the, in the, in the way that is, there's no other way to say that he's, he's mad.
He's a mad man.
He's mad.
He, this is a great example of his insanity.
The cluttered, you know, mind going all over the place.
And so for him to do that and destroy not only the balance of the White House with East and the West wings in terms of architecture, but as we can see it now, the ballroom is going to dwarf the White House and completely mar the view of that.
I mean, this is pure aesthetics, right?
But it means something to me.
You know, the trick would have been that they could have sunk the ballroom down into the ground more, right?
So that the outside part doesn't come up as high, so much higher in the White House.
You know what I mean?
I know it's crazy.
And it probably costs even more money, right?
But still, this is just as a symbol, you're right, of all that stuff.
And it just really irks me.
I'm sure there's people out here listening as well that understand the aesthetic part of it.
It's just, it's just an abomination combined with his insanity.
Well, and you're right, because this is something that we talk about, but we don't talk about all the time, which is the experience of these things, like how it affects us emotionally, you know?
And in this case, what you're describing, because I think on one hand, it's like, we're not going to have an architecture podcast.
But if you actually understand architecture or if you understand design, you understand that there's a rhetorical element to it, that the way that something is built or the way that it is presented, it's done so to make the beholder feel something.
Like there's a reason why there are Federalist columns at the White House, right?
It's a projection of power.
It's a link to history.
It's basically trying to bring into, you know, modern liberal democracy the beginnings of it, right?
What we're talking about here, the reason why people feel so much, and I'm trying to make this argument in conversations, I'm saying I care more about what's happening to human beings out on the streets, people who are being disappeared, people who are being harassed, people who are being killed, people who are being put in concentration camps.
But if you actually take a look at this, there's a reason why when it comes to like the French Revolution, people talk about Versailles.
They talk about the parties.
It's the feeling of what it is that you're seeing that represents a larger feeling.
I know you know, and the people listening and watching know that the wealthy in this country have not only hoarded everything and have ruined everything, but also that they are cretinous.
They don't have taste.
They're not actually talented.
They don't actually have something of value.
They're trying to fill a hole that they cannot fill.
And it would be one thing, Nick, if they were creating great things, because those great things make you feel inspired, like you're part of a great society, or you're trying to become as great as the thing that got made, right?
That's the reason why the Statue of Liberty is so beautiful, because it represents a feeling that's hard to explain.
Watching this shit, as things get worse, it is going to not inspire wonder and awe and aspiration.
It's going to inspire anger and it's going to inspire dissatisfaction.
And as we are moving near whatever it is that we're moving near, I feel more and more convinced, Nick, that it's going to be anger and it's going to be wrath.
And he can't help himself because like you said, he's mad and the people around him do not have something to offer.
They're making it more obvious through their choices that this is unjust and that this is completely untenable.
You know, it also reminds me of when Ukraine fell and Yanukovych got forced out and they were starting to parade themselves through all of the different houses that he had and they could see how he was living.
And I think that the people in charge and people in the very upper classes should be concerned because for centuries, poor people had to simply take it.
They didn't have any recourse, right?
I feel like the revolution against the rich is a newer thing in terms of the history of our mankind.
Is that safe to say?
Like when you started to see it take to get momentum in with the French Revolution and the American Revolution.
I mean, in the modern world, those are the ones that you point to, right?
But if you actually go back into, because those were, you know, those were both like revolutions against monarchical power.
Yeah.
But the history of monarchy and the history of feudalism, you have these moments where people don't have enough to eat.
They don't have enough to live.
And then they look at the opulence because what is opulence?
Opulence is a projection of power, right?
That's why kings and queens live with opulence is because it's supposed to say, look at the greatness of us.
But eventually at some point when living and material conditions get so bad, you say, fuck this.
I'm not going to put up with this.
We need to grab our weapons and we need to show up here.
And that's happened many, many times.
Okay, fair enough.
And, you know, and certainly in our modern political system, the notion of a president, like, I don't know, going golfing in the middle of some sort of disaster in this country would have been completely, you know, you can't do it.
You cannot, you have to avoid any kind of, you know, even the impression of that.
And here we are, right, where he doesn't give a shit about anybody.
I think that ends up being what this, the crux of this is, is that the White House is symbolizing everything about where we are in terms of how people care about each other.
And they don't care about anybody, right?
They don't care about anyone's livelihood or anyone improving their lives, anyone who's beyond their social status.
And it's almost to the point where it's like, well, think about the Statue of Liberty for a second.
That was a gift, right, from the French to us for helping them in the French Revolution, right?
Inspiring them for the French Revolution.
Like, can you even imagine that kind of will in between countries at this point that anybody would be willing to do anything like that?
I can.
And it's Qatar handing over a jet.
Oh, shit.
And you know what?
I just thought of as we're talking about this.
Nick, who was the last president of the United States of America in which it not opulence, but style and those types of trappings.
Who was the last president of the United States of America in which that was a focus?
JFK?
It was JFK.
And like, oh my God, I'm a Camelot.
Yeah.
Right.
And why was that okay, Nick?
It was okay because it felt like the country was growing and the country was becoming more great and the people were getting ahead.
There's a symbiosis between that, right?
And that style and that's grace and a feeling that it represents something that's in the country.
It's discordant and by the way, poetic that one of the country's least aesthetically pleasing and least aesthetically talented people.
And by the way, as self-aggrandizing or whatever, not just that he's extorting the government for nearly a quarter of a billion dollars.
He's using a quarter of a billion or more in order to create this ballroom.
He's taking bribes.
He's doing all this shit.
It's that.
It's in complete and utter dissonance with the livelihood of the country.
And I think it's really interesting to look at how these things sort of work with each other.
Again, I don't give a shit about the White House.
I think it's embarrassing.
And I think that I would be fine if it was raised to the ground and we started anew.
But if you look at the rhetorical choices here, it lines up with the lived reality of what the country is like.
Absolutely.
I mean, and that is a great point.
And again, 100 years from now, when that ballroom has been there for that long, it'll be considered classic.
And it's been there since we haven't forgotten that.
I would not, but if things work out, I would not think that that ballroom is going to last.
Okay.
So I was going to ask you about that, because if I think you could run a campaign right now, like literally just saying, we're going to replace, put the rose garden back, and I'm going to demolish this thing.
And we're never going to have any memory of the ballroom, what they did.
And we're going to replace it with like with East Wing again or something like that.
I honestly feel like you could run on that as your centerpiece.
I enjoy one of the things.
And by the way, I missed doing this show.
I'm very enthused about being here today.
One of the things I enjoy about this show, Nick, is sometimes we'll get into a place where all of a sudden it goes from just a discussion of things into like sort of a development of ideals.
If I was writing a speech for the ideal candidate right now, do you know how this works?
Like it would be like, one, we need to abolish ICE.
Two, we need to hold the people who have committed these crimes accountable.
Three, we need to increase social programs, et cetera, et cetera, do whatever.
And then what's the applause line?
We're going to restore the rose garden and we're going to get rid of this ballroom.
Because what does it do?
It creates an anchor of emotion.
And this is, again, I care more about the people.
That's why it would start with those other things.
But this thing is potent.
That's why this is holding the attention it is.
And it's like this, this, this, and this.
And the rose garden's coming back and we're getting rid of this fucking ballroom.
Right.
Now, what you know what would happen is after you do it in that order, that and that is the correct order to let people hear about it for the first time.
But after that, when you realize the applause line, you get the number four becomes number one.
And that's fine with me at that point because.
And that's the thing.
It's like, I'm not, I'm not such a stick in the mud.
I understand my job is to come in and be like, thing people think is good is bad.
And here's why.
I understand that's my job.
I don't care about the White House.
But Nick, there's a reason why the French Revolution got kicked off by the storming of the Bastille is because those types of things become potent symbols and people should look at this.
He can't help himself.
That's the thing.
We should thank our lucky stars that he can't help himself.
Yeah.
And by the way, yeah, go ahead.
No.
I mean, it's so bad that it just said, we'll talk about this in a second, though.
He, he even will, he'll, he can't help himself about what he talks about for anything.
He already told us that like there are covert CIA actions going on in Venezuela last week.
And then guess what happens after that?
Well, we'll talk about that in just a moment.
And by the way, on the other end of the scale, speaking of the human toll, Nick, we're recording this on October 27th.
Next week, well, I guess Saturday.
It'll be on Saturday is November 1st.
All federal aid is going to be cut off.
We're talking about well over 42 million people who are going to lose SNAP benefits.
The USDA, in response to this, in their statement, said, quote, the well has run dry.
And this is one of those things that, you know, every whether it's every Democrat, every Republican, everybody always talks about the need to reform entitlements and support and get people off welfare, whatever the shit these people want to say.
I know that nobody wants to run towards this in order to talk about it, but what we're discussing right now, and I'm not being hyperbolic here, Nick, is nothing short of a humanitarian crisis.
I think we're already in that crisis.
I agree.
I agree.
The ProPublica just published a thing where they were showing that Trump had already canceled millions and millions of pounds of food that was supposed to already go to food banks anyway, not even just starting November 1st.
This is before this.
So, you know, if you're just looking for, if you're not convinced yet that they don't give a shit about anybody else, then this is it right here.
I kept saying for weeks, like, what's going to happen when they look around and realize, oh, like the government not open?
That's actually fine.
You know, this is actually the way we want it to be, which is again, closely aligned with the ideology of cutting off any kind of help from the government to anybody else for a variety of reasons.
You know, and then they get to cower and hide behind this notion that, you know, oh, we're not, the freeloaders are just taking our hard-earned cash and our hard-earned money and just, you know, sitting on the couch and watching TV all day, whatever they're trying to do.
And this is also, I've said this before, but it's been a while.
I think this is, and you're going to argue with me, it's not rooted exactly.
It didn't start at this time, but I argue that when there was a surplus in 1999 heading into the 2000 election and George H. Sorry, George W. Bush ran under this is your money and I'm going to give it back to you if you pay if you vote for me, right?
I think that that was more nefarious than most other things we've seen in terms of convincing people and creating an environment around this that says that we are not a community and that we're not here to help each other and that any kind of taxes that might go to somebody else is not just taking money out of your pocket.
And that's what he's convinced people of.
And it's now 25 years later and this is the end result.
I think the evolution of that began earlier.
I would pinpoint it and it's not American, but I would pinpoint it to Margaret Thatcher as she brought into full bloom neoliberal economic thought, which basically said there's no such thing as society.
And then eventually Ronald Reagan takes that.
Well, he didn't know what the hell he was talking about.
He was the, you know, the PR man for it.
And the idea at that point that like selfishness was good, greed was good, that you shouldn't be responsible for other people.
And then an extra nefarious part of it, because Nick, George W. Bush saying that, that should have like led to a reaction.
You know what I mean?
That's like, oh my God, this is repulsive.
No one should vote for this person.
The reason why there wasn't that reaction was because a culture of self-serving selfishness had been created where you shouldn't want to pay taxes.
You shouldn't want to help other people.
And on top of that, Nick, this is how the Republican Party got where they got and where the Democratic Party is going now.
The idea is that if you provide aid for people, then you're actually teaching them to become dependent.
You're actually hurting those people.
So it's actually more empathic of you not to give your tax money, which is an incredible sort of a cognitive dissonance to be able to hold on to.
But you're right.
By the time that we went from 99 into 2000, 2001, that idea of the surplus.
And by the way, Nick, isn't it weird that we went from not using that surplus to help people, we started using that surplus to carry out military projects in order to spread capitalism and help private corporations.
That's not a coincidence.
And what happened?
We ended up spending trillions of dollars.
The economy fell apart and then things continued to get worse.
And the ground was set for that over decades.
And now we've arrived at the point where you're literally about to watch over 10% of the country, 10%, over 10% of the country lose necessary assistance.
And here's the thing.
I want to bring this into a larger sort of a thing here, Nick.
What happens when people aren't able to get food and resources?
Are they just like, oh, that sucks?
I guess we'll hibernate.
No, usually it leads to crime.
Oftentimes it will lead to crime.
And often, why?
Because people are desperate and they don't have material resources needed to survive.
By the way, who does that help if there's crime?
The cops.
Oh, but who benefits politically?
Oh, the Republicans, because they can argue that the Democrats are soft on it, I'm assuming, right?
Right.
And they need to take measures to take care of it.
Right.
And meanwhile, they're able to do both things.
They're able to double dip.
They're able to say, oh, we need to restore law and order.
And number two, like we're going to be the ones who are going to make this better, right?
And tell everyone, oh, we'll take care of this problem that's been created over here.
It is a cycle.
And by the way, at the same time, they get more resources.
The wealthy who fund them are able to get more resources and gain more power and control as this happens.
This thing, it breaks my heart because you got to talk about it historically, politically, and socially.
But on a personal level, man, like this is so heartbreaking.
And to think about what's happened with USAID and what's happened around the world and now what's being visited upon Americans, like it is so heart-wrenchingly awful that it's hard to communicate properly.
Oh, I agree.
And also, I monitor the response on the right a lot.
And, you know, what you end up seeing is you're saying that 10% of people, a huge chunk of our society is going to go.
More than 10%.
Yeah.
And we just don't know what's going to happen.
But the flip side of that, if you look at it from the other way, is how many people are taking my money from my pocket?
That literally was his reaction there.
And it's like, fine, they can't take any more of my money.
That is really what this is.
And this is sort of what the shutdown is about as well, where it's like, we're going to shut down Democrat run policies and it's things that they've set up that will help people.
I mean, listen, Jared, have you ever made a mistake in your life?
I've made a couple.
Yeah.
You know, people make mistakes.
Things happen and they get into situations where they need some help temporarily.
Or society fails them.
I mean, right now, this economy just absolutely ruins people for no fault of their own.
And let's look a little bit at like what led to that surplus that we had through the Clinton years.
And, you know, you could argue that like he had raised taxes on wealthier people from what it was before.
And they tried to make it a little bit more equitable, a little easier to go to college and get into and get higher education and stuff like that.
So it's like there was a tech boom, which certainly helped a lot.
But think about it.
Not to mention that he kicks people off of welfare because he was helping the Republican Party because he wanted to triangulate that.
Counterpoint, like he helped get then transitioned into the workforce?
No, he just, no, that is not the counterpoint.
He literally just like trimmed the welfare roles because he wanted to prove that he was tough on them.
Well, okay.
I mean, I remember, you know, there was, there had to be a little bit of that happening as well where people were also getting transitioned back to working.
But either way, you know, we never had a surplus since.
And it's almost like the reaction to getting that surplus is a little bit like the reaction to having the biggest participation in our in our voting in 2020 was we can't ever have that happen again, right?
And we can never have this surplus.
We need to get back in having wars and deficit spending and continue keeping us in this measures where we can keep people down and then claim we don't have any money to fund all these things.
I think that's pretty much the other mindset they've been trying to keep this whole time.
Well, and it's a lot, it's a lot like finance capital in which people learn to put as much debt as possible on something that they're not tied to and then to use that debt and leverage and carry out whatever it is that they want.
The United States of America at this point is a failed corporation.
And Nick, something that you brought up and you've been talking about with this shutdown, like, do you have like any thoughts on whether or not after they stop paying these things that somehow or another, even if the government gets up and running again, that they're not going to do away with it?
Because they'll just say, hey, look, we got rid of it.
The world didn't fall apart and we don't need to reinstall these things.
I mean, are you talking about like the State Department?
No, I'm talking about financial assistance.
Oh.
I'm talking, I'm talking about social programs.
Yeah.
I mean, yes, all the social safety nets, you know, would probably go away, right?
And then that's their, that's their fever dream, or they somehow privatize it, perhaps, or they figure out a way to get people to be more indentured servants to other entities and private companies.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, listen, GoFundMe ends up being our healthcare system, right?
Like that's where we're at now, too, which is preposterous that that's what has to happen this way.
And if you're, if you're a good enough writer on social media, then yeah, you can help you really make a dent in those bills, really.
That's how sad it is.
And if you're not, like, who knows what's going to happen?
You might get some challenges, for instance.
Because then you're made to perform for sustenance.
Right.
And that's that, that's entirely what we're talking about here.
And by the way, this is as good a time as any where people ask all the time.
They say, what is it I can do?
Right now, food banks need your help, whether it's donating food, donating money, donating time.
Right now is the time to do it.
And I'm talking, this comes out on the 28th.
Happy birthday, mom.
This comes out on the 28th.
Like do it as soon as humanly possible so people can get prepared for November 1st because people are going to need it.
And it's not a one-time thing.
I don't know how long this is going to go on for.
But on top of that, Nick, there are going to be incredible economic repercussions from this.
Because if people can't afford to pay for their food, then chances are that with financial assistance and food assistance, that more of the money they do have is going to go towards that.
You know where it's not going to go?
It's not going to go towards purchases.
It's not going to go towards services, any of those things.
This is a general demolition of not just the economy, but the living and material conditions of the average person.
And I think everybody here knows that it has gotten harder to make it.
It's gotten almost impossible to get ahead.
And now, like the floor is going to be cut out.
And like many people are going to fall through it.
And if we don't engage in mutual aid right now, this is going to go in a direction.
Nick, we've already seen, and we haven't talked about this.
We've already seen like food assistance being offered for soldiers, for farmers.
Thank God, by the way, that a billionaire paid the military.
Thank God that they got paid and they'll move heaven and earth to make sure that those paychecks go through.
But we've already seen the equivalent of breadlines start.
And we're going to see more of that after November 1st.
If this government doesn't get started up and there is no sign whatsoever it's going to, you are going to see more and more desperate conditions start to emerge.
We have to help each other.
We have to engage in mutual aid.
And we need to be prepared for this not to be something that is just like a week.
We need to be prepared for this to be the situation moving forward until we change this thing.
I mean, I agree.
And I think it's important to explore a little bit about the government shutdown and why this is also affecting it because we can see the Republicans take on this and why they're unwilling to do this.
I think they're going to figure out a way to pay the people they want to pay, which again takes the power of the purse out of the Congress, which has completely abdicated their authority anyway for a variety of reasons.
I think the biggest one of which is they have something on Mike Johnson and they're controlling him.
I think that's the answer.
I think he's pretty happy doing what he's doing.
I guess.
But you still need a little bit of a carrot in the stick going on there.
And for whatever reason, that's happening, this is what it is.
So I think that they could create some sort of a shadow government where it doesn't need to be open and they'll get whatever.
They can get some money to the air traffic controllers.
They'll get some military money so they can get paid, whatever, all the very essential things and sort of pare this all down.
Like what, kind of like what Malay wanted to do in Argentina, as we've seen how poorly that went.
But let's look at, let's hear from a couple of people here in terms of what they're saying, because I think it's interesting in terms of how close we might be to getting this thing going and whether these people are even willing to negotiate anything to get the government back open.
Here's Scott DeSent, who was our Treasury Secretary, talking to Martha Rabbits.
And today is day 26.
I know you have been over there, but there has been a government shutdown here.
People are suffering.
Federal employees are starting to go to food banks.
Any light at the end of the tunnel on that?
Should the president be meeting with Democrats again?
Well, what good does it do, Martha?
They've dug in.
The American people are hostage to Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries' poll numbers.
Because what's changed between now and the last time there was a clean continuing resolution is Chuck Schumer has tanked in the polls.
Both of the two guys from Brooklyn, like I call them, are worried about being primary from the left.
52 Republican senators have voted 11 times to reopen the government.
Three brave, moderate Democrats have come across the aisle.
Nailed it, Scott.
Nailed it.
Yeah.
I mean, let's ask the question is, what are the Democrats dug in about, Jared?
What are they dug in on?
What's their, so here's the choice.
And let's bring it in to start clarity.
Do you want to eat or do you want to let us got health care in the United States of America?
Make a choice.
Do you want to go hungry or do you want to give up health care and any semblance whatsoever of health care?
That's what this has become.
Right.
And so it's kind of refreshing to hear like the Democrats digging in and trying to take a stand here.
And they're taking a stand to prevent what you just described is going to happen on Saturday.
That's the whole thing.
It's literally, and I'm choosing this word very carefully.
It's a siege.
Yeah.
An army is around and saying, come out or you are going to starve.
That's what it is.
And speaking of your friend and mine, Mike Johnson, here's what he's also saying.
This will give you an idea of why, what they're trying to do to the rest of the population here in terms of convincing them why they can't get this thing to get open.
The Democrats are the ones voting repeatedly to shut down the government, but they're not opening it back up.
They spent most of their time trying to distract the American people from the very simple truth.
So I brought you a little visual aid here to just remind everybody what the simple facts are.
Four simple facts here.
The Democrats are required to open the government.
They keep saying Republicans are in charge of government.
We aren't.
Not in the Senate.
60 votes control the Senate, not a bare majority.
So that's his thesis is that they don't control the White House, the Congress, and both houses of Congress.
What's incredible here?
And I find, you know, the thing about the Senate and the reason why the filibuster doesn't get destroyed is because it's absolutely perfect for whoever controls the Senate.
They are just able to be like, I'm not responsible.
I don't have 60 votes.
It's the absolute perfect situation, even if they have 60 votes, of course.
But like being able to just say this isn't our fault, like it is literally just a game of I'm not responsible.
That's what the United States of America has become.
But we can't sort of indict the politicians in general because this is a very specific Republican thing where they don't have much interest at all in legislating anything.
Well, neither did the Democrats under Biden.
That's why mansion and cinema were such important parts of this.
Right.
Yeah.
Right.
But I'm not sure we can count them as Democrats at that point.
But like they, you know, they did pass a couple of major legislative battles that were terrific for infrastructure and for medicine.
So, you know, even that's two more than Trump ever passed in his five plus years, whatever it is.
Well, no, they did pass the giant tax cut that is currently putting all of our health care in danger.
So, right, but that's all.
They're not interested.
The only things that actually pass the Senate are the things that the parties actually want to do.
Everything else is theater to say, ah, we tried.
We just don't have control of this thing.
But what actually gets passed is the only thing that actually matters to them.
And you and I both know that that's not true either.
They could easily do the nuclear option and get a majority to pass this if they wanted to.
But they also are afraid that then that will open it up for when the Democrats, if they ever do get back into power, will be able to push through everything.
Because the Democrats do.
They, in a general sense, want to get more legislation done.
The Republicans have traditionally been just oppositional.
They just want to stop.
They don't want to have anything done.
They want to keep it and go backwards.
And that would be really frightening to them.
I guess why they're not doing it right now.
Well, they don't want to take sole responsibility for nuking health care in the United States of America.
They need Democrats to sign on for it in order to basically neutralize any sort of critique going forward.
And then the Democratic Party will just be like, yeah, we did this too.
So we're not going to point at it, which is one of the reasons why all of these motherfuckers need to be primaried in the first place.
And I think you're probably referencing the three Democrats that have decided to vote in the Senate for them, but they're going to be able to argue, wait a minute, I'm just voting for a clean resolution.
I didn't say we were going to cut all that stuff.
I just wanted to try and get the government back open.
So then we can go and figure out how to solve that.
So they're going to try and weasel out of that, but I'm not buying it either.
So I think that, yeah, they are up for a primary as well.
The whole thing is effed.
And again, there's no reason.
There's not even the reason Trump system is not interested in negotiating, right?
If the Democrats have that much power that Mike Johnson wants to say, then of course you have to sit down and have a meeting and have some sort of negotiation.
They're not doing that, right?
They're the party in power.
They're the ones who have to say, hey, let's have a meeting tomorrow and we'll sit down.
We'll discuss some things.
Even if it was just to play the game and they don't even do that.
Well, and you know, just very quickly, like to put a pin on this, because this is so infuriating and upsetting.
Once more, don't just donate to food banks.
Don't just, you know, volunteer at food banks because they're going to be important.
Look at a moment like this, which by the way is repulsive.
Look at it as an opportunity.
If we're going to create something going forward, we have to create communities that take care of each other, which goes back to what you were saying earlier about taxes and the feeling of, oh, I shouldn't pay to help another person, that feeling that corroded and poisoned the United States of America.
We have to take these awful moments and come together, much like we would after a disaster.
Like what should happen after a disaster is to take care of each other, look at what happened to cause the disaster and then work to keep it from happening again.
Look at this not as just a political development.
Look at this as an actual disaster that is getting ready to hit the country.
It's happening on Saturday, unless there's a miracle and somehow or another the government gets reopened, which I don't see it happening.
I can't imagine you do either.
Like this is going to be a disaster that hits and we have to come together and then use that coming together in order to prevent it from ever happening again.
Speaking of disasters, Nick, in Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro has announced that the country has captured a CIA-backed group of mercenaries and operators and has claimed that the United States was attempting to create a false flag and eventually a coup of the government.
I would have a little bit of skepticism about this, save for the fact that the president of the United States of America basically disclosed to all the world that the CIA was going ahead and operating in Venezuela ahead of, let me check my notes.
Oh yeah, a coup.
Oh yeah.
I mean, you know, they think it's a false flag operation and we certainly are not unfamiliar with those and the CIA.
And the thing that's even troubling is that out of the 70s, you know, there were laws passed to limit the CIA's ability to do these things in other countries, right?
To affect regime change.
But we've been seeing more and more public declarations that they are now going to be much more aggressive in doing this to other countries again.
I don't think it worked out great when we were doing these in the past, but can you maybe confirm that or not?
It never worked out great.
It was always bad and it always led to other blowback.
And also while you're talking about the historical context, Nick, I want to let people know because everything is happening so fast that every now and then we have to take the pause and look at something.
You know what I mean?
Like every now and then you need to stop, look around and see what's happening.
Nick, what would have happened in the 1970s or 1980s if another country announced that they had captured CIA-backed people attempting to overthrow the government?
Would it be a gigantic story?
Yeah.
Would it dominate the headlines?
Yeah, absolutely.
Would the president be answering questions about it within a 24-hour span?
For sure.
How's it going right now?
I mean, not great, Bob.
We have bombers heading towards Venezuela.
We have an aircraft carrier that's on its way.
Trinidad and Tobago is operating military exercises on behalf of the United States of America in order to create conditions for all of this.
They've now caught CIA-backed groups that are attempting to carry out possibly a false flag, probably a coup, something along those lines.
And what is it?
It's like, ah, I mean, what are you going to do?
And what happened was we became desensitized to it, but also we're at such a state of chaos that this type of shit is happening.
And now it's just sort of being answered with a shrug.
Here's a question, though, I have for you, because I think there's interesting context here, is that Trump seems to be in love.
And the word love is important here with a lot of authoritarians across the world.
Loves them.
So why would Maduro, who is, you know, right there with them and looks just like all the other ones, why is he the target?
Oh, and by the way, the target of what they want to get rid of, you know, under the guise of he stole an election, right?
Which I think is really rich.
So what about that?
Why is he become a target when everyone else gets a free pass?
Let me tell you a story about a man named Nick.
Texas T, liquid gold, you name it.
And the other thing, and this is the, you know, we talked about this a little bit, Nick, when we were talking about Iran, right?
And remember, when the U.S. struck Iran, the fear was that they were going to develop nuclear weapons, right?
We went into Iraq and took over Iraq.
Why is it that we attack those places and not places like Kim Jong-un?
It's because once you reach a certain level of power as an authoritarian, nobody's going to mess with you.
No one's going to come try and take you out, usually because you have a nuclear weapon.
But if you're lower down on the rung and you have the resources that the superpowers want, I mean, you better make sure that all of your affairs are in order and that your will and life insurance is all up to date.
Because if you have those resources and you do not have a nuclear weapon, like chances are somebody's going to come knocking on your door at some point.
So, okay, so they're going to basically hopefully get him to leave and flee and then install someone that's friendly.
And then, because he's also offered a lot of different oil deals for them that would be very favorable for the United States because he is panicking.
He obviously sees the writing on the wall.
So that isn't doing it either.
I guess they just don't trust him to do it.
They want to put somebody in who's going to end up opening the oil for them, I suppose, because otherwise it doesn't make a lot of sense.
They're accusing them of being this drug runner when we know that fentanyl is not being produced in Venezuela.
Cocaine does not really get produced there.
They're not shipping from there.
We know that these boats are blowing up, which we haven't even gotten into over the most recent stuff.
There's no imminent threat to the United States, which is supposed to be the pretense for killing these people.
So I just find it fascinating.
This is all for oil, huh?
I mean, that's the chunk of it.
I mean, by the way, you didn't even give me a dap on my Beverly Hillbillies.
Well, you know why?
Because you made me think of third grade Nick, Nikki even.
And there was alternative lyrics to that song.
Oh, that got me.
I got you.
I was worried I'd start saying this alternative lyrics.
Well, maybe the Discord.
If you guys join our Patreon, maybe somebody will, I won't do it.
Maybe somebody remembers as well what the dirty lyrics are to that song.
Oh, man.
Are you aware of the dirty lyrics?
Yeah, that is a blast from the past.
No, it is.
It's a game of resources.
And that's the hard thing here is that when you have a president, I mean, even if this were happening, like, you know, Ronald Reagan, you know, would engage with this stuff, H.W. Bush, all of them, they all engage with this stuff.
They all overthrow countries and they all do it for resources.
At least they would have the discipline to not make it obvious what they're doing.
That's the difference here is it's like Trump says the quiet part loud.
Like the overthrow of Venezuela is not like the most shocking aspect of this.
It's the same thing as like when Khashoggi was, you know, dismembered by Saudi Arabia.
He's like, what are we going to do?
They pay for things in cash.
And it's like making it clear the things that are in the great tradition of the United States of America, but taking away the veneer of respectability, which, by the way, talks more about the White House that we were talking about earlier.
Well, and speaking of which, let's listen to Donald Trump nine months before the 2024 election discussing Venezuela and giving the whole thing right away.
And again, there's so much shit being thrown into the zone.
We don't even know how to deal with any of it.
And this one snuck by, but here it is.
How about we're buying oil from Venezuela?
When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse.
We would have taken it over.
We would have gotten all that oil.
It would have been right next door.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, that's the thing about it.
The man can't even help himself.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And there it is right there.
So that, I mean, I guess I had my answer question, my question answered before, but yes, it is about oil.
It is about resources.
And if they're trying to amass resources in terms of minerals, they want to take over Canada.
They want to take over Greenland.
There's a certain speed to this, right?
There feels like there's a desperation in terms of when they want to get some of these things done to some degree in a way that makes me nervous that like there's something happening here that they need to amass all these things for a reason.
And we're not going to know why.
Well, we know why.
I mean, actually, I think the decline of the American neoliberal order, we saw the first shots like fired by Vladimir Putin with the invasion of Ukraine.
It made it clear that the old age of conquering despotism, open despotism was completely fine.
And, you know, Putin didn't do that simply because he woke up one day and is like, I want to take over Ukraine.
It's because the order of the world was starting to change.
And basically, one of the things that you see before, I don't know, a major world conflict is you start seeing countries gobbling things up almost like they're carving up the world like a chessboard, right?
Or a game of risk, however it is.
And I don't think it's a coincidence, Nick, that this CIA-backed group that got caught, it's very reminiscent of Putin's little green men, like before the takeover of Crimea.
It's like the same type of operations that are taking place.
So instead of the countries of the world saying, hey, by the way, we are like really speeding into some dangerous territory.
And that includes climate change, economic and political instability and the possibility of a world war.
Instead, because they're totally corrupted and they're run by the most self-serving inhuman assholes, there's like, we need to gather up as much as humanly possible to gather up resources and gather up influence before the shit really hits the fan.
So instead of like enlightened leadership that would be trying to avoid those things and trying to create something better, instead the starter's pistol went off and now it's time to gobble up as much shit as humanly possible in order to get prepared for what they see as inevitable at this point.
How's your underground bunker going?
You know, I'm hanging out here in my recording studio.
I've got some canned goods over here.
Like I'm doing what I can do.
Okay, that's good.
You know, California, they don't have, we don't have underground stuff so much.
So I'm worried, but maybe I can get over there in time to subsist with you.
You know, you are always welcome in my underground area.
And by the way, just a reminder on the canned goods front, donate to your local food banks, whether it's money or food or time.
They're going to need it.
All right, everybody, that's going to do it for this episode of the Muck Reak podcast.
We'll be back with a weekender edition on Friday.
A reminder, head over to patreon.com slash muckrake podcast.
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