225. Has Donald Trump Become a Communist?

So that is the advert that's been played out to the nation over the weekend. The state funded Trump promoting taxpayer-costing ad that the White House swears is not political at all. I mean, has Trump become a communist? I mean, because it's feeling more like the communist states of America by the minute, you know, I check out. The call seems to be coming from inside the house. If we got to weed out the communists, maybe it's you, Mr. Trump. The reds are under the presidential bed. Welcome to the rest is politics US with me, Cate Kay. Today we're asking how all this hanging out with President Xi is rubbing off on Trump has taken a liking to communism. We're looking at the ads. The weapons he's offered to China, the $5,000 bribe, and the controlling of the markets. Then in the second half, Trump's been working hard to keep ice crackdowns out of the headlines. And so far, he's largely succeeded. But the arrest numbers tell a different story, ice arrests are at record levels and what isn't being reported may be more alarming than what is. A tariff of spending plan, a regulatory change, it can all start just as the first line of a speech. But it sets in motion things that can reach far beyond Washington and unfold for years to come. I mean, Cate, markets move on expectations, not just events, investors are constantly weighing. What a decision could mean for companies, sectors, and the wider economy. So Etoro is an investing platform where you can access a wide range of markets and explore how political and economic developments could affect them. You could also learn from the global community of investors and see how people around the world are interpreting the same news. As with all investing, your capital is at risk. See etoro.com/tripus for full terms. Cate, let's start with Trump's newfound love of communism. Well, I suppose my question to you, Anthony, and this is, you know, when we were discussing with our team, the producers about how to do this show. And I say, you know, this is one of those weird weeks where there's a whole load of things that are happening. There's the ads, we'll get into that. There's the meeting with she will get into that. And then you start thinking, well, actually, there's something else going on here, which is maybe these are connected, and it's about Trump, yes, expanding his own power. But as one Republican strategist said to me about six months ago, you know, this guy is starting to look a lot more socialist than I am comfortable with. And there is a lot more involvement from the government in the market, in the marketplace, in people's lives than I thought the Republican party in conservatism was meant to represent. So I'm not sure it's entirely new, but there is definitely a kind of socialist control thing going on with Trump at the moment. What do you think, Anthony? Do you think this is new or not new? We'll run through all the components of it, but is this a new thing or is this just like he's always been? No. He's always been this way. He's an Apparachic. He wants to be the hemispheric ruler, and he'll let she have Asia, and he'll let Putin have your Asia, or at least that side of Asia and Europe, but he wants to be the hemispheric ruler. And you know, I feel like state media. We had Trump TV this week, a state investment fund in lots of our companies. He's offering a cash handout to his fellow citizens. I feel like this wasn't a trade discussion with President Xi, but it was like an in-house study tutoring session. He probably was like, "Hey, you're terrific, and how did you do all this, and could I take notes on how you suppress people and bribe them and put out propaganda on your television airwaves? I just want to say this, though, just remind people. The 1989 June Tiananmen Square crackdown came with it a strict weapons embargo on China. And so now all of a sudden, you know, and I have to ask you this question, Ambassador David Perdue. Did he leak that intentionally? Let's fill people in on that story in case they missed it, though, because the ambassador to China, the American ambassador to China, David Perdue, told Fox News on Sunday on television, so this is not like a kind of background anonymous briefing type thing. He went on Fox News on Sunday and said in the course of the interview that Trump had offered to sell American weapons to Xi Jinping to communist China, telling him we sell arms to other people around the world and asking if he'd like to buy some too. As you say, there is an embargo on weapon sales to China because they are communist China, they are America's major adversary. So for all of those reasons, that's why the Americans in the past have not wanted to sell them weapons. But here's what's crazy about this is you, if you compare it, if we sort of putting up this paradigm thing about, you know, how socialist is Trump, this is at the same time that Trump is blocking a weapon sale to Taiwan, right? There is a $14 billion package of new arms sales to protect capitalist, pluralist, democratic Taiwan, America's ally in the region that also happens to produce about 90% of the world's computer superchips. And that, the administration has blocked for months now. Your question quickly though, sorry, and I didn't answer it. What do you think? Do you think the ambassador said that because he knew that that was the case. The White House has now pushed back on it. I should say that and said, this isn't the case, but I think the White House, I think the ambassador knew what he was talking about. Yeah, no, I think the ambassador went on the air to say it to alarm people. And he said it in a way where he wouldn't upset Trump because I watched the interview. He was just saying, yeah, and the president did this thinking that, okay, no big deal. But then you would get the wave of pushback. So David produce no dummy. He's looking at the situation and saying, we probably shouldn't be in a situation selling our, our arms, I mean, they spy on us to try to get our weapons technology. It turns out you just needed a sales call from Donald Trump to get our weapons technology. But there's something else going on, Kat. And I, and I want to test this on you and I want you to respond to it. I think he just wants to disrupt everything. So if I came to the president and said, this is our protocol with dealing with Russia. What he is stupid before I arrived here, I'm the only smart one. Is that what we used to do? Yes. Okay, let's do the opposite. This is our protocol with Taiwan. Okay, well, you know, everyone was stupid. You get my point. And so now, am I wrong in saying this? All he wants to do is wreck the furniture, smash into the silverware and the plates and everything and just knock everything off the table and say, you see, you were all stupid before I got here and now let me smash everything. Is that what he's doing or what am I missing? This reminds me of the conversation we had around the reflecting pool and how Trump has a theory that everybody else, all these incredibly complicated things that need fixing in the world, Iran, the Middle East, China, Ukraine. Other people haven't been able to fix them because they were either weak or stupid and I am strong and a great negotiator and I wrote the art of the deal and I'm a brilliant businessman. And so I'll be able to fix it and then he looks around, actually, they are complicated. He goes for the quickest solution, whether it's his mates who did the swimming pool and so they paint the reflecting pool blue, which is now all fenced up and you can't get to it because it's a mess or he kind of bombs Iran, you know, there's a two extreme ends, but it's the same kind of thinking you're exactly right. There's an incredibly complicated problem. They were stupid. They can fix it, grab the quickest solution on the shelf, oh, it doesn't actually work because guess what? It is complicated and there was a reason that people didn't fix it. It was not because they were stupid. It was just because it was very difficult and complicated to fix. I think, yes, he wants to disrupt everything and he also thinks that that's how he got elected twice and anyone who tells him that this is not the right way to do it is wrong because look, I got elected twice. So there's my proof of concept there. But I think there's also something else going on and that we should talk about this ad because that is another of the rather kind of state controlled things that he has done over the course of the weekend and it gets to she as well. He likes that. He wants control. He wants to be able to kind of send an FU to those people who put guardrails around his power. He doesn't, we kind of know why he does it, why he gets the American taxpayers. By the way, Anthony, that's you and me. That ad we just ran, you and I paid for that ad to run to prop up a strong man. So think about that for a second. He's actually insulting 50% of the people that gave him the money to run the ad. Right, so just to me it's just unbelievable that they're allowing that to happen. Is it legal? Can I ask you that because I've heard different things during the course of this morning while I was doing research for this? It's on the edge, Cadi. We've run public service announcements related to Obamacare, they got you out of my father's house. Which is what the White House is arguing this is, right? Yes, it's on the edge. Okay, so he's on the edge once again. It's outside of the spirit of the law, but it's probably inside of the letter of the law, and that's what they do. They try to pick things that can be very triggering. And by the way, even with his own pact, he's supposed to be helping these midterm candidates, but he's running ads about himself. You know, and he's, he's dropping an ad about himself in Texas about how, how great he is. Can I just say one thing on the legality there because I did talk to a couple of people who know about this. I spoke to a guy, Norm Eisen, who's a very famous constitutional lawyer who works for democracy defenders action. He said to me, this is flagrantly against the law, and what he is pointing to is not necessary. It gets a little bit arcane. Stay with me guys. There is the hatch act, which means that public servants and elected officials can't do this kind of thing, can't use government money for this kind of thing, but the president is largely exempted from that act. But what Norm Eisen told me is that people who in the government who drew up this ad and then paid to have it run on places like Fox Television, those people are who are involved in the use of these federal funds, likely violated the hatch act. I spoke to a Democratic congresswoman this morning as well about this. She said that their lawyers are actually looking at it. And she hinted about what you said. She said, you know, there, there could be some legal gray area for the president. The Democrats lawyers have been looking at this all weekend, but they haven't come down hard as of yet. As far as I know to say, this is definitely illegal. And I think it's, it's what you say that it's not in the spirit of law. Clearly, I think it's just an f you to half the country and need disrespectful to half the country, a vote of the Democrats. It's actually isn't it disrespectful to conservatives? I mean, this, this doesn't feel to me like a conservative proposition to use taxpayer money to fund an ad about Trump. This is a populist screed. He's going right for the red meat, the red base, and he's going after them as hard as he possibly can. But here's what's looming. Let's give our viewers and listeners just a 30 second reality check on everything. Number one, I ran, there's no deal. All of the think tanks, all the researchers around at the spite with the president saying there's absolutely no deal. In fact, if anything, Tehran is likely to escalate things before the midterms because he knows that will put pressure on Trump internally, right? So that's one thing. Goff oil flows are now at 75% of pre war levels, and that, by the way, is debated that figure. I know that's what the White House puts out, but they choose that they pick and choose their days. Yeah, but I'm going to go, I'm going to go with that number because they've opened up the pipeline again. You know, the pipeline has been repaired by set. Sorry, Ray, I'm including the pipeline in here. So that's reality there, energy shock, continuing, tension with the Tehran continuing just quickly, China, the summit didn't fix the one thing that really mattered. And that's US access to rare earth minerals, nothing in the communique, nothing resolved there. And we're in trouble there and everybody that's in that space knows that. So that'll be another crisis for the US. And then the last thing is the AI. We haven't resolved that. It's not just tech policy anymore, caddy. It's influencing GDP and the White House knows this and the Chinese also know this. And so nothing happened in last, but not least, we are getting close where you and I are going to have to call a recession, caddy. The economy isn't in recession, but it's not growing GDP grew at 1.5% in an annual rate in the second quarter, down from 2.1%. So so against all of the reality, Mr. Trump, President Trump is trying to put up a reality distortion. And so my question to you, is it working because he's minus 47 with voters below the age of 30 minus 47. That's what CNN is reporting this morning. We did a whole episode last week on the polls and there are more polls that have come out since we did that episode, looking at how strong the likelihood is of a blue wave on election night. You're right. It's clearly not working because all around the country, you have now in Florida and in Kentucky, you have members of Congress, Republican members of Congress, hard MAGA who have been taking references to Donald Trump. Of their websites, you've got other Senate candidates distancing themselves from the president. My question to you is, as it works less well, as we get to a midterms and let's say the Democrats do have a good night in the midterms. polls may be wrong, could go the other way folks, but at the moment it's looking that way, do these authoritarian control tendencies of Donald Trump get worse. I was told by a senator last week that he had meetings up in New York with all the people that came in for the bilats, the Canadians, the Mexicans, the polls, they were meeting with. And all of those people were asking them, are you going to have a good night in the midterms? And if you have a good night in the midterms, will you contain Donald Trump? That's the question on everybody's own on America's allies minds. What was the answer? The answer is, no, they can't do very much, they can investigate. But do you think, because I think a lot of people are thinking, right, we get to the midterms, that's it guys, we're done, then he's sort of fades into the background, I actually think we're in a position where it could be the opposite, where his tendency is this tendency of whatever it is that's motivating this ad, this kind of, I'm going to do it because I can do it, I'm going to break things, I'm going to disregard the spirit of the law, I'm going to have more control. I'm going to be more authoritarian. I think all of that just gets exacerbated after the midterms. And I think we could have more, the other thing that I think he's been doing that we should talk about, the people haven't focused on as much, that is really alarming conservatives, is this equity stake, the government equity stake in, I think it's now 15 deals, where he's done an equity stake worth about 20 billion in American companies. I mean, talk about season, the means of production, I think all of that just gets more, doesn't it, if he can't control the politics, he'll want to control what he can, including the US economy, if he can. So listen, I think it's going to get way worse. I've tried to tell people that and just to prepare them for that because, you know, and by the way, just a regular president, what are they end up doing in the last half? Okay, they, they end up doing executive orders, they end up bypassing the Congress, they'll use emergency powers, they will put out some pardons, they'll do farm policy junk. It's just the garden variety president does all those things. So Trump's going to do all those things and more. And here's the thing I need to tell people, if you like Donald Trump, I'll give you good news. And if you don't like Donald Trump, I'll give you bad news. 37.1% caddy, that's the calculation. And what is that calculation? That is the amount of time that Trump has been in his office, meaning when are we done with this thing? We have 63 more percent to go. Oh my god, you just, you can I just say you just made me so tired. Yeah, I just like, I felt I'm here. I just saw the smirk for Monday. And I just saw that you got 63% to go. We're just barely one way through Google's. Okay. So, so to me, I'm looking at this thing saying he is going to ratchet things up right after the midterms, and he's going to go for the jugular on wrecking. As many things as possible, you know, and and you know, listen, we didn't talk about this, but I have to talk about this. Okay. He's in the the portico that, you know, you walk very famous portico. I know where you're going where you're walking from the West Wing back into the residents. You've seen John Kennedy there and Ronald Reagan and George River Walker Bush. And he's wrecked the portico with his presidential hall or wall of fame as he calls it. You don't like the Thai restaurant look. Yeah, exactly. And he's got, yeah, it's a tight Thai restaurant or it's like a Palm Springs pawn shop look and and there he is. And he's showing President Xi the Joe Biden auto pen. And that's the first time I have seen President Xi. First time I see him laughing at something. But is he laughing with Trump or is he laughing at Trump, Cadi Kim or is he laughing at America? It might not even be Trump. It could be here is this country that has allowed itself to have a leader who will denigrate an American leader in order to flatter a communist Chinese leader. It's so it's so non serious. And yet the Thune and Johnson, they could pick up the phone. And they could say hello Jack. Yes. You got to stop embarrassing the country here are 10 things that you need to do right now or we're going to seek your removal. We're going to call Schumer and Akim Jeffries and we're going to start the process of your removal. You are embarrassing the country, okay? And by the way, when your approval ratings go to 22% down from 32%, let me use a Trump phrase to Thune and Johnson, what do you have to lose, guys? This guy is wrecking your party. He's embarrassing the nation, okay? He has slowed down the economy, I just gave you the economic data, the economy that was growing robustly under Joe Biden and experienced a 50% growth over the last decade relative to Europe, he's wrecking and he's sitting there laughing and deriding Biden, okay, in front of the communist leader shit. And you guys are okay with that, I guess, but I don't think the general public is that okay with the guy. Do you think the general public is okay with that? No, I don't think they are, which is why you have the approval ratings as they are. Okay, let's get back to the topic of this half of the program, but whether Trump is communist Trump or capitalist Trump and run through some of the other things that are getting conservatives a little worried about the president's political leanings on this. U.S. steel was a classic one, right? Explain to people what happened with U.S. steel and how that didn't look like market. Well, these are work. He basically took what he said was a golden share of the company. He has veto authority over key corporate decisions and they're relocating the office from Pittsburgh and they're shifting production overseas or closing facilities. So the president stepped in, he's giving them some money and he's trying to keep all of this stuff in the United States, but the, you know, it's full on breach of free market forces and that is state run like authoritarian measures on a private company. So I don't know, I mean, we've never done that before. Yes, we gave money to GM. Yes, we gave money to Chrysler. These were sort of loan guarantees that the government expected to get paid back. Even the tarp money, the trillion dollars that we gave the banks, Catti, got paid back. This is like just broad state run like authority and activity. Yeah, I spoke to a Republican strategist last night over this, you said, you know, the trouble is the message is just not conservatives. You're putting U.S. Treasury money into the economy to pick winners and losers, basically. And the message to corporations is you come and bend the knee and Trump will help your company out with government money. And you can see that's the case with Intel, that's the case with U.S. steel MP materials or rare earths company, also the same. But I think the other things that you could talk about in this same category, that offer a $5,000 payment to every American citizen if Republicans win the midterm elections. I think that could sway people. That does not feel like the kind of market conservative market forces that you and I would understand by the term, in the same vein, you've got JD Vance offering proposing a $9,000 payment to married couples with a stay at home parent. Are you talking about the JD Vance who said this week that Trump has the highest IQ of any president and arguably could have the highest IQ of anyone that's ever lived? Is that the JD Vance you were talking about? I just want to make sure. That is the same JD Vance who would also like to use government funds to control the way that people live and work. I've heard this from other people, JD is much more on the government control and I think you've got a lot of conservatives quite worried about JD because of this, because this is the kind of interventionist stuff that certainly libertarians at the Cato Institute wouldn't be happy with. In Barack Obama's government made the investment in Solundra, the solar company, the conservatives went crazy. They said, "Government shouldn't pick winners and losers." Remember that whole argument? Yes. Now we don't pick winners and losers. We own them. Guys, what are we doing? Does this make it harder? My question is, does this make it harder for Republicans to run on the message of, as Trump said, we are against Marxist communists and socialists? If you're trying to run on that message right now, while the president is doing this stuff, which some of which, the buying up of equity deals, equity shares for government is getting applauded from one Bernie Sanders, does that make it a little, does that complicate your message a bit? See, I actually don't think it does, because you and I just did a C-SPAN call and show to promote our tour in Washington as some of these other cities, and the messaging, it was a little sampling, but the messaging is convoluted. The information that voters are receiving is mixed, and it's also very fragmented. So the president could come in over the top of the airwaves and say whatever the hell he wants, and that's one of the reasons why these state-sponsored ads are part of that design. You can't underestimate Trump's marketing skills. He went to his team, approved those state-sponsored ads, because that's going to be the messaging. So don't look at what I'm doing, look at what I'm saying, and that works in this country. Whether people want to believe that or not, or you want to get upset about that, I'm telling you he's very effective at doing this. Now, I believe that things have gotten so bad that this is sort of like an Orban sumanami that's about to hit him as opposed to anything he can stop now, because he's let this train leave the station with a grasp of force. Well, we'll find out in a few weeks' time in those midterm elections, but I do think there is something about the state-control factor of Donald Trump and his socialist leanings that is worth noting. We'll take a break and come back and talk about ice. This episode is brought to you by 8-Sleep. Sharing a bed can be a nightly negotiation. Two people, two temperatures, no one thinks they should compromise. With pod six, though, no one has to. Alright guys, if you're a long time listener, you know I'm already a fan of 8-Sleep. I've got 8-Sleep pillows, I've got 8-Sleep mattress covers. Well, let me tell you something, if you want to sleep better at night and you're spending one third of your life sleeping, you got to use 8-Sleep. And now they've taken it to the next level, they've just launched the new pod six. It's a cover for the mattress you already have. Super easy, each side can independently cool as low as 12 degrees centigrade or heat up to 43 degrees centigrade so you can both get the temperature you want. Use the code "tripus" at 8-Sleep.com/tripus for up to 200 pounds of the new pod six. You get 30 days to try it at home and return it if you don't love it, but I'm confident that you will. Let's [email protected]/tripus for up to 200 pounds of the pod six. Hi everybody, it's Dominic Sambrook here from the Rest Is History and we are here to tell you about our thrilling new series on the Blood Soaked Climax of the French Revolution, The Rain of Terror. So the French Revolution is one of the most significant episodes in the whole of world history. It essentially lays the foundations for contemporary politics as we know it, but it is also unbelievably dramatic. We'll be discussing the murder of the firebrand Jean-Paul Marra in his bathtub. We will be going to the guillotine with Marie Antoinette and in our final episode we will be telling the story of the extraordinary and grotesque downfall of one of the chief architects of the terror, one of the most evil men in history, some would say, Maximilian Krobersbier. So if you want to hear this epic series, search for the Rest Is History wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back and before we get into ice in the huge uptick on the number of arrests around the country and the confusing brand new guidelines that have gone out to ice agents. Just to remind you, Antoinette and I will be on tour around the country next week, guys. It's coming up soon. We would love to see you. There are still a few tickets left, Boston, going by those tickets. We'd love to get you in the hall and answer your questions and find out what you think about the midterm elections. Go to therestispoliticsus.com, we'll also be in Toronto, New York, DC. We would love to see you there. Okay, back to ice. There was a very intriguing story. I've wanted to do this story for a while, Anthony, partly because I keep seeing stories about the uptick in the number of arrests over the course of the summer. But also there was a story that broke over the weekend, the daily wire broke this story, that ice, immigration and customs enforcement officers around the country were told over this weekend to stop arresting all non-criminals. Federal immigration agents, according to the daily wire, were told that they could arrest illegal immigrants with criminal convictions or charges, but not those who have final deportation orders or lack criminal convictions, they should not be arrested. This would be a big shift in the way that ice agents do their job. It would radically cut down the number of people who are being picked up, because some the people being picked up are just at bus stops for kids school bus They're putting out their trash. They're not people with criminal convictions. We know that. The White House saw this story, immediately pushed back on it, a Fox News reporter then spoke, said he'd spoken to Donald Trump, after the story broke, and said that ice officers did indeed get this verbal guidance, but, and were shocked and frustrated by it, according to the Fox News reporter, but it's not clear where the guidance came from. And the president said it's erroneous. The policy remains as it is. Everyone who's in the country, illegally, is on the table for ice arrest. So what might take away as a reporter was from this, is that the guidance went out. It was reported. The president saw that. Didn't like it, because it makes him look weak. If he's never likes to be seen to row back on immigration stuff. And now you've got a huge amount of confusion amongst ice officers. Are they meant to still be arresting people who are just in the country and have overstayed their visas, but have no criminal record? Or are they only meant to be going off to the criminal record? And I think there is a whole load of mid-term politics play in this. I don't know if you saw the story, Anthony, when it broke, but it got to the political confusion around this, because you got the politics people in the White House who know this is very bad politics for them. It's not playing well around the country. It's not playing well with Hispanic voters in particular. And then you've got the policy people like Stephen Miller, backed up by the president, who still want to go full steam ahead and deport as many people as possible. Well, I mean, there's so much going on here, but you and I reported over the summer that ice has turned down the volume from immediate perspective. But it turned up the number of arrests. I think, you know, 50,000 or so people were arrested in the month of April. But it's gotten so bad that in places like rural Kansas, you got to think about this. They're sending home forms, asking who will pick up your kid if you're detained by ice. So sad. Okay, so this is no longer a blue city story. This is a nationwide story. And you know that these elections are decided in the suburbs. Okay, so we moved from downtown LA and we moved from places like the border in Texas to the bus stops in Danbury, Connecticut, and people are pissed. And the president doesn't want to look weak, but let me tell you something. This is not going over well with his American citizens. And you know this, Kathy, the Homeland Security has doubled the budget for ice. 75 billion in funding has come through the Congress and you got 22,000 new officers and staff for ice. So we've now turned this into the president's playground. Now the president gets joy. And you should push back on me because you are more balanced on me. The president gets joy in hurting people. He likes this stuff. He likes wrecking people. He likes the idea that these people are getting thrown into attention centers. You've seen him speak at his rallies, rough him up, hurt the guy, put him away, all this sort of stuff. And I'm telling you, Kathy, this is going to blow back on him in the election. And so if he loses the Senate and you and I are doing a recap in the first week of November, one of the things we're going to have to bring up is he arrested too many people going into the midterms. Yeah, I think you're definitely seeing the blow back. On the president and whether he likes this, I'm in two minds on this one, Anthony, because in the first Trump administration, it was the president who came out and said, we've got to do something to protect the dreamers, the people who have come into the country, who came in as children with their parents who crossed the border illegally, who had no choice, but had to just follow their parents and they've grown up in America. And actually, it was Trump who tried to protect them. He didn't manage to end up doing very much. But I got the impression he was pretty sincere. And I think it's because he doesn't like necessarily being seen as the bad guy when it comes to personal situations. He didn't love the separation policy, for example. He didn't think that reflected well on him. So I think he doesn't love seeing people necessarily seeing families separated in the way that they are separated. But he doesn't want to stop Stephen Miller being able to enact these kind of policies. I think that was true a few years back. You think he's changed. I think he's gotten darker. I think if you look at every one of his mannerisms and everything that he's doing and the limited nature of his vocabulary now, I think he's in a way darker spot. And I think that Fox News interview is an example of it where he's like, hey, no, I'm beating his chest. Of course, I'm going to arrest all these people. But he could do to, I mean, he's capable of multiple things at once. And I hate getting in the brain, Donald Trump. And you're going to put me in the brain. But he is capable of wanting to appear strong. I'm not backing down. I'm not succumbing to all the liberal media and all those lefty protesters around the country. I'm still holding solid, but also not liking having the picture of kids crying put on him, right? Because that doesn't make him look good. He's capable of both things. I get it. But just remember, if you hand somebody $75 billion, what are they going to do with a caddy? They're going to do the stuff that you told them to do and they're going to rough people up. One thing I heard over the weekend I was out in, because I surrested a record 50,000 people in August alone. And I had heard this out in Virginia. I spent the weekends out in Virginia and I'd heard this. And this weekend somebody was telling me how it's being done that's different is that it's no longer ice arresting people with the balaclavas and the masks and this kind of, you know, Trump army that we talked about in the beginning of the administration around Minneapolis and LA. This is now particularly in red states. It's where you have a red state governor who can say, "Okay, ice, our law enforcement and our traffic cops will work with you to do these detentions." And it's even happening to some extent in Virginia that has a Democratic governor. But still it's happening there I've seen it happen and everyone's talking about it. It looks like a regular traffic stop. And you can't tell as a member of the public when you're driving past anymore whether this is an ice raid and ice pickup and an immigration is something about to be deported and arrested or whether this is just a regular traffic stop for a speeding issue or something like that. And so the public is not stopping to fill these anymore because they don't know. I've gone past now traffic stops. And I've wandered to myself in Virginia. Is that somebody being picked up about to be deported or is that just somebody who was going 80 in a 70 mile zone and they're being picked up for that reason? And it's really hard to tell apparently in Virginia the way you tell if there's a Kia Telluride. This is your public service announcement guys around the country. The ice people are in unmarked Kia Telluride SUVs. If there is a Kia Telluride with the cops at the stop, then it's an ice stop and somebody's about to be deported. And that's when all of the kind of thing of the people filming because we know from Minneapolis, people filming makes a difference. If people are going to get filmed, I think it would make a difference. Gadi, tell us about Maria Elvira Salazar. Who is she and what is she doing in saying? So she's the Congresswoman from South Florida who released the campaign ads in both English and Spanish, criticizing the Trump administration for going too far in immigration and saying specifically that people feel betrayed and are no longer with the president. Now she's been a staunch supporter of the president. She's a conservative. She has since said that she released the ad early last week. She's since said that she spoke to President Trump afterwards and that he was very courteous and that he did listen to her. But I think that's why this daily wire story is probably right. I think it's people like Maria Salazar. I think it's people like Susan Collins, who's in a tricky race in Maine, who has emphasized her support for strict guardrails on ice officers, including mandatory body cameras, which many of them, the one down in Austin, where the guy was shot in the back. Did you see that video, Anthony? It was a very reprehensible. There was filming of the police and the bloody t-shirt and they're having to cut the t-shirt away and then he's thrown into a detention center without pain meds and is now starting to lose according to his lawyer feeling. Well, there was another one of those up in Maine over the summer and that's why you've got Susan Collins speaking out against this. I think you're seeing Republicans in tight races in places like Texas because if you look at the numbers, the big surges have been in those red states and it's because of this use of local law enforcement. And it's places like Texas, in places like Florida, where now I think people like the political reporter saying you could lose up to a dozen Republican seats in those states largely because of the ice effect. So does the politics people in the White House not have much clout? Is it the people like Stephen Miller that have more clout? It feels that way, Katie. But again, if someone was briefing the president that could reach the president and he wasn't surrounded by yes people, you'd say, hey, you had a great issue in 2024. The border was actually too porous for the American people. They didn't like the Joe Biden superporous 10, 12 million people walking across the border strategy that the Biden's put in place. And so now, though, what you're doing is you're running the risk for Republicans that he turns a winning issue into a losing issue issue by quarterly. quote, "winning too hard." You're going overboard, you know? And think about it, Caddy, "concerned Susan Collins is asking for body camps, concerned Susan." You know? So to me, I think it's, I listen, I understand the border issue for my fellow Americans. I understand the anxiety of having lots of illegals cross the border. But if people are in the United States and working and they don't have criminal records, it's lost on me this approach. I don't think it's helping them in the suburbs. I think it's helping them with suburban mothers where they're on the soccer field. They said, "What happened to XYZ?" Oh, well, no, they got deported. You know, I went to the local barber and he's got a, it's like a hairstylist area and he's got two valleys there. I pulled up because it's like a type parking area. And I said, "You know, what happened to Enrico?" He said, "Oh, he's in an iced attention's facility upstate." Everybody knows somebody. Upstate New York. I said, "How long has he been there for? Oh, two months." He's in contact with his family. No, we can't get in touch with him. Okay. I mean, that's how we're going to treat people. Okay. So what ends up happening is that ripples through the community. People are saying, "Okay, I get it. We want to order that protects us from narcotic traffic and from sex trafficking, all about that. But we want to be inhumane to people." I mean, it's very un-American guy. I don't like it at all. But before we go, that story that you told about Kansas, which is so shocking that you've got four towns in rural Kansas this week, where the schools have been sending letters to the parents to try and get alternative pickup in case the parents are arrested and detained. That letter doesn't just go out to the kids of people in the country illegally undocumented people. That letter goes out to every single child. So let's say you are an American citizen living in rural Kansas and one day your kid comes home with a letter saying, "Oh, mom, I got this letter from school and I have to tell them who can pick me up in case you're arrested by ice." That means that every single parent in that school knows that that's what that school is having to do. Because you can't select which kids to send that at, too, right? You think those American citizens are happy that they're instilling fear in their young children by bringing that letter home? No. That's how this has ripple effects. Revolting. That's how these people, everybody then starts to realize what's going on. And I think it is going to be a problem for him in these midterm elections for the Republicans in this midterm elections. But again, I don't know what the Democrats are doing. I would be plastering that everywhere. I would be plastering that, I would say the president is taking your children's hope away and he's replacing it with fear. I would be plastering that, but I don't see it. And when I mention it, I get all these comments on Instagram, "Oh, us offs doing it," or this guy said, "Really? Nothing, I'm really doing it." Okay. Because if they were really doing it, they would be all together and they would be putting out one mission statement after the next. They would have their own midterm convention and they would put out this message as broad and as loudly as possible, but they're not. Because the Democrats fight the last war. Because in 2024, they got hammered by Joe Biden, allowing too many people across the border. And now they're running scared on the immigration issue. Don't you think? I do think that. I do think that, but you know, you got it. You got it. It's not to excuse them. I think that I'm just explaining why I think they're doing it. Let me give you the news flash, guys. Trump doesn't fight fairly. He fights effectively. Okay. And you should shape up. Okay. And recognize what you're up against. Meanwhile, 50,000 people are arrested during August alone. Okay, guys, we're going to leave it there. We'll be back on Thursday. And of course, this week for our founding members, we have the last in our series based on Anthony's book, "All the Wrong Moves," which talks about how we got to where we are today, all of the factors that led us up to Donald Trump. Here's a quick clip. Trump was right. I was wrong. I think we're going to have a good night tonight. Three decades, three presidents, three catastrophic errors. And America is still paying that price today. If you want to understand how America elected a person like Donald Trump, you have to follow the money. The stake won. Clinton allows China into the world trade organization. The giant sucky sound of jobs being pulled out of this country. As you kill our wages, you're going to see lots of dysfunction drum beat starts. All of a sudden, it's going to go right into the world trade center. Mistake two, war without tax. You cannot go to war without making sure that that war pays for itself. Because this caught us on a devastating trajectory that we can get out of and what's left for the American people, nothing. Mistake three, Obama's Wall Street bill out. 10 million American families lost their homes, bankers, the whole got millions in bonuses. We handed the clean up to the men who built the disaster. The populism started because all the money went to the banks, none of the money went to the middle or lowering from people. And Caddy, who exploited every single one of these mistakes? Donald J. Trump. Listen to all the wrong moves. How America made Trump by going to the rest is politics us.com today. If you'd like to hear more of the series and any of our backlog, you can listen to, for example, our series on Stephen Miller, which explains a lot about where we are on ice today, you can sign up and join us and become a founding member at therestispoliticsus.com. Thanks, guys. We'll see you later in the week. The great game, strategic struggle between Britain and Russia. We assess, Prime Minister, with high confidence it was Russian. Holding the Russians accountable is world war. They took down a British passenger jet containing 350 people. All the relevant contacts will be structured as a framework today and disseminated into an operation order, or Fraga. Fraga that says to kill the president of Russia. Yes. New from Goldhanger. Who is going to be able to pull this off? You're my shoulder, are you Sergeant Trump and Duffy? An audio drama journey like no other. Men like Duffy, they are our most valuable weapons. We've been convinced as a technically rigorous geopolitical action forever. Bear hunt. Available now wherever you get your podcasts.