The Daily Wrap Up

30 Oct, 2025

[Transcript edited for clarity and flow: Watch on Youtube HERE]

It is a truism, or at least has become one in American politics, that the most important issue Americans vote on is the economy, albeit most Americans don’t really understand how the economy works or cannot determine whether a candidate’s economic policies are either realistic or workable.

Donald ran on bringing down inflation, interest rates and prices. He said these things would happen on Day One. Ten months in: prices and inflation are both up; American farmers are being bankrupted; because of his insane and unworkable tariff policies, relationships with our trading partners have deteriorated; America has lost its standing in the world. All of this because most Americans don’t think about other serious issues when casting a vote for the most powerful office on the planet.

Americans’ economic concerns, even if they are ill-informed, override their concerns about things like the environment, the oncoming climate catastrophe, whether we have clean air and water, and whether our children are going to have safe vaccines available to them. Americans’ concerns about the economy override their concerns about individual rights like a woman’s right to bodily autonomy or our rights to due process. They forget how important the Supreme Court is to protecting those rights, or destroying them.

We’re constantly told that the only thing that matters, or the thing that matters more than anything else in a presidential election is the economy. We don’t factor in the character of the person for whom we’re voting. Are we concerned that the person we’re planning to put into the Oval Office has the impulse control of a toddler or that he’s a greedy, corrupt grifter who will bankrupt the US Treasury to enrich himself and his family and his already obscenely wealthy friends? Do we think about whether the person we’re putting into the Oval Office is going to protect and defend the Constitution or even protect and defend the White House?

Do we ever think about how reckless it is to put in the Oval Office someone who has been obsessed with what he refers to as “nuclear” for decades; somebody who has convinced himself that he knows more about nuclear than the generals; somebody who has fantasized openly about nuclear conflagration? Do we ever think that it may not be such a great idea to put such a person in charge of the deadliest nuclear arsenal in world history?

We probably should have thought about that because guess who has decided that he’s going to order the Pentagon to start carrying out nuclear tests again for the first time in over 30 years? This is a dangerous course of events, and we need to be paying very, very close attention. For the first time in 30 years, for no perceivable reason that I’m aware of, the President of the United States is ordering the Pentagon to begin carrying out nuclear tests. If you were one of our global adversaries, what would that make you think?

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It is Day 30 of the Republican government shutdown. It’s also Donald’s shutdown, because the Republicans shut the government down at Donald’s behest. And there is no end in sight apparently. According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, at least 670,000 federal workers are on furlough. Roughly 730,000 essential employees are continuing to work with no pay. And if that isn’t bad enough, federal funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP, runs out this Saturday. Over 41 million Americans rely on these food assistant benefits. Red states are expected to suffer the most. I’ve talked about this before and I’m going to continue talking about it. The fact that 41 million Americans are dependent on food assistant benefits like SNAP should make all of us hang our heads in shame.

Of those 41 million who receive SNAP benefits, 39% are children. In two days, those children will not have access to food benefits anymore, because Republicans, especially Donald, don’t care if children go hungry. Some Republican leaders realize that this is not a good look for them, and this is why they care. Red states are going to suffer. They are pushing for the federal government to continue funding SNAP through the shutdown, which it could do. There was $5 billion available to continue funding SNAP, but Donald said he would not access those funds for such a purpose. I mean, come on, the guy has a ballroom to build for God’s sakes! Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson doesn’t care either. He appeared on CNN today and explained why he thinks Americans should go hungry. The reality is that this has been a stalemate for 30 days, and it’s not just Democrats. You also have one of the most conservative Republican senators, Josh Hawley, who says, “At least please move money around to feed people. Why not consider that?” Let’s hear what Mike Johnson said in response to SNAP benefits on CNN.

Because if you deviate from the goal of reopening the entire government, Chuck Schumer and the radicals over there, we’ll continue to play games with people’s paychecks, their livelihoods, and if you do just part of this, it will reduce the pressure for them to do all of it, to do their basic job, and that is reopen the government. This is very real and very serious, and they can end it today. They can do it right now. All they have to do is we just need five more Democrats in the Senate to help us reach the 60-vote threshold. We don’t have enough Republicans to do the right thing on our own. We need them to do the right thing.

Wow, where’s the pushback? I want to hear the pushback. I want to hear somebody say to that sycophant, smug POS face. You’re lying through your teeth. Republicans control the Executive branch and both houses of Congress. The government is shut down, because they refuse to negotiate with Democrats. That’s how this is supposed to work. They need 60 votes. Well, guess what? They must give at least seven Democrats something to vote for. The Democrats are not responsible for this, and they should not be forced to vote for a budget bill that they know is going to harm not just their constituents, but all of the American people. The Democrats are doing the right thing by hanging onto the only leverage they have. We saw what happened when they went along with the Republicans the first time around a budget bill was up for a vote in that last six months.

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[Watch on Youtube HERE]

The Trump regime has come very close to dismantling our constitutional form of government. So, Democrats please continue to stand strong. Mike Johnson can continue to lie all he wants. Most Americans aren’t that stupid. Most Americans understand who is in charge and who is responsible.

Republicans can keep playing the blame game because it is pretty much the only game they have. They are led by the most aggrieved baby in American history. But a recent Washington Post ABC news IPSOS poll found that more Americans—45%--blamed Donald and Republicans for the shutdown. Meanwhile, 33% blamed Democrats. As often as the case polls like that mystify me, only 45% blame the Republicans.

Are they not aware that the entire government is shut down? Are they not aware that they’re not going to be getting SNAP benefits; they’re not going to be getting their social security checks, or that they shouldn’t fly because there are no air traffic controllers anymore? At least a plurality of people blame Republicans, which is exactly as it should be. It’s just that more people should be blaming them than are blaming them. You must remember that 33% is pretty much the Republican base, and they will support anything Donald does and will blame Democrats for everything. This includes Donald’s failure, for example, to release the Jeffrey Epstein files, which is worth repeating whenever possible. Let’s discuss the issue at the heart of the shutdown today. The New York Times reported about how much “Obamacare” or the Affordable Care Act premiums will rise if Republicans refuse to extend the ACA subsidies that are set to expire in the coming months.

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According to the Times report, the abandonment of these subsidies by Republicans would result in huge monthly cost increases for people across different incomes and age groups:

• People age 40 making $35,000 a year could see their premiums go up by $132 a month.

• People age 40 making $65,000 a year could see premiums go up by $196 a month.

• People aged 60 making $65,000 a year could see their premiums go up by a staggering $920 a month.

This is why Democrats stood their ground and refused to make common cause with a Republican party that doesn’t care about the economic or physical or emotional or psychological health of the American people. Why would they make any concessions for nothing in return except an economy that is going to continue to harm the American people as the Republicans continue to chip away at the safety net? The right to refuse to extend these subsidies is the entire reason the government is shut down. As it should be.

Republicans have said that they won’t negotiate on this issue until the government is up and running again. That’s your strategy? In what universe would Democrats go along with that? I mean, that would be a “Lucy with the football” moment for the ages. Obviously, the Democrats have trusted Lucy with the football far too many times. Finally, they realize Republicans cannot be trusted here, so why not do the negotiating now and give Democrats incentive to help Republicans end this extremely and increasingly destructive shutdown? Well, the Trump regime’s answer to this question is to lie and blame the previous administration. That is not Joe Biden. I want you to look at JD Vance comments today about this issue.

I want to answer the question about health insurance premiums because look, we don’t want the American people’s health insurance premiums to go up. We’re very worried about this. The president’s been talking about this since before we even took office that we’re inheriting a healthcare system that has suffered some real problems under the Biden administration because of that, you’re seeing health insurance premiums skyrocket.

Baby JD Vance also doesn’t care about health insurance. Remember when he was asked about it during the debate with Kamala Harris? They have been trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act since 2017 and replace it with something better. What are you going to replace it with? Eight years after Donald started to try to take away the Affordable Care Act, his answer was, “Well, we have a ‘concept’ of a plan.”

They don’t have anything with which to replace the Affordable Care Act. They just want Americans to go without health insurance, apparently. The truth is that Donald is more than happy to keep the government shut down, for a couple of reasons. One, he’s lazy. He doesn’t have to work. He can go on very expensive taxpayer-funded vacations to Asia where he’s given gold crowns and fed it as if he were some kind of decrepit emperor. Also, it’s easier to grift off the American people when their attention is taken up with trying to get food on the table. And finally, and this is where Mike Johnson comes back into the mix. “Epstein files, what Epstein files?” Mike Johnson is refusing to bring the House of Representatives back into session. And he’s using that as an excuse not to seat Congress woman Adelita Grijalva, who overwhelmingly won her special election over a month ago.

Johnson has refused to swear her in. That’s just wrong, but why? First, why is he allowed to do this? What Johnson is doing here is over overturning the results of a free and fair election. Why though? I mean if is sworn in, yeah, the Democrats will have narrowed the Republican margin even further, but the Republicans will still have the majority and in the House of Representatives: that’s all it takes. Unlike the Senate, the House of Representatives is a democratic institution. In other words, majority rules. It’s because Grijalva will be the deciding vote on a resolution to demand that the DOJ/ FBI handover the Epstein files. MSNBC host Nicole Wallace shed light on a new organization that’s guiding Americans on how to defy Donald lawfully.

As Donald Trump continues with his sweeping obsession of retaliation and retribution and mounting daily threats against anyone who dares to dissent, anyone who dared to try to hold him accountable, Americans have made it clear that they will not accept doing nothing about it. Millions of Americans turned out in a massive and peaceful way this month in thousands of cities in small towns for one of the largest single day protests ever in American history. But there’s still that feeling. I’m sure all of you ask it and talk about it in your daily lives. I hear it every day. What else can we do about it to defy what we’re seeing, to defy what feels wrong and defy the lawlessness of what we see playing out starting today? There’s an answer. There’s a new way to find some of those answers, and this is brand new, an exclusive announcement right here about the launch of an effort called Defiance.org. It is a coalition of national security, veterans, whistleblowers, and pro-democracy leaders providing monthly updates and simplified direction on how you might choose to push back peacefully, lawfully, and defiantly against presidential abuses of power. Already the first wave of former government officials has signed onto their new Declaration of Defiance, a nationwide mutual aid PAC, to defend any group targeted by Donald Trump’s retribution.

One of Defiance.org’s founders is Miles Taylor, a former Chief of Staff at the Department of Homeland Security during Donald’s first term in 2018. Taylor was the anonymous author of an op-ed about the quiet resistance within the administration that was working to block Donald’s worst policies. That didn’t turn out very well, did it? Taylor is leading a bipartisan team of ex national security officials, whistleblowers, former lawmakers and others. He posted on Twitter about the success of the organization, along with a warning to the Trump regime. He wrote, quote, “I was not expecting this. It’s been less than a day, and already tens of thousands of Americans have signed up @Defiance.org. People are less afraid than I thought. I guess that means the White House should be more afraid than it is. \It is going to require every arrow in our quiver, every tool in our toolbox to resist the depredations of the Trump regime. All of us need to do whatever we can, separately and together. We need more organization. We need more coordination, and we need more voices standing up across the political spectrum. We also need to be very careful in whom we put our trust. We need Congress to show the same courage, and I mean Democrats in Congress, because let’s face it, Republicans are fascists, and they’re not going to lift a finger to stop whatever the Trump regime is doing. Democrats in Congress need to show the same kind of courage being shown by individual citizens in this country, standing up to Donald at, in some cases, serious personal risk. So yes, let us organize, let us stand together always.

[Watch on Youtube HERE]