Trumps Mass Deportations Have A HUGE Problem!
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Come see us on tour in Hartford, Connecticut, Syracuse, Atlantic City, Levittown, New York, Cohoes, New York, Providence, Rhode Island, Los Angeles, Bakersfield, San Jose, Toledo, Ohio, and Toronto, Ontario. Go to JimmyDore.com for a link for tickets. Hey, this is Jimmy. Who's this? Hey, what's up, dude? It's J.D. Vance. Oh, hi, Mr. Vance. Thanks for calling. How are you today?

I'm doing pretty good. Better than last week, that's for sure. I was getting pretty darn annoyed with all those weird-ass pictures that people on the internet were making of me. Oh, really?

Yeah, man, it totally sucked. Dude, they used Photoshop or whatever to change my image so my face would be super round and shiny, and some had weird hair or hats. People were going bananas with that crap, but oh well, I'm a public figure. I guess it's to be expected. Right. It was just me, though. No one else. Whatever. I don't care. But you're doing better this week.

Yeah, actually. You know what? Remember how I kept saying that I never really knew what my job was and the president never even really addressed that? Yeah, I do. Well, now I know what my role as vice president is going to be. Finance chair for the Republican National Committee.

So that's my job. Pretty stoked. Excuse me. Let me get this straight. They're taking a role in a private organization, which the RNC is, and putting it in the purview of the Office of Vice President?

No, not at all, actually. So, okay, so I'm like the vice president. That's my government job. But also, in addition, I work at the RNC now, which is a private sector job. So two different jobs, really. Bonus. This seems like a strange arrangement. Is there any type of precedent for something like this?

No, absolutely not. Yeah, it is weird as shit, but I mean, who's paying attention right now? Literally nobody. Look at all this other stuff that's happening. Isn't this a conflict of interest or worse?

I don't really think so. I mean, I think the president just wanted to have more direct control over Republican Party fundraising. I don't see anything wrong with that. He's the head of the party. I mean, it's really his money. No, it is not. Yeah, well, I guess I would be in charge of that, wouldn't I? Besides, I'm not the only one in government who's doubling up jobs. What do you mean?

Marco Rubio, one of several examples. So he's Secretary of State, but also the president made him the acting director of the National Archives. What? I mean, it makes sense. No, it doesn't.

Okay, it doesn't. But still, who knows? Maybe the president just likes knowing that he has actual physical access to the Constitution for whatever reason. Like he could go sneak in there in the middle of night, like Rubio lets him in, and then he goes and changes something in the Constitution with like an old-timey feather pen. And then the next day he's like, see, actually, I am allowed to do this. Told you. I hope that's not why.

Also, he's a huge fan of the movie National Treasure. He's seen it like a million times. And he's one of those dudes who, like, if he sees a movie a bunch, like, he starts to think it might be real. So I would not be surprised if he thinks there actually is a treasure map on the back of the Declaration of Independence. Well, that's great.

I know. Anyway, so some of us have two jobs but don't really do anything, while Elon Musk technically has no job, but somehow he's in charge of everything? Yeah, you don't like him really much, do you?

What do you mean? Three astronauts and one cosmonaut.

Okay, this is America. We see astronauts here. I'm an American. Anyway, when they landed safe after being stranded in space by Joe Biden, that was pretty cool. Did you see that? It went off without a hitch. And then all these dolphins showed up, and they were like, squeak, squeak, welcome to Earth.

Did you bring us any space fish? No? Well, that's cool. Welcome home anyway. Okay, boats are coming by now. I'm just saying that was awesome. Yes, truly a testament to the human spirit. Man, I don't even want to think about how bad those astronauts smelled. Do you think that man and that woman had sex up there? They were stranded for nine months. Hmm.

Probably the smell was so bad it killed any latent sexual needs they may have had. You know, I have to say, every conversation I've had with you has been among the least enlightening I've ever had in my life. Thanks, man. I appreciate that. But I got to say, at least you don't make me mad. I mean, everyone else who calls in makes me furious, but not you, Mr. Vice President.

Well, that's weird because my main job is just making people mad with words I say. I guess maybe during my downtime, I feel like taking a break from that. Anyway, I got to go. President Trump wants me to, he wants to see a financial breakdown of RNC assets and where the specific holdings are. And he wants details like routing numbers and everything. All right. Well, great talking with you.

Jimmy, do you think there's a God? All right, we got to go. Goodbye, Mr. Vice President.

The Trump administration. So remember I showed you that video of them deporting all those people to El Salvador? Well, it turns out there's a big problem with that. Because they're Venezuelan? Because they're not from El Salvador. They're from Venezuela. Yeah. A lot of them are from Venezuela. Also, some of them are American citizens.

Whoops. I'm going to cover that in a second. But that's why you're supposed to have due process, right? So Glenn Greenwald is here to tell you why this is messed up. Now, it is true that President Trump campaigned on a promise to initiate a program of mass deportations against people who entered the United States illegally. Which I supported. Right.

Yeah, there's a law. You have to have it. Yeah. Otherwise, they're going to cut into entitlements. Remember? Yeah, remember that? But here we go. That's the border with no approval of the U.S. government who have no visa, who have no green card, no legal right to be in the United States. And usually what deportation means is that you take the person who's in your country illegally and you just send them back to the country of origin, whatever country of which they're a citizen.

And in that case, the stakes aren't that high. I mean, it is for some people who have been in the United States for a long time. But in general, the reason the public ratified that is because people believe that if you enter the United States illegally, the U.S. government has the right to take you and send you back to your country. You don't go back to prison. You just go back to your country. What the Trump administration is now doing is much, much different than the way deportation is carried out.

Here from CNN on February 4th, 2025, El Salvador offers to house violent U.S. criminals and deportees of any nationality in an unprecedented deal. The president of El Salvador has become a kind of darling of the international populist right. There's a lot of admiration for the way in which he eliminated violent crime by just rounding up thousands and thousands and thousands of people and putting them into some of the most repressive prisons.

Again, rounding them up without much due process. There's obviously a lot of people in those prisons who are violent gang members who deserve to be locked up. And there's people who don't deserve to be locked up, which is what happens when you put people in prison without due process. And these prisons are designed to keep people forever. They are about the worst place you could want to be anywhere in the world. There's a maximum security prison in El Salvador that has been built for people.

gang members who they call terrorists. That's about the worst place you can want to be. But the El Salvadoran president has been currying favor with the Trump administration and said, if you need a place to send illegal immigrants when you're deporting them, we don't even care if they have anything to do with El Salvador, if they've ever been to El Salvador, if they're citizens of El Salvador, just send them back to us and we will put them into these very repressive prisons and just keep them there.

And that's what the United States government under the Trump administration is now doing. Not deporting these people in the normal course of deportation. They're not going back to their country of origin. Even though in the case of, say, Venezuelans, the Venezuelan government has made very clear they will take back all their deported illegal immigrants. They've been taking them back.

We're not sending El Salvadorans back to El Salvador. We're sending Venezuelans back to El Salvador or any other nationality that the U.S. government decides should be there. In other words, we're throwing them to a black hole for life without any charges against them, without any due process. We're knowingly imprisoning people for life with no due process. Here from the BBC...

U.S. deports hundreds of Venezuelans despite court order. Quote, the case raises constitutional questions since under the U.S. system of checks and balances, government agencies are expected to comply with a federal judge's ruling. Venezuela criticized Trump invoking the Alien Enemies Act, saying it, quote, unjustly criminalizes Venezuelan migration and, quote, evokes the darkest episodes in the history of humanity from slavery to the horrors of the Nazi concentration camp.

Rights groups condemned Trump, accusing him of using a 227-year-old law to circumvent due process. Amnesty International USA wrote on X that the deportations were, quote, yet another example of the Trump administration's racist targeting of Venezuelans based on sweeping claims of gang affiliation. President Bukele, the El Salvadorian president and Trump ally, wrote that the detainees were immediately transferred to El Salvador's notorious megagail, the Terrorism Confinement Center.

The El Salvadoran president said they would be held there, quote, for a period of one year and that it could be renewable, which is what happens. They send them there for a year and then they basically automatically renew the imprisonment every year and basically nobody ever leaves. El Salvador is settled jail as part of Bukele's efforts to crack down on the country's organized crime. The newly built maximum security facility, which can hold up to 40,000 people, has been accused by human rights groups of mistreating inmates.

So that's a big switch in our immigration policy. And guess what? Why are they not sending them to Venezuela, who will take them, and it's where they're from? Again, I don't care about MS-13 people at all, but here's the problem. Once you create that, that they could do whatever, they don't stop with the MS-13 people. That's right. That's exactly right. And then 10, 15, maybe not even that long, years down the line, suddenly somebody protested, and they're going to New Guantanamo.

I mean, it's the same game every goddamn time. A woman says her husband, Arturo Suarez Trejo, a musician.

was arrested for being undocumented, but was one of the Venezuelans taken to El Salvador and accused of TDA gang members. She says the father of her baby has only ever sang and composed for a living. He just has tattoos. Of what? You don't have a look. Is it a real gang tattoo? Are they making up that it's a gang tattoo? And there he is. So that's him. The tattoo. This is the guy.

A 32-year-old father of a three-month-old baby was filming a music video in North Carolina when he was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during a raid that left many without explanation. ICE deported Jose Reyes Barrios, a Venezuelan soccer player who was tortured by Maduro's dictatorship. He applied for asylum in the United States. No evidence he committed any crime. No gang membership. The ICE sent him to a prison in El Salvador.

Is that who's at fault? The guy who does the policy? The working guy? It's really not ICE. It's really who made the policy, isn't it? Venezuelan professional goalkeeper deported to El Salvador prison, stunning family back home. This guy. Okay. Why not send him to El Salvador? I mean, to Venezuela. Yeah.

The Trump administration deported a Venezuelan professional soccer player, a youth soccer coach with no criminal record to an El Salvadorian prison known for torture and abusive conditions, according to an affidavit filed with the court and confirmed by a family member's post on Facebook in Venezuela. Was he at least here illegally? The family. The family. Well, I think he was here seeking asylum. The family only discovered that their loved one,

had been renditioned to El Salvador when they saw him in a viral video posted by the Trump administration in which it celebrated what it said was the mass deportation of violent members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. We were surprised to see him in the videos being released on social media of those deported to El Salvador, his uncle said on Facebook. We immediately contacted the lawyer because no more information about him was appearing on the ICE locator.

He was due for a hearing on April 17th, 2025. So he had a hearing set for his immigration status. He had been applying for political asylum, a case he had a plausible chance to win, giving his back history. Reyes Barrios was not an economic migrant, but he had participated in two marches against the government of Nicolas Maduro. So he's against the Venezuelan government in the context of 2024's controversial presidential election.

The United States has long pressured the Maduro government, which the United States does not officially recognize, to hold free and fair elections. The United States responded angrily when Venezuela's Supreme Court aligned with Maduro, kicked his leading opponent off the ballot, and multiple demonstrations throughout the country were held. What is this, Romania? According to his attorney...

Reyes Barrios marched in two demonstrations, one in February and one in March in 2024, and was abducted off the street and taken to government security forces to an undisclosed location where he was tortured, facing electrocution and suffocation. So that happened to him in Venezuela. So that's why he came to the United States and he was seeking asylum. And he had a case and he had a court date on the 17th of April.

He said that his nephew left Venezuela in March after his torture. On October 2023, the United States had offered temporary protective status to Venezuelans in the United States, arguing that government repression in the country meant it was unsafe to return. He spent several months working in Mexico waiting for his CBP1 appointment. In September of the same year, exactly on the 1st, he had his appointment to enter the United States.

At his appointment, Barrios said he was detained under investigation for suspicious tattoos they say are related to Trend de Aragua.

Ray's Barrios, the tattoos, Ray's Barrios detention began under the Biden administration. The controversial Venezuelan gang uses a crown as part of its tattoos. And Ray's Barrios had a crown tattoo. That's a little bit too loose, man, to just go by a crown because I got a news for you. A lot of Latinos like that, like the crowns. According to his uncle, that tattoo was soccer related.

you know after cr uh trump had that idiot the real leader juan guido yeah of venezuela and so like this guy left because he's protesting in line with what you want idiot

He's a soccer player and most of his tattoos are related to his love for soccer and his family. For example, he has a crown on top of a soccer ball. This crown is associated with the Trend de Argo criminal group. He found out about this when he was already detained in the United States. According to his uncle, an attorney in the United States contacted the family and asked for reams of documentation to support his case, which the family sent to the attorney, including an affidavit from the tattoo artist.

Tobin in the affidavit said Venezuelan records made clear that Reyes Barrios had no criminal background and no gang ties and was indeed seeking genuine political asylum.

Tobin obtained the affidavit from the tattoo artist attesting to the soccer-related nature of the tattoo and submitted multiple other examples of similar tattoos on non-gang members. The evidence, Tobin affirmed, was enough to move Reyes Barrios out of maximum security on March 10th or March 11th, yet he was deported just days later.

According to Tobin, the U.S. also claimed he was a gangster based on a social media post in which he was making a hand gesture. That gesture is simply I love you in sign language and often means simply rock and roll. That the United States only referenced a single media post, social media post of innocent hand gestures suggests they found nothing incriminating whatsoever.

Reyes Barrios never got a chance to make his case, however, as he was deported to El Salvador ahead of his scheduled April 17th hearing. By then, he had spent five and a half months in American detention. It is unclear whether Reyes Barrios is still alive. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said the Trump administration is standing by the deportation.

Quote, Hearst Race Barrios was not only in the United States illegally, but he has tattoos that are consistent with those indicating TDA gang membership. His own social media indicates he is a member of this vicious TDA gang. That all said, Department of Homeland Security intelligence assessments go beyond a single tattoo, and we are confident in our findings. Can we know what they are or we just have to trust you on this one?

So here's Karen Leavitt. Here's what she says. Andy McCarthy said in an interview with Hugh Hewitt, he certainly agrees with what the president is trying to do with the Alien Enemies Act, but he's not sure that the law is completely on his side. He cites some previous Supreme Court rulings dealing with enemy combatants in wartime, says that even they have a challenge or a right to challenge their detention in court.

He raised concern also that while TDA has been designated as a terrorist organization, these individuals hadn't been prosecuted for terrorism. So my question is, will the president ask Congress potentially to declare war on these cartels for the invasion that he's talked about so that he's on stronger legal footing? Well, we absolutely disagree with the legal opinion of the individual that you mentioned. We would not have moved forward with this if we didn't believe the president. This was within the president's

executive authority to continue with this mass deportation effort under the authority provided to him under the Alien Enemies Act. And when you read the act, as I did last time at the podium, a predatory incursion is absolutely what has happened with Tren de Aragua. They have been sent here by the hostile Maduro regime in Venezuela. And the president, immediately upon taking office, designated TDA as a foreign terrorist organization.

And under this act, it is within the president's authority to deport these terrorists. And anybody trying to defend these terrorists who have now been sent off of American soil should talk to the families of the individuals who these heinous monsters have killed and have. So she's saying that they're all terrorists, even though it's obvious this guy wasn't.

As soon as they start blathering... By the way, Patriot Act back in the day, we've already had people in a prison with no charges. It's already legal to do this. To take someone with no charges. It's called indefinite detention. Obama already signed that in. We already have that. I don't even know what the legal nonsense argument is. The point is...

Like, you're not even checking thoroughly. You're just taking whoever. And especially Maduro, Republicans and Trump have a hard on. They hate Maduro. And this guy was tortured by Maduro. So Caroline Leavitt fires shot at Fox News is Andy McCarthy over deportation case trying to defend these as terrorists.

Glenn Greenwald says this is just pro-war conservatives resurrecting their core tactic from the Bush-Cheney era. Anyone who objected to the civil liberties assaults of the war on terror, the Patriot Act, warrantless domestic eavesdropping, due process, free imprisonment, was called pro-terrorist. That's what I just said. Yeah. And here they are doing it again. But you know what's funny is the people...

The people that are bringing these terrorists in, okay, and I'm not a fan of the gang. I don't care about, again, I don't care about them. I care about somebody that's not a member getting caught up.

why are you not going after all the people that let them in? These NGO people? Why is George Soros a shitty kid not in El Salvador? Right. Why is all these Democrats that you said are doing this? Why are they not in El Salvador? So they're only spreading it around to like the lowest levels. There's no justice. Remember, lock her up for Hillary? She ain't going to go to El Salvador, is she?

Glenn Greenwald says this is a bipartisan tactic too. Anyone who objects to U.S. financing and arming of Israel is also deemed pro-terrorist and pro-Hamas.

That the Trump White House is using this label for a longtime conservative darling, Andrew McCarthy, for questioning sending people to El Salvador for life in prison with zero evidence or due process shows how reflexive this smear is. So this guy, Andrew McCarthy, is a long, long time darling of the conservatives. And they're saying he's defending. So it just goes to show you how reflexive this smear is.

You know, I remember 9-11. I remember how reflective the smear was. Yeah. I remember being like, wait, Guantanamo's still open? Like 20 years later. Yep. And being a little disturbed. Nobody brought that up this, any election, not since Obama didn't keep his promise. You know, Chelsea Manning, they had Chelsea in indefinite detention. Yeah, right. So that means they can put you in prison without charging you. All they have to do is say you're a terrorist. I guess we're not going back on that law, that rule. That's going to be good. So...

We in in spirit, when we when we played those videos in spirit, we were like, yeah, let's get these gang members out of our country because we know there's gang members in our country. MS-13 literally has MS-13 on their goddamn head so you could find him easy. You're taking a guy that has a crown. I mean, that's a little vague, man, on a soccer ball. Is there a soccer division of TDA?

Or send them back to their own goddamn country. How about that idea? Instead of to another country. How about give him his court date? He had a court date. How about just having any due process, if there's even a slight question? Yeah. Well, you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs. Anybody that says that, they better never complain about nothing. Because no omelette's coming, number one. And they're going to do it to you too, motherfucker. You're going to get broke like an egg. They'll do it to this guy. They'll do it to you.

Hey, you know, here's another great way you can help support the show is you become a premium member. We give you a couple of hours of premium bonus content every week, and it's a great way to help support the show. You can do it by going to JimmyDoreComedy.com, clicking on Join Premium.

It's the most affordable premium program in the business, and it's a great way to help put your thumb back in the eye of the bastards. Thanks for everybody who was already a premium member. And if you haven't, you're missing out. We give you lots of bonus content. Thanks for your support. So here's what I haven't heard from Donald Trump. I haven't heard him introduce legislation to Congress.

take the tax off of tipped wages. I haven't heard legislation about taking the taxes off of overtime work, and I haven't heard legislation to take tax off of Social Security. I haven't heard any of that. Isn't that something? That's what he was running on. It's not as yet to happen, but he's got all this other stuff.

But he made sure he took care of Israel immediately and started bombing Yemen. That happens at the blink of an eye. And now here's another thing that's happening. President Trump will not cut one penny from Social Security and Medicare and will not raise the retirement age by one day.

Is this an old promise or a new one? So it's not one penny. It's going to be a lot more. That's the trick. I will not cut one penny from Social Security or Medicare, and I will not raise the retirement age by one day, not by one day. And for four years, I didn't. For four years, you saw that. I didn't.

By contrast, Kamala Harris cast a tie-breaking vote to cut Medicare by $237 billion. You didn't know that. A betrayal of American seniors. She betrayed American seniors. She's the one that cast the final vote. Okay, so keep that in mind. That's what he said when he was running. Now here we are. One last question. Go ahead. Entitlements ever be on your plate?

At some point they will be we have tremendous growth. We're gonna have tremendous growth this next year It'll be toward the end of the year. The growth is going to be incredible and at the right time We will take a look at that You know, that's actually the easiest of all things if you look because it's if you're willing to do something if you if you don't cut some

in entitlements you'll never really deal with that. We'll be cutting but we're also gonna have growth like you've never had before. You changed your outlook on how to handle entitlements, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Mr. President. It seems like something has to be done or else we're gonna be stuck at 120% of debt to GDP forever. Oh that's where the problems are. Yeah. So first of all there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting

cutting and yeah and guess you want to know what they're doing uh an internal social security administration memo dated march 13th lays out a plan of sabotage for the agency the memo itself predicts service disruption operational strain and budget shortfalls will result so they're so they're trying to screw up social security

But Israel's going to give what they need, right? Just tell me that's okay. Yeah. I don't care about anything else except Israel. Israel's getting their money for sure. Okay. All right. So they're cutting the staff at Social Security and they're trying to cause on purpose service disruptions and operational strain. And how do I know this? Because my mother-in-law was promised a check from Social Security.

She didn't get it. They said they have to verify her address and her identity. And they said you could do it online. Well, of course, she's 86. So she doesn't really she's not good with a computer. So she's going to go in in person. So they have to make an appointment. And now the appointments are backed up. Why? Because of service disruption, operational strain and budget short. So they want to overwhelm the Social Security offices while they close them and cut their staffs.

So they want to make people think that social security doesn't work, but they're intentionally sabotaging it. And here I'm going to show you how they're doing it. The memo authorized by acting deputy SS social security administration, commissioner Doris Doris Diaz purports to be motivated by a desire to mitigate fraud risks. Elon Musk has pushed several false claims about the nature and scope of social security fraud. The,

The biggest chance contemplated by the memo is to require Internet identity proofing. That's exactly what my mother-in-law is going through for benefit claims made over the phone. When a Social Security Administration customer is unable to utilize the Internet ID proofing, customers will be required to visit a field office to provide in-person identity documentation. That's what she's being required to do.

Currently, customers can make claims and verify their identity without using the Internet or visiting a Social Security office. Fraud is extremely rare because there are many safeguards in place. Because the Social Security Administration serves a large population that is either older or disabled, many can't access the Internet. Under the new system...

This would force these populations to visit an office to have their claim processed, like my mother-in-law. The memo estimates it would require 75,000 to 85,000 in-person visits per week to Social Security offices to implement the policy. Social Security offices do not have the resources to handle this influx. So they're doing this on purpose. Mm-hmm.

In 2023, the most recent data available, there were about 119,128 daily visits on average to Social Security offices. 85,000 more weekly visits would be an increase of 14%. The wait time for a Social Security off appointment, even before these changes, averaged over a month.

And there's nothing healthier than to have an 80-year-old have to wait on line that goes around the block to not get enough money for rent. I mean, come on. Eye of the tiger, even with glaucoma. The memo anticipates creating a huge surge in demand for in-person appointments at the Social Security offices as they slash staff and close offices. The Social Security, pushed by Doge...

is planning to cut 12% of its staff and is shuttering dozens of offices. So that's where they're cutting. They're not cutting the Pentagon. They're not cutting the bomb budget for Yemen. They're not cutting the bomb budget for Israel. They're not cutting the money we give to Israel. They're coming after your Social Security, like George Carlin said fucking 20 years ago. A Social Security source said there are no significant concerns about fraud at intake.

Because multiple layers of ID verification take place before a claim is verified. The source said they believe the new steps are an effort to create additional hurdles to filing claims and overwhelm the system.

The combination of fewer workers, fewer offices, and a massive increase in the demand for in-person services could sabotage the Social Security system, denying many Americans the benefits that they're due. The memo predicts, it predicts service disruption, operational strain, and budget. That's the memo predicts.

From the Social Security Administration. They're predicting this. You know why they call them entitlements? Because you're fucking entitled to it because you fucking paid into it. Because you paid into it your whole life. That's why you're... It's a pyramid scheme. You're thinking of Israel and Ukraine. Yeah. Asshole. Musk taps private equity veterans to aid Doge at Social Security. Social Security Agency becomes beachhead for cost-cutting. Not the Pentagon.

The team includes veterans of Valor Equity Partners and Lone Pine. Oh, they sound like great people. Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has sent three individuals with experience in private equity and finance to the Social Security Administration, highlighting the focus that President Donald Trump is putting on rooting out waste and fraud in the nation's social insurance program. So you know that's not what they're doing. They're trying to muck up Social Security.

Among those tapped for the task are Antonio Gracias and Valor Equity Partners, who also served on the board of Tesla Inc.,

and was an early investor in SpaceX, two of Musk's companies, as well as Scott Coulter, formerly of Lone Pine Capital. Those names confirmed in agency and court documents underscore the importance that the Social Security Agency has taken as a beachhead for Musk's government costs, so that they're coming for your Social Security.

So this is called billionaires coming to take your retirement. And you know Musk doesn't give a shit about workers. That's why he lied to you about the H-1B visas. That's why he's publicly said he hates unions. That's how you get to be the world's richest. How do you get to be a billionaire? By helping people. And he's the world's richest billionaire. And he's in charge of your social security? This is a bad idea. And...

What's going to happen is if they end up doing this, which they're doing, it's going to this. So what they're going to try to do is make people think Social Security doesn't work and we got to get rid of it. We got to take your Social Security money and put it in an investment account for Wall Street. That's what they've wanted to do my whole life.

They wanted to take your Social Security, which is super secure, take that money and put it in a Wall Street fund. So that's more money to Wall Street. And so how do they do that? They do it by mucking up the Social Security system the same way they tried to privatize the post office by mucking up the post office system, which works pretty good, even for all the jokes people make about it.

And so that's what they're doing. So when you see the stories come out and they primed you for this by showing you stories about, oh, it was a 300-year-old person getting Social Security. So that's how they primed you for this, to show you these outrageous stories that I haven't seen confirmation of. So that's what this is. And George Carlin predicted this 20 years ago.

They got you. American workers are struggling. 80% of workers live paycheck to paycheck. Half the people in the country can't afford a $400 emergency. 30% of all wage earners earn under $30,000 and they want to keep it that way. And now they're coming for your social security. Okay. Did you vote for this?

Did you vote for this? I don't think anybody warned all this. Remember Trump? Oh, there's going to be so much growth. Why don't we wait for that growth for where we see you do fancy things with the thing? Because if the growth don't happen, that's going to be a big problem. I will not cut one penny from Social Security or Medicare and I will not raise the retirement age by one day, not by one day. And for four years, I didn't. OK.

Get ready. Buckle up. The billionaires are coming for your Social Security. Meanwhile, just signed a bill to support Israel. And I quote forever, forever, forever, eternity, eternity. We will be sending billions and billions to Israel. But we got to look into your entitlements that you paid into that you paid for. You are entitled. It's not a they say it like sarcastically. Yeah. Like it's this horse shit we got to do.

You know, instead of supporting every fucking satanic blood sacrifice war for the last 40. And Trump and Trump and the Republicans and the Democrats, too, just pushed a budget through Congress that increases the spending in the Pentagon, increases, not cuts it.

So they're not going after, they're not doing what we wanted. Yeah, Social Security's been draining us. How do they even, when they throw that out there, they act like the military bullshit's a foregone conclusion. Yeah. So it's not even counted in the big numbers. We're like, oh, we're spending too much. On what?

Yeah. On you with your money you paid into it. But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interest. That's right.

They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don't want that. You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork and just dumb enough to passively accept orders.

All these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime, and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And now they're coming for your Social Security money. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all from you sooner or later because they own this fucking place. It's a big club and you ain't in it. That's where that comes from.

So today when we were talking about they're coming for your Social Security, and I said he said this 20 years ago, he said it, I think it was, when did he die? In 2008, June 22nd. So that was almost 20 years ago. It's what, 15 years ago he said this?

He wasn't that old. But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interest. That's right.

They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table to figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don't want that. You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork and just dumb enough to passively accept orders.

All these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime, and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And now they're coming for your Social Security money. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all from you sooner or later because they own this fucking place. It's a big club and you ain't in it.

You and I are not in the big club. We have a special guest with us today, Cheryl Atkinson, five-time Emmy Award winning investigative journalist and author. She was formerly an investigative correspondent in the Washington Bureau for CBS News and a substitute anchor for the CBS Evening News. She currently hosts

and manages the investigative news program Full Measure with Cheryl Atkinson on Sinclair Broadcasting Group, which focuses on accountability and investigative reporting. Atkinson has authored several books, including Stonewalled, The Smear, and her recent book, Follow the Science, How Big Pharma Misleads, Obscures, and Prevails. Welcome to the show, Cheryl Atkinson. Welcome to the show, Cheryl Atkinson.

It's great to be here. Thank you, Jimmy. Well, it's great to have you. Now, you came to my attention because on Twitter, I came across this video that you did. I think this was in 2006. Yeah. And let me just remind people the kind of bombshell report you did about the flu vaccine. And let's listen. Here's what scientists have found.

Over 20 years, the percentage of seniors getting flu shots increased sharply from 15% to 65%. It stands to reason that flu deaths among the elderly should have taken a dramatic dip, making an X graph like this. Instead, flu deaths among the elderly continue to climb.

It was hard to believe, so researchers at the National Institutes of Health set out to do a study adjusting for all kinds of factors that could be masking the true benefits of the shots. But no matter how they crunched the numbers, they got the same disappointing result. Flu shots have not reduced deaths among the elderly. It's not what health officials hope to find. NIH wouldn't let us interview the study's lead author. So...

We showed this before on the show. Everybody should go watch that video. It's amazing. First of all, you did that 20 years ago. You look exactly the same. I don't know how you pulled that off. I don't know about that. Was that the help of Big Pharma? I don't know. We'll see. But your latest book, Follow the Sun. First of all, was there any fallout from you doing that report? Because that was really... I haven't seen a report like that on...

national news or any kind of corporate news sense. So how did that come about and how were you allowed to do that? Well, I was assigned to cover stories about vaccines in the pharmaceutical industry in the early 2000s. People may not remember

We were all doing it, not just CBS News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, LA Times, all the networks. These were big stories and a lot was being uncovered. There were congressional hearings. But something changed. I'd say 2006 time period, we're starting to see that change in the relationship between big pharma and media companies and what they wanted from us, meaning

the bosses at the corporate level. So you saw that report on the flu shots before what I would call the clamp down on those kinds of stories when they were still being invited and well received, at least by my bosses at CBS. So I was covering a lot of these issues, shocked at what I was learning, because I'm not a health reporter. I was assigned to sort of cover

the return of the smallpox vaccine program after 9/11, which was halted after myocarditis and deaths from that vaccine. I started to learn so much and realized that I could do stories every week the rest of my life on these scandals, but so many of them were just unbelievable to me. And I spent years working on some of them before I ever published my first story because it just sounds crazy at first until you start to understand

how things work. And it's not how I ever thought they did. You know, I always relied on mainstream medicine and the government and our public health agencies and

was shocked as anybody to learn these things. And I thought that was very important to bring these types of stories to light on, you know, on the news. Howard Bauchner: And so tell me about, so you didn't get any backlash from, so people were doing those kind of reports. In fact, I kind of remember Jon Stewart and, brought on RFK Jr. in the early 2000s to talk about his research on vaccines and he thanked him for his work.

Joe Scarborough had RFK Jr. on, and he commiserated, said that his son was injured by a vaccine. And then all of a sudden, it just all went away. So what happened?

Well, I learned only with the benefit of hindsight that at the time we were starting to feel pushed back over these sorts of stories, the pharmaceutical industry was making new partnerships with media organizations, including CBS News at the corporate level. And together, pharma and these media corporations were lobbying as partners on Congress to loosen up the rules to allow more pharmaceutical advertising on TV and other media.

People may not know if they're not old enough. This was forbidden against the law until what I think is relatively recent history, and it's forbidden in most other countries to advertise prescription drugs. But that meant billions and billions and over time trillions of dollars for the media companies with this partnership. And as that partnership was being forged at the corporate level, we were starting to feel the effects of it in the news division at CBS, and I'm sure that happened at the other media outlets as well.

And so when you refer to it as a partnership, what do you mean by a partnership?

Well, I was told specifically that lobbyists from the corporation at CBS went together with pharmaceutical industry lobbyists on Capitol Hill to lobby members of Congress to make sure that there was more advertising allowed on the network. So literally a partnership to try to financially benefit both sides of the equation, but I would argue maybe at the expense of public health.

So that's quite a partnership. So it just sounds like corruption, right? Listen, I have my own thoughts over time about whether those types of partnerships should be allowed ethically and how they could be firewalled, at least from the news divisions, but they are not. I expect that these pharmaceutical companies would want to

increase their bottom line the best they can. I am not shocked, especially with what I know now, that they might hide or cover up the things that they've done that, you know, about side effects from drugs and dangers and harms has been well documented because they have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders or whoever they're reporting to, to make money. But we in the media were supposed to be, at least I thought,

Sort of firewalled for that so we could at least provide some independent oversight, particularly when Congress also fails to do so because both parties, Republicans and Democrats, get so much of their money from the pharmaceutical industry now. So what I often say is that, you know, when you get when a news agency gets money from an advertiser,

In theory, it's to take that money that provides the money, the resources so they can do investigations. And what they're really doing is bribing the news companies. So they're funding their non-investigation. Correct? I mean, yeah, I mean, it not only influences the.

theoretically, the advertising they get on the network, but we have seen that it largely influences the stories that don't get done. So it wasn't just that, and I certainly don't object to the pharmaceutical industry wanting their side of the story heard in a controversy, of course, in a story.

But it came to be, and this is commonplace now, it just wasn't back then around the 2006 time period, where they didn't want stories to air at all. And some managers who I think were conflicted at the networks and other media organizations also were starting to censor stories that had not been done on such a large scale before. So I knew something was wrong and something was different. When they weren't just arguing, be sure to tell both sides of this argument. They were just saying,

We can't tell the story at all. The people must not know about it. And are you surprised that news media organizations and journalists, I mean, ubiquitously just accepted this new paradigm? Yes. And I will tell you that there were a lot of reporters who are like me who are covering these issues. Good reporters at other news outlets who had similar experiences as I did, but maybe just didn't have experience.

the wherewithal to ultimately launch successful challenges. Honestly, I gave up too, to some degree. Once they didn't want the pharmaceutical stories, gosh, there are thousands of things for me to investigate. I tried to look at other things that I could investigate and publish some online, because you can get things published online at CBS, for example, easier than what you could get on the broadcast network. So I tried to continue to pitch and do those stories as best I could, but look at other things. So we as reporters understood that

to get on the air in a very competitive environment, you do the stories the bosses want. You don't do the stories they don't want that they're never going to then publish. So it just sort of becomes the lay of the land after we understand what they do and don't want. So you talk about your accidental enlightenment. Tell people about that. I was, I think, like a lot of people, particularly probably how they were before COVID, where

I thought health and medicine were really one of the last trusted institutions. I've been an investigative reporter for many years and maybe didn't put a lot of faith in government and the way things work at federal agencies and so on because I've seen so much, so many instances of waste, fraud, abuse and corruption. But I really didn't think about that applying to the health agencies because I kind of saw that as a pure thing, you know, science and it's pure and doctors having our best interests at heart.

But after 9/11, I was assigned by CBS to cover the restart of the smallpox vaccine program. And that would be because maybe terrorists would now, the thought was, use smallpox as a biological weapon, so maybe we should start revaccinating everybody. And what I learned was, I mean, just basic things surprised me, that the reason we don't all get smallpox vaccine right now, you know, even if that could be a threat of a bioweapon coming our way,

That vaccine is more problematic than others in terms of acknowledged side effects. So to start the program up again as they were going to do and give it to so many civilians and first responders and military was a big deal. And a lot of experts were cautioning against it, public health experts, and were watching it very carefully.

Long story short, after a fairly short period of time, not only did the first responders not want to take these shots, they were offered it first. But those in the military who were forced to take them, there started to be adverse events. There were some deaths. And I've learned that even a couple of deaths that may not sound like a lot signal or imply many more have occurred that may not be normal.

attributed to the cause. So it's important even if there's just a handful of adverse events and deaths because it implies many more the way the system works. And one of those deaths, Jimmy, I don't know if you remember David Bloom, an NBC reporter who had embedded with the military, died of a blood clot. And I knew he had had the smallpox vaccine and I had read that blood clots and so on had been reported to be side effects from that vaccine and others that he got to embed with the military.

and it was not properly reported as a potential vaccine death, which was required under the monitoring system. And I broke that news that looked to me like a cover-up that they didn't want, meaning either the military or civilian complex certainly didn't want to admit there was a potential vaccine link to the death of a news correspondent that had embedded with the military.

As a result of my reporting, it was reported to the proper database, David Bloom's death, as a possible vaccine adverse event. They stopped the smallpox vaccine program ultimately because of the side effects and problems. And that was just sort of my introduction into learning all these things I never even thought to question about, you know, vaccines and medical science and what the establishment might do. So what's interesting about this study

vaccine to me is that during COVID at the beginning when people were vaccine hesitant, I saw many memes on social media showing a person with smallpox and saying, attributing it all to the vaccine. And then I also did a little research. The Midwestern doctor wrote a sub stack on it. And it turns out that there was a lot of controversy over the smallpox vaccine, even

100 years ago and that towns and and large groups of people were protesting against the mandatory use of the smallpox vaccine. And so did you notice that, too, during covid that people were referring to smallpox and that's and that was like, go ahead.

Smallpox and another example they go to that's a go-to is the polio vaccine. I will mention that my daughter's had all her vaccines. I didn't know about any of this and I'm not saying I would, I would make some different decisions. I wouldn't just probably across the board, not vaccinate her, but she's had all her facts vaccinations. But one thing I discovered is they talk about the polio vaccine. Most people don't know.

All of the last cases of polio in this country were caused by the vaccine. If they were vaccine-strained polio. And I learned that from the head of vaccine court when I was covering vaccine injury cases. And what makes me mad about that, Jimmy, is when my daughter got her shot for polio, she was offered, she didn't get the shot, she got the oral, which they called sugar water. So we went to the doctor and they say,

Would your child, would you like to give her sugar water or a shot? And as a parent, you say sugar water, like why is that a choice? They should have said to me, and all parents I think should have been told, the sugar water, as they call it, has a slight risk of giving your child polio. The injectable version had no risk of that, but they were giving and offering the sugar water version, the oral polio vaccine,

To millions of kids without telling us and letting us make an informed choice. I was so angry about that. And I thought this is just one of the thousands of things I learned about the whole program and how the government represents things and what's really going on.

So the oral polio vaccine, it uses a different type of concoction, put it that way. And yes, it can give. In fact, we don't give the oral polio vaccine to people in the United States anymore. But guess what? They still export it and they give it to people around the world, including Africa. Correct.

Yes. Shortly after my daughter had the oral polio vaccine, it was quietly pulled off the market. Now, why wouldn't that make international headlines? You know, if news were neutral that you would want to know that they're pulling off the market, the vaccine they've been offering and giving kids for years that,

that was causing the only cases of polio left in this country, but they quietly pulled it off the market for that reason and switched strictly to the injectable version in the United States. Now, did you notice during COVID, to get people to take the vaccine, they were touting the fact that polio had shown up again in wastewater in New York. What they didn't tout was that

It was then determined that that polio they found in the wastewater came from the vaccine. That's right. Good catch, Jimmy. You know, there's always a story behind the story, particularly when the government seems to be wanting to promote, unfortunately, a concern or maybe even provoke a scare. I've learned there's typically some kind of interest behind it if you follow the money.

And yes, you're right, that was believed to have, if I remember correctly, believed to have come from someone who had either a foreigner or someone who had traveled in a foreign country, but had brought into the United States a vaccine-strained case of polio that was spreading. But that was not made clear in most of the news coverage of it. It was just, oh, polio is an outbreak again, and there's always this implied blame on people who have not gotten vaccinated.

And that's always used to get more people vaccinated, even when sometimes the vaccines may be part of the issue.

Don't freak out. Don't freak out. All the voices performed today are by the one and only, the inimitable Mike McRae. He can be found at MikeMcRae.com. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not. That's it for this week. You be the best you can be, and I'll keep being me. Don't freak out. Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't freak out. Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't.

Do not freak out.