Episode

12/7 Robbing the Poor to Feed the Rich w/ Eric Levitz (+Al Franken resigns)

December 7, 2017

Good afternoon. On today’s show, New York Magazine’s Eric Levitz joins us to discuss the GOP tax bill. As Levitz notes, it’s one of the least popular tax bills in US history, and it is (technically) a tax cut. Unlike prior measures, this bill does not even have the fig leaf of fiscal responsibility; it’s blowing up the deficit as an excuse to impose (further) austerity measures. Time to make life harder for any politician who supports it.

On the fun half:  The MR team runs a victory lap over Sam’s re-instatement by MSNBC and makes outlandish speculations about Trump’s health. Also: Mike from PA questions the legitimacy of pollsters in Alabama, Weird Mike tries to turn a loss into a win, Cenk Uygur supports the show, activist Luke Mayville campaigns for Medicaid expansion in Idaho, Ben Shapiro says racist things about Arabs, an MP proposes to his boyfriend on the floor of Australian parliament, and Newt Gingrich claims the Democrats are “losing their minds” because they pressured Al Franken to resign.

Cast: Sam Seder (@samseder), Michael Brooks (@_michaelbrooks) Matt Lech (@mattlech), Jamie Peck (@jamie_elizabeth), Brenden Finn (@BF1nn)

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Past Episodes

It's our last Best of 2025 episode. We will be back live on Monday. Live-streamed on May 12, 2025 Sam speaks to Mark Blyth to help unpack Trump’s topsy turvy tariff policy and how it relates to inflation. Blyth is the Director of The William R. Rhodes Center for International Economics and ...
It's another Best of 2025 episode On today's program: Live-streamed on April 17, 2025 Emma is joined by writer, activist and professor Naomi Klein about her new essay The rise of end times fascism. Naomi points out the new form that right wing authoritarianism has taken in finding ways to ...
On today's Best of 2025, Sam and Emma speak with Kellie Carter Jackson, associate professor of Africana Studies at Wellesley College, to discuss her recent book We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance.   The Congress switchboard number is (202) 224-3121. You can use this ...