Thom Hartmann Program - 1 Hour Edition - 02/21/19 - Ed Asner drops in to discuss his new play that asks if Trumpers and Progressives can find common ground- and there's alot to argue over; with Trump the Republican party has devoted itself wholly to corruption- selling out our government under the protection of a crony Supreme Court and a propaganda machine fueled by racism and misplaced resentment. And as CNN adds a GOP operative to its staff, and as Trump might be lining us up for war with Venezuela... we must get active.
The Hartmann Report
Thom Hartmann
4.5 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 21 February 2019
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Thom tackles the rot behind the sale of the Republican party to billionaires and giant corporations- from giving lobbyists total control of government agencies, to Trump's coverups, to climate-change denial, to phony wars- where is this all going? - In the book club today- "Don't Label Me" by Irshad Manji. - A rundown of the latest corruption- Trump appears to be lining us up for a possible war with Venezuela. And meanwhile, the recently-sold CNN appears to have picked a GOP operative and former advisor to Ted Cruz, among others, to head its coverage of the 2020 election. What could go wrong? - Ed Asner plays God in the new play 'God Help Us', written by Firesign Theater alums, and now touring the country. In it, a couple tries to overcome their differences due to the fact that she is conservative, and he is Progressive. Thom chats with the authors of the play and with God himself, in the form of Ed Asner. - Also in the book club today, Thom reads from 'The Tyranny of the Majority' by Lani Guinier. - Thom asks about the chances of having a conversation with a conservative that leads to consensus? Wendy in Ohio has an idea about this. And Marty in Missouri wonders if we can ever come together when Fox news has made a large part of the population delusional. - Bob Ney of Talk Media news, former Republican congressman, shares an insider's view of Republican corruption, oh and by the way- lots of huge corporations including Amazon and Google are claiming a refund on their taxes this year. - And Bob in Missouri puts a bow on it referring back to our fresh new Attorney General William Barr's resume at hiding presidential crimes last time he was Attorney General.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the Tom Hartman program. |
| 0:15.0 | Welcome back, Tom Hartman here with you. |
| 0:18.0 | An interesting debate about the Green New Deal with the Job Creators Network. |
| 0:22.0 | That was fascinating and we've had quite a conversation |
| 0:24.6 | about that I'd like to move on from that I mean essentially the the person I was |
| 0:28.5 | debating her argument was Donald Trump is wonderful he's put the economy on |
| 0:32.2 | steroids borrowing a trillion and a half |
| 0:34.3 | dollars from our children and grandchildren and giving it to the billionaires and the big corporations |
| 0:38.2 | was just a wonderful thing. But I want to talk about the larger rot, the opposition of the Green New Deal that's coming |
| 0:44.2 | out now from all these so-called think tanks and right-wing groups that are funded by fossil |
| 0:48.7 | fuel billionaires and people like our Pope. |
| 0:52.0 | The message behind the message is, hey, we're making a hell of a lot of |
| 0:55.6 | money on fossil fuels. Who cares if it's destroying the planet? We want to keep |
| 0:59.3 | making the money. And we're loving the $300 billion in subsidies that is given every year to the |
| 1:04.6 | fossil fuel industry in the United States. But that's just the surface, right? |
| 1:08.7 | That's just the stuff that's at the very top. The Republican Party has turned into since the election |
| 1:14.6 | of Ronald Reagan. You know I don't think Jerry Ford was quite like this. |
| 1:18.4 | Richard Nixon, yeah to a large extent, but really the last honorable Republican president for |
| 1:26.7 | lack of a better word was Dwight Eisenhower a relatively straight shooter a lot of |
| 1:31.2 | things wrong with the Eisenhower presidency and those times and I mean we can go through |
| 1:35.4 | that but what has really happened since Reagan is that the Republican Party has just turned |
| 1:39.8 | into a machine to protect inherited wealth, which is about 60% of the billionaires in the United States |
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