Why not also have a digital version available for people that prefer to read their papers that way?

Well, you have to talk to the editor about that.

He's thought about it a great deal.

We have seen enormous number of readers who want to hold it in their hand.

Studies show that you retain more when you print.

The table of contents is on the website and one of the interviews are on the website.

But we really want to encourage print, especially for young people.

would you be in favor of Medicare for All?

Yeah.

Why aren't you pu- putting out a, a cohesive bread and butter, kitchen table reform politics, uh, contract? And the reason is, number one, it'll offend some of their campaign contributors.

Number two, they're control freaks.

When you do that, you open up more initiatives at the grassroot.

And number three, they wanna win on their own terms.

Hmm.

What are their own terms? They wanna let Trump win for them on the terms of Wall Street, AIPAC, and the military industrial complex.

Remember, this is the old guard party that since 2011 has banded with the Republicans in Congress to give the Pentagon more money than the generals ask for.

Ralph, if the 48th president asked you to dinner, forget the softball, What are the two or three most significant policies, suggestions you would implore him or her to pursue, assuming that the Congress goes Democratic?

Well, some are pretty off the screen here.

One is to generate civic education in all our schools.

Civic education, civic experience, and civic skills.

instead of just having them look at screens and become computer programmers or whatnot.

And we're feeling the penalties of generations of youngsters going through elementary school and high school with no civic understanding whatsoever.

And that's the kind of constituency that elects

And I have to explain to my grandchildren when they grow up, how the hell did Trump happen? What's your explanation to them?

Ralph, before we go to Unsafe at Any Speed and what this 60th anniversary means, if you can talk about this fight club and say what you mean about Congress is up for the taking and it should be taken.

Well, you know, there are 535 men and women in Congress.

They put their shoes on like we do every morning.

They are possessed of the delegated power under the Constitution of the citizens.

That's why the preamble to the Constitution starts, we the people, not we the Congress.

And so we have 435 congressional districts, and there's no organization.

Congress watched our groups with reasonable staff in any of those organizations, in any of those districts, to monitor and push members of Congress in the right direction.

I'm wondering about your sense of this growing fascism in the country and the ability of even a Democratic vote to take place in November.

Um, wa- uh, Ralph, before we go to Unsafe at Any Speed and what the 60th anniversary means, if you can talk about this fight club, and say what you mean about Congress is, uh, for the taking, and it should be taken.

Well, uh, you know, there are 535 men and women in Congress.

They put their shoes on like we do every morning.

They are possessed of the delegated power under the Constitution of the citizens.

That's why the preamble to the Constitution starts, "We the people," not, "We the Congress." And so, we have 435 congressional districts, and, um, there's no organization, um, Congress watchdog groups, um, with, uh, reasonable staff in any of those organizations in any of those districts to monitor and push members of Congress in the right direction.

So 1,500 corporations pretty much get their way on Capitol Hill, and the result is devastating.

Uh, Congress is the main tool, uh, to challenge, uh, the entrenched corporate supremacists that are controlling this country.

Um, talk about the trajectory from '65 to now in trying to protect people in this country against, uh, corporations.

What can we do about it?

Well, um, you know, it's easy to say Congress should do something about it because it has the war-making authority in their constitution, which is given up to the presidency.

But it's really interesting how, uh, how afraid, uh, Trump is of Netanyahu.

Netanyahu, in a way, is afraid of Trump, as a reporter from, uh, Haaretz told me, Gideon Levy.

Uh, but Trump is really afraid, uh, of Netanyahu.

He, he sidestepped Israel on his trip to the Gulf, where he was flattered and given all kinds of unrealizable contracts and emoluments.

Um, but, a- a- and, and the press said it was a snub.

Ralph Nader, what can we do about this?

Ralph Nader, respond overall to President Trump's, well, longest congressional address in modern history.

Well, it was also a declaration of war against the American people, including Trump voters, in favor of the super-rich and the giant corporations.

What Trump did last night was set a record for lies, delusionary fantasies, predictions of future broken promises, a rerun of his first term, boasts about progress that don't exist.

In practice, he has launched a trade war.

He has launched an arms race with China and Russia.

He has perpetuated and even worsened the genocidal support against the Palestinians.

He never mentioned the Palestinians once.

What about Medicaid, especially the crisis in this country in long-term care? What do you see happening in this Trump administration, especially with the Republican majority in Congress?

Texas Democratic Congressmember Al Green. We begin today's show with Ralph Nader, the longtime consumer advocate, corporate critic, former presidential candidate. Ralph Nader is founder of The Capital Citizen newspaper. His most recent lead article in the new issue of Capitol Hill Citizen is titled "Democratic Party: Apologize to America for Ushering Trump Back In." He is also the author of the forthcoming book, Let's Start the Revolution!: Tools for Displacing the Corporate State and Building a Country That Works for the People. Medicaid, Social Security, Medicare, all these different programs. Ralph Nader, respond overall to President Trump's, well, longest congressional address in modern history.

Well, it was also a declaration of war against the American people, including Trump voters, in favor of the super rich and the giant corporations. Uh, what, what, uh, Trump did, uh, last night was set a record for lies, delusionary fantasies, uh, predictions, uh, of future broken promises, a rerun of his, of his first term, boasts about progress that don't exist. In practice, he has launched a trade war. He has launched an arms race, uh, with China and Russia. Uh, he has perpetuated, uh, and even worsened, uh, the genocidal support, uh, a- against the Palestinians. He never mentioned the Palestinians once. And he's taken Biden's genocidal policies one step further by, uh, demanding the evacuation of Palestinians, uh, from Gaza. But taking it, uh, as a whole, Amy, what we're seeing here, uh, defies most of dictionary active- adjectives. Uh, what Trump and Musk and Vance and the supine Republicans are doing are installing an imperial, uh, militaristic, uh, domestic dictatorship, uh, that is gonna end up in a police state. You can see his appointments, uh, are yes people, uh, bent on suppression of civil liberties, civil rights. Uh, you can see his, uh, breakthrough, uh, after over 120 years of a- announcing conquest of Panama Canal, uh, he's basically said one way or another he's gonna take Greenland. Uh, these are, uh, not just, uh, uh, imperial controls of countries overseas or overthrowing them, it's actually seizing the land. Now, on the Greenland thing, uh, Greenland is a, a province of Denmark, which is a member of NATO. He, he is, he is ready, uh, to basically c- conquer, uh, a part of Gr- uh, of Denmark in violation of Section 5 of NATO. At the same time that he has displayed full-throated support for a hardcore communist dictator, Vladimir P- uh, Putin, who started out with the Russian version of the CIA under the Soviet Union and now has over 20 years of communist dictatorship, allied, of course, with a number of, um, oligarchs, a, a kinda kleptocracy. And then, and then the Republicans are buying all this in Congress. This is complete reversal of everything, uh, that the Republicans stood for against communist dictators. So, what we're seeing here is a, a phony, uh, program of government efficiency, uh, ripping apart people's programs. Uh, the attack on Social Security is new, uh, complete lies about millions of people age 110, 120, uh, getting Social Security checks. That's a new attack. He left Social Security alone, uh, in his first term, but now he's going after. So what they're gonna do is cut Medicaid a- and cut other social safety nets in order to pay for another, uh, tax cut for the super rich and, uh, the corporation, throwing in, uh, no tax on tips, no, no tax on Social Security benefits, uh, which will, of course, uh, further, uh, increase the deficit and give the lie to his, uh, statement that he wants a balanced budget. So we're dealing with a deranged, unstable, uh, pathological liar, uh, who's getting away with it. And the question is, how does he get away with it year after year? Because the Democratic Party has basically collapsed. They don't know how to deal with a criminal recidivist, a person who has-... hired workers without documents and exploited them, a person who's a bigot against immigrants, including legal immigrants who are performing totally critical tasks in home healthcare, uh, processing poultry meat. Uh, and half of the construction workers in Texas are undocumented workers. So, as a bully, he doesn't go after the construction industry in Texas. He picks out individuals. I thought the most disgraceful thing, Amy, uh, yesterday was his use of these unfortunate people who suffered as props, holding one up after another. But they're also Trump's crutches to cover up his contradictory behavior. So, he praises the police yesterday, but he pardoned over 600, uh, people who attacked violently the police on January 6th and were convicted and imprisoned as a result, and he, uh, let 'em out of prison. I thought the most-

Uh, Ralph, I wanted to ask you about, uh, specifically about, uh, Medicaid and Medicare. Uh, what, y- uh, you mentioned that, uh, the cuts to these, uh, safety net programs. What about Medicaid, especially the crisis in this country in long-term care? What do you see happening in this Trump administration, especially with the Republican majority in Congress?

Well, they're gonna slash, they're gonna move to slash Medicaid, which, uh, services over 71 million people, including, uh, millions of Trump voters who, uh, should be reconsidering their vote, uh, uh, as the days pass because they're being exploited in red states, blue states everywhere as well. Uh, yeah, they're, they're, they w- they have to, uh, cut tens of billions of dollars a year from Medicaid to pay for the tax cut. Uh, that's number one. Uh, now they're going after Social Security. Who knows what the next step will be on Medicare? They're leaving Americans totally defenseless by slashing, uh, meat and poultry and food inspection laws, auto safety. Uh, they're exposing, uh, people to climate violence w- uh, by cutting, uh, FEMA, the rescue agency. Uh, they're cutting, uh, forest rangers to deal with wildfires. They're cutting protections against, uh, pandemics and epidemics by slashing, uh, and ravaging, uh, and suppressing free speech in scientific circles like, uh, CDC and National Institutes of Health. They're leaving the American people defenseless. A- and, and where are the Democrats on this? I mean, look at Senator S- Slotkin's response. It was a typical rerun of a feeble, weak Democratic rebuttal. She couldn't get herself, just like the Democrats in 2024, which led t- to Bush, to, uh, Trump's victory, they c- can't get themselves one to talk specifically and authentically about raising the minimum wage, expanding healthcare, cracking down on corporate crooks that are bleeding out, uh, the incomes, uh, of, uh, uh, of hard-pressed, uh, American workers and the poor. Uh, they can't get in- themselves to talk about, uh, increasing frozen Social Security budgets for 50 years that 200 Democrats supported raising, but Pu- Nancy Pelosi kept them when she was speaker, uh, from taking John Larson's, uh, bill, uh, to the House floor. Uh, that's why they lose. Look at her speech. It was so vague and general. They chose her because she was in the national security stage. She was a former CIA. They chose her because they wanted to promote the losing version of the Democratic Party, instead of choosing Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders, the most popular polled politician in America today. That's who they chose. So, as long as the Democrats monopolize the opposition and crush third-party efforts, uh, to push them into more progressive, uh, realms, the Republican, uh, plutocratic Wall Street war machine declaration of war against the American people will continue. We're heading into the most serious crisis in American history. There's no comparison.

What kind of government do we want? And what role do we play in it?

Anybody who thinks that our democracy has not deteriorated in so many ways over the last 50 years ought to study how things got through Congress and state legislators in the 1960s, 1970s.

It was because a fraction of the citizenry decided to be active decided to organize communities, decided to buttonhole their members of Congress, decided to march, to demonstrate, to file lawsuits, to lobby, to get the Environmental Protection Agency created, the Occupational Safety Health Administration created, to get the critical air and water pollution laws through, the drinking water safety law.

This was done by less than 1% of the public.

To this day, at 90 years old, Ralph Nader still believes that the answer to a democracy that works, lies in us, the consumer citizens of America.

Nothing can surprise us.

the impact of organized citizenry.

Year after year, the young generation forgets on how there was a time when Congress worked for us to some degree.

Why do you say that?

He was the last president to actively encourage participation and involvement in governmental processes by the progressive civic community in Washington and around the country.

He insisted on hearing from consumer advocates, environmental advocates, civil rights advocates, and he proved it.

He appointed the best possible regulators for the Federal Trade Commission, Mike Perchuk, Joan Claybrook for the Auto Safety Agency, Donald Kennedy for the Food and Drug Administration, Doug Costell for the Environmental Protection Agency.

And Carol Foreman, all kinds of leaders that would never be inside government.

They would be excluded.

Their calls wouldn't be returned.

But if you can elaborate more, Ralph Nader, on why you believe Jimmy Carter lost his second-term bid for president—of course, he lost to Ronald Reagan—and why you believe President Trump won for the second time.