Isaiah Martin joins Jo Carducci on this episode of The Siren Podcast.
Gen-Z isn’t buying what Donald Trump is selling. The job market for recent college graduates is almost non-existent. Business are laying off employees en-masse. Grocery and gas prices have skyrocketed. And Donald Trump has not delivered on his promise of bringing down housing costs, let alone being able to jump start a family.

In other words, everything we expected from a second Trump presidency. But still, millions of young people bought into the grift, driven in large part due to the massive right-wing media ecosystem feeding “manosphere” content to disillusioned and confused young men through predatory social media algorithms.

In the end, Kamala Harris did win the Gen-Z vote, but not by much. Young people only voted for Harris/Walz by 4 points in 2024, down significantly from Biden/Harris’ 25 point victory in 2020.

Cut to 2026. In the midst of a turbulent economy and growing discontent among young people with current political leadership, recent polls show a staggering 76% disapproval rating and a net approval of -53 among 18-29 year olds for Donald Trump.

Isaiah Martin, political commentator and former Democratic Congressional candidate in TX-18, joins this episode of The Siren Podcast to discuss all things Gen-Z and more. Jo and Isaiah also get into the latest surrounding the Republican effort to gerrymander the South, cutting large groups of voters and key demographics out of holding political power. Isaiah also discusses his latest appearance on Abby Phillips, where he delivered a smackdown to George W. Bush’s former spokesperson.

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The Trump family’s attack on the freedom of speech rights of private citizens continues, as today, we learned that Trump’s FCC plans to challenge ABC station licenses amid Melania’s feud with Jimmy Kimmel.

For the administration that was apparently going to “make comedy legal again,” it seems that only applies to people they dislike. This is not the first time Donald Trump or members of his family have resorted to authoritarian tactics to silence comedians who make jokes at their expense, or reporters who publish stories that particularly upset the regime

Kimmel took to the air to respond to the GOP’s wild accusations against him, saying “It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he's almost 80 and she's younger than I am,” Kimmel said. “It was not by any stretch of the definition a call to assassination, and they know that I've been very vocal for many years speaking out against gun violence in particular.”

On this episode of Big F*ing Deal, Jo and Tara also dive into the attempts by Donald Trump and his Republican Senator lackeys in Congress to pay for the White House ballroom with taxpayer funds. Going back on a statement is nothing new for Donald Trump and the GOP, for whom practically every word of out their mouths is a lie. But at a time when Americans struggle to afford grocery or gas prices due to his illegal and costly Iran War, this should be a step too far.

They also discuss Trump’s absurd call to rebrand ICE agents as ‘NICE Agents,’ in an attempt to salvage the agency’s abhorrent public perception.

The Trump midterm message is as follows: We will hide the Epstein Files from you that we promised to release, while bombing children’s elementary schools during our illegal war and raising your gas prices in the process, cause the job market to crash and inflation levels to rise. And while we’re at it, we’re going to send thousands of masked secret police agents into your communities to kidnap your family members and keep them in a concentration camp while denying them medial resources. And then we’ll use your money to pay for a lavish, Victorian-era ballroom so Dear Leader can throw his Mar-a-Lago parties for his billionaire friends at the People’s House.

Great midterm message, Donald. No notes

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While most Americans were sleeping, Republicans rammed through another $70 billion funding increase for ICE, lasting for the remainder of Trump’s second term and increasing the federal deficit in the process. The vote dragged from Wednesday night into the early morning hours on Thursday, with only two Republican senators, Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Rand Paul (Kentucky) joining Democrats in voting no.

On this episode of The Siren Podcast, Jo sits down with New Jersey Senator Andy Kim to discuss the dangers and destructiveness of this latest funding bill. As Senator Kim told us: “ICE has become basically an equivalent of a military operation, right? It’s funded higher than most countries fund their militaries.”

We’ve already seen ICE’s massive budget used to terrorize Americans on the streets of their cities, resulting in the executions of two U.S. citizens and illegal detainment of countless people. Detainees have reported rampant, unsafe health conditions within ICE detention centers, with access to medical treatment often being denied by agents. Children are routinely blocked from visiting with their families, and relatives are completely left in the dark when a loved one is kidnapped by ICE, unable to be located.

Upwards of 3,000-4,000 ICE and DHS agents were sent to Minnesota earlier this year, more than double the amount of local law enforcement, who were severely understaffed in providing support and safety to the area due to ICE’s presence.

In addition, Senator Kim told us about ICE’s $130-140 million purchase of a warehouse in Roxbury, New Jersey, to store massive new amounts of ICE detainees. The warehouse, according to ICE’s own estimates, will cost taxpayers another $150 million to rehabilitate the facility, and an additional $200-300 million to operate the building.

Republicans passed this massive funding increase for ICE in the middle of the night for a reason, because they don’t want Americans to hear about it. Senator Kim is shining a light on their latest disastrous action, and we’re lucky to have him.

Like, Share & Subscribe! New content and interviews every day of the week! Make sure to check me out on all the socials! https://linktr.ee/jojofromjerz

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Jared Moskowitz joins this episode of The Siren Podcast to discuss all things Bondi and more. None of this sh*t is normal. And you better believe I have something to say about it. We are not going to lose our country to a melted circus peanut fascist. Nope. No f’ng way. Like, Share & Subscribe! New content and interviews every day of the week! Make sure to check me out on all the socials! https://linktr.ee/jojofromjerz

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Former Capitol Police Officer and current Congressional candidate Harry Dunn joins Jo to discuss the Trump DOJ's attempt to vacate the convictions for Proud Boys members who committed acts of seditious conspiracy on January 6.

None of this sh*t is normal. And you better believe I have something to say about it. We are not going to lose our country to a melted circus peanut fascist. Nope. No f’ng way. Like, Share & Subscribe! New content and interviews every day of the week! Make sure to check me out on all the socials! https://linktr.ee/jojofromjerz

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Andy Ostroy - host of the back room podcast - and I talk about everything from Donald Trump’s Jesus meme to Eric Swalwell resigning from Congress to his thoughts on how likely it is that the Dems will flip both chambers of Congress in the fall. Good convo, hope you enjoy!

None of this sh*t is normal. And you better believe I have something to say about it. We are not going to lose our country to a melted circus peanut fascist. Nope. No f’ng way. Like, Share & Subscribe! New content and interviews every day of the week! Make sure to check me out on all the socials! https://linktr.ee/jojofromjerz

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It’s been a month since Donald Trump unilaterally and illegally launched the United States into a war with Iran. And what has the United States gotten out of this war, which was apparently so important that it had to happen without Congressional approval or notification? To put it simply: Nothing.

Today’s guest on The Siren Podcast, Amy McGrath, called this war “the worst strategic defeat in my lifetime.” McGrath knows a thing or two about the military and armed conflict. Over her 20 years of service in the military, Amy flew 89 combat missions, led Marines in some of the toughest places on earth, and served at the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill, working to shape America’s national security. McGrath was the first woman to fly a combat mission for the Marine Corps and the first woman to pilot the F/A-18 in a combat mission. She’s now running for the U.S. Senate as a Democrat in Kentucky.

Through an endless barrage of incomprehensible statements from Trump, Leavitt, Hegseth, and Rubio, which on any given day contain a novel’s worth of different statements explaining the state of the war and our goals, the effects of the war have actually hurt the United States.

We have not destroyed Iran’s nuclear capabilities (after Trump said last June that we had). Iran still has their enriched uranium. We have not achieved regime change. The “unconditional surrender” that Trump wanted has not occurred (in fact, we’ve gotten the opposite). Iran has not stopped funding terrorist groups across the Middle East. The Strait of Hormuz is still closed (as a result of Trump’s war), allowing Iran to hugely profit from this conflict, with Bloomberg estimating Iran to be earning hundreds of millions of dollars in extra income from oil sales.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, oil and gas prices domestically are skyrocketing. According to this morning’s Consumer Price Index report, Trump’s Iran war has caused inflation to triple in the last month alone, a record spike, with consumer sentiment falling to an all-time low as a result.

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Since Donald Trump launched the United States into an illegal war with Iran, MAGA has found itself in an impossible position, having to contort themselves into a pretzel in order to perform a 180 degree flip from anti-war isolationists to Bush/Cheney 2.0.

On this episode of The Siren Podcast, I spoke with former U.S. representative Denver Riggleman about the latest updates to the Iran War.

MAGA mouthpiece and right-wing propagandist Karoline Leavitt recently said Trump had a “feeling” that Iran was going to strike the US. Imagine, for a second, the Republican reaction to a Democratic president saying they went to war because of a “feeling.”

It would be non-stop 24/7 news. It would be plastered all over Fox News incessantly. Your MAGA uncle and Trump sympathetic neighbors would tell you about it. But for Donald Trump, it’s just another Wednesday.

This comes after Pete Hegseth stated the Iran War could potentially last up to 8 weeks or more, saying the U.S. and Israel would unleash “death and destruction from the sky all day long.”

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On Monday, I caught up with former Transportation Secretary, mayor, and presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg while on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania, on this episode of The Siren Podcast.

Secretary Buttigieg spoke openly about Trump’s new war in Iran, and the dangers that American troops in the region now face. Buttigieg himself served in the U.S. military and was deployed to Afghanistan in 2014, where he worked in a secure unit in Kabul, conducting over 90 “outside the wire” convoy trips.

As Buttigieg told me, “The president hasn’t even tried to explain to the American people, or to the troops, or to the Congress, real reasons why [the Iran war] couldn’t be avoided.”

Buttigieg continued: “Six families and counting have gotten that knock on the door. If you can ask families to go through that and service members to put their lives on the line, the very minimum the Congress should be ready to do is to sit in Washington to take a vote and put their names against an up or down vote on whether they’re gonna allow this.”

As we have observed, Donald Trump and his allies have released a series of garbled, awkward statements combining just about every justification under the sun as to their reasoning for beginning the war. One of the more concerning things thus far, is Donald Trump’s avoidance to deliver a presidential address to the nation explaining why the country is involved in yet another Middle Eastern conflict, demonstrating a sincere disinterest in governing for the American people.

Coming from the “most transparent administration in history,” there is a huge lack of transparency, whether we’re discussing the Iran War or the Epstein files.

Thank you all so much for watching today’s episode. It’s because of your support that I’m able to have these incredible conversations. I love you guys!!

💙 Jo

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On this episode of The Siren Podcast, Jo is joined by former Washington Governor Jay Inslee to discuss his recent piece titled, “Don’t Let ICE Freeze Voting,” where he urges Congress to ban ICE agents from the polls and protect democracy.

Donald Trump has doubled down on saying that Republicans should “nationalize” elections and take control of voting centers. At the same time, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon has been making the rounds saying ICE agents will surround polling stations this November.

It is certainly not difficult to imagine a scenario in which the president directs ICE to do just that, as Trump has spent his entire second term relitigating the outcome of the 2020 election, directing the FBI to raid the Fulton County elections center, and has never actually conceded the 2020 election after launching a two month-long attempt at couping the United States.

Governor Inslee offers strategies and methods at containing Trump and ICE on this episode, including inserting “absolute binding limitation” within appropriations bills, a power that Democrats actually have, while providing some much needed hope:

“We have agency here. We are not powerless. We have shown the ability to beat him in court and on the streets in peaceful resistance. Let me point out that we had 60 judges that stood up when Donald Trump lost the election in 2020 and he was unable to succeed in his coup attempt. And we’ve now had multiple wins where we have had judicial decrees against him that by and large actually have been enforced.”

Make sure to tune into this important information-filled episode, right here on The Siren Network.

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Before January 6th, Harry thought his entire adult life would go down a fairly regular route, spent as public servant in the role of a police officer, and one day retiring. But everything changed that fateful day on January 6th, 2021, when Harry came face to face with the worst of the worst white supremacists and insurrectionists, waving MAGA and Confederate flags in the halls of the Capitol building. These rioters hurled racial slurs at Harry as he fought to keep them away from members of Congress.

In an interview with the New York Times, Harry said, “A lot of us Black officers fought a different battle than everybody else fought. I said to my buddy, ‘I got called [slur] a couple dozen times today.’ I’m looking at him. He’s got blood on him. I’ve got bloody knuckles. We’re hurting. That’s when I said, ‘Is this America?’ and I started crying. Tears are coming down my face. ‘Is this America?’”

As Harry describes, his experience on January 6th showed him a “new path.” He knew he had to join the fight in defending democracy against Trump full-time. According to Harry, this fight has “evolved from just what happened that day to what’s happening now across the whole country.”

Harry said it best: “This authoritarian regime is hammering people. And this isn’t politics as usual.” We can’t agree more. Visit Harry’s campaign website to learn how you can support him.

This is an episode you definitely don’t want to miss.

💙 Jo

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