10/19/26: Farmers Shocked By ICE Raids, France Erupts In Protest

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So the economic fallout from the combination of the tariffs and now most critically from the Iran war appears to have led to a massive breakup in the Trump coalition and put some red states in play that no one would have ever expected. Least of all, Roger Marshall, who is the current senator of Kansas. He definitely did not expect to have anything approaching a competitive election this time around.

And yet, if you look at the polling averages, it is basically 50-50 whether it's going to be him or the Democrat Adam Hamilton, who ultimately prevails. CNN went on the road to talk to Roger Marshall and talk to voters in the state about their concerns. This did not go very well for Senator Marshall. Let's go ahead and take a look at this. I don't think I've ever voted for a Democrat senator.

You haven't.

This will be the first time.

First time.

Do you think that given the impact that's having on fuel prices that it's time for the president to end the war with Iran? You know, I think what you should be talking about is my opponent, that he's a child sex predator protector, that he's.

He denies that.

It absolutely happened. Are you worried that Hamilton could actually win this race?

Oh, he could, because we have a bad reputation in this state of electing liberal governors.

So there you have Manu Raju asking Roger Marshall about the Iran war, and he won't give a single word response. He's just immediately, oh, what you should be asking is about my opponent, blah, blah, blah. So clearly he knows this is a catastrophic issue for him. And something I saw people pointing out is like, you know, a guy like Roger Marshall, first of all, clearly lazy, like not raising money. showing up late to his events. There's a lot of complaints from Republicans who are trying to help him out that this guy doesn't want to be campaigning and is very lackluster in his efforts here on the ground.

Adam Hamilton is hitting the ground running and he's everywhere and he's doing everything he can in the state. So you have that laziness. But also, if you're a Susan Collins and you know you're going to have a tough election, well, you're trying to take some votes that show you've got some distance from Trump, show you're kind of independent, show that you're not just going to get on board with the most idiotic and unpopular things that Trump is pushing you to do. A guy like Roger Marshall, on the other hand, you know, he's voting for the January 6th slush fund. He's voting for the Iran war and relentlessly supporting the Iran war. He's voting against releasing the Epstein files.

Every disastrously unpopular thing that Donald Trump did, he is on board with and he is on record taking votes to support. So that's part of he's a terrible candidate. He's lazy. And he's taken a bunch of these disastrous votes that have put him completely crosswise with his own base where they can look. And he supported the tariffs, too, by the way, which, you know, in Kansas with the farmers are devastatingly unpopular. So that's part of what has created this vulnerability here is that he has not tried to protect himself. He's not tried to push back on Trump whatsoever. So people are going, OK, well, you care more about this man in D.C. than you do about our livelihoods here in Kansas.

Marshall, the bigger problem for a lot of these machine states is that these people just don't run very many competitive elections. And so I'll give you the Marshall. Marshall is an interesting guy. I'll be honest, you know. He is one of those people who is tied at the hip to Trump, but he's.

Done some good stuff. We actually even covered it here on the credit card.

He's actually one of the only people in the Senate who's been willing to take on the corrupt credit card industry. As I understand it, the credit cards are going all in for Adam Hamilton. Look, I'm not saying it's all that relevant. I'm just trying to tell you the way that most of these machine politicians work is they tie themselves at the hip with Trump. They become interesting on like side projects. This is what safe seat senators do.

People like Van Hollen, you know, that's why he gets, Van Hollen is in a machine Democrat state, which is why he gets to care at all about foreign policy, right? I'm trying to think, California, you know, these types of sinecures. But when all of a sudden you're in a competitive race, you don't really know what to do because 90% of competitive, 99% of competitive race is, in machine states is R on R.

So it's like they end up fighting intrapartisan battles.

Yes, you're protecting your right flank.

Exactly.

Not trying to appeal to independents.

The reason Marshall's taking these votes on 2020 and on Jan 6th is he doesn't need some Trump upstart to come and cause him shit in a primary sometime.

Around.

Same on immigration, same on any of this. But then that plays different whenever it comes to an actual competitive election. And yeah, I mean, from what I've seen, the guy, look, he's only been in office from 2017 on. He did genuinely have an actual competitive primary, but that was, again, a Republican intra-competitive primary back in 2017. And now, all of a sudden, he actually is in a fight for his life. He didn't realize anyone was going to care about his Medicare billing practices or any of.

This stuff, right?

This is all like, You get to do it and you're in a Republican state, whatever. You know, it's like what's a few dollars between friends. But that's not how it works. And so, you know, and I would also say he's not even particularly good. That credit card thing, he's not even talking about it whenever he's there. Talking about price gouging and others. Even on war prior to Trump, too, he was actually not bad on some of these things on Ukraine. I've been honestly mystified at the races. that the guy has run. He's basically just going all in.

The Adam Hamilton thing, I've tried to follow it.

I don't fully get it.

Something about somebody in his church, you know, was being protected, like there was a scandal.

It was some camp that he was, Christian camp he was affiliated with. I don't know all the details, but they're going, they're leaning hard into that. And they're trying to rebut, you were referencing these billing practices from Roger Marshall, who is a doctor, and he's had some of his former patients come out and record campaign ads that are just brutal, where he was coming after them for these minimal charges that they had racked up, and obviously healthcare being a major sore spot for people around the country, but in Kansas and rural areas in particular, the one big beautiful bill closed a bunch of rural hospitals, cut Medicaid, so this is a very sensitive area. And then also, he charges some of the highest rates on any sort

of delinquent payments. So I think that has really damaged him. I think those ads have been really devastating. But the fundamentals here are Kansas has been screwed. Kansas is in a dire economic state directly because of Trump policies. So let's go and take a listen to this farmer who was interviewed here by ABC talking about how he's disenchanted with Trump in spite of the fact that he voted for the man three times. Let's listen to that.

Farmer Steve Bolin voted for Trump in 2016, 2020, and 2024. Now he's struggling with high prices for diesel and fertilizer and uncertain who he'll vote for for Senate. How much of a factor for you would be who Donald Trump has endorsed?

None.

Why is that?

I don't care who he endorses.

Again, I want somebody that is talking.

For the American farmer.

Someone who is talking for the American farmer, don't care who Trump endorses. Trump is really going out there. trying to energize his base saying, pretend that I'm on the ballot. That was the point of this RNC mini convention that they did down in Texas. And according to the leaked audio from Ken Paxton anyway, and also according to the polls, that convention actually was devastating for them. It caused their polls to erode even further.

Why?

Because you're putting the focus on this man who is devastatingly unpopular, and he's saying, pretend I'm on the ballot. People are saying, okay, bet. I'm going to vote against you then, because that's the way I'm feeling right now in this economy. Now, the farmers, they're very conservative, by and large, not to, you know, paint the entire farming community with a broad brush here, but by and large, very conservative. Are they going to come out in droves for Democrats? No. Are they just not going to come out?

That seems like a big possibility, especially if you think about it. You know, a guy like this probably lives in a rural area, probably has to drive a good ways away to get to his local polling station. Is he going to bother? Is he going to bother? Is there going to be anybody on the ballot that he feels like, OK, this person is going to be really responsive to what I'm looking at? I would say that for many, that will be a doubtful calculation.

I completely agree.

You know, on the farmer piece, I was telling you before the show, look, I think I think being mad at Trump for doing things he said he wasn't going to do.

Is fair.

But it's really hard for me whenever you get mad at Trump for saying he's going to do things he did.

Like, for example, tariffs.

It's like, come on, man. The tariff was literally part of the campaign. And you're upset about that?

Now, I get it. Diesel has pushed things over the edge.

But the extra tariffs in particular, look, this is separate from what I'm talking about on Canada or even Mexico to a limited regard. The tariffs on China, specifically the tariffs on soybeans and other things that are going to be sold to China, were literally done the first term, done second term around.

They hurt you then. You decided that it was okay.

Again, I decided it was okay too, but I'm not a farmer.

And now people are upset about that. So I'm like, okay, that's number one. That's just where I get annoyed.

I got one more for you on that front. If you put the last element, D5, up on the screen here from this blog. So this is New York Times. Across farm country, economic discontent strains Republican coalition. And they talk about a lot of the things we're talking about here. They interview people, blah, blah, blah. They also, though, talk about the pushback to the immigration agenda.

No, I know. This is what I mean.

So let me read you this. In July, the Political Action Committee of the Kansas Livestock Association declined to endorse Senator Roger Marshall, the incumbent Republican, despite having backed him in 2020. Officials pointed to tariffs, which Marshall supported, and the president's comments about beef prices being too high as having frustrated Kansas ranchers. Then, in late September, the group's members began to complain of something unusual, inconvenient, and expensive.

Appointments they'd made to have their cattle slaughtered were suddenly being canceled. The cancellations would stretch on for days and complicated the delicate timing of processing cattle were a direct effect of high-profile immigration enforcement activities, said Matt Tiergarten, the chief executive of the Livestock Association. The raids prompted rare pushback on the administration from ranchers in Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma.

You have all these people living in limbo or fear of ice, and the feedlots are wondering if anybody's going to come to work, said Tiergarten. Sam Buttram, a feedlot consultant. It's just a bad situation all the way around. So I don't know if you remember, but Marshall actually put out a statement expressing concern about some of the immigration raids in southern Kansas, I think it was, at the time.

And now you see why, because this was impacting— farmers and ranchers in the state. And so now suddenly, you know, while you saw the mass deportation now signs, you didn't put two and two together? That your industry, I mean, literally, if you're in the farming industry, you don't know that your industry is dependent on undocumented labor? Like, How stupid are you?

That's what I'm saying.

I have no sympathy for you. Like, literally zero. What part of it did you not get? Like, we said we were coming after and deporting all illegal immigrants. Did you think that you were somehow exempt from that?

They all seem to have thought, like, the Cubans down in Florida or the Venezuelans. Oh, it won't be about us. It'll be about those other bad immigrants.

No.

This is what makes me mad, too.

Like, this is actually what we should have more of, by the way, is that it's actually disgusting that illegal labor is the only reason the U.S.

Meat industry or farming can.

You know, to the extent that there's been problems with our current immigration enforcements, we don't go after big business or any of these other people who like if you're a liberal, you should be mad. All these people are being exploited basically as slaves. And then no American is being paid. This is all literally under the table. Yes, I understand it. Beef will be more expensive. I mean, if you roll the tape, I said that I said, yeah, shit's going to get more expensive.

So be it.

That means we have to live. in a better, more order, cohesive society. I'm fine with it. And yet, yeah, not to rant too much, but it's people like this or down in, we covered the South Texas thing, where this lady goes, my brother was deported and I supported you. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, ma'am.

What part did you not get? Your brother's here illegally. Did you think it was going to be an exemption? Like, what part of it was mass deportation not clear around, you're here illegally, you gotta go? I truly have no sympathy for these people at all on that front. And, you know, I get it, shot and throw, et cetera, and all of that, but.

I don't know.

I have a lot of difficulty in terms of compassion for, like I said, when things were explicitly, explicitly announced, written, you know, said, like, what the consequences will be, What exactly were you listening to?

What were you reading whenever it came down?

They all heard what they wanted to hear. We interviewed a candidate on the Friday show who was very impressive. I'd spoken to her before, Nicole Laughlin. She's running for this district in Florida against Mario Diaz-Balart. And it's a 75% Latino district and a lot of Venezuelans in the district. And she was saying, basically, I don't want to put words in here. You guys can go watch the interview to see her specific language. But basically, like, yeah, previously Venezuelans, Cubans, Nicaraguans, they were treated differently by the immigration system. And they thought that that would persist. And now you've had temporary protected status taken from Venezuelans, and there's a shock. And so her district— is the one identified by the New

York Times and some other analyses as shifting the furthest away from Republicans. This is a district Trump won by like 18 points that now, I mean, it would be a long shot still for her, but she's got a shot at it because of that shift. And so, yeah, I mean, I just, I feel the same thing. Like, I don't know what, I don't know why you thought you were special. I don't know why you thought, Mr. Farmer, that your particular business interest would be protected. Like, I don't know what gave you that impression because you could make an argument about the Iran war. There was a lot of double speak out of both sides of their mouth, et cetera. There was total and complete clarity about the immigration agenda. No doubt about it. Speaking of the Iran war,

I do want to get to this piece because This probably more than anything else is driving the midterm results right now. Put D3 up on the screen. The Wall Street Journal crunched the numbers about just how much the war in Iran just so far has cost the average American family. We're talking about $ 2, 000 out of the pockets of every American family so far. And by the way, Brent crude is up well over $ 100 now. I'm sure gas prices are going to be rising commensurately. We previously showed you that chart that tracked Trump's approval rating and gas prices, and they are directly inversely correlated. So the more gas prices go up, the more Trump's approval rating goes down. So this is about the worst possible landscape

he could be facing going into the midterm elections. And then this is reflected in the polling data. Put D4 up on the screen. You've got just a devastating landscape here. Twenty nine percent only saying the U.S. is on the right track. Seventy one percent say it's the wrong track. Eighty two percent say that their finances are the same or worse than than a year ago. 82%, only 18% say that they are better off under Trump. 67% say the price of gas has caused them issues. Majorities have changed what groceries they're buying and are cutting back on entertainment.

So that shows you it is cutting to the bone. People are having to alter their lifestyles, swap out what sort of protein they're buying at the grocery store and things like that at the advice of a number of administration officials and other Republicans. Trump's approval stands at 34%. On issue by issue, his approval on cost of living is 27%. On the Iran war, 29%. On AI, 33%.

On border and immigration, where he is comparatively stronger, still underwater at 43%. But the most probably devastating number here is 82% saying, I'm worse off, or I'm the same, or I'm worse off than I was a year ago. And it ties directly into the decisions that Donald Trump has made.

Yes.

And this is where inflation was. Inflation and immigration are the only two reasons the man is president, right? You disagree with me.

That's my basic.

I think Inflation, immigration. Those are the two number one issues. It's very hard to say which exactly.

Was more impactful.

I think that for turnout, it was immigration in terms of getting Republicans to come. For swing voters, it was inflation. How can you argue that you are better off financially.

When you look.

Because remember, one of the other things that was really on Trump's side was this general idea of blowing up the system. Because mortgages, when Biden left office, were.

I mean, what, 6%?

It was 5 something like that percent. Inflation had gone up. Food prices had gone up dramatically. I mean, things were horrible. Like, it was really bad. And especially with gas prices. Well, now, as a result of the Iran war, it's exacerbated that by tenfold. So the gas prices now, I don't even know what's, it's, yeah, we said 430. Sorry, I meant the mortgage rate. I believe it's like 7.2 or 7.3%.

I mean, that's insane.

That's bonkers.

And then you add on credit card interest balance, health care premiums.

I think mine went up. Did yours as well? Again, it's coming. November is open enrollment. It's gone up. My deductible is $ 18, 000 is my deductible, right? I mean, that's just... Why do I even have insurance?

Like paying for the, if I didn't have a kid, I wouldn't have it. I can tell you that right now. And so you add all of that together and you're like, oh my God. I mean, how is anybody like even, how is anybody living on?

Yeah.

It's like, if you don't make a hundred thousand dollars today, which is not even the median income. So that means like 60% of families are below that level.

I actually just don't get it. Like you can't even eat McDonald's every day. Or something like that.

And it's so sad. There's not even an expectation in America anymore that you should be able to live off of a minimum wage or just above minimum wage salary. It's just like no one even believes that that That's kind of always been.

Fake whenever it comes to minimum wage. And I think that's fine.

What do you mean?

Well, it's supposed to be minimum for a reason, right? That's supposed to be the bottom quarter of society.

Yeah, but it's still $ 7.

25.

It hasn't been increased in decades. And so if you had the same minimum wage that you had back, let's say, in the 70s, it'd be something around, I think the number was like $ 25 an hour. And you've had the housing, healthcare, education costs have gone up way far and beyond what other inflation is. So these just like basic building blocks, you used to be able to work a like normal service sector job and live. Now you can't live. Like there is no expectations. People just assume that you're not going to be able to make it on that sort of a salary. But yeah, I mean, it's not surprising then that when you engage in an unpopular war of choice, that dramatically increases one of the primary inputs, primary costs

that people deal with every single day and see in their face every single day, that there's gonna be a political backlash. And so, you know, we'll probably talk about this with Logan tomorrow. We talk about maybe the polls are off. It's still certainly possible. But the reason I believe that there is a relatively large scale reckoning more so than what we saw even in 2018 coming is just because it's not even because of the polls. It's because of these fundamental facts.

Right.

The gas prices, the war. The tariffs, too, by the way, which have specifically hurt some of Trump's core constituencies. And then you layer on that the corruption, the fact that he's obsessed with this ballroom, that he's so obviously enriching himself and his family and is more concerned about that than he is about anything that's going on for you and your family. You know, at a certain point, there is a breaking point there, pun intended.

Well, no, I was just looking at the, I talked earlier about that focus group and corruption was one of the number one responses by Republicans as to why things are where they are.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah, it's like, Look, the American public, you know, I have my problems, marijuana being chief among them and gambling. But I look at it and I just what I always wonder is like the information environment, like what's getting through and what's not. Because don't forget, you know, the Fox News bubble is still real. And Jesse Waters, like if you watch that every single day, you don't really know anything about corruption. Like you don't really know.

That is a slinking shrinking literally because of that.

The way that actuarial tables work, amount of our population. But it is still a heavy voting demographic. The question is whether the general, like, how they're living in society, prices and all that, is making them start to question the other stuff that they see on the screen.

That's where I'm just, I'm like, I don't know. You know, I still.

Somebody sent me a tweet, which is a rundown of the Jesse Waters show.

It's like an alternative reality. Yeah.

Although, did you see him defending Hassan?

I did see that. Well, Jesse is a shit star.

So, like, he's not going to fall repeatedly now.

He's like, I'm not going to fall for this. What did he say? He's like, look, Trump has said much worse, so whatever. I forget what that was about.

Exactly. He was like, oh, he called someone a pig.

Like, I've said worse. Yeah, he's like, I've said worse. So I appreciate his honesty. Jesse, you're welcome on the show anytime, man. You know, let us know. We promise that Ryan will not punch you in the face.

We'll do it remote just for distance.

OK, let's get to the next one.

We're very excited now to be joined by Cole Stangler. He is the host of the What Do We Want podcast. He's also a former intern for Ryan Grimm. That might be more of an important.

Title there, Cole. He is based in Marseille, France. Cole, it's good to see you, man. Thank you for joining us.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

So, Cole, we obviously were here in the United States. We can only see what's in our social media feeds or in the news. We can put some of this up here on the screen. We saw some Widespread violence and looting take the streets of Paris as well as some other major cities in France.

All of this.

Appeared to be after a widespread student-led protest movement that broke out initially. As I understand it, the student-led protest movement then morphed broadly into bigger protests around the cost of living, affordability, and especially the price of gasoline. And then from that point forward, It then morphed into criminal and thug elements effectively taking to the streets, straight.

Up engaging in violence and looting. And last night, I know.

We also saw several areas of the city that were on fire, including residential buildings that were being burglarized. Obviously, this has set off a political earthquake in France. We're curious, Cole, for you to give us some of the history as to why is this happening now? What is the broader societal impact on everything that you've seen? You were telling us before you actually attended some of those initial protests.

So how did this start and then how did we get here?

Yeah.

So, you know, I think we have to go back. We can go back, you know, far ways away.

But let's start off at least in mid-September, which is when the student protest movement started. So basically a movement led by high school students talking about the dilapidated conditions of their buildings, talking about staff shortages, criticizing the decline in investment in public education, criticizing the admissions platform for getting into universities.

So a very clear list of demands.

There's the student unions that represent high school students have made those demands very clear. And we've seen really several days of protests, big protests that were attended by supporters of the movement. We've also seen a lot of blockades outside high schools.

And so this movement really started in mid-September.

And I think high school students have been waiting for the government to make a concession. The movement itself is broadly popular. That's reflected in the polls. And what happened on Saturday, October 17th, was this was still was the biggest day of protests yet related to this movement. High school student unions backed the protests. So did major labor unions in France. And so did the remnants of the Yellow Vest Movement, which some of your viewers and listeners may recall. The Yellow Vest Movement started in late 2018, really related to the cost of living, and located really in kind of peripheral parts of France, just on the outskirts of urban areas, what we call the périurbans, the peri-urban parts of France. The yellow vests are known also

for the very confrontational kinds of protests. So that was what October 17th was about. It was student union protests in favor of the movement, but also supported by the yellow vests and a kind of broader frustrations about the cost of living. Now, as a journalist, I've gone to many of these protests and talked to students.

They were very clear about their demands.

What happened on the 17th was different because like you said, these peaceful demonstrations, and they were very peaceful. I was at the one in Marseille, were, I would say, punctuated by, in the early morning in Marseille, we had very aggressive individuals, basically hooded, not showing their faces, engaging in basically violent attacks against the police. And then afterwards, and I would say simultaneously to afterwards, the big march, we had essentially looting.

I think that's basically the word that describes what we saw. We saw the same thing in Paris. And so right now, the story has shifted from being one about this very broadly popular protest movement that had, by the way, its largest everyday mobilization on Saturday with over 800,000 people, according to unions. The focus has now shifted to this question of the violence. How did the government allow this to happen?

I think a lot of French people are wondering that today, really, in fact, I think across the political spectrum.

So French President Emmanuel Macron issued a new response yesterday. Let's take a listen to a little bit of that.

When we saw the images, we all thought, what was in their heads? How can French people do this to France? Why would the town hall of Libouge be blown down, the tourist office? Why would the town hall in Marseille be invaded or the prefecture in Bordeaux? How can we... have got there. There is nothing that justifies it, nothing that explains it, nothing that excuses it. We are all feeling anger and shame tonight. To see the streets of our cities ransacked like this is unbearable.

So, Cole, how much did Macron's actions and governance spark this crisis to begin with? And then what do you make of his response thus far?

Yeah, I think the government bears an immense amount of responsibility for this crisis. We could just look at the student movement I talked about, where the students have been making very precise demands, asking for the French government, because we have a very centralized country where, unlike the United States, it's really up to the national government to make investments in public education to decide whether it's going to exceed some of these protest demands. So You know, we go back a week or two ago, the government very easily could have calmed down the situation by saying we're going to announce an investment plan in the dilapidated buildings. We are going to hire X number of teachers to help

fill the staff shortages. We're going to increase the salaries for teachers, which, by the way, are below the average in the European Union. They're below the average in the OECD, below 2000 euros a month for people starting their careers. And the government has neglected to listen to these demands. And the reality is, if we take a further step back, this frustration, I think, that people have, it goes well beyond just the student protest movement. There's a sense that in France, when you have these big demonstrations, and that, to some extent, is a part of French political culture, there's a sense that at the end of the day, you would expect the government to make at least some type of concession. That's sort of part of French political

history and French political culture. You get enough people out in the streets, and at some point, the government will cave, at least at some point. And that's not what's happened. We can go back to the pension reform process that we saw on 2023 over the attempt to hike the retirement eligibility age. Huge protest movement, extremely popular, and the government did not budge. So I think what we're seeing today is this strategy of the government. They are unwilling to make concessions, even modest concessions to protesters. And that's fueling a lot of a lot of unrest. And of course, that doesn't excuse the the violence that we saw. I think a lot of people are wondering who exactly was was responsible for these for these scenes. There's a lot

of questions about that. But for a lot of French people, there's this frustration that we have a government that is not willing to make the slightest concession, you would think just to kind of tone down the temperature and have some more stability.

But they've been unwilling to do that.

Yeah, Cole, to push you a little bit here, is it really fair to say that any of this violence has anything to do with these, let's say, even legitimate demands of the student protesters and others? You know, there's been a lot of speculation about immigration, also about anarchy, like literal anarchists, like organized anarchists. inside of France. Obviously, I'm not in France. I could be projecting my own American domestic political concerns. But looking at violence or protest movements in the United States, it doesn't seem to me that if they announce anything about school reform tomorrow, that looting Louis Vuitton or some store like that would end.

Am I wrong or incorrect? I'm happy for you to challenge me.

No, I mean, I think the first thing is just because it is a point that we heard, you know, Donald Trump make this point and others kind of in the far right political orbit made this point about immigration. I think it is just important to emphasize that that is, I think, a really fringe position in France. It doesn't really reflect the reality to saying this is about immigration, I think, is not really, you know, I think grappling with the issue in a serious way.

We have Explain why.

Right.

So the scenes that are coming out, you know, by and large, what most people are looking at are people from the poor suburban areas, children of immigrants, in particular, the people who are engaged in rioting and looting, although it's not entirely fair. There are many images of white people doing it, you know, too. So I just I think, you know, to fully explain to our audience, like, why do you think that's not a fair critique?

Because I think if we look at the conditions at which people are living in, for instance, I'll give you just a concrete example here of being, you know, I live in Marseille, which is a city that has a long, long history of immigration that did not start recently. It's been, you know, Marseille is a port on the Mediterranean, waves of immigration. It's also a city that has suffered from disinvestment, from deindustrialization. And so, you know, in addition to those mass marches, you had 14, 15-year-old kids. I saw kids literally fighting over a PlayStation that they had looted from a store. I don't understand the link between immigration here.

We're talking about people that have grown up in France who are French citizens who are living in difficult conditions. That's not excusing the violence, of course, not excusing looting, but it's just, I think, putting things in their context. I don't understand the link between trying to tie someone's identity of their parents or grandparents who may have immigrated to France, you know, multiple decades ago to the conditions they're living in today and to their decision to take.

Part in looting.

And I think, you know, there's also that separate question of, and it's hard to talk about this because we need to, I think, be careful and wait for the investigations to run their course, but who exactly are the kind of ultra-left, you know, types of people that might be engaged in this sort of violence we don't have a good sense of those people either. It's why I think it's important to be careful not to jump to conclusions. I think it's, again, worth stating that the overwhelming majority of French people, I think, were shocked by the violence. And also by an important point, if you don't mind me just saying, is that the strategy of the police here, which has come under scrutiny, I think is another really important point here.

We had both.

Can you elaborate on that?

Yeah, sure.

So at the beginning of the movement, You know, I think we can say this is in part a failure of the French policing strategy. The interior minister himself said that there were errors. He offered his resignation, which was not accepted. But if we go back to the beginning of the protest movement, so from late September to last week before the October 17th, we had around 8,000 arrests.

8,000 people were detained, brought into police custody, 85 percent of whom are minors. So very aggressive policing strategy. That's more than the entire Yellow Vest movement. At the same time as we have that aggressive policing strategy against peaceful protesters, largely peaceful protesters, we saw the police being unable to basically protect businesses from looting. And that's been the critique of the mayor of Marseille, where I am. He said, how is it possible that buildings were not being protected?

So at some point, there is a deep failure here of the policing strategy. They spent so much energy on breaking up peaceful protests. And when it came to actually preparing for it, looting, they were not there. So I think it's also a breakdown in the French policing that I think is on display for everyone to see.

Interesting.

You know, there's not just protests in France right now, although those have been the most explosive. There's protests in Italy. There's protests in Albania.

There's protests in Portugal.

I was actually just in Spain where there have been huge protests over housing in particular that caused the president there to announce a snap election. So you do look at this, and while the flavor of it all is very different nation to nation, it just causes me to question how much of it is really about the combination of the Ukraine war and now specifically the Iran war and the way that has spiked prices and really put a lot of pressure on people truly around the world, but certainly across Europe.

Yeah, so I don't want to speak too much about countries that I'm less familiar with, but I think you're right that there are some commonalities between some of these protest movements. We can look at the underlying economic conditions in France under Macron for the last 10 years. You know, we have this issue of basic broad wage stagnation. So the French talk a lot about purchasing power, which is basically a way of getting at this concept of the cost of living. We've had public services that have not faced radical, deep austerity. I think that that'd be an exaggeration, but have stagnated, have not kept up with people's demands.

And then when you add in the problems with inflation, the problems with the Iran war launched by the United States and Israel, that certainly adds to these pressures. And so I think all these causes are also part of it. And some of those we see in other countries as well. So, yeah, I think it's absolutely fair to say that the Iranian war is part of the problem here.

Macron himself mentioned it in his speech. He's talked about it before.

I was listening to Yanis Varoufakis this morning and his analysis, former Greek finance minister, and his view– and he's a militant supporter– His view is effectively that this isn't really Macron's fault, that there are some fundamental economic dynamics that make the French budget and the French economy fundamentally unsustainable as long as they are part of the euro. And, you know, neighboring Germany, you're going to this is going to lead to. capital outflow and budget deficits. What do you think of that view that there's an underlying structural issue here that no matter what Macron did within the current system, it wouldn't really solve the fundamental issues here without a kind of radical rethink of the economic system?

Yeah, I mean, I'd love to see that interview and maybe talk to Yanis Varoufakis myself. But yeah, I mean, I think, you know, look, I mean, in France, there are very clear political decisions that I think most of the French people political class, most of the French population understands that haven't been taken by Macron. We can go kind of look at his record. For example, today, if Macron wanted to, he could announce, the government wanted to, they could announce more investment in public education. The public spending in education has dropped from over 7.6 GDP in 1997 to 6.8% today. So if you have a drop in spending on public education, the government could also decide if they wanted to to impose higher taxes on the

ultra-rich to maybe buttress France's spending or France's budget problems, which are very real, shouldn't neglect them. There's the famous proposal from Gabriel Zucman, the French economist, who I know spends a lot of time in the United.

States as well.

He's called for a wealth tax targeting the top 2%, sorry, even the smaller portion, excuse me, of the French ultra-rich population. to having them contribute more. But the French government is unwilling to make those kinds of concessions. And there's also a deeper democratic problem. That's one point I'll add that maybe Yanis Varoufakis probably didn't mention, which is we had this deeper democratic crisis in France. And without sort of suggesting that there aren't structural economic problems, I think it's important to recognize just from the French perspective, there's a deeper democratic problem here, which is that Macron was elected twice basically because a majority of people were opposed to

the far right winning. He did not have a big popular mandate, and he has refused to make concessions on many of his proposals. I'll give you just one final example really quickly. After the legislative elections that we saw in 2024, so Macron called snap elections, used his power and the French constitution to dissolve the National Assembly. You had elections, you had a left-wing coalition that won a plurality of seats, not a majority, but a plurality, And instead of nominating a prime minister from the camp that won the most seats in the National Assembly, Macron said, I'm going to prefer to have a center-right, right-wing prime minister that I'm going to name. And I think that this is, again, it's part of this just democratic frustration.

So yeah, we can talk about the broader economic issues, but there's also a sense that this government has been unwilling to adjust its strategy in face of popular men on issue after issue.

Last thing for you, Cole, we just had this piece published by the New York Times. The headline is, France's far right seizes the moment as rioting stuns the country. The national rally already ahead in the polls presented itself as the party best place to restore law and order.

So I had seen a lot of takes in the U.S. They said, oh, this is how you get Le Pen elected.

I'm like, well, you know, she's been leading in the polls already, so it probably is only more helpful to her candidacy. Why don't you talk through, you know, her chances in the upcoming election? six months from now? What's been her message throughout this? And what are the broader structural reasons as to why she was already popular going into this?

Yeah, I mean, it's a huge issue. And you're right. She was, I completely agree.

She was already popular before this crisis. And it's a huge conversation that it's hard to do in just a few minutes. But I think there's a lot of factors. I mean, let's talk for one. She's done a good job, I think, of You know, they call it demonization. So trying to tone down, I think, the more radical rhetoric of her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who's a Holocaust denier convicted in French court as such. Le Pen is surrounded by far right radicals, including Jordan Bardella, who was was found recently to, according to Mediapart, French investigative outlet, to be making anti-Semitic statements.

Comments on the internet.

But regardless of the reality, they've done a good job of changing the image of the party, of making over the image, adjusting the rhetoric publicly. You know, that's helped. Part of it has been, you know, their obsession with the questions of, right, security. They have security and immigration. They're far-right nativists, which is that, you know, when there are complex social and economic problems. They do what President Trump does and basically link these complex social problems to immigration.

It's a very simplified nativist way of thinking about politics, but that's what they do.

They do it very well. Part of it also has been the government.

And the Maconas camp, I think, legitimizing a lot of their talking points. There was, for instance, on immigration, Macron's own party has passed quite aggressive legislation cracking down on immigration, including a bill that actually was cracking down on birthright citizenship in France. It was partially blocked by the French Constitutional Court. But nevertheless, after that bill, Marine Le Pen said it was an ideological victory for her party. So you have Macronists that have been legitimizing these points. Another huge problem. point if you're in France, is the role of the media. We have a very aggressive conservative media landscape that has really, I think, flourished in the last several years, thanks in large part to Vincent Baudouin, who

is a ultra-conservative billionaire who's bought up major media networks. We have CNews Network in France, which is basically the Fox News equivalent. He's bought up radio stations, newspapers. The media discourse has shifted. The Macronists have adopted the talking points And, you know, from my perspective, it's also, I think, a failure of the left to offer a compelling alternative.

Some of this might sound familiar to people in the United States. You know, the left in France has struggled to, on one level, unite, but I think almost more importantly, to just offer a clear and coherent counter narrative to this. And they've been struggling a lot in the polls. And that's why that's what we see in those polls. A lot could happen between now and the elections.

But you're right.

For now, it looks like Marine Le Pen is the favorite at this point as we're talking in October 2026.

Well, the new podcast is What Do We Want? You said it's in English and French. And, Cole, we really appreciate you taking the time to break some of these issues down for us this morning.

Thanks, Cole.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

I might fight with you a bit more, but it's OK. We appreciate your time, brother.

Thank you.

Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate it. We're about to do the AMA, so we'll see you then.

10/19/26: Farmers Shocked By ICE Raids, France Erupts In Protest

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