May 22, 2026 | MMN Daily LIVE

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00][music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Hey there, wake up. It's Means Morning News. Just after 11:00 a.m. on the East Coast, I'm Sam Sacks. Sorry ladies, but this Friday it's for the fellas.

[00:04:11]And we begin in the United States Congress, where Republican leadership canceled all business and sent members home until June to avoid taking votes that would be embarrassing to the president.

[00:04:24]The majority party was supposed to be putting finishing touches on a budget reconciliation bill to provide more funding to Trump's priorities, such as his mass deportation campaign.

[00:04:36]But consideration of that bill has now been delayed with lawmakers revolting over a number of issues.

[00:04:44]First, to the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson canceled a planned vote on an Iran war powers resolution to end the illegal campaign.

[00:04:54]He canceled because he knew that for the first time the votes were there to actually pass the bill.

[00:05:02]The lone Democrat who sank the measure last time, Rep. Jared Golden, said he intended to vote for the bill this time.

[00:05:10]And a number of Republican reps who would have opposed the resolution were not in Washington to vote against it.

[00:05:18]Momentum is building on Capitol Hill to wind down the war now in its 12th week.

[00:05:25]The Senate advanced a similar measure a few days ago.

[00:05:29]But rather than getting the House on record opposing President Trump's illegal and very unpopular war, Speaker Johnson just scrapped the vote.

[00:05:40]This was the scene in the chamber afterward. Here's Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern. Are we not voting on it because the American people are sick and tired of this illegal war that is costing tens of billions of dollars? Gas prices are through the roof. People can't afford People can't afford their groceries. Is that why you're pulling it? You guys don't have the guts or the balls >> will be in order. Meanwhile, in the Senate, another place that doesn't have guts or balls, Republican leader John Thune also sent members home until June, since his caucus couldn't find a way forward on a budget reconciliation bill that won't piss off the president. Not just Democrats, but also Republicans want to add language that would block the president's so-called weaponization fund, the $1.8 billion slush fund for his friends and allies that he got his former personal lawyer, who is now the Attorney General, to sign off on.

[00:06:40]The one that also includes a provision that the president and his family no longer have to follow tax law forever.

[00:06:49]The Attorney General, Todd Blanche, reportedly received an earful from lawmakers while he was on the hill trying to defend the funds.

[00:06:58]So, the Senate can't move forward on a budget bill out of fear that someone will add an amendment to it to shut down Trump's heist of the public treasury.

[00:07:09]Also, senators are growing increasingly skeptical of the administration's request for a billion dollars for Trump's ballroom and security bunker at the White House. The Senate's parliamentarian ruled that the money for the ballroom violates reconciliation rules and can't be included in the bill.

[00:07:28]Trump called for the parliamentarian to be fired.

[00:07:32]With Congress skipping town, though, and nothing going on in Washington, that could free the president up to attend his son Don Jr.'s wedding this weekend.

[00:07:42]This is Don Jr.'s second wedding, his third engagement. Trump was asked about it by reporters on Thursday and he seemed conflicted on whether he can or even wanted to go. Uh he'd like me to go, but it's going to be just a small little private affair and I'm going to try and make it. I'm I'm in the midst I said, "You know, this is not good timing for me. I have a thing called Iran and other things.

[00:08:09]Uh that's what I can't win on. If I do attend I get killed. If I don't attend I get killed by the fake news, of course, I'm talking about. No, but he's uh got a very uh person who I've known for a long time and hopefully they're going to have a great marriage. And if they don't have a great marriage, then Trump will send her off to be an ambassador to some far-flung place like he did with Don Jr.'s ex-fiancée Kimberly Guilfoyle.

[00:08:41]Now to a quick update on the state of the war with Iran. There are reports of progress in negotiations, but the US position to deny Iran control over the Strait of Hormuz is becoming untenable.

[00:08:56]Iran is already making formal plans to institutionalize control and set up a tolling system to collect much-needed revenue following the war.

[00:09:06]And according to Bloomberg, Iran is in talks with US ally Oman about sharing income from such an arrangement in the strait.

[00:09:17]On Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said such a deal would be unacceptable. Well, we've always said a tolling system in the straits would be unacceptable, but we don't just say that. The world has said that. No one in the world is in favor of a tolling system. It can't happen. It would be unacceptable. It would make a diplomatic deal unfeasible if they were to continue to pursue that. Well, those are the kind of tough pills you have to swallow, Marco, when you lose a war.

[00:09:43]The US has a weak hand in negotiations because, despite the president's repeated threats on social media, the Pentagon is in no position to resume hostilities with Iran.

[00:09:55]More evidence of that was published in the Washington Post this week.

[00:10:00]The military has significantly depleted its stock of advanced offensive missile interceptors, burning through the armaments to protect Israel from Iranian attacks, all while Israel has been able to preserve most of its own interceptors.

[00:10:17]This is from the post, quote, "The US military has depleted much of its inventory of advanced missile defense interceptors after expending far more high-end munitions defending Israel amid hostilities with Iran than Israeli forces used themselves. The United States launched more than 200 terminal high altitude area defense, or THAAD, interceptors in defense of Israel, roughly half of the Pentagon's total inventory.

[00:10:48]By contrast, Israel fired fewer than 100 of its own Arrow interceptors and around 90 David's Sling interceptors."

[00:11:00]Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has claimed that the US is not running low on munitions and also that the US did not go to war for Israel.

[00:11:09]This latest reporting undermines both claims.

[00:11:16]And finally, we've got a new king of posting.

[00:11:21]His name is Larry Buschart and he lives in Lexington, Tennessee.

[00:11:27]Way back last year, we reported on his bizarre arrest for posting memes on Facebook.

[00:11:34]Bussart shared an image of Trump with a quote from a 2025 speech.

[00:11:41]Trump allegedly said, "Quote, we have to get over it." referring to moving on from a school shooting in Perry, Iowa.

[00:11:51]Now, what's funny is that Larry posted this after Charlie Kirk got merked. So, he was shitposting in response to all the discourse around that.

[00:12:01]The police, however, claim they interpreted the post as a threat to shoot up a school in Perry County, Tennessee.

[00:12:09]Now, that's likely just a pretext because I don't believe even police could be that stupid.

[00:12:15]They were probably just mad that their daddy got insulted online and figured now that Trump is in power, they can do whatever they want. So, they went to Larry's house and arrested him.

[00:12:25]And get this, he spent 37 days in jail for a Facebook post that simply had a picture of the president and a quote from the president.

[00:12:36]More than 5 weeks in jail for that.

[00:12:40]The main reason Larry got out is because the sheriff, a guy named Nick Weems, gave an interview to a local outlet, NewsChannel 5 in Nashville, and just couldn't explain why Larry was in jail.

[00:12:54]You posted this talking about Perry High School shooting. It doesn't say Perry County High School.

[00:12:59]>> Perry High School.

[00:13:00]Last shooting one day after, okay?

[00:13:03]>> [clears throat] >> That led people to believe in our county that he's talking about Perry County High School because it doesn't say Iowa, either. But But you also knew this was an existing meme that was already out there on the internet. Correct.

[00:13:16]And so, it's clear he's not talking about Perry County High School. We, the public, did not know. All of this could have been avoided, the sheriff says, if Bussart had just deleted the meme that people in Perry County had found so objectionable. Whenever we sent Lakes and Plains Department out to speak to him and he refused to do that. I mean, what kind of person does that? What kind of person just uh says he don't care.

[00:13:43]You know, I'm not taking it down. The kind of person who just got $800,000 richer, that's who.

[00:13:49]Cuz once Larry got out of jail, the free speech nonprofit Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression or FIRE took up his case and sued the sheriff.

[00:13:59]And this week a settlement was reached.

[00:14:02]All charges are getting dropped and because of his mistreatment by police, Larry is getting a payout from the county.

[00:14:09]A decent $835, 000.

[00:14:15]Not bad.

[00:14:16]Probably could have gotten more, but you know what's priceless?

[00:14:22]That crown you just earned for posting.

[00:14:26]Well done, Larry.

[00:14:35]Now to the American Southwest where government contractors hired to build Trump's border wall are desecrating sacred Native American lands.

[00:14:46]Construction on the barrier has accelerated this year and indigenous leaders told the Associated Press that cultural sites are being disturbed at an unprecedented rate.

[00:14:59]Kuuchama Mountain, which straddles the US-Mexican border south of California, has been a sacred gathering site for the Kumeyaay people. It's now being bombed and carved through to make room for Trump's [ __ ] wall.

[00:15:16]There's more from the AP, quote, "In Arizona, DHS contractors last month carved through a massive 1,000 year-old fish-shaped geoglyph called Las Playas Intaglio in Sunland Park on New Mexico's border with Mexico. Crews this year set off blasts on Mount Cristo Rey, a pilgrimage site topped with a limestone crucifix.

[00:15:42]CBP is seeking to seize a strip of the mountain owned by the Roman Catholic Church for wall construction.

[00:15:51]Yeah, they're going after Catholic sites, too.

[00:15:54]Also in Arizona, the Department of Homeland Security is constructing border wall east of Nogales that seals off a crucial wildlife corridor for Jaguars and ocelots, animals considered sacred to the indigenous people in the area, and also animals that are sacred in their own right.

[00:16:16]One lasting legacy of former DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen's tenure is this mass destruction and desecration along the southern border.

[00:16:27]She signed a number of orders to waive environmental protection and cultural preservation laws in order to fast-track construction of the border wall.

[00:16:38]She claimed undocumented immigration was a national security risk that necessitated minimizing the risk of administrative delays.

[00:16:48]But as these walls are going up and sites are being tampered with, border crossings are actually at an all-time low.

[00:16:56]And who can blame them? If you come to the United States today, worst-case scenario, you end up in a concentration camp.

[00:17:05]Best-case scenario, you're residing in a rapidly collapsing superpower.

[00:17:14]>> [music] >> During the end of the Friday show, you know what that means. It's time for your weekly 2 minutes hate.

[00:17:28]Try not to get yourself too worked up jeering at the screen. Because this week's rich dick is Mark Zuckerberg.

[00:17:43]That's right. Zuck the [ __ ] is back.

[00:17:48]Meta is laying off thousands of people to invest even more money in artificial intelligence.

[00:17:54]8,000 people, about 10% of the workforce, are having their jobs taken away beginning this week. And that's not because the company is in trouble financially and has to trim its workforce. In fact, it's making record profits. But Zuck wants to instead double Meta's investments in AI and push $140 billion into the technology.

[00:18:18]Zuck also this week told another 7,000 workers they'd be reassigned to work on AI.

[00:18:25]They'll probably get fired, too, eventually.

[00:18:28]In a memo to staff, Zuck claimed it was sad to say goodbye, but that, quote, AI is the most consequential technology of our lifetimes. The companies that lead the way will define the next generation.

[00:18:42]And as we all know, when Zuck has a hunch, he never misses.

[00:18:48]Except for that one time he got really into building a metaverse and was so convinced people would live their lives in it that he renamed his company Meta.

[00:18:57]He then went on to lose $80 billion on the whole thing because he's actually really bad at knowing what people want.

[00:19:05]You can tell the Facebook thing was a fluke because everything Zuck has done since creating it has made it worse.

[00:19:13]Anyway, Meta is not the only company lowering its labor costs by adopting more AI software. But Zuck, I believe, is the only CEO openly telling his workers he is using them to train AI models that will eventually replace them.

[00:19:31]This is what he told in an all-hands meeting last month before the layoffs started. The audio was obtained by More Perfect Union. So, we're in a phase where basically the AI models learn from having really from watching really smart people do things.

[00:19:49]And if you're trying to get it to be able to be able to do certain capabilities, having it be able to observe really smart people doing those things is it is very important. In general, the average intelligence of the people who are at this company is significantly higher than the average set of people that you can get to do tasks if you're working through the contract.

[00:20:10]Through through these contractors. So, if we're trying to teach the models coding, for example, then having people internally uh build tools that or or solve tasks that um that help teach the model how to code, we think is going to dramatically increase our models' coding ability faster than what others in the industry have the capability to do who don't have thousands and thousands of extremely strong engineers at their company.

[00:20:35]So, that's one example. Another thing that that our that our system needs to be very good at is using computers. So, the way that you get a system to be good at using computers is by having it watch really smart people use computers. So, that's basically the essence of what we are trying to do here. Yes, we're spying on you, but it's only because you're so dang smart.

[00:21:00]Though not quite smart enough to figure out a way to subsist without wages like the AI, so time to go.

[00:21:09]Workers remaining at Meta obviously know what's going on here.

[00:21:13]According to the New York Times, the company's offices in San Francisco are covered with flyers made by workers agitating against the surveillance / AI training program.

[00:21:25]A petition to end its use was signed by over a thousand employees.

[00:21:30]Problem is the workers aren't reasoning with someone who has genuine human emotions. They're up against a guy who actually hates human interaction. Zuck would prefer a work environment in which no one else exists but himself.

[00:21:47]He could just go into work and be surrounded by banks of computers running large language model software. He'd be perfectly content.

[00:21:58]Plus every dollar in profits these models generate mostly through eliminating labor costs at Meta and other companies can go right back into buying up the entire state of Hawaii.

[00:22:11]Another place where Zuck can hide out from the rest of us.

[00:22:16]Maybe one day a volcano will open up underneath his estate like in that movie with Tommy Lee Jones called Volcano.

[00:22:26]Not to be confused with the other volcano movie that came out around the same time with Pierce Brosnan Dante's Peak.

[00:22:34]Don't mix them up.

[00:22:36]Ever.

[00:22:40]>> [sighs and gasps] >> Where was I?

[00:22:43]Oh, yeah.

[00:22:44]Mark Zuckerberg.

[00:22:46]That prick is this week's rich dick.

[00:22:52]>> [music] >> All right, friends. The show ends today with a sunrise from Nicaragua. It was sent in by John, Ali, and Otto the dog in San Juan del Sur.

[00:23:08]Enjoy.

[00:23:19]Thank you, John. Thank you, Ali. And of course, thank you, Otto. That's the show. Thanks for watching and thanks to the team behind the scenes. Find more MMN at means.tv.

[00:23:31]We also have YouTube and podcast channels, and you can find us on Twitter, Instagram, and Blue Sky. One day, capitalism will fall.

[00:23:41]Until then, we're going to be right here.

[00:23:43]See you tomorrow.

[00:23:54]>> [music] [music] [music] [music]