Speaker 1: Also media.
Speaker 2: This is it could Happen here Executive Disorder, our weekly
Speaker 2: newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world,
Speaker 2: and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis today
Speaker 2: I'm joined by James Stout and Robert Evans. Yes, this
Speaker 2: episode recovering the week of November nineteen to November twenty fourth.
Speaker 3: Boy, this year's just blown by yeah fast, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: They sped up the time stream. You know what else
Speaker 3: sped up the time stream watching something on Twitter blow
Speaker 3: up again. We can't seem to stop talking about this
Speaker 3: fucking website and I'm tired of it. But the big
Speaker 3: news this week from Elon Musk's fucking vanity propagana app
Speaker 3: is see Everything Happen That they introduced a new feature
Speaker 3: to let you know the location of the account and
Speaker 3: also the number of like name changes, like how many
Speaker 3: username changes it's had since the account has started. I
Speaker 3: would say within sort of progressive and liberal circles. The
Speaker 3: i'm an interpretation of what's happened is best summarized by
Speaker 3: this Daily Beast headline. Top MAGA influencers accidentally unmasked as
Speaker 3: foreign trolls, No shit, Now, as is often the case,
Speaker 3: this isn't entirely accurate. Not to say that there's not
Speaker 3: a shitload of foreign trolls who are making money by
Speaker 3: pretending to be American MAGA influencers. There definitely are. We've
Speaker 3: known about this since well before this Twitter change. One
Speaker 3: of the most prominent people on Musk's Twitter, Ean Miles Chong,
Speaker 3: is a Malaysian man who has never been to the
Speaker 3: United States and publishes nothing but MAGA content. Now, what's
Speaker 3: happened here? You can find going through there's a bunch
Speaker 3: of threads. There's threads on Blue Sky, threads on Twitter, threads,
Speaker 3: and various articles that are basically all copies of each
Speaker 3: other that are collecting a bunch of these accounts that
Speaker 3: have been busted, right. One good example would be the
Speaker 3: Magination verified account, which has almost four hundred thousand followers.
Speaker 3: Started in twenty twenty four, it's had five name changes
Speaker 3: since October twenty twenty five, and it is based in
Speaker 3: Eastern Europe Non EU.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's a nation, yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: A lot of people have taken to mean like it's Russian,
Speaker 3: right yeah. Another account is the Ivanka news Trump, which
Speaker 3: displays as Ivanka Trump, even though it has nothing to
Speaker 3: do with her, which it does note in its Twitter bio.
Speaker 3: The account was started in twenty ten, it has had
Speaker 3: eleven user changes since August of twenty twenty four, and
Speaker 3: it is apparently based in Nigeria.
Speaker 4: You have to see it.
Speaker 3: You're seeing like aload a shitload of stuff like this right,
Speaker 3: and it's being taken unfortunately. I think this is a
Speaker 3: mistake and I hate to be like the hey, guys,
Speaker 3: stop being happy about this, but you should because you're
Speaker 3: wrong about what's happening here. Most people are like the
Speaker 3: Daily Beast account posts some liberal Twitter account being like
Speaker 3: this is total armageddon for the online right. It's looking
Speaker 3: like half of their large accounts were foreigners posting as
Speaker 3: Americans all along. Now, let me clarify a couple things.
Speaker 3: For one thing, nothing that Elon has done here, nothing
Speaker 3: that Twitter has revealed has proven that these accounts exist
Speaker 3: in any particular country. I'm going to explain why a
Speaker 3: lot of people use something called a vp and a
Speaker 3: VPN masks the location that you're browsing and logging in from, right,
Speaker 3: and you can use a VPN to look like you're
Speaker 3: posting from almost any country on the planet, and there
Speaker 3: is no evidence whatsoever that Twitter has done anything at
Speaker 3: all to deal with this right to like make sure
Speaker 3: that they're getting someone's actual location. A bunch of accounts,
Speaker 3: a bunch of like people have pointed out like, hey, look,
Speaker 3: this is saying I'm from a country that I've literally
Speaker 3: never been to, Like here's my information. I'm very transparent.
Speaker 3: And there have also been organizations, including liberal you know,
Speaker 3: coded organizations, that have been mistakenly identified as coming from
Speaker 3: a country that they are not set up. And for example,
Speaker 3: the Planned Parenthood account was showing us from Germany, which
Speaker 3: is ignited this conspiracy theory on the right that Planned
Speaker 3: Parenthood is some European fucking influence op in the United States. No,
Speaker 3: they used a VPN because they're in danger because it's
Speaker 3: Planned Parenthood, right.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 2: I mean I ran into a very similar situation because
Speaker 2: I mostly use Twitter to look at yowie now, and
Speaker 2: when I was in Germany last month, it wouldn't let
Speaker 2: me look at the AWI without putting in my government
Speaker 2: ID for like age verification, sure of course, and then
Speaker 2: the state hits garrison, so obviously a non starter. I'm
Speaker 2: not I'm not, I'm not giving X. The everything app
Speaker 2: my government id to allow me to look at Yawi
Speaker 2: in Germany. Sure, so instead I had to put on
Speaker 2: the VPN so I'm back in the States and then
Speaker 2: I can look at the AYAUI. So it's basically the
Speaker 2: same situation between me and Planned Parenthood here.
Speaker 3: Yes, I've said often that you and Planned Parenthood basically
Speaker 3: identical beings. What's happening here is it is worth talking about.
Speaker 3: But it's worth talking about not because we suddenly know
Speaker 3: the truth that it's been revealed about. We don't really
Speaker 3: know anything more than we did before this change came in, right.
Speaker 2: Well except Robert, I mean the biggest the biggest news
Speaker 2: is that the DHS has been a massad operation this
Speaker 2: last time. Yes, that's right, Yes, like we've always suspected.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the the Department of Homeland Security account I
Speaker 3: think it was, got listed as having been based in Israel.
Speaker 3: This is not real, Like it's not this isn't even
Speaker 3: X fucking up. Somebody just edited a screenshot and there's
Speaker 3: so many of these going around, hundreds and hundreds of them,
Speaker 3: right that this just kind of got shuffled in to
Speaker 3: the flood and a lot of people didn't catch it right,
Speaker 3: and it just gets integrated into people's beliefs about the world.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: This is a standard story with how Twitter works now.
Speaker 3: And this is, by the way, is overall I think
Speaker 3: beneficial to Musk and his kind of people, which is
Speaker 3: that we know less every day about the world. There's
Speaker 3: more disinformation about what's happening. People are less keyed in
Speaker 3: on reality and more just getting locked into different delusions.
Speaker 3: Like That's what the story is here, which is that
Speaker 3: this app and the way that social media in general works,
Speaker 3: particularly in this age, each of these changes, even the
Speaker 3: ones that get celebrated as having revealed something, are just
Speaker 3: fogging up reality, and they're doing it in such a
Speaker 3: way as to make it so that like no one
Speaker 3: knows anything about what's going on. Right, this is like
Speaker 3: that this is the standard playbook that you've been getting
Speaker 3: out of like authoritarian regimes from forever.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 3: What's important is not that just their propaganda be out.
Speaker 3: It's that there's not really any any way for there
Speaker 3: to be a consensus reality. Because if there'sn't consensus reality,
Speaker 3: then you can't put together a large enough block of
Speaker 3: people who all believe basically the same things about reality
Speaker 3: to stop what's going on, right, that's what's happening here,
Speaker 3: And you're wrong if you're looking at this as good,
Speaker 3: if you believe that this has blown up the right
Speaker 3: and that this has done damage to them, they're saying
Speaker 3: the same things about you and about the left because
Speaker 3: a shitload of people use VPNs and you can always
Speaker 3: cherry pick a bunch of and I'm not again, none
Speaker 3: of that I'm saying is not saying that they're in
Speaker 3: a shitload like Elon has specifically incentivized foreign accounts in
Speaker 3: different countries to make money by getting into the US
Speaker 3: culture war, right, That is absolutely a big part of
Speaker 3: how Twitter works today. No one's denying that. What I'm
Speaker 3: saying is that you don't know any more than you
Speaker 3: did before this came out, because you have no way
Speaker 3: of knowing if any of these accounts are based. Where
Speaker 3: is saying they're based because of how VPNs work. That's
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. Yeah, that's what I've got to say.
Speaker 4: It's incredibly annoying. It's incredibly annoying that we have to
Speaker 4: continue writing about eggs everything. The half of half of
Speaker 4: Blue Sky is people just virtue signaling that they're not
Speaker 4: using Twitter, and I'm being mad at Twitter.
Speaker 2: You know, it's the same.
Speaker 3: Honestly, this will get me flat, But it's the same
Speaker 3: thing about like whether people are angry about substack or
Speaker 3: fucking Instagram or Twitter or whatever. Like, if you're using
Speaker 3: social media, you're not doing yourself any favors. And they're
Speaker 3: all pretty supportive of bad things and bad people. And
Speaker 3: we use them anyway because that's the world. Like we
Speaker 3: spend dollars anyway, and let me tell you, dollars support
Speaker 3: some bad things. We pay taxes, and boy howdy, I
Speaker 3: don't like where a lot of those taxes go.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but don't don't pretend.
Speaker 3: That because you pick the right social media app that
Speaker 3: you're not fucking your brain up and introducing yourself to
Speaker 3: a bunch of things that aren't true. We all do it,
Speaker 3: Like that's the problem.
Speaker 4: Yes, they're not good for humans broadly. Do you want
Speaker 4: to talk about something else it's not good for humans?
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's not talk about fucking X the every goddamn thing.
Speaker 3: Ye anymore?
Speaker 4: No, Unfortunately, I have I have something Robert which does
Speaker 4: relate to X great everything app. So let's talk about Axios.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, are you guys familiar with Axios. It's the
Speaker 4: use oatelet for people who hate paragraphs.
Speaker 2: People who love cocaine.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah, for people reading the news while they're
Speaker 4: having a dump. That is what Axios is for. They
Speaker 4: ship out news for you to read while you're having a.
Speaker 3: Ship again, which makes cocaine even a bigger part of
Speaker 3: the picture here.
Speaker 2: No, it's it's like it's like the ADHD is like
Speaker 2: ideal news source.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, you do a line, you have to
Speaker 3: go take a ship, you catch up on your news.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's that's what they called productivity. That's that's the
Speaker 4: Robert Evans grindset, the morning routine that everyone's been asked.
Speaker 3: It's really it's really genius of fucking Axios to hit
Speaker 3: that demographic exactly because those people also have a lot
Speaker 3: of money because they're all day traders. True true, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: I have I have polymarket on the Califi on the
Speaker 2: other Axios always pulled up.
Speaker 4: That's split screening.
Speaker 3: You have one of those Apple like flat grass glass
Speaker 3: touch screen panels. But it's just for doing coke off
Speaker 3: of you've just got lines kind off on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's because the metaglass is a contact right looping
Speaker 4: Axio screen at your Axios and use that left for
Speaker 4: people who are taking cocaine. Has seemingly been duped into
Speaker 4: running a Russian wish list as a proposed piece plant
Speaker 4: in Ukraine. Yeah great, this is what happens when you
Speaker 4: do journalism the speed of paranoia. But this has come
Speaker 4: at the same time as Trump has proclaimed via truth
Speaker 4: the medium of a truth on through social that Ukraine
Speaker 4: was not showing suficient gratitude for what we had like
Speaker 4: eleven month of him failing to end the war.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So this twenty eight point plan was first published by Axios,
Speaker 4: and it was pretty much immediately rejected by a number
Speaker 4: of Senators, led by Senator Angus King, who were at
Speaker 4: a security conference in Halifax, Halifax, Canada. Not og Halifax,
Speaker 4: shout out yeah Halifax Junior. The senators pretty much immediately
Speaker 4: said that the US was not the author of the document.
Speaker 4: Rubio quote made it very clear to us that we
Speaker 4: are recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one
Speaker 4: of our representatives, said Senator Mike Grounds. So what they
Speaker 4: are saying is that the US didn't write to document
Speaker 4: and it was delivered to them. One can safely assume
Speaker 4: by Russia. Right, Rubio using X the Everything app then
Speaker 4: attempted to deny this. So what it appeared years has
Speaker 4: happened is that this plan was drafted by Russian special
Speaker 4: envoy dmitriev probably was Steve Witkoff.
Speaker 3: Sure that sounds right.
Speaker 4: So Wickkoff is Trump's what is I think he's a
Speaker 4: special envoy to Russia at this point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I believe he's an onvoid of Russia. Yeah, Warren
Speaker 3: Zevon wrote a song about guys like him.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah he has. He has not covered himself in
Speaker 4: glory in his time doing this. He's kind of a
Speaker 4: useful fool. He's formerly like a real estate.
Speaker 3: Guy that'll prepare you to deal with Vladimir Putin, having
Speaker 3: sold houses during the subprime mortgage crisis.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, Like it's pretty much what he's doing here, right,
Speaker 4: Like he's consistently been duped and pretty much has become
Speaker 4: an advocate for the Russian point of view a lot
Speaker 4: of the times. In this case, it seems that it
Speaker 4: was then strategically leaked to Axios. Right when Barak Ravid,
Speaker 4: who authored the Axios article, posted it on Eggs the
Speaker 4: Everything web site. Steve Whitcoff responded saying, quote, he must
Speaker 4: have got this from K. This is very funny because
Speaker 4: we have Steve Witcoff right negotiating a peace process which
Speaker 4: affects millions of people, and he also doesn't know how
Speaker 4: to use the DM button on X the Everything website.
Speaker 2: To be fair, X the Everything I've just changed their
Speaker 2: DMS and the whole the whole user interface for the
Speaker 2: DMS is completely different. Now you have to put in
Speaker 2: like a pass co and they claim to be encrypted,
Speaker 2: and it's much uglier to look at.
Speaker 4: So in defense in defense of Steve, instead you can
Speaker 4: instead leak.
Speaker 2: The safer, more secure option might just be to do
Speaker 2: it all in public.
Speaker 4: And to do it in public. Yeah, So so Steve
Speaker 4: of course using a code name there K will never know. Yeah,
Speaker 4: because we can possibly tell that Careal Dimitria my might
Speaker 4: be using K as a code name also the first
Speaker 4: letter of his first name. So it seems very like
Speaker 4: that either Dmitrie of someone else in Russia decided to
Speaker 4: leak this plan to Barakraavid or Dave Lawler, knowing it
Speaker 4: would be raised at a press conference of belling that Trump, who,
Speaker 4: according towards the Post, seems to have very little detailed
Speaker 4: knowledges and negotiations. Would probably see this as a quote
Speaker 4: unquote deal that then he could claim for himself, right,
Speaker 4: and it worked. I want to talk about how Axios's
Speaker 4: model makes that possible.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: I'm very well aware that Barackravid was a member of
Speaker 4: the eighty two hundred unit in Israel. If people I'm familiar,
Speaker 4: that's like a sigint Israeli intelligence unit. This is widely known.
Speaker 4: I've seen this being discussed in sort of relation to this.
Speaker 4: The thing is, he doesn't need to be nefarious for
Speaker 4: this to happen, and I think the most likely option
Speaker 4: here is that the Axios model is to do insider
Speaker 4: journalism and then rush to be the first to post
Speaker 4: it on social media and then get a bazillion clicks
Speaker 4: for your z seventy eight word article. Right. That is
Speaker 4: how That is their entire business model.
Speaker 2: It is the name of their whole game.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's why they don't use paragraphs. It's news for
Speaker 4: people who are like waiting for their coffee at Starbucks
Speaker 4: or whatever the problem is in this case, states are
Speaker 4: or nonstate actors, right, can effectively place a leak and
Speaker 4: they know that Axios will rush it to press probably
Speaker 4: in minutes, if not ours. And with the way that
Speaker 4: the United States executive branches right now, it seems very
Speaker 4: clear that that they can get it in front of Trump,
Speaker 4: then they're going to get a reaction one way or another.
Speaker 4: So it seems that Rubio was effectively cut out, that
Speaker 4: the United States Secretary of State was effectively cut out
Speaker 4: of this whole process. And there's a lot of reporting about,
Speaker 4: like I don't want to do kremlinology for the Trump
Speaker 4: White House particularly, but it shows how these news outlets,
Speaker 4: these news outlets are sort of don't fact check that
Speaker 4: rush to press, to do everything for social media can
Speaker 4: effectively be used right in a way that the benefits
Speaker 4: in this case Russia, but any number of organizations could
Speaker 4: do the same thing.
Speaker 2: Robert mentioned some kind of like Wartimes warn that some
Speaker 2: kind of Wartimes song, And I was wondering, where is
Speaker 2: the country of Zevon? You said, there's like a song
Speaker 2: about Warren Zevon.
Speaker 4: Jesus Garrison, Garrison, get out of you hears about discrimination
Speaker 4: in the workplace. Ah, I'm going to do a Woody
Speaker 4: Guthrie thing in my next series. And Gary is just
Speaker 4: going to sail straight past Garrison. You listen to Johnny
Speaker 4: Cash Garrison, I liked.
Speaker 2: I like Johnny Cash.
Speaker 3: Okay, James Cash.
Speaker 4: That's what they call me. Here's the ads.
Speaker 3: And we're.
Speaker 2: New Doge news for the first time in who knows
Speaker 2: how the news being. There's no more Doge. According to
Speaker 2: a report in Reuter's, DOGE has disbended eight months before
Speaker 2: its scheduled expiration in July of twenty twenty seven. When
Speaker 2: asked about the status of Doge earlier this month, Office
Speaker 2: of Personal Management director Scott Poor told Reuters quote that
Speaker 2: doesn't exist, adding that DOGE is no longer a quote
Speaker 2: unquote centralized entity. Yeah. Boro has also said that the
Speaker 2: DOGE mandated hiring freeze is over and that there's quote
Speaker 2: no target around reductions unquote, meaning that the DOGE era
Speaker 2: rule of having to fire a certain number of people
Speaker 2: in order to be allowed to hire people is no
Speaker 2: longer in use as well. And this isn't really surprising.
Speaker 2: You have not really heard about many DOGE related stuff
Speaker 2: in a while.
Speaker 3: They haven't been doing anything in a while. Musk has
Speaker 3: basically been out of the center loop of things. But
Speaker 3: also they did the things that they were needed to do, right.
Speaker 3: They did up massacred large portions of government employees. Yeah,
Speaker 3: did permanent damage to the administrative state and cost several
Speaker 3: hundred thousand people around the world their lives through cuts
Speaker 3: in USA.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And like two former DOGE employees, including big Balls,
Speaker 2: now just work on web design for US government websites,
Speaker 2: and other DOG officials have moved to agencies which they
Speaker 2: administered cuts to. A former DOGE team member, Zachary Terrell
Speaker 2: is now the chief technology officer at the Department of
Speaker 2: Health and Human Services, And Jeremy Lewin, who assisted the
Speaker 2: slashing of you say it, now oversees foreign assistants at
Speaker 2: the State Department.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So those guys got jobs out of this. All of
Speaker 2: the people who got fired or got natively impacted by
Speaker 2: the government shutdown are probably not going to be coming
Speaker 2: out as well as mister big Balls here.
Speaker 7: Well.
Speaker 3: And there's some evidence that a number of folks who
Speaker 3: worked with DOGE are now feeling left in the wind
Speaker 3: and potentially in danger because there are a lot of
Speaker 3: people who want these folks to be prosecuted for what
Speaker 3: they did. Yeah, there's definitely talk about that. If there's
Speaker 3: another democratic administration, we'll see if they would ever have
Speaker 3: the big balls to do it. But there was an
Speaker 3: article in Politico recently and I'm going to read a
Speaker 3: quote from that Musk had not just been their visionary
Speaker 3: leader for them, he was their protector, the man who
Speaker 3: had an elect direct line to Trump, who they believed
Speaker 3: could pick up the phone and secure a presidential pardon
Speaker 3: if the worst came. Without his presence in Washington, they
Speaker 3: were suddenly exposed. A senior DOSE figure named Donald Park
Speaker 3: tried to reassure his colleagues that they were still brothers
Speaker 3: in arms and that Musk would continue to protect them.
Speaker 3: That led to another protesting and advising, guys, seriously, get
Speaker 3: your own lawyer if you needed. He LUNs great, but
Speaker 3: you need to watch your own back. Watch your backs, guys.
Speaker 4: Yeah, these guys would be some of the more like
Speaker 4: presumably very easy to prosecute and like obvious targets. Yes,
Speaker 4: another democratic administration's.
Speaker 3: Some really obvious crimes in terms of like protect action
Speaker 3: of information, you know, like some some pretty obvious rule
Speaker 3: breaking that went on that's not being prosecuted now, but yeah,
Speaker 3: they're right, it could be prosecuted in the future.
Speaker 2: Those like first three four months of the Trump admin.
Speaker 2: Ye what it really was just full steam ahead on
Speaker 2: the Silicon Valley version of things, right, like the move
Speaker 2: fast and brave things. Yeah, that's such a wild time
Speaker 2: to look back on, not only just in terms of
Speaker 2: how much damage they did, but the idea that if
Speaker 2: they were going to continue at that pace for the
Speaker 2: rest of the term. The government already is fundamentally different
Speaker 2: in some ways, but like how much worse that would
Speaker 2: have been? Yeah, Yeah, and if Musk's ego is in
Speaker 2: part what's sabotaged that from being complete and really kind
Speaker 2: of doing that more like Jarvin inspired project. Yeah, Hubris
Speaker 2: uh kills kills a man once again. But there is
Speaker 2: aspects of like the doge idea and this government efficiency
Speaker 2: thing which aren't fully going away like this, this still
Speaker 2: is an aspect of the Trump administration. There still is
Speaker 2: like some of those guys at the Auspice of Budget
Speaker 2: and Management and the Hair twenty twenty five guys who
Speaker 2: have a lot of this government efficiency quote unquote government
Speaker 2: efficiency type stuff that they're still working on, including at
Speaker 2: the Education Department, which last week the Trump administration took
Speaker 2: another step towards closing the Department of Education by shifting
Speaker 2: some of its duties to other federal agencies, which the
Speaker 2: Admin claims will quote streamline federal education activities on the
Speaker 2: legally required programs, and reduce administrative burden unquote. That is
Speaker 2: going to be done by these six new interagency agreements
Speaker 2: which have been signed with the Departments of Labor, Interior,
Speaker 2: Health and Human Services, and State. The Education Department writing
Speaker 2: in an announcement that this will quote break up the
Speaker 2: federal bureaucracy, ensure efficient delivery of funded programs activities, and
Speaker 2: move closer to fulfilling the President's promise to return education
Speaker 2: to the States. So by splitting up Education Department duties
Speaker 2: among the four different agencies in three different interagency agreements,
Speaker 2: this is supposed to cut red tape and lighten central bureaucracy.
Speaker 4: You have seven entities now what one entity did before.
Speaker 2: The elementary, high school, and post secondary programs will now
Speaker 2: be administered by the Department of Labor.
Speaker 4: That's great.
Speaker 2: We'll now overseee over thirty billion dollars in education grants
Speaker 2: aimed at trying to boost the number of Americans in
Speaker 2: the workforce. The Department of the Interior will be taking
Speaker 2: over the education departments to Indian education programs and integrating
Speaker 2: them into existing programs administered by the Department of the Interior,
Speaker 2: with quote unquote proper oversight by the Education Department. College
Speaker 2: childcare programs, and foreign medical school accreditation will be administered
Speaker 2: and overseen by the Health and Human Services, and the
Speaker 2: State Department will now oversee all foreign education programs, handle
Speaker 2: international education grants, and fully administer the full Bright program.
Speaker 2: Justification for this State Department takeover of these funds specifically
Speaker 2: cited five instances of grants that were used to fund
Speaker 2: academic and medical research on trans people, writing that these
Speaker 2: programs have deviated from the core mission on The announcement
Speaker 2: from the Education Departments reads that the State Department is
Speaker 2: quote best positioned to tailor foreign education programs with the
Speaker 2: national security and foreign policy priorities of the United States.
Speaker 2: This partnership provides an opportunity to streamline international education program
Speaker 2: funding and data collection measures, consolidate program management, and advance
Speaker 2: national security interests.
Speaker 4: That's not good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that doesn't seem great. Huh.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 4: This last part is particularly concerning that the US previously
Speaker 4: has done a lot of funding of education programs around
Speaker 4: the world, and to see that pretty much I like
Speaker 4: with this current vasion of the State Department either disappear
Speaker 4: or become even more up propaganda. Like it's really worrying.
Speaker 4: This kind of builds on that dose stuff that you
Speaker 4: were talking about. This is the end of the State
Speaker 4: Department doing anything other than the propaganda and I guess
Speaker 4: warmaking well.
Speaker 2: And specifically, like Rubio's focus on education has been to
Speaker 2: crack down on academics palestatiing academics, academics who have who
Speaker 2: have protest in support of Palestine. That's specifically what Rubio
Speaker 2: has talked about in terms of you know, universities. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so with all the stuff in that statement about you know,
Speaker 2: national security and foreign policy priorities, it's not hard to
Speaker 2: see what they could be gesturing towards. Yeah, as the
Speaker 2: announcements are currently written, a lot of the programs itself,
Speaker 2: at least in the trench transitionary period, remain kind of
Speaker 2: the same. They're shifting who is like quote unquote administering them.
Speaker 2: That's the word they use a lot. But they're not
Speaker 2: cutting funds to these programs at the moment, and they
Speaker 2: do talk about them as like legally required programs. But
Speaker 2: I mean Carolyn Levitt and Linda McMahon have said, this
Speaker 2: is just one step towards well fully sending education back
Speaker 2: to the States.
Speaker 1: Woh.
Speaker 4: This also was sort of like in massive disparities in
Speaker 4: educational outcomes state by state in the United States, right, Like,
Speaker 4: we already have that to some extent, but that's only
Speaker 4: going to be exacerbated by this. Right talking about things
Speaker 4: happening between the states, let's talk about Gregory Buffino, person
Speaker 4: who supposedly patrols the borders of the United States but
Speaker 4: has more recently been doing internal enforcement for the Border Patrol.
Speaker 4: He gave an interview to AP recently that I was
Speaker 4: just reading. They did confirm interestingly that like a few
Speaker 4: weeks ago, maybe months ago, we've been talking about Bevino
Speaker 4: and like trying to work out if he was still
Speaker 4: chief Patrol agent in El Centro. It appears that he is.
Speaker 4: But he's also reminder of this operation at large, which
Speaker 4: is their sort of the thing that has moved from
Speaker 4: Los Angeles to Chicago, which is now in Charlotte. Right,
Speaker 4: this sort of internal enforcement operation. He calls his team
Speaker 4: and now quote unquote sanctuary busters, and he said that
Speaker 4: quote there will be no more sanctuaries, which kind of
Speaker 4: does build on what I spoke about in our last
Speaker 4: ed right when we spoke about the idea that the
Speaker 4: reason they had targeted Charlotte was because it appeared on
Speaker 4: that CIS map quote unquote sanctuary city or sanctuary jurisdiction,
Speaker 4: despite the passage of legislation in the state which would
Speaker 4: have prevented it doing the things that the sanctuaries do.
Speaker 4: I just want to talk about this ABC investigation into
Speaker 4: CBP's use of licensed plate readers. CBPS has had these
Speaker 4: for like eight or nine years now. I found the
Speaker 4: twenty seventeen piece they wrote out their justification for using them. Right,
Speaker 4: Their use has grown immensely right in a yeah, and
Speaker 4: it has grown under both of meministrations we've I suppose
Speaker 4: Trump administration from twenty twenty by the administration twenty twenty,
Speaker 4: twenty eighty four. We spoke actually in an episode that
Speaker 4: I think it was just Robert and I in that
Speaker 4: episode when we spoke about Gavin Newsom. People love that
Speaker 4: episode and they send me great feedback, because guys, it's
Speaker 4: important that we all know that the only person standing
Speaker 4: up against Trump right now is Gavin Newsom. Everything else
Speaker 4: is pointless. But in that episode, we spoke about how
Speaker 4: many California jurisdictions share license plate reader information with federal
Speaker 4: immigration authorities, even when California law prohibits them from doing so. Right,
Speaker 4: this is kind of one of those these things they
Speaker 4: were it's a ratchet, right. Once you give that power
Speaker 4: to the state, it belongs to all of the state,
Speaker 4: and you can never take it back. Automated license to
Speaker 4: plate readers have been a big thing in this kind
Speaker 4: of the post twenty twenty tendency of democratic mayors in
Speaker 4: big cities to massively increase spending on the police and
Speaker 4: massively increase police surveillance. We have automated cameras on our
Speaker 4: lampposts here in San Diego now right, California has prosecuted
Speaker 4: one jurisdiction that I'm aware of, which is Alcoholone. People
Speaker 4: will be familiar with alcoholne from Alcoholone. Mayor Bill Well's
Speaker 4: attempt to make a country music song about how schools
Speaker 4: are turning kids trans that is un ironically probably the
Speaker 4: most national use it that ALCOHOLA has made for a while.
Speaker 4: But bundahursued Alcoholone for showing that data. My guess is
Speaker 4: that that is because it's alcoholone, right, Because alcohol is
Speaker 4: a city where the mayor makes a country music song
Speaker 4: about how schools are turning children trans like it's very
Speaker 4: obviously like a partisan prosecution. There are many other jurisdictions
Speaker 4: doing this. What Border Patrol does with these cameras is
Speaker 4: it targets quote unquote suspicious activities and then it requests stops.
Speaker 4: Sometimes this stops an made by Border Patrol, but are
Speaker 4: made by local police right on the pretext of something
Speaker 4: like speeding or failing to signal before you change lanes,
Speaker 4: having a break light out could be many, many things, right.
Speaker 4: The ABC piece quoted Deputy Joel bab Of saying, quote,
Speaker 4: the beautiful thing about the Texas traffic code is there
Speaker 4: thousands of things you can stop a vehicle for. The
Speaker 4: idea here is not to explicitly talk about the license
Speaker 4: plate readers, right, And the fact that they are using
Speaker 4: these to do predictive surveillance is what they call it. Right,
Speaker 4: They're trying to highlight like suspicious patterns of vehicle motion
Speaker 4: and stop people. The piece has some they obtained through
Speaker 4: public records requests from a court case a whatchapp group
Speaker 4: chat between Border Patrol and Texas officers, which the opposite
Speaker 4: shared movement, social media profiles, car rentals, and home addresses
Speaker 4: of people who they were interested in surveilling. Right, and
Speaker 4: it reveals a massive level of surveillance. You know, if
Speaker 4: you if you're thinking of border patrol and you're still
Speaker 4: under the impression that in America, the border can't come
Speaker 4: to you wherever you are, this is another example of
Speaker 4: why that's not true. Right, DHS uses these all over
Speaker 4: the country to include outside of one hundred mile border
Speaker 4: enforcement zone. Right, this piece seems to believe that the
Speaker 4: board one hundred mile zone is it's like a legal
Speaker 4: hard line. It's not. It's an interpretation of a quote
Speaker 4: unquote reasonable distance. There is no hard line stopping BP
Speaker 4: for operating further from the border than that. That is
Speaker 4: just generally where the interpretation of a reasonable distance from
Speaker 4: the border is perceived to fall. Border patrol has these
Speaker 4: cameras at fixed points, so like that would be border
Speaker 4: patrol crossings. You know, when you enter or enter the
Speaker 4: enter or leave the country at a port of entry
Speaker 4: and then at checkpoints. Right, people will be familiar with
Speaker 4: checkpoints that live in a border area. And then they
Speaker 4: also have these in mobile and covert capacities. Right, and
Speaker 4: they're using them to find people who might be driving
Speaker 4: near the border or staying and and then leaving at
Speaker 4: a strange time, and then they're building a profile of
Speaker 4: those people's movements and using that request stops. Right. It's
Speaker 4: a level of surveillance that I think should be worrying
Speaker 4: to many people.
Speaker 2: And they have access to these like larger integrated camera
Speaker 2: networks like by Flock Safety, which I've talked about before,
Speaker 2: including I think yesterday's episode, as Flock is like an
Speaker 2: Atlanta based company that rose to prominence through their surveillance
Speaker 2: around the forest where Copsity was being constructed. Now Flock
Speaker 2: is all over the country, and Border Patrol has access
Speaker 2: to the Flock system. Yeah, and it's used for a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of other really dubious stuff, including in Texas.
Speaker 2: I think four h four Media did a report not
Speaker 2: too long ago about Texas sheriffs tracking a pregnant woman
Speaker 2: getting an abortion not in Texas.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, yeah, I can see. Yeah, Texas law makes
Speaker 4: it a crime to leave the state in order to
Speaker 4: get an abortion or something, right, and so that would
Speaker 4: be the I guess their excuse here, But like I
Speaker 4: think we can all see that that's a pretty pretty
Speaker 4: disgusting use of the surveilance state. Yeah, these things grew
Speaker 4: massively in the time period between twenty twenty and today,
Speaker 4: and it was not just in Republican jurisdictions. Right, there's
Speaker 4: this like unabated support for state surveillance that we saw
Speaker 4: all over the United States is now being turned against
Speaker 4: migrants and anybody who is suspected of helping them, which
Speaker 4: is not great. Talking of not great, we have an
Speaker 4: obligation to pivot to add I'm happy.
Speaker 2: I think that's great. I love I love having a job.
Speaker 4: I enjoyed to consume products and services.
Speaker 6: That's right, and we're back.
Speaker 3: How's everybody doing good?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Banging, pretty good, pretty good. I just finished my
Speaker 2: Asahi smoothie from the Hair Heritage Social twenty twenty four cup,
Speaker 2: so I feel great.
Speaker 6: That's great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's good for you.
Speaker 2: Garrison really coming together, you know, politics from different sides
Speaker 2: coming together to enjoy a smoothie. Not unlike the meeting
Speaker 2: between Zora Mum, Donnie and Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, Oh how long did you plan that for?
Speaker 2: Garrishon? Like literally five seconds? It just it just came out.
Speaker 4: We don't do smooth transitions here like that.
Speaker 2: Well, you know sometimes do you know who was smooth?
Speaker 2: It was Zoramum Donnie during that meeting, which bit like
Speaker 2: a duck's back, like a like a seal.
Speaker 4: That kind of smoothness is.
Speaker 2: Trump seemed pretty pretty enamored. Mister mum Donnie mayor elect
Speaker 2: Mom Donnie. Quote, we have one thing in common. We
Speaker 2: want this city of ours to do very well unquote.
Speaker 2: So this was on Friday, Trump and Mum Donnie had
Speaker 2: a private meeting in the White House. Afterwards a thirty
Speaker 2: minute press conference in the Oval Office where Trump was
Speaker 2: sitting down and soa was kind of looming over the
Speaker 2: side of Trump the whole time, never fully smiling, always
Speaker 2: having a little bit of like a a tiny like
Speaker 2: both sided smirk, but not doing his traditional happy smile.
Speaker 2: He had a very different look in the White House.
Speaker 2: But as soon as the press conference started, it was
Speaker 2: clear that the meeting went very well for Momdannie. Trump
Speaker 2: was exuberant about the man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he seemed really excited. Yeah, it's a little weird,
Speaker 3: but he seemed really excited.
Speaker 2: He stated that they have common ground on getting housing built,
Speaker 2: on affordability, on food and prices coming down saying, quote,
Speaker 2: there's no difference in party, and we're going to be
Speaker 2: helping him to make everybody's dream come true unquote.
Speaker 4: Everybody's stream doctory amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, First, I want to play Zoron's initial statement as
Speaker 2: the press conference started on what they spoke about during
Speaker 2: this meeting.
Speaker 7: I appreciated the meeting with the President, and as he said,
Speaker 7: it was a productive meeting forocused on the place of
Speaker 7: shared admiration and love, which is New York City, and
Speaker 7: the need to deliver affordability to New Yorkers, the eight
Speaker 7: and a half million people who call our city their home,
Speaker 7: who are struggling to afford life in the most expensive
Speaker 7: city in the.
Speaker 8: United States of America.
Speaker 7: We spoke about we spoke about groceries, we spoke about utilities,
Speaker 7: we spoke about the different ways in which people are
Speaker 7: being pushed out. And I appreciated the time with the President.
Speaker 7: I appreciated the conversation. I look forward to working together
Speaker 7: to deliver that affordability for the orders.
Speaker 4: It's one of the posture people with the green line.
Speaker 4: The green line.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I've seen yeah, that going on a couple
Speaker 3: of times.
Speaker 4: They've already they've had that way with it.
Speaker 2: They've been on it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, okay, it does seem tense. The vibes in
Speaker 3: that room must have been very, very weird.
Speaker 2: N Yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah, no, Zorn's very tense. Trump's
Speaker 2: trying to relax. Like bad late.
Speaker 4: Face that you've posted on gas he is, I can.
Speaker 3: Only it's like a shit eating grin on Trump's face. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: like he does seem genuinely half thrilled. Yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 4: He likes to be associated with winners.
Speaker 2: This is one of the big things, right A lot
Speaker 2: of I mean, we'll talk about this more and that
Speaker 2: takes okay at this, but but yeah, I think it's
Speaker 2: very clear why Trump's actually having a good time here.
Speaker 2: Zoron's like the most popular politician in the country right now,
Speaker 2: and Trump likes winners. And if anything, Zoron has proven
Speaker 2: to be an underdog that has an enormous capacity for winning,
Speaker 2: and I think Trump does like that, and that, coupled
Speaker 2: with a genuine love for New York, I think Zoron
Speaker 2: was able to navigate around Trump pretty successfully. When asked
Speaker 2: about Zoron being a communist, Trump said, quote, I feel
Speaker 2: very confident he can do a good job I think
Speaker 2: it's going to surprise some conservative people actually unquote, and.
Speaker 3: You should add what he said about liberal people because
Speaker 3: I thought that was his funniest line.
Speaker 2: Oh then also liberal people, but they already like him
Speaker 2: too or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think they'll be surprised, they'll just be yeah, yes,
Speaker 3: they like him because they already like him. It was
Speaker 3: very funny. It was very funny.
Speaker 2: Trump's talked about how a lot of Trump voters actually
Speaker 2: voted for Zoron as well, saying quote unquote, I'm okay
Speaker 2: with that, And so I mentioned that, yes, one in
Speaker 2: ten Trump voters in New York voted for Zoron, and
Speaker 2: zor mentioned the end to forever wars and the cost
Speaker 2: living crisis as the driving motivators that voters spoke about
Speaker 2: as he was campaigning. Throughout this press conference, and we
Speaker 2: can assume some degree of the meeting, Zoron was very
Speaker 2: laser focused on New York specifically, And you've even seen
Speaker 2: this in interviews that he's given to like NBC and
Speaker 2: other outlets the past few days, where people are asking
Speaker 2: him about, you know, the Democratic Party as a whole
Speaker 2: and national level, and Zoron repeatedly just goes back to
Speaker 2: affordability in New York. This is like the one thing
Speaker 2: that he's going to keep talking about. He doesn't want
Speaker 2: to talk about any anything else, really, And this was
Speaker 2: evident throughout this meeting, the way that Zorn would would
Speaker 2: reiterate every question to being about New York. But they
Speaker 2: didn't shy away from talking about the things they disagreed
Speaker 2: on on, like an ideaological sense, ICE being one of them.
Speaker 2: Here's one of their exchanges about ICE.
Speaker 5: Resident, you've threatened to send federal troops to New York City.
Speaker 5: You both have differences when it comes to ICE agents
Speaker 5: in New York City. Mister Mundanie, you've called ICE a
Speaker 5: rogue government entity. I wonder how you reconcile your differences
Speaker 5: on both of those issues.
Speaker 8: I think you're going to work them out.
Speaker 9: And I think that if we have known murderers and
Speaker 9: known drug dealers and some very bad people, you know,
Speaker 9: we want to get them out, and the mayor ones
Speaker 9: have we discussed there is a great length actually, maybe
Speaker 9: more than anything else, he wants to have a safe
Speaker 9: New York. Ultimately, a safe New York is going to
Speaker 9: be a great New York. If it's not safe, no.
Speaker 8: Matter how well we do with pricing and with anything else.
Speaker 8: We can talk about anything you want.
Speaker 9: If you don't have safe streets, it's not going to
Speaker 9: be a success.
Speaker 8: So we're going to work together.
Speaker 9: We're going to make sure that if they're horrible people,
Speaker 9: we want to get him out. I think he wants
Speaker 9: to get him out, maybe more than I do, so
Speaker 9: we'll work together.
Speaker 2: They talked about ICE at one later point in the meeting,
Speaker 2: where you get kind of a peak at what some
Speaker 2: of this conversation may have been like behind the scenes,
Speaker 2: about trying to target any ICE enforcement against people who
Speaker 2: have criminal records rather than these roving raids that round
Speaker 2: up but just swaths of undocumented people like the Canal
Speaker 2: Street raid a few weeks ago. It's still not super
Speaker 2: clear what they are talking about, but there's not compromise
Speaker 2: in this point. Like Trump's obviously going to try to
Speaker 2: frame this in a way that strengthens Trump's own positions
Speaker 2: on this, and I think Zoron will do the same.
Speaker 2: Before we discuss I don't want to play this the
Speaker 2: second bit of their discussion, because you get more of
Speaker 2: Zoron's angle.
Speaker 7: We discussed ICE and New York City, and I spoke
Speaker 7: about how the laws that we have in New York
Speaker 7: City allow for New York City government to speak to
Speaker 7: the federal administration for about one hundred and seventy serious crimes,
Speaker 7: the concerns that many New Yorkers have around the enforcement
Speaker 7: of immigration laws on New Yorkers across the Five boroughs,
Speaker 7: and most recently, we're talking about a mother and her
Speaker 7: two children. How this has very little to do with
Speaker 7: what that is.
Speaker 8: Is we discuss crime more than ice per se.
Speaker 9: We discuss crime, and he doesn't want to see crime,
Speaker 9: and I don't want to see crime, and I have
Speaker 9: very little doubt that we're not going to get along
Speaker 9: on that issue. He wants to and he said some
Speaker 9: things that were very interesting, very interesting as to housing construction,
Speaker 9: and he wants to see houses go up. He wants
Speaker 9: to see a lot of houses created, a lot of
Speaker 9: apartments built, et cetera. And you know, we actually people
Speaker 9: would be shocked. But I want to see the same thing.
Speaker 8: See that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that worries me a little bit.
Speaker 2: What about that worries you?
Speaker 4: I can tell what Trump's.
Speaker 3: Trying to do, which is that he really would like
Speaker 3: to get Mom Donnie on his side and he's interestingly
Speaker 3: for Trump, I think he is willing to move on
Speaker 3: some things if he can fundamentally get Mom Donnie who
Speaker 3: agree that ice has a use. Yeah, right, Like that's
Speaker 3: what he's clearly trying to do, and he's clearly trying
Speaker 3: to portray it as we've already agreed on that. And
Speaker 3: I think that within the context of this meeting, because
Speaker 3: of how the questions were being asked, I don't think
Speaker 3: Zorn got enough of a chance to fully address that question.
Speaker 3: So I'll leave it open to see how that is,
Speaker 3: like like how he deals with that in the future,
Speaker 3: But I don't think he got enough of an opportunity
Speaker 3: to push back enough on some of the things Trump
Speaker 3: was claiming here. That does concern me a little bit,
Speaker 3: Like I think it's more a factor of how an
Speaker 3: Oval Office press conference is structured. But I do think
Speaker 3: that it's like I can see what Trump's trying to
Speaker 3: do well.
Speaker 2: I think what Mum Donnie is trying to navigate for
Speaker 2: is if he can put an end to roving ice
Speaker 2: rates that just like that just round up people at
Speaker 2: whether they're at restaurants or from depots, and if there's
Speaker 2: people who are who have been incarcerated who are incarcerated,
Speaker 2: and if removal operations are specifically against except like what
Speaker 2: one hundred and seventy like serious crimes, and if that
Speaker 2: is a sort of compromise, I guess I don't know,
Speaker 2: Like he's not an office. Yes, it's it's unclear the
Speaker 2: way that this would this would be enacted. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: if it's an harm reduction measure of stopping ICE raids
Speaker 2: from happening or limiting the amount that ICE is able
Speaker 2: to operate as as basically a rodenty within the city,
Speaker 2: And I don't think we know enough to like actually
Speaker 2: see what that will look like yet, because he's not
Speaker 2: taking office for another what like forty five days.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, what he's talking about when Trump goes about crime,
Speaker 4: crime is what they have always talked about, right, right,
Speaker 4: When when they talk about the ICE enforcement, the crimes
Speaker 4: that they are speaking about, very right, they will always
Speaker 4: give the example of the person who's been convicted of
Speaker 4: child abuse, of murder, of domestic violence. Right, But then
Speaker 4: they will also go ahead and say the crossing between
Speaker 4: ports of entry can be prosecuted as a crime, and
Speaker 4: then they will use that as a justification for taking
Speaker 4: anyone right and specifically people who have entered within the
Speaker 4: last two years, many of whom were shipped to New
Speaker 4: York from other states, and saying, well, these people entered
Speaker 4: between ports of entry, which they did after the end
Speaker 4: of Title forty two, right when we returned to processing
Speaker 4: people under Title eight. And they will place him in
Speaker 4: actibility to remove all proceedings like that, that is what
Speaker 4: they have been doing for a while. When he talks
Speaker 4: about the sanctuary policies, New York right now doesn't honor
Speaker 4: detainer requests right in theory, sanctuary laws prevent and y see,
Speaker 4: from what I understand, from honoring detainer requests, which would
Speaker 4: be an extra forty eight hour detainer. We haven't, like,
Speaker 4: as Robber said, we haven't really seen enough to see
Speaker 4: see what he's talking about there. But like, I don't
Speaker 4: know if he's talking about a change to those sanctuary
Speaker 4: policies or not. But yeah, like that that would be
Speaker 4: disappointing if you did.
Speaker 2: I obviously there's any indication that he's talking about a
Speaker 2: change to sanctuary policy.
Speaker 4: Well, when he's talking about we can cull them on
Speaker 4: one hundred and seventy serious crimes, right, what does he need?
Speaker 3: Yeah? And I think This gets back to the fact
Speaker 3: that a press conference in the Oval Office is not
Speaker 3: going to give you a chance to adequately address an
Speaker 3: issue like this, and I see Trump trying to paper
Speaker 3: over it and move past as quickly as possible. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and I understand why you'd show up for this meeting,
Speaker 3: and I think it was probably, on the balance, the
Speaker 3: right thing to do. But like, I am interested to
Speaker 3: see what he does next, because I think Trump is
Speaker 3: going to continue trying to push for accommodations. And it
Speaker 3: is kind of it is wild and unique to see
Speaker 3: that he seems to be willing to move on some stuff.
Speaker 3: But he's willing to move on some stuff because he
Speaker 3: thinks he can get Mom Donnie to soften some of
Speaker 3: his stances.
Speaker 2: I mean stances on what I mean. I mean, I
Speaker 2: don't on ice.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's what he's trying to do here. He's
Speaker 3: trying to build a case for that.
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess I don't know the degree to
Speaker 2: which we're using.
Speaker 3: Saying that this is a rogue government agency to saying
Speaker 3: that this is a government agent. That's what Trump is
Speaker 3: trying to push for. Yeah, I'm not saying Mom Donnie
Speaker 3: agreed with that. I think that the nature of this
Speaker 3: meeting did not give him enough time to push back
Speaker 3: on that.
Speaker 2: Sure, sure you have Mum Donnie pointing there towards like
Speaker 2: an instance of like, you know, a mother and like
Speaker 2: a child getting affected by this and like and using
Speaker 2: it as an example of like what they are trying
Speaker 2: to prevent and like focusing on like the stopping ice
Speaker 2: rates from happening, as as like the thing that Mam
Speaker 2: Donnie is pushing for there and Mam Donnie as New
Speaker 2: York City mayor cannot abolish the entity of ice, and
Speaker 2: so like the degree in which we're framed that as
Speaker 2: like Mom Donnie's like softening, I think still, I mean yeah, like,
Speaker 2: as you've said, there's not enough here to make a
Speaker 2: full determination.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I just think that's that's what Trump wants to get
Speaker 3: out of this.
Speaker 4: I think trumple just wants to be associated with this
Speaker 4: guy who is currently, as Garrison said, very popular.
Speaker 3: And it is really wild to see him be so
Speaker 3: deferential to somebody.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean including in this this this
Speaker 2: question about Trump being a fascist, which he handled in
Speaker 2: a very uh, very fascinating way.
Speaker 3: This is nuts.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Are you affirming that you think President Trump is a fascist.
Speaker 7: I've spoken about.
Speaker 8: Okay, okay, it's easier.
Speaker 2: It's easier than explaining it, or did say yes during
Speaker 2: that exchange he did? He did not, He in fact did.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he absolutely did. It's one of the most remarkable
Speaker 3: moments in American political history. Yeah, if I had any
Speaker 3: stretch of the imagination.
Speaker 2: As Trump pats on the side, and I mean, it's
Speaker 2: it's it's wild for Trump. This word doesn't mean anything
Speaker 2: right for for Trump, like him saying it's easier than
Speaker 2: explaining that's just indicating to zort On that you don't
Speaker 2: have to do this like little like political game for
Speaker 2: this reporter and be like, you know, we have we
Speaker 2: have just we've disagreed on policies, which blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: Like Trump's like, no, you don't have to do that.
Speaker 2: It's easier and explaining just say it yeah yeah, which
Speaker 2: is a sort of like a point like against like
Speaker 2: the media. That's from Trump's point of view, it's like
Speaker 2: you don't have to do you don't have to do
Speaker 2: like the little dance for like this like New York
Speaker 2: Post reporter or whatever. Just say that I'm a fascist.
Speaker 2: It's fine.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And because politics is for him a sort of
Speaker 4: behind closed doors boys club. And they, yes, they both
Speaker 4: have to go out and then deal with the media.
Speaker 4: But like you can sort of see that in this
Speaker 4: sort of highly viviality that Trump goes for there. I'm
Speaker 4: not saying that ma'm Damie is less necessarily in his
Speaker 4: boys club. I'm just saying that that that is how
Speaker 4: Trump perceives politics.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he made other references like when when
Speaker 2: Trump was asked if he considers or on a g hottist,
Speaker 2: like someone else in the Republican Party called him, and
Speaker 2: Trump's like, no, I mean, the man's sitting in front
Speaker 2: of me is not a the hottest. People have to
Speaker 2: say certain things during campaigns, but the man I met
Speaker 2: was today. It's a very rational man. And like little
Speaker 2: lines like that, like people, Yeah, when you're paining, you
Speaker 2: have to say things that I think that he's getting
Speaker 2: at a similar point there. But there was multipoints for
Speaker 2: this press conference where Trump defended Mamdani against like other
Speaker 2: aggressive questions about his focus on international law versus the Constitution,
Speaker 2: or why Zoron flew to DC instead of taking a
Speaker 2: greener train. Yeah, silly, silly stuff. And Trump was like
Speaker 2: Trump like dismissed these questions if like for Zar, essentially,
Speaker 2: I mean like, I'll stand up for you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's something else.
Speaker 4: There are more salient criticisms, and there were reasonable criticisms
Speaker 4: you can make of some stuff he's done. Those are
Speaker 4: the event.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just gotcha media stuff, right, like which which
Speaker 3: it's interesting how well Trump is able to call sort
Speaker 3: of their bullshit. Yeah, always fascinating.
Speaker 2: One of the more hilarious attempts at a gotcha question
Speaker 2: is from Jack Pasovic, who was in the room, who asked.
Speaker 4: This, God, he must have been having an absolute melt down.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he can't be happy about this, okay.
Speaker 8: I wanted to know.
Speaker 10: One of the policies as well that Mayor, like Madomie
Speaker 10: talked to a number of times about on the campaign,
Speaker 10: was shifting the tax burden for property taxes from what
Speaker 10: he called minority communities to white based communities.
Speaker 8: And putting more taxes on white people.
Speaker 10: I also noticed that in your acceptance speech you didn't
Speaker 10: mention didn't mention anything.
Speaker 9: About America or Christians or white.
Speaker 10: People in general, and so I didn't know if that
Speaker 10: was one of the policies that you guys had spoken
Speaker 10: about incredible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Trump's like smiling, like like a proud of
Speaker 2: father this whole time. Ass like weird question. It's such
Speaker 2: an odds like schizophrenic moment. It's it's weird.
Speaker 3: How much more he seems to like Zoran than like
Speaker 3: his supporters.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean a lot of his supporters are
Speaker 2: losers and Zoron's a winner.
Speaker 4: From his cabinet members, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Because they're losers like Pete Haig, saith Elon Musk, they're losing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're all dweebs.
Speaker 4: I think JD. Van's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Zorn's has proved himself to be like an incredibly
Speaker 2: capable figure. There's a little moment as Jack's first asking
Speaker 2: the question where Trump indicates to Zora, like, Okay, you
Speaker 2: you handle this guy. You can have fun with this. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and it's it's it's very odd and not odd and
Speaker 2: it's unexplainable. I understand what's happening here. Actually I think
Speaker 2: this is actually very easy to understand. But it's just
Speaker 2: still it feels odd.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and just give him the adversarial politics were
Speaker 4: so used to.
Speaker 2: Like there's a lot of moments like this, like when
Speaker 2: when Trump's asked if he's gonna cut off federal funding
Speaker 2: to New York. He says, quote, I don't think that's
Speaker 2: going to happen. I think we're gonna help. And this
Speaker 2: is like an indication of like what Zora was trying
Speaker 2: to do in terms of harm reduction in this meeting,
Speaker 2: specifically around raids on National Guard deployment and on like
Speaker 2: cutting off federal funds to the city. One of the
Speaker 2: methods I think that Zoran used to help get Trump
Speaker 2: on his side is an appeal to like the real
Speaker 2: estate brain that Trump has with mom Donnie's like left
Speaker 2: wing yimby style of policies, talking about rent coming down
Speaker 2: by building housing and how much that surprised Trump because
Speaker 2: Trump has this conception of people, like of people usually
Speaker 2: on these like left wing positions are very very nimby
Speaker 2: in a lot of ways, and Trump was like surprised
Speaker 2: by this. I guess he hasn't really encountered like a
Speaker 2: left wing yimby before. And it's like it's like this
Speaker 2: like caught him off guard. Yeah, there's a good point
Speaker 2: here where Trump expresses this.
Speaker 8: Now we may disagree how we get there.
Speaker 9: The rent coming down, I think one of the things
Speaker 9: that really gleaned very very much. Today, he'd like to
Speaker 9: see him come down, ideally by building a lot of
Speaker 9: additional housing here.
Speaker 8: That's the ultimate way. He agrees with that, and so
Speaker 8: do I. But if I read the newspapers, in the stories,
Speaker 8: I don't hear I don't hear that.
Speaker 9: But I heard him say it today, and I think
Speaker 9: that's a very positive step. No, I don't expect. I
Speaker 9: expect to be helping him, not hurting him. A big
Speaker 9: help because I want New York City to be great. Look,
Speaker 9: I love New York City. It's where I come from.
Speaker 9: I spent a lot of years there. Now I'm right.
Speaker 4: Here, am ray Okay.
Speaker 2: And later Trump clarified that he would feel comfortable living
Speaker 2: in New York under Mam Donnie and compared Mam Donnie's
Speaker 2: popularity to that of Bernie Sanders, as well as how
Speaker 2: supporters of Bernie moved over to Trump and then vice versa.
Speaker 2: And through Trump talking about this, you can start to
Speaker 2: kind of peak behind the current of like how Zorn
Speaker 2: was framing his version of populism, which was able to
Speaker 2: get Trump to be like friendly towards like the economic
Speaker 2: affordability sides of his policy proposals in talking about like
Speaker 2: the crossover of support between Bernie and Trump and twenty
Speaker 2: sixteen and the crossover support between Trump twenty four and
Speaker 2: ma'm donnie in twenty twenty five. At one point, Mam
Speaker 2: Donnie did also address the genocide in Gaza.
Speaker 11: Ask mister mamm donnie, you've accused the US government of
Speaker 11: committing genocide and Gaza. Why President Trump was working on peace?
Speaker 7: Why that I've spoken about the Israeli government committing genocide,
Speaker 7: and I've spoken about our government funding it. And I
Speaker 7: shared with the President in our meeting about the concern
Speaker 7: that many New Yorkers have of wanting their tax dollars
Speaker 7: to go towards the benefit of New Yorkers and their
Speaker 7: ability to afford basic dignity. And what we see right
Speaker 7: now is we're in the ninth consecutive year of more
Speaker 7: than one hundred thousand school children being homeless in our city,
Speaker 7: and there's a desperate need not only for the following
Speaker 7: of human rights, but also the following through on the
Speaker 7: promises we've made New Yorkers. And I appreciated the meeting
Speaker 7: we had and the work that we can do.
Speaker 11: I agree that President Trump didn't do a piece and
Speaker 11: work hard to make the peace, because we were hard
Speaker 11: to do with the peace in the Midate East and everywhere.
Speaker 11: What do you agree with that?
Speaker 7: I appreciate all efforts towards peace, and I shared with
Speaker 7: President Trump that when I spoke to Trump voters on
Speaker 7: Hillside Avenue, including one of whom was a pharmacist, that
Speaker 7: spoke about how President Trump's father actually went to that
Speaker 7: pharmacy not too far from Jamaica, states that people were
Speaker 7: tired of seeing our tax dollars fund endless wars. And
Speaker 7: I also believe that we have to follow through on
Speaker 7: the international human rights and I know that still today
Speaker 7: those are being violated and that continues to be work
Speaker 7: that has to be done no matter where we're speaking of.
Speaker 3: Man, that's I I that's so complicated, so conflicting.
Speaker 4: That's a lot going on.
Speaker 3: On one hand, it's really good that somebody on record
Speaker 3: said in the White House that the US is enabling
Speaker 3: Israel and continuing the genocide. I'm glad that that happened. Yeah,
Speaker 3: On the other hand, the fact that it's off roaded
Speaker 3: so quickly to now let's talk about like what we
Speaker 3: want to do for New Yorkers and it is like, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's not I don't know, it's it's the only way
Speaker 3: this was going to happen at all. I suppose it's
Speaker 3: the mar It's very no, I agree, I agree, but
Speaker 3: it's tonally awkward, like it's yeah, it's it's totally a
Speaker 3: little lot, especially when the topic is genocide, right, like
Speaker 3: the vault from genocide to housing affordability and understand that
Speaker 3: both the serious issues, it's still a tonal shift that
Speaker 3: is jarring. And like, yes, it's absolutely fair to say
Speaker 3: he's the mayor of New York. He has no ability
Speaker 3: to influence US policy in terms of selling arms to Israel,
Speaker 3: and the fact that he brought it up at all
Speaker 3: is positive. But boy, is that is that a wild
Speaker 3: minit or so of talking.
Speaker 2: I think the reason why he brought it up is
Speaker 2: to talk about specifically, like funds that we are sending
Speaker 2: to Israel should not be sent to Israel now, those
Speaker 2: funds that should be being used in the United States
Speaker 2: to do things to help people here. And that is
Speaker 2: why he brought that up as a seg well.
Speaker 3: And reiterating that Trump supporters often agree with the idea
Speaker 3: that we should not be spending this much money on this,
Speaker 3: sending weapons over the world to fund wars overseas. It'll
Speaker 3: be interesting to see if shit continues with Venezuela, how
Speaker 3: that all moves. But I think it's valuable to like
Speaker 3: really slam that home in the White House that like, hey,
Speaker 3: you ran on getting the US out of these kind
Speaker 3: of violent entanglements overseas. Yeah, I'm glad someone said it.
Speaker 3: I guess, Yeah, it's just weird. This is all a
Speaker 3: very weird meeting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, the whole thing was jarring. I guess.
Speaker 2: There was another point there where he was talking about
Speaker 2: like like local local New York businesses and a Trump's
Speaker 2: father like went to this pharmacy, And I think stuff
Speaker 2: like that is tactics that he used to get Trump
Speaker 2: to be friendly with him as well. As Trump later
Speaker 2: spoke about how in one of the rooms that they
Speaker 2: were meeting, and there was a portrait of FDR which
Speaker 2: Trump had personally like picked out of the storage faults
Speaker 2: to hang, and like Orn asked him about the portrait
Speaker 2: and asked if he could get a picture with it,
Speaker 2: and this seemed to please Trump a lot. Tr Trump
Speaker 2: wasn'thing able to talk about how he picked up the picture,
Speaker 2: and then Trump said a few really interesting things. He's like,
Speaker 2: I guess it's a big fan of FDR and the
Speaker 2: New Deal, which is phenomenal maneuvering from Zora classic technique
Speaker 2: to get like democratic socialist politics across to someone. Again,
Speaker 2: there's moments like that stuff with stuff of how we
Speaker 2: talked about like Bernie some some you know, the you know,
Speaker 2: regular populist rhetoric, talking about the crossover between you know,
Speaker 2: voters from between Trump and mamdannie, just his general love
Speaker 2: of New York and FDR New Deal. You can see
Speaker 2: all these things that were used to like navigate through
Speaker 2: this meeting to get to get Trump to actually seed
Speaker 2: ground on a lot of stuff with I think very
Speaker 2: very minimal concessions, if any if any real concessions even
Speaker 2: from Zor like at all. Like I think in general,
Speaker 2: Trump was the one that moved rhetorically throughout this meeting
Speaker 2: and moved on like actual like actual like promises to
Speaker 2: withhold funds to invade the city with National Guard troops.
Speaker 2: I think Trump was the one who actually seeded territory
Speaker 2: in this meeting. I do not see much evidence of
Speaker 2: things that m Donnie had could have personal impact on
Speaker 2: actually like losing losing ground on those things throughout this meeting.
Speaker 4: It is also important to remember that he has a
Speaker 4: rhetoric man, Damie two has a rhetorical role to play, right,
Speaker 4: And yes he is Mayor of New York. He is
Speaker 4: also an extremely popular politician at the and like when
Speaker 4: he talks about things like the genocide in Gaza, that
Speaker 4: that has rhetorical value. I'm not saying he can go
Speaker 4: to New York City Council and stop it, but like
Speaker 4: him saying that it is a genocide at the White
Speaker 4: House is important, and like it is important that like
Speaker 4: when he has this this podium in front of the
Speaker 4: whole world at the White House, so he used it
Speaker 4: to talk about the genocide, and he did, But like,
Speaker 4: I don't think we should only think about this in
Speaker 4: terms of New York. Like it is sure important that
Speaker 4: someone said that, and I hope he keeps using that
Speaker 4: platform he has right now to say that as someone
Speaker 4: who like is definitely looked up to nationally in like
Speaker 4: DSA circles.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think and this this goes into some
Speaker 2: of the the I guess kind of I mean, some
Speaker 2: of them are critiques, some of them aren't even really
Speaker 2: critiques of this meeting. I think a lot of them
Speaker 2: are people jumping on the opportunity to just attacks or
Speaker 2: on with no real construction critique there. But there's this
Speaker 2: kind of relates to these two different forms of politics
Speaker 2: that people use on the left, like politics is a
Speaker 2: form of personal expression as a for of like posturing
Speaker 2: as a as a form of like maintaining of moral purity,
Speaker 2: versus politics as an actual practical method of achieving cyst
Speaker 2: like systematic change, And people engage in these two different modes,
Speaker 2: and there're thing there's a role for both of these
Speaker 2: modes of politics. Actually, I think both of these have
Speaker 2: have a degree of necessity. And Zoron has has taken
Speaker 2: one specific path, and there's the others who are who
Speaker 2: are very clear in having taken the other path. And
Speaker 2: there's there's a bunch of a bunch of a bunch
Speaker 2: of critiques from this meeting quote unquote critiques, including from
Speaker 2: a formal Seattle City councilman who's now running for Congress
Speaker 2: as a socialist, Kashama Sawant quote. If I were in
Speaker 2: Mamdani's position, instead of asking Trump to meet me, I
Speaker 2: would have announced a mass rally of tens of thousands
Speaker 2: of people in New York City to protest against ice rates,
Speaker 2: to declare that New York City will not tolerate ice
Speaker 2: and will fight Trump every inch of the way. I
Speaker 2: would launch a mass campaign for free transit and free
Speaker 2: childcare and build a militant movement to win unquote. These
Speaker 2: these are things Zoran's are already participated in. These are
Speaker 2: things that have happened. Just one more, like one more
Speaker 2: protest that's going to be more effective than actually having
Speaker 2: Trump seed some ground on the scale of enforcement. This
Speaker 2: is part of why I have this like hesitation around
Speaker 2: discussion of Zoran, because I think he's actually doing kind
Speaker 2: of strategic moves to actually limit the amount of damage
Speaker 2: that Trump's able to do in the city. And he's
Speaker 2: doing it through like rhetorical maneuvers, and some of that
Speaker 2: may feel awkward to watch in a like a live
Speaker 2: press conference, but I think the actual end results of
Speaker 2: that have a lot more potential than say of, you know,
Speaker 2: a rally of ten thousand people which effectively does nothing.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean we've had a bunch of those that that
Speaker 4: is politics is performance right lately like that, Yeah, people
Speaker 4: are very attached to that mode of political engagement in
Speaker 4: the United States, like that they're large, you know, walking
Speaker 4: around with sciences shouting demonstration and political intent. It has
Speaker 4: not been success in stopping ice gribing random people of
Speaker 4: the street, I'll just say that.
Speaker 2: And people have been criticizing Zoran just simply for even
Speaker 2: taking this meeting because it's somehow quote unquote like humanizes
Speaker 2: Trump in some way, like Trump doesn't need to be humanized, right,
Speaker 2: Like it's like Zoron's platform by Donald Trump. He is
Speaker 2: the president of the United States. He he he wins,
Speaker 2: he has that position, he has bought the legitimacy like
Speaker 2: this this I don't think Zoron being there actually rehabilitates
Speaker 2: Trump's image in a meaningful way. I think what he's
Speaker 2: doing is trying to actually make New York a safer
Speaker 2: and more affordable place to live by doing a kind
Speaker 2: of complicated political maneuver, which I'm sure is kind of
Speaker 2: upsetting to kind of go through, but he's doing it.
Speaker 2: And the wave of criticism that it's kind of based
Speaker 2: on based on that sort of you know, humanizing argument
Speaker 2: or this stuff on, like why doesn't Zorn just protest
Speaker 2: instead of actually trying to like cut deals or like
Speaker 2: not even cut deals because that sounds so like slimy,
Speaker 2: but like actually like negotiate with the president, and like
Speaker 2: this criticism comes on the tail end like a week's
Speaker 2: worth of very reflexive criticism of Zoran for his retention
Speaker 2: of New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tish, as well
Speaker 2: as advocating against the New York City DSA's endorsement of
Speaker 2: city councilmen and new DSA member she offses primary campaign
Speaker 2: against Congressman Hukim Jeffries. Some of these criticisms I get
Speaker 2: the Jefferson a little bit more, but some of these
Speaker 2: criticisms I find to be a little odd, mostly considering
Speaker 2: the fact that Zoran has been open about his plan
Speaker 2: to retain Tish for literal months, for literal months, and
Speaker 2: just this week people acted like it was this massive
Speaker 2: betrayal in his like ideological purity or his stated promises,
Speaker 2: which just isn't true. He's been open about this like
Speaker 2: since like last summer, and on the on the Jeffrey
Speaker 2: side of things, I think Zorn's point of view here
Speaker 2: is at a difficult primary campaign and one that's probably
Speaker 2: going to be unsuccessful based on the Zoron twenty twenty
Speaker 2: five general vote map. It shows that that'd be very,
Speaker 2: very challenging. But this, this difficul call primary against referees,
Speaker 2: would also inhibit Zoron's ability to implement the affordability agenda
Speaker 2: in the city. The New York Times quoted a leaked
Speaker 2: portion of the DSA's endorsement meeting with Zoran saying, quote,
Speaker 2: the choice before us is not whether to vote for
Speaker 2: Chai or Hageme at the ballot box. The choice is
Speaker 2: how to spend the next year. Do we want to
Speaker 2: spend it defending caricatures of our movement or do we
Speaker 2: want to spend it fulfilling the agenda at the heart
Speaker 2: of that very same movement. Unquote, Zora has a very
Speaker 2: specific focus right now on the New York City government,
Speaker 2: and implementing the agenda for New York City and the
Speaker 2: congressional campaign would, in his view, only put more roadblocks
Speaker 2: to that at this point in time. Versus keeping a
Speaker 2: left wing ally in the New York City Council.
Speaker 4: I guess I don't see why they can't do both.
Speaker 4: Like they will be defending caricatures of their movement for
Speaker 4: sure the next forever right until the Internet and stupid politics,
Speaker 4: the stopping part of a politics which isn't coming anytime soon.
Speaker 4: I think it'd be perfectly possible to give that endorsement
Speaker 4: and still say my job as mayor is to do
Speaker 4: the ship that I promised to do. I also endorse
Speaker 4: this person because I think they're a better person than
Speaker 4: the Keem Jeffries, who has been very poor. Okay, I
Speaker 4: don't I don't see those two things as mutually exclusive.
Speaker 4: We need to talk about MTG, if only very briefly.
Speaker 3: What is there to say.
Speaker 4: That magic the Gathering has finally reclaimed the acronym. Oh good, Yeah,
Speaker 4: Marjorie Taylor Green leaving politics?
Speaker 2: Well maybe, well she's leaving the house. Is at the end,
Speaker 2: at the end of the year.
Speaker 4: Is leaving the house?
Speaker 2: See what she's announced?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: It is unclear how she will continue her career.
Speaker 4: Maybe maybe Zoran will be taking her seat. Maybe the
Speaker 4: Trump's new friend.
Speaker 2: I mean, I really don't think he's much interest in
Speaker 2: being in the House of Representatives, especially in Georgia.
Speaker 3: Oh would jesus?
Speaker 4: He has a much more important role now. I guess
Speaker 4: like he's able to do a lot more as executive
Speaker 4: new York than he ever would be as like a
Speaker 4: single rep in yeah yeah, yeah, but yeah no more MTG.
Speaker 3: Okay, well great.
Speaker 4: If you want to contact us, you can reach out
Speaker 4: to us at Coolzone tips at proton dot me. We
Speaker 4: reported the news, We reported the news.
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