Speaker 1: Good morning, everybody, Happy Friday. We have a million and
Speaker 1: one stories to get through this morning, as per usual,
Speaker 1: Ryan and Emily, great to see you guys.
Speaker 2: Nice to see you, so a.
Speaker 1: Little bit of a rundown. Actually we're going to hopefully
Speaker 1: have a special guest courtesy of Ryan is bringing this
Speaker 1: Delaware legislator. Ryan, give people just a breakdown of, like
Speaker 1: really quick t LDR, what is going on in Delaware
Speaker 1: right now, because it's super crazy and connects directly to
Speaker 1: national politics as well.
Speaker 3: Delaware is using a very rushed and unusual process to
Speaker 3: completely upend its corporate law in order to help out
Speaker 3: Elon Musk and Tesla and Mark Zuckerberg and Meta. And
Speaker 3: I don't just mean because they're connected to their companies.
Speaker 3: It's particular about giving CEOs you know, and heads of
Speaker 3: companies more power as it relates to their their shareholders
Speaker 3: and their independent boards. And that could come up on Tuesday.
Speaker 3: And so it's the you know, this multi billion dollar
Speaker 3: effort to try to bend this already parasitic and wildly
Speaker 3: corrupt blue state of Delaware even further to their corporate will.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the thing that really precipitated this is a
Speaker 1: Delaware court struck down Elon's Tesla compensation package supposed to
Speaker 1: be like fifty six billion dollars, which is more profit
Speaker 1: than the company has made in its entire existence, and
Speaker 1: they basically said, look, you have a conflict of interest here.
Speaker 1: The board is completely controlled by you. They're basically your puppets, Like,
Speaker 1: we are not going forward with this. And so this legislation,
Speaker 1: my understanding, is drafted actually by Elon's or Tesla's law firm.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then there's new information now that Meta lawyers
Speaker 3: were also involved in it, because there's this Delaware investigation
Speaker 3: of Meta for some of the Cambridge Analytica stuff, which
Speaker 3: involves shareholder complaints and then some other problems, and Zuckerberg
Speaker 3: has threatened to leave Delaware. Musk has left Delaware with Tesla,
Speaker 3: and so everybody thought it was primarily driven by Musk,
Speaker 3: but it also seems like Zuckerberg is playing a key
Speaker 3: role here, but.
Speaker 1: Of a class interest at work. At work.
Speaker 3: Wilson Anton, Yeah, she'll be able to talk a little
Speaker 3: bit about The vote is scheduled for Tuesday, and it's
Speaker 3: not a sure thing that it'll pass, but they obviously
Speaker 3: you don't want to bet against the billionaires in Delaware.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean, and part of what's interesting here
Speaker 1: is this is a democratic controlled state, so good example
Speaker 1: of the corporate union party potentially at work. But there's
Speaker 1: been a lot of outcry over it, so we'll see
Speaker 1: how it all goes down. I wanted to start. We've
Speaker 1: got other news about Tasla. We've got this crazy store
Speaker 1: about story about China. We're going to start with Bernie
Speaker 1: and AOC at a rally yesterday, actually several rallies yesterday,
Speaker 1: a huge turnout for them. We've got updates in terms
Speaker 1: of the Alien Enemies Act and court orders, et cetera.
Speaker 1: So try to get through all of that. But I
Speaker 1: wanted to start with this story. This is a wild one.
Speaker 1: So New York Times and Wall Street Journal are now
Speaker 1: reporting that Elon Musk was supposed to be reefed by
Speaker 1: the Pentagon on the US military's plan for any war
Speaker 1: that might break out with China. To two US officials.
Speaker 1: It indicated that was the case to the New York Times,
Speaker 1: Like I said, the Wall Street Journal ultimately confirmed. The
Speaker 1: White House is denying this, you know, quite vociferously, and
Speaker 1: Elon is lashing out at quote unquote leakers which you know,
Speaker 1: if they're leaking information, I don't know, maybe that indicates
Speaker 1: that is true. But obviously what's crazy about those guys
Speaker 1: is the fact that if it is true, which you know,
Speaker 1: I suspect it probably is, given you've got to relatively
Speaker 1: credible outlets reporting at this point. Elon has massive business
Speaker 1: interests in China. You know, Tesla, like US is this
Speaker 1: number one market. Number two market is China. They have
Speaker 1: a huge gigafactory there. He's had high level meetings with
Speaker 1: Chinese officials. It's a wild situation to have the world's
Speaker 1: richest man, a billionaire who has great such great business
Speaker 1: interest in China. He's also SpaceX's ax been banned from
Speaker 1: doing any work in China because of the national security
Speaker 1: implications of some of the things that he's into, and
Speaker 1: so for him to be read in on our you know,
Speaker 1: these are highly classified, top secret plans for if the
Speaker 1: ship hits the fan and the US coast war with China.
Speaker 1: What our plan would be and what we would do
Speaker 1: is ryan, to say the least, pretty wild thing to
Speaker 1: be happening here.
Speaker 3: You know, we've never had a situation like this before
Speaker 3: where somebody has had this deep of a financial link
Speaker 3: to China, intimately involved with you know the work of
Speaker 3: the president. What I don't quite understand and maybe Amily
Speaker 3: you have some insight into this, Well, why on earth
Speaker 3: does he need this briefing? Like assuming that it's true,
Speaker 3: Like is Elon Musk some like military strategist that is
Speaker 3: going to sit down with the generals and like look
Speaker 3: at their game their game plan and say, well, because
Speaker 3: what I know about starlink and you know, suggest that
Speaker 3: the way to actually do this is why I like,
Speaker 3: I've seen his thought process and the way he approaches
Speaker 3: things on Twitter, and I've never been like, that's what
Speaker 3: we need in the situation room. But maybe I'm just
Speaker 3: missing some of his genius.
Speaker 4: I got nothing, guys. It's insane and it was entirely predictable.
Speaker 4: And Crystal, You're right, they're denying it vociferously, like Pete Hegsath,
Speaker 4: Jean Parnell, even Trump himself. They have all come out
Speaker 4: and so this is absolutely not true.
Speaker 2: Okay, good, there we go.
Speaker 4: But you know what, I don't even think maybe I'm being.
Speaker 1: Those are honest guys, right, they've never said the truth.
Speaker 4: And maybe maybe I'm being what's the right word for
Speaker 4: this I don't know, maybe naive, but I can't imagine
Speaker 4: that this would not be happening every day anyway like this.
Speaker 4: I don't know that this particular instance is as disturbing
Speaker 4: as the fact that Elon Musk's job. He's not the
Speaker 4: head of dog, he's not the head of what became
Speaker 4: doge at USDs. He is a White House advisor. That's
Speaker 4: an illegal filing. His White House advisors an advisor to
Speaker 4: the President of the United States. So I just don't
Speaker 4: I imagine things almost as disturbing as this are happening
Speaker 4: on a daily, if not hourly basis anyway. So it
Speaker 4: was always going to be that way. Someone has massive
Speaker 4: business interests in China. This is a white House that's
Speaker 4: in a state department and a Pentagon that's very focused
Speaker 4: on China. So anytime he's in meetings or speaking with people,
Speaker 4: I mean, his just by osmosis at very like, at
Speaker 4: the very least, biosmosis soaking up a lot of this.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The Wall Street Journal has this explanation of why
Speaker 1: he's getting the briefing. To Ryan's point, it says, Musk,
Speaker 1: according to one person familiar with the arrangements, is receiving
Speaker 1: the briefing because he asked for one. He has a
Speaker 1: security clearance but isn't in the military chain of command
Speaker 1: or known to be a military advisor to Trump. Defense
Speaker 1: Secretary Pete Hegseth confirm US would visit the Pentagon on Friday.
Speaker 1: In a statement on x Hegseth disputed that he would
Speaker 1: receive a sensitive China briefing, saying it is an informal
Speaker 1: meeting about innovation, efficiencies and smarter production. But I guess
Speaker 1: you know that's the alleged answer is he's getting the
Speaker 1: briefing because he wanted to get the briefing.
Speaker 3: And that seems to be confirmation that it actually is about,
Speaker 3: you know, potential war with China. What it sounds like
Speaker 3: what Musk asked to be briefed about is what is
Speaker 3: China's production capacity when it comes to you know, military capacity,
Speaker 3: and what is what is the US production capacity? Which
Speaker 3: are legitimate questions for anybody who cares about the US
Speaker 3: like fighting a war with China to ask, because it
Speaker 3: does appear like right now, if we actually did get
Speaker 3: in a war, we spent a trillion dollars a year
Speaker 3: on our military. Yet it doesn't seem like we can
Speaker 3: keep up with them when it comes to manufacturing capacity.
Speaker 3: Everybody fires off their stuff in a month month two.
Speaker 3: China is looking pretty good and we're not. We're not
Speaker 3: looking so good. So it seems like that's what Musk
Speaker 3: wants to talk about. And then that hexeth answer seems
Speaker 3: to suggest that that is what was going to be
Speaker 3: talked about.
Speaker 1: That's what innovation is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, innovation production like that, Like what else could that
Speaker 3: be about? So doesn't Now, it doesn't mean that he
Speaker 3: was like being read in on where the subs are
Speaker 3: going to be and where the aircraft striker groups are
Speaker 3: going to be. So maybe that's where they're doing their
Speaker 3: furious denials because it's not that, but it still is.
Speaker 3: It's the more important part. We don't war with China.
Speaker 4: We don't know, and there's no way for us, no
Speaker 4: other than their denials about where the line is allegedly. So,
Speaker 4: I mean, it's that's even at the best case scenario
Speaker 4: where you have this private tech baron coming into the
Speaker 4: government to make it more efficient, and he particularly is
Speaker 4: focused on cutting the Pentagon if he has business overseas China, Israel, Ukraine, Russia,
Speaker 4: whatever it is. It is an insane conflict of interest,
Speaker 4: there's no we're all aware of that at this point,
Speaker 4: and there's no check on what we are able to discern, Like,
Speaker 4: we have absolutely no way he's supposed to be filing
Speaker 4: waivers according to the DOJ Special Government Employee status. We
Speaker 4: don't know what he's what information he's receiving. We have
Speaker 4: no idea how that's influencing his business. There's absolutely no
Speaker 4: way that he's able to separate public and private. Mentally,
Speaker 4: if you're getting information because of your clearance and because
Speaker 4: of the fact that you now have you work in
Speaker 4: the White House, there's absolutely no way that that doesn't
Speaker 4: influence at some minimal level, in the best case scenario,
Speaker 4: the way that you're handling your business. So it is
Speaker 4: just insane. Of course, DOGE was always going to be
Speaker 4: a glaring conflict of interests and playbook read these VOCIFERUS
Speaker 4: denials from Hexeth and Parnell and Trump as some type
Speaker 4: of emission that there's a line for Elon. And that's
Speaker 4: interesting because I guess there's some truth that publicly, maybe
Speaker 4: there's shame. There's still a modicum of shame, right having
Speaker 4: like a tech baron come in and a defense contractor
Speaker 4: come in right. Granted, defense contractors have been determining the
Speaker 4: Pentagon budget for decades, but to have him come in
Speaker 4: as an actual government employee and making some of these
Speaker 4: calls like maybe they still have a modicum of shame
Speaker 4: about it. I don't know, I don't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a that's a good point. At least they
Speaker 3: didn't say, so what if we gave them more China
Speaker 3: China war plans?
Speaker 1: Yeah, which was a possibility that they would. You know, like,
Speaker 1: these liberals are melting down over you just giving Elon Musk,
Speaker 1: who's just a brave patriot sacrificing himself for the public
Speaker 1: good these war plans. But I think, Emily, to your point,
Speaker 1: like it just brings home how insane the whole situation is,
Speaker 1: how insane the entire situation is. This man is one
Speaker 1: of He's not just a Pentagon contractor, he's one of
Speaker 1: the larger Pentagon contractors. And to be honest, Doge hasn't
Speaker 1: really touched the Pentagon at all, which is interesting and
Speaker 1: telling in and of itself, given that, you know, if
Speaker 1: you actually wanted to cut out waste for an abuse,
Speaker 1: that would probably be the first place that you would
Speaker 1: really dive into But you know, we know from reporting
Speaker 1: about what he's done at the FAA, he's tried to
Speaker 1: just sort of you know, kneecap his competitors there with
Speaker 1: regard to Starlink and shift contracts to him. We know
Speaker 1: there's been an effort to shift some of the rural
Speaker 1: broadband funding to Starlink, and you know there may be
Speaker 1: a like actual case for these things, like starlink is
Speaker 1: a good product. You know, it works well and it's
Speaker 1: been good for me out here in rural Virginia before
Speaker 1: we got broadband out here, et cetera. But to just
Speaker 1: be able to go in and himself and his lackeys
Speaker 1: be like, we're taking that money. You're not getting it anymore.
Speaker 1: You're fired, you're hired. Here's how we're doing things. We're
Speaker 1: hoovering up your data, etc. When you have this sort
Speaker 1: of a news item, you know, hit the front page,
Speaker 1: it just really brings home like this whole thing is crazy,
Speaker 1: absolutely crazy. So Emily, I'm curious, you know, this just
Speaker 1: came out yesterday evening. What is the reaction from the
Speaker 1: right bin thus far? Or do they believe the denials?
Speaker 1: Is it uncomfortable for them? Has there been a backlash, like,
Speaker 1: have you seen what the general sort of vibe and
Speaker 1: approach has been.
Speaker 4: I think it's been. I don't think any of this
Speaker 4: changed anything of the right. I think people are have
Speaker 4: sort of made their peace with the Elon of it
Speaker 4: all that you don't have DOGE without Elon, and you
Speaker 4: don't have Doge without Trump and in order to and
Speaker 4: you don't have like massive cuts without DOCH. So you know,
Speaker 4: it's it's the simple, I guess, reconciling with this insanity.
Speaker 4: And again, like I said earlier, it's not as though
Speaker 4: I think this is what makes it easier for people
Speaker 4: on the right to swallow, is that it's not as
Speaker 4: though we haven't had essentially defense contractors and private enterprise,
Speaker 4: well public private enterprise determining what the Pentagon budget is
Speaker 4: for a really long time. So it's sort of like, Okay,
Speaker 4: so this guy says he wants to do some good.
Speaker 4: You know, he's actually in this for you know, not
Speaker 4: just for himself, but for you know, the country, and
Speaker 4: he actually wants to make cuts and et cetera. I
Speaker 4: think that's how it's continuing to be rationalized, because you know,
Speaker 4: it's true it has the Pentagon has been rated by
Speaker 4: defense contractors for decades and to Ryan's point, in ways
Speaker 4: that leave us less safe arguably. So I mean that
Speaker 4: is what allows it to be sort of justified in
Speaker 4: the minds of a lot of people on the right.
Speaker 4: And I don't think anything is necessarily going to change
Speaker 4: that at this point unless Trump makes some break with Elon,
Speaker 4: or unless Elon again the h one B like dust up.
Speaker 4: I think he has learned from that, and so that's
Speaker 4: those are the only sorts of thing like when he
Speaker 4: is sort of explicitly subverting MAGA, or you're trying to
Speaker 4: hijack MAGA, which I think he's probably doing every day,
Speaker 4: to be honest with you, Although Trump is Mega is
Speaker 4: what Trump says it is, and Trump says Elon is great,
Speaker 4: so maybe Elon is truly Mega.
Speaker 1: But yeah, Trump says Elon's right about h one B's
Speaker 1: so that's right, you know, So yeah, it is, uh,
Speaker 1: it is Mega, it is. I guess it's dark Maga.
Speaker 1: Now the Elon version of Mega, which is quite a
Speaker 1: different flavor. There's a bunch of Elon news. Let's just
Speaker 1: roll to the next thing. He's got continues to have
Speaker 1: some major issues over at Tesla They have now recalled
Speaker 1: more or less every single cyber truck after this glued
Speaker 1: stainless steel trim apparently can fall off. I'd actually seen
Speaker 1: some complaints about this before this recall occurred. One hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty one cyber truck owners had filed warranty claims
Speaker 1: after noticing this roof trim panel above the windows was
Speaker 1: coming loose. It's this panel that goes right along. You
Speaker 1: can see actually here this part here, and it's just
Speaker 1: glued on. And sometimes it says it's vulnerable to environmental imbrittlement,
Speaker 1: meaning it doesn't hold up as well as it should.
Speaker 1: And if this thing, you know, you're driving down the
Speaker 1: highway and this piece comes flying off at some other car,
Speaker 1: needless to say, that is quite a risk. And obviously,
Speaker 1: Ryan this comes at a time when Tesla is I mean,
Speaker 1: it's the most visible symbol of Elon, and sales have
Speaker 1: been plummeting globally. Right here Europe, they've fallen off a cliff.
Speaker 1: Canada they are down like sixty seven percent, they're down
Speaker 1: in China. You not only have the primary driver, I
Speaker 1: think is Elon just being such a you know, polarizing
Speaker 1: and toxic figure at this point, but you also have
Speaker 1: a stale product line. You also have incredible competition come
Speaker 1: from China. We just covered this week byd D now
Speaker 1: has a battery that can charge three hundred miles in
Speaker 1: five minutes, which is just like, you know, game changing
Speaker 1: level of technology. So the stock has been falling. Trump
Speaker 1: has been selling them in the White House lawn. Sean
Speaker 1: Hannity's doing his part. The Commerce Secretary Howard Lunnik is
Speaker 1: out there telling people to buy the stock. Ete Actually,
Speaker 1: funnily enough, the stock then went down further after he
Speaker 1: said that. But you know, this is not a not
Speaker 1: a great moment for Elon to have this particular problem
Speaker 1: with the cyber truck.
Speaker 3: It's a really peculiar strategy. You know, from a business perspective,
Speaker 3: the buyers of electric vehicles have consistently been people who
Speaker 3: are kind of on the center left and have concerned
Speaker 3: about climate change and their their impact on the environment.
Speaker 3: So to me, it would sort of be like if
Speaker 3: the CEO of like Smith and Wesson went and joined
Speaker 3: the Kamala Harris administration.
Speaker 4: And Rachel Maddow's posing with the Smith and Wesson.
Speaker 3: And kept posing with Rachel Matte and talking about how
Speaker 3: the NRA is a giant scam and corruption and all
Speaker 3: Republicans are corrupt, and just like having this really like
Speaker 3: presenting this like really vitriolic worldview and calling all Republicans
Speaker 3: and anybody who supports Trump, you know, traders to the
Speaker 3: country and fascists, and and then suggesting that, you know,
Speaker 3: maybe they should be jailed. Let their news outlets and
Speaker 3: their news anchors should actually be imprisoned. And then China
Speaker 3: makes a whole bunch of better guns and you watch
Speaker 3: the sales of Smith and West and collapse, like, gee, what's.
Speaker 1: Going on happened?
Speaker 3: Why do they hate us so much? They're so filled
Speaker 3: with hate. We just make a nice product to shoot straight.
Speaker 3: If you don't like it, you don't like it, you
Speaker 3: don't have to burn it down. So yeah, so I
Speaker 3: it's se cure, like I said, bold strategy to just
Speaker 3: constantly insult and call your customer based traders. And I
Speaker 3: guess we'll see how that works out for them.
Speaker 1: Well, I think we have Representative Medina Wilson Anton standing
Speaker 1: by to give us an update on this Delaware bill
Speaker 1: that Ryan was talking about before. Let me go ahead
Speaker 1: and let her in and we can get to that interview.
Speaker 1: Oh excellent, representative. Great to have you.
Speaker 5: Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course. So Ryan set this up a little
Speaker 1: bit about what's going on in Delaware, how this connects
Speaker 1: to Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, et cetera. But you know,
Speaker 1: as a legislator there, we'd love to hear your perspective
Speaker 1: of what this bill does and why it's become such
Speaker 1: a lightning rod.
Speaker 5: Sure.
Speaker 6: So I'll say the premise for all of us as
Speaker 6: legislators is we're trying to make sure that our state's
Speaker 6: budget is solid, right, And I'm not sure how much
Speaker 6: you guys know about Delaware's budget, but a large.
Speaker 5: Part of it comes from the corporate franchise. So what
Speaker 5: we've been.
Speaker 2: Told a billion a year or something.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, and it's like one point three. But if
Speaker 6: you if you look at other kind of ways that
Speaker 6: it also impacts. Some folks are saying it's almost half
Speaker 6: of our budget, and so it's a really important part
Speaker 6: of what keith Delaware going. And so the arguments that
Speaker 6: we've been told is basically, there's these companies that want
Speaker 6: to leave, and for each company that leaves.
Speaker 5: It's a quarter million dollars.
Speaker 6: You guys know, we're looking at a federal government that's
Speaker 6: likely to cut a lot of funding that's coming to
Speaker 6: our state. So we're really not, you know, looking to
Speaker 6: lose funding. What concerns me is the folks that we're
Speaker 6: supposed to look to as knowing whether this is how
Speaker 6: to save the franchise, which is basically what we're told
Speaker 6: we're doing, are from a very small minority. So we
Speaker 6: have like two million corporate entities here in the state.
Speaker 6: Of those two million, about three thousand of them are
Speaker 6: the ones that are really making our budget, and less
Speaker 6: than three hundred are controlled companies. And you know, the
Speaker 6: only folks that I'm hearing.
Speaker 2: Work a controlled company for people who are.
Speaker 6: So companies that have someone like Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg,
Speaker 6: that's that's calling the shot. But even of that of
Speaker 6: that subset, a lot of the time, the dynamic is
Speaker 6: such that the controller is not the one with the
Speaker 6: power in the dynamic.
Speaker 5: It's the board.
Speaker 6: And so the controllers going to the board like, hey,
Speaker 6: I want to make these you know decisions, Can I
Speaker 6: get some more money?
Speaker 5: Can we talk about different ideas?
Speaker 6: These like charismatic controllers like Elon, Mark Zuckerberg and others
Speaker 6: really represent a very small minority of those companies. So
Speaker 6: what concerns me as someone who's looking at like these
Speaker 6: numbers here is of those three thousand companies and we're
Speaker 6: talking about now two hundred to three hundred companies, a
Speaker 6: minority of that subset, right, are folks like Elon who
Speaker 6: want to just be able to run rough shot over shareholders,
Speaker 6: minority shareholders. And I look at that and I'm like,
Speaker 6: you know, why would I alienate the majority of my
Speaker 6: customers for a select few when they're all paying a
Speaker 6: quarter million right just because Tesla's huge, they're capped at
Speaker 6: the same amount as any other company that in that bracket.
Speaker 6: So it's been really confusing. It's you know, I'm not
Speaker 6: a corporate lawyer. This is not my bread and butter.
Speaker 6: It's been a really difficult bill to try to wrap
Speaker 6: our heads around, and it feels like it's being pushed
Speaker 6: very quickly because they want to basically save Zuckerberg billions
Speaker 6: in court fees, like and.
Speaker 5: That's like, it's crazy.
Speaker 6: Like I'm looking at the national news as someone from
Speaker 6: Delaware watching Elon attack our judges, watching like this attack
Speaker 6: on our democracy, and then seeing it happen here, and
Speaker 6: I'm like, wait, wait, wait what We're Democrats, why are
Speaker 6: we doing the same thing here?
Speaker 5: This is it's really scary.
Speaker 3: There's there seems to be another interesting layer to the
Speaker 3: conflict of interest here. I'm curious if it's if this
Speaker 3: is kind of in the back of legislator's minds, so
Speaker 3: it's not just that Elon Muskin Mark Zuckerberg, you know,
Speaker 3: can threaten to leave and take with them. I didn't
Speaker 3: realize it was only two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: It's like, that's that's not that much, you know in
Speaker 3: this scheme of your budget, like okay, Mark Zuckerberg, goodbye,
Speaker 3: will do a go fund me? And or you could,
Speaker 3: you know, do it do a half sent sales tax.
Speaker 3: Dellar has no sales tax. But I know you'd probably
Speaker 3: get thrown out of office if you even you know, suggested.
Speaker 5: You're not going to get me to.
Speaker 1: What do you do?
Speaker 2: It's regressive? You know, good? It fine.
Speaker 3: But the other layer of the conflict of interest is
Speaker 3: that Elon Musk is also a White House advisor. And
Speaker 3: you pointed out that you know, your budget is linked
Speaker 3: to you know, federal support for states and which can
Speaker 3: be throttled up or down, you know, to you know,
Speaker 3: to the degree that a president is satisfied with how
Speaker 3: a state is operating, so that it's not just the
Speaker 3: two hundred fifty ky like Elon Musk could actually be
Speaker 3: like Zuckerberg isn't a government employee, but he's close with Trump.
Speaker 3: So is that this in the back of lawmakers minds, Like, Okay,
Speaker 3: it's we're not that worried about this two hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty thousand dollars that we'll lose if Facebook leaves, But
Speaker 3: what we're worried about is retribution from the federal government. Absolutely,
Speaker 3: we better just give them what they want.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, Yeah, I can say one hundred percent that that's
Speaker 6: in folks minds. What I would argue is we're already.
Speaker 5: On the list.
Speaker 6: You know, it's not just California, Like, we're already on
Speaker 6: the list. You can you can type into x I
Speaker 6: still call it Twitter, but you can type into.
Speaker 5: The search bar.
Speaker 6: You know, Elon Musk Delaware and find tons of tweets.
Speaker 6: He does not like our state. He thinks our judges
Speaker 6: are woke active as judges, which I'll just say as
Speaker 6: a as a leftist Delaware a quarter of Chancerie, not
Speaker 6: a bastion of left but I guess, but like he
Speaker 6: doesn't like Delaware, They're not We're not on their list
Speaker 6: of states that it's going to do well. Right, We're
Speaker 6: going to be struggling regardless of whether this bill passes.
Speaker 6: What worries me is one, it's not just the Elons
Speaker 6: and you know Zuckerberg, it's lots of other folks that
Speaker 6: will benefit from this, that want to go to other
Speaker 6: states like Nevada, like Texas, And I feel like if
Speaker 6: we're racing to the bottom for those folks, we are
Speaker 6: alienating really like the majority of our customers, which is
Speaker 6: the term that they use, and it's like kind of
Speaker 6: makes my stomach hurt, but our customers, right, Like the
Speaker 6: majority of those folks do not support this legislation. And
Speaker 6: we've heard from like tons of pension funds. We heard
Speaker 6: from the largest pension fund in California last week, like
Speaker 6: they're very worried about this legislation and how it's going
Speaker 6: to impact minority shareholders pensioners, Like why would we alienate
Speaker 6: them when we're we're never gonna Like I just keep saying,
Speaker 6: like we got to stop simping for billionaires, like they're
Speaker 6: never going to come back, they're never going to like us,
Speaker 6: so at least go after folks that maybe we'll continue
Speaker 6: to stay here. And you know, it's it's often talked
Speaker 6: about that people come to Delaware because it's like this
Speaker 6: offshore place where there's no rules and whatever. But what
Speaker 6: really brings companies to Delaware is the fact that our
Speaker 6: Court of Chancery has been a mainstay for over like
Speaker 6: a century. Like it's one of the oldest courts in
Speaker 6: the world, and so there's a lot of precedent, and
Speaker 6: so lawyers they encourage companies to incorporate here because they
Speaker 6: know what they're getting into. And what scares me as
Speaker 6: a Delaware legislator is passing a bill like this that
Speaker 6: is obviously written to benefit a rich few. It really
Speaker 6: attacks that reputation and it makes it seem like Delaware
Speaker 6: is a state now where our laws are written by
Speaker 6: the highest bidder.
Speaker 4: And how are your constituents reacting to this?
Speaker 5: Oh, my god, have you ever heard of a didas attack?
Speaker 6: My email inbox is unusable because I've gotten so many
Speaker 6: emails from constituents that are talking about now like I
Speaker 6: believed something I don't evenmber what I posted on Instagram
Speaker 6: and I had constituents in the comments like yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 6: but what are you doing about SB twenty one? I
Speaker 6: emailed you and you didn't respond, and so I made
Speaker 6: a can but put it on and I'm like, this
Speaker 6: is this is my position, guys, Like I can't respond
Speaker 6: to everyone because I literally can't use my inbox. I
Speaker 6: got a like a a notification from Outlook that was like,
Speaker 6: you got too many emails at once, so we just
Speaker 6: shut it down.
Speaker 1: This doesn't seem right.
Speaker 2: And you represent how many people?
Speaker 6: About twenty six thousand Delawarians, right, yeah, and we're in a state.
Speaker 3: Of you only have twenty six thousand constituents and you're
Speaker 3: hearing from how many of those are constituents and how
Speaker 3: many of those are people who are just getting worked
Speaker 3: up from out of state.
Speaker 6: Honestly, Ryan, I didn't click through all two thousand and
Speaker 6: take the address included, Like, but I know, I know
Speaker 6: basically all of us have gotten about that many emails,
Speaker 6: so and I haven't heard from anyone saying to support it.
Speaker 6: The only constituent of mine. This is a little joke,
Speaker 6: but it's true. The only constituent of mine. Who supports
Speaker 6: the bill that I'm aware of is the senator who
Speaker 6: introduced it.
Speaker 3: Wow, So now it was they had thought about putting
Speaker 3: it up yesterday. Sounds like because of the public pressure
Speaker 3: that's gonna happen. We're looking at Tuesday. My understanding is
Speaker 3: it needs two thirds to pass. So like where are
Speaker 3: you in your support for building opposition? Like how many
Speaker 3: numbers do you have and how many more do you need?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't know, honestly, Like.
Speaker 6: One of the things like it's it's not my bill,
Speaker 6: so I'm not like whip counting for it. I'm just
Speaker 6: trying to do my thing, Like I had some other
Speaker 6: bills that were pretty controversial and committee this week that
Speaker 6: I was focused on. I think my you know, I've
Speaker 6: been here now is my fifth year. Every year we
Speaker 6: do a bill like this. This is like the most egregious.
Speaker 6: But every year there's a bill like this that gets
Speaker 6: pushed through and there's often not much time to actually
Speaker 6: push back to it, and so I was really surprised
Speaker 6: that it wasn't on the floor agenda yesterday. And the
Speaker 6: only reason that I can think of is because they
Speaker 6: don't have the votes that they need.
Speaker 5: It's a two thirds. It has a two thirds threshold,
Speaker 5: so we need fourteen people to say no or not
Speaker 5: show up, and I think we're pretty close.
Speaker 6: Otherwise we would have already passed this bill and someone
Speaker 6: would have already cut the ribbon on it for Zuckerberg
Speaker 6: and you know, probably had some fun on a yacht
Speaker 6: or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's one of the things I've been
Speaker 1: I'm trying to educate myself the ins and outs of
Speaker 1: this legislation. Like you said, it's fairly complicated. But not
Speaker 1: only would it help to enable Elon to get his
Speaker 1: fifty six billion dollars in compensation that had previously been
Speaker 1: blocked by a court, not only would help Zuckerberg and
Speaker 1: Meto with what they're trying to do, But can you
Speaker 1: just briefly explain that the piece about why this would
Speaker 1: also harm the ability of minority shareholders to be able
Speaker 1: to exercise influence within the company, because I think that's
Speaker 1: an important part too that sometimes under discussed with the
Speaker 1: you know, the musk is the big sort of like
Speaker 1: flashing redline here.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, So like so for the example, the Zuckerberg example,
Speaker 6: for example, right, like the reason why that would get
Speaker 6: thrown out has to do with books and records. And
Speaker 6: what we've heard is controllers are really frustrated because they
Speaker 6: feel like every you know, every waking moment, someone's coming
Speaker 6: that has like five shares in a company, and they're like,
Speaker 6: I want to see all the emails about this exchange,
Speaker 6: Like I want to know whether you're you know, whether
Speaker 6: this transaction was fair to us, And you know, when
Speaker 6: I meet with them, I've met with everyone, like I
Speaker 6: can I can see how it's frustrating, you know, to
Speaker 6: have to stop and pay someone to go through and
Speaker 6: within five days send all the emails and all the.
Speaker 5: Text messages and all that.
Speaker 6: But what they're saying is that this is a problem
Speaker 6: that's like over the past ten five years. We want
Speaker 6: to go back like ten years to when people weren't
Speaker 6: texting and when they weren't emailing. And then when I
Speaker 6: look at the facts of the case with like Elon's.
Speaker 5: Compensation package where.
Speaker 6: The director who was who was part of the conversation
Speaker 6: is like Bestie's with him, Elon says under oath on
Speaker 6: the record that there was no one to negotiate.
Speaker 5: Against, so he negotiated against himself, right.
Speaker 6: Like clearly, clearly the minority shareholders were not you know,
Speaker 6: party to that conversation, and then you know that goes
Speaker 6: through say, say it stays at fifty six billion dollars.
Speaker 6: Right if you were a testa shareholder right now watching
Speaker 6: what Elon is doing to the value of your shares,
Speaker 6: is he really worth fifty six billion dollars? Like imagine
Speaker 6: if that had not gotten overturned. Like it's like, it's
Speaker 6: it's really hard for me to even process people making
Speaker 6: this argument, but they're like, well, people voted for it.
Speaker 5: People voted for it.
Speaker 6: They voted for it without any information about what the
Speaker 6: internal metrics were that they'd already hit like he was
Speaker 6: supposed to be getting this, like these bonuses, if they
Speaker 6: hit this, if they hit that, they'd already hit them
Speaker 6: and they knew they were about to hit the next one.
Speaker 6: It wasn't a threat, it wasn't a reach goal, right Like,
Speaker 6: And those that types of information comes out because you
Speaker 6: have plans, attorneys that actually do the investigations to make
Speaker 6: that case. And it's clear that these you know, tech oligarchs,
Speaker 6: they don't want any accountability. Like the messaging that we've
Speaker 6: been given is the court is out of balance. It's unpredictable.
Speaker 6: We need to restore balance. But what they're really saying
Speaker 6: is when it's balanced, we don't like that.
Speaker 5: We don't want balance, right.
Speaker 6: And you know, pension funds don't want to invest in
Speaker 6: companies that are just going to throw money in the
Speaker 6: garbage and light it on fire because a guy wants
Speaker 6: to go to space and wants to you know, moonlight
Speaker 6: as a public servant.
Speaker 5: Like, that's not good for minority shareholders.
Speaker 6: So folks are worried that if they do lose the
Speaker 6: ability to actually investigate these people, you know, the companies
Speaker 6: that they invest in that are in Delaware are not
Speaker 6: safe investments.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, at this point it might be more financially
Speaker 1: advantageous to pay a lot must fifty six billion dollars
Speaker 1: to go away, given the way that he's helping to
Speaker 1: tank Tesla sales and number of investors who are starting
Speaker 1: to come out and say, I don't know what going well.
Speaker 6: Terrified of thinking of Elon Musk being fifty six billion
Speaker 6: dollars richer, Like I mean, I don't.
Speaker 1: Got more money than any of us could wrap our
Speaker 1: heads around. You know, it's insanity, utter insanity. Well, thank
Speaker 1: you so much, representative for helping us to understand this.
Speaker 1: It's been really really useful to get your insights as
Speaker 1: someone who's trying to grapple with all of these issues
Speaker 1: and make sure you know the state's okay and state
Speaker 1: budget is okay and all of those good things do
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, Yeah, of course. Yeah, we'll see
Speaker 1: you soon. And if you just you can just make
Speaker 1: sure that your thing is uploaded, then you can just
Speaker 1: click the leave button and we should be all good.
Speaker 2: Got it?
Speaker 5: Okay, this is ninety nine percent. Do you have to
Speaker 5: click anything?
Speaker 1: No, you should be good. Thank you. I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: ahead and pull up. Guys, this is something I've been
Speaker 1: keeping track of. Just to stick on the Tesla conversation
Speaker 1: for for one more minute. So the Financial Times Leo
Speaker 1: Michael Cores really wants me to buy something. Financial Times
Speaker 1: flagged this accounting red flag we'll call it where you know.
Speaker 1: The way that this article frames it as Tesla's missing
Speaker 1: one point four billion dollars has accounting experts asking questions.
Speaker 1: I'll just read you a little bit here. So effectively,
Speaker 1: they have a mismatch between how much they say they
Speaker 1: invested in you know, property, you plant and equipment. Those
Speaker 1: sorts of things, and how much of those sorts of
Speaker 1: assets are on the books. So the amount that they
Speaker 1: claim they invested is one point four billion dollars lower
Speaker 1: than the amount they're now reflecting on the books. So
Speaker 1: there are some you know, potential innocent explanations for this.
Speaker 1: So they say Tesla spent six point three billion dollars
Speaker 1: in capital expenditures in the last six months, but the
Speaker 1: gross values of their assets only increase by four point
Speaker 1: nine billion, leaving one point four billion on ac counted for.
Speaker 1: There were a couple of other sort of questionable pieces
Speaker 1: with regards to Tesla's accounting, including the fact that even
Speaker 1: though they claim they're sitting on thirty seven billion dollars
Speaker 1: in cash reserves, they still raised six billion dollars in
Speaker 1: debt last year at a time when interest rates are
Speaker 1: like relatively high, so it's not the best time to be,
Speaker 1: you know, raising debt. They also are not issuing any
Speaker 1: dividends whatsoever. And so there's a few things here that
Speaker 1: people who look at financial fraud are kind of scratching
Speaker 1: their head about, and you know, it tracks some with
Speaker 1: the Obviously, Tesla is not doing well as a company
Speaker 1: for the reasons that we discussed before elon stale product
Speaker 1: line competition from China, et cetera. It also tracks with
Speaker 1: this weird Canada story where they like desperately scrounged together
Speaker 1: potentially fraudulently, potentially because they had this loung like backstock
Speaker 1: of ev rebates that they came in and cashed in
Speaker 1: right before the ev rebate program ended, which also is
Speaker 1: sort of smacked of desperation. So I don't know, this
Speaker 1: is one just to sort of like put a pin
Speaker 1: in and keep an eye on. But Ryan, what did
Speaker 1: you make it? A conversation with with the representative Wilson
Speaker 1: Anton about the way she's thinking about this and how
Speaker 1: this is likely to go.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was I was enlightening in some ways. I
Speaker 3: because I didn't realize that Facebook et cetera. Are capped
Speaker 3: at how much they can spend.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: I know that Delaware is valuable to these companies because
Speaker 3: it's it's so cheap and because there are very few
Speaker 3: you know, the rules are tilted in the direction of corporations.
Speaker 3: But I thought that every transaction, you know, even though
Speaker 3: it's only fifty dollars or a couple hundred dollars depending
Speaker 3: on the size to like register as an LLC in Delaware.
Speaker 2: If you do a whole.
Speaker 3: Lot of different registrations, that's going to increase the amount.
Speaker 3: But it's interesting that they're even capped two hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty k. So it was just that you would tell
Speaker 3: these you know, handful dozens of companies total that have
Speaker 3: these charismatic control controlling CEOs to be like, okay, look,
Speaker 3: this is not the state for you. Like that's why
Speaker 3: we have Nebraska and we have Nevada, and you know
Speaker 3: there are there's there's this race to the bottom with
Speaker 3: a bunch of these other states that see the amount
Speaker 3: of revenue Delaware makes from corporate registrations and wants to
Speaker 3: wants to match that. So you guys, go ahead and
Speaker 3: go there. But you know, her point is accurate that
Speaker 3: corporations also want stability and and Delaware has, because of
Speaker 3: its chance to record, offered stability for many years. So
Speaker 3: it is interesting that Delaware could throw its entire system
Speaker 3: out of whack and kill the golden goose. You know,
Speaker 3: their golden goose is this?
Speaker 2: You know this?
Speaker 3: You know these corporations registering in Delaware. No no offense
Speaker 3: of Delaware if they killed their golden goose. You know,
Speaker 3: good like they Nevada, all the North Dakota, all these
Speaker 3: states that are doing this are parasites living off the
Speaker 3: rest of the rest of the country and the rest
Speaker 3: of the world, you know, and you know, they get
Speaker 3: no sales tax and they get lower tax so good
Speaker 3: good for them. But like that's what that ultimately is
Speaker 3: is on.
Speaker 1: The back of us, right, because they're winning the race
Speaker 1: to the bottom to get all of these corporations to
Speaker 1: register in these few handful of states rather than them
Speaker 1: being distributed across the country, across the world, et cetera.
Speaker 3: And facing tougher regulation and consumer protections and yes, shareholder
Speaker 3: shareholder rights, et cetera. So you know, we get worse
Speaker 3: consumer protections, worst shareholder rights, you know, lower corporate taxes
Speaker 3: so that Delaware can have no sales tax. Like, it's
Speaker 3: not a good deal for the rest of the country. Right,
Speaker 3: So it'd be interesting if they just if they screwed up,
Speaker 3: if they killed their own golden goose out of misplaced
Speaker 3: fealty to you know, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.
Speaker 1: This is the one of the lever news reports. They've
Speaker 1: been doing a really good job tracking this I just
Speaker 1: wanted to give them a shout out. But one last
Speaker 1: thing I'll mention before we move on to some some well,
Speaker 1: I mean everything is Elon news, but not directly Elon news.
Speaker 1: Is you know you mentioned Ryan how they have to
Speaker 1: be concerned not just about oh Elon and Bill Ackman
Speaker 1: and Mark Zuckerberg and these people are mad and they're
Speaker 1: going to leave the state or they already left the
Speaker 1: state or whatever. They also have to be worried about
Speaker 1: the full force of the federal government being trained directly
Speaker 1: on them. And I did a piece yesterday tracking the
Speaker 1: way this has looked for the state of Maine. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you guys remember there was this like
Speaker 1: flap with there was a governor's meeting and Trump calls
Speaker 1: out the governor of Maine because she isn't doing what
Speaker 1: he wants with regard to trans girls in sports. Right,
Speaker 1: there's two trans athletes in the state of Maine, and
Speaker 1: you know, she's not doing what he wants her to do.
Speaker 1: And so he basically said, you know, I'll you know,
Speaker 1: you're going to lose your funding or we're going to
Speaker 1: see you in court, et cetera. Well, it's been way
Speaker 1: beyond just it's not just a Department of Education investigation.
Speaker 1: It's an HHS investigation, it's a USDA investigation, it's National
Speaker 1: Oceanic Administration. Atmospheric Administration got involved, pulled their main C grant,
Speaker 1: which is supposed to like support fishermen and you know marine.
Speaker 2: Research, massively destructive to Maine to do that.
Speaker 1: It actually yeah, I mean this is like a program
Speaker 1: that has supported thousands of jobs in Maine for years
Speaker 1: and years and whatever. Then and with this connect to
Speaker 1: story we're going to do later on. This Social Security
Speaker 1: Administration dude gets involved. He's the one who was put
Speaker 1: in charge because he went around the superiors backs and
Speaker 1: gave the DOJ hackers access to like whatever it is
Speaker 1: that they wanted. So he decides that he's going to
Speaker 1: cut the contract that allows the like if you're a
Speaker 1: new a parent of a newborn when you're in the
Speaker 1: hospital to just check a box like yes, please, I'd
Speaker 1: like a Social Security number. Now you're gonna have to
Speaker 1: take your baby newborn to the Social Security Field office,
Speaker 1: which has a ligne out the door to the extend
Speaker 1: it exists at all to be able to get this
Speaker 1: social Security for newborn. Also cut the same service for
Speaker 1: funeral homes, so when your loved one dies, you now
Speaker 1: have to do go through the same you know, painful rigamarole,
Speaker 1: et cetera, out of retribution. He initially was like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's just an innocent mistake, and then later on admitted
Speaker 1: that he was mad about the way that the governor
Speaker 1: treated the president was how he described it. Now, some
Speaker 1: of this stuff, because they happened to have a Republican senator,
Speaker 1: Susan Collins, has been rolled back, has been reinstated because
Speaker 1: she was able to go and make her plea to
Speaker 1: you know, the King of begging for forbearance, and so
Speaker 1: some of these things have been put back in place.
Speaker 1: But you know, I'm sure Delaware is looking at that,
Speaker 1: is looking at the threats to California, is looking at,
Speaker 1: you know, the the treatment of all kinds of people's institution, institutions,
Speaker 1: et cetera, that I've gotten crosswise with this administration, or like,
Speaker 1: do we really want to play this game.
Speaker 4: It's the mob?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's nice state you got there.
Speaker 3: There's been a lot of power kind of on the
Speaker 3: table that hasn't been used by the federal government against
Speaker 3: states and against institutions and nonprofits because of norms that
Speaker 3: have built up over the last couple hundred years, and
Speaker 3: not just.
Speaker 1: Norms, but also some legislation that you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: the big founding of the Republic, we had a lot
Speaker 1: of like this sort of patronage system that is very common,
Speaker 1: and then over time there was actual reform and legislation
Speaker 1: put in place too to try to ensure that the
Speaker 1: bureaucracy would be more or less neutral. And not to
Speaker 1: say that it's ever lived up fully to that ideal,
Speaker 1: you know, but that was kind of the assumption, is
Speaker 1: that the bureaucracy would be neutral, whether it was you
Speaker 1: as a person, you as a state, you was a
Speaker 1: law firm, as is another relevant example right now, you
Speaker 1: as a media organization, et cetera. And that expectation this
Speaker 1: administration is just completely tossed out the window. Now your
Speaker 1: expectation is that you will be targeted if you get
Speaker 1: crosswise with them.
Speaker 2: It's interesting because Emily, I think your mic went off.
Speaker 1: Don jummy, I hear you, but it's kind of quieter.
Speaker 4: Okay, there you go any thing, but I'll just talk louder.
Speaker 4: But one of the things that is interesting about it
Speaker 4: is there was I mean there were threats the Obomba
Speaker 4: administration threatened every K through twelve school actually higher education
Speaker 4: to first on the dear Colleague letter on sexual assault
Speaker 4: and then on the dear Colleague letter reading gender identity
Speaker 4: into title nine. And what Trump is doing is much
Speaker 4: more nakedly like, hey, I am the boss. I am
Speaker 4: you know, the guy in charge of this racket that
Speaker 4: we call the federal government, and you will comply with me.
Speaker 4: But I think some of it stems from and I
Speaker 4: know this because I hear it on the right watching
Speaker 4: the lesson of how federal funds were used for a
Speaker 4: long time by I mean, the Obama administration is the
Speaker 4: best example in the Biden administration. So some of it
Speaker 4: is like they took permission, they realized like, okay, so
Speaker 4: we're going to play this game. We're going to play
Speaker 4: it way better than you guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's a fair point in the sense
Speaker 3: that the Obama Department of Education, did you know, use
Speaker 3: the at department entitle nine to pressure universities to change
Speaker 3: change policies.
Speaker 2: And yeah.
Speaker 3: The difference now, of course, is that they're using like
Speaker 3: the presence of Social Security offices to pressure a high
Speaker 3: school on trans athletes or something like. It's like right,
Speaker 3: what like at least with Obama is like we're going
Speaker 3: to use university funding to try to pressure universities to
Speaker 3: do a thing. Whereas Obama, you know, whereas Trump is like,
Speaker 3: we're going to use social Security money.
Speaker 1: We're going to use social Security, We're going to use
Speaker 1: We're going to threaten your c grant funding, We're going
Speaker 1: to use HHS off to USDA. Yeah. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: really like the whole government is going to try to
Speaker 1: screw you over. And you know, I mean one of
Speaker 1: the things that we have to think through going forward
Speaker 1: to is, you know, we already know that they're using
Speaker 1: AI to scrub social media accounts to target dissidents, especially
Speaker 1: with regard to Israel, and you know, some indications that
Speaker 1: could be maybe some of what's going on to locate
Speaker 1: these quote unquote gang members. More on that in a moment,
Speaker 1: and you know, find their alleged tattoos that are so
Speaker 1: evil that they have to be disappeared into a foreign goolag.
Speaker 1: But they want to consolidate all of the data that
Speaker 1: the federal government has on all of us, and they
Speaker 1: want to use AI. So I mean it's not. It
Speaker 1: doesn't take a leap to imagine the way that you
Speaker 1: wouldn't even need a particular bureaucrat to hate you, like
Speaker 1: the Social Security dude hated the Janet Mills, the governor
Speaker 1: of Maine, to have your experience with the government now
Speaker 1: be biased against you if you dare, say one of
Speaker 1: the you know, forbidden words, or hold a forbidden pic position,
Speaker 1: or have criticized Elon or Tesla God forbid or Trump
Speaker 1: et cetera.
Speaker 4: Like, there are the.
Speaker 1: Tools now to you institute that level of weaponization down
Speaker 1: to the person by person level, even if you are
Speaker 1: basically like just a nobody, random ordinary person who happens
Speaker 1: to have a political opinion. That's all I think at
Speaker 1: this point on the table right now, and to me
Speaker 1: is quite terrifying direction that we could very easily be
Speaker 1: headed in.
Speaker 4: Well, and you have multiple private sector folks in the
Speaker 4: government with special government employee status who would have access.
Speaker 4: So that's sort of centralized.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right, That's exactly right. So this I
Speaker 1: wanted to cover this story, you know, getting to the
Speaker 1: latest with regard to the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act.
Speaker 1: You know, the administration is claiming that this gives them
Speaker 1: extraordinary powers to basically round up into port with zero
Speaker 1: do process whoever they want, and apparently ship them to
Speaker 1: this you know, prison in El Salvador, known for human
Speaker 1: rights abuses and slave labor. They also think that it
Speaker 1: believes that it lets them have immigration agents enter homes
Speaker 1: without warrants. So right now you have you know, you
Speaker 1: have the right to if an ICE agent shows up
Speaker 1: at your door and they don't have a warrant, you
Speaker 1: don't have to let them in. And so now they're saying,
Speaker 1: not only can we pick up whoever we want and
Speaker 1: you know, round them up, arrest them, deport them, no
Speaker 1: due process, et cetera, but we can just go into
Speaker 1: your home. We don't even need a you know, we
Speaker 1: don't even need a warrant. Obviously, this is a violation
Speaker 1: many people think of illegal search and seizure constitutional protections. Ryan,
Speaker 1: what did you make of this interpretation, you know, truly
Speaker 1: maximalist interpretation that the administration is going with here of
Speaker 1: what they can do under this Alien Enemies Act.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean this is clearly the logical extension of
Speaker 3: their position, Like their position is the Secretary of State's
Speaker 3: designation about a person is unreviewable. Therefore they can Secretary
Speaker 3: of State can do whatever he wants, and the security
Speaker 3: forces at the direction of the Secretary of State can
Speaker 3: also do whatever they want. That like that like if
Speaker 3: if it is true that somehow the Constitution forgot to
Speaker 3: put limits around what the Secretary of State can do
Speaker 3: to people inside the United States, then yeah, Secretary of
Speaker 3: State can do anything, and and the and.
Speaker 2: The courts have no jurisdiction.
Speaker 3: Now, the courts that have looked at this claim in
Speaker 3: the past, including apparently Donald Trump's federal judge sister, have
Speaker 3: said that no, this is that's an unconstitutionally vague law,
Speaker 3: like that's that's ridiculous, Like you can't. But the Constitution
Speaker 3: is very clear. There's no carve out from the Bill
Speaker 3: of Rights for the Secretary of State because he makes
Speaker 3: some determination.
Speaker 1: Right where you say the magic words or and it's
Speaker 1: an invasion, so now I can round up whoever I want.
Speaker 3: Right And also we're not at war, as you would
Speaker 3: point it out previously, Like being at war doesn't mean
Speaker 3: like your feelings are hurt by anything. It means that
Speaker 3: Congress has declared war and Congress has not. So just
Speaker 3: like right there, but that that feels like you're almost
Speaker 3: splitting hairs. The broader point is constitutional protections apply to
Speaker 3: actors of the state, no matter who they are, whether
Speaker 3: the Secretary of State or somebody else. But if you
Speaker 3: believe that they don't, then sure they can come into
Speaker 3: your house, knock your door down, put you in shackles,
Speaker 3: put you on a plane, and throw you out the
Speaker 3: window of the plane.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and whether you are a citizen non and citizen
Speaker 1: green guard all the result, because how would we if
Speaker 1: there's no due process, assertion is unreviewable. According to them, Ryan,
Speaker 1: real quick, I want you to explain your reporting here
Speaker 1: before we I want to get Emily away as well.
Speaker 1: About we're starting to learn some of the details of
Speaker 1: the people who were disappeared into this El Salvador prison,
Speaker 1: and one of them is this venezuela professional goaltender. Tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about who this person is and
Speaker 1: what we know about how he even ended up on
Speaker 1: the radar of ice because he has no criminal record whatsoever, So,
Speaker 1: you know, seems strange that he would be a target.
Speaker 1: But then again, the government, in an official filing with
Speaker 1: the court admitted that quote many of the people that
Speaker 1: they sent to this, you know, torture Chamber had had
Speaker 1: no criminal record whatsoever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so first the apologize. Apparently I should have
Speaker 3: called him goalkeeper, and goaltender is hockey.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, I was actually wondering that too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll correct that with apologies. I even played keeper
Speaker 3: in middle school, so I guess I should have known that.
Speaker 1: My son likes the play goalie. So yeah.
Speaker 3: So in any event, this guy hearsay Reyes Barrio is,
Speaker 3: he's a Venezuelan, a professional soccer player there. They pulled
Speaker 3: his criminal record from Venezuela to show that he had
Speaker 3: absolutely zero criminal record there. In February and March of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, he participated in protests against the Maduro government.
Speaker 3: This was happening during the presidential election in which Maduro
Speaker 3: was kicking his main opponent or using his Supreme Court,
Speaker 3: which was allied with him, to kick his main opponent
Speaker 3: off the ballot. It kicked off a lot of protests.
Speaker 3: The United States ramped up sanctions against Venezuela. United States,
Speaker 3: through USAID and other propaganda networks, pushed Venezuelan citizens to
Speaker 3: protest against the Maduro regime. Supported the Venezuelan opposition to
Speaker 3: the fullest extent it could. After having launched several coups
Speaker 3: attempted coups against the Venezuelan government and so he came
Speaker 3: out to two of these marches. After one of them,
Speaker 3: in March of twenty twenty four, he was picked up
Speaker 3: by Maduro security forces tortured in an undisclosed location using
Speaker 3: electrocution and suffocation, according to his families. We found one
Speaker 3: of his family members Spanish Facebook page in Venezuela and
Speaker 3: also confirmed by an Affidavid that his lawyer filed with
Speaker 3: the court. In March twenty twenty four. He left fled
Speaker 3: Venezuela after getting tortured. He made an appointment using the
Speaker 3: CBP one app which at the time under the Biden
Speaker 3: administration said if you report to a port of entry
Speaker 3: then you can make your case for political asylum. September
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, so this is under Biden to be clear.
Speaker 3: He shows up at the port of entry and he says,
Speaker 3: this is what happened to me, this is who I am.
Speaker 3: I would like to apply for a political asylum. They
Speaker 3: see his tattoo and they say that looks like a
Speaker 3: gang tattoo, and they arrest him basically on the spot.
Speaker 3: So we got a statement from DHS saying, you know
Speaker 3: that this guy is in was in the country illegally,
Speaker 3: which is an interesting way of putting it, because he
Speaker 3: legally approached CBP. You know, he he had an illegal appointment.
Speaker 3: He was then arrested, So was he in the country
Speaker 3: illegally while he was in detention. So they answer that
Speaker 3: however you want, he's so he's put into maximum security
Speaker 3: because of this tattoo. His lawyer and this is what
Speaker 3: and we confirmed this with the family through this through
Speaker 3: this Facebook post, is he gets a lawyer. The lawyer
Speaker 3: reaches out to family and is like, I need his
Speaker 3: venezuela and you know, a criminal record, which they which
Speaker 3: they they pull and send and they even send him
Speaker 3: an affidavid from the tattoo artist who who says this
Speaker 3: this was a crown on top of a soccer ball,
Speaker 3: because he told me he loves Real Madrid. That's the
Speaker 3: Real Madrid logo. And this gang trend de Ragua also
Speaker 3: has a crown in its tattoo that they use. You know,
Speaker 3: he said he had no idea like so you know,
Speaker 3: a crown is not the most obscure thing to get
Speaker 3: on a tattoo. Yeah, and so they also submitted a
Speaker 3: whole bunch of images of people who are not in
Speaker 3: the gang gang who also have the tattoo. Now, DHS
Speaker 3: said they found social media posts that also indicated he
Speaker 3: was a gang in a gang. One of them, the
Speaker 3: only one that is public is him going.
Speaker 1: Like this, yeah, I can pull that up actually, and
Speaker 1: his lawyers.
Speaker 3: Like that's a that's like sign language for I love you.
Speaker 3: And it's also like dude rock and roll, like let's
Speaker 3: rock and.
Speaker 1: Roll like so like yeah, so that like this is
Speaker 1: the gang group.
Speaker 3: Anybody anybody ever done this? Like has anybody ever made
Speaker 3: that hand gesture? And so it April seventeenth, he is
Speaker 3: Slash was scheduled to have his like final hearing because
Speaker 3: this is what you know. So he's been in prison
Speaker 3: this entire time. When they finally sent him all of
Speaker 3: this information about the tattoo and his criminal record. In
Speaker 3: March tenth or eleventh, the ICE moved him out of
Speaker 3: maximum security. They're like, Okay, well, I guess we don't
Speaker 3: need to keep him in this hardcore lockup anymore. But
Speaker 3: then it was March fifteenth that they just swept him
Speaker 3: up and put him on the plane and shipped him
Speaker 3: to Al Salvador. April seventeenth, he's supposed to have a
Speaker 3: hearing where he would make his case.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: September first is when he was picked up by Biden,
Speaker 3: not picked up. He turned himself in at the border.
Speaker 3: So how many was that September, October, November, December, January.
Speaker 3: He's so he's been in six months in detention after
Speaker 3: you know, going from Venezuela to Mexico and getting torture
Speaker 3: down there. And so his family saw him in that
Speaker 3: as m R Social d social media post that yeah,
Speaker 3: the Trump administration.
Speaker 1: Posted the propaganda.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, where.
Speaker 3: They're shaving the guy's heads and like and this the
Speaker 3: family is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's her. Say what
Speaker 3: the hell is hers say? What the hell's hers doing?
Speaker 3: So they reached back out to the lawyer, and the
Speaker 3: lawyer said, well, he doesn't show up in the ice
Speaker 3: thing anymore. And after like three days of harassing DHS,
Speaker 3: DHS finally confirmed to the lawyer, yeah, he was shipped
Speaker 3: down to l Salvador. I saw Sean Davis, a you know,
Speaker 3: prominent conservative attorney, saying well, this is actually this is
Speaker 3: on the attorney for not filing a habeas Sean Sean, Yeah,
Speaker 3: an attorney.
Speaker 2: Oh, he's just a dude. Never mind.
Speaker 3: Anyway, I won't criticize him though. He was saying if
Speaker 3: he just said something.
Speaker 1: Stupid non expert saying, there was no chance.
Speaker 3: For the lawyers to do anything here. So he wasn't
Speaker 3: in the country, and he was in the country, but
Speaker 3: he was in a detention facility, which is on Biden
Speaker 3: as well, because it was you know, this is Biden's Ice, which, right,
Speaker 3: if you think about when this happened to September, this
Speaker 3: is the height of the presidential campaign, when you know
Speaker 3: the Haitian stuff is going on, and Trenda Araga they're
Speaker 3: the ones that were taking over the Colorado.
Speaker 2: Building. Is that that's right? Yeah, So like they were
Speaker 2: like a big thing, right.
Speaker 3: So Ice was clearly, you know, on the lookout for
Speaker 3: anybody from Venezuela that they thought might be connected, might.
Speaker 1: Have a tattoo that is remotely I mean the other
Speaker 1: ones I've seen is like one person. Some of the
Speaker 1: reporting indiquate caated. Also if you just were from Arragua,
Speaker 1: which is this Venezuelan state where Trenda Aragua is from
Speaker 1: that that would be sufficient to you know, put you
Speaker 1: in the bucket of like, oh, you must be a
Speaker 1: gang member, whereas at least some of those people are
Speaker 1: actually fleeing the gang violence that had you know, was
Speaker 1: in demic to their part of Venezuela. So one of
Speaker 1: the other tattoos is a rose is supposed to be affiliated. Again,
Speaker 1: there are many people.
Speaker 3: Have rose tattoos, So that'll be fine, that'll be.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that'll really narrow it down. But why I mean, Emily,
Speaker 1: this is like we still one news outlet did publish
Speaker 1: the alleged list of everyone who was deported as part
Speaker 1: of this, but like obviously we still don't have all
Speaker 1: the details. But like I said, even the government in
Speaker 1: this really I mean talk about Orwellian. They tried to
Speaker 1: argue in court that the fact that these guys didn't
Speaker 1: have any criminal record made them more dangerous because that
Speaker 1: meant we knew less about them. That was, they argued.
Speaker 1: But you know, I mean, according to his family and
Speaker 1: his lawyers and you know, and him, this guy he
Speaker 1: actually followed, but he did the thing that he was
Speaker 1: supposed to, got his CBP one app appointment and showed
Speaker 1: up at the border and the port of entry where
Speaker 1: he was supposed to go. He had his appointment, he
Speaker 1: was until he was, you know, arrested as best he could.
Speaker 1: He was making his core appointments, et cetera. And I
Speaker 1: think it just underscores that when you get rid of
Speaker 1: due process in any instance, it means you're really getting
Speaker 1: rid of due process for everyone.
Speaker 3: And while you painted, I can reach the DHS statement,
Speaker 3: Tricia McLaughlin told me, quote, Hairs Rayes Borrows was not
Speaker 3: only in the United States illegally, but he has tattoos
Speaker 3: that are consistent with those indicating TDA gang membership. His
Speaker 3: own social media indicates he is a member of the
Speaker 3: vicious TDA gang. That all said, DHS intelligence assessments go
Speaker 3: beyond a single tattoo, and we are confident in our
Speaker 3: findings unquote.
Speaker 2: So that's the DHS response.
Speaker 4: I don't know how they're claiming he was in the
Speaker 4: country illegally if he claimed asylum, and from what we
Speaker 4: know based on the drop site reporting you're reporting, Ryan,
Speaker 4: is that this was a legitimate asylum claim. This is
Speaker 4: this asylum claim that a Marco Rubio or Maria Alviro
Speaker 4: sal Salazar would like this is like the proper use
Speaker 4: actually of the asylum program going after our enemy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean historically only it's only you know, after Cubans.
Speaker 1: That Venezuelans are beloved by Republicans, you know, because yes,
Speaker 1: they're flaring Maduro and so they have historically gotten better
Speaker 1: treatment by immigration authorities than you know, other migrants.
Speaker 4: So Hairsay's story is the story that I've dreaded throughout
Speaker 4: the Biden administration because it seemed inevitable to me that
Speaker 4: when you have a flood of eight million migrants and
Speaker 4: thousands of those it's a small percentage of the overall total,
Speaker 4: but thousands of them have criminal records that you're going
Speaker 4: to have to make broad sweeps and targeting in order
Speaker 4: to like actually reclaim. And Biden knew, by the way,
Speaker 4: there was going to be a swing back on immigration
Speaker 4: policy eventually, and so it was just completely reckless the
Speaker 4: way that they did this and like do process for example.
Speaker 4: That was part of the reason that part of the
Speaker 4: reason that you're detail a guy from Venezuela because he
Speaker 4: has a crown and a rose tattoo and a social
Speaker 4: media picture of him like doing the rock and roll
Speaker 4: symbol is because they brought into asylum process. They brought
Speaker 4: in the asylum process to the point where you could
Speaker 4: not mathematically, I mean the amount of work that we
Speaker 4: would have had to have done to rebuild our ability
Speaker 4: to hear asylum cases, just like there was basically no
Speaker 4: way to do it. And so it was screwing a
Speaker 4: lot of legitimate people, some of them I talked to.
Speaker 4: The Cuban kit I talked to at the border a
Speaker 4: couple of years ago, was having a hard time getting
Speaker 4: in and paid tens of we paid over ten thousand
Speaker 4: dollars to get here across the border, had to come
Speaker 4: back like it was just a disaster. And so it
Speaker 4: just makes me, really I feel like the Biden administration
Speaker 4: played with people's lives and I for political purposes, and
Speaker 4: so I don't think it's I think the Trump administration
Speaker 4: needs to be extremely targeted as it's doing deportations, but
Speaker 4: I also think it's important to get thousands of criminals
Speaker 4: who are not just criminals because they cross the border illegally,
Speaker 4: but because they're violent criminals. I think it's important to
Speaker 4: get people like that the hell out of the country.
Speaker 4: So I don't think the Trump administration is in an
Speaker 4: easy position, but it's it just sucks to see this
Speaker 4: happen and it's wrong. And I hope the fact that
Speaker 4: herse is Venezuelan and what Crystal said that is something
Speaker 4: that Marco Rubio cares a whole lot about. If the
Speaker 4: aliens in national the Alien and Enemies Act sucks, the
Speaker 4: application of it absolutely sucks.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 4: I don't disagree with any of that, but hopefully the
Speaker 4: fact that like legit dissidents are getting caught up in
Speaker 4: this is a wake up sign.
Speaker 3: And I think that the problem what this shows is
Speaker 3: that the Trump administration isn't actually serious about what it's doing.
Speaker 3: Because he was already behind bars. So if they're concern
Speaker 3: was that he's so dangerous that he's going to be
Speaker 3: out there, you know, attacking college students, that's not You're good, Like,
Speaker 3: you've had this guy locked up for six months and
Speaker 3: he has a appointment on April seventeenth, You could you
Speaker 3: can keep him in lock up for another month.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: I don't think that they should, because I think that
Speaker 3: he's case, you know, warrants being let out on bond.
Speaker 3: But whatever, y'all won if you were worried about him
Speaker 3: committing crimes if you're worried about people committing crimes, you'd
Speaker 3: find you'd try to find people who are not behind
Speaker 3: bars already. The ones that are behind bars exactly what
Speaker 3: they want is numbers and then want warm bodies flown
Speaker 3: out of the country and they don't care.
Speaker 1: And shocking images and shocking images. Yeah, that's that's exactly right,
Speaker 1: because there's also a there's a piece here of wanting
Speaker 1: to scare people, and there's a piece here of wanting
Speaker 1: to appease a base that was sold mass deportation and
Speaker 1: also was sold I mean, you know that a larger
Speaker 1: number of these migrants or criminals than actually are you know,
Speaker 1: they were sold that that Trump's Oh they're emptying out
Speaker 1: their asylums and sending the worst of the world. And
Speaker 1: so when you actually are dealing in reality and the
Speaker 1: number of immigrants who you know actually have criminal records
Speaker 1: is much much, much much smaller as a percentage than
Speaker 1: what has been portrayed to the public, then you've set
Speaker 1: up a sort of impossible situation. So you have to
Speaker 1: rely on these like horrific fascists, in my opinion, stunts
Speaker 1: like the Guantanamo Bay thing, like the use of military
Speaker 1: planes even though they're insanely more expensive. And now this
Speaker 1: is the most aggressive, most egregious stunt, and it is
Speaker 1: both a stunt and it is also extremely not just dangerous,
Speaker 1: but damaging in the same way that you know, extraordinary
Speaker 1: rendition under the War on Terror and torturing people at
Speaker 1: Guantanamo Bay, and all of those things were dangerous and damaging,
Speaker 1: not just to the people that it happened to, but
Speaker 1: to everybody. Because look, if you don't have due process,
Speaker 1: what is to stop them from taking literally anyone and
Speaker 1: saying they were a bad person, they were a gang member,
Speaker 1: they were here illegally, Who are they? What's the stro
Speaker 1: We don't know, we'll never tell you. They're now disappeared
Speaker 1: into this prison. And that's why it really is an
Speaker 1: infringement on all of our rights, not just on the
Speaker 1: you know, official batties that people would want to see
Speaker 1: removed from the country.
Speaker 3: And actually Trump is now let me see if I
Speaker 3: can pull this up. You know, threatening producer Mac just sent.
Speaker 4: This saying that it's threatening producer Mac threatening by proxy.
Speaker 2: Maybe yeah, I love the threatened producer Mac. Let me
Speaker 2: let me, let me make sure my d ms are closed.
Speaker 4: Let me just say, yeah, let me just say also
Speaker 4: where you're pulling that up r and that the thing
Speaker 4: that does what a thing that does concern me so far?
Speaker 4: Is that the To answer Crystal's question, I think one
Speaker 4: of the things that stops them on due process so
Speaker 4: far is our citizenship. But we don't know what they
Speaker 4: know about the people who were deported citizens, Like we
Speaker 4: actually don't have information about how sure they were that
Speaker 4: they weren't rounding up actual citizens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I said significant. Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: said before I suspect these are all undocumented immigrants, but
Speaker 1: we don't actually know that. And Ice has been known,
Speaker 1: I mean, we've got numerous reports just recently. But this
Speaker 1: is the case over many administrations. They've gotten it wrong.
Speaker 1: Many times. They've detained, arrested, et cetera, people who were
Speaker 1: citizens just because they were in the wrong place at
Speaker 1: the wrong time they looked like they might be undocumented.
Speaker 1: You know, they were at a work, a place of
Speaker 1: business where they thought this would you know, be somebody
Speaker 1: who was undocumented, et cetera. So, yeah, Ice gets it
Speaker 1: wrong and screws up all the time. And again, we
Speaker 1: have no way of actually without due process. You don't
Speaker 1: even have a way of knowing that these people that
Speaker 1: none of them were US citizens. You don't even have
Speaker 1: a way of knowing that these are actually even all
Speaker 1: undocumented immigrants, let alone gang members, let alone criminals, et cetera.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they haven't right of the information sufficiently.
Speaker 1: No, and the Ryan did you did you you pulled
Speaker 1: up the Trump thing?
Speaker 3: Yeah, he said, Uh, I look forward to watching the
Speaker 3: sick terrorist thugs get twenty year jail sentences for what
Speaker 3: they are doing to Elon Musk and Tesla. Perhaps they
Speaker 3: could serve them in the prisons of l Salvador, which
Speaker 3: have become so recently famous for such lovely conditions.
Speaker 1: So now we're talking about US citizens potentially who dare
Speaker 1: to vandalize the Tesla or Tesla charger or Tesla dealership
Speaker 1: or whatever, who now you know, are being threatened by
Speaker 1: the president with being also disappeared into this foreign gulag.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, when these things are on the table,
Speaker 1: it doesn't stay with the you know, with the official
Speaker 1: batties that people are you know, are primed to hate
Speaker 1: and want to see the maximum amount of retribution aim
Speaker 1: towards Jack.
Speaker 4: Suppose that was January sixth, by the way, Yeah, you
Speaker 4: you write f tesla on a cyber truck at a
Speaker 4: dealership or a showroom, and that's domestic terrorism. This is
Speaker 4: one of the things that they're right was arguing in
Speaker 4: I think persuasively and Ryan, I know some of like
Speaker 4: you're at the time writers at the intercept, we're doing
Speaker 4: great work on this. I think that's a wildly inappropriate
Speaker 4: expansion of domestic terrorism, like in the ways that we're
Speaker 4: absolutely encroaching on people's civil liberties. And there were court
Speaker 4: cases about all of this.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's so like, yeah, you can you can
Speaker 1: you know, violently attack the capital and that's not domestic terrorism.
Speaker 1: But if you you know, you put a swastika on
Speaker 1: a tesla, and that's another another matter.
Speaker 4: Or you can just be in the proximity. I mean,
Speaker 4: this happened to some people. You can be in the
Speaker 4: proximity of what became a violent riot at the capitol
Speaker 4: and you can be you know, back on the lawn
Speaker 4: and end up having your house rated whatever. Like there
Speaker 4: were crazy cases where the Biden FBI was weaponizing the
Speaker 4: domestic terrorism thing and this is this isn't the capital,
Speaker 4: this is f tesla and like weird Antifa mouth breathers
Speaker 4: trying to start fires at Tesla showrooms.
Speaker 1: So yeah, one last update on this particular story is
Speaker 1: to keep us all up to date with you know,
Speaker 1: there's a possibility the administration is held in contempt of
Speaker 1: court here because the judge is increasingly pissed off. The
Speaker 1: New York Times says administration's details on deportation flights quote
Speaker 1: woefully insufficient. According to this Judge Bosberg, in an angry order,
Speaker 1: he told the Trump administration explain why he should not
Speaker 1: find that officials had violated his instructions for the flights
Speaker 1: to return to the United States. And this is this
Speaker 1: whole you know, flap over. Judge says from the bench,
Speaker 1: you have to you have to turn even if you
Speaker 1: have to turn the planes around, like you cannot deport
Speaker 1: these people. The planes, two of which were already in
Speaker 1: the air, are not turned around, one of which was
Speaker 1: on the ground. Administration is claiming the one on the ground,
Speaker 1: the deportees there were pursuant to some other immigration authority,
Speaker 1: not the Alien Enemies Act. We don't really know if
Speaker 1: that's the case, but that's what they're claiming. They're also
Speaker 1: claiming that because it was a verbal order not a
Speaker 1: written order that it like really didn't count. And then
Speaker 1: they've completely stonewalled on just even the basic details of
Speaker 1: these flights, even though like the flight tracker info is public.
Speaker 1: We know exactly when they took off, where were they
Speaker 1: at these different times when the judge issued the initial
Speaker 1: ruling from the bench, when he issued the you know,
Speaker 1: written ruling ultimately, so they're they're stonewalling on sort of
Speaker 1: giving any information, and we're considering invoking state secrets doctrine
Speaker 1: to keep this information confidential, even though they'd never even
Speaker 1: indicated that any of this was classified. And they were
Speaker 1: also out there, like you know, publishing videos and celebrating
Speaker 1: videos with a lot of the details of what happened here.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of where we are. And you know,
Speaker 1: this is the highest profile instance of Trump administration, you know,
Speaker 1: defiance and testing of the court system and fits a
Speaker 1: broader pattern. And you know, obviously they're calling for this
Speaker 1: guy to be impeached and all of that sort of
Speaker 1: stuff too.
Speaker 4: Well. And one interesting thing here is they and this
Speaker 4: is sort of me a full circle with what we
Speaker 4: were talking about with Elon at the very beginning, and
Speaker 4: how the there's almost like some you can detect perhaps
Speaker 4: a modicum of shame in the Pentagon pushing back on
Speaker 4: this idea that Elon was just getting this special China briefing.
Speaker 4: There's there's almost a little bit of that when you
Speaker 4: see that Trump is still claiming they didn't defy the
Speaker 4: judge's orders because of the verbal versus written distinction, and
Speaker 4: there's legally like there's it's not an entirely illegitimate case.
Speaker 4: But I don't know, Ryan, I think I do find
Speaker 4: it also interesting that Trump goes on Laura Angram this
Speaker 4: week and says we won't defy the judges orders, and
Speaker 4: the administration is still insisting that they didn't fly out
Speaker 4: the order, but that they had the right to do
Speaker 4: that what they did versus based on the verbal versus
Speaker 4: written thing. I don't know if that reminds you of
Speaker 4: the Elon stuff, but that's sort of where it takes me.
Speaker 1: To let me go ahead. And as a last thing here,
Speaker 1: why don't we pull up the some of the sound
Speaker 1: from the rallies last night at with AOC and Bernie
Speaker 1: and you know, they sort of joined forces and did
Speaker 1: a series of rallies out west in Vegas and one
Speaker 1: maybe in Arizona. I don't know, Ryan, maybe you know
Speaker 1: all the details of where the rallies were, but you know,
Speaker 1: quite a lot of energy on the ground. And I
Speaker 1: think AOC really kind of finding her voice here on
Speaker 1: the Fight Oligarchy tour. You just go ahead and play
Speaker 1: a little bit of what she had to say here
Speaker 1: so we can take a listen to her speech.
Speaker 7: You know Fox News and the right wing, Well, have
Speaker 7: you believe that these American values are something out of
Speaker 7: the Communist manifesto, that we believe these things because we
Speaker 7: went to college and read them in a book somewhere. Well,
Speaker 7: let me tell you, Fox News, I don't believe these things.
Speaker 7: I don't believe in healthcare, labor, and human dignity because
Speaker 7: I'm a Marxist. I believe it because I was a waitress,
Speaker 7: I screwed up toilets with my mom to go to school,
Speaker 7: because I've worked double shifts to keep the lights on,
Speaker 7: and because on my worst day, I know what it
Speaker 7: feels like to feel left behind.
Speaker 1: And Ryan, what did you think of a AOC's performance
Speaker 1: here and sort of the role that she's occupying. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of talk about like, oh, who's Bernie
Speaker 1: Sanders gonna sort of put his hands on is this
Speaker 1: is the next Bernie and this is who he's leaving
Speaker 1: his legacy to. I mean, it seems pretty clear that
Speaker 1: person is AOC, right yeah, and if she.
Speaker 3: It's the mantle's there for her to take it if
Speaker 3: she wants. And you heard her there leaning you know,
Speaker 3: much more into the class argument than she has, you know, recently,
Speaker 3: and the you know, the advantage that she has is
Speaker 3: that the right kind of loves to make fun of
Speaker 3: her for being a waitress.
Speaker 1: Alena Haba just did that recently, I think, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Hey, they fall into that trap constantly, so they
Speaker 3: are constantly reinforcing her own message for her by being
Speaker 3: class knobs themselves.
Speaker 2: So you know, she has it.
Speaker 3: She has an opportunity to do that if if she
Speaker 3: cannot get too tangled up and some of the Democrats
Speaker 3: less popular cultural stuff.
Speaker 4: What do you think, Emily, Well, I think we should
Speaker 4: get the man who wrote the book The squad.
Speaker 1: On sometimes to talk about and we should to dig
Speaker 1: into it.
Speaker 4: But no, this is also really powerful right now for Democrats.
Speaker 4: It's a it's a huge gift for Democrats that the
Speaker 4: populist Trump administration is stocked with billionaires that are not
Speaker 4: you know, Trump is singular in the respect that he
Speaker 4: can get away with the sort of blue collar billionaire
Speaker 4: thing for whatever reason. We could get into that. But
Speaker 4: Elon Musk cannot. How are lutin It cannot. Scott Besant cannot,
Speaker 4: They don't. They're not the same.
Speaker 1: And Besen is a mere five hundred millionaire. Emily Way
Speaker 1: don't want you to.
Speaker 4: You know, truly like he's surrounding himself with plutocrats and
Speaker 4: some of whom many of whom are actual billionaires. And
Speaker 4: so it's a different this is a different version of
Speaker 4: Trump populism, and that's very obvious. And so as Democrats
Speaker 4: look to rebuild, they have this incredible gift right in
Speaker 4: front of them that the Alyssa slotkins uh and Gavin
Speaker 4: Newsom's of the world are not probably not going to
Speaker 4: be able to capitalize on. So it's kind of an
Speaker 4: odd way a huge moment for the populist left because
Speaker 4: they're the best positioned to help Democrats regain power in
Speaker 4: this moment where the Trump administration is what was I
Speaker 4: mean bringing working class voters into the Republican Party at
Speaker 4: a pretty steady clip in ways that Democrats never envisioned
Speaker 4: Trump would be able to do or that Republicans would
Speaker 4: be able to do, and so here you have an
Speaker 4: opportunity to capitalize on that, and the culture stuff was
Speaker 4: going to get interesting. The sort of dance as to
Speaker 4: how Democrats handle that and how AOC and Bernie handled
Speaker 4: that going forward will be interesting. But it's a gift.
Speaker 4: This is a real moment for Democrats and it's you know,
Speaker 4: does Chuck Schumer allow the IOCs that like, maybe he
Speaker 4: won't have a choice if they keep doing rallies like this.
Speaker 1: I mean, you had I think, what was a Michael
Speaker 1: Bennett that came out yesterday and was like Schumer needs
Speaker 1: to go. I mean, you've got some like like real
Speaker 1: centrists who were like, we're done with this. And it's
Speaker 1: emblematic of the fact that the liberal base revolt. It's
Speaker 1: really not ideological. They want to see people fight, and
Speaker 1: the people by and large who are fighting right now
Speaker 1: are the populace left. I mean, Bernie and AOC really
Speaker 1: are kind of leading the charge here and charting the
Speaker 1: path forward. You know, Bernie starts this tour and now
Speaker 1: you've got a bunch of other Democrats who are sort
Speaker 1: of following saying, yes, this is a good idea, let's
Speaker 1: go out and do these town halls. Tim Walls is
Speaker 1: making a lot of noise out there too, and I think,
Speaker 1: you know, establishing himself as a potential player for twenty
Speaker 1: twenty eight as well. And so they really have charted
Speaker 1: the And you do have because of the nature of
Speaker 1: Elon and Zuckerberg and Bezos and Lutnik and all the
Speaker 1: cast of characters of the you know, the billionaire oligarchs
Speaker 1: that are circling the Trump administration and running the Trump administration,
Speaker 1: you do also have this organic like class reaction against that.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm sure you guys probably saw
Speaker 1: the town hall, some Republican town hall, Mike Flood maybe
Speaker 1: that's his name. I don't remember. Anyway, the people who
Speaker 1: were there, the you know who were there to confront him,
Speaker 1: they start organically chanting tax the rich. So even though
Speaker 1: there isn't a lot of ideology in the sort of
Speaker 1: like liberal based fight, because they're being polarized against Elon,
Speaker 1: there is a class to mention that is organically developing
Speaker 1: that is different than the resistance that you saw against
Speaker 1: Trump that was about like Russia and these other things
Speaker 1: back in the twenty seventeen twenty eighteen era of this.
Speaker 1: And then also what's different is the fact that they're
Speaker 1: disgusted with Democratic leadership, and they're disgusted with people like Gavinusom,
Speaker 1: who is there saying like, let's you have Charlie kirk
Speaker 1: On and hang out with him and Steve Bannon and
Speaker 1: they're really interesting and I'm so impressed with them, etc.
Speaker 1: You know, there is a real like disgust with that
Speaker 1: approach that was not there in the past. This is
Speaker 1: the first time that Democrats have said, no, you need
Speaker 1: to come up the works. You need to I'm talking
Speaker 1: about the base. You need to not work with Trump
Speaker 1: or the Republicans at all. Even though it felt like
Speaker 1: there was a very strong resistance last time, actually polling wise,
Speaker 1: you still had a super majority of Democrats who were like,
Speaker 1: try to work with the Republicans to get things done.
Speaker 1: And so it is a very different energy here. And
Speaker 1: I'll tell you I was an AOC. I was an
Speaker 1: AOC skeptic of her being able to, you know, really
Speaker 1: hold her own on a national stage because of all
Speaker 1: the way that she leaned into, you know, the language
Speaker 1: and the identity politics and whatever. But I'm becoming more
Speaker 1: of a believer the more that I see her out
Speaker 1: there and the more that she is meeting this moment
Speaker 1: and this speech Ryan to me was a real case
Speaker 1: in point, Like she she really kind of nailed it
Speaker 1: in terms of the language that approach, the argument that
Speaker 1: she made, and the way she positioned herself in that
Speaker 1: narrative as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, more of that. I think there's nobody else really.
Speaker 3: I'm sure that you know, Rocanna would love to pick
Speaker 3: up that man, and I'm sure Privilege I Paul would
Speaker 3: love to pick up that mantle for various reasons. You know,
Speaker 3: you know, she has the pole position there. You know,
Speaker 3: she she's suffered. You know, it's you know, a blow
Speaker 3: on the left over the last you know, several years.
Speaker 3: But I don't I don't think she I don't think
Speaker 3: it means she couldn't recover the position, and particularly if
Speaker 3: she's consistently out there with Bernie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, that's right. And if she's just consistently
Speaker 1: out there, I mean that thing too, is she like
Speaker 1: she understands you know, she and Bernie did an interview
Speaker 1: with us on Piker yesterday before their events. She's constantly
Speaker 1: on Instagram lives and on Twitter, and isn't afraid of controversy,
Speaker 1: isn't afraid of Republicans coming after her because she's been
Speaker 1: through that fire at this point a million times. And
Speaker 1: you know, I think under like understanding the actual media
Speaker 1: landscape is a very rare quality within the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: Emily at this point.
Speaker 4: Yeah, one hundred percent. And again, like most of the
Speaker 4: energy right now that can be capitalized on, it's not
Speaker 4: going to be capitalized on by Alyssa Slotkin and Gavin Newsom.
Speaker 4: It's so abundantly clear. And the only thing I wanted to.
Speaker 1: Say, it's not abundantly clear to them apparently, but to
Speaker 1: everybody else that is.
Speaker 4: Yeah. But this is where, this is where the Trump
Speaker 4: example is relevant, and that Trump gave Republicans no choice.
Speaker 4: He left them with no choice. He was so popular
Speaker 4: in the twenty fifteen twenty sixteen primary that they had
Speaker 4: zero choice but to end up going along with him.
Speaker 4: And then when they tried to thwart him, they still
Speaker 4: ended up having to go along with Trump. They couldn't
Speaker 4: run to Santus. He just steam rolls it. And that's
Speaker 4: you know, I'm not saying there's any like direct parallel.
Speaker 4: But in terms of populism, that's what Bernie and AOC
Speaker 4: have to do. For Democrats. They have to give them
Speaker 4: no choice but to side with populace. And it does
Speaker 4: it mean that they won't be thwarted by the truck
Speaker 4: Shoomers and whomever if they ascend to power. But they
Speaker 4: have to show that that is what the voters want.
Speaker 4: And so the rallies are in the tour and going
Speaker 4: on Hassan with the kind of setup of the rally
Speaker 4: behind you very Trumpian. It sends the message that this
Speaker 4: is your option. It is not going to be abundance,
Speaker 4: it is going to be populism.
Speaker 1: How dare you mentioned that word? That could pick off
Speaker 1: another three hour conversation.
Speaker 4: We had.
Speaker 1: We had Derek on well, you guys interviewed Azra, right,
Speaker 1: you actually should get Azra back. You guys should do
Speaker 1: a thing with him. I mean I talked to to Derek.
Speaker 1: I think you guys had have a great conversation with
Speaker 1: Azra that could be really interesting. In any case, anything else, guys,
Speaker 1: before we before we.
Speaker 3: Wrap it up here, you n just announced that Gaza
Speaker 3: has six days of flower left, which ye that that
Speaker 3: means that in a lot of places there's zero left. Yeah,
Speaker 3: people living on just nothing but bread like that. Even
Speaker 3: that's going to be gone soon. So that's it's bleak, very.
Speaker 1: Bleak, extremely bleak, Emily, anything else on your on your radar?
Speaker 1: So to speak?
Speaker 2: Did you see their Rising doesn't do radars anymore?
Speaker 1: Do they not?
Speaker 2: Memos?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 1: Really?
Speaker 2: I think I think it was memo?
Speaker 3: Is that right, Emily?
Speaker 4: I forget, but you're right.
Speaker 2: It was different notebook or something. Anyway, it was, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was something like that.
Speaker 4: But it's basically a radar.
Speaker 2: You know, give up on radars, come on.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, I don't remember how, but yeah
Speaker 1: I did. And Rising was my name too. Really, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a great name. It's a really good name. Like
Speaker 1: it's a fantastic morning show name. I have to say.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I'm glad they're sticking with the Rising name.
Speaker 4: I guess.
Speaker 1: I don't know. It was always weird, very weird. Now
Speaker 1: it's I mean, this was so long ago at this
Speaker 1: point that we were doing Rising. We would doing breaking
Speaker 1: points far longer than we ever did Rising. But it
Speaker 1: was weird at first to see other people be like,
Speaker 1: what's on your radars? Like that's our lot. What are
Speaker 1: you doing? So I'm fine to see them move on
Speaker 1: to their own terminology and you know, do their own thing.
Speaker 1: That's perfectly fine.
Speaker 2: At this point you can start doing radars again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true, I guess.
Speaker 4: So what's on your radar today? That's kind of like
Speaker 4: that would be we'd like twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot of memories
Speaker 1: associated with that moment. That was back when I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, Bernie might actually win. So there's a lot
Speaker 1: of pain, a lot of pain involved in that period.
Speaker 1: All right, guys, fun as always. Great to talk to
Speaker 1: you both. Hope you have a great weekend. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be off next week because my kids have spring break
Speaker 1: and so Ryan is going to be in for me.
Speaker 1: Enjoy Ryan. I'm gonna have a hard time. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to separate from the news. I already know. I
Speaker 1: just can't. Like I feel like if you miss a
Speaker 1: week of news, you're gonna have no idea what's going on.
Speaker 1: You're gonna miss like eighty five really important consequential things.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I'll be Yeah.
Speaker 4: I expect the dm UH, the dm stream to be
Speaker 4: fairly study.
Speaker 1: It will be it will be, and I'm my plan
Speaker 1: is all just in lieu of doing the show. I'll
Speaker 1: just like do more tiktoks as kind of what I'm
Speaker 1: thinking to do. So in any case, Ryan, thank you
Speaker 1: for filling in. Ellen. Great to see you. Have a
Speaker 1: great weekend guys, and I will see you upon return.
Speaker 2: That good