WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 252 0:00:01.870 --> 0:00:02.890 Call zone media. 0:00:02.910 --> 0:00:02.970 Hi. 0:00:03.370 --> 0:00:03.450 Hi. 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:31.940 You're listening to It Could Happen Here. My name's Carlos 0:00:31.980 --> 0:00:34.980 Berrios Polanco. I'm a journalist and writer, and I'll be 0:00:35.020 --> 0:00:38.220 your host for today's episode, which is about the ongoing 0:00:38.300 --> 0:00:41.560 campaign of boat strikes by the U.S. military that have 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:45.520 turned the oceans around the Americas into killing fields. To 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:48.350 give a high-level overview of what I'll be talking about today, 0:00:48.870 --> 0:00:51.450 since September 2nd, 2025, up until the time of recording, 0:00:51.490 --> 0:00:53.479 I've been doing a lot of research on the The U.S. 0:00:53.530 --> 0:00:57.440 military has carried out at least 70 strikes on civilian 0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:01.560 vessels in the Caribbean Basin and the Eastern Pacific Ocean. 0:01:02.380 --> 0:01:06.060 At least 234 people have been killed by these strikes, 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:10.160 according to reporting from the New York Times. Per Air Wars, 0:01:10.459 --> 0:01:13.980 there have been survivors almost every month of the campaign, 0:01:14.459 --> 0:01:17.420 but only three out of the 28 total have ever 0:01:17.459 --> 0:01:22.259 been rescued. These strikes originally started in the Caribbean following 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:26.440 the mobilization of military assets into the region, which includes 0:01:26.500 --> 0:01:30.910 the reactivation of the once-dormant Roosevelt Roads military base in 0:01:31.010 --> 0:01:34.030 Puerto Rico, where I live and am currently recording from. 0:01:35.110 --> 0:01:37.490 I'm sure that I've seen some of the aircraft used 0:01:37.530 --> 0:01:40.680 in these strikes and other military operations in the region 0:01:40.780 --> 0:01:44.980 from the hill that overlooks the base's airstrip. And I've 0:01:45.100 --> 0:01:48.040 probably watched every single one of the videos the Trump 0:01:48.060 --> 0:01:51.700 administration or the U.S. military has posted announcing that these 0:01:51.740 --> 0:01:56.020 strikes took place. You've likely at least seen one yourself. 0:01:56.620 --> 0:02:00.700 It's almost always a social media post, sometimes a press release, 0:02:00.970 --> 0:02:04.490 typically showing a black and white video of a go-fast vessel, 0:02:04.990 --> 0:02:08.790 colloquially known as a panga or a yola, depending on 0:02:08.810 --> 0:02:12.820 where you're located. They're typically sipping across the waves only 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:15.940 for a missile to rain down from the sky shortly 0:02:16.100 --> 0:02:19.120 after the video starts, turning the boat and all the 0:02:19.180 --> 0:02:22.640 people aboard it into a giant ball of fire. Per 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:26.780 Air Wars, these posts almost always follow the same formula, 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:30.490 naming who ordered the strike, the amount of people killed, 0:02:30.950 --> 0:02:35.550 calling them drug traffickers or narco-terrorists, saying they're part of a, quote, 0:02:35.690 --> 0:02:40.769 designated terrorist organization, end quote, in stating the location where 0:02:40.790 --> 0:02:44.090 the strike took place. To be honest with you, even 0:02:44.130 --> 0:02:46.309 if the victims are blurred out and you rarely get 0:02:46.350 --> 0:02:49.090 an up-close look at how these people are torn to shreds, 0:02:49.590 --> 0:02:52.730 these are essentially snuff films that the Trump administration has 0:02:52.910 --> 0:02:57.510 used to hype up itself and its war on so-called narco-terrorism. 0:02:58.650 --> 0:03:03.079 The Trump administration has been laying the fin legal justification 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:06.220 as well as the moral and philosophical foundation for this 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:11.120 quote-unquote war since essentially their first day in office. More 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:14.240 than two months after the first strike, Defense Secretary Pete 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:20.510 Hegseth officially announced Operation Southern Spear as the, quote, overarching D.O.W. 0:03:20.650 --> 0:03:23.550 operation to disrupt the flow of narcotics in the Western 0:03:23.590 --> 0:03:27.290 Hemisphere from drug cartels that the president has named as 0:03:27.350 --> 0:03:35.080 a designated terrorist organization, parentheses, D.T.O.s, per a D.O.D. Inspector 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:38.800 General report. Southern Spear's mission statement, as well as several 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:42.360 documents that created the legal justification for these strikes and 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:47.220 other related operations, are classified and secret from the public. However, 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:51.280 as this Inspector General report states, the aim of Southern 0:03:51.340 --> 0:03:55.560 Spear is to, quote, defend the homeland, protect regional partners, 0:03:55.700 --> 0:04:01.790 and ensure stability and security across the Western Hemisphere. Operation 0:04:01.830 --> 0:04:06.110 Southern Spear has since evolved into Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere. 0:04:06.820 --> 0:04:11.300 which essentially means that several partner countries in the hemisphere 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:17.000 are working under Trump's banner of anti-narco-terrorism, whatever that means. 0:04:17.900 --> 0:04:21.100 The Trump administration has repeatedly said that the people killed 0:04:21.140 --> 0:04:26.020 in these strikes are quote-unquote narco-traffickers, and therefore enemy combatants, 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:28.260 according to a January 20, 2025 executive order that labels 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:34.600 the group's that the dead allegedly belonged to either quote-unquote 0:04:34.700 --> 0:04:40.779 foreign terrorist organizations or quote-unquote specially designated global terrorists, two 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:43.990 terms that sound like they're the same thing but essentially 0:04:44.150 --> 0:04:47.310 delineate groups marked by the State Department and the Treasury 0:04:47.390 --> 0:04:52.529 Department respectively as terrorists. There is substantial doubt as to 0:04:52.570 --> 0:04:55.890 whether the Trump administration is even able to identify these 0:04:55.980 --> 0:05:00.940 people before massacring them. However, As has been evidently clear 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:04.359 to anyone with eyes, these people are not terrorists, and 0:05:04.380 --> 0:05:06.800 there are serious doubts as to whether they're even actually 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:11.520 connected to drug trafficking organizations in a meaningful way. Because 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:15.620 these strikes occur in the open ocean, sometimes in international waters, 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:19.320 any evidence that could help in identifying the victims sinks 0:05:19.380 --> 0:05:25.020 beneath the waves relatively quickly, making positive identification nearly impossible. 0:05:29.810 --> 0:05:32.610 by their full names. A lot of these names come 0:05:32.670 --> 0:05:35.529 from media outlets hitting the ground and interviewing people in 0:05:35.550 --> 0:05:37.870 the communities where the men who've been killed by these 0:05:37.910 --> 0:05:41.010 strikes used to live. Per the list, a lot of 0:05:41.050 --> 0:05:44.150 these names come from the Los Angeles Times, the Trinidad 0:05:44.190 --> 0:05:47.940 and Tobago Guardian, the Associated Press, and some were identified 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:52.000 by Costa Rican authorities as reported by La Nación, as 0:05:52.100 --> 0:05:57.180 well as a collaborative investigation project titled Los Bombardeados Sin 0:05:57.200 --> 0:06:00.700 Derecho a la Defensa, or the bombed No Right to 0:06:00.740 --> 0:06:06.320 Defense between Air Wars, El Centro Latinoamericano de Investigación Periodística, 0:06:06.700 --> 0:06:10.350 otherwise known as El Clip, and several other Latin American 0:06:10.450 --> 0:06:14.790 or Caribbean media outlets. The Air Wars list includes names 0:06:14.850 --> 0:06:17.510 from the first strike up until strikes in May earlier 0:06:17.570 --> 0:06:20.940 this year. This doesn't mean that they've stopped working on it, 0:06:21.410 --> 0:06:24.190 just that they haven't been able to identify anyone by 0:06:24.230 --> 0:06:28.000 their full name after that. In other cases, these outlets 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:30.580 and others across the Western Hemisphere have been able to 0:06:30.620 --> 0:06:34.770 find nicknames and general descriptions of these men. Air Wars 0:06:34.850 --> 0:06:37.810 keeps a list of these in their individual trackers per 0:06:37.830 --> 0:06:41.290 strike as well. I have all these sources linked in 0:06:41.310 --> 0:06:44.170 the episode description. I've tried to include English as well 0:06:44.230 --> 0:06:47.760 as some Spanish-language news sources. The list by Air Wars, 0:06:47.940 --> 0:06:51.320 the Los Bombardeados investigation, and the killing spree report by 0:06:51.339 --> 0:06:55.469 the Washington Office on Latin America, or WOLA, were huge 0:06:55.510 --> 0:06:57.890 sources for this piece, so if you're at all interested 0:06:57.970 --> 0:07:01.190 in learning more about this topic, please go read those. 0:07:02.710 --> 0:07:05.380 The evidence found by these outlets points to the killed 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:09.020 victims being a mix of fishermen, motorcycle or bus drivers, 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:12.980 and boat captains. The men are mostly from some of 0:07:13.020 --> 0:07:16.340 the poorest areas of Latin America and the Caribbean, and 0:07:16.380 --> 0:07:19.960 when they are connected to drug trafficking organizations, they appear 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:23.900 to be, quote, among the lowest-ranked members, end quote, per 0:07:24.060 --> 0:07:28.770 Air Wars. Among the identified, there's a quote-unquote local crime boss, 0:07:29.030 --> 0:07:31.770 a fisherman pressured to get on drug trafficking boats because 0:07:31.790 --> 0:07:34.110 they'd had no other options to make money to feed 0:07:34.150 --> 0:07:37.880 their children, an indoor soccer player, people who'd left home 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:40.380 in search of work, and fishermen who appear to have 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:45.300 been stalled at sea fixing their ship's motor. The majority 0:07:45.340 --> 0:07:48.180 of the men hail from Venezuela and Mexico, while a 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:51.960 few are from Colombia, Ecuador, Trinidad and Tobago, and St. 0:07:52.020 --> 0:07:52.340 Lucia. 0:07:53.140 --> 0:07:57.220 The Los Bombardeados investigation has been able to geolocate seven 0:07:57.380 --> 0:08:00.060 of the boat strikes, three in the Pacific and four 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:03.260 in the Caribbean. Of the two in the Pacific, two 0:08:03.300 --> 0:08:06.880 took place broadly near the Mexico border and one strike 0:08:06.980 --> 0:08:11.510 occurred about halfway between Mexico and Ecuador. Of the four 0:08:11.530 --> 0:08:14.190 in the Caribbean, one took place in the open ocean 0:08:14.250 --> 0:08:18.290 between Venezuela and the island of La Española. Another appears 0:08:18.310 --> 0:08:21.250 to have taken place broadly near the Gulf of Venezuela. 0:08:21.490 --> 0:08:24.210 One took place in the Gulf of Paria between Venezuela 0:08:24.290 --> 0:08:27.350 and Trinidad and Tobago. And another took place along the 0:08:27.390 --> 0:08:30.190 spine of the Lesser Antilles, close to Martinique and St. 0:08:30.230 --> 0:08:30.610 Lucia. 0:08:30.630 --> 0:08:34.910 El Clips reporting identifies other strikes, including one off the 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:38.620 coast of Costa Rica, one off Ecuador's Santa Cruz Islands, 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:42.500 and another about halfway between Santa Cruz and Ecuador's coastline, 0:08:43.020 --> 0:08:47.679 and one near Mexico's coasts. Although the strikes... originally started 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:50.200 in the Caribbean, only about a third of these strikes 0:08:50.240 --> 0:08:53.740 have taken place here. Meanwhile, the other two thirds have 0:08:53.780 --> 0:08:56.920 taken place in the Pacific. I'm going to talk more 0:08:56.960 --> 0:08:59.830 about the identities of these men later on as I 0:08:59.870 --> 0:09:02.730 talk about the individual strikes. But before I keep going, 0:09:03.270 --> 0:09:05.550 I want to take this moment to say that it 0:09:05.610 --> 0:09:08.730 does not and should not matter whether these men were 0:09:08.790 --> 0:09:12.880 simply fishermen or if they actually were drug traffickers. Any 0:09:12.940 --> 0:09:17.160 level of criminality, whether real or perceived, does not in 0:09:17.330 --> 0:09:21.450 any sense of the word justify the murder of defenseless 0:09:21.510 --> 0:09:24.550 people on a boat who had no way of fighting 0:09:24.590 --> 0:09:28.450 back against the missile coming from the sky. As many 0:09:28.570 --> 0:09:33.250 experts on U.S. maritime, international, and humanitarian law have noted, 0:09:33.270 --> 0:09:38.170 these strikes on civilians, because they absolutely are not combatants 0:09:38.290 --> 0:09:41.210 and the U.S. is not at war against the groups 0:09:41.309 --> 0:09:43.720 that they pretend that these people are a part of, 0:09:44.270 --> 0:09:49.720 are basically murder. As Ben Saul, United Nations Special Rapporteur 0:09:50.140 --> 0:09:53.520 on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental 0:09:53.580 --> 0:09:57.390 Freedoms While Countering Terrorism, wrote in a briefing note, the 0:09:57.429 --> 0:10:01.080 attacks are, quote, in violation. of the right to life, 0:10:01.380 --> 0:10:06.540 being unjustified in national or personal self-defense or under international 0:10:06.580 --> 0:10:11.500 humanitarian law, the international law of the sea, narcotic suppression conventions, 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:16.819 or international counterterrorism law. Later on in that same document, 0:10:16.900 --> 0:10:20.960 he wrote that there is, quote, reasonable ground to believe, 0:10:20.980 --> 0:10:25.589 end quote, that the United States strikes, quote, constituted crimes 0:10:25.670 --> 0:10:41.790 against humanity of murder under customary international law. Before I 0:10:41.830 --> 0:10:45.050 can talk about any boat strikes, I need to explain how, 0:10:45.250 --> 0:10:48.530 according to the Washington Post, the Trump administration has been 0:10:48.610 --> 0:10:52.410 pushing for these strikes on drug traffickers, on alleged drug traffickers, 0:10:52.490 --> 0:10:55.449 I should say, since they took office and how they 0:10:55.530 --> 0:11:00.709 repeatedly sidestepped, purged, fired, or steamrolled any lawyers who questioned 0:11:00.750 --> 0:11:04.870 their plans. First, I want to broadly talk about why 0:11:04.910 --> 0:11:09.309 the U.S. is doing this. The Trump administration essentially believes, 0:11:09.450 --> 0:11:13.450 or purports to believe, At least, that since these alleged 0:11:13.510 --> 0:11:17.190 drug traffickers, which they have not published any evidence that 0:11:17.210 --> 0:11:20.490 these people are who they say they are, aka alleged 0:11:20.530 --> 0:11:24.370 drug traffickers, are poisoning the U.S. with drugs, then it's 0:11:24.490 --> 0:11:26.390 fair game for the U.S. to kill them. 0:11:27.090 --> 0:11:27.630 To the U.S. 0:11:27.700 --> 0:11:32.439 Government, this is quote-unquote self-defense. However, as UN Special Rapporteur 0:11:32.460 --> 0:11:35.319 Saul highlights in his note, even if, and there's a 0:11:35.420 --> 0:11:40.330 big if there, if they're actually drug traffickers. This is 0:11:40.370 --> 0:11:44.570 in no way comparable to a direct military action. Drug 0:11:44.610 --> 0:11:48.430 trafficking and military actions could never amount to be the 0:11:48.490 --> 0:11:54.170 same thing. They are simply incompatible. To quote from Saul's note, 0:11:54.530 --> 0:11:58.860 drug trafficking is not force at all. The Trump administration 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:02.300 also alleges that these non-state actors are being sent by states, 0:12:02.620 --> 0:12:06.970 namely Venezuela. After putting Tren Daragua on the FTO list, 0:12:07.190 --> 0:12:10.950 the Trump administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act to declare 0:12:11.410 --> 0:12:14.860 that Tren Daragua was engaged in a quote-unquote invasion of 0:12:14.900 --> 0:12:18.459 the U.S. on behalf of the Venezuelan government. It used 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:22.460 this as pretext to send 147 Venezuelan men with seemingly 0:12:22.540 --> 0:12:25.480 no connection at all to the gang to El Salvador's 0:12:25.660 --> 0:12:29.929 Secat prison in March, where they suffered from torture. Along 0:12:29.990 --> 0:12:33.970 similar lines, in November 2025, the U.S. listed the Cartel 0:12:34.010 --> 0:12:37.429 de los Soles as an FTO. The Trump government had 0:12:37.530 --> 0:12:41.290 for a long time contended that Nicolas Maduro, Venezuelan president, 0:12:41.770 --> 0:12:44.170 was the leader of the Cartel de los Soles, even 0:12:44.230 --> 0:12:48.370 though experts, like those of Inside Crime, claim it was 0:12:48.429 --> 0:12:51.410 more like a loose network of cells inside the Venezuelan 0:12:51.490 --> 0:12:56.830 armed forces. Also, going out of timeline here, But the U.S. 0:12:56.870 --> 0:13:00.350 government dropped the accusation against Maduro that he led the 0:13:00.390 --> 0:13:04.330 cartel earlier this year during his court case in New York. 0:13:05.309 --> 0:13:09.340 Shortly after Trump declared several of these criminal groups FTOs, 0:13:09.860 --> 0:13:13.960 Hegseth began purging the DOD of any lawyers or commanders 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:17.520 who would serve as quote-unquote roadblocks to Trump's orders, according 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:20.339 to The Hill. A similar thing was occurring at the 0:13:20.420 --> 0:13:24.810 Justice Department, per the New York Times. And, This is 0:13:24.830 --> 0:13:27.170 like absolutely the type of thing you do when you're 0:13:27.210 --> 0:13:30.230 planning to break the law or do something evil. The 0:13:30.270 --> 0:13:32.970 top echelon of the Trump admin has done stuff like 0:13:33.010 --> 0:13:37.620 this across all avenues available to it. Imagine someone breaking 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:40.020 a key in a door lock so that no matter 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:42.520 how much you want to lock the door, it's impossible 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:45.840 unless you change the whole mechanism. This is what they 0:13:45.860 --> 0:13:50.340 were doing essentially. Staying on this door analogy, the Trump 0:13:50.380 --> 0:13:53.480 administration essentially just made it so that the door to 0:13:53.540 --> 0:13:57.319 doing something wildly illegal and immoral could never be fully 0:13:57.400 --> 0:14:00.280 closed to them by the people who would actually stop 0:14:00.340 --> 0:14:04.140 them from opening it. These strikes were originally supposed to 0:14:04.179 --> 0:14:06.810 be carried out by the CIA, but lawyers at the 0:14:06.850 --> 0:14:11.290 spy agency questioned whether killing civilian drug traffickers was legal 0:14:11.410 --> 0:14:15.130 under domestic law. One person familiar with the debate told 0:14:15.170 --> 0:14:18.880 the Washington Post that, quote, There is no actual threat 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:23.580 justifying self-defense, end quote. This is perhaps the first time 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:25.880 the CIA has said it didn't want to get involved 0:14:25.940 --> 0:14:29.110 in Latin America directly. That's a joke, of course. The 0:14:29.140 --> 0:14:32.110 CIA is definitely here. Just look at the two agents 0:14:32.140 --> 0:14:35.490 that died in Mexico earlier this year. The CIA is 0:14:35.610 --> 0:14:39.570 also providing the targeting assistance and intelligence necessary to conduct 0:14:39.610 --> 0:14:43.850 these strikes, according to The Guardian. Per WAPO, the Trump 0:14:43.950 --> 0:14:47.710 admin quickly moved on with an alternative plan. to use 0:14:47.750 --> 0:14:51.780 the U.S. military for these strikes. During the summer of 2025, 0:14:51.770 --> 0:14:56.270 the Justice Department signed a secret opinion justifying the boat 0:14:56.290 --> 0:14:59.580 strikes by saying that the U.S. was in armed conflict 0:14:59.630 --> 0:15:03.640 with quote-unquote narco-terrorists and that using lethal force against them 0:15:04.100 --> 0:15:08.960 was okay because it protected national interests and because they 0:15:09.000 --> 0:15:11.720 were a quote, threat to the U.S. akin to a 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:17.180 foreign nation attempting to invade, Senator Mark Kelly told WAPO. However, 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:20.300 this was in a capital W war, so they didn't 0:15:20.490 --> 0:15:26.970 need congressional authorization. Instead, it's a, quote, non-international armed conflict, 0:15:27.210 --> 0:15:31.530 end quote. Per a separate WAPO article, the Trump admin's 0:15:31.630 --> 0:15:35.140 legal justification, quote, does not stand up to the facts, 0:15:35.860 --> 0:15:39.440 end quote, to lawyers inside and outside the government. While 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:41.960 this memo was produced during the summer, it was not 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:46.650 signed until September 5th of 2025. after the first boat 0:15:46.700 --> 0:15:50.580 strike occurred. According to The Guardian, the memo states that 0:15:50.620 --> 0:15:53.780 these groups are using the proceeds from drug trafficking to 0:15:53.840 --> 0:15:57.680 wage war, which is something that the Taliban did, but 0:15:57.700 --> 0:16:01.480 that experts have said these cartels designated as FTOs or 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:05.600 DTOs are simply not doing. Also, you have to remember 0:16:05.620 --> 0:16:09.980 that these people, if they're connected to the cartels, are 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:13.800 at most low-level members, and their deaths, while extremely gruesome, 0:16:13.980 --> 0:16:19.070 have little impact on drug trafficking in the region. Per WAPO, 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:22.330 the strikes have not reduced the amount of cocaine entering 0:16:22.390 --> 0:16:27.270 the U.S., according to a Drug Enforcement Administration assessment. Also, 0:16:27.370 --> 0:16:31.100 did I mention that Trump pardoned the former president of Honduras, 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:34.990 who'd been sentenced to 45 years in prison? in June 0:16:34.990 --> 0:16:38.970 2024 after being convicted of importing more than 400 tons 0:16:39.030 --> 0:16:43.140 of cocaine into the U.S. between 2004 and 2022. I'm 0:16:44.380 --> 0:16:47.780 again stepping out of timeline here, but I wanted to 0:16:47.820 --> 0:16:52.260 jump ahead to illustrate how this anti-drug policy is pure farce. 0:16:52.900 --> 0:16:56.810 It's fake, and violence seems to be the point of 0:16:56.870 --> 0:17:02.170 these boat strikes for the Trump administration. Sorry to digress. Anyway, 0:17:02.660 --> 0:17:07.060 In mid-2025, Trump signed a classified directive that authorized the 0:17:07.100 --> 0:17:11.480 military to use force against a secret list of 24 DTOs. 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:14.790 Not to be left behind, Hegs have followed this up 0:17:14.810 --> 0:17:18.720 with an execute order in August 2025 that contained targeting 0:17:18.770 --> 0:17:23.810 instructions that didn't require positive identification of a target. Instead, 0:17:24.470 --> 0:17:27.869 quote-unquote reasonable certainty that a person is a member of 0:17:28.109 --> 0:17:31.879 or affiliated with a DTO, per the Washington Post. I 0:17:31.890 --> 0:17:34.320 want to stop right here and say that under Obama, 0:17:34.460 --> 0:17:37.020 the standard for drone strikes in the Middle East was 0:17:37.140 --> 0:17:40.919 quote unquote near certainty, and they still struck a marriage 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:44.560 possession in Yemen. There is serious reason to doubt the U.S. 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:48.120 's ability to know the certainty of any target they're 0:17:48.140 --> 0:17:51.159 planning to hit. Earlier this year, a joint U.S. and 0:17:51.220 --> 0:17:56.440 Ecuadorian operation on an alleged narco-terrorist compound actually raided a 0:17:56.520 --> 0:18:00.370 dairy farm in with no arrests, but the Ecuadorian military 0:18:00.570 --> 0:18:05.110 did allegedly torture some folks, per the New York Times. Meanwhile, 0:18:05.210 --> 0:18:09.629 according to reporting in Bloomberg, serious issues with the AI-assisted 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:13.639 quote-unquote kill chain used by the U.S. military led to 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:17.119 the strike that killed at least 120 free children at 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:22.260 a girls' school in Manab, Iran. United Nations investigators recently 0:18:22.340 --> 0:18:26.780 concluded that this was likely a war crime. Funnily enough, 0:18:27.060 --> 0:18:30.320 the boat strikes do not constitute a war crime because 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:34.180 we're simply not at war with the cartels in a 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:39.840 strictly international legal sense. The criteria established by the execute 0:18:39.940 --> 0:18:44.350 order to attack these ships is really unclear. Democratic Senator 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:47.429 Tim Kaine from Virginia revealed that the boat strikes are 0:18:47.470 --> 0:18:50.510 being carried out using free criteria that he was not 0:18:50.570 --> 0:18:54.930 allowed to disclose. However, he was allowed to disclose that quote-unquote, 0:18:55.070 --> 0:18:59.189 evidence of narcotics, was not one of them. Republican Senator 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:02.820 Rand Paul from Kentucky said during the same hearing that 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:05.840 having weapons on the vessel is not one of the 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:09.100 criteria either. This was during a full committee hearing of 0:19:09.140 --> 0:19:12.639 the Foreign Relations Committee for the fiscal year 27 State 0:19:12.660 --> 0:19:17.770 Department budget, by the way. Anyway, in August 2025, the U.S. 0:19:17.830 --> 0:19:22.910 military mobilized to the Caribbean, and on September 2nd, 2025, 0:19:23.060 --> 0:19:26.320 the first strike event occurred. And I say strike event 0:19:26.460 --> 0:19:29.480 because there were at least four missiles fired on that day. 0:19:29.500 --> 0:19:35.390 Per the Washington Post, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's order was to, quote, 0:19:35.530 --> 0:19:39.510 kill everybody, end quote. Video published after the attack shows 0:19:39.570 --> 0:19:42.230 a boat racing across the waves, lighting up with a 0:19:42.290 --> 0:19:46.030 tower of fire after being hit. Nine people died because 0:19:46.070 --> 0:19:49.970 of that first missile. However, after the smoke and fire cleared, 0:19:50.410 --> 0:19:54.640 surveillance video being watched by U.S. military officials, but not 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:57.659 released to the public, showed two people clinging to the 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:01.740 remains of the vessel. They stayed in those freezing waters 0:20:01.780 --> 0:20:06.060 for roughly 45 minutes until Admiral Frank Bradley, then head 0:20:06.100 --> 0:20:09.260 of the Joint Special Operations Command, also known as JSOC, 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:12.939 ordered SEAL Team 6 to hit it again, killing the 0:20:12.980 --> 0:20:17.659 two remaining survivors. Per The Intercept, Admiral Bradley sought legal 0:20:17.740 --> 0:20:21.399 counsel from JSOC's legal advisor in between the first and 0:20:21.460 --> 0:20:25.920 second strike. Although the response isn't known, a lawmaker told 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:30.870 The Intercept that the follow-up strike was deemed legal. Two 0:20:30.910 --> 0:20:34.710 more missiles finally sank the vessel. Bradley, who's now Chief 0:20:34.750 --> 0:20:38.090 of Special Operations Command, said that he ordered the extra 0:20:38.109 --> 0:20:41.320 strikes because the shipwrecked men and the fragment of the 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:45.119 boat still posed a threat, sources told The Intercept. Per 0:20:45.140 --> 0:20:47.840 the New York Times, the survivors had managed to get 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:50.340 back on the boat's remains and were waving to the 0:20:50.400 --> 0:20:54.350 planes before the second missile killed them. The aircraft used 0:20:54.380 --> 0:20:57.190 to carry out this strike was reportedly painted to look 0:20:57.210 --> 0:21:01.369 like a civilian plane. However, this practice has stopped since 0:21:01.410 --> 0:21:04.300 that first strike, according to the New York Times. That 0:21:04.340 --> 0:21:07.040 same article states that the men had spotted the plane 0:21:07.700 --> 0:21:11.000 and turned the boat around back to Venezuela. Per sources 0:21:11.060 --> 0:21:14.379 who spoke with The Intercept, JSOC did not know the 0:21:14.440 --> 0:21:18.359 names or supposed affiliations of all the persons aboard this vessel. 0:21:19.220 --> 0:21:22.120 Of the victims who've been identified by Air Wars, eight 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:25.550 were from San Juan Dunare in Venezuela, while three others 0:21:25.609 --> 0:21:29.210 were from local towns close to San Juan Dunare called 0:21:29.250 --> 0:21:33.180 Los Estigos and Guiria. The one victim there's the most 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:38.270 information about online is Luis Chemaria Martinez, who was identified 0:21:38.310 --> 0:21:42.550 by the Associated Press as a quote-unquote long-time local crime 0:21:42.590 --> 0:21:45.850 boss that made his money mostly from smuggling people and 0:21:45.910 --> 0:21:50.070 drugs across borders. He had previously been jailed after a 0:21:50.109 --> 0:21:54.490 boat he was operating capsized in 2020, killing, quote, about 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:58.120 two dozen people, end quote, including several of his relatives. 0:21:59.060 --> 0:22:02.109 He was jailed in Venezuela, to be clear. Some family 0:22:02.150 --> 0:22:04.850 members believe that Che Maria was one of two bodies 0:22:05.210 --> 0:22:07.909 that have washed up on the shores of Trinidad and Tobago, 0:22:08.530 --> 0:22:11.750 per an anonymous source who spoke with N Plus Univision 0:22:11.850 --> 0:22:16.830 from Martinez's native Guiria. The anonymous source compared Che Maria 0:22:16.869 --> 0:22:20.510 to an errand boy for drug traffickers, not the owner. 0:22:21.310 --> 0:22:24.889 Per the Killing Spree report by the Washington Office on 0:22:24.930 --> 0:22:28.889 Latin America, there's a significant possibility that many of the 0:22:28.950 --> 0:22:32.380 victims who died in that first strike were passengers traveling 0:22:32.440 --> 0:22:36.500 from Venezuela to Trinidad and Tobago. The report cites El Clip, 0:22:36.600 --> 0:22:39.619 and I will here as well. Quote, some people who 0:22:39.680 --> 0:22:42.960 are familiar with boat movements, end quote, along the Caribbean 0:22:43.020 --> 0:22:47.070 coast of Colombia and Venezuela, told El Clip that, quote, 0:22:47.210 --> 0:22:49.730 it is common for the same boats that carry drugs 0:22:49.830 --> 0:22:54.370 on the outward journey to bring passengers back. The capitanes, 0:22:54.550 --> 0:22:57.550 as the boat operators are known, take whatever work they 0:22:57.590 --> 0:23:01.170 can get, end quote. The second boat strike we know 0:23:01.230 --> 0:23:06.350 of occurred on September 15, 2025. Alejandro Carranza Medina, a 0:23:06.390 --> 0:23:09.270 Colombian man, was one of three men killed by that 0:23:09.330 --> 0:23:14.230 boat strike. Family members told RTVC, a Colombian news outlet, 0:23:14.390 --> 0:23:16.310 that he had been on board the boat and that 0:23:16.330 --> 0:23:20.690 it was an artisanal fishing vessel. Citing the video posted 0:23:20.750 --> 0:23:25.300 by the Trump administration online, family members posited that the 0:23:25.340 --> 0:23:27.879 ship had been having engine trouble at the time that 0:23:27.900 --> 0:23:31.230 it was fired upon. When the New York Times spoke 0:23:31.550 --> 0:23:35.430 with Carranza Medina's family, the mother of his free children 0:23:35.880 --> 0:23:39.179 said that he had never been involved in drug smuggling. Quote, 0:23:39.820 --> 0:23:42.859 if he was some kind of narco-terrorist, then why are 0:23:42.880 --> 0:23:46.040 we living in misery instead of a mansion? She asked 0:23:46.100 --> 0:23:50.100 a reporter. Gustavo Petro, who was still president of Colombia 0:23:50.160 --> 0:23:52.760 at the time he made these remarks, said that Carranza 0:23:52.780 --> 0:23:56.070 Medina might have been involved with drugs intermittently as many 0:23:56.130 --> 0:23:59.770 fishermen are forced to because poverty leaves him little else 0:23:59.910 --> 0:24:03.510 in terms of work. Per reporting from El Heraldo and 0:24:03.530 --> 0:24:06.310 the New York Times, he had previously pled guilty in 0:24:06.350 --> 0:24:10.629 a scheme to steal weapons confiscated during legal proceedings, but 0:24:10.670 --> 0:24:13.100 it appears that he never served jail time for this. 0:24:13.840 --> 0:24:16.200 I add this context because the truth of who these 0:24:16.240 --> 0:24:19.780 people were is extremely nuanced, and regardless of whether they 0:24:19.820 --> 0:24:22.460 were quote-unquote criminals in the eyes of the state or not, 0:24:23.080 --> 0:24:25.869 they did not deserve to be killed. In fact, as 0:24:25.920 --> 0:24:29.390 Petro said, For these poor communities, because of the economic 0:24:29.450 --> 0:24:33.129 desperation these fishermen face, it's common for them to be 0:24:33.190 --> 0:24:38.910 extremely vulnerable to being exploited by drug trafficking organizations. Per 0:24:38.930 --> 0:24:42.670 the team behind Los Bombardeos, the four men killed during 0:24:42.710 --> 0:24:47.379 the October 3rd, 2025 strike were also from Guiria. Luis 0:24:47.520 --> 0:24:51.899 Ramon Amundarang had traveled from his home to Trinidad and 0:24:51.920 --> 0:24:55.000 Tobago in search of work. He was a motorcycle taxi 0:24:55.020 --> 0:24:58.830 driver and a boat captain. who accepted his first drug-running 0:24:58.869 --> 0:25:01.510 job because he had no other way to pay for 0:25:01.570 --> 0:25:05.340 his youngest daughter's dermatology treatment or to feed his four 0:25:05.400 --> 0:25:10.780 other children. According to El Clip, Ramon's cousin, Robert Sanchez, 0:25:10.940 --> 0:25:13.960 was also on the boat and was killed. For the AP, 0:25:14.660 --> 0:25:17.480 Robert had been pushed by economic pressure to join a 0:25:17.510 --> 0:25:20.650 drug-smuggling job in hopes of getting enough money to buy 0:25:20.670 --> 0:25:24.440 an engine for his fishing boat. Ramon's wife told El 0:25:24.840 --> 0:25:28.640 Clip that, quote, if Ramon had really been a narco-terrorist, 0:25:29.520 --> 0:25:33.160 if he'd had money, if he'd been living large, believe me, 0:25:33.180 --> 0:25:35.619 I wouldn't be living where I live now. And if 0:25:35.660 --> 0:25:37.700 you go to the homes of the other free men 0:25:37.740 --> 0:25:40.790 they killed, you'll see that they don't have much either 0:25:41.250 --> 0:25:44.810 because none of it belonged to them, end quote. I 0:25:44.850 --> 0:25:47.790 should say that El Clip notes that all signs point 0:25:47.830 --> 0:25:50.189 to them about to go on a run for illicit cargo. 0:25:50.619 --> 0:25:53.040 But a friend of Ramon's told El Clip that he 0:25:53.080 --> 0:25:55.639 was sure no drugs were on board at the time 0:25:55.660 --> 0:25:59.070 the boat was hit. Because a boat traveling from Trinidad 0:25:59.109 --> 0:26:02.290 and Tobago to Venezuela is going to pick up merchandise, 0:26:02.530 --> 0:26:07.590 not deliver it. Quote, boats carry drugs from South America northwards, 0:26:07.990 --> 0:26:12.430 not the reverse. End quote. Said Maria Teresa Ronderos, director 0:26:12.490 --> 0:26:28.360 and co-founder of El Clip to The Guardian. On October 14th, 2025, 0:26:28.359 --> 0:26:32.940 a strike killed six people. Chad, Charpo Joseph, and Richie 0:26:32.960 --> 0:26:36.640 Samaru were among the victims. They were both from Trinidad 0:26:36.660 --> 0:26:40.380 and Tobago, and they were fishermen, per CNC Free TV. 0:26:40.940 --> 0:26:45.960 Joseph's grandfather characterized the strike as a, quote, act of evil, 0:26:46.400 --> 0:26:50.240 end quote. They seemingly had no connection with drug trafficking 0:26:50.380 --> 0:26:53.200 other than Joseph's uncle being a, quote, unquote, drug lord 0:26:53.220 --> 0:26:57.109 for the TNT Guardians. Per a lawsuit filed by the 0:26:57.170 --> 0:27:00.480 families of Joseph and Samaru against the U.S. government in 0:27:00.540 --> 0:27:04.280 the district of Massachusetts, Samaru was working on a farm 0:27:04.320 --> 0:27:07.359 in Venezuela and had called his sister days before he 0:27:07.380 --> 0:27:09.980 was killed to let her know that he had found 0:27:10.030 --> 0:27:14.629 a ride to Trinidad. Similarly, Joseph had told his wife 0:27:14.930 --> 0:27:17.770 he had found a boat ride from Venezuela back home 0:27:18.190 --> 0:27:20.429 and would see her in a couple of days. They 0:27:20.470 --> 0:27:25.490 never arrived. Per Air Wars, Dusak Milovic from Guiria was 0:27:25.560 --> 0:27:28.100 also one of the men killed during that strike. He 0:27:28.119 --> 0:27:31.679 had once been a cadet at the Venezuelan National Guard Academy, 0:27:32.160 --> 0:27:35.699 but dropped out to run drugs, per the AP. The 0:27:35.740 --> 0:27:39.240 lawsuit against the U.S. by the families of Joseph and 0:27:39.260 --> 0:27:43.870 Samaru is currently pending. stalled pending the completion of judicial 0:27:43.910 --> 0:27:46.950 proceedings in Trinidad and Tobago that would declare the two 0:27:46.990 --> 0:27:50.300 men legally deceased and allow their families to take control 0:27:50.359 --> 0:27:54.940 of their estates, per the Trinidad Daily Express. I'm sorry 0:27:54.980 --> 0:27:56.900 to say that I don't have the time to name 0:27:56.940 --> 0:27:58.960 all of the victims that we know of or the 0:27:59.000 --> 0:28:02.139 circumstances which led to them being killed in the ocean, 0:28:02.460 --> 0:28:06.199 forced into an unmarked grave. However, you can see the 0:28:06.260 --> 0:28:10.460 picture that's building through the strikes that I've mentioned. These people, 0:28:11.000 --> 0:28:15.340 appeared to be either common fishermen or forced into smuggling 0:28:15.380 --> 0:28:17.810 drugs because that's the only type of work that they 0:28:17.850 --> 0:28:21.070 could find in a poverty that they had lived through 0:28:21.170 --> 0:28:24.550 most of their lives. Even the ones who were nominally 0:28:24.650 --> 0:28:28.169 part of a drug trafficking organization, perhaps one of the 0:28:28.170 --> 0:28:31.530 24 on the secret list, were low-level members at most 0:28:31.690 --> 0:28:35.990 or only quote-unquote affiliated, perhaps because they were traveling on 0:28:36.010 --> 0:28:38.450 the same boat as someone who was a member or 0:28:38.510 --> 0:28:41.900 hitched a ride on a boat carrying drugs. The truth 0:28:42.260 --> 0:28:45.020 is we will likely never know the full details of 0:28:45.080 --> 0:28:48.580 who all these people were and what made the U.S. 0:28:48.640 --> 0:28:53.300 target them specifically. After the first strike, an official admitted 0:28:53.320 --> 0:28:56.480 that only one victim was considered a member of a 0:28:56.570 --> 0:29:01.790 designated terrorist organization per The Intercept. The rest were affiliates. 0:29:02.490 --> 0:29:05.750 Pentagon officials have claimed that they knew the identities of 0:29:05.850 --> 0:29:09.050 everyone on that first boat, but per Senator Mark Warner, 0:29:09.230 --> 0:29:12.610 ranking Democrat of the Senate Intelligence Committee, in an interview 0:29:12.650 --> 0:29:16.410 with ABC, quote, they don't know all of the individuals 0:29:16.650 --> 0:29:20.560 on many of the other boats, end quote. I should 0:29:20.580 --> 0:29:24.720 also mention here that maritime interdictions have not stopped while 0:29:24.740 --> 0:29:28.140 these boat strikes have gone on. Per El Clip, on 0:29:28.180 --> 0:29:31.640 the same day as that very first strike, the Colombian 0:29:31.720 --> 0:29:36.210 Aerospace Force, its Dominican counterpart, and the U.S. Joint Interagency 0:29:36.270 --> 0:29:40.390 Task Force South, carried out Operation Seuss, which led to 0:29:40.410 --> 0:29:44.340 the seizure of nearly 450 kilos of cocaine and the 0:29:44.420 --> 0:29:48.560 arrest of two people. Seuss and other operations like it 0:29:48.660 --> 0:29:52.340 have occurred in parallel to the violent extrajudicial killings of 0:29:52.380 --> 0:29:56.000 the boat strikes. This shows that contrary to what the 0:29:56.040 --> 0:29:59.840 Trump administration has said, blowing up random people on boats 0:30:00.220 --> 0:30:03.280 isn't the only way to curb drug trafficking. There is 0:30:03.340 --> 0:30:07.140 certainly another way to stop it that doesn't involve murder 0:30:07.600 --> 0:30:11.720 and guarantees a person's day in court. This is in 0:30:11.800 --> 0:30:14.940 line with a new tactic utilized in the Eastern Pacific 0:30:15.120 --> 0:30:19.410 and the Caribbean, where SAFCOM forces have been interdicting alleged 0:30:19.530 --> 0:30:25.070 floating refueling stations that support illicit drug trafficking. Many of 0:30:25.110 --> 0:30:29.170 the publicly listed press releases related to these interdictions specify 0:30:29.230 --> 0:30:33.530 that they operate for los choneros. These vessels are also 0:30:33.610 --> 0:30:37.220 sunk via an explosion, and per the press releases I've read, 0:30:37.240 --> 0:30:41.740 the crew on these ships are disembarked and then handed 0:30:41.840 --> 0:30:46.970 over to their respective countries' authorities. However, speaking of a 0:30:46.990 --> 0:30:50.670 day in court, three people have been rescued as survivors 0:30:50.830 --> 0:30:55.520 in two incidents— On October 16th, 2025, two men were 0:30:55.580 --> 0:31:00.740 pulled from a sinking semi-submersible vessel. Andres Fernando Tufino Chila 0:31:00.880 --> 0:31:04.400 of Ecuador had previously been convicted of cocaine distribution, but 0:31:04.440 --> 0:31:07.550 his sister told El Pais that he'd been working as 0:31:07.590 --> 0:31:10.469 a fisherman before the U.S. struck the vessel he was on. 0:31:11.070 --> 0:31:14.890 Jonathan Obando, the second survivor who's from Colombia, had no 0:31:14.950 --> 0:31:18.270 criminal history and no cartel links, according to El Pais. 0:31:19.270 --> 0:31:22.880 Even though Trump promised to prosecute them, they were eventually 0:31:22.980 --> 0:31:26.430 let go without being formally charged by either the U.S. 0:31:26.590 --> 0:31:31.070 or their home countries. Obviously, this begs the question, if 0:31:31.110 --> 0:31:36.110 these people are really quote-unquote narco-terrorists, why have they been 0:31:36.230 --> 0:31:40.450 able to go free? As El Pais notes, Trump's strategy 0:31:40.590 --> 0:31:45.410 is paradoxical. The Trump admin has enough justification to kill 0:31:45.430 --> 0:31:48.650 them extrajudicially, but not to charge these men in a 0:31:48.710 --> 0:31:52.350 court of law, question mark? All possible evidence that could 0:31:52.390 --> 0:31:55.030 link these men to alleged drug trafficking, if there ever 0:31:55.070 --> 0:31:57.390 was any in the first place, goes up in literal 0:31:57.450 --> 0:32:01.050 smoke the moment that these boats are hit, El Pais noted. 0:32:01.750 --> 0:32:04.450 It's likely that a court case would expose much of 0:32:04.470 --> 0:32:09.180 the legal scaffolding that upholds the fin legal justification that 0:32:09.200 --> 0:32:12.140 the Trump administration is using for these strikes, as well 0:32:12.180 --> 0:32:15.390 as put on display that many of these people might 0:32:15.430 --> 0:32:18.570 really just be fishermen forced into participating in the drug 0:32:18.610 --> 0:32:20.830 trade as a lookout or a guide or something like 0:32:20.870 --> 0:32:24.820 that because they had no other opportunities. A note on survivors. 0:32:25.340 --> 0:32:28.360 There haven't been more of them because the U.S. is 0:32:28.400 --> 0:32:32.000 apparently intent on not looking for them. Per The Intercept, 0:32:32.200 --> 0:32:36.630 after a December 30 strike sank three vessels, SAFCOM said 0:32:36.670 --> 0:32:40.680 that it, quote-unquote, immediately notified the Coast Guard. but it 0:32:40.720 --> 0:32:44.620 took the Coast Guard almost 45 hours to begin searching 0:32:45.180 --> 0:32:49.120 the attack zone for survivors. It is believed that the 0:32:49.120 --> 0:32:52.469 11 people on these vessels drowned at sea. To end 0:32:52.510 --> 0:32:56.350 this section, on March 24, 2026, the Ecuadorian ship La 0:32:56.570 --> 0:33:00.350 Negra Francisca Duarte II, which was coming back from weeks 0:33:00.470 --> 0:33:03.270 of fishing at sea, was hit by an apparent U.S. 0:33:03.330 --> 0:33:06.270 military drone strike, according to NPLOS Univision. 0:33:06.990 --> 0:33:07.430 The crew. 0:33:08.320 --> 0:33:11.020 had been forced off of the boat by apparent U.S. 0:33:11.080 --> 0:33:14.960 military personnel, although it's unclear from which agency they could 0:33:14.980 --> 0:33:18.020 have been. Photos from another ship that was detained in 0:33:18.060 --> 0:33:21.520 the region show that it might have been Coast Guard personnel, 0:33:21.660 --> 0:33:26.440 per NPLOS's reporting. Crew of La Negra Francisca Duarte II, 0:33:26.620 --> 0:33:29.540 as well as the Don Maca, which was intercepted on 0:33:29.660 --> 0:33:33.750 April 30th, alleged to drop site news in Mongabay, Latam, 0:33:34.310 --> 0:33:38.090 that they were arbitrarily detained and tortured. The crew of 0:33:38.110 --> 0:33:42.790 the Negra Francisca Duarte was moved roughly 900 miles north 0:33:42.830 --> 0:33:47.080 from their position and turned over to the Salvadoran Coast Guard. Meanwhile, 0:33:47.130 --> 0:33:51.040 the crew of the Don Maca told Dropsite they had been, quote, 0:33:51.120 --> 0:33:55.600 held hostage and hooded for eight days. La Fiorella, another 0:33:55.660 --> 0:33:58.820 Ecuadorian ship, and its crew went missing in January, per 0:33:58.840 --> 0:34:01.940 the New Yorker. The wife of the captain who commanded 0:34:01.980 --> 0:34:04.790 the ship told Dropsite that her husband had called her 0:34:05.270 --> 0:34:09.680 on an emergency line saying that, quote, American aircraft, two drones, 0:34:09.780 --> 0:34:12.820 and a blue patrol ship, end quote, had been circling 0:34:12.860 --> 0:34:17.380 the boat. The next day, the Fiorella and its crew disappeared. 0:34:18.140 --> 0:34:21.700 The prosecutor who had led the investigation into the Fiorella's 0:34:21.840 --> 0:34:26.310 disappearance was shot dead alongside her sister in Manta, per 0:34:26.330 --> 0:34:29.350 the New Yorker. There do not appear to be any 0:34:29.430 --> 0:34:32.450 links between these three boats and drug trafficking, per the 0:34:32.469 --> 0:34:36.460 report cited earlier. Unlike the boat strikes, the U.S. has 0:34:36.540 --> 0:34:40.009 not taken boastful credit for the disappearance and detention of 0:34:40.070 --> 0:34:44.190 these ships and actively denies having done anything to harm them. 0:34:45.190 --> 0:34:48.150 For their part, the Salvadoran military says that the men 0:34:48.190 --> 0:34:51.890 of the Francisca Duarte had been shipwrecked and then rescued 0:34:51.969 --> 0:34:56.540 as part of a quote-unquote humanitarian operation. It's unclear if 0:34:56.580 --> 0:34:59.740 these are related to Operation Southern Spear or Joint Task 0:34:59.780 --> 0:35:03.820 Force Western Hemisphere, its evolution. There was a brief two-month 0:35:03.880 --> 0:35:08.219 pause on these boat strikes from July 21st to August 23rd. 0:35:08.719 --> 0:35:12.280 But at time of recording, the strikes have continued unabated. 0:35:12.300 --> 0:35:16.000 There appears to be no end in sight for this terror. 0:35:17.760 --> 0:35:20.820 These strikes are part of the Trump administration's focus on 0:35:20.880 --> 0:35:25.810 exerting control over the Western Hemisphere, the so-called Trump corollary 0:35:25.910 --> 0:35:29.410 to the Monroe Doctrine. As part of this renewed focus 0:35:29.489 --> 0:35:33.280 on the region, Trump attacked Venezuela and kidnapped its president, 0:35:33.340 --> 0:35:37.780 Nicolas Maduro. He is currently sitting in jail in New York. Meanwhile, 0:35:38.380 --> 0:35:40.960 the U.S. has started partnering with other countries in the 0:35:41.000 --> 0:35:46.850 region to attack so-called narco-terrorists. These countries, such as Ecuador, Colombia, 0:35:47.210 --> 0:35:50.870 and Honduras, have agreed to join operations on their soil 0:35:50.969 --> 0:35:54.990 with U.S. personnel. These include airstrikes, which I previously mentioned, 0:35:55.250 --> 0:35:58.210 as the attack on that dairy farm. It's clear that 0:35:58.530 --> 0:36:02.770 that this rising tide of anti-narco-terrorism actions will become more 0:36:02.850 --> 0:36:09.009 prominent across Latin America. I should also say, quote-unquote, anti-narco-terrorism actions. 0:36:09.880 --> 0:36:18.140 Alleged narco-terrorism. On September 22nd, the United States, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, 0:36:18.160 --> 0:36:24.090 Costa Rica, República Dominicana, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, 0:36:24.810 --> 0:36:29.310 and Trinidad and Tobago published a joint statement declaring that 0:36:29.330 --> 0:36:33.509 they were announcing the, quote, first joint action under our 0:36:33.610 --> 0:36:37.819 newly announced pillars, individual and collective action to confront the 0:36:37.860 --> 0:36:42.940 scourge of narco-terrorism. As such, we declare our intention to impose, 0:36:43.440 --> 0:36:46.580 as applicable and in accordance with our respective international and 0:36:46.620 --> 0:36:51.779 domestic legal obligations, as it freezes immigration and visa restrictions 0:36:51.840 --> 0:36:56.480 for members, associates, and supporters of the organizations and criminal liability, 0:36:56.930 --> 0:37:01.759 for individuals knowingly providing material support, including logistical support, to 0:37:01.780 --> 0:37:06.379 the organizations, among other measures. This announcement has seemingly been 0:37:06.400 --> 0:37:09.380 a long time coming. At a conference of the America's 0:37:09.440 --> 0:37:14.360 Counter-Cartel Coalition in March 2026, Stephen Miller told Latin American 0:37:14.420 --> 0:37:19.160 military leaders that, quote, these organizations can only be defeated 0:37:19.200 --> 0:37:22.430 with military power. And I see some heads nodding up 0:37:22.489 --> 0:37:25.130 front because they understand you're dealing with a lot of 0:37:25.210 --> 0:37:28.810 lawyers in your country, I'm sure. You have my permission 0:37:29.030 --> 0:37:33.390 not to listen to them. End quote. This is frightful, 0:37:33.610 --> 0:37:35.930 to be honest with you. There's not enough space in 0:37:35.969 --> 0:37:38.230 this episode today, but I assure you I will talk 0:37:38.270 --> 0:37:42.530 about this more later at some point. If you want 0:37:42.710 --> 0:37:46.090 a brief intro into what the U.S. has done in 0:37:46.130 --> 0:37:49.049 Latin America before you can listen to my episodes on 0:37:49.090 --> 0:37:53.450 the Dominican Republic and my episode on the U.S. 's colonies. 0:37:55.180 --> 0:37:57.580 To be honest with you, things are not looking good 0:37:57.600 --> 0:38:02.020 in terms of democratic rights in the Americas. I want 0:38:02.040 --> 0:38:06.080 to end this episode by highlighting this quote from the 0:38:06.120 --> 0:38:11.529 Washington Office on Latin America Killing Spree Report. Quote, If 0:38:11.570 --> 0:38:15.110 normalization of the boat strikes... takes hold and the U.S. 0:38:15.190 --> 0:38:19.690 president can assert an unlimited license to kill, the protections 0:38:19.810 --> 0:38:22.089 of the rule of law will be gravely weakened for 0:38:22.170 --> 0:38:24.419 all of us, not just those who are the most 0:38:24.540 --> 0:38:29.600 immediate targets of state violence. Thank you for listening. You 0:38:29.640 --> 0:38:33.480 can find me on all social media as at Vaquero2XL 0:38:33.920 --> 0:38:37.060 and you can follow Cool Zone Media at Cool Zone 0:38:37.100 --> 0:38:38.560 Media pretty much everywhere. 0:38:48.300 --> 0:38:49.800 Hello, everyone, and welcome to It Could Happen Here. My 0:38:50.440 --> 0:38:52.980 name is Dana Al-Kurd. I'm a researcher and analyst of 0:38:53.020 --> 0:38:56.740 Arab and Palestinian politics. Today on the podcast, I'm speaking 0:38:56.760 --> 0:38:59.550 with Harsha Walia, who is an activist and writer based 0:38:59.590 --> 0:39:03.450 in Canada. Her book, Border and Rule, Global Migration, Capitalism, 0:39:03.489 --> 0:39:05.750 and the Rise of Racist Nationalism, I think is essential 0:39:05.790 --> 0:39:07.609 reading for all of us who are concerned with the 0:39:08.250 --> 0:39:11.890 rise of fascism and its connection to anti-immigrant sentiment and 0:39:11.910 --> 0:39:14.290 narratives that are taking root in a lot of our societies. 0:39:14.989 --> 0:39:17.910 I spoke with Harsha about the for lack of a 0:39:17.910 --> 0:39:21.640 better term, incident that happened in the Spanish enclave of 0:39:21.719 --> 0:39:24.919 Ceuta on the tip of Morocco exactly a month ago. 0:39:25.180 --> 0:39:28.350 So we recorded this podcast on September 10th, a month 0:39:28.390 --> 0:39:32.380 ago exactly. I think something like 70,000 migrants attempted to 0:39:32.420 --> 0:39:34.920 cross over into the Spanish enclave to seek refuge in 0:39:35.180 --> 0:39:38.020 the European continent. Some of these migrants were from Morocco, 0:39:38.080 --> 0:39:41.340 but many were not. And there was a huge outrage 0:39:41.380 --> 0:39:45.140 and backlash against migrants and against what happened there. From 0:39:45.180 --> 0:39:47.920 the left and the right, as we'll discuss in the interview. 0:39:48.520 --> 0:39:51.660 So I spoke with Harsha about what the implications of 0:39:51.739 --> 0:39:55.800 these arguments have been and how do we understand this 0:39:55.880 --> 0:39:59.919 anti-immigrant sentiment that, again, sometimes comes both from the right 0:39:59.980 --> 0:40:00.419 and the left. 0:40:01.120 --> 0:40:03.020 So I hope that this is a. 0:40:03.120 --> 0:40:06.500 Useful interview and useful for some of us who are 0:40:06.580 --> 0:40:11.589 trying to center migration and freedom of movement in our 0:40:11.950 --> 0:40:19.040 struggle against fascism. Without further ado, here's Harsha Walia. So 0:40:19.480 --> 0:40:22.380 I'd like to start with maybe just a brief summary 0:40:22.500 --> 0:40:26.020 for our listeners, since the world is on fire and 0:40:26.060 --> 0:40:30.489 things move quickly, about what happened last month in Ceuta. 0:40:30.660 --> 0:40:32.030 I think I'm pronouncing that correctly. 0:40:32.469 --> 0:40:35.230 Yeah, and it's almost exactly to the day. It's been 0:40:35.230 --> 0:40:38.890 30 days. And so what happened a month ago is 0:40:38.930 --> 0:40:40.990 approximately 70,000 migrants were. 0:40:43.030 --> 0:40:43.930 From Morocco. 0:40:44.130 --> 0:40:46.170 And here it's important to say, you know, migrants came 0:40:46.250 --> 0:40:49.230 from Morocco, but not all the migrants were Moroccan because 0:40:49.270 --> 0:40:54.410 of course, Morocco is one of many transit routes for 0:40:54.450 --> 0:40:58.770 migrants looking to come through the Mediterranean into Europe. And 0:40:58.830 --> 0:41:02.650 so the 70,000 migrants who came from Morocco were not 0:41:02.710 --> 0:41:08.570 only Moroccan migrants, but included migrants from Sudan, Mali, Yemen, Gaza, Palestine, 0:41:08.570 --> 0:41:13.620 48 and others. And so what happened is 70,000 migrants 0:41:14.040 --> 0:41:19.590 transited into Ceuta. And Ceuta is also a transit point 0:41:19.710 --> 0:41:24.970 into the EU. Ceuta is one of the Spanish-held enclaves 0:41:25.150 --> 0:41:30.380 in Moroccan territory and has long been held by Spain 0:41:30.480 --> 0:41:33.520 and is claimed by Spain despite being on the continent 0:41:33.620 --> 0:41:37.960 of Africa. And because it is under formal Spanish jurisdiction, 0:41:37.980 --> 0:41:40.940 a lot of migrants looking to come into the EU 0:41:41.080 --> 0:41:44.700 have transited through the enclaves, as they're called. So Ceuta 0:41:44.760 --> 0:41:48.129 and Melilla. Another one is the Canary Islands. You know, 0:41:48.150 --> 0:41:51.690 since the 1990s, this has been one of the major 0:41:51.750 --> 0:41:56.510 routes of migration. And so while it may seem incredibly 0:41:56.670 --> 0:42:00.130 significant and spectacular, which it was because of the scale, 0:42:01.090 --> 0:42:04.609 the fact that Ceuta and Melilla are transit points into 0:42:04.650 --> 0:42:07.060 the EU for migrants is part of a very long 0:42:07.140 --> 0:42:10.640 and ongoing trajectory. And so what we saw, particularly because 0:42:10.660 --> 0:42:15.290 of the scale of 70,000 people crossing into Ceuta was, 0:42:15.350 --> 0:42:20.190 you know, this global kind of uproar that frankly came 0:42:20.410 --> 0:42:23.550 from many parts, you know, came, of course, from the right, 0:42:23.630 --> 0:42:27.170 where the right and, you know, nationalists across the spectrum. 0:42:27.790 --> 0:42:31.170 So the far right, but also conservatives and at a 0:42:31.210 --> 0:42:34.410 global scale, right? So not just in Europe, but also 0:42:34.570 --> 0:42:37.930 in the United States and elsewhere. This fed into, of course, 0:42:37.950 --> 0:42:42.370 the perfect anti-migrant storm that far-right and fascist and conservative 0:42:42.410 --> 0:42:46.890 forces are always fueling. But also we saw a lot of, 0:42:46.890 --> 0:42:52.480 I would argue, misinformation from many leftist commentators who arguably 0:42:52.560 --> 0:42:55.920 actually used a lot of right-wing rhetoric to claim that 0:42:55.960 --> 0:43:00.360 this was an attack on Spain because of Spain's very 0:43:00.600 --> 0:43:05.050 vocal position in support of Palestine. And so this created 0:43:05.090 --> 0:43:09.250 really a perfect storm for a lot of misinformation across 0:43:09.290 --> 0:43:12.230 the spectrum, particularly for people who had frankly never even 0:43:12.310 --> 0:43:15.090 heard of Ceuta before. And so this is kind of 0:43:15.150 --> 0:43:18.810 what happened both in terms of the really significant scale 0:43:18.850 --> 0:43:22.069 of migration that took place, but also what we saw 0:43:22.170 --> 0:43:24.410 after in terms of how people responded to this moment. 0:43:25.230 --> 0:43:27.009 Thank you for setting it up that way. What does 0:43:27.030 --> 0:43:29.930 that get into for me of interest is the leftist 0:43:30.130 --> 0:43:34.189 misinformation that we saw all over the Internet. But before 0:43:34.230 --> 0:43:35.730 I get into kind of some of the details of 0:43:35.770 --> 0:43:38.629 the aftermath, I also just want to kind of break down. 0:43:38.710 --> 0:43:41.170 Why did migrants think this was a good time to 0:43:41.190 --> 0:43:43.130 try to make it to Europe? Like why in this scale? 0:43:43.730 --> 0:43:45.799 Yeah, it's a it's a good question. And, you know, 0:43:45.820 --> 0:43:48.220 I think a lot of what's happening is frankly still 0:43:48.239 --> 0:43:50.859 being pieced together. Because, you know, one of the things 0:43:50.890 --> 0:43:53.890 that we did see in the aftermath was a lot of, you. 0:43:53.670 --> 0:43:56.030 Know, clipping and hypotheses. 0:43:56.510 --> 0:43:58.469 And there are still people on the ground who are 0:43:58.510 --> 0:44:01.350 talking to migrants to find out, you know, why did 0:44:01.390 --> 0:44:04.089 you make this journey at this moment? What is the 0:44:04.130 --> 0:44:07.670 circulation of information that was happening? So a lot of 0:44:07.690 --> 0:44:10.029 that is still coming out, which I think I want 0:44:10.050 --> 0:44:12.620 to emphasize because I think in like a hot take economy, 0:44:12.700 --> 0:44:17.040 we don't we aren't sitting with accurate information always. And 0:44:17.380 --> 0:44:20.140 there isn't a simple answer because again, I would emphasize 0:44:20.160 --> 0:44:23.900 that migrants who migrated in that moment, again, were coming 0:44:23.920 --> 0:44:26.770 from very different backgrounds. And by backgrounds, I don't just 0:44:26.850 --> 0:44:30.190 mean the kind of national origins that I pointed out, 0:44:30.610 --> 0:44:32.830 but many of the migrants have left, but many of 0:44:32.870 --> 0:44:35.130 the migrants are still there. And so people were in 0:44:35.250 --> 0:44:38.969 very different situations as to why they chose to make 0:44:39.030 --> 0:44:41.879 the move in that moment. There isn't a single answer. 0:44:42.010 --> 0:44:44.239 Some of the factors that we can point to and 0:44:44.260 --> 0:44:47.460 we can see is there was a Supreme Court decision 0:44:47.480 --> 0:44:52.080 in Spain just a few weeks prior to this mass 0:44:52.140 --> 0:44:53.840 migration in July. 0:44:53.860 --> 0:44:55.480 And so that decision was in June. 0:44:56.280 --> 0:44:59.680 And that decision was a very specific Supreme Court decision 0:44:59.820 --> 0:45:04.780 in Spain about regularization because Spain has been regularizing migrants, 0:45:04.800 --> 0:45:07.540 which has been really significant, actually, in the context of 0:45:07.560 --> 0:45:11.120 this rightward drift in the EU that has been escalating. 0:45:11.180 --> 0:45:14.840 Spain's regularization program was significant. And there was a Supreme 0:45:14.880 --> 0:45:18.920 Court decision associated with that about travel and travel routes. 0:45:19.400 --> 0:45:21.350 To kind of put it simply, what we saw is 0:45:21.730 --> 0:45:28.730 several misinterpretations of that Supreme Court decision that started to circulate. And, 0:45:28.750 --> 0:45:31.450 you know, for anyone who is familiar or who has 0:45:31.550 --> 0:45:35.549 family who has been looking to migrate, you know, from 0:45:35.710 --> 0:45:38.400 all of the many situations and horrors around. 0:45:38.200 --> 0:45:41.760 The world, we know that you know, information travels fast. 0:45:41.800 --> 0:45:43.650 So one of the kind of conspiracy theories is like, 0:45:43.670 --> 0:45:47.570 there's no way 70,000 people would have all gotten access 0:45:47.590 --> 0:45:50.940 to the same information. And frankly, that is a complete 0:45:50.980 --> 0:45:57.430 misunderstanding of how diasporic communities and communities who are immobilized, 0:45:57.450 --> 0:46:00.590 who are looking to migrate, how information travels. 0:46:00.610 --> 0:46:03.110 Travels much wider. Travels much wider. 0:46:03.250 --> 0:46:06.310 Many of the WhatsApp groups, for example, that in this 0:46:06.370 --> 0:46:09.510 situation people were referencing, there was at least two groups 0:46:09.950 --> 0:46:13.009 that had almost 200,000 people on the WhatsApp groups. 0:46:13.050 --> 0:46:13.609 Yeah, yeah. 0:46:13.950 --> 0:46:17.190 And this is not a conspiracy theory because actually coincidentally yesterday, 0:46:17.250 --> 0:46:21.270 a number of declassified documents were released by Spain. And 0:46:21.290 --> 0:46:23.509 so these Spanish documents revealed that there were some of 0:46:23.530 --> 0:46:27.030 these WhatsApp groups had almost 200,000 people on each of them. 0:46:27.910 --> 0:46:29.300 And so if you think about it, that's just a 0:46:29.360 --> 0:46:31.980 fraction of the people, you know? So the issue is 0:46:32.020 --> 0:46:35.080 not how information travels. It's just whether people choose to 0:46:35.200 --> 0:46:38.600 act on that information, how verified they think that information is. 0:46:39.180 --> 0:46:42.560 And so that was significant. The misinterpretation of the Supreme 0:46:42.620 --> 0:46:45.640 Court decision bolstered a lot of these WhatsApp groups to 0:46:45.680 --> 0:46:47.220 think like actually now is the moment. 0:46:47.460 --> 0:46:47.600 Right. 0:46:47.980 --> 0:46:50.700 Actually, just yesterday, the information that I was referencing actually 0:46:50.739 --> 0:46:55.040 suggested that the Spanish government was told by Spanish intelligence 0:46:55.540 --> 0:46:59.080 that there was going to be some significant movement in July, 0:46:59.239 --> 0:46:59.900 in mid-July. 0:46:59.920 --> 0:47:00.820 Okay. 0:47:00.920 --> 0:47:02.950 Because of access to these WhatsApp groups. 0:47:03.120 --> 0:47:03.339 Mm-hmm. 0:47:03.719 --> 0:47:06.460 And we know that many of the migrants, particularly non-Moroccan 0:47:06.480 --> 0:47:09.500 migrants in Morocco, were waiting to move in the summer 0:47:09.680 --> 0:47:12.680 because that is actually typically when people move. Not at 0:47:12.700 --> 0:47:15.380 the scale of 70,000, but it is not unheard of 0:47:15.420 --> 0:47:17.520 for thousands and thousands of people to be on the 0:47:17.560 --> 0:47:20.200 move through the summer trying to get into Europe, particularly 0:47:20.239 --> 0:47:23.480 crossing through the Mediterranean. So that is actually just, frankly, 0:47:23.520 --> 0:47:26.410 a baseline when it comes to a lot of migration. 0:47:26.489 --> 0:47:28.770 And then, of course, we did have the element of 0:47:29.250 --> 0:47:31.569 You know, to what degree did the Moroccan government and 0:47:31.610 --> 0:47:36.009 Moroccan authorities not necessarily, you know, foster this in an 0:47:36.170 --> 0:47:40.830 active way, but definitely suggestions that, you know, Moroccan authorities 0:47:40.930 --> 0:47:42.790 were not as heavy handed as they have been in 0:47:42.830 --> 0:47:47.560 the past when collaborating on border securitization and perhaps using 0:47:47.580 --> 0:47:51.940 this moment to leverage with Spain with respect to Western Sahara. So, 0:47:51.960 --> 0:47:55.610 you know, multiple factors were at play. But it is 0:47:55.830 --> 0:47:58.430 the main things that stand out, particularly from migrants who 0:47:58.469 --> 0:48:02.990 both returned or are still in Soweto, is really the 0:48:03.250 --> 0:48:06.859 Supreme Court decision. And then just this kind of surge 0:48:06.910 --> 0:48:09.060 that happened in the moment where more and more people 0:48:09.680 --> 0:48:12.580 felt in the moment that they could make the crossing 0:48:12.760 --> 0:48:17.040 because of the seemingly lax border securitization in that moment. 0:48:28.739 --> 0:48:30.930 I want to get to Morocco and Western Sahara in 0:48:30.969 --> 0:48:34.130 just a moment. Listeners will remember or hopefully will remember 0:48:34.350 --> 0:48:39.180 a episode I recently did with Western Sahara activist Mohammed Saddam. 0:48:39.219 --> 0:48:41.399 So I'll link that in the show notes. But before 0:48:41.440 --> 0:48:43.299 we get to that, just to kind of break down 0:48:43.410 --> 0:48:47.800 the aftermath, the kind of immediate aftermath we saw in Morocco. Spain, 0:48:47.820 --> 0:48:50.230 and as you said, like, not just Spain, not just Europe, 0:48:50.250 --> 0:48:53.210 but also the United States. But let's maybe start with Spain. Like, 0:48:53.250 --> 0:48:56.390 has there been kind of an anti-immigrant backlash as a 0:48:56.410 --> 0:48:57.109 result of this? 0:48:57.270 --> 0:48:58.710 And what has that looked like? 0:48:59.090 --> 0:49:01.879 And then how has that kind of fed into these narratives, like, 0:49:01.980 --> 0:49:05.240 especially in the United States, like the Great Replacement Theory, 0:49:05.300 --> 0:49:07.120 like people really hooked on to these things. 0:49:07.160 --> 0:49:08.840 So maybe you could break that down for us. 0:49:09.530 --> 0:49:11.920 Yeah, you know, the things that have been happening on 0:49:11.960 --> 0:49:14.899 the ground, you know, I'm also obviously not there, but 0:49:15.340 --> 0:49:18.670 being in touch with comrades there and following what's happening 0:49:19.150 --> 0:49:19.969 has been incredible. 0:49:20.700 --> 0:49:21.219 Alarming. 0:49:21.840 --> 0:49:24.460 You know, so it is undeniable, of course, that we 0:49:24.540 --> 0:49:27.880 are overall in a crisis of neoliberalism and austerity. And 0:49:27.900 --> 0:49:29.980 we know all of the ways in which that means 0:49:30.020 --> 0:49:34.239 people feel intense economic pressures in their lives. Ceuta is 0:49:34.280 --> 0:49:38.649 not a huge place in terms of geography and population. 0:49:39.340 --> 0:49:43.240 And so just the ability for the infrastructure, the local 0:49:43.300 --> 0:49:47.339 infrastructure to actually support people in a good way has 0:49:47.380 --> 0:49:51.420 been significantly strained. However, you know, while that is true, 0:49:51.640 --> 0:49:54.640 that is often layered, as we see in many places 0:49:55.040 --> 0:49:59.080 with anti-migrant xenophobia, right, where migrants become the scapegoat for 0:49:59.140 --> 0:50:04.489 capitalist austerity, become the scapegoat around scarce resources. And almost 0:50:04.700 --> 0:50:08.750 every day in Ceuta, there has been anti-migrant protests since. 0:50:09.070 --> 0:50:13.670 the last 30 days, almost every single day. It initially 0:50:14.250 --> 0:50:20.040 started by far-right forces coming into Ceuta from other cities, 0:50:20.100 --> 0:50:24.279 particularly from Spain and elsewhere, really to foster this phenomenon. 0:50:24.800 --> 0:50:29.340 And unfortunately now it has extended into Ceuta locals as well. 0:50:29.430 --> 0:50:32.700 And so Ceuta has historically been known for being a 0:50:32.780 --> 0:50:34.380 very multicultural space. 0:50:34.400 --> 0:50:36.120 You know, it is a borderland. 0:50:36.640 --> 0:50:38.859 And so I use multiculturalism, not in the liberal way, 0:50:38.900 --> 0:50:41.160 but in a very sincere way of what it means 0:50:41.580 --> 0:50:43.980 for people to have lived together for a very long time. 0:50:44.640 --> 0:50:47.219 And I don't say that to romanticize all the anti-migrant 0:50:47.260 --> 0:50:50.850 violence that has been ongoing and the securitization of the 0:50:50.950 --> 0:50:55.950 enclaves since the 1990s, but I mean within the local communities. 0:50:56.620 --> 0:50:58.980 And that has been fracturing, you know, many of the 0:50:59.060 --> 0:51:02.640 organizations that have been operating in Ceuta to support migrants 0:51:02.680 --> 0:51:06.430 are now facing attacks. You know, they are being called traitors. 0:51:06.550 --> 0:51:10.430 They are facing a lot of hatred just for supporting migrants, 0:51:10.489 --> 0:51:14.189 just for doing accompaniment, just for doing documentation. And they've 0:51:14.210 --> 0:51:18.520 been doing incredibly important documentation work, documenting how migrants have 0:51:18.540 --> 0:51:21.920 been stranded alone on the beach. Many migrants have been 0:51:22.000 --> 0:51:24.740 corralled and told that they cannot leave certain areas because 0:51:25.239 --> 0:51:28.969 So they are basically enclosed into certain areas of Ceuta. 0:51:29.489 --> 0:51:32.989 Many of them have been denied registration. So registration is 0:51:33.030 --> 0:51:36.320 the process through which you become registered into the state 0:51:36.380 --> 0:51:39.569 registry in order to access supports. Hmm. So they have 0:51:39.610 --> 0:51:42.359 documented that then when they accompany people, they are being 0:51:42.420 --> 0:51:45.080 arbitrarily denied. And when they're denied, that means they can't 0:51:45.180 --> 0:51:48.359 access any of the supports. There have been beatings by 0:51:48.420 --> 0:51:51.700 local police authorities. There have also been local attacks on 0:51:51.760 --> 0:51:56.600 migrants by right forces. So it has been incredibly hard 0:51:56.719 --> 0:52:00.640 and horrific to witness this. And what I find particularly 0:52:00.680 --> 0:52:04.460 hard about this moment, just to return to this earlier moment, 0:52:04.540 --> 0:52:09.720 you know, when migrants were first landing on Ceuta in July, 0:52:09.750 --> 0:52:13.370 the way that so many left-wing comrades were quick to 0:52:13.430 --> 0:52:16.609 dismiss it. I'm not saying the left is responsible for 0:52:16.630 --> 0:52:19.089 the violence, but it has meant a very quick turn 0:52:19.130 --> 0:52:22.620 away and abandonment of migrants because people were quick to 0:52:22.660 --> 0:52:24.739 just call it an invasion and say, well, so many 0:52:24.760 --> 0:52:27.040 of the migrants have come back. It was not an issue. 0:52:28.040 --> 0:52:30.080 But that ignores the fact that there are, in fact, 0:52:30.219 --> 0:52:33.980 many migrants who are still there And again, particularly migrants 0:52:34.060 --> 0:52:38.560 from Palestine, from Yemen, from Mali, from Sudan, who have been, again, 0:52:38.580 --> 0:52:41.700 you know, just kind of stranded on the beaches. And 0:52:41.890 --> 0:52:45.210 for organizations in Ceuta who are supporting migrants and migrant 0:52:45.230 --> 0:52:48.069 justice organizations, you know, they've said that they haven't seen 0:52:48.190 --> 0:52:50.890 anything like this in decades in terms of the work 0:52:50.950 --> 0:52:51.970 and the impact on the ground. 0:52:52.469 --> 0:52:55.690 And just desperate conditions for these people that I think, 0:52:55.750 --> 0:52:59.029 like you said, the left likes, not all the left. 0:52:59.450 --> 0:53:02.230 Let's just be, you know, everybody get upset with me. 0:53:03.210 --> 0:53:06.489 But some large parts of the left and the global 0:53:06.530 --> 0:53:09.450 north that like really loves a neat narrative. 0:53:10.640 --> 0:53:10.859 Yeah. 0:53:10.910 --> 0:53:13.980 So let's maybe get into that. Like, why did we see, 0:53:14.739 --> 0:53:15.020 for me. 0:53:15.060 --> 0:53:19.200 Especially English speaking influencers and pundits who speak on the left, 0:53:19.239 --> 0:53:21.320 like why did they connect this to an Israeli plot? 0:53:22.060 --> 0:53:22.299 Yeah. 0:53:22.380 --> 0:53:25.100 I mean, I think what we've seen in the past 0:53:25.440 --> 0:53:29.279 few years since the ongoing genocide is various kinds of 0:53:29.340 --> 0:53:33.960 lefts have emerged. One of those lefts has been very 0:53:34.040 --> 0:53:38.589 quick on the takes, on the upticks. We see content farming. 0:53:38.989 --> 0:53:41.850 And in particular, we see very simplistic narratives where people 0:53:41.890 --> 0:53:45.969 may not actually know the extent of place-based geographies and 0:53:46.030 --> 0:53:50.150 movements and have only seen clickbait about what countries have 0:53:50.190 --> 0:53:53.109 done to stand up to the Zionist enemy. And that 0:53:53.150 --> 0:53:55.590 is important. Spain, for example, is one of those countries 0:53:55.630 --> 0:53:58.810 that has stood up to the Zionist entity. We saw 0:53:58.850 --> 0:54:01.819 this with, you know, tremendous support, for example, for South 0:54:01.900 --> 0:54:05.200 Africa during the ICJ hearing. And at the same time, 0:54:05.219 --> 0:54:08.359 we had organizers from Sudan saying, hey, can we talk 0:54:08.420 --> 0:54:12.260 about what's happening between the South African state and the 0:54:12.390 --> 0:54:14.890 UAE and the closer relationships? You know, none of which 0:54:14.950 --> 0:54:17.810 is to simplify in the opposite direction, but it is 0:54:17.850 --> 0:54:21.170 to actually sit with internationalism in a meaningful way and 0:54:21.190 --> 0:54:23.130 to look at all the contours of what is happening. 0:54:23.630 --> 0:54:26.410 And so what we saw in the aftermath of July, 0:54:26.430 --> 0:54:29.630 and really from commentators who, frankly, in my humble opinion, 0:54:29.710 --> 0:54:32.870 have any connection to migrant movements, right? So did not 0:54:32.890 --> 0:54:36.569 know the history of Ceuta, do not understand Ceuta as 0:54:36.630 --> 0:54:41.649 a transit point for many decades, really harping on this 0:54:41.790 --> 0:54:46.989 idea that because it was migrants entering into Ceuta, it 0:54:47.030 --> 0:54:50.090 was an attack on Spanish sovereignty. you know, there was 0:54:50.110 --> 0:54:53.150 all these clips of these migrants are military aged men. 0:54:53.210 --> 0:54:55.270 Just look at them. They're like 18 to 45. And 0:54:55.510 --> 0:54:58.830 it's like, who do you think most migrants are in general? 0:54:58.850 --> 0:55:02.950 Like that is actually the demographic of many migrants, not exclusively, 0:55:03.030 --> 0:55:06.210 of course, but that is the reality of migration, particularly 0:55:06.270 --> 0:55:08.239 on dangerous routes, right? That has been one of the 0:55:08.280 --> 0:55:11.660 impacts of securitizing the borders is that it does make 0:55:11.719 --> 0:55:15.719 it harder for elderly or kids to migrate because those 0:55:15.780 --> 0:55:20.220 routes are becoming more dangerous. The narrative became, look, this 0:55:20.390 --> 0:55:27.600 is a U.S.-Israeli-Moroccan-backed plot to destabilize Spain and Spanish sovereignty 0:55:27.700 --> 0:55:30.540 at a time when Spain is standing up to Palestine. 0:55:30.600 --> 0:55:33.910 That was the through line. And all of the evidence 0:55:33.950 --> 0:55:37.870 was clipped and farmed to justify that. And so, you know, 0:55:37.910 --> 0:55:40.930 that was why we saw what we did. I think 0:55:41.070 --> 0:55:45.020 in this moment, we're seeing many other similar narratives in 0:55:45.040 --> 0:55:48.299 that trajectory that are not about Ceuta, but that are 0:55:48.400 --> 0:55:52.799 in that same vein, where people want to suggest that 0:55:52.880 --> 0:55:55.700 everything is a U.S.-Israeli-backed conspiracy. 0:55:56.140 --> 0:55:58.230 Frankly, you know, people straight up saying, like. 0:55:58.900 --> 0:56:02.000 you know, if anyone is against Spain, they must be 0:56:02.040 --> 0:56:05.890 backed by Zionists. Like, you know, and it is clear 0:56:05.950 --> 0:56:10.730 cut and nuance is terrible and nuancing is two-sided, you know? 0:56:10.890 --> 0:56:13.989 And so I think there was an uptick because that 0:56:14.030 --> 0:56:17.960 has become part of some segments of leftist discourse. 0:56:18.520 --> 0:56:21.780 Yeah, people in the Palestine space, I'll speak for myself 0:56:21.840 --> 0:56:27.359 in particular, like this struggle to have a truly internationalist perspective. 0:56:28.280 --> 0:56:33.730 has been a growing struggle in the movement to kind 0:56:33.750 --> 0:56:38.330 of push against the easy narratives that people want to 0:56:38.350 --> 0:56:41.009 latch on to. And your argument is that treating it 0:56:41.050 --> 0:56:45.440 as a foreign military maneuver, you're just conceding the far-right's 0:56:45.500 --> 0:57:01.540 premise entirely. So let's maybe also talk about the Moroccan 0:57:01.580 --> 0:57:06.220 role here. You mentioned already that there is an interest 0:57:06.260 --> 0:57:08.240 of the Moroccan state to use migration as a leverage, 0:57:08.460 --> 0:57:10.759 and Western Sahara plays a role in this. 0:57:10.940 --> 0:57:13.910 So could you maybe break that down for us? 0:57:14.560 --> 0:57:17.080 Yeah, I think, as I mentioned, some of this is 0:57:17.180 --> 0:57:21.030 still being parsed out. And so we don't know for sure. 0:57:21.070 --> 0:57:23.590 But what we do know is that Moroccan state authorities 0:57:23.610 --> 0:57:27.770 are likely relaxed their kind of border controls in that moment. 0:57:28.350 --> 0:57:30.390 And I think it is important here again to emphasize that, 0:57:30.430 --> 0:57:33.250 you know, both Morocco and Spain have for a long 0:57:33.290 --> 0:57:35.580 time collaborated on border controls. 0:57:35.640 --> 0:57:35.840 Right. 0:57:35.920 --> 0:57:37.950 And so. You know, one of the arguments that I 0:57:38.030 --> 0:57:41.010 generally make is that we have to understand borders as 0:57:41.030 --> 0:57:44.230 a linchpin in state violence. That, you know, while there 0:57:44.310 --> 0:57:47.850 are many things often at play in terms of global geopolitics, 0:57:47.910 --> 0:57:52.790 whether it's imperialism, of course, or bilateral kind of relationships 0:57:52.850 --> 0:57:55.950 between various states, one of the things they have always 0:57:56.030 --> 0:58:00.040 collaborated on and continue to collaborate on is borders. It's 0:58:00.080 --> 0:58:05.460 completely global. And Spain and Morocco have long collaborated. Spain 0:58:05.500 --> 0:58:10.050 has often funded Moroccan border securitization. And so while there 0:58:10.170 --> 0:58:14.110 are many significant differences between Spain and Morocco, for example, 0:58:14.190 --> 0:58:17.630 on their positions and alignments on Palestine and You know, 0:58:17.750 --> 0:58:25.330 Morocco's normalization, Spain's significant stance against Zionism and Israel, although imperfect, 0:58:25.350 --> 0:58:27.590 is significantly more than Morocco. 0:58:27.610 --> 0:58:28.550 That is undeniable. 0:58:29.180 --> 0:58:32.820 Despite Spain and Morocco's significant differences on Western Sahara, they 0:58:32.860 --> 0:58:35.060 have collaborated on border securitization. 0:58:35.120 --> 0:58:38.360 So that is important to hold as the overall context. 0:58:38.720 --> 0:58:40.100 And then in this moment. 0:58:40.460 --> 0:58:42.900 You know, it's hard to say precisely because, again, we 0:58:42.940 --> 0:58:46.000 don't have all of that kind of information. But what 0:58:46.060 --> 0:58:49.080 we do know is that at different times, Spain has 0:58:49.300 --> 0:58:52.580 leveraged the border and Morocco has leveraged the border for 0:58:52.600 --> 0:58:55.970 their own personal interests, particularly around Western Sahara. And with 0:58:56.010 --> 0:59:00.080 respect to Spain, Spain has actually fluctuated on its position 0:59:00.340 --> 0:59:04.930 on Western Sahara over the past several years. In 2021, 0:59:04.930 --> 0:59:08.330 as we know, Spain reversed its position on supporting an 0:59:08.350 --> 0:59:12.960 independent referendum on Western Sahara. This moment in 2026 has 0:59:13.020 --> 0:59:18.760 been really important because Algeria and Spain have reestablished relationships. 0:59:19.200 --> 0:59:22.240 While we don't know the extent of that relationship, we 0:59:22.280 --> 0:59:28.090 know that those relationships being reestablished did cause some discontent 0:59:28.690 --> 0:59:31.690 for the Moroccan state. And so, you know, we can 0:59:31.770 --> 0:59:34.730 speculate that that is one of the reasons, particularly in 0:59:34.770 --> 0:59:39.650 this moment, that Morocco may have decided to really leverage 0:59:39.930 --> 0:59:43.350 the border in a particular way to have Spain rethink 0:59:43.470 --> 0:59:47.370 any possibility of rethinking its position on Western Sahara. And 0:59:47.390 --> 0:59:51.760 to emphasize, Spain has not yet reversed its decision from 2021. 0:59:51.760 --> 0:59:55.580 But people understood that maybe this gesture towards Algeria might 0:59:55.660 --> 0:59:58.860 suggest that Spain was going to change its position on 0:59:58.880 --> 0:59:59.540 Western Sahara. 0:59:59.820 --> 1:00:00.240 Interesting. 1:00:00.400 --> 1:00:00.580 Yeah. 1:00:00.940 --> 1:00:03.880 No, I think it's a very important point to underscore 1:00:03.940 --> 1:00:06.280 that there is, as you've mentioned in your previous work, 1:00:06.300 --> 1:00:10.330 this kind of externalization. of enforcement, and that there are 1:00:10.430 --> 1:00:12.990 all these states around the world that play that role. 1:00:13.470 --> 1:00:16.220 You know, Fortress Europe, I don't know, catchphrase is the 1:00:16.240 --> 1:00:18.320 right term here. But like, we talked a lot about 1:00:18.360 --> 1:00:20.320 Fortress Europe, like, I don't know, 10 years ago, and 1:00:21.300 --> 1:00:23.700 the role that a lot of these Middle Eastern states, 1:00:24.160 --> 1:00:26.500 despite a lot of differences, like you said, like. 1:00:26.500 --> 1:00:29.920 Play in the maintenance of border imperialism. 1:00:30.780 --> 1:00:33.300 I kind of want to maybe end on this idea 1:00:33.320 --> 1:00:35.920 from some of your commentary on this on this particular 1:00:36.000 --> 1:00:38.540 incident a month ago about how, you know, we need 1:00:38.560 --> 1:00:41.430 to understand like people will keep crossing. That's going to 1:00:41.470 --> 1:00:45.270 be the significance. So for those of us who aren't 1:00:45.390 --> 1:00:49.090 taking an anti-immigrant position, either from the left or the right, 1:00:49.110 --> 1:00:52.530 like what should someone who takes that seriously actually be 1:00:52.660 --> 1:00:53.700 organizing towards right now? 1:00:54.260 --> 1:00:55.460 Yeah, I love that question. 1:00:55.740 --> 1:00:59.410 Because for me, when I think about the externalization of borders, 1:00:59.510 --> 1:01:02.290 as you just were talking about, to me, it means 1:01:02.330 --> 1:01:05.890 that if we see bordering as happening, not just as, 1:01:06.030 --> 1:01:07.930 you know, a line on a map that's, you know, 1:01:07.970 --> 1:01:11.410 about people crossing in particular moments, or, you know, especially 1:01:11.450 --> 1:01:14.010 right now, what's happening, for example, in the US, or 1:01:14.050 --> 1:01:18.100 what we see with AFD's victory in a region of Germany, 1:01:18.580 --> 1:01:20.760 all of this to me really points to like, it 1:01:20.820 --> 1:01:24.640 is impossible to separate out the rise of fascism from 1:01:24.700 --> 1:01:28.450 anti-migrant racism. And so when I think about, you know, 1:01:28.610 --> 1:01:33.150 what can we do to support migrants, it really is 1:01:33.330 --> 1:01:37.990 a much broader struggle to dismantle fascism because despite all 1:01:38.030 --> 1:01:40.880 their differences and all polls for the past decade have 1:01:40.910 --> 1:01:44.620 shown this, that in different parts of the world, people 1:01:44.780 --> 1:01:48.440 vote for fascist parties for different reasons, right? Because obviously 1:01:48.520 --> 1:01:51.780 not every geography is the same. But the two most 1:01:51.860 --> 1:01:57.630 significant similarities is anti-Muslim racism and anti-migrant racism. That is 1:01:57.670 --> 1:02:02.390 the most consistent similarity in very disparate parts of the world. Because, 1:02:02.430 --> 1:02:05.890 you know, for example, white supremacy is not necessarily at 1:02:05.970 --> 1:02:09.210 play in India, right? Like that is not the governing 1:02:09.430 --> 1:02:13.390 framework for fascism, but it is Hindutva, which is motivated 1:02:13.630 --> 1:02:18.330 by anti-Muslim racism, caste supremacy, and also anti-migrant racism, right? 1:02:18.410 --> 1:02:21.340 All of the changes that we're seeing under Hindutva that 1:02:21.400 --> 1:02:25.440 are denationalizing and stripping people of citizenship, particularly from Muslim 1:02:25.480 --> 1:02:27.800 regions of India. So those are very connected in many 1:02:27.840 --> 1:02:29.890 different parts of the world. And so I think it 1:02:29.950 --> 1:02:33.870 is so important to understand the ways in which anti-migrant 1:02:33.910 --> 1:02:37.250 racism is not only about migrants on the move, but 1:02:37.270 --> 1:02:39.790 it is part of a much bigger project of fascism. 1:02:40.090 --> 1:02:45.390 And so dismantling fascism is actually so central to thinking 1:02:45.430 --> 1:02:49.270 about no borders and the freedom to move. And also, 1:02:49.570 --> 1:02:52.110 for me, it really is about the freedom to stay, right? 1:02:52.130 --> 1:02:56.140 So all of our struggles against imperialism, but an anti-imperialism 1:02:56.160 --> 1:02:59.940 that's inflected with internationalism, that centers, you know, the way 1:02:59.960 --> 1:03:04.060 in which borders are a structuring of imperialism, that we 1:03:04.100 --> 1:03:08.320 cannot continue to see the nation state as an anti-imperialist formation. 1:03:09.030 --> 1:03:10.290 The nation state as a form. 1:03:10.330 --> 1:03:13.170 I'm not talking about particular governments, you know, whether they're 1:03:13.190 --> 1:03:16.100 anti-imperialist or not, but as a form. And so thinking 1:03:16.140 --> 1:03:21.080 about anti-imperialism from an internationalist perspective is so central. 1:03:20.780 --> 1:03:21.780 To migrant struggles. 1:03:21.820 --> 1:03:23.320 You know, like what is, how do we make sure 1:03:23.340 --> 1:03:27.020 that people are not being displaced and immobilized by bordering 1:03:27.080 --> 1:03:30.360 regimes and the dismantling of capitalism? So for me, really 1:03:30.490 --> 1:03:34.190 thinking about bordering as a through line through our struggles 1:03:34.230 --> 1:03:38.520 for abolition, through our struggles against imperialism, through our struggles 1:03:38.600 --> 1:03:41.680 against displacement and genocide and gentrification, all of these are 1:03:41.720 --> 1:03:45.120 very similar forces, right? Very different, of course, in how 1:03:45.200 --> 1:03:48.500 people are impacted, but similar in their logics. So to me, 1:03:48.540 --> 1:03:51.820 thinking about bordering as central is how we actually fight 1:03:51.840 --> 1:03:53.660 for people on the move. It is to refuse to 1:03:53.720 --> 1:03:58.110 silo migrants into this other struggle because that is actually 1:03:58.150 --> 1:04:00.669 what the right relies on, right? Like if we actually 1:04:00.690 --> 1:04:03.050 think about it, migrant is one of the most state 1:04:03.090 --> 1:04:07.260 constructed categories. Like we know everything is constructed. Race is constructed. 1:04:07.320 --> 1:04:12.460 Gender is constructed. But migrant truly is so constructed. You know, 1:04:12.500 --> 1:04:15.980 it's literally just about a paper. And so, you know, 1:04:16.020 --> 1:04:19.070 to refuse to feed into the idea of that construction 1:04:19.090 --> 1:04:22.350 is to understand migration as inherently connected to all of 1:04:22.410 --> 1:04:22.990 these struggles. 1:04:23.050 --> 1:04:23.250 Right. 1:04:23.270 --> 1:04:27.050 It is actually a symptom. and cannot be siloed as 1:04:27.090 --> 1:04:30.140 a kind of separate side issue that people who stand 1:04:30.160 --> 1:04:33.160 for migrant justice are just, you know, this little pro-immigrant 1:04:33.280 --> 1:04:36.340 silo alongside all these struggles. It is to see bordering 1:04:36.720 --> 1:04:40.360 as the linchpin that sustains so many other forms of violence. 1:04:40.820 --> 1:04:42.830 No, that's so well put. 1:04:42.890 --> 1:04:46.010 I think we all could do in all of our 1:04:46.670 --> 1:04:49.790 respective communities to do a little bit more work understanding 1:04:49.830 --> 1:04:53.300 what fascism actually is. Like, What are the building blocks? 1:04:53.320 --> 1:04:57.140 What are the mechanisms of fascism? And if there's consistency 1:04:57.380 --> 1:05:01.560 in being anti-fascist, then you see this very clearly that 1:05:01.580 --> 1:05:05.060 the immigration issue is essential. But unfortunately, there is not 1:05:05.100 --> 1:05:07.770 always consistency. But yeah, thank you so much, Harsha. This 1:05:07.790 --> 1:05:10.750 has been such a wonderful conversation. And I know that 1:05:10.770 --> 1:05:12.040 a lot of people will get a lot out of it. 1:05:12.090 --> 1:05:13.050 So thank you for your time. 1:05:13.310 --> 1:05:15.189 Thank you so much. And thank you for your work. 1:05:15.630 --> 1:05:17.730 Your work is just so deeply appreciated. 1:05:17.810 --> 1:05:18.770 Please know that. 1:05:18.790 --> 1:05:19.490 Oh, thank you so much. 1:05:19.510 --> 1:05:20.710 I appreciate it. All right. 1:05:20.870 --> 1:05:21.410 Take care, everybody. 1:05:33.510 --> 1:05:36.070 Welcome to It Could Happen Here, I'm Kevin Foster, and 1:05:36.110 --> 1:05:39.890 today we're separating the art from the artist, specifically taking 1:05:39.970 --> 1:05:44.290 Macklemore's solid political takes and isolating them from his, let's 1:05:44.350 --> 1:05:47.410 just say, iconic bars like What Up, I Got a 1:05:47.430 --> 1:05:50.810 Big Cock. For those who aren't caught up, Macklemore was 1:05:50.890 --> 1:05:53.880 touring with Ed Sheeran not long ago before he was 1:05:53.950 --> 1:05:58.460 removed from the tour for espousing pro-Palestine statements on stage 1:05:58.580 --> 1:06:03.020 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. Specifically, he said Free 1:06:03.100 --> 1:06:06.900 Palestine a few times and thanked students at Columbia University 1:06:07.060 --> 1:06:11.320 for kicking off the encampments movement in spring of 2024. 1:06:11.320 --> 1:06:14.840 Those students inspired his song Hins Hall, the title student 1:06:14.880 --> 1:06:19.190 protesters gave Columbia's Hamilton Hall, named after Hind Rajab, a 1:06:19.250 --> 1:06:22.530 five-year-old who was brutally murdered by the Israeli Defense Forces 1:06:22.650 --> 1:06:27.340 in Gaza in January of 2024. In a beautiful case 1:06:27.440 --> 1:06:31.160 of leopards eating faces, Ed Sheeran's entire lineup of opening 1:06:31.320 --> 1:06:34.460 acts and his backing band withdrew from the tour in 1:06:34.520 --> 1:06:38.820 solidarity with Macklemore. In his next performance, Sheeran gave a 1:06:38.900 --> 1:06:41.750 sort of apology speech to the crowd, reading off a 1:06:41.810 --> 1:06:45.230 teleprompter in which he did not use the words genocide 1:06:45.350 --> 1:06:49.150 or Palestinian. Rather than focusing on that, due to the 1:06:49.290 --> 1:06:54.110 outstanding negative response to McLemore's statements from Zionist billionaires, I 1:06:54.130 --> 1:06:56.550 think it's worth listening to some of what he actually 1:06:56.630 --> 1:06:59.890 said on stage. Here's a clip from his Instagram. 1:07:00.250 --> 1:07:06.250 To all of my Jewish brothers and sisters, criticism of Israel, 1:07:07.130 --> 1:07:12.390 criticism of apartheid, being against genocide in no way is 1:07:12.430 --> 1:07:19.030 a criticism of you. My message is for peace, love, 1:07:19.090 --> 1:07:23.070 for all human beings to be treated with dignity, respect, 1:07:23.490 --> 1:07:24.290 and equality. 1:07:25.150 --> 1:07:28.820 So I say free Palestine. I say free Lebanon. 1:07:29.030 --> 1:07:30.260 I say free Cuba. 1:07:30.460 --> 1:07:34.500 I say free Congo, free Sudan, free all. 1:07:34.440 --> 1:07:39.550 People in America living in fear over this terrorist organization ICE. 1:07:44.850 --> 1:07:48.370 None of us will be free until we are all free. 1:07:48.650 --> 1:07:50.260 This song is called Hen's Hall. 1:07:51.410 --> 1:07:54.560 Some deeply frightening stuff in there, at least for Robert Kraft, 1:07:54.640 --> 1:07:58.820 the pro-Israel billionaire owner of the New England Patriots football team, 1:07:59.080 --> 1:08:03.720 and Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts near Boston, where McLemore 1:08:03.800 --> 1:08:07.290 was set to appear on tour with Sheeran. Kraft was 1:08:07.370 --> 1:08:11.390 not happy with McLemore's support of Palestinian equal rights on stage, 1:08:11.510 --> 1:08:14.410 and he confirmed to Rolling Stone that he barred McLemore 1:08:14.450 --> 1:08:18.450 from appearing at the Boston shows over, quote, recent actions, 1:08:18.670 --> 1:08:21.979 material shared from the stage during Ed Sheeran's shows in 1:08:22.070 --> 1:08:26.300 New Jersey, and a broader history of anti-Semitic rhetoric and 1:08:26.439 --> 1:08:29.620 imagery that we believe has been deeply offensive and hurtful 1:08:29.680 --> 1:08:34.240 to the Jewish community, unquote. Despite McLemore's clear calls for 1:08:34.300 --> 1:08:38.070 equality and peace, Kraft felt his presence at Gillette Stadium 1:08:38.110 --> 1:08:41.629 would stymie the supposed goal of providing a, quote, welcoming 1:08:41.689 --> 1:08:44.900 environment for all guests and ensuring that all events held 1:08:44.979 --> 1:08:48.939 at our venue do not provide a platform for hate speech, unquote. 1:08:49.620 --> 1:08:53.200 Funnily enough, those shows ended up getting cancelled anyway due 1:08:53.260 --> 1:08:57.570 to severe weather warnings. But Kraft allegedly did not stop there. 1:08:58.050 --> 1:09:01.099 According to a post by Macklemore Followers, his removal from 1:09:01.140 --> 1:09:04.559 the tour, Sheeran apparently said that Kraft had rallied other 1:09:04.600 --> 1:09:08.520 stadium owners with an ultimatum, quoting from that post, if 1:09:08.620 --> 1:09:11.560 McLemore stays on the tour, you will not be allowed 1:09:11.620 --> 1:09:15.820 to play in our venues, unquote. Messina Touring Group, the 1:09:15.880 --> 1:09:19.050 promoter of the US portion of Sheeran's tour, said, said 1:09:19.090 --> 1:09:21.490 in a statement that they were notified by venues from 1:09:21.510 --> 1:09:24.180 the upcoming U.S. tour dates that they would not allow 1:09:24.220 --> 1:09:28.179 a concert to take place with Macklemore in the lineup. Obviously, 1:09:28.260 --> 1:09:31.960 this represents a serious affront to freedom of speech, something 1:09:31.979 --> 1:09:34.480 that is far from new on the matter of Palestine. 1:09:34.979 --> 1:09:37.760 As of yet, Kraft has not discussed or denied the 1:09:37.840 --> 1:09:42.010 allegations of mounting this pressure campaign against the rapper. In 1:09:42.050 --> 1:09:45.889 response to the controversy, basically everyone and their mother chimed in, 1:09:46.150 --> 1:09:51.150 including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who pretty well lays out the 1:09:51.189 --> 1:09:53.000 real focus of this episode. 1:09:53.420 --> 1:09:58.660 This is about how just a handful of stadium owners 1:09:58.939 --> 1:10:03.360 and the elite can prevent an entire massive issue, in 1:10:03.400 --> 1:10:07.050 this case the genocide in Gaza, but it doesn't stop there. 1:10:07.590 --> 1:10:10.230 It could be speaking out about AI. It could be 1:10:10.270 --> 1:10:12.330 speaking out about any issue. 1:10:13.770 --> 1:10:17.509 Here's where things get interesting. Rolling Stone lists seven stadium 1:10:17.570 --> 1:10:21.330 venues that allegedly objected to McLemore's inclusion in the tour. 1:10:21.650 --> 1:10:24.690 And of those seven, five are publicly owned by either 1:10:24.750 --> 1:10:28.250 the city, county, or state in which they reside. I 1:10:28.290 --> 1:10:30.470 could spend quite a lot of time talking about how 1:10:30.490 --> 1:10:33.070 I think Ed Sheeran is a coward, how it is 1:10:33.150 --> 1:10:36.530 a political statement to fold in favor of genocide deniers. 1:10:37.060 --> 1:10:39.340 But what I'm far more interested in is the First 1:10:39.400 --> 1:10:43.120 Amendment implications of Kraft's alleged actions and the ways in 1:10:43.160 --> 1:10:46.360 which billionaires are able to wield authority over our rights, 1:10:46.820 --> 1:10:50.939 even through public institutions and capital. To discuss this in depth, 1:10:51.140 --> 1:10:54.220 I've interviewed friend of the pod, Mo Meltzer Cohen, a 1:10:54.260 --> 1:10:57.839 law professor at CUNY School of Law, experienced in defense 1:10:57.880 --> 1:11:02.080 of people targeted on the basis of First Amendment protected beliefs, identities, 1:11:02.220 --> 1:11:07.970 and association. Let's dive right into that. I'm kind of 1:11:08.050 --> 1:11:11.090 wondering if you can just tell me from what you 1:11:11.150 --> 1:11:14.200 know about this case, what do you make of a 1:11:14.979 --> 1:11:19.800 billionaire kind of organizing a censorship campaign like this? Have 1:11:19.820 --> 1:11:24.540 you seen similar things in different contexts around free speech? 1:11:25.060 --> 1:11:25.860 Well, certainly. 1:11:25.939 --> 1:11:29.380 And there are all manner of ways in which coercive 1:11:29.500 --> 1:11:34.330 social or economic pressure is brought to bear on different 1:11:34.430 --> 1:11:40.100 people or different events or forums. in order to constrain 1:11:40.120 --> 1:11:46.420 the expressive conduct of different people or different groups. There's 1:11:46.460 --> 1:11:50.440 certainly nothing at all that is unique or unusual about that. 1:11:51.280 --> 1:11:55.080 I think what's important to recognize before we really get 1:11:55.120 --> 1:11:58.439 too deep into this is when we're talking about free 1:11:58.479 --> 1:12:03.050 speech principles, We can talk about free speech or free 1:12:03.090 --> 1:12:09.240 expression as a shared cultural value, but the First Amendment 1:12:10.000 --> 1:12:14.560 only applies to the government, right? So when we're talking 1:12:14.600 --> 1:12:18.360 about censorship, we need to be clear about whether we're 1:12:18.400 --> 1:12:26.710 talking about a private individual or company refusing to platform 1:12:26.870 --> 1:12:33.849 particular speech. Which is certainly censorship, but it isn't government 1:12:33.950 --> 1:12:38.910 censorship of the kind that the First Amendment is concerned. 1:12:38.430 --> 1:12:39.910 With, right? 1:12:40.110 --> 1:12:40.330 Yeah. 1:12:40.910 --> 1:12:44.850 The First Amendment, as a legal principle, a set of 1:12:44.900 --> 1:12:49.440 legal principles, is a constraint on the power of the 1:12:49.860 --> 1:12:56.870 government to censor political speech or to censor free expression, right? 1:12:56.970 --> 1:13:00.650 It's a constraint on the power of the state to 1:13:01.729 --> 1:13:08.099 restrict people's ability to speak, to associate with each other, 1:13:08.640 --> 1:13:13.759 to believe freely. And so I think what's interesting about 1:13:13.979 --> 1:13:19.880 this particular situation that you've raised is that, you know, 1:13:19.900 --> 1:13:24.650 an event planning company or a private theater or Robert 1:13:24.729 --> 1:13:30.860 Kraft himself as an individual, are certainly at liberty to 1:13:31.900 --> 1:13:36.880 decline to give a platform to any speech that they 1:13:37.040 --> 1:13:43.890 find offensive. Robert Kraft takes umbrage at somebody's music. He 1:13:44.050 --> 1:13:47.570 is under no obligation to subsidize it, to support it, 1:13:47.630 --> 1:13:51.750 to give it a platform. But you've pointed out that 1:13:52.600 --> 1:13:57.620 some of these stadiums at which these performances were scheduled 1:13:57.660 --> 1:14:02.210 to occur are owned by cities, are municipally owned or 1:14:02.250 --> 1:14:04.690 are owned by the state. I think one of them 1:14:04.729 --> 1:14:07.790 you said is owned by the state of Florida. Yeah. 1:14:07.850 --> 1:14:10.050 So I can like dive into a little bit of 1:14:10.070 --> 1:14:14.320 the details on that. There's specifically this, the stadiums that 1:14:14.360 --> 1:14:19.220 are in Philadelphia, Atlanta, Tampa, Indianapolis, and Arlington, Texas are 1:14:19.650 --> 1:14:23.019 They're not all operated by public entities, but they are 1:14:23.060 --> 1:14:26.139 all owned by public entities that between, you know, city, 1:14:26.220 --> 1:14:29.600 county and state. But in the examples where they are 1:14:29.660 --> 1:14:33.980 privately operated, it's like the Atlanta Falcons or the Philadelphia Eagles, 1:14:34.560 --> 1:14:37.690 but I reached out to these different groups, and in 1:14:37.750 --> 1:14:40.830 some cases, they tried to push it on to the operators. 1:14:40.950 --> 1:14:43.210 Like in Philadelphia, they told me to reach out to 1:14:43.250 --> 1:14:46.880 the Eagles for Lincoln Financial Stadium. They did not respond 1:14:46.900 --> 1:14:49.900 to my emails. And then I had this, I think 1:14:49.920 --> 1:14:53.420 it was Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. They did actually respond, 1:14:53.820 --> 1:14:57.510 but that was from the Capital Improvement Board for Marion County, Indiana. 1:14:57.530 --> 1:15:02.180 And they said, quote, we can confirm Messina Touring's announcement 1:15:02.240 --> 1:15:05.160 that Macklemore will not be performing at the upcoming show. 1:15:05.560 --> 1:15:07.710 And then they said Lucas Oil Stadium is a public 1:15:07.729 --> 1:15:11.229 facility and as such is content neutral, which, you know, 1:15:11.270 --> 1:15:13.710 I had to follow up and ask about that. And 1:15:13.830 --> 1:15:16.309 they didn't respond to that. But it's a bit silly 1:15:16.350 --> 1:15:19.480 when they're sort of barring a performer. But like you said, 1:15:19.520 --> 1:15:22.679 where I feel like this was especially sort of troubling 1:15:22.740 --> 1:15:28.020 was in Tampa. They're both owned publicly and it's operated 1:15:28.060 --> 1:15:30.820 by the Tampa Sports Authority, who did not respond to 1:15:30.860 --> 1:15:34.830 my request for comment. And that seems to create this 1:15:34.850 --> 1:15:38.170 sort of complex situation. I don't know exactly what all 1:15:38.189 --> 1:15:42.170 the contracts are behind the scenes and who gets to 1:15:42.229 --> 1:15:44.269 control these things. But if it's a publicly owned and 1:15:44.330 --> 1:15:47.610 operated facility, I mean, does that raise some concerns? 1:15:48.120 --> 1:15:52.390 It sure does. And so It's interesting that they reached 1:15:52.450 --> 1:15:55.090 back out to you that Lucas Oil Stadium said, we 1:15:55.170 --> 1:15:59.010 are content neutral. So that's a legal term of art. 1:15:59.110 --> 1:16:01.030 So let's keep them out a little bit. 1:16:01.520 --> 1:16:01.690 Yeah. 1:16:02.350 --> 1:16:05.820 So as I said, the First Amendment is a constraint 1:16:05.920 --> 1:16:11.900 on the power of the government to dictate speech, right? 1:16:12.360 --> 1:16:17.000 It says the government cannot be the arbiter of expression. 1:16:17.760 --> 1:16:22.229 And so- if you have a stadium that is owned 1:16:22.930 --> 1:16:29.870 by the government, presumably that forum is a public forum 1:16:30.030 --> 1:16:34.490 in the same way that a public park would be 1:16:34.590 --> 1:16:40.439 considered a public forum. And that's legally significant. Why is 1:16:40.479 --> 1:16:47.339 that legally significant? Because in what's called a traditional public forum, land, 1:16:47.700 --> 1:16:52.520 an area that is owned by the government. Well, the 1:16:52.720 --> 1:16:59.980 government is permitted to impose constraints on the time, place, 1:17:00.280 --> 1:17:04.920 and manner of expression. Those constraints, first of all, they 1:17:04.939 --> 1:17:09.519 have to be reasonable constraints. And those constraints may not 1:17:09.600 --> 1:17:14.849 be imposed on the basis of content or viewpoint discrimination. 1:17:15.630 --> 1:17:15.810 Right? 1:17:15.910 --> 1:17:18.890 So that's what they're saying when Lucas Oil Stadium says, 1:17:19.790 --> 1:17:23.130 Lucas Oil Stadium is content neutral. It's a very inelegant 1:17:23.189 --> 1:17:27.679 way of saying we aren't discriminating on the basis of viewpoint. 1:17:28.479 --> 1:17:31.979 So constraints may be imposed, but they have to be 1:17:32.040 --> 1:17:37.680 content neutral. They can't be based on viewpoint discrimination. They 1:17:37.780 --> 1:17:42.720 have to be narrowly tailored to to serve a significant 1:17:42.880 --> 1:17:47.640 government purpose or a significant government interest. And there are 1:17:47.660 --> 1:17:51.780 a range of things that are understood to be legitimate 1:17:51.900 --> 1:17:57.220 or valid significant government interests, right? They are things like 1:17:57.960 --> 1:18:03.970 public safety, making sure that school children's educational activities are 1:18:04.050 --> 1:18:09.870 not disrupted, right? Making sure that people have access to 1:18:10.150 --> 1:18:15.810 and from public buildings, right? These would be considered valid 1:18:16.410 --> 1:18:22.059 government interests. Now that issue sort of points up the 1:18:22.140 --> 1:18:27.660 fact that with respect to stadiums in particular, there are 1:18:27.939 --> 1:18:33.620 frequently events held at stadiums where in the wake of 1:18:33.720 --> 1:18:39.600 those events, typically sporting events, There are threats to public safety. 1:18:40.320 --> 1:18:46.610 There are very often extremely foreseeable incidences of boisterousness. 1:18:46.630 --> 1:18:46.710 Yeah. 1:18:50.060 --> 1:18:55.740 We say, after, you know, the Super Bowl or the 1:18:55.840 --> 1:18:59.760 Stanley Cup. You know, publicly owned stadiums are not exercising 1:18:59.800 --> 1:19:03.640 their right to impose reasonable constraints on the time, place 1:19:03.680 --> 1:19:08.760 and manner of expression by shutting down the Super Bowl. 1:19:09.610 --> 1:19:09.929 Right? 1:19:10.050 --> 1:19:16.410 In anticipation of what they could reasonably expect to be rowdiness. 1:19:17.150 --> 1:19:19.800 I think Mom Donnie would be recalled if he tried 1:19:19.840 --> 1:19:23.660 to stop the Knicks games over public safety concerns. 1:19:23.920 --> 1:19:26.400 I don't think Mom Donnie would ever do such a thing. 1:19:27.840 --> 1:19:28.400 No, I know. 1:19:28.479 --> 1:19:43.630 They won. Yeah. In any event, it is really important 1:19:43.650 --> 1:19:46.570 to understand that it is permissible for the government to 1:19:46.650 --> 1:19:51.660 impose constraints on expression. They have to be reasonable constraints. 1:19:51.760 --> 1:19:55.559 They have to be content neutral, right? Not discriminating on 1:19:55.580 --> 1:19:59.480 the basis of viewpoint. They have to be narrowly tailored, 1:19:59.780 --> 1:20:02.939 meaning they can't just be, okay, we're going to shut 1:20:03.000 --> 1:20:08.080 down everything because we have some concern, some speculative concern 1:20:08.120 --> 1:20:12.059 that like maybe there's going to be some rowdy behavior. 1:20:12.880 --> 1:20:17.960 And finally, and critically, those constraints have to leave open 1:20:17.979 --> 1:20:22.760 what are called ample alternative channels of communication, right? So 1:20:23.120 --> 1:20:29.400 absolutely canceling a performance would not leave open ample alternative 1:20:29.439 --> 1:20:31.540 channels of communication, right? 1:20:31.740 --> 1:20:32.420 Yeah. 1:20:32.439 --> 1:20:35.260 And it's not clear what the public interest is in 1:20:35.300 --> 1:20:40.030 this case because... you know, there are exceptions. There are 1:20:40.130 --> 1:20:44.890 things that fall outside the zone of First Amendment protections. 1:20:44.950 --> 1:20:48.800 And there are things like fighting words, you know, hate speech, 1:20:49.310 --> 1:20:55.200 true threats. But it's very clear that criticism of Israel, 1:20:55.720 --> 1:21:00.720 support for Palestine, solidarity with Palestine, those things are not 1:21:00.920 --> 1:21:04.929 hate speech, right? Criticism of the political ideology of Zionism. 1:21:05.650 --> 1:21:10.870 These are not instances of anti-Semitic hate speech, right? Yeah. 1:21:11.170 --> 1:21:16.070 And so it's, you know, however offensive Robert Kraft or 1:21:16.130 --> 1:21:20.740 anyone else might find solidarity with Palestine to be, it 1:21:21.600 --> 1:21:27.200 is not speech of a kind that is exempted from 1:21:27.260 --> 1:21:32.200 the protections of the First Amendment. So, you know, if Again, 1:21:32.280 --> 1:21:36.430 if there's a private event company or a privately owned 1:21:36.790 --> 1:21:41.470 stadium that says, we don't want to have Macklemore play, 1:21:41.590 --> 1:21:43.650 they're at liberty to do that, right? They can make 1:21:43.670 --> 1:21:44.330 that decision. 1:21:44.790 --> 1:21:45.010 Yeah. 1:21:45.189 --> 1:21:49.479 What we can't have, or at least what deserves interrogation, 1:21:49.520 --> 1:21:55.300 what deserves a serious inquiry, is a publicly owned, government-run 1:21:55.880 --> 1:22:01.200 entity shutting down speech at the behest of a wealthy 1:22:01.220 --> 1:22:07.900 individual powerful individual, not on the basis of needing to 1:22:07.960 --> 1:22:12.420 impose a reasonable constraint or a reasonable restriction on the time, place, 1:22:12.520 --> 1:22:19.860 or manner of expression based on a content-neutral analysis that 1:22:19.939 --> 1:22:24.430 is narrowly tailored to serve some significant government interest while 1:22:24.590 --> 1:22:30.430 also leaving open ample alternative channels of communication, right? I 1:22:30.490 --> 1:22:36.930 am concerned about a public stadium bowing to that kind 1:22:36.970 --> 1:22:41.560 of pressure, particularly in light of the fact that Kanye 1:22:41.640 --> 1:22:50.000 West can perform freely. And Kanye West is pretty openly anti-Semitic. 1:22:50.439 --> 1:22:52.700 This is a sort of a, not even really a 1:22:52.740 --> 1:22:56.479 side note, but Kanye West performed multiple times at Raymond 1:22:56.500 --> 1:22:59.840 James Stadium in Tampa at the end of June. And, 1:23:00.120 --> 1:23:03.880 you know, while the setlist FM doesn't say that he 1:23:03.960 --> 1:23:07.360 performed his song, Heil Hitler, that I guess came out 1:23:07.479 --> 1:23:09.970 in 2025. It's hard to believe where we're at sometimes, 1:23:10.050 --> 1:23:13.470 but it's the the the open hypocrisy of that is 1:23:13.530 --> 1:23:14.990 just astounding. 1:23:15.250 --> 1:23:19.890 But well, it's never been about anti-Semitism. Right. I mean, 1:23:19.910 --> 1:23:23.519 just as a as a side side note. There are 1:23:23.640 --> 1:23:27.120 more Christian Zionists in the United States than there are 1:23:27.220 --> 1:23:30.460 Jews in the entire world, and they are explicitly motivated 1:23:31.000 --> 1:23:36.060 by explicitly anti-Semitic goals, right? One of which is to 1:23:36.439 --> 1:23:41.259 create a mass exodus of Jewish people from the so-called 1:23:41.280 --> 1:23:42.620 global north. 1:23:42.740 --> 1:23:43.280 Oh, God. 1:23:43.680 --> 1:23:48.220 And the other of which is to hasten the apocalypse, 1:23:48.960 --> 1:23:55.080 at which point, according to the Christian Zionist eschatology, some 1:23:55.160 --> 1:24:01.439 Jews will become Christian and remaining Jews will go to hell. 1:24:01.800 --> 1:24:06.090 So this is not and has never been about anti-Semitism. 1:24:06.590 --> 1:24:09.550 It is about criticism of Israel. It is about solidarity 1:24:09.570 --> 1:24:14.469 with Palestine. Now, you know, we're looking at this very 1:24:14.810 --> 1:24:19.720 sort of niche and narrow issue of what are the 1:24:19.840 --> 1:24:23.680 implications for the First Amendment in when we have a 1:24:24.220 --> 1:24:29.880 municipally owned or a government owned event space and a 1:24:30.800 --> 1:24:38.220 performer is prevented from or forbidden from performing in that space, 1:24:38.600 --> 1:24:43.540 clearly on the basis of what would typically be understood 1:24:43.600 --> 1:24:47.300 to be protected speech. Why does it matter? I mean, 1:24:47.880 --> 1:24:51.890 just to clarify, I am not an expert certainly in 1:24:51.930 --> 1:24:57.300 whatever kinds of leases or contract arrangements there are between 1:24:57.310 --> 1:25:03.139 these cities or states and, you know, third-party event planning. 1:25:03.160 --> 1:25:04.519 Yeah. 1:25:04.820 --> 1:25:09.380 Which, you know, if there's enough space in between, you know, 1:25:09.400 --> 1:25:15.640 the stadium and the decision being made potentially by a 1:25:15.700 --> 1:25:19.880 private third party, That might vitiate some of those First 1:25:19.939 --> 1:25:21.100 Amendment protections. 1:25:21.439 --> 1:25:21.620 Yeah. 1:25:21.760 --> 1:25:21.960 Right. 1:25:22.500 --> 1:25:24.840 I don't know because I don't know enough of the 1:25:24.900 --> 1:25:29.000 facts on the ground there. And nevertheless, I think it 1:25:29.080 --> 1:25:33.720 is really important for us to address ourselves to this question. 1:25:33.740 --> 1:25:39.340 Am I a Macklemore fan? I, you know, not particularly. 1:25:39.360 --> 1:25:43.540 I mean, he's fine. But my concern is not with 1:25:44.320 --> 1:25:50.230 a wealthy and powerful man. recording artist. My concern is 1:25:50.910 --> 1:25:55.630 that we look at this situation with Macklemore, and I 1:25:55.970 --> 1:26:02.860 think it is obscuring a whole range of threats to 1:26:03.420 --> 1:26:06.880 free expression for the rest of us, right? Because, you know, 1:26:07.180 --> 1:26:11.469 is anyone going to be real worried about Macklemore's welfare? No, 1:26:11.479 --> 1:26:16.439 he's fine. to his credit, by his own admission, he's 1:26:16.490 --> 1:26:22.660 not suffering. My concern is not with Macklemore not being 1:26:22.700 --> 1:26:26.160 allowed to play a show. My concern is with the 1:26:26.360 --> 1:26:31.439 implications for the rest of us when we're allowing these 1:26:31.510 --> 1:26:37.250 kinds of incursions into First Amendment protections. And I think 1:26:37.310 --> 1:26:42.740 this is such an interesting case because The fact that 1:26:42.780 --> 1:26:47.360 it's Macklemore is actually functioning, I think, to camouflage what 1:26:47.420 --> 1:26:51.160 those threats are, right? Because we're also focused on the 1:26:51.200 --> 1:26:56.320 fact that it's this wealthy, powerful guy that we're missing 1:26:56.560 --> 1:27:01.120 the fact that the First Amendment can't be mobilized to 1:27:01.180 --> 1:27:07.540 protect his free expression. How else might we see these 1:27:07.800 --> 1:27:12.360 end runs around constitutional protections? for the rest of us. 1:27:13.080 --> 1:27:15.680 I think there are a lot of things that are 1:27:15.760 --> 1:27:20.890 protected by the First Amendment that aren't necessarily legible to 1:27:21.120 --> 1:27:28.030 us as First Amendment protected beliefs, associations, or activities, right? 1:27:28.070 --> 1:27:30.530 Because we often will think about things that are First 1:27:30.590 --> 1:27:33.930 Amendment protected as being like the right to go to 1:27:33.950 --> 1:27:39.090 a particular kind of religious institution or the right to 1:27:39.150 --> 1:27:40.550 go to a protest. 1:27:41.410 --> 1:27:41.710 Right. 1:27:43.170 --> 1:27:46.290 But a lot of the most important First Amendment case 1:27:46.450 --> 1:27:53.950 law deals with things like are multiple adolescents allowed to 1:27:54.050 --> 1:27:58.800 hang out on the public sidewalk together without getting arrested? 1:27:58.900 --> 1:27:59.120 Right. 1:27:59.760 --> 1:28:05.439 Does it constitute probable cause of unlawful conduct for there 1:28:05.479 --> 1:28:09.000 to be more than two black children hanging out together 1:28:09.120 --> 1:28:09.820 on the stoop? 1:28:10.520 --> 1:28:10.680 Yeah. 1:28:11.220 --> 1:28:11.460 Right. 1:28:11.780 --> 1:28:15.320 That's not the kind of First Amendment protected activity that 1:28:15.380 --> 1:28:18.420 most people think about. It's not the top of mind 1:28:18.479 --> 1:28:19.939 when you say First Amendment. 1:28:21.090 --> 1:28:21.280 Right. 1:28:21.320 --> 1:28:24.510 I think people are thinking about, you know, people like 1:28:24.570 --> 1:28:26.490 marching against the war in Vietnam. 1:28:26.650 --> 1:28:26.849 Yeah. 1:28:27.410 --> 1:28:31.630 But we do many things every day that are protected 1:28:31.670 --> 1:28:34.450 by the First Amendment, not just, you know, posting on 1:28:34.750 --> 1:28:40.240 the Internet. Not just, you know, having privacy protected. with 1:28:40.300 --> 1:28:43.389 respect to who we're calling, right? Being permitted to make 1:28:43.810 --> 1:28:48.850 phone calls to anyone we want. Like a birthday party 1:28:49.290 --> 1:28:54.390 is a First Amendment protected gathering, right? Our right to assemble, 1:28:54.970 --> 1:29:00.780 our right to free association, right? And so having an 1:29:01.020 --> 1:29:10.400 incursion into those protections, any incursion into those protections has 1:29:10.820 --> 1:29:15.730 implications for all of those other things. And if we 1:29:15.860 --> 1:29:18.450 stop paying attention and we say, oh, this is sort 1:29:18.470 --> 1:29:22.969 of a punchline, right? Oh, Macklemore's being canceled by the 1:29:23.030 --> 1:29:27.930 rich right-wing stadium owners. And we don't look at the 1:29:27.970 --> 1:29:31.240 fact that There is a public performance that is being 1:29:31.320 --> 1:29:38.820 canceled by potentially the government. We're missing a whole range 1:29:39.600 --> 1:29:45.689 of risks because what's at stake is not Macklemore's career. 1:29:46.470 --> 1:29:53.269 What's at stake is the ability of all of the 1:29:53.330 --> 1:30:01.900 rest of us to freely associate to petition the government, 1:30:01.920 --> 1:30:08.280 to believe the things that we believe without being censored, 1:30:09.240 --> 1:30:24.290 without being punished for doing so. One of the other 1:30:24.370 --> 1:30:28.780 things that deserves to be said here is One of 1:30:28.840 --> 1:30:31.620 the reasons that this is a little bit confusing and 1:30:31.660 --> 1:30:35.450 that the waters are so muddied is this issue that 1:30:35.490 --> 1:30:39.090 I referred to a minute ago with respect to these 1:30:39.290 --> 1:30:46.520 publicly owned stadiums leasing out digital authority to these third 1:30:46.600 --> 1:30:47.559 party companies. 1:30:47.720 --> 1:30:47.980 Right. 1:30:48.000 --> 1:30:48.600 Yeah. 1:30:49.160 --> 1:30:53.620 Are private and which are as non-government entities are not 1:30:53.720 --> 1:30:58.460 subject to the constraints of the First Amendment. That's not 1:30:58.500 --> 1:31:03.060 a problem with the First Amendment. That's a problem with 1:31:03.080 --> 1:31:08.519 the privatization of public life. And I think we're seeing 1:31:08.590 --> 1:31:11.769 that in a lot of other realms as well. So, 1:31:11.830 --> 1:31:16.809 for example, as we see traditional government functions being more 1:31:16.890 --> 1:31:23.610 and more assumed by private utilities, we have a situation 1:31:23.670 --> 1:31:27.050 where what, you know, 40 years ago might have been 1:31:27.800 --> 1:31:33.280 people petitioning the government not to build a pipeline, right? 1:31:33.680 --> 1:31:37.720 That would have been a First Amendment protected gathering, right? 1:31:37.760 --> 1:31:41.640 We might have a protest at a government building. That 1:31:41.680 --> 1:31:45.080 would be protected by the First Amendment. Now, if you 1:31:45.120 --> 1:31:48.650 have a group of people who want to protest, for example, 1:31:49.350 --> 1:31:54.530 a pipeline, that whole process beginning to end may be 1:31:54.550 --> 1:32:01.100 so problematic controlled by a private corporation that there's no 1:32:01.240 --> 1:32:04.070 government building to protest at. 1:32:04.010 --> 1:32:04.790 Anymore, right? 1:32:04.930 --> 1:32:08.210 And so what would have otherwise been a First Amendment 1:32:08.250 --> 1:32:12.809 protected protest is now a bunch of trespassing charges, right? 1:32:12.870 --> 1:32:16.410 Because the place that people are going to do that protest, 1:32:16.490 --> 1:32:21.179 to carry out that protest, may be private property, right? Yeah. 1:32:21.650 --> 1:32:24.160 You know, we're no longer petitioning the government. Now we're 1:32:24.200 --> 1:32:27.610 petitioning you know, energy transfer partners. 1:32:28.330 --> 1:32:30.650 This sort of, you know, raises this question. On the 1:32:30.750 --> 1:32:33.059 one hand, I'm like, oh, I'm not as worried about, 1:32:33.150 --> 1:32:36.340 you know, Robert Kraft getting to say, oh, Macklemore's not 1:32:36.500 --> 1:32:40.360 welcome at Gillette Stadium. I'm thinking about the ways in 1:32:40.420 --> 1:32:44.320 which he's able to use his wealth and capital to 1:32:44.800 --> 1:32:48.420 sort of manipulate the situation with government entities or call 1:32:48.500 --> 1:32:51.920 on his NFL buddies to kick them out in other places. 1:32:52.710 --> 1:32:56.280 But there is also a consideration around the concentration of 1:32:56.360 --> 1:33:01.660 wealth and the ways in which privatization is rapidly happening 1:33:01.800 --> 1:33:05.900 in various different instances across the country. And at what 1:33:05.939 --> 1:33:08.660 point do you see the shrinking of the public square 1:33:08.850 --> 1:33:11.930 just generally across the board and the ways in which 1:33:11.990 --> 1:33:16.350 billionaires are then able to control the narrative through that ownership? 1:33:17.090 --> 1:33:20.470 Yeah. I think one of the other things that is 1:33:20.550 --> 1:33:23.799 worth pointing out is A lot of times when we're 1:33:23.810 --> 1:33:30.040 talking about First Amendment retaliation or, you know, what we're 1:33:30.100 --> 1:33:35.959 seeing here, right, where you see an organization, public or private, 1:33:36.600 --> 1:33:40.840 engage in this kind of really obvious censorship on the 1:33:40.880 --> 1:33:47.010 basis of viewpoint. We usually do not see the kind 1:33:47.050 --> 1:33:50.060 of smoking gun violence But, you know, the putting it 1:33:50.120 --> 1:33:53.620 in an email and saying, I don't want to see 1:33:53.720 --> 1:33:58.550 this individual being allowed to perform for the following reason, 1:33:58.590 --> 1:34:01.070 which is that he expressed solidarity with Palestine. 1:34:01.410 --> 1:34:01.650 Right. 1:34:01.950 --> 1:34:05.950 We usually see at least a little bit more. Well, 1:34:06.110 --> 1:34:07.990 usually we don't have a smoking gun email. 1:34:08.310 --> 1:34:11.050 Yeah. Or talking to the press about it. 1:34:12.370 --> 1:34:14.729 And I think that one of the things that's actually 1:34:14.810 --> 1:34:19.560 unusual about this situation is that that maybe just due 1:34:19.650 --> 1:34:23.229 to wealth and power, Robert Kraft didn't have any compunction 1:34:23.890 --> 1:34:27.729 or concern about very publicly saying, I don't want this 1:34:27.830 --> 1:34:32.769 to happen because I am offended personally by the political 1:34:32.830 --> 1:34:34.450 content of his speech. 1:34:35.100 --> 1:34:35.360 Yeah. 1:34:35.640 --> 1:34:39.439 And I would say, you know, typically people who are 1:34:39.640 --> 1:34:42.040 at least in government who have the kind of power 1:34:42.060 --> 1:34:45.979 know better than to say it. The quiet part out loud. 1:34:46.260 --> 1:34:46.520 Yeah. 1:34:46.580 --> 1:34:49.360 And I think it's sort of interesting, I guess, just 1:34:49.400 --> 1:34:55.939 that the billionaire class has become so comfortable with their 1:34:55.979 --> 1:35:01.660 own strength, I guess, that they're not concerned about being 1:35:02.420 --> 1:35:08.700 publicly very honest about their desire to censor certain people. 1:35:09.680 --> 1:35:14.490 And so, you know, In this instance, it may actually 1:35:14.550 --> 1:35:19.320 be an interesting opportunity just because some of these stadiums 1:35:19.780 --> 1:35:22.740 are publicly owned. And so to the extent that those 1:35:22.800 --> 1:35:27.260 stadiums can be shown to have canceled the show under 1:35:27.320 --> 1:35:31.720 pressure from this private actor and on the basis of 1:35:31.740 --> 1:35:39.370 that private actor's sort of personal convictions, it does create 1:35:39.410 --> 1:35:45.100 an interesting opportunity. You had said something about not being 1:35:45.360 --> 1:35:49.940 clear on what the leases were and the arrangements and contracts. 1:35:49.979 --> 1:35:54.150 And I am also not clear on what those contracts are, 1:35:54.200 --> 1:35:59.580 how they might implicate First Amendment concerns or undermine First 1:35:59.640 --> 1:36:04.559 Amendment rights. But if there were to be, for example, 1:36:05.560 --> 1:36:09.500 a lawsuit filed about it, some of that stuff would 1:36:09.540 --> 1:36:13.520 come out in discovery in the process of turning over evidence. 1:36:13.600 --> 1:36:17.439 And so if nothing else, I kind of hope that 1:36:17.540 --> 1:36:21.660 one of the impact litigation outfits does file a suit, 1:36:22.020 --> 1:36:26.480 not because I am concerned about vindicating Macklemore's First Amendment rights, 1:36:27.020 --> 1:36:31.490 but because I think we need to really be vigilant 1:36:32.310 --> 1:36:38.610 and alert to the actual legal mechanisms by which the 1:36:39.189 --> 1:36:45.320 government is performing an end run around constraints on state power. 1:36:46.740 --> 1:36:49.599 To wrap this episode up, I just wanted to highlight again, 1:36:49.800 --> 1:36:51.920 although it may feel a bit silly to talk about 1:36:51.979 --> 1:36:55.380 all this in the context of McLemore, a multimillionaire, I 1:36:55.800 --> 1:36:59.160 think the point is that this sets a bad precedent. Notably, 1:36:59.240 --> 1:37:03.979 we've witnessed crackdowns on university students over Palestine solidarity protests. 1:37:04.470 --> 1:37:06.530 There was a new ruling against a student from the 1:37:06.610 --> 1:37:10.130 University of Texas Austin just last week. There may still 1:37:10.170 --> 1:37:14.229 be open questions about these stadiums and their complicated contract arrangements, 1:37:14.590 --> 1:37:17.630 but either way, the wealthy are wielding influence over the 1:37:17.670 --> 1:37:20.750 public square. With all that said, here is Mo with 1:37:20.870 --> 1:37:21.630 one final note. 1:37:23.010 --> 1:37:26.950 I would just like your listeners to be alert to 1:37:27.110 --> 1:37:31.889 all of the ways in which our daily lives are 1:37:32.570 --> 1:37:37.200 frankly made possible. by First Amendment protections that we don't 1:37:37.320 --> 1:37:41.570 think about very often. And I would like to plug 1:37:41.610 --> 1:37:47.450 the concept and the practice of not talking to law 1:37:47.689 --> 1:37:52.090 enforcement until you have had an opportunity to consult with counsel. 1:37:52.650 --> 1:37:53.940 Yeah, always good. 1:38:05.660 --> 1:38:09.140 Hello and welcome to It Could Happen Here. My name's 1:38:09.200 --> 1:38:11.700 Kim Kelly and I'll be your host for today's episode. 1:38:12.620 --> 1:38:16.620 To introduce myself, I'm a labor journalist, I'm the author 1:38:16.650 --> 1:38:18.830 of a book called Fight Like Hell, The Untold History 1:38:18.850 --> 1:38:21.950 of American Labor, and I'm a third generation union member 1:38:22.050 --> 1:38:27.130 based in Philly. Obviously, go birds. And I'm just over 1:38:27.170 --> 1:38:28.890 the moon to be back here in the cool zone. 1:38:28.910 --> 1:38:32.680 Shout out to Sophie, Robert, James, and everyone else for 1:38:32.700 --> 1:38:35.200 letting me Kool-Aid man my way onto their network now 1:38:35.260 --> 1:38:37.380 and again to catch you up on what's been happening 1:38:37.420 --> 1:38:39.820 in the labor movement in the U.S. and otherwise. If 1:38:40.840 --> 1:38:43.460 you've been paying attention, you'll already know September was a 1:38:43.620 --> 1:38:47.300 very busy month. But if you haven't, well, that's what 1:38:47.320 --> 1:38:50.979 I'm here for. So let's start off with some good news. 1:38:52.120 --> 1:38:54.470 And look, I'll throw you a bone. Here's a quick 1:38:54.570 --> 1:38:58.350 one for the gamers. In a big dub for tech organizing, 1:38:58.350 --> 1:39:02.969 1,900 video game workers at Activision Blizzard have just won 1:39:03.010 --> 1:39:07.669 their first union contract. Hell yeah. Workers at the company 1:39:07.729 --> 1:39:10.510 have been organizing in various ways since 2021, but they 1:39:11.630 --> 1:39:15.089 formally unionized with the Communication Workers of America in 2024. 1:39:15.090 --> 1:39:18.740 So it's been a long time coming. This shiny new 1:39:18.780 --> 1:39:22.700 contract includes a lot of good stuff. They got protections 1:39:22.740 --> 1:39:26.849 for remote workers, huge for the tech world, and against outsourcing. 1:39:27.470 --> 1:39:31.320 They got some language around AI development. They got a 1:39:31.400 --> 1:39:36.030 three-day in-office hybrid work week, which, damn, I feel like 1:39:36.490 --> 1:39:38.889 the four-day work week is still a huge pipe dream. 1:39:38.910 --> 1:39:42.310 These guys are out here doing three. Unions are good, 1:39:42.729 --> 1:39:45.430 you know? And they even got May Day off as 1:39:45.470 --> 1:39:46.330 a paid holiday. 1:39:47.070 --> 1:39:48.450 It's really great work all around. 1:39:48.470 --> 1:39:51.320 You love to see it. May a thousand more tech 1:39:51.360 --> 1:39:57.860 worker unions bloom. Speaking of contracts, this is a big one. 1:39:57.860 --> 1:40:03.269 800 Walmart workers at a distribution center in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, 1:40:03.770 --> 1:40:07.750 have just won that company's first ever union contract in 1:40:07.790 --> 1:40:12.190 North America. Now, Walmart has long been the labor movement's 1:40:12.250 --> 1:40:15.950 white whale. It's one of the largest employers in the world. 1:40:16.030 --> 1:40:19.650 It's run by evil Arkansas billionaires who hate unions. Its 1:40:19.689 --> 1:40:23.250 workers regularly make the news for the despicably low wages 1:40:23.290 --> 1:40:26.950 that those rich people pay them. But organizers in the U.S. 1:40:27.110 --> 1:40:30.450 have yet to crack the retail giant. And look, it's 1:40:30.490 --> 1:40:33.570 not for lack of trying. In the past, Walmart has 1:40:33.610 --> 1:40:37.900 simply shut down stores who have tried to unionize. For example, 1:40:37.979 --> 1:40:42.490 back in the year 2000, which is so much further 1:40:42.600 --> 1:40:46.240 away than it really feels like it should be. Back 1:40:46.280 --> 1:40:49.440 in the year 2000, after meat cutters at a Texas 1:40:49.479 --> 1:40:54.440 location voted to unionize, the company eliminated its entire meat 1:40:54.479 --> 1:40:58.620 department in Texas and in five other states for good measure. 1:40:59.400 --> 1:41:00.820 I'm thinking about it. I don't think we have a 1:41:00.860 --> 1:41:05.140 meat department in South Philly. Like imagine cutting out an 1:41:05.220 --> 1:41:09.889 entire section of your store, of your enormous store, nationwide 1:41:09.990 --> 1:41:13.349 retail chain because a handful of workers in one place 1:41:13.390 --> 1:41:16.130 were like, hey, what if you treated us a little better? 1:41:16.150 --> 1:41:20.189 It's petty and it's cruel and it's very on brand 1:41:20.210 --> 1:41:24.520 for Walmart. So folks are understandably very excited to see 1:41:25.320 --> 1:41:29.020 workers in Canada sticking it to them. And when the 1:41:29.140 --> 1:41:33.000 Ontario Union Drive went public two years ago, of course 1:41:33.100 --> 1:41:36.260 Walmart rushed to punish those workers and did its damnedest 1:41:36.280 --> 1:41:41.840 to bust their union drive. But Importantly, this time, those 1:41:41.920 --> 1:41:46.479 union busting efforts failed. So we can only assume that 1:41:46.500 --> 1:41:51.120 the Walton clan is hopping mad about the whole situation. Again, 1:41:51.350 --> 1:41:55.250 love to see it. And honestly, now that our Canadian 1:41:55.310 --> 1:41:59.110 counterparts have notched this major win, I'm really curious to 1:41:59.150 --> 1:42:01.510 see what kind of organizing efforts we might see here 1:42:01.550 --> 1:42:06.030 in the US. I mean, when Amazon workers in Staten 1:42:06.140 --> 1:42:10.490 Island unionized, they set off a little chain reaction. When 1:42:10.729 --> 1:42:14.830 Starbucks workers in Buffalo unionized, they sent off a big 1:42:14.910 --> 1:42:18.220 chain reaction. You know, these guys are over the border, 1:42:18.300 --> 1:42:20.340 but it's only a few hundred miles from New York. 1:42:20.420 --> 1:42:24.540 It's not that far. Could this contract in Ontario be 1:42:24.580 --> 1:42:28.360 the beginning of a domino effect? Are we finally going 1:42:28.380 --> 1:42:32.719 to unionize Walmart? Look, it would take a lot of doing, 1:42:32.820 --> 1:42:36.330 but you know, Someone's got to be the first, and 1:42:36.490 --> 1:42:40.070 now that someone's proved it can be done, look, I'm 1:42:40.090 --> 1:42:43.710 just saying, a girl can dream. Speaking of New York, 1:42:44.350 --> 1:42:48.380 a couple hundred miles south in New York State, caregivers 1:42:48.450 --> 1:42:52.840 with the state's Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program have filed 1:42:52.900 --> 1:42:59.420 for a union election with 1199-SCIU. CDPAP is a Medicaid 1:42:59.479 --> 1:43:02.820 program that allows folks who are eligible for home care 1:43:02.860 --> 1:43:07.230 services to to train and choose and hire their own 1:43:07.320 --> 1:43:12.670 in-home caregivers, which can include family members and friends. So 1:43:12.689 --> 1:43:17.090 it's always exciting when we see overworked, underpaid workers organizing 1:43:17.130 --> 1:43:20.610 and fighting for better. But the sheer scale of this 1:43:20.710 --> 1:43:25.370 particular union drive is honestly incredible. And it's legit historic. 1:43:26.189 --> 1:43:31.060 Nearly 70,000 caregivers have already signed union cards signifying that 1:43:31.080 --> 1:43:34.190 they're down to join the union. And if they're successful, 1:43:34.330 --> 1:43:37.490 if the union drive is successful, the union would include 1:43:37.570 --> 1:43:43.010 almost 190,000 workers across the state. This would be the 1:43:43.070 --> 1:43:48.349 largest union election in U.S. history, like all of U.S. 1:43:48.400 --> 1:43:48.839 History. 1:43:49.640 --> 1:43:53.840 And it's being led by workers whose labor is deeply 1:43:53.900 --> 1:43:58.019 undervalued and rendered almost invisible to those outside the walls 1:43:58.100 --> 1:44:01.520 of their unique workplaces, which is They're not working in 1:44:01.560 --> 1:44:03.760 a factory. They're not working in a store. They're not 1:44:03.780 --> 1:44:08.120 in a retail setting. These are workers who are completely atomized, isolated, 1:44:08.260 --> 1:44:11.090 working in people's homes. The fact that they've been able 1:44:11.130 --> 1:44:16.710 to organize an effort this scale is just, it's so impressive. 1:44:17.650 --> 1:44:22.600 And it's long overdue. You know, prior to this, the 1:44:22.660 --> 1:44:25.879 record for the largest election in modern U.S. history happened 1:44:25.900 --> 1:44:32.049 in 1999. when about 74,000 LA County home care workers 1:44:32.189 --> 1:44:38.810 voted to form a union with SEIU. Sound familiar? Nearly 1:44:38.810 --> 1:44:42.240 30 years later, these caregivers in New York are following 1:44:42.280 --> 1:44:45.780 in those footsteps. As the union noted, the filing comes 1:44:45.840 --> 1:44:49.940 at a fraught moment for care in America. Medicaid-funded services 1:44:50.479 --> 1:44:54.809 face devastating federal cuts enacted under the Trump administration. which 1:44:54.850 --> 1:44:59.110 has villainized this workforce with its waste fraud abuse campaign. 1:44:59.950 --> 1:45:03.689 At the same time, the nation's rapidly aging population is 1:45:03.750 --> 1:45:06.490 driving growing demand for care, as they wrote in a 1:45:06.530 --> 1:45:11.130 press release. For many people, this specific program can be 1:45:11.150 --> 1:45:15.150 a lifeline. The difference between seeing your loved one left 1:45:15.600 --> 1:45:19.020 to loneliness and neglect or to having them be cared 1:45:19.080 --> 1:45:22.139 for in their own homes by people they trust who 1:45:22.180 --> 1:45:26.050 love and advocate for them. The difference is really stark, 1:45:26.650 --> 1:45:29.670 but don't take it from me. The union shared a 1:45:29.710 --> 1:45:32.030 few worker and client testimonies with me, and I want 1:45:32.050 --> 1:45:35.950 to share them with you now. So the first quote 1:45:36.520 --> 1:45:40.320 comes from a worker, Angela Jimenez, who was a full-time 1:45:40.360 --> 1:45:44.660 healthcare worker and 1199 SEIU member before she left to 1:45:44.700 --> 1:45:48.560 join the CDPAP program to care for her mom. So 1:45:48.780 --> 1:45:52.630 Angela says, I love taking care of my mother, but 1:45:52.670 --> 1:45:56.679 love doesn't pay the bills. Rent, groceries, and healthcare keep 1:45:56.720 --> 1:46:00.260 going up while our wages aren't keeping pace. Care is 1:46:00.300 --> 1:46:03.280 essential work, but the way we're paid doesn't treat it 1:46:03.340 --> 1:46:07.089 that way. Caregivers like me shouldn't have to struggle to survive. 1:46:08.070 --> 1:46:11.269 I'm joining with caregivers across New York because together, we 1:46:12.030 --> 1:46:14.090 have the power to demand what this work is worth 1:46:14.350 --> 1:46:16.120 and make sure we can afford to keep doing it. 1:46:16.910 --> 1:46:20.490 Soleil Byung, who works as a caregiver for her 79-year-old mother, 1:46:20.520 --> 1:46:25.490 an Alzheimer's patient, says... I need a community. I need 1:46:25.530 --> 1:46:29.670 a pay rise. A labor of love is still labor. 1:46:30.630 --> 1:46:35.150 And 68-year-old Dominique LaRouche is a former caregiver herself who 1:46:35.189 --> 1:46:38.299 was a proud union delegate for 1199 when she was younger. 1:46:39.140 --> 1:46:42.660 Now her daughters care for her through the CDPAP program. 1:46:43.180 --> 1:46:45.600 She says, My daughters help me get out of bed 1:46:45.640 --> 1:46:48.380 in the morning, help me get dressed and brush my hair, 1:46:48.400 --> 1:46:51.000 and help me cook meals from our culture that I 1:46:51.060 --> 1:46:54.200 enjoy eating. but what they really give me is the 1:46:54.240 --> 1:46:57.840 chance to live my life. Because of my daughters, I 1:46:57.860 --> 1:47:00.880 can see the people I love, be part of my community, 1:47:01.320 --> 1:47:05.140 and experience the world around me. CDPAP has given our 1:47:05.180 --> 1:47:09.740 family safety, dignity, and peace of mind. That's why I'm 1:47:09.780 --> 1:47:12.439 proud to stand with my daughters and thousands of other 1:47:12.479 --> 1:47:18.809 CDPAP caregivers as they come together to join 1199 SEIU. So, 1:47:19.290 --> 1:47:22.450 an election date has not yet been set, Under Trump, 1:47:22.470 --> 1:47:25.980 the NLRB remains a clusterfuck. But here's hoping we get 1:47:26.020 --> 1:47:28.600 some more good news on this soon. Because, I don't 1:47:28.640 --> 1:47:30.639 know about you, but I feel like the working class 1:47:30.700 --> 1:47:33.840 could really use a win. And an historic union win. 1:47:33.860 --> 1:47:38.160 That would feel pretty good right about now. And speaking 1:47:38.200 --> 1:47:42.250 of caregiving, once again, I've got to shout out National 1:47:42.290 --> 1:47:46.210 Nurses United, the largest union of registered nurses in the U.S., 1:47:46.670 --> 1:47:50.960 for continuing to just be incredibly based. This time, they're 1:47:50.979 --> 1:47:54.860 leading a week of action against Peter Thiel's data-gobbling surveillance 1:47:54.900 --> 1:47:59.910 demons at Palantir. The tech company has happily and profitably 1:48:00.410 --> 1:48:03.610 provided technology to ICE to surveil and target immigrants in 1:48:03.630 --> 1:48:06.690 the U.S. and to Israel's Ministry of Defense to use 1:48:06.710 --> 1:48:11.479 in its ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. As Truthout reported, 1:48:11.490 --> 1:48:16.000 the unit is pushing public institutions, including hospitals and other 1:48:16.030 --> 1:48:20.679 healthcare providers, to end contracts and partnerships with Palantir and 1:48:20.689 --> 1:48:24.099 to divest from the company. Unlike many people in power 1:48:24.380 --> 1:48:28.280 in and outside the labor movement, NNU has not been 1:48:28.340 --> 1:48:32.520 shy about speaking out against these atrocities. In August, they 1:48:32.540 --> 1:48:36.160 called out Israel's bombing of hospitals, schools, and public infrastructure. 1:48:36.939 --> 1:48:41.750 And their executive director, Kunit Maharaj, said plainly that, quote, 1:48:42.170 --> 1:48:46.660 the intentional bombing of hospitals, schools, and public infrastructure necessary 1:48:46.700 --> 1:48:51.100 for basic living are war crimes against humanity. The Israeli 1:48:51.140 --> 1:48:54.550 government must be held accountable for these atrocities and the 1:48:54.600 --> 1:48:58.650 genocide must stop. Nurses and caregivers truly are the best 1:48:58.710 --> 1:49:01.870 of us, man. Now, hold that thought while we take 1:49:01.890 --> 1:49:16.750 a quick little ad break. Hello again. You're still listening 1:49:16.810 --> 1:49:19.299 to It Could Happen Here, and I'm still Kim Kelly. 1:49:20.220 --> 1:49:22.740 Now that we've started off with a little treat, let's 1:49:22.780 --> 1:49:24.920 get into some of the bad news that came crawling 1:49:24.979 --> 1:49:27.560 out of the labor world this past month. So you 1:49:27.600 --> 1:49:30.220 know how oil has gotten really expensive because of the 1:49:30.939 --> 1:49:35.089 US-Israel's fun new forever war in Iran? Well, when oil 1:49:35.100 --> 1:49:37.870 is available, someone's got to get it from point A 1:49:37.890 --> 1:49:40.680 to point B. And I don't know about you, but 1:49:40.740 --> 1:49:43.559 I think it's probably for the best that those someones' 1:49:43.810 --> 1:49:48.170 working conditions are safe and stable and decently paid, so 1:49:48.189 --> 1:49:50.130 they don't have to go drive for DoorDash when they're 1:49:50.170 --> 1:49:54.290 not navigating huge tankers full of toxic and economically invaluable 1:49:54.390 --> 1:49:59.250 fossil fuels. You know, seems like common sense. Given all that, 1:49:59.490 --> 1:50:02.650 and the inherent volatility of the job, we also probably 1:50:02.689 --> 1:50:05.309 want them to be protected by a good union contract, right? 1:50:06.479 --> 1:50:10.089 That's what deck officers at Alaska Tanker Company and Overseas 1:50:10.130 --> 1:50:14.170 Shipholding Group thought too, which is why an overwhelming percentage 1:50:14.189 --> 1:50:18.670 of them chose to unionize with the International Organization of Masters, Mates, 1:50:18.729 --> 1:50:22.790 and Pilots back in 2024. As a quick aside, I've 1:50:22.810 --> 1:50:25.520 been to a lot of union halls, but the MMP 1:50:25.610 --> 1:50:28.700 union hall is definitely one of the coolest. They have 1:50:28.840 --> 1:50:32.560 so many model ships, like more than you can ever imagine. 1:50:33.160 --> 1:50:37.290 But anyway, so the Mates voted to unionize. The NLRB 1:50:37.350 --> 1:50:39.970 ordered their employees to recognize the union and start bargaining. 1:50:40.710 --> 1:50:45.370 And then, radio silence. It's been two years, and these 1:50:45.430 --> 1:50:49.760 workers are still without a first contract. As the union noted, 1:50:50.310 --> 1:50:53.800 their fight now reflects the same first contract crisis seen 1:50:53.860 --> 1:50:58.380 at Amazon, Starbucks, and other major employers. Corporations drag in 1:50:58.400 --> 1:51:01.599 their feet, knowing they're supposed to be bargaining, knowing that 1:51:01.620 --> 1:51:04.220 they should be treating their workers with respect. It's like 1:51:04.600 --> 1:51:08.000 the same old story, it just keeps repeating and repeating, 1:51:08.060 --> 1:51:11.520 repeating in different industries and in different areas. And it's like, 1:51:11.580 --> 1:51:14.979 we can see you. We can see you doing this. 1:51:15.780 --> 1:51:18.990 Being a bad boss, being a union buster, dragging out 1:51:19.030 --> 1:51:21.910 these union contracts is not a good look. And the 1:51:21.930 --> 1:51:24.130 employees are not going to just sit there and take it. 1:51:24.750 --> 1:51:26.850 In the case of these deck officers in the Masters 1:51:26.890 --> 1:51:32.030 Mason Pilots Union, they pointed out that the company's subsidiaries... 1:51:31.950 --> 1:51:36.139 also received millions of dollars in federal subsidies and said 1:51:36.189 --> 1:51:41.080 pretty plainly that, quote, companies benefiting from taxpayer support should 1:51:41.200 --> 1:51:44.960 not be permitted to violate federal labor laws while denying 1:51:45.060 --> 1:51:48.420 basic bargaining rights to the American mariners risking their lives 1:51:48.479 --> 1:51:53.820 at sea. Now, that latter point is important because, like, again, 1:51:53.850 --> 1:51:59.670 this bizarre war that we've become trapped within, that impacts 1:51:59.710 --> 1:52:04.849 them pretty significantly. Word recently broke that an Iranian military 1:52:04.900 --> 1:52:09.790 official identified one of these companies, Overseas Shipholding Group, as 1:52:09.850 --> 1:52:14.390 a candidate for potential retaliatory measures. Which is not what 1:52:14.430 --> 1:52:17.689 you want to hear when you're a person who works 1:52:17.770 --> 1:52:21.389 on an oil tanker. That's not, like, good. 1:52:22.070 --> 1:52:23.470 It's, frankly, terrifying. 1:52:23.490 --> 1:52:26.760 Especially given how hard the U.S. military is fucking up 1:52:26.810 --> 1:52:31.730 this entire thing. So, look, while we're still... a little 1:52:31.770 --> 1:52:35.090 ways away from transitioning to renewable energy while we're still 1:52:35.130 --> 1:52:38.310 dependent on oil. We have the world we have right now. 1:52:38.330 --> 1:52:41.610 The folks who are working on these oil tankers and 1:52:41.689 --> 1:52:44.689 risking their lives so people can drive five minutes down 1:52:44.710 --> 1:52:48.430 the street to go to fucking Target. Like, let's take 1:52:48.450 --> 1:52:51.100 care of them. Let's help them out. The mates are 1:52:51.150 --> 1:52:54.360 asking folks to sign their petition that they have calling 1:52:54.400 --> 1:52:57.960 on the companies to stop stalling and start bargaining. So 1:52:58.380 --> 1:53:01.090 please sign their petition. We'll drop it in the show 1:53:01.130 --> 1:53:05.549 notes for you. So unfortunately, there really is never any 1:53:05.670 --> 1:53:08.629 shortage of stories about rich people being evil to workers. 1:53:09.410 --> 1:53:12.410 But the big bad villain of this past week or 1:53:12.470 --> 1:53:16.900 so comes from a rather unlikely source. On September 23rd, 1:53:17.580 --> 1:53:21.939 journalist Amir Kafagi published a blockbuster story for Documented New 1:53:21.979 --> 1:53:27.500 York titled Cesar Alarzon Dismantles Unions. Why is he now 1:53:27.580 --> 1:53:30.729 creating them? that you truly need to go read because 1:53:30.770 --> 1:53:34.300 it is just wild. And before we get into it, 1:53:34.570 --> 1:53:36.070 I want to make sure we're all on the same page. 1:53:36.420 --> 1:53:39.200 So we're going to take a minute to talk about 1:53:39.640 --> 1:53:44.280 union raids. So generally speaking, unions are supposed to play 1:53:44.340 --> 1:53:48.360 nice together, what with their shared history and stated goals 1:53:48.420 --> 1:53:51.439 and the whole solidarity thing. And a part of that 1:53:51.700 --> 1:53:55.680 is agreeing not to try and steal another union's members. 1:53:56.680 --> 1:54:00.080 Doing so is called raiding, and it's a very unchill move. 1:54:00.900 --> 1:54:03.890 Back in the battle days, unions went to war over 1:54:03.950 --> 1:54:07.849 stuff like that, and things got real bloody. Now it's 1:54:08.130 --> 1:54:12.479 tactically legal, but it's still very much frowned upon. There's 1:54:12.500 --> 1:54:15.479 a little less dynamite involved, but still not a good look. 1:54:16.000 --> 1:54:19.060 So given all the risks... Why would a union bother 1:54:19.180 --> 1:54:22.680 trying to go raiding? Why would they try and go 1:54:22.760 --> 1:54:26.320 to a unionized workplace and try to displace the union 1:54:26.439 --> 1:54:28.620 that was there before them and swoop in and take 1:54:28.660 --> 1:54:32.370 their members? Seems like a weird thing to do, no? Well, 1:54:32.550 --> 1:54:36.350 it usually comes down to math. More members means more 1:54:36.430 --> 1:54:41.350 dues money, and more money plus bigger membership means more power, 1:54:41.650 --> 1:54:46.880 politically and otherwise. Sometimes, though, the math falls apart And 1:54:46.960 --> 1:54:50.180 things seem to turn upside down. In the case of 1:54:50.240 --> 1:54:53.860 César Alarçon, it seems like he's purely in it for 1:54:53.880 --> 1:54:56.970 the love of the game. And that game, for him, 1:54:57.400 --> 1:55:01.480 is union busting. As Kefagi uncovered, Alarçon has had a 1:55:01.560 --> 1:55:06.620 long career in quote-unquote union avoidance, a sanitized term that 1:55:06.660 --> 1:55:09.040 consultants and their clients like to trot out to make 1:55:09.080 --> 1:55:12.860 their slimy actions seem a little less contemptible. It's a 1:55:13.040 --> 1:55:17.020 union avoidance consultant's job to persuade workers not to unionize. 1:55:17.440 --> 1:55:20.520 When you hear about captive audience meetings and things like that, 1:55:21.010 --> 1:55:23.830 these are the people that are parachuting into workplaces to 1:55:23.850 --> 1:55:26.710 try and convince workers that unions are actually a bad thing. 1:55:26.930 --> 1:55:31.130 That's their whole job. It's a very lucrative business that 1:55:31.190 --> 1:55:36.040 rakes in about $ 1. 5 billion a year from anxious anti-union 1:55:36.080 --> 1:55:40.100 employers who somehow have not realized that they could simply 1:55:40.780 --> 1:55:43.480 pay the workers the wage increases that they're probably going 1:55:43.520 --> 1:55:46.260 to be looking for in their first union contract and 1:55:46.360 --> 1:55:49.770 save a bunch of dough. But, you know, captives of 1:55:49.830 --> 1:55:54.150 industry are not necessarily renowned for their adherence to logic 1:55:55.010 --> 1:55:59.790 and empathy. So that's where the union avoidance consultant comes in. 1:56:00.990 --> 1:56:04.550 With that kind of background, why then did Alisson walk 1:56:04.610 --> 1:56:07.690 into a Golden Crust manufacturing plant in the Bronx and 1:56:08.530 --> 1:56:12.460 identify himself as a representative for Progressive Workers of the 1:56:12.520 --> 1:56:16.900 World Local 311, and start trying to convince the workers there, 1:56:17.160 --> 1:56:21.760 who are already unionized with IBEW Local Union 1430, to 1:56:22.600 --> 1:56:26.310 join his group instead. And how many times has he 1:56:26.350 --> 1:56:30.430 apparently done this before? Like, you'll need to read the 1:56:30.470 --> 1:56:33.230 whole article to find out, but it includes a whole 1:56:33.270 --> 1:56:37.310 lot of twists and turns. There's corruption, there's family drama, 1:56:37.800 --> 1:56:41.940 There's union buster on union buster infighting. There are mafia ties. 1:56:42.500 --> 1:56:45.300 Donald Trump's hatred of unions and workers comes into play. 1:56:45.320 --> 1:56:48.400 The phrase, that's just paperwork, that has nothing to do 1:56:48.420 --> 1:56:51.970 with me, does a lot of heavy lifting. The whole 1:56:52.090 --> 1:56:56.190 sordid tale shows just how low employers and their anti-union 1:56:56.210 --> 1:57:00.190 goons will stoop to assure that workers are kept underpaid, overworked, 1:57:00.450 --> 1:57:04.370 and unrepresented. I'm telling you, you gotta read this thing. 1:57:04.430 --> 1:57:07.280 Shout out to Amir, he rules. Now let's take a 1:57:07.300 --> 1:57:10.000 minute to collect ourselves before we head into our next 1:57:10.040 --> 1:57:25.090 tale of work, wins, and woe. All right, so we 1:57:25.110 --> 1:57:28.570 got some good news. We got some bad news. And 1:57:28.590 --> 1:57:30.550 now I'm going to leave you with some news that's 1:57:30.590 --> 1:57:34.770 neither wholly good nor wholly bad, but definitely something to 1:57:34.790 --> 1:57:40.330 keep an eye on. But first, a rumor. I love gossip, 1:57:40.570 --> 1:57:44.120 and I'm always down to investigate a nice, juicy transportation 1:57:44.160 --> 1:57:47.300 strike rumor. This one's been flying around for the past 1:57:47.340 --> 1:57:50.240 little while, but I'm pretty sure it's a non-starter. In 1:57:51.280 --> 1:57:54.760 a classic case of social media not actually being real life, 1:57:54.780 --> 1:57:58.080 I know, I'm shocked too, news began to spread a 1:57:58.120 --> 1:58:02.540 few weeks ago on Instagram, TikTok, and Reddit that truckers... 1:58:02.580 --> 1:58:06.090 were planning a strike for October 1st to protest skyrocketing 1:58:06.130 --> 1:58:09.890 diesel prices. There's even a goofy AI flyer out there. 1:58:10.380 --> 1:58:14.000 calling on drivers to quote park it stand together make 1:58:14.060 --> 1:58:17.580 our voices heard if a large-scale trucking strike or even 1:58:17.620 --> 1:58:20.820 a partial disruption were to actually happen it could have 1:58:20.840 --> 1:58:23.720 a massive impact and grind the entire economy to a 1:58:23.780 --> 1:58:28.230 standstill transportation logistics workers hold an incredible amount of power 1:58:28.980 --> 1:58:30.640 which is of course why so many of them are 1:58:30.700 --> 1:58:35.040 forbidden from striking under the Railway Labor Act. Truckers, many 1:58:35.060 --> 1:58:38.100 of whom are independent contractors or members of established unions 1:58:38.120 --> 1:58:41.880 like the Teamsters, don't fall under the act and theoretically 1:58:42.060 --> 1:58:45.740 could engage in labor action if they wanted to. They 1:58:45.760 --> 1:58:48.630 just haven't done it yet. I've got to say though, 1:58:49.090 --> 1:58:53.850 if a potentially paradigm-shifting nationwide strike was actually in the works, 1:58:54.770 --> 1:58:57.750 chances are that Facebook wouldn't be the first place you'd 1:58:57.790 --> 1:59:00.730 hear about it. Remember when Joe Biden killed off the 1:59:00.770 --> 1:59:03.510 railroad worker strike before it even had a chance to start? 1:59:04.390 --> 1:59:08.070 The corporate media was flooded for weeks with stories and 1:59:08.130 --> 1:59:13.030 statements justifying that debacle and inadvertently showed how powerful that 1:59:13.070 --> 1:59:17.669 kind of action could be. This might not be legit. 1:59:18.130 --> 1:59:21.770 I would be really surprised if we saw any kind 1:59:21.830 --> 1:59:26.050 of strike activity or stoppage activity on October 1st, but 1:59:26.870 --> 1:59:29.910 you know, That's not to say we'll never see it. 1:59:30.650 --> 1:59:36.080 Much to consider. And speaking of transportation and union busting, 1:59:36.760 --> 1:59:39.360 for our last story of the episode, it's time to 1:59:39.400 --> 1:59:40.780 get into the zone. 1:59:41.580 --> 1:59:42.420 AutoZone. 1:59:43.080 --> 1:59:46.020 Where workers at a location in White Plains, New York, 1:59:46.520 --> 1:59:48.020 just won their union. 1:59:48.460 --> 1:59:48.840 Hell yeah. 1:59:49.420 --> 1:59:52.580 Eleven workers at this small but mighty shop will join 1:59:52.680 --> 1:59:57.280 UAW Local 259, making them the first stores at the 1:59:57.320 --> 2:00:02.580 country's largest auto parts retailer to successfully organize. Now, AutoZone 2:00:02.620 --> 2:00:06.240 execs are not thrilled about the development, and they actually 2:00:06.280 --> 2:00:11.670 wasted over $ 200, 000 trying to keep it from happening. That's right, 2:00:12.090 --> 2:00:14.630 tried to bust the union. They hauled out all the 2:00:14.670 --> 2:00:19.030 classic tactics, captive audience meetings, remember the whole union avoidance 2:00:19.050 --> 2:00:19.990 thing we just talked about? 2:00:20.290 --> 2:00:20.730 That's them. 2:00:21.810 --> 2:00:25.450 In addition to surveillance, threats of discipline and retaliation for 2:00:25.470 --> 2:00:28.400 supporting the union, And they also got a little funky 2:00:28.440 --> 2:00:33.010 with it by flying in 17 different managers from Memphis, 2:00:33.150 --> 2:00:37.970 from Indiana, California, and Florida to lurk around the stores, 2:00:38.790 --> 2:00:41.850 push anti-union propaganda on the workers, and keep an eye 2:00:41.870 --> 2:00:46.870 on their conversations. Honestly, this brings to mind the scenes 2:00:47.150 --> 2:00:51.360 at the first union drive back in Buffalo at Starbucks 2:00:52.080 --> 2:00:55.820 when there was just a flood of managers and execs. 2:00:56.320 --> 2:00:59.160 wandering around the stores, like trying to mop and getting 2:00:59.180 --> 2:01:02.540 underfoot because they were terrified of the thought of having 2:01:02.580 --> 2:01:06.340 to bargain with their workers. A side note, it's still 2:01:06.400 --> 2:01:11.010 fuck Starbucks. We are boycotting Starbucks until Starbucks Workers United 2:01:11.240 --> 2:01:14.930 gets their first contract. Make your coffee at home or 2:01:14.990 --> 2:01:18.490 buy it from a union shop, just not Starbucks. But 2:01:18.830 --> 2:01:22.090 back to the zone. This isn't the first time AutoZone 2:01:22.130 --> 2:01:24.630 execs have locked in to crush a union drive either. 2:01:25.640 --> 2:01:28.520 Back in the early 90s, the Teamsters tried to organize 2:01:28.580 --> 2:01:32.650 one of their distribution centers, but were unsuccessful. Even though 2:01:32.660 --> 2:01:36.290 the union drive failed, the NLRB still dinged the company 2:01:36.350 --> 2:01:40.650 for its unlawful conduct during their union busting spree. I 2:01:40.670 --> 2:01:44.410 guess old habits die hard, because this time around, according 2:01:44.450 --> 2:01:48.640 to Nathan DeKong, a parts equipment manager, AutoZone was trying 2:01:48.680 --> 2:01:52.480 to do everything possible to destroy us, to destroy our union. 2:01:53.310 --> 2:01:55.770 It was a show of force to intimidate us to 2:01:55.810 --> 2:01:58.410 make sure we don't even think about talking about the union. 2:01:58.430 --> 2:02:01.850 That's what you told the chief, a really great labor 2:02:01.900 --> 2:02:04.640 publication that you should also read, who did a great 2:02:04.680 --> 2:02:08.200 story on the whole situation. The workers voted to unionize anyway, 2:02:08.220 --> 2:02:13.040 a historic win that AutoZone celebrated by promptly firing Ducon, 2:02:13.700 --> 2:02:16.820 who was the primary leader of the union drive. The 2:02:16.860 --> 2:02:20.590 company insisted that he was a supervisor and therefore ineligible 2:02:20.650 --> 2:02:24.350 for the unit. which Dukong disputes. He says that he 2:02:24.370 --> 2:02:27.770 did not have firing, hiring, or disciplining power, but did 2:02:27.810 --> 2:02:31.800 try to remedy before the vote by refiling the union petition. 2:02:32.660 --> 2:02:33.140 Didn't work. 2:02:33.960 --> 2:02:37.620 The day that it went public, the manager who fired 2:02:37.660 --> 2:02:40.420 Dukong told him very bluntly that his support for the 2:02:40.540 --> 2:02:44.520 union was why he was being axed. Quote, despite repeated 2:02:44.580 --> 2:02:48.020 instruction not to advocate for the union, you continue to 2:02:48.060 --> 2:02:51.630 participate and or facilitate union activity at the store. 2:02:52.630 --> 2:02:53.130 The horror. 2:02:53.770 --> 2:02:57.330 The chief also reports that days after AutoZone fired DeKong, 2:02:57.850 --> 2:03:01.300 management fired a supervisor at the store for, quote, failing 2:03:01.340 --> 2:03:06.620 to stop the union. It's just ridiculous, you know? Like, 2:03:07.600 --> 2:03:08.580 the whole situation. 2:03:09.100 --> 2:03:10.100 Like, fuck it, relax. 2:03:11.120 --> 2:03:13.510 Like, God forbid you gotta give some workers a raise. 2:03:13.600 --> 2:03:15.290 Eleven workers you gotta deal with. 2:03:15.450 --> 2:03:16.730 Like, grow up. 2:03:17.530 --> 2:03:21.880 But since then, labor has rallied around DeKong. I'm so 2:03:21.940 --> 2:03:24.020 sorry if I'm saying your name incorrectly to you, Nathan. 2:03:24.700 --> 2:03:26.360 Let me know if I fucked it up and I 2:03:26.860 --> 2:03:30.240 owe you a drink. But a GoFundMe has been created 2:03:30.280 --> 2:03:34.230 to support him and other fired workers. It's raised about 2:03:34.230 --> 2:03:38.350 13 grand so far. Phenomenal. Gonna need more because this 2:03:38.590 --> 2:03:41.130 is gonna be a long fight. So we'll pop that 2:03:41.150 --> 2:03:43.090 in the show notes so you can add to that number. 2:03:43.290 --> 2:03:46.680 Let's get it up as high as we can. This 2:03:46.740 --> 2:03:49.520 is a developing story, but it's really been heartening to 2:03:49.560 --> 2:03:52.190 see how much love Dukong and his co-workers have been getting. 2:03:52.200 --> 2:03:56.770 And it makes sense. His union organizing story is very 2:03:56.870 --> 2:04:01.450 modern and very relatable and very New York. He's gotten 2:04:01.470 --> 2:04:04.730 support from artist and director Boots Riley, whose latest film, 2:04:04.930 --> 2:04:08.150 I Love Boosters, Dukong cited as a direct influence on 2:04:08.170 --> 2:04:11.380 his decision to try to organize, which is so cute 2:04:11.600 --> 2:04:14.680 and so timely. Like, damn, that John just came out. 2:04:15.480 --> 2:04:17.400 It's a great movie. You should go see it. And, 2:04:17.540 --> 2:04:20.860 you know, maybe you'll get some ideas. On the organizing side, 2:04:20.900 --> 2:04:23.460 he also got an early boost from the Emergency Workplace 2:04:23.560 --> 2:04:27.080 Organizing Committee. Great project that you should look up if 2:04:27.140 --> 2:04:30.680 you are union curious. He connected with them through his 2:04:30.740 --> 2:04:34.860 work as a volunteer field lead for now Mayor Zoran 2:04:34.880 --> 2:04:39.280 Mamdani's successful campaign. It just goes to show there are 2:04:39.300 --> 2:04:42.590 a million ways to get started in organizing. And a 2:04:42.610 --> 2:04:45.020 Boots Riley movie marathon might not be a bad way 2:04:45.060 --> 2:04:48.640 to start. As for DeKong and the UAW, they're not 2:04:48.680 --> 2:04:52.280 backing down. As he told the chief, anybody who's interested 2:04:52.300 --> 2:04:55.770 in forming union at their AutoZone, we want anybody interested 2:04:55.810 --> 2:04:58.970 in that to reach out to us. Their union busting 2:04:59.010 --> 2:05:01.730 certainly works, but not well enough. 2:05:02.890 --> 2:05:03.270 Boom. 2:05:04.150 --> 2:05:07.440 How could you not want to support that dude? That's 2:05:07.520 --> 2:05:10.030 it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in. 2:05:10.570 --> 2:05:12.300 And if any of this has caught your interest, you 2:05:12.320 --> 2:05:14.080 want to do some more reading, you want to dig 2:05:14.120 --> 2:05:15.770 into it, you want to talk to your coworkers a 2:05:15.770 --> 2:05:20.550 little bit, then my job here is done. Until next time. 2:05:33.550 --> 2:05:37.010 This is It Could Happen Here, Executive Disorder, our weekly 2:05:37.030 --> 2:05:40.110 newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world, 2:05:40.170 --> 2:05:43.110 and what this means for you. I'm Garrison Davis. Today 2:05:43.130 --> 2:05:48.210 I'm joined by Robert Evans and special correspondent Bridget Todd. Welcome. 2:05:48.910 --> 2:05:51.270 Thanks so much for having me. Excited to talk through 2:05:51.310 --> 2:05:54.080 some of the worst stuff imaginable with you fine folks. 2:05:54.580 --> 2:05:58.660 Yeah, it is a hard week. This week that we 2:05:58.700 --> 2:06:03.000 are covering is September 23rd to September 30th. I'll start 2:06:03.020 --> 2:06:05.470 with a few shorter news stories that I think our 2:06:05.650 --> 2:06:10.550 little panel here might find interesting. On Tuesday, Donald Trump, 2:06:10.810 --> 2:06:15.930 the president, launched America.gov, a website to host an AI 2:06:15.970 --> 2:06:19.830 chatbot that pulls information from across the multitude of federal 2:06:19.870 --> 2:06:23.940 government websites. America.gov and this little chatbot probably deserves its 2:06:24.000 --> 2:06:27.740 own focus in a future episode. But also on Tuesday, 2:06:28.100 --> 2:06:33.640 Trump signed an executive order to rename artificial intelligence to superintelligence, 2:06:33.980 --> 2:06:36.640 after running polls on social media for the past week. 2:06:37.480 --> 2:06:40.180 And he also met with the heads of six tech 2:06:40.200 --> 2:06:45.480 companies to sign the, quote, White House Accord on Superintelligence, 2:06:46.510 --> 2:06:53.570 which essentially promotes self-regulation in the AI industry. Speaking of superintelligence, 2:06:53.790 --> 2:06:57.550 under Trump's signature on this document, the United States is 2:06:57.590 --> 2:07:04.380 written as the Unites States. Excellent work there. This document 2:07:04.420 --> 2:07:08.640 was also signed by Sundar Pichai, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, 2:07:08.660 --> 2:07:13.350 Kijensen Huang of NVIDIA, Greg Brockman of OpenAI, and Anthropix 2:07:13.530 --> 2:07:16.970 Dario Amadei. Does anyone have any notes on this little 2:07:17.090 --> 2:07:21.170 chatbot or super intelligence they'd like to add? 2:07:23.050 --> 2:07:26.560 Not really. I mean, what is there to say? 2:07:26.880 --> 2:07:27.650 We can just move on. 2:07:27.650 --> 2:07:28.140 Yeah. 2:07:28.160 --> 2:07:28.420 Yeah. 2:07:29.180 --> 2:07:32.740 Now, Dario's inclusion in the White House Accords is a 2:07:32.760 --> 2:07:36.770 little funny because earlier this week, a memo circulating the 2:07:36.810 --> 2:07:40.610 White House named Dario as a leading figure in the 2:07:40.690 --> 2:07:45.450 cultish effective altruism movement, which, according to the memo, is 2:07:45.490 --> 2:07:49.780 responsible for the AI doom panic threatening technological innovation and 2:07:49.840 --> 2:07:53.800 national security. Robert, if you've not seen this memo, that 2:07:53.820 --> 2:07:57.200 document CloudLink has it there. You should take a look. 2:07:57.260 --> 2:07:58.180 It's pretty funny. 2:07:59.070 --> 2:08:01.070 Oh yes, no, yes. I, I have seen this. Yes. 2:08:01.480 --> 2:08:04.920 The memo covers anthropics ties to effective altruism and identified 2:08:04.940 --> 2:08:09.320 effective altruism as a, quote, heavily male, white, non-religious, politically 2:08:09.360 --> 2:08:12.880 left or center left, and usually vegan or vegetarian. 2:08:14.060 --> 2:08:16.060 I love that they throw in their diet, like a 2:08:16.080 --> 2:08:16.780 little detail. 2:08:16.800 --> 2:08:21.140 And I don't even fully agree with that statement, but okay. 2:08:21.200 --> 2:08:24.950 This memo tracks the, quote, AI doom pipeline back to 2:08:24.990 --> 2:08:31.030 effective altruism, consequentialism, and long-termism based on effective altruism's, quote, 2:08:31.610 --> 2:08:37.380 impartial maximization. Do the most good wherever and whenever it occurs. 2:08:38.020 --> 2:08:41.740 Extend the calculation into the far future through long-termism. enter 2:08:41.800 --> 2:08:45.930 human extinction as the loss of potentially enormous future value, unquote. 2:08:46.910 --> 2:08:49.820 The memo also talks about, you know, shrimp consciousness, bestiality, 2:08:49.840 --> 2:08:53.530 and killing babies, pulling from a variety of effective altruism, 2:08:53.630 --> 2:08:55.370 like thought experiments and writing. 2:08:55.450 --> 2:08:57.990 Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is why I don't really agree 2:08:58.010 --> 2:09:00.150 with calling them even a left or a center left, 2:09:00.190 --> 2:09:02.810 or at least there's elements of that, but there's elements 2:09:02.880 --> 2:09:07.240 of like classic far right, like eugenic thought, right? And 2:09:07.260 --> 2:09:09.040 this document even notes that, you know, it's talking about 2:09:09.060 --> 2:09:11.240 some of the stuff Singer said about disabled kids and 2:09:11.280 --> 2:09:14.060 the like, but they're leaving out, like it's interesting to 2:09:14.080 --> 2:09:16.160 me that this seems to, I haven't done like a 2:09:16.320 --> 2:09:18.520 deep dive, but at least from What I remember and 2:09:18.540 --> 2:09:20.320 from what I'm looking over now, it does not seem 2:09:20.380 --> 2:09:23.490 to be mentioning Nick Bostrom. He's like the guy who 2:09:23.730 --> 2:09:26.770 is generally considered the father of long-termism within the EA 2:09:26.990 --> 2:09:30.680 subculture and is also like the biggest eugenicist within like 2:09:30.700 --> 2:09:32.100 the prominent chunk of that movement. 2:09:33.300 --> 2:09:35.760 Yeah, I mean, it makes sense that the Trump allies 2:09:35.800 --> 2:09:38.140 might not be talking about those aspects of EA. 2:09:38.360 --> 2:09:38.839 Yeah. 2:09:39.140 --> 2:09:43.280 Yeah. 2:09:44.230 --> 2:09:47.510 But a lot of this memo does focus on Anthropic 2:09:47.750 --> 2:09:48.390 and Amadei. 2:09:48.630 --> 2:09:48.930 Yeah. 2:09:49.070 --> 2:09:53.350 Because the government's been beefing with Anthropic for months, especially 2:09:53.390 --> 2:09:56.260 following the Iran war and statements that Anthropic has made 2:09:56.300 --> 2:09:58.840 about military use of their technology. 2:09:58.860 --> 2:09:58.940 Yeah. 2:09:59.330 --> 2:10:03.130 Which has led to the War Department publicly attacking Anthropic and, 2:10:03.390 --> 2:10:06.390 as of last week, effective altruism itself in a series 2:10:06.450 --> 2:10:06.970 of posts. 2:10:06.990 --> 2:10:07.910 What a time to be alive. 2:10:08.430 --> 2:10:11.770 Quote, Americanism, not effective altruism. 2:10:11.790 --> 2:10:11.950 Yeah. 2:10:12.310 --> 2:10:14.750 The United States will continue to be AI dominant. 2:10:15.190 --> 2:10:19.130 We're this close to Pete Hegseth talking about Ayala's birthday 2:10:19.170 --> 2:10:21.890 gangbang as a matter of national security. And I, for one, 2:10:21.970 --> 2:10:24.230 am ready for this glorious day to come. 2:10:24.260 --> 2:10:30.330 LAUGHTER Oh man. Dark timeline. 2:10:30.690 --> 2:10:32.950 I want the younger listeners or anyone who's like, you 2:10:32.970 --> 2:10:35.130 remember like hanging out at parties in your early twenties 2:10:35.190 --> 2:10:38.670 with some like absolute dipshits. Now imagine the president is 2:10:38.730 --> 2:10:41.790 like getting really angry at those dipshits and like you 2:10:41.870 --> 2:10:43.850 hate them, but he's not angry at them for a 2:10:43.930 --> 2:10:46.470 good reason. This is like for those of us who've 2:10:46.490 --> 2:10:48.650 been following the EA movement for years. 2:10:48.670 --> 2:10:49.270 Such a good analogy. 2:10:49.290 --> 2:10:51.750 It's like, well, these guys suck, but not for these reasons. 2:10:55.520 --> 2:10:59.100 The post that they put out, it's clearly AI-generated. 2:10:59.360 --> 2:11:00.000 Oh, got it, yeah. 2:11:00.020 --> 2:11:00.740 People should see it. 2:11:01.200 --> 2:11:04.530 One of them, it almost looks like a really bad, 2:11:04.690 --> 2:11:08.770 over-the-top AI-generated flyer for like a theme night at a nightclub. 2:11:09.520 --> 2:11:10.040 Yeah. 2:11:10.120 --> 2:11:10.400 Yeah. 2:11:10.640 --> 2:11:10.940 Yeah. 2:11:11.300 --> 2:11:13.360 It's pulling from a bunch. I mean, the whole War 2:11:13.380 --> 2:11:15.470 Department feed right now pulls from a whole bunch of 2:11:15.510 --> 2:11:18.470 like what I'll call downstream from telegram aesthetics. 2:11:18.670 --> 2:11:19.010 Yeah. 2:11:19.150 --> 2:11:22.030 And I think these follow that also. These are all 2:11:22.070 --> 2:11:25.050 descended from like the white boy summer aesthetics we were 2:11:25.070 --> 2:11:27.650 seeing four or five years ago. Which, of course, is 2:11:27.690 --> 2:11:31.430 pulling from kind of like nightlife aesthetics as well. Yeah. 2:11:31.630 --> 2:11:33.170 It's a really horrible mix of things. 2:11:33.230 --> 2:11:34.050 It's an Eruberos. 2:11:35.690 --> 2:11:39.430 Another post from the Department of War. The United States 2:11:39.490 --> 2:11:41.990 will never be an effective altruist country. 2:11:42.010 --> 2:11:42.510 I agree. 2:11:42.530 --> 2:11:44.110 Pretty cool. 2:11:44.750 --> 2:11:45.020 Fair. 2:11:45.150 --> 2:11:45.879 He's right, he's right. 2:11:49.580 --> 2:11:54.140 Pretty cool. Moving on. About a week after Pennsylvania Senator 2:11:54.320 --> 2:11:57.430 John Fetterman sent a little video to the Republican Midterm Convention, 2:11:58.030 --> 2:12:01.910 The Intercept reported that Fetterman has been fundraising using GOP 2:12:02.010 --> 2:12:06.370 email lists, with campaign fundraising emails coming from the address, quote, 2:12:06.840 --> 2:12:13.020 info at gopsquad.com. Now, one of these GOP-linked fundraising emails 2:12:13.220 --> 2:12:16.540 said it was from friend of the pod, James's favorite senator, 2:12:17.060 --> 2:12:21.320 Mike Lee, who wrote in this email, quote, friend, I 2:12:21.340 --> 2:12:24.760 just got an email from John. He's basically a Republican now. 2:12:25.240 --> 2:12:28.260 I need your help to draft him. Sign here, unquote. 2:12:28.680 --> 2:12:32.560 And then there's John Fetterman campaign insignias below this little 2:12:32.620 --> 2:12:36.180 email chain. So cool stuff there. Two great tastes that 2:12:36.200 --> 2:12:39.360 go great together, Fetterman and Mike Lee. And while speaking 2:12:39.500 --> 2:12:44.089 at the Texas Tribune Festival this past Sunday, Fetterman did 2:12:44.100 --> 2:12:46.250 a little Freudian slip. Let's take a listen. 2:12:46.270 --> 2:12:48.850 A Hindi from Dallas and they ask, why not become 2:12:48.870 --> 2:12:49.490 an independent? 2:12:54.210 --> 2:12:57.110 Because I'm a lifelong Republican. 2:12:57.780 --> 2:13:03.820 Democrat every time every time it's funny that's. 2:13:03.660 --> 2:13:06.700 A moment right there that's clippable ladies and gentlemen circulate 2:13:06.900 --> 2:13:12.080 go go go internet spin wildly wildly spin internet. 2:13:12.480 --> 2:13:14.830 Yeah i i guarantee you that's gonna break through that'll 2:13:14.850 --> 2:13:18.850 get that'll get clipped yeah i'm a lifelong democrat though. 2:13:19.470 --> 2:13:21.850 You're not spinning he just said he was a republican 2:13:21.890 --> 2:13:23.130 there's no spin to do. 2:13:22.990 --> 2:13:25.690 Yeah that'll get clipped uh doing my. 2:13:25.610 --> 2:13:29.210 Part i guess Yeah, man, that's that. I just love 2:13:29.230 --> 2:13:31.250 the like, they're going to take this out of context. No, 2:13:31.290 --> 2:13:34.190 the context was you called yourself a Republican, man. Like, yeah, 2:13:34.210 --> 2:13:36.190 it was a slip up, but it's like no one's 2:13:36.250 --> 2:13:37.410 taking it out of context. 2:13:37.720 --> 2:13:38.340 You said it. 2:13:38.660 --> 2:13:39.620 You just said that. 2:13:41.360 --> 2:13:47.020 Speaking of our totally cool Congress, Palantir was named as 2:13:47.100 --> 2:13:50.570 a quote, top supporter of the Congressional Black Caucus at 2:13:50.630 --> 2:13:55.180 their annual charitable gala this month. with Palantir's name plastered 2:13:55.220 --> 2:13:57.540 on tables at the event and a big thank you 2:13:57.760 --> 2:13:59.460 banner in the convention center. 2:13:59.480 --> 2:14:00.300 Oof. 2:14:00.800 --> 2:14:04.870 The Congressional Hispanic Caucus has very publicly returned donations from Palantir. 2:14:05.530 --> 2:14:08.450 Yeah, I was at the CBC here where I live 2:14:08.470 --> 2:14:09.310 in Washington, D.C. 2:14:09.340 --> 2:14:12.750 Yeah, that was... I wasn't my fave. 2:14:12.770 --> 2:14:15.640 You know, when you went into the building, there was 2:14:15.700 --> 2:14:19.980 this image that was like a orange image of the 2:14:20.020 --> 2:14:21.720 late Shirley Chisholm, who is. 2:14:21.680 --> 2:14:22.340 One of my idols. 2:14:22.480 --> 2:14:23.780 Yeah, Shirley Chisholm's awesome. 2:14:23.800 --> 2:14:27.240 She's awesome. She was the first black woman elected to Congress. 2:14:27.690 --> 2:14:32.570 It's her picture with Palantir's branding on her image. 2:14:33.590 --> 2:14:34.340 That's fucked up. 2:14:34.630 --> 2:14:36.510 That was like getting kicked in the nuts right when 2:14:36.530 --> 2:14:36.870 I went in. 2:14:36.990 --> 2:14:40.880 And, you know, I just, I can't imagine that anything 2:14:40.920 --> 2:14:44.640 about what Palantir is doing Chisholm would have been down for. 2:14:44.660 --> 2:14:45.400 No, no. 2:14:45.760 --> 2:14:49.040 Yeah, it was not my fave. 2:14:49.940 --> 2:14:50.580 That sucks. 2:14:50.720 --> 2:14:53.720 For some positive Shirley Chisholm representation, though, if you watch 2:14:53.760 --> 2:14:56.640 the relatively new History of the World by Mel Brooks 2:14:56.720 --> 2:14:59.190 TV show that was on, I think, Hulu? I forget 2:14:59.270 --> 2:15:02.660 which streaming platform. Shirley Chisholm plays a major role in it. 2:15:03.950 --> 2:15:04.890 It's a loving tribute. 2:15:05.170 --> 2:15:06.710 I need a palate cleanser. I might have to watch 2:15:06.750 --> 2:15:07.370 that tonight. 2:15:07.630 --> 2:15:08.850 Yeah, it's not bad, actually. 2:15:09.630 --> 2:15:13.010 In a statement to HuffPost, Palantir said there, quote, Proud 2:15:13.050 --> 2:15:16.250 and honored to support the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's mission 2:15:16.290 --> 2:15:18.810 of creating pathways for promising young people to enter public service. 2:15:19.150 --> 2:15:20.990 who may not have the networks or financial means to 2:15:21.030 --> 2:15:22.810 do so without support, unquote. 2:15:22.930 --> 2:15:24.010 Basically, we want to own them. 2:15:24.250 --> 2:15:24.490 Yeah. 2:15:24.950 --> 2:15:27.890 Surveil them, track them, get them into our databases. 2:15:27.910 --> 2:15:30.800 I mean, and you can't fault some of these guys 2:15:30.840 --> 2:15:34.020 who are in their 80s and 90s who don't really 2:15:34.180 --> 2:15:37.610 know what Palantir is necessarily. By you can't fault them, I, 2:15:37.620 --> 2:15:39.500 of course, mean you should be faulting them. They shouldn't 2:15:39.540 --> 2:15:40.080 be in office. 2:15:40.360 --> 2:15:41.430 They should. They're too old. 2:15:41.740 --> 2:15:44.500 The former chair and current influential member of the Congressional 2:15:44.520 --> 2:15:47.600 Black Caucus, 86-year-old Jim Clyburn, recently told Vox that he 2:15:47.820 --> 2:15:50.590 only learned what chat GPT was earlier this summer. 2:15:51.310 --> 2:15:53.670 Like, I think I'm too old to be an elected 2:15:53.710 --> 2:15:57.070 leader now because when people bring up, like, TikTok or influencers, 2:15:57.130 --> 2:15:59.190 I just black out and find myself holding a gun 2:15:59.250 --> 2:16:02.610 these days. So, like, I can't imagine being 80 and 2:16:02.650 --> 2:16:03.790 trying to keep up with this shit. 2:16:04.510 --> 2:16:06.720 You don't think of yourself as an influencer at all, Robert? 2:16:07.530 --> 2:16:10.750 Oh, gosh. I make media. 2:16:10.770 --> 2:16:14.040 That was a rage bait question and you fell for it, 2:16:14.070 --> 2:16:14.440 my friend. 2:16:14.450 --> 2:16:18.700 I want Robert doing makeup tutorials on Blue Sky. 2:16:18.720 --> 2:16:23.380 I could do that, yeah. Paint dazzle camouflage on your face. Anyway, sorry, Gary. 2:16:25.700 --> 2:16:28.020 Well, with just a little over a month left until 2:16:28.050 --> 2:16:32.629 the midterms, the federal government has begun airing pro-Trump television 2:16:32.790 --> 2:16:37.610 ads paid for by U.S. taxpayers. These are, for all 2:16:37.670 --> 2:16:41.429 intents and purposes, Republican campaign ads paid for by you. 2:16:42.250 --> 2:16:45.740 There's at least three different ads in circulation. One of them, 2:16:45.840 --> 2:16:48.020 a single black and white shot of Trump walking down 2:16:48.040 --> 2:16:51.680 a hallway with a voiceover talking about, quote, a final 2:16:51.740 --> 2:16:54.880 battle with you by my side to demolish the deep 2:16:54.940 --> 2:16:59.699 state globalists and warmongers. And if that little last part 2:16:59.730 --> 2:17:03.170 sounds a bit outdated, that's because this was literally a 2:17:03.270 --> 2:17:03.959 Trump 2024 campaign ad. 2:17:03.970 --> 2:17:04.070 Yep. 2:17:05.879 --> 2:17:09.600 But with one important change, the on-screen text at the 2:17:09.760 --> 2:17:14.250 end of the ad reads, paid for by the US government, unquote. 2:17:15.270 --> 2:17:18.209 This ad is played during sports games and on Fox News. 2:17:19.170 --> 2:17:21.810 Another one of these Trump ads airing on TV is 2:17:21.970 --> 2:17:25.530 edited in the form of like a hype video with 2:17:25.570 --> 2:17:30.670 like quick flashing images on screen with text reading, largest 2:17:30.750 --> 2:17:36.020 tax cuts in history, reigniting American manufacturing and Defend law 2:17:36.140 --> 2:17:40.539 and order and police. Too many ands. So as images 2:17:40.620 --> 2:17:43.840 of Trump and these little phrases flash on screen, the 2:17:43.890 --> 2:17:48.310 song Love Me by JMSM plays in the background. Let's 2:17:48.650 --> 2:17:49.190 take a listen. 2:17:49.209 --> 2:17:49.830 Together. 2:17:50.060 --> 2:17:54.040 We will defeat communism, socialism, and Marxism in America. 2:17:54.100 --> 2:17:56.939 America will never be a communist country. 2:18:03.629 --> 2:18:04.350 Oh, God. 2:18:13.740 --> 2:18:14.920 Paid for by the U.S. government. 2:18:15.160 --> 2:18:18.180 Yeah, that should be illegal. Probably is illegal. 2:18:18.600 --> 2:18:22.020 Adding this to the ever-expanding bucket of, um, is that legal? 2:18:22.600 --> 2:18:25.520 How are they allowed to do that? Now, the White 2:18:25.540 --> 2:18:29.480 House has defended these federally funded, but clearly partisan ads 2:18:29.520 --> 2:18:33.980 to influence the midterms by calling them Public service announcements 2:18:35.020 --> 2:18:38.990 akin to Biden's PSAs about the COVID-19 vaccines. 2:18:39.350 --> 2:18:40.530 Are you fucking kidding me? 2:18:40.550 --> 2:18:42.590 Sure, man. 2:18:43.050 --> 2:18:46.490 Public service announcements about how our great leader is perfect 2:18:46.970 --> 2:18:48.010 and can do no wrong. 2:18:48.190 --> 2:18:51.760 Love me. Love me. To quote the White House, the 2:18:51.780 --> 2:18:55.700 announcements are very clearly not campaign ads. President Trump is 2:18:55.840 --> 2:19:00.089 not on the ballot and there is no call to action. Instead, 2:19:00.129 --> 2:19:03.310 the announcements are a reminder for Americans to love their 2:19:03.370 --> 2:19:06.570 country and know why it's worth defending at home, at 2:19:06.610 --> 2:19:08.529 the border, and abroad, unquote. 2:19:08.550 --> 2:19:11.570 Their country? That's not what they were singing Love Me To. 2:19:11.690 --> 2:19:14.459 They were singing Love Me To images of Donald Trump 2:19:14.480 --> 2:19:18.180 with his arms wide open. Like the fucking Jesus at Rio. 2:19:18.379 --> 2:19:25.539 It's wild. It's bad. I don't like this, yeah. 2:19:25.560 --> 2:19:28.810 A few other kind of election-related points I want to hit. 2:19:29.470 --> 2:19:33.730 Last Thursday, the California Supreme Court ruled that Sheriff Chad 2:19:33.770 --> 2:19:40.250 Bianco violated state election law by seizing 650,000 ballots for 2:19:40.270 --> 2:19:43.609 the Prop 50 special election on redistricting as a part 2:19:43.629 --> 2:19:48.250 of his, quote unquote, election fraud investigation. Now, I think 2:19:48.290 --> 2:19:52.090 it's worth noting that emails leaked in 2021 revealed that 2:19:52.190 --> 2:19:56.750 Sheriff Chad Bianco was a dues-paying member of the Oath 2:19:56.790 --> 2:20:01.839 Keepers since at least 2014. And in a debate earlier 2:20:01.879 --> 2:20:04.410 this year during the sheriff's unsuccessful bid to be the 2:20:04.440 --> 2:20:08.240 Republican nominee for governor... Bianco said he was proud of 2:20:08.280 --> 2:20:10.140 his affiliation with the Oath Keepers. 2:20:10.360 --> 2:20:11.339 You're an Oath Keeper. 2:20:11.680 --> 2:20:12.490 We all know that. 2:20:12.890 --> 2:20:13.930 And I'm very proud of it. 2:20:14.370 --> 2:20:15.670 I'm very proud of it. 2:20:15.730 --> 2:20:18.870 And everybody that wants to, like, again, lie and emotionally 2:20:19.190 --> 2:20:23.260 get all spun up about the Oath Keeper organization, I 2:20:23.340 --> 2:20:25.519 just would, before you do that, and I know none 2:20:25.540 --> 2:20:27.449 of you have, I want you to go read the 2:20:27.490 --> 2:20:30.090 mission statement of the Oathkeeper mission statement and the ACLU. 2:20:30.110 --> 2:20:32.460 I saw them on CNN attacking the Capitol. 2:20:32.540 --> 2:20:35.320 And the ACLU. I saw a politician molesting kids. Does 2:20:35.340 --> 2:20:37.440 that mean you molest kids? What? 2:20:37.940 --> 2:20:43.599 Exactly. Really compelling stuff from Sheriff Oathkeeper. But this whole 2:20:43.720 --> 2:20:48.340 story gives us an interesting look into possible election interference 2:20:48.920 --> 2:20:52.980 done on like a county level with HUD sheriffs just 2:20:53.080 --> 2:20:56.240 seizing huge swaths of ballots to try to invalidate as 2:20:56.340 --> 2:21:00.560 many as they can after an election, based on vague 2:21:00.700 --> 2:21:06.080 allegations of, quote, discrepancies in the count. But now going forward, 2:21:06.100 --> 2:21:10.240 at least in California, there will be protections against this tactic. 2:21:10.879 --> 2:21:12.940 You know, you said that it was found that he 2:21:12.980 --> 2:21:14.880 did this and that he violated state election law. 2:21:15.320 --> 2:21:17.259 Will he be facing any consequences? 2:21:18.180 --> 2:21:20.720 It doesn't look like he'll be facing consequences, no. The 2:21:20.740 --> 2:21:23.980 ballots will be returned and destroyed. But no, this is 2:21:24.420 --> 2:21:27.180 not going to result in anything. for him personally. He 2:21:27.220 --> 2:21:31.959 just can't continue his investigation. Speaking of allegations of election fraud, 2:21:32.680 --> 2:21:35.990 earlier this summer, Trump and DHS Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen 2:21:36.050 --> 2:21:39.650 claimed they had uncovered hundreds of thousands of non-citizens who 2:21:39.690 --> 2:21:43.510 were registered to vote. And we didn't report on these 2:21:43.610 --> 2:21:46.890 claims in depth because the White House provided no evidence 2:21:46.990 --> 2:21:51.860 for these extraordinary claims. But in communications to state election 2:21:51.900 --> 2:21:55.390 officials following this big public announcement, the Trump admin already 2:21:55.490 --> 2:22:01.150 began to de-emphasize the certainty of these large figures. Nevada 2:22:01.230 --> 2:22:03.769 was first told by DHS that they had as many 2:22:03.930 --> 2:22:11.480 as 15,903 non-citizens on their voter rolls. But in a 2:22:11.580 --> 2:22:16.200 meeting between state officials and DHS last month, DHS said 2:22:16.280 --> 2:22:20.990 that that number might not be totally accurate because each 2:22:21.090 --> 2:22:24.980 voter had not yet been manually reviewed, And the true 2:22:25.040 --> 2:22:30.370 number may be closer to 185 voters. After this meeting, 2:22:30.410 --> 2:22:34.170 DHS emailed Nevada officials clarifying, quote, we did not reduce 2:22:34.270 --> 2:22:36.130 the 15,903 to 185. We've manually reviewed some of the 2:22:36.129 --> 2:22:37.090 15,903 and confirmed 185 are not U.S. 2:22:37.110 --> 2:22:38.330 Citizens, unquote. 2:22:38.410 --> 2:22:41.310 So still keeping open the possibility that there could be 2:22:41.370 --> 2:22:53.550 upwards of 16,000 non-citizens on the voter rolls, which have 2:22:53.570 --> 2:22:57.490 been flagged, but then DHS themselves narrowed that down to 2:22:57.530 --> 2:23:03.300 at least 185 confirmed cases. So, after this, state officials 2:23:03.379 --> 2:23:08.939 then checked those 185 alleged non-citizen voters and found that 2:23:09.180 --> 2:23:11.800 every single one was actually a U.S. 2:23:11.920 --> 2:23:12.360 Citizen. 2:23:13.240 --> 2:23:14.939 In a letter obtained by the New York Times through 2:23:14.959 --> 2:23:18.140 an open records request, the Deputy Attorney General in Nevada, 2:23:18.280 --> 2:23:23.330 Gray Goat, wrote to DHS, As for the 185 individuals, 2:23:23.629 --> 2:23:27.490 our records indicate that they were citizens. You have provided 2:23:27.590 --> 2:23:32.850 nothing of substance to suggest otherwise. Nevada's Secretary of State 2:23:33.030 --> 2:23:36.360 said in a statement, quote, Our records do not support 2:23:36.420 --> 2:23:39.000 DHS's claims and DHS has still not provided evidence to 2:23:39.120 --> 2:23:43.140 change that. Instead, DHS officials continue their attempts to intimidate 2:23:43.200 --> 2:23:47.540 election officials into compliance and deter voters with huge claims 2:23:47.580 --> 2:23:52.220 of fraud with no evidence. repeating unsupported claims does not 2:23:52.300 --> 2:23:56.960 make them true, unquote. All of this relates to our 2:23:57.140 --> 2:24:01.290 first main story this episode. On September 25th, the Supreme 2:24:01.350 --> 2:24:05.070 Court ruled 6-3 on ideological lines to allow the Trump 2:24:05.110 --> 2:24:09.530 administration to use a janky citizenship database from DHS to 2:24:09.590 --> 2:24:13.800 purge voter rolls. Though the worst potential effects of this 2:24:13.840 --> 2:24:18.070 will be delayed until after the midterms. Now, we've talked 2:24:18.110 --> 2:24:20.730 before about the ongoing legal battles over Trump's attempts to 2:24:20.790 --> 2:24:24.369 restrict mail-in voting. This new shadow docket ruling centers on 2:24:24.390 --> 2:24:27.390 the implementation of the other half of Trump's March 2025 2:24:27.390 --> 2:24:31.210 executive order to, quote, protect the integrity of American elections. 2:24:32.129 --> 2:24:35.769 The creation of a new list of verified U.S. citizen voters. 2:24:36.690 --> 2:24:41.459 After Trump signed the election integrity order last year, DHS 2:24:41.500 --> 2:24:45.000 began to expand something called the SAVE database so that 2:24:45.020 --> 2:24:49.670 it could be used to verify whether large batches of voters. Quickly, 2:24:49.790 --> 2:24:53.270 voting rights organizations sued and a district court blocked the order, 2:24:53.910 --> 2:24:56.949 finding that the overhauled SAFE program, quote, trampled on the 2:24:56.990 --> 2:24:59.910 privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens 2:25:00.250 --> 2:25:03.670 the sacred right to vote. But the Trump administration asked 2:25:03.730 --> 2:25:07.330 the Supreme Court to stay the district court's ruling. And 2:25:07.400 --> 2:25:11.340 last week, without a full briefing or oral argument, the 2:25:11.379 --> 2:25:15.080 Supreme Court granted that stay. clearing the way for Trump 2:25:15.100 --> 2:25:19.020 to implement the new SAVE database. The SAVE database was 2:25:19.060 --> 2:25:22.320 created decades ago to verify the citizenship and immigration status 2:25:22.360 --> 2:25:25.400 of people applying for public benefits like Medicaid and food stamps. 2:25:26.180 --> 2:25:29.859 But the newly modified SAVE system incorporates confidential data from 2:25:29.900 --> 2:25:32.720 the Social Security Administration and allows authorities to conduct bulk 2:25:32.800 --> 2:25:37.750 searches of multiple individuals at once. Currently, 27 U.S. states 2:25:37.840 --> 2:25:40.750 use the SAVE system to verify voters. And last year, 2:25:40.910 --> 2:25:44.570 some states began testing the newly modified database. More on 2:25:44.650 --> 2:25:48.010 that later. In the lawsuit that first prevented the government 2:25:48.050 --> 2:25:51.810 from using this newly overhauled database, the plaintiffs alleged that 2:25:51.850 --> 2:25:57.050 the integration of Social Security Administration data violates multiple privacy protections, 2:25:57.590 --> 2:25:59.949 and that the use of the data to purge voter 2:25:59.990 --> 2:26:03.850 rolls risks irreparable harm to voters who are mistakenly removed 2:26:03.930 --> 2:26:07.980 from the rolls due to inaccurate or out-of-date information in 2:26:08.010 --> 2:26:11.410 the database. And this part is really crucial because Social 2:26:11.450 --> 2:26:17.050 Security Administration data does not necessarily reflect someone's current immigration 2:26:17.190 --> 2:26:21.220 or citizenship status. And SSS data is not just your 2:26:21.300 --> 2:26:25.220 Social Security number, but also names, dates and places of birth, 2:26:25.379 --> 2:26:30.580 citizenship indicators, death records, and any information obtained while processing 2:26:30.670 --> 2:26:34.369 requests for Social Security numbers. So there's a bunch of very, 2:26:34.850 --> 2:26:38.370 very personal, very private data that gets stored here. It's 2:26:38.390 --> 2:26:42.500 not just your, you know, however many digit number. So 2:26:42.600 --> 2:26:45.860 if this new database flags someone or a search comes 2:26:45.920 --> 2:26:49.560 up inconclusive, voters could be required to take additional affirmative 2:26:49.600 --> 2:26:53.840 steps to prove their citizenship or naturalization, possibly within a 2:26:53.920 --> 2:26:57.670 very short time window, or they risk being removed from 2:26:57.709 --> 2:27:01.090 the voter rolls and unable to exercise their right to vote. 2:27:01.930 --> 2:27:06.230 In the dissent penned by Justice Jackson... She echoed the 2:27:06.250 --> 2:27:10.190 concern of the plaintiffs that, quote, the staleness of Social 2:27:10.209 --> 2:27:17.640 Security Administration's citizenship records risked disenfranchising recently naturalized U.S. citizens, unquote. 2:27:18.430 --> 2:27:21.140 And absolutely, if someone's afraid that they might get into 2:27:21.200 --> 2:27:24.880 trouble or ICE might go after them for registering to vote, 2:27:25.100 --> 2:27:27.699 even if they are legally allowed to, or if that 2:27:27.879 --> 2:27:31.420 fear prevents them from taking certain actions, that is real 2:27:31.480 --> 2:27:33.750 and active harm. And this type of stuff isn't just 2:27:33.930 --> 2:27:38.390 future speculation. According to a ProPublica report from last February, quote, 2:27:38.850 --> 2:27:42.160 DHS has had to correct information provided to at least 2:27:42.330 --> 2:27:48.660 five states after Save misidentified some voters as non-citizens. In particular, 2:27:48.840 --> 2:27:52.280 in Texas, one woman had her voter registration revoked without 2:27:52.340 --> 2:27:54.850 her knowledge. And two more people had to provide proof 2:27:54.890 --> 2:27:58.720 of citizenship to maintain registered voter status per Jackson's dissent. 2:27:59.160 --> 2:28:01.560 So this can also happen to you and you not 2:28:01.660 --> 2:28:04.060 know about it. So you can be removed from your 2:28:04.080 --> 2:28:07.619 voter roll, not actually know necessarily. Maybe they tried to 2:28:07.660 --> 2:28:10.700 contact you and that just didn't work. That just didn't happen. 2:28:11.520 --> 2:28:14.150 So then you think that you're registered to vote, but 2:28:14.170 --> 2:28:17.230 you actually aren't, which of course then makes you unable 2:28:17.350 --> 2:28:21.879 to vote. These are all real, actual harms. But the 2:28:21.920 --> 2:28:24.740 majority opinion of the Supreme Court didn't actually consider any 2:28:24.780 --> 2:28:28.500 of these harms posed to lawful voters, but just focused 2:28:28.640 --> 2:28:32.220 on the harm that the government could suffer if they 2:28:32.240 --> 2:28:35.980 weren't allowed to use this new SAVE database. And weighing 2:28:36.060 --> 2:28:40.910 the legality of DHS using what's otherwise protected confidential data 2:28:41.270 --> 2:28:45.589 from the Social Security Administration, which the majority ruled DHS 2:28:45.650 --> 2:28:49.710 was allowed to do based on the Illegal Immigration Reform 2:28:49.950 --> 2:28:55.670 and Immigrant Responsibility Act, Section 1373. And this is the 2:28:55.690 --> 2:29:00.270 big kind of legal debate regarding, is this database actually legal? 2:29:00.390 --> 2:29:03.710 Are they allowed to use this protected data? The district 2:29:03.730 --> 2:29:07.590 court said no. The dissent says no. The plaintiffs say no. 2:29:08.150 --> 2:29:11.630 But the federal government and now Supreme Court majority says yes. 2:29:12.480 --> 2:29:14.980 And I want to get more into kind of the 2:29:15.100 --> 2:29:19.500 weeds of this legal argument in a future episode. Because 2:29:19.620 --> 2:29:23.660 to quote Jackson, the argument being made by the majority 2:29:23.920 --> 2:29:30.270 is implausible. And they are very clearly misreading a federal law. 2:29:30.490 --> 2:29:34.150 It's a very plain misreading and interpreting a specific law 2:29:34.490 --> 2:29:36.770 in a way that no one else has interpreted it 2:29:36.810 --> 2:29:40.470 before and would fundamentally alter privacy protections in this country. 2:29:41.170 --> 2:29:44.270 and goes directly against the Clinton administration's interpretation of this 2:29:44.320 --> 2:29:46.459 law as well. But I'll get more into that kind 2:29:46.480 --> 2:29:50.080 of in a future episode about the various efforts to 2:29:50.160 --> 2:29:54.420 undermine elections going into the midterms. So as bad and 2:29:54.620 --> 2:29:58.110 bullshit as all of this is, this ruling will, quote, 2:29:58.490 --> 2:30:02.550 likely have a minimal short-term impact, according to Jackson. And 2:30:02.610 --> 2:30:06.289 that's because the National Voter Registration Act prohibits states from, quote, 2:30:06.870 --> 2:30:11.060 systematically removing the names of ineligible voters from from their 2:30:11.100 --> 2:30:14.230 rules in the 90 days prior to any primary or 2:30:14.310 --> 2:30:18.670 general election. So they cannot do these massive bulk searches 2:30:18.690 --> 2:30:21.030 that this database is designed to do. They can't just 2:30:21.050 --> 2:30:23.610 like remove tons of people all at once from the rules. 2:30:24.350 --> 2:30:26.580 But that doesn't mean that this will have no impact 2:30:26.640 --> 2:30:29.680 on the midterms because the government is still allowed to 2:30:29.820 --> 2:30:35.259 use this new safe program to conduct quote, individualized inquiries 2:30:36.160 --> 2:30:40.050 per the majority. so they can still go after individual people, 2:30:40.129 --> 2:30:44.209 just not bulk searches. Jackson writes that states will, quote, 2:30:44.790 --> 2:30:49.950 at most conduct individualized voter roll maintenance using the modified 2:30:50.030 --> 2:30:53.869 save system. And she concludes her dissent by saying, quote, 2:30:54.410 --> 2:30:58.349 the harm caused by burdening or disenfranchising even a few 2:30:58.490 --> 2:31:02.650 lawful voters outweighs the non-existent harm that the government experiences 2:31:03.070 --> 2:31:05.640 when it is prevented from taking an action that it 2:31:05.770 --> 2:31:08.800 likely lacks the authority to take, unquote. 2:31:10.040 --> 2:31:14.379 I'm glad she named that in her dissent because I 2:31:14.440 --> 2:31:17.560 can't get over that bit of, what about the harm 2:31:17.600 --> 2:31:18.620 to the government? 2:31:18.900 --> 2:31:19.760 That's wild to me. 2:31:20.740 --> 2:31:23.700 Yeah, no, there's another line I have saved in my 2:31:23.780 --> 2:31:28.170 full report of this, which is so funny. She writes, 2:31:28.550 --> 2:31:31.650 it cannot be that the government is injured whenever it 2:31:31.709 --> 2:31:33.830 is prevented from violating the law. 2:31:33.850 --> 2:31:34.930 Exactly. 2:31:36.129 --> 2:31:38.150 That's kind of a really good sum up of like 2:31:38.250 --> 2:31:44.090 most Supreme Court kind of debates during Trump's second administration 2:31:44.850 --> 2:31:47.220 is that the government is constantly claiming that they're going 2:31:47.240 --> 2:31:49.119 to suffer harm if they're not allowed to break the law. 2:31:49.879 --> 2:31:52.339 Considering all of this, I think it's important to reiterate 2:31:52.379 --> 2:31:59.700 that non-citizen voting is relatively rare and statistically insignificant. It's 2:31:59.820 --> 2:32:03.320 not something that is altering election results or causing harm. 2:32:03.720 --> 2:32:07.410 But what could cause harm or potentially alter results is 2:32:07.450 --> 2:32:12.550 the mass disenfranchisement of voters, scaring naturalized citizens into not voting, 2:32:13.209 --> 2:32:18.570 and DHS forcibly deregistering lawful U.S. citizen voters because of 2:32:18.709 --> 2:32:25.410 their wildly inaccurate voter verification system. Now, regarding the massive 2:32:25.490 --> 2:32:28.910 numbers thrown around by the Trump admin, like 300,000 non-citizen voters, 2:32:28.910 --> 2:32:34.990 16,000 flagged in Nevada, It's not yet clear if the 2:32:35.030 --> 2:32:38.670 new SAVE system is where DHS is getting those numbers, 2:32:39.490 --> 2:32:44.360 but considering the fact that the 185 quote manually confirmed 2:32:44.400 --> 2:32:48.260 cases in Nevada turned out to be all U.S. citizens, 2:32:48.900 --> 2:32:52.959 you cannot take anything DHS is saying at face value. Basically, 2:32:52.980 --> 2:32:58.810 this whole illegal voting panic is functionally a psyop to 2:32:58.890 --> 2:33:03.550 purge U.S. citizen voters. It's to convince as many states 2:33:03.610 --> 2:33:08.470 as possible to use this new save system, using threats 2:33:08.550 --> 2:33:13.190 and intimidation, with the ultimate goal of purging voter rolls, 2:33:14.290 --> 2:33:15.980 which they're not allowed to do in the three months 2:33:16.010 --> 2:33:20.379 before the midterms. But going forward after the midterms, DHS 2:33:20.440 --> 2:33:24.760 now has the ability to do bulk searches and removals 2:33:25.320 --> 2:33:29.800 ahead of future elections. So this is definitely something we 2:33:29.820 --> 2:33:35.350 will keep an eye on. going into 2028. Anyway, let's 2:33:35.390 --> 2:33:38.230 go on an ad break and then return for some 2:33:38.650 --> 2:33:54.400 bad news. And we are back. Let's turn to Bridget 2:33:54.459 --> 2:33:56.600 Todd for our next main story. 2:33:57.200 --> 2:33:58.240 Yeah, thanks, Gare. 2:33:58.300 --> 2:34:00.330 And I have to give a quick heads up in 2:34:00.340 --> 2:34:02.870 the form of a trigger warning that this segment deals 2:34:02.890 --> 2:34:06.830 with some pretty rough stuff. Sexual assaults, drugging. So just 2:34:07.110 --> 2:34:08.940 know that before we talk about it. 2:34:09.750 --> 2:34:12.050 Cutting in here just to say, if you would like 2:34:12.070 --> 2:34:16.240 to skip this section on Cornell and Title IX, you 2:34:16.280 --> 2:34:19.140 can skip to the next ad break, which should be 2:34:19.260 --> 2:34:23.360 around the 55-minute mark. I can't know the exact timestamp 2:34:23.400 --> 2:34:26.450 because that depends on the ads that are loaded into 2:34:26.490 --> 2:34:30.789 your individual podcast feed. But the next section by Robert 2:34:30.850 --> 2:34:35.689 Evans should be around the 55-minute mark after the next 2:34:35.940 --> 2:34:36.300 ad break. 2:34:37.200 --> 2:34:39.860 So y'all have probably been hearing about what's happening at 2:34:39.920 --> 2:34:42.740 Cornell right now. And I want to start by walking 2:34:42.820 --> 2:34:46.019 through the timeline because this case did not just suddenly 2:34:46.100 --> 2:34:49.060 emerge this month. The New York Times actually had a 2:34:49.160 --> 2:34:51.820 really detailed breakdown of the timeline that was super helpful 2:34:51.860 --> 2:34:54.220 in me kind of just understanding what's going on. 2:34:55.140 --> 2:34:56.619 All of this happened. 2:34:56.280 --> 2:34:58.500 Almost two years ago, but there is a reason why 2:34:58.570 --> 2:35:01.370 folks are talking about it right now. So back in 2:35:01.430 --> 2:35:05.750 October of 2024, according to Jane Doe's lawsuit, earlier that night, 2:35:05.850 --> 2:35:08.640 she had been out at bars and Greek life events. 2:35:09.240 --> 2:35:13.019 Around 11 o'clock, she goes to the Chi Phi fraternity 2:35:13.050 --> 2:35:16.390 house to meet a male Cornell student. She's also a 2:35:16.410 --> 2:35:18.650 student at Cornell at this point. She said that she 2:35:18.750 --> 2:35:21.430 thought of this student as a friend to her. Now, 2:35:21.450 --> 2:35:24.730 according to this lawsuit, she was then pressured into consuming 2:35:24.810 --> 2:35:29.310 drugs and alcohol, including ketamine, and that seven men sexually 2:35:29.350 --> 2:35:32.789 assaulted her while she was incapacitated from the drugs and 2:35:32.830 --> 2:35:37.390 alcohol and weaving in and out of consciousness. I looked 2:35:37.590 --> 2:35:40.510 at the lawsuit that she filed. The details that are 2:35:40.570 --> 2:35:44.200 laid out in this lawsuit are truly horrific, to the 2:35:44.220 --> 2:35:47.539 point where I don't even necessarily feel comfortable getting into 2:35:47.580 --> 2:35:50.260 all of them here. Stuff like her being forced to 2:35:50.300 --> 2:35:51.560 snort ketamine off. 2:35:51.440 --> 2:35:52.339 Of an erect penis. 2:35:52.740 --> 2:35:53.199 Oh, God. 2:35:53.720 --> 2:35:57.940 Yeah, it's pretty bad. And her suit says all of 2:35:57.980 --> 2:36:02.060 this went on for hours. According to her complaint, one 2:36:02.080 --> 2:36:05.180 of the men posted a message to the fraternity's Snapchat 2:36:05.200 --> 2:36:09.780 group during the night that said, quote, free pussy. Obviously, 2:36:09.920 --> 2:36:13.510 her suit interprets this as an invitation for other fraternity 2:36:13.530 --> 2:36:16.050 members to join in the room and join in the assault. 2:36:16.370 --> 2:36:19.670 This is not even, like, super in dispute. You can 2:36:19.730 --> 2:36:22.640 find pictures of that Snapchat message and, like, see the 2:36:22.660 --> 2:36:23.260 replies to it. 2:36:23.750 --> 2:36:26.250 And even the do-nothing district. 2:36:25.970 --> 2:36:27.970 Attorney, who I'll be talking about more in a moment, 2:36:28.330 --> 2:36:33.480 has since described those Snapchat messages as, quote, morally disgusting. 2:36:33.940 --> 2:36:35.859 And he said that his office was examining whether or 2:36:35.900 --> 2:36:40.720 not those Snapchat messages could have criminal significance. So three 2:36:40.820 --> 2:36:43.750 weeks later, on November 8th, Jane Doe goes to the 2:36:43.790 --> 2:36:47.650 Cornell University police. And, you know, I don't think anybody 2:36:47.670 --> 2:36:49.869 is surprised to hear that in situations like this, there's 2:36:49.990 --> 2:36:55.510 always some victim-blaming fuckery. So here is some victim-blaming fuckery. 2:36:56.090 --> 2:37:00.459 So that do-nothing DA, the Tompkins County District Attorney Matt 2:37:00.500 --> 2:37:03.940 Van Houten, said that Jane Doe's original statement to the 2:37:04.000 --> 2:37:07.200 police described at least some of her drug use and 2:37:07.260 --> 2:37:10.920 sexual activity that night as voluntary and consensual. 2:37:10.959 --> 2:37:12.020 That's his words, not mine. 2:37:12.820 --> 2:37:15.240 He says that that was a major reason that his 2:37:15.340 --> 2:37:18.179 office determined at the time that there was insufficient evidence 2:37:18.200 --> 2:37:22.570 to pursue criminal charges. So when I heard that, I 2:37:22.590 --> 2:37:25.840 kind of did that Scooby-Doo, like. 2:37:25.920 --> 2:37:28.110 What the fuck do you mean? That seemed absurd to me. 2:37:28.490 --> 2:37:29.810 So I looked into this. 2:37:30.370 --> 2:37:33.189 And I only learned this from researching the situation, but 2:37:33.270 --> 2:37:36.289 there is a wrinkle in New York state law that 2:37:36.350 --> 2:37:40.670 critics have called the voluntary intoxication loophole, which is basically 2:37:40.690 --> 2:37:45.280 that under New York law, if you voluntarily get even 2:37:45.379 --> 2:37:49.400 extremely drunk, the fact that you were too intoxicated to 2:37:49.520 --> 2:37:54.340 meaningfully consent does not by itself legally establish that you 2:37:54.379 --> 2:37:56.959 were incapable of consenting to sex. 2:37:57.540 --> 2:37:58.860 Which to me is. 2:37:59.000 --> 2:38:02.480 I mean, I, maybe I'm a Pollyanna, but I did 2:38:02.520 --> 2:38:04.120 not know that. I was learning that for the first 2:38:04.140 --> 2:38:06.560 time from researching what happened at Cornell. 2:38:07.240 --> 2:38:10.660 I get legally, especially in a situation like a party 2:38:10.760 --> 2:38:14.620 where multiple people are drinking, how do you adjudicate after 2:38:14.640 --> 2:38:17.140 the fact without blood tests and stuff, the level of 2:38:17.180 --> 2:38:21.580 intoxication of everybody? I understand how there's complications there, but 2:38:21.600 --> 2:38:25.350 it seems like something other than just not addressing it 2:38:25.410 --> 2:38:26.890 would be the right thing to do legally. 2:38:26.930 --> 2:38:27.330 Yeah. 2:38:27.490 --> 2:38:32.440 And basically, this law posits that you essentially have to be, 2:38:32.480 --> 2:38:36.160 if you're talking about consensual drinking, you basically have to 2:38:36.200 --> 2:38:39.300 be incapacitated to the point where you cannot move or 2:38:39.440 --> 2:38:42.800 speak on your own in order for that and that 2:38:42.920 --> 2:38:45.780 alone to establish that you were incapable of consenting to sex. 2:38:45.800 --> 2:38:49.840 So if you're, you know, drinking but still talking, even 2:38:49.879 --> 2:38:52.840 if you're like extremely, extremely drunk, that by itself does 2:38:52.890 --> 2:38:55.430 not legally establish that you were not capable of consenting. 2:38:55.709 --> 2:38:58.629 So I really take your point, but it seems to 2:38:58.650 --> 2:38:59.050 me that. 2:38:58.950 --> 2:39:02.240 Like, okay, well, we'll just... codify that into law seems 2:39:02.280 --> 2:39:03.780 wonky to me. And there are lawmakers. 2:39:03.800 --> 2:39:07.940 It just seems like they've abrogated their, like making an 2:39:08.080 --> 2:39:11.860 actual like decision on any of this and just sort 2:39:11.900 --> 2:39:15.260 of picked, I don't know, like it doesn't seem like 2:39:15.740 --> 2:39:18.320 where you should draw the line, right? Like just, okay, 2:39:18.340 --> 2:39:22.240 when somebody's passed out, like in nothing before, that's just really, 2:39:22.480 --> 2:39:24.310 it just seems very irresponsible and incomplete. 2:39:24.910 --> 2:39:25.700 Totally agree. 2:39:25.750 --> 2:39:30.039 And there are lawmakers who are actively working on changing 2:39:30.100 --> 2:39:34.379 this intoxication loophole. And I'm glad that you said that, Robert, 2:39:34.420 --> 2:39:37.310 because to me, this is just me editorializing, I think 2:39:37.360 --> 2:39:40.209 it raises a fundamental question about how consent works, because 2:39:40.230 --> 2:39:44.849 a person can voluntarily use drugs or drink and be 2:39:44.870 --> 2:39:47.680 sexually assaulted. A person can consent to one sex act 2:39:48.000 --> 2:39:50.760 And then not consent to another consent is. 2:39:50.900 --> 2:39:51.359 Absolutely. 2:39:51.420 --> 2:39:51.640 Yeah. 2:39:51.660 --> 2:39:53.140 And I think that we just have. 2:39:53.020 --> 2:39:55.820 To I want for us a society where we have 2:39:55.940 --> 2:39:59.080 more conversations about what consent actually looks like and how 2:39:59.150 --> 2:40:02.289 it works so that more people kind of fully understand that. 2:40:02.310 --> 2:40:05.150 I don't feel like we're having those conversations now, unfortunately, 2:40:05.350 --> 2:40:07.630 like in wider society, particularly with young people. 2:40:07.650 --> 2:40:08.150 Yeah. 2:40:09.010 --> 2:40:10.910 So that do-nothing. 2:40:10.450 --> 2:40:12.970 DA that I told you about, Van Houten, he also 2:40:13.010 --> 2:40:15.709 has pushed back on this sort of emerging claim that 2:40:15.890 --> 2:40:20.480 Jane Doe's original statement was fragmentary or incomplete, or this 2:40:20.530 --> 2:40:23.000 idea that the investigators just did not do a good 2:40:23.040 --> 2:40:24.080 enough job of getting. 2:40:23.900 --> 2:40:25.320 A detailed account from her. 2:40:25.700 --> 2:40:28.959 He says that Jane Doe gave police a comprehensive statement 2:40:29.240 --> 2:40:31.960 and made more than 20 handwritten corrections to that statement 2:40:32.080 --> 2:40:34.700 before signing it. So that's what he says is, like, why... 2:40:35.120 --> 2:40:38.629 His office declined to pursue charges. But Jane Doe's attorney 2:40:38.670 --> 2:40:41.230 disputes all of this, including the idea that her original 2:40:41.250 --> 2:40:44.849 statement means that her current allegations are inconsistent with what 2:40:44.890 --> 2:40:48.280 she originally reported. Her attorneys argued that she was traumatized 2:40:48.300 --> 2:40:51.740 and incapacitated and that authorities failed to adequately investigate what 2:40:51.920 --> 2:40:55.459 actually happened to her. So I should say that Cornell 2:40:55.640 --> 2:40:59.240 did take some actions following this report. According to both 2:40:59.360 --> 2:41:03.990 Cornell and third-party reporting, the university did temporarily suspend the 2:41:04.030 --> 2:41:08.730 Chi Phi fraternity and impose some temporary suspensions or restrictions 2:41:08.910 --> 2:41:12.890 on students accused in connection with this incident while they investigated. 2:41:13.510 --> 2:41:17.599 Cornell University's police did contact that DA, which like, okay, 2:41:17.620 --> 2:41:20.160 a lot of good that did. And prosecutors, again, reviewed 2:41:20.180 --> 2:41:24.099 the allegations and ultimately decided not to you know, pursue 2:41:24.140 --> 2:41:28.000 criminal charges under New York state law. Then in January 2:41:28.020 --> 2:41:32.090 of 2025, Jane Doe filed a formal Title IX complaint 2:41:32.190 --> 2:41:36.310 with Cornell, triggering a totally separate university review process. So 2:41:36.670 --> 2:41:38.930 in case you don't know, Title IX is the federal 2:41:38.990 --> 2:41:41.880 civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in schools that 2:41:41.920 --> 2:41:46.420 receive federal funding and dictates rules around how colleges are 2:41:46.500 --> 2:41:49.540 required to respond when a student reports something like sexual 2:41:49.580 --> 2:41:53.029 assault or sexual harassment. According to the New York Times, 2:41:53.230 --> 2:41:56.920 by May, Cornell's Title IX committee had held at least 2:41:56.920 --> 2:42:01.620 12 hearings involving these allegations and this situation. So Cornell 2:42:01.820 --> 2:42:04.920 now says that this investigation eventually resulted in what they 2:42:04.959 --> 2:42:09.650 describe as serious disciplinary sanctions, what they describe as things 2:42:09.670 --> 2:42:13.620 like suspensions and expulsions. and that the Chi Phi chapter 2:42:13.640 --> 2:42:18.740 that was involved in this is still barred from campus. However, 2:42:19.280 --> 2:42:23.020 we don't actually know exactly what happened to each individual 2:42:23.060 --> 2:42:26.300 student because Cornell has declined to publicly disclose any of 2:42:26.340 --> 2:42:30.300 those details, citing federal student privacy laws. Jane Doe's attorney 2:42:30.340 --> 2:42:33.560 told CBS News that two of the seven students were expelled, 2:42:33.580 --> 2:42:36.200 and at least some of the men who were named 2:42:36.360 --> 2:42:40.360 in the lawsuit have denied allegations through their attorneys. So 2:42:40.740 --> 2:42:43.680 if you've heard about this situation, you've probably heard about 2:42:43.920 --> 2:42:48.300 one particularly grim detail, and that is the essays. So 2:42:48.720 --> 2:42:52.080 Jane Doe's civil complaint alleges that several of the accused 2:42:52.100 --> 2:42:56.570 students were, quote, afforded the opportunity to mitigate their conduct 2:42:56.830 --> 2:43:01.310 by submitting essays to Cornell, like written papers that you 2:43:01.330 --> 2:43:02.170 would write in a class. 2:43:02.810 --> 2:43:04.530 Cornell has since pushed back on that. 2:43:04.450 --> 2:43:08.970 Claim, but in a way that I find interesting, because 2:43:09.450 --> 2:43:12.580 They did not say that none of the students involved 2:43:12.740 --> 2:43:15.080 were made to write an essay to mitigate, you know, 2:43:15.760 --> 2:43:19.680 their conduct. What Cornell said was, quote, none of the 2:43:19.720 --> 2:43:23.500 individuals charged were offered the opportunity to write essays as 2:43:23.560 --> 2:43:27.200 a sole consequence of their involvement. So, like, it kind 2:43:27.220 --> 2:43:30.310 of does sound like maybe they were made to write essays. Like, 2:43:30.620 --> 2:43:35.360 I'm not sure what that exactly means. So Cornell says 2:43:35.400 --> 2:43:38.240 the disciplinary process resulted in a range of sanctions, including 2:43:38.280 --> 2:43:41.340 suspensions and expulsions. But again, we don't really know what 2:43:41.360 --> 2:43:45.350 all went down there. So after that, the story kind 2:43:45.430 --> 2:43:49.670 of fell from public view until very recently this month. 2:43:50.170 --> 2:43:53.530 This month, Jane Doe filed a civil lawsuit against the defendants, 2:43:53.590 --> 2:43:57.800 including Cornell University, Chi Phi, her sorority Delta Delta Delta, 2:43:58.140 --> 2:44:01.760 university officials, and seven men that she says participated in 2:44:01.800 --> 2:44:05.320 this assault. And that lawsuit has really pushed this whole 2:44:05.360 --> 2:44:09.640 situation more into public view, like how did the university 2:44:09.660 --> 2:44:12.350 handle it? How did the authorities handle it? And I 2:44:12.930 --> 2:44:16.710 have to really champion the student journalists at the Cornell 2:44:16.750 --> 2:44:20.490 Daily Sun here, which is Cornell's independent student newspaper. The 2:44:20.530 --> 2:44:24.090 Daily Sun's journalists have been reporting on these allegations going 2:44:24.129 --> 2:44:27.650 back to 2024, and they have been aggressively pursuing and 2:44:27.709 --> 2:44:31.150 covering the lawsuit and the university's response. There is a 2:44:31.660 --> 2:44:34.170 really good Q & A with one of the student editors, 2:44:34.610 --> 2:44:37.260 Cerise Kuzba, in the cut about what it was like 2:44:37.300 --> 2:44:39.720 to break and cover this story. And one of the 2:44:39.760 --> 2:44:44.340 things that she said was that weirdness around whether or 2:44:44.379 --> 2:44:47.700 not these students were asked to write essays to mitigate 2:44:47.740 --> 2:44:51.500 this like really, really awful behavior. Like it clarified that 2:44:51.540 --> 2:44:55.160 for me because she basically says that Cornell treats sexual 2:44:55.230 --> 2:44:58.869 assault on campus as a more of an education issue, 2:44:59.270 --> 2:45:02.610 not a public safety issue. And she really describes the 2:45:02.650 --> 2:45:04.550 kind of environment where like it would make sense that 2:45:04.570 --> 2:45:07.670 the university would think that Having students do workshops or 2:45:07.730 --> 2:45:10.290 write essays would be an appropriate way to mitigate harm. 2:45:10.629 --> 2:45:13.770 She told The Cut, When you search the task force website, 2:45:14.030 --> 2:45:16.959 you see what they're doing is classes, workshops, and website links. 2:45:17.360 --> 2:45:19.620 It's pretty easy to assume that those who would often 2:45:19.680 --> 2:45:22.459 commit the sexual assault will most likely not be the 2:45:22.540 --> 2:45:26.359 ones attending the voluntary and optional sexual assault workshops. Within 2:45:26.379 --> 2:45:29.700 the editorial committee, we feel that sexual misconduct cannot be 2:45:29.760 --> 2:45:31.600 solved in the same way we try to attempt to 2:45:31.640 --> 2:45:32.410 solve plagiarism. 2:45:32.870 --> 2:45:37.570 These are very fundamentally different issues, she told The Cut. So, 2:45:38.150 --> 2:45:38.670 if you have. 2:45:38.650 --> 2:45:42.730 Seen the names of these men circulating publicly, that is 2:45:42.770 --> 2:45:45.680 because of the Cornell Daily Sun. On September 21st, the 2:45:45.720 --> 2:45:49.279 Cornell Daily Sun's editorial board published the names of all 2:45:49.300 --> 2:45:51.860 of the men who were named as defendants in this lawsuit. 2:45:52.260 --> 2:45:54.440 They said that they believed Cornell had failed in its 2:45:54.560 --> 2:45:58.260 obligation to protect the students and to adequately account for 2:45:58.320 --> 2:46:00.180 its handling of the allegations. 2:46:00.830 --> 2:46:03.650 So, I do have a couple of updates. 2:46:04.070 --> 2:46:08.550 On September 28th, that Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten, 2:46:08.910 --> 2:46:12.410 you know, that do-nothing DA I was describing earlier, well, 2:46:12.570 --> 2:46:15.129 he announced that his office was actually going to do something, 2:46:15.230 --> 2:46:19.090 and that is to reopen this criminal investigation. Van Houten 2:46:19.110 --> 2:46:21.690 says that his office has assigned a senior prosecutor with 2:46:21.730 --> 2:46:24.990 experience prosecuting sex crimes and is preparing to present the 2:46:25.010 --> 2:46:28.520 case to a grand jury. Also, New York Governor Kathy 2:46:28.560 --> 2:46:31.670 Hochul called for an outside council to conduct a transparent, 2:46:31.700 --> 2:46:36.570 independent review of how the university handled Jane Doe's situation. Specifically, 2:46:36.650 --> 2:46:39.169 she wants this review to determine whether or not Cornell 2:46:39.370 --> 2:46:43.200 met its obligations to protect students and pursue justice. So 2:46:43.240 --> 2:46:47.560 that's kind of where the Cornell situation sits right now. 2:46:47.580 --> 2:46:52.020 I have a couple of other sort of pieces there. 2:46:52.280 --> 2:46:54.910 I'm I don't know if you would call this person 2:46:54.950 --> 2:46:57.990 a journalist. I'm going to refer to him as a 2:46:58.610 --> 2:47:00.390 sub stack troll. 2:47:00.629 --> 2:47:00.930 Oh, no. 2:47:00.970 --> 2:47:02.670 Are you going to talk about who I think you're 2:47:02.690 --> 2:47:03.310 going to talk about? 2:47:03.709 --> 2:47:04.910 It's Michael Tracy. 2:47:05.030 --> 2:47:05.529 Oh, yes. 2:47:05.750 --> 2:47:06.090 Yes. 2:47:06.270 --> 2:47:08.250 It's time for Michael Tracy. 2:47:08.400 --> 2:47:08.800 Damn it. 2:47:09.060 --> 2:47:11.379 Is this not his first appearance on the pod? 2:47:11.400 --> 2:47:14.920 No, we've talked about Michael and him being sure the 2:47:14.959 --> 2:47:18.220 Americans were about to invade to help Ukraine because he 2:47:18.500 --> 2:47:21.959 wound up accidentally at a U.S. embassy in Poland. We've 2:47:22.000 --> 2:47:24.500 talked about Michael a few times because he's always wrong 2:47:24.520 --> 2:47:25.459 about everything he says. 2:47:25.920 --> 2:47:28.540 Well, you might not be surprised then to find out 2:47:28.600 --> 2:47:32.070 that he is trying to reveal Jane Doe's identity. 2:47:32.430 --> 2:47:35.330 This is not the first time he's gone after a survivor. Yeah. 2:47:35.980 --> 2:47:36.320 Yes. 2:47:36.560 --> 2:47:39.279 He tweeted, if you happen to know who this Cornell 2:47:39.560 --> 2:47:41.760 Jane Doe is, get in touch and I would be 2:47:41.800 --> 2:47:44.440 happy to publish her name and identifying information. And yes, 2:47:44.459 --> 2:47:47.740 this is 100% permitted under the First Amendment. Whatever threats 2:47:47.800 --> 2:47:50.610 or emotional blackmail people might want to deploy. 2:47:50.629 --> 2:47:53.270 So just a real. 2:47:53.010 --> 2:47:58.269 Lovely guy, real lovely addition to this whole shit show. 2:47:58.690 --> 2:48:00.970 There's been a few other kind of far right content 2:48:01.010 --> 2:48:05.170 creators who've tried to dox this woman, have put out 2:48:05.250 --> 2:48:08.710 identifications that who knows if they are real or not. 2:48:09.209 --> 2:48:11.830 But this is definitely not just Michael. This is not 2:48:11.850 --> 2:48:14.330 just a Michael problem. This is across the whole kind 2:48:14.379 --> 2:48:19.539 of Twitter America first, Groyper sphere as well. 2:48:20.260 --> 2:48:20.740 Yeah. 2:48:20.760 --> 2:48:20.840 Yeah. 2:48:21.640 --> 2:48:23.630 And I'm glad that you mentioned that. 2:48:23.670 --> 2:48:26.110 You know, when I was researching for this, I actually 2:48:26.150 --> 2:48:29.450 found myself in the Behind the Bastards or Cool Zone subreddit. 2:48:29.490 --> 2:48:31.130 And one of the posts on there caught my eye, 2:48:31.170 --> 2:48:34.360 which was, I think this person is right, but basically asking, 2:48:34.840 --> 2:48:38.800 does it seem like there's an uptick in kind of, quote, 2:48:38.980 --> 2:48:43.330 gender wars stuff being used in incendiary ways? 2:48:43.470 --> 2:48:43.650 Yes. 2:48:44.390 --> 2:48:46.310 And he was talking about some of the conversation around 2:48:46.330 --> 2:48:49.150 the Lindsay Clancy trial. And I do, I mean, I'm 2:48:49.450 --> 2:48:52.490 lucky that I've, on my side of pocket of the internet, 2:48:52.670 --> 2:48:57.150 everybody is, you know, supportive of Jane Doe and they 2:48:57.209 --> 2:49:00.890 want a more transparent, clear process for when this kind 2:49:00.930 --> 2:49:02.750 of thing happens. But I do think we're seeing an 2:49:02.790 --> 2:49:05.010 uptick in this kind of thing being used to divide 2:49:05.230 --> 2:49:06.129 and incite. 2:49:06.390 --> 2:49:06.590 Yeah. 2:49:07.140 --> 2:49:07.349 Yeah. 2:49:07.400 --> 2:49:10.160 Yeah. The Lindsay Clancy or whatever her name is case, 2:49:10.220 --> 2:49:12.420 I'm also seeing used a lot that way in the 2:49:12.459 --> 2:49:14.790 right of like, women want to be able to murder 2:49:14.830 --> 2:49:17.869 their babies and stuff. Like, there's definitely a concerted effort 2:49:18.129 --> 2:49:20.129 to push gender conflict shit. 2:49:21.110 --> 2:49:24.689 Yeah, and I hate that it is effective. 2:49:25.270 --> 2:49:26.840 I hate that it's the kind of cultural issue that 2:49:26.879 --> 2:49:31.220 really can move people along these lines. And, you know, 2:49:31.240 --> 2:49:34.160 I think it's important that we know that this situation 2:49:34.220 --> 2:49:38.160 at Cornell is, like, not isolated. Campus rape is not 2:49:38.180 --> 2:49:41.050 an isolated thing. And there's actually another story that you 2:49:41.120 --> 2:49:45.160 might be hearing less about A student at Louisiana State 2:49:45.180 --> 2:49:49.430 University named Kendall Francis Basically, Kendall Francis is a student 2:49:49.470 --> 2:49:51.250 at LSU, a young Black woman. 2:49:51.629 --> 2:49:52.750 This is from law commentary. 2:49:52.770 --> 2:49:57.440 LSU found a football player responsible for sexual assault and 2:49:57.500 --> 2:50:01.340 forcible rape through its Title IX process, then reduced his 2:50:01.580 --> 2:50:06.080 one-year suspension on appeal to two years of probation without restrictions, 2:50:06.459 --> 2:50:10.890 subsequently allowing him back on the LSU football team. So 2:50:11.110 --> 2:50:13.830 this finding remained in place. And that case is now 2:50:13.990 --> 2:50:18.830 under criminal investigation. So you're probably thinking, What the fuck? Basically, 2:50:19.410 --> 2:50:22.850 law commentary reports that Francis, the student at LSU, filed 2:50:22.870 --> 2:50:26.580 a formal Title IX complaint in January of 2026. After 2:50:26.720 --> 2:50:30.780 investigating these allegations and the player's account, the university did 2:50:30.920 --> 2:50:35.260 find him responsible for sexual assault and forcible rape. LSU 2:50:35.320 --> 2:50:40.400 initially imposed a one-year suspension. That player appealed. The university 2:50:40.540 --> 2:50:44.379 upheld the sexual misconduct finding, but then reversed the suspension, 2:50:44.440 --> 2:50:48.340 replacing it with that two years of, quote, disciplinary probation 2:50:48.570 --> 2:50:49.690 without restrictions. 2:50:50.129 --> 2:50:52.530 This, of course, allowed him to return to school. 2:50:52.820 --> 2:50:57.360 To campus, campus life, campus activities, including returning to the 2:50:57.560 --> 2:51:00.590 LSU football team. So the student has been saying, you know, 2:51:01.290 --> 2:51:04.930 I've been made incredibly anxious by this. Like, I wanted 2:51:04.950 --> 2:51:07.390 to be on campus and live my life. But the 2:51:07.450 --> 2:51:10.609 idea that the person at the university agrees assaulted me 2:51:11.000 --> 2:51:15.180 is just allowed back on campus is unacceptable. So in response, 2:51:15.240 --> 2:51:18.090 she filed a criminal complaint And that complaint was brought 2:51:18.150 --> 2:51:21.390 to the East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney's Office for 2:51:21.430 --> 2:51:25.310 review on September 22, 2026, where they are now investigating. 2:51:25.370 --> 2:51:28.060 And that's kind of where we're at right now. But 2:51:28.260 --> 2:51:30.860 LSU says that they're standing by what they did. They 2:51:30.879 --> 2:51:34.480 said that they followed the policies and the process correctly 2:51:34.520 --> 2:51:38.040 and that they're, you know, working with law enforcement to 2:51:38.080 --> 2:51:38.800 solve the matter. 2:51:39.240 --> 2:51:40.199 She's been speaking up. 2:51:40.600 --> 2:51:44.199 On social media, you know, using her real identity, which 2:51:44.240 --> 2:51:47.570 is an incredibly fraught thing to be doing. I wanted 2:51:47.590 --> 2:51:49.390 to play just a little bit of a video that 2:51:49.490 --> 2:51:51.330 she posted to social media. 2:51:52.490 --> 2:51:56.070 We had a pretty rough hearing. The hearing was not 2:51:56.150 --> 2:52:01.030 the best. And then LSU said that he was accountable 2:52:01.070 --> 2:52:04.109 for rape and then proceeded to suspend him for a year, 2:52:04.350 --> 2:52:07.750 even though for rape, the suspension is two to three years. 2:52:09.410 --> 2:52:12.369 Even with him admitting on the record that he did 2:52:12.430 --> 2:52:15.170 rape me, they still just gave him a lesser sentence 2:52:15.330 --> 2:52:19.640 in which he then appealed. During this appeal process, it 2:52:19.670 --> 2:52:22.800 took so long and they took a long, long time 2:52:22.959 --> 2:52:25.160 to give it back to me. And I ended up 2:52:25.200 --> 2:52:27.539 coming back to LSU because at first he was suspended 2:52:27.600 --> 2:52:29.720 and I did not think that they would suspend him 2:52:29.740 --> 2:52:32.680 because they had already found or unsuspend him because they 2:52:32.720 --> 2:52:37.050 had already found him responsible for rape. After the appeal process, 2:52:37.640 --> 2:52:39.990 LSU decided to send me the email of the appeal 2:52:40.020 --> 2:52:42.709 process during my class, so I ended up reading the 2:52:42.750 --> 2:52:44.929 appeal in my class, and during the letter it said 2:52:45.310 --> 2:52:47.770 that he was still responsible for rape, but he's able 2:52:47.790 --> 2:52:50.830 to play football, join orgs, and everything like that, and 2:52:50.870 --> 2:52:53.210 so that made my anxiety really, really bad because I 2:52:53.250 --> 2:52:53.690 don't want. 2:52:53.610 --> 2:52:56.650 To face this person. So this caused me. 2:52:56.629 --> 2:53:00.720 To go online full-time, and now I'm just trying to 2:53:00.780 --> 2:53:04.000 speak on my story because LSU does really protect their athletes, 2:53:04.140 --> 2:53:06.490 especially their football players, and I'm sorry for anyone else 2:53:06.780 --> 2:53:09.390 who has gone through something similar to this. My DMs 2:53:09.430 --> 2:53:11.230 are open, and you guys are more than welcome to 2:53:11.470 --> 2:53:15.550 message me. I really just wanted to bring awareness upon 2:53:15.590 --> 2:53:19.610 this situation because I'm just dealing with a lot right now, 2:53:20.030 --> 2:53:21.990 and I think that this story needs to be heard. 2:53:22.870 --> 2:53:24.570 Thank you guys for listening to my story, and I 2:53:24.610 --> 2:53:26.030 hope you guys all have an amazing day. 2:53:28.600 --> 2:53:31.690 So she's been really speaking out on social media. 2:53:31.870 --> 2:53:36.190 And, you know, I'm really happy that we are galvanizing 2:53:36.250 --> 2:53:39.770 around Jane Doe at Cornell. And I think that all 2:53:39.830 --> 2:53:44.529 survivors and victims deserve to have their stories shared, deserve 2:53:44.550 --> 2:53:46.850 to have support, deserve to be believed. And so I 2:53:46.890 --> 2:53:49.890 just wanted to also highlight what's happening at LSU with 2:53:49.910 --> 2:53:54.050 this Title IX complaint as well. And Coincidentally, I do 2:53:54.150 --> 2:53:57.790 have some Title IX news because on September 28th, the 2:53:57.890 --> 2:54:01.210 very same day that that DA announced that they were 2:54:01.250 --> 2:54:06.000 reopening the Cornell investigation, the Trump administration formally reinstated the 2:54:06.030 --> 2:54:09.640 Title IX regulations that were created during Trump's first term. 2:54:10.080 --> 2:54:12.220 This has been a little bit of a political and 2:54:12.280 --> 2:54:15.879 legal tug of war back and forth for years. During 2:54:15.940 --> 2:54:20.259 Trump's first term, his administration rewrote the Title IX rules 2:54:20.320 --> 2:54:24.420 back in 2020. Among other things, the regulations that he 2:54:24.520 --> 2:54:28.930 changed narrowed what kinds of sexual harassment schools were required 2:54:28.970 --> 2:54:33.330 to address under Title IX and also strengthened procedural protections 2:54:33.370 --> 2:54:37.950 for students who were accused of misconduct. The Biden administration 2:54:38.050 --> 2:54:42.270 rewrote those rules again in 2024. Those Biden rules broadened 2:54:42.330 --> 2:54:47.110 protections against sex discrimination to include explicitly extending those protections 2:54:47.190 --> 2:54:51.990 to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. and 2:54:52.129 --> 2:54:55.670 changed how schools could handle sexual harassment complaints. But those 2:54:55.730 --> 2:54:58.180 rules then got tied up in lawsuits, and in January 2:54:58.200 --> 2:55:02.320 of 2025, a federal judge struck them down nationwide. So 2:55:02.379 --> 2:55:06.039 the 2020 Trump rules were effectively kind of back in place. 2:55:06.400 --> 2:55:08.800 But what happened this week is that the Trump administration 2:55:09.160 --> 2:55:13.320 made that official. The Education Department formally removed those Biden-era 2:55:13.360 --> 2:55:18.080 regulations from the books and restored those Trump 2020 regulations. 2:55:18.520 --> 2:55:20.800 So if you ask me, those rules make it more 2:55:20.840 --> 2:55:24.990 difficult for some students who experience sexual harassment or misconduct 2:55:25.070 --> 2:55:28.030 or assault to come forward and get real help from 2:55:28.070 --> 2:55:31.830 their schools. Now, to be clear, the Cornell case and 2:55:31.870 --> 2:55:34.350 this Trump change are different developments. 2:55:34.370 --> 2:55:37.910 They're not related. But it is hard for me not 2:55:37.930 --> 2:55:38.270 to sort. 2:55:38.190 --> 2:55:41.539 Of read them concurrently because it feels like we're watching 2:55:41.620 --> 2:55:44.840 this Cornell case raise all these questions about what happens 2:55:44.879 --> 2:55:48.550 when a student reports you know, sexual assault or sexual misconduct, 2:55:48.910 --> 2:55:52.970 who believes them, who investigates what the university does, what 2:55:53.170 --> 2:55:55.570 they have to do if they're getting federal funding, what 2:55:55.629 --> 2:55:58.609 law enforcement does, you know, while the federal government is 2:55:58.650 --> 2:56:03.060 simultaneously deciding what obligations schools have when students come forward 2:56:03.100 --> 2:56:03.840 with stuff like this. 2:56:05.000 --> 2:56:05.320 Yeah. 2:56:05.459 --> 2:56:07.920 And I mean, to the degree to which the Title 2:56:08.080 --> 2:56:12.689 IX issue was motivated by transphobia as well, just shows 2:56:12.730 --> 2:56:16.910 how much transphobia ends up hurting everyone. You're going to 2:56:17.590 --> 2:56:21.140 talk about keeping women safe in locker rooms, and that's 2:56:21.190 --> 2:56:24.240 why you're going to attack trans people. But then you're 2:56:24.260 --> 2:56:26.660 actually going to be reinstating a version of Title IX 2:56:26.740 --> 2:56:29.619 with less sexual assault protections. 2:56:30.060 --> 2:56:30.500 Oh, yes. 2:56:30.720 --> 2:56:33.160 I have said this many times. It's like that Beyonce quote, 2:56:33.180 --> 2:56:35.920 when you play me, you play yourself. When you dabble 2:56:36.080 --> 2:56:40.540 in transphobia, ultimately, you are hurting everyone. You're making everyone 2:56:40.560 --> 2:56:41.020 less safe. 2:56:41.940 --> 2:56:44.770 Thanks for that report, Bridgette. We'll have one more ad 2:56:44.820 --> 2:56:48.700 break and then Robert will have a special report. 2:56:48.800 --> 2:57:04.710 Darn tootin'. And we're back. So in April earlier this 2:57:04.790 --> 2:57:07.830 year on this very show, I celebrated the massive upset 2:57:07.890 --> 2:57:11.250 parliamentary elections in Hungary, which saw right wing authoritarian Prime 2:57:11.260 --> 2:57:14.810 Minister Viktor Orban forced out of office. Over the past 2:57:14.890 --> 2:57:18.150 decade and change, Orban had disintegrated what checks and balances 2:57:18.190 --> 2:57:21.910 existed in Hungarian democracy as he cracked down on political opponents, 2:57:21.970 --> 2:57:25.450 destroyed academic independence and censored the media so effectively that 2:57:25.470 --> 2:57:27.740 his regime was used as a model by the U.S. 2:57:27.830 --> 2:57:31.100 right wing ever since. Hungary started hosting its own CPAC, 2:57:31.120 --> 2:57:33.580 and people like Tucker Carlson produced fawning coverage of Orban's 2:57:33.620 --> 2:57:36.310 regime in an effort to copy it here. Then came 2:57:36.390 --> 2:57:39.250 Peter Magyar, whose name is the Hungarian equivalent of a 2:57:39.290 --> 2:57:43.250 guy in the U.S. being called Pete America. A centrist conservative, 2:57:43.330 --> 2:57:46.610 Magyar rose to power promising to take back Hungarian democracy 2:57:46.670 --> 2:57:49.170 and punish Orban and his cronies for their years of 2:57:49.209 --> 2:57:52.630 outrageous corruption. On the campaign trail, he called Orban's government 2:57:52.709 --> 2:57:56.990 a mafia state. Magyar laid out a road-to-jail program in 2:57:57.010 --> 2:58:00.270 which he promised consequences for right-wing politicians and appointees who 2:58:00.310 --> 2:58:03.410 abused their power, and this was a massively popular part 2:58:03.550 --> 2:58:06.550 of his campaign, and it's something that Democrats in the 2:58:06.590 --> 2:58:10.109 United States should be paying attention to. After Magyar's Tiza 2:58:10.170 --> 2:58:13.119 Party won, among the celebrations was a tinge of very 2:58:13.200 --> 2:58:16.000 real worry. What if Peter turned out to simply be 2:58:16.040 --> 2:58:18.340 a different kind of authoritarian? Or what if he was 2:58:18.400 --> 2:58:20.480 just feckless and did the same kind of thing our 2:58:20.520 --> 2:58:23.220 own political leaders did in the U.S. when Trump lost 2:58:23.260 --> 2:58:26.080 in 2020? In other words, what if he completely failed 2:58:26.150 --> 2:58:28.950 to hold Orban and his people to account out of fear? 2:58:29.370 --> 2:58:31.610 There was good reason to worry that the road to 2:58:31.670 --> 2:58:35.510 jail program would get dropped entirely now that Magyar and 2:58:35.550 --> 2:58:38.710 his Tiza party were in power. As Kino Vrsek noted 2:58:38.770 --> 2:58:41.450 in an article for Deutsche Welle, quote, Orban had laid 2:58:41.510 --> 2:58:43.990 out plans that stretched decades into the future. In the 2:58:44.030 --> 2:58:46.410 event of his party losing the election, civil servants who 2:58:46.430 --> 2:58:48.629 would be difficult to replace would sabotage the work of 2:58:48.690 --> 2:58:51.709 new governments. In addition, billions were squirreled away to continue 2:58:51.810 --> 2:58:55.010 financing Orban's network. They were left in Hungary with kind 2:58:55.030 --> 2:58:56.609 of the same problem we are going to have in 2:58:56.629 --> 2:58:58.550 the U.S. if we ever do get Trump and his 2:58:58.590 --> 2:59:00.770 people out of office, which is that you can't just 2:59:00.950 --> 2:59:03.150 beat them in an election. You have to undo the 2:59:03.170 --> 2:59:05.310 stuff they did and punish them in order to cripple 2:59:05.350 --> 2:59:08.510 their networks and stop them from rising again. And that 2:59:08.590 --> 2:59:11.590 was an open question after Magyar won in Hungary, and 2:59:11.670 --> 2:59:14.410 it's now looking, after a few months, like he is 2:59:14.490 --> 2:59:18.000 committing to going after Orban and his network. With a 2:59:18.060 --> 2:59:21.280 two-thirds majority in parliament, Tiza has launched what I've seen 2:59:21.340 --> 2:59:26.279 translated as Operation Purge or Operation Purgatory on different news sites. 2:59:26.680 --> 2:59:29.780 I'm not really sure what's a more accurate description of 2:59:30.320 --> 2:59:34.430 what Magyar actually meant. I think Operation Purgatory, because as 2:59:34.470 --> 2:59:37.629 Deutsche Welle notes, Peter has a known penchant for religious 2:59:37.670 --> 2:59:42.070 and historical symbols. On Monday, Hungarian prosecutors detained two of 2:59:42.129 --> 2:59:46.490 Orban's former ministers over corruption allegations. These guys are still incarcerated. 2:59:46.910 --> 2:59:49.910 Parliament had previously voted to lift their immunity. Per a 2:59:50.050 --> 2:59:54.050 Euronews article by Sandor Zeros, Zestak, who served as development 2:59:54.090 --> 2:59:57.050 minister from 2014 to 2018, is suspected of taking around 2:59:57.050 --> 3:00:00.120 30 million euros in bribes linked to bus tenders. Hanco 3:00:00.160 --> 3:00:03.150 is being investigated over the disbursement of 46 million euros 3:00:03.180 --> 3:00:06.109 in cultural funds to public figures, which the authorities largely 3:00:06.150 --> 3:00:10.470 regard as campaign financing. Now, both men deny any wrongdoing, 3:00:10.530 --> 3:00:13.810 and I don't know how this is going to shake out, 3:00:13.870 --> 3:00:16.350 but I suspect it looks like the government is going 3:00:16.410 --> 3:00:18.690 after them pretty hard. And I think this story is important. 3:00:19.180 --> 3:00:23.420 to watch, both because obviously Hungarian democracy matters, but also 3:00:23.459 --> 3:00:26.279 because this should be taken as a model by Democrats 3:00:26.340 --> 3:00:28.560 if they ever do manage to unseat the Republicans and 3:00:28.720 --> 3:00:31.360 take back some form of control. Magyar isn't just going 3:00:31.440 --> 3:00:33.830 after Orban and his people because they broke the law. 3:00:33.890 --> 3:00:38.250 He's doing it because it's excellent politics. Political analyst Sabolx 3:00:38.350 --> 3:00:41.369 Dole told Euronews that fighting corruption has been a major 3:00:41.410 --> 3:00:45.050 source of Magyar's continuing popularity. In other words, voters continue 3:00:45.090 --> 3:00:48.410 to support him going after Orban. Quote, Now, the elephant 3:00:48.450 --> 3:00:50.530 in the room here remains Orban, just as Trump would 3:00:50.580 --> 3:01:11.440 be if things were reversed here. Victor Orban has not 3:01:11.520 --> 3:01:14.170 yet been charged with any crimes, but Magyar's party has 3:01:14.209 --> 3:01:16.769 been hard at work building the judicial infrastructure to make 3:01:16.810 --> 3:01:19.990 that possible, and I also consider this very relevant for Americans. 3:01:20.390 --> 3:01:23.240 The heart of Operation Purge is a new government office, 3:01:23.320 --> 3:01:27.300 the National Asset Recovery and Protection Office, which is dedicated 3:01:27.400 --> 3:01:30.400 to going after people who robbed the government during the 3:01:30.470 --> 3:01:33.830 time that Orban's very corrupt party was in power. This 3:01:33.890 --> 3:01:37.170 new body has been empowered to take over corruption investigations 3:01:37.209 --> 3:01:40.310 from traditional prosecutors, as well as to start new investigations 3:01:40.390 --> 3:01:43.390 and to issue warrants. They have several other Orban cronies 3:01:43.430 --> 3:01:45.170 in their sights at present, and it looks likely that 3:01:45.230 --> 3:01:48.570 Viktor himself will soon face charges over his criminal liability 3:01:48.870 --> 3:01:51.420 in a case involving two Ukrainian cash couriers who were 3:01:51.430 --> 3:01:55.039 illegally stopped and had their money confiscated. As you'd expect, 3:01:55.160 --> 3:01:58.300 Orban's Fidesz party has issued complaints about their treatment, calling 3:01:58.340 --> 3:02:01.680 it arbitrary and complaining that tis a tyrants want to 3:02:01.760 --> 3:02:06.170 imprison half the country. Within parliament, Magyar has also faced resistance. 3:02:06.330 --> 3:02:08.350 His own immunity was lifted at the request of the 3:02:08.370 --> 3:02:11.150 prosecutor's office over a minor theft claim that just makes 3:02:11.190 --> 3:02:14.270 him seem cooler. In May of 2024, he stole the 3:02:14.330 --> 3:02:16.289 phone of a man who was filming him dancing at 3:02:16.330 --> 3:02:19.390 a nightclub and threw it in the Danube, which honestly 3:02:19.629 --> 3:02:19.910 is pretty sick. 3:02:19.930 --> 3:02:23.130 That's just proper etiquette. Yeah, that's... That's just awesome. 3:02:25.030 --> 3:02:28.070 That's just rad as hell, bro. It's also worth me 3:02:28.129 --> 3:02:30.990 noting that Magyar and Tisza have been busier than just this. 3:02:31.230 --> 3:02:33.530 During his first month or so in office, he had 3:02:33.570 --> 3:02:37.029 parliament approve cuts to the salaries of lawmakers and ministers 3:02:37.330 --> 3:02:39.790 and introduced a new maximum limit to the time that 3:02:39.830 --> 3:02:42.730 a prime minister can hold office, two terms, which is 3:02:42.790 --> 3:02:45.530 really noteworthy, both that like his party's in power and 3:02:45.550 --> 3:02:48.880 they're voting to give politicians, including themselves, less money and 3:02:49.000 --> 3:02:51.800 limit their own power in office. That's a really good sign. 3:02:51.840 --> 3:02:52.020 Yeah. 3:02:52.240 --> 3:02:54.880 In terms of like him actually giving a shit about 3:02:54.920 --> 3:02:58.330 restoring Hungarian democracy. Also on Tuesday of this week, the 3:02:58.370 --> 3:03:01.260 Hungarian parliament passed a raft of anti-corruption measures. I'm going 3:03:01.280 --> 3:03:04.460 to keep covering this as Magyar continues going after Orban. 3:03:04.480 --> 3:03:06.860 I think this is really worth watching. And so far, 3:03:06.900 --> 3:03:09.260 I'm pretty optimistic about what's going on there. 3:03:09.620 --> 3:03:12.650 No, especially in terms of how much Orban's regime was 3:03:12.670 --> 3:03:16.570 like the blueprint for Trump's second term. This gives us 3:03:16.990 --> 3:03:21.550 this look into a what-if potential. We've talked about the 3:03:21.770 --> 3:03:25.560 outrageous levels of corruption in the second Trump administration. And- 3:03:26.020 --> 3:03:28.320 I don't think many people are very confident that the Democrats, 3:03:28.540 --> 3:03:31.200 upon taking power, will actually hold the Trump admin accountable. 3:03:31.300 --> 3:03:31.920 I sure am not. 3:03:32.520 --> 3:03:34.900 But I think looking at stuff like this, it gives 3:03:34.940 --> 3:03:37.860 us a good barometer to kind of hold the Democrats 3:03:37.920 --> 3:03:38.650 to a certain extent. 3:03:38.670 --> 3:03:38.890 Yes. 3:03:39.430 --> 3:03:41.910 This can work. And this can work electorally, right? 3:03:41.930 --> 3:03:42.390 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 3:03:42.490 --> 3:03:45.150 When you said it was excellent politics, Robert, I agreed 3:03:45.170 --> 3:03:45.529 with that. 3:03:45.670 --> 3:03:48.450 And that's how I know the Democrats probably aren't going 3:03:48.470 --> 3:03:48.820 to do it. 3:03:48.950 --> 3:03:50.450 The Democrats probably aren't going to do it. 3:03:50.470 --> 3:03:50.570 Yeah. 3:03:50.590 --> 3:03:51.410 Yeah, unfortunately. 3:03:52.450 --> 3:03:55.410 Unfortunately. I do, before we leave, also want to turn 3:03:55.450 --> 3:03:58.770 our attention briefly to another nation that recently ousted a 3:03:58.810 --> 3:04:01.730 right-wing wannabe tyrant, Brazil. And this is a somewhat less 3:04:01.830 --> 3:04:06.270 optimistic story. Several years now after Jair Bolsonaro's ouster, which 3:04:06.560 --> 3:04:09.300 he's in prison now for the coup that was launched 3:04:09.400 --> 3:04:12.240 after he lost his election in 2022, Brazil is in 3:04:12.260 --> 3:04:15.000 the thick of another election that many fear might return 3:04:15.040 --> 3:04:17.900 the right and the Bolsonaros to power. The most recent 3:04:17.980 --> 3:04:22.699 polling from 30th of September by Mio slash Idea showed Lula, 3:04:22.750 --> 3:04:25.850 the current president, with thirty nine point four percent of 3:04:25.910 --> 3:04:28.570 the vote and Flavio Bolsonaro with thirty eight point four 3:04:28.610 --> 3:04:30.970 percent of the vote. They go through like multiple. This 3:04:30.990 --> 3:04:32.290 is the second round of voting. 3:04:32.470 --> 3:04:32.629 Right. 3:04:32.930 --> 3:04:33.030 Right. 3:04:33.050 --> 3:04:33.390 Right. Right. 3:04:55.629 --> 3:04:58.030 It is very hard to tell what's going to happen here. 3:04:58.270 --> 3:05:02.379 And Bolsonaro's son could, and Flavio is Bolsonaro's kid, could 3:05:02.420 --> 3:05:05.740 very well win this election. It's entirely possible. Writing for 3:05:05.800 --> 3:05:09.160 Chatham House, Dr. Christopher Sabatini said of this election, quote, 3:05:09.420 --> 3:05:13.720 a Bolsonaro victory would mean Trump-aligned governments dominate South America. Now, 3:05:13.760 --> 3:05:15.700 I won't have time to cover this election in detail, 3:05:15.730 --> 3:05:18.190 but it's worth noting that the incumbent, Lula da Silva, 3:05:18.330 --> 3:05:22.180 is 80, whereas Flavio Bolsonaro is 45. That said, it's 3:05:22.220 --> 3:05:25.039 unclear to me if age is a major factor in this. 3:05:25.120 --> 3:05:28.640 I doubt it's a non-factor, but these numbers are not 3:05:28.760 --> 3:05:32.459 far from the 2022 numbers, right? Lula won his way 3:05:32.500 --> 3:05:36.020 back into power with 50.9% of the vote to 49.1% 3:05:36.020 --> 3:05:41.650 for Jair Bolsonaro after polls consistently undercounted Bolsonaro's support, right? 3:05:42.170 --> 3:05:43.310 One thing I'll say is this doesn't look like a 3:05:43.410 --> 3:05:46.810 massive shift. They were pretty close to tied when Lula won, 3:05:46.890 --> 3:05:50.349 and they're pretty close to tied now, right? Per Dr. 3:05:50.370 --> 3:05:53.460 Sabatini's analysis, quote, this year's contest is more than a 3:05:53.480 --> 3:05:55.900 familial grudge match. For one, it looks a lot like 3:05:55.980 --> 3:05:59.039 recent presidential elections in the region. In June, elections in 3:05:59.080 --> 3:06:01.260 both Peru and Colombia went to a second round. Each 3:06:01.280 --> 3:06:04.040 resulted in a narrow victory for conservative candidates who, like 3:06:04.060 --> 3:06:07.340 the Bolsonaros, are aligned with the regional diplomatic agenda of U.S. 3:06:07.390 --> 3:06:10.510 President Donald Trump. Both Lula and the younger Bolsonaro face 3:06:10.590 --> 3:06:14.320 high levels of voter rejection. More than 54% of Brazilian 3:06:14.340 --> 3:06:17.580 voters disapprove of Flavio, according to one poll. Lula does 3:06:17.680 --> 3:06:20.600 little better in the same survey, with 52% against the 3:06:20.640 --> 3:06:24.019 president running for a fourth term. Brazil also suffers from 3:06:24.060 --> 3:06:27.440 much of the same electoral malaise that we do. Only 37% 3:06:27.440 --> 3:06:29.940 of Brazilian voters say they are satisfied with their democracy, 3:06:30.360 --> 3:06:34.230 a drop of nearly 50% since 2013. The highest levels 3:06:34.260 --> 3:06:37.529 of dissatisfaction are, of course, seen among Bolsonaro voters. And, 3:06:37.670 --> 3:06:41.090 as a recent Guardian editorial noted, most voters disapprove of 3:06:41.190 --> 3:06:44.800 most men. In tracing the significant developments of this campaign, 3:06:44.820 --> 3:06:48.240 The Guardian summarizes, quote, Lula's social programs are extensive, but 3:06:48.280 --> 3:06:51.370 frustration at Brazil's enduring failure to match its economic record 3:06:51.390 --> 3:06:54.010 to its potential may hobble him, especially with growth slowing. 3:06:54.330 --> 3:06:57.270 Violent crime remains a top issue. Then came the Banco 3:06:57.350 --> 3:07:00.360 Master financial scandal, which has snowballed into a corruption case 3:07:00.379 --> 3:07:03.880 spanning Brazilian politics in the judiciary. First, Flavio Bolsonaro was 3:07:03.940 --> 3:07:07.379 caught on tape asking the failed bank's Playboy owner, Daniel Vorcaro, 3:07:07.600 --> 3:07:10.590 for almost $ 27 million to make a film about his father. 3:07:10.850 --> 3:07:14.750 He denies wrongdoing. Then, compromising messages between Mr. Vorcaro and 3:07:14.770 --> 3:07:17.050 the Supreme Court judge who led the prosecution of the 3:07:17.129 --> 3:07:20.860 ex-president Bolsonaro were revealed. The allegations fed the perception that 3:07:20.900 --> 3:07:24.020 politicians are all dirty and bolstered the unfounded far-right claim 3:07:24.040 --> 3:07:27.619 that Mr. Bolsonaro Sr. was stitched up. So this is 3:07:27.680 --> 3:07:32.890 incredibly close. Bolsonaro could wind up leading Brazil again very soon. 3:07:33.370 --> 3:07:34.670 And if it does, a big part of the reason 3:07:34.709 --> 3:07:38.770 is that nobody presented Brazilian voters with a candidate they liked. 3:07:39.740 --> 3:07:40.020 Right. 3:07:40.379 --> 3:07:43.220 Like Lula is very popular among like the Western left, 3:07:43.320 --> 3:07:45.160 but he's not popular in Brazil right now. 3:07:45.420 --> 3:07:45.640 Right. 3:07:46.040 --> 3:07:50.010 He's more popular than Flavio Bolsonaro, but they're both disliked 3:07:50.070 --> 3:07:52.730 by a majority of the country. So if there's a 3:07:52.810 --> 3:07:55.190 warning that every other country should take out of it 3:07:55.250 --> 3:07:57.990 than that, it's make sure whoever you run against the 3:07:58.010 --> 3:08:00.150 far right is someone people like. 3:08:01.420 --> 3:08:01.660 Right. 3:08:02.120 --> 3:08:03.439 Again, excellent politics. 3:08:03.560 --> 3:08:04.220 Hope we do it. 3:08:04.660 --> 3:08:05.060 Yeah. 3:08:05.620 --> 3:08:05.920 Anyway. 3:08:06.310 --> 3:08:08.289 That's Brazil. We'll see how that goes. I hope Lula 3:08:08.310 --> 3:08:11.480 wins because I don't want to see a Bolsonaro running 3:08:11.520 --> 3:08:15.100 Brazil again. But whoever wins, I have one prediction for Brazil, 3:08:15.260 --> 3:08:17.500 which is that Jair Bolsonaro will wind up in a 3:08:17.560 --> 3:08:19.080 hospital again within the next three months. 3:08:21.800 --> 3:08:28.890 That's barely a prediction. That's just a statistical certainty, I think. 3:08:28.910 --> 3:08:30.810 But no, this is a really good wake-up call and 3:08:30.830 --> 3:08:33.330 a reminder that as fun as it is to have 3:08:33.350 --> 3:08:35.570 these kind of grandpas on the left... You have to 3:08:35.610 --> 3:08:37.910 pass off leadership to new people. Like you have to 3:08:37.950 --> 3:08:38.590 pass the torch. 3:08:38.629 --> 3:08:40.390 Even if they're guys who've done some really good stuff 3:08:40.410 --> 3:08:43.030 in the past. And he's too fucking old. It just is. 3:08:43.050 --> 3:08:46.429 I think I saw like Ryan Grimm musing about running 3:08:46.610 --> 3:08:49.950 Sanders again for 2028. Like recently. I'm like, dude, what 3:08:49.990 --> 3:08:51.490 the fuck are you talking about? 3:08:51.510 --> 3:08:53.590 I still, I have fond feelings for Bernie. 3:08:53.610 --> 3:08:54.450 He's too old. 3:08:55.870 --> 3:08:56.730 He's too old. 3:08:57.470 --> 3:08:59.290 He'd be like 90 years old, dude. 3:08:59.370 --> 3:09:01.470 We gotta, we gotta move on people. 3:09:01.750 --> 3:09:03.470 Get real. Get real. 3:09:03.530 --> 3:09:04.130 I'm sorry. 3:09:05.280 --> 3:09:09.160 Before we close this episode, let's pivot to Mia Wong 3:09:09.200 --> 3:09:11.119 for a special Tariff Talk segment. 3:09:11.300 --> 3:09:14.070 So let's talk tariffs. 3:09:30.090 --> 3:09:33.750 As Trump's trade war with Canada continues with no sign 3:09:34.000 --> 3:09:38.619 of any agreement in sight, Trump's tariffs are finally getting 3:09:38.660 --> 3:09:43.730 their day in court. But not the 50% tariffs. that 3:09:43.770 --> 3:09:48.530 Trump levied against Canada using what can at best be 3:09:48.580 --> 3:09:52.520 described as the extremely dubious powers, quote unquote, of the 3:09:53.020 --> 3:09:57.080 1930s Smoot-Hawley tariff act. Oh no, the tariffs that have 3:09:57.120 --> 3:10:02.060 finally reached the U.S. Court of International Trade are the 3:10:02.140 --> 3:10:07.440 Section 301 tariffs that Trump levied back in July. Now, 3:10:07.560 --> 3:10:10.379 by the time you are listening to this, a couple 3:10:10.420 --> 3:10:14.720 of days in the future, it is going to be October. Now, 3:10:14.940 --> 3:10:19.220 the first lawsuit against these tariffs was filed again in 3:10:19.540 --> 3:10:25.230 late July, and it's now October. And we're getting, you know, 3:10:25.250 --> 3:10:31.690 we're getting the initial arguments on September 30th. Meanwhile, the 3:10:31.690 --> 3:10:34.830 10 to 12 percent tariffs on almost all U.S. imports 3:10:34.890 --> 3:10:38.300 remain in effect. and probably will continue to remain in 3:10:38.360 --> 3:10:41.500 effect while this case winds its way through this court, 3:10:41.920 --> 3:10:45.370 probably an appeals court, and then probably also the Supreme Court, 3:10:45.410 --> 3:10:48.230 despite the fact that these tariffs are a just obviously 3:10:48.310 --> 3:10:52.550 absurd usage of Section 301. So, for those who've forgotten, 3:10:52.610 --> 3:10:55.750 Section 301 are supposed to be the tariffs for unfair 3:10:55.810 --> 3:10:59.530 trade practices. The July tariffs are, once again, on 99.4% 3:10:59.530 --> 3:11:05.020 of all imported goods. And these ones are nominally supposed 3:11:05.080 --> 3:11:08.830 to be about forced labor. The thing about Section 301 3:11:08.830 --> 3:11:11.650 tariffs is that you can't just impose them immediately. You 3:11:11.690 --> 3:11:14.690 have to do a whole investigatory process, at least nominally, 3:11:14.709 --> 3:11:20.720 about the specific unfair trade practices that the country is doing. But, 3:11:21.270 --> 3:11:23.620 you know, so these are supposed to nominally be about 3:11:23.680 --> 3:11:26.900 forced labor, but they're on an unbelievable number of countries 3:11:26.920 --> 3:11:30.060 that just happen to, again, constitute 99% of all imported 3:11:30.100 --> 3:11:33.360 goods in the U.S., And as the litigants in this 3:11:33.600 --> 3:11:38.380 case have begun to argue in front of the U.S. 3:11:38.400 --> 3:11:42.610 Court of International Trade, it doesn't actually make sense to 3:11:42.650 --> 3:11:46.289 just have two categories of tariff levels and then just 3:11:46.510 --> 3:11:48.720 be like, oh, yeah, all these countries did forced labor 3:11:48.740 --> 3:11:52.740 or weren't. harsh enough about cracking down on other countries 3:11:52.780 --> 3:11:55.000 doing forced labor, so we're just going to set this 3:11:55.040 --> 3:11:58.720 tariff rate for all of them. That's not what Section 3:11:58.720 --> 3:12:00.820 301 tariffs are supposed to be for. They're supposed to 3:12:00.860 --> 3:12:04.760 be for, you know, like deliberate, very specific targeted tariffs 3:12:05.020 --> 3:12:08.280 on a country for a specific thing, not we want 3:12:08.300 --> 3:12:11.620 to impose a 10% tariff again and our last thing 3:12:11.680 --> 3:12:14.880 that was letting us impose a 10% tariff is failing. 3:12:14.900 --> 3:12:17.920 So we're going to do this one now. And as 3:12:18.500 --> 3:12:23.510 you sort of might expect, the initial arguments do not 3:12:23.610 --> 3:12:28.350 seem to be going well for the administration, who showed 3:12:28.430 --> 3:12:31.130 up in front of the court with the bumbling ineptitude 3:12:31.150 --> 3:12:34.170 that they have become known for when they're forced to 3:12:34.190 --> 3:12:37.820 defend administration decisions in recent times. There's a bunch of 3:12:37.840 --> 3:12:42.620 reports of You know, one of the representatives of the 3:12:42.700 --> 3:12:45.150 administration is like giving this starting to try to give 3:12:45.180 --> 3:12:47.690 this like giant speech about the evils of forced labor. 3:12:47.750 --> 3:12:49.070 And one of the judges just like. 3:12:48.970 --> 3:12:52.450 Immediately interrupts him. And they're doing, again, another thing that's 3:12:52.490 --> 3:12:54.490 a staple of if you've if you listen to or 3:12:55.190 --> 3:12:58.660 seen clips of like any administrative proceeding for like anything 3:12:58.670 --> 3:13:02.960 this administration does in court, you will see administration representatives 3:13:03.000 --> 3:13:05.699 be asked basic questions about a case and just not 3:13:05.740 --> 3:13:06.539 know the answers to them. 3:13:07.040 --> 3:13:07.160 So. 3:13:07.580 --> 3:13:12.170 This is already going poorly on day one. However, again, 3:13:12.190 --> 3:13:14.629 this is the first of three courts they have to 3:13:14.670 --> 3:13:17.150 go through, and probably these are going to be in 3:13:17.190 --> 3:13:20.250 effect until, I don't know, probably the Supreme Court gets 3:13:20.290 --> 3:13:24.190 to it. So incredible, incredible stuff happening in the US 3:13:24.250 --> 3:13:28.289 legal system where the president can just impose whatever tariffs 3:13:28.330 --> 3:13:30.490 he wants by making up legal authority, and then they 3:13:30.530 --> 3:13:34.410 just stay in effect until bunch of months later when 3:13:34.510 --> 3:13:36.230 they're found to be illegal, at which point he's moved 3:13:36.290 --> 3:13:38.750 on to the next tariff. Again, we're one tariff cycle 3:13:38.800 --> 3:13:42.540 behind with the Section 301 tariffs, right? He's already using 3:13:42.580 --> 3:13:46.400 Holly Smoot for the Canada tariffs. Now, it is worth noting, 3:13:46.420 --> 3:13:47.900 and this is part of the reason I'm talking about 3:13:47.920 --> 3:13:51.950 the Section 301 tariffs, is that Trump is also threatening 3:13:52.010 --> 3:13:55.650 to do a different set of Section 301 tariffs to 3:13:55.850 --> 3:14:00.240 do these They're called quote-unquote excess capacity tariffs that he's 3:14:00.280 --> 3:14:04.660 had these investigations going for a while now. So excess 3:14:04.680 --> 3:14:05.700 capacity is. 3:14:05.720 --> 3:14:05.800 It. 3:14:07.420 --> 3:14:09.670 Is a thing that exists in the world. It refers 3:14:09.790 --> 3:14:12.570 to steel as the context in which it comes up 3:14:12.610 --> 3:14:15.830 the most. It refers to, oh yeah, there's actually a 3:14:15.870 --> 3:14:17.869 lot more steel production than there's supposed to be in 3:14:17.910 --> 3:14:19.910 these countries that are producing more steel than they need 3:14:19.950 --> 3:14:22.830 and pumping it all on the market to depreciate steel prices. 3:14:23.629 --> 3:14:27.400 They're nominally doing investigations about a range of goods. With 3:14:27.440 --> 3:14:30.960 excess capacity. I did an entire episode about this last year, 3:14:30.980 --> 3:14:33.840 about the sort of core economic causes of this and 3:14:33.860 --> 3:14:37.750 the way that this sort of like chronic overproduction and underconsumption, 3:14:38.610 --> 3:14:40.550 where you have a bunch of stuff being produced that's 3:14:40.570 --> 3:14:44.650 going to waste because people can't use it because they 3:14:44.670 --> 3:14:48.800 don't have any money. This is a structural feature of capitalism. Yeah, 3:14:48.820 --> 3:14:51.420 I did an episode last year when there was another 3:14:51.480 --> 3:14:54.800 big fight over steel tariffs. That was about overcapacity. It's 3:14:54.820 --> 3:14:57.540 called the economics of the tariff regime. if you want 3:14:57.560 --> 3:15:00.580 to go more into this deal over capacity stuff. But 3:15:01.459 --> 3:15:05.250 these tariffs mostly seem to be another attempt to do 3:15:06.570 --> 3:15:10.110 basically the same thing as the other Section 301 tariffs 3:15:10.150 --> 3:15:13.789 that he just levied. So it's to have some kind 3:15:13.830 --> 3:15:18.240 of another way to impose a broad percentage tariff on 3:15:18.260 --> 3:15:22.060 a whole bunch of different countries. And these are the 3:15:22.080 --> 3:15:24.260 kind of tariffs that Trump has been salivating over ever 3:15:24.300 --> 3:15:26.180 since he took office, and he's been trying to find 3:15:26.220 --> 3:15:29.640 increasingly obscure ways to do them since the Supreme Court 3:15:29.980 --> 3:15:35.900 overruled his initial extremely bizarre claiming of powers that he 3:15:35.980 --> 3:15:39.349 used to do it last time. Now, to close out 3:15:39.450 --> 3:15:44.230 my section here, let's wrap up the story of, I 3:15:44.250 --> 3:15:48.400 guess now ex-chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell. who, 3:15:48.600 --> 3:15:51.340 if you will remember, Trump attempted to have investigated by 3:15:51.400 --> 3:15:57.010 federal prosecutors nominally for corruption around the remodeling of the 3:15:57.050 --> 3:15:59.970 Federal Reserve Building. This was a whole thing that Trump 3:16:00.010 --> 3:16:01.870 and all those people were pushing at the time in 3:16:01.910 --> 3:16:04.410 the middle of this conflict he was having where Trump 3:16:04.430 --> 3:16:06.500 was trying to get Jerome Powell to cut interest rates. 3:16:07.220 --> 3:16:09.420 But that's not a thing that the president is supposed 3:16:09.459 --> 3:16:12.680 to be pressuring the Fed to do that defeats the 3:16:12.720 --> 3:16:15.580 entire purpose of the independence of the Fed. And, you know, 3:16:15.600 --> 3:16:18.340 Trump was going on TV all the time and talking about, like, ah, they're, like, 3:16:18.360 --> 3:16:20.940 turning the Fed into, like, a palace. They're, like, using 3:16:20.959 --> 3:16:25.150 all your government money to, like, make giant, like, glowing 3:16:25.250 --> 3:16:27.750 bathrooms and stuff. Which is really funny when you, like, 3:16:27.830 --> 3:16:31.629 look at all of the shit that Trump was doing. Like, 3:16:31.990 --> 3:16:36.390 just all of the unhinged, weird, golden, like, renovation, quote-unquote, 3:16:36.430 --> 3:16:38.199 stuff that was happening in the White House and the 3:16:38.240 --> 3:16:41.160 whole sort of ballroom bullshit. Real sort of classic case 3:16:41.200 --> 3:16:41.820 of projection. 3:16:41.980 --> 3:16:42.140 But. 3:16:42.910 --> 3:16:46.379 These like very absurd charges led to a fairly serious 3:16:46.400 --> 3:16:50.109 situation where you have Jerome Powell getting subpoenaed by the 3:16:50.150 --> 3:16:54.690 Justice Department. And this is unprecedented, right? And then he 3:16:54.830 --> 3:16:56.929 ends up as a response releasing what I can like 3:16:57.030 --> 3:17:01.060 really only describe as like a preemptive hostage video where 3:17:01.140 --> 3:17:03.480 he's just talking about like, hey, yeah, I am like 3:17:03.520 --> 3:17:06.890 the chairman of the Federal Reserve Committee. And I am 3:17:06.990 --> 3:17:11.689 being persecuted for my political beliefs by the president of 3:17:11.709 --> 3:17:15.580 the United States. And this, you know, caused kind of 3:17:15.640 --> 3:17:19.480 enough of a firestorm, even among Republicans in Congress, that 3:17:19.860 --> 3:17:24.460 eventually this federal investigation is dropped in exchange for Trump's 3:17:24.520 --> 3:17:27.420 nominee for Fed chairman, Kevin Warsh, getting a hearing in 3:17:27.440 --> 3:17:30.100 the Senate. And the end result of that was that 3:17:30.120 --> 3:17:33.660 this investigation was sort of moved to the Fed's independent watchdog. 3:17:34.440 --> 3:17:39.420 And this week, the Fed finally released a really, like, 3:17:39.440 --> 3:17:44.000 126-page-long report that clears Jerome Powell of any criminal wrongdoing, which, like, 3:17:44.900 --> 3:17:48.180 I mean, yes, obviously, he, like, didn't commit a bunch 3:17:48.200 --> 3:17:50.680 of crimes in this remodeling. There is a bunch of 3:17:50.700 --> 3:17:52.859 stuff there about, like, ah, there were cost overruns, and 3:17:52.890 --> 3:17:57.070 they should have had, like, a cap on costs, but. 3:17:58.490 --> 3:17:58.869 I don't know. 3:17:58.990 --> 3:18:02.170 Like, A, the Fed funds itself. Like, it's not even 3:18:02.350 --> 3:18:07.360 tax dollars. It's, like, they fund itself from fees, and B, like, look, 3:18:07.440 --> 3:18:11.240 I'm not a Federal Reserve fan, but, like, oh my god, 3:18:11.280 --> 3:18:14.840 there were cost overruns from subcontractors doing bullshit in a 3:18:14.860 --> 3:18:20.330 construction project is, like, like, come on, like, what are 3:18:20.350 --> 3:18:22.590 we doing here? Yeah, no shit, of course there were 3:18:22.629 --> 3:18:27.370 cost overruns on, like, a pseudo-government construction project from, like, 3:18:27.990 --> 3:18:33.970 costs increasing, like, okay, so this whole, sort of, chapter 3:18:34.070 --> 3:18:37.529 appears to largely be over, although it still remains to 3:18:37.550 --> 3:18:39.810 be seen whether we're going to get a confrontation between 3:18:39.870 --> 3:18:43.110 Kevin Warsh and Trump over interest rate cuts. Warsh has 3:18:43.140 --> 3:18:46.740 been kind of bailed out, like at least this quarter 3:18:46.860 --> 3:18:51.320 by inflation data was like slightly better than people was expecting. But, 3:18:51.480 --> 3:18:53.840 you know, there is also still just a chance that, 3:18:54.820 --> 3:18:57.340 you know, next quarter inflation goes up and we see 3:18:57.680 --> 3:19:01.340 like a direct conflict between Warsh and Trump over what's 3:19:01.360 --> 3:19:03.959 going to happen with the interest rates. Once again, as 3:19:04.340 --> 3:19:08.140 happened with Jerome Powell. And if that happens, we will 3:19:08.280 --> 3:19:09.920 keep you informed. 3:19:11.480 --> 3:19:14.840 Finally, here is a quick message from James Stout, who 3:19:14.959 --> 3:19:15.890 is out in the field. 3:19:15.910 --> 3:19:20.070 Hey everyone, it's James. I wasn't able to join the 3:19:20.129 --> 3:19:22.750 rest of the gang for ED today because I was 3:19:22.810 --> 3:19:27.230 in Lochiel, Arizona, where a group of people have been 3:19:27.350 --> 3:19:32.890 defending a cottonwood tree in against destruction for the building 3:19:33.030 --> 3:19:36.210 of the border wall. They have so far been able 3:19:36.250 --> 3:19:40.269 to stop construction. I believe it'll be 66 or 67 days, 3:19:40.670 --> 3:19:42.189 if you hear this on the day it comes out. 3:19:42.850 --> 3:19:46.310 And they have done so by occupying this giant cottonwood 3:19:46.350 --> 3:19:49.190 tree 24-7. If you're not familiar with cottonwoods, they're very 3:19:49.230 --> 3:19:53.320 important trees in this ecosystem. They often grow near water. 3:19:53.879 --> 3:19:56.459 In this case, these cottonwoods are several hundred years old, 3:19:56.540 --> 3:19:59.260 and there used to be a contiguous canopy between them. 3:19:59.620 --> 3:20:01.680 what is now Mexico and what is now the United States. 3:20:02.280 --> 3:20:05.140 At one point, there was a tree sitter in Mexico 3:20:05.300 --> 3:20:09.500 also occupying one of those cottonwood trees. They were asked 3:20:09.540 --> 3:20:11.940 by landowners to come down after those landowners were threatened 3:20:11.980 --> 3:20:14.019 by border patrol, according to people I spoke to on 3:20:14.040 --> 3:20:17.599 the ground. But the tree sit in the United States 3:20:17.640 --> 3:20:20.360 side is still ongoing. In between those two trees, there 3:20:20.400 --> 3:20:24.880 were other old cottonwoods that were They weren't cut down. 3:20:24.980 --> 3:20:27.599 They were pushed or pulled down by excavators. You can 3:20:27.680 --> 3:20:29.310 see where their root balls have been torn out of 3:20:29.330 --> 3:20:33.110 the ground. It's really, really, really horrible to look at. 3:20:33.770 --> 3:20:36.830 If people are interested, there is a day of action 3:20:37.610 --> 3:20:41.890 on the 4th of October, and they are also able 3:20:42.050 --> 3:20:45.610 to look at the camp website. If you want to 3:20:45.629 --> 3:20:47.510 look at the camp website, it's very new, but it 3:20:47.530 --> 3:20:51.520 should be ready by the time you hear this, and 3:20:51.540 --> 3:20:59.939 it is camp. c-a-m-p hyphen o-s-h-a-d dot o-r-g. I will 3:20:59.980 --> 3:21:03.879 also include that in the show notes. You can find 3:21:04.300 --> 3:21:07.760 updates from the camp there. And if you want to 3:21:07.780 --> 3:21:11.930 know more about the planned day of action, you can 3:21:12.010 --> 3:21:15.550 click on the Get Involved tab at the top of 3:21:15.590 --> 3:21:18.630 that website. I noticed that they also have a list 3:21:18.920 --> 3:21:21.040 of things that they need, which people can drop off 3:21:21.120 --> 3:21:22.700 if they are in Tucson, Arizona. 3:21:24.150 --> 3:21:26.629 All right, that does it for us here at It 3:21:26.670 --> 3:21:30.150 Could Happen Here. Bridget, where can people find you and 3:21:30.209 --> 3:21:31.090 your work online? 3:21:31.410 --> 3:21:34.070 Yeah, you can check out my audio book about how 3:21:34.370 --> 3:21:38.110 tech companies and AI companies are using our deepest, darkest 3:21:38.150 --> 3:21:40.830 thoughts to exploit us called Love at First Prompt, AI 3:21:40.850 --> 3:21:43.260 and the Future of Intimacy. You can check out my podcast, 3:21:43.280 --> 3:21:44.880 There Are No Girls on the Internet. You can follow 3:21:44.900 --> 3:21:46.680 me on Instagram at Bridget Marie NDC. 3:21:47.220 --> 3:21:48.440 Awesome. Thank you, Bridget. 3:21:48.980 --> 3:21:51.780 Thank you so much for joining us this episode. We 3:21:51.820 --> 3:21:52.540 reported the news. 3:21:54.060 --> 3:21:54.860 We reported the news. 3:22:00.240 --> 3:22:03.360 Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week 3:22:03.440 --> 3:22:05.279 from now until the heat death of the universe. 3:22:06.140 --> 3:22:08.590 It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. 3:22:08.790 --> 3:22:13.150 For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com. 3:22:13.610 --> 3:22:16.410 Or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 3:22:16.770 --> 3:22:19.570 or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find 3:22:19.629 --> 3:22:22.560 sources for It Could Happen Here listed directly in episode descriptions. 3:22:23.080 --> 3:22:23.740 Thanks for listening.