Speaker 1: Col Zone Media.
Speaker 2: We should have kept working on that bomb that they
Speaker 2: thought would turn the entire enemy army gay, which was
Speaker 2: the thing they really put money into.
Speaker 3: This is it could happen here. Executive Disorder, our weekly
Speaker 3: newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumpling world,
Speaker 3: and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis. Today
Speaker 3: I'm joined by Mia Wong, James Stout, and Robert Evans.
Speaker 3: This episode, we are covering the week of February twenty
Speaker 3: fifth to March fourth. A House committee just today on Wednesday,
Speaker 3: as subpoenaed ag Pambonid to testify on her handling of
Speaker 3: the Epstein investigation, with five Republicans joining all Democrats in
Speaker 3: the vote. Hillary Clinton was asked about Pizzagate and UFOs
Speaker 3: during her congressional testimony on Jeffrey Epstein. More on that
Speaker 3: next week, in a special episode, God and Netflix declined
Speaker 3: to raise their offer to buy Warner Brothers, resulting in
Speaker 3: Paramount winning the bidding war. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr held
Speaker 3: CNBC that the Paramount deal would be approved quote unquote
Speaker 3: pretty quickly and that Netflix quote would have had a
Speaker 3: very difficult path saying the paramount deal is quote a
Speaker 3: lot cleaner does not raise all the same types of
Speaker 3: concerns unquote. More on that in the episode before this
Speaker 3: one insane. He just said that out loudon yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: On Thursday February twenty sixth, almost a year after Mahmoud
Speaker 3: Khalil was first attained, Ice agents arrested another Columbia student
Speaker 3: in the early hours of the morning. Shortly after six am,
Speaker 3: five playing clothes agents from the Department of Homeland Security
Speaker 3: showed up outside a Columbia apartment building without a warrant,
Speaker 3: demanding to be let inside. The agents gained entry by
Speaker 3: falsely telling the buildings superintendent that they were police searching
Speaker 3: for a missing child, even bringing pictures of this fake kid.
Speaker 3: The agents used this lie to enter into the apartment
Speaker 3: of twenty nine year old student Ellie Agaheva, where she
Speaker 3: was then arrested and taken off campus. After being detained,
Speaker 3: Agaheva posted on Instagram quote, dhs illegally arrested me. Please help.
Speaker 3: This same day, Mayor Mom Donnie happened to be meeting
Speaker 3: with President Trump in the White House regarding federal funding
Speaker 3: for the Sunnyside Yards housing project. During this meeting, the
Speaker 3: Mayor voiced opposition to ice raids and concerned about the
Speaker 3: detention of the Columbia student earlier that morning.
Speaker 5: I shared my concern with the President about IS's detention
Speaker 5: of Columbia student Elmina Agajeva yesterday morning, as well as
Speaker 5: the detention of four additional New Yorkers in relation to
Speaker 5: the university, Mahmo Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi, jinse O Chang, and
Speaker 5: Thea Kakordia. I asked that their cases be dropped. I'm
Speaker 5: grateful that shortly after our meeting, the President called me
Speaker 5: to inform me that Elmina would be imminently relief, and
Speaker 5: indeed she was.
Speaker 3: The mayor also discussed the release of Akaheva in a
Speaker 3: question during this press conference.
Speaker 6: During your advocacy with President Trump, what do you think
Speaker 6: the winning argument was and did they reverse course?
Speaker 5: All I can tell you is what happened, which is
Speaker 5: that I shared directly with the President a list of
Speaker 5: names of Columbia students and those who've also been detained
Speaker 5: because of their activity on Columbia campus, and that these
Speaker 5: actions do nothing to advance the cause of public safety,
Speaker 5: and I asked that these cases be dropped, and the
Speaker 5: President said that he would look into it. Soon after
Speaker 5: the meeting, I received a phone call from the President
Speaker 5: saying that he was going to eminently release her.
Speaker 3: At three forty five pm, Akaheva posted on Instagram that
Speaker 3: she'd been released and was quote unquote safe and okay.
Speaker 3: On Thursday night, at DTS spokesperson told a reporter that
Speaker 3: Akaheva's student visa was terminated in twenty sixteen for failing
Speaker 3: to attend classes, and that quote Ice placed her in
Speaker 3: removal proceedings, and she's been released while she waits for
Speaker 3: her hearing unquote. The current state of her case is unknown,
Speaker 3: with neither her lawyers nor DHS providing any follow up statements.
Speaker 7: That last part is very confusing to me, right, because
Speaker 7: if she had lost her student visa for non attendance,
Speaker 7: that that can happen, that would have shown up in sevis, right,
Speaker 7: and that was a decade ago.
Speaker 4: That part confused me.
Speaker 7: I just so I was scanning it right before we started,
Speaker 7: and I figured I'd just ask you in the episode.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean, she has no pending cases with
Speaker 3: DHS in their system, or no pending appeals. It's very
Speaker 3: unclear what happened here or the exact cause of why
Speaker 3: she was arrested, and the state of whatever visa she's on.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, she could have been on a completely different visa.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very unclear.
Speaker 7: There's a lot here that I'd like to know, many
Speaker 7: such cases, I guess, So to start with a couple
Speaker 7: of immigration things, you want to send it. Hearing yesterday,
Speaker 7: that's Tuesday, Christine Nome doubled down on the he claims
Speaker 7: she's previously made about Alex Pretty, which are, as far
Speaker 7: as we can tell, false, right, saying his action to
Speaker 7: a quote the definition of domestic terrorism. She's in the
Speaker 7: house testifying today, So I will try and summarize both
Speaker 7: those testimonies in next week's ED, just so we don't
Speaker 7: end up covering this twice. And we've got a lot
Speaker 7: to address today. This is breaking news right before we
Speaker 7: release the podcast. Christine Noam, the Secretary of Homeland Security,
Speaker 7: is going to be leaving that job at the end
Speaker 7: of March, and she will be replaced by current United
Speaker 7: States Senator for Oklahoma Mark Wayne Mullin. Nom will be
Speaker 7: moving into another job where she will be the Special
Speaker 7: Envoy for the Shield of the Americas, which is a
Speaker 7: security initiative for the Western hemisphere that Trump is planning
Speaker 7: on telling us more about this weekend. Mullin, for those
Speaker 7: aren't familiar, is a sittin of the Cherokee Nation. He
Speaker 7: has been in the House of Representatives for ten years before,
Speaker 7: he was in the Senate for the last three years,
Speaker 7: and he used to be a professional MMA fighter. Secondly,
Speaker 7: Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty has announced an investigation into
Speaker 7: potential misconduct by federal officers in the state and response
Speaker 7: to DHS has claimed that quote federal officials acting in
Speaker 7: the course of their duties are immune from liability under
Speaker 7: state law. This isn't true in legal terms, right, officials
Speaker 7: can be prosecuted if their actions weren't necessary or proper
Speaker 7: or not in the course of their duties. So this
Speaker 7: pertains to the supremacy clause of the Constitution. Right, and
Speaker 7: there's a two part test for supremacy clause immunity aid
Speaker 7: the federal officials actions authorized under federal law and be
Speaker 7: that they are quote necessary, improper in the execution of
Speaker 7: their duties as a federal officer. I will link in
Speaker 7: the sources of our document to a tenth circuit case
Speaker 7: on this. The case was about some federal Wildlife officers
Speaker 7: who had crossed onto private land during a wolf coloring operation.
Speaker 4: In Wyoming, and then Wyoming it.
Speaker 7: Tempt to prosecute them for trespassing, right, so we can
Speaker 7: see like a previous example of this, But it's not
Speaker 7: true that they have a complete immunity from state laws,
Speaker 7: which is what's important here. I want to move on
Speaker 7: to Iran, just like most of the US military has done.
Speaker 7: But thank you, it works so hard on these Yeah.
Speaker 7: So we made a whole episode about this, which came
Speaker 7: out on Wednesday of this week, and I don't want
Speaker 7: to recap.
Speaker 4: What we said there.
Speaker 7: That is why we make lots of episodes so you
Speaker 7: can go into depth on things. So I will for
Speaker 7: the most part be picking up on that by updating people.
Speaker 7: And things have happened in the twenty four hours since
Speaker 7: we recorded that. Firstly, it seems that the attacks or
Speaker 7: eat said timing was heavily driven by Israel, who were
Speaker 7: likely acting on intelligence about the whereabouts of Harmoni. The
Speaker 7: attacks occurred in the daytime, which is pretty unusual, like
Speaker 7: normally they want to time these things with moon phase.
Speaker 7: They want to do them at night, just to make
Speaker 7: them safer for any of the piloted aircraft that they're using.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 7: I also wanted to point out so that the source
Speaker 7: for this Israel claim, let's start there, comes from the
Speaker 7: Rapid Response forty seven account. I guess I described that
Speaker 7: as like a White House affiliated Twitter account. I can't
Speaker 7: think of the Yeah, it's one of the accounts at
Speaker 7: the It's not White House, but it's one of the
Speaker 7: accounts that the Trump administration runs.
Speaker 3: One of the accounts the administration users to disseminate information.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's quotation here from Marco Rubio quote. The President
Speaker 7: made the very wise decision. We knew that there was
Speaker 7: going to be an Israeli action, We knew that that
Speaker 7: would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew
Speaker 7: that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they
Speaker 7: launched other attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.
Speaker 4: It seems like the initial push came from Israel.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 7: I'd also like to add that Tafran is getting bombed
Speaker 7: very heavily as we record this, something that I think
Speaker 7: is missing in that discourse. We were actually going to
Speaker 7: have an episode about the water crisis in Iran. This
Speaker 7: week for obvious reasons, we made another Iran based episode.
Speaker 7: But Iran is critically low on water. Lake Uma, which
Speaker 7: was the largest lake in Asia, is essentially gone now
Speaker 7: from damming from a draining of aquifers, and Tehran is
Speaker 7: sitting on top of an empty aquifer, which leads to
Speaker 7: greater potential for damage. I guess with some of these
Speaker 7: large bombs that we're seeing dropped there right.
Speaker 2: I mean, it also means that absent even any of
Speaker 2: this military aggression from the US that we're seeing right now,
Speaker 2: Iran was in realistic danger of becoming a failed state. Yes,
Speaker 2: because of the sheer lack of water. That is an
Speaker 2: existential threat when your capital city is running out of water,
Speaker 2: like there's no other way to look at that kind
Speaker 2: of scale of problem. And the fact that now dealing
Speaker 2: with this massacre of the people who had been running things,
Speaker 2: as well as mass destruction via the air of a
Speaker 2: lot of civil infrastructure, this is just so much more
Speaker 2: of a problem, and it makes the odds of the
Speaker 2: end result of all this being a failed state in
Speaker 2: the region that leads to a humanitarian crisis on scale
Speaker 2: of the refugee crisis we saw during the early stages
Speaker 2: of the series of a war much likelier.
Speaker 7: Yeah, especially when you consider that there are millions of
Speaker 7: refugees already living in Iran, right from Afghanistan.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 7: RANI has been deporting them on a massive level. But like, yes,
Speaker 7: the chances of this being an absolute humanitarian disaster are
Speaker 7: worryingly high. Tehran received one millimeter of rain. Yeah, last
Speaker 7: year according to some Guardian reporting. I read like they
Speaker 7: were already, as you said, very close to people turning
Speaker 7: on the taps and nothing coming out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they say, is not helping that.
Speaker 7: I want to move on to these claims that we
Speaker 7: have seen in the past twenty four hours about a
Speaker 7: Kurdish partner force in eastern Kurdistan, right, And in Kurdish
Speaker 7: that would be called roger Lat that would be western Iran, right.
Speaker 2: Right, Like Kurdistan. The broader region is western Iran, northern Iraq,
Speaker 2: northeast Syria, southern Turkey. Right. You can draw kind of
Speaker 2: a big glob around all those parts of the world
Speaker 2: that's Kurdistan.
Speaker 7: Yeah, exactly, if you can like draw up blot that
Speaker 7: encompasses all of those things. Yeah, Obviously Kurdistan is not
Speaker 7: a state.
Speaker 4: It is an area.
Speaker 2: It's not at all that is part of the issue
Speaker 2: at stake here. Kind of a big deal kind of
Speaker 2: the thing. Yeah.
Speaker 7: So, Axios has reported that Trump called Buffal Talabani and
Speaker 7: Musud Barzani, who are the leaders of the two biggest
Speaker 7: factions in Iraqi Kurdistan. Yeah, Southern Kadistan North in Iraq.
Speaker 7: The piece was written by Barak Ravied. This is not
Speaker 7: Barak's first time joining us on executive disorder. Brind of
Speaker 7: the bad yeah, yeah, regular guests, biography. People remember last
Speaker 7: time that we talked about Barak, it was in the
Speaker 7: context of a leaked proposal for peace between Russia and
Speaker 7: Ukraine that appeared to be essentially a list of Russian
Speaker 7: demands but was not present was presented as a US proposal.
Speaker 7: I will try and remember what week we talked about
Speaker 7: that and and that link in case people want to
Speaker 7: go back right, Like, I've spent a lot of time
Speaker 7: appointing out on various websites how bad this piece was.
Speaker 7: It was atrocious in its understanding of Kurdish movements. For instance,
Speaker 7: it it listed Talibani and Bazani as leaders of Iranian
Speaker 7: Kurdish factions. What Yeah, I think it's important to note
Speaker 7: at this point that like media perceptions of the Middle
Speaker 7: East are often formed by people whose understanding is eclipsed
Speaker 7: by the introductory part of the Wikipedia article on a
Speaker 7: given topic vastly like that's not an exaggeration.
Speaker 3: Like this, this is this is this is like saying
Speaker 3: Macran is the leader of like the Quebecy separatists. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like that kind of ship.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I see that.
Speaker 2: I do believe actually an episode I will be actually
Speaker 2: doing that in partnership with INFO Wars France. Very excited
Speaker 2: to see that get off the ground.
Speaker 4: Info War with France is a frightening concept.
Speaker 2: Like genuinely, hey, baby, they're turning the frogs. Gay, we
Speaker 2: gotta do something about that. That was a French French
Speaker 2: very excellent. Sorry.
Speaker 7: They also kind of didn't understand that the SDF and
Speaker 7: Peshmega were distinct entities.
Speaker 2: That appears Jesus Christ wildly different. Yes, and combat efficacy too.
Speaker 7: Yes, yeah, yeah, very just like unless they're talking about
Speaker 7: the Peshmega Roja I guess, which like exists lightly telegram
Speaker 7: rumors these days.
Speaker 4: The piece does.
Speaker 7: Line up with the strategies that we are seeing, though,
Speaker 7: right there has been significant bombing of il GC and
Speaker 7: police facilities along the border with a rock. There have
Speaker 7: been and continue to be many Eastern Kurdish groups who
Speaker 7: are based in Iraq right now, right there has been
Speaker 7: significant bombing along the road from Halabduk to Kamancha right,
Speaker 7: which would be like a road that you would use
Speaker 7: if you're planning to move some people.
Speaker 4: In that way in theory.
Speaker 7: The KDP and the p UK, so they are the
Speaker 7: two major Kurdish factions in Iraq, have unified their Peshmerger.
Speaker 7: Peshmerga means those who face death. They're the armed forces
Speaker 7: that are affiliated to the two Kurdish political parties. This
Speaker 7: is really kind of a rhetorical construct because they have
Speaker 7: regional commands which effectively mirror the areas where the KDP
Speaker 7: and the p UK are in control anyway, but they
Speaker 7: have unified payroll, which is interesting. It is also worth
Speaker 7: noting that pro Iran groups inside Iraq have been targeting
Speaker 7: Peshmerger with drone attacks. Both sides in its conflict are
Speaker 7: bombing Iraq create now, which really does suck for people
Speaker 7: in Iraq.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, like this conflict has been ever present.
Speaker 2: Obviously after the Iraq war. Iran exert had a significant
Speaker 2: amount of influence. They brought explosively formed penetrators to the
Speaker 2: Shia militias in the region. The cleric Maccadal Sadar, who
Speaker 2: was probably the most successful political figure of the war
Speaker 2: years and was very heavily involved with Ran. During the
Speaker 2: fighting in Mosul, you had Peshmerger, you had Iraqi army
Speaker 2: soldiers generally from around Baghdad, and then you had the PMFS,
Speaker 2: the Popular Mobilization Forces and these were all Iran backed
Speaker 2: militias and traveling, especially as I was with Courage, you
Speaker 2: had always be really careful in the PMF positions because
Speaker 2: you never knew what would happen because again they are enemies.
Speaker 2: They were tied together fighting Isis, but they are not
Speaker 2: allied forces and they have a history of fighting each other.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that was a wild time ked a lot of
Speaker 7: people who had a lot of beef on the same
Speaker 7: side that particular contract. It's also probably worth noting at
Speaker 7: this point that like it was the Department of Defense,
Speaker 7: not the CIA that was really driving the boat. Yes,
Speaker 7: when it came to like supporting the Kurds in Syria, Yeah,
Speaker 7: the CIA went with the TFSA that Turkis Shri Syrian army,
Speaker 7: which does not have a great record as far as
Speaker 7: not doing war crimes goes. I also received confirmation today
Speaker 7: that Barzani and Talibani spoke with Iran's foreign minister, so
Speaker 7: they've spoken with both Trump and the Iranian foreign minister.
Speaker 7: Kubad Talibani, who's a deputy Prime Minister of Kurdistan, not
Speaker 7: the same person as Baffel Talibani, the leader of the PUK,
Speaker 7: made a statement to say that the Kurdistan region was
Speaker 7: not involved in the conflict. I think it's very unlikely
Speaker 7: that we will see large Pesh merger groups from northern
Speaker 7: Iraq southern Kurdistan entering Iran in the near future. I
Speaker 7: do think it's interesting that Revied got this piece leaked
Speaker 7: to him because things don't generally get leaked because one
Speaker 7: person has a crisis of conscience. It does happen sometimes,
Speaker 7: but in events like this, it is normally a choice.
Speaker 7: And this particular story leaves the Kurdish people in a
Speaker 7: very difficult position because it puts to target directly on
Speaker 7: them for the Iranian regime right, and they can fight
Speaker 7: or not fight, but they have been singled out as
Speaker 7: a group that is going to be the ground forces
Speaker 7: of this Israelian US aggression. And what that means is
Speaker 7: they will be singled out for oppression at home, whether
Speaker 7: or not they fight. That leaves them in a place
Speaker 7: where they might have to choose to fight right or
Speaker 7: they might fight but not through their own choosing. There
Speaker 7: has been for some time an alliance for some time.
Speaker 7: I think twenty second of February is when it was
Speaker 7: made of five Kurdish groups, five Iranian Curdish groups. These
Speaker 7: are rather than saying them like phonetically how to read
Speaker 7: out the initials, people want to look them up PJAK PAK, KDPI.
Speaker 7: And then these two groups have names, not initials. There
Speaker 7: are two of the three parts of Kamala and Hubbat.
Speaker 7: It is more likely that these groups, specifically KDPI, will
Speaker 7: be willing to engage. We do know that Trump spoke
Speaker 7: to Mustafa Hidri that he's a KDPI leader. I have
Speaker 7: had source suggest it some Kurdish and some non Kurdish
Speaker 7: groups have at least the intention or desire to enter
Speaker 7: Iran and fight. I'm not really comfortable naming, particularly which
Speaker 7: ones i'd want Deata sourcing on that. Yeah, what they
Speaker 7: plan to do is unclear, right, None of these rogulati
Speaker 7: groups are massive, like numerically, they don't have the manpower. However,
Speaker 7: ITV reported that weapons have been stuck piled in eastern
Speaker 7: Kurdistan for a while, and as we saw in in Rajavos,
Speaker 7: as we saw in southern Kerdistan and the Islamic State
Speaker 7: times like, their ability to scale up their forces pretty
Speaker 7: rapidly is something that the Kurds have retained for a
Speaker 7: long time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, an advantage they have over so obviously, it is
Speaker 2: act true that in the months preceding this there were
Speaker 2: uprisings in Iran and tens of thousands were killed by
Speaker 2: the government, And that represents the people who in normal
Speaker 2: Iranian civil society would have and kind of best positioned
Speaker 2: to be active and a part of any sort of
Speaker 2: like government that were to follow. If the current government
Speaker 2: collapses under the onslaught being directed against it, a lot
Speaker 2: of those people are dead. That's not really the same
Speaker 2: case with the Kurdish movement because at any given time,
Speaker 2: three quarters of the Kurdish movement is not you know,
Speaker 2: more or less is outside of Iran, no physically present
Speaker 2: and This is what happened in Syria too. When you
Speaker 2: had other parts of the country massively depleted by the
Speaker 2: slaughter fighting asad in northeast Syria, you were able to
Speaker 2: have Kurds from southern Turkey and from northern Iraq come
Speaker 2: in and provide a lot of the backbone of what
Speaker 2: became these large and effective fighting units that were able
Speaker 2: to defeat. Isis when you're talking about, like, well, what's
Speaker 2: going to happen if the government of Iran starts to crumble,
Speaker 2: There's a pretty good odds that you wind up with
Speaker 2: a sizeable Kurdish force, and it would very likely be
Speaker 2: supported by Western at least initially by Western munitions in
Speaker 2: that chunk of Iran. Like, that's a very possible outcome.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think it's probably if we do see like
Speaker 7: continued air strikes. For the Iranian state to disappear in
Speaker 7: its current form, there needs to be a ground element, right, Yes,
Speaker 7: And these are among the most likely people that It is,
Speaker 7: of course important to include the context that the US
Speaker 7: is less than a month of abandoning its Kurdish allies
Speaker 7: in Syria, right, Yeah, And.
Speaker 2: You should never if you're if you're listening to this
Speaker 2: and a member of like a foreign militant group that
Speaker 2: the US is talking to, don't ever trust us? Yeah yeah,
Speaker 2: bad friends.
Speaker 7: Yeah yeah, bad friends indeed. Yeah yeah, not friends at all,
Speaker 7: but allies.
Speaker 2: Not friends at all. Guys that will fuck you the
Speaker 2: second we can, like the second we can. Yeah.
Speaker 7: I will say that the Americans in Syria were specifically
Speaker 7: there to fight isis. They weren't there to aid in
Speaker 7: the curtige freedom struggle, right right, and they have been
Speaker 7: very inconsistent about not aiding.
Speaker 2: The other thing about Rojava was it was very explicitly
Speaker 2: not a state and not an attempt to carve out
Speaker 2: a separate state, and they were always extremely emphatic about that.
Speaker 2: So it's a very different situation than anything you're seeing
Speaker 2: with the regime change the Trump administration is working on.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah, let's take a break here and then we're going
Speaker 7: to talk about boats.
Speaker 2: Huzzah.
Speaker 3: All right, we are.
Speaker 4: Back and it's boat time.
Speaker 2: It boat time, yeah, James Stout PhD.
Speaker 7: Yeah you can't see it, but I'm wearing my little
Speaker 7: boat hat right now.
Speaker 2: I've got one of the.
Speaker 4: Stripey shirts on.
Speaker 7: So the United States has sunk a submarine and a
Speaker 7: total of seventeen Iranian ships, it's claiming. In a briefing,
Speaker 7: Saint comm said they were going after the entire Iranian navy.
Speaker 7: At the current time, they claim there are no Iranian
Speaker 7: ships the Strait of horn MOUs, the Arabian Gulf or
Speaker 7: the Gulf of Aman. This briefing was interesting because they
Speaker 7: explicitly made the comparison to the invasion of a RG
Speaker 7: not an invasion, not a war that has the greatest
Speaker 7: rep in recent months and years.
Speaker 3: Even among conservatives at this point.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Trump, Trump has made thing of well, I mean,
Speaker 7: Trump wasn't strongly opposed to the war in Iraq right that.
Speaker 7: I think he has acknowledged that it was a mistake
Speaker 7: or the way it was conducted was poor at least.
Speaker 7: What they said here was that the scale of this
Speaker 7: bombing campaign was twice that of the shock and or
Speaker 7: bombing campaign that we saw in Iraq. They have so
Speaker 7: far used cruise missiles air strikes B two, B one
Speaker 7: and B fifty two bombers, long range precision of strike
Speaker 7: missiles for the first time. They call them prisms and
Speaker 7: something called Lucas strons, which are kind of interesting to me.
Speaker 7: They are the result of the United States capturing and
Speaker 7: reverse engineering an Iranian Shahed drone. The shahed is like
Speaker 7: a it sounds like a law, very distinctive, sound like
Speaker 7: I've heard them flying over and yeah, but they are
Speaker 7: one way attract drone. They're essentially a sort of guided munition.
Speaker 7: They're very cheap, and they've they've been very effective for
Speaker 7: Iran and for Russia, who now makes has licensed production
Speaker 7: of these drones. So it's interesting that the US is
Speaker 7: openly just saying, yeah, we saw that and we copied it.
Speaker 2: It's one of the best ideas in warfare of the
Speaker 2: last hundred years. It's an incredibly effective platform that seals
Speaker 2: up an enormous number of holes that have always existed
Speaker 2: in modern militaries, like the capacity gap that it allows,
Speaker 2: particularly a country like Aroan to seal. Right, because with
Speaker 2: enough Shaheeds you effectively can mimic not just the assassination
Speaker 2: capabilities of like bigger drones, but something like close air
Speaker 2: support in a way that's very hard to interdect with
Speaker 2: traditional air power.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a real sea change, and they seem to
Speaker 2: be being used effectively right now.
Speaker 4: Yep, that's cheap. There's tons of them.
Speaker 7: Ukraine, they've used like interceptor drones to set them right,
Speaker 7: but that requires a lot of time, technology, and a
Speaker 7: human effort.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think this is probably a good time, James,
Speaker 2: for me to talk about munitions, because, as you noted,
Speaker 2: we're using a significant amount of high precision projectiles. We're
Speaker 2: using like advanced weapons systems that are made to allow
Speaker 2: us to hit targets very precisely that could not be
Speaker 2: hit with dumb munitions or with less intelligent munitions. The
Speaker 2: downside of this is that it's hard to make enough
Speaker 2: munitions to maintain on a war footing in peacetime because
Speaker 2: in peacetime it's kind of a waste of money as
Speaker 2: an industry, and so capitalism doesn't tend to unless there's
Speaker 2: a war on reward companies for producing the kind of
Speaker 2: like munitions and number in the kind of number you
Speaker 2: would need to fight a modern war, and so whenever
Speaker 2: one does start up, you wind up with this situation.
Speaker 2: We're seeing this that we saw this with Russia and Ukraine.
Speaker 2: We're still seeing it in Russia and Ukraine. And we
Speaker 2: saw it in World War One two where very suddenly
Speaker 2: everyone runs out of ammunition, right and prior to the
Speaker 2: United States going to I'm going to say, going to
Speaker 2: war with Iran again, like literally about a week before,
Speaker 2: there was an article that dropped in the i think
Speaker 2: the Wall Street Journal about how Trump's top generals were
Speaker 2: really worried that the United States did not have enough
Speaker 2: munitions to sustain conflict with Iran for any significant period
Speaker 2: of time. And there's immediately been reports as soon as
Speaker 2: this started that that is, in fact exactly what's fucking happening.
Speaker 2: There's a good piece on CNN Politics written by Sean
Speaker 2: lyndas Kylie Attwood, and Isabelle Kushuldian, and it describes, or
Speaker 2: at least it talks to conversations with someone at the
Speaker 2: Pentagon saying that the United States is burning through long
Speaker 2: range precision guided missiles at an unsustainable rate, and this
Speaker 2: is not just to attack Iranian positions, but also to
Speaker 2: stop Iranian ballistic missiles. Quote from that source, Each intercept
Speaker 2: represents hundreds of hours of training, readiness, and technology all
Speaker 2: coming together to work. Is designed so that means you
Speaker 2: don't have an infinite number of these, whereas Iran is
Speaker 2: capable of producing a significant number of the ballistic missiles
Speaker 2: and the drones that these precision munitions are needed to
Speaker 2: shoot down Iran's producing something like one hundred ballistic missiles
Speaker 2: a month and had a stockpile going into this. We
Speaker 2: can build six or seven interceptor missiles in a month, right,
Speaker 2: So obviously we're going into this with stockpiles. And Trump
Speaker 2: has claimed that US munition stockpiles have never been higher
Speaker 2: or better, and that the war could go on forever
Speaker 2: very successfully, just using these supplies, but he didn't specify
Speaker 2: what munitions he was referring to, and all of the
Speaker 2: information coming out suggests that we are like the seventh
Speaker 2: Fleet has basically burned through its supply of advanced munitions.
Speaker 2: There's been confirmation because the IERGC claims they took out
Speaker 2: two THAD batteries, and I don't take the IERGC at
Speaker 2: their word, but we did get local confirmation in at
Speaker 2: least one case that one of those batteries was disabled,
Speaker 2: and it seems very likely based on some satellite imagery
Speaker 2: that both were damaged. How damaged they are is very
Speaker 2: hard to say. We're talking generally the radar array that
Speaker 2: you use for the missiles has been hit, but we've
Speaker 2: only got like eight of these things. These batteries are
Speaker 2: like not just our most best protection we would have
Speaker 2: from like submarine based nuclear missiles, but our best anti
Speaker 2: missile systems period. And we're in the process of peeling
Speaker 2: away the fat batteries that we've got in Korea to
Speaker 2: bring into the Middle East to continue to protect Israel
Speaker 2: and to protect our forces, and the fact that any
Speaker 2: of them may have been seriously damaged or lost is
Speaker 2: a serious problem for the United States. I want to
Speaker 2: continue from that CNN piece here they're interviewing a Colonel
Speaker 2: Mark Gunzinger, who's a retired military colonel and the director
Speaker 2: of Future Concepts and Capability Assessments at the Mitchell Institute
Speaker 2: for Aerospace Studies. He basically made this claim that, like,
Speaker 2: since the United States has established air superiority early on
Speaker 2: in this conflict, quote, there's not such a need for
Speaker 2: the higher end, very long range state and off weapons.
Speaker 2: I don't know that I agree with him on this
Speaker 2: because it seems like we're using some of those munitions now,
Speaker 2: But he's primarily talking about we don't need to use
Speaker 2: as discriminating of weapons systems now. Instead of using our
Speaker 2: super advanced precision guided munitions, we can use stuff like jadeams,
Speaker 2: which we have a lot more of. We have a
Speaker 2: huge stockpile of jadams of various sizes and small diameter bombs.
Speaker 2: The problem is that these are not nearly as advanced
Speaker 2: in terms of their guidance capabilities, and the civilian casualties
Speaker 2: related from using these are much much higher. So we're
Speaker 2: hitting a point where we're running out of precision munitions,
Speaker 2: and it seems very clear that, at least among military thinkers,
Speaker 2: the attitude is that's fine, because we'll just use these
Speaker 2: bigger weapons that kill more civilians, and yeah, that's what
Speaker 2: you should look forward to in the next stages of
Speaker 2: this conflict.
Speaker 7: Yeah, talking of I guess the next stages of this conflict.
Speaker 7: The Military Religious Freedom Foundation if supporting that it's been
Speaker 7: flooded with complaints from troops whose officers believe the operation
Speaker 7: will bring about the end of days as we're told
Speaker 7: in the Bible.
Speaker 2: Well there you go. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Here's a quotation from one of their non commissioned officer clients.
Speaker 4: Quote.
Speaker 7: This morning, our commander opened up the Combat Readness DATUS
Speaker 7: briefing by urging us not to be afraid as to
Speaker 7: what is happening with our combat operations in Iran right now.
Speaker 7: He urged us to tell our troops this was all
Speaker 7: part of God's divine plan, and he specifically referenced numerous
Speaker 7: citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to armageddon
Speaker 7: and the imminent return of Jesus Christ. He said that quote,
Speaker 7: President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the
Speaker 7: signal fire in Iran, to cause armageddon and mark his
Speaker 7: return to Earth.
Speaker 4: I am not a big Bible under.
Speaker 7: Stander, but Garretton Davis, our regular resident Bible person, please
Speaker 7: comment if you want to. I don't think this is good.
Speaker 7: There is my take on that. I think it's a
Speaker 7: great way to be going around foreign policy.
Speaker 3: No, it's not a good foreign policy blueprint.
Speaker 2: It might be kind of made biblically accurate, though, I.
Speaker 3: Mean, that's the thing, is that blueprint it is it is,
Speaker 3: It is accurate, though I was.
Speaker 2: Trump does in fact match a number of descriptions of
Speaker 2: the Antichrist, and it is possible that what we're doing
Speaker 2: in Iran ends in the apocalypse.
Speaker 7: So you know, my understanding is this hinges on a
Speaker 7: certain color of cal the red hypher.
Speaker 3: This is the whole thing.
Speaker 2: We had a breeding made, We made it in Texas.
Speaker 7: Yes, yes, this is this is one of the first,
Speaker 7: the first like American like subculture things I ever engaged from.
Speaker 7: Like when I got the Internet at school, you could
Speaker 7: go into the computer lab and look at stuff I
Speaker 7: learn about if people trying to make a red heifer, right,
Speaker 7: like a yeah, that will bring about the apocalypse is cow? Yeah,
Speaker 7: fascinating stuff, very normal, very normal. That's all I've got.
Speaker 7: Hopefully send us pictures to you Catalys. You've got one
Speaker 7: of the appropriate color and that'll be that.
Speaker 4: It's all over.
Speaker 3: But I mean, things in Iran do not seem to
Speaker 3: be winding down. If anything, they're holding or ramping up. Yeah.
Speaker 3: On Tuesday, Mark Rubio said, quote, in the next few
Speaker 3: hours and days, you're going to really begin to perceive
Speaker 3: a change in the scope and the intensity of these attacks,
Speaker 3: as frankly, the two most powerful air forces in the
Speaker 3: world take apart this terroristic regime and defang it. Quote that,
Speaker 3: by the way, was also proceeded immediately by him saying
Speaker 3: we're going to unleash Chang, which is a completely unhinged
Speaker 3: thing from the old old like anti communists far right,
Speaker 3: where they're like we're gonna unleash Shang Kai Shack and
Speaker 3: he's going to retake China and kill everyone. So that's
Speaker 3: that's great, that's that's fun, extremely normal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a that's a John Bircher right there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah wow.
Speaker 3: And after a closed store Senate hearing briefing the Senate
Speaker 3: on actions in Iran, Senator Bluementhal said, quote, I am
Speaker 3: more fearful than ever after this briefing that we may
Speaker 3: be putting boots on the ground.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have to. You can't actually stop the regime
Speaker 2: without doing that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, even the like Trump model, which is a Syria model,
Speaker 7: right of a relatively limited footprint with a partner force.
Speaker 4: Still, like American people died in Syria.
Speaker 2: Well, and unfortunately, I think they're also looking to Libya. Right.
Speaker 2: Initially we're hoping it would be something like that, but
Speaker 2: the thing is in Libya, you already had a situation
Speaker 2: where there was a massive army a raid against the
Speaker 2: dictator who was holding them back via air power. So
Speaker 2: being able to stop the air power was able to
Speaker 2: was enough to sign the regime's death warrant. And obviously
Speaker 2: the failure of NATO to do anything to help Libya
Speaker 2: in the wake of that has been awful, but it's
Speaker 2: totally different in Iran. Like it's the Iranian people, the
Speaker 2: Ranian like resistance. The Iranian protests had not taken territory,
Speaker 2: they had not swung large chunks of the Iranian military.
Speaker 2: The military and the regime were still in control of
Speaker 2: the country and nothing has changed in that regard. So
Speaker 2: if you're going to knock out the regime, you have
Speaker 2: to send in the fucking marines. That's the only way
Speaker 2: that And that's I think what's going to happen at
Speaker 2: some point.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's going to be uh the next few days,
Speaker 7: probably by.
Speaker 4: The time you're hearing this.
Speaker 7: By the way, just as we're recording this, hopefully this
Speaker 7: has left the news cycle. Several news outlets have published
Speaker 7: the Kurdish paramilitary forces are streaming across the border into
Speaker 7: a rut.
Speaker 4: That's not true.
Speaker 7: Each of those groups who are claiming are doing that
Speaker 7: have denied it. There is going to be a lot
Speaker 7: of misinformation, Yeah, in the next few weeks, and you
Speaker 7: should be very careful about where you are sourcing your news. Yeah,
Speaker 7: I just wanted to make that very clear.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the first war, potentially major war that
Speaker 2: started while already in place was an entire system that
Speaker 2: monetized people getting disinformation about that war to go viral. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 2: obviously that has impacted things in Ukraine later in Palestine
Speaker 2: and Palestine too, but when the invasion started, those were
Speaker 2: not like it really it's it came into being over
Speaker 2: what happened in Palestine, you're right, Garrison. Yeah, but it's
Speaker 2: now in completely full form. At the start of the conflict.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a whole like industry, you know, across many
Speaker 3: different countries. Yeah, so misinformation to win money via the
Speaker 3: blue check system on Twitter, which is still used for
Speaker 3: you know, news sourcing across the world in the case
Speaker 3: of breaking events. So speaking of industry, so one of
Speaker 3: the other consequences of this war has been effectively the
Speaker 3: end of trade and passage to the trade of formuz,
Speaker 3: which is extremely critical lifeline for the world economy. I'm
Speaker 3: going to quote here from algia Zera quote a commander
Speaker 3: Iran's Revolutionary Guard core set on Monday, but the strait
Speaker 3: was quote closed and that any vessel attempting to pass
Speaker 3: through the water way would be set quote a blaze.
Speaker 3: Now for CNBC, there's about thirteen million barrels of oil
Speaker 3: a day that flows through the strat of fromuz, it's
Speaker 3: thirty one percent of all sea worn crude flowed. The
Speaker 3: total like impacted oil production and distribution from this is
Speaker 3: about it's about a fifth of the world's oil supply
Speaker 3: total that is being impacted by this. Liquefied natural gas
Speaker 3: is also being massively impacted because of yeah to place
Speaker 3: the places where a whole bunch of natural gas and
Speaker 3: oil are produced. This is a very, very significant blow
Speaker 3: to the world's energy supply. And one of the reasons why,
Speaker 3: even if you don't care like the US does and
Speaker 3: about you know, obliterating Ibronian schoolgirls with bombs, this war
Speaker 3: is a terrible idea because you're suddenly losing access to
Speaker 3: a fifth of the world's oil supply.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: Trump has repeatedly said that the strait is not open.
Speaker 3: The RGC has repeatedly said that it is closed. Trump
Speaker 3: also yesterday that we're recording this on Wednesday, said that
Speaker 3: the US will escort tankers if necessary, through the strait
Speaker 3: with US Navy ships. The other major issue here is
Speaker 3: that no insurance company will ensure any ship going through this,
Speaker 3: because why on earth would you do that? And Trump
Speaker 3: has also ordered the government to ensure these tankers, and
Speaker 3: this has stopped the massive rise in oil prices a
Speaker 3: little bit that was happening at the beginning of at
Speaker 3: the beginning of the conflict. However, I don't know why
Speaker 3: it stopped the rise in oil prices, because this won't work.
Speaker 3: You can't just escort oil tankers through the strait with
Speaker 3: American battleships and have them not Like, do you know
Speaker 3: how big an oil tanker is and how slow they are, Like,
Speaker 3: there's no way militarily that you can actually move oil
Speaker 3: tankers through here.
Speaker 2: You just can't.
Speaker 3: It's too easy to hit with literally any munition. So
Speaker 3: the sort of American markets don't seem to have figured
Speaker 3: out that you obviously cannot escort oil tankers through the
Speaker 3: Strait of Fermus. Where people have figured this out are
Speaker 3: the Asian markets, particularly South Korea and Thailand, where both
Speaker 3: of their stock index has had their circuit breakers triggered,
Speaker 3: which is the emergency system may have in place when
Speaker 3: the market is collapsing too fast all trading halts. South
Speaker 3: Korea's index lost twelve point zero six percent yesterday, which
Speaker 3: is the single largest drop that the market has ever experienced. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's it's it's really bad. The Chinese indexes have been okay,
Speaker 3: but both Japan and Taiwan were down between three and
Speaker 3: four percent, which still also quite bad. Now. South Korea
Speaker 3: and Thailand specifically, the reason that these two countries are
Speaker 3: having just sort of apocalyptic market collapses is that these
Speaker 3: two countries are extremely reliant on imported oil. And you know,
Speaker 3: there's this tendency to think about oil as just liquid money,
Speaker 3: and it's not. You do actually have to use it
Speaker 3: to power things, and sertificant portion of that of both
Speaker 3: the Taie and the South Korean economy are sort of
Speaker 3: heavy industrial things that require this oil. These countries are
Speaker 3: now in very dire straits. And the only way that
Speaker 3: this could stop is if somehow Trump wins the war
Speaker 3: very very quickly and be able to reopen the strait,
Speaker 3: which I don't think is particularly likely. So this is
Speaker 3: probably just going to intensify. Yeah, you could call it
Speaker 3: a dire straight.
Speaker 2: Ah Garrison, you've brought up my favorite band of which
Speaker 2: I am aware of one of their songs, great Band,
Speaker 2: or the one song of theirs, and I know one of.
Speaker 4: The songs that has a slur in it. There are
Speaker 4: better songs hey, no.
Speaker 2: But they stopped using the slur and more and more. Okay,
Speaker 2: And but also the slur was never It was never
Speaker 2: a slur directed at the audience. They were talking from
Speaker 2: the perspective of a bigot insulting them. Yes, yeah, so
Speaker 2: I think anyway.
Speaker 4: Yeah, in terms of sound, Swiss last, not the least.
Speaker 3: Speaking of dire straits, I'm cutting cutting the white people off.
Speaker 4: Talking about cutting it off.
Speaker 3: Speaks speaking of being in dire straits. Spain in a well.
Speaker 3: When I wrote the script, I said, a rare moment
Speaker 3: of bravery. I should give them slightly more credit than that,
Speaker 3: but in a moment of genuine bravery and principle. The
Speaker 3: Spanish government has refused to allow the US to use
Speaker 3: its air bases to conduct the war in Iran. Yeah,
Speaker 3: these are American air bases in Spain. This has led
Speaker 3: to a bunch of assets being moved out of Spain.
Speaker 3: Trump has responded to this by I'm just gonna quote
Speaker 3: out to.
Speaker 2: Zerra, quote round of z Era.
Speaker 3: He said he had told his he had told his
Speaker 3: Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bestitt, to quote cut off
Speaker 3: all with Spain. We're going to cut off all trade
Speaker 3: with Spain. We don't want anything to do with Spain,
Speaker 3: the President said.
Speaker 2: The Trump is taking away your your Mona Berrico, like
Speaker 2: you have to. We have to stop this.
Speaker 3: There will be no top us to them.
Speaker 2: Where else are we going to get the highest quality
Speaker 2: smoked meats?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Will that forever be worse?
Speaker 7: It's not really possible to do this, right because it's
Speaker 7: Spain is in the EU, and then yeah, don't have
Speaker 7: internal boards.
Speaker 3: Yeah it should it be possible to do this.
Speaker 2: I I he knows.
Speaker 3: I think it's like probably I'm leaning towards about ninety
Speaker 3: five to five that Trump just forgets about this, and
Speaker 3: there's a five percent chance there's some completely hitherto unused,
Speaker 3: unhinged national security like power that was passed by John
Speaker 3: wu specifically. But I don't know. We're back to Calvin
Speaker 3: ball trade policy. He's just saying stuff I was wrong
Speaker 3: last week. They're just making shit up.
Speaker 2: Well, here's the thing like that this shows that may
Speaker 2: be optimistic, is how different the climate is like this,
Speaker 2: the social climate is in the United States as opposed
Speaker 2: during the Iraq War, where like if this has happened
Speaker 2: during the Iraq War, you would have had people like
Speaker 2: renaming Spanish dishes freedom fucking die or whatever. Yeah, you
Speaker 2: would have had there would have been like a social
Speaker 2: there's not. There's been no cultural backlash against Spain in
Speaker 2: the United States that I that I've seen that has
Speaker 2: any kind of juice.
Speaker 3: And you know, and to say like one serious than
Speaker 3: before we wrap this up, Like the approval rating for
Speaker 3: this war is sub fifty percent right now. Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: only going to get worse because wars WARL approval ratings
Speaker 3: are always the highest when they first start. It's already
Speaker 3: sub fifty. Everyone hates this. I want to wrap this
Speaker 3: up before we go to ads by saying the administration
Speaker 3: had also claimed that Spain had, because of the threat
Speaker 3: of economic pressure whatever, had agreed to cooperate, and the
Speaker 3: Spanish government immediately said, no, we didn't. What are you
Speaker 3: talking about? Yeah, so they're just lying about stuff again.
Speaker 3: It's great.
Speaker 4: Yeah, whoo oh fantastic.
Speaker 3: You know what else is great?
Speaker 4: What's that Garrison?
Speaker 2: America? Again?
Speaker 3: This brief ad break before we returned for even more news.
Speaker 3: All right, we are back two final stories to cover
Speaker 3: this episode. Last week, the Kansas state legislature passed new
Speaker 3: law overriding Governor Laura Kelly's veto invalidating state issued driver's
Speaker 3: license with updated gender markers, requiring quote Kansas issued driver's
Speaker 3: license and identification cards reflect the credential holders sex at
Speaker 3: birth un quote. After this law was passed, the state
Speaker 3: sent letters to trans people informing them their license was
Speaker 3: now invalid, effective immediately, including to at least one transperson
Speaker 3: who did not change their gender marker but recently changed
Speaker 3: her legal name. State officials say about one thousand and
Speaker 3: seven hundred license holders were affected. The law also invalidates
Speaker 3: updated birth certificates and prohibits anyone born in Kansas from
Speaker 3: updating the gender marker on state issued cer certificates and
Speaker 3: driver's license in the future. This same law also prohibits
Speaker 3: trans people from using the public restrooms on government property
Speaker 3: that aligns with their gender, and allows private citizens to
Speaker 3: sue someone suspected of being trans in the quote unquote
Speaker 3: wrong restroom in a government building for damages totaling one
Speaker 3: thousand dollars. Two trans Kensins and the ACLU have filed
Speaker 3: a lawsuit claiming the new law SB two four four
Speaker 3: violates the Kansas Constitutions protections for personal autonomy, privacy equality
Speaker 3: under the law, due process, and freedom of speech.
Speaker 2: Yep, no, great, No, it's obviously is a violation of
Speaker 2: all those things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think it's also just word noting
Speaker 3: that this is part of a trend we've been seeing
Speaker 3: of just this is basically what used to be a
Speaker 3: whole bunch of different bills like compiled into one.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: This is like a bounty bill, this is like a ban.
Speaker 3: This is instead of having legislative fights over for all
Speaker 3: the different elements, they're just pushing them all through in
Speaker 3: one package, which has been working for them very like
Speaker 3: clear like egregious violation of rights. And now there's a
Speaker 3: Now you have people in a situation where they could
Speaker 3: have their passport being invalid, their birth certificate being invalid,
Speaker 3: and their state driveralism is being invalid.
Speaker 6: Yep.
Speaker 3: It's a very precarious situation. Yeah, that we will watch
Speaker 3: to see the fallout of in the next few weeks
Speaker 3: to months. Finally, the Texas primary election that happened on Tuesday,
Speaker 3: some big news coming out of that the Republican Senate
Speaker 3: primary was going to advance to a runoff election between
Speaker 3: incumbent John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton. Though this
Speaker 3: runoff could be disrupted because Trump just signaled that he
Speaker 3: will endorse Coronin, leading many to suspect that Pacton may
Speaker 3: drop out of the race. This is still unclear, but
Speaker 3: it was a very close race between those two and
Speaker 3: one other person that was going to go to a
Speaker 3: runoff due to redistricting. Two Democratic incumbents House Representatives Al
Speaker 3: Green and Christian Menefee battled over a new district and
Speaker 3: a close race that will now also go to a runoff.
Speaker 3: Sim goes to Representative of Julie Johnson and former Representative
Speaker 3: Colin Alred, who dropped out of the Senate race to
Speaker 3: run for this newly redrawn district. Neither of these two
Speaker 3: were able to reach a majority, so that race will
Speaker 3: also head to a runoff. Incumbent Dan Crenshaw lost the primary,
Speaker 3: yeah to Republican challenger Steve Toath, who was backed by
Speaker 3: the Parties. Far right an Tucker Carlson is significantly to
Speaker 3: the right of Dan Crenshaw. Yeah, she's as fun as
Speaker 3: it is to see Crenshaw go down. He's getting replaced
Speaker 3: by someone that is actually worse.
Speaker 2: It's not good, it's just kind of funny.
Speaker 3: Replaced Hitler with Hitler too. Yeah, great things happening.
Speaker 7: Because he specifically had spoken out about some Trump policies right, Like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he had gone more independent on some issues rather
Speaker 3: than like keytoeing to the to the current Republican line,
Speaker 3: and that opened him up to attacks from the right. Yep,
Speaker 3: But the big story of the night is the Democratic
Speaker 3: Senate primary, in which Texas State House Rep. James Tallerrico
Speaker 3: is projected to be US Presentative for Texas. Jasmine Crockett,
Speaker 3: who previously told tall Rico that she would not run
Speaker 3: for the Senate before entering the race late in December.
Speaker 3: Crockett did not concede the night of the election. Has
Speaker 3: since conceded, but did not concede election night, citing issues
Speaker 3: at voting precincts and dueling court orders that sowed confusion
Speaker 3: come election day. Republicans in Dallas County and Williamson County
Speaker 3: switched the rules from county wide centralized polling locations to
Speaker 3: an assigned precinct system where voters can only cast their
Speaker 3: ballots at one specific location. After reports of people being
Speaker 3: turned away from their regular polling locations on election day
Speaker 3: and being told they had to travel to their assigned
Speaker 3: precinct to cast their ballot. Both Crockett and tall Rico
Speaker 3: advocated to expand voting hours in these counties to compensate
Speaker 3: for the confusion and ensure all votes intended to be
Speaker 3: cast on election day would be counted. Judges in Dallas
Speaker 3: and Williamson County extended voting hours to nine and ten pm, respectively,
Speaker 3: but later that night, in a ruling just before eight
Speaker 3: thirty pm, the Texas Supreme Court blocked the lower court's
Speaker 3: order and instructed Dallas and williamsmon County to separate any
Speaker 3: ballots cast by voters who entered the line after seven
Speaker 3: pm and marked them as provisional ballots. After a request
Speaker 3: by Turn General Ken Paxton, who claimed his office was
Speaker 3: not properly notified of the extended voting hours, Paul Adams,
Speaker 3: the Dallas County election administrator, confirmed that these separated ballots
Speaker 3: would not be counted, pending further legal challenges. At her
Speaker 3: election night watch party, Crockett said that she had quote
Speaker 3: no idea how it is that clerks are going to
Speaker 3: know who was in line by what time. I can
Speaker 3: tell you now that people have been disenfranchised.
Speaker 2: Quote.
Speaker 3: On Wednesday morning, Crockett did concede the race, but told
Speaker 3: The New York Times quote, the Democratic Party should absolutely
Speaker 3: prepare for the worst and get some things litigated right now.
Speaker 3: People will not turn out because of what's happened, in
Speaker 3: my opinion, especially if no one fights for their votes
Speaker 3: to be counted unquote.
Speaker 7: It does feel a lot like the first decade of
Speaker 7: the century. Again, like we go wars in the Middle East.
Speaker 7: We've got people arguing about votes that should be counted
Speaker 7: and not counted.
Speaker 4: It's great.
Speaker 3: So the total number of votes cast in the Republican
Speaker 3: primary that are tallied so far at ninety five percent
Speaker 3: of the votes in is two million, one hundred and
Speaker 3: forty two, two hundred and eleven versus the Democratic primary.
Speaker 3: That's two million, three hundred and eight thousand, eight hundred
Speaker 3: and thirty six, slightly more Democratic votes counted in the primary.
Speaker 4: Texas has open primaries.
Speaker 3: Apparently Texas has open primaries.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3: Tall Rico was up nine points among white voters, up
Speaker 3: twenty two points among Hispanic while Crockett was up twenty
Speaker 3: three points among Black voters. Krockett was up eight points
Speaker 3: with Biden voters, and tall Rico up thirty two points
Speaker 3: with Sanders voters if you look at the twenty twenty
Speaker 3: presidential primary, and that gives you a little bit of
Speaker 3: a peak into kind of what these two candidates are presented,
Speaker 3: with Crockett serving on the Kamala Harris campaign definitely more
Speaker 3: of a k Hive esque candidate and tall Rico a
Speaker 3: little bit running off of the kind of Bernie Sanders
Speaker 3: progressive coat tails a little bit not coattails, but like
Speaker 3: using that sort of playbook as more of like a
Speaker 3: relatable working class guy, less of like an established mid Democrat,
Speaker 3: like like Crockett sort of branded herself as Tallerico is
Speaker 3: a former school teacher who served in the state House
Speaker 3: since twenty eighteen. Fought against Christian nationalism and a bill
Speaker 3: mandating the Ten Commandments to be displayed in classrooms, calling
Speaker 3: the bill unconstitutional, Unamerican, and deeply Unchristian, and his past
Speaker 3: legislation lowering the cost of prescription drugs. He's like a
Speaker 3: progressive Christian. That's kind of I guess the best way
Speaker 3: to describe him, as he frequently went viral the past
Speaker 3: three years for clips of him, you know, arguing in
Speaker 3: the Texas State House, you know, arguing for progressive points.
Speaker 3: Of view while like quoting Bible versus that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: For this campaign of his, he was running on affordability
Speaker 3: and cost of living. That was the real focus of
Speaker 3: this campaign of targeting the richest one percent and giant corporations,
Speaker 3: making billionaires and corporations quote unquote pay their fair share
Speaker 3: of taxes, raising federal minimum wage to fifteen dollars, expanding
Speaker 3: child and earned income tax credits. He's opposed state legislation
Speaker 3: restricting gender affirming healthcare, including for people under eighteen. In September,
Speaker 3: right after he announced his candidacy, Tillerico, who's a member
Speaker 3: of the LGBTQ Caucus, responded to a question about trans
Speaker 3: athletes like this.
Speaker 6: I think it's interesting. I've been in this race for
Speaker 6: five days and I've had a lot of interviews with
Speaker 6: national media. No one's ever asked me about the cost
Speaker 6: of housing. No one's asked me about the cost of
Speaker 6: prescription drugs, no one's asking me about the cost of childcare.
Speaker 6: The only thing the media wants to ask me about
Speaker 6: are trans athletes. And so what I would say is
Speaker 6: that the only minority destroying this country is the billionaires.
Speaker 6: Trans people are one percent of the population. Undocumented people
Speaker 6: are one percent of the population. Muslims are one percent
Speaker 6: of the population. We are all focused on the wrong
Speaker 6: one percent. Trans people aren't taking away our healthcare. Undocumented
Speaker 6: people aren't defunding our schools. Muslims aren't cutting taxes for
Speaker 6: themselves and their rich friends. It's the billionaires and their
Speaker 6: pub with politicians, and so we need not only the
Speaker 6: media but all of us to focus on the real
Speaker 6: problem at hand.
Speaker 3: Hey, it appeared like this was effective messaging.
Speaker 2: That's a good response. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 7: The only dangerous minority is a rich It has consistently
Speaker 7: actually been a popular yeah messaging. The Democrats have nonetheless
Speaker 7: shied away from.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because that's who donates money to them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because they like that. It's the only minority they liked.
Speaker 4: Because many of them are rach Yeah, and others wish
Speaker 4: to be.
Speaker 3: Tallarico supports regulating AI universal health care, term limits for
Speaker 3: Congress and it Spreme Court justices, halting Israel's illegal settlements,
Speaker 3: restoring the talking only filibuster, and banning gerrymandering, and establishing
Speaker 3: independent redistricting. Tallary participated in the Texas Democrats protests against redistricting,
Speaker 3: both in like twenty twenty one and last year in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five, where they fled Texas on holiday for
Speaker 3: a while. On his campaign website, he talks about advocating
Speaker 3: reform to make legal immigration easier, in creating pathways to
Speaker 3: legalization for undocumented immigrants already long present, as well as
Speaker 3: spouses and dreamers. Part of his immigration policy reads, quote
Speaker 3: prioritize the deportation of criminals, gang members, and human traffickers,
Speaker 3: not our neighbors who contribute to our communities, pay taxes,
Speaker 3: impose no threat to our safety unquote. Part of where
Speaker 3: this sort of language I think falls apart is that
Speaker 3: when the Trump administration claims that it's deporting gang members
Speaker 3: and criminals like what we saw with people sent to Seacott,
Speaker 3: that also includes regular people. That also includes our neighbors.
Speaker 3: And I think that is one slight fault in this messaging.
Speaker 3: It's going to be interesting with him running in the
Speaker 3: general now, you know in Texas where the border is
Speaker 3: a big issue there, and a lot of his immigration
Speaker 3: stuff definitely is not going to at least currently is
Speaker 3: not as far to the left as some other progressive Democrats,
Speaker 3: and this is something that he is currently being pushed
Speaker 3: on especially after winning. Progressive advocates are pushing him on
Speaker 3: ice specifically, as well as some stuff on Israel and Gaza.
Speaker 3: Tallerco is advocated to stop the sale of quote unquote
Speaker 3: offensive weapons to Israel while still funding the Iron Dome
Speaker 3: and defensive weapons. Talked about trying to find a way
Speaker 3: to make sure that defense weapons cannot be used offensively.
Speaker 3: But he does recognize that Gaza is an extremely important
Speaker 3: issue and said in an interview quote one of the
Speaker 3: primary reasons the Democratic Party lost young voters in particular
Speaker 3: last election was our party's failure to recognize the moral
Speaker 3: disaster in Gaza. And I hope that we have leaders
Speaker 3: who recognize that mistake. I think that's all I need
Speaker 3: to say of regarding that the generals not until November,
Speaker 3: and if it is a Cornyn, that will be a
Speaker 3: much harder race, considering he's an incumbent versus Paxton, who
Speaker 3: has a lot of avenues for attack. For someone like
Speaker 3: tall Rico who can lean on his like a Christian
Speaker 3: charm to it attract voters both in rural areas as
Speaker 3: well as lean on his support among Hispanic voters, as
Speaker 3: demonstrated in the primary. Mia, you have one final thing
Speaker 3: to add based on the primary elections in North Carolina. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: there were a bunch of primary elections in North Carolina.
Speaker 3: And I'm mentioning this because there was a series of
Speaker 3: North Carolina Democrats who voted with Republicans to pass anti
Speaker 3: trans legislation over a veto from the governor, and also
Speaker 3: voted with them on really horrifying like pro ice legislation,
Speaker 3: and those people lost by cartoon margins. We are talking
Speaker 3: margins that start at thirty percent go to forty percent,
Speaker 3: and one of these people lost their race by fifty percent.
Speaker 4: Jeez.
Speaker 3: So the anti trans candidates and the like I am
Speaker 3: pro ice racist candidates lost by like bath party numbers,
Speaker 3: which which I think is actually very encouraging because I
Speaker 3: think it's a sign of where people are right now,
Speaker 3: where people are going. Even as the state is trying
Speaker 3: to do anti transperpression, this has become a thing that
Speaker 3: is enough where if you are willing to vote for
Speaker 3: this shit and make a bunch of trans people stuff
Speaker 3: for you will lose by You will lose by forty
Speaker 3: in a primary. Unbelievable.
Speaker 7: Primaries tend to include more informed, politically engage voters, and
Speaker 7: that it's one of the things that engages people most
Speaker 7: right now, specifically the ice stuff.
Speaker 2: It's also more ideologically motivated voters, and the right has
Speaker 2: made the far right has made use of this for
Speaker 2: decades to push the more moderate actual politicians stuff for
Speaker 2: the Republican Party further right, because you can't win primaries
Speaker 2: without getting like appealing to the most extreme of them,
Speaker 2: and there has not up until very recently been that
Speaker 2: kind of success with like far left positions. Not that
Speaker 2: I think basic respect for trans people ought to be
Speaker 2: far left, but it's clearly not a centrist dim position. Yeah, yeah, yeah, apparently,
Speaker 2: And I think that this is good. I think it's
Speaker 2: it's a smart way to influence the direction of the party.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: I want to close with the there's a slogan from
Speaker 3: Chile that gets used in social movements constantly that goes
Speaker 3: roughly like Chile is where neiliberalism was born, and we're
Speaker 3: going to kill it here. And I think this is
Speaker 3: sort of the start of potentially that in North Carolina,
Speaker 3: where well, this isn't the start, but hopefully we're seeing
Speaker 3: like the culmination of a whole bunch of ways of
Speaker 3: activism and organizing immobilization that can kill this kind of
Speaker 3: anti trans politics in the place where it was born,
Speaker 3: the first bathroom bill.
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Speaker 4: To plug your book or ask if you could be
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Speaker 4: will block you.
Speaker 3: Put at your ends, girl on your couch. We reported
Speaker 3: the news.
Speaker 2: We reported the news.
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