WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 258 0:00:01.870 --> 0:00:02.930 Call zone media. 0:00:03.370 --> 0:00:04.010 Hey, everybody. 0:00:04.230 --> 0:00:06.120 Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let you know 0:00:06.380 --> 0:00:09.879 this is a compilation episode. So every episode of the 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:13.700 week that just happened is here in one convenient and 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:17.020 with somewhat less ads package for you to listen to 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:19.340 in a long stretch if you want. If you've been 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:21.390 listening to the episodes every day this week, there's going 0:00:21.410 --> 0:00:23.430 to be nothing new here for you, but you can 0:00:23.470 --> 0:00:24.410 make your own decisions. 0:00:28.180 --> 0:00:31.500 Hello, you're listening to It Could Happen Here, a podcast 0:00:31.540 --> 0:00:33.949 about things falling apart and how to put them back 0:00:33.990 --> 0:00:37.949 together again. Today's here is Puerto Rico and the it 0:00:38.170 --> 0:00:40.610 is the water crisis. My name is Carlos and I'll 0:00:40.630 --> 0:00:43.970 be your host for today. Over the past year and 0:00:44.010 --> 0:00:47.070 a half, Puerto Rico has been experiencing a pretty bad 0:00:47.229 --> 0:00:50.800 water crisis where at its peak, about a half a 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:54.900 million people didn't have adequate access to running water. This 0:00:54.940 --> 0:00:57.440 was mainly in the metro area, which consists of the 0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:02.110 capital city of San Juan and surrounding municipalities. The problem 0:01:02.190 --> 0:01:06.210 was originally caused by the archipelago's water infrastructure breaking down 0:01:06.630 --> 0:01:11.530 because of years of mismanagement and failure to provide adequate maintenance. Then, 0:01:11.550 --> 0:01:15.520 the lack of water in some areas was compounded by 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:18.640 a pretty intense drought throughout the middle of this year. 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:22.580 July was the driest month on record in San Juan 0:01:22.700 --> 0:01:26.940 in more than 120 years. And in August, more than 60% 0:01:26.940 --> 0:01:31.140 of the archipelago was experiencing either extreme or severe drought. 0:01:32.140 --> 0:01:34.830 While the glut of the water problems have now subsided, 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:38.110 the government has done little to deal with the underlying 0:01:38.250 --> 0:01:42.929 infrastructure problems that caused the crisis in the first place. Instead, 0:01:43.050 --> 0:01:46.050 when the drought began earlier this year, the government, with 0:01:46.090 --> 0:01:48.980 a little help from friendly media, was able to shift 0:01:49.020 --> 0:01:51.360 the blame for their fuck-ups onto the drought and the 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:55.330 dry conditions caused by El Niño. Then when it started 0:01:55.370 --> 0:01:58.430 to rain in mid-September and reservoir levels started to go 0:01:58.630 --> 0:02:01.090 up while the amount of areas affected by drought started 0:02:01.150 --> 0:02:04.850 going down, they were able to skate by almost entirely 0:02:04.930 --> 0:02:08.710 without any consequences with very little mention of actually fixing 0:02:08.770 --> 0:02:12.330 the problems. This water crisis is built on top of 0:02:12.430 --> 0:02:16.840 many other societal problems that Puerto Ricans face daily, like 0:02:16.900 --> 0:02:21.880 crumbling electrical and healthcare systems, corrupt local politicians, continued colonialism 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:23.980 by the U.S., and a whole host of other things. 0:02:24.710 --> 0:02:28.049 All these problems intermingle and coalesce into the much bigger 0:02:28.130 --> 0:02:31.490 crisis that's bubbling under the surface, but the water issue 0:02:31.570 --> 0:02:35.110 is really emblematic of the problems we have as an archipelago, 0:02:35.850 --> 0:02:39.710 because the pro-statehood new progressive party government's solution has been 0:02:39.730 --> 0:02:43.210 to metaphorically hold everything together with duct tape and hope 0:02:43.389 --> 0:02:47.090 people forget the problem ever existed, only for it to 0:02:47.169 --> 0:02:49.630 come back to bite us in the ass while politicians 0:02:49.710 --> 0:02:54.760 talk about remaining calm and blame anything but themselves. Much 0:02:54.810 --> 0:02:57.370 of the archipelago has been lulled into a false sense 0:02:57.389 --> 0:03:00.649 of security with the water crisis because it's currently raining 0:03:00.850 --> 0:03:04.050 a lot and most reservoirs are close enough to full 0:03:04.230 --> 0:03:08.389 that water is flowing freely. However, just because things are 0:03:08.550 --> 0:03:11.350 doesn't mean that they always will be. And as we 0:03:11.389 --> 0:03:14.320 approach the end of the rainy season, as the year 0:03:14.460 --> 0:03:17.459 ends and a new year begins, it's entirely possible that 0:03:17.540 --> 0:03:21.180 some part of the archipelago could face water rationing in 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:25.500 the near future. In fact, at time of recording, one 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:28.650 of the reservoirs managed by the public water utility, the 0:03:28.710 --> 0:03:32.650 Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority, is slowly approaching the 0:03:32.710 --> 0:03:38.030 quote-unquote control level, at which historically Praça has instituted water 0:03:38.070 --> 0:03:40.800 rationing to prevent a reservoir from going out of service, 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:45.000 according to El Nuevo Dia. However, Praça told Endy that 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:48.680 they are not currently considering rationing, although that might change 0:03:48.740 --> 0:03:52.090 by the time you're listening to this episode. So, to 0:03:52.150 --> 0:03:54.940 lay some groundwork before I talk about when the crisis 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:57.400 was at its worst over the summer, I have to 0:03:57.440 --> 0:04:01.600 start in July of 2025, when several neighborhoods in San Juan, 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:05.940 like Isla Verde and Machuchal, started losing running water or 0:04:05.980 --> 0:04:10.580 having it severely limited. The experiences these communities face would 0:04:10.620 --> 0:04:13.770 prove prophetic for what awaited many of us the following year. 0:04:13.790 --> 0:04:17.789 At the start of October, I spoke to Dara Rivera, 0:04:17.950 --> 0:04:22.700 co-founder of La Colisión Exigimos Agua, we demand water coalition, 0:04:23.310 --> 0:04:26.450 which demands reliable water services for all, for water leaks 0:04:26.470 --> 0:04:30.289 to be fixed, and government transparency. But what her neighborhood 0:04:30.330 --> 0:04:33.250 had been experiencing for more than a year, although the 0:04:33.290 --> 0:04:35.870 water situation had more or less stabilized by the time 0:04:35.910 --> 0:04:40.370 we talked, the memories and exhaustion were still fresh. As 0:04:40.430 --> 0:04:42.790 a quick note, Dara and I spoke in Spanish, but 0:04:42.830 --> 0:04:45.390 Abu from the Cool Zone team is reading a translation 0:04:45.529 --> 0:04:47.409 of the interview here and throughout the episode. 0:04:47.430 --> 0:04:50.670 It changed my life completely because. 0:04:51.100 --> 0:04:54.120 It completely changed our lives, because you never knew if 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:56.620 you were going to wake up with water or without it. 0:04:57.700 --> 0:04:59.440 On occasion, they would cut off the water for the 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:01.730 whole day, and they'd turn it back on in the 0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:04.650 dead of night, and they'd cut it at 6 in 0:05:04.690 --> 0:05:08.349 the morning the next day. And then, they wouldn't even 0:05:08.410 --> 0:05:12.370 warn you. They wouldn't even let you know. They wouldn't say, look, 0:05:12.529 --> 0:05:16.730 you're not going to have water, get ready. No, the 0:05:16.770 --> 0:05:21.150 government's communication was extremely inefficient. They weren't honest with the community. 0:05:22.110 --> 0:05:24.270 That was one of their main problems, that they wouldn't 0:05:24.390 --> 0:05:26.969 tell you when you'd have water and when you wouldn't 0:05:27.010 --> 0:05:31.430 have water so you could prepare. And definitely, that changed 0:05:31.529 --> 0:05:35.339 many people's routines, emotionally, physically, and mentally. 0:05:39.460 --> 0:05:41.380 This feeling of not knowing if you were going to 0:05:41.420 --> 0:05:43.680 have water coming out of the faucet when you woke 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:46.119 up or got home, as well as having to drop 0:05:46.260 --> 0:05:49.560 everything when water returns because you didn't know when it 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:51.690 would be back or for how long you'd have it, 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:57.280 bore is positively Kafkaesque. This sense of uncertainty and anxiety 0:05:57.380 --> 0:05:59.980 came to define a lot of that time that I explained. 0:06:00.660 --> 0:06:03.849 It's a pervasive feeling that many people I've interviewed about 0:06:03.870 --> 0:06:06.890 the water crisis have told me about. Dara said that 0:06:06.990 --> 0:06:09.710 sometimes Praza would say her area was going to have 0:06:09.750 --> 0:06:12.400 water only for her to turn on the faucet and 0:06:12.460 --> 0:06:15.200 for nothing to come out, which added to the mental 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:18.470 stress that they were living with at the time. She 0:06:18.550 --> 0:06:22.860 explained that not having running water disrupted everyone's routine. She'd 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:25.380 get home from work and wasn't able to cook, so 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:27.580 she had to buy food only to find that some 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:31.599 restaurants weren't open at all or had severely limited menus. 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:35.720 Of course, being without water is expensive because you have 0:06:35.740 --> 0:06:38.820 to buy water as well as prepared food, but I'll 0:06:38.870 --> 0:06:40.250 talk a little bit more about that in a bit. 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:44.350 Because she doesn't have a cistern, Dara said she kept 0:06:44.410 --> 0:06:47.490 about 30 gallon jugs in her house that her family 0:06:47.510 --> 0:06:51.430 would use for everything from cleaning to flushing toilets. Whenever 0:06:51.450 --> 0:06:53.770 they had water, she made sure to fill them up 0:06:53.930 --> 0:06:56.770 as quickly as possible because that was the only water 0:06:56.810 --> 0:07:00.250 they would have for days. Access to water is a 0:07:00.370 --> 0:07:03.710 basic human necessity. If you don't have any, it can 0:07:03.730 --> 0:07:06.830 lead to a bunch of negative physical and mental effects. 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:10.000 As one clinical psychologist told me for an article I 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:12.900 wrote for Es Mental about the mental effects of the 0:07:12.940 --> 0:07:16.420 lack of water, the feeling of uncertainty can infect everything 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:19.940 from your sleep to your relationships. Meanwhile, when it comes 0:07:19.980 --> 0:07:23.100 to physical health effects, that could be another podcast in 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:26.040 and of itself. But basically not being able to bathe 0:07:26.060 --> 0:07:28.360 yourself or clean your hands could lead to the spread 0:07:28.380 --> 0:07:31.660 of diarrheal and respiratory diseases because there is no way 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:35.620 to keep yourself clean. To illustrate that picture for you, 0:07:35.740 --> 0:07:38.620 imagine pooping, not being able to flush the toilet, then 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:42.140 not being able to clean your hands afterwards. Now, imagine 0:07:42.180 --> 0:07:45.390 that for multiple days or weeks. It's not a great 0:07:45.430 --> 0:07:49.950 situation at all, really. Sometimes, lack of running water could 0:07:50.010 --> 0:07:53.110 lead people to get water from non-potable sources, which can 0:07:53.150 --> 0:07:56.090 lead to the spread of bacteria and viruses that could 0:07:56.110 --> 0:07:59.830 put you in the hospital, or even worse, water is 0:08:00.130 --> 0:08:04.420 imperative to good health in all aspects. The year following 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:08.930 Dara's neighborhood losing water would see the crisis expand significantly, 0:08:09.550 --> 0:08:13.110 in part because of the quote-unquote super aqueduct, the 26-year-old 0:08:13.130 --> 0:08:16.630 72-inch tube that supplies water to much of the metro area, 0:08:17.290 --> 0:08:19.610 breaking down due to lack of maintenance over the last 0:08:19.670 --> 0:08:22.790 two decades, more than once, and because of pumps and 0:08:22.830 --> 0:08:26.320 other parts of reservoirs falling into disrepair for the same reason. 0:08:27.530 --> 0:08:31.010 These ruptures and breakdowns came in batches, leaving hundreds of 0:08:31.060 --> 0:08:33.660 thousands of people with very limited water coming for their 0:08:33.700 --> 0:08:36.920 pipes or no water at all. The latter was the 0:08:36.980 --> 0:08:39.660 case for me. I'm not going to dox myself, but 0:08:39.700 --> 0:08:41.800 I live on the edges of the metro area, which 0:08:41.860 --> 0:08:45.300 means we usually aren't as affected by any water problems. 0:08:46.190 --> 0:08:48.670 But one of these ruptures left us without any water 0:08:48.730 --> 0:08:52.190 flowing into our neighborhood for roughly 10 days. And let 0:08:52.230 --> 0:08:54.340 me tell you, that was not a fun time at all. 0:08:55.450 --> 0:08:57.670 Like a lot of houses in Puerto Rico and much 0:08:57.710 --> 0:09:00.050 of Latin America, we have a cistern on our roof. 0:09:00.300 --> 0:09:02.600 But the thing you quickly find out when you have 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:05.579 no running water is that people use a lot of 0:09:05.660 --> 0:09:08.980 water per day. Like way more than you would think. 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:13.380 The average person here uses roughly 62 gallons per day, 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:18.060 according to the National Environmental Education Foundation. And our cistern, 0:09:18.120 --> 0:09:21.660 for a family of four, holds 600 or so gallons. 0:09:21.970 --> 0:09:24.569 So if you do some quick maths, our average daily 0:09:24.610 --> 0:09:28.690 consumption was roughly equivalent to three days' worth of our 0:09:28.750 --> 0:09:32.750 cistern's capacity. We were rationing water, so we were probably 0:09:32.870 --> 0:09:35.590 only using between a quarter to half of what we 0:09:35.690 --> 0:09:38.480 usually use. And even then, my dad still had to 0:09:38.510 --> 0:09:41.060 pay several hundreds of dollars for a water truck to 0:09:41.100 --> 0:09:45.550 come fill it up twice during that 10-day period. While 0:09:45.550 --> 0:09:47.430 10 days might seem like a lot to go without 0:09:47.470 --> 0:09:50.720 running water, it's really nothing compared to what other people 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:54.599 were experiencing, especially in communities like the poor areas of 0:09:54.660 --> 0:09:57.670 San Juan that were more or less left to fend 0:09:57.730 --> 0:09:59.970 for themselves for months while the government was protecting them. 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:04.480 like there wasn't a water crisis. However, when the super 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:08.350 aqueduct broke for the second time, heavily affecting the tourism 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:12.780 and business sectors, the government sprung into action, dispatching water 0:10:12.830 --> 0:10:14.970 trucks to certain zones so people could fill up their 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:19.130 gallon jugs, using sanitized milk trucks to deliver water, and 0:10:19.190 --> 0:10:22.050 even activating the National Guard to aid in those deliveries. 0:10:22.929 --> 0:10:26.390 Per a survey by the Restaurants Association, some restaurants were 0:10:26.429 --> 0:10:28.210 spending between $ 2, 000 to $ 3, 500 per week on water to 0:10:28.230 --> 0:10:35.850 be able to open with limited services. One coffee shop 0:10:35.910 --> 0:10:38.650 near the beach started counting the days they spent without 0:10:38.710 --> 0:10:41.980 water by plastering that number on their window with highly 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:46.040 visible red tape. Last I checked, they were at about 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:48.560 120 some days or a little bit more this year 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:54.690 without water. This was very disruptive to people's routines. Instead 0:10:54.710 --> 0:10:57.350 of being in school, at work, or at home, people 0:10:57.390 --> 0:10:59.790 had to wait in lines in the hot sun, sometimes 0:10:59.830 --> 0:11:02.770 for hours, waiting to fill up whatever containers they could 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:05.300 carry And if they could swing it, they had to 0:11:05.340 --> 0:11:07.040 spend a bunch of money at a time when the 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:10.330 economy was and continues to be bad to fill up 0:11:10.350 --> 0:11:13.209 their cistern. If they were lucky, they only had to 0:11:13.250 --> 0:11:16.530 go through these cycles a couple of times before access 0:11:16.570 --> 0:11:19.709 to water was restored. About a third of Puerto Rico 0:11:19.790 --> 0:11:22.490 lives below the poverty line, and we pay some of 0:11:22.550 --> 0:11:25.720 the highest rates in the U.S. for electricity. So for 0:11:25.740 --> 0:11:27.780 a lot of people, it felt like they were getting 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:31.790 squeezed from all ends. Oh, did I mention people were 0:11:31.890 --> 0:11:35.190 also paying their water bills this whole time, even when 0:11:35.230 --> 0:11:38.050 they didn't have water? Some places got credits for up 0:11:38.070 --> 0:11:40.650 to 50% on their water bills for a few months, 0:11:41.290 --> 0:11:43.670 but even then it was not nearly enough to make 0:11:43.730 --> 0:11:48.359 up for all the stress people experienced. As Dada told me, 0:11:48.980 --> 0:11:51.660 she only got the credit for three months. Meanwhile, some 0:11:51.700 --> 0:11:54.220 in a neighborhood close to hers got seven months worth, 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:58.640 even though they'd both experienced 14 months worth of water troubles. 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:03.440 When the drought really hit, the water rationing spread from 0:12:03.500 --> 0:12:08.240 these few communities throughout the major metropolitan area and some 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:13.300 surrounding municipalities. Isati Sintrong, a climate scientist and founder of 0:12:13.340 --> 0:12:17.740 the NGO Climate Trace PR, which focuses on climate justice 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:21.480 and empowering communities to lead climate action in the archipelago, 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:24.359 told me that we have to think of the drought 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:28.590 as a multifaceted problem, not just an environmental issue. 0:12:29.130 --> 0:12:32.800 The drought is not simply, I guess we know, an 0:12:32.860 --> 0:12:36.890 environmental problem. This is a public health problem. It's a 0:12:37.010 --> 0:12:42.610 cascading crisis that affects water security, food production, public health, 0:12:43.130 --> 0:12:47.359 economic stability, and climate resilience. I mean, you can ask 0:12:47.380 --> 0:12:51.239 anyone in Puerto Rico how much have they spent over 0:12:51.300 --> 0:12:56.120 the past few months trying to get drinking water or 0:12:56.300 --> 0:13:00.840 making sure that they have water to daily use. Prolonged 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:08.660 drought reduces river flows, reservoir storage, and groundwater availability. And 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:13.950 this can lead to this water rationing, but the interruptions 0:13:14.090 --> 0:13:20.470 are just, they go beyond water services and higher household costs. 0:13:21.190 --> 0:13:25.770 Governor Jennifer Gonzalez-Colón declared a national state of emergency on 0:13:25.809 --> 0:13:30.010 July 31st, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture later approved 0:13:30.070 --> 0:13:33.329 a disaster declaration for drought in late August for 26 0:13:33.330 --> 0:13:38.790 of Puerto Rico's 78 municipalities. Hundreds of thousands went without 0:13:38.850 --> 0:13:41.550 water for two or three days at a time. It 0:13:41.590 --> 0:13:44.440 was honestly a shitshow, in part because of how truly 0:13:44.500 --> 0:13:48.760 bad Praça and the central government were at communicating. They 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:52.140 essentially did almost everything you don't want an authority to 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:56.210 do during a disaster, which requires clear and precise information 0:13:56.250 --> 0:14:01.469 that's actionable. Instead, government communications were often messy and confusing. 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:04.600 The metro area was separated into zones that would get 0:14:04.660 --> 0:14:07.740 water a couple zones at a time, but then you 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:10.950 would have people randomly having water when they weren't supposed 0:14:10.990 --> 0:14:14.030 to and not having water when they were supposed to. 0:14:14.929 --> 0:14:17.590 For many people, it felt like being in the aftermath 0:14:17.630 --> 0:14:22.890 of Hurricane Maria, which totally destroyed Puerto Rico in 2017. 0:14:22.610 --> 0:14:23.350 All over again. 0:14:24.290 --> 0:14:27.550 While the causes were different, the devastating effects and lack 0:14:27.590 --> 0:14:31.910 of government accountability was much the same. In part, that's 0:14:31.980 --> 0:14:35.960 why Dara and her neighbors formed Exigimos Agua, because they 0:14:36.080 --> 0:14:38.420 knew that the only people they could count on were 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:42.980 each other. This became particularly clear when it came down 0:14:43.060 --> 0:14:46.120 to helping the elderly, who make up about a quarter 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:49.600 of Puerto Rico's population and who can't mobilize to gather 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:52.830 water or spend hours in the hot sun waiting in line. 0:14:53.410 --> 0:14:58.230 What we went through was really awful. Really intense. 0:14:58.510 --> 0:15:01.150 And honestly, people were calling me in tears because you 0:15:01.210 --> 0:15:05.290 just can't take it anymore. I mean, it's exhausting. It's 0:15:05.430 --> 0:15:08.930 really exhausting. I'm still young. I can carry a bucket 0:15:08.970 --> 0:15:11.550 of water. I can handle it. But there are older 0:15:11.610 --> 0:15:14.710 people who live on the second, third, or fourth floors, 0:15:15.090 --> 0:15:18.070 and they live alone. The population of San Juan is 0:15:18.250 --> 0:15:22.470 mostly older adults. About 30-something percent are older adults here 0:15:22.490 --> 0:15:24.110 in San Juan. Just imagine. 0:15:24.490 --> 0:15:25.070 They live alone. 0:15:25.090 --> 0:15:29.390 They don't have anyone. Well, those are the people we 0:15:29.430 --> 0:15:32.310 need to take care of. Honestly, just like we did 0:15:32.370 --> 0:15:35.870 for Maria. The ones who are united here are the neighbors, 0:15:35.990 --> 0:15:39.300 the communities, and the ones who are moving things forward 0:15:39.540 --> 0:15:43.340 are us, working hand in hand, pushing the country forward. 0:15:43.940 --> 0:15:47.300 And we don't depend on the government. We can't depend 0:15:47.380 --> 0:15:48.500 on it. 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:52.600 And while the water situation has stabilized from being at 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:57.530 critical levels, Dara still keeps her 30-gallon jugs filled because 0:15:57.580 --> 0:16:01.240 the problems haven't actually been fixed. But at least people 0:16:01.340 --> 0:16:03.540 can rest a little before the next crisis. 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:10.110 Right now, we have water pressure that we haven't had, wow, 0:16:10.540 --> 0:16:13.230 in a really long time. And we're honestly taking a 0:16:13.390 --> 0:16:16.290 breather because it was more than a year going through 0:16:16.310 --> 0:16:20.090 this bad experience. But we know, or at least in 0:16:20.130 --> 0:16:22.990 my case, I know, that at any moment we could 0:16:23.050 --> 0:16:27.810 find ourselves in the same situation with a water shortage. 0:16:29.170 --> 0:16:31.790 While the PR government would come to blame the drought 0:16:31.950 --> 0:16:35.010 almost entirely for the lack of water, many of the 0:16:35.130 --> 0:16:39.540 aforementioned ruptures and equipment failures happened way before the drought. 0:16:40.340 --> 0:16:43.400 So while you could blame it for escalating the situation, 0:16:43.420 --> 0:16:47.130 it did not cause it in its entirety. And I'm 0:16:47.190 --> 0:16:51.100 repeating myself here because we as an archipelago moved on 0:16:51.340 --> 0:16:54.800 way too quickly from the government's role in our continued 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:58.640 water crisis. I'll be right back to talk about two 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:01.370 of the biggest things that impact our use of water 0:17:01.490 --> 0:17:16.650 here in Puerto Rico. Welcome back to It Could Happen Here. 0:17:16.830 --> 0:17:20.080 I'm Carlos, and there's two things that we should focus 0:17:20.210 --> 0:17:22.500 on when it comes to our uses of water here. 0:17:23.100 --> 0:17:27.780 The first is our degraded and unmaintained water infrastructure. And 0:17:27.820 --> 0:17:30.659 the second is the fact that we treat water as 0:17:30.700 --> 0:17:34.980 an infinite resource when human-caused climate change is proving that 0:17:35.020 --> 0:17:39.330 it is quite the opposite. Before the major ruptures, our 0:17:39.390 --> 0:17:44.080 water system lost and currently loses 60% of the water 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:47.720 that runs through our pipes. It's been like that since 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:51.820 at least 2004, according to reporting from El Centro de 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:56.240 Periodismo Investigativo. The lowest amount we've lost since 2004 has 0:17:56.260 --> 0:17:57.680 been 55% in 2015 and the highest amount was 69% 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:06.900 in 2022. even though Praça set a goal of reducing 0:18:06.940 --> 0:18:10.700 that water loss amount to 25% in 2011. Per El 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:17.030 Centro's reporting, this is caused by leakages, overflowing tanks, excessive pressure, 0:18:17.270 --> 0:18:22.050 aging subterranean infrastructure, outdated or inexact water meters, billing errors, 0:18:22.109 --> 0:18:25.790 and theft, although the leaking pipes are the biggest cause 0:18:25.850 --> 0:18:30.159 of lost water. To visualize this for you, If I 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:32.820 wanted to fill up a gallon jug to have water 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:37.389 stored for future rationing, filling each one would lead to 0:18:37.450 --> 0:18:42.090 a loss of 2.5 gallons somewhere along the pipes. So 0:18:42.170 --> 0:18:45.190 imagine if after I filled that gallon jug, I just 0:18:45.390 --> 0:18:49.439 dumped 2.5 gallons worth of water on the floor afterwards, 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:51.859 and you get a sense of just how much water 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:52.740 we lose. 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:59.700 El supertubo that is causing problems. We have Old leaky pipes, 0:19:00.109 --> 0:19:07.810 old infrastructure all across the islands. Agencies like the EPA, 0:19:07.890 --> 0:19:13.640 for example, and global agencies like the World Bank, they 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:18.660 state that the best system, the best public water system 0:19:19.580 --> 0:19:24.740 should lose less than 15% of the water it produces. 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:34.800 The EPA, for example, states that 25% of losses, that 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:43.590 requires urgent investigation and urgent repairs because it's a huge 0:19:43.630 --> 0:19:48.570 loss of the resources and we lose more than half. 0:19:49.590 --> 0:19:53.410 That's Amira Odeh, a geographer and hydrologist that I spoke 0:19:53.430 --> 0:19:56.969 with in October. She lives in Carolina and while she 0:19:57.060 --> 0:20:00.700 didn't experience water rationing, the reservoir that feeds her area 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:03.620 is the one that's currently hovering above the control level. 0:20:04.270 --> 0:20:07.860 The lack of water in the San Juan communities and 0:20:07.890 --> 0:20:11.500 in many other parts of the country is just an 0:20:11.580 --> 0:20:16.520 example of how bad our infrastructure is. And that tends 0:20:16.580 --> 0:20:20.920 to get mixed up with the issue relating to the drought. 0:20:21.540 --> 0:20:25.439 But it is true that they do not have water. 0:20:25.460 --> 0:20:30.250 They've had water shut off for months now just because 0:20:30.310 --> 0:20:36.260 of bad management. And obviously, the government would say, like, 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:40.320 there's no funding to fix that. But when you're losing 0:20:40.820 --> 0:20:45.250 more than half of the water that you produce, obviously, 0:20:45.330 --> 0:20:49.510 you won't have funding for that. And it is unfair 0:20:49.609 --> 0:20:53.889 on the consumer also because we are not receiving the 0:20:53.930 --> 0:20:58.969 best quality product because of this all bad infrastructure. And 0:20:58.990 --> 0:21:04.950 we're also... paying for energy, materials, chemicals, all these things 0:21:05.010 --> 0:21:08.760 needed to produce the water, just to have it literally 0:21:08.859 --> 0:21:12.800 thrown in the ground because less than half is what 0:21:12.980 --> 0:21:13.919 gets to our homes. 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:18.459 According to El Centro's reporting, Praza has paid $ 50 million 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:21.350 to private companies to fix the water issues over the 0:21:21.390 --> 0:21:24.950 past two decades, only for it to get worse. Over 0:21:24.990 --> 0:21:28.810 the last five years, the percentage of Brasa's budget dedicated 0:21:28.869 --> 0:21:34.679 to repairing and replacing old infrastructure hasn't increased, and in 2026, 0:21:34.680 --> 0:21:38.280 they only dedicated 4% of its budget to these repairs. 0:21:39.340 --> 0:21:42.260 This has been happening while the agency's funding has gone up, 0:21:42.660 --> 0:21:45.220 and it's actually forecasted to decrease to 2% in 2027 0:21:45.220 --> 0:21:46.240 and 2028, then increase to 5% in 2029, according to 0:21:46.260 --> 0:21:56.840 El Centro's reporting. there's also a big issue of reservoirs 0:21:57.040 --> 0:22:01.160 not being dredged properly. If they were, it would allow 0:22:01.180 --> 0:22:03.920 them to hold way more water than they currently do. 0:22:04.320 --> 0:22:07.030 Per a study published by the Department of Geography and 0:22:07.050 --> 0:22:10.689 the Environment at the University of Texas at Austin and 0:22:10.710 --> 0:22:13.290 the Department of Geology at the University of Puerto Rico 0:22:13.350 --> 0:22:17.909 at Mayagüez, approximately a quarter of the archipelago's reservoir capacity 0:22:18.090 --> 0:22:22.880 isn't usable because of accumulated sediment in these reservoirs. When 0:22:22.900 --> 0:22:26.040 the lack of water storage capacity mixes with how much 0:22:26.080 --> 0:22:29.889 water we waste daily, it's really a recipe for disaster, 0:22:30.270 --> 0:22:34.150 as we've experienced. Part of the reason that the government 0:22:34.210 --> 0:22:37.530 continues to be okay with losing so much water all 0:22:37.570 --> 0:22:41.490 the time is because we're used to having it in abundance. 0:22:42.250 --> 0:22:44.830 The Caribbean as a whole has only contributed less than 1% 0:22:44.830 --> 0:22:48.250 to global greenhouse gas emissions, yet we're one of the 0:22:48.369 --> 0:22:52.830 areas most affected by human-caused climate change. If we keep 0:22:52.890 --> 0:22:55.930 treating water like it'll always be there, it'll be our doom. 0:22:56.670 --> 0:23:01.290 Compared to our neighboring islands, we have an immense privilege 0:23:01.910 --> 0:23:06.070 of having a bunch of rivers, water bodies. We have 0:23:06.350 --> 0:23:11.689 so much rain. And we've never had to sit back 0:23:11.780 --> 0:23:15.500 and think twice about the water that comes out of 0:23:15.700 --> 0:23:19.859 our faucet because we are so privileged to be in 0:23:19.900 --> 0:23:24.919 a place that has enough water and safe water that 0:23:24.960 --> 0:23:30.060 you can drink. But that is not the reality anymore. 0:23:30.160 --> 0:23:34.580 As we face the climate crisis, we are already seeing it, 0:23:34.660 --> 0:23:40.970 how droughts are getting harder. And it is expected and 0:23:41.050 --> 0:23:44.990 studied that in the next decades, it's going to get worse. 0:23:45.910 --> 0:23:49.210 and the government is acting like if we were going 0:23:49.230 --> 0:23:54.180 to have infinite amounts of water forever, and they keep 0:23:54.260 --> 0:24:01.620 talking about building everywhere, deforesting, watersheds are not being protected, 0:24:01.640 --> 0:24:05.850 and that privilege that we have is not going to 0:24:05.869 --> 0:24:09.750 last forever, so we can't sit back and pretend that 0:24:10.210 --> 0:24:13.640 every time... there's going to be a drought. It's just 0:24:13.660 --> 0:24:15.640 going to be a couple of weeks and it's over 0:24:15.660 --> 0:24:19.580 because it's going to get worse. And it could get 0:24:19.619 --> 0:24:24.510 to a point where instead of rationing for a month 0:24:24.590 --> 0:24:27.889 or two, it can be rationing up to six months 0:24:27.990 --> 0:24:32.250 because that is what is expected from what is happening 0:24:32.270 --> 0:24:33.370 with the climate crisis. 0:24:34.310 --> 0:24:38.220 Ameda's mention of our neighboring islands is particularly important when 0:24:38.260 --> 0:24:40.880 considering Puerto Rico and the rest of the greater Antilles. 0:24:41.390 --> 0:24:45.770 future water scarcity, because we don't collect rainwater like we 0:24:45.830 --> 0:24:50.290 should in a lot of cases. In comparison, the Lesser Antilles, 0:24:50.470 --> 0:24:53.429 the small series of Caribbean archipelagos to the east of 0:24:53.450 --> 0:24:58.070 the Caribbean, have a culture of and systems for rainwater 0:24:58.109 --> 0:25:01.709 harvesting because some do not have large natural rivers and 0:25:01.750 --> 0:25:06.230 lakes that function as reservoirs. Here's Amedda explaining what she's 0:25:06.290 --> 0:25:08.170 seen in other Caribbean countries. 0:25:08.990 --> 0:25:14.540 In Dominica... They are very rich in water resources, but 0:25:14.619 --> 0:25:20.919 still they capture water from their rooftops at homes. And 0:25:20.980 --> 0:25:26.639 most recently in the British Virgin Islands, something that caught 0:25:26.680 --> 0:25:31.600 my eye was this little ferry terminal, very small. It 0:25:31.640 --> 0:25:35.940 was just like an office and a toilet. And they 0:25:36.100 --> 0:25:40.310 captured water in the roof. They don't miss an opportunity. 0:25:40.450 --> 0:25:47.270 Every single place captures water in the rooftop. And we 0:25:47.410 --> 0:25:52.990 don't have to reinvent the wheel. Decades ago, our houses 0:25:53.190 --> 0:26:00.760 would have aljibes. They would capture water in this concrete 0:26:00.900 --> 0:26:08.490 block or abasement. Many old houses, then they reconstructed the 0:26:08.530 --> 0:26:13.790 basement to do something else once the aqueduct system was 0:26:13.890 --> 0:26:17.950 a thing. But we used to do that. And I 0:26:18.540 --> 0:26:22.060 believe that every single home should have that again. 0:26:23.040 --> 0:26:26.780 Some houses and buildings in Puerto Rico have installed these 0:26:26.840 --> 0:26:31.209 rainwater collection systems, but they're few and far between. in 0:26:31.290 --> 0:26:35.070 part because they're costly to install, and well, Puerto Ricans 0:26:35.170 --> 0:26:39.670 simply don't have much money to spare. Some small non-profits 0:26:39.710 --> 0:26:43.120 have installed them in places of great necessity, but that's 0:26:43.150 --> 0:26:46.280 still a big economic burden that few people can meet 0:26:46.359 --> 0:26:49.540 without going into ginormous debt. And I want to be 0:26:49.740 --> 0:26:53.820 really clear about this. It's good that people and organizations 0:26:53.960 --> 0:26:58.720 are investing in preparedness through cisterns, solar panels, and other things. 0:26:59.380 --> 0:27:01.780 But this is all born out of a government that 0:27:01.880 --> 0:27:05.840 refuses to actually care for its people and instead has 0:27:05.900 --> 0:27:10.520 shifted the burden of surviving onto them. Essentially creating an 0:27:10.600 --> 0:27:13.200 individualist mode of survival where the rich are able to 0:27:13.240 --> 0:27:16.139 have water and electricity while the poor are left in 0:27:16.180 --> 0:27:20.720 turmoil without much, if any, help. While community resilience is 0:27:21.000 --> 0:27:23.740 absolutely of the utmost importance if we want to reach 0:27:23.780 --> 0:27:27.179 a better world, governments should have a responsibility to people 0:27:27.340 --> 0:27:29.780 and we can't let them off the hook for not 0:27:29.840 --> 0:27:34.179 providing for us as they should be. In fact, to 0:27:34.240 --> 0:27:37.050 point out how bad the Puerto Rican government isn't actually 0:27:37.140 --> 0:27:40.310 doing things that could help us, there's a 2024 law 0:27:40.350 --> 0:27:45.410 that requires all government buildings to install water collection systems. Yet, 0:27:46.170 --> 0:27:50.870 per a Noticel report from August, Seemingly, nothing's been done 0:27:50.930 --> 0:27:55.750 to actually do that. However, what the government has pushed 0:27:55.970 --> 0:28:01.709 is rampant overdevelopment in construction of luxury hotel megaprojects, as 0:28:01.760 --> 0:28:04.419 well as attempting to gut the permit laws that offer 0:28:04.540 --> 0:28:07.200 a modicum of protection to land that is important for 0:28:07.300 --> 0:28:12.080 ecological diversity. The biggest and most visible of these projects 0:28:12.320 --> 0:28:16.700 is Esencia in Cabo Rojo, which has garnered widespread protests 0:28:16.740 --> 0:28:19.140 from people because of how much water it will use 0:28:19.240 --> 0:28:22.090 if it's built and the ecological impact it could have. 0:28:22.790 --> 0:28:26.010 While the developers say that it'll get water independently from 0:28:26.030 --> 0:28:29.770 the public water system through desalinization and aquifer on the 0:28:29.830 --> 0:28:34.709 land and reuse of wastewater, experts have reiterated time and 0:28:34.790 --> 0:28:38.010 time again that this will have an outsized impact on 0:28:38.150 --> 0:28:41.480 Cabo Rojo, which is already one of the driest areas 0:28:41.560 --> 0:28:45.630 of Puerto Rico. Per reporting from El Centro, the daily 0:28:45.670 --> 0:28:50.130 water use of Esencia will likely be 3.78 million gallons, 0:28:50.370 --> 0:28:56.070 while the entire municipality consumes 4.46 million gallons. The people 0:28:56.130 --> 0:28:59.250 of Cabo Rojo already suffer from lack of water whenever 0:28:59.270 --> 0:29:01.910 there's large amounts of tourism, so their fear is that 0:29:01.950 --> 0:29:05.410 their water problems will be much worse if Esencia gets built. 0:29:06.110 --> 0:29:10.390 In fact, in late August, Praza said they were opposed 0:29:10.410 --> 0:29:12.780 to the project and that they did not have the 0:29:12.840 --> 0:29:17.500 capacity to supply it with water. Other agencies, municipalities and 0:29:17.580 --> 0:29:19.760 legislators have said similar things. 0:29:20.510 --> 0:29:25.050 They are constructing a city and that requires a lot 0:29:25.070 --> 0:29:28.910 of water to make sure fulfill the necessities of the 0:29:28.970 --> 0:29:33.070 guests that are billionaires, right, like the upper class in there. 0:29:33.570 --> 0:29:37.550 But also that they have a lot of golf courses 0:29:37.830 --> 0:29:44.530 and golf courses are particularly known to utilize a lot 0:29:44.550 --> 0:29:47.710 of water, like I think between one or two millions 0:29:48.260 --> 0:29:51.190 of gallons of water a day. And that is just 0:29:51.260 --> 0:29:55.620 to keep the grass green. So while Puerto Ricans do 0:29:55.740 --> 0:30:03.010 not have water to drink, We are approving and speeding 0:30:03.170 --> 0:30:09.710 up projects that will just keep the water running just 0:30:09.750 --> 0:30:12.810 to keep the grass green so it looks great for 0:30:12.870 --> 0:30:14.270 people to go play golf. 0:30:15.270 --> 0:30:18.170 The Puerto Rican government has already greenlit the construction of 0:30:18.270 --> 0:30:21.410 Essentia and other similar projects, and I'll be talking about 0:30:21.450 --> 0:30:23.800 these types of projects in a future episode, but I 0:30:23.840 --> 0:30:26.020 wanted to drop some words here about them because they're 0:30:26.080 --> 0:30:30.340 relevant to the water conversation we're having. It's also worth 0:30:30.440 --> 0:30:34.220 noting that while San Juan and the surrounding metro area 0:30:34.270 --> 0:30:36.950 has received most of the attention in this episode, and 0:30:36.990 --> 0:30:40.410 indeed in national and international media, because it's where the 0:30:40.450 --> 0:30:43.830 largest amount of people live, other regions like the aforementioned 0:30:43.850 --> 0:30:47.270 Cabo Rojo have been experiencing water issues for decades without 0:30:47.450 --> 0:30:51.340 government assistance. In fact, the small town of Morobis in 0:30:51.360 --> 0:30:54.300 the center of the archipelago had to sue Praça in 0:30:54.340 --> 0:30:57.440 federal court a few years ago because it continuously failed 0:30:57.460 --> 0:31:02.680 to deliver running water Dumorovic's communities, which violated the municipality's 0:31:02.740 --> 0:31:06.420 constitutional rights, they argued in their lawsuit. The lawsuit was 0:31:06.440 --> 0:31:10.200 eventually settled in 2026 on the condition that Brasa complete 0:31:10.260 --> 0:31:15.560 several water infrastructure projects by January 2028. I'll be right 0:31:15.600 --> 0:31:19.750 back after these ads to talk more about how Puerto 0:31:19.770 --> 0:31:35.340 Rico is not ready for another water crisis. Hi, welcome 0:31:35.380 --> 0:31:37.719 back to It Could Happen Here. And to cap off 0:31:37.760 --> 0:31:41.800 this episode, I want to talk about the right-leaning conservative 0:31:41.860 --> 0:31:46.730 government's continued lack of willingness to approve our climate adaptation plan. 0:31:47.350 --> 0:31:50.610 A group of experts created this climate change plan years 0:31:50.670 --> 0:31:54.190 ago that calls for more than 150 measures that need 0:31:54.210 --> 0:31:59.340 to be taken to prepare the archipelago for climate change adaptation, mitigation, 0:31:59.480 --> 0:32:03.800 and resilience. Some of these tasks include reducing water loss 0:32:03.860 --> 0:32:09.479 from 60% to 17%, reaching 100% reuse of treated wastewater 0:32:09.520 --> 0:32:14.640 by 2050, combating widespread deforestation by planting half a million 0:32:14.700 --> 0:32:18.860 trees in the next 10 years, not authorizing new construction 0:32:18.940 --> 0:32:21.180 in terrain that is at risk of flooding because of 0:32:21.240 --> 0:32:24.220 sea level rise or storm surges, and many others. 0:32:24.960 --> 0:32:28.400 We have a fundamental problem of the vision of where 0:32:28.460 --> 0:32:33.120 Puerto Rico should be. Because currently, it's not only that 0:32:33.190 --> 0:32:38.330 they're not acting on it, they're acting... actively against it. 0:32:39.170 --> 0:32:43.760 What we're seeing is a weakening of environmental laws and 0:32:44.020 --> 0:32:49.480 everything that could provide some kind of infrastructure or some 0:32:49.580 --> 0:32:54.140 kind of adaptative capacity to Puerto Ricans. What we're seeing 0:32:54.520 --> 0:32:59.530 is a vision in which the only priority is to 0:32:59.590 --> 0:33:04.550 bring external capital into the island, not having any regards 0:33:04.630 --> 0:33:08.570 to what that means for the well-being of Puerto Ricans 0:33:08.850 --> 0:33:14.460 or having in mind future threats, right? Like it's kind 0:33:14.500 --> 0:33:18.860 of short-sighted how Puerto Rico is being governed by now, 0:33:18.960 --> 0:33:20.200 to say the very least. 0:33:21.020 --> 0:33:23.400 All of these measures would go a long way towards 0:33:23.480 --> 0:33:26.200 making sure that Puerto Rico is prepared to deal with 0:33:26.270 --> 0:33:30.310 a world on fire. However, this plan has been stuck 0:33:30.450 --> 0:33:34.730 in the legislature forever. for years, with seemingly no path 0:33:34.790 --> 0:33:38.410 forward for it to be approved or implemented. This has 0:33:38.450 --> 0:33:41.270 become a trend with any projects or initiatives that would 0:33:41.290 --> 0:33:44.840 allow the archipelago to be better prepared for future crises. 0:33:45.450 --> 0:33:47.820 When it comes to water, it would radically reduce the 0:33:47.880 --> 0:33:50.540 ruptures and failures that caused the start of the water 0:33:50.600 --> 0:33:54.400 crisis and being able to better respond whenever there's a drought, 0:33:55.020 --> 0:33:58.320 which we know will increase in intensity and occurrence because 0:33:58.360 --> 0:34:02.510 of human-caused climate change. There's a mix of reasons why 0:34:02.530 --> 0:34:05.950 this plan hasn't been passed, mainly a lack of political 0:34:06.030 --> 0:34:10.350 will by the ruling political party, corporate capture of public institutions, 0:34:11.210 --> 0:34:14.570 and the U.S. Fiscal Control Board, which has squeezed PR's 0:34:14.650 --> 0:34:18.259 economy nearly to the brink. The excuse is that it 0:34:18.300 --> 0:34:22.779 would cost hundreds of millions of dollars or maybe even billions. 0:34:23.300 --> 0:34:26.720 But we've already lost more than that to the effects 0:34:26.760 --> 0:34:29.500 of climate change, and things are only going to get 0:34:29.600 --> 0:34:31.460 worse if we don't prepare. 0:34:32.239 --> 0:34:36.759 We only talk about water when there's rationing, not even 0:34:36.820 --> 0:34:40.009 when there's drought. We talk about water when there's rationing. 0:34:40.390 --> 0:34:44.109 And for us to be able to manage this, and 0:34:44.160 --> 0:34:47.370 be ready for the impacts of the climate crisis. We 0:34:47.410 --> 0:34:51.069 need to educate about this every day, how to take 0:34:51.090 --> 0:34:54.630 care of our watersheds, our water, how to protect it, 0:34:54.690 --> 0:34:58.690 how to ensure the best quality and quantity of the 0:34:58.750 --> 0:35:00.380 limited water that we have. 0:35:01.400 --> 0:35:04.680 It's important that Puerto Rico is focused on these issues 0:35:04.920 --> 0:35:08.940 at all times, not just when we're facing water rationing 0:35:09.060 --> 0:35:12.660 and drought, because that's how we create the conditions for change. 0:35:13.610 --> 0:35:18.319 For Dara, she agrees wholeheartedly, saying that if you want 0:35:18.340 --> 0:35:21.200 to change a country, you have to educate it about 0:35:21.239 --> 0:35:24.760 what it means to conserve water, to prepare for climate change, 0:35:25.400 --> 0:35:27.100 and to take care of one another. 0:35:27.120 --> 0:35:33.140 I believe that is one of the coalition's duties, to 0:35:33.320 --> 0:35:37.430 educate the country, at least regarding water, the protection of 0:35:37.469 --> 0:35:42.690 natural resources, and safeguarding of our coasts. In short, everything 0:35:42.750 --> 0:35:47.569 related to how climate change affects the country. So that 0:35:47.610 --> 0:35:51.620 we can leave something behind for future generations. Otherwise, we'll 0:35:51.640 --> 0:35:54.080 essentially be left with no country at all. 0:35:58.480 --> 0:36:01.910 Although we've seemingly passed the peak of the water crisis, 0:36:02.270 --> 0:36:05.290 I know that many people here are keeping their water 0:36:05.330 --> 0:36:09.170 reserves in cisterns full because we never know when the 0:36:09.230 --> 0:36:11.810 next time will be when we open the faucet and 0:36:11.910 --> 0:36:16.160 nothing comes out. Thanks for listening to It Could Happen Here. 0:36:17.000 --> 0:36:22.219 You can find me online everywhere at Vaquero2XL. Remember to 0:36:22.260 --> 0:36:26.989 keep your reserves full, just in case there's a disaster soon. 0:36:37.719 --> 0:36:41.310 Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast where I 0:36:41.430 --> 0:36:47.049 guess the it is hurricanes and the happening is Asheville 0:36:47.250 --> 0:36:51.560 and many other places along the path of the Hurricane Colleen, 0:36:51.840 --> 0:36:55.400 which the hurricane itself has passed. The effects have not. 0:36:55.620 --> 0:36:58.360 I am your host, Mia Wong, and with me today 0:36:58.380 --> 0:36:59.390 to talk about. 0:37:01.360 --> 0:37:03.319 I don't know if I can reasonably call it the 0:37:03.420 --> 0:37:08.580 second hurricane, but the second disaster. Yeah, we've been calling 0:37:08.600 --> 0:37:10.260 it locally the crisis after the crisis. 0:37:10.820 --> 0:37:11.380 Yeah. 0:37:12.180 --> 0:37:16.650 In Asheville, in the wake of Hurricane Helene, is David Forbes, 0:37:16.730 --> 0:37:20.630 who is a friend of the show, Asheville Blade journalist 0:37:20.650 --> 0:37:24.650 and editor, also writes for the Trans News Network. And yeah, David, 0:37:24.690 --> 0:37:25.430 welcome to the show. 0:37:26.030 --> 0:37:26.609 Good to be back. 0:37:27.090 --> 0:37:29.390 Yeah, it's good to talk to you again. It's I 0:37:29.430 --> 0:37:31.830 say this a lot, it sucks that the only times 0:37:31.850 --> 0:37:34.069 I get to talk to people are when bad things 0:37:34.170 --> 0:37:34.950 are happening. 0:37:37.260 --> 0:37:38.060 Yeah, but we. 0:37:38.060 --> 0:37:42.420 Wanted to have you on to talk about what has 0:37:42.480 --> 0:37:47.259 been going on in the aftermath of Helene in a 0:37:47.280 --> 0:37:49.640 sort of long-term sense, after the sort of cameras have 0:37:49.680 --> 0:37:53.270 gone away and after the government has declared a back 0:37:53.310 --> 0:37:56.390 to normal. I guess the place I want to start 0:37:57.050 --> 0:38:04.180 is something that becomes very clear when you are living 0:38:04.239 --> 0:38:07.420 in disaster areas, when you are covering disasters, when you're 0:38:07.440 --> 0:38:10.549 looking at the history of these things. There are sort 0:38:10.590 --> 0:38:14.850 of two different imperatives that people are driven by in 0:38:14.890 --> 0:38:18.069 the wake of a disaster. You have, on the one hand, 0:38:18.590 --> 0:38:23.290 you get these massive upswellings of solidarity, what I guess 0:38:23.310 --> 0:38:27.880 gets called everyone coming together But is in reality, you know, 0:38:27.940 --> 0:38:32.310 massive expressions of incredibly selfless mutual aid and a bunch 0:38:32.350 --> 0:38:36.250 of sort of everyday heroism and all of the efforts to, 0:38:36.370 --> 0:38:40.330 you know, like a bunch of people dragging like generators 0:38:40.650 --> 0:38:43.489 halfway across the state and like people from like halfway 0:38:43.510 --> 0:38:46.170 across the country showing up with food. So you have 0:38:46.190 --> 0:38:47.610 that on the one hand. On the second hand, you 0:38:47.640 --> 0:38:51.529 have the shock doctrine. which I had the unfortunate realization 0:38:51.570 --> 0:38:53.600 that I am now old enough that I don't know 0:38:53.660 --> 0:38:57.239 if everyone knows what the shock doctrine is anymore. So 0:38:58.540 --> 0:39:00.920 can you explain what the shock doctrine is before we 0:39:01.000 --> 0:39:04.730 get to talking about sort of the Asheville version of it? 0:39:05.469 --> 0:39:09.200 So the term the shock doctrine was popularized by the 0:39:09.260 --> 0:39:14.400 Canadian leftist writer Naomi Klein, and it is basically the 0:39:14.520 --> 0:39:18.320 tendency of capitalists, and I would use the term gentry 0:39:18.360 --> 0:39:21.989 power structures, to use the aftermath of the disaster to 0:39:22.050 --> 0:39:25.690 consolidate resources and prop up their own power at the 0:39:25.730 --> 0:39:28.550 expense of everyone else. Yeah, and a lot of times 0:39:29.010 --> 0:39:31.779 it also allows them to ram through structural changes they 0:39:31.800 --> 0:39:33.360 would never have been able to ram through. 0:39:33.390 --> 0:39:33.910 That too. 0:39:34.610 --> 0:39:38.190 In normal times. I mean, I think this is another 0:39:38.300 --> 0:39:41.379 I am slightly feeling my age one because we were 0:39:41.400 --> 0:39:43.620 talking about this before the podcast. I had this horrifying 0:39:43.640 --> 0:39:45.960 realization that I was like, oh, I can explain the 0:39:45.980 --> 0:39:48.600 shock doctrine with Hurricane Katrina. And then I was like, oh, 0:39:48.640 --> 0:39:52.580 my God, kids who were born in 2006 are 20. 0:39:52.580 --> 0:39:54.640 It's good for him to hear history. I'm always a 0:39:54.680 --> 0:39:57.200 fan of you youngins need to hear some history. It's 0:39:57.320 --> 0:39:59.339 a considerable part of what I do for a living. 0:39:59.860 --> 0:40:00.320 Yeah. 0:40:00.620 --> 0:40:02.880 Katrina was one of the very famous examples of the 0:40:02.900 --> 0:40:07.870 shock doctrine. Like Pinochet's coup in Chile was like another one. 0:40:07.890 --> 0:40:10.450 But like, you know, with Katrina, you can see this 0:40:10.469 --> 0:40:12.410 sort of twin imperatives thing where on the one hand, 0:40:13.430 --> 0:40:17.300 you know, you have this absolutely horrifying hurricane. You have 0:40:17.500 --> 0:40:23.350 like basically right wing death squads. of white dudes going 0:40:23.390 --> 0:40:27.750 around shooting people. You have Blackwater deployments, which I think 0:40:27.770 --> 0:40:33.690 people have really forgotten about. Blackwater was deployed to New 0:40:33.790 --> 0:40:36.970 Orleans in the wake of Katrina. And then you also 0:40:37.050 --> 0:40:41.149 have Common Grounds and a whole bunch of other associated 0:40:41.510 --> 0:40:47.050 efforts around it. This unbelievably powerful social movement and mutual 0:40:47.230 --> 0:40:51.080 aid efforts That was built around it. And then also, 0:40:51.140 --> 0:40:55.070 at the same time this is happening, the government in 0:40:55.110 --> 0:40:57.950 New Orleans is eliminating the public school system. 0:40:58.210 --> 0:40:58.410 Yeah. 0:40:59.070 --> 0:41:01.069 Which is like the shock doctor part of it of like, 0:41:01.090 --> 0:41:07.300 oh my God. Like, Jesus Christ. Yeah, I guess that's 0:41:07.320 --> 0:41:09.180 the thing I want to talk about in the context 0:41:09.500 --> 0:41:12.879 of Asheville. Yeah, can you talk a bit about what 0:41:13.500 --> 0:41:17.420 the city government has been doing in the wake of 0:41:18.020 --> 0:41:21.100 of this, and I say like the kind of long wake, 0:41:21.120 --> 0:41:24.780 I don't know, like the two year aftermath, the aftermath. 0:41:24.940 --> 0:41:26.960 Yeah. Yeah. 0:41:27.660 --> 0:41:30.400 So, and I spell a lot of this out in 0:41:30.420 --> 0:41:33.840 the recent piece for the blade called two years after Helene, 0:41:33.860 --> 0:41:37.319 we are still two cities. So I think it's worth 0:41:37.390 --> 0:41:40.390 knowing going in that if people think of Asheville as 0:41:40.410 --> 0:41:44.069 this like progressive Haven, blue dot Mecca, whatever term that 0:41:44.090 --> 0:41:47.770 we often get described as, That's just flat out untrue. 0:41:47.810 --> 0:41:52.150 There are really interesting, vibrant, amazing cultures here. That's why 0:41:52.170 --> 0:41:55.190 even folks who've done disaster relief work around the world 0:41:55.230 --> 0:41:59.150 were honestly shocked by the level of, I used the 0:41:59.190 --> 0:42:03.450 term as a compliment, of course, anarchic, on-the-ground ability of 0:42:03.489 --> 0:42:06.470 people to gather together and help each other out, even 0:42:06.530 --> 0:42:09.819 when the government was nowhere to be seen. That is 0:42:09.860 --> 0:42:12.520 a common thing in disaster zones. We did have a 0:42:12.580 --> 0:42:17.750 particularly well-connected and powerful example here. And honestly, I kind 0:42:17.770 --> 0:42:19.950 of got to both report on that and see some 0:42:19.969 --> 0:42:22.960 of that because I was also out doing mutual aid 0:42:23.020 --> 0:42:25.840 stuff and double duty as a journalist trying to inform 0:42:25.900 --> 0:42:29.540 folks when the storm hit. Yep. So that was very real. 0:42:30.100 --> 0:42:34.160 And that reflects like these entrenched kind of community spirit 0:42:34.200 --> 0:42:35.430 you have seen in this town. It's why a lot 0:42:35.469 --> 0:42:38.069 of us like love the city and like living here 0:42:38.110 --> 0:42:41.430 despite the hardships. This also was for a long time, 0:42:41.450 --> 0:42:44.600 may still be, sometimes ranked as like the most unaffordable 0:42:44.640 --> 0:42:45.840 city in the entire country. 0:42:45.860 --> 0:42:46.780 Yeah. 0:42:47.160 --> 0:42:50.489 Because of a combination of really high housing costs, often 0:42:50.510 --> 0:42:54.390 inflicted by this like very runaway gentrification. And the tourism 0:42:54.410 --> 0:42:56.670 industry fueled a lot of that. And also just like 0:42:56.850 --> 0:43:01.689 ridiculously low wages and anti-labor stuff, especially from progressive businesses often. 0:43:01.710 --> 0:43:03.950 Because like you want to see any of them become 0:43:03.969 --> 0:43:07.410 like Sam Walton conservatives. You mentioned their workers unionizing in Asheville. 0:43:07.430 --> 0:43:09.450 And all of a sudden they will just like become 0:43:09.510 --> 0:43:12.830 the most right-wing figures imaginable. So you had all that. 0:43:13.370 --> 0:43:18.210 There's a huge poverty problem heading into Helene Hitting. There's 0:43:18.510 --> 0:43:23.620 a lot of neglect of seriously like vital infrastructure. The 0:43:24.219 --> 0:43:27.299 river is overdeveloped. These wall and all still are problems, 0:43:27.320 --> 0:43:29.279 but they will they all made the impact feeling a 0:43:29.320 --> 0:43:31.910 lot worse than it had to be. And the city 0:43:31.930 --> 0:43:33.709 government was at the heart of a lot of this. 0:43:34.150 --> 0:43:36.230 It's not the only government and county government, certainly its 0:43:36.290 --> 0:43:39.370 own share. And as I'll mention a little later, federal 0:43:39.390 --> 0:43:43.589 and state governments like this is a multi-government problem. But 0:43:43.719 --> 0:43:46.719 City Hall is the is the government with the most 0:43:46.860 --> 0:43:50.200 day to day power over the lives of people living here. Yeah, 0:43:50.219 --> 0:43:52.660 they are the head of the Voltron of shit composed 0:43:52.719 --> 0:43:57.739 of the state federal governments. Yeah, basically, if one wants 0:43:57.760 --> 0:44:00.520 to use that analogy, yeah. Yeah, but by our powers combined, 0:44:00.560 --> 0:44:04.600 we can make everyone's lives worse. They are the on-the-ground-like problem. 0:44:04.640 --> 0:44:07.219 They are where the evils of the state and the 0:44:07.239 --> 0:44:08.509 gentry really hit the ground. 0:44:09.030 --> 0:44:09.290 Yeah. 0:44:09.430 --> 0:44:11.989 So a fact that I think kind of sums things 0:44:12.110 --> 0:44:14.370 up that a lot of people don't know was that 0:44:14.910 --> 0:44:19.350 evictions here in Asheville restarted before the water was back on. 0:44:19.910 --> 0:44:22.220 Which is just, like, Jesus Christ. 0:44:22.980 --> 0:44:23.239 Yeah. Like. 0:44:24.340 --> 0:44:26.969 Yeah, that's... And that was not just city government, because 0:44:26.989 --> 0:44:29.080 evictions were carried out by the county in North Carolina. 0:44:29.460 --> 0:44:29.819 But, like. 0:44:30.290 --> 0:44:32.710 city government could have said, hey, please don't do this. 0:44:32.750 --> 0:44:34.950 And because they're all run by, you know, overlapping Democratic 0:44:35.010 --> 0:44:38.060 Party clicks, there probably would have been like some hesitation 0:44:38.360 --> 0:44:40.500 from the county figures that would have backed off some. 0:44:40.940 --> 0:44:43.660 The governor might have declared a, who was also a 0:44:43.680 --> 0:44:46.980 Democrat at the time, still is actually, might have declared 0:44:47.060 --> 0:44:50.960 like an eviction moratorium. And there were considerable local efforts 0:44:51.020 --> 0:44:53.420 to press for these. But no, no, I went to 0:44:53.440 --> 0:44:56.960 the courthouse while they were still holding eviction hearings, At 0:44:57.000 --> 0:44:59.440 the same time, they had signs saying, hey, you can't 0:44:59.580 --> 0:45:04.180 use the restrooms because we don't have a reliable water supply. Yeah. 0:45:04.219 --> 0:45:09.930 It's such a stark demonstration of, like, water? Not essential. 0:45:10.450 --> 0:45:13.450 Landlords getting paid? Absolutely essential. 0:45:13.870 --> 0:45:14.109 Yes. 0:45:14.370 --> 0:45:17.130 And that wave of evictions, while people have done a 0:45:17.330 --> 0:45:20.590 lot to organize against it and, you know, keep people housed, 0:45:21.090 --> 0:45:24.029 it has been truly devastating. And irony of ironies now, 0:45:24.130 --> 0:45:27.090 state and local governments, as of, like, A month ago, 0:45:27.180 --> 0:45:31.020 we're starting to say, oh, maybe we need some relief plan. 0:45:31.040 --> 0:45:32.600 We're literally running out of workers. 0:45:32.620 --> 0:45:37.780 It's like, wow, damn, social reproduction. Who could possibly have guessed? 0:45:38.640 --> 0:45:40.720 You do need to reproduce the worker. 0:45:40.840 --> 0:45:41.920 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:45:41.960 --> 0:45:44.220 They're like, wow, businesses aren't getting as much money anymore 0:45:44.260 --> 0:45:46.760 because locals got driven out left and right. 0:45:47.100 --> 0:45:50.899 Tourists aren't going to work in your shops. You kind 0:45:50.980 --> 0:45:53.660 of have to. Oh, no. 0:45:53.719 --> 0:45:57.700 Why is my local economy failing? One billion dollars for cops. 0:45:58.120 --> 0:46:01.390 Pretty much. And it's an interesting example of kind of 0:46:01.410 --> 0:46:04.450 this magical thinking. And again, this is everywhere in the country, 0:46:04.489 --> 0:46:09.210 but it's Asheville distills a lot of like social evils 0:46:09.630 --> 0:46:13.150 in America, frankly, with the lack of affordability, with how 0:46:13.370 --> 0:46:17.390 openly liberals here on the side of like downright genocidal 0:46:17.430 --> 0:46:20.840 capitalism exist. with it being a tourist hub, there's a 0:46:20.880 --> 0:46:24.100 lot of like attempts to appease gentry from elsewhere as well. 0:46:24.120 --> 0:46:27.080 And with just how blatantly in the, this is, this 0:46:27.100 --> 0:46:28.739 is kind of where he'll improve the apocalypse. Like the 0:46:28.820 --> 0:46:30.580 old says the word, like a ripping off of the 0:46:30.640 --> 0:46:34.730 veil is that, They see Asheville as an asset. This 0:46:34.790 --> 0:46:37.650 is something to be pumped for as much cash as possible. 0:46:38.390 --> 0:46:41.960 The first major city contract backed by federal relief dollars 0:46:42.700 --> 0:46:45.160 after Helene started to kind of like had kind of 0:46:45.180 --> 0:46:48.080 cleared out was to repair the golf course. 0:46:48.180 --> 0:46:49.760 Jesus Christ. 0:46:50.140 --> 0:46:53.910 It's just, oh my God. One reason I did this 0:46:53.950 --> 0:46:56.090 like kind of two year anniversary column, because I realize 0:46:56.130 --> 0:46:59.730 a lot of folks, especially outside Asheville, didn't know exactly, 0:46:59.770 --> 0:47:03.950 like just listing out the drumbeat of actions and lack 0:47:03.989 --> 0:47:06.880 of action in case of local local government did. You know, 0:47:06.890 --> 0:47:09.440 they bragged recently on putting 15 and a half million 0:47:09.540 --> 0:47:11.180 into subsidizing businesses. 0:47:11.940 --> 0:47:12.500 Mm hmm. 0:47:13.400 --> 0:47:16.779 Locals pled for action. any sort of amount, that level 0:47:16.800 --> 0:47:19.480 of amount of rental aid. I think there's like, reluctantly, 0:47:19.500 --> 0:47:22.090 they parted with a few hundred thousand dollars, which given 0:47:22.110 --> 0:47:24.390 the scale of the crisis, didn't really do a damn thing. 0:47:24.570 --> 0:47:27.030 And locals are pushing for far, far more. I feel 0:47:27.050 --> 0:47:29.410 like that's just such a mask off, like let them 0:47:29.450 --> 0:47:30.430 drink rainwater. 0:47:30.489 --> 0:47:33.290 We have golf to play. Yeah. 0:47:33.410 --> 0:47:36.070 Occasionally, I've heard folks wonder why, like, of all the 0:47:36.110 --> 0:47:38.430 kind of, you know, leftist strains of thought, anarchism is 0:47:38.570 --> 0:47:42.650 really strong in Asheville. And this is a great example 0:47:42.710 --> 0:47:46.489 of why, because of just, like, even by government standards, 0:47:46.750 --> 0:47:49.589 how openly hostile the state is to your barriers. 0:47:49.610 --> 0:47:51.180 Yeah, they just hate you. 0:47:51.340 --> 0:47:51.740 Yeah. 0:47:53.410 --> 0:47:57.450 Yeah, they just straight up hate you. The mayor, Mayor Sturmanheimer, 0:47:57.530 --> 0:47:59.260 who may or may not be the mayor in about 0:47:59.280 --> 0:48:00.960 like a month or two, she's faced a pretty serious 0:48:01.000 --> 0:48:04.160 re-election challenge. In classic Ashford Court fashion, I don't think 0:48:04.219 --> 0:48:07.680 a huge amount will change, but she got so angry 0:48:07.840 --> 0:48:13.290 about locals giving her shit at meetings. that she started 0:48:13.330 --> 0:48:16.950 to read the entire rules of decorum before every meeting. 0:48:17.150 --> 0:48:18.310 Jesus Christ. 0:48:18.390 --> 0:48:20.890 That's the most I'm not mad. 0:48:20.950 --> 0:48:23.770 Like that's her priority is like no one can make 0:48:23.790 --> 0:48:27.890 me feel uncomfortable. She's also kind of famous for banning clapping. 0:48:28.020 --> 0:48:28.340 What? 0:48:28.880 --> 0:48:32.880 But not for everyone. And this is actually one thing 0:48:32.900 --> 0:48:35.279 where I've like talked to legal experts about this kind 0:48:35.300 --> 0:48:39.000 of thing. Yes, technically legal in Nashville, you know, and 0:48:39.160 --> 0:48:42.500 most cities in North Carolina. a government can ban clapping, 0:48:42.760 --> 0:48:44.480 but ask me for everything. Like you can't clap for 0:48:44.520 --> 0:48:45.759 good news to the city, bad news to the city. 0:48:45.980 --> 0:48:47.700 It's one or the other for first amendment reasons. 0:48:48.219 --> 0:48:48.460 No, no. 0:48:48.560 --> 0:48:52.060 She just decides arbitrarily to ban clapping. If it's people 0:48:52.080 --> 0:48:55.700 like wanting a ceasefire resolution, uh, two years ago for 0:48:55.719 --> 0:48:59.759 like the rights of Palestinians or like anyone criticizing city 0:48:59.800 --> 0:49:02.359 government in any way, as you straight up said one time, like, no, 0:49:02.390 --> 0:49:05.190 y'all can clap now. We're like the city manager, horrible 0:49:05.210 --> 0:49:08.350 city managers retiring because like, that's good news for us. 0:49:08.370 --> 0:49:11.240 So go ahead and clap. And it's just like, openly 0:49:11.300 --> 0:49:15.770 blatant petty cruelty, but like that's been her priority. So 0:49:15.830 --> 0:49:18.750 about a month after the storm in October 2024, the 0:49:18.770 --> 0:49:20.360 Blade put out a piece in our Patreon. which is 0:49:20.380 --> 0:49:22.120 where we do a lot of our like shorter kind 0:49:22.140 --> 0:49:25.700 of quick hit stuff, no paywall. But it was entitled 0:49:25.860 --> 0:49:28.200 We Are Two Cities. And this had certainly been a 0:49:28.340 --> 0:49:31.840 reality well before the storm. The storm really brought it 0:49:31.930 --> 0:49:34.390 into sharp relief. And on one end, you had like 0:49:34.670 --> 0:49:38.410 these amazing efforts of communal care and people really helping 0:49:38.430 --> 0:49:41.670 each other out. and a stunning amount of organization going on. 0:49:42.469 --> 0:49:44.209 And then on the other end, you had, you know, 0:49:44.690 --> 0:49:46.509 how did, how did we put it? Like, uh, the 0:49:46.550 --> 0:49:51.560 place of $ 5, 000 rents and 5,000 Airbnbs. 0:49:51.760 --> 0:49:52.160 Yeah. 0:49:52.260 --> 0:49:55.680 You know, it's, there was like a line of cops outside, uh, 0:49:56.280 --> 0:49:59.280 like abandoned Ingalls grocery store just to make sure people 0:49:59.300 --> 0:50:01.420 couldn't reach anything inside to help themselves out. 0:50:01.430 --> 0:50:01.890 It's great. 0:50:01.910 --> 0:50:04.410 Let, let the food rot. We cannot allow a single. Yeah. 0:50:04.450 --> 0:50:06.910 Literally they would, they would not, not even just the food, 0:50:07.010 --> 0:50:09.130 but like people want like diapers wise because again, the 0:50:09.190 --> 0:50:12.819 water wasn't, wasn't running. Yeah. Things like that. 0:50:12.840 --> 0:50:13.240 No. 0:50:13.660 --> 0:50:16.820 Ingalls, which is the kind of almost like de facto 0:50:16.840 --> 0:50:20.339 grocery store monopoly locally, has a lot of power protecting 0:50:20.440 --> 0:50:23.480 their bottom line. Like their ability just to write off 0:50:23.540 --> 0:50:24.340 a little bit more. 0:50:24.360 --> 0:50:25.040 Yeah. 0:50:25.080 --> 0:50:27.500 Was literally what the police are being deployed for. It's 0:50:27.860 --> 0:50:30.600 one of the most kind of searing things I've ever 0:50:30.620 --> 0:50:32.620 seen as far as like what the cops are actually for. 0:50:33.360 --> 0:50:36.010 It's probably a good time to mention that. Covering Asheville's 0:50:36.030 --> 0:50:38.310 local government, which I've done for over 20 years at 0:50:38.330 --> 0:50:41.450 this point, which is probably unhealthy at some deep levels, 0:50:42.760 --> 0:50:44.940 is one of the things that made me an anarchist. 0:50:44.960 --> 0:50:47.200 Because after a while, I'm like, this just shouldn't exist. 0:50:47.280 --> 0:50:49.240 And nothing like it has a right to exist. 0:50:49.300 --> 0:50:50.140 Yeah. 0:50:50.200 --> 0:50:53.180 Especially after repeated changes of government, things just kept largely 0:50:53.239 --> 0:50:56.560 proceeding in worse and worse directions, whatever people promised. But 0:50:56.580 --> 0:51:00.069 so that dynamics never really went away. And if anything, 0:51:00.110 --> 0:51:02.950 I think it kind of got exaggerated over time. A 0:51:03.010 --> 0:51:05.950 small example, but a really telling one. there was this really, 0:51:06.070 --> 0:51:09.010 she made national news for how callous she was. Monique Pierre, 0:51:09.030 --> 0:51:12.850 who was the head of the public housing agency in Asheville, 0:51:13.630 --> 0:51:16.750 and notoriously the state of the public housing towers, which 0:51:16.810 --> 0:51:19.230 are also a site of a ton of segregation, were really, 0:51:19.310 --> 0:51:22.549 really bad after the storm. The housing authority just neglected 0:51:23.150 --> 0:51:27.570 everyone there, just left them to basically nearly die in 0:51:27.590 --> 0:51:31.529 a lot of cases. No supplies, no help whatsoever. And 0:51:31.610 --> 0:51:35.460 she publicly said, interviewed the local NPR station. Well, I 0:51:35.500 --> 0:51:37.919 had to make sure landlords got paid, and they did. 0:51:37.940 --> 0:51:39.520 Well, it's just like. 0:51:39.820 --> 0:51:42.899 That was so egregious that even the housing authority board, like, 0:51:42.960 --> 0:51:43.910 removed her for it. 0:51:43.920 --> 0:51:44.480 Yeah. 0:51:45.120 --> 0:51:48.230 And in response, the city, which the mayor appoints, like, 0:51:48.270 --> 0:51:51.750 housing board members, and with council approval, can remove them. 0:51:52.469 --> 0:51:55.390 And everyone voted for this, pretty much, including the, like, 0:51:55.780 --> 0:51:59.400 dissident who, quote-unquote, who's running against the current mayor, Esther Manheimer, 0:51:59.440 --> 0:52:03.440 right now. But they all voted to purge the Housing 0:52:03.480 --> 0:52:07.810 Authority Board to punish them for doing any consequences whatsoever, 0:52:07.890 --> 0:52:10.009 even if it's a figure that egregious. So, like, even 0:52:10.030 --> 0:52:12.629 the usual gentry thing of, like, she was a little 0:52:12.710 --> 0:52:15.430 too blatant and too openly evil. Like, we're going to 0:52:15.450 --> 0:52:16.750 be fine with, like, throwing her overboard to make the 0:52:16.790 --> 0:52:18.930 rest of us look better. They wouldn't even do that. 0:52:19.230 --> 0:52:21.870 It's like, that's how open the, like, abuse of power is. 0:52:22.310 --> 0:52:22.680 Yeah. 0:52:23.030 --> 0:52:27.190 So, that's continued. And... They've really actually emphasized a lot 0:52:27.210 --> 0:52:30.460 of collaboration with the federal government since Trump retook office. 0:52:30.719 --> 0:52:30.939 Which. 0:52:31.040 --> 0:52:33.680 The first thing they announced about the federal government was 0:52:33.719 --> 0:52:37.040 that they'd gotten approval from his FAA to do more 0:52:37.080 --> 0:52:38.420 drone surveillance of the public. 0:52:38.900 --> 0:52:42.130 Doing drone surveillance? Like, drone surveillance of what? Like, the 0:52:42.190 --> 0:52:43.450 houses you didn't rebuild? 0:52:43.610 --> 0:52:44.450 Like, what. 0:52:45.500 --> 0:52:46.759 Well, and they got a ton of money from the 0:52:46.800 --> 0:52:50.120 federal government, and until there was a massive public backlash 0:52:50.160 --> 0:52:53.549 about it, initially that overwhelmingly was just going to go 0:52:53.870 --> 0:52:57.260 to capital projects, which is like city speak for big infrastructure, 0:52:57.940 --> 0:53:00.700 and specifically stuff that they felt could get tourists back. 0:53:01.410 --> 0:53:04.060 A month after the storm, again, still not, we didn't 0:53:04.100 --> 0:53:04.980 have running water. 0:53:05.000 --> 0:53:05.600 Yeah. 0:53:05.860 --> 0:53:07.799 The tourism board was always like, it's time for everyone 0:53:07.840 --> 0:53:11.410 to come back to Asheville and spend money. And, you know, 0:53:11.550 --> 0:53:14.730 the tourism bubble was a problem, again, long before Helene. 0:53:14.810 --> 0:53:17.629 It kind of exacerbated and showed how big these issues were. 0:53:18.170 --> 0:53:21.630 And Helene, for justifiable reasons, like for understandable reasons, smashed 0:53:21.650 --> 0:53:22.290 it with a hammer. 0:53:22.469 --> 0:53:22.830 Yeah. 0:53:23.070 --> 0:53:26.250 If anything, the effects from that haven't been all bad 0:53:26.350 --> 0:53:29.270 because like rental rates while still horrible here, especially if 0:53:29.290 --> 0:53:34.410 like people don't have income, finally stopped rising meteorically. We 0:53:34.469 --> 0:53:36.969 finally stopped having some of the highest COVID infection rates 0:53:37.010 --> 0:53:42.320 in the Southeast here. And so it showed, I think, 0:53:43.010 --> 0:53:45.310 along with the extremities they've gone to try to bring 0:53:45.350 --> 0:53:49.819 it back, how much that was always an extractive industry. Yeah. 0:53:49.920 --> 0:53:51.540 And to some degree, this fits in a longer history 0:53:51.580 --> 0:53:54.900 in Appalachia, which, you know, Asheville just seen as, oh, 0:53:54.920 --> 0:53:56.560 this kind of progressive fun tourist town. But we're in 0:53:56.580 --> 0:53:59.110 the middle of Appalachia. There is a long history here 0:53:59.239 --> 0:54:02.850 of the purpose of governments, local and otherwise, just to 0:54:02.890 --> 0:54:05.250 be the place you run, the people in it are 0:54:05.270 --> 0:54:06.589 a site for extraction. 0:54:06.610 --> 0:54:07.110 Yeah. 0:54:07.130 --> 0:54:07.210 Yeah. 0:54:07.860 --> 0:54:10.239 Originally, that was taking land from indigenous folks, and then 0:54:10.260 --> 0:54:12.049 it was timber, then it was coal. And I think 0:54:12.090 --> 0:54:13.880 in a lot of ways, the little quieter about it, 0:54:13.950 --> 0:54:17.770 tourism is like a similarly extractive industry. Yeah, well, it 0:54:17.850 --> 0:54:20.190 has now gone back to being land a second time. 0:54:20.350 --> 0:54:20.529 Yeah. 0:54:20.989 --> 0:54:22.509 It's the thing that's being extracted. 0:54:23.370 --> 0:54:25.649 Well, yeah, partly, but also, like, I mean, I know 0:54:25.790 --> 0:54:30.010 areas that used to have streets before the storm that 0:54:30.140 --> 0:54:32.160 used to have, you know, neighborhoods on them, and now 0:54:32.200 --> 0:54:35.740 they're mostly vacant because it all got turned into Airbnbs. Yep. Well, 0:54:35.800 --> 0:54:37.540 and where did a lot of those folks go? Well, 0:54:37.580 --> 0:54:41.560 they went to older, in worse disrepair, more flood-prone housing 0:54:41.600 --> 0:54:43.600 near the rivers. Some of them died there. Yeah. 0:54:43.620 --> 0:54:43.719 Yeah. 0:54:55.730 --> 0:54:57.629 This kind of all came together, actually, at the last 0:54:57.650 --> 0:54:59.739 city council meeting in September. It was a few days 0:54:59.760 --> 0:55:03.380 for the storm anniversary. And they showed this glossy video 0:55:03.420 --> 0:55:06.799 about how Asheville is making opportunity out of tragedy. And 0:55:07.010 --> 0:55:09.310 it's like business owners talk about how much money they'd 0:55:09.330 --> 0:55:11.010 gotten from City Hall. 0:55:11.030 --> 0:55:11.270 Jesus Christ. 0:55:11.550 --> 0:55:11.910 Christ. 0:55:11.950 --> 0:55:14.130 And then the open public comment period hits where, you know, 0:55:14.150 --> 0:55:16.330 locals can just rant for a few minutes about whatever's 0:55:16.350 --> 0:55:18.359 in their mind, but also is one of the only, like, 0:55:18.719 --> 0:55:21.700 not tightly controlled areas of the meeting, probably because they 0:55:21.739 --> 0:55:22.830 legally have to have it. 0:55:22.840 --> 0:55:23.020 Yeah. 0:55:23.500 --> 0:55:28.460 And this retired teacher from this neighborhood in East Asheville, 0:55:28.480 --> 0:55:30.759 which got hit really hard by the storm, which is, 0:55:30.780 --> 0:55:35.509 you know, that's mostly, like, retired educators, said, look, like, 0:55:35.610 --> 0:55:37.870 it's telling that we hear how Asheville's revived, but none 0:55:37.890 --> 0:55:40.069 of the footage is from our neighborhood. We have a, like, 0:55:40.550 --> 0:55:43.650 crumbling cliff we have been warning you about since the 0:55:43.730 --> 0:55:47.890 storm jesus christ and the response we've largely gotten is 0:55:47.969 --> 0:55:49.810 well if it falls apart we'll help you clean it 0:55:49.930 --> 0:55:54.580 up incredible stuff like it just yeah like i can't 0:55:54.660 --> 0:55:56.520 make this up if i were writing this as like 0:55:56.640 --> 0:56:00.480 a post-disaster late capitalism novel the editor would tell me 0:56:00.520 --> 0:56:05.319 to stop being so heavy-handed yeah it's like It would 0:56:05.340 --> 0:56:07.460 be comic if, like, my life and the lives of 0:56:07.480 --> 0:56:09.620 a lot of people I care about weren't attached to this. 0:56:10.000 --> 0:56:12.109 And the shock doctrine part definitely plays a key role 0:56:12.130 --> 0:56:15.190 in it because there was this really unpopular thing called 0:56:15.210 --> 0:56:16.370 the Business Improvement District. 0:56:16.469 --> 0:56:16.870 Oh, my God. 0:56:16.890 --> 0:56:19.839 Which basically are privatized mini-governments. I think y'all have talked 0:56:19.860 --> 0:56:23.739 about them in other episodes before. And Asheville– Locals put 0:56:23.780 --> 0:56:26.000 up a pretty fierce resistance to this one, and to 0:56:26.719 --> 0:56:29.830 get it through, City Hall had made some concessions, in 0:56:29.890 --> 0:56:32.129 paper at least, there would be more limits, they wouldn't 0:56:32.170 --> 0:56:35.109 use private security, things like that. And in the wake 0:56:35.130 --> 0:56:36.959 of the storm, they revoked all of that and shoved 0:56:36.980 --> 0:56:37.620 it through anyway. 0:56:37.940 --> 0:56:38.220 Yeah. 0:56:38.739 --> 0:56:41.700 Which, related to this, if you ever hear anyone talking 0:56:42.160 --> 0:56:45.360 in any form about something called a TIF, kill it 0:56:45.390 --> 0:56:45.970 with hammers. 0:56:46.570 --> 0:56:46.750 Yeah. 0:56:46.850 --> 0:56:50.910 Hammers. Like, it must die immediately. You are about to 0:56:50.950 --> 0:56:56.480 get fucked. Myself and everyone else who lives downtown, which, 0:56:56.520 --> 0:56:59.940 you know, despite supposedly being this ultra-strange area, it still includes, like, 0:56:59.960 --> 0:57:02.460 a lot of elders and Section 8 housing and even some, like, 0:57:03.110 --> 0:57:05.430 you know, bits of working class housing here and there, 0:57:06.140 --> 0:57:09.540 all of us now have to pay a tax to 0:57:09.580 --> 0:57:14.859 a front group controlled by the Chamber of Commerce to basically, like, 0:57:15.420 --> 0:57:17.500 look at us weird when we walk down the street, 0:57:18.580 --> 0:57:22.840 you know? So it's charging our, like, cars, among other things, 0:57:22.880 --> 0:57:25.480 you know? Yeah, like, it's one of these things when 0:57:25.640 --> 0:57:27.900 you talk about extraction, right? And a lot of that 0:57:27.960 --> 0:57:31.590 is at least slightly indirect, or it's like people are 0:57:31.620 --> 0:57:33.700 being forced out of their homes by like what are 0:57:33.780 --> 0:57:37.340 nominally market forces. But sometimes no, they're just like, Hey, yeah, 0:57:37.360 --> 0:57:38.800 we're going to use the state and you're just going 0:57:38.820 --> 0:57:39.840 to pay us all money. 0:57:40.060 --> 0:57:40.240 Yeah. 0:57:40.540 --> 0:57:40.740 Yeah. 0:57:40.880 --> 0:57:44.830 And like, it's, it's this real sort of like robber 0:57:44.870 --> 0:57:47.950 baron in the most literal sense of like, we are 0:57:48.050 --> 0:57:50.350 using the coercive apparatus of the state to get you 0:57:50.370 --> 0:57:53.850 to hand business money. It very much is. And as 0:57:53.870 --> 0:57:57.160 a matter of fact, It's another thing they did was 0:57:57.240 --> 0:58:00.300 so City Hall, like a lot of local governments, has 0:58:00.340 --> 0:58:04.360 like various citizen boards and commissions. And these are not, 0:58:04.500 --> 0:58:07.960 you know, super fervent sites of like direct democracy or anything. 0:58:08.240 --> 0:58:12.020 They're largely, you know, older, mostly white kind of centrist 0:58:12.040 --> 0:58:15.480 or even conservative leaning people. Often retirees get appointed to them. 0:58:16.200 --> 0:58:20.280 But occasionally some of these boards would say obvious things like, hey, 0:58:20.640 --> 0:58:24.510 maybe we shouldn't just build hotels everywhere. or if the 0:58:24.550 --> 0:58:27.910 cops keep like brutally kicking out every homeless person they see, 0:58:28.150 --> 0:58:30.630 we're going to get sued a lot. And that was 0:58:30.690 --> 0:58:33.830 too much. So earlier during the height of the pandemic, 0:58:34.190 --> 0:58:36.610 City Hall had previously tried dismantle all of them, just 0:58:36.630 --> 0:58:39.430 like shut them down basically entirely, replacing the few like 0:58:39.610 --> 0:58:42.380 tiny little rubber stamp commissions because it was, you know, 0:58:42.420 --> 0:58:44.200 taking up too much of their time. That was the 0:58:44.260 --> 0:58:48.060 literal excuse. Jesus Christ. But after the storm, they just 0:58:48.160 --> 0:58:50.040 shut the commissions down and never reopened them. 0:58:50.400 --> 0:58:51.420 Ah, shock doctrine. 0:58:51.440 --> 0:58:57.100 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because even that occasional tepid dissent 0:58:57.420 --> 0:59:00.540 was too much for them. The first budget after the storm, 0:59:00.600 --> 0:59:03.550 and for anyone who has had the misfortune or just 0:59:03.570 --> 0:59:06.390 the necessity of having to fight local governments, the budgets 0:59:06.430 --> 0:59:07.810 were a lot of the worst stuff goes down because 0:59:07.830 --> 0:59:09.290 they can just put it all in one package. 0:59:09.570 --> 0:59:09.930 Yeah, yeah. 0:59:10.800 --> 0:59:13.860 And no one looks at it. Not enough people do. Interestingly, 0:59:13.910 --> 0:59:17.150 folks have been pretty alert to them here since. 0:59:16.950 --> 0:59:17.870 The storm, especially. 0:59:17.890 --> 0:59:18.450 Yeah. 0:59:18.970 --> 0:59:22.470 So one, they did a massive tax hike. And while 0:59:22.530 --> 0:59:26.440 that is property tax, Obviously, landlords pass it on to renters. 0:59:26.460 --> 0:59:27.260 Yeah. 0:59:27.280 --> 0:59:30.200 And in this area specifically, there's a long history of 0:59:30.740 --> 0:59:36.570 black working class neighborhoods, especially getting highly overvalued property value wise. 0:59:36.610 --> 0:59:42.190 But then like wealthy white enclaves get highly get massively underrated. 0:59:42.230 --> 0:59:45.450 They have to pay way less tax. So this is 0:59:45.510 --> 0:59:48.830 this is, you know, pretty extractive. And I think some 0:59:48.850 --> 0:59:50.220 people would have been OK with a tax increase if 0:59:50.240 --> 0:59:52.280 it's like, OK, this is all going towards rebuilding. Like 0:59:52.300 --> 0:59:55.439 we're going to improve the infrastructure, you know, like or 0:59:55.480 --> 0:59:58.220 like get some aid for locals who are struggling. Like 0:59:58.380 --> 0:59:59.680 there could have at least been a case made. 1:00:00.140 --> 1:00:00.520 No, no, no. 1:00:01.200 --> 1:00:04.990 It went to more cops, massive raises for city hall 1:00:05.070 --> 1:00:07.530 higher ups. The city manager of Asheville makes more than 1:00:07.570 --> 1:00:11.630 the mayor of New York City. Jesus Christ. Which, if 1:00:11.670 --> 1:00:13.550 you've heard, is a little larger than Asheville. 1:00:14.150 --> 1:00:15.150 Good Lord. 1:00:15.530 --> 1:00:17.970 Yeah. Now, it's not a huge amount more, but it is, 1:00:17.990 --> 1:00:22.050 you know, like $ 275, 000 before her, like, bonuses and vehicle 1:00:22.110 --> 1:00:25.190 allowance and clothing allowance kicks in. This is the person 1:00:25.230 --> 1:00:27.330 telling you do not become addicted to water. 1:00:27.810 --> 1:00:28.669 Like, yeah. 1:00:28.930 --> 1:00:32.710 I'm going to vote for my own pay raise. Yeah, 1:00:32.810 --> 1:00:35.720 it definitely is. Well, yeah, she draws the budget, not surprisingly. 1:00:35.820 --> 1:00:39.970 Every year, the higher-ups get massive pay hikes. So it 1:00:40.010 --> 1:00:43.720 went to that. It went to more cops. And it 1:00:43.760 --> 1:00:46.480 went to actually putting money back in the Rainy Day Fund, 1:00:46.500 --> 1:00:48.700 which you'd think after a massive storm, you're spending money 1:00:48.720 --> 1:00:53.020 from the Rainy Day Fund. But no, wealthy investors wanted 1:00:53.060 --> 1:00:55.320 to see Asheville have more money in reserve just sitting 1:00:55.360 --> 1:00:58.480 there because it made them feel more comfortable. This happens 1:00:58.520 --> 1:01:00.820 in various cities. Like Chicago famously just had a big 1:01:00.860 --> 1:01:03.570 back and forth with these kind of investors in municipal 1:01:03.590 --> 1:01:08.230 bonds and pushed back against them some. Asheville didn't even try. 1:01:08.250 --> 1:01:09.730 They were like, oh, well, we just want to do 1:01:09.750 --> 1:01:13.220 their bidding in advance. When you are being out-progressive by 1:01:13.260 --> 1:01:16.830 the mayor who fucking deployed SWAT teams against an art 1:01:16.890 --> 1:01:23.110 student encampment. Like, what are we doing? Like, Jesus Christ. 1:01:24.450 --> 1:01:27.870 You know, Asheville has a highly conservative government with progressive marketing. 1:01:28.590 --> 1:01:31.760 And the kicker in that budget, too, was there was 1:01:31.800 --> 1:01:35.520 like a one-time larger pay hike that some city staff 1:01:35.540 --> 1:01:39.280 got to supposedly address some of the post-Aline desperation issues. 1:01:39.610 --> 1:01:39.810 Uh-huh. 1:01:40.230 --> 1:01:43.220 But they excluded one major group from this, a group 1:01:43.260 --> 1:01:47.260 that has struggled for ages with some of the worst pay, like, 1:01:47.280 --> 1:01:50.660 in the region for the profession. And that's Asheville's firefighters. 1:01:51.820 --> 1:01:52.400 It's just like. 1:01:52.740 --> 1:01:56.280 They specifically excluded the firefighters, the heroes of Helene, who 1:01:56.300 --> 1:02:00.320 they waxed or something. And to be clear, like, nurses, firefighters, 1:02:00.410 --> 1:02:04.610 public works folks, they did do real heroic work on 1:02:04.630 --> 1:02:07.990 the ground. They did, like, repair stuff under horrible conditions, 1:02:08.010 --> 1:02:10.440 you know. The most anarchist of locals is not going 1:02:10.460 --> 1:02:12.540 to talk shit about them. If anything, it's like, why 1:02:12.580 --> 1:02:15.860 are they being paid better? But the city manager who 1:02:16.200 --> 1:02:18.970 is actually county city manager complained that people were asking 1:02:19.010 --> 1:02:21.470 for water too quickly. She literally did the do not 1:02:21.510 --> 1:02:25.290 become addicted thing in the aftermath of the storm. Jesus Christ. 1:02:26.130 --> 1:02:28.320 And Asheville had had a crumbling water system for ages. 1:02:28.340 --> 1:02:30.860 We had a huge outage a few years before Helene 1:02:30.900 --> 1:02:34.980 hit just due to like disrepair. Because we have a 1:02:35.020 --> 1:02:38.189 setup that the more water a business pumps, the less 1:02:38.230 --> 1:02:39.320 they have to pay for it. 1:02:39.590 --> 1:02:39.850 What? 1:02:40.370 --> 1:02:41.850 Which is straight up like, yeah, it's straight up a 1:02:41.870 --> 1:02:44.290 corrupt giveaway. Even most of their places in North Carolina 1:02:44.330 --> 1:02:46.470 don't do this. They have like just a flat rate for, 1:02:46.510 --> 1:02:47.770 you know, whatever amount of water. 1:02:47.890 --> 1:02:50.010 That's insane. Yeah, yeah. 1:02:50.130 --> 1:02:53.720 So and this was specifically meant to give like HCA, 1:02:53.800 --> 1:02:56.440 the HCA run hospital and all the big breweries that 1:02:56.460 --> 1:02:58.960 came in, all the big manufacturing. They actually had to 1:02:59.020 --> 1:03:02.320 pay less the more water they use. which meant that 1:03:02.340 --> 1:03:05.000 the system, which was already crumbling and neglected, got worse 1:03:05.060 --> 1:03:10.680 and worse and worse. Yeah, because you're incentivizing overdraw on it. That's... Yeah, 1:03:10.780 --> 1:03:12.820 it's funny. When I tell folks, even other folks who 1:03:12.840 --> 1:03:15.020 dealt with local governments, they're not good anywhere. They are 1:03:15.060 --> 1:03:19.640 corrupted evil everywhere. How bad Asheville is, I get reactions 1:03:19.720 --> 1:03:23.370 like this because it sounds like something from, like, cyberpunk fiction. Yeah, 1:03:23.390 --> 1:03:28.490 this is like the shit... Unfortunately, I can't tell... Many 1:03:28.510 --> 1:03:31.480 of the stories of the city council that I grew 1:03:31.540 --> 1:03:36.860 up with, which was like a notoriously corrupt city council 1:03:36.900 --> 1:03:40.420 by the standards of Illinois governments. 1:03:41.820 --> 1:03:44.300 But it's like that shit. 1:03:44.340 --> 1:03:50.960 That level of we are personally, physically targeting journalists we 1:03:51.000 --> 1:03:51.520 don't like. 1:03:52.180 --> 1:03:52.419 Yeah. 1:03:52.500 --> 1:03:53.380 Kind of shit. 1:03:53.800 --> 1:03:56.760 It's like, oh, the blades journalists as y'all covered on 1:03:56.780 --> 1:03:58.140 this for did get arrested. 1:03:58.160 --> 1:03:58.540 Yeah. 1:03:58.600 --> 1:04:01.080 Yeah. That's why I was like, yeah, I was like, oh, no, 1:04:01.300 --> 1:04:02.450 we've reached that. 1:04:02.490 --> 1:04:02.700 Yeah. 1:04:02.740 --> 1:04:05.690 We've reached like city council water fuckery. 1:04:06.030 --> 1:04:06.430 Like, yeah. 1:04:06.750 --> 1:04:07.590 Jesus Christ. 1:04:08.510 --> 1:04:12.210 Yeah, so when the pipes burst, when we had a 1:04:12.210 --> 1:04:14.440 particularly cold winter, which they didn't prepare for, you know, 1:04:14.460 --> 1:04:16.980 because cold winters are utterly unheard of in the Appalachian Mountains. 1:04:17.280 --> 1:04:20.060 What's on top of the mountain? The sun. Yeah, exactly. 1:04:20.080 --> 1:04:20.919 Not anything else. 1:04:21.440 --> 1:04:23.260 So a few years before Helene hit, we had this 1:04:23.440 --> 1:04:25.700 extended outage that covered, I think, like two-thirds of the 1:04:25.740 --> 1:04:27.720 city and a fair amount of the county at one point. 1:04:28.420 --> 1:04:31.550 And it occurred then the city had no water distribution 1:04:31.570 --> 1:04:34.330 plan for this kind of outage. And Helene rolls around, 1:04:34.810 --> 1:04:37.750 and they still hadn't developed a water distribution plan if 1:04:37.770 --> 1:04:40.010 there was a serious shock to the system. And in 1:04:40.050 --> 1:04:42.330 one of the first interviews she gave post, Helene, the mayor, said, well, 1:04:42.410 --> 1:04:46.310 that's not our job. That's the county's job. Now, the 1:04:46.350 --> 1:04:48.930 county did have a water supply, but they put it 1:04:49.070 --> 1:04:52.390 across the Swano River, which was even days before the storm, 1:04:52.430 --> 1:04:54.670 like the National Weather Service was like, hey, we're going 1:04:54.690 --> 1:04:57.830 to have historic flooding. on this river, like start moving 1:04:57.870 --> 1:05:00.040 stuff away from it. They're just like, it'll be fine. 1:05:00.060 --> 1:05:01.860 They're like, our water supply got cut off. Why are 1:05:01.880 --> 1:05:06.460 y'all asking for water? Stop annoying us. Yeah, so that's 1:05:06.500 --> 1:05:08.760 what we've been dealing with. And there's probably some stuff 1:05:08.860 --> 1:05:11.420 I'm forgetting. Oh, a bunch of people end up homeless 1:05:11.500 --> 1:05:14.290 after Helene for obvious reasons. So one of their big 1:05:14.330 --> 1:05:17.070 priorities has not been aid for the homeless, other than 1:05:17.090 --> 1:05:19.990 like a few token amounts here or there. It was 1:05:20.130 --> 1:05:25.430 to even further criminalize people asking for food and money. Yeah, 1:05:25.510 --> 1:05:27.709 the most recent, and this ties in with all this, 1:05:27.730 --> 1:05:30.990 because they already had the drone surveillance, which the FAA 1:05:31.290 --> 1:05:34.190 under Trump gave them more power to use on the public. 1:05:34.850 --> 1:05:37.160 And they have used drone surveillance just to hunt homeless 1:05:37.180 --> 1:05:40.520 people before. And so not only did they escalate camp sweeps, 1:05:41.000 --> 1:05:45.120 they also teamed up with the now not running for 1:05:45.340 --> 1:05:48.920 re-election Chuck Edwards due to even the Republican Party getting 1:05:48.960 --> 1:05:52.450 him for sexual harassment. Like, that's how bad it was. 1:05:52.990 --> 1:05:53.930 That's not good. 1:05:53.950 --> 1:05:54.030 Yeah. 1:05:55.220 --> 1:05:57.660 Don't worry, the Democrat, Republican running to replace him are 1:05:57.700 --> 1:06:00.689 both transphobes who support ICE. So, you know. 1:06:00.890 --> 1:06:01.810 Great, great. 1:06:02.490 --> 1:06:03.810 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 1:06:03.910 --> 1:06:08.090 It's quite a time here. But so he secured money 1:06:08.270 --> 1:06:11.090 for them to do the other big priority, which is 1:06:11.150 --> 1:06:15.440 to massively expand their camera and surveillance systems across the city. 1:06:16.040 --> 1:06:19.120 So that's the kind of like official city. That's the 1:06:19.140 --> 1:06:22.240 city of the gentry that we're dealing with here today. 1:06:22.800 --> 1:06:25.290 And in the propaganda they put out, like, Asheville is 1:06:25.550 --> 1:06:28.290 recovered and is welcoming back tourists, and you won't see 1:06:28.310 --> 1:06:30.430 any of the filthy poors. Why are we also having 1:06:30.470 --> 1:06:33.290 a worker shortage? And literally every dollar they can get 1:06:33.310 --> 1:06:37.050 a hold of, unless there is some sort of public backlash, 1:06:37.300 --> 1:06:40.200 they are putting towards the worst possible things. And firefighters 1:06:40.220 --> 1:06:43.380 still can't afford the rent. I think a lot about 1:06:43.400 --> 1:06:47.240 a thing that people in the prison abolitionist movement say 1:06:47.280 --> 1:06:49.340 a lot, which is that it's cheaper to send someone 1:06:49.380 --> 1:06:50.950 to Harvard than it is to put them in prison. 1:06:51.290 --> 1:06:51.470 It is. 1:06:51.960 --> 1:06:56.710 And it's like, okay, your problem with... There are a 1:06:56.830 --> 1:07:01.290 bunch of out-of-house people, right? A lot of whom's homes 1:07:01.430 --> 1:07:04.850 were destroyed by the hurricane. You could just fix the 1:07:04.930 --> 1:07:10.280 houses and then you would have workers. But neoliberalism is 1:07:10.300 --> 1:07:14.320 a regime of extraction based on take money from literally 1:07:14.440 --> 1:07:17.760 everything else and give it to police. So that's just their, like, 1:07:17.940 --> 1:07:19.170 fuck it, we're gonna build, like, a. 1:07:22.000 --> 1:07:25.180 What would you even call it? Like a multi-airspace level 1:07:25.220 --> 1:07:29.780 surveillance system instead of fixed house? There's also another element 1:07:29.840 --> 1:07:32.130 to this. It's not just the homeless. That's absolutely part 1:07:32.170 --> 1:07:35.190 of it. They are terrified of protests and dissent. 1:07:35.570 --> 1:07:35.910 Yeah. 1:07:36.350 --> 1:07:39.530 Because Asheville had a pretty powerful action in 2020. A 1:07:39.570 --> 1:07:42.570 lot of stuff continued after that. There was a major 1:07:42.630 --> 1:07:47.180 public backlash to the surveillance plan. And occasionally, when they 1:07:47.220 --> 1:07:49.100 started to dump a bunch of storm debris in a 1:07:49.120 --> 1:07:53.290 historically Black neighborhood... the neighborhood started to get very angry 1:07:53.350 --> 1:07:56.000 and militant about it. And they actually moved the debris. 1:07:56.620 --> 1:07:56.960 Hell yeah. 1:07:56.980 --> 1:07:58.740 You know, that's kind of the other Asheville, the one 1:07:58.760 --> 1:08:00.140 where most of us live, which is a lot of 1:08:00.160 --> 1:08:04.380 poverty and desperation, but also like, The solidarity that stems 1:08:05.040 --> 1:08:07.540 from the storm has not entirely gone away. And some 1:08:07.820 --> 1:08:10.200 of that's been more informal organizations that have continued. Some 1:08:10.220 --> 1:08:13.060 of that's been more formal ones. Swannanoa, an area that 1:08:13.100 --> 1:08:15.180 got utterly devastated by the storm, has seen a lot 1:08:15.200 --> 1:08:17.670 of community organizing that's kind of on the more formal 1:08:17.710 --> 1:08:20.570 side because the needs there are still really dire. But 1:08:20.590 --> 1:08:24.070 there's also attempts to basically bulldoze and gentrify that whole area, 1:08:24.090 --> 1:08:25.710 which is historically fairly working class. 1:08:25.830 --> 1:08:26.030 Yeah. 1:08:26.790 --> 1:08:29.920 These are things also come to collision like twice in 1:08:29.939 --> 1:08:33.480 the past two years. Asheville police have just set up 1:08:33.660 --> 1:08:37.099 outside Banks Avenue, Lex Avenue are two areas known for 1:08:37.160 --> 1:08:42.189 like mostly multiracial crowds of like queer party goers kind 1:08:42.229 --> 1:08:44.769 of thing coming out of the bars after your last call. 1:08:45.600 --> 1:08:47.660 And just started pelting people with pepper balls. 1:08:47.939 --> 1:08:48.740 Jesus Christ. 1:08:49.040 --> 1:08:50.460 So and their excuse. 1:08:50.140 --> 1:08:52.140 When asked about this isn't even like they don't even 1:08:52.180 --> 1:08:54.349 try to claim, oh, there was some like immediate problem 1:08:54.390 --> 1:08:55.929 going on. There was some like, you know, giant knife 1:08:55.950 --> 1:08:57.890 fight or something. They don't even bother those excuses. They're 1:08:57.910 --> 1:08:59.970 just like, oh, we've had crime in this area before. 1:09:00.180 --> 1:09:00.390 Yeah. 1:09:00.470 --> 1:09:03.010 Like over the years, there's occasionally been crime in this area. 1:09:03.070 --> 1:09:05.769 So we have a right to help anyone with chemical weapons. 1:09:06.320 --> 1:09:09.400 The police commander that honed this strategy is now the chief. 1:09:09.620 --> 1:09:10.320 Oh, God. 1:09:10.590 --> 1:09:11.310 Yeah. 1:09:11.320 --> 1:09:14.210 Well, look, look, in order to maintain the respectability of 1:09:14.250 --> 1:09:16.730 the city, you must, in fact, use chemical weapons on 1:09:16.770 --> 1:09:17.189 the queers. 1:09:17.270 --> 1:09:17.470 Yeah. 1:09:17.750 --> 1:09:22.010 Unfortunately, one of Trotsky's two good lines is, One of 1:09:22.070 --> 1:09:24.590 them is combined uneven development, which is sort of useful, 1:09:24.630 --> 1:09:25.330 though not in the way that. 1:09:25.290 --> 1:09:25.810 He used it. 1:09:25.850 --> 1:09:28.290 And the second one was in the in the in 1:09:28.330 --> 1:09:30.980 the heart of every small business owner, like every petite 1:09:30.990 --> 1:09:34.280 bourgeois is is is a particle of Hitler. And this 1:09:34.360 --> 1:09:37.720 is the like the Hitler particle level is escalating. 1:09:38.180 --> 1:09:38.580 We're back. 1:09:38.600 --> 1:09:41.280 We're back up to chemical weapons against the queers like 1:09:42.180 --> 1:09:42.700 we got it. 1:09:43.060 --> 1:09:43.280 Yeah. 1:09:46.280 --> 1:09:46.540 Yeah. 1:09:46.620 --> 1:09:50.970 And that was the justification. And openly. they didn't even 1:09:50.990 --> 1:09:52.490 try to hide it. It was just like, oh, there's 1:09:52.530 --> 1:09:54.570 crime in that area. We felt the crowds were too 1:09:54.630 --> 1:09:57.690 rowdy and too much of a threat. Yeah, which, you know, 1:09:57.950 --> 1:10:00.790 I'm drawing Chicago examples. It's like, girl from Chicago draws 1:10:00.810 --> 1:10:03.230 examples of Chicago. But it's like, yeah, no, like, Chicago 1:10:03.590 --> 1:10:06.110 does this. Anytime there's just, like, a crowd. I mean, obviously, 1:10:06.140 --> 1:10:09.500 they beat up poor people, too. But, like, every time 1:10:09.540 --> 1:10:11.960 there's just, there's, like, a continuous, like, for, like, a 1:10:12.320 --> 1:10:15.940 decade now, I mean, probably longer than that. There's just been, like, 1:10:15.960 --> 1:10:18.300 this running panic over, like, oh, my God, a bunch 1:10:18.320 --> 1:10:20.769 of black kids are, like, gather together outside. 1:10:20.790 --> 1:10:21.210 Yeah. 1:10:21.330 --> 1:10:22.840 And we're going to deploy the police against them for 1:10:22.900 --> 1:10:26.260 literally no reason. And it's just like, yeah, like you 1:10:26.560 --> 1:10:29.840 get this thing of like, oh, my God, are like 1:10:30.700 --> 1:10:35.870 subjugated underclass is gathering for like, you know, just to 1:10:35.910 --> 1:10:36.990 like hang out. 1:10:37.270 --> 1:10:38.470 But fuck it. It's time. 1:10:38.550 --> 1:10:42.790 It's time to like shoot them with riot munitions. There 1:10:42.810 --> 1:10:46.620 was a really telling scene. phrase that I heard, some 1:10:46.660 --> 1:10:50.240 really telling words I heard from a local when they 1:10:50.280 --> 1:10:52.410 had to move for the third time since the storm. 1:10:52.430 --> 1:10:53.730 And it is. 1:10:53.950 --> 1:10:56.270 We feel like we're, I feel like we're being punished 1:10:56.330 --> 1:11:00.179 for surviving. And that is like what a lot of 1:11:00.229 --> 1:11:04.290 us are grappling with. I will say. Because this is 1:11:04.310 --> 1:11:06.630 an excuse City Hall uses, and there is a grain 1:11:06.650 --> 1:11:08.760 of truth to it, but not the way they portray it. 1:11:09.580 --> 1:11:11.780 Funding has been lacking from the state and federal governments. 1:11:12.280 --> 1:11:15.759 You mentioned Katrina earlier, and as devastating a shock doctrine 1:11:15.780 --> 1:11:20.650 as that was, they did cover 75% of the various governments' costs. Now, 1:11:20.689 --> 1:11:22.809 those governments turned around and also put the funds they 1:11:22.830 --> 1:11:25.350 got towards some pretty bad purposes, which is what we're 1:11:25.370 --> 1:11:29.330 seeing in Asheville too. Asheville's gotten like 17. Jesus Christ. 1:11:29.750 --> 1:11:30.269 Might be up to 20% now. 1:11:30.290 --> 1:11:30.370 Yeah. 1:11:32.229 --> 1:11:33.950 So, like, there is a real issue with state and 1:11:33.990 --> 1:11:36.630 federal governments just not sending money here. 1:11:36.910 --> 1:11:37.950 But the money they get. 1:11:37.990 --> 1:11:42.450 They're putting towards things like the golf course, you know, surveillance, 1:11:43.050 --> 1:11:45.670 and a big one, rebuilding the river district exactly as 1:11:45.729 --> 1:11:47.410 it was. Oh, great. 1:11:47.450 --> 1:11:48.650 Building the floodplain again. 1:11:48.689 --> 1:11:50.690 This is going to go great. It's going to go 1:11:50.729 --> 1:11:55.889 great for you. Yeah, so this is... So they bought 1:11:55.970 --> 1:11:58.030 in the urban landscape, which is, for those who may 1:11:58.050 --> 1:12:00.220 not be aware, is like, the epitome of like a 1:12:00.260 --> 1:12:04.760 neoliberal gentrification planning think tank. They are as establishment as 1:12:04.820 --> 1:12:08.450 it gets. But the city brought them in to, you know, 1:12:08.610 --> 1:12:11.050 advise them on how to redevelop the city, you know, 1:12:11.110 --> 1:12:13.599 obviously prime for like, you know, more tourism and more gentrification. 1:12:14.140 --> 1:12:16.660 And even the Urban Land Institute was like, you massively 1:12:16.770 --> 1:12:19.610 overdubbed the river. That made the flooding way worse. It 1:12:19.650 --> 1:12:22.870 destroyed a bunch of stuff. Your only option is to 1:12:22.950 --> 1:12:24.630 move a bunch of stuff away from the river. Like, 1:12:24.670 --> 1:12:27.150 you have to move it back. It is too flood-prone. 1:12:27.530 --> 1:12:30.030 And the city literally put out a statement at the urging, 1:12:30.050 --> 1:12:33.220 specifically of the, like, river district gentry, of just like, 1:12:33.240 --> 1:12:34.380 we're just not going to listen to this. 1:12:35.160 --> 1:12:37.120 Well, and it's one of these things. 1:12:36.880 --> 1:12:40.540 Where it's like, you can see in, like, five years 1:12:40.580 --> 1:12:43.280 when the next hurricane hits, because that's just the world 1:12:43.320 --> 1:12:45.680 that we're living in. Like they're going to do the 1:12:45.720 --> 1:12:47.880 same thing again. They're going to learn no lessons. And 1:12:47.900 --> 1:12:49.440 the people who are going to have to suffer for 1:12:49.500 --> 1:12:53.180 it are like people like you and people like me. 1:13:03.850 --> 1:13:05.570 It's easy to look at all this and get pretty 1:13:05.590 --> 1:13:07.830 doom and gloom. I don't want to be, that's not, 1:13:08.430 --> 1:13:11.759 there's certainly a lot of like, you know, precarity and depression. 1:13:11.800 --> 1:13:14.900 I mean, I am still from just the months afterwards 1:13:14.920 --> 1:13:18.120 doing double-duty journalism and intense mutual aid stuff. And, yeah, 1:13:18.160 --> 1:13:20.900 that is somewhat continued. Like, I still have to arrange 1:13:20.939 --> 1:13:23.590 supply drops for folks occasionally who are still kind of facing, like, 1:13:23.630 --> 1:13:27.750 insecurity stuff from the long aftermath of this. But, like, 1:13:28.410 --> 1:13:31.410 there is and remains a lot of solidarity among people 1:13:31.450 --> 1:13:34.250 on the ground. And, honestly, like, to the degree that 1:13:34.310 --> 1:13:36.750 any research has been directed towards things that aren't horrible, 1:13:37.150 --> 1:13:41.640 it's been grudgingly because people got really angry at them. Yeah, 1:13:41.660 --> 1:13:46.420 the state is fightable. And they will do concessions because... 1:13:46.830 --> 1:13:50.650 They're scared. The state is absolutely fightable. And ironically, I 1:13:50.689 --> 1:13:54.210 think they've weakened themselves by how openly vicious they are 1:13:54.270 --> 1:13:57.309 in this because they dropped all pretense after the storm 1:13:57.340 --> 1:14:00.260 and just went for the openly most extractive policies they could. 1:14:00.280 --> 1:14:00.800 Yeah. 1:14:01.280 --> 1:14:04.080 But in doing so, I think for a lot of folks, 1:14:04.660 --> 1:14:07.900 they just open up their alley like these aren't your friends. 1:14:08.020 --> 1:14:08.300 Yeah. 1:14:08.479 --> 1:14:11.690 This is not a legitimate place for your public decision 1:14:11.700 --> 1:14:14.389 making that occasionally makes bad decisions. They just hate you 1:14:14.430 --> 1:14:15.669 and everyone in your neighborhood. 1:14:15.689 --> 1:14:15.830 Yeah. 1:14:16.229 --> 1:14:18.970 Any point where they can't, you know, completely just extract money. 1:14:19.729 --> 1:14:22.550 I still feel the burnout. I'm still struggling with it. 1:14:23.189 --> 1:14:25.330 I have probably never, I don't mean just as high 1:14:25.350 --> 1:14:27.410 mode experience, just because this is incredibly common. 1:14:27.430 --> 1:14:27.790 Yeah. 1:14:28.010 --> 1:14:29.970 Among those of us who are like working class and 1:14:29.990 --> 1:14:32.510 we're on the ground in Asheville, you still haven't really 1:14:32.550 --> 1:14:34.410 had the time to like sit down and recover from 1:14:34.430 --> 1:14:37.250 the like months long burnout that we incurred from doing 1:14:37.290 --> 1:14:39.110 that because there's just still so much to fight. And 1:14:39.490 --> 1:14:41.559 we have to also pay written bills and work for 1:14:41.580 --> 1:14:41.920 a living. 1:14:41.939 --> 1:14:42.139 Yep. 1:14:42.620 --> 1:14:46.300 So that is a real problem. But also like, I 1:14:46.540 --> 1:14:49.309 think locals are even more willing to organize and even 1:14:49.360 --> 1:14:54.490 willing to organize outside of like governments, the nonprofit complex. Um, 1:14:54.570 --> 1:14:57.310 Ashford is one of the largest per capita nonprofit complexes 1:14:57.380 --> 1:15:00.080 in the country. Uh, well, that seems to be working great. 1:15:00.100 --> 1:15:00.920 Yeah, exactly. 1:15:00.979 --> 1:15:03.220 And that's the thing. Previously, they have functioned as a 1:15:03.300 --> 1:15:07.049 very effective way of, to channel dissent into official channels 1:15:07.070 --> 1:15:09.590 where it never goes anywhere and to the least effective 1:15:09.610 --> 1:15:13.030 strategies possible. But a lot, there are a handful of 1:15:13.110 --> 1:15:15.390 exceptions that did actually like, you know, credit where due, 1:15:15.950 --> 1:15:18.950 put money towards real aid that has really like benefited folks. 1:15:19.290 --> 1:15:23.320 But in general, especially the larger, more established ones, utterly 1:15:23.420 --> 1:15:26.710 failed after the storm. So the one reason they were 1:15:26.729 --> 1:15:28.950 supposed to exist was, you know, I mean, the actual 1:15:28.970 --> 1:15:31.189 reason was to repress the scent and put it into, 1:15:31.220 --> 1:15:33.760 you know, like this kind of very gentrified structure. But 1:15:33.800 --> 1:15:35.400 the reason on paper this was exist was, you know, 1:15:35.420 --> 1:15:37.620 to help with exactly this kind of thing and channel 1:15:37.640 --> 1:15:38.640 philanthropic dollars. 1:15:39.340 --> 1:15:40.300 And a lot of them just didn't. 1:15:40.540 --> 1:15:41.240 Yeah. 1:15:41.260 --> 1:15:43.660 Or the amounts were so minimal that they didn't really 1:15:43.700 --> 1:15:44.320 get much done. 1:15:44.650 --> 1:15:44.830 Yeah. 1:15:44.890 --> 1:15:47.950 It's like you're being outdone by the local bookstores. Like, 1:15:48.010 --> 1:15:48.450 it's just like. 1:15:48.830 --> 1:15:48.970 Yeah. 1:15:49.310 --> 1:15:53.509 Yeah yeah shout out to fire yeah uh like firestorm 1:15:53.530 --> 1:15:56.030 co-op bookstore in in west ashville did a lot of 1:15:56.100 --> 1:15:58.679 great organizing uh and he's worth supporting yeah good good 1:15:58.740 --> 1:16:02.640 good people good stuff but it's also like it says 1:16:02.740 --> 1:16:05.580 something when the when like the the giant ngos with 1:16:05.600 --> 1:16:07.390 all the money are getting out organized for the bookstore 1:16:07.590 --> 1:16:10.250 yeah like it's it says like who actually cares about 1:16:10.270 --> 1:16:12.930 this stuff and who well and even among the non-profits 1:16:12.970 --> 1:16:17.640 it was like be loved which is like a liberation theology, like, 1:16:17.840 --> 1:16:23.110 you know, homeless support group and a homeless support organization. Um, 1:16:23.350 --> 1:16:27.210 and then a handful of more left-leaning Presbyterian churches are 1:16:27.229 --> 1:16:30.210 the ones who've been actually like directing serious funds, like 1:16:30.270 --> 1:16:33.740 to rental aid and things like that. So like, that's 1:16:33.780 --> 1:16:36.759 kind of been, been the, the, you know, brighter spots 1:16:36.860 --> 1:16:40.309 in this as it were. And, There were weird exceptions, like, 1:16:41.250 --> 1:16:43.910 credit where due, the Register of Deeds office. 1:16:44.370 --> 1:16:44.729 What? 1:16:45.870 --> 1:16:49.670 Yeah, like, organized a substantial amount of, like, coordination for, like, 1:16:49.750 --> 1:16:52.410 flush brigades and stuff like that. It was famously, like, 1:16:52.430 --> 1:16:54.610 one of the only government offices to actually put resources 1:16:54.650 --> 1:16:57.250 and attention into, like, meeting some of the needs of 1:16:57.270 --> 1:17:00.189 the public. Yeah, I mean, I guess it is that, like, 1:17:00.270 --> 1:17:03.599 occasionally you get these situations where it's, like... I have 1:17:03.640 --> 1:17:05.939 a friend who says this about, like, sometimes you get 1:17:06.040 --> 1:17:08.680 managers in union shops like this where it's like they're, like, 1:17:08.740 --> 1:17:11.480 a worker who had a bad idea. So they got 1:17:11.500 --> 1:17:15.099 into management, but they're not, like, shitty people and will, like, 1:17:15.140 --> 1:17:18.000 sometimes help you with stuff. And sometimes with this, it's like, yeah. 1:17:18.100 --> 1:17:20.670 And I guess this is true of, like, you know, 1:17:20.689 --> 1:17:21.890 this is, like, part of how the state as an 1:17:21.930 --> 1:17:23.809 institution functions. But, like, yeah, every once in a while, 1:17:23.910 --> 1:17:27.380 you do get someone... In a like, you know, kind 1:17:27.400 --> 1:17:32.240 of random bureaucratic position who is like a good, normal 1:17:32.380 --> 1:17:35.240 person and has not had their soul like devoured by 1:17:35.280 --> 1:17:36.200 the maw of capital. 1:17:36.780 --> 1:17:39.020 And it's just like, oh, yeah, fuck it. I don't know. 1:17:39.120 --> 1:17:40.340 I wrote the. 1:17:40.400 --> 1:17:41.400 Office of Deeds. 1:17:41.479 --> 1:17:43.340 Like, fuck it. I work in the Office of Deeds. 1:17:43.360 --> 1:17:44.240 We're going to go help people. 1:17:44.280 --> 1:17:45.680 And it's like, yeah. 1:17:46.160 --> 1:17:46.639 Yeah. 1:17:46.880 --> 1:17:49.200 But it's interesting because it's kind of the exception that 1:17:49.240 --> 1:17:49.900 proves the rule. 1:17:49.920 --> 1:17:50.000 Yeah. 1:17:50.220 --> 1:17:51.179 Yeah. Yeah. 1:17:51.620 --> 1:17:53.140 Because, like, the rest of the thing could be doing 1:17:53.160 --> 1:17:54.219 the soup, but they're not. 1:17:54.560 --> 1:17:55.059 Yeah, yeah. 1:17:55.400 --> 1:17:57.920 They have way more resources. Yeah. But the stuff they 1:17:57.960 --> 1:18:01.940 gave was generally grudging and was outdone, like, by other stuff. 1:18:01.960 --> 1:18:04.809 For example, like, okay, well, we're going to eventually set 1:18:04.850 --> 1:18:07.910 up water stations and, you know, food supplies. Oh, but 1:18:07.930 --> 1:18:09.469 also your eviction case is going forward. 1:18:09.510 --> 1:18:09.990 Yeah. 1:18:10.390 --> 1:18:14.010 You know? One reason I wrote, I think I mentioned earlier, 1:18:14.030 --> 1:18:16.930 I wrote the piece was just because Focus kind of 1:18:16.950 --> 1:18:19.410 went away from Asheville after Helene. Like, it tends to 1:18:19.670 --> 1:18:23.979 in disaster areas. Yeah. But we're still in crisis. It 1:18:24.060 --> 1:18:26.980 still feels like we're digging our way out of the rubble. 1:18:27.140 --> 1:18:29.540 And that's literal in some cases. You will turn off 1:18:30.800 --> 1:18:32.940 a less public road and still just see a line 1:18:32.960 --> 1:18:35.660 of destroyed houses. Less so than you would have a year, 1:18:35.900 --> 1:18:37.150 even a year and a half, definitely a year and 1:18:37.160 --> 1:18:39.970 a half ago. But they're definitely still there. There's one 1:18:40.010 --> 1:18:44.290 I see while driving, eat groceries occasionally. So that's literally 1:18:44.350 --> 1:18:48.770 still happening in some places. But because of how badly 1:18:48.830 --> 1:18:51.540 both the storm itself and its aftermath been handled and 1:18:51.780 --> 1:18:54.340 all the prioritization of just like extracting as much money 1:18:55.120 --> 1:18:59.040 from locals as possible and restoring this already highly unsteady 1:18:59.080 --> 1:19:03.060 my capitalism standards like tourist city previous status quo. 1:19:03.080 --> 1:19:04.600 Yeah. 1:19:05.200 --> 1:19:07.969 It's still very much present. Like Asheville is still defined 1:19:08.010 --> 1:19:11.640 by Helene in a lot of ways. And what does 1:19:11.680 --> 1:19:14.720 give me hope is the number of people who know 1:19:14.760 --> 1:19:17.780 each other, know their neighbors, can kind of work together 1:19:17.880 --> 1:19:20.670 on stuff. We've seen more tennis union stuff since the storm. 1:19:20.689 --> 1:19:21.309 Hell yeah. 1:19:21.330 --> 1:19:24.370 You know, we've seen more labor organizing since the storm. 1:19:25.150 --> 1:19:27.290 And honestly, like, and I say this for the efforts 1:19:27.330 --> 1:19:29.110 I'm involved in as well as all of others, like, 1:19:30.170 --> 1:19:32.170 we had some really good mutual aid stuff before, which 1:19:32.229 --> 1:19:35.050 is one reason, like, the networks didn't come from nowhere. 1:19:35.070 --> 1:19:36.290 Some of those people were, and they were just, like, 1:19:36.330 --> 1:19:38.370 cobbling stuff together in the ground. But a lot of cases, 1:19:38.410 --> 1:19:40.490 they did grow out of folks who were already engaged 1:19:40.510 --> 1:19:43.750 in some form of that work in Asheville beforehand. But 1:19:43.770 --> 1:19:46.550 I definitely say, like, we've all kind of leveled up 1:19:46.630 --> 1:19:48.790 some because we have a much clearer idea of what 1:19:48.850 --> 1:19:51.490 does and doesn't go down, you know, when a storm 1:19:51.510 --> 1:19:54.370 hits and what areas are more vulnerable. And it was 1:19:54.390 --> 1:19:57.150 interesting because despite all the money they're pouring the police department, 1:19:57.210 --> 1:20:01.630 all the surveillance, the new police chief, like the like 1:20:01.689 --> 1:20:04.630 two or three before her, is still complaining they can't 1:20:04.710 --> 1:20:11.809 find enough cops. Even though I mentioned the first budget 1:20:11.840 --> 1:20:13.920 they passed, the second one last year, which was a 1:20:14.140 --> 1:20:16.920 lot more contested and like only passed by a single vote. 1:20:18.060 --> 1:20:20.540 They cut more services like community center hours and much of, 1:20:20.560 --> 1:20:24.320 you know, things like that. They also still gave the 1:20:24.479 --> 1:20:25.970 city manager another massive raise. 1:20:26.310 --> 1:20:26.930 Jesus Christ. 1:20:27.330 --> 1:20:29.270 But they were like, oh, we're in a $ 30 million 1:20:29.610 --> 1:20:33.150 budget crunch. But if you look at the actual numbers, 1:20:33.470 --> 1:20:36.260 a lot of that was they tried to hire 24 1:20:36.260 --> 1:20:41.400 more cops. Yeah, and it's just like every single city 1:20:41.460 --> 1:20:45.840 government is like, oh no, my budget's unbalanced. And you 1:20:45.860 --> 1:20:48.360 look at it, it's like 60% police. And it's like, hey, 1:20:48.400 --> 1:20:51.560 what if we paid less? What if we had less 1:20:51.680 --> 1:20:54.769 of the guys whose jobs it is to intermittently switch 1:20:54.830 --> 1:20:58.570 between standing around playing Candy Crush and beating up queer people? 1:20:59.710 --> 1:21:00.550 We can do this. 1:21:00.689 --> 1:21:04.729 I believe in us. Yeah, it's that is it's for 1:21:04.770 --> 1:21:08.550 about 20 years escalating more in the past decade or so. 1:21:08.810 --> 1:21:11.950 That's literally been kind of the, you know, where the 1:21:11.990 --> 1:21:15.800 budget and the increases from it always go. And Asheville's 1:21:15.810 --> 1:21:18.360 not alone in this, but it raises to higher ups, 1:21:18.979 --> 1:21:21.700 more cops, more surveillance, more policing of various sorts. 1:21:21.880 --> 1:21:22.160 Yeah. 1:21:22.540 --> 1:21:25.620 And then, you know, maybe some consultants, tourism friendly stuff. 1:21:25.640 --> 1:21:27.140 You know, I don't know, putting money back in an 1:21:27.160 --> 1:21:29.880 account where you normally spend it from because the gentry 1:21:29.920 --> 1:21:32.640 want it. Another interesting example, and God, I feel like 1:21:32.680 --> 1:21:34.400 I'm just kind of going by like, but these all 1:21:34.439 --> 1:21:35.430 form a picture together. 1:21:35.439 --> 1:21:35.889 Yeah. 1:21:36.020 --> 1:21:40.090 Biltmore Village, which is notoriously this hyper-expensive tourist trap area, 1:21:40.490 --> 1:21:46.429 but built in the floodplain, got basically annihilated during the storm. Uh-huh. And... When, 1:21:46.630 --> 1:21:49.210 unlike the folks from the, you know, the retired educators 1:21:49.229 --> 1:21:50.830 were like, hey, we're close about to collapse. And the 1:21:50.850 --> 1:21:53.270 city was like, well, you know, if it collapses, whatever. 1:21:53.800 --> 1:21:56.259 The more village folks went and went, hey, our businesses 1:21:56.300 --> 1:21:59.880 aren't making profits anymore. You should subsidize us. You should 1:21:59.960 --> 1:22:02.599 buy stuff from us so we can make money again. 1:22:02.620 --> 1:22:07.400 And it's not clear exactly how that's, how that's sorted out. 1:22:07.590 --> 1:22:09.769 Because getting records from City of Ash is like pulling teeth. 1:22:10.130 --> 1:22:12.849 But the response from the dais was, oh yeah, we'll 1:22:12.870 --> 1:22:13.530 get right on that. 1:22:14.210 --> 1:22:15.130 Jesus Christ. 1:22:15.189 --> 1:22:21.150 Like, Yeah, I think sometimes because they have less PR 1:22:21.229 --> 1:22:25.670 and less polish, local governments are much more open about 1:22:25.729 --> 1:22:29.250 exactly what they're there for. There's less pretense about, yeah, 1:22:29.290 --> 1:22:30.790 we're here to do the bidding of the wealthy and 1:22:30.810 --> 1:22:33.720 the rest of y'all are not just kind of expendable, 1:22:33.729 --> 1:22:39.000 but actively despised for wanting anything else. It's pretty illuminating, but, like, 1:22:39.680 --> 1:22:43.480 Asheville is, for one disaster or another, with both, you know, 1:22:43.520 --> 1:22:45.490 this is where government's head really happens. I think we're 1:22:45.510 --> 1:22:47.270 just kind of ahead of the curve here because of just, like, 1:22:47.310 --> 1:22:51.430 how openly, comically, almost evil the gentry are in Asheville. 1:22:51.750 --> 1:22:52.130 Yeah. 1:22:52.290 --> 1:22:56.980 But, you know, some sort of disaster, whether it's wildfires... 1:22:56.910 --> 1:22:59.970 you know, hurricanes, flooding of some sort, what have you. 1:23:00.350 --> 1:23:02.650 It's coming to a down near you if it hasn't already. 1:23:03.670 --> 1:23:06.439 And when the chips are down, the government's probably not 1:23:06.460 --> 1:23:07.900 going to react that dissimilarly. 1:23:08.240 --> 1:23:08.439 Yeah. 1:23:08.780 --> 1:23:12.219 So I do hope folks learn from that, but also from... 1:23:12.720 --> 1:23:14.620 The power is, in fact, in your hands, like you 1:23:14.660 --> 1:23:17.889 and your neighbors can immediately organize and start responding to things. 1:23:18.200 --> 1:23:20.530 And often you can do a way more effective job 1:23:21.030 --> 1:23:25.110 than the people whose job that supposedly is, than your 1:23:25.130 --> 1:23:27.550 local government. Yeah, they can be fought and they can 1:23:27.590 --> 1:23:31.250 be replaced. Yeah, exactly. And not replaced like the ways 1:23:31.270 --> 1:23:33.230 we're told they can be replaced, like the ballot box, 1:23:33.270 --> 1:23:36.950 because there is a crop of candidates running to replace 1:23:36.970 --> 1:23:40.310 the current city council. they all have exactly the same 1:23:40.350 --> 1:23:43.310 views as the current city council. One of them thinks 1:23:43.330 --> 1:23:47.220 they should put even more attention and resources into reconstructing 1:23:47.260 --> 1:23:49.179 the river district exactly as it was before the storm. 1:23:49.840 --> 1:23:52.340 Jesus Christ. Yeah. 1:23:52.380 --> 1:23:55.380 That's what passes for, like, dissent among, like, the ranks 1:23:55.420 --> 1:23:58.540 of political candidates. Yeah, no, but replacing the sense of... 1:23:59.120 --> 1:24:02.300 I'm constantly haunted by this question from an anthropologist at 1:24:02.320 --> 1:24:05.380 the beginning of what ends up being a quite good 1:24:05.439 --> 1:24:06.780 book about the Zapatistas. 1:24:06.960 --> 1:24:07.100 Yeah. 1:24:07.430 --> 1:24:10.950 That I'll link in the description. But she goes in, 1:24:11.030 --> 1:24:12.910 and one of the things about the Zapatistas is that 1:24:13.050 --> 1:24:16.390 they refuse to take money from the Mexican government, which 1:24:16.410 --> 1:24:20.530 they call the bad government, because it is a systemic 1:24:20.570 --> 1:24:24.910 organization of death squads that murders indigenous people and steals 1:24:24.930 --> 1:24:28.519 their land in order to build their fucking megaprojects on it. 1:24:29.100 --> 1:24:31.099 And this anthropologist comes in. This is something I've seen 1:24:31.140 --> 1:24:36.690 a lot in a specific kind of like a specific 1:24:36.729 --> 1:24:39.950 kind of like nominal leftist resistance to neoliberalism where they 1:24:39.990 --> 1:24:45.610 see someone like, you know, like literally building their own infrastructure, right? 1:24:45.670 --> 1:24:48.139 In the way the Zapatistas did where, you know, like they, okay. 1:24:48.150 --> 1:24:51.980 So like they've built their own self-governing communes and they 1:24:52.020 --> 1:24:54.580 refuse to, and they provide their own services and refuse 1:24:54.600 --> 1:24:57.320 to use the services of, of the like, you know, 1:24:57.439 --> 1:25:01.180 of the like hideously corrupt murder state. And the anthropologist 1:25:01.220 --> 1:25:04.840 goes in and, like, starts asking Zapatistas, like, is that neoliberalism? 1:25:04.880 --> 1:25:07.280 Because you're replacing the goods of the state. And every 1:25:07.340 --> 1:25:09.820 single person looks at her and is like, what the 1:25:09.920 --> 1:25:15.360 fuck are you talking about? Yeah, seriously. Like, literally, what 1:25:15.400 --> 1:25:21.110 are you talking about? Like, you know, and this is also, like, running, 1:25:21.170 --> 1:25:23.490 I don't know, like, there's so many angles you can 1:25:23.510 --> 1:25:26.970 comment this from, from the perspective of, like, it is, 1:25:27.030 --> 1:25:32.390 in fact, extremely different when, like, workers and indigenous people 1:25:32.810 --> 1:25:35.890 and you know all all of the people who would 1:25:35.910 --> 1:25:38.610 be like put together into the category of the wretched 1:25:38.630 --> 1:25:41.030 of the earth come together and do things outside of 1:25:41.070 --> 1:25:45.340 the state and do do the original version of of 1:25:45.380 --> 1:25:48.920 the sort of democratic like procurement of like aid for 1:25:48.939 --> 1:25:51.460 the community and do the things that the state absorbed 1:25:51.520 --> 1:25:56.310 specifically as a counterinsurgency thing People then see that, like 1:25:56.370 --> 1:26:01.270 doing the original socialism as like neoliberalism because you're doing 1:26:01.310 --> 1:26:03.050 it outside the state and you're doing it instead of 1:26:03.070 --> 1:26:07.180 the state-sponsored ones that are designed to capture you in 1:26:07.200 --> 1:26:08.640 the upper half of the state. And they see that 1:26:08.700 --> 1:26:12.939 and they go, oh, you're doing neoliberalism. And like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Well, 1:26:12.960 --> 1:26:15.460 it's not corporate in nature. It's not capitalist in nature. Yeah. 1:26:18.740 --> 1:26:21.769 And this is a good point because... there's things, you know, 1:26:21.810 --> 1:26:25.450 like police, for example, upper level managers that can be 1:26:25.490 --> 1:26:28.170 dismissed with entirely. But there's a reason the anarchists don't 1:26:28.189 --> 1:26:29.900 go abolish the fire department. 1:26:29.939 --> 1:26:30.139 Yeah. 1:26:30.220 --> 1:26:34.500 Abolish the libraries. Those are things that governments generally just 1:26:34.520 --> 1:26:36.080 kind of took over and glommed onto. 1:26:36.100 --> 1:26:36.580 Yeah. 1:26:36.680 --> 1:26:40.860 And folded under. But like, People want to do those things. 1:26:41.260 --> 1:26:41.520 Yeah. 1:26:41.660 --> 1:26:44.940 And that's the thing where it's like all of the 1:26:45.000 --> 1:26:47.060 work in the world is done by workers. 1:26:47.560 --> 1:26:47.760 Yeah. 1:26:48.040 --> 1:26:50.020 The postaline stuff is an example I point to and 1:26:50.040 --> 1:26:51.860 folks go, well, how would anarchism work? I'm like that. 1:26:52.040 --> 1:26:52.260 Yeah. 1:26:52.340 --> 1:26:56.540 Like that. You know, basically that like it worked far 1:26:56.600 --> 1:26:58.009 better for those of us in the ground than the 1:26:58.189 --> 1:27:01.729 pittance in like resources and aid for a long time 1:27:01.770 --> 1:27:05.050 that we were getting from local state and federal governments. 1:27:05.810 --> 1:27:05.950 Yeah. 1:27:05.970 --> 1:27:06.110 Yeah. 1:27:06.780 --> 1:27:08.940 And, you know, and this is not to be, like, 1:27:09.060 --> 1:27:12.230 too much to just send it to, like, quote-unquote prepper territory, 1:27:12.270 --> 1:27:15.630 but preparation is highly important. I encourage folks who are VR, like, 1:27:16.010 --> 1:27:17.650 think about where your water comes from. Think about where 1:27:17.670 --> 1:27:20.479 your food comes from. Think about putting some reserves of 1:27:20.490 --> 1:27:23.360 that aside. Unlike certain governments, you should probably have, like, 1:27:23.439 --> 1:27:26.900 different locations among different folks because some folks get cut 1:27:27.000 --> 1:27:28.660 off by, like, fallen trees or whatever. 1:27:28.680 --> 1:27:28.760 Yeah. 1:27:29.479 --> 1:27:31.860 Wherever you are, I guarantee there is some form of 1:27:31.900 --> 1:27:35.130 a Helene-like disaster you're probably going to face at some point. Yeah. 1:27:35.490 --> 1:27:37.330 And it's good to start thinking of what that is, 1:27:37.390 --> 1:27:39.910 preparing for it with some folks you trust now. And 1:27:39.950 --> 1:27:41.650 a little bit of that can go a very long way. 1:27:41.729 --> 1:27:45.140 And this has real practical impacts. When Asheville was faced 1:27:45.180 --> 1:27:47.780 with some torrential rains recently, which brings a lot of 1:27:47.800 --> 1:27:48.760 trauma for a bunch of us. 1:27:48.780 --> 1:27:49.120 Yeah. 1:27:49.600 --> 1:27:52.690 But I realized other than like charging a few backup 1:27:52.729 --> 1:27:55.390 batteries and, you know, stuff for devices, I didn't really 1:27:55.410 --> 1:27:57.350 have to do anything. Yeah, I actually had it already. 1:27:57.490 --> 1:27:59.769 I already had the preparation stuff in place. So I 1:27:59.790 --> 1:28:01.189 just focused like checking on some of my neighbors and 1:28:01.210 --> 1:28:04.770 helping folks out, which was a really good feeling. And 1:28:04.890 --> 1:28:07.810 that was like a legacy of the organizing after Helene. 1:28:08.330 --> 1:28:08.729 Yeah. 1:28:09.490 --> 1:28:11.480 I think like, you know, like one of the fundamental 1:28:11.490 --> 1:28:13.680 conflicts here, other than just sort of the general class 1:28:13.720 --> 1:28:16.940 war that's been happening in Helene is like, Which of 1:28:17.000 --> 1:28:22.400 these two visions of a post-disaster society is going to 1:28:22.439 --> 1:28:25.270 take root? Is it going to be the one where 1:28:26.390 --> 1:28:32.309 the shock doctrine sends cops with riot batons and crowd 1:28:32.330 --> 1:28:34.950 control munitions to just beat the shit out of people? 1:28:35.070 --> 1:28:36.370 Or is it going to be the one where you 1:28:36.410 --> 1:28:37.330 bring your people food? 1:28:37.729 --> 1:28:37.870 Yeah. 1:28:38.290 --> 1:28:40.130 And honestly, this is why I keep coming back. to 1:28:40.150 --> 1:28:41.790 We Are Two Cities. Which one do you want? 1:28:42.220 --> 1:28:42.490 Yeah. 1:28:43.189 --> 1:28:44.610 Eventually, it's going to be one or the other. 1:28:44.880 --> 1:28:45.150 Yeah. 1:28:46.200 --> 1:28:50.400 And that doesn't just apply in Ashford. Yeah, that is 1:28:50.460 --> 1:28:52.940 the stark choice of the world that is to come. 1:28:53.680 --> 1:28:53.920 Indeed. 1:28:54.540 --> 1:28:56.299 I kind of feel like this should be a dispatch 1:28:56.340 --> 1:28:58.919 from a place where it already happened to some degree. 1:28:59.380 --> 1:28:59.840 Yeah. 1:29:00.140 --> 1:29:02.960 Yeah. But also like it shows that there's a world 1:29:03.080 --> 1:29:05.560 after that, too, that it's not all hopeless. 1:29:06.000 --> 1:29:06.260 Yeah. 1:29:06.979 --> 1:29:11.990 And interestingly, like recently, though, they're still trying to up 1:29:12.030 --> 1:29:15.110 the Axon contract. City Hall went back against the wishes 1:29:15.130 --> 1:29:17.710 of the police department and canceled the flock contract. Now 1:29:17.729 --> 1:29:19.530 they still want to keep a door open to resume it. 1:29:19.850 --> 1:29:21.510 You know, there's a lot of weasel stuff on it. 1:29:22.040 --> 1:29:23.460 But they didn't want to do that themselves. 1:29:23.500 --> 1:29:24.230 Yeah, they're scared. 1:29:24.240 --> 1:29:27.229 They only did it because they were terrified of how 1:29:27.630 --> 1:29:29.269 many people are getting mobilized. 1:29:29.410 --> 1:29:29.630 Yeah. 1:29:29.650 --> 1:29:33.250 Often through networks that got kind of cemented during Helene. 1:29:33.310 --> 1:29:36.059 They'd be just getting to know each other. Against the 1:29:36.080 --> 1:29:38.560 surveillance state in Asheville because, like, flock cameras were starting 1:29:38.580 --> 1:29:39.500 to get vandalized. 1:29:39.600 --> 1:29:40.060 Yeah. 1:29:40.960 --> 1:29:46.260 And so even despite their intense evil... They're still weak. 1:29:46.280 --> 1:29:48.320 They're still vulnerable. And if that's what they concede to 1:29:48.340 --> 1:29:50.760 what we're going right now, like what would happen if 1:29:50.800 --> 1:29:54.340 that escalated even further, if the public outrage and mobilization 1:29:54.400 --> 1:29:56.080 escalated even more on even more fronts? 1:29:56.820 --> 1:29:58.190 Yeah. So, yeah. 1:29:58.770 --> 1:30:01.689 Well, David, thank you. Thank you so much for coming 1:30:01.750 --> 1:30:03.729 on the show and talking about this. Do you have 1:30:03.750 --> 1:30:05.670 anything else that you want to say before we go 1:30:05.689 --> 1:30:09.190 to plugs? You know, prepare, get to know some people 1:30:09.229 --> 1:30:12.309 around you. I think people should realize that they're stronger 1:30:12.350 --> 1:30:15.640 than they know. Where are the many places people can 1:30:15.680 --> 1:30:19.380 find your great work? So they can find the work 1:30:19.680 --> 1:30:22.040 of the Asheville Blade, which is our local journalism co-op, 1:30:22.740 --> 1:30:27.570 at ashevilleblade.com, and some of our shorter, quick-hit coverage at 1:30:27.610 --> 1:30:32.370 patreon.com slash avlblade. If they want to read me ranting 1:30:32.410 --> 1:30:35.349 in similar veins about, and a lot of other great 1:30:35.410 --> 1:30:38.450 trans journalists as well, about kind of trans-specific stuff on 1:30:38.470 --> 1:30:43.160 a national, even international level, transnewsnetwork at transnews.network. 1:30:43.900 --> 1:30:44.900 So, yeah, all that. 1:30:45.340 --> 1:30:48.950 And I do think it's somewhat inspiring. There are like 1:30:49.130 --> 1:30:52.210 more on the ground co-op media and a lot of 1:30:52.229 --> 1:30:56.229 us being done by trans people. So, hell yeah. And 1:30:56.410 --> 1:30:59.670 you too can support trans journalism. You can become a 1:31:00.689 --> 1:31:04.940 trans journalist. It's never too late for either part, whether 1:31:04.950 --> 1:31:06.700 you want to become a journalist or transition, you know? 1:31:07.040 --> 1:31:07.320 Yeah. 1:31:07.820 --> 1:31:09.679 If you're asking the question, the answer is yes. 1:31:09.700 --> 1:31:09.769 Yes. 1:31:10.160 --> 1:31:10.340 Yes. 1:31:22.090 --> 1:31:28.290 Paramount Pictures, CNN, CBS, HBO, Discovery, Warner Bros., even reality 1:31:28.330 --> 1:31:32.540 TV darling HGTV, and many more are now under one 1:31:32.600 --> 1:31:36.500 roof run by billionaire fail-son David Ellison, the child of 1:31:36.580 --> 1:31:41.000 Larry Ellison, the CEO of the tech firm Oracle. I'm 1:31:41.020 --> 1:31:43.929 Kevin Foster, this is It Could Happen Here, and today 1:31:43.939 --> 1:31:47.450 we're talking about the largest antitrust lawsuit and debacle in 1:31:47.530 --> 1:31:50.269 recent memory, the Paramount-Warner Bros. 1:31:50.370 --> 1:31:50.710 Merger. 1:31:51.470 --> 1:31:54.290 This episode involves a couple of interviews I did and 1:31:54.330 --> 1:31:57.229 goes in a few different directions, from the consequences of 1:31:57.260 --> 1:32:01.340 the merger on labor, press freedom, and archival history, as 1:32:01.400 --> 1:32:04.760 well as some of the surrounding antitrust law. But before that, 1:32:05.140 --> 1:32:09.900 let's do a quick rundown of what happened. On October 6th, 2026, 1:32:09.900 --> 1:32:13.900 the Paramount Skydance Corporation, which was its own antitrust mess, 1:32:14.430 --> 1:32:19.049 acquired Warner Bros. for $ 110 billion, forming a new company 1:32:19.110 --> 1:32:23.740 called Skydance Corporation. Per the Skydance press release on the acquisition, 1:32:24.160 --> 1:32:28.710 they are combining entertainment giants into a quote, single creative powerhouse. 1:32:29.590 --> 1:32:32.349 Before the deal went through, however, there were many legal 1:32:32.410 --> 1:32:35.890 challenges because this is one of the largest media consolidations 1:32:36.030 --> 1:32:39.469 in history. A coalition of 12 states sued to block 1:32:39.510 --> 1:32:43.900 Paramount's takeover with California's Attorney General Rob Bonta at the helm. 1:32:44.740 --> 1:32:47.410 Bonta said at a press conference, quote, Just a few 1:32:47.430 --> 1:32:50.510 months later, though, Bonta conceded, settling the lawsuit for limited promises. 1:32:50.590 --> 1:32:52.970 Per Reuters, Skydance pledged to release 156 films over five years, 1:32:52.990 --> 1:33:07.440 or about 30 films per year. which would be an 1:33:07.500 --> 1:33:11.719 increase from the combined total of the formerly separate entities. However, 1:33:12.010 --> 1:33:15.510 Paramount will have discretion over production spending, albeit with a 1:33:15.530 --> 1:33:18.630 few limitations, which has led analysts to say the terms 1:33:18.689 --> 1:33:21.590 of the settlement do not address the structural issues that 1:33:21.650 --> 1:33:25.450 raised antitrust concerns. One of the obvious concerns is that 1:33:25.490 --> 1:33:28.590 this is only a five-year agreement. Who knows what they 1:33:28.630 --> 1:33:32.810 do after that? Skydance already plans to cut $ 6 billion 1:33:32.870 --> 1:33:36.050 within three years, which could easily have ripple effects on 1:33:36.110 --> 1:33:39.250 theaters and entertainment industry workers at a time when the 1:33:39.310 --> 1:33:42.830 industry is already struggling. To talk about that struggle, I 1:33:42.910 --> 1:33:46.379 interviewed Jake Hart, a screenwriter who had been organizing protests 1:33:46.460 --> 1:33:47.900 against the merger for months. 1:33:48.439 --> 1:33:51.800 I've been a Writers Guild East member since 2003. My 1:33:51.840 --> 1:33:55.550 dad's a screenwriter, my sister's a screenwriter. I feel like I've, 1:33:55.770 --> 1:33:58.710 for pretty much my entire life, either been getting ready 1:33:58.750 --> 1:34:02.230 to go on strike, on strike, or recovering from a strike. 1:34:03.010 --> 1:34:06.140 The studio system, they've been trying to crush the unions 1:34:06.240 --> 1:34:09.100 since we formed the unions. The fight, it's the exact 1:34:09.140 --> 1:34:12.260 same fight. It's just who's the face of the bad 1:34:12.300 --> 1:34:16.179 guys today and how big can the merger get? Like 1:34:16.620 --> 1:34:21.290 the Skydance Paramount merger last year seemed like as terrifying 1:34:21.330 --> 1:34:24.110 as it could get sort of in the current political landscape. 1:34:24.780 --> 1:34:26.800 I mean, that's the thing about these mergers is the 1:34:26.860 --> 1:34:30.320 ripple effect, the snowball effect. We know what it is generally. 1:34:30.680 --> 1:34:32.740 We call this an industry town for a reason. When 1:34:32.760 --> 1:34:36.120 the unions suffer, small businesses and restaurants suffer. And it's 1:34:36.140 --> 1:34:39.480 the union members who, as always, the working class, the industry, 1:34:39.540 --> 1:34:41.420 who get hit with the brunt of this speaking as 1:34:41.460 --> 1:34:45.120 a writer. That's always been hard. I've, you know, half 1:34:45.160 --> 1:34:47.550 my life I've been competing with a lot of people 1:34:47.770 --> 1:34:49.630 for a very small amount of opportunities. 1:34:50.270 --> 1:34:52.230 And, you know, we go on strike. 1:34:52.820 --> 1:34:56.300 And we get these meager victories that we celebrate because 1:34:56.360 --> 1:34:59.140 the unions will never be able to outlast the studios. 1:34:59.939 --> 1:35:00.840 We consider them. 1:35:00.780 --> 1:35:03.340 Wins and then we keep going and we know we're 1:35:03.360 --> 1:35:05.220 going to have to strike again to ask for more 1:35:05.280 --> 1:35:09.340 pennies on the dollar. And I will just say after 1:35:09.380 --> 1:35:14.349 the SAG WGA strikes 2023, which were, you know, again, successful, 1:35:14.479 --> 1:35:17.250 quote unquote, the studios just said, you know what? 1:35:17.820 --> 1:35:18.820 We're going to hire. 1:35:18.600 --> 1:35:21.180 Fewer of you, so fewer of you get to enjoy 1:35:21.240 --> 1:35:25.679 those mega victories you're celebrating. Production dropped. The amount of writers' 1:35:25.720 --> 1:35:28.650 rooms dropped. The amount of shows that were being bought dropped. 1:35:28.890 --> 1:35:33.830 So even when we think we're doing well, they're going 1:35:33.850 --> 1:35:36.150 to find ways to make sure that we don't think 1:35:36.189 --> 1:35:38.450 that for long. And this is only going to make 1:35:38.510 --> 1:35:42.610 that worse. The media consolidation always leads to fewer opportunities. 1:35:43.729 --> 1:35:46.810 Wages go down as prices go up. And the worst, 1:35:47.170 --> 1:35:49.690 I mean, sort of as far as social impact, it's 1:35:49.760 --> 1:35:53.599 also undeniable that the diversity of voices in media goes down. 1:35:54.340 --> 1:35:57.360 The government can't keep up with corporations as far as 1:35:57.380 --> 1:35:59.080 throwing money at legal cases like this. 1:35:59.900 --> 1:36:00.340 They can't. 1:36:00.680 --> 1:36:02.100 It's small business and big business. 1:36:02.160 --> 1:36:03.640 It's just government and corporations. 1:36:04.300 --> 1:36:05.479 They know they can't compete. 1:36:05.740 --> 1:36:06.360 We know that. 1:36:06.939 --> 1:36:09.580 Rob Bonta was talking tough in a way that we 1:36:09.640 --> 1:36:12.350 all believed. And I don't envy him for having to 1:36:12.390 --> 1:36:14.890 be in those rooms negotiating with these monsters. 1:36:15.530 --> 1:36:16.370 But ultimately, it. 1:36:16.330 --> 1:36:18.620 Seems like they got scared by, well, we're going to 1:36:18.660 --> 1:36:20.939 move Paramount out of the state. And they're like, well, 1:36:20.960 --> 1:36:22.939 that's going to kill a lot of jobs. And you say, well, 1:36:23.300 --> 1:36:25.760 it's already going to kill a lot of jobs. So 1:36:25.820 --> 1:36:28.100 why bend a knee to that shit? 1:36:29.020 --> 1:36:32.740 California Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass 1:36:32.800 --> 1:36:35.620 seem to have played a role in the settlement, encouraging 1:36:35.660 --> 1:36:39.310 it for weeks, according to Politico. A major sticking point 1:36:39.350 --> 1:36:43.010 was Paramount threatening to leave California. All of that said, 1:36:43.070 --> 1:36:46.170 the entertainment industry is not the only thing at risk here. 1:36:46.830 --> 1:36:50.790 Trump has close ties to the Ellisons and praised the merger, saying, quote, 1:36:50.870 --> 1:36:54.530 they're terrific people and it's going to be a great company, unquote. 1:36:55.150 --> 1:36:59.110 Many are concerned about editorial independence at CNN and CBS, 1:36:59.490 --> 1:37:04.310 especially after David Ellison appointed Barry Weiss as CBS's editor-in-chief, 1:37:04.710 --> 1:37:08.030 leading to massive editorial scandals, such as the polling of 1:37:08.050 --> 1:37:12.000 the 60 Minutes episode on Seacott, the maximum security prison 1:37:12.060 --> 1:37:15.700 notorious for torture and human rights violations in El Salvador, 1:37:16.080 --> 1:37:20.640 where the Trump administration sent over 280 immigrants. Now with 1:37:20.660 --> 1:37:24.939 CNN as well, Ellison controls the largest TV news organization 1:37:25.140 --> 1:37:28.310 on the planet. To discuss the merger and its impacts 1:37:28.439 --> 1:37:31.509 on the press, I spoke with Adam Rose, the Deputy 1:37:31.550 --> 1:37:35.410 Director of Advocacy for Freedom of the Press Foundation. This 1:37:35.470 --> 1:37:37.810 interview will span pretty much the rest of the episode, 1:37:37.870 --> 1:37:51.480 but before that, here's some ads. I just want to 1:37:51.560 --> 1:37:56.160 start broad. You know, what does this merger and maybe 1:37:56.200 --> 1:37:59.000 even the previous merger mean for press freedom in the 1:37:59.040 --> 1:37:59.740 United States? 1:38:00.939 --> 1:38:02.599 Well, there's a really easy way to think about the 1:38:03.090 --> 1:38:06.530 litmus test of who has resources to put into major journalism. 1:38:06.710 --> 1:38:09.309 And it's not the merger itself. It's the White House 1:38:09.390 --> 1:38:14.880 press ban. Trump recently banned MSNOW, CNN, and Politico from 1:38:14.960 --> 1:38:17.280 the White House, lost that in court in terms of 1:38:17.300 --> 1:38:19.900 the hard passes, but he's still been able to exclude 1:38:20.000 --> 1:38:22.990 CNN from the pool. Well, the pool, when we talk 1:38:23.030 --> 1:38:24.830 about that, it means that there's only so much space. 1:38:24.910 --> 1:38:26.809 If you've got someone on Air Force One or the 1:38:26.910 --> 1:38:29.490 Oval Office, you can't fit 1,000 people from the White 1:38:29.530 --> 1:38:32.150 House press corps. And so there'll be one or two 1:38:32.220 --> 1:38:35.540 main lead TV cameras and the lead TV networks that 1:38:35.600 --> 1:38:39.480 do this rotation and document the president who help us understand, 1:38:39.600 --> 1:38:41.280 is he falling asleep at his desk in the middle 1:38:41.300 --> 1:38:44.300 of meeting with international dignitaries, right? I mean, important stuff 1:38:44.360 --> 1:38:47.300 about the fitness of the president to serve. When he 1:38:47.380 --> 1:38:51.010 kept CNN out, as is continuing to happen, That's 20% 1:38:51.010 --> 1:38:52.690 of the pool. One out of the five major TV 1:38:52.710 --> 1:38:55.340 cameras not able to cover the president on certain days 1:38:55.460 --> 1:38:58.340 because they're sharing and rotating through these positions. And the 1:38:58.400 --> 1:39:00.800 other ones as part of a solidarity movement are not 1:39:00.860 --> 1:39:04.320 willing to backfill. So that's 20% of the White House 1:39:04.820 --> 1:39:09.020 TV pool gone. Well, now 40% is owned by David 1:39:09.060 --> 1:39:14.099 Ellison because he owns CNN now and he owned CBS before. 1:39:14.520 --> 1:39:19.840 So that leaves ABC, NBC, and Fox. And say what 1:39:19.860 --> 1:39:21.980 you will about any of those, anything is possible, but 1:39:22.000 --> 1:39:25.220 it's corporate consolidation at its worst. So 40% of the 1:39:25.240 --> 1:39:27.800 White House TV pool now is under the control of 1:39:27.840 --> 1:39:32.670 David Ellison. Think about major historical events, the assassination of JFK. 1:39:32.710 --> 1:39:35.030 What would our collective memory look like if we didn't 1:39:35.070 --> 1:39:37.929 have film from that? Who knows what the next major 1:39:38.110 --> 1:39:40.719 event like that will be? We can think about George W. 1:39:40.750 --> 1:39:43.850 Bush on 9-11 and being informed at a school of 1:39:44.070 --> 1:39:46.430 what was happening in Those are images we still see 1:39:46.490 --> 1:39:49.250 circulating on the internet all the time. Well, that was 1:39:49.290 --> 1:39:52.770 captured because of the pool. And what might not be 1:39:52.830 --> 1:39:55.809 captured either if the pool isn't there or if someone 1:39:55.830 --> 1:39:59.830 who wants to be favorable to a certain administration decides 1:39:59.850 --> 1:40:02.630 that they're going to curry that favor by withholding information. 1:40:02.910 --> 1:40:05.090 That would be a profound violation of trust that this 1:40:05.130 --> 1:40:08.110 pool has established amongst itself. But when you have fewer 1:40:08.150 --> 1:40:10.939 and fewer members of that pool and fewer and fewer 1:40:10.979 --> 1:40:14.610 corporate entities controlling them, it's a lot easier to manipulate 1:40:14.890 --> 1:40:18.980 and control narratives. So that is profoundly concerning to me. 1:40:19.490 --> 1:40:22.700 Yeah, and I think there's this serious issue of the 1:40:22.780 --> 1:40:27.140 Ellisons being aligned with the Trump administration on many different things. And, 1:40:27.180 --> 1:40:29.740 you know, it's going to be sort of complicated to 1:40:29.760 --> 1:40:33.670 see what happens with CNN in the coming months as, 1:40:33.850 --> 1:40:37.410 you know, they're taken over there and what the dynamic 1:40:37.729 --> 1:40:40.189 is and how it changes with the Trump administration. But, 1:40:40.630 --> 1:40:44.790 you know, it's not necessarily... directly state media. But at 1:40:44.810 --> 1:40:47.620 a certain point, it's like, OK, if your corporate oligarchs 1:40:47.900 --> 1:40:52.220 are working with the Trump administration, they have aligned interests. 1:40:52.260 --> 1:40:55.380 There's maybe some level of quid pro quo there. You know, 1:40:55.540 --> 1:40:58.059 we can't necessarily say for certain, but it's certainly the. 1:40:58.040 --> 1:40:58.920 Vibe at times. 1:40:59.090 --> 1:41:03.630 And it erodes faith in the media and creates a 1:41:03.670 --> 1:41:06.400 worse situation for all of us. And I think you 1:41:06.410 --> 1:41:11.960 mentioned earlier about archiving and the issue there. And I 1:41:12.000 --> 1:41:15.240 have a buddy that I'll talk to about, you know, 1:41:15.320 --> 1:41:18.740 journalism is like archiving history in real time in a way. 1:41:18.780 --> 1:41:21.830 And I think, you know, losing those cameras, like this 1:41:21.890 --> 1:41:25.809 is a longer term consequence than just, oh, CNN is 1:41:25.890 --> 1:41:28.710 not going to be the same anymore. It's like this actually, 1:41:28.729 --> 1:41:32.130 you know, this consolidation has the ability to change how 1:41:32.170 --> 1:41:36.370 history is represented. And yeah, I mean, I guess, On 1:41:36.410 --> 1:41:39.050 that note of archiving, what do you feel like people 1:41:39.150 --> 1:41:42.170 aren't talking about enough around this merger? 1:41:42.189 --> 1:41:47.780 There is an incredibly powerful line from George Orwell in 1984, 1:41:47.780 --> 1:41:50.479 which is, who controls the past controls the future. Who 1:41:50.520 --> 1:41:56.320 controls the present controls the past. And there are variations 1:41:56.360 --> 1:41:58.520 of that, including by Rage Against the Machine, that have 1:41:58.560 --> 1:42:02.530 been put even more eloquently, including who controls the present now. 1:42:03.210 --> 1:42:07.830 being added to that. Our history, our collective memory influences 1:42:07.950 --> 1:42:12.240 a lot about who we are and where we're going. 1:42:12.260 --> 1:42:15.340 There are only so many news archives out there. One 1:42:15.380 --> 1:42:18.920 of the few organizations that has the institutional focus to 1:42:18.979 --> 1:42:21.170 really bring up these issues over and over is a 1:42:21.250 --> 1:42:26.210 wonderful group called the Archival Producers Alliance. They have been 1:42:26.650 --> 1:42:29.970 bringing attention to this for The last several months in 1:42:29.990 --> 1:42:33.990 particular around this merger and the idea that fewer and 1:42:34.030 --> 1:42:37.290 fewer corporate oligarchs will control access to those archives and 1:42:37.370 --> 1:42:41.590 can dictate where and when different things appear. They had 1:42:41.650 --> 1:42:44.229 noted that one of the archives recently had laid off 1:42:44.300 --> 1:42:47.560 its entire licensing department. So when you're putting together a 1:42:47.570 --> 1:42:50.420 documentary or a news story, whatever it may be, you 1:42:50.479 --> 1:42:53.180 could go there and you could ask them for some 1:42:53.220 --> 1:42:55.040 footage that they might own the rights to and you 1:42:55.100 --> 1:42:57.559 cannot get otherwise. But no one was going to be 1:42:57.600 --> 1:43:00.670 there to pick up the phone. In other cases, there 1:43:00.689 --> 1:43:02.900 was an archive in the last couple of years where 1:43:02.939 --> 1:43:04.920 they had, at one point, it was one of the 1:43:04.960 --> 1:43:09.040 major networks, had said that they would only license their 1:43:09.060 --> 1:43:13.450 material to themselves effectively. And that drew a major outcry. 1:43:14.189 --> 1:43:18.890 And archives are not in great shape institutionally, financially. Wonderful 1:43:18.930 --> 1:43:21.759 people working there trying to preserve our history, but the 1:43:21.800 --> 1:43:24.840 resources are pretty thin. And Even just in the last 1:43:24.880 --> 1:43:28.240 few days, Getty was taken private. It will now be 1:43:28.280 --> 1:43:31.900 controlled by the Getty family and the Koch family, which 1:43:32.100 --> 1:43:34.080 if you think about the Kochs and the Ellisons all 1:43:34.120 --> 1:43:36.900 teaming up to control all of our archives, well, who 1:43:36.939 --> 1:43:38.849 controls the past controls the future. 1:43:39.050 --> 1:43:39.689 Oh, God. 1:43:39.830 --> 1:43:42.390 And that should be really concerning to all of us. 1:43:43.290 --> 1:43:46.450 You think about where conspiracy theories come from and what 1:43:46.490 --> 1:43:48.710 can launch them or stamp them out. Well, a lot 1:43:48.729 --> 1:43:53.700 of that's our archives. And to rewrite history and ideas like, hey, 1:43:53.720 --> 1:43:55.920 what about reparations? What about the way that our country 1:43:55.939 --> 1:44:00.800 has mistreated certain groups over the course of many, many generations? Well, 1:44:01.510 --> 1:44:06.089 we have historical footage of people trying to integrate schools 1:44:06.130 --> 1:44:08.170 and things like that, which show how difficult it was. 1:44:08.270 --> 1:44:11.189 We have oral history and testimonies in particular. And this 1:44:11.270 --> 1:44:13.990 is a space I've worked in before in preserving a 1:44:14.110 --> 1:44:18.460 Holocaust testimony, for example. And so whatever anyone's modern-day politics 1:44:18.520 --> 1:44:20.979 might be with the Middle East, there's certainly no denying 1:44:21.000 --> 1:44:24.000 the Holocaust, you'd hope. But the reality is, of course, 1:44:24.020 --> 1:44:27.500 that some people do, right? Ahmadinejad, when he was running Iran, said, yeah, 1:44:27.520 --> 1:44:31.900 the Holocaust is basically a conspiracy theory, right? Well, how 1:44:31.939 --> 1:44:34.880 do we never forget if we don't have the people 1:44:35.080 --> 1:44:38.479 in their video testimonies to remind us of why certain 1:44:38.500 --> 1:44:41.660 things mattered so much? And so when there's a vow 1:44:41.720 --> 1:44:45.390 for never again, as there was with the Holocaust... And 1:44:45.430 --> 1:44:49.110 as some would very, I think, well articulate that maybe 1:44:49.130 --> 1:44:52.110 we are seeing something happening again in Gaza that is 1:44:52.510 --> 1:44:57.030 profoundly tragic and ironic. It's important that these survivors who 1:44:57.090 --> 1:44:59.060 are no longer with us still be able to tell 1:44:59.110 --> 1:45:03.000 their stories through what we have captured on film. And 1:45:03.020 --> 1:45:07.740 that is really terrifying to me that as a community, 1:45:07.939 --> 1:45:11.000 in any sense, we would lose our history. we can't 1:45:11.200 --> 1:45:13.840 hold on to everything from history, but we need to 1:45:13.900 --> 1:45:17.080 hold on to the most important parts. And it's hard 1:45:17.140 --> 1:45:20.300 to imagine who would control more of television history than 1:45:20.340 --> 1:45:25.780 a combination of CBS and CNN, not to mention Warner Brothers, 1:45:25.900 --> 1:45:30.240 not to mention Paramount Films, not to mention so much 1:45:30.280 --> 1:45:34.750 of Hollywood history. And Think about now when you're just 1:45:34.790 --> 1:45:38.049 trying to surf online and figure out what to watch 1:45:38.310 --> 1:45:41.170 off of Netflix or Amazon or whatever subscription service you 1:45:41.189 --> 1:45:44.150 may have. And you can be really frustrated trying to 1:45:44.189 --> 1:45:46.250 find certain older films where you're like, how does no 1:45:46.310 --> 1:45:49.350 one have this online? Well, what if they decided suddenly 1:45:49.390 --> 1:45:52.849 to take whole chunks of film away from our collective memory? 1:45:53.290 --> 1:45:53.910 They can't. 1:45:54.070 --> 1:45:57.670 And they have the rights and the lawyers to enforce that. 1:45:57.689 --> 1:45:59.250 This is bleak, man. 1:45:59.890 --> 1:46:00.110 I mean. 1:46:00.939 --> 1:46:02.660 This is going to be kind of a stupid question, 1:46:02.700 --> 1:46:06.210 I feel like. But is this even legal? Like, what 1:46:06.330 --> 1:46:09.230 should have happened? I know you said you're not a lawyer, but. Yeah, 1:46:09.330 --> 1:46:12.050 there's a lot to unpack there. And many of us 1:46:12.090 --> 1:46:14.429 would argue that it is not legal. And many, in fact, 1:46:14.470 --> 1:46:16.790 of the best attorneys in this country have said that 1:46:16.990 --> 1:46:20.099 this particular merger is not legal because of antitrust laws. 1:46:20.750 --> 1:46:23.150 Let me pause on that really quickly just to touch 1:46:23.189 --> 1:46:25.110 on a couple more historical notes I think are important 1:46:25.130 --> 1:46:27.540 as we talk about this context and the bleakness of it, 1:46:27.630 --> 1:46:30.670 because I don't want that to go. 1:46:30.370 --> 1:46:33.460 Unremarked upon, because I think you're right. It is extraordinarily bleak. 1:46:34.000 --> 1:46:36.960 I would not say that I am hopeless. I think 1:46:36.979 --> 1:46:39.340 that there is an amazing community out there and an 1:46:39.500 --> 1:46:44.000 amazingly globally aware community, especially as the internet provides So 1:46:44.020 --> 1:46:47.360 many capabilities for people to connect, for the ability for 1:46:47.400 --> 1:46:49.760 people to record with their own phone in their pockets 1:46:49.860 --> 1:46:52.550 and share that around the world. And it doesn't, I'm 1:46:52.590 --> 1:46:54.450 not being Pollyanna about it either. I'm just saying two 1:46:54.490 --> 1:46:56.470 things can be true at the same time. It can 1:46:56.610 --> 1:46:59.670 simultaneously be bleak and I can simultaneously have hope. So 1:46:59.750 --> 1:47:00.790 I hope people hold on to that. 1:47:01.090 --> 1:47:03.630 I don't know how all this works exactly, but when 1:47:03.650 --> 1:47:05.800 the AI bubble pops, we're going to have a lot 1:47:05.820 --> 1:47:07.840 of capacity to store data. 1:47:08.660 --> 1:47:09.860 Plenty of data centers, right? 1:47:09.880 --> 1:47:10.020 Yeah. 1:47:11.630 --> 1:47:11.810 Yep. 1:47:12.310 --> 1:47:14.799 And they'll all be cooled off as we are heating. 1:47:15.460 --> 1:47:19.680 But I also wanted to really underscore something you brought 1:47:19.720 --> 1:47:23.320 up about fascism and the historical implications here. Our technologies 1:47:23.340 --> 1:47:26.590 have evolved a lot since the 1930s, of course. But 1:47:27.150 --> 1:47:30.170 I mentioned before that I've been involved in archival projects 1:47:30.210 --> 1:47:34.110 of Holocaust testimony and really an amazing organization called the 1:47:34.189 --> 1:47:37.809 USC Shoah Foundation, which is based here where I am 1:47:37.840 --> 1:47:41.760 in Southern California. And they've collected tens of thousands of 1:47:41.800 --> 1:47:45.679 testimonials from not only Holocaust survivors, but genocides and atrocities 1:47:45.740 --> 1:47:46.340 around the globe. 1:47:46.380 --> 1:47:50.160 Guatemala, Rohingya, all kinds. And they're trying to preserve. 1:47:49.880 --> 1:47:52.640 That history and doing a fantastic job of it. And 1:47:52.939 --> 1:47:56.400 I went into those archives and I had some staff access. 1:47:56.420 --> 1:47:58.300 So I was able to kind of poke around at 1:47:58.420 --> 1:48:01.700 one point and get a sense of the technologies that 1:48:01.740 --> 1:48:05.469 were discussed by Holocaust survivors in the 1930s. And what 1:48:05.490 --> 1:48:09.330 was striking to me is how in watching, you know, 1:48:09.350 --> 1:48:13.620 maybe a couple dozen of these survivors, that they would 1:48:13.820 --> 1:48:17.630 describe the day that the Nazis came in or came 1:48:17.670 --> 1:48:22.530 to power or, stormed in with their tanks. And every 1:48:22.610 --> 1:48:25.140 single one of them who talked about what was taken 1:48:25.189 --> 1:48:28.850 from them, the first thing they mentioned was that the 1:48:28.910 --> 1:48:31.940 Nazis came in, and if you were Jewish, they took 1:48:31.979 --> 1:48:34.520 your radio. And if they found you with a radio 1:48:34.540 --> 1:48:36.180 and you didn't give it up by the deadline, they 1:48:36.240 --> 1:48:40.470 shot you and killed you on the spot. they mentioned 1:48:40.490 --> 1:48:42.689 the radios. They go, oh yeah, and by the way, 1:48:42.950 --> 1:48:45.150 they also took all our diamonds and our jewels and 1:48:45.189 --> 1:48:51.349 our furs and our expensive things. But the very first thing, 100% 1:48:51.350 --> 1:48:53.890 of these survivors, the very first thing that they remember 1:48:53.990 --> 1:48:55.839 and that they talk about being taken from them were 1:48:55.880 --> 1:48:58.920 the radios. Because the radios were how they were hearing 1:48:58.939 --> 1:49:01.920 what was actually happening. Because radio signals can travel a 1:49:01.939 --> 1:49:05.019 long way. So they weren't just getting Nazi propaganda. They 1:49:05.030 --> 1:49:08.540 were hearing from resistance movements. They were hearing from other countries. 1:49:08.600 --> 1:49:13.080 They were hearing a more global perspective. And so control 1:49:13.400 --> 1:49:17.969 over the media ecosystem is literally day one, page one 1:49:18.150 --> 1:49:20.950 of the Nazi playbook. Now, I'm not saying that's exactly 1:49:20.970 --> 1:49:23.630 what's happening here, but I'm saying you need to pay 1:49:23.689 --> 1:49:28.840 attention to this because of how significant... knowledge and information is. 1:49:29.600 --> 1:49:32.050 At that same time, now that we talk about all 1:49:32.110 --> 1:49:34.830 these different people having the ability to film and record 1:49:34.850 --> 1:49:37.870 from their own pockets, I always think about George Floyd 1:49:38.110 --> 1:49:41.729 and his murder being captured by a young lady, Darnella Frazier, 1:49:41.850 --> 1:49:45.330 who was given a Pulitzer Prize. She's not a journalist, right? 1:49:45.370 --> 1:49:48.250 But she was given a special citation by the Pulitzer Committee. 1:49:49.070 --> 1:49:52.240 because she committed a sacred act of journalism. And, you know, 1:49:52.260 --> 1:49:54.880 the initial narrative that came out from his murder was 1:49:54.939 --> 1:49:57.700 a press release by the local police department saying the 1:49:57.740 --> 1:50:01.979 man died from a drug overdose. It was Darnella's video 1:50:02.180 --> 1:50:05.280 that she took of the murder that proved otherwise. And 1:50:05.479 --> 1:50:07.830 bring that all the way to today where we think 1:50:07.850 --> 1:50:09.750 about these protests that are going on out in the 1:50:09.770 --> 1:50:13.630 street where, you know, often the narrative is, oh, a 1:50:13.689 --> 1:50:16.030 protester tried to hit us with a car or protesters 1:50:16.050 --> 1:50:21.469 were being violent. And the video shows regularly disproves the 1:50:21.620 --> 1:50:25.210 federal DHS narrative that they try and spread about violence 1:50:25.250 --> 1:50:29.530 against them. And what's really twisted, what's really downright Orwellian 1:50:29.570 --> 1:50:32.390 is I have sat in courtrooms where I've worked on 1:50:32.450 --> 1:50:35.710 cases where we got federal injunctions against DHS and LAPD 1:50:35.729 --> 1:50:38.390 and different agencies to stop their violence against journalists and 1:50:38.590 --> 1:50:43.419 protesters alike. And I have sat there as these lawyers 1:50:43.620 --> 1:50:46.780 for DHS have tried to, it was then Kristi Noem 1:50:47.040 --> 1:50:49.710 was the head of DHS, have tried to bring forth 1:50:49.770 --> 1:50:53.349 her argument into the courtroom that filming their officers is violence. 1:50:53.470 --> 1:50:53.570 Yep. 1:50:54.340 --> 1:50:55.500 I've talked about that a good bit. 1:50:55.720 --> 1:51:00.440 It's pure doublespeak, man. Really, really disgusting stuff. And I'm 1:51:00.979 --> 1:51:03.020 sitting there going, how do these guys sleep at night? 1:51:03.200 --> 1:51:03.380 Right. 1:51:03.400 --> 1:51:04.720 I mean, that's just gross stuff. 1:51:04.800 --> 1:51:08.120 So, you know, we can shift back into the idea 1:51:08.140 --> 1:51:09.480 of legality of this merger. 1:51:09.540 --> 1:51:11.620 But, you know, that you. 1:51:11.620 --> 1:51:16.850 Just cannot understate the significance of control of information and 1:51:16.950 --> 1:51:19.950 freedom of information and what they mean in a democratic society. 1:51:31.540 --> 1:51:33.000 So I always like to preface this. 1:51:33.320 --> 1:51:33.940 I'm not a lawyer. 1:51:34.000 --> 1:51:37.000 I am often the guy that lawyers call when they 1:51:37.040 --> 1:51:39.120 need help for sorting this out and figuring out how 1:51:39.180 --> 1:51:41.600 rubber hits pavement here in the real world. And so 1:51:41.640 --> 1:51:46.580 I sort of serve as an interpreter between legalese and 1:51:47.000 --> 1:51:49.810 the street journalism that's happening out there. So when it 1:51:49.870 --> 1:51:51.990 comes to the particular merger that we're talking about with 1:51:52.030 --> 1:51:55.390 Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery, there are what they would 1:51:55.410 --> 1:51:59.640 call different markets in antitrust law. And so antitrust lawyers 1:51:59.680 --> 1:52:02.240 who have looked at this said, wait a minute, this 1:52:02.280 --> 1:52:07.139 would create an unfair amount of competition in these particular markets. 1:52:07.180 --> 1:52:09.800 And again, they identified multiple different ones. And I'm forgetting 1:52:09.820 --> 1:52:10.800 off the top of my head, but it could be 1:52:10.840 --> 1:52:14.040 stuff like broadcast, could be stuff like movie production. It 1:52:14.080 --> 1:52:17.790 could be different things like that. News, certainly an obvious 1:52:18.050 --> 1:52:20.940 concern here. But from a legal standpoint, they identified a 1:52:20.979 --> 1:52:25.240 number of these different markets. And so at the time 1:52:25.280 --> 1:52:27.910 that this was being proposed and was not a done 1:52:27.950 --> 1:52:29.990 deal yet, there were a number of different people who 1:52:30.030 --> 1:52:32.410 filed suits for any number of different reasons. 1:52:32.650 --> 1:52:33.290 For example. 1:52:34.000 --> 1:52:36.240 there was a consumer lawsuit that was filed saying that 1:52:36.280 --> 1:52:39.240 this would drive up prices for consumers of streaming and 1:52:39.600 --> 1:52:43.620 movie media of all types. And so that one didn't 1:52:43.660 --> 1:52:46.070 win in the end. Unions filed lawsuits saying that it 1:52:46.110 --> 1:52:49.390 would be something that we would call monopsony. Many of 1:52:49.450 --> 1:52:51.490 us know the word monopoly, but there's also an important 1:52:51.510 --> 1:52:53.590 term here called monopsony, which is when you're trying to 1:52:53.630 --> 1:52:55.750 sell something and you've only got one buyer out there. 1:52:55.770 --> 1:52:57.940 And so the market is constricted. So whether you're selling 1:52:57.950 --> 1:53:01.380 your talent as an actor or a writer or whatever 1:53:01.420 --> 1:53:03.390 it may be, you know, producer, Or let's say you 1:53:03.430 --> 1:53:05.969 put together a whole film and you're selling that film. 1:53:05.990 --> 1:53:09.650 There's fewer distributors to take it. So there are those 1:53:09.689 --> 1:53:12.870 kinds of markets as well. There are also shareholder concerns 1:53:12.890 --> 1:53:15.170 here that this was not in the best interest of shareholders. 1:53:15.290 --> 1:53:17.910 And so, in fact, my organization, Freedom of the Press Foundation, 1:53:17.950 --> 1:53:22.299 was behind a shareholder lawsuit with that first merger that happened. 1:53:22.990 --> 1:53:25.700 The big one, though, the big lawsuit here was the 1:53:25.780 --> 1:53:28.520 one that was led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta. 1:53:29.300 --> 1:53:32.120 And he was one of a dozen state attorneys general 1:53:32.200 --> 1:53:36.180 who teamed up to fight the merger and to try 1:53:36.220 --> 1:53:37.960 and take a stand identifying, I think it was three 1:53:38.000 --> 1:53:43.210 discrete specific markets that were potentially antitrust violations. Now, normally, 1:53:43.550 --> 1:53:46.850 in a more functional United States of America, this is 1:53:47.010 --> 1:53:48.990 the kind of investigation that would be handled by the 1:53:49.030 --> 1:53:52.910 federal government. And indeed, the reports were pretty widely spread 1:53:52.950 --> 1:53:56.490 that the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division had started 1:53:56.570 --> 1:53:59.660 to prepare an investigation into and that the career lawyers 1:53:59.700 --> 1:54:02.290 were planning on recommending that it become an official, not 1:54:02.330 --> 1:54:05.830 only investigation, but lawsuit. Those are career lawyers. They have 1:54:05.870 --> 1:54:07.670 a job to do. They're very good at it, and 1:54:07.689 --> 1:54:11.070 they know what they're doing. Political appointees, chosen, of course, 1:54:11.130 --> 1:54:16.060 by Donald Trump, then got involved and unconditionally approved the 1:54:16.100 --> 1:54:19.939 merger at a federal level. So that left it to 1:54:19.979 --> 1:54:22.700 the states. But now let's think about what it costs 1:54:22.860 --> 1:54:27.140 to do an anti-merger investigation. there are obviously the lawyers, 1:54:27.220 --> 1:54:30.540 there are the court fees, there are the expert witnesses who, 1:54:30.560 --> 1:54:33.430 as I understand it, are very expensive. I have heard 1:54:33.860 --> 1:54:36.930 from people who are far more knowledgeable than me that 1:54:36.990 --> 1:54:40.330 it can cost for a major federal antitrust investigation up 1:54:40.390 --> 1:54:46.010 to $ 40 million. Now, $ 40 million is the drop in 1:54:46.030 --> 1:54:48.090 the bucket for our federal government when you think about 1:54:48.110 --> 1:54:50.450 it in the grand scheme of things. If you think 1:54:50.490 --> 1:54:56.490 about Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland, that's doing some real damage 1:54:56.530 --> 1:55:00.150 to a budget. So when these 12 states came together 1:55:00.170 --> 1:55:02.230 and all these attorneys general came together, I mean, look, 1:55:02.230 --> 1:55:04.890 $ 40 million is a lot for California, right? And that's 1:55:04.930 --> 1:55:08.750 the fourth largest economy in the world. But with California's 1:55:08.890 --> 1:55:13.100 resources behind it, they had a fighting chance. And obviously 1:55:13.180 --> 1:55:15.080 other states would chip in as well. And you got 1:55:15.100 --> 1:55:17.780 a dozen states kicking in time and money. And it 1:55:17.800 --> 1:55:21.750 was wonderful, right? And it was really, really heartening to see. Eventually, 1:55:21.990 --> 1:55:24.370 as this case dragged on, I don't know that it 1:55:24.410 --> 1:55:28.130 was necessarily resolved in a way that was legal. What 1:55:28.170 --> 1:55:30.950 we do know is that Rob Bonta in California backed 1:55:31.030 --> 1:55:34.380 out under a lot of political pressure. And when they 1:55:34.440 --> 1:55:38.140 backed out, other state attorneys general spoke out and said, well, 1:55:38.160 --> 1:55:40.600 there's certain things that we're really unhappy with in this. 1:55:40.780 --> 1:55:42.960 But they wound up, every single one of them signed 1:55:43.000 --> 1:55:45.960 the piece of paper saying they would agree to what's 1:55:45.980 --> 1:55:49.540 called a consent agreement. So the deal went through. And 1:55:49.840 --> 1:55:53.060 in the media afterward, those state attorneys general would say, oh, 1:55:53.100 --> 1:55:54.860 we wish they'd done this. We wanted it to be this. 1:55:55.530 --> 1:55:56.270 But you know what? 1:55:56.570 --> 1:55:58.510 I don't think, you know, Connecticut or wherever the heck 1:55:58.530 --> 1:56:00.990 it was, they don't have 40 million bucks to throw 1:56:01.070 --> 1:56:05.210 into an antitrust investigation. So that's really what happened here. 1:56:05.290 --> 1:56:07.890 You know, the law exists in two very different places. 1:56:07.910 --> 1:56:09.830 You know, it exists in the courtroom and it exists 1:56:09.870 --> 1:56:11.990 in the street. And these are not equal places. So 1:56:12.170 --> 1:56:14.170 in the street, the billionaires won. 1:56:14.310 --> 1:56:14.470 Yeah. 1:56:14.850 --> 1:56:16.810 And they were going to be able to spend indefinitely. 1:56:17.490 --> 1:56:19.080 When you think about what I mentioned before with the 1:56:19.100 --> 1:56:21.180 DOJ putting their finger on the scale here with the 1:56:21.320 --> 1:56:24.820 earlier merger as well, when this is the one where 1:56:25.100 --> 1:56:28.260 Trump was effectively, I mean, this is an accusation that 1:56:28.280 --> 1:56:29.860 would have to be proven if there were a way 1:56:29.880 --> 1:56:31.540 to legally prove it, but it sure as heck felt 1:56:31.580 --> 1:56:34.740 like a bribe when he was paid off in terms 1:56:34.780 --> 1:56:37.040 of the 60 Minutes story. This is part of CBS 1:56:37.060 --> 1:56:39.270 then rolling into Paramount in the first go around with 1:56:39.280 --> 1:56:45.310 these mergers. And when that happened, That money was paid first, technically, 1:56:45.340 --> 1:56:47.920 to his library, of course. But, you know, it's all 1:56:47.960 --> 1:56:51.600 kind of wink-wink. And so big check gets cut to 1:56:52.040 --> 1:56:55.920 Donald Trump in his personal civil life. And then all 1:56:55.940 --> 1:56:58.140 of a sudden, the deal is approved in the federal government, 1:56:58.180 --> 1:57:02.400 which he controls. And so our problem, from Freeman Press 1:57:02.420 --> 1:57:04.660 Foundation's point of view, is not that there's private ownership 1:57:04.700 --> 1:57:05.000 in media. 1:57:05.020 --> 1:57:05.690 Because guess what? 1:57:05.730 --> 1:57:08.210 There's always been that. Literally since day one of this country, right? 1:57:08.290 --> 1:57:10.750 Ben Franklin owned the Pennsylvania Gazette. We're not upset about that. 1:57:11.220 --> 1:57:14.940 Thomas Paine wrote his own pamphlets. It was basically privately done. 1:57:15.320 --> 1:57:20.200 That's cool, right? No problems with private ownership of some media. 1:57:20.320 --> 1:57:23.629 And the problem becomes when it's the government and political 1:57:23.670 --> 1:57:26.770 power picking and choosing winners. And the problem also becomes 1:57:26.850 --> 1:57:30.450 when there's so much consolidation that it is harmful for 1:57:30.550 --> 1:57:33.550 our information ecosystem. And I think that's exactly what we're seeing. 1:57:33.710 --> 1:57:37.350 So whatever the lawyers might argue, and there's a lot 1:57:37.380 --> 1:57:39.200 there that I described on a high level that can 1:57:39.220 --> 1:57:42.240 be argued. The end result and the impact for all 1:57:42.280 --> 1:57:45.420 of us is that it is damaging to our collective knowledge. 1:57:45.960 --> 1:57:49.320 It is damaging to an informed public, an informed electorate, 1:57:49.480 --> 1:57:53.970 and therefore damaging to a functioning democracy. So yeah, that's 1:57:54.010 --> 1:57:56.530 a little bleak. And I don't think it's legal, but 1:57:57.150 --> 1:57:59.290 the law wasn't what prevailed here. 1:57:59.350 --> 1:58:00.010 It was the billions. 1:58:00.010 --> 1:58:00.350 Yeah. 1:58:00.350 --> 1:58:04.350 Something that I talked about in my other interview was 1:58:04.350 --> 1:58:08.530 just the sort of depressing reality around it. Like, OK, 1:58:09.150 --> 1:58:11.650 maybe we would have lost these things in the lawsuit 1:58:11.870 --> 1:58:16.990 or they were threatening this and taking Paramount out of California. 1:58:17.410 --> 1:58:20.070 And there was this backward pressure in that way. But 1:58:20.130 --> 1:58:23.070 it's now with the consolidation, it's like, OK, we're going 1:58:23.110 --> 1:58:26.370 to lose jobs now. Either way, it's not a bluff anymore. 1:58:26.370 --> 1:58:27.350 4,500 expected just in Los Angeles. 1:58:27.390 --> 1:58:27.490 God. 1:58:29.830 --> 1:58:32.520 It's just it's like, OK, we've now signed the check 1:58:32.600 --> 1:58:35.440 for our fate on that. And it's who knows what 1:58:35.460 --> 1:58:39.380 would have happened. But I mean, I think about the concessions, 1:58:39.760 --> 1:58:42.720 the quote unquote concessions that we got in this settlement. 1:58:42.760 --> 1:58:44.320 I think one of the ones I want to talk 1:58:44.360 --> 1:58:46.840 about a little bit is, you know, there's this idea 1:58:46.880 --> 1:58:51.330 of an independent oversight board for CNN and CBS. My 1:58:51.390 --> 1:58:55.460 understanding is that That board can essentially be selected by 1:58:55.500 --> 1:58:58.850 like executives and the Ellisons. I don't know if that's exact. 1:58:58.970 --> 1:59:01.480 I was reading like a Hollywood reporter article on this. 1:59:01.570 --> 1:59:02.410 You're 100 percent right. 1:59:02.850 --> 1:59:04.190 If you want to dive into that a little bit 1:59:04.210 --> 1:59:07.230 more and how bullshit I think that could be helpful 1:59:07.290 --> 1:59:07.750 for people. 1:59:07.770 --> 1:59:10.470 And that is actually I'm not a lawyer, but I 1:59:10.490 --> 1:59:12.890 think bullshit is the legal term for this whole thing. 1:59:13.690 --> 1:59:15.650 And actually, I've heard a number of lawyers use that 1:59:15.670 --> 1:59:21.680 term about this deal. So actually from a real legal perspective, 1:59:21.760 --> 1:59:23.360 what has been explained to me by some of the 1:59:23.400 --> 1:59:25.360 best antitrust lawyers in the country is that when there 1:59:25.400 --> 1:59:28.540 is an antitrust investigation, typically they do settle, right? Typically 1:59:28.580 --> 1:59:30.500 it doesn't go to court. And what they do is 1:59:30.520 --> 1:59:33.400 they extract different kinds of remedies. That's the term for it. 1:59:33.490 --> 1:59:36.310 And these remedies tend to take one of two different forms. 1:59:36.330 --> 1:59:39.410 There's what they call behavioral remedies and what they call 1:59:39.490 --> 1:59:43.190 structural remedies. So behavioral remedy is an example that came 1:59:43.230 --> 1:59:46.370 from the settlement is Paramount commits to producing 30 films 1:59:46.430 --> 1:59:50.410 a year. or this combined company, whatever it is. So 1:59:50.510 --> 1:59:51.879 take our word for it. We're going to do this. 1:59:52.500 --> 1:59:52.880 Trust us. 1:59:52.920 --> 1:59:53.300 Wink, wink. 1:59:53.320 --> 1:59:53.960 We're going to be good. 1:59:54.380 --> 1:59:56.820 A structural remedy is something that actually has some teeth 1:59:56.860 --> 1:59:59.500 and forces real change. Like you have to sell CNN 1:59:59.520 --> 2:00:01.680 before you can complete the merger, right? And that would 2:00:01.720 --> 2:00:04.970 protect the independence of one of those five major TV 2:00:05.010 --> 2:00:05.590 pool networks. 2:00:05.910 --> 2:00:06.110 Yeah. 2:00:06.710 --> 2:00:11.070 So when this was initially being fought over very publicly 2:00:11.210 --> 2:00:14.220 with Rob Bonta and everyone else, Rob Bonta was explicit 2:00:14.260 --> 2:00:16.420 that he would not allow this deal to go through 2:00:16.460 --> 2:00:21.310 without structural remedies. Lo and behold, they settled for only 2:00:21.390 --> 2:00:22.670 behavioral remedies. 2:00:22.810 --> 2:00:23.910 Oh, God damn it. 2:00:24.130 --> 2:00:24.410 Yeah. 2:00:24.630 --> 2:00:25.530 I didn't know that. 2:00:26.290 --> 2:00:31.080 One of those behavioral remedies being an independent editorial oversight 2:00:31.100 --> 2:00:33.760 board or whatever the exact terminology was, which is sort 2:00:33.780 --> 2:00:34.520 of meaningless anyway. 2:00:34.600 --> 2:00:34.820 Yeah. 2:00:34.840 --> 2:00:35.940 Let me tell you how absurd this is. 2:00:36.960 --> 2:00:39.110 I understand that everyone's welcome to their own opinion and 2:00:39.390 --> 2:00:40.890 there is no such thing as a view from nowhere 2:00:40.910 --> 2:00:43.910 and many people in many newsrooms are members of a 2:00:43.950 --> 2:00:47.190 political party or whatnot. But it shows what a warped 2:00:47.290 --> 2:00:49.450 perspective it is that when they put together this board, 2:00:49.550 --> 2:00:52.330 some of the only requirements were things like, oh, well, 2:00:52.570 --> 2:00:54.990 two of the members have to be from the Republicans 2:00:55.050 --> 2:00:56.950 and two of the members have to be from the Democrats. 2:00:57.770 --> 2:01:02.310 Why does party matter? That's never supposed to be a 2:01:02.330 --> 2:01:03.370 thing in the first. 2:01:03.190 --> 2:01:03.810 Place, right? 2:01:04.070 --> 2:01:06.510 Nonpartisanship is supposed to be the way this goes. So 2:01:07.010 --> 2:01:10.300 to anyone who's an actual journalist, that just immediately blew 2:01:10.560 --> 2:01:14.410 our heads. The thing that you said, though, really striking is, okay, well, 2:01:14.430 --> 2:01:18.530 who gets to appoint that editorial board? Well, it's the 2:01:18.560 --> 2:01:21.960 controlling interest of Skydance. Who is the controlling interest of Skydance? 2:01:22.020 --> 2:01:24.200 It's David Ellison, right? So he gets to handpick whoever 2:01:24.240 --> 2:01:27.460 the heck he wants. Now let's say that they aren't 2:01:27.500 --> 2:01:30.640 doing their job, right? And their job is whatever he 2:01:30.680 --> 2:01:33.270 wants it to be. But then who's going to enforce 2:01:33.320 --> 2:01:35.590 it if they're not actually doing a good job in 2:01:35.950 --> 2:01:38.590 a vacuum, right? Let's say we actually had some faith 2:01:38.630 --> 2:01:40.070 in them, which no one really does. 2:01:40.090 --> 2:01:40.170 Yeah. 2:01:40.660 --> 2:01:42.780 Well, then the only one who can enforce this, at 2:01:42.820 --> 2:01:45.510 least for a few years, would be the state attorneys 2:01:45.550 --> 2:01:48.950 general who are political creatures, right? 2:01:49.030 --> 2:01:50.110 So I don't care. 2:01:50.190 --> 2:01:53.610 Again, it shouldn't matter what partisanship is involved here, but 2:01:53.650 --> 2:01:55.670 that means in California, most likely it's going to be 2:01:55.710 --> 2:01:58.880 a Democrat. I don't want a Democrat or a Republican 2:01:58.900 --> 2:02:01.580 to be the one deciding what editorial independence looks like 2:02:01.620 --> 2:02:04.380 for CNN and now CBS as well. They actually made 2:02:04.420 --> 2:02:07.160 this worse because CBS didn't have an editorial oversight board 2:02:07.200 --> 2:02:09.720 before this. But not that things were going well at CBS, 2:02:09.740 --> 2:02:13.500 given Barry Weiss and given the quote-unquote ombudsperson who they hired, 2:02:13.520 --> 2:02:16.900 who's just a Republican Party operative who actually appears to 2:02:16.920 --> 2:02:19.360 have done nothing since the day he was hired. It's 2:02:19.460 --> 2:02:21.700 just sort of a farce to have this sort of 2:02:21.720 --> 2:02:25.930 a board. So when we see these sorts of so-called 2:02:25.970 --> 2:02:29.330 behavioral remedies, we don't have much hope that it's going 2:02:29.350 --> 2:02:32.780 to do anything. Another thing to flag in this deal 2:02:32.960 --> 2:02:36.340 as part of this consent decree that it was, you know, 2:02:36.420 --> 2:02:39.030 the final agreement to make it go through is they 2:02:39.090 --> 2:02:42.610 have something called force majeure, which I'm probably mispronouncing. My 2:02:42.930 --> 2:02:47.410 French is terrible. But it means a major force, an 2:02:47.570 --> 2:02:50.850 act of God, something that makes this unenforceable because you 2:02:50.880 --> 2:02:53.320 couldn't have predicted it, right? You know, a nuclear war 2:02:54.060 --> 2:02:55.160 is the kind of thing you think about with a 2:02:55.180 --> 2:02:57.240 rental car agreement. Sorry, I couldn't return my rental car. 2:02:57.260 --> 2:02:59.740 There was a nuclear war, right? Okay, a very reasonable thing. 2:03:00.480 --> 2:03:04.840 So they included a force majeure clause in this consent 2:03:04.860 --> 2:03:12.080 decree with things that were like economic downturn, labor unrest, right? 2:03:12.100 --> 2:03:13.940 You can look through it. I don't have the language 2:03:13.960 --> 2:03:16.460 in front of me, but it was like trivial to 2:03:16.520 --> 2:03:19.480 trigger this clause, at which point they don't have to 2:03:19.520 --> 2:03:21.440 produce 30 films a year. They don't have to have 2:03:21.470 --> 2:03:24.450 an editorial oversight. They can throw everything out. But, you know, 2:03:24.730 --> 2:03:27.440 there is no real legal concept as force majeure. But 2:03:27.480 --> 2:03:29.440 that's kind of what it is, or horse manure, as 2:03:29.640 --> 2:03:33.130 it more feels like. But that is actually in, you know, 2:03:33.150 --> 2:03:35.290 you can ask a lawyer, and I've had lawyers who 2:03:35.330 --> 2:03:37.410 are part of fighting this who've looked at it and 2:03:37.430 --> 2:03:39.290 just were pulling their hair out, saying none of this 2:03:39.610 --> 2:03:42.770 agreement is even enforceable and binding on Skydance because they're 2:03:42.790 --> 2:03:44.850 just going to say, oh, yeah, the economy is not good. 2:03:45.500 --> 2:03:47.740 And then all of a sudden, because that's not defined 2:03:47.940 --> 2:03:50.110 in any of this, what it means that there's an 2:03:50.150 --> 2:03:53.630 economic downturn or something like that. It's not like there's 2:03:53.650 --> 2:03:55.950 a 10% drop in GDP that they could peg it to. No, 2:03:55.990 --> 2:03:57.870 this is just like, if they invoke it, they invoke it. 2:03:58.430 --> 2:03:59.010 And guess what? 2:03:59.310 --> 2:04:02.200 The Ellison family has not been afraid to invoke those 2:04:02.220 --> 2:04:04.280 things before. In fact, I believe that Oracle just did 2:04:04.300 --> 2:04:06.560 it a few weeks ago. And so to give people, 2:04:06.860 --> 2:04:10.230 most people listening by this point in... what you're producing 2:04:10.250 --> 2:04:12.650 here will probably have heard this context, but you know, 2:04:12.730 --> 2:04:16.140 the billions that are bankrolling this originally are Larry Ellison's money. 2:04:16.200 --> 2:04:19.100 Larry Ellison's money is from Oracle. And that's what bankrolled 2:04:19.180 --> 2:04:22.040 David all the way through literally from creating, you know, 2:04:22.060 --> 2:04:23.880 sky dances and early companies so that he could be 2:04:23.900 --> 2:04:26.660 an actor on fly boys and his acting career did 2:04:26.700 --> 2:04:29.270 not pan out. So then he became a media mogul 2:04:29.370 --> 2:04:33.630 because his dad was bankrolling everything. And many one was 2:04:33.650 --> 2:04:37.070 sky dance, the original flavor. And now all of a sudden, 2:04:37.110 --> 2:04:40.940 he controls 40% of the White House press TV pool, 2:04:41.120 --> 2:04:45.080 and two of the last major standing Hollywood studios, and 2:04:45.440 --> 2:04:48.480 two of the major streaming services, and on and on 2:04:48.520 --> 2:04:51.890 and on. So this is all Ellison family money. And 2:04:52.030 --> 2:04:54.750 I don't know what the will says for Larry Ellison. 2:04:54.770 --> 2:04:56.390 I think he's in his 80s, but it's probably going 2:04:56.410 --> 2:04:58.290 to be controlled all by David when all is said 2:04:58.310 --> 2:04:58.970 and done, right? 2:04:59.130 --> 2:04:59.270 So. 2:04:59.910 --> 2:05:03.910 You know, this is oligarchy at its most pure, right? 2:05:03.990 --> 2:05:08.130 Where it's a rich person passes the billions on to 2:05:08.150 --> 2:05:12.080 their kid who takes control of empires. And not only 2:05:12.100 --> 2:05:16.440 is that force majeure issue notable with Oracle historically and 2:05:16.500 --> 2:05:20.800 now with Skydance, but also let's think about bringing all 2:05:20.820 --> 2:05:24.490 of this together with one neat little bow. And think 2:05:24.550 --> 2:05:28.570 about what Oracle as a company is actually selling. What 2:05:28.630 --> 2:05:29.430 is their product? 2:05:29.930 --> 2:05:30.270 It's you. 2:05:31.030 --> 2:05:31.390 It's me. 2:05:31.990 --> 2:05:36.330 It's data about us. Oracle knows when people stop at 2:05:36.370 --> 2:05:39.570 a certain place in the supermarket aisle and linger staring 2:05:39.610 --> 2:05:42.440 at certain products. That's the sort of data that Oracle 2:05:42.520 --> 2:05:47.340 specializes in. Oracle's own executives, I think former executive now, 2:05:47.880 --> 2:05:50.780 have used the word scary on a conference stage to 2:05:50.820 --> 2:05:53.750 describe how much they know about us and how their 2:05:53.790 --> 2:05:57.780 technology works. They're a surveillance company at heart, right? They're 2:05:57.800 --> 2:06:00.300 a computing powerhouse and they always have been. And they've 2:06:00.320 --> 2:06:03.060 done some amazing technological things. And you can sit there 2:06:03.100 --> 2:06:05.020 and be in awe of some of the computer and 2:06:05.040 --> 2:06:07.750 technology work that they've done. But at the end of 2:06:07.770 --> 2:06:09.010 the day, they're a surveillance company. 2:06:09.290 --> 2:06:09.470 Yeah. 2:06:09.970 --> 2:06:11.570 And we think about where we are in an age 2:06:11.610 --> 2:06:14.230 of surveillance and license plate readers and flock cameras and 2:06:14.250 --> 2:06:18.590 all these things. And now CBS News and CNN and 2:06:18.690 --> 2:06:20.980 Warner Brothers, by the way, I should point out, also 2:06:21.230 --> 2:06:24.440 owns HBO and all these really important documentaries that HBO 2:06:24.480 --> 2:06:24.840 points out. 2:06:25.060 --> 2:06:25.180 Yeah. 2:06:25.480 --> 2:06:28.600 So now you've got one of the strongest media empires 2:06:28.620 --> 2:06:30.810 in the country ready to tell us how scary and 2:06:30.850 --> 2:06:33.130 terrible everything is and how crime is up when it's 2:06:33.170 --> 2:06:36.070 really down and how we all need to be terrified 2:06:36.110 --> 2:06:38.410 and we need to support the police with more big 2:06:38.470 --> 2:06:42.190 budgets and more spending and more military spending. And oh, 2:06:42.290 --> 2:06:43.870 by the way, who's going to benefit from that? 2:06:44.250 --> 2:06:44.590 Oracle. 2:06:45.510 --> 2:06:48.450 Because they're selling our data and also, by the way, 2:06:48.490 --> 2:06:51.810 our defense contractor for billions and billions of dollars. And 2:06:51.840 --> 2:06:54.560 they have some huge controversy with the VA as well 2:06:54.620 --> 2:06:57.720 right now. and problems delivering on medical record software for 2:06:57.740 --> 2:07:01.910 the VA. Oracle knows so much about us. And so 2:07:02.010 --> 2:07:04.290 now they've got a propaganda arm that's as big as 2:07:04.390 --> 2:07:05.750 any propaganda arm in history. 2:07:06.050 --> 2:07:10.210 Jesus, dude, I'm like sick to my stomach. This is bad. 2:07:10.230 --> 2:07:12.330 So I don't think that should be legal. 2:07:12.410 --> 2:07:13.290 No, no. 2:07:13.510 --> 2:07:16.690 And I mean, TikTok is wrapped up in this too, right? 2:07:16.930 --> 2:07:17.390 Oh, yeah. 2:07:17.950 --> 2:07:21.540 It goes beyond traditional media. And like, I think that 2:07:21.680 --> 2:07:24.360 that to me is, you know, the broadening of the 2:07:24.500 --> 2:07:29.339 ecosystem of control is it creates such a multifaceted threat. 2:07:29.860 --> 2:07:32.160 And like you said, then you can start to be 2:07:32.200 --> 2:07:35.240 able to manipulate narratives. And even if you don't have 2:07:35.300 --> 2:07:38.520 the power of even like, let's say we did get 2:07:38.720 --> 2:07:41.919 a Democrat into office who's maybe not as closely aligned, 2:07:42.540 --> 2:07:46.200 God willing, I guess, away from the Ellison family. But 2:07:46.260 --> 2:07:48.640 it's like, you know, they have so much control over 2:07:48.680 --> 2:07:51.480 this narrative. We've already seen this in many ways with 2:07:51.520 --> 2:07:55.310 social media, but it feels like an uphill battle to 2:07:55.350 --> 2:07:58.690 be fending this off. Hey everyone, I'm breaking up the 2:07:58.710 --> 2:08:03.400 interview to just provide some details related to TikTok. Per CNBC, 2:08:03.540 --> 2:08:07.320 Oracle owns a 15% stake worth about $ 2 billion in 2:08:07.360 --> 2:08:11.860 the TikTok-USDS joint venture, which has housed the US operations 2:08:11.920 --> 2:08:15.770 of TikTok since January 2026 due to the US government 2:08:15.830 --> 2:08:20.230 mandated sell-off. Oracle also holds TikTok's user data and leads 2:08:20.350 --> 2:08:24.010 oversight of the algorithm. There have been widespread accusations of 2:08:24.070 --> 2:08:27.370 censorship on the platform since the change in ownership, though 2:08:27.550 --> 2:08:30.440 so far these are difficult to prove with absolute certainty. 2:08:30.770 --> 2:08:32.900 But that's all I had. Back to the interview. 2:08:33.700 --> 2:08:36.120 Speaking of investors and speaking of our oligarchs, you know, 2:08:36.140 --> 2:08:39.100 this deal, by the way, on paper, the Paramount and 2:08:39.160 --> 2:08:42.720 Warner merger financially made zero sense. And by the way, 2:08:42.800 --> 2:08:44.640 I say that as someone who actually owns still a 2:08:44.660 --> 2:08:47.089 little bit of Paramount stock or whatever the heck is Skydance. 2:08:47.110 --> 2:08:48.810 I guess it is now it's rolled over so many 2:08:48.850 --> 2:08:51.580 dang times. I happen to be a very, very small 2:08:51.620 --> 2:08:54.240 shareholder in this. So I follow that a little bit. 2:08:54.510 --> 2:08:57.570 And it's, you know, the whole deal is catastrophic, right? 2:08:57.590 --> 2:09:00.130 There's a reason Netflix, with all their deep pockets, backed 2:09:00.170 --> 2:09:03.910 away from the acquisition of Warner Brothers. And so on paper, 2:09:04.050 --> 2:09:07.580 I mean, like literally, this will obviously rebound, there'll be 2:09:07.600 --> 2:09:09.820 all kinds of things going on. But in like 24 hours, 2:09:10.040 --> 2:09:14.340 the market capitalization of Skydance fell by like 50% this week. 2:09:14.680 --> 2:09:17.400 It's just, anyone who's putting money into this, besides those 2:09:17.420 --> 2:09:20.320 who are really controlling it, knows how rotten this is. 2:09:20.880 --> 2:09:23.760 And so it's really like, there's so much debt that 2:09:23.800 --> 2:09:25.660 they have taken on because they didn't want to pay 2:09:25.680 --> 2:09:27.840 for it themselves, the Ellisons, even though they've got a 2:09:27.880 --> 2:09:29.780 lot of money. But even for a family as rich 2:09:29.800 --> 2:09:30.280 as the Ellisons. 2:09:30.320 --> 2:09:30.680 It's tough. 2:09:31.380 --> 2:09:35.060 So first of all, they got special approval from the 2:09:35.100 --> 2:09:37.730 federal government because Trump is able to put his finger 2:09:37.770 --> 2:09:40.870 on the scale, which allows them to have, I think 2:09:40.910 --> 2:09:43.830 it's like a 49% foreign ownership stake. So we're talking 2:09:43.870 --> 2:09:47.050 about major oil companies, you know, countries where journalists have, 2:09:47.150 --> 2:09:49.610 you know, they're will have their citizenships revoked or be 2:09:49.730 --> 2:09:52.700 butchered with a bone saw. These are not free press 2:09:52.820 --> 2:09:56.400 loving regimes, right? And to say nothing about the people there, 2:09:56.420 --> 2:09:59.940 who I know many lovely, amazing, warm-hearted, wonderful people. But 2:09:59.980 --> 2:10:02.980 the people who control the governments and countries there are 2:10:03.080 --> 2:10:06.370 not fans of the free press. And so those types 2:10:06.430 --> 2:10:09.290 of countries are the ones that are investing heavily in this. 2:10:10.110 --> 2:10:13.290 And while we're talking about these oligarchs, guess who else 2:10:13.330 --> 2:10:16.170 they've been looking at to invest very heavily in this 2:10:16.210 --> 2:10:19.170 new Skydance company because of the debt load? None other 2:10:19.190 --> 2:10:19.950 than Elon Musk. 2:10:20.510 --> 2:10:21.590 Yeah. 2:10:21.610 --> 2:10:23.930 So the guy who controls X and the folks who 2:10:23.970 --> 2:10:27.470 have a major stake in TikTok are also the people 2:10:27.530 --> 2:10:32.820 controlling CBS, CNN, HBO documentaries, all kinds of film, all 2:10:32.880 --> 2:10:35.700 kinds of television. We're talking a lot about free press, 2:10:35.720 --> 2:10:38.520 but also fictional narratives have a really impactful role here 2:10:38.680 --> 2:10:42.060 on the zeitgeist and on popular opinions. So Yeah, it 2:10:42.080 --> 2:10:44.600 comes back to who controls the past now controls the future, 2:10:44.660 --> 2:10:47.240 who controls the present now controls the past, who controls 2:10:47.280 --> 2:10:50.000 the past now controls the future, who controls the present now. 2:10:50.380 --> 2:10:50.560 Yeah. 2:11:04.030 --> 2:11:08.130 Hello and welcome to It Could Happen Here. I'm Andrew Siege, Andrewism, 2:11:08.270 --> 2:11:09.050 on YouTube, and. 2:11:09.010 --> 2:11:11.740 I'm here with Garrison Davis, greetings. 2:11:12.360 --> 2:11:17.760 Greetings and salutations. Have you witnessed any assassinations recently? 2:11:18.360 --> 2:11:19.800 It's been a minute, actually. 2:11:20.360 --> 2:11:26.520 There was that streak for a while, but it has been. 2:11:26.580 --> 2:11:26.900 I guess. 2:11:27.780 --> 2:11:31.480 A year since the last kind of major political assassination 2:11:31.500 --> 2:11:33.510 that I can recall. I'm sure there's been some, you know, 2:11:33.550 --> 2:11:34.350 incidents since then. 2:11:34.510 --> 2:11:34.830 Yeah. 2:11:35.110 --> 2:11:35.970 But I think that. 2:11:35.890 --> 2:11:38.930 That sort of wave that we had around like the 2:11:38.990 --> 2:11:41.830 final Biden years to the first Trump year, it may 2:11:41.870 --> 2:11:42.530 have subsided. 2:11:42.550 --> 2:11:43.510 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 2:11:43.530 --> 2:11:46.720 I mean, assassinations were having their moment. And they haven't 2:11:46.730 --> 2:11:50.660 had a moment like that, it felt like, since the 2:11:50.800 --> 2:11:51.300 20th century. 2:11:51.320 --> 2:11:52.840 Oh, yeah, definitely. 2:11:52.860 --> 2:11:55.380 And so today I actually wanted to look at two 2:11:55.660 --> 2:12:00.220 different assassinations. One was carried out by an American of 2:12:00.380 --> 2:12:05.740 Italian descent, a certain Luigi Mangione, against the CEO of 2:12:05.820 --> 2:12:10.360 United Healthcare, Brian Thompson, back in the ancient times of 2024. 2:12:10.360 --> 2:12:14.810 And the other assassination was carried out by an Italian, 2:12:15.440 --> 2:12:20.610 Gaetano Breschi, against the King of Italy, Umberto I, in 2:12:20.630 --> 2:12:26.060 the year 1900. So we're talking about... a private citizen 2:12:26.100 --> 2:12:30.180 killing a corporate executive in one instance, an anarchist immigrant 2:12:30.940 --> 2:12:35.200 killing a monarch, separated by a century and change, but 2:12:35.240 --> 2:12:41.380 both deliberate attacks on highly symbolic individuals, almost as stand-ins 2:12:41.700 --> 2:12:45.640 for harmful institutions. And so I really wanted to look 2:12:45.680 --> 2:12:49.320 at their causes and consequences for the sake of analysis 2:12:49.900 --> 2:12:52.660 and put forward a critique of such actions as a tactic. 2:12:53.120 --> 2:12:57.750 To be clear, I, and it could happen here, do 2:12:57.790 --> 2:13:03.770 not endorse assassinations. Just putting that disclaimer out there. 2:13:04.050 --> 2:13:04.950 Let the record state. 2:13:04.970 --> 2:13:07.570 Let the record state. So, I mean, I think a 2:13:07.590 --> 2:13:09.840 lot of people are familiar with Mangione. Have you heard 2:13:10.400 --> 2:13:12.120 much or anything about Gitano Berski? 2:13:12.640 --> 2:13:15.540 I think I've heard this mentioned as a part of 2:13:15.560 --> 2:13:19.440 this wave of assassinations, which was a bit longer than 2:13:19.500 --> 2:13:21.200 the sort of wave that we were talking about of 2:13:21.220 --> 2:13:24.100 the past few years. But in like the early 20th century... 2:13:24.700 --> 2:13:27.660 You know, there's this big way from the start to, 2:13:27.740 --> 2:13:29.920 you know, the 1920s and then, you know, more in 2:13:29.940 --> 2:13:33.240 the 60s and 70s. So I think I've heard this referenced, 2:13:33.280 --> 2:13:36.190 especially in terms of like anarchist folklore, but it is 2:13:36.230 --> 2:13:37.750 not one that I'm like as familiar with. 2:13:38.190 --> 2:13:38.470 Yeah. 2:13:38.690 --> 2:13:41.570 So looking into him, he had a very interesting story. 2:13:42.010 --> 2:13:43.850 Whenever I look into an anarchist in the past, I'm 2:13:43.870 --> 2:13:46.320 always reminded that, you know, people in the past were 2:13:46.340 --> 2:13:49.400 really just like us for real. This is Gaetano Breschi. 2:13:49.480 --> 2:13:53.840 He was born in a peasant family in Tuscany in 1869. 2:13:53.840 --> 2:13:57.240 His parents owned a small farm where they grew grain, 2:13:57.550 --> 2:14:01.910 olives and grapes. But falling crop prices and competition from 2:14:02.070 --> 2:14:06.300 cheaper American grain pushed the family into poverty during the 1880s. 2:14:07.150 --> 2:14:10.250 So Bresci had to begin working as a factory apprentice 2:14:10.790 --> 2:14:14.400 at 11 years old to help support his family. By 2:14:14.400 --> 2:14:17.820 15 years old, Bresci was a qualified silk weaver and 2:14:17.860 --> 2:14:22.440 had gotten involved in an anarchist group in Prato. And 2:14:22.460 --> 2:14:26.640 his experience of poverty and factory exploitation shaped his opposition 2:14:26.660 --> 2:14:30.670 to Italy's social order. He ended up being imprisoned for 2:14:30.670 --> 2:14:33.510 15 days in 1892, so at the age of 23 2:14:33.510 --> 2:14:38.070 years old, for contempt and insubordination toward the police, after 2:14:38.110 --> 2:14:40.910 which authorities labelled him a dangerous anarchist. 2:14:41.410 --> 2:14:42.600 Time is a flat circle. 2:14:42.690 --> 2:14:42.960 Indeed. 2:14:44.040 --> 2:14:46.340 And then in 1895, at the age of 26, he 2:14:46.380 --> 2:14:51.140 was sentenced to domicilio quarto, or forced residence, on an 2:14:51.340 --> 2:14:55.160 island prison. for helping organize a textile worker's strike. He 2:14:55.190 --> 2:14:58.710 was released the following year under a royal amnesty, and was, 2:14:58.830 --> 2:15:01.770 of course, more radicalized than ever. 2:15:02.350 --> 2:15:05.790 Yeah, I guess that is something that is maybe slightly different. 2:15:05.890 --> 2:15:09.530 I guess I have not heard of a union organizer 2:15:09.570 --> 2:15:14.900 getting sent to an island prison in the recent past 2:15:15.220 --> 2:15:20.200 in developed countries. I'm sure there's obviously other obstacles towards that. 2:15:20.740 --> 2:15:24.260 towards organizing textile workers in many parts of the world. 2:15:24.420 --> 2:15:28.420 Yeah, and I mean, the island prison, the Tomicilio Quarto thing, 2:15:28.740 --> 2:15:32.810 that was like a big go-to move in Italian history. 2:15:32.850 --> 2:15:37.210 I remember reading about Luigi Galliani. He also spent a 2:15:37.230 --> 2:15:40.790 lot of time on island prisons. So that was like 2:15:40.850 --> 2:15:43.870 a thing that the Italian government was doing back then, 2:15:43.910 --> 2:15:47.710 just like send off all the inconvenient people to these 2:15:47.830 --> 2:15:50.070 islands off the coast of the mainland. 2:15:51.090 --> 2:15:54.450 See, it would be interesting if Luigi Mangione was on 2:15:54.490 --> 2:15:57.610 the island prison of Rikers as a parallel, but he 2:15:57.670 --> 2:16:00.270 is actually not. He is in the Metropolitan Attention Center 2:16:00.310 --> 2:16:03.260 in Brooklyn, which I guess is still on a island, 2:16:03.840 --> 2:16:05.980 if you're going to count Long Island, I suppose. 2:16:06.660 --> 2:16:11.060 Sure, sure, sure. I think there's a degree of difference 2:16:11.120 --> 2:16:13.320 between Brooklyn and. 2:16:13.960 --> 2:16:15.160 There is a degree of difference. 2:16:15.180 --> 2:16:16.860 A sparsely populated Italian island. 2:16:17.460 --> 2:16:17.780 Yes, yes. 2:16:19.090 --> 2:16:21.890 So Breschi, you know, after he got out of prison, 2:16:22.010 --> 2:16:24.680 he remained in Italy for a few more years before 2:16:24.720 --> 2:16:28.740 eventually emigrating to the US, where he arrived in 1898. 2:16:28.740 --> 2:16:32.100 And very quickly became involved in the Italian-American anarchist milieu 2:16:32.280 --> 2:16:36.519 in Paterson, New Jersey, which I had no idea Paterson, 2:16:36.540 --> 2:16:38.970 New Jersey was like that, but it was very much 2:16:39.050 --> 2:16:43.010 popping in the Italian anarchist scene. So he helped establish 2:16:43.090 --> 2:16:46.510 and support La Questione Sociale, which is an Italian language 2:16:46.590 --> 2:16:52.970 anarchist newspaper. Unlike Angioni, he was not someone who became 2:16:53.090 --> 2:16:57.590 politically radical in isolation. You know, Bresci was participating in 2:16:57.910 --> 2:17:04.000 a very socially vibrant political movement, which when I look 2:17:04.010 --> 2:17:07.510 at the differences between the assassinations of now versus the 2:17:07.530 --> 2:17:10.420 assassinations of then, that's something that I notice. You know, 2:17:10.760 --> 2:17:14.699 assassins of the past were very much integrated in social 2:17:14.740 --> 2:17:18.039 networks of a radical tradition. Whereas now they tend to 2:17:18.080 --> 2:17:22.050 be online atomized lone wolf. 2:17:23.090 --> 2:17:25.890 And we just don't even have the sort of living, 2:17:25.910 --> 2:17:32.750 you know, in-person social, that scale of member organizations and 2:17:33.010 --> 2:17:38.890 like actual connections between people to channel political process or 2:17:39.129 --> 2:17:41.430 to channel their politics through in the same way. I mean, 2:17:41.430 --> 2:17:43.449 just in terms of like scale, you know, it's it's 2:17:43.470 --> 2:17:45.930 a totally it's totally different yeah as much as you 2:17:45.950 --> 2:17:49.000 have your like affinity groups or you have your various 2:17:49.060 --> 2:17:52.640 kind of socialist organizations like proportional to the population it's 2:17:52.860 --> 2:17:55.300 it's still it's nowhere close. 2:17:55.700 --> 2:17:58.200 Yeah yeah and i think well what helped in the 2:17:58.240 --> 2:18:01.760 italian case was just the fact that it was a 2:18:01.840 --> 2:18:05.700 wave of these people who had that shared experience of 2:18:05.760 --> 2:18:08.490 being in a foreign land in the u.s and you 2:18:08.510 --> 2:18:15.140 know experiencing intimately the same workplace abuses and also being 2:18:15.180 --> 2:18:19.060 connected to radical political traditions back at home and bringing 2:18:19.100 --> 2:18:23.200 those ideas over. And, you know, so Brzezinski would have 2:18:23.220 --> 2:18:27.740 been involved in newspapers. We've been attending meetings. He would have, 2:18:28.440 --> 2:18:33.070 you know, in part of their social events, he was 2:18:33.190 --> 2:18:37.720 reportedly a very chill guy. He kept his domestic life 2:18:37.780 --> 2:18:40.200 and his political life separate. He apparently got married to 2:18:40.400 --> 2:18:44.300 an Irish-American woman. And he had his own hobbies. You know, 2:18:44.320 --> 2:18:46.140 like I say, these people in the past, they're just 2:18:46.160 --> 2:18:50.080 like us for real. He really was into photography. So 2:18:50.120 --> 2:18:53.379 he used to spend his free time taking pictures. And 2:18:53.400 --> 2:18:57.260 you can imagine the camera just came out. And he's 2:18:57.920 --> 2:19:03.250 curating his skill. He was also very into fashion. If 2:19:03.260 --> 2:19:06.970 you remember, he... worked in silk and he worked in 2:19:07.010 --> 2:19:09.970 textile in textile industry yeah yeah yeah so he actually 2:19:09.990 --> 2:19:14.640 would spend his spare change like saving for expensive clothes 2:19:15.220 --> 2:19:17.140 and in fact in one of the books that i 2:19:17.180 --> 2:19:19.960 was looking into in research for this episode i can't 2:19:19.980 --> 2:19:21.470 remember which one i have them all linked to the 2:19:21.510 --> 2:19:24.750 show notes his comrades were like kind of suspicious of 2:19:24.790 --> 2:19:28.360 the fact that like yo you're like An anarchist revolutionary. 2:19:28.440 --> 2:19:32.970 Why do you like those bourgeois high fashion clothes? But 2:19:32.990 --> 2:19:35.290 you know, the guy had his interests and he was 2:19:35.330 --> 2:19:38.449 very much himself. While he had strong opinions, he would 2:19:38.510 --> 2:19:43.090 also be almost like a quiet storm in meetings. Like 2:19:43.140 --> 2:19:44.980 apparently he wouldn't say much. He would just be there. 2:19:45.020 --> 2:19:47.200 And then all of a sudden, as an issue would 2:19:47.220 --> 2:19:49.400 be raised or something would come up, he would speak 2:19:49.480 --> 2:19:53.360 very eloquently to make his point, to argue his piece. 2:19:54.000 --> 2:19:58.650 And at one point, also in his history, he saved 2:19:59.090 --> 2:20:02.810 Malatesta's life. There was an attempt on Errico Malatesta's life, 2:20:03.090 --> 2:20:06.340 the Italian anarchist, probably the most famous of them, where 2:20:06.600 --> 2:20:10.160 during a meeting, another anarchist basically came at him with 2:20:10.200 --> 2:20:12.240 a knife. I can't remember if it was a knife 2:20:12.320 --> 2:20:15.640 or a gun. One of the two. And Bresci was 2:20:15.660 --> 2:20:20.170 the one who basically helped disarm the guy and saved 2:20:20.770 --> 2:20:25.629 Malatesta from a potentially fatal wound. And so Bresci... was 2:20:26.090 --> 2:20:30.820 going along, taking his pictures, raising his family. Also, apparently, 2:20:30.830 --> 2:20:32.560 I don't want to get too much into his personal life, 2:20:32.620 --> 2:20:34.560 but he was a bit of a ladies' man. But 2:20:34.580 --> 2:20:36.440 he had taken care of his family and doing all 2:20:36.459 --> 2:20:39.660 these things, attending these meetings, being part of his political agitation. 2:20:40.240 --> 2:20:41.920 Then he finds out about this event, which is the 2:20:42.040 --> 2:20:47.250 Bava Beccaris Massacre. So in 1898, Italy experienced a lot 2:20:47.280 --> 2:20:51.590 of unrest over food prices and economic conditions. And in Milan... 2:20:51.830 --> 2:20:59.590 Troops under General Fiorenzo Bava Beccaris violently suppressed demonstrations, killing 2:20:59.629 --> 2:21:03.890 at least 118 people and wounding hundreds more. King Umberto 2:21:04.129 --> 2:21:07.510 I not only approved of the crackdown, but awarded Bava 2:21:07.530 --> 2:21:12.949 Beccaris Italy's highest decoration, praising him for his service to, quote, 2:21:13.010 --> 2:21:17.230 our institutions and to civilization. And so while living in Paterson, 2:21:17.250 --> 2:21:20.830 New Jersey, Bresci read about the massacre and was enraged 2:21:21.110 --> 2:21:24.490 by the king's praise for those responsible. Actually, he later 2:21:24.510 --> 2:21:28.360 testified that this is what convinced him that Umberto I 2:21:28.700 --> 2:21:29.980 deserved to die. 2:21:30.959 --> 2:21:33.080 He's still in the States at this point? 2:21:33.920 --> 2:21:34.200 Yes. 2:21:35.020 --> 2:21:49.110 Huh. And then on the other hand, we have Luigi Mangione. 2:21:49.990 --> 2:21:52.720 I'll give a very brief biography here. He was born 2:21:52.740 --> 2:21:58.040 in Maryland, 1998, apparently to a fairly wealthy, prominent, privileged 2:21:58.180 --> 2:22:00.960 Baltimore family. Like I went on his Wikipedia page and 2:22:00.980 --> 2:22:04.080 he had relatives that had blue links. And that's when 2:22:04.100 --> 2:22:06.680 you know, like, okay, you're kind of big in the dance. 2:22:06.700 --> 2:22:07.619 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 2:22:07.820 --> 2:22:08.060 Right. 2:22:08.720 --> 2:22:12.380 He had an elite education. He graduated from Gilman School 2:22:12.620 --> 2:22:15.930 and the University of Pennsylvania. He studied computer engineering and 2:22:15.980 --> 2:22:20.320 later worked in technology and data engineering and did not 2:22:20.680 --> 2:22:25.480 appear to have a very politically radical personal background, but 2:22:26.440 --> 2:22:29.880 due to his longstanding problems with severe back pain, he 2:22:29.940 --> 2:22:35.020 underwent spinal surgery and his online activity increasingly included a 2:22:35.040 --> 2:22:38.560 lot of criticism of American society and the healthcare system 2:22:38.660 --> 2:22:42.340 in particular. He also expressed interest in the writings of 2:22:42.420 --> 2:22:46.350 Ted Kaczynski, Which, you know, if you came up around 2:22:46.370 --> 2:22:48.570 the time that he came up on the internet and stuff, 2:22:48.850 --> 2:22:51.870 that's not too surprising. Ted K has kind of been 2:22:51.930 --> 2:22:55.370 one of those like internet figures that everybody kind of 2:22:55.390 --> 2:22:57.830 cares about, whether it be a video essay or a 2:22:58.510 --> 2:23:01.590 TikTok or whatever. So he stumbled upon his stuff and 2:23:02.190 --> 2:23:06.670 expressed interest in it. And the available evidence does establish 2:23:06.690 --> 2:23:10.930 that his grievances with the health insurance system basically were 2:23:11.000 --> 2:23:15.699 at the heart of his frustration of his thinking. I 2:23:15.720 --> 2:23:17.960 think he connected his experience to a lot of the 2:23:18.020 --> 2:23:21.900 issues in the broader American zeitgeist related to medical debt 2:23:22.400 --> 2:23:25.500 and denied claims and the bureaucracy of it all, the 2:23:25.540 --> 2:23:30.160 high healthcare costs. And his writings shared a lot of 2:23:30.180 --> 2:23:34.510 frustration with the industry. And so he decided to select 2:23:34.810 --> 2:23:39.209 Brian Thompson as a representative of United Healthcare and almost 2:23:39.250 --> 2:23:42.330 to treat him as an embodiment of the system and 2:23:42.550 --> 2:23:45.300 of his as an individual, but I suppose also as 2:23:45.920 --> 2:23:51.470 a society, the wrath towards the healthcare system. And so Bresci, 2:23:51.629 --> 2:23:56.369 on the other hand, viewed the Milan massacre as something 2:23:56.390 --> 2:24:00.410 that Roberto I was politically responsible for, because he produced 2:24:00.730 --> 2:24:06.660 the regime that rewarded that violence. So by attacking Roberto I, 2:24:06.700 --> 2:24:09.980 Bresci would be attacking both an individual that he considered 2:24:10.000 --> 2:24:12.970 personally culpable for and also the political office of the 2:24:13.010 --> 2:24:15.770 kingship of the monarchy, the head of state of Italy. 2:24:16.290 --> 2:24:19.610 Brian Thompson was the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. He was a 2:24:19.650 --> 2:24:23.670 corporate executive. And UnitedHealthcare is itself part of UnitedHealth group. 2:24:24.590 --> 2:24:26.449 So he was like a big cheese, you know, he 2:24:26.500 --> 2:24:29.280 had a very powerful position, but he wasn't the sovereign 2:24:29.300 --> 2:24:33.580 authority of the American healthcare system. And he could be replaced. 2:24:34.280 --> 2:24:36.420 Of course, in Berthoud I, after he was killed, he 2:24:36.459 --> 2:24:41.129 was also replaced by Victor Emmanuel III. Brian Thompson After 2:24:41.150 --> 2:24:43.720 he died, he got replaced by another executive. So in 2:24:43.750 --> 2:24:46.320 both cases, we see that the office and the institution 2:24:46.400 --> 2:24:50.060 attached to that office survived. The unaligned social relations survived. 2:24:50.840 --> 2:24:53.260 But consequences were felt in other ways, which we'll get to. 2:24:53.280 --> 2:24:57.410 On the day of the assassinations, in both cases, so 2:24:57.709 --> 2:25:00.949 in Bresci's case, it was the 29th of July, 1900. 2:25:00.950 --> 2:25:05.990 He returned from the US, specifically intending to assassinate Umberto. 2:25:06.430 --> 2:25:09.420 He reached Monza, where Umberto was attending a public event. 2:25:09.970 --> 2:25:14.570 He approached him, fired several shots, and Umberto died shortly after. 2:25:14.590 --> 2:25:18.390 And Bresci was immediately captured. The crowd basically seized him, 2:25:19.220 --> 2:25:22.110 and he was taken into custody. He didn't get caught 2:25:22.160 --> 2:25:22.860 at the McDonald's. 2:25:23.840 --> 2:25:24.480 No, he did not. 2:25:24.580 --> 2:25:27.520 He was not at the McDonald's. Mangione, on the other hand, 2:25:28.180 --> 2:25:29.859 he traveled to New York. This was on the 4th 2:25:29.879 --> 2:25:33.539 of December, 2024. He researched Thompson, got information on the 2:25:33.580 --> 2:25:37.900 Investor Conference, positioned himself outside the hotel, waited for him. 2:25:38.670 --> 2:25:43.030 plow shot fled scene was at large for a while. 2:25:43.090 --> 2:25:45.870 If you were on the internet, when this happened, there 2:25:45.890 --> 2:25:48.910 was a lot of celebration. There were condemnations as well, 2:25:48.930 --> 2:25:50.170 but there was a lot of a sense of like 2:25:50.330 --> 2:25:53.330 catharsis about the action that he took. 2:25:53.690 --> 2:25:55.709 Across like the right and the left, right. The most, 2:25:55.750 --> 2:25:58.450 like the combination came from like what you could call 2:25:58.470 --> 2:25:59.550 like the elite class. 2:25:59.750 --> 2:26:00.030 Right. 2:26:00.230 --> 2:26:03.610 But yeah, a lot of people who might have, you know, 2:26:04.129 --> 2:26:07.910 just kind of baseline, like moral scruples against murder. can 2:26:07.940 --> 2:26:10.789 see something like this happen and be like yeah i 2:26:10.810 --> 2:26:13.570 mean it it's a health insurance ceo. 2:26:13.350 --> 2:26:16.949 Yeah so it's not even necessarily endorse it or co-sign 2:26:16.990 --> 2:26:19.770 it but it is that they're just like yeah i get. 2:26:19.590 --> 2:26:22.670 It no it's more so it's understanding that the conditions 2:26:22.709 --> 2:26:25.360 of our society made this almost inevitable in a certain 2:26:25.400 --> 2:26:29.140 sense yeah and to see that sort of structural analysis 2:26:29.200 --> 2:26:31.240 from both the left and the right in the sort 2:26:31.260 --> 2:26:33.920 of days and weeks following the assassination was a very 2:26:33.980 --> 2:26:37.810 interesting moment this big, big like transition point in American 2:26:37.850 --> 2:26:40.720 politics going from, it's like right in Biden's like lame 2:26:40.740 --> 2:26:43.640 duck period, going right into Trump. And you had this, 2:26:43.680 --> 2:26:48.400 this sort of like unfocused, like populist energy. It was, 2:26:48.420 --> 2:26:50.280 you know, very, very bubbled. 2:26:51.280 --> 2:26:51.480 Yeah. 2:26:52.140 --> 2:26:54.539 And so in that period, you know, when Manjuni is 2:26:54.580 --> 2:26:59.199 on the run, eventually he's recognized and arrested in Pennsylvania. 2:27:00.140 --> 2:27:02.940 But in the conversation, both before his capture and after, 2:27:02.959 --> 2:27:07.860 you know, The difference between this assassination and Bresci's assassination 2:27:08.390 --> 2:27:13.330 of Umberto was that the internet was existent. And so 2:27:13.629 --> 2:27:18.280 it was able to spark and stimulate a lot of conversations, sympathy, 2:27:18.920 --> 2:27:24.380 discussion of the health insurance system, arguments about violence. 2:27:24.920 --> 2:27:25.060 Yeah. 2:27:25.830 --> 2:27:29.680 Even treating them as like a folk hero kind of figure, memes. 2:27:30.440 --> 2:27:32.860 You know, this is a kind of a landscape that 2:27:32.900 --> 2:27:36.480 did not exist in the time of those early 20th 2:27:36.520 --> 2:27:40.580 century assassinations. I'm sure people would have had their own 2:27:40.640 --> 2:27:45.220 opinions and thoughts and jokes and perspectives that they would 2:27:45.240 --> 2:27:49.640 have published or shared person to person verbally in the 2:27:49.680 --> 2:27:54.440 times of all those assassinations. But the speed at which 2:27:54.920 --> 2:27:58.980 information just goes around the world nowadays is something that 2:27:59.000 --> 2:28:01.420 we take for granted. Just how much it has changed 2:28:01.480 --> 2:28:06.619 the whole human zeitgeist. So what happened in terms of 2:28:06.660 --> 2:28:13.330 the outcomes for both assassins? Mangione was arrested five days 2:28:13.500 --> 2:28:17.010 after the killing. As I said, he was prosecuted federally 2:28:17.270 --> 2:28:20.769 and by New York State. The federal murder charge that 2:28:20.810 --> 2:28:23.890 could have carried the death penalty was later dismissed. And 2:28:23.910 --> 2:28:27.680 on the 14th of August, 2026, Mangione pleaded guilty to death. 2:28:28.200 --> 2:28:32.490 Two federal stalking charges resulting in death. He explicitly admitted 2:28:32.530 --> 2:28:36.210 in court that he shot Thompson and federal prosecutors are 2:28:36.250 --> 2:28:43.110 seeking a life sentence. Sentencing is scheduled for December 18th, 2026. Meanwhile, 2:28:43.150 --> 2:28:47.439 his separate New York State prosecution is unresolved. because his 2:28:47.500 --> 2:28:50.400 lawyers are arguing that the federal conviction bars a fuller 2:28:50.420 --> 2:28:54.980 prosecution under double jeopardy protections. But the state is disputing 2:28:55.240 --> 2:29:00.119 that argument. Now, as I said, Bresci was captured immediately. 2:29:00.140 --> 2:29:04.230 He was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment. And there 2:29:04.250 --> 2:29:08.050 was suspicions of a plot during his trial. They thought 2:29:08.070 --> 2:29:11.289 that he collaborated with other people. But whenever they brought 2:29:11.310 --> 2:29:13.850 witnesses to the stand, first of all, his wife had 2:29:14.310 --> 2:29:17.280 no idea what he was going to do. In fact, 2:29:17.920 --> 2:29:20.560 she's on the stand and she's like, when he told 2:29:20.580 --> 2:29:21.880 me he was an anarchist, I didn't really know what 2:29:21.900 --> 2:29:24.440 that meant. You know, I thought he was an anarchist, like, 2:29:24.680 --> 2:29:28.580 you know, somebody's like a Catholic, you know? So it's 2:29:28.600 --> 2:29:30.560 kind of interesting to me that he really didn't share. 2:29:30.580 --> 2:29:33.080 You mentioned he had like a sort of separation. 2:29:33.379 --> 2:29:35.959 Yeah, of his domestic life and his politics. He really 2:29:35.980 --> 2:29:39.539 did not let his wife in, in that way, which 2:29:39.600 --> 2:29:43.800 is such a stark contrast to some other notable anarchists. who, 2:29:43.879 --> 2:29:49.560 you know, sometimes the husband-wife pairing were both equally passionate anarchists. 2:29:50.780 --> 2:29:54.180 I think of Parsons, the Parsons, for example. 2:29:54.200 --> 2:29:58.330 Yeah, there's this sort of like anarchist family unit with 2:29:58.370 --> 2:30:00.289 like Emma Goldman even as well, this sort of like 2:30:00.330 --> 2:30:03.510 extended network where you like social and political ties. 2:30:04.270 --> 2:30:08.170 Exactly, exactly. So, and then his comrades, they were brought 2:30:08.190 --> 2:30:09.830 to the stand as well. They're like, yeah, we had 2:30:09.890 --> 2:30:13.110 no idea he was going to do this. Nobody suspected. 2:30:13.450 --> 2:30:15.100 But he would have done it. And so because they 2:30:15.120 --> 2:30:18.420 couldn't find any evidence of a plot, they sentenced him alone. 2:30:18.820 --> 2:30:22.420 He was moved through several prisons before being transferred to 2:30:22.440 --> 2:30:27.900 the remote island prison of Santo Stefano in January of 1901. 2:30:27.900 --> 2:30:30.960 And they chose that island prison because they were afraid 2:30:31.000 --> 2:30:34.350 that his anarchist buddies would try to free him. So 2:30:34.390 --> 2:30:37.650 he was kept on this island prison and then further 2:30:37.830 --> 2:30:40.350 in the island prison is kept in an isolated cell 2:30:40.790 --> 2:30:45.160 under constant guard. He spent basically 23 hours a day 2:30:45.180 --> 2:30:49.410 in solitary confinement with only an hour of exercise in 2:30:49.440 --> 2:30:54.010 a corridor. He couldn't receive visitors or letters, newspapers, books. 2:30:54.850 --> 2:30:57.890 The guards were instructed not to speak to him. His 2:30:57.950 --> 2:31:02.800 diet was of soup and bread and occasionally meat and 2:31:02.840 --> 2:31:05.160 his cell didn't have much in the way of furnishings 2:31:05.220 --> 2:31:09.640 at all. And despite those conditions... The prison officials reported 2:31:09.680 --> 2:31:13.959 that he was mentally coherent and in good spirits. And 2:31:13.980 --> 2:31:18.380 then tragically, on the 22nd of May, 1901, the prison 2:31:18.400 --> 2:31:22.039 authorities announced that Bresci had committed suicide by hanging himself 2:31:22.300 --> 2:31:26.459 from his cell window. To this day, people are questioning 2:31:26.480 --> 2:31:31.359 this official account. Okay. Because for one, prisoners were not 2:31:31.379 --> 2:31:33.740 supposed to have towels in the first place. So how 2:31:33.760 --> 2:31:37.390 could he have hung himself with a towel? Also, He 2:31:37.410 --> 2:31:41.230 was under round the clock surveillance, right? You know, like 2:31:41.270 --> 2:31:43.769 how could he have hung himself for that long if 2:31:43.790 --> 2:31:46.710 he's constantly being watched by guards? You know, he had 2:31:46.790 --> 2:31:49.910 wine and cheese in his cell that was untouched and 2:31:49.990 --> 2:31:53.990 soup as well, which doesn't make sense if you're thinking that, oh, 2:31:54.310 --> 2:31:56.690 I'm going to die today. You're probably going to eat 2:31:56.709 --> 2:31:57.410 your last meal. 2:31:58.050 --> 2:31:58.750 And he didn't do that. 2:31:59.370 --> 2:32:02.310 And on top of that, on top of those circumstances, 2:32:03.129 --> 2:32:06.060 he also had a pending appeal So it's like, why 2:32:06.080 --> 2:32:08.900 would he take his own life before he found out 2:32:08.920 --> 2:32:10.720 the outcome of that appeal? He has a wife and 2:32:10.800 --> 2:32:16.220 children to think about. And an autopsy found that while 2:32:16.280 --> 2:32:20.619 he did die by strangulation, his body was a lot 2:32:20.670 --> 2:32:24.090 more decomposed than it would have been if he had 2:32:24.129 --> 2:32:27.990 died less than 48 hours earlier. So it's possible he 2:32:28.030 --> 2:32:31.609 had died days before they claimed that he died. But 2:32:31.650 --> 2:32:35.189 that discrepancy was literally... Never investigated. They did not care 2:32:35.230 --> 2:32:38.890 to investigate it. He was buried very swiftly on the 2:32:38.930 --> 2:32:42.650 26th of May with his few possessions and the nearly 2:32:42.650 --> 2:32:48.110 100 letters from his wife that the prison authorities never 2:32:48.330 --> 2:32:51.650 allowed him to read. So imagine he got inside jail 2:32:52.010 --> 2:32:55.990 in January. He's there until May. Nearly 100 letters and 2:32:56.010 --> 2:32:56.949 he never got to read any of them. 2:32:57.430 --> 2:32:59.010 Yeah, it's almost like one letter a day. 2:32:59.030 --> 2:33:03.580 So then you look at what happened. other than to 2:33:03.600 --> 2:33:08.369 the individuals in question, you look at the reverberations, the consequences. Well, 2:33:08.430 --> 2:33:12.490 after Umberto was killed, obviously there was shock throughout Italy, 2:33:12.910 --> 2:33:17.270 but the state continued. The assassination just intensified the existing 2:33:17.330 --> 2:33:21.580 fears surrounding anarchist violence and anarchists across Europe and North 2:33:21.590 --> 2:33:25.199 America who were already being subjected to surveillance and repression. 2:33:25.220 --> 2:33:29.520 It basically wrapped up the fervor of that suppression. There 2:33:29.540 --> 2:33:32.420 was a kind of an anarchist terror panic of the period. 2:33:33.170 --> 2:33:37.610 And so that assassination and other incidents kind of served 2:33:37.750 --> 2:33:44.240 as political justification for further repression. In Mangione's case, what 2:33:44.260 --> 2:33:48.859 has actually changed? You know, the corporation still is in operation. 2:33:49.040 --> 2:33:52.780 The business model hasn't changed. The structure of capital insurance 2:33:52.830 --> 2:33:55.950 is still the same. And yet there was public discourse. 2:33:56.010 --> 2:33:58.670 We got a sense of the pulse of the populace, 2:33:58.810 --> 2:34:02.039 how they felt about about this issue, it was like 2:34:02.060 --> 2:34:04.360 a kind of a lightning rod for dissatisfaction. 2:34:04.379 --> 2:34:04.800 Yeah. 2:34:05.640 --> 2:34:08.879 But I think most people have moved on. Mangione's in 2:34:08.900 --> 2:34:11.400 jail right now, probably going to spend the rest of 2:34:11.420 --> 2:34:16.620 his life there. And the public has moved on. 2:34:17.830 --> 2:34:22.670 I think the sort of optimistic future facing read is 2:34:22.709 --> 2:34:27.190 that the incident demonstrates the sort of urgency of this issue. 2:34:27.870 --> 2:34:32.459 which could be channeled into various other forms to dramatically 2:34:32.520 --> 2:34:36.360 change the way the healthcare system works in the US, 2:34:36.920 --> 2:34:40.920 getting rid of private insurance as a necessity or just 2:34:40.959 --> 2:34:43.800 getting rid of it altogether. But yeah, in terms of 2:34:43.860 --> 2:34:48.030 immediate effects, there was a debate on certain kind of 2:34:48.129 --> 2:34:51.450 minor policy changes in the weeks following the assassination, but 2:34:51.890 --> 2:34:55.690 those did not turn into kind of lasting effects. The 2:34:55.730 --> 2:34:59.360 only really lasting effect was on the sort of company 2:34:59.400 --> 2:35:03.650 side is that executives now pay more money for tighter security. 2:35:04.410 --> 2:35:04.670 Yeah. 2:35:05.570 --> 2:35:08.310 And I mean, the lasting effect on the individual side 2:35:08.470 --> 2:35:10.530 is life imprisonment. 2:35:10.930 --> 2:35:11.110 Yeah. 2:35:11.730 --> 2:35:13.869 I mean, and that's one of the issues I have, right? 2:35:13.990 --> 2:35:16.910 With this tactic, it is, I mean, obviously we could 2:35:17.010 --> 2:35:20.699 talk about the more obvious issues, but I think one 2:35:20.720 --> 2:35:22.679 of the issues that I have with this tactic is 2:35:23.240 --> 2:35:25.980 the assassin is taking themselves out of the equation, basically, 2:35:26.660 --> 2:35:31.189 you know, all that they could contribute in terms of 2:35:32.010 --> 2:35:39.629 building networks, building organization, building the momentum of a movement 2:35:40.070 --> 2:35:44.770 or a prefigurative alternative, any kind of resistance, all that 2:35:44.850 --> 2:35:49.730 is basically silenced. And of course, in any struggle, there 2:35:49.750 --> 2:35:52.450 will be martyrs, there will be people who are taken 2:35:52.530 --> 2:35:57.890 out by the state, abducted, imprisoned. But An action like this, 2:35:57.910 --> 2:36:00.190 I think the outcome is with the consequence in terms 2:36:00.230 --> 2:36:04.879 of like taking such an impassioned individual off the board 2:36:05.440 --> 2:36:06.539 of what they could contribute. 2:36:17.650 --> 2:36:20.350 It kind of goes back to the sort of death 2:36:20.390 --> 2:36:23.669 of mass politics and how mass politics was like extinguished 2:36:23.709 --> 2:36:26.250 in the 20th century. the fact that so many people 2:36:26.570 --> 2:36:28.070 feel like they have to turn to these sorts of 2:36:28.090 --> 2:36:33.420 like individualized forms, this lone wolf aspect. I mean, and 2:36:33.430 --> 2:36:35.300 if you take like a deeper look into Mangione's like 2:36:35.360 --> 2:36:40.060 own politics, sort of like libertarian, like tech aspects of it, 2:36:40.060 --> 2:36:42.120 you know, his proximity to like what you would call 2:36:42.140 --> 2:36:45.930 like gray tribe or like post-rationalism, right? This sort of 2:36:45.940 --> 2:36:50.310 like individualist look at the problems of the modern world 2:36:50.410 --> 2:36:56.040 and thinking how you can solve this through like technological solutions, 2:36:56.400 --> 2:37:00.250 or in some cases, just like focusing one's willpower to 2:37:00.350 --> 2:37:04.650 accomplish actions that normal people would consider being like impossible, 2:37:05.650 --> 2:37:08.150 just as such as going to just kill the CEO 2:37:08.209 --> 2:37:11.480 of a healthcare company, right? A sort of quote unquote normal, 2:37:11.580 --> 2:37:13.860 well-adjusted person would just not consider that as like a 2:37:13.900 --> 2:37:17.640 legitimate option. But if you can weaponize your like mind 2:37:17.680 --> 2:37:20.700 in a certain way to like go and achieve things, 2:37:21.480 --> 2:37:23.770 do things that just seem like impossible that aren't like 2:37:23.810 --> 2:37:28.300 real options. Maybe that could have some sort of, butterfly 2:37:28.340 --> 2:37:32.980 effect outcome. But all this exists totally outside of actual 2:37:33.040 --> 2:37:36.580 mass politics and engagement. I think you can see the 2:37:36.620 --> 2:37:40.410 affinity for something like Ted Kaczynski is very evident here. 2:37:40.420 --> 2:37:45.550 Yeah, I think there are parallels more to Kaczynski than 2:37:45.610 --> 2:37:49.420 to Raskin in this case. In terms of the isolation 2:37:49.640 --> 2:37:52.840 of the assassin in question, Bresley was at that point 2:37:53.040 --> 2:37:59.170 integrated in an actual movement and network, whereas both Kaczynski 2:37:59.290 --> 2:38:02.650 and Gianni seemed to have been carrying things out as 2:38:02.709 --> 2:38:04.109 lone actors. 2:38:04.930 --> 2:38:08.130 And that's, you know, very similar to the other kind 2:38:08.170 --> 2:38:12.780 of politician assassinations that we've seen from Shinzo Abe, which 2:38:12.800 --> 2:38:15.440 had a very deep, personal motivation. 2:38:16.440 --> 2:38:17.530 Something like you. 2:38:17.490 --> 2:38:21.110 Know, the attempted assassination of Trump and Butler, where you 2:38:21.150 --> 2:38:23.830 had this much more kind of, you know, school shooter 2:38:23.890 --> 2:38:28.090 type like mindset motivating that rather than like political beliefs. 2:38:28.930 --> 2:38:33.340 And then the Charlie Kirk assassination, I think similar to 2:38:33.500 --> 2:38:36.920 the Luigi one, very kind of like personal frustration taking 2:38:37.260 --> 2:38:39.860 the form of like a very like political act, even 2:38:39.879 --> 2:38:41.760 if it wasn't, you know, tied in with a sort 2:38:41.780 --> 2:38:44.060 of larger political framework. 2:38:45.020 --> 2:38:48.060 Yeah. And I don't really like to say that you know, 2:38:48.280 --> 2:38:52.520 an action worked or didn't work or succeeded or failed. 2:38:52.580 --> 2:38:55.120 Cause it really depends on what your metric is for 2:38:55.140 --> 2:38:58.650 those things. You know, you're going to see like released 2:38:58.690 --> 2:39:01.550 frustration and yeah, it worked, you know, killed someone. 2:39:02.090 --> 2:39:02.330 Yeah. 2:39:02.610 --> 2:39:05.990 It definitely killed someone, you know, get people talking. 2:39:06.030 --> 2:39:06.490 Yeah. 2:39:06.530 --> 2:39:09.150 Got people talking or even saying something like, Oh, like 2:39:09.560 --> 2:39:11.480 my goal was to punish this person. I didn't really 2:39:11.500 --> 2:39:12.600 care what the outcome or anything else. 2:39:13.360 --> 2:39:13.540 Yeah. 2:39:14.720 --> 2:39:16.800 You could even look at it from a propaganda angle 2:39:16.860 --> 2:39:19.640 and say, oh, like this is a symbolic message about like, 2:39:19.660 --> 2:39:22.440 you know, that these people are not untouchable and unreachable. 2:39:23.080 --> 2:39:24.379 But that kind of brings me to the whole like 2:39:24.420 --> 2:39:29.380 raising awareness conversation, which is like, to what end, you know? Yeah, 2:39:29.400 --> 2:39:33.500 you could raise awareness, but what if there's no meaningful 2:39:33.700 --> 2:39:34.830 awareness left to raise? 2:39:35.330 --> 2:39:37.170 Yeah. I mean, in terms of propaganda of the deed, 2:39:38.230 --> 2:39:41.110 everyone already hates health insurance. Yeah. 2:39:41.129 --> 2:39:41.209 Yeah. 2:39:41.750 --> 2:39:45.550 There is public support for universal healthcare, but the sort 2:39:45.590 --> 2:39:51.289 of institutional blockages that are preventing that from happening in 2:39:51.310 --> 2:39:54.530 this country, I don't know if those can be moved 2:39:55.080 --> 2:39:56.820 through propaganda of the deed itself. 2:39:57.959 --> 2:39:58.240 Yeah. 2:39:58.740 --> 2:40:01.420 And to be precise, propaganda of the deed is not 2:40:01.840 --> 2:40:05.180 exclusive to assassinations. It has become kind of synonymous with 2:40:05.260 --> 2:40:08.220 it as a euphemism. But yeah, I get what you're saying. 2:40:08.640 --> 2:40:12.640 The powers that be responsible for The current state affairs 2:40:12.670 --> 2:40:15.220 are not going to be moved by you taking out 2:40:15.980 --> 2:40:16.440 a CEO. 2:40:17.620 --> 2:40:21.300 No, but they can spend more money on security. And 2:40:21.900 --> 2:40:24.199 one of the parallels between these two things that you 2:40:24.220 --> 2:40:26.580 were talking about is the way that there is this 2:40:26.620 --> 2:40:32.119 sort of crackdown on radicals, anarchists, Antifa, if you will. 2:40:32.530 --> 2:40:37.570 despite Luigi Mangione not being a leftist, despite the Trump 2:40:37.590 --> 2:40:44.110 assassination definitely not being a leftist, and the specific political 2:40:44.150 --> 2:40:47.910 motivations of the Charlie Kirk assassination being somewhat unclear, having 2:40:47.950 --> 2:40:52.420 it be seemingly more related to personal motivation based on 2:40:52.440 --> 2:40:56.520 the shooter's romantic partner, rather than connected to a larger 2:40:56.560 --> 2:40:58.959 political framework. Despite all that, despite these things not really 2:40:59.020 --> 2:41:01.980 having the same kind of political connection that assassinations in 2:41:02.000 --> 2:41:05.580 the 60s, 70s, or in this early 20th century had, 2:41:06.520 --> 2:41:09.820 these assassinations still have been used by the administration to 2:41:09.879 --> 2:41:14.080 do a very significant crackdown on the left more broadly, 2:41:14.180 --> 2:41:18.179 whether that's in nonprofits, whether that's union organizing, or that's 2:41:18.230 --> 2:41:21.930 just people protesting. You see that through the Antifa terrorism 2:41:21.970 --> 2:41:29.270 executive order, taking down the Noblogs sites, MSPM7, terrorism charges 2:41:29.310 --> 2:41:32.310 against protestors. it has had those sorts of like similar 2:41:32.350 --> 2:41:33.369 kind of broad effects. 2:41:34.209 --> 2:41:35.230 Yeah. Yeah. 2:41:35.390 --> 2:41:40.590 And so I get why political violence happens, but if 2:41:40.610 --> 2:41:43.769 we want to make a structural change, I think we 2:41:43.810 --> 2:41:46.150 have to address the structure. 2:41:46.580 --> 2:41:46.820 Yes. 2:41:50.680 --> 2:41:52.560 It's an ontology, but you know. 2:41:52.580 --> 2:41:53.760 Well, it's true though. 2:41:53.780 --> 2:41:55.660 I mean, it's the fact that that needs to be 2:41:55.720 --> 2:41:57.840 said in a certain way kind of shows the gravity 2:41:57.879 --> 2:41:59.459 of the situation. Yeah. Yeah. 2:41:59.560 --> 2:42:03.600 Like, You have to address the root motivation of the 2:42:03.640 --> 2:42:06.859 violence in the first place and not just condemn the 2:42:06.879 --> 2:42:10.289 violence or direct the violence. So carry on the violence, 2:42:10.330 --> 2:42:15.490 you know, and reducing structural political problems into an individual or, 2:42:16.709 --> 2:42:19.890 you know, carrying out an action that will lead to 2:42:19.930 --> 2:42:24.560 consequences that go beyond yourself. You know, it's not just 2:42:24.680 --> 2:42:30.320 that Bresci was imprisoned and likely killed in prison. It's 2:42:30.340 --> 2:42:34.099 not just that Ban Joon-hee has been imprisoned. It's that 2:42:34.360 --> 2:42:37.360 what it leads to, what it emboldens. And I hate 2:42:37.400 --> 2:42:40.420 this kind of way of framing it because the state 2:42:40.440 --> 2:42:45.080 doesn't necessarily need an excuse to suppress, to oppress, right? 2:42:45.620 --> 2:42:46.740 So that's not what I was saying, but. 2:42:47.080 --> 2:42:47.379 Totally. 2:42:47.400 --> 2:42:50.440 I'm not saying that, yeah, 100%. 2:42:50.440 --> 2:42:57.180 You know, it adds to the rhetorical ammunition for policing, 2:42:57.260 --> 2:43:04.120 for surveillance, for censorship. for restrictions on organizing, for deportations, 2:43:04.780 --> 2:43:09.700 for greater cooperation among international police forces and things of 2:43:09.740 --> 2:43:12.520 that nature. And so in closing, I did want to 2:43:12.600 --> 2:43:15.340 share some of Malatesta's thoughts on the incident, seeing as 2:43:15.490 --> 2:43:20.090 Malatesta was, you know, involved the guy. They weren't friends. 2:43:20.270 --> 2:43:22.110 I mean, he did save his life, but there's no 2:43:22.129 --> 2:43:24.990 evidence that they were particularly close. But he did write 2:43:25.350 --> 2:43:29.570 an article in response to the Monza tragedy, as he 2:43:29.610 --> 2:43:32.270 calls it. So he had said that every time that 2:43:32.310 --> 2:43:36.510 capitalists and governments perpetrate some extraordinarily criminal act, every time 2:43:36.550 --> 2:43:38.930 that innocents are tortured, every time the savagery of the 2:43:38.970 --> 2:43:43.320 powerful erupts into bloodshed, we deplore that act on account 2:43:43.340 --> 2:43:45.119 of the legacy of hatred it leaves in its wake 2:43:45.420 --> 2:43:47.180 and the seed of vengeance that plants in the minds 2:43:47.220 --> 2:43:49.840 of the oppressed. And then he says, when the pent-up 2:43:49.980 --> 2:43:53.310 anger of protracted tortures bursts into a storm, raises an 2:43:53.330 --> 2:43:56.090 avenging arm and strikes what he reckons is the cause 2:43:56.129 --> 2:43:59.129 of the war, that the guilty parties, the ones responsible, 2:43:59.150 --> 2:44:02.269 are us. I think many of the words that he 2:44:02.370 --> 2:44:05.510 says in this article can really easily be applied to 2:44:05.530 --> 2:44:09.470 the present because he refuses to romanticize the assassination. He 2:44:09.510 --> 2:44:11.950 says that a king has been killed and since a 2:44:11.990 --> 2:44:15.539 king is for all that still a man, that fact 2:44:15.740 --> 2:44:18.879 is to be deplored. But he does ask why such 2:44:18.900 --> 2:44:23.800 an outpouring of sentimentality over one particular misfortune. when thousands 2:44:23.860 --> 2:44:27.700 and millions of human beings are perishing. And importantly, nevertheless, 2:44:27.879 --> 2:44:31.000 the sufferings of royals are human suffering too, and to 2:44:31.020 --> 2:44:34.320 be deployed. But lamentations are pointless if one does not 2:44:34.340 --> 2:44:36.730 look into the root causes and try to eliminate them. 2:44:37.230 --> 2:44:40.510 So he does place responsibility for the Monza tragedy in 2:44:40.530 --> 2:44:42.230 the king's hands, you know? Even if he didn't do 2:44:42.250 --> 2:44:44.119 it directly, he failed to prevent it. 2:44:45.010 --> 2:44:45.690 Yeah, 100%. 2:44:45.690 --> 2:44:47.890 And even if he could not prevent it, he allowed 2:44:47.910 --> 2:44:50.410 it to be done in his name, you know? But 2:44:50.450 --> 2:44:54.600 Maltester still rejects punishment. revenge you know he says we're 2:44:54.640 --> 2:44:57.379 not believers in the right to punish we repudiate revenge 2:44:57.480 --> 2:44:59.379 as a barbaric notion we do not mean to be 2:44:59.440 --> 2:45:03.680 either executioners or avengers and then the calling of liberators 2:45:03.720 --> 2:45:06.900 and peacemakers strikes us as a holier nobler more productive 2:45:07.180 --> 2:45:09.820 calling is me in charge and really the one i 2:45:09.860 --> 2:45:13.200 want to drill here and kind of end on is 2:45:13.220 --> 2:45:15.359 that we know that such singular acts of violence in 2:45:15.379 --> 2:45:19.330 the absence of sufficient preparation by the people remain futile, 2:45:19.350 --> 2:45:23.410 and indeed, by triggering backlashes against which one cannot stand, 2:45:23.830 --> 2:45:26.870 they generate incalculable injury to the very cause they were 2:45:26.890 --> 2:45:31.869 intended to serve. The essential, incontrovertible, purposeful act lies not 2:45:31.910 --> 2:45:34.830 in the physical killing of a king, but in killing 2:45:35.320 --> 2:45:40.010 all kings. from courts, parliaments, and factories, in the hearts 2:45:40.209 --> 2:45:44.110 and minds of people, meaning the eradication of belief in 2:45:44.150 --> 2:45:48.070 the authority principle worshipped by so many other people. And 2:45:48.090 --> 2:45:52.030 so before deploying the ultimate argument to the oppressed, before, 2:45:52.050 --> 2:45:55.280 you know, engaging in any kind of action that would 2:45:55.320 --> 2:45:58.820 involve a kind of extremity of violence, a movement must 2:45:58.860 --> 2:46:03.440 strive to acquire the moral and material strength that is 2:46:03.480 --> 2:46:07.480 needed to minimize the violence needed to bring down the 2:46:07.510 --> 2:46:11.080 system of violence to which humanity is presently subjected. 2:46:12.200 --> 2:46:14.619 I think that's as good a place as any to end. 2:46:15.220 --> 2:46:19.180 Yeah. To be clear, again, to kind of sandwich the disclaimer, 2:46:19.740 --> 2:46:22.160 I am not a fan of assassinations. I do not 2:46:22.560 --> 2:46:25.320 advise it or encourage it. While I recognize that for 2:46:25.379 --> 2:46:28.510 some it can be a source of catharsis and it 2:46:28.550 --> 2:46:32.630 could certainly spark a lot of public conversations, it is 2:46:32.650 --> 2:46:37.349 a far cry from the action necessary for change, you know, 2:46:37.390 --> 2:46:42.850 prefiguration and actions which set up alternatives certainly beats that 2:46:43.610 --> 2:46:48.580 singular heroic, in quotes, act. I think you are better 2:46:48.640 --> 2:46:52.480 served directing your energy and passion toward service to the 2:46:52.520 --> 2:46:58.180 living rather than sacrificing your life to death or life imprisonment. 2:46:58.780 --> 2:47:00.660 In a time like this, I think we need all 2:47:00.780 --> 2:47:05.660 hands on deck. And with that... All powers to all 2:47:05.700 --> 2:47:07.760 the people. Peace. 2:47:08.720 --> 2:47:09.000 Peace. 2:47:23.209 --> 2:47:27.189 This is It Could Happen Here, Executive Disorder, our weekly 2:47:27.230 --> 2:47:30.330 newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world, 2:47:30.370 --> 2:47:32.970 and what this means for you. I'm Garrison Davis. Today 2:47:32.990 --> 2:47:36.930 I'm joined by James Stout and special correspondent Carlos Berrios 2:47:37.010 --> 2:47:40.970 Blanco with a special segment later on by Robert Evans. 2:47:41.830 --> 2:47:43.750 This episode, we are covering the week of November 4th 2:47:43.850 --> 2:47:47.010 to November 11th. James Stout. 2:47:47.720 --> 2:47:49.270 Yeah, you want to talk about some little things? I've 2:47:49.300 --> 2:47:52.990 got quite a few today. I guess I'll start with Turkey. Turkiye, 2:47:53.010 --> 2:47:54.310 I think they want you to call it now. They 2:47:54.330 --> 2:47:56.390 don't want it to sound the same as the bird 2:47:56.410 --> 2:47:57.010 at this time of year. 2:47:57.090 --> 2:47:58.650 Woke 3 is crazy, man. 2:47:59.150 --> 2:47:59.690 Yeah, yeah. 2:48:00.629 --> 2:48:04.180 In Turkey, there's been a fallout between Ahmed Spor and Galatasaray. 2:48:04.240 --> 2:48:05.000 People aren't familiar. 2:48:05.020 --> 2:48:09.619 Ahmed Spor is the biggest Kurdish team. The Galatasaray team's 2:48:09.760 --> 2:48:12.660 shop posted a picture, which they claim was a promotional 2:48:12.720 --> 2:48:15.310 image for a special jersey. It looked a lot like 2:48:15.340 --> 2:48:17.810 the yellow bags that have very painful associations for Kurdish 2:48:17.830 --> 2:48:20.330 people due to their use as body bags during the 2:48:20.370 --> 2:48:23.709 conflict between Turkey The Turkish state and the PKK, but 2:48:23.750 --> 2:48:29.150 it's really blown up in terms of this very unresolved conflict. 2:48:29.170 --> 2:48:31.990 Turkey's in this peace process with the PKK, which is 2:48:32.010 --> 2:48:36.740 dissolving itself, but it's revealed these very deep wounds that 2:48:36.750 --> 2:48:39.780 have been there for a very long time. Obviously, people 2:48:40.360 --> 2:48:42.740 will always say it's just sport, it's just football, but 2:48:42.900 --> 2:48:45.640 very clearly it's more than that. Moving on to Myanmar, 2:48:45.800 --> 2:48:48.359 in recent weeks, the Trump administration has been moving closer 2:48:48.379 --> 2:48:51.519 and closer to Min Aung Hlaing's coup regime in Naypyidaw. 2:48:52.180 --> 2:48:55.340 Trump kind of implicitly recognized this regime when he sent 2:48:55.360 --> 2:48:58.790 that tariff letter. Certainly, that was what the junta went for. 2:48:59.050 --> 2:49:00.949 He sent them a letter about tariffs, and they were like, look, 2:49:00.990 --> 2:49:06.750 he recognizes us. Very kind of pathetic. But they conducted 2:49:06.950 --> 2:49:11.120 direct government-to-government meetings in Japan this year, which is a 2:49:11.180 --> 2:49:17.640 first since the regime overthrew the government right after the election. 2:49:18.280 --> 2:49:22.859 A recently released document entitled the, quote, Integral Country Strategy 2:49:22.900 --> 2:49:25.420 for Burma, the US still calls it Burma, right? It 2:49:25.470 --> 2:49:29.970 never went with Myanmar, outlines four different goals for US engagement. 2:49:30.490 --> 2:49:35.350 Stopping visa overstays, stopping scam compounds, selling United States goods, 2:49:35.709 --> 2:49:38.690 and pushing back against Chinese influence. And it's aiming for 2:49:38.750 --> 2:49:44.720 peace in the region by 2030. So it doesn't mention democracy. Literally, 2:49:44.780 --> 2:49:47.459 I control F to the word democracy in the document. 2:49:47.740 --> 2:49:50.860 It doesn't mention civilian deaths. It doesn't mention political prisoners, right? 2:49:51.680 --> 2:49:54.939 They openly say in this document their goals are mostly extractive. Quote, 2:49:55.020 --> 2:49:58.199 the mission will facilitate at least three multi-stakeholder forums that 2:49:58.230 --> 2:50:03.190 produce concrete agreements or policy proposals advancing fiscal federalism and 2:50:03.270 --> 2:50:07.189 territorial demarcation in Burma, which will create opportunities to access 2:50:07.270 --> 2:50:11.789 Burma's bountiful rare earth resources and combat scam centers. The 2:50:11.810 --> 2:50:15.369 scam centers are a big deal. Like when you get 2:50:15.610 --> 2:50:17.990 one of those, I think they call it spear phishing. 2:50:18.050 --> 2:50:20.500 I guess it's cat phishing, but it's not directly directed 2:50:20.510 --> 2:50:23.000 at you. But when you get those texts that are like, hey, 2:50:23.040 --> 2:50:25.380 we're meeting up tonight, right? And it's from an unknown number, 2:50:26.180 --> 2:50:29.199 very high chance that those people are held against their 2:50:29.240 --> 2:50:33.080 will in scam centers, often in Miaowili or one of 2:50:33.120 --> 2:50:37.390 these areas, one of these zones along the borderlands of Myanmar. 2:50:38.270 --> 2:50:41.110 and the FBI has been going really hard against those 2:50:41.129 --> 2:50:44.570 for the last few months. Rather than engaging with the resistance, 2:50:44.810 --> 2:50:47.370 they have chosen to engage with the coup regime to 2:50:47.410 --> 2:50:52.480 do that. The State Department has also sanctioned three people, 2:50:52.500 --> 2:50:55.459 as did this last week, for trying to help Iran 2:50:55.540 --> 2:50:58.840 work around sanctions to obtain manpads. I'm always kind of 2:50:58.920 --> 2:51:04.430 interested in the illicit market for surface-to-air missiles, right? A 2:51:04.450 --> 2:51:08.490 manpad is a man-portable air defense system. People think of 2:51:08.510 --> 2:51:11.110 like a stinger or something like that, right? Because this 2:51:11.190 --> 2:51:13.890 is still the one area where the states of the 2:51:13.950 --> 2:51:16.750 world kind of have this on lock, right? Like the 2:51:16.850 --> 2:51:19.530 proliferation of manpads has not been as great as proliferation 2:51:19.550 --> 2:51:23.129 of drones, of small arms, even artillery, mortars, stuff like that. 2:51:23.970 --> 2:51:26.170 So these people, it seems, were acting as middlemen to 2:51:26.209 --> 2:51:29.470 help Iran procure Chinese and Russian manpads. At least in 2:51:29.629 --> 2:51:33.080 one instance, they were creating fake end-user certificates in Nigeria 2:51:33.140 --> 2:51:36.430 for them. And then allegedly moving them to the Iranians. 2:51:37.120 --> 2:51:39.800 We know the Iranians had some advanced Chinese manpads, right? 2:51:39.820 --> 2:51:42.360 They shot down that US aircraft or a couple of 2:51:42.420 --> 2:51:47.060 US aircraft. Portsmouth has granted the local RNLI crew, the 2:51:47.100 --> 2:51:49.440 lifeboat crew, the freedom of the city, which is the 2:51:49.480 --> 2:51:52.840 highest civic honor a city can give. I'm sure there's 2:51:52.879 --> 2:51:55.250 another Portsmouth somewhere in the East Coast. They just love 2:51:55.280 --> 2:51:58.289 to name stuff after British towns. But I'm talking about Portsmouth, 2:51:58.350 --> 2:52:01.310 England here. In the process, the council heard of abuse 2:52:01.330 --> 2:52:04.430 directed at lifeboat crews and of their children being bullied 2:52:04.480 --> 2:52:07.860 at school, which is fucking mad to me. 2:52:08.420 --> 2:52:10.660 This is based on the idea that these lifeboat crews 2:52:10.680 --> 2:52:13.900 are helping migrants who are in trouble in the water. 2:52:13.920 --> 2:52:18.459 Yeah, they're not even helping. They're not allowing migrants to drown. 2:52:19.600 --> 2:52:22.000 They are helping anyone who's in peril on the sea, 2:52:22.040 --> 2:52:23.120 which is what they've always done. 2:52:23.140 --> 2:52:23.330 I cannot. 2:52:24.720 --> 2:52:28.640 overstate the extent to which these were a non-partisan. These 2:52:28.660 --> 2:52:32.600 were our Dolly Parton. No one hated the lifeboats when 2:52:32.640 --> 2:52:35.240 I was a kid. Everyone put money in the little 2:52:35.260 --> 2:52:39.040 lifeboat money box. Notably, all the Reform UK council members 2:52:39.080 --> 2:52:43.320 abstained from this vote because they are both bigots and cowards. Finally, 2:52:43.340 --> 2:52:46.779 a general strike today in Spain. Shout out to my people. 2:52:47.140 --> 2:52:49.940 Some of my friends are recording. I saw they were 2:52:49.959 --> 2:52:53.700 playing the International outside the Ministry of Culture on violins 2:52:54.100 --> 2:52:56.970 right before we started recording. It seems great. It is, 2:52:57.010 --> 2:52:59.310 of course, the 90th anniversary of the beginning of the 2:52:59.330 --> 2:53:02.010 Battle of Madrid this week. I was just looking at 2:53:02.050 --> 2:53:05.129 pictures of the Graphic Arts Battalion and the Hairdressers Battalion 2:53:05.190 --> 2:53:08.700 who held off Franco's army 90 years ago today. So 2:53:08.740 --> 2:53:11.720 it's kind of a nice anniversary to be out on 2:53:11.740 --> 2:53:14.500 strike again. But we'll have something about that for you 2:53:14.540 --> 2:53:16.520 next week. Yeah, you had some stuff. 2:53:17.150 --> 2:53:20.390 Yes, and actually in some breaking news, which is breaking 2:53:20.430 --> 2:53:22.670 for us right now, would probably be old news by 2:53:22.690 --> 2:53:26.570 the time this comes out tomorrow. Scott Colom of Mississippi 2:53:27.050 --> 2:53:31.250 is projected by CNN to become the senator of Mississippi. 2:53:31.770 --> 2:53:34.720 The first black person elected to statewide office in Mississippi 2:53:34.780 --> 2:53:36.020 since Reconstruction. 2:53:36.040 --> 2:53:36.800 Jesus wept. 2:53:36.959 --> 2:53:41.380 Beating Republican Sidney Hyde-Smith by just about 4,000 votes. 2:53:41.720 --> 2:53:43.140 Geez. Wow. 2:53:43.540 --> 2:53:44.000 Pretty tight. 2:53:44.640 --> 2:53:47.040 CNN, I think, is the first outlet to call this. 2:53:47.780 --> 2:53:49.140 We'll come in these next few hours. 2:53:49.220 --> 2:53:49.519 Yeah. 2:53:50.379 --> 2:53:51.760 How are things going in Alaska? 2:53:52.080 --> 2:53:55.500 They're still counting, man. It's going to be a little while. 2:53:56.080 --> 2:53:59.070 That's going to be a while. That still might go 2:53:59.080 --> 2:53:59.920 to instant runoff. 2:54:00.190 --> 2:54:03.130 Last I saw, Peltola had more votes than both Dan 2:54:03.170 --> 2:54:06.029 Sullivans combined, which is a good thing, I guess. 2:54:06.390 --> 2:54:06.670 Yeah. 2:54:06.950 --> 2:54:09.490 There's another third party candidate in there, which kind of 2:54:09.510 --> 2:54:10.330 throws a wrench in. 2:54:10.510 --> 2:54:10.890 Yeah. 2:54:10.990 --> 2:54:12.470 I think he's another Republican, right? 2:54:12.570 --> 2:54:12.730 Yeah. 2:54:12.770 --> 2:54:12.990 Yeah. 2:54:14.430 --> 2:54:14.590 Yeah. 2:54:15.129 --> 2:54:17.030 We'll get a closer idea of what's going on there 2:54:17.290 --> 2:54:19.010 in the next week, hopefully. 2:54:19.030 --> 2:54:19.930 Yeah. 2:54:21.040 --> 2:54:25.300 Is Mississippi the one that doesn't have recount, right? He wins? 2:54:26.320 --> 2:54:26.860 Correct. 2:54:27.620 --> 2:54:27.820 Yes. 2:54:28.140 --> 2:54:31.680 Mississippi does not have a recount rule in their state 2:54:31.750 --> 2:54:36.490 election law. And because election laws are largely determined by states, 2:54:36.530 --> 2:54:39.830 not federal authorities, yes, it does not appear like there 2:54:39.850 --> 2:54:40.590 will be a recount rule. 2:54:41.080 --> 2:54:41.679 In this race. 2:54:41.740 --> 2:54:45.680 But Colombe's lead has only grown this past week and 2:54:45.700 --> 2:54:50.280 a half. Now up point, like four or five percentage points. 2:54:50.560 --> 2:54:51.560 So there you go. 2:54:52.620 --> 2:54:53.040 Moving on. 2:54:53.860 --> 2:54:58.100 Amid uncertainty whether AOC will or will not run for 2:54:58.170 --> 2:55:02.449 president in 2028, Zoran Mamdani has been meeting with labor 2:55:02.510 --> 2:55:06.510 leaders to try to consolidate support for a left labor candidate, 2:55:07.030 --> 2:55:10.360 someone that can become the standard bearer for the into 2:55:10.379 --> 2:55:14.000 the next election with the backing of unions to oppose 2:55:14.060 --> 2:55:17.590 the swath of corporate devs who will inevitably attempt to 2:55:17.629 --> 2:55:20.670 take the reins and moderate the populist policies that just 2:55:21.110 --> 2:55:24.529 won Democrats the election. According to a report from Axios, 2:55:24.709 --> 2:55:28.910 Zoran is, quote, arguing that progressives can't afford to squander 2:55:29.010 --> 2:55:34.450 their midterm momentum. Citing sources that have spoken with the mayor, Mamdani, quote, 2:55:34.950 --> 2:55:39.010 wants the progressive ecosystem to mobilize quickly, strategically, and efficiently 2:55:39.030 --> 2:55:43.070 in if a moderate candidate is clearly on the rise, unquote. 2:55:43.990 --> 2:55:48.090 So Zoran has been asking unions which candidates they might like, 2:55:48.290 --> 2:55:51.230 what their endorsement process is, and if certain labor leaders 2:55:51.270 --> 2:55:55.430 themselves would be open to running for office. In the 2:55:55.470 --> 2:55:58.349 past months, Zoran has met with Jimmy Williams Jr., president 2:55:58.370 --> 2:56:01.560 of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, Sarah Nelson, 2:56:01.610 --> 2:56:05.520 president of the Association of Flight Attendants, CWA, and on Wednesday, 2:56:06.090 --> 2:56:10.270 he met with Sean Fain, president of the UAW, who 2:56:10.330 --> 2:56:15.470 is probably the frontrunner for everyone who's not considered a 2:56:15.510 --> 2:56:18.810 frontrunner in this race. In terms of the unexpected, unlikely candidates, 2:56:19.330 --> 2:56:21.430 Fain's name has been thrown around a lot as a 2:56:21.550 --> 2:56:25.170 labor reformer, as someone who has acted very strategically the 2:56:25.190 --> 2:56:28.530 past few years, and has really, really led the UAW 2:56:28.550 --> 2:56:30.709 to some pretty big victories. So it'll be interesting to 2:56:30.750 --> 2:56:33.850 see what comes of these meetings these next few weeks 2:56:33.950 --> 2:56:38.420 as people already start preparing for the next election because 2:56:38.440 --> 2:56:43.790 that's how America works. Speaking of election results, so after 2:56:43.810 --> 2:56:48.129 the Republicans' historic defeat, Speaker Mike Johnson announced that he 2:56:48.170 --> 2:56:53.650 would not be seeking to maintain his leadership position going forward, 2:56:53.730 --> 2:56:56.140 letting his term expire at the start of next year. 2:56:57.240 --> 2:57:02.600 So this week, Republicans held a closed-door secret ballot vote 2:57:03.260 --> 2:57:06.520 to decide who will become the minority leader. Now you 2:57:06.560 --> 2:57:09.690 might think, after their historic defeat, they might, you know, 2:57:10.540 --> 2:57:14.340 and evaluate why they're so off-putting to voters, maybe moderate 2:57:14.360 --> 2:57:17.800 themselves on certain things, maybe pick someone that people find. 2:57:17.680 --> 2:57:18.860 More likable or agreeable. 2:57:19.930 --> 2:57:21.050 No, not at all. 2:57:21.830 --> 2:57:26.070 They elected co-founder of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, Jim Jordan, 2:57:26.590 --> 2:57:30.070 to be the new House Minority Leader for the Republicans 2:57:30.250 --> 2:57:34.590 starting in 2027. So there will be a lot of 2:57:34.690 --> 2:57:38.830 interesting stuff to watch there as the House Freedom Caucus 2:57:38.890 --> 2:57:40.980 really becomes more and more dominant. 2:57:41.000 --> 2:57:44.709 Yeah, actually, I'm... I don't think y'all know this about me, 2:57:44.740 --> 2:57:47.780 but I graduated from Ohio State in 2021, which is 2:57:47.900 --> 2:57:52.400 where Jim Jordan was wrestling coach, if I remember correctly. 2:57:53.260 --> 2:57:59.090 Where he systematically, well, reportedly... knew about and ignored the 2:57:59.190 --> 2:58:02.350 sexual assault of over a hundred wrestlers. 2:58:04.010 --> 2:58:04.349 I don't know. 2:58:04.500 --> 2:58:06.330 Bad guy to have in charge. 2:58:06.850 --> 2:58:07.110 Yeah. 2:58:07.900 --> 2:58:09.660 Not the kind of freedom we're looking for. 2:58:10.520 --> 2:58:11.500 No, absolutely not. 2:58:12.200 --> 2:58:12.340 No. 2:58:12.379 --> 2:58:12.619 Yeah. 2:58:13.040 --> 2:58:15.480 We could definitely do a whole episode in the future 2:58:15.540 --> 2:58:16.720 about Jim Jordan. 2:58:17.480 --> 2:58:17.699 Yes. 2:58:19.360 --> 2:58:21.039 Not as much of like a kind of, you know, 2:58:21.080 --> 2:58:23.900 like an unknown figure the way that Mike Johnson was 2:58:23.940 --> 2:58:26.480 when he, when he secured house speaker position. 2:58:26.740 --> 2:58:27.439 A few years ago. 2:58:27.600 --> 2:58:28.050 Yeah, yeah. 2:58:28.250 --> 2:58:30.350 This is like a very, very known quantity, you know, 2:58:30.370 --> 2:58:32.930 someone that already has a sort of like national reputation. 2:58:33.209 --> 2:58:33.429 Yeah. 2:58:33.690 --> 2:58:35.709 And this signifies that they are not going to, you know, 2:58:36.290 --> 2:58:38.390 back down in any kind of sense or kind of, 2:58:38.750 --> 2:58:40.730 they are going to be putting up a fight in 2:58:40.750 --> 2:58:46.209 the House against the Democrats. Speaking of leadership, though it's 2:58:46.250 --> 2:58:49.950 expected that Hakeem Jeffries will become House Speaker, there is 2:58:49.990 --> 2:58:53.540 growing resistance to Chuck Schumer, assuming the role of Senate 2:58:53.580 --> 2:58:58.480 Majority Leader. New Senators-elect Abdul El-Sayed, Adam Hamilton, Annie Andrews, 2:58:58.520 --> 2:59:03.040 Troy Jackson, Peggy Flanagan, Chris Pappas, and Julianna Stratton have 2:59:03.060 --> 2:59:06.099 said that they will not support Schumer becoming majority leader. 2:59:07.040 --> 2:59:10.650 On Monday, the 600,000-member Machinist Union, the International Association of 2:59:10.670 --> 2:59:13.790 Machinists and Aerospace Workers, sent to Schumer and the full 2:59:13.830 --> 2:59:17.289 Senate Democratic Caucus a letter urging Schumer to quote, not 2:59:17.370 --> 2:59:21.610 seek another term, stating... This week's elections sent a clear message. 2:59:21.870 --> 2:59:24.830 Working people are demanding change. We believe that this is 2:59:24.890 --> 2:59:28.080 the right moment for a new generation to lead Senate Democrats. 2:59:28.920 --> 2:59:33.280 Adding that this moment, quote, will require fresh ideas, new energy, 2:59:33.420 --> 2:59:37.740 and a new generation of leadership. This letter also urged 2:59:37.780 --> 2:59:42.019 Democrats to pass the PRO Act, which would strengthen workers' 2:59:42.260 --> 2:59:46.230 rights and ability to organize to a massive extent. I'm 2:59:46.490 --> 2:59:49.510 putting together an episode on that for the next month 2:59:49.550 --> 2:59:54.650 or so. Union President Brian Bryant, that's a cool name, 2:59:55.510 --> 3:00:00.170 told Politico, quote, the IAM union is through with any 3:00:00.270 --> 3:00:03.950 member of leadership in any political party who stops one 3:00:04.150 --> 3:00:08.430 iota short of being a ferocious, unyielding, and unbending champion 3:00:08.510 --> 3:00:11.270 of working people. On Tuesday in a joint press conference, 3:00:11.820 --> 3:00:18.410 Bernie Sanders and CIA's Michigan Senator Alyssa Slotkin Both signaled 3:00:18.610 --> 3:00:27.310 opposition to Schumer. Bernie said, quote, And Slotkin announced that 3:00:28.530 --> 3:00:33.240 she wouldn't support any candidate until a 100-day priority agenda 3:00:33.580 --> 3:00:37.300 is established. Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen has indicated he's 3:00:37.360 --> 3:00:41.100 open to challenging Schumer. On Tuesday, Schumer said he's, quote, 3:00:41.379 --> 3:00:47.610 And that, quote, We have great unity in our caucus, 3:00:47.730 --> 3:00:49.910 and I'll be proud to lead it as majority leader. 3:00:49.930 --> 3:00:52.310 Yeah. 3:00:52.470 --> 3:00:54.830 So that's the state of the Schumer fiasco. Hopefully we'll 3:00:54.850 --> 3:00:58.890 get even more pressure against him in these next few weeks. 3:00:59.150 --> 3:01:02.750 Do we want to move on to other shitty Dem events? 3:01:03.350 --> 3:01:04.130 It's an endless. 3:01:04.250 --> 3:01:05.130 It's a. 3:01:05.129 --> 3:01:09.290 Rich source of content for the pod, yeah. We'll be 3:01:09.310 --> 3:01:11.209 here for a minute. Don't worry, guys. 3:01:11.310 --> 3:01:12.770 We're not going to run out of shit to do 3:01:12.830 --> 3:01:17.760 when Blue January comes. Let's talk about impeaching Pete Hegseth, 3:01:17.980 --> 3:01:20.900 or not impeaching Pete Hegseth, as it turns out. So, 3:01:21.420 --> 3:01:24.340 impeachment articles for Pete Hegseth were introduced this week by 3:01:24.400 --> 3:01:27.910 Thomas Massey. Massey is a Republican who lost his primary, 3:01:27.940 --> 3:01:29.790 so he won't be returning to the House in January. 3:01:30.350 --> 3:01:32.610 He was in Kentucky's 4th District, and his primary was 3:01:32.629 --> 3:01:35.770 the most expensive House primary in history. Talked a bit 3:01:35.810 --> 3:01:39.920 about some of the absolutely bonkers AI attack ads. Maybe 3:01:39.940 --> 3:01:42.320 those succeeded. Maybe those are what took the balance. Unfortunately, 3:01:42.360 --> 3:01:45.600 he didn't win. Trump backed his opponent because Massey had 3:01:45.640 --> 3:01:48.680 opposed the so-called Big Beautiful Bill and aid to Israel. 3:01:49.360 --> 3:01:50.470 Massey's not a good person. 3:01:50.860 --> 3:01:53.990 He has lots of absolutely reprehensible views, but at least 3:01:54.010 --> 3:01:56.710 he's not a coward, which really distinguishes him from, I think, 3:01:56.750 --> 3:01:59.410 a lot of the Republican caucus these days, like, you know, 3:01:59.510 --> 3:02:01.230 all the guys who talk shit on Donald Trump and 3:02:01.250 --> 3:02:01.929 then fell in line. 3:02:02.390 --> 3:02:03.129 Yeah, yeah. 3:02:03.450 --> 3:02:05.710 Like, Massey believes in his things and he believes in 3:02:05.750 --> 3:02:07.870 them and I don't agree with any of them. Well, 3:02:07.990 --> 3:02:10.830 apart from this one, I guess. But, Yeah, at least 3:02:10.870 --> 3:02:14.770 he's going down fighting. He introduced eight articles. Three of 3:02:14.810 --> 3:02:17.170 the articles deal with alleged violations of the War Powers 3:02:17.270 --> 3:02:20.599 Act and continuing the war in Iran without congressional approval. 3:02:21.220 --> 3:02:23.140 So I think Hegseth and Rubio, they thought they could 3:02:23.360 --> 3:02:25.080 make an end run around this by giving it a 3:02:25.100 --> 3:02:30.060 different name every few weeks and claiming each bombing salvo, 3:02:30.240 --> 3:02:32.310 each few weeks of bombing was a separate mission. 3:02:32.470 --> 3:02:33.490 Each bomb was a new war. 3:02:33.750 --> 3:02:33.990 Yes. 3:02:35.090 --> 3:02:37.709 Completely different, not requiring congressional approval. 3:02:38.520 --> 3:02:42.150 Massey also alleges Hegsworth ignored laws that minimise civilian casualties, 3:02:42.209 --> 3:02:44.280 extra-judicially killed at least 243 people in drone strikes on boats. 3:02:47.100 --> 3:02:50.250 Kidnapped a sovereign foreign leader in the operation against Maduro, 3:02:50.450 --> 3:02:53.789 and suppressed free speech by attacking Senator Mark Kelly and 3:02:53.810 --> 3:02:57.410 threatening to weaponize the military justice system against him, as 3:02:57.450 --> 3:02:59.890 well as conducted an unlawful war in Yemen. 3:03:00.129 --> 3:03:02.080 All things that are pretty easily proven. 3:03:02.160 --> 3:03:05.939 Yes, all things that we have much of evidence for, 3:03:06.000 --> 3:03:08.360 much of which was shared on the Department of War's 3:03:08.480 --> 3:03:08.900 X account. 3:03:09.220 --> 3:03:09.459 Yeah. 3:03:09.600 --> 3:03:12.460 He's been trying to do this since September, but House 3:03:12.500 --> 3:03:15.420 leaders recessed the chamber early. He was able to force 3:03:15.459 --> 3:03:18.090 a vote yesterday. At a press conference, he made the 3:03:18.129 --> 3:03:21.820 case for Republicans doing this now. Quote, what is an impeachment? 3:03:21.930 --> 3:03:24.060 An impeachment is just firing someone, really. You don't go 3:03:24.120 --> 3:03:26.180 to prison. You don't go to jail. You don't pay 3:03:26.220 --> 3:03:29.060 a fine, he said. But the Democrats are going to 3:03:29.080 --> 3:03:32.060 have hearings. They won't just have eight articles of impeachment. 3:03:32.100 --> 3:03:34.000 The Democrats are going to bring people in here who 3:03:34.020 --> 3:03:36.740 have served under him and with him, give them protection. 3:03:37.400 --> 3:03:39.439 So he's suggesting that it'll be worse for Hegseth if 3:03:39.459 --> 3:03:42.600 they do this later. Initially, it seemed like some Republicans 3:03:42.650 --> 3:03:45.050 got behind this argument. And it could be a way 3:03:45.070 --> 3:03:47.789 for Republicans to distance themselves from this completely failed war 3:03:47.830 --> 3:03:51.510 in Iran, right? Here's James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky, 3:03:51.550 --> 3:03:54.130 talking to News Nation. What do you want to see 3:03:54.170 --> 3:03:56.599 done with Pete Hegseth, sir? There's a lot of talk about, 3:03:56.640 --> 3:04:00.340 you know, could Democrats bring forth articles of impeachment against 3:04:00.400 --> 3:04:01.640 him as soon as next week? 3:04:02.120 --> 3:04:03.900 Do you want to see somebody new in that spot? 3:04:05.560 --> 3:04:08.040 Well, that's going to be a decision that President Trump's 3:04:08.080 --> 3:04:10.140 going to have to make. But I can tell you 3:04:10.320 --> 3:04:12.800 with a high level of confidence that. 3:04:12.700 --> 3:04:13.820 There's a lot of. 3:04:15.280 --> 3:04:16.959 Questions about headsets. 3:04:17.200 --> 3:04:20.359 We have no idea what the strategy is moving forward 3:04:20.420 --> 3:04:20.959 in Iran. 3:04:21.500 --> 3:04:23.000 No one's happy about Iran. 3:04:23.300 --> 3:04:26.259 And I think the Republican voters are more upset about 3:04:26.379 --> 3:04:27.600 what's going on in Iran. 3:04:27.379 --> 3:04:28.240 Than the Democrat voters. 3:04:28.620 --> 3:04:31.240 And that's all I heard from Republican voters, people that 3:04:31.280 --> 3:04:35.410 have been MAGA for years. The last 12 years, they 3:04:35.420 --> 3:04:38.709 had MAGA flags in their yard, wore MAGA caps. I mean, 3:04:39.090 --> 3:04:43.010 they are mad that we're in this situation in Iran. 3:04:43.030 --> 3:04:44.530 They're mad over gas prices. 3:04:45.150 --> 3:04:47.850 And a lot of them stayed home. I do not think, at. 3:04:47.810 --> 3:04:52.410 Least in Kentucky, I don't think that these upset MAGA 3:04:52.450 --> 3:04:54.450 people voted Democrat. 3:04:54.490 --> 3:04:55.730 They just didn't vote. 3:04:56.310 --> 3:04:57.830 I thought it was really interesting to see him being 3:04:57.850 --> 3:04:59.530 kind of a bit more candid on that. Of course, 3:04:59.550 --> 3:05:02.470 he voted to send this to committee, which effectively killed it, right? 3:05:02.490 --> 3:05:02.670 Yeah. 3:05:03.300 --> 3:05:06.119 Decided not to continue with the impeachment. Should we play 3:05:06.150 --> 3:05:08.470 Donald Trump's take where he says, what about impeaching the 3:05:08.490 --> 3:05:09.530 generals who did Vietnam? 3:05:09.990 --> 3:05:10.330 Why not? 3:05:10.570 --> 3:05:11.650 Let's hear from the president. 3:05:12.070 --> 3:05:15.030 And he certainly, I think he's won the war in Iran, 3:05:15.070 --> 3:05:16.410 but he's certainly winning the war. 3:05:16.550 --> 3:05:17.930 Iran would love to make a deal. 3:05:19.170 --> 3:05:22.220 And they've been obliterated, their Navy, their Air Force. 3:05:23.200 --> 3:05:27.740 So he won the war. in two places, two big places, 3:05:27.840 --> 3:05:30.820 very important, very impactful. And they were one. They're not 3:05:30.860 --> 3:05:32.420 like Vietnam, where nothing. 3:05:32.180 --> 3:05:36.699 Was won, or Afghanistan, or Iraq, or any of these wars, 3:05:36.740 --> 3:05:39.820 where nothing was won. There was nothing won. Just lots 3:05:39.879 --> 3:05:42.960 of death, and then let's leave. In one case, they're 3:05:43.000 --> 3:05:45.200 not going to have a nuclear weapon. In the other, 3:05:45.540 --> 3:05:48.800 we're making hundreds of billions of dollars for this country. 3:05:50.140 --> 3:05:55.060 So I say this. Pete Hexseth won two wars. Oh, 3:05:55.300 --> 3:06:00.760 let's impeach him. What about impeaching the gentleman from Biden, 3:06:01.580 --> 3:06:05.350 his person that disappeared for two weeks and nobody had 3:06:05.410 --> 3:06:08.910 any idea where he was? What about impeaching the people 3:06:08.970 --> 3:06:12.670 that ran the Vietnam War? What about impeaching that ran 3:06:12.750 --> 3:06:18.030 Iraq and Afghanistan and all of these other wars where 3:06:18.660 --> 3:06:20.260 thousands of lives have been? 3:06:20.520 --> 3:06:24.870 You know, we lost 18 people. people, 18. 3:06:24.870 --> 3:06:29.490 They lost 65,000 in Vietnam. We're in there for seven months. 3:06:29.570 --> 3:06:33.310 They're in there for 21 years. What about impeaching those people? 3:06:33.670 --> 3:06:37.220 What about impeaching the leaders of these stupid wars that 3:06:37.240 --> 3:06:38.540 were done when nothing was gained? 3:06:39.100 --> 3:06:41.279 Some actually very compelling points from the president here. 3:06:42.100 --> 3:06:45.420 Yeah. Impeach every president. Something we can get behind. 3:06:45.440 --> 3:06:45.520 Yeah. 3:06:45.560 --> 3:06:50.080 None of these people are in office to be impeached. Nonetheless, 3:06:50.420 --> 3:06:52.980 fascinating take from the president. I think his chance that 3:06:53.000 --> 3:06:57.209 they'd won the war is not the consensus opinion. This 3:06:57.250 --> 3:07:01.890 vote for impeachment was very close, 204 to 205. vote 3:07:02.180 --> 3:07:05.349 sent it to committee, right, which effectively kills it. 11 Dems, 3:07:05.730 --> 3:07:09.580 no showed. Seven Republicans, also no showed. Interestingly, at least 3:07:09.620 --> 3:07:12.679 two of those Republicans did vote on other measures yesterday, 3:07:13.060 --> 3:07:15.460 just in some cases, just a few minutes before, right? 3:07:16.020 --> 3:07:18.110 So it seems like that was an active abstention choice 3:07:18.330 --> 3:07:22.310 in their part of the 11 Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi. 3:07:22.610 --> 3:07:25.310 And I should say, Israel comes to me in my dreams, 3:07:25.330 --> 3:07:25.930 Haley Stevens. 3:07:27.090 --> 3:07:32.000 Yes, not surprising that Haley Stevens didn't vote. 3:07:32.959 --> 3:07:34.400 I think no one's seen her for a minute. 3:07:35.060 --> 3:07:38.359 Four Democratic legislators have blamed a traffic jam in the 3:07:38.400 --> 3:07:40.780 Capitol for their failure to do their jobs. When I 3:07:40.800 --> 3:07:43.820 was 14 and I washed dishes at a caravan park, 3:07:43.900 --> 3:07:45.650 if I had said, sorry, I didn't show up today, 3:07:45.670 --> 3:07:48.090 there was a traffic jam, people would have laughed at 3:07:48.129 --> 3:07:50.590 me and then I would not have got paid or 3:07:50.709 --> 3:07:53.390 asked back. But I guess that's fine if you're a representative. 3:07:54.250 --> 3:07:54.990 It's embarrassing. 3:07:55.030 --> 3:08:00.300 And this also highlights Hakeem Jeffries' inability to actually lead 3:08:00.340 --> 3:08:02.960 the caucus. If you can't whip these people into being 3:08:03.040 --> 3:08:04.599 their for this vote. 3:08:04.620 --> 3:08:07.120 Well, he didn't whip the vote. Yes, exactly. 3:08:07.560 --> 3:08:10.180 He made a choice. He made a choice. I'm going 3:08:10.200 --> 3:08:12.300 to get onto Hakeem in a second here. I want 3:08:12.320 --> 3:08:14.260 to point out that I'm not certain why these people 3:08:14.280 --> 3:08:17.160 weren't in the House. It does seem to coincide with 3:08:17.200 --> 3:08:19.650 a PAC event for the elect Democratic women PAC at 3:08:19.690 --> 3:08:23.990 a restaurant nearby. And it seems like they went somewhere 3:08:24.310 --> 3:08:26.110 out of the House. and then weren't able to get 3:08:26.150 --> 3:08:28.890 back in time because of traffic. Some reporters have reported 3:08:28.910 --> 3:08:31.490 that other legislators were able to get back in time 3:08:31.550 --> 3:08:34.170 either by walking or getting dropped off on the Senate side. 3:08:35.190 --> 3:08:37.830 I should note that Lou Correa, who's a Democrat from California, 3:08:37.900 --> 3:08:39.900 had said beforehand that he was having a medical procedure 3:08:39.920 --> 3:08:42.200 and he would miss a vote. Pelosi, it seems, this 3:08:42.260 --> 3:08:44.480 is fucking remarkable. I love this, sir. She was on 3:08:44.560 --> 3:08:46.580 her way to a Veterans Day event where she was 3:08:46.620 --> 3:08:47.200 being honored. 3:08:49.500 --> 3:08:53.250 Which is just remarkable for her contributions to veterans. Now, 3:08:54.030 --> 3:08:56.350 we need to be fair and balanced here. Nancy Pelosi 3:08:56.390 --> 3:08:58.650 has ensured that there are a shit ton of veterans 3:08:58.709 --> 3:09:01.690 in this country by spending her whole life doing fuck 3:09:01.770 --> 3:09:03.230 all about America's Forever Awards. 3:09:03.770 --> 3:09:06.690 Yeah, that's really, that's chef's kiss. 3:09:07.310 --> 3:09:07.650 Yeah. 3:09:07.690 --> 3:09:09.150 That shit's so on the nose. 3:09:09.410 --> 3:09:10.350 Yeah, right. 3:09:11.110 --> 3:09:13.170 In an interview less than a week ago with ABC, 3:09:13.209 --> 3:09:15.850 Hakeem Jeffries had said he was a, quote, hard yes 3:09:16.050 --> 3:09:20.130 on impeaching Hegseth. But on Tuesday, he told a Politico reporter, quote, 3:09:20.570 --> 3:09:22.610 I haven't had a conversation with anyone on the floor 3:09:22.650 --> 3:09:24.590 team about what may or may not have happened in 3:09:24.610 --> 3:09:26.830 terms of the Hegseth resolution. But this is not the 3:09:26.870 --> 3:09:29.910 end of it. It's just the beginning. According to Laura Bassett, 3:09:30.110 --> 3:09:33.090 she's editor-in-chief at Jezebel, Jeffries didn't whip the vote and 3:09:33.110 --> 3:09:35.190 he told people to, quote, vote their conscience. 3:09:35.530 --> 3:09:36.150 Embarrassing. 3:09:36.350 --> 3:09:39.400 Great stuff, man. Not even a fucking week. And you've 3:09:39.420 --> 3:09:43.820 already failed miserably, right? Like you have all this momentum 3:09:44.620 --> 3:09:47.420 and you take it and just belly flop. Dems got 3:09:47.440 --> 3:09:51.619 to be Dems, I guess. Just talking of bipartisanship in 3:09:51.640 --> 3:09:56.200 the Senate this time, I want to talk briefly about Baja, B-A-A-J-A. 3:09:56.780 --> 3:09:59.400 Some people call it Baja, but it's got an extra A. 3:10:00.060 --> 3:10:02.379 I made a Natural Causes episode about this yesterday, which 3:10:02.420 --> 3:10:04.439 we'll link in the show notes, which will go into 3:10:04.490 --> 3:10:07.029 much more detail. But the long and the short of 3:10:07.090 --> 3:10:08.650 it is that Mike Lee and his friends are on 3:10:08.670 --> 3:10:11.910 their bullshit again. This time, it is with a bipartisan 3:10:11.930 --> 3:10:15.970 bill which normally speeds up permitting, but in practice makes much, 3:10:16.590 --> 3:10:21.289 massive concessions in treaty rights for indigenous people. It waives 3:10:21.510 --> 3:10:26.240 cornerstone environmental endangered species laws, stops the judiciary having power 3:10:26.900 --> 3:10:29.939 to slow down or stop projects which violate things like 3:10:30.080 --> 3:10:34.259 the Endangered Species Act, the National Register of Historic Places, NEPA, 3:10:34.840 --> 3:10:40.050 all these absolutely cornerstone pieces of legislation which protect the 3:10:40.090 --> 3:10:43.270 land and animals and indigenous people. It is couched in 3:10:43.510 --> 3:10:46.459 language about green energy and but it could equally well 3:10:46.500 --> 3:10:48.900 be used for data centers and pipelines. And you know, 3:10:48.940 --> 3:10:50.599 that's what it's going to end up being used for, right? 3:10:50.640 --> 3:10:52.519 This is a really bad piece of legislation, and it 3:10:52.600 --> 3:10:55.330 passed with three quarters of the vote in the Senate. Yeah, 3:10:55.370 --> 3:10:57.590 listen to my other episode for more on how bad 3:10:57.610 --> 3:10:58.930 it is and what you can do to oppose it. 3:10:59.390 --> 3:11:02.610 Let's go on an ad break and then return for 3:11:02.670 --> 3:11:20.010 some more news. We are back. Let's let's stick on 3:11:20.070 --> 3:11:24.500 the Trump Washington, D.C. train here and talk about Trump's 3:11:24.500 --> 3:11:27.860 60 Minutes interview. The first sit down interview since the 3:11:27.900 --> 3:11:32.580 election with New York Times conservative columnist Ross Douthat, who 3:11:32.620 --> 3:11:36.010 was added to the 60 Minutes roster by the Weiss 3:11:36.230 --> 3:11:41.420 Brain Trust earlier this year. He did not a terrible job, frankly. 3:11:41.440 --> 3:11:44.240 I think because he comes from this notable conservative background, 3:11:44.280 --> 3:11:45.900 he was able to kind of have more leeway with 3:11:45.940 --> 3:11:49.140 Trump than some other interviewers. You know, under no circumstances 3:11:49.160 --> 3:11:52.170 do you got to hand it to Ross. But this 3:11:52.190 --> 3:11:57.650 was not a terrible piece of interview journalism, I suppose. 3:11:58.290 --> 3:12:01.690 Right off the bat, Trump blames the Republicans' midterm defeat 3:12:01.709 --> 3:12:03.160 on the fact that he was not on the ballot, 3:12:03.480 --> 3:12:07.480 as he has been saying continually. Though Trump did list 3:12:07.500 --> 3:12:10.279 a few other reasons for their loss, including that voters, quote, 3:12:10.700 --> 3:12:14.379 didn't like the candidates, didn't like the war, and didn't 3:12:14.440 --> 3:12:19.700 like the fact that gasoline went up, unquote. Some stunning 3:12:20.000 --> 3:12:24.840 analysis there from the president. Early on and throughout the interview, 3:12:24.920 --> 3:12:28.800 Trump boasted about how good the economy actually is, claiming 3:12:28.820 --> 3:12:33.180 that we have, quote, historically good numbers and lamented Republicans, quote, 3:12:33.379 --> 3:12:35.580 bad messaging around the economy. 3:12:36.230 --> 3:12:39.730 The numbers that we have are historically good numbers. I 3:12:39.770 --> 3:12:41.940 think it was bad messaging, maybe by me, but I 3:12:41.950 --> 3:12:43.160 would talk about it all the time. 3:12:43.180 --> 3:12:44.680 So I don't know how much can I talk about it? 3:12:45.680 --> 3:12:53.000 Look, the press doesn't cover positive news for Republicans. 3:12:53.650 --> 3:12:56.370 He has been talking about it all the time. And 3:12:56.570 --> 3:13:00.360 that's part of the issue. Voters have heard from Trump 3:13:00.379 --> 3:13:03.240 and other Republicans. They have heard their message about how 3:13:03.300 --> 3:13:06.160 great the economy is. But that message has not resonated 3:13:06.220 --> 3:13:10.720 with working people. Previously, Trump has called affordability concerns a hoax. 3:13:11.400 --> 3:13:15.580 And Jim Jordan, the upcoming Republican minority leader, responded to 3:13:15.650 --> 3:13:17.990 rising gas prices by saying, that's life. 3:13:19.830 --> 3:13:20.470 Great stuff. 3:13:22.010 --> 3:13:24.970 But in this 60 Minutes interview, Trump complains that his 3:13:25.010 --> 3:13:28.810 administration and Republican candidates just, quote, couldn't get the word 3:13:28.850 --> 3:13:33.140 across about the, quote, highest stock market in history. 3:13:33.379 --> 3:13:34.080 Jesus Christ. 3:13:34.400 --> 3:13:37.800 We have created wealth at a level that our country 3:13:37.840 --> 3:13:39.039 has never seen before. 3:13:39.160 --> 3:13:42.390 Including for yourself. There's a Forbes story that said that 3:13:42.450 --> 3:13:46.160 your net worth... maybe it's changed with the stock market recently, 3:13:46.200 --> 3:13:48.779 but your net worth went up by $ 3 billion. 3:13:48.740 --> 3:13:50.720 Since you returned. 3:13:51.000 --> 3:13:52.599 Okay, you ready? 3:13:52.910 --> 3:13:54.830 My net worth did not go up by $ 3 billion. 3:13:54.850 --> 3:13:58.670 Well, you should have had stock. 3:13:58.709 --> 3:13:59.510 I should have had stock. 3:14:00.050 --> 3:14:00.930 Excuse me. 3:14:01.230 --> 3:14:03.369 How did it go up by $ 3 billion? 3:14:03.570 --> 3:14:06.570 Well, let me explain. I devote almost no time to 3:14:06.850 --> 3:14:07.750 my net worth. I don't care. 3:14:07.770 --> 3:14:10.510 I have a lot of money and far more than 3:14:10.550 --> 3:14:14.310 I ever thought I'd have. And I guess it's gone up. 3:14:14.540 --> 3:14:16.420 I don't even know. Incredible. 3:14:16.820 --> 3:14:17.879 Incredible. 3:14:18.860 --> 3:14:19.700 Incredible. 3:14:19.840 --> 3:14:21.619 That's why they lost the election, man. 3:14:21.660 --> 3:14:23.700 Like among other things, but like. 3:14:24.040 --> 3:14:24.380 Yeah. 3:14:24.580 --> 3:14:26.440 Shitting on people for being poor. 3:14:27.160 --> 3:14:30.180 Should have had stock losers. Like, yeah, this is this 3:14:30.420 --> 3:14:33.490 exact same mistake that Biden, Harris and the Democrats made 3:14:33.990 --> 3:14:35.890 during the era of like Joe Flation. 3:14:36.070 --> 3:14:36.270 Right. 3:14:36.290 --> 3:14:39.710 With with these tone deaf statements about how Bidenomics is working. 3:14:39.830 --> 3:14:40.030 Right. 3:14:40.129 --> 3:14:40.629 Yeah. 3:14:40.770 --> 3:14:44.279 This is the problem with like like the so-called K-shaped economy. Yeah, 3:14:44.300 --> 3:14:46.459 if you have money, the economy is doing fine. If 3:14:46.500 --> 3:14:49.619 you don't, if you don't have assets, you are completely fucked. 3:14:49.879 --> 3:14:50.080 Yeah. 3:14:51.080 --> 3:14:53.129 Like no one really fucking cares what the stock market's 3:14:53.150 --> 3:14:55.030 doing if they can't afford to fill up their gas tank. 3:14:55.070 --> 3:14:55.330 Yeah. 3:14:55.390 --> 3:14:57.670 I find it really interesting that Trump comes at this 3:14:57.690 --> 3:14:59.850 from the point of like, man, I don't know what 3:14:59.890 --> 3:15:02.010 went wrong. I've been talking about this all the time. 3:15:02.350 --> 3:15:04.160 How could this not have worked? And like, yeah, it's 3:15:04.190 --> 3:15:08.160 because you have been talking about it. It's because you're 3:15:08.180 --> 3:15:10.200 bragging about having an extra $ 3 billion. 3:15:10.220 --> 3:15:10.660 Yeah. 3:15:11.600 --> 3:15:14.970 It's one of the more stunning points of the interview. Now, 3:15:14.990 --> 3:15:18.590 in terms of the other reasons for why Republicans maybe 3:15:18.610 --> 3:15:23.209 did not do very well in the midterms, Trump remarked 3:15:23.230 --> 3:15:27.289 that there, quote, seems to be an incredible dislike for Israel. 3:15:28.330 --> 3:15:31.190 And on that note, Trump was asked about Vice President 3:15:31.250 --> 3:15:35.640 Vance's post-election analysis and specifically whether the Iran war was 3:15:35.780 --> 3:15:37.440 worth losing the midterms. 3:15:38.180 --> 3:15:39.760 The only thing I wish he would have said there, 3:15:41.020 --> 3:15:42.940 if he felt it, and you'd have to ask him 3:15:43.000 --> 3:15:45.490 about that, But if you had it to do again, 3:15:45.550 --> 3:15:46.810 would you do it? You know, it's part of a 3:15:46.870 --> 3:15:50.230 decision making process. And my answer is an emphatic yes, 3:15:50.310 --> 3:15:52.550 because you can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon. I 3:15:52.590 --> 3:15:56.150 think historically, this will be a very good decision. Is 3:15:56.209 --> 3:15:58.770 it a good decision for today and tomorrow? 3:15:58.810 --> 3:15:59.350 Maybe not. 3:15:59.870 --> 3:16:00.890 Maybe not. 3:16:01.730 --> 3:16:06.650 So Trump somewhat signals he somewhat agreed with Vance's post-election 3:16:06.670 --> 3:16:09.480 screed that we reported on last week, except for this 3:16:09.500 --> 3:16:11.900 sort of question of like, even if that's all true, 3:16:12.830 --> 3:16:14.610 is the decision to go to war with Iran, is 3:16:14.629 --> 3:16:15.360 that still worth it? 3:16:15.430 --> 3:16:17.420 And Trump emphatically says, yes. 3:16:18.580 --> 3:16:22.199 In an interview later on, I think from this past week, 3:16:22.500 --> 3:16:25.480 Trump remarked, quote, a lot of people didn't like his, 3:16:25.920 --> 3:16:29.920 being Vance's, comments. But throughout this 60 Minutes interview, Trump 3:16:29.940 --> 3:16:33.330 said that he's not looking to escalate the war, claiming 3:16:33.350 --> 3:16:36.750 that we have, quote, won the war with Iran, and 3:16:36.790 --> 3:16:39.669 that Iran is, quote, withering away as a country. 3:16:40.670 --> 3:16:41.619 Also noting that we. 3:16:41.530 --> 3:16:45.000 Were, quote, close to making a deal before the election, 3:16:45.200 --> 3:16:49.010 insinuating that the election disrupted a deal to officially end 3:16:49.070 --> 3:16:53.580 the war with Iraq. But in particular, Trump defended his 3:16:53.640 --> 3:16:57.120 war on Iran on the basis of saving Israel. 3:16:57.140 --> 3:16:58.500 Tell me about it. 3:16:58.520 --> 3:17:03.000 Israel would not exist except for Donald Trump, because we 3:17:03.040 --> 3:17:05.620 went in with those beautiful B-2 bombers more than a 3:17:05.640 --> 3:17:09.260 year ago, And we hit the three sites at the time. 3:17:09.280 --> 3:17:11.210 You know, I call it nuclear dust. They were loaded 3:17:11.270 --> 3:17:14.750 up with nuclear dust. They were two weeks away from 3:17:14.810 --> 3:17:17.029 having a nuclear weapon. 3:17:17.610 --> 3:17:18.010 Two weeks. 3:17:18.390 --> 3:17:18.640 Fuck. 3:17:18.660 --> 3:17:19.220 Two weeks away. 3:17:19.440 --> 3:17:20.100 Always are. 3:17:20.220 --> 3:17:21.500 Yeah, the perpetual two weeks. 3:17:21.800 --> 3:17:23.760 Must really suck if you're an Iranian scientist who has 3:17:23.780 --> 3:17:26.640 spent your entire career just stuck at that fortnight period. 3:17:27.330 --> 3:17:32.310 You're always doing the ultimate mythos of his story of 3:17:32.370 --> 3:17:35.270 you're so close to the top of the hill and 3:17:35.310 --> 3:17:38.500 the U.S. comes in, rolls the boulder back down. I'm 3:17:39.500 --> 3:17:41.500 going to skip ahead like 40 seconds to the next 3:17:41.520 --> 3:17:42.180 thing Trump says. 3:17:42.600 --> 3:17:46.100 We decapitated their nuclear arsenal. If I didn't do that, 3:17:46.160 --> 3:17:48.640 there would be no Israel right now. Israel would be gone. 3:17:49.990 --> 3:17:50.490 Great stuff. 3:17:50.850 --> 3:17:53.050 There he was specifically defending the choice to do the 3:17:53.090 --> 3:17:58.420 decapitation strikes in that section. Trump reiterated one of these 3:17:58.520 --> 3:18:01.100 things that we've always heard, that Iran would use a 3:18:01.120 --> 3:18:04.500 nuclear weapon in 24 hours after they have one. Quote, 3:18:04.879 --> 3:18:08.619 just like the Democrats will terminate the filibuster once they 3:18:08.660 --> 3:18:14.400 take power. It's his equivocation there. One of the more 3:18:14.420 --> 3:18:16.810 interesting moments towards the end of the interview is something 3:18:16.830 --> 3:18:18.310 that I think Trump was alluding to in that earlier 3:18:18.350 --> 3:18:21.589 clip that we played. Trump claimed that we haven't lost 3:18:21.830 --> 3:18:24.410 a single soldier yet. in six months. 3:18:24.690 --> 3:18:26.269 You know, when you call it a war, it's not 3:18:26.310 --> 3:18:26.610 a war. 3:18:27.450 --> 3:18:30.390 If you look at what's happened with Iran in the 3:18:30.430 --> 3:18:34.390 last six months, five months, six months, we haven't lost 3:18:34.570 --> 3:18:35.050 one soldier. 3:18:35.250 --> 3:18:36.490 You know, I wrote one thing down. 3:18:37.530 --> 3:18:39.150 Wait, can we just give you a second? 3:18:39.190 --> 3:18:41.590 Because you just pulled out, for those of you listening 3:18:41.670 --> 3:18:43.310 at home, a piece of paper. 3:18:43.890 --> 3:18:47.850 What's he got written down, Garrison? This is a paper with. 3:18:47.730 --> 3:18:53.340 The list of fatalities from our previous wars in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan. 3:18:53.600 --> 3:18:55.240 That was what he was talking about in that press 3:18:55.280 --> 3:18:57.560 conference that we played earlier. I can show you guys here. 3:18:57.860 --> 3:19:00.100 So we've been in Iran seven months, maybe eight months. 3:19:00.860 --> 3:19:03.540 There have been 18 people, and that includes Venezuela. 3:19:04.580 --> 3:19:07.950 He's talking about 18 deaths, and those 18 deaths are 3:19:08.070 --> 3:19:13.510 from the first wave of engagement from February to July, 3:19:13.530 --> 3:19:17.250 in which 18 U.S. service members died. Last month, the 3:19:17.270 --> 3:19:21.550 DoD updated their defense casualty analysis system. raising the official 3:19:21.570 --> 3:19:25.790 Iran War U.S. Service Number-related death toll to 23 people 3:19:26.030 --> 3:19:31.240 since February 2026, with at least eight overseas casualties since 3:19:31.320 --> 3:19:32.080 July 7th. 3:19:32.200 --> 3:19:32.440 Yeah. 3:19:32.800 --> 3:19:36.740 So Trump's statement about not having a single soldier dying... 3:19:36.959 --> 3:19:38.100 in the past six months. 3:19:38.300 --> 3:19:39.879 Including four KIA, right? 3:19:40.160 --> 3:19:41.760 I believe, I mean, I don't have that in the doc, 3:19:41.800 --> 3:19:43.580 so I wouldn't say, but if you're looking. I'm looking 3:19:43.600 --> 3:19:44.560 at DCATS right now. 3:19:44.700 --> 3:19:45.260 Yeah. 3:19:45.310 --> 3:19:48.590 That's Overseas Operational KFC starting July 7th. And like, just 3:19:48.610 --> 3:19:50.910 before anyone comes in and goes, what if there are Marines, 3:19:51.430 --> 3:19:57.109 four Army, and I think one Navy, which is non-hostile 3:19:57.150 --> 3:19:59.550 death pending. Two Air Force non-hostile deaths. 3:20:00.010 --> 3:20:02.930 It's kind of nitpicky, but I thought this is such 3:20:02.950 --> 3:20:05.710 like a specific claim that Trump kind of had the 3:20:05.750 --> 3:20:09.090 entire last five minutes of the interview kind of based on, 3:20:09.110 --> 3:20:13.109 it's just not true. It's just not a true statement. 3:20:13.129 --> 3:20:16.350 That was kind of his big closing argument. And then 3:20:16.400 --> 3:20:18.480 you see him echoing that in that press conference that 3:20:18.500 --> 3:20:23.279 James played earlier this episode. Yeah. He also adds in 3:20:23.540 --> 3:20:27.320 the quote-unquote war with Venezuela in these numbers. 3:20:27.440 --> 3:20:27.880 Yeah. 3:20:27.940 --> 3:20:30.200 Being like, no one died in our war with Venezuela. 3:20:30.220 --> 3:20:30.379 Yeah. 3:20:31.330 --> 3:20:33.289 And DCAS breaks it down by operation. So you can 3:20:33.310 --> 3:20:36.670 see like Operation Epic Fury versus overseas operations. But like 3:20:37.390 --> 3:20:41.789 not necessarily everyone deployed all around the world, like even 3:20:41.850 --> 3:20:45.000 in that region since February will be under Epic Fury, right? 3:20:45.820 --> 3:20:46.840 Well, it's a sort of thing. 3:20:46.879 --> 3:20:48.660 It's like they want to have their cake and eat 3:20:48.740 --> 3:20:52.000 it too if it's a totally different war. So, you know, 3:20:52.040 --> 3:20:54.939 this one specific war that you claimed is only in 3:20:54.980 --> 3:20:56.000 this certain time period. 3:20:56.140 --> 3:20:56.320 Yeah. 3:20:56.400 --> 3:20:58.760 Well, there were three wars. Three wars that they've done 3:20:58.780 --> 3:20:59.699 since February, I think. 3:20:59.900 --> 3:21:00.340 Yeah, see. 3:21:00.379 --> 3:21:00.519 Yeah. 3:21:00.900 --> 3:21:02.820 Mm-hmm. Anyway. 3:21:02.840 --> 3:21:05.760 Yeah. Still very silly semantics. 3:21:05.820 --> 3:21:06.039 Yeah. 3:21:06.820 --> 3:21:09.500 And imagine, like, if you had lost a family member, 3:21:09.520 --> 3:21:12.320 and he's like, yeah, there's only 18 of them. Like, 3:21:12.340 --> 3:21:14.620 it's a fucking insane thing to say. 3:21:14.640 --> 3:21:14.970 Yeah. 3:21:15.250 --> 3:21:18.890 Yeah, or the eight others who are confirmed to have 3:21:18.910 --> 3:21:22.290 died since July, which Trump is just not counting. Yeah. 3:21:22.930 --> 3:21:24.690 On the topic of war, Trump reiterated that we are 3:21:24.890 --> 3:21:28.070 very close to a deal in Ukraine that and claimed 3:21:28.090 --> 3:21:32.480 that he didn't know who slowed Ukraine's Starlink speeds, noting 3:21:32.500 --> 3:21:35.560 that they have been restored. One of the things Trump 3:21:35.580 --> 3:21:37.960 was most proud of in this interview was winning the, quote, 3:21:38.260 --> 3:21:42.080 less than one hour war with Venezuela, and said that 3:21:42.160 --> 3:21:44.780 since winning, the U.S. has taken out billions. 3:21:45.120 --> 3:21:48.340 Billions and billions and billions of dollars already, and we 3:21:48.360 --> 3:21:50.760 will be taking out many billions of dollars and get 3:21:50.800 --> 3:21:51.620 along very well. 3:21:51.680 --> 3:21:54.220 And you could call it a territory, you could call 3:21:54.240 --> 3:21:54.920 it whatever you want. 3:21:55.320 --> 3:21:57.380 You could call it a territory. You could call it 3:21:57.440 --> 3:22:01.500 whatever you want. So insinuating that Venezuela is effectively a U.S. 3:22:01.520 --> 3:22:02.220 Territory now. 3:22:02.700 --> 3:22:04.019 They're just like me for real. 3:22:08.560 --> 3:22:12.240 Unfortunately, it seems so. Yeah, really, really quickly there. 3:22:12.320 --> 3:22:15.820 I want to highlight that earlier this week, NYT released 3:22:15.860 --> 3:22:19.459 the report stating that quote, the U.S. government received more 3:22:19.500 --> 3:22:23.260 than $ 12 billion in revenue from Venezuela's natural resource exports 3:22:23.360 --> 3:22:26.540 in the first nine months of this year, end quote, 3:22:26.800 --> 3:22:29.070 and that the vast majority of funds were distributed back 3:22:29.080 --> 3:22:31.810 to Venezuela soon after they were received. But it is 3:22:31.990 --> 3:22:34.410 unclear if the money stayed in the country or who 3:22:34.450 --> 3:22:35.850 the ultimate recipients were. 3:22:35.870 --> 3:22:38.769 Yeah, I mean, he certainly has not stopped bragging about 3:22:38.810 --> 3:22:41.690 the amount of oil that they're taking out. Not a 3:22:41.730 --> 3:22:46.689 great situation in general, and the territory comment is really... 3:22:47.410 --> 3:22:50.390 Everyone's sick of headlines about a crazy thing Trump said, 3:22:50.610 --> 3:22:54.770 but he did just call a sovereign country a U.S. 3:22:54.790 --> 3:22:55.290 Territory. 3:22:55.709 --> 3:22:55.949 Yeah. 3:22:56.129 --> 3:22:59.090 I talked with James about this in the episodes we did, 3:22:59.170 --> 3:23:01.500 but it's like he just wants to make it a 3:23:01.540 --> 3:23:04.100 vassal state without like, well, I guess he now is, 3:23:04.420 --> 3:23:06.700 he's close enough to calling it a vassal state, but 3:23:06.740 --> 3:23:09.380 he just doesn't want to, or I guess the U.S. 3:23:09.420 --> 3:23:11.539 government as a whole doesn't actually want to put that 3:23:11.600 --> 3:23:14.119 out there. But if Trump says it, since everyone thinks 3:23:14.360 --> 3:23:18.039 everything he says is an exaggeration, they're okay with with 3:23:18.060 --> 3:23:21.320 saying it, but it's like, it's essentially what he's doing 3:23:21.340 --> 3:23:23.920 to Venezuela and trying to do in several other places 3:23:24.000 --> 3:23:24.379 as well. 3:23:25.140 --> 3:23:25.340 Yeah. 3:23:26.000 --> 3:23:26.500 Bonkers. 3:23:26.820 --> 3:23:28.620 That like, this is the president just being like, yep, 3:23:28.650 --> 3:23:30.110 got new territory over here. 3:23:30.230 --> 3:23:31.709 Expanding, expanding the empire. 3:23:31.850 --> 3:23:33.150 You can call whatever you want. 3:23:33.750 --> 3:23:34.010 Yeah. 3:23:35.209 --> 3:23:38.150 Now, Trump claimed that success in Venezuela had nothing to 3:23:38.190 --> 3:23:40.630 do with his decision to do decapitation strikes in Iran 3:23:40.690 --> 3:23:43.930 months later and defended Hegseth against calls for him to 3:23:43.980 --> 3:23:47.120 be impeached. Near the end of the interview, Trump, Trump 3:23:47.140 --> 3:23:50.160 said that he expects to issue, quote, tremendous numbers of 3:23:50.220 --> 3:23:54.610 pardons before leaving office, and that he might pardon himself. 3:23:55.270 --> 3:23:57.850 He did also indicate that there will be White House 3:23:57.910 --> 3:24:02.050 personnel changes following the midterm defeat, and that he'll be 3:24:02.110 --> 3:24:04.800 firing some of the people on his team. 3:24:05.720 --> 3:24:07.920 After a big midterm defeat like this, do you expect 3:24:07.959 --> 3:24:09.460 to fire anyone from your team? 3:24:09.480 --> 3:24:10.160 I do. 3:24:10.180 --> 3:24:10.619 A little bit. 3:24:10.840 --> 3:24:11.300 A little bit? 3:24:11.500 --> 3:24:14.840 I love my cabinet. I think they're good. But I'll 3:24:15.260 --> 3:24:16.540 be doing maybe a few changes. 3:24:17.330 --> 3:24:20.830 So this 60 Minutes interview was filmed Friday, and that afternoon, 3:24:21.129 --> 3:24:24.900 Trump announced that Stephen Miller would be promoted to chief 3:24:25.030 --> 3:24:27.960 of staff, with former chief of staff Susie Willis being 3:24:28.040 --> 3:24:32.060 moved over to Trump's political operation. Miller assumed his new 3:24:32.100 --> 3:24:35.880 position on Monday. Trump told reporters, quote, I wanted to 3:24:35.920 --> 3:24:37.740 make a change. I think Susie has done a very 3:24:37.780 --> 3:24:40.879 good job, but I just wanted to make it. Stephen's 3:24:40.940 --> 3:24:43.980 been great, and we gotta make moves. Sometimes in life, 3:24:44.300 --> 3:24:48.539 you have to make moves. Later that day, Trump admin-aligned 3:24:48.580 --> 3:24:52.660 influencer Benny Johnson tweeted, Everyone in the White House keeps 3:24:52.700 --> 3:24:57.240 texting me. It's Miller time, with excited anticipation. It's like 3:24:57.260 --> 3:25:00.070 the dogs have been let off the chain. Good people 3:25:00.200 --> 3:25:01.650 on the inside are hyped. 3:25:02.230 --> 3:25:02.789 Unquote. 3:25:03.850 --> 3:25:05.350 It's not a good look. Go ahead, Carlos. 3:25:05.670 --> 3:25:07.170 I mean, yeah, I agree with James. It's not a 3:25:07.190 --> 3:25:09.310 good look at all. It's pretty bad stuff, but I 3:25:09.350 --> 3:25:12.709 think this might mean that He's going to be let 3:25:12.770 --> 3:25:16.289 off the hook with whatever the U.S. does internationally, right? 3:25:17.030 --> 3:25:19.860 We just saw Trump call Venezuela territory of the U.S., 3:25:19.900 --> 3:25:20.220 you know? 3:25:20.540 --> 3:25:20.740 Yeah. 3:25:21.100 --> 3:25:23.920 And the U.S. is supporting a lot of bad stuff 3:25:24.379 --> 3:25:26.620 in a bunch of countries in Latin America. And I 3:25:27.080 --> 3:25:29.700 think that Miller only wants to do more of that. 3:25:30.459 --> 3:25:34.000 And being chief of staff will only... help him in 3:25:34.110 --> 3:25:34.600 doing that. 3:25:35.160 --> 3:25:35.420 Yeah. 3:25:35.459 --> 3:25:38.140 Like it, it also signals that like, like a lot 3:25:38.160 --> 3:25:40.640 of people have left the administration in the week since 3:25:40.680 --> 3:25:43.820 we last recorded, right. Especially at the DOJ and like 3:25:44.959 --> 3:25:47.320 the direction that they are moving to fill those gaps 3:25:47.400 --> 3:25:49.340 is doubling down on the worst things that they've done 3:25:49.420 --> 3:25:53.379 so far, at least with Miller, right? Like Miller has 3:25:53.480 --> 3:25:59.170 been behind many of the most egregious policies of Trump 3:25:59.170 --> 3:26:01.949 1.0 and 2.0. And he's just been kind of slowly 3:26:01.990 --> 3:26:05.470 climbing that ladder. And seeing him have all this control, 3:26:05.490 --> 3:26:10.640 some stuff that I've heard about him exercising very direct 3:26:10.680 --> 3:26:15.410 control in relatively minor policy areas, it's concerning for sure. 3:26:15.879 --> 3:26:17.840 Yeah, I mean, he already was, I think, deputy chief 3:26:17.879 --> 3:26:20.660 of staff. He's a very, very high up advisor to 3:26:20.680 --> 3:26:23.360 the Department of Homeland Security and many other policy areas. 3:26:23.670 --> 3:26:25.810 Yeah, he had this kind of floater mandate for a 3:26:25.830 --> 3:26:29.090 while where he was very clearly running a lot of shows. 3:26:29.150 --> 3:26:31.970 Like Miller is credited with Title 42, for example, right? 3:26:32.410 --> 3:26:34.060 Yeah, he's been very obsessed with finding these sorts of 3:26:34.080 --> 3:26:38.840 like old kind of niche legal justifications for extreme uses 3:26:38.860 --> 3:26:39.599 of executive power. 3:26:40.440 --> 3:26:42.940 Yeah i think of it like um like reddit law 3:26:43.020 --> 3:26:44.790 almost you know where people are like oh well if 3:26:44.810 --> 3:26:46.709 there's a fringe on the flag it's actually the admiralty 3:26:46.730 --> 3:26:49.609 flag so you're being tried under like it's like that 3:26:49.650 --> 3:26:52.650 but he's uh He's repeatedly struck the landing on it. 3:26:53.150 --> 3:26:56.990 Obviously, Susie Willis's politics aren't great either, but she is 3:26:57.230 --> 3:26:59.289 somewhat more of kind of like an adult in the 3:26:59.330 --> 3:27:04.070 room type person in the cabinet. And moving Miller up 3:27:04.129 --> 3:27:07.770 to her position is further centralizing Miller's influence over the 3:27:07.790 --> 3:27:12.609 entirety of the Trump administration. And it's something that I'm 3:27:12.670 --> 3:27:15.230 sure we will be keeping an eye on these next 3:27:15.350 --> 3:27:19.650 two years. And this Miller news is especially interesting to me, 3:27:19.850 --> 3:27:23.230 considering what I would consider to be the most interesting 3:27:23.290 --> 3:27:26.269 part of this 60 Minutes interview, where Trump discusses working 3:27:26.290 --> 3:27:31.120 with Democrats on immigration and somewhat admitted that his immigration 3:27:31.160 --> 3:27:34.359 enforcement these past two years has been, quote, too tough. 3:27:35.260 --> 3:27:36.480 This is a longer clip. 3:27:36.500 --> 3:27:38.920 I'll probably split up into two sections, but I think 3:27:38.940 --> 3:27:41.380 this is the most useful thing to take out of 3:27:41.400 --> 3:27:43.800 this whole interview. And for the record, I'll be playing 3:27:43.860 --> 3:27:47.459 the on-air version of this interview, which edits down this 3:27:47.520 --> 3:27:50.930 exchange a little bit. from the full extended version, which 3:27:50.950 --> 3:27:52.730 I've been pulling the other clips from. 3:27:53.270 --> 3:27:57.070 You came out after the midterms. You congratulated the Democrats. 3:27:57.110 --> 3:27:59.080 You said that you were open to working with them. 3:27:59.120 --> 3:27:59.340 True. 3:27:59.660 --> 3:28:01.760 What is one thing you would like to work with 3:28:01.820 --> 3:28:02.859 a Democratic majority on? 3:28:02.900 --> 3:28:04.800 I'd love to do something on immigration. 3:28:05.480 --> 3:28:05.720 What? 3:28:05.920 --> 3:28:06.920 Because, well. 3:28:08.170 --> 3:28:10.970 Do you think immigration hurt you in the midterm? Do 3:28:10.990 --> 3:28:12.080 you think the crackdown hurt you? 3:28:12.110 --> 3:28:12.970 I think it both. 3:28:12.850 --> 3:28:13.530 Helped and hurt. 3:28:13.650 --> 3:28:16.349 I think I got an A-plus for closing up the border. 3:28:16.770 --> 3:28:19.070 I get very high marks for getting the bad ones out. 3:28:19.590 --> 3:28:23.250 But I get hurt because we also took people that 3:28:23.270 --> 3:28:28.250 had good jobs that created one violation or breaking of 3:28:28.290 --> 3:28:29.610 the law, and that was that they came into the 3:28:29.650 --> 3:28:32.990 country illegally. Now, there is a large part of the 3:28:33.030 --> 3:28:36.190 country that think that they should be put out. And 3:28:36.209 --> 3:28:38.250 there's a large part of the country that think that 3:28:38.290 --> 3:28:40.570 they should be allowed to stay if they're good people 3:28:40.629 --> 3:28:43.600 working in a landscaping company or working in a hotel 3:28:44.280 --> 3:28:48.860 or doing something, right? And in some cases paying taxes. 3:28:49.500 --> 3:28:51.440 And there's a large group of people think that they 3:28:51.480 --> 3:28:52.500 should be allowed to stay. 3:28:53.080 --> 3:28:56.810 He went straight to landscaping as a migrant business, right? Mm-hmm. 3:28:57.220 --> 3:29:00.020 It's a lot of tropes here, but it is interesting 3:29:00.080 --> 3:29:03.440 to see. I read somewhere that his wife had had 3:29:03.520 --> 3:29:04.760 some friends deported. 3:29:05.020 --> 3:29:06.320 Yes, I guess I've also seen that. 3:29:07.100 --> 3:29:12.330 And perhaps that's been the whispering in his ear. It 3:29:12.370 --> 3:29:15.810 interests me more from the perspective of his information diet. 3:29:16.010 --> 3:29:16.350 Totally. 3:29:17.370 --> 3:29:19.490 That he's heard this and that he's thinking this. 3:29:19.970 --> 3:29:23.090 I shared this clip with our Cool Zone chat a 3:29:23.129 --> 3:29:26.700 few days ago. And yeah, I think Mia pointed out 3:29:26.720 --> 3:29:29.410 that he often seems to have this sort of last 3:29:29.490 --> 3:29:30.830 person in the room syndrome. 3:29:30.950 --> 3:29:31.150 Right. 3:29:31.170 --> 3:29:33.230 If he just kind of believes or parrots whatever the 3:29:33.290 --> 3:29:37.289 last thing someone told him is. And I'm sure after 3:29:37.830 --> 3:29:41.360 the election, he's being told a lot of things. Miller's 3:29:41.640 --> 3:29:43.980 still in his ear and in his ear more now 3:29:44.020 --> 3:29:46.630 that he's, you know, chief of staff. But the way 3:29:46.670 --> 3:29:50.010 he's talking in this interview seems to be to almost 3:29:50.550 --> 3:29:52.810 counter some of the things that you often hear Miller say. 3:29:53.110 --> 3:29:55.570 And Miller gets alluded to in the second half of 3:29:55.590 --> 3:29:57.369 this clip, which I'll play now. 3:29:58.190 --> 3:30:01.070 So you think your deportation policy went too far? 3:30:01.230 --> 3:30:01.830 It was too tough. 3:30:02.000 --> 3:30:03.189 I think it might be too tough, yeah. 3:30:03.430 --> 3:30:05.460 What would happen? What does the deal look like with 3:30:05.480 --> 3:30:05.800 the Democrats? 3:30:05.840 --> 3:30:07.780 I think ultimately that hurt me. Well, the deal would 3:30:07.820 --> 3:30:11.280 be we would work something out. And I think that's 3:30:11.320 --> 3:30:12.780 something that's actually doable. 3:30:12.879 --> 3:30:17.400 Doable to create some kind of legal status for the landscapers? 3:30:17.940 --> 3:30:20.130 When you go into a hotel and you have a 3:30:20.209 --> 3:30:24.330 woman that's worked there as a maid, as a cleaner, 3:30:24.410 --> 3:30:26.570 as a this, as a that, as a waitress, a 3:30:26.629 --> 3:30:29.670 lot of good things, great jobs. And all of a sudden, 3:30:30.330 --> 3:30:31.800 they're being taken out of the country. 3:30:31.860 --> 3:30:33.039 It's tough. It's a tough thing. 3:30:33.120 --> 3:30:35.520 But there's a group of people that I would say 3:30:35.600 --> 3:30:39.340 on the sort of pretty far right, that would like 3:30:39.459 --> 3:30:41.400 everybody taken out. 3:30:41.900 --> 3:30:44.680 Do any of those people work in your administration? Are 3:30:44.720 --> 3:30:46.140 they in the building with us right now? 3:30:46.220 --> 3:30:47.699 No, no. Well, there are a lot of those people. 3:30:48.180 --> 3:30:50.980 Then there's also people that are more modified on that. 3:30:51.000 --> 3:30:53.390 In other words, get the killers out, get all the 3:30:53.510 --> 3:30:57.010 rough ones out, get the drug dealers out, but let 3:30:57.450 --> 3:31:00.410 the people that are here, and in some cases here 3:31:00.450 --> 3:31:03.350 for 10 and 15 years, work a deal for them. 3:31:03.570 --> 3:31:07.220 You think the Democratic Party right now has people in 3:31:07.300 --> 3:31:09.709 it Who would be interested in this kind of deal? 3:31:10.310 --> 3:31:12.170 I think so, yeah. People have already called me. 3:31:13.129 --> 3:31:15.379 The way that both of them engage with migrants through 3:31:15.400 --> 3:31:20.040 these tropes is super telling, right? The landscapers and the maids. 3:31:20.540 --> 3:31:25.060 It's just such a stereotype that that's how they understand migration. 3:31:25.520 --> 3:31:27.619 That these are people who come to the menial jobs 3:31:27.640 --> 3:31:28.800 that Americans don't want to do. And to be fair, 3:31:28.820 --> 3:31:31.620 a lot of liberals do too, right? You'll see this 3:31:31.640 --> 3:31:32.880 a lot from libs. Like, oh, do you want to 3:31:32.920 --> 3:31:33.780 pick your own strawberries? 3:31:33.860 --> 3:31:34.480 Fuck you. 3:31:35.470 --> 3:31:38.830 Like, but, I don't know, Reagan did a fucking, you know, 3:31:38.870 --> 3:31:40.590 like Reagan did an amnesty. 3:31:40.650 --> 3:31:42.850 Yeah, I mean, and it seems that's kind of what 3:31:42.870 --> 3:31:47.290 they're alluding to somewhat. The 47 rapid response Twitter account 3:31:47.670 --> 3:31:50.240 rebuffed the use of the term, like, amnesty in discussing 3:31:50.320 --> 3:31:52.699 this specific exchange on Twitter. 3:31:53.220 --> 3:31:56.080 I don't know who's running that account. I'm sure someone does. 3:31:56.480 --> 3:31:58.900 But, I mean, it seems like effectively that Ross is 3:31:59.200 --> 3:32:01.640 proposing some sort of amnesty deal with the Democrats, which 3:32:01.680 --> 3:32:05.890 Trump seems, or said that he is... is interested in pursuing. 3:32:06.250 --> 3:32:08.289 It's a really interesting clip. He's talking about how there's 3:32:08.410 --> 3:32:11.640 people on the quote, pretty far right in his administration 3:32:12.340 --> 3:32:14.980 who believe that just everyone, everyone should be taken out. 3:32:15.740 --> 3:32:18.040 And then talks about this more like moderate approach, which 3:32:18.080 --> 3:32:21.459 he might pursue with the Democrats. It makes me, you know, 3:32:21.500 --> 3:32:25.090 question how much Trump is like a popularist, which is 3:32:25.450 --> 3:32:28.050 not just like a populist, but, just chases what he 3:32:28.110 --> 3:32:29.390 thinks is popular. 3:32:29.570 --> 3:32:31.190 Yeah, is he following or leading? 3:32:31.209 --> 3:32:31.910 Mm-hmm. 3:32:32.230 --> 3:32:32.410 Yeah. 3:32:32.690 --> 3:32:35.890 This dude's political career launched, right, with him riding sideways 3:32:35.930 --> 3:32:37.949 down an escalator shit-talking Mexican people. 3:32:38.190 --> 3:32:38.550 Yeah. 3:32:38.950 --> 3:32:43.650 This has been the one through line of his politics, 3:32:43.690 --> 3:32:48.220 more or less, right? He's completely pivoted, including wars, right? 3:32:49.110 --> 3:32:53.900 But he has always found electoral success through bigotry. and 3:32:54.020 --> 3:32:57.670 through shit talking migrants. So like, it would be a 3:32:57.970 --> 3:33:02.730 huge challenge to his base if he went ahead and 3:33:02.770 --> 3:33:05.930 did that. At the same time, like I think Garrison, 3:33:05.950 --> 3:33:07.810 like you have a really good point that like, he 3:33:07.850 --> 3:33:10.350 also likes to be associated with winning. We saw that 3:33:10.379 --> 3:33:12.300 when he was like hanging out with SoRan, right? Like, 3:33:12.840 --> 3:33:14.640 and if he thinks he can go out being the 3:33:14.680 --> 3:33:18.260 guy who did a mass legalization and fucking bask in 3:33:18.280 --> 3:33:23.440 that forever, Is anything if not unpredictable, you know, like 3:33:23.800 --> 3:33:25.040 maybe I've done double negative there. 3:33:25.420 --> 3:33:27.490 This is the argument that Sanders has been making to 3:33:27.520 --> 3:33:29.930 people just assuming that if the Senate passes any sort 3:33:29.950 --> 3:33:34.060 of progressive legislation or populist legislation, Trump will veto it. 3:33:34.070 --> 3:33:37.560 And And Sanders has been saying, well, if he does, fine. 3:33:37.879 --> 3:33:41.160 The Senate should still pass that legislation. That shouldn't prevent 3:33:41.260 --> 3:33:43.330 us from doing anything. But also kind of push on 3:33:43.340 --> 3:33:46.630 this idea of Trump likes things that are popular. And 3:33:46.670 --> 3:33:50.449 if this legislation has popular support, people might be surprised 3:33:50.490 --> 3:33:53.370 at what things he allows to pass or signs on 3:33:53.410 --> 3:33:56.629 to even. And the idea that, you know, some of 3:33:56.730 --> 3:33:59.570 Trump's image might get rehabilitated in the last two years 3:33:59.610 --> 3:34:03.680 by signing on to, you know, economic populist proposals. That's 3:34:03.700 --> 3:34:06.070 like a whole other issue that we'll have to deal with. 3:34:06.150 --> 3:34:06.410 Yeah. 3:34:06.790 --> 3:34:09.350 But it is an interesting question. And I think the 3:34:09.390 --> 3:34:12.250 last two years of the second Trump term might end 3:34:12.290 --> 3:34:14.560 up looking quite different in the first two years because 3:34:14.580 --> 3:34:17.859 of the way the balance in Washington has shifted. 3:34:17.879 --> 3:34:18.320 Yeah. 3:34:18.940 --> 3:34:21.340 Yeah, I think it's really worth highlighting what y'all said 3:34:21.379 --> 3:34:24.650 earlier that He really just kind of parrots whatever the 3:34:24.690 --> 3:34:27.709 last person to talk to him was, because on the 9th, 3:34:27.910 --> 3:34:31.250 which was Monday, I believe, he said that there won't 3:34:31.330 --> 3:34:33.810 be amnesty to reporters at the White House. So I 3:34:33.850 --> 3:34:37.090 really think it really is just the last person who 3:34:37.129 --> 3:34:41.140 talked to him. But I do agree that if somebody 3:34:41.220 --> 3:34:44.320 spins it to him continuously as something that will make 3:34:44.360 --> 3:34:48.120 him go out as a winner, as somebody who's celebrated 3:34:48.620 --> 3:34:51.510 because of the amnesty, it's something that He won't throw 3:34:51.570 --> 3:34:54.539 off the table. Someone just needs to like repeat it 3:34:54.580 --> 3:34:56.000 for him again and again and again. 3:34:56.260 --> 3:34:56.500 Right. 3:34:56.740 --> 3:34:56.860 Yeah. 3:34:56.900 --> 3:34:58.320 Or like how much of it's like based on this 3:34:58.440 --> 3:35:02.580 word amnesty versus a policy that is effectively similar. 3:35:02.600 --> 3:35:02.910 Yeah. 3:35:02.920 --> 3:35:03.949 Yeah, absolutely. 3:35:04.050 --> 3:35:04.289 Yeah. 3:35:04.610 --> 3:35:06.210 You know, this will be also that we need to 3:35:06.270 --> 3:35:06.670 fight over. 3:35:06.690 --> 3:35:06.870 Right. 3:35:06.890 --> 3:35:09.250 He talks about doing this for people who've been here 3:35:09.310 --> 3:35:12.260 like 10 or 15 years. It should not be limited 3:35:12.300 --> 3:35:15.519 to people who've been here 10 years. This is still 3:35:15.540 --> 3:35:17.410 something we'll have to fight over. And you're going to 3:35:17.440 --> 3:35:19.020 deal with the fact that, let's say you put that 3:35:19.070 --> 3:35:19.650 on the table, right? 3:35:19.670 --> 3:35:21.250 And you are Donald Trump. And you say, come to 3:35:21.310 --> 3:35:22.970 assure us you've been here for 10 to 15 years 3:35:23.030 --> 3:35:23.650 and we'll legalize it. 3:35:23.950 --> 3:35:26.910 People are fucking... People aren't going out to get their groceries. 3:35:26.970 --> 3:35:30.830 My friends are buying groceries and taking people's kids to school. 3:35:31.030 --> 3:35:35.330 The ability of his government to do that is very. 3:35:35.050 --> 3:35:35.930 Limited right now. 3:35:36.510 --> 3:35:36.690 Yeah. 3:35:37.550 --> 3:35:39.310 Which I think he probably is not being told by 3:35:39.350 --> 3:35:41.350 his little... Talking heads. 3:35:42.090 --> 3:35:42.270 No. 3:35:42.900 --> 3:35:44.980 I don't think that's something he is aware of or 3:35:45.000 --> 3:35:49.540 would necessarily care about, right? He doesn't think about buying groceries. 3:35:50.180 --> 3:35:52.640 Every time he talks about buying groceries, it's great. It's 3:35:52.680 --> 3:35:57.320 a fucking insight into another world. But I'll play this 3:35:57.379 --> 3:36:01.240 last clip. Ross kind of grills Trump on his ability 3:36:01.280 --> 3:36:04.459 to actually work with Democrats. Asking Trump if he himself 3:36:04.720 --> 3:36:07.230 thinks he'll be able to work with Democrats. And it 3:36:07.270 --> 3:36:10.130 has the overall vibe of talking to your child about name-calling. 3:36:10.660 --> 3:36:14.300 I think this also shows, I think, Ross's limited view 3:36:14.340 --> 3:36:16.660 of what politics is and kind of puts him on 3:36:16.700 --> 3:36:18.120 his ass to a certain extent. 3:36:19.080 --> 3:36:21.760 But it is, you know what, it is funny. 3:36:23.070 --> 3:36:25.690 In the course of the campaign, you did occasionally call 3:36:25.730 --> 3:36:26.690 him Talafrico. 3:36:27.070 --> 3:36:27.450 Yeah, I did. 3:36:28.950 --> 3:36:31.020 Do you think you could work with it? Democrats without 3:36:31.220 --> 3:36:32.720 insulting them consistently? 3:36:32.740 --> 3:36:33.480 Yeah, I could. 3:36:33.620 --> 3:36:34.540 You think so? 3:36:34.560 --> 3:36:37.379 I also call many of them Democrats. 3:36:37.760 --> 3:36:39.160 You did that just the other day. 3:36:39.400 --> 3:36:42.570 If it took six months of not insulting the Democrats 3:36:42.600 --> 3:36:43.850 to get a deal done, do you think you could 3:36:43.870 --> 3:36:44.090 do it? 3:36:44.430 --> 3:36:45.470 Very easily. Okay. 3:36:49.760 --> 3:36:52.160 Oh, Ross is coming in with the fucking dad talk. 3:36:52.180 --> 3:36:54.360 It's a little wild. 3:36:54.940 --> 3:36:59.290 No fucking allowance for Donald Trump for six months if 3:36:59.310 --> 3:37:00.430 he calls him Califrico. 3:37:01.000 --> 3:37:03.820 We will never pass any bill that helps working people 3:37:04.070 --> 3:37:05.230 if you use a bad word. 3:37:06.350 --> 3:37:08.830 No name calling or else everyone's fucked. 3:37:09.090 --> 3:37:13.930 Have you guys seen the TikTok rapper with the Talafrico 3:37:14.010 --> 3:37:14.529 rap song? 3:37:14.610 --> 3:37:15.070 Oh, yes. 3:37:15.310 --> 3:37:17.939 It is amazing. It's such an earworm. 3:37:18.680 --> 3:37:19.580 Yeah, it's outstanding. 3:37:20.300 --> 3:37:20.519 Yeah. 3:37:20.680 --> 3:37:22.200 But the second half of this clip actually gets into 3:37:22.220 --> 3:37:24.520 something a little bit more, I think, deeper, a bit 3:37:24.560 --> 3:37:26.539 more of an interesting question of will Trump be able 3:37:26.560 --> 3:37:30.680 to actually work with Democrats again? as Democrats are investigating 3:37:30.720 --> 3:37:33.500 his administration, right? Doing this sort of like accountability stuff 3:37:33.520 --> 3:37:36.000 that we discussed last week. 3:37:36.540 --> 3:37:39.400 That'll be interesting to watch. I'm here to help the country. 3:37:39.440 --> 3:37:41.320 Do you think you could do it if they're investigating you? 3:37:41.560 --> 3:37:44.240 If they're running investigations into your administration, can you work 3:37:44.260 --> 3:37:44.520 with them? 3:37:44.800 --> 3:37:49.700 Well, I did it for four years. You know, what 3:37:49.740 --> 3:37:53.260 they did with me was there's never been weaponization. They 3:37:53.300 --> 3:37:56.090 impeached me twice. And there are those that say that 3:37:56.170 --> 3:37:59.310 worked out to my advantage. Do you think they'll impeach 3:37:59.350 --> 3:37:59.690 you again? 3:37:59.709 --> 3:38:04.110 I can't imagine it. 3:38:04.430 --> 3:38:05.010 What have I done? 3:38:05.030 --> 3:38:09.930 So that is the bulk of that interview. There's a 3:38:09.950 --> 3:38:12.110 lot more funny moments, but if you can check those 3:38:12.170 --> 3:38:17.300 out yourself. Ross asks him about corruption allegations, world liberty financial, 3:38:17.340 --> 3:38:19.779 his cryptocurrency, which Trump says he doesn't know anything about 3:38:19.800 --> 3:38:24.850 the operations of. despite foreign leaders buying his cryptocurrency ostensibly 3:38:24.890 --> 3:38:27.490 to get favor with the president. Trump talks about the 3:38:27.510 --> 3:38:31.450 superintelligence race with China, how an AI executive was threatened 3:38:31.490 --> 3:38:32.310 by the DOJ. 3:38:32.330 --> 3:38:35.210 He's going to drop in superintelligence like it's a real 3:38:35.250 --> 3:38:36.710 fucking thing. 3:38:36.750 --> 3:38:41.630 That was a whole five-minute exchange between Ross and Trump 3:38:42.209 --> 3:38:45.530 was AI versus superintelligence. Trump said that he would, quote, 3:38:45.670 --> 3:38:50.869 probably but not necessarily endorse someone for president in 2028. 3:38:50.870 --> 3:38:54.470 in terms of succession, besides Vance, Trump named Rubio, and 3:38:54.510 --> 3:38:58.550 mentioned some, quote, excellent senators. But overall, he seemed genuinely 3:38:58.650 --> 3:39:01.070 uncertain of how involved he'll get in selecting the next 3:39:01.110 --> 3:39:05.750 Republican presidential nominee. Quote, maybe I'm better off not getting involved. 3:39:06.390 --> 3:39:09.129 And then for some reason, because Ross is still a doofus, 3:39:09.510 --> 3:39:13.870 the interview ended by asking Trump about UFOs, which Trump 3:39:13.930 --> 3:39:16.510 said he's not that much of a believer, and grilled 3:39:16.550 --> 3:39:19.290 Trump about what he thinks heaven is and if if 3:39:19.330 --> 3:39:22.020 going to heaven meant forgiving Nancy Pelosi, could he do it? 3:39:22.090 --> 3:39:25.709 And Trump said, no. If you have fucking one hour. 3:39:25.330 --> 3:39:29.220 With the president of the United States, Russ is talking 3:39:29.240 --> 3:39:31.160 out the wrong fucking hole for 10 minutes. 3:39:32.000 --> 3:39:35.260 That's such an amazing question. Do you think he'll go 3:39:35.280 --> 3:39:35.679 to heaven? 3:39:35.700 --> 3:39:37.060 Not really. 3:39:38.700 --> 3:39:41.439 Yeah, there was a big chunk talking about the afterlife 3:39:41.540 --> 3:39:44.580 and Russ insinuated that Trump will actually be in purgatory 3:39:44.660 --> 3:39:45.600 near the end of the interview. 3:39:46.080 --> 3:39:47.800 So, you know, give him props for that, I guess. 3:39:50.370 --> 3:39:52.790 It's so long trying to be a journalist, man. 3:39:52.810 --> 3:39:58.410 I've been so fucking poor for my entire fucking adult life. 3:40:00.450 --> 3:40:02.610 So that's why, you know, couch this by saying as 3:40:02.670 --> 3:40:05.310 good as Ross did in some sections under no circumstances, 3:40:05.350 --> 3:40:06.510 do you have to hand it to him? 3:40:07.129 --> 3:40:09.090 Yeah, I won't be. All right. 3:40:09.570 --> 3:40:12.050 We're going to talk now about habeas. Can we talk 3:40:12.070 --> 3:40:13.289 a little bit about the DOJ, right? 3:40:13.330 --> 3:40:13.850 People leaving. 3:40:14.400 --> 3:40:16.780 In a rather wild turn of events, the acting United 3:40:16.800 --> 3:40:19.780 States Attorney in the Western District of Washington State has 3:40:20.420 --> 3:40:24.330 folded under the weight of these habeas petitions. Citing a 3:40:24.390 --> 3:40:27.029 general order in the Western District of Washington which streamlined 3:40:27.050 --> 3:40:29.490 the process for case assignments and scheduling for writs of 3:40:29.530 --> 3:40:33.000 habeas corpus filed by people in immigration detention, the acting 3:40:33.379 --> 3:40:35.900 United States Attorney wrote a letter to his Chief District 3:40:35.940 --> 3:40:39.810 Judge saying, quote, Since the general order was first issued, However, 3:40:39.950 --> 3:40:43.170 the influx of immigration petitions has continued to increase. The 3:40:43.190 --> 3:40:45.810 large volumes of petitions that are being filed, often copying 3:40:45.850 --> 3:40:48.870 from other petitions, has severely impacted the government's ability to 3:40:48.910 --> 3:40:52.420 respond to specific petitions that require appreciable attorney time from 3:40:52.440 --> 3:40:55.680 the U.S. Attorney's Office to investigate and analyze. It has 3:40:55.720 --> 3:40:58.820 also negatively impacted the government's ability to respond to other 3:40:58.860 --> 3:41:02.140 civil litigation filed against the government in the district. So 3:41:02.160 --> 3:41:04.750 what it's essentially saying there is this volume of petitions 3:41:04.910 --> 3:41:07.450 has made his office grind to a halt, right? 3:41:07.470 --> 3:41:07.609 Yeah. 3:41:08.720 --> 3:41:11.360 Going to continue reading the u.s attorney's office unfortunately does 3:41:11.459 --> 3:41:15.379 not have the available resources at this juncture to continue 3:41:15.560 --> 3:41:19.070 entering assistant usa attorney appearances in every one of the 3:41:19.100 --> 3:41:22.730 dozens of immigration petitions filed each week thus going forward 3:41:22.810 --> 3:41:25.710 in order to conserve resources there will be many habeas 3:41:25.750 --> 3:41:29.109 cases in which the usa attorney's office will no longer 3:41:29.290 --> 3:41:32.950 assume responsibility for providing a defense on behalf of the 3:41:32.990 --> 3:41:35.320 respondents on the other hand for the time being the 3:41:35.330 --> 3:41:37.789 at The U.S. Attorney's Office will continue to review petitions 3:41:37.870 --> 3:41:40.769 and scheduling orders as they are filed, will transmit the 3:41:40.790 --> 3:41:43.170 scheduling order to the appropriate persons at ICE, and will 3:41:43.250 --> 3:41:47.070 enter a U.S.A. appearances and far returns to specific petitions 3:41:47.790 --> 3:41:49.420 as the office determines appropriate. 3:41:49.660 --> 3:41:52.220 Can we pause here and just translate that last section 3:41:52.379 --> 3:41:54.580 into English? Yeah, for sure. 3:41:55.060 --> 3:42:00.840 He's saying that because they are so swamped with these things, 3:42:01.459 --> 3:42:04.560 they will not always be showing up to court. 3:42:05.150 --> 3:42:08.110 So they will not be providing the government's argument. Yes, 3:42:08.290 --> 3:42:13.609 they will not be there on behalf of ICE to say, 3:42:13.709 --> 3:42:18.510 here is our response. They can't keep showing up like that. 3:42:19.030 --> 3:42:21.510 They are going to look at them when they come in, 3:42:21.830 --> 3:42:24.090 but they're not going to show up for all of them. 3:42:24.670 --> 3:42:27.380 They next say, if the office does not file a 3:42:27.379 --> 3:42:29.400 notice of appearance in a case within seven court days 3:42:29.459 --> 3:42:31.760 of the issuance of a standard scheduling order, The court 3:42:31.820 --> 3:42:34.620 may assume that the USAO will not be filing a 3:42:34.640 --> 3:42:37.340 response to the petition, and the court may proceed to 3:42:37.400 --> 3:42:39.050 rule on the merits of the petition based on the 3:42:39.070 --> 3:42:40.990 papers filed by the petitioner. So then they're just going 3:42:41.010 --> 3:42:42.930 to look at the petition, right, and be like, shall 3:42:42.970 --> 3:42:43.730 we do this or not? 3:42:44.110 --> 3:42:46.630 Got it. So they're saying they will take no responsibility 3:42:46.670 --> 3:42:49.699 for facilitating the processing of this case, nor will it 3:42:49.740 --> 3:42:52.160 serve as a conduit for communications between the district court 3:42:52.200 --> 3:42:55.940 and respondents in this case. That would be the detaining party, right? 3:42:55.959 --> 3:43:00.430 So it would be ICE. The acting US attorney in 3:43:00.490 --> 3:43:03.879 this case is Charles Neil Floyd. He seems to be 3:43:03.940 --> 3:43:08.759 referred to in the press by both names. He signs 3:43:08.810 --> 3:43:11.410 stuff certainly with one name. He's often referred to as 3:43:11.450 --> 3:43:16.050 Neil Floyd. He was a former immigration judge. People have 3:43:16.070 --> 3:43:19.210 referred to him as a former judge, but I think 3:43:19.250 --> 3:43:21.709 it's relatively pertinent that he was a former immigration judge 3:43:22.150 --> 3:43:24.270 because in his time doing that, he was way ahead 3:43:24.290 --> 3:43:26.930 of the Trump administration in denying bonds for people in 3:43:26.970 --> 3:43:27.910 immigration detention. 3:43:28.410 --> 3:43:30.129 So that means they can't get out, right? 3:43:30.670 --> 3:43:30.910 Yeah. 3:43:31.350 --> 3:43:33.490 And he was with a group of four judges in 3:43:33.510 --> 3:43:35.529 Tacoma who did this. They'd been doing this for like 3:43:35.550 --> 3:43:40.260 a decade. He essentially... is part of the origination point 3:43:40.320 --> 3:43:45.039 of that argument that people are applying for admission and 3:43:45.080 --> 3:43:49.890 that the legal phrase applicant for admission included anybody, not 3:43:49.990 --> 3:43:53.470 just people entering at the border. This is a justification 3:43:53.510 --> 3:43:56.630 that we spoke about last summer when we saw court 3:43:56.709 --> 3:44:01.200 challenges to the Trump administration's mandatory detention, where they're saying 3:44:01.220 --> 3:44:04.550 we have to detain all of you because everyone is 3:44:04.590 --> 3:44:08.779 applying for admission who's an asylee or who's asking for asylum. 3:44:08.820 --> 3:44:10.960 Let's say you come in on a visa and then 3:44:11.020 --> 3:44:15.019 ask for asylum. His argument at the time when he 3:44:15.040 --> 3:44:17.850 started doing this was that people who cross into the 3:44:17.890 --> 3:44:20.870 United States across the physical border and ask for asylum 3:44:21.070 --> 3:44:24.790 are detained, so everyone should be. This is the argument 3:44:25.129 --> 3:44:27.860 that the Trump administration went with, and it bucked decades 3:44:27.900 --> 3:44:30.720 of precedent. he did that, then he left his job 3:44:30.760 --> 3:44:32.600 to go work with the FBI for a bit and 3:44:32.780 --> 3:44:35.199 consult with them on immigration stuff before coming back as 3:44:35.240 --> 3:44:39.209 acting USA attorney. So it is notable then to see 3:44:39.390 --> 3:44:41.570 him caving on this, right? 3:44:41.890 --> 3:44:42.150 Sure. 3:44:42.730 --> 3:44:46.610 To see him basically saying, when they bring these habeas petitions, 3:44:46.850 --> 3:44:49.570 which have been the tool, really, right? This has been 3:44:49.650 --> 3:44:53.720 the wedge that immigration attorneys, that groups have been able 3:44:53.740 --> 3:44:56.580 to drive to stop not all of the ICE detention 3:44:56.620 --> 3:44:58.439 by any means, right? There are a shit ton of 3:44:58.459 --> 3:45:01.119 people in immigration detention who shouldn't be. Well, everyone in 3:45:01.140 --> 3:45:04.379 immigration detention shouldn't be. But this has been the tool 3:45:04.420 --> 3:45:05.360 that has succeeded, right? 3:45:05.640 --> 3:45:06.320 If you remember. 3:45:06.860 --> 3:45:08.680 A few months ago, we talked about the US Attorney's 3:45:08.700 --> 3:45:12.019 Office in Minnesota, where the attorney asked the judge to 3:45:12.060 --> 3:45:14.279 hold her in contempt so she could sleep for two hours. 3:45:15.160 --> 3:45:18.290 This has been happening all over the country. I think 3:45:18.330 --> 3:45:22.030 we'll probably hear some interesting reporting on how this was organized, 3:45:22.070 --> 3:45:26.790 how lawyers organized to do this, to respond to a 3:45:26.850 --> 3:45:31.620 government agency which has effectively an unlimited budget. Somehow, people 3:45:31.640 --> 3:45:34.420 have been able to flood. I'm not talking about ICE here. 3:45:34.520 --> 3:45:37.090 ICE has been able to detain so many people. And 3:45:37.150 --> 3:45:39.820 people have been able to file enough habeas petitions that 3:45:39.830 --> 3:45:43.040 it has effectively ground this US attorney's office to a halt. 3:45:43.120 --> 3:45:46.099 And in order to do anything, it has to stop 3:45:46.140 --> 3:45:51.120 responding to these. So this is a really interesting move. 3:45:51.180 --> 3:45:54.190 I mean, the timing coming after the election is somewhat interesting, 3:45:54.330 --> 3:45:58.369 but I think it's just overall fascinating to see that 3:45:58.490 --> 3:46:01.929 all across the US, these offices are struggling to deal 3:46:02.190 --> 3:46:04.660 with the amount of habeas, rates of habeas that are 3:46:04.680 --> 3:46:05.179 being filed. 3:46:06.090 --> 3:46:08.190 Let's go on one more ad break and then return 3:46:08.330 --> 3:46:11.360 for a special segment by Robert Evans. 3:46:11.390 --> 3:46:29.310 Hey everybody, Robert here. On November 8th, 2026, NVIDIA released 3:46:29.370 --> 3:46:32.090 a unique sort of press release. This one didn't tout 3:46:32.129 --> 3:46:35.900 a new product line or investment deal or partnership. Instead, 3:46:36.000 --> 3:46:39.180 titled A Message to Our Company, it contains CEO Jensen 3:46:39.220 --> 3:46:43.070 Huang's admission of infidelity. He also included apologies to his 3:46:43.170 --> 3:46:56.140 colleagues at NVIDIA. as well as the board and shareholders. 3:46:56.520 --> 3:46:58.980 Only at the bottom of the announcement did he acknowledge 3:46:59.120 --> 3:47:02.660 the national security concerns raised in news reports and promise 3:47:02.680 --> 3:47:05.850 that the board was launching an independent investigation into his actions. 3:47:06.530 --> 3:47:09.350 The specific news reports he referenced are articles from the 3:47:09.410 --> 3:47:12.699 Financial Times and the New York Times, both published November 6th. 3:47:13.310 --> 3:47:16.670 The Financial Times article was titled, U.S. Believes NVIDIA's Huang 3:47:16.690 --> 3:47:21.170 Had Romantic Relationship With Alleged Chinese Spy. The article revealed 3:47:21.209 --> 3:47:22.130 that earlier this. 3:47:22.030 --> 3:47:22.609 Year, U.S. 3:47:22.650 --> 3:47:25.310 Officials wrote a memo based on intel we'd received that 3:47:25.350 --> 3:47:28.890 Huang had started a romantic liaison with Alice Huang, no relation, 3:47:29.330 --> 3:47:32.690 an executive at Megaspeed who had previously probably been a 3:47:32.709 --> 3:47:36.710 TV journalist in China, although that's a little unclear. Alice 3:47:36.750 --> 3:47:39.580 worked in China's financial sector before taking a job as 3:47:39.670 --> 3:47:41.260 managing director of Megaspeed. 3:47:41.740 --> 3:47:42.040 The U.S. 3:47:42.080 --> 3:47:45.279 Intelligence community suspects Alice Huang was recruited as a spy 3:47:45.320 --> 3:47:48.590 by the Chinese Ministry of State Security. She'd initially drawn 3:47:48.650 --> 3:47:52.780 spook attention because her Singapore-based data center company, that's Megaspeed, 3:47:53.220 --> 3:47:56.980 was suspected of moving banned NVIDIA chips to China. Alice 3:47:57.000 --> 3:47:59.610 was put under surveillance, which is when the Intel people 3:47:59.650 --> 3:48:02.970 realized Jensen was involved. For their part, the New York 3:48:02.990 --> 3:48:06.070 Times got onto the story after a 2024 photo from 3:48:06.110 --> 3:48:08.900 a party Jensen and Alice both attended. There was a 3:48:09.060 --> 3:48:12.539 clip from that video, and in a CNN interview, Times 3:48:12.560 --> 3:48:15.020 reporter Trip Mickel explained that this is what got the 3:48:15.060 --> 3:48:17.560 ball rolling. Basically, the clip revealed that Alice had the 3:48:17.600 --> 3:48:20.160 ability to pretty much summon Jensen Huang, one of the 3:48:20.200 --> 3:48:22.740 most wealthy and powerful men in the world, at a moment, 3:48:22.840 --> 3:48:26.100 and they thought that was worth looking into. NVIDIA initially 3:48:26.140 --> 3:48:28.900 declined to comment on the reports, but Chris Coons, a 3:48:28.920 --> 3:48:32.220 Delaware Democrat senator who will chair the Foreign Relations Committee 3:48:32.379 --> 3:48:35.920 in January, promised to open an investigation into, in his words, 3:48:36.340 --> 3:48:40.140 the insane relationship between the Trump administration, Chinese spies, and 3:48:40.240 --> 3:48:43.300 AI billionaires. According to the New York Times, Trump was 3:48:43.400 --> 3:48:45.820 briefed on all of this, that is, the suspicions about 3:48:45.879 --> 3:48:49.200 Jensen and Alice, a year ago, and shows not to 3:48:49.260 --> 3:48:52.020 do anything with the information, per the Times. 3:48:52.400 --> 3:48:53.000 Quote, Mr. 3:48:53.040 --> 3:48:56.020 Trump has been wary of disrupting NVIDIA's chip sales, which 3:48:56.060 --> 3:48:58.400 are helping to drive the economy and the stock market. 3:48:59.180 --> 3:49:02.080 It's possible Trump even gave Jensen a warning that the 3:49:02.120 --> 3:49:04.500 Feds were on to him. Now, this is speculation on 3:49:04.570 --> 3:49:07.760 my part, But on Monday, Wired published an article revealing 3:49:07.800 --> 3:49:11.100 that Huang had hired a crisis PR firm, Heller, in 3:49:11.180 --> 3:49:15.720 October of last year. Per Wired, Risa Heller, the firm's founder, 3:49:15.760 --> 3:49:18.000 has built a reputation as a fixer for powerful men 3:49:18.040 --> 3:49:22.380 facing allegations of sexual misconduct and other personal controversies. Her 3:49:22.420 --> 3:49:26.500 past clients include people like Anthony Weiner, chef Mario Batali, 3:49:26.600 --> 3:49:29.450 and writer Jeffrey Toobin. Further New York Times reporting has 3:49:29.490 --> 3:49:32.990 revealed that the U.S. investigation into Megaspeed started as a 3:49:33.070 --> 3:49:37.830 Commerce Department inquiry. Tim Teeter, NVIDIA's general counsel, reached out 3:49:37.910 --> 3:49:41.710 to Commerce Undersecretary Jeffrey Kessler, a Trump appointee, to ask 3:49:41.750 --> 3:49:45.430 about the investigation in the summer of 2025, that is 3:49:45.470 --> 3:49:48.890 a few months before Jensen hired a crisis PR firm. And, 3:49:48.990 --> 3:49:52.830 per Bloomberg, specifically, Teeter wanted to know whether Kessler's Bureau 3:49:52.850 --> 3:49:55.540 of Industry and Security was involved in the Singapore government's 3:49:55.600 --> 3:50:00.040 recent detention of Alice Wong, a Megaspeed executive. Singapore police 3:50:00.060 --> 3:50:02.140 had brought Alice in for questioning and restricted her from 3:50:02.180 --> 3:50:05.210 leaving the country. Now, it turns out Kessler's people were 3:50:05.230 --> 3:50:09.169 completely uninvolved, and because he's a helpful guy, Kessler apparently 3:50:09.220 --> 3:50:12.640 gave NVIDIA permission to reach out directly about the case 3:50:12.760 --> 3:50:16.990 to the Commerce Department agents investigating it. Times reporting describes 3:50:17.000 --> 3:50:19.970 these agents as having been alarmed that NVIDIA lawyers had 3:50:20.010 --> 3:50:24.170 dropped their boss's name. Bloomberg described the investigation as being 3:50:24.270 --> 3:50:26.929 muzzled in the weeks after this with, quote, a mandate 3:50:26.950 --> 3:50:30.510 that they route all requests of NVIDIA through Kessler or 3:50:30.570 --> 3:50:33.650 seek his approval for outreach, a highly unusual step that 3:50:33.690 --> 3:50:37.730 remains unique to the chipmaker, the people said. The investigation 3:50:37.750 --> 3:50:41.090 was ultimately transferred out of commerce and to the Justice Department. Now, 3:50:41.350 --> 3:50:44.150 this is obviously rank corruption of the highest order. I 3:50:44.170 --> 3:50:46.290 guess we're all pretty used to that from this administration 3:50:46.370 --> 3:50:48.450 at this point. My suspicion is they didn't think it 3:50:48.490 --> 3:50:51.920 would ever come up. Now, before we go further, I 3:50:51.940 --> 3:50:54.480 should address the obvious question some of you might have 3:50:54.520 --> 3:50:57.540 right now. Why does the Chinese government want to spy 3:50:57.730 --> 3:51:00.750 on and influence Jensen Huang so badly? Well, it all 3:51:00.810 --> 3:51:03.350 comes down to the fact that China wants NVIDIA's advanced 3:51:03.430 --> 3:51:06.250 AI chips, and the US government won't let NVIDIA sell 3:51:06.290 --> 3:51:10.180 those chips in China. For a write-up in TechCrunch, Historically, 3:51:10.280 --> 3:51:12.200 China has been a big market for the company. It 3:51:12.240 --> 3:51:14.480 has shrunk in recent years due to strict US export 3:51:14.500 --> 3:51:17.660 controls and an aggressive push by Beijing for domestic alternatives. 3:51:18.070 --> 3:51:21.230 In the three months ending on July 26th, NVIDIA recorded 3:51:21.230 --> 3:51:25.830 $ 7. 9 billion in revenue from customers headquartered in China, roughly 8% 3:51:25.830 --> 3:51:29.270 of total revenue. Wang has repeatedly lobbied the U.S. government 3:51:29.310 --> 3:51:31.759 to expand access to China, and some of his persuasion 3:51:31.800 --> 3:51:35.220 tactics have been successful. Wang met repeatedly with President Donald 3:51:35.240 --> 3:51:39.180 Trump and administration officials last year. Afterward, the government reversed 3:51:39.240 --> 3:51:42.300 restrictions on NVIDIA's H20 chips and allowed exports of its 3:51:42.340 --> 3:51:46.460 more powerful H200 processors. So Jensen is on the record 3:51:46.620 --> 3:51:50.200 calling U.S. export controls to China a failure and unwise. 3:51:50.520 --> 3:51:52.920 He's warned that if NVIDIA can't sell chips to China, 3:51:52.960 --> 3:51:55.310 the country will simply develop its own AI chips and 3:51:55.360 --> 3:51:59.130 challenge NVIDIA's international dominance. I don't really think you need 3:51:59.150 --> 3:52:01.610 to have foreign influence to explain why Jensen wants to 3:52:01.650 --> 3:52:04.530 sell his products more widely to a massive market, but 3:52:04.570 --> 3:52:06.730 it also makes it very clear why he's the kind 3:52:06.750 --> 3:52:09.900 of guy China would devote resources to influencing. In the 3:52:09.940 --> 3:52:12.720 immediate wake of the announcement, Jensen pulled out of several 3:52:12.740 --> 3:52:16.310 speaking engagements. Journalists at The Information followed the money and 3:52:16.340 --> 3:52:18.830 found that Alice Wong's family own a network of Chinese 3:52:18.890 --> 3:52:23.610 companies that buy NVIDIA chips, including banned ones. Shanghai Century Letong, 3:52:23.730 --> 3:52:26.550 one of these companies, is an NVIDIA preferred cloud partner 3:52:26.590 --> 3:52:32.030 who purchased some $ 7. 5 billion worth of NVIDIA chips. Per TechCrunch, 3:52:32.530 --> 3:52:35.870 NVIDIA's head lawyer, Tim Teeter, intervened in a 2025 U.S. 3:52:35.890 --> 3:52:38.810 government probe surrounding the suspected smuggling of AI chips by 3:52:38.910 --> 3:52:43.030 Megaspeed International. In early 2025, Alice Huang and a business 3:52:43.090 --> 3:52:46.640 partner sought China-based investors for an Asian data center, promising 3:52:46.660 --> 3:52:50.260 they had no problem in securing GPUs, the Financial Times reported. 3:52:51.400 --> 3:52:54.040 Trump responded to this whole blow-up by calling Jensen a 3:52:54.100 --> 3:52:58.380 fine person and adding, but you never know what's going on. Still, 3:52:58.420 --> 3:53:01.120 he expressed a belief that Huang should remain CEO of NVIDIA. 3:53:01.730 --> 3:53:02.550 However, U.S. 3:53:02.590 --> 3:53:05.860 Officials aren't just worried that Huang helped China get access 3:53:05.900 --> 3:53:09.060 to forbidden AI chips. For the New York Times, the 3:53:09.080 --> 3:53:12.890 revelation that she was feeding information directly to Beijing raised 3:53:12.920 --> 3:53:16.350 more troubling possibilities, including that Mr. Huang had insights into Mr. 3:53:16.390 --> 3:53:19.230 Trump's thinking on an issue of vital importance to both nations, 3:53:19.690 --> 3:53:21.930 one likely to come up when the president visits China 3:53:21.980 --> 3:53:24.470 next month. And it left questions about whether she could 3:53:24.490 --> 3:53:27.530 be gleaning information about NVIDIA, which, as much as any company, 3:53:27.610 --> 3:53:29.950 accounts for the lead the United States has maintained in 3:53:29.970 --> 3:53:34.130 developing cutting-edge AI models. Now, the New York Times reporting 3:53:34.210 --> 3:53:37.870 also confirms that Huang never received what's called a defensive briefing. 3:53:38.010 --> 3:53:41.030 These are warnings given to Americans being targeted by foreign 3:53:41.090 --> 3:53:43.950 or likely to be targeted by foreign intelligence services. And 3:53:43.970 --> 3:53:45.530 the fact that he didn't get one of these is 3:53:45.610 --> 3:53:47.910 weird and maybe suggests that the U.S. government was well 3:53:47.970 --> 3:53:51.700 aware of this relationship. At least people in Trump's part. 3:53:51.500 --> 3:53:51.860 Of the U.S. 3:53:51.880 --> 3:53:53.580 Government were well aware of this relationship. 3:53:54.340 --> 3:53:54.900 On Tuesday. 3:53:55.410 --> 3:53:58.570 NVIDIA announced that they'd hired former acting U.S. attorney for 3:53:58.610 --> 3:54:01.330 the Southern District of New York, June Kim, to conduct 3:54:01.370 --> 3:54:05.390 their independent investigation into Huang's activities. Kim had joined the 3:54:05.450 --> 3:54:08.930 Wachtel Lipton law firm just last month. His prior career 3:54:08.950 --> 3:54:12.560 highlights include the prosecution of rapper DMX over tax evasion 3:54:12.580 --> 3:54:16.260 charges and the investigation into sexual harassment allegations made against 3:54:16.340 --> 3:54:20.690 Andrew Cuomo. Megaspeed, for their part, have denied any wrongdoing 3:54:20.810 --> 3:54:23.550 and insist Mrs. Huang has largely been removed from the 3:54:23.590 --> 3:54:26.720 company since the start of the investigation. The Chinese embassy 3:54:26.760 --> 3:54:30.660 calls any claims of spying groundless smears and slanders. Nvidia's 3:54:30.680 --> 3:54:33.780 stock price fell sharply after Huang's little press release, dropping 3:54:33.820 --> 3:54:36.660 by around 4%, although I should note it's down some 22% 3:54:36.660 --> 3:54:41.000 over all in the last month. That's around $ 1. 7 trillion 3:54:41.070 --> 3:54:43.510 in value, and it's down around 5% over the course 3:54:43.550 --> 3:54:47.370 of the year. This whole blowup cost Jensen about $ 13 3:54:46.870 --> 3:54:49.890 billion in speculative net worth just in its first day 3:54:49.970 --> 3:54:54.000 or so. By Tuesday, Nvidia's stock continued to plunge, down 3:54:54.040 --> 3:54:57.420 almost 10%, which made Huang's loss in net worth around 3:54:57.420 --> 3:55:00.220 $ 17 billion after two news days of trading. This has 3:55:00.280 --> 3:55:02.600 all caused some analysts and pundits to wonder, is the 3:55:02.640 --> 3:55:06.080 Huang Huang affair serious enough to pop the AI bubble? 3:55:06.630 --> 3:55:09.530 Could this be the most expensive affair of all time? 3:55:10.050 --> 3:55:13.180 And so far, I mean, no. It still costs less 3:55:13.360 --> 3:55:16.300 real money, not stock value, real money, than the Jeff 3:55:16.360 --> 3:55:19.550 Bezos infidelity that led to his breakup with McKinsey or 3:55:19.580 --> 3:55:23.430 Bill Gates' Epstein-inspired divorce. But the point is a valid one. 3:55:23.450 --> 3:55:26.690 Huang is, more than anyone, the poster boy for the 3:55:26.830 --> 3:55:30.310 AI boom. While every frontier company continues to lose billions 3:55:30.350 --> 3:55:34.030 of dollars every year, NVIDIA has made an incomprehensible fortune. 3:55:34.570 --> 3:55:37.370 Per an article in The New Yorker, In Silicon Valley 3:55:37.410 --> 3:55:39.990 and on Wall Street, many people associate NVIDIA and its 3:55:40.010 --> 3:55:42.710 success almost entirely with Huang, who founded the company in 3:55:42.710 --> 3:55:46.770 1993 and who hasn't made any succession plans. In many ways, 3:55:46.870 --> 3:55:49.990 Jensen is NVIDIA's Steve Jobs, Daniel Newman, the CEO of 3:55:50.030 --> 3:55:53.010 Futurum Group, a tech advisory firm, told the Wall Street Journal. 3:55:53.430 --> 3:55:56.260 Given Huang's importance to his company, it is perhaps surprising 3:55:56.280 --> 3:55:58.820 that NVIDIA's stock didn't fall by even more. When the 3:55:58.860 --> 3:56:01.960 rival chipmaker Intel issued weak earnings guidance last month, its 3:56:01.980 --> 3:56:05.830 shares plunged by about 30%. The AI industry seems to 3:56:05.880 --> 3:56:08.950 be rallying around Jensen, or at least initially seemed to 3:56:08.970 --> 3:56:12.520 be rallying around Jensen. Venture capitalist and MAGA weirdo Sean 3:56:12.540 --> 3:56:16.540 McGuire called him irreplaceable for America's AI leadership. But it's 3:56:16.560 --> 3:56:19.270 worth noting that on Monday, as Nvidia's stock plunged, the 3:56:19.410 --> 3:56:24.530 overall AI market rallied and the NASDAQ closed up by 2.75%. Now, 3:56:24.690 --> 3:56:26.750 I'd be remiss if I didn't include some of Ed 3:56:26.790 --> 3:56:30.490 Zitron's reporting on this. You can read it on where'syoured.at, 3:56:30.550 --> 3:56:33.800 or you can listen to Better Offline. But his recent article, 3:56:33.880 --> 3:56:37.160 Jensen's Bizarre Adventure, includes some important notes, among them the 3:56:37.200 --> 3:56:41.150 fact that Megaspeed is NVIDIA's largest Southeast Asian customer. Earlier 3:56:41.190 --> 3:56:44.030 this year, Coper Research took a short position on NVIDIA, 3:56:44.410 --> 3:56:47.330 arguing that their indirect sales to mainland China were a 3:56:47.410 --> 3:56:52.300 major part of NVIDIA's revenue. How major? Around $ 43 billion 3:56:52.350 --> 3:56:55.640 this year, although NVIDIA officially claims their revenue for these 3:56:55.700 --> 3:56:58.840 kinds of sales to China is zero. As Ed notes, 3:56:58.880 --> 3:57:01.900 this means 20% of the largest company on the stock 3:57:01.940 --> 3:57:04.700 market's revenue comes from illicit sales to China. 3:57:05.560 --> 3:57:06.580 This is all a really. 3:57:06.400 --> 3:57:09.350 Big deal, and since I finished writing this on Tuesday 3:57:09.410 --> 3:57:12.200 over the course of just like Today, Wednesday, when I 3:57:12.280 --> 3:57:15.040 recorded it, it came out that Jensen's had another affair. 3:57:15.180 --> 3:57:17.380 The Wall Street Journal was able to get five Nvidia 3:57:17.440 --> 3:57:20.000 employees on the record talking about this other affair with 3:57:20.080 --> 3:57:23.750 an Nvidia employee, a subordinate of his. And now things 3:57:23.790 --> 3:57:26.150 have moved. There's been some articles saying that the board's 3:57:26.170 --> 3:57:28.570 looking to remove him. Things are not looking good for 3:57:28.650 --> 3:57:33.470 Jensen right now. This is much bigger. I really need 3:57:33.490 --> 3:57:36.890 to emphasize much bigger than infidelity. The real story here 3:57:36.950 --> 3:57:39.550 is the massive amount of chips that NVIDIA has been 3:57:39.570 --> 3:57:44.610 illegally selling to China, almost certainly with Jensen's explicit guidance 3:57:44.990 --> 3:57:47.870 and almost certainly with at least the tacit acceptance of 3:57:47.890 --> 3:57:50.370 the White House. Now, why would Trump do this? One 3:57:50.390 --> 3:57:53.490 possibility is that he's getting kickbacks, right? We have to 3:57:53.890 --> 3:57:56.010 at least look into the possibility when we're talking about 3:57:56.050 --> 3:57:58.880 Donald Trump. But I could see him supporting this and 3:57:58.920 --> 3:58:02.520 supporting Jensen breaking the law just because NVIDIA is so fucking. 3:58:02.240 --> 3:58:03.060 Crucial to the U.S. 3:58:03.120 --> 3:58:06.540 Economy right now and Trump wants number go up. We 3:58:06.580 --> 3:58:08.679 don't know exactly what the fallout from this is going 3:58:08.720 --> 3:58:10.460 to be, but this is looking like it could be 3:58:10.560 --> 3:58:12.780 one of the larger scandals of our lifetime. And this 3:58:12.840 --> 3:58:14.940 is certainly something that it could happen here. We'll continue 3:58:14.980 --> 3:58:17.660 to cover. I also, again, would recommend checking in with 3:58:17.720 --> 3:58:21.040 Ed Zitron's Better Offline. But yeah, something to keep an 3:58:21.260 --> 3:58:21.640 eye on. 3:58:22.600 --> 3:58:25.670 Thank you, Robert. Thoughts and prayers with Jensen. 3:58:26.930 --> 3:58:31.350 Hey, Garrison here with a quick update because on Thursday morning, 3:58:31.410 --> 3:58:36.230 Jensen Huang officially resigned as CEO and president of NVIDIA. 3:58:37.230 --> 3:58:41.020 And then later that day, Reuters reported that Huang had 3:58:41.680 --> 3:58:46.900 another affair with a second subordinate at NVIDIA. The stonk 3:58:46.980 --> 3:58:51.480 market is not taking the news well. Carlos, do you 3:58:51.500 --> 3:58:54.880 want to close us out with your reporting? 3:58:55.470 --> 3:58:59.530 Yes, absolutely. So I'm going to be talking about what 3:58:59.670 --> 3:59:03.690 El Salvador is doing in Haiti. I'm compressing a lot 3:59:03.710 --> 3:59:06.870 of stuff here, but here's the basics. At the tail 3:59:06.990 --> 3:59:11.210 end of October, El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele deployed more 3:59:11.310 --> 3:59:16.660 than 2,000 soldiers to Haiti to ostensibly find four Salvadoran 3:59:16.700 --> 3:59:20.840 soldiers from the United Nations Gang Suppression Force, or GSF, 3:59:20.900 --> 3:59:25.010 that were reportedly kidnapped by Haitian gangs while returning from 3:59:25.050 --> 3:59:27.830 a market in Croix de Bouquet, which is near the 3:59:27.880 --> 3:59:32.460 Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. This 2000 is a massive escalation 3:59:32.540 --> 3:59:35.100 of the 100 special forces troops that were deployed a 3:59:35.260 --> 3:59:39.560 couple days after the four soldiers were kidnapped on October 18th. 3:59:40.360 --> 3:59:45.120 In total, per the AP, there's roughly 2,500 Salvadoran soldiers 3:59:45.330 --> 3:59:50.180 in Haiti currently. However, there's very little transparency or oversight 3:59:50.340 --> 3:59:53.040 on these troops, which has led many people to question 3:59:53.160 --> 3:59:55.990 who these troops answer to and what they're actually meant 3:59:56.200 --> 3:59:59.250 to do there. Per the Miami Herald, speaking with the 3:59:59.390 --> 4:00:04.110 UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric, only about 200 of the Salvadoran 4:00:04.150 --> 4:00:09.080 soldiers deployed to Haiti fall under the GSF's mandate. Bukele 4:00:09.140 --> 4:00:12.440 reportedly sent these troops into Haiti without signing an agreement 4:00:12.500 --> 4:00:16.060 with the Haitian government, although Haitian Prime Minister Alix Didier 4:00:16.100 --> 4:00:20.280 Filzami has come to back the Salvadoran deployment because of its, quote, 4:00:20.920 --> 4:00:24.460 commitment of the Salvadoran forces in the fight against gangs, 4:00:24.700 --> 4:00:29.210 end quote. This praise came after Salvadoran troops bombed the 4:00:29.250 --> 4:00:33.089 headquarters of the 400 Mawoso, one of Haiti's most powerful gangs, 4:00:33.230 --> 4:00:35.610 as well as the house of its leader, Wilson Joseph, 4:00:35.870 --> 4:00:39.630 which is on the same compound. However, per the AFB, 4:00:39.710 --> 4:00:42.140 Joseph was not present at the time of the strike. 4:00:42.720 --> 4:00:46.660 What's particularly interesting, and I guess incredibly gruesome about the 4:00:46.700 --> 4:00:49.800 whole thing, is that the idea to strike the compound 4:00:49.880 --> 4:00:53.580 appears to have happened because a Twitter account asked Bukele 4:00:53.600 --> 4:00:56.800 to hit it. On November 5th, an account posted a 4:00:56.820 --> 4:00:59.860 picture of Joseph's house with a caption in Haitian Creole 4:00:59.940 --> 4:01:02.280 saying that it was built in front of people's faces 4:01:02.340 --> 4:01:06.350 by a, quote, gang leader involved in kidnappings and assassinations, 4:01:06.490 --> 4:01:10.280 end quote. A day later, Bukele, quote, tweeted the post asking, 4:01:10.440 --> 4:01:14.090 in Haitian Creole, quote, where is that house located? Give 4:01:14.150 --> 4:01:16.850 us the exact address and we'll destroy it, end quote. 4:01:18.250 --> 4:01:23.660 After that, several accounts commented the coordinates. Then, on November 10th, 4:01:23.800 --> 4:01:27.400 Bukele posted a video of Salvadoran troops firing missiles at 4:01:27.420 --> 4:01:31.300 the house and striking the structure with the caption, quote, 4:01:31.380 --> 4:01:35.420 we fulfilled our promise, end quote. It's worth noting that 4:01:35.660 --> 4:01:38.500 per the Miami Herald, the attack was a joint operation 4:01:38.550 --> 4:01:42.050 between the Haitian National Police's drone task force and the 4:01:42.110 --> 4:01:46.070 Salvadoran troops. Two of the helicopters that participated in the 4:01:46.110 --> 4:01:48.570 attack were operated by the task force and the other 4:01:48.610 --> 4:01:52.530 two were operated by the Salvadoran soldiers. It's notable that 4:01:52.550 --> 4:01:56.520 the video that Bucala posted shows presumably a Salvadoran soldier 4:01:56.560 --> 4:01:58.040 aboard a small helicopter. 4:01:58.740 --> 4:02:02.140 Yeah, it's a weird helicopter choice. I don't know what 4:02:02.160 --> 4:02:03.560 helicopters they have available to them. 4:02:04.050 --> 4:02:08.370 Yeah, no, it's, it's extremely little. There's, there's not took 4:02:08.390 --> 4:02:12.070 a little bit that much reporting on if this is 4:02:12.090 --> 4:02:15.930 a Salvadoran helicopter, but that seems to be the case. 4:02:16.310 --> 4:02:16.530 Yeah. 4:02:17.290 --> 4:02:20.310 The tactic place while task force soldiers were deployed on 4:02:20.330 --> 4:02:23.790 the ground, a source told the Miami Herald, at least 4:02:23.790 --> 4:02:28.210 20 people were reportedly killed by the strikes. So before 4:02:28.270 --> 4:02:31.240 I go on to talk about Salvadoran troops, I really 4:02:31.280 --> 4:02:35.330 want to quickly mention that the task force works directly 4:02:35.410 --> 4:02:38.050 under the office of the prime minister, and it's supported 4:02:38.130 --> 4:02:42.160 by the private security firm Vectis Global, which was founded 4:02:42.220 --> 4:02:45.480 by Eric Prince, who also founded Blackwater, which is now 4:02:45.540 --> 4:02:49.060 part of Constellus Group. If people aren't familiar with Blackwater, 4:02:49.140 --> 4:02:52.700 they're the PMC that killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad's 4:02:52.840 --> 4:02:56.910 Nisr Square in 2007. Prince and his group have been 4:02:56.930 --> 4:03:00.480 in Haiti since at least March of 2025. because they 4:03:00.520 --> 4:03:03.180 were hired by Haiti's interim government to work on the 4:03:03.230 --> 4:03:08.690 drone task force, which has executed over 2,000 strikes. Per 4:03:08.750 --> 4:03:12.850 data from the Human Rights Watch, at least 1,243 people 4:03:12.900 --> 4:03:15.280 have been killed by the strikes between March 2025 and 4:03:15.300 --> 4:03:17.020 January 2026, including at least 43 civilian adults and 17 children. 4:03:23.470 --> 4:03:26.230 So if you're keeping track at home, there's at least 4:03:26.370 --> 4:03:30.150 five separate security forces currently operating on the ground in Haiti. 4:03:30.750 --> 4:03:34.650 The Haitian police and the Haitian military, the gang suppression force, 4:03:34.850 --> 4:03:38.940 formerly known as the Multinational Security Support Mission, Vectis Global, 4:03:39.080 --> 4:03:42.400 and the newly deployed Salvadoran forces. I'm going to work 4:03:42.440 --> 4:03:44.700 on a longer episode about this at some point, but 4:03:44.720 --> 4:03:46.420 for the rest of my segment, I want to focus 4:03:46.560 --> 4:03:49.620 on the Salvadoran troops and what Bukele actually wants them 4:03:49.640 --> 4:03:53.260 to do there. Per Axios and their bullet points, Bukele, 4:03:53.300 --> 4:03:56.280 who is a longtime ally of Trump, has received the U.S. 4:03:56.340 --> 4:04:00.860 president's full support for the deployment. Trump said, quote, you 4:04:00.940 --> 4:04:04.780 have to do what you have to do. However, the 4:04:05.100 --> 4:04:08.240 State Department and El Salvador have reportedly hit a rough 4:04:08.300 --> 4:04:11.200 patch after a gang attack on a Salvadoran convoy led 4:04:11.240 --> 4:04:14.060 to the U.S. embassy in Haiti being struck by gunfire. 4:04:15.210 --> 4:04:18.260 David Howell, the U.S. charge d'affaires, which is basically a 4:04:18.320 --> 4:04:21.380 diplomat in charge of an embassy when the ambassador is absent, 4:04:21.500 --> 4:04:26.480 reportedly texted Haitian Prime Minister Didier Fils-Aimé, quote, they, as 4:04:26.540 --> 4:04:30.240 in the Salvadoran forces, took at least three casualties. They 4:04:30.260 --> 4:04:33.460 don't have a medical plan. They nearly killed GSF troops, 4:04:33.660 --> 4:04:36.650 end quote, and asked them to stop operations as soon 4:04:36.690 --> 4:04:40.790 as possible, ellipses, until they coordinate. They are going to 4:04:40.850 --> 4:04:44.550 kill GSF troops or civilians and or get themselves killed. 4:04:46.620 --> 4:04:49.740 Since then, there appear to be some pretty petty back-and-forth 4:04:49.800 --> 4:04:52.700 messages going on behind the scenes between the State Department 4:04:52.800 --> 4:04:56.570 and El Salvador. Bukele denies his troops hit the embassy 4:04:56.670 --> 4:04:59.250 and that any of his troops were injured, although Axis' 4:04:59.310 --> 4:05:02.730 reporter claims he saw a picture of an injured Salvadoran soldier. 4:05:03.450 --> 4:05:06.550 Bukele also said that he's been coordinating air assets with 4:05:06.570 --> 4:05:09.790 the GSF and the Haitian government since the tail end 4:05:09.810 --> 4:05:12.410 of October. which appears to line up with the details 4:05:12.510 --> 4:05:15.930 we know of the attack on the 400 Mawoso headquarters. 4:05:16.830 --> 4:05:20.430 I should mention that, per Joseph, the four missing Salvadoran 4:05:20.490 --> 4:05:24.920 soldiers were killed, quote-unquote, in error by another gang, and 4:05:25.000 --> 4:05:27.860 four charred bodies were handed over to the GSF, but 4:05:27.880 --> 4:05:31.580 there's been no independent confirmation to see if they are 4:05:31.700 --> 4:05:35.440 or aren't the same soldiers. For his part, Bukele claims 4:05:35.500 --> 4:05:38.450 they aren't. To get a sense of what Bukele is 4:05:38.490 --> 4:05:41.040 trying to accomplish in Haiti, It seems clear to me 4:05:41.100 --> 4:05:43.620 that he has really little care for what happened to 4:05:43.680 --> 4:05:47.080 these four soldiers, but is very much using their kidnapping 4:05:47.160 --> 4:05:50.860 as an excuse to portray himself and El Salvador as 4:05:50.890 --> 4:05:55.090 a regional military power that is able to quote-unquote solve 4:05:55.370 --> 4:05:59.550 gang problems like no other country can. If people aren't familiar, 4:05:59.570 --> 4:06:02.780 Bukele reign in El Salvador has been defined by him 4:06:02.860 --> 4:06:06.360 suspending the constitution and detaining more than 1% of the 4:06:06.400 --> 4:06:10.890 country's total population, according to the AP. Per reporting by 4:06:10.950 --> 4:06:12.730 El Faro, which is a group of journalists that have 4:06:12.850 --> 4:06:15.390 since been exiled from the country because of their reporting, 4:06:15.570 --> 4:06:20.160 Bukele and his government negotiated extensively with the gangs including 4:06:20.260 --> 4:06:24.000 reportedly offering gang leaders in prison privileges for reducing the 4:06:24.020 --> 4:06:27.710 amount of killings and support for his party in gang-controlled areas. 4:06:28.530 --> 4:06:32.430 He's been praised extensively by right-wing politicians, including Trump, of course. 4:06:33.050 --> 4:06:35.750 Bukele is a public relations guy through and through, that's 4:06:35.790 --> 4:06:38.660 his background, which is why he's trying to present himself 4:06:38.800 --> 4:06:42.300 as this liberator type who can deploy his manadura politics 4:06:42.480 --> 4:06:45.320 anywhere he wants, which is why he's responding to people 4:06:45.400 --> 4:06:48.360 on Twitter and in Haitian Creole and talking about hitting 4:06:48.400 --> 4:06:51.600 the gangs harder than anyone ever has before. But the 4:06:51.640 --> 4:06:53.900 truth is that the Haitian gangs appear to be far 4:06:53.980 --> 4:06:57.280 more organized and entrenched than El Salvador's, so he won't 4:06:57.330 --> 4:06:59.490 be easily able to do the same thing as he 4:06:59.530 --> 4:07:02.390 did there, which will likely mean a lot of violence 4:07:02.570 --> 4:07:05.810 being meted out against anybody perceived as supporting the gangs 4:07:05.990 --> 4:07:09.130 or being a gang member. We can't forget that Trump 4:07:09.210 --> 4:07:12.010 sent more than 200 immigrants to Secot, which is a 4:07:12.250 --> 4:07:14.010 violent prison in El Salvador. 4:07:14.920 --> 4:07:17.600 I got to look at the video again. They are 4:07:17.660 --> 4:07:21.280 their helicopters. There's a Salvador flag right on the tail. 4:07:21.360 --> 4:07:24.460 It looks like MD-500s, which it had for a while. 4:07:24.480 --> 4:07:29.020 That's their Civil War, Salvador Civil War era helicopter. They 4:07:29.040 --> 4:07:33.420 show them right at the very start in profile. He 4:07:33.460 --> 4:07:39.020 also today ratioed Amnesty International on his Twitter account. 4:07:39.340 --> 4:07:42.040 That's how you know that you're on the good side 4:07:42.060 --> 4:07:43.600 of history. Yeah. 4:07:43.800 --> 4:07:46.560 Quote retweeted them with the word ratioed. 4:07:46.760 --> 4:07:49.580 Is this after the post they said asking to make 4:07:49.600 --> 4:07:53.630 sure that civilians and other people were safe from gang attacks? 4:07:53.730 --> 4:07:53.910 Yes. 4:07:54.010 --> 4:07:54.570 Oh, my God. 4:07:55.290 --> 4:07:56.490 Let me just read it out. 4:07:56.750 --> 4:08:00.510 The Prime Minister of Haiti, Alex Didier-Phil Zermier, and the 4:08:00.550 --> 4:08:05.620 President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, must ensure that all 4:08:05.660 --> 4:08:09.080 operations conducted by Salvadoran forces in Haiti continue. comply with 4:08:09.120 --> 4:08:12.760 international human rights law he quote retweeted this with the 4:08:12.800 --> 4:08:17.520 word ratioed jeez cool the people of fucking haiti have 4:08:17.600 --> 4:08:22.030 suffered so much for colonial bullshit for centuries yeah this 4:08:22.070 --> 4:08:23.270 just fucking sucks. 4:08:23.190 --> 4:08:25.970 I mean even in this century this is the second 4:08:26.410 --> 4:08:30.610 un sponsored mission that has uh entrenched itself in haiti. 4:08:31.070 --> 4:08:34.410 Yeah i mean since since the earthquake where the uh 4:08:34.810 --> 4:08:38.190 like the people responding brought infectious disease right like Yeah. 4:08:38.590 --> 4:08:42.470 It's just like a nonstop parade of suffering for the Haitian. 4:08:42.510 --> 4:08:45.750 It's such a beautiful country. These lovely people, like, yeah, 4:08:45.790 --> 4:08:46.670 it really fucking sucks. 4:08:46.970 --> 4:08:47.130 Yeah. 4:08:47.150 --> 4:08:51.190 I don't know. To me, it really seems, and I 4:08:51.230 --> 4:08:53.560 will expand on this somewhere else, but to me, it 4:08:53.590 --> 4:08:56.460 really seems like Haiti is being used as a testing 4:08:56.500 --> 4:09:02.040 ground by these kind of, I guess not necessarily smaller powers, 4:09:02.120 --> 4:09:04.680 but like by El Salvador, it's definitely being used as 4:09:04.740 --> 4:09:07.360 a testing ground for them to show the world. what 4:09:07.420 --> 4:09:10.470 they can do. And, like, it's clear that he's mimicking 4:09:10.630 --> 4:09:13.410 Trump and what he's trying to do in Iran and, 4:09:13.890 --> 4:09:15.210 I guess, did in Venezuela. 4:09:15.550 --> 4:09:18.290 Yeah, he's trying to project himself as, like, Trump's Western 4:09:18.330 --> 4:09:20.890 Hemisphere enforcer for deniable war crimes, right? 4:09:21.070 --> 4:09:21.610 Absolutely. 4:09:21.630 --> 4:09:24.740 At the same time, like, Eric Prince is very clearly 4:09:24.800 --> 4:09:28.360 testing this, like, rent-a-state strategy there. Like, if your state 4:09:28.440 --> 4:09:31.780 lacks the ability to enforce its rule of law by violence, 4:09:31.860 --> 4:09:33.220 we will be the violence part. 4:09:34.140 --> 4:09:34.300 Like. 4:09:35.220 --> 4:09:38.200 It's not a new method for PMCs, right? Like Wagner, 4:09:38.300 --> 4:09:41.130 Africa Corps have been effectively doing this in Africa for 4:09:41.150 --> 4:09:44.250 a while. And of course, Margaret Thatcher's kid did it. 4:09:44.450 --> 4:09:47.890 But it's interesting to see Prince going that route, right? 4:09:48.090 --> 4:09:49.910 Before it was like, I'll use all my connections in 4:09:49.950 --> 4:09:52.690 America to make money off doing stuff the US government 4:09:52.710 --> 4:09:54.590 doesn't want to do with its own troops. But he's 4:09:54.650 --> 4:09:57.630 clearly moved on from that to like, I'll make money 4:09:57.670 --> 4:10:00.290 by being your state violence capacity if you don't have 4:10:00.370 --> 4:10:02.140 one or enough of one in this case. 4:10:02.640 --> 4:10:06.080 Yeah, absolutely. Very well said. And I don't know, I 4:10:06.100 --> 4:10:10.080 think it's sadly, there doesn't seem to be a clear 4:10:10.180 --> 4:10:15.070 endpoint for what any of these groups are trying to 4:10:15.110 --> 4:10:17.950 do in Haiti, other than like the amorphous idea of 4:10:18.250 --> 4:10:22.370 ending the gang control over Haiti. But, you know, they're 4:10:22.390 --> 4:10:26.230 very entrenched in the system, both politically and region wise. 4:10:26.510 --> 4:10:29.310 And there doesn't seem to be a super concrete plan 4:10:30.300 --> 4:10:33.550 as to how that can actually end. And I guess 4:10:33.620 --> 4:10:36.290 the big thing that I've seen Haitians talk about is 4:10:37.190 --> 4:10:40.430 them not being able to participate in these processes, right? 4:10:40.450 --> 4:10:42.610 Because a big part of this is supposed to be 4:10:43.010 --> 4:10:47.080 holding elections again in Haiti, but that seems extremely far off, 4:10:47.140 --> 4:10:48.679 even though they're planned for next year. 4:10:49.860 --> 4:10:50.060 Yeah. 4:10:50.200 --> 4:10:52.920 It's crazy to see El Salvador, like almost acting as 4:10:52.980 --> 4:10:56.880 like a, like a full service PMC, like complete with 4:10:56.920 --> 4:11:00.740 carceral capacity, right? Like it, In the same way as 4:11:00.780 --> 4:11:03.600 a PMC, they don't see it as their role to 4:11:03.640 --> 4:11:04.880 have a peace plan, right? 4:11:05.180 --> 4:11:08.690 Unfortunately, no one seems to, the Haitian people. Or not 4:11:08.750 --> 4:11:10.430 no one, but all of the people with guns. 4:11:11.530 --> 4:11:12.710 Yeah. 4:11:12.730 --> 4:11:16.070 Carlos, where can people find more of your work online? 4:11:16.530 --> 4:11:24.620 You can find me everywhere online at Vaquero2XL, V-A-Q-U-E-R-O 2XL. 4:11:25.020 --> 4:11:26.260 And on It Could Happen Here. 4:11:26.860 --> 4:11:29.750 That is true. I forgot this the last time as well. 4:11:30.290 --> 4:11:32.650 Find me on It Can Happen Here on the occasional 4:11:32.790 --> 4:11:35.670 podcast episode. Thanks for having me on, y'all. 4:11:36.510 --> 4:11:41.270 Yeah, you're welcome. If you want to email us, can do. 4:11:41.620 --> 4:11:42.700 I've been blocking heavily. 4:11:43.020 --> 4:11:45.200 I'm returning, actually, to my threat of reading out the 4:11:45.280 --> 4:11:48.100 email addresses of the next marketing people who continue to 4:11:48.120 --> 4:11:50.380 spam me. So maybe that'll be a little Thanksgiving treat 4:11:50.420 --> 4:11:54.250 for you all. But you can email us on coolzontipsatproton.me. 4:11:55.750 --> 4:11:57.020 We reported the news. 4:11:58.260 --> 4:11:59.160 We reported the news. 4:12:05.920 --> 4:12:09.070 Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week 4:12:09.150 --> 4:12:10.990 from now until the heat death of the universe. 4:12:11.850 --> 4:12:14.270 It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. 4:12:14.490 --> 4:12:18.850 For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, 4:12:19.290 --> 4:12:22.110 or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 4:12:22.480 --> 4:12:25.630 or wherever you listen to podcasts. can now find sources 4:12:25.670 --> 4:12:28.250 for It Could Happen Here listed directly in episode descriptions. 4:12:28.750 --> 4:12:29.430 Thanks for listening.