WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 249 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. 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:31.280 Hello everyone and welcome to It Could Happen Here. My 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:33.909 name is Dana Al-Kurd. I'm a researcher of Arab and 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:38.250 Palestinian politics and today I'm joined by Hossam Al-Hamalawi. Hossam 0:00:38.290 --> 0:00:40.630 is a journalist and socialist from Cairo who was among 0:00:40.650 --> 0:00:44.620 the organizers of the 2011 protest. He's been involved in 0:00:44.659 --> 0:00:47.140 the labor movement and the fight against police brutality in 0:00:47.180 --> 0:00:49.760 Egypt for many years and holds a PhD in political 0:00:49.780 --> 0:00:52.890 science from the Free University of Berlin. He publishes a 0:00:52.909 --> 0:00:55.650 weekly newsletter on Egyptian politics, which I'll be linking in 0:00:55.670 --> 0:00:57.810 the show notes, and is author of the new book, 0:00:57.970 --> 0:01:01.890 Counter-Revolution in Egypt, Sisi's New Republic. Hassan, thanks for joining us. 0:01:02.630 --> 0:01:03.720 Thank you, Diana, for having me. 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:07.059 So let me start off by talking about the beginning 0:01:07.100 --> 0:01:09.400 of your book. At the beginning of your book, you 0:01:09.420 --> 0:01:13.180 talk about your own abduction and torture by state security 0:01:13.740 --> 0:01:17.330 in 2000. And then you were an organizer, as I said, 0:01:17.500 --> 0:01:21.069 of the 2011 uprising. So how did living through this 0:01:22.020 --> 0:01:25.440 repression on a personal level shaped the way that you 0:01:25.500 --> 0:01:29.840 studied the repression? And what can a participant see that 0:01:29.900 --> 0:01:32.410 maybe an outside scholar might miss? 0:01:32.970 --> 0:01:37.150 There was like a long-running tradition in academia and in journalism, 0:01:37.530 --> 0:01:41.810 which fortunately is being challenged over the past couple of 0:01:41.870 --> 0:01:47.150 decades at least. whereby this tradition tended to regard the 0:01:47.170 --> 0:01:51.650 scholar or the journalist as someone who's completely separate from 0:01:52.030 --> 0:01:54.550 whatever they are studying or reporting on. 0:01:55.610 --> 0:02:00.580 They should be, between quotes, neutral, between quotes, objective. 0:02:01.860 --> 0:02:07.180 Any form of attachment or passion for any cause would 0:02:07.260 --> 0:02:12.280 be considered a conflict of interest, more or less. But 0:02:13.040 --> 0:02:15.660 I mean, a great chunk of my career, and this 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:17.920 is also expressed in this book, I've been trying to 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:22.639 challenge that. I consider myself a scholar activist, not just 0:02:22.700 --> 0:02:25.519 a scholar. I was also an activist journalist, not just 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:30.060 a journalist. And in that regards, in answer to your question, 0:02:31.310 --> 0:02:35.429 my experience when it comes to state repression has definitely 0:02:35.530 --> 0:02:39.910 shaped not just my intellectual trajectory, but. 0:02:40.310 --> 0:02:41.450 My own personal life. 0:02:41.940 --> 0:02:45.510 After all, I'm doing this interview with you from Berlin, 0:02:45.810 --> 0:02:49.770 not from my home in Cairo, which I had to 0:02:49.810 --> 0:02:54.829 leave in 2015 and can't go back as long as 0:02:54.889 --> 0:03:01.950 this regime exists. My repression, which included the repeated arrests, torture, 0:03:02.850 --> 0:03:07.500 continuous threats to me and my family, exclusion from jobs, 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:12.549 and the list is too long, have planted in me 0:03:13.830 --> 0:03:20.920 curiosity and also an existential reason to study who's repressing me, actually. 0:03:21.500 --> 0:03:25.079 I mean, we tend to talk about the state or 0:03:25.419 --> 0:03:29.940 the security apparatus. And I was very much interested in 0:03:30.139 --> 0:03:35.290 putting faces and names to these kind of entities. Who's 0:03:35.330 --> 0:03:38.730 doing what when it comes to repression? Who's doing the 0:03:38.770 --> 0:03:42.740 monitoring and who's doing the arrest? What's the profile of 0:03:42.860 --> 0:03:47.260 the officers who conduct these missions? Where do they come from? 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:52.279 What's their background? What's their life trajectories? How do they 0:03:52.340 --> 0:03:58.920 justify for themselves their actions? What's their worldview? And in 0:03:59.020 --> 0:04:02.430 so many ways, this curiosity has took me on a 0:04:02.490 --> 0:04:08.990 very long journey to study this apparatus. also with the 0:04:09.940 --> 0:04:13.140 declared aim of dismantling it one day when we are 0:04:13.220 --> 0:04:14.900 victorious in the coming revolution. 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:18.400 Yeah, so you really opened up kind of the black 0:04:18.460 --> 0:04:21.960 box of the security apparatus and disentangled, I think, the 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:25.210 ways in which maybe outside scholars kind of gloss over 0:04:25.230 --> 0:04:28.570 or lump different things together. And everything you're saying really 0:04:28.610 --> 0:04:31.050 resonates with me as a Palestinian studying Palestine, like this 0:04:31.190 --> 0:04:34.359 endless suspicion of your own perspective. I'm glad that, as 0:04:34.380 --> 0:04:36.900 you said, there has been a pushback from our region 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:40.609 and from scholars and activists in other places. But on 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:44.090 this question of like actually doing the research, you know, 0:04:44.130 --> 0:04:47.650 it must have been challenging because this regime wants to obfuscate. 0:04:48.330 --> 0:04:51.969 It wants to hide its doers. So it must have 0:04:51.990 --> 0:04:54.550 been challenging to find sources. How did you find that information? 0:04:54.589 --> 0:04:56.110 What was your methodology for the book? 0:04:56.870 --> 0:04:58.010 That's a very good question. 0:04:58.610 --> 0:05:03.450 From the outside, Egypt looks like a very opaque country 0:05:04.060 --> 0:05:07.860 for very reasonable causes at the end of the day. 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:09.260 This is a repressive regime. 0:05:09.540 --> 0:05:14.810 It's allergic to the flow of information and freedom of 0:05:14.870 --> 0:05:20.210 expression in general. Egypt is not a researcher-friendly country at all. 0:05:20.630 --> 0:05:24.349 Once you mention Egypt in academia, people are always reminded 0:05:24.370 --> 0:05:28.799 that with Giulio Regini, the Italian PhD scholar who was 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:36.020 brutally tortured and murdered in Egypt. We don't have freedom 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:40.730 of information acts in Egypt that allows us access into 0:05:40.770 --> 0:05:45.050 the archives of this security apparatus and the military and 0:05:45.150 --> 0:05:49.770 the other institutions that belong to that sector. But you 0:05:49.810 --> 0:05:54.450 can always find your way if you decide to become innovative. 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:59.719 And I will just cite a couple of examples. First 0:05:59.860 --> 0:06:04.240 is that sometimes the best information you can get about 0:06:04.620 --> 0:06:08.180 an opaque military like the Egyptians is through their sponsors. 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:13.539 The Egyptian military is sponsored by the US. In the US, 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:17.620 even when it's, of course, becoming sissified in so many aspects, 0:06:18.620 --> 0:06:22.220 But still, there is a room, Freedom of Information Acts 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:25.960 and other laws that allows you access. So if you 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:29.100 go down after we're done with the recording, just go 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:33.640 to the U.S. State Department website, check the FOIA section 0:06:34.700 --> 0:06:39.130 and go back to 2011 and check Hillary Clinton's emails 0:06:39.589 --> 0:06:40.990 that have been declassified. 0:06:41.270 --> 0:06:41.490 Right. 0:06:41.810 --> 0:06:46.480 The intelligence reports in these emails are almost contained the 0:06:46.500 --> 0:06:51.919 SCAB generals' meetings minutes, where Hillary is like saying, General 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:54.900 Rouhani said this, while the other general replied back saying no. 0:06:54.990 --> 0:06:58.130 And it's as if she's sitting, you know, I mean, 0:06:58.170 --> 0:07:00.970 on the same meeting. But anyways, I mean, they are 0:07:01.029 --> 0:07:03.990 her proxies and clients, so she must get the information 0:07:04.070 --> 0:07:08.450 right away. So I managed to get tons of information 0:07:08.550 --> 0:07:11.510 through actually declassified U.S. 0:07:11.550 --> 0:07:12.010 Documents. 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:17.260 The second method, which I also invested some time in, 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:20.900 just by the fact that the military are now in 0:07:20.940 --> 0:07:23.880 the front seat, not in the back seat when it 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:26.880 comes to ruling. And I guess we'll touch more on 0:07:26.900 --> 0:07:30.810 this later. There are tons of mics that are shoved 0:07:31.130 --> 0:07:35.170 in front of the mouths of the different generals and 0:07:35.230 --> 0:07:40.050 the different senior officials, as well as CC. And these 0:07:40.110 --> 0:07:43.170 guys don't have any filters. They haven't received the same 0:07:43.190 --> 0:07:50.180 sophisticated training, I guess, where militaries in Western quote-unquote democracies have, 0:07:50.420 --> 0:07:53.100 where they are always in contact with the media. 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:57.640 So the kind of garbage. 0:07:57.420 --> 0:08:02.220 And so many secretive things that you actually can't believe 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:06.980 that they are saying, it's unbelievable. So just by browsing 0:08:07.060 --> 0:08:10.950 through their public statements, they are spilling the beans left 0:08:11.010 --> 0:08:15.070 and right. The last thing that I will say about 0:08:15.330 --> 0:08:19.480 the sources, I once heard a story in the beginning 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:23.240 of the 2000s or late 1990s when. 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:24.100 I was still a student. 0:08:24.980 --> 0:08:27.380 And to be honest, I have no idea if this 0:08:27.400 --> 0:08:30.900 story was, I mean, it did happen or it's just 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:34.300 an urban myth. But when I heard it, it resonated 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:36.720 with me and it stayed with me for years to 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:37.940 come and inspired me. 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:40.939 The story goes like as follows. 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:45.660 Following the peace treaty with Israel, when the Egyptians and 0:08:45.700 --> 0:08:51.250 the Israelis were sitting, discussing joint cooperation projects. So the 0:08:51.290 --> 0:08:55.390 Israelis would, you know, propose some agricultural project, for example, 0:08:55.530 --> 0:08:58.829 and then they would tell the Egyptians, and we think 0:08:58.970 --> 0:09:03.699 that Mr. Muhammad, blah, blah, blah, at this department, at 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:08.099 your agricultural ministry, would be the most qualified to lead it. 0:09:09.340 --> 0:09:12.099 And then they would like suggest others and they would 0:09:12.140 --> 0:09:16.200 like keep on proposing names. And the Egyptians were shocked 0:09:16.380 --> 0:09:20.080 to find out that, as the story goes, that the 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:24.040 Musad had the entire map of the Egyptian bureaucracy just 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:28.200 by monitoring the obituaries. Because, you know, obituaries, maybe the 0:09:28.220 --> 0:09:30.979 Westerners don't know this, but obituaries in the Arab world, 0:09:31.540 --> 0:09:34.480 you tend to put your entire family tree and brag 0:09:34.540 --> 0:09:37.860 about things. all the members, you know, of the family. 0:09:38.140 --> 0:09:40.220 This engineer and this doctor. 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:41.460 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:45.800 Yeah, the entire family tree. And each one, you know, 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:49.330 you start posting their CVs and, you know, their achievements. 0:09:50.230 --> 0:09:53.230 So actually, when I heard this, it stuck with me, 0:09:53.410 --> 0:09:58.109 that story. And I applied that same methodology on like 0:09:58.150 --> 0:10:00.920 trying to track down police officers. who were involved in 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:03.620 torture in the years, like in the run up to 0:10:03.700 --> 0:10:07.440 the 2011 revolution. And I used the same technique in 0:10:07.460 --> 0:10:11.489 my research. So I managed to map, for example, the 0:10:11.550 --> 0:10:16.710 new administrative structure of the military intelligence through obituaries, through 0:10:16.750 --> 0:10:19.570 surfing through the obituaries and, you know, digging up names 0:10:19.630 --> 0:10:23.699 and departments and, uh, and things like that. So, yeah, 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:26.880 I mean, there is always a way to, to maneuver. 0:10:27.620 --> 0:10:31.400 I like how the security apparatus becomes a family business. Uh, um, 0:10:31.540 --> 0:10:33.700 and the military becomes a family business. And I also 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:35.580 love the fact that we can use the, like the 0:10:35.620 --> 0:10:40.130 structures of American empire to study its outposts. So, um, Yeah, 0:10:40.150 --> 0:10:47.480 that's very clever on your part to weaponize those sources. Okay, 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:50.640 so let's get into the argument of the book. Basically, 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:54.100 there's this idea of a counter-revolution, I think maybe for 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:56.440 like the layman. Also, I think in some of the 0:10:56.620 --> 0:11:00.220 theoretical literature, but just generally speaking, the way that people 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:03.819 think of counter-revolutions, we're thinking of a restoration of an 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:09.980 old regime. But your main argument is that Azizi didn't restore... 0:11:10.059 --> 0:11:14.700 Mubarak's Egypt. Mubarak was the president prior to the 2011 uprising. 0:11:15.300 --> 0:11:17.860 But he built something fundamentally different. You call it a 0:11:17.900 --> 0:11:21.710 second republic. So what makes this order different? And why 0:11:21.730 --> 0:11:24.929 does that distinction matter for how the world should understand 0:11:25.050 --> 0:11:25.870 Egypt right now? 0:11:26.450 --> 0:11:30.440 This indeed was the main argument of the book. My 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:36.650 book was sort of an intervention in political debates that 0:11:36.770 --> 0:11:41.670 have been happening among the Egyptian dissident community. When I 0:11:41.750 --> 0:11:46.620 started this research, I'm talking here about the end of 2017. 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:49.340 Because I mean, my book is, as you said earlier, 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:53.350 it's my doctoral actually dissertation, which I did here in Berlin. 0:11:54.150 --> 0:11:57.930 So at the time, there were still debates about whether 0:11:58.090 --> 0:12:01.630 this regime is a return to the Mubarak order or 0:12:01.730 --> 0:12:06.460 is it something new. Now, speaking to you in 2026, 0:12:06.460 --> 0:12:09.880 any five-year-old in Egypt would definitely, you know, would know 0:12:09.980 --> 0:12:13.140 that this is something completely different. You don't need to 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:16.560 do a PhD about. But at the time, there was 0:12:16.620 --> 0:12:22.150 still so much unclarity. And my argument was a victorious 0:12:22.230 --> 0:12:26.420 counter-revolution does not restore the old order simply because the 0:12:26.500 --> 0:12:30.099 old order has failed. And by failure here, Dana, I 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:33.260 don't mean the kind of failure that you and I 0:12:33.300 --> 0:12:37.720 would think of, that the old regime was not democratic enough, 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:44.179 the old regime did not distribute wealth in an equal fashion. No, 0:12:44.450 --> 0:12:48.750 in the eyes of the counter-revolutionaries, the old regime failed 0:12:49.050 --> 0:12:54.010 because it failed to repress the revolution. So the kind 0:12:54.190 --> 0:12:58.890 of victorious regimes that come out of such a counter-revolution 0:12:59.050 --> 0:13:03.440 are usually regimes that try to avoid the mistakes of 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:09.280 the past. So the generals, for example, who led the 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:10.059 2013 military coup. 0:13:10.860 --> 0:13:14.600 They regarded Mubarak as too lenient. as too weak. 0:13:15.540 --> 0:13:21.400 They completely detested the way that Hosni Mubarak, between quotes, 0:13:21.600 --> 0:13:25.880 allowed those human rights NGOs to operate in the country. 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:30.870 They couldn't believe that Hosni Mubarak allowed, again, between quotes, 0:13:31.660 --> 0:13:37.490 people to denounce him in the press, for example. So 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:42.160 This was not a restoration of the old Mubarak authoritarian formula. 0:13:42.300 --> 0:13:45.429 I mean, make no mistake, I'm not nostalgic to the 0:13:45.530 --> 0:13:46.589 Mubarak days. 0:13:47.330 --> 0:13:48.990 I don't see it as a viable model. 0:13:49.990 --> 0:13:55.970 But this was not a restoration of that old authoritarian formula. Instead, 0:13:56.590 --> 0:13:59.730 Sisi built a new regime, which, by the way, he's 0:13:59.770 --> 0:14:02.429 the one who coined the phrase the new republic or 0:14:02.470 --> 0:14:07.400 the second republic. And I know many people, they like 0:14:07.460 --> 0:14:11.350 to ridicule, you know, this term for very obvious reasons. 0:14:12.710 --> 0:14:14.490 But it's actually, it's quite accurate. 0:14:14.910 --> 0:14:22.630 He contrasts the First Republic, which lasted from 1953, that's 0:14:22.790 --> 0:14:25.810 one year after the Free Officers' Coup, when they abolished 0:14:25.830 --> 0:14:29.170 the monarchy and declared the republic, till 2013. 0:14:29.170 --> 0:14:32.900 This is all of it. It included.... 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:40.750 Three successive regimes, Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak, Sisi lumped them 0:14:40.950 --> 0:14:44.610 all together in one lot as the first republic. And actually, 0:14:44.630 --> 0:14:48.050 I'm arguing that he's right, even when on the surface, 0:14:48.390 --> 0:14:55.660 they had different inclinations, different stated goals, different international alliances. 0:14:56.460 --> 0:14:59.360 But when it comes to the core of how the 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:03.910 state machine was organized, actually, they didn't differ that much. 0:15:04.290 --> 0:15:07.890 And there was some logic in organizing the security apparatus, 0:15:08.530 --> 0:15:12.210 which completely changed after 2013. 0:15:22.930 --> 0:15:25.930 Let's get into that in particular. It's the fact that 0:15:26.670 --> 0:15:31.460 Abdel Nasser and Onward, they pitted... different parts of the 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:34.180 security apparatus against each other. Correct me if I'm wrong. 0:15:34.480 --> 0:15:36.900 I'm not a scholar of Egypt. But my understanding is 0:15:36.940 --> 0:15:41.770 that under Mubarak's regime, they really bolstered, for example, general 0:15:41.790 --> 0:15:46.530 intelligence and things like this. So always kind of historically 0:15:46.590 --> 0:15:49.570 fragmenting different parts of the security apparatus so that they 0:15:49.650 --> 0:15:53.710 are rivals. And of course, the dictator can be the arbiter. 0:15:54.190 --> 0:15:56.700 What you're saying is, in the book especially, is that 0:15:56.980 --> 0:16:01.310 Sisi unifies them for the first time. And- Why is 0:16:01.370 --> 0:16:05.150 that unification the key to kind of understanding not only 0:16:05.220 --> 0:16:07.900 the type of repression, but the scale? And could it 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:11.240 have happened without the 2011 revolution? 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:16.680 There is a vast amount of literature in political science 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:22.830 that discuss this term. It's called the dominant perceived threat. 0:16:24.110 --> 0:16:28.390 And the arguments usually that revolves around this term is 0:16:28.450 --> 0:16:34.540 that When autocrats reach power, they usually have a dominant 0:16:34.580 --> 0:16:39.060 perceived threat. I mean, don't get me wrong, any good autocrat, 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:41.620 if they want to stay in power for a long time, 0:16:41.900 --> 0:16:45.520 they have to shield themselves from all sorts of dangers. 0:16:46.540 --> 0:16:50.520 But there is always a dominant one. And according to 0:16:50.570 --> 0:16:56.410 that dominant one, they start structuring their security sector or 0:16:56.470 --> 0:17:00.730 security apparatus. So the argument also goes, and I mean, 0:17:00.770 --> 0:17:03.630 I support it, and I think it's correct and accurate, 0:17:04.590 --> 0:17:07.430 that if your dominant perceived threat is that of a 0:17:07.470 --> 0:17:12.169 military coup, then you tend to fragment your apparatus as 0:17:12.230 --> 0:17:20.480 you've just clarified. So you create multiple security institutions. And 0:17:20.580 --> 0:17:23.080 I mean security here in the functional sense, like, you know, 0:17:23.100 --> 0:17:26.670 the military would be a security institution. They will all 0:17:26.750 --> 0:17:33.630 have overlapping mandates, hardly any communication or information sharing between them. 0:17:34.780 --> 0:17:37.580 They are always in a state of competition for resources. 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:44.120 And there isn't much horizontal channels of communication. The only 0:17:44.180 --> 0:17:48.540 channels of communication are vertical. So that, as you also 0:17:48.580 --> 0:17:52.080 clarified earlier, only the ruler would. 0:17:51.900 --> 0:17:53.280 Have the bird's eye view. 0:17:54.190 --> 0:17:58.340 Of what's happening beneath them. At the same time, you know, 0:17:58.580 --> 0:18:04.640 this ruler or this autocrat would definitely take precautions against riots, 0:18:04.859 --> 0:18:09.670 against foreign invasions, against, you know, what have you. But 0:18:10.430 --> 0:18:13.609 that if the dominant perceived threat was that of a 0:18:13.630 --> 0:18:17.280 military coup, they will do as we just explained. 0:18:18.470 --> 0:18:20.970 So during the First Republic, I mean, how did the 0:18:21.020 --> 0:18:22.120 First Republic start? 0:18:22.780 --> 0:18:26.520 In case your listeners do not know, in July 1952, 0:18:26.500 --> 0:18:32.380 an eclectic group of nationalist army officers led by Colonel 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:40.230 Gamal Abdel Nasser, they overthrew the British-backed king and they 0:18:40.270 --> 0:18:44.910 declared the Republic a year later. This was a time, Dana, 0:18:44.970 --> 0:18:49.260 where Coups were almost a fashionable thing to do, I mean, 0:18:49.300 --> 0:18:54.030 across the global south. These were the years of decolonization. 0:18:54.050 --> 0:18:59.930 At the time, the militaries were still regarded in a favorable, actually, 0:19:00.070 --> 0:19:04.970 kind of light by the nations that were still being formed. 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:10.260 Many of them came from the anti-colonial fights. The military 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:16.980 was regarded as a modernizing force professional that can get 0:19:17.020 --> 0:19:19.939 the country to go forward and catch up with the 0:19:19.960 --> 0:19:23.940 West and break dependency ties. There was all of these 0:19:24.020 --> 0:19:28.530 kind of nostalgic, romanticized visions of the military. 0:19:29.250 --> 0:19:31.970 So Egypt in that case was not really that unique. 0:19:32.470 --> 0:19:34.990 It was happening across our region and it was happening 0:19:35.090 --> 0:19:40.070 across the global south. So the immediate concern of these 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:41.909 conspirators was a countercoup. 0:19:42.690 --> 0:19:43.270 It makes sense. 0:19:44.350 --> 0:19:49.150 So this was their dominant perceived threat. And that's when 0:19:49.430 --> 0:19:54.620 the military intervened. colonel, Zakaria Mohideen, who was dubbed Nasser's 0:19:54.650 --> 0:20:01.180 Beria in reference to Stalin's Beria, he organized this security setup, 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:06.080 which continued with us all the way up until 2013, 0:20:06.080 --> 0:20:10.270 whereby he fragmented the security sector, So you had the military, 0:20:10.670 --> 0:20:14.310 you had the interior ministry and its secret police, which 0:20:14.530 --> 0:20:18.290 changed its name, you know, several times, from al-Mabahf al-Amma 0:20:18.350 --> 0:20:20.149 to Mabahf Amn al-Dawla to. 0:20:20.790 --> 0:20:22.770 Then after the revolution, Al-Amn al-Watani. 0:20:23.510 --> 0:20:27.649 And he created the General Intelligence Service in 1954, or 0:20:28.090 --> 0:20:31.620 our Mukhabarat, as we call it. And by the way, 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:35.040 it was modeled along the structure of the CIA from 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:35.600 the start. 0:20:36.060 --> 0:20:37.560 They were very impressed, you know. 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:41.150 With the CIA and And actually, they enjoyed good relations 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:45.859 in order to fight communism. Because, you know, many people 0:20:45.900 --> 0:20:49.220 actually don't know that initially the free officers, they didn't 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:53.040 really express any left-leaning sympathies, but they were kind of 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:56.400 like pushed into it in the following years. So this 0:20:56.619 --> 0:21:02.100 was the security setup. Not in their wildest dreams did 0:21:02.140 --> 0:21:05.760 they ever imagine that a revolution could happen in Egypt. 0:21:06.140 --> 0:21:10.850 I mean, here a proper like popular revolution. And this 0:21:10.930 --> 0:21:15.070 is because our rulers, even when they, you know, came 0:21:15.230 --> 0:21:18.879 in the post-colonial years, they still maintained this colonial look 0:21:19.940 --> 0:21:24.899 whereby they despised their people. They saw the Egyptians as 0:21:25.540 --> 0:21:32.230 human beings without agency. They regarded the Egyptians as incapable 0:21:32.670 --> 0:21:38.140 of self-organizing and that if they are let to free 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:41.520 or let loose that they will bring the whole country 0:21:41.560 --> 0:21:43.820 together so there always has to be. 0:21:43.790 --> 0:21:48.290 Some patriarchal kind of guardianship of the. 0:21:48.290 --> 0:21:53.450 Egyptians they expected few riots to happen here and there 0:21:53.670 --> 0:21:56.930 maybe some strikes here and there but not in their 0:21:57.070 --> 0:22:03.190 wildest nightmares that they thought a revolution could happen comes 0:22:03.190 --> 0:22:09.000 2011 and suddenly they are all shocked and For two 0:22:09.140 --> 0:22:12.360 and a half years, they were panicking about the fact that, 0:22:12.380 --> 0:22:16.100 you know, the entire regime could have collapsed. So out 0:22:16.160 --> 0:22:20.900 of this trauma and paranoia comes out the counter-revolutionary regime 0:22:21.020 --> 0:22:25.030 of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, where the dominant perceived threat now 0:22:25.200 --> 0:22:29.910 is that of a popular revolution. And this is not, 0:22:30.210 --> 0:22:32.690 I mean, my own analysis. I mean, again, Sisi does 0:22:32.850 --> 0:22:37.600 not miss anything. a single occasion where he brings up 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:44.040 2011 and warns of 2011 and talks about, you know, 0:22:44.060 --> 0:22:47.850 the conspiracies to bring down the state. Even, you know, 0:22:47.869 --> 0:22:51.230 a few days ago, before we record this podcast, he 0:22:51.450 --> 0:22:54.750 inaugurated the octagon. If the Americans have the Pentagon, we 0:22:54.790 --> 0:22:59.810 have the octagon. And The octagon is not really to protect, 0:23:00.170 --> 0:23:02.950 you know, the head of the state and the head 0:23:02.990 --> 0:23:07.000 of the army and the senior brass from, you know, 0:23:07.040 --> 0:23:08.540 foreign invasions, God forbid. 0:23:09.280 --> 0:23:12.600 It's, Sisi said it. He said that, you know, we're not. 0:23:12.460 --> 0:23:16.320 Going to repeat another 2011, which brought the whole country 0:23:16.359 --> 0:23:20.530 to a standstill. So now we're moving the brain of 0:23:20.570 --> 0:23:25.350 the state, you know, somewhere safe. what ensued was the 0:23:25.450 --> 0:23:31.270 unification of the security apparatus for the first time since 1952. 0:23:31.270 --> 0:23:34.250 Don't get me wrong. I mean, they are still like 0:23:34.290 --> 0:23:39.180 three separate institutions. Friction is bound to happen between them, 0:23:39.300 --> 0:23:41.780 and it does happen every now and then between them. 0:23:42.560 --> 0:23:46.280 They might have different views, but they are not in competition. 0:23:46.780 --> 0:23:50.740 They are coordinating. They are sharing information. Sometimes they even 0:23:50.840 --> 0:23:55.170 share the same structures. I mean, there are units within 0:23:55.190 --> 0:23:57.889 the Egyptian army now that officially has the police as 0:23:57.970 --> 0:24:02.369 part of it, like Unit 888, for example. They coordinate 0:24:02.410 --> 0:24:06.609 and they do joint operations all throughout the Sinai counterinsurgency 0:24:06.830 --> 0:24:09.770 and in the war on terror between coats in. 0:24:09.970 --> 0:24:10.729 The Nile Valley. 0:24:11.869 --> 0:24:16.610 And in so many ways, everyone now, they understand that 0:24:16.650 --> 0:24:19.950 the military is the apex ruler and It's on the top. 0:24:20.250 --> 0:24:24.230 But with it, its younger siblings, the Mukhabarat and the 0:24:24.340 --> 0:24:28.720 interior ministry are in this kind of unholy alliance trying 0:24:28.780 --> 0:24:32.320 to protect the state from the conspiracies of the evil 0:24:32.380 --> 0:24:34.460 Egyptian people at the end of the day. 0:24:35.300 --> 0:24:37.980 Yeah, I have so many questions. I could talk to 0:24:38.000 --> 0:24:38.660 you forever, but. 0:24:38.760 --> 0:24:39.139 Shoot me. 0:24:41.260 --> 0:24:43.440 Well, I mean, one of the questions that popped up 0:24:43.480 --> 0:24:47.410 while you were talking about is because of the emergence 0:24:47.540 --> 0:24:53.120 from decolonization and because of the wars with Israel, because 0:24:53.140 --> 0:24:55.440 of all of the history that the military, the Egyptian 0:24:55.460 --> 0:24:57.840 military has in the country. I mean, I think it's 0:24:57.980 --> 0:25:00.879 common knowledge and public opinion would back it up to 0:25:00.920 --> 0:25:05.440 some degree that Egyptian public perception has been very pro-military 0:25:05.760 --> 0:25:08.100 and every ruler has come from a military background, as 0:25:08.119 --> 0:25:12.600 you mentioned. And given that the Egyptian people have now 0:25:12.619 --> 0:25:15.610 been named the dominant threat Do you think that that 0:25:15.650 --> 0:25:19.120 is changing public perception of the military apparatus? 0:25:20.240 --> 0:25:23.320 Let me first just go back to, I mean, even 0:25:23.380 --> 0:25:28.480 before 2011, whether Egyptians regarded the military favorably or not. 0:25:29.700 --> 0:25:33.090 There is definitely, I mean, this factor which exists almost 0:25:33.150 --> 0:25:36.330 in every country, and you're in America, so you understand 0:25:36.390 --> 0:25:40.090 this too. The military is always a core pillar of 0:25:40.470 --> 0:25:45.440 whatever nationalism exists. or whatever nationalist ideology and patriotic ideology 0:25:45.480 --> 0:25:49.660 that exists in any country. And in the case of Egypt, 0:25:50.109 --> 0:25:54.790 the military, especially, you know, its role in the 1973 0:25:54.790 --> 0:25:59.590 war against Israel, which is always depicted in our school 0:25:59.630 --> 0:26:02.990 curriculums and in our movies and, you know, whatever culture 0:26:03.050 --> 0:26:09.230 production as a smashing victory against the Israelis, which is not, 0:26:09.270 --> 0:26:12.639 you know, I mean, completely accurate to be fair. So 0:26:13.180 --> 0:26:17.639 there is definitely this glorification. But here is the thing, 0:26:18.080 --> 0:26:20.900 you know, those who tell me that, you know, Egyptians 0:26:20.940 --> 0:26:23.920 love the military and they regard it favorably. I always 0:26:23.940 --> 0:26:26.960 tell them, you know, when it's conscription time, do you 0:26:27.050 --> 0:26:30.810 find everyone just running to the conscription centers because they. 0:26:30.730 --> 0:26:33.690 Can't really wait, you know, for time? 0:26:34.609 --> 0:26:37.590 The moment they put on the uniform and they get humiliated, 0:26:37.630 --> 0:26:41.369 you know, in some military factory or in some desert camp? 0:26:42.090 --> 0:26:46.929 Or do people try to find whatever excuses and fabricate 0:26:46.990 --> 0:26:52.680 whatever medical, you know, reasons in order to buy their 0:26:52.740 --> 0:26:57.020 way out of the military? You know, I honestly, like 0:26:57.119 --> 0:27:00.480 from my humble knowledge and from what I saw all 0:27:00.520 --> 0:27:04.230 throughout my life in Egypt, it's a nightmare. Everyone tries 0:27:04.300 --> 0:27:06.399 to buy their way out. 0:27:07.020 --> 0:27:07.740 From the military. 0:27:09.140 --> 0:27:13.500 Now, when the military intervened in the revolution, I'll go 0:27:13.540 --> 0:27:17.060 back also a little bit. Maybe the military was not 0:27:17.580 --> 0:27:21.439 running traffic. Maybe the military was not doing the actual 0:27:21.480 --> 0:27:28.340 daily policing before 2011. So most of the hatred was 0:27:28.380 --> 0:27:31.320 directed against the police because they are the ones that, 0:27:31.500 --> 0:27:35.729 you know, that you see on a daily basis, who 0:27:35.770 --> 0:27:39.290 interact with you on a daily basis. The military, it 0:27:39.390 --> 0:27:41.990 is true that they were in their camps, but their 0:27:42.090 --> 0:27:44.290 tentacles were all over society. 0:27:45.210 --> 0:27:46.709 They had their own social clubs. 0:27:48.260 --> 0:27:51.600 As an Egyptian man, like until a certain age, I 0:27:51.640 --> 0:27:55.080 can't leave the country except with their permission. They have 0:27:55.119 --> 0:27:58.899 their own economic and business ventures. They have their own 0:27:58.960 --> 0:28:04.600 special status. So yeah, you don't see the brass daily, 0:28:04.980 --> 0:28:09.300 but they are always there somehow, but remotely. After 2011, 0:28:09.280 --> 0:28:15.420 I mean, they first deployed nationally on the streets following 0:28:15.460 --> 0:28:18.840 the collapse of the police. And in my book, I 0:28:18.980 --> 0:28:26.200 actually do go in details to clarify that not everyone 0:28:26.290 --> 0:28:32.820 welcomed their deployment initially. And with their own acknowledgement, I 0:28:33.040 --> 0:28:36.760 got statements from the military that talked about confrontations with 0:28:36.800 --> 0:28:39.800 the people as soon as they were deployed. But at 0:28:39.840 --> 0:28:43.500 the same time, there wasn't any other choice at the 0:28:43.520 --> 0:28:46.300 time in front of the people except trying to win 0:28:46.520 --> 0:28:48.740 over the conscripts. 0:28:48.350 --> 0:28:49.710 And win over the military. 0:28:50.350 --> 0:28:54.490 Confronting the military at the time after a very bloody 0:28:54.550 --> 0:28:58.110 war of attrition with the police over the previous days 0:28:58.170 --> 0:29:03.740 would have been suicide. So the famous chant, or the 0:29:03.780 --> 0:29:07.220 people and the army are one hand, that came out 0:29:07.280 --> 0:29:10.500 in that context of us trying to win over the conscripts. 0:29:11.100 --> 0:29:11.580 An appeal. 0:29:12.300 --> 0:29:12.820 Exactly. 0:29:13.140 --> 0:29:17.670 So I know that this slogan then later got, you know, 0:29:17.970 --> 0:29:21.150 co-opted by the military and by the counter-revolution to mean 0:29:21.190 --> 0:29:25.730 something else. But initially, that's what it meant. So did 0:29:25.990 --> 0:29:30.720 the military keep its clout throughout the revolution? I belong 0:29:30.760 --> 0:29:34.780 to the Egyptian Revolutionary Socialists, which is a revolutionary leftist 0:29:34.820 --> 0:29:38.969 organization in the country. We were the only ones to 0:29:39.070 --> 0:29:42.700 issue an anti-military statement on the 1st of February during 0:29:42.720 --> 0:29:47.700 the 18 days. No other political organization issued any anti-military statements. 0:29:48.520 --> 0:29:50.360 And the 1st of February here was kind of like 0:29:50.380 --> 0:29:52.880 prophetic even, like this was one day before the Battle 0:29:52.900 --> 0:29:56.660 of the Camel that was enabled partially also by the 0:29:56.680 --> 0:30:01.950 military at the time. And initially we were an isolated minority. 0:30:02.270 --> 0:30:05.969 Most of the public were against us. But then as 0:30:06.030 --> 0:30:10.520 the revolution progressed and people started to get disillusioned about 0:30:10.540 --> 0:30:14.260 the role of SCAF, the Supreme Council for the Armed Forces, 0:30:14.920 --> 0:30:18.100 they started to remember, oh, it was the Egyptian RS 0:30:18.280 --> 0:30:21.140 who were warning us from the early. 0:30:21.500 --> 0:30:22.260 On about this. 0:30:23.360 --> 0:30:27.830 And several confrontations exploded when it comes to SCAF in 0:30:27.870 --> 0:30:31.680 the streets. whether it's the Mohammed Mahmoud uprising in November 0:30:31.960 --> 0:30:38.160 or the Occupy cabinet clashes in December 2011. So the 0:30:38.200 --> 0:30:41.100 thing of the military, like it goes back and forth, 0:30:41.180 --> 0:30:43.980 back and forth, up and down. I cannot say that 0:30:44.090 --> 0:30:49.930 it's something constant. With 2013, there were sections of Egyptian 0:30:49.990 --> 0:30:54.650 society who supported the massacres and supported the army's intervention. 0:30:55.450 --> 0:30:58.780 But also there were victims of that intervention. 0:30:59.570 --> 0:31:00.350 And I think. 0:31:00.170 --> 0:31:04.790 SCC lost clout as he proceeded because he's now running 0:31:04.830 --> 0:31:08.370 the country and governing it solely by coercion, no consent. 0:31:08.970 --> 0:31:13.260 People can see in front of them how the military 0:31:13.320 --> 0:31:16.740 turned into a monster that's basically taking over everything in 0:31:16.780 --> 0:31:22.420 the country. Does that mean when another revolution breaks out 0:31:23.010 --> 0:31:25.430 that everyone will be anti-military from the start? 0:31:25.570 --> 0:31:26.230 I don't think so. 0:31:27.470 --> 0:31:32.850 If there isn't a clear alternative that's telling the people 0:31:32.910 --> 0:31:37.370 that another solution is possible other than the military, I 0:31:37.410 --> 0:31:40.230 think they will play the same game of like getting 0:31:40.310 --> 0:31:43.880 rid of the regime and retreating for a few steps, 0:31:44.240 --> 0:31:45.620 but keeping things as they are. 0:31:46.320 --> 0:31:49.800 And they are, you know, unfortunately, in some ways in 0:31:49.820 --> 0:31:52.860 a strengthened position, as you said, because they learned the 0:31:52.900 --> 0:31:57.290 lesson of the possibility of popular mobilization. I mean, they've 0:31:57.330 --> 0:31:59.880 moved the capital, there's the octagon, like everything you've mentioned. 0:32:00.520 --> 0:32:02.640 And I think it's so apt the way that you 0:32:02.680 --> 0:32:07.080 describe the regime acting like a colonial occupier more than 0:32:07.100 --> 0:32:09.280 a national government, because it does, as you mentioned, have 0:32:09.320 --> 0:32:13.880 this view of its own people as underdeveloped and unworthy 0:32:14.260 --> 0:32:29.010 of having their own political agency. So for Egyptians today 0:32:29.700 --> 0:32:33.130 in Egypt, what does daily life look like under this, 0:32:33.710 --> 0:32:36.810 you know, unfortunately, more aggressive system? 0:32:38.030 --> 0:32:42.910 Unfortunately, it's a very miserable situation. When Sisi rose to 0:32:42.950 --> 0:32:47.540 power and took office officially in 2014 as a president, 0:32:48.320 --> 0:32:55.820 Egypt's foreign debt was roughly $ 41 billion. Today, it's over 0:32:55.820 --> 0:33:05.440 $ 163 billion. In this year's government budget, we're talking about 63% 0:33:05.440 --> 0:33:09.520 at least of the government budget will go for the 0:33:09.540 --> 0:33:10.240 debt service. 0:33:10.240 --> 0:33:16.050 63%. Let me repeat that again. 0:33:16.050 --> 0:33:18.810 63% of the government budget is not going to go 0:33:18.830 --> 0:33:20.910 for education, it's not going to go for health, it's 0:33:20.930 --> 0:33:24.700 not going to go for whatever, it's going just to 0:33:24.780 --> 0:33:29.300 pay the interest on the debt. So this means also 0:33:29.320 --> 0:33:34.100 the following. It means that there is austerity measures on 0:33:34.180 --> 0:33:38.320 steroids to the extent that people are sharing their memories 0:33:38.480 --> 0:33:41.500 of the 2000s and 1990s as the good old days. 0:33:42.660 --> 0:33:44.740 And again, these were the days of the height of 0:33:44.850 --> 0:33:48.790 our neoliberal transition, which is part of why we had 0:33:48.830 --> 0:33:52.440 the revolution in the first place. But the situation now, 0:33:52.480 --> 0:33:56.860 the economic situation is that bad that even the austerity 0:33:56.880 --> 0:34:04.310 of the 1990s and the 2000s, they sound like heaven today. Secondly, 0:34:04.330 --> 0:34:08.530 when it comes to political repression, the political repression also, 0:34:09.969 --> 0:34:13.610 compared to Sisi, Mubarak is a human rights activist. is 0:34:13.670 --> 0:34:16.270 a human rights defender, you know, compared to what we're 0:34:16.310 --> 0:34:21.130 seeing today. The unification of the repressive apparatus in Egypt 0:34:21.690 --> 0:34:27.840 only led to heightened lethal and carceral violence. The regime, 0:34:28.430 --> 0:34:32.380 and this might sound Orwellian, but the regime was boosting 0:34:32.520 --> 0:34:35.460 in the public media that we're building the biggest prison 0:34:35.520 --> 0:34:38.580 on earth, and they are listing this as part of 0:34:38.620 --> 0:34:44.950 their achievements. So, How does life look like today? You 0:34:45.030 --> 0:34:51.140 have three or four generations of Egyptians from, let's say, 0:34:51.140 --> 0:34:56.859 2013 up until today who graduated from university without ever 0:34:56.940 --> 0:35:00.540 taking part in a protest, without ever taking part in 0:35:00.580 --> 0:35:05.190 a political debate, without ever drafting a statement or distributing 0:35:05.230 --> 0:35:08.870 a leaflet, without ever taking part in a student union election, 0:35:09.790 --> 0:35:14.739 without ever taking part in a parliamentary electoral campaign in 0:35:14.780 --> 0:35:21.520 their neighborhoods. Sisi has desertified the political scene in Egypt. 0:35:22.360 --> 0:35:26.960 He dismantled most of the political organizations in the country. 0:35:28.040 --> 0:35:32.990 Even apolitical charities, any entity that's independent from the state 0:35:33.110 --> 0:35:38.910 got taken over or dismantled by the state apparatus. So 0:35:39.070 --> 0:35:42.410 you have really a draconian kind of regime that we've 0:35:42.469 --> 0:35:46.730 never witnessed in our modern history, even under Nasser. I mean, 0:35:46.770 --> 0:35:49.720 Nasser usually is always referred to as the reference when 0:35:49.739 --> 0:35:51.960 it comes to military dictatorships and what have you, but 0:35:52.380 --> 0:35:54.360 it's not true. Yeah, I mean, he was a dictator, 0:35:54.400 --> 0:35:58.540 of course, but he feared the military. He feared a coup. 0:35:59.239 --> 0:36:02.990 So he had to create a vast array of political 0:36:03.050 --> 0:36:08.390 institutions in order to counter the military's power. And these 0:36:08.530 --> 0:36:13.410 political institutions were a vehicle for Egyptians, though with limits, 0:36:13.489 --> 0:36:19.319 of course, but to mobilize, to conduct, to discuss, to organize. 0:36:19.780 --> 0:36:23.580 And there was some space, some kind of political education, 0:36:23.620 --> 0:36:28.020 which is now non-existent. As I'm talking to you now, 0:36:28.239 --> 0:36:31.280 you know, the Egyptian national team has returned to Egypt, 0:36:31.620 --> 0:36:35.350 our football national team. And they have done like really 0:36:35.370 --> 0:36:37.709 a great achievement at the World Cup, which, you know, 0:36:37.830 --> 0:36:42.010 it never happened in our history. The government announced that 0:36:42.650 --> 0:36:49.060 they are preparing like a mass popular welcome for the 0:36:49.500 --> 0:36:50.060 national team. 0:36:50.900 --> 0:36:52.880 El Alamein, not in Cairo. 0:36:53.719 --> 0:36:56.760 So they arrived at the Libyan border, at our border 0:36:56.780 --> 0:37:00.250 with Libya, like all the way in the desert to 0:37:00.290 --> 0:37:02.870 be received by the state officials. And later they will 0:37:02.890 --> 0:37:06.719 meet CEC. And, you know, like a few hundred people 0:37:06.760 --> 0:37:10.920 like showed up in the desert in that scorching, you know, 0:37:11.160 --> 0:37:16.100 sun heat to wait for them. Because this regime is 0:37:16.280 --> 0:37:22.049 so crowd phobic, so people phobic that they wouldn't even 0:37:22.090 --> 0:37:23.890 dream that, you know, they would have this welcome in 0:37:23.930 --> 0:37:25.890 Cairo where the real crowds are. 0:37:26.890 --> 0:37:28.150 It is to that extent. 0:37:29.230 --> 0:37:32.750 Our football league, for example, which has always been famous 0:37:32.830 --> 0:37:36.009 and popular, you know, in the Arab world and let 0:37:36.070 --> 0:37:42.190 alone Egypt, is being played without fans. It stayed for 0:37:42.210 --> 0:37:44.920 years and the stadiums were empty. And then they now 0:37:45.020 --> 0:37:48.960 allowed only 5,000 people to show up. The capacity of 0:37:49.020 --> 0:37:50.859 the Cairo stadium, for example, is 120,000. And I used 0:37:50.920 --> 0:37:56.960 to attend matches where it was full. Now they only 0:37:57.020 --> 0:37:59.960 allow like, you know, 5,000 fans for each one because 0:38:00.360 --> 0:38:04.319 they are so crowd phobic. This is the reality we're 0:38:04.360 --> 0:38:07.200 living under. But I'm also arguing at the end of 0:38:07.239 --> 0:38:09.720 the book that this is not a sustainable model. 0:38:10.180 --> 0:38:14.080 Yeah, an incarcerated population. But as you said, at the 0:38:14.100 --> 0:38:17.180 end of the book, you're saying there are cracks in 0:38:17.420 --> 0:38:20.799 the regime's internal unity. And I think you also mentioned 0:38:20.840 --> 0:38:25.339 the parliamentary crisis. So what do you think are the 0:38:25.390 --> 0:38:29.819 seeds of another 2011. What would resistance look like this time? 0:38:29.840 --> 0:38:32.020 What would it need to look like this time? Because, 0:38:32.040 --> 0:38:35.710 I mean, you and I both agree that coercion alone 0:38:36.070 --> 0:38:38.410 cannot sustain these types of regimes. 0:38:38.890 --> 0:38:43.130 You were saying earlier that they have learned their lessons, which, 0:38:43.810 --> 0:38:47.200 you know, on the surface, this might be true. But 0:38:47.300 --> 0:38:50.400 I would argue that they have probably learned the wrong 0:38:50.460 --> 0:38:57.960 lessons because there are counter-revolutions across history. That, yeah, was violent, 0:38:58.020 --> 0:39:01.940 was repressive, you know, and there was bloodshed. But at 0:39:01.980 --> 0:39:07.120 the same time, these counter-revolutions also, since they were farsighted, 0:39:07.420 --> 0:39:12.060 they tried to address some of the problems that led 0:39:12.180 --> 0:39:15.469 to the outbreak of the revolution in the first place. 0:39:16.260 --> 0:39:18.890 Not because they are Democrats, but they just want to defuse, 0:39:19.210 --> 0:39:23.280 you know, any potential problems. Now let's look at Egypt 0:39:23.460 --> 0:39:26.490 and actually the Arab Spring in general, not just Egypt. 0:39:27.050 --> 0:39:31.549 There are tons of reasons why the Egyptian and the 0:39:31.610 --> 0:39:37.880 Arab revolutions broke out in 2011. But I can, in 0:39:37.920 --> 0:39:40.939 a reductionist way, you know, I can simplify them into 0:39:41.020 --> 0:39:46.760 two main problems. One is the issue of political repression 0:39:46.820 --> 0:39:50.950 and police brutality. The other one is the social question 0:39:51.450 --> 0:39:55.950 or the unequal distribution of wealth. These were the two 0:39:56.250 --> 0:40:02.670 main structural problems that provided the objective conditions to have 0:40:03.270 --> 0:40:06.670 an uprising in Egypt and actually the Arab world. I mean, 0:40:06.730 --> 0:40:10.200 I can generalize here again, knowing that each country had 0:40:10.260 --> 0:40:11.340 its own specificities. 0:40:12.090 --> 0:40:14.950 Syria had its own, you know, I mean, conditions and problems. 0:40:15.010 --> 0:40:16.350 Tunisia had its own, blah, blah, blah. 0:40:16.830 --> 0:40:20.239 But, you know, these two were the common denominator and 0:40:20.280 --> 0:40:25.120 the main motor force for these revolutions. Now, let's look 0:40:25.160 --> 0:40:28.980 at Egypt. The counter-revolution, yes, I mean, it killed the revolution. 0:40:29.500 --> 0:40:34.319 It repressed the revolutionaries. But did they provide answers to 0:40:34.360 --> 0:40:35.120 these two problems? 0:40:35.140 --> 0:40:35.200 No. 0:40:36.210 --> 0:40:39.569 Any child in Egypt could answer this. You don't need 0:40:40.090 --> 0:40:42.930 a PhD scholar to tell you that actually political repression 0:40:43.010 --> 0:40:47.420 is even much, much, much worse today. Secondly, when it 0:40:47.480 --> 0:40:50.560 comes to the distribution of wealth, it's even as much, 0:40:51.239 --> 0:40:56.200 the economic condition is, it's unbelievable at this point. So 0:40:56.300 --> 0:41:00.230 as long as these two structural problems continue with us, 0:41:01.010 --> 0:41:06.310 there will always be the objective conditions for another revolt. 0:41:07.070 --> 0:41:11.690 What's missing here is the subjective conditions, which means is 0:41:11.770 --> 0:41:14.670 Hussam and Dana and X and Y and Z and 0:41:14.710 --> 0:41:20.730 Muhammad and Michael and are we organized? Are we trying 0:41:20.850 --> 0:41:26.140 to put out new ideas? Are we trying to mobilize 0:41:26.320 --> 0:41:30.040 even under repression in these campaigns here and there? 0:41:30.840 --> 0:41:31.660 That's what's missing. 0:41:32.200 --> 0:41:36.600 The repression was extremely effective in terms of dismantling the 0:41:36.700 --> 0:41:41.180 different political organizations and the independent unions in the country. 0:41:42.530 --> 0:41:47.149 But part of also why the repression was effective was 0:41:47.190 --> 0:41:52.719 the fact that there was full blank check backing from 0:41:52.840 --> 0:41:57.460 the regional and the global allies of the regime. The 0:41:57.600 --> 0:42:02.279 UAE and Saudi Arabia in specific in the region. And globally, 0:42:02.360 --> 0:42:05.930 you had the US and more importantly, the EU. I 0:42:05.950 --> 0:42:08.669 would actually be arguing that it's the EU that's much 0:42:08.770 --> 0:42:14.030 more complicit in enabling the Sisi regime more than America, 0:42:14.660 --> 0:42:17.820 which goes, you know, against the historical trajectory of that regime. 0:42:18.320 --> 0:42:20.880 So the regime was confident. The regime. 0:42:22.030 --> 0:42:25.950 could ask, you know, the Gulf allies and the West, 0:42:26.200 --> 0:42:28.530 as long as he was fighting the revolution, as long 0:42:28.570 --> 0:42:32.460 as he was dismantling the Islamists, and as long as 0:42:32.680 --> 0:42:37.800 he's killing this boogeyman called the January 2011 revolution. 0:42:38.300 --> 0:42:40.280 Until Sisi woke up by. 0:42:40.120 --> 0:42:45.359 2021 with COVID and the war in Ukraine, to find 0:42:45.500 --> 0:42:49.340 out that first, our debt has spiraled out of control. 0:42:49.920 --> 0:42:52.310 And that the Gulf... were not. 0:42:52.190 --> 0:42:58.489 Really that keen on keeping these bailouts to continue. There 0:42:58.550 --> 0:43:03.160 were even some leaked reports that Mohammed bin Zayed of 0:43:03.320 --> 0:43:07.180 the UAE complaining that Sisi thinks he's some ATM. I 0:43:07.780 --> 0:43:11.440 don't know if it's true or not, but it signaled 0:43:11.460 --> 0:43:16.320 a different mood. And there was even a famous statement 0:43:16.380 --> 0:43:19.460 by Sisi, which then was taken down from most of 0:43:19.500 --> 0:43:23.040 the news websites at the time. But I had screenshotted 0:43:23.060 --> 0:43:28.310 it and I listened to that speech where he was complaining, 0:43:28.730 --> 0:43:32.590 saying something along the line of, some of our Arab brothers, 0:43:32.730 --> 0:43:37.529 they think that Egypt is incapable of progress and blah, blah, blah. 0:43:37.610 --> 0:43:39.930 And he was like lamenting, you know what I mean, 0:43:39.950 --> 0:43:43.650 the situation. And that's when, you know, the regime started 0:43:43.750 --> 0:43:49.500 to act in a very unconfident way, released some political prisoners, 0:43:50.280 --> 0:43:53.100 called for a national dialogue, which, I mean, it never 0:43:53.140 --> 0:43:56.520 really materialized into anything important. But it was just a 0:43:56.580 --> 0:43:59.560 signal that they were scared. They were scared because the 0:43:59.600 --> 0:44:05.620 economic situation was bad. And because that if any form 0:44:06.040 --> 0:44:11.819 of revolts take place, whether it's local or whether it's 0:44:11.920 --> 0:44:16.640 on the national level, they don't have that civil society 0:44:16.760 --> 0:44:20.020 in the Gramscian sense that can act as a buffer 0:44:20.140 --> 0:44:23.840 to protect them. Hosni Mubarak was an autocrat, it's true, 0:44:24.360 --> 0:44:29.029 but Hosni Mubarak was presiding over very vibrant civil society. 0:44:30.150 --> 0:44:33.190 And it's that civil society that actually saved the state 0:44:33.250 --> 0:44:38.310 from a full-fledged revolution in January 2011. There was the 0:44:38.350 --> 0:44:41.810 Muslim Brotherhood that you can try to negotiate with in 0:44:41.870 --> 0:44:45.879 exchange for, you know, suspending Tahrir and we'll give you, 0:44:45.890 --> 0:44:48.400 you know, a share of the cake. There used to 0:44:48.440 --> 0:44:52.520 be like left-wing political parties that you can try to 0:44:52.580 --> 0:44:56.420 negotiate with and promise, you know, some parliamentary seats in 0:44:56.500 --> 0:45:01.799 exchange for diffusing industrial militancy. There was this, there was that, 0:45:01.840 --> 0:45:05.190 there was this, there was that. This is what enabled 0:45:05.230 --> 0:45:09.910 Hosni Mubarak to rule Egypt for three decades. But it 0:45:09.989 --> 0:45:14.940 is exactly that authoritarian formula that Sisi and the generals 0:45:15.020 --> 0:45:19.719 regarded as the main reason for 2011. So what we 0:45:19.760 --> 0:45:23.940 have now is the state presiding over society without any buffers. 0:45:25.120 --> 0:45:28.590 It's the military that's micromanaging the society on a daily basis. 0:45:29.150 --> 0:45:32.550 It's the police that's micromanaging society on a daily basis. 0:45:33.060 --> 0:45:35.580 It's the Mukhabarat who are also doing the same, and 0:45:35.600 --> 0:45:40.020 there is division of labor between them. They will remain 0:45:40.160 --> 0:45:43.219 united as long as things are going really well. But 0:45:43.520 --> 0:45:47.320 once you hit the wall, once a crisis erupts, whether 0:45:47.340 --> 0:45:50.089 you are a political organization, whether you are the state, 0:45:50.350 --> 0:45:54.110 whether you are a group of friends, that's when people 0:45:54.390 --> 0:46:00.370 start looking at one another and exchange blames or propose 0:46:00.630 --> 0:46:04.390 very diverse ideas. Some will think we should go left, 0:46:04.620 --> 0:46:07.589 others will say we should go right. And that's when 0:46:07.650 --> 0:46:11.750 cracks start to happen. I'm not implying that, you know, 0:46:11.890 --> 0:46:15.390 the divisions are now deep, but you can start seeing 0:46:15.930 --> 0:46:20.469 few cracks here and there. And in the background, you 0:46:20.510 --> 0:46:25.680 started to see also an incremental rise in industrial actions 0:46:26.560 --> 0:46:30.740 over the past few years. It's not like the 2006 0:46:30.739 --> 0:46:35.190 till 2011 strike wave, which, you know, once erupted in Mahalla, 0:46:35.210 --> 0:46:38.049 it spread by the domino effect all over, you know, 0:46:38.070 --> 0:46:41.669 the country. It's very incremental, has its own problems, but 0:46:41.790 --> 0:46:45.010 it's rising. And it's that. 0:46:44.870 --> 0:46:48.800 Social movement, which I always bet on for the future. 0:46:49.680 --> 0:46:53.380 A lot to think about and a lot of historical 0:46:53.420 --> 0:46:55.460 events come to mind. So as you were talking, I 0:46:55.460 --> 0:46:57.870 was thinking about the bread and the fodder. But like 0:46:57.890 --> 0:47:01.130 you mentioned, there's not some sort of buffer to absorb 0:47:01.590 --> 0:47:04.710 in today's Egypt. Another thing I was thinking about as 0:47:04.750 --> 0:47:08.660 we were talking the entire time was this sci-fi collection, 0:47:08.739 --> 0:47:13.240 Egypt 100, about what Egypt looks like 100 years after 2011. 0:47:13.239 --> 0:47:15.319 I'm going to put that in the show notes if 0:47:15.360 --> 0:47:20.680 people are interested, because it imagines moving the capital and 0:47:20.700 --> 0:47:23.580 doing all these things. What will that mean for Egyptians 0:47:23.900 --> 0:47:27.359 in 100 years? It's a little dystopian, but You are 0:47:27.420 --> 0:47:31.920 leaving me more hopeful than sci-fi leaves me. Thank you 0:47:31.940 --> 0:47:35.230 so much for coming on and I really appreciate your time. 0:47:36.090 --> 0:47:38.330 Thank you, Dana. It's always a pleasure to speak to you. 0:47:39.070 --> 0:47:39.629 Take care, everybody. 0:47:52.739 --> 0:47:57.100 Welcome to It Could Happen Here, I'm Garrison Davis. On Monday, 0:47:57.219 --> 0:48:02.970 August 27th, ICE arrested right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos at the 0:48:03.219 --> 0:48:07.589 Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. And within just a day, 0:48:08.190 --> 0:48:11.670 Milo was deported to the UK. In a statement from 0:48:11.730 --> 0:48:15.630 August 28th, the Department of Homeland Security referred to Milo 0:48:15.750 --> 0:48:19.280 as a quote-unquote... a legal alien from the United Kingdom, 0:48:19.739 --> 0:48:22.900 and said that he, quote, legally entered the country on 0:48:22.960 --> 0:48:27.580 May 14, 2019 through New York City, New York, he 0:48:27.640 --> 0:48:32.190 chose to overstay his welcome in violation of our nation's laws. 0:48:33.050 --> 0:48:35.830 Yiannopoulos was issued a final order of removal by an 0:48:35.870 --> 0:48:39.910 immigration judge on July 22, after failing to show up 0:48:40.210 --> 0:48:46.160 for his immigration hearing. So according to DHS, Milo Yiannopoulos 0:48:46.500 --> 0:48:50.489 both overstayed a visa and did not show up to 0:48:50.650 --> 0:48:55.510 immigration court hearings. And so, in absentia, a judge ordered 0:48:55.590 --> 0:48:59.330 his removal. We'll get more into that later this episode, 0:48:59.850 --> 0:49:02.020 and we'll also get into some of Milo's background in 0:49:02.060 --> 0:49:05.380 a bit. But safe to say that the former rising 0:49:05.440 --> 0:49:09.840 star of the alt-right currently has more enemies than friends 0:49:10.100 --> 0:49:13.319 on the political right and in the MAGA world. His 0:49:13.380 --> 0:49:16.930 deportation has been met with some amusement among the online left, 0:49:17.010 --> 0:49:19.930 but even more so among the online right. 0:49:20.030 --> 0:49:20.310 Right. 0:49:21.090 --> 0:49:27.080 In fact, multiple far-right influencers have claimed credit for Milo's deportation, 0:49:27.700 --> 0:49:32.760 most notably and plausibly one of Milo's old friends-turned-enemies, Laura Loomer. 0:49:33.580 --> 0:49:38.160 After reports of Milo's arrest broke online, Loomer posted on 0:49:38.380 --> 0:49:43.120 X the Everything app, quote, Breaking. Illegal alien Milo Yiannopoulos 0:49:43.140 --> 0:49:45.940 has been detained by ICE. I was the first person 0:49:46.000 --> 0:49:48.600 to report on the fact that Milo is in the U.S. 0:49:48.620 --> 0:49:53.380 illegally where he incited violence against President Trump and worked 0:49:53.420 --> 0:49:57.740 for Marjorie Trader Green. Recently, Candace Owens invited this illegal 0:49:57.800 --> 0:50:01.259 alien into her home. When Milo called for me to 0:50:01.300 --> 0:50:04.890 be assassinated, I reported him to ICE and the FBI. 0:50:05.489 --> 0:50:07.930 I told you all that Milo was an illegal alien. 0:50:08.370 --> 0:50:11.440 He was detained in Louisiana by ICE. Milo is going 0:50:11.460 --> 0:50:13.060 to be deported back to the UK, where he can 0:50:13.100 --> 0:50:17.140 live among the Muslims he has recently chosen to embrace. 0:50:17.700 --> 0:50:22.419 Today is a great day for America. The next day, 0:50:22.440 --> 0:50:26.410 Loomer said that DHS told her that Milo is, quote, 0:50:26.890 --> 0:50:32.020 never allowed to come back to the United States ever again. Now, 0:50:32.160 --> 0:50:36.219 I'm not doing this episode to dunk on Milo Yiannopoulos 0:50:36.450 --> 0:50:40.430 and cheer on that he has been deported. This mechanism 0:50:40.469 --> 0:50:44.130 of deportation should not exist in the country, whether it's 0:50:44.290 --> 0:50:48.720 used against poor working class immigrants from Haiti or the 0:50:48.820 --> 0:50:53.440 most annoying right wing fascist that you can imagine. Milo 0:50:53.500 --> 0:50:56.379 still has access to millions and millions of dollars of wealth. 0:50:56.920 --> 0:50:59.450 He will be completely fine. The same cannot be said 0:50:59.489 --> 0:51:02.290 of the majority of immigrants who are deported by ICE. 0:51:03.090 --> 0:51:06.870 But this situation does represent a very interesting moment in 0:51:07.310 --> 0:51:12.680 right-wing politics. I never thought the leopards would eat my face, etc, etc. 0:51:13.239 --> 0:51:16.720 Milo played a not insignificant role in getting Trump elected 0:51:16.980 --> 0:51:21.520 back in 2016, and now is suffering some consequences from 0:51:21.719 --> 0:51:25.200 the world that he helped bring into being. And before 0:51:25.219 --> 0:51:27.590 I continue, I want to make one other note. I'm 0:51:27.610 --> 0:51:30.590 trying to be really careful in how I cover this story, 0:51:30.810 --> 0:51:35.440 because Milo himself is a professional attention seeker. It is 0:51:35.460 --> 0:51:39.219 not completely impossible that whether he knew he had a 0:51:39.360 --> 0:51:42.460 final order of removal or not, he claims he didn't, 0:51:42.900 --> 0:51:47.030 but usually an inobstantial ruling only comes after the court 0:51:47.330 --> 0:51:51.030 knows the person is receiving notices to appear in court 0:51:51.170 --> 0:51:54.040 and is choosing not to. But regardless of whether he 0:51:54.120 --> 0:51:57.319 knew that he could be deported, Milo will certainly try 0:51:57.400 --> 0:52:01.880 to use this moment for political and personal benefit. A 0:52:01.920 --> 0:52:06.009 few days after being deported, Milo made his first public 0:52:06.050 --> 0:52:10.009 appearance on Piers Morgan's show. And I will play a 0:52:10.070 --> 0:52:13.130 few clips from this appearance, but let's keep in mind 0:52:13.230 --> 0:52:16.970 that Milo has his own careerist interests at the center 0:52:17.489 --> 0:52:21.069 of nearly everything he does in the public eye. That said, 0:52:21.330 --> 0:52:24.660 here are Milo's very first comments after being deported. 0:52:25.110 --> 0:52:27.420 I don't think I've ever been afraid before, like I 0:52:27.440 --> 0:52:34.220 was the last week. Maybe I've lived an especially cosseted life, 0:52:34.340 --> 0:52:38.700 but I think for the first time I know what 0:52:38.719 --> 0:52:40.620 it feels like to be really, really terrified. 0:52:40.640 --> 0:52:46.420 What were you terrified of? Well, I'd like to get to. 0:52:46.480 --> 0:52:48.940 Some of the claims that were made by Homan in 0:52:48.960 --> 0:52:55.460 a moment, but I I didn't really understand the physical 0:52:55.500 --> 0:53:00.640 reality of how institutionalized the brutality is in America. The 0:53:00.660 --> 0:53:02.760 manner in which they arrest you, they put your manacles, 0:53:02.930 --> 0:53:06.610 your hands, your feet, chained together. I mean, everybody who's 0:53:06.650 --> 0:53:07.509 arrested is like. 0:53:07.410 --> 0:53:09.350 An MS-13 gang member, and it hurts a lot more 0:53:09.370 --> 0:53:10.350 than it looks like on television. 0:53:11.390 --> 0:53:14.470 So right off the bat, he is lying and trying 0:53:14.510 --> 0:53:18.680 to garner sympathy. he absolutely did know about the physical 0:53:18.880 --> 0:53:23.400 institutional brutality of deportation. While he is certainly correct that 0:53:23.440 --> 0:53:27.180 he has lived a sheltered, privileged life, he has also 0:53:27.340 --> 0:53:30.799 watched those videos of the U.S. government deporting or renditioning 0:53:30.980 --> 0:53:34.370 hundreds of people to Seacott. And in this interview, he 0:53:34.510 --> 0:53:38.870 references MS-13 gang members, even though most of the people 0:53:38.950 --> 0:53:42.989 sent to Seacott had no criminal convictions and no due process. 0:53:43.670 --> 0:53:47.180 And back then, Milo just didn't care about that and 0:53:47.420 --> 0:53:51.840 only cares about due process now for himself after facing 0:53:51.960 --> 0:53:55.299 a tiny shred of the pain and suffering thousands of 0:53:55.360 --> 0:53:58.200 people less fortunate than him have been subjected to. 0:53:58.219 --> 0:54:03.170 Um, you know, I was put from, uh, from, from, uh, um, 0:54:03.370 --> 0:54:07.230 you know, detention facility to a correction facility. Um, you know, 0:54:07.350 --> 0:54:09.390 every three hours they were, they were sort of trying 0:54:09.410 --> 0:54:11.029 to keep ahead of my lawyers. So I couldn't, uh, 0:54:11.370 --> 0:54:13.890 you know, so whatever. Um, but, but, No one would 0:54:13.910 --> 0:54:17.759 tell me anything. I mean, I know it's designed to 0:54:17.800 --> 0:54:23.200 be like that, but it was, sure, it was humiliating 0:54:23.239 --> 0:54:25.400 and it was disorientating and the rest of it. It 0:54:25.440 --> 0:54:26.520 was physically degrading. 0:54:27.070 --> 0:54:29.969 It was frightening. It was frightening. I don't think I've 0:54:30.010 --> 0:54:31.029 ever been frightened like that before. 0:54:31.880 --> 0:54:34.359 Yeah, that sounds like it sucks, dude. But the thing is, 0:54:35.100 --> 0:54:39.480 later on in this very interview, Milo says he's still 0:54:39.800 --> 0:54:44.500 not opposed to ICE as an organization or deportations in general. 0:54:44.900 --> 0:54:47.219 But rather, the problem is, is that we're just not 0:54:47.260 --> 0:54:48.990 deporting the right people. 0:54:49.850 --> 0:54:56.030 On January the 2nd, 2025, you posted punishing Somalis indiscriminately 0:54:56.469 --> 0:54:58.250 as a group and deported them all as the only 0:54:58.290 --> 0:55:01.200 way this administration works. persuade the voters it is serious 0:55:01.219 --> 0:55:03.860 and up to the job. And then again, in May 25, 0:55:03.850 --> 0:55:07.770 there's one concrete thing we must insist on this administration delivering. 0:55:08.190 --> 0:55:10.750 It matters a lot more than debts measured in imaginary money. 0:55:10.770 --> 0:55:14.200 We'll deport millions and millions of people without that nothing 0:55:14.260 --> 0:55:18.680 else matters. In September 2025, total legal immunity for ICE 0:55:18.780 --> 0:55:22.280 agents when they're on duty. And 21st of September 2025, 0:55:22.280 --> 0:55:25.540 justice system should be just ICE. So there you are 0:55:25.760 --> 0:55:30.010 aggressively promoting ICE being very aggressive and demanding that millions 0:55:30.030 --> 0:55:33.070 of people be deported. People say, Milo, you've been hoisted 0:55:33.110 --> 0:55:34.910 by your own petard. And I don't have a word 0:55:34.950 --> 0:55:37.189 to say. You got me. I'm very. 0:55:38.630 --> 0:55:39.550 Look. 0:55:40.590 --> 0:55:41.810 I mean, they're doing what you told them to do. 0:55:42.630 --> 0:55:44.850 Deport millions of people. Well, not really. It just happened 0:55:44.870 --> 0:55:48.140 to include you. They're not doing it lawfully. And I think... 0:55:48.460 --> 0:55:52.200 You did say about Somalis, they should be deported indiscriminately 0:55:52.219 --> 0:55:54.640 as a group. Well, I'm obviously exaggerating. Deporting them all. 0:55:54.660 --> 0:55:55.739 Obviously exaggerating there. 0:55:55.760 --> 0:55:59.489 I thought ISIS is supposed to be deporting criminals. 0:56:00.180 --> 0:56:04.830 So first it's, you got me. Then it's, no, see, 0:56:04.850 --> 0:56:08.370 they're not actually doing it lawfully. And later on, Milo 0:56:08.390 --> 0:56:12.029 plainly states that ISIS is supposed to be deporting criminals. 0:56:12.910 --> 0:56:16.040 Just in the past year, Milo has made multiple posts 0:56:16.120 --> 0:56:21.960 on XTheEverything app calling for 10,000 deportations a day, has 0:56:22.020 --> 0:56:25.880 warned that if the Trump administration doesn't get real fast 0:56:25.940 --> 0:56:30.859 about left-wing terror and deporting millions of illegals, Americans will 0:56:30.980 --> 0:56:36.070 adopt vigilante justice. In June of 2025, Milo called for 0:56:36.330 --> 0:56:41.150 ICE checkpoints at supermarket entrances, gas stations, strip malls, intersections, 0:56:41.170 --> 0:56:47.230 government buildings, with, quote, on-the-spot deportation for anyone who can't 0:56:47.370 --> 0:56:50.819 prove they are in the U.S. legally. He has justified 0:56:50.880 --> 0:56:56.779 and celebrated DHS executing anti-ice protesters and has talked about 0:56:56.900 --> 0:57:01.080 getting horny while watching ice raids. Quote, What is the 0:57:01.140 --> 0:57:03.359 etiquette if you are going about your business and find 0:57:03.400 --> 0:57:05.840 yourself observing an ice raid? I want to show a 0:57:05.860 --> 0:57:09.080 little respect and decency. Are you allowed to masturbate where 0:57:09.120 --> 0:57:09.620 you stand? 0:57:09.989 --> 0:57:10.509 In the street? 0:57:10.960 --> 0:57:13.800 Or should you find some kind of awning or motor vehicle? 0:57:13.820 --> 0:57:14.940 Unquote. 0:57:16.200 --> 0:57:20.030 Let's back up for a second. Who is Milo Yiannopoulos 0:57:20.130 --> 0:57:23.250 for those lucky enough to not be in the know? 0:57:24.130 --> 0:57:28.390 Milo is a right-wing provocateur in the truest sense of 0:57:28.410 --> 0:57:33.300 the term. His engagement with politics is based on provoking people. 0:57:33.960 --> 0:57:37.660 One of Milo's protégés who lives in New York, has 0:57:37.820 --> 0:57:41.300 described their own life as a form of performance art. 0:57:41.780 --> 0:57:44.580 And I think Milo sees his life in a very 0:57:44.680 --> 0:57:48.180 similar way. I'm not going to go over his whole 0:57:48.320 --> 0:57:51.700 history from the past 10, 20 years, because that would 0:57:51.740 --> 0:57:54.070 take up multiple full-length episodes, and I just don't think 0:57:54.110 --> 0:57:57.330 it matters all that much. But here's the broad strokes 0:57:57.450 --> 0:58:02.350 for context. Milo Yiannopoulos is a British far-right political commentator. 0:58:02.730 --> 0:58:05.800 In 2014, he started working for Breitbart. He was a 0:58:05.840 --> 0:58:08.920 major participant in Gamergate, and in the lead-up to the 0:58:08.920 --> 0:58:13.010 2016 presidential election, he became one of the first big 0:58:13.110 --> 0:58:19.350 figures in the then-emerging alt-right. Milo was an early mega-adopter. 0:58:19.730 --> 0:58:23.180 Starting in the summer of 2016, he began promoting a 0:58:23.240 --> 0:58:27.600 series of events called Twinks for Trump. Twinks for Trump 0:58:27.680 --> 0:58:33.140 is a so-called art exhibition featuring scantily clad photos of 0:58:33.280 --> 0:58:37.500 boys or young men wearing Make America Great Again hats. 0:58:38.340 --> 0:58:45.000 Milo's cancelled 2017 autobiography titled Dangerous, which was cancelled by 0:58:45.080 --> 0:58:49.320 Simon & Schuster, discusses the Twinks for Trump art exhibit, 0:58:49.390 --> 0:58:52.730 which struggled to open after the gallery venue pulled out. 0:58:53.270 --> 0:58:56.930 To quote Milo, I bathed in freezing cold pig's blood 0:58:56.970 --> 0:59:01.170 for 45 minutes, surrounded by images of innocent Americans slain 0:59:01.210 --> 0:59:05.740 by terrorists and illegal aliens. Now there was a genuinely 0:59:05.800 --> 0:59:09.950 subversive piece of art, gay men celebrating the orange and 0:59:11.240 --> 0:59:14.440 Could you imagine if Madonna or Paris Hilton released a 0:59:14.460 --> 0:59:18.100 video with a bunch of underage boys in mega hats? No, 0:59:18.200 --> 0:59:21.120 of course you can't, because the only people pushing the 0:59:21.280 --> 0:59:27.260 envelope in art these days are Republicans. Keep that underage 0:59:27.320 --> 0:59:29.880 boys comment in mind. It's a surprise tool that will 0:59:29.920 --> 0:59:33.940 help us later. So in this era of the mid-20-teens, 0:59:34.680 --> 0:59:38.120 Milo was a pretty big figure. Big enough to earn 0:59:38.160 --> 0:59:41.450 a major book deal. But as I said, his book 0:59:41.470 --> 0:59:47.250 deal fell through. Because in 2017, Milo suffered a major 0:59:47.370 --> 0:59:52.750 fall-off after some pro-pedophilia comments he made in 2016 went 0:59:52.850 --> 0:59:58.630 viral ahead of a speaking gig at... CPAC 2017. In 0:59:58.670 --> 1:00:05.460 this frenzy around Milo's comments defending pedophilia, CPAC cancelled Milo's 1:00:05.560 --> 1:00:09.700 speaking slot. His autobiography was pulled by Simon & Schuster, 1:00:10.340 --> 1:00:14.480 and he resigned from Breitbart. After stepping down from Breitbart, 1:00:14.940 --> 1:00:18.880 Milo addressed public calls for him to be deported, based 1:00:18.920 --> 1:00:22.380 on the assumption that his work visa was tied to 1:00:22.480 --> 1:00:28.170 his job at Breitbart, something Milo denied. February 2017 was 1:00:28.330 --> 1:00:33.070 a big month for Milo Yiannopoulos, because right before things 1:00:33.090 --> 1:00:36.490 started going downhill for him, he was also supposed to 1:00:36.650 --> 1:00:39.850 give a speech at UC Berkeley after being invited to 1:00:39.870 --> 1:00:42.810 campus by the college Republicans as a part of his 1:00:42.930 --> 1:00:48.300 quote-unquote dangerous faggot tour, where he goes to various universities 1:00:48.360 --> 1:00:52.440 and tries to make college students upset. Over 1,500 people 1:00:53.020 --> 1:00:56.060 showed up to UC Berkeley to protest his speaking event. 1:00:56.510 --> 1:00:59.320 including about 150 people who the school referred to in 1:00:59.340 --> 1:01:04.000 a statement as masked agitators. These would be Black Bloc 1:01:04.180 --> 1:01:09.400 Antifa-style protesters. Based on the size and intensity of the protest, 1:01:09.920 --> 1:01:14.420 the police canceled Milo's speaking event two hours before he 1:01:14.480 --> 1:01:19.320 was scheduled to speak. Masked protesters smashed windows, set off fireworks, 1:01:19.580 --> 1:01:22.720 lit fires, threw rocks at police, and used Molotov cocktails 1:01:23.280 --> 1:01:27.130 in and around campus. This event was one of the 1:01:27.190 --> 1:01:31.770 first times that I can like consciously remember Antifa as 1:01:31.890 --> 1:01:35.530 a concept of people like talking about like Antifa. It 1:01:35.570 --> 1:01:40.030 was in the aftermath of this UC Berkeley event. This 1:01:40.090 --> 1:01:43.260 was a pretty big deal. The day after this protest, 1:01:43.860 --> 1:01:48.520 President Donald Trump tweeted, quote, if UC Berkeley does not 1:01:48.580 --> 1:01:52.560 allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with 1:01:52.640 --> 1:01:57.070 a different point of view, No federal funds? Question mark. 1:01:57.810 --> 1:02:01.290 This protest was a big turning point for left-wing street 1:02:01.330 --> 1:02:05.360 demos during this period and intensified what would become a 1:02:05.820 --> 1:02:10.660 nationwide conflict between right-wing agitators proclaiming their right to free 1:02:10.740 --> 1:02:15.940 speech and so-called anti-fascists seeking to counter and disrupt far-right 1:02:15.980 --> 1:02:33.330 events and de-platform figures like Milo. Around 2017, Milo started 1:02:33.370 --> 1:02:38.840 becoming more of a sideshow figure in the rapidly changing alt-right, 1:02:39.090 --> 1:02:44.040 far-right world. Later in 2017, he married his husband in Hawaii, 1:02:44.680 --> 1:02:48.280 and the world carried on without Milo taking up as 1:02:48.360 --> 1:02:52.860 much oxygen. Which made it all the more, not really surprising, 1:02:52.920 --> 1:02:59.560 but annoying, that in 2021, Milo attempted to emerge from irrelevancy, 1:03:00.070 --> 1:03:03.930 to proclaim that he was no longer gay, that he 1:03:03.970 --> 1:03:09.090 had embraced Catholicism and is now, quote, ex-gay and, quote, 1:03:09.410 --> 1:03:15.370 demoted his husband to housemate. You should remember this for later. Now, 1:03:15.630 --> 1:03:19.010 one of Milo's openly stated goals regarding this, what I'm 1:03:19.030 --> 1:03:24.070 going to call an ex-gay stunt, was to reintroduce conversion 1:03:24.160 --> 1:03:29.930 therapy as a political project. To quote Milo, Given my 1:03:29.990 --> 1:03:33.830 new spiritual preoccupations, over the next decade I would like 1:03:33.870 --> 1:03:39.950 to help rehabilitate what the media calls conversion therapy. And unfortunately, 1:03:40.370 --> 1:03:43.650 he may have been more successful in this endeavor than 1:03:43.750 --> 1:03:48.070 what one may have assumed back in 2021. Conversion therapy 1:03:48.110 --> 1:03:52.160 laws have since been loosened, and forms of conversion therapy 1:03:52.200 --> 1:03:55.640 are now actively promoted by the federal government for trans youth. 1:03:56.380 --> 1:04:01.400 In 2022, Milo interned for Marjorie Taylor Greene, and maybe 1:04:01.460 --> 1:04:03.700 did some ghostwriting for her, at least according to a 1:04:03.740 --> 1:04:08.370 lower loomer. Also that year, Milo started working for Kanye West, 1:04:08.950 --> 1:04:11.590 along with Nick Fuentes, and we all know how that 1:04:11.650 --> 1:04:18.830 turned out. Oh, and little known fact, Milo began working 1:04:18.870 --> 1:04:23.670 for Kanye again this year, after resigning in 2024... because 1:04:23.710 --> 1:04:27.490 of Kanye's decision to launch an adult entertainment division of 1:04:27.570 --> 1:04:33.070 the Yeezy brand. During this 2022-2024 time period, Milo was 1:04:33.250 --> 1:04:37.910 burning whatever bridges that hadn't already totally combusted among the 1:04:38.070 --> 1:04:41.750 online right. In 2023, Milo accused Laura Loomer of sexually 1:04:41.790 --> 1:04:45.420 assaulting one of her employees after Loomer criticized Marjorie Taylor 1:04:45.460 --> 1:04:48.560 Greene on Twitter. Loomer and Marjorie Taylor Greene have beefed 1:04:48.620 --> 1:04:52.800 for years. Loomer has said that Green saw her as 1:04:53.280 --> 1:04:56.750 like a rival to the queen of the MAGA throne, 1:04:57.430 --> 1:05:00.450 and has claimed that Green was responsible for Trump not 1:05:00.550 --> 1:05:04.970 hiring Loomer in 2023. Though more recently, Loomer, who is 1:05:05.250 --> 1:05:10.200 strongly pro-Israel, has attacked Marjorie Taylor Green for her opinions 1:05:10.320 --> 1:05:15.100 on Gaza and Israel. But Milo and Loomer had been friends, 1:05:15.160 --> 1:05:19.320 or at least friendly, since at least 2018. And in 2020, 1:05:19.590 --> 1:05:24.320 Milo worked on Loomer's first unsuccessful congressional campaign. They suffered 1:05:24.360 --> 1:05:27.540 a pretty severe falling out around when Milo started working 1:05:27.600 --> 1:05:32.020 for Marjorie Taylor Greene, severe enough to possibly lead to 1:05:32.100 --> 1:05:35.900 his deportation. And since then, Milo has not done himself 1:05:36.100 --> 1:05:40.820 any favors. After Trump took office again, Milo has been 1:05:41.260 --> 1:05:47.150 reigniting old conflicts between himself and the mega hardline influencers 1:05:47.670 --> 1:05:51.800 who defend Trump. any and all of Trump's actions. For years, 1:05:51.860 --> 1:05:55.400 Milo has claimed to have blackmailed a bunch of right-wing influencers. 1:05:55.900 --> 1:05:59.170 A few years ago, Milo accused Benny Johnson of secretly 1:05:59.250 --> 1:06:04.370 being gay. Johnson promised to sue Milo in response, which 1:06:04.670 --> 1:06:07.970 he never did and now says he couldn't do because 1:06:08.030 --> 1:06:12.760 Milo was running from ICE. In response to Milo posting 1:06:12.820 --> 1:06:18.420 that President Trump has lost his way, On March 16th, 2026, 1:06:18.420 --> 1:06:23.120 Loomer wrote, Why hasn't the Trump administration deported Milo? He's 1:06:23.140 --> 1:06:27.419 allegedly living in Los Angeles on an expired visa. He's 1:06:27.480 --> 1:06:31.240 calling for regime change in the U.S. and posts Holocaust 1:06:31.260 --> 1:06:35.120 denial as an immigrant. It's time for him to be deported. 1:06:35.860 --> 1:06:40.240 He didn't campaign for Trump. Milo is a foreigner, unquote. 1:06:40.880 --> 1:06:43.170 From what I can find, this post by Loomer says, 1:06:43.550 --> 1:06:46.470 is the first time she accused Milo of being in 1:06:46.490 --> 1:06:50.930 the country illegally and called for his deportation. Next month, 1:06:51.170 --> 1:06:55.700 in April, Loomer said that, quote-unquote, sources told her that 1:06:55.820 --> 1:07:00.660 Milo was facing deportation proceedings. And after Milo was deported 1:07:00.700 --> 1:07:04.860 last month, Loomer told reporter Will Sommer that she reported 1:07:04.970 --> 1:07:09.550 Milo to DHS years ago. Here's border czar Tom Homan 1:07:09.650 --> 1:07:13.290 on CNN saying, being asked whether Laura Loomer put ICE 1:07:13.510 --> 1:07:14.530 on Milo's trail. 1:07:15.730 --> 1:07:17.890 A lot of people tipped ICE off. A lot of 1:07:17.930 --> 1:07:20.340 people was calling ICE. She said she was one of them. 1:07:20.360 --> 1:07:23.439 She probably was. But bottom line is, it doesn't matter. 1:07:23.460 --> 1:07:25.900 He was ordered to be moved by an immigration judge, 1:07:25.940 --> 1:07:27.460 and ICE's job is to execute that order. 1:07:28.100 --> 1:07:31.070 On Piers Morgan, Milo insisted that he did not overstay 1:07:31.110 --> 1:07:34.830 a visa. But even if I had, things are supposed 1:07:34.850 --> 1:07:39.030 to happen in a particular order. everything that happened was 1:07:39.130 --> 1:07:43.450 very off, unquote. Milo says he was swarmed by 15 1:07:43.450 --> 1:07:46.830 ICE agents after he got off the plane in Louisiana 1:07:47.490 --> 1:07:52.270 and said that two ICE agents recognized him and said, yeah, 1:07:52.470 --> 1:07:55.800 I'm not doing this and this is not what I 1:07:55.840 --> 1:07:59.540 got into this for and quote unquote, walked off the job. 1:08:00.520 --> 1:08:04.360 Milo also told Piers Morgan that when he got to Houston, 1:08:04.920 --> 1:08:08.930 ICE agents were getting calls from Washington, every 20 minutes 1:08:09.230 --> 1:08:11.530 to inquire about Milo's whereabouts. 1:08:12.390 --> 1:08:15.190 Well, people on the left have come forward, interestingly, who 1:08:15.230 --> 1:08:18.550 don't even like you, and to say that this is 1:08:18.570 --> 1:08:23.110 a disturbing infringement, potentially, of your First Amendment rights to 1:08:23.130 --> 1:08:26.349 free speech, that you're being punished for your views of 1:08:26.790 --> 1:08:29.530 Donald Trump and the Trump administration and so on, and 1:08:29.570 --> 1:08:34.130 that Laura Loomer, who is extremely devoted to President Trump 1:08:34.170 --> 1:08:36.950 and in his ear all the time, has used your 1:08:36.970 --> 1:08:41.070 association with Candace Owens and with Marjorie Taylor Greene and others, 1:08:41.910 --> 1:08:44.360 has decided to basically shut you up by sending you 1:08:44.400 --> 1:08:45.080 back to the UK? 1:08:46.800 --> 1:08:49.880 I don't know how we can come to any other conclusion. 1:08:49.900 --> 1:08:52.780 This is not how immigration systems are supposed to work. 1:08:53.310 --> 1:08:55.910 And there are, you know, seven, eight, nine things that 1:08:55.950 --> 1:08:57.850 are supposed to happen that do for everybody else that 1:08:57.910 --> 1:08:58.610 didn't in my. 1:08:58.490 --> 1:08:59.970 Case, because they were so. 1:09:00.260 --> 1:09:02.240 anxious to just throw me on a plane because they 1:09:02.260 --> 1:09:03.720 know how much more difficult it gets once you know, 1:09:03.780 --> 1:09:05.760 once you once you're out. But but, you know, I 1:09:06.140 --> 1:09:09.260 have very good lawyers and they do not believe this 1:09:09.280 --> 1:09:10.000 will stand at all. 1:09:10.620 --> 1:09:14.840 On CNN, Tom Homan denied that the Trump administration chose 1:09:14.880 --> 1:09:17.760 to make an example of Yiannopoulos by deporting him to 1:09:17.840 --> 1:09:18.600 send a message. 1:09:19.140 --> 1:09:22.580 We don't deport people based on political affiliation. Again, as 1:09:22.620 --> 1:09:24.640 soon as we get an order removal, our goal is 1:09:24.680 --> 1:09:27.220 removing as quick as possible, regardless of who they are. 1:09:27.439 --> 1:09:30.179 He overstayed his visa. I believe it was a visitor's visa, 1:09:30.200 --> 1:09:33.050 but I'm sure. But he overstayed the visa. He was 1:09:33.210 --> 1:09:36.130 ordered to appear in immigration court. He didn't show up. 1:09:36.930 --> 1:09:39.710 The judge ordered him deported. So once ICE gets an 1:09:39.810 --> 1:09:42.910 order of deportation from a federal judge, their job is 1:09:42.930 --> 1:09:44.550 to execute that order, and that's what they did. 1:09:45.189 --> 1:09:48.740 On Piers Morgan's show, Milo pushed back on Homan's and 1:09:48.780 --> 1:09:53.519 DHS's claims about his visa and legal status. Milo insists 1:09:53.600 --> 1:09:56.840 that he never overstayed a visa and did not know 1:09:56.860 --> 1:09:59.439 he had a final removal order. 1:09:59.970 --> 1:10:02.330 The thing that astonishes me, I have to say, is 1:10:02.370 --> 1:10:05.950 to see the various bits of the American government, all 1:10:05.990 --> 1:10:08.150 the machinery of the government, kind of lining up to 1:10:08.210 --> 1:10:11.440 lie in the manner that Tom Homan just did. I mean, 1:10:11.479 --> 1:10:13.660 I want to be completely clear with you and with 1:10:13.680 --> 1:10:17.549 your viewers, like, I don't really do the right-wing provocateur 1:10:17.570 --> 1:10:18.030 thing anymore. 1:10:18.050 --> 1:10:19.429 I manage lawyers for a living. 1:10:19.850 --> 1:10:22.809 I'm a pretty organized and together person when I'm not 1:10:23.010 --> 1:10:23.870 being silly on Twitter. 1:10:24.650 --> 1:10:25.790 And I'm married to an American. 1:10:25.810 --> 1:10:27.750 There's no reason I would take a risk like this. 1:10:28.170 --> 1:10:30.299 I didn't need to have a stay visa. There were 1:10:30.340 --> 1:10:32.729 dozens of companies who could have sponsored me. And I'm 1:10:32.840 --> 1:10:33.640 married to an American. 1:10:34.460 --> 1:10:37.719 Milo later said that he first entered the U.S. legally 1:10:37.900 --> 1:10:41.840 under an O-1 visa years ago. That's a temporary work 1:10:41.880 --> 1:10:47.440 visa for, quote, individuals with extraordinary ability or achievement. Milo 1:10:47.479 --> 1:10:49.230 told peers that he's actually had a few of these 1:10:49.310 --> 1:10:54.070 O-1 visas, and the last one he had expired in 2019. 1:10:54.070 --> 1:10:58.210 But before that happened, in 2017, Milo married an American 1:10:58.250 --> 1:11:00.210 citizen and got a green card. 1:11:00.810 --> 1:11:05.770 Filed for an adjustment of status, basically to switch tracks 1:11:05.870 --> 1:11:07.750 from a visa to a green card. 1:11:08.130 --> 1:11:10.130 And that's what I did. Went to the interviews, and 1:11:10.150 --> 1:11:12.770 that's what I had. And you got a green card? Yes. 1:11:13.840 --> 1:11:17.240 So if you have a green card, on what basis 1:11:17.320 --> 1:11:19.470 have they thrown you out of the country? 1:11:19.900 --> 1:11:22.870 They sent notices to an address they knew I didn't 1:11:22.910 --> 1:11:26.110 live at anymore. Two addresses ago in Florida, almost 10 1:11:26.110 --> 1:11:29.830 years ago, in order to get an in absentia hearing, 1:11:30.010 --> 1:11:33.510 which is basically they show up with a judge, they 1:11:33.530 --> 1:11:35.100 tell the judge, you didn't show up, you didn't respond 1:11:35.110 --> 1:11:37.220 to the notices, and they ask the judge to give 1:11:37.260 --> 1:11:38.560 them an order. 1:11:38.680 --> 1:11:39.300 That's what happened. 1:11:40.090 --> 1:11:43.809 So Milo claims that notices regarding his immigration status and 1:11:44.150 --> 1:11:47.930 court summons were purposefully sent to an address that the 1:11:47.970 --> 1:11:51.509 government knew he didn't live at so that he wouldn't 1:11:51.550 --> 1:11:53.390 show up to court so that they could get a 1:11:53.430 --> 1:11:56.850 judge to agree to deport him. He's arguing that all 1:11:56.890 --> 1:12:00.530 of this was politically motivated because he has enemies close 1:12:00.590 --> 1:12:05.190 to the administration and was essentially set up. Milo also 1:12:05.300 --> 1:12:09.080 told peers that, quote unquote, they, had previously cancelled his 1:12:09.160 --> 1:12:12.560 work permit without telling him, and claimed that the ICE 1:12:12.660 --> 1:12:16.440 agents who detained him said that they quote-unquote deliberately excluded 1:12:16.590 --> 1:12:21.189 Milo's lawyer from the immigration court process. Milo did claim 1:12:21.229 --> 1:12:24.050 that he had given his new address to immigration authorities, 1:12:24.729 --> 1:12:28.229 but that they only mailed these hearing notices to his 1:12:28.370 --> 1:12:32.200 old address in Florida. And what of his green card? 1:12:32.580 --> 1:12:35.940 Is your green card still valid? No, because they cancelled 1:12:35.960 --> 1:12:36.640 it without telling me. 1:12:36.660 --> 1:12:36.820 When? 1:12:37.910 --> 1:12:40.410 That I don't know. But in what period of time 1:12:40.430 --> 1:12:42.400 could it have been cancelled? Well, it must have been 1:12:42.439 --> 1:12:46.139 cancelled sometime in the last year. Have you travelled to. 1:12:45.979 --> 1:12:46.740 And from America? 1:12:46.760 --> 1:12:50.520 I happen not to have done the last year. When 1:12:50.540 --> 1:12:52.059 was the last time you entered America? 1:12:52.080 --> 1:12:54.860 Probably two years ago. 1:12:55.979 --> 1:12:58.510 So Milo also says his green card was quote unquote 1:12:58.670 --> 1:13:03.770 cancelled within the last year without him knowing it. Revoking 1:13:03.790 --> 1:13:07.220 green cards is a very serious civil rights issue. This 1:13:07.229 --> 1:13:09.840 is something we have spoken on this show about the 1:13:09.850 --> 1:13:14.580 Trump administration's efforts to revoke green cards from protesters speaking 1:13:14.640 --> 1:13:18.099 out about the genocide in Palestine. The issue of green 1:13:18.140 --> 1:13:21.840 card revocation is a serious one, though Milo admits that 1:13:22.320 --> 1:13:24.800 the last time he entered the country with his green 1:13:24.820 --> 1:13:28.940 card was two years ago. And this is interesting. Milo 1:13:28.979 --> 1:13:32.720 says he only had a two-year green card. that he 1:13:32.740 --> 1:13:35.019 had been renewing every two years. 1:13:35.500 --> 1:13:37.520 How long is the green card valid for? Well, you 1:13:37.540 --> 1:13:39.140 can either get it for two or 10 years. What 1:13:39.160 --> 1:13:40.719 did you have it for? So I had two years 1:13:41.100 --> 1:13:44.760 and I was renewing on a two-year basis. Had that elapsed? No, no, 1:13:44.780 --> 1:13:45.730 I had not. No, I had not. 1:13:46.350 --> 1:13:50.670 So at least according to Milo, the world's most trustworthy man, 1:13:51.310 --> 1:13:53.510 his green card had not expired by the time of 1:13:53.550 --> 1:13:57.990 his deportation. It is certainly theoretically possible that Milo just 1:13:58.070 --> 1:14:01.549 did not renew his green card in time, had issues 1:14:01.650 --> 1:14:04.750 renewing his green card, or his card was revoked in 1:14:04.790 --> 1:14:08.250 relation to issues with his marriage, which is how he 1:14:08.370 --> 1:14:11.630 obtained the two-year green card in the first place. More 1:14:11.689 --> 1:14:14.870 on that in a sec. But during this interview, Milo 1:14:14.950 --> 1:14:18.670 did confirm to peers that he is still married to 1:14:18.729 --> 1:14:22.810 a man, despite coming out as, quote, ex-gay five years ago. 1:14:23.340 --> 1:14:26.500 Well, I'm married to an American. I've got dependents. I've 1:14:26.540 --> 1:14:29.140 got cats. I've got, you know, I've got employees. 1:14:29.460 --> 1:14:30.780 I have a whole life there. I've been there for 1:14:30.780 --> 1:14:33.340 10 years. You know, everything is there. You're married to 1:14:33.360 --> 1:14:33.920 an American woman? 1:14:34.300 --> 1:14:35.220 No. Man? 1:14:36.140 --> 1:14:40.310 I don't want to pry into your sexuality, but I 1:14:40.350 --> 1:14:42.630 know you've, I mean, you're a gay man and you're 1:14:42.650 --> 1:14:46.099 married to a gay man. I, yes, I don't, I don't, 1:14:46.300 --> 1:14:48.160 I don't do the sex stuff anymore, but yes. 1:14:48.200 --> 1:14:48.519 Okay. 1:14:48.800 --> 1:14:50.600 I'm only asking because I just want to know what 1:14:50.640 --> 1:14:53.320 family you have left in America. Yeah. Where is your, 1:14:53.420 --> 1:14:56.320 where is your spouse? Living in the same, in the 1:14:56.340 --> 1:14:58.439 same house in the other, at the other end of the, 1:14:58.580 --> 1:15:00.680 of the corridor. In which state is this? 1:15:01.040 --> 1:15:01.799 This is in California. 1:15:01.820 --> 1:15:02.700 In California, in LA? 1:15:03.020 --> 1:15:03.200 Yes. 1:15:03.439 --> 1:15:03.620 Right. 1:15:04.360 --> 1:15:07.800 What Milo doesn't say in this interview is that he's 1:15:07.900 --> 1:15:11.200 actually in the middle of a really ugly divorce and 1:15:11.220 --> 1:15:14.429 he's that might actually be one of the main factors 1:15:14.530 --> 1:15:30.040 leading to his deportation. A few days after Milo was deported, 1:15:30.180 --> 1:15:34.929 some less than reputable news outlets reported that Milo's ex-husband, 1:15:35.270 --> 1:15:38.950 though they're still technically married, threatened to get him deported 1:15:39.150 --> 1:15:42.900 in 2025, called him an illegal immigrant, and said that 1:15:42.990 --> 1:15:47.219 he would call the, quote, ICE hotline, according to court 1:15:47.280 --> 1:15:51.120 documents from their divorce. And so last week, I spent 1:15:51.140 --> 1:15:54.840 about $ 100 of company money requesting over a dozen documents 1:15:55.060 --> 1:15:59.349 from the LA Superior Court, totaling hundreds of pages, to 1:15:59.610 --> 1:16:03.349 find out what was actually going on with this divorce 1:16:03.510 --> 1:16:06.770 and if it could relate to Milo's deportation. I read 1:16:06.790 --> 1:16:11.310 through hundreds of pages of court declarations, motions, requests, and 1:16:11.410 --> 1:16:17.040 evidence exhibits. Emails between Milo and his husband indicate that 1:16:17.060 --> 1:16:20.920 their relationship was falling apart around 2022. Milo told the 1:16:20.979 --> 1:16:26.050 court that his husband started withholding sexual activity and denying 1:16:26.150 --> 1:16:30.389 physical affection that same year, which was shortly after Milo 1:16:30.430 --> 1:16:33.640 publicly announced he was no longer gay. In one of 1:16:33.700 --> 1:16:38.460 those emails about their relationship from 2022, Milo asked his 1:16:38.520 --> 1:16:44.450 husband for help with a new residency application. By 2024, 1:16:44.450 --> 1:16:48.550 Milo's husband seemingly had enough and began the process of separating. 1:16:49.150 --> 1:16:52.260 I'm going to read an alleged text exchange between Milo 1:16:52.300 --> 1:16:55.920 and his husband submitted to the court by Milo's husband. Quote, 1:16:56.560 --> 1:17:00.340 you cannot keep me captive and disenfranchised because you decided 1:17:00.520 --> 1:17:04.110 not to be gay. You cannot abuse me or your 1:17:04.170 --> 1:17:09.070 power over me anymore. Milo, shut up, stupid cunt. Just 1:17:09.189 --> 1:17:15.560 get out. Husband, I've petitioned the court for a legal separation. Milo, 1:17:16.200 --> 1:17:20.200 great news. Now that you violated our deal and can 1:17:20.240 --> 1:17:24.019 no longer assist with my immigration affairs, you will be 1:17:24.080 --> 1:17:28.670 evicted from this house in seven days. Start packing, unquote. 1:17:29.370 --> 1:17:34.920 Another series of texts submitted by Milo from Milo's husband reads, quote, 1:17:35.500 --> 1:17:38.620 Go fuck yourself, Milo, lol. You can have the cats. 1:17:38.840 --> 1:17:42.120 I've been staying around, tolerating your abuse because I feel 1:17:42.200 --> 1:17:47.610 sorry for you. But enough is enough, unquote. In 2025, 1:17:47.600 --> 1:17:51.270 they started pursuing a divorce. And about a year ago, 1:17:51.290 --> 1:17:56.570 the husband got a temporary restraining order against Milo. And again, 1:17:56.600 --> 1:17:59.420 this is not something Milo said on Piers Morgan's show, 1:18:00.060 --> 1:18:03.519 but Milo himself has admitted in court documents that he 1:18:03.540 --> 1:18:07.280 has run into issues renewing his green card because of 1:18:07.340 --> 1:18:11.990 a lack of cooperation from his husband or ex-husband stemming 1:18:12.189 --> 1:18:16.490 from their ongoing divorce. For whatever reason, Milo seemingly never 1:18:16.550 --> 1:18:20.530 applied for naturalization or a 10-year green card after getting 1:18:20.550 --> 1:18:24.890 married and continued to only do those two-year renewals. And 1:18:25.110 --> 1:18:28.650 if someone with a two-year green card gets divorced, they 1:18:28.710 --> 1:18:32.110 have to fill out a special waiver form and USCIS 1:18:32.189 --> 1:18:35.960 needs to confirm that the marriage was actually a real 1:18:36.020 --> 1:18:40.120 marriage and not just a way to obtain residency. This 1:18:40.180 --> 1:18:42.939 is to prevent immigration fraud. Now I will read a 1:18:42.970 --> 1:18:48.170 text allegedly sent by Milo to his husband, submitted to court. Quote, 1:18:48.970 --> 1:18:53.110 I will pay you 100 four installments in exchange for 1:18:53.170 --> 1:18:57.290 completing my green card process. You can have $ 25, 000 upon agreement, 1:18:57.290 --> 1:18:59.150 $ 50, 000 at interview, and $ 25, 000 when the status is awarded. 1:18:59.180 --> 1:19:00.990 After that, I want nothing more to do with you. 1:19:00.990 --> 1:19:01.229 Unquote. 1:19:10.500 --> 1:19:13.740 Milo has claimed that some of the text messages submitted 1:19:13.780 --> 1:19:18.150 to court were fabricated, though he has not directly challenged 1:19:18.189 --> 1:19:21.809 the legitimacy of this particular message in the court documents 1:19:21.830 --> 1:19:25.250 that I have reviewed. In a declaration in response to 1:19:25.270 --> 1:19:30.890 a motion for a domestic violence restraining order filed October 20th, 2025, 1:19:30.890 --> 1:19:35.780 Milo claimed that his ex-husband secretly sent himself messages from 1:19:36.120 --> 1:19:40.799 one of Milo's devices. To quote the motion, quote, Actively 1:19:40.860 --> 1:19:45.400 endangering Yiannopoulos' status in the country, his husband has forged 1:19:45.479 --> 1:19:49.600 messages in which he poses as Yiannopoulos and admits green 1:19:49.660 --> 1:19:50.500 card fraud. 1:19:51.160 --> 1:19:51.660 Unquote. 1:19:52.700 --> 1:19:57.670 The specific message which Yiannopoulos claims was falsified was sent 1:19:57.810 --> 1:20:03.509 in February of 2025. It reads, quote, Fuck you, stupid, 1:20:03.590 --> 1:20:06.990 worthless n-word. I hope you rot in hell with your 1:20:07.110 --> 1:20:10.800 monkey ancestors. I was only using you for a green 1:20:10.860 --> 1:20:13.860 card in the first place, but since you filed for divorce, 1:20:14.120 --> 1:20:16.880 I no longer have need of you. And if you 1:20:16.900 --> 1:20:19.200 tell the court about this, I will fucking end your life. 1:20:19.280 --> 1:20:21.679 You are a worthless leech with no purpose in my life. 1:20:22.160 --> 1:20:25.139 Your threats of reporting me for not paying taxes are nothing. 1:20:25.660 --> 1:20:29.930 No one believes n-words, stupid cunt. You should know what 1:20:29.979 --> 1:20:32.950 my friends are capable of by now, so I suggest 1:20:33.030 --> 1:20:36.610 you think twice about going to the police. You eat 1:20:36.689 --> 1:20:39.479 when I choose to let you eat. Your car is 1:20:39.520 --> 1:20:42.010 in repossession and will stay that way for as long 1:20:42.050 --> 1:20:44.910 as I want it to. Enjoy poverty or shut your 1:20:44.950 --> 1:20:46.850 mouth and do what I say when I tell you. 1:20:47.410 --> 1:20:50.410 In the meantime, get fucked. Your little petition to the 1:20:50.490 --> 1:20:53.550 court means nothing to me. I've gotten myself out of 1:20:53.650 --> 1:20:57.570 way worse. Against people with much more value than you'll 1:20:57.650 --> 1:21:01.059 ever have. Now, for the last time, get fucked and 1:21:01.110 --> 1:21:04.640 enjoy poverty. As long as we're still married, I own you, 1:21:04.800 --> 1:21:08.400 remember that, and start acting the part. or next time 1:21:08.580 --> 1:21:11.240 it'll be your face I kick in, not your door. 1:21:11.880 --> 1:21:14.019 What makes you think a judge will believe you over me? 1:21:14.500 --> 1:21:17.350 No one believes the black man. Too bad you didn't 1:21:17.390 --> 1:21:20.530 take photos of your bruises, huh? Not even man enough 1:21:20.570 --> 1:21:21.370 to hit me back. 1:21:21.550 --> 1:21:22.530 Get fucked, John. 1:21:22.930 --> 1:21:25.950 Do your worst. File divorce. See if I give a fuck. 1:21:26.430 --> 1:21:29.750 White always beats black. You're the one with a master's 1:21:29.790 --> 1:21:32.689 degree in criminology. You should know this already. 1:21:32.720 --> 1:21:33.760 Unquote. 1:21:34.600 --> 1:21:34.720 So. 1:21:35.270 --> 1:21:38.570 That is the message sent from Milo's account to his 1:21:38.630 --> 1:21:43.310 husband that Milo claims is fake. It does contain some 1:21:43.350 --> 1:21:47.250 phrases which are mirrored in other text messages sent by Milo. 1:21:48.050 --> 1:21:53.870 In his court declaration, Milo does like armchair forensic text 1:21:53.910 --> 1:21:56.910 analysis to try to prove that this message is actually fake, 1:21:57.550 --> 1:22:01.229 while also just not addressing the other messages submitted to 1:22:01.270 --> 1:22:07.429 the court, alluding to this same general situation. Milo's motion reads, quote, 1:22:07.930 --> 1:22:12.210 For years, his husband has explicitly threatened Yiannopoulos with deportation 1:22:12.570 --> 1:22:16.759 from the country, calling him an illegal immigrant. He is not. 1:22:17.320 --> 1:22:21.100 He has informed Yiannopoulos he would call the, quote, ice hotline, 1:22:21.880 --> 1:22:25.480 knowing that Yiannopoulos' green card status is dependent upon their 1:22:25.520 --> 1:22:29.380 continued marriage, and has in the past refused to appear 1:22:29.540 --> 1:22:35.850 at mandated USCIS appointments, delaying Yiannopoulos' application process, until his 1:22:35.930 --> 1:22:40.559 latest set of financial demands is met. Yiannopoulos has endured 1:22:40.740 --> 1:22:44.800 years of extortion on these grounds, purchasing sports cars for 1:22:44.840 --> 1:22:48.210 his husband and making huge cash gifts to him in 1:22:48.250 --> 1:22:51.370 an effort to save their marriage, but also, of course, 1:22:51.950 --> 1:22:54.950 with these threats unavoidably in the back of his mind. 1:22:55.380 --> 1:22:55.800 Unquote. 1:22:56.660 --> 1:23:00.780 And just that last statement by Milo could itself put 1:23:00.880 --> 1:23:05.710 his legal status into question because there Milo is admitting 1:23:05.750 --> 1:23:09.389 in a sense that he has paid huge cash gifts 1:23:09.550 --> 1:23:14.170 to his ex to get him to cooperate with immigration proceedings. 1:23:14.930 --> 1:23:18.370 In this same declaration, seemingly written by Milo, it's signed 1:23:18.390 --> 1:23:22.680 that way, even though Milo has lawyers, he spends a 1:23:23.040 --> 1:23:27.620 considerable amount of time on the N-word, and accusations from 1:23:27.720 --> 1:23:31.100 his ex that he's used the N-word many times as 1:23:31.120 --> 1:23:34.360 a form of abusive language. Milo writes that the, quote, 1:23:34.860 --> 1:23:38.580 N-word is a kind of sick preoccupation of his husband's, 1:23:39.160 --> 1:23:43.400 and that his husband, quote, displays selective moral outrage about 1:23:43.510 --> 1:23:46.970 certain words and phrases, choosing to receive them as hateful 1:23:47.010 --> 1:23:50.790 and vective when it suits his purposes. Yiannopoulos is British 1:23:50.950 --> 1:23:54.460 and has no particular attachment to the N-word epithet. Like 1:23:54.520 --> 1:23:58.240 most Europeans, he finds its outsized presence in American life 1:23:58.580 --> 1:24:02.510 puzzling and absurd. And he enjoys expressing amusement at the 1:24:02.560 --> 1:24:06.290 hold it has over Americans of all backgrounds. In the 1:24:06.350 --> 1:24:10.130 course of his work for Ye, formerly Kanye West, Yiannopoulos 1:24:10.150 --> 1:24:13.670 was issued with a physical N-word pass by the star, 1:24:14.050 --> 1:24:17.070 who was tickled by the sound of the word in Yiannopoulos' 1:24:17.530 --> 1:24:22.269 English accent, unquote. And Milo submitted evidence to the court 1:24:22.840 --> 1:24:27.769 Regarding his N-word pass, he shared articles in the evidence 1:24:27.830 --> 1:24:32.570 exhibits proving that this N-word pass is a real thing 1:24:32.630 --> 1:24:36.969 that was given to him by Kanye West. Not sure 1:24:37.070 --> 1:24:39.309 how this is supposed to help with his divorce proceedings. 1:24:40.060 --> 1:24:43.540 But there's another document filed by Milo from late October, 1:24:43.560 --> 1:24:47.610 a motion to suspend spousal support to his husband. And 1:24:47.729 --> 1:24:51.170 in this document, Milo writes that he, quote, now realizes 1:24:51.270 --> 1:24:55.910 that their relationship has been over for many years. Throughout 1:24:56.070 --> 1:24:59.990 their divorce, there's been a lot of conflict over how 1:25:00.070 --> 1:25:07.480 much Milo should be legally required to financially support his husband, $ 5, 000, $ 8, 000, 1:25:06.560 --> 1:25:10.030 or $ 15, 000 a month. In October of last year, Milo 1:25:10.070 --> 1:25:12.700 claimed that he had given his ex payments and gifts 1:25:12.800 --> 1:25:18.939 totaling over $ 600, 000 in 2025 alone. Part of this may 1:25:19.100 --> 1:25:24.150 include almost $ 40, 000 a month in rent paid a year 1:25:24.240 --> 1:25:29.429 in advance. Milo's ex-husband has claimed that Milo earns between 1:25:29.430 --> 1:25:32.809 $ 35, 000 to $ 60, 000 a month from his work with quote-unquote 1:25:32.950 --> 1:25:38.030 hip-hop moguls. In this October motion regarding Spuzzle's support, Milo 1:25:38.050 --> 1:25:40.990 wrote that demands for payments from his ex were quote, 1:25:41.550 --> 1:25:46.880 manipulative and accompanied by threats, including threats to Yiannopoulos' immigration status, 1:25:47.420 --> 1:25:50.679 as well as half a dozen malicious calls to the LAPD. 1:25:51.240 --> 1:25:54.920 Milo also claims in this motion that his husband threatened 1:25:54.960 --> 1:25:58.340 him by saying he's opening a criminal case in the 1:25:58.479 --> 1:26:05.160 UK regarding the fraudulent papers Milo filed. In evaluating all 1:26:05.200 --> 1:26:09.850 these different claims and text messages, it's hard to say 1:26:10.020 --> 1:26:14.700 what exactly is true, false, or exaggerated because It's two 1:26:15.060 --> 1:26:19.160 angry exes accusing each other of stuff in an expensive divorce. 1:26:20.020 --> 1:26:24.120 But the contents of at least three text messages could 1:26:24.280 --> 1:26:29.800 amount to immigration fraud. Whether those texts are authenticated or not, 1:26:30.580 --> 1:26:33.780 the fact that they are in a court record certainly 1:26:33.979 --> 1:26:38.510 would not help Milo's case. And if his ex-husband is 1:26:38.590 --> 1:26:41.540 willing to say something that Milo used him for a 1:26:41.560 --> 1:26:44.320 green card, whether that is a true statement or not, 1:26:44.880 --> 1:26:49.240 is similarly not great for Milo in the eyes of DHS. 1:26:49.900 --> 1:26:53.590 Even just the presence of widely publicized articles where Milo 1:26:53.650 --> 1:26:57.410 claims he's no longer gay and that he's demoted his 1:26:57.550 --> 1:27:01.670 husband to housemate just three or four years after getting 1:27:01.710 --> 1:27:05.470 married could be hard to explain to DHS if he's 1:27:05.590 --> 1:27:10.680 under scrutiny for possible immigration fraud. That, accompanied by text 1:27:10.700 --> 1:27:15.660 messages promising $ 100, 000 in exchange for completing a green card process, 1:27:16.270 --> 1:27:20.370 and Milo accusing his husband of, quote, violating their deal, 1:27:21.110 --> 1:27:24.430 and that he can no longer assist with immigration affairs, 1:27:24.750 --> 1:27:30.210 could create trouble for Milo in his appeal following his deportation. Which, yes, 1:27:30.330 --> 1:27:33.530 Milo is pursuing, and through that, we may get more 1:27:33.570 --> 1:27:37.930 information regarding the exact sequence of events that led to 1:27:37.990 --> 1:27:42.450 him being deported to the UK. These divorce documents demonstrate 1:27:42.510 --> 1:27:46.400 Milo was well aware of issues regarding his green card renewal, 1:27:47.100 --> 1:27:49.920 and he was certainly aware of Laura Loomer's calls for 1:27:49.979 --> 1:27:53.280 him to be deported. And Milo may have just decided 1:27:53.340 --> 1:27:57.320 to use this situation as an opportunity for one more 1:27:57.400 --> 1:28:00.780 career pivot, or he just never thought that someone like 1:28:00.820 --> 1:28:05.700 him would actually be deported. Even if his status was 1:28:05.920 --> 1:28:09.680 questionable for a brief or maybe not-so-brief amount of time, 1:28:10.060 --> 1:28:12.450 he could have had it in his head that his 1:28:12.530 --> 1:28:16.110 politics or his social status would make him special and 1:28:16.150 --> 1:28:20.430 immune to enforcement, which of course is reserved for dangerous, 1:28:20.550 --> 1:28:25.660 violent criminals, which, for whatever reason, he himself would never 1:28:25.760 --> 1:28:29.360 fit into said category. As opposed to someone like, say, 1:28:29.380 --> 1:28:33.969 Ilhan Omar, who, last year, Milo accused of committing quote, 1:28:34.270 --> 1:28:39.370 the most brazen and shameless public immigration fraud in American history. 1:28:40.340 --> 1:28:44.320 and called on Tom Homan to have her arrested and deported. 1:28:45.200 --> 1:28:49.310 This post was just months before Milo told the L.A. 1:28:49.350 --> 1:28:51.429 Superior Court that his. 1:28:51.470 --> 1:28:54.990 Own ex-husband has accused him of immigration fraud. 1:29:07.030 --> 1:29:10.490 Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about the 1:29:10.530 --> 1:29:15.270 death of empire and its nightmare afterlife. I'm your host, 1:29:15.370 --> 1:29:19.110 Mia Wong. We are living through the. 1:29:19.070 --> 1:29:19.729 End of something. 1:29:20.830 --> 1:29:25.680 An epoch, an age, a way of life, a democracy. 1:29:27.080 --> 1:29:31.000 We have covered this end through a series of prisms. 1:29:31.729 --> 1:29:34.850 from the pure and total descent of the presidency into 1:29:34.890 --> 1:29:38.640 a form of autocratic rule by fiat, to the destruction 1:29:38.820 --> 1:29:44.939 of even the most basic state capacity, virology, meteorology, that 1:29:45.000 --> 1:29:48.040 now largely forgotten time that he funded the nuke police, 1:29:49.280 --> 1:29:51.700 the death of American science and the wounds dealt to 1:29:51.760 --> 1:29:56.430 the education system, ISIS' full-on ethnic cleansing of a significant 1:29:56.470 --> 1:30:02.380 portion of the American population. This is the end of 1:30:02.439 --> 1:30:05.620 America as it has existed since the end of World 1:30:05.660 --> 1:30:10.650 War II. But it is also the death of the 1:30:10.689 --> 1:30:16.309 Pax Americana. And today, we're going to be looking not 1:30:16.410 --> 1:30:21.990 just at the death of what was in America. We're 1:30:22.020 --> 1:30:25.000 going to be looking at what it means in terms 1:30:25.220 --> 1:30:28.730 of the American Empire. We're going to be looking at 1:30:28.770 --> 1:30:33.250 the Pax Americana, the modern era of American hegemony. We're 1:30:33.270 --> 1:30:36.189 going to be looking at what it was, its deep 1:30:36.260 --> 1:30:38.549 and profound ties and origins. 1:30:38.220 --> 1:30:38.840 In the U.S. 1:30:38.920 --> 1:30:42.780 Navy, and how the remnants of that era and the 1:30:42.900 --> 1:30:47.320 empire that had been so carefully and bloodily constructed over 1:30:47.380 --> 1:30:51.360 the course of centuries was shattered by the Trump administration's 1:30:51.400 --> 1:30:54.820 attempt to do an even more overt form of imperialism. 1:30:56.360 --> 1:31:00.960 The era of American hegemony is over. And before we 1:31:01.000 --> 1:31:04.920 continue into the endless waking nightmare, let us look at 1:31:04.960 --> 1:31:10.030 what it was. Now, I have been talking about the 1:31:10.050 --> 1:31:15.130 death of American hegemony for a while now, originally in 1:31:15.170 --> 1:31:18.030 the context of the apocryphal disaster of the American war 1:31:18.070 --> 1:31:22.670 with Iran. And recently we've seen one of the most 1:31:24.270 --> 1:31:28.720 Embarrassing and humiliating incidents and evidences of failure of the 1:31:28.780 --> 1:31:33.320 old American system, which is the declaration and then subsequent 1:31:34.320 --> 1:31:40.120 walking back, immediate walking back, failure to launch of what 1:31:40.160 --> 1:31:44.600 was called Economic D-Day. So for people who have forgotten 1:31:44.640 --> 1:31:50.220 what Economic D-Day was, because I don't blame you, this 1:31:50.260 --> 1:31:53.920 was such a fiasco. Economic D-Day was supposed to be 1:31:53.979 --> 1:31:59.250 this enormous campaign of secondary sanctions against anyone trading with 1:31:59.330 --> 1:32:02.050 Iran spread over a number of sectors. This was designed 1:32:02.070 --> 1:32:06.580 to cripple what remained of the Iranian economy. And there 1:32:06.620 --> 1:32:08.490 was a giant press blitz about it. 1:32:08.560 --> 1:32:12.280 Again, they were calling it Economic D-Day. And now, multiple 1:32:12.300 --> 1:32:13.060 weeks later, we have. 1:32:14.939 --> 1:32:17.260 A couple of sanctions. You have a few sanctions that 1:32:17.280 --> 1:32:20.220 they applied at the time. We now have some sanctions 1:32:20.280 --> 1:32:26.640 against some Iranian airlines and a sanction against a Turkish bank. Now, again, 1:32:26.680 --> 1:32:29.240 originally when this was described, this was described as a 1:32:29.300 --> 1:32:32.880 sort of like American total economic war, that the US 1:32:32.900 --> 1:32:37.780 would completely isolate Iran from all of its trading partners. However, comma, 1:32:37.860 --> 1:32:39.559 in order to do this, you would have to actually 1:32:39.620 --> 1:32:44.200 go after China. And the Trump administration has obviously had 1:32:44.300 --> 1:32:46.549 trade disputes with China, but the kind of sanctions they 1:32:46.590 --> 1:32:52.150 would need to levy in order to actually completely isolate 1:32:52.229 --> 1:32:57.030 Iran are something that the U.S. is simply not willing 1:32:57.110 --> 1:33:02.040 to pursue. Because, get this, the U.S. and China make 1:33:02.240 --> 1:33:06.400 an enormous amount of money both from trading with each other. Now, 1:33:06.600 --> 1:33:11.450 what's interesting here is that this kind of devastating economic campaign, 1:33:12.390 --> 1:33:15.130 this is something that the United States used to be 1:33:15.189 --> 1:33:17.610 able to do. Now, obviously, it wouldn't have been able 1:33:17.630 --> 1:33:21.240 to do it easily, right? But this kind of sort of, 1:33:21.600 --> 1:33:27.860 in theory, right, coalition-built, large-scale sanction package to completely economically 1:33:27.960 --> 1:33:31.520 isolate a country, this is what the American empire has 1:33:31.620 --> 1:33:35.050 always been best at. And the fact that the U.S. 1:33:35.189 --> 1:33:39.950 can't do it now signals a fundamental transformation and death 1:33:40.110 --> 1:33:44.410 of what the old American empire was. Now, to do 1:33:44.630 --> 1:33:48.820 the tie-in to the Navy here, because the Navy is 1:33:48.840 --> 1:33:51.960 a crucial part of the story and about what the 1:33:51.979 --> 1:33:56.540 sort of Pax Americana was, just to explain this very simply, right, 1:33:56.600 --> 1:33:59.059 a huge portion of whatever the Pax Americana was was 1:33:59.100 --> 1:34:02.320 the ability of the American Navy to and its sort 1:34:02.340 --> 1:34:05.299 of supremacy over most of the world's oceans, its ability 1:34:05.360 --> 1:34:09.820 to maintain open, safe, and stable trade routes for global capital. 1:34:10.800 --> 1:34:14.000 And to sort of inelegantly pivot to this sort of 1:34:14.060 --> 1:34:17.560 naval apparatus. We can notice that D-Day was also an 1:34:18.540 --> 1:34:22.280 exercise in American naval power that is sort of astounding. 1:34:22.390 --> 1:34:24.309 I mean, the ability to do force projection on the 1:34:24.330 --> 1:34:27.150 other side of the world on that scale is sort 1:34:27.170 --> 1:34:30.920 of mind-boggling for most of human history. And it's a 1:34:30.960 --> 1:34:35.000 demonstration of the way in which American hegemony was built 1:34:35.720 --> 1:34:40.439 by the Navy. Now, obviously, the U.S. originally is a 1:34:40.510 --> 1:34:43.670 land empire in ways that are very easily sort of 1:34:43.750 --> 1:34:46.950 naturalized and forgotten, right? The United States is a settler colony. 1:34:47.070 --> 1:34:51.510 It was built on a series of genocidal exterminations and 1:34:51.610 --> 1:34:55.790 land seizures from the indigenous people who had been here 1:34:55.830 --> 1:34:59.570 before over the course of centuries and centuries continuing to 1:34:59.610 --> 1:35:04.800 this day. So there is, on the one hand, this 1:35:05.380 --> 1:35:10.479 in some ways very conventional settler colonial land empire. But 1:35:10.960 --> 1:35:14.600 there's also always been a significant naval component to the 1:35:14.680 --> 1:35:20.000 United States because of how settlers got to the colony. 1:35:20.430 --> 1:35:23.890 And then also because of the economic ties that those 1:35:23.910 --> 1:35:26.810 settlers maintained with Europe and the ways that trade networks 1:35:26.850 --> 1:35:27.370 developed there. 1:35:27.880 --> 1:35:28.500 You know, the U.S. 1:35:28.520 --> 1:35:32.060 Has always, to some extent, been a naval-oriented power as 1:35:32.120 --> 1:35:34.000 it's sort of established and as it sort of did 1:35:34.040 --> 1:35:37.939 its genocides across the continent of North America. But for 1:35:38.040 --> 1:35:42.780 our purposes, there's an important departure in the history of 1:35:42.820 --> 1:35:46.620 the American empire and how it functions in the mid 1:35:46.689 --> 1:35:52.450 to late 1800s. And it particularly intensifies around this guy 1:35:52.490 --> 1:35:56.330 who was just kind of a random Navy captain. named 1:35:56.470 --> 1:36:00.530 Alfred Thayer Mahan, who writes this book called The Influence 1:36:00.570 --> 1:36:04.490 of Sea Power Upon History. It's this book basically arguing 1:36:04.530 --> 1:36:06.630 that if you're going to be a great empire, you 1:36:06.729 --> 1:36:09.860 need to have sea power, right? You need to be 1:36:09.900 --> 1:36:12.840 able to sort of, like, maintain control over the world's oceans. 1:36:13.740 --> 1:36:16.720 He releases this in 1890. A lot of what this 1:36:16.760 --> 1:36:18.760 turns into is this attempt, you know, and this sort 1:36:18.780 --> 1:36:26.549 of reorientation of the American Navy around pushing into the Pacific. Now, Obviously, 1:36:26.590 --> 1:36:29.670 the Navy had always been a tool of American imperialism. 1:36:29.770 --> 1:36:30.830 It is what the U.S. 1:36:30.990 --> 1:36:33.910 Used to enforce its rule over Latin America. And this 1:36:33.970 --> 1:36:36.010 is even before this sort of late era that we're 1:36:36.030 --> 1:36:40.470 talking about, even before the 1890s, right? When you're looking 1:36:40.530 --> 1:36:44.030 at sort of, you know, American interventions in Latin America, 1:36:44.090 --> 1:36:46.439 a lot of that is being done through the U.S. 1:36:46.500 --> 1:36:46.820 Navy. 1:36:47.660 --> 1:36:53.300 But Mahan is responsible is kind of too strong of 1:36:53.320 --> 1:36:56.890 a word, but he's... an influential theorist of this push, 1:36:58.030 --> 1:37:01.250 you know, West into the Pacific, right? It's this, the 1:37:01.530 --> 1:37:05.189 1890s is this era of, oh, well, we've done manifest destiny. 1:37:05.260 --> 1:37:09.180 We've like conquered this fucking brutal genocidal empire from coast 1:37:09.220 --> 1:37:12.050 to coast. And there's this question of where we're going next. 1:37:12.189 --> 1:37:14.450 And where we're going next turns out to be, okay, 1:37:14.950 --> 1:37:17.410 we need to be able to sort of refuel ships 1:37:17.510 --> 1:37:19.530 across the Pacific. So we need to seize control of 1:37:19.590 --> 1:37:22.189 these islands that will allow us to have, like, coal 1:37:22.229 --> 1:37:24.650 refueling stations so we can continuously move and project naval 1:37:24.680 --> 1:37:29.680 power through the Pacific. This turns into a, like, the 1:37:29.720 --> 1:37:34.560 Spanish-American War, which is, you know, not a war that 1:37:34.700 --> 1:37:38.500 is fought in Spain. It is a war that is 1:37:39.220 --> 1:37:43.850 fought in Cuba and in the Philippines and at sea. 1:37:44.890 --> 1:37:47.090 And it also leads to the creation of what's called 1:37:47.150 --> 1:37:51.850 the White Fleet by Theodore Roosevelt, which is. 1:37:51.870 --> 1:37:51.950 I. 1:37:55.430 --> 1:37:58.110 Complain a lot on this show about how there is 1:37:58.170 --> 1:38:02.110 no such thing as subtlety anymore. And it's true that 1:38:02.140 --> 1:38:04.939 there is not subtlety now. There was also not subtlety 1:38:05.000 --> 1:38:08.410 back then. when you read historical stuff about it, everyone goes, oh, 1:38:08.450 --> 1:38:10.210 it was called the White Fleet because the hulls of 1:38:10.229 --> 1:38:13.800 the ships were white. And it's like, yeah, okay. Yes, 1:38:14.380 --> 1:38:18.520 technically speaking, that is true. But every single one of 1:38:18.600 --> 1:38:23.480 these just unhinged racists who are involved in this entire project, 1:38:23.890 --> 1:38:26.870 everyone knows what it means to have a fleet called 1:38:26.970 --> 1:38:27.830 the White Fleet. 1:38:28.390 --> 1:38:28.570 Right? 1:38:29.350 --> 1:38:31.160 This is the fleece that is used to sort of, 1:38:31.610 --> 1:38:35.140 it's called opening Japan, but it's used to just force 1:38:35.240 --> 1:38:39.280 Japan to open itself, sort of Western traders and Western imperialism. 1:38:40.100 --> 1:38:42.180 As a result of this, you also see eventually sort 1:38:42.200 --> 1:38:47.320 of the various stages of conquest and annexation of Hawaii. 1:38:48.160 --> 1:38:52.009 What you're seeing is in effect, the American empire entering 1:38:52.070 --> 1:39:05.920 its sea era. Its sea era is the era in 1:39:06.000 --> 1:39:10.939 which its international ambitions really, really expand. 1:39:11.040 --> 1:39:12.219 Now, obviously, the U.S. 1:39:12.400 --> 1:39:15.530 Has been doing naval interventions on the other side of 1:39:15.550 --> 1:39:19.800 the world's basically since the moment it was founded. There's 1:39:20.060 --> 1:39:24.360 obviously the very famous war with the Barbary states that 1:39:24.400 --> 1:39:30.299 the US has right after it's founded. But this period 1:39:30.479 --> 1:39:35.360 marks this sort of transformation of the US into something that's... 1:39:35.460 --> 1:39:38.680 It's not quite accurate to call it true global force projection, 1:39:39.280 --> 1:39:42.600 but that's kind of what happens over the course of 1:39:42.700 --> 1:39:47.130 World War I and then World War II. And this 1:39:47.170 --> 1:39:52.560 gets us into talking about the Pax Americana itself, right? 1:39:53.110 --> 1:39:55.840 Because if you're familiar with the term, it comes from 1:39:55.880 --> 1:40:00.480 this period of Roman history that was called the Pax Romana, 1:40:00.520 --> 1:40:06.640 where you have this relatively unchallenged Roman Empire ruling as 1:40:06.660 --> 1:40:10.040 a regional and global hegemon, and that it was able 1:40:10.060 --> 1:40:12.540 to enforce some kind of degree of peace. Now, obviously, 1:40:12.660 --> 1:40:17.780 like Like, we say peace, right? And obviously anyone who 1:40:17.810 --> 1:40:20.950 has lived through this period is well aware that, like, no, 1:40:21.070 --> 1:40:24.630 obviously this is not, like, an enormously peaceful time. It is, 1:40:24.650 --> 1:40:30.790 I guess, technically less war than, like, World Wars I 1:40:30.850 --> 1:40:34.070 and II. But, you know, and this is true with, like, 1:40:34.150 --> 1:40:39.210 the Pax Romana, too, is this isn't, like, actual peace, right? 1:40:39.640 --> 1:40:43.160 It's just a time in which there is an empire 1:40:43.200 --> 1:40:48.059 that is large enough that there aren't really as many sort. 1:40:47.860 --> 1:40:48.719 Of hot wars. 1:40:50.080 --> 1:40:52.720 But what's sort of called the Pax Americana starts after 1:40:52.760 --> 1:40:54.740 World War II. And this is important for a number 1:40:54.780 --> 1:40:59.280 of reasons. One is the effect of World War II 1:40:59.580 --> 1:41:00.620 on the rest of the world, right? 1:41:00.640 --> 1:41:01.100 The U.S. 1:41:01.140 --> 1:41:04.240 Has a significant portion of the entire world's manufacturing economy 1:41:04.479 --> 1:41:06.710 after World the end of the war. It's one of 1:41:07.250 --> 1:41:10.790 a very small number of like intact industrial belts that 1:41:10.830 --> 1:41:15.810 exist in the world after the war. And also, World 1:41:15.830 --> 1:41:20.800 War II shatters, it overturns the old sort of world-powered 1:41:20.860 --> 1:41:24.059 system in which the French and British empires, and also, 1:41:24.080 --> 1:41:26.480 you know, by this point, like this sort of burgeoning 1:41:26.540 --> 1:41:30.850 German empire, Nazi empire, and the Japanese fascist empire are 1:41:31.760 --> 1:41:33.979 had sort of been dividing up the world. But it's 1:41:34.020 --> 1:41:36.860 this real sort of death knell, specifically for our purposes, 1:41:36.880 --> 1:41:41.060 for the British, who go from being the kind of 1:41:41.150 --> 1:41:43.820 naval power that the US is modeling itself after, right? 1:41:44.200 --> 1:41:46.530 This naval empire with the ability to project force anywhere 1:41:46.550 --> 1:41:50.250 that's able to rule over vast swaths of territory because 1:41:50.290 --> 1:41:53.270 it completely controls the seas or controls enough of the 1:41:53.310 --> 1:41:56.070 seas that it has control of sort of like naval 1:41:56.110 --> 1:41:59.380 and trade lines. But like that fleet, like the British 1:41:59.420 --> 1:42:02.260 Navy gets just annihilated in World War II and the 1:42:02.280 --> 1:42:05.280 British Empire just doesn't have the resources to maintain itself. 1:42:05.340 --> 1:42:08.349 And through also a bunch of anti-colonial rebellions, it begins 1:42:08.370 --> 1:42:11.270 to tear itself apart. And for sort of capitalism to 1:42:11.470 --> 1:42:15.390 function and for it to function efficiently, you need someone 1:42:15.930 --> 1:42:20.530 who has the naval power to control the seas. And 1:42:20.560 --> 1:42:23.820 you need this because this is how trade operates, right? 1:42:24.550 --> 1:42:27.490 And this is going to become especially true as this 1:42:27.570 --> 1:42:30.019 period goes on in ways we will talk about in 1:42:30.040 --> 1:42:33.380 a moment. So at the end of World War II, 1:42:33.420 --> 1:42:36.660 the US is sort of the driving force in a 1:42:36.700 --> 1:42:39.860 lot of ways behind, I mean, obviously the allied powers 1:42:39.920 --> 1:42:42.080 are involved in various ways in the establishing of the 1:42:42.120 --> 1:42:46.940 United Nations, but the US becomes kind of the seat 1:42:47.260 --> 1:42:52.330 of like the world's sort of global economic and institutional apparatus, right? 1:42:52.370 --> 1:42:55.930 If the IMF of the World Bank, you know, I mean, 1:42:55.970 --> 1:43:00.470 like the United Nations meets in New York, right? And, 1:43:00.710 --> 1:43:03.490 and this is maybe the most important thing for our 1:43:03.530 --> 1:43:08.790 purposes right now, the US becomes the world's reserve currency. 1:43:09.770 --> 1:43:12.530 And it also becomes the currency in which you buy oil, 1:43:12.950 --> 1:43:15.780 which is also just an, you know, an incredibly important advantage. 1:43:15.820 --> 1:43:19.849 And this is the basis of, of the American empire. 1:43:19.910 --> 1:43:21.430 And what, one of the things that makes it so 1:43:21.510 --> 1:43:25.939 powerful is that, you know, this is what's called senior privilege, right? 1:43:26.060 --> 1:43:29.979 Which is that like everything is being operated. The whole 1:43:30.000 --> 1:43:33.680 world economy is being operated in us dollars. It is 1:43:33.700 --> 1:43:36.309 the world reserve currency. You can buy almost anything with it. 1:43:37.010 --> 1:43:39.080 And what that means for the U S is like a, 1:43:39.070 --> 1:43:42.130 every time the U S prints a dollar bill, right? 1:43:42.210 --> 1:43:44.309 It's however much it costs to like make a bill. 1:43:44.350 --> 1:43:47.940 And then like a hundred dollars exists now. And then B, 1:43:48.170 --> 1:43:51.670 and this is also extremely important, the U.S. can't run 1:43:51.770 --> 1:43:55.810 out of dollars in the same way that other countries, 1:43:55.830 --> 1:43:57.970 we've talked about this before in other episodes, in the 1:43:58.010 --> 1:44:01.969 same way that other countries can run out of American dollars, 1:44:01.990 --> 1:44:03.990 which causes massive economic crises. 1:44:04.010 --> 1:44:05.190 The U.S. 1:44:05.530 --> 1:44:11.679 Doesn't have that problem. Obviously, you have to do inflation management, 1:44:11.700 --> 1:44:15.269 but you can't just run out of dollars in in 1:44:15.310 --> 1:44:17.740 a way that like anyone else in the world can. 1:44:17.920 --> 1:44:20.300 And this is also the currency where, you know, US 1:44:20.760 --> 1:44:23.170 government bonds become the currency that the rest of the 1:44:23.210 --> 1:44:27.630 world's reserve banks put their money in. So this means 1:44:27.689 --> 1:44:31.270 that the entire rest of the world, by purchasing these bonds, 1:44:31.450 --> 1:44:36.080 is effectively just subsidizing anything the U.S. government wants to do. 1:44:36.600 --> 1:44:38.320 Government bonds are government debt, right? And most of the 1:44:38.360 --> 1:44:41.380 government debt, it turns out, is war debt, because what 1:44:41.420 --> 1:44:44.140 the U.S. wants to do over this period, and again, 1:44:44.220 --> 1:44:47.460 we're calling it the Pax Americana, but the thing the U.S. 1:44:47.520 --> 1:44:51.390 ramps up government spending to do is fight horrifying imperialist 1:44:51.430 --> 1:44:56.769 wars in Korea and Vietnam. But these are bankrolls. to 1:44:56.790 --> 1:45:00.650 a large extent, by these sort of large-scale bond purchases. 1:45:01.270 --> 1:45:04.849 But that is the deal of sort of the Pax Americana, 1:45:04.870 --> 1:45:10.560 which is that the U.S. has this enormous military. It will, quote-unquote, 1:45:10.620 --> 1:45:14.420 protect you from communism. That is a twin-pronged thing. On 1:45:14.460 --> 1:45:17.560 the one hand, right, you have, and this is why 1:45:17.580 --> 1:45:19.439 I've been talking so much about the role of the U.S. Navy, 1:45:19.479 --> 1:45:25.090 you have the U.S. Navy maintaining open shipping lines around 1:45:25.150 --> 1:45:27.840 the world, right? And then on the other hand, you 1:45:27.900 --> 1:45:34.250 have the U.S., shall we say, three-letter agencies and also 1:45:34.270 --> 1:45:38.610 the military and also still the Navy doing interventions and 1:45:38.650 --> 1:45:40.630 doing genocides in a whole bunch of countries in order 1:45:40.670 --> 1:45:44.080 to keep the communists out of power. But the deal 1:45:44.200 --> 1:45:47.120 is you buy into the American protection racket, right? 1:45:47.160 --> 1:45:47.620 The U.S. 1:45:47.640 --> 1:45:50.620 Will put a shit ton of military bases in your country. 1:45:51.340 --> 1:45:54.760 You will buy American bonds. You let the dollar be 1:45:54.780 --> 1:45:58.889 the world's reserve currency. And in exchange for this, you're 1:45:58.910 --> 1:46:03.870 supposed to get, again, secure trade lines and the capitalist 1:46:03.890 --> 1:46:07.519 class gets to maintain its control of the means of 1:46:07.530 --> 1:46:21.740 production and the workers do not get to have that stuff. Now, 1:46:22.080 --> 1:46:25.820 the importance of these shipping lanes are exacerbated by the 1:46:26.060 --> 1:46:29.210 other sort of wing of what you would call this– 1:46:29.680 --> 1:46:33.740 I don't know. It's maybe a little bit too– well, 1:46:34.280 --> 1:46:35.400 I don't think it's too out there to say this 1:46:35.460 --> 1:46:38.309 is also sort of another wing of American anti-communism and 1:46:38.850 --> 1:46:41.450 just like the war on the global working class in general, 1:46:41.570 --> 1:46:44.589 which is the expansion and intensification of what's called containerization, 1:46:45.830 --> 1:46:49.400 which is based on shipping containers, right? It's the process 1:46:49.410 --> 1:46:54.340 that begins what's called offshoring, where dealing with this sort 1:46:54.380 --> 1:46:57.460 of declining global profits and the rising power of the 1:46:57.500 --> 1:47:01.000 working class in a number of countries, the global capitalist 1:47:01.040 --> 1:47:05.429 economy spearheaded by the United States figure out that using 1:47:05.470 --> 1:47:08.710 these giant shipping and logistics lines and using these shipping containers, 1:47:09.530 --> 1:47:12.150 they can ship the manufacturing off to more impoverished countries 1:47:12.189 --> 1:47:14.870 and countries in which it's easier to just machine gun workers. 1:47:15.729 --> 1:47:19.519 And this allows companies to reduce wages and have a 1:47:19.660 --> 1:47:23.559 firmer grasp on the control of the means of production by, again, 1:47:23.800 --> 1:47:25.800 just machine gunning workers if they try to. 1:47:25.800 --> 1:47:26.439 Go on strike. 1:47:28.040 --> 1:47:31.820 But in order to be able to suddenly make your 1:47:31.880 --> 1:47:36.420 cars not in the United States, but somewhere else, say, 1:47:36.460 --> 1:47:40.509 for example, Mexico or China, you need to be able 1:47:40.520 --> 1:47:44.110 to do this massive set of shipping things, right? Because 1:47:44.210 --> 1:47:49.340 also you're now working in these extremely long supply chains 1:47:50.150 --> 1:47:52.700 that stretch all over the world and they're bringing parts 1:47:52.720 --> 1:47:54.280 to a bunch of different places and they're being assembled 1:47:54.300 --> 1:47:55.820 at a different place and they're being assembled at another 1:47:55.860 --> 1:47:58.760 place in order to sort of pit the workers of 1:47:58.900 --> 1:48:01.640 every single one of these places against each other and 1:48:01.660 --> 1:48:03.580 then pit those workers who are working on it against 1:48:03.620 --> 1:48:06.349 the workers you no longer have work. This is what's 1:48:06.360 --> 1:48:09.280 known as the spatial fix, by the way. It's a 1:48:09.340 --> 1:48:13.880 story that was popularized by Marxist geographer David Harvey. I 1:48:13.939 --> 1:48:18.150 think it's older than him or his work, but I 1:48:18.270 --> 1:48:19.990 am blanking right now on exactly what it is. 1:48:20.320 --> 1:48:20.960 Where it's from. 1:48:20.979 --> 1:48:25.179 Yeah, but the product of the spatial fix is that 1:48:25.880 --> 1:48:28.040 the capitalist class is able to keep making money. The 1:48:28.080 --> 1:48:33.679 international workers movement is sort of gutted and then has 1:48:33.740 --> 1:48:37.430 its spine ripped out. And you have this sort of 1:48:37.439 --> 1:48:42.310 like the end of history era And even at this point, right, 1:48:42.390 --> 1:48:45.690 for a lot of countries around the world, this deal 1:48:46.010 --> 1:48:49.430 is worth it because this deal is like, shut the 1:48:49.470 --> 1:48:52.880 fuck up and let the U.S. sort of rig things 1:48:53.350 --> 1:48:55.679 in its favor. It's obviously going to have a bunch 1:48:55.689 --> 1:48:58.120 of carve outs in all these massive free trade deals 1:48:58.160 --> 1:49:01.240 that advantage it. You know, it's going to be running 1:49:01.260 --> 1:49:03.580 an empire. You're going to be complicit in this empire. 1:49:03.660 --> 1:49:07.970 It's going to force you to go do its imperialist stuff. But, 1:49:07.990 --> 1:49:11.769 you know, it's worth it because you, the capitalist class 1:49:11.870 --> 1:49:16.439 of your country, get to keep making money. But again, 1:49:16.740 --> 1:49:20.320 all of this was based on the American ability to 1:49:20.380 --> 1:49:25.540 maintain control of the world shipping lanes. And this was 1:49:25.580 --> 1:49:28.519 something that had been uncontested, right? Like, I mean, I 1:49:28.540 --> 1:49:31.560 guess you could argue like Somali pirates or whatever, but like, yeah, 1:49:31.740 --> 1:49:35.740 the U.S. 's ability to maintain global shipping isn't even 1:49:35.780 --> 1:49:38.820 a thing anymore. that until Trump decided to invade Iran, 1:49:39.120 --> 1:49:43.960 that anyone was thinking about really being contested. Obviously, you 1:49:43.979 --> 1:49:47.559 can look at Chinese expansion in the South China Sea 1:49:47.600 --> 1:49:50.680 or whatever, but that's not threatening the ability to move 1:49:51.040 --> 1:49:56.439 oil around the world. But the problem here for this 1:49:56.560 --> 1:49:59.840 empire is that it was taken over by people who 1:49:59.880 --> 1:50:04.620 don't understand how it works. Trump doesn't really understands. And 1:50:04.640 --> 1:50:07.300 when I say doesn't really, Trump doesn't understand any of 1:50:07.340 --> 1:50:09.860 this at all, which is why, you know, it just 1:50:09.960 --> 1:50:11.940 never really seemed to have occurred to any of the 1:50:11.979 --> 1:50:14.160 people around them that like they wouldn't be able to 1:50:14.229 --> 1:50:17.110 take control of the Strait of Hormuz. And American policy 1:50:17.150 --> 1:50:19.410 towards the Strait of Hormuz, other than that period where 1:50:19.430 --> 1:50:21.030 they said they were annexing it, has kind of just 1:50:21.050 --> 1:50:23.270 been to pretend that it's open and also screaming about 1:50:23.310 --> 1:50:27.420 it not being open at the same time. But this event, 1:50:27.900 --> 1:50:31.990 this loss of control of one of the most vital 1:50:32.110 --> 1:50:35.719 shipping lanes in the entire world, which the American Empire 1:50:35.760 --> 1:50:38.759 had been able to maintain and keep open even though 1:50:39.220 --> 1:50:41.660 one of its mortal enemies, like, borders it, right? It 1:50:41.700 --> 1:50:45.010 had been able to keep the shipping lanes open not 1:50:45.150 --> 1:50:50.070 by actually necessarily applying military power, but by threatening it, right? 1:50:50.090 --> 1:50:51.790 And this is also the important thing about the American 1:50:51.830 --> 1:50:55.270 Empire is that American military power always works best when 1:50:55.310 --> 1:50:57.570 you're threatening it and not when you're actually deploying it. 1:50:57.620 --> 1:51:00.760 Because once you actually have to, like, deploy the U.S. 1:51:00.880 --> 1:51:03.700 Army to a place and fight a war, that usually 1:51:03.720 --> 1:51:05.820 turns into a shit show. I mean, you know, you 1:51:05.840 --> 1:51:08.439 look at the modern American history of wars and it's like, okay, well, 1:51:09.200 --> 1:51:11.860 you know, you have like the absolute nightmares in Vietnam 1:51:11.900 --> 1:51:14.120 and in Iraq and Afghanistan and these sort of like, 1:51:14.800 --> 1:51:18.840 you know, actually like deploying the American military tends not 1:51:18.880 --> 1:51:23.229 to work out particularly well for the American empire. But 1:51:23.370 --> 1:51:26.129 the threat of it and the threat of the ability 1:51:26.210 --> 1:51:28.830 to just you know, to kill an unbelievable number of 1:51:28.870 --> 1:51:33.210 people to inflict this damage is enough to cause other 1:51:33.270 --> 1:51:35.910 countries to fall in line. One of the sort of 1:51:35.970 --> 1:51:38.310 Miao Wang promises, if it could happen here, is that 1:51:38.380 --> 1:51:40.440 if you're listening to this show, you will know what 1:51:40.479 --> 1:51:42.820 the Plaza Accords are, and you will know what the 1:51:42.860 --> 1:51:46.960 Reverse Plaza Accords are. So the Plaza Accords are this 1:51:47.060 --> 1:51:50.200 thing in the 1980s with the U.S., you know, the U.S. 1:51:50.220 --> 1:51:54.310 manufacturing economy is tanking, and the U.S. basically goes to 1:51:54.350 --> 1:51:57.250 the negotiating table immediately and just says, like, fuck it, 1:51:57.350 --> 1:52:01.450 you're American military protectorates. And the you here is Japan 1:52:01.710 --> 1:52:05.090 and West Germany, which are these rising industrial powerhouses, right? 1:52:05.729 --> 1:52:06.370 And the U.S. 1:52:06.390 --> 1:52:10.240 Goes, fuck you, you're going to nuke your own manufacturing 1:52:10.280 --> 1:52:14.120 economies by increasing the value of your currency so that 1:52:14.240 --> 1:52:17.760 the U.S. can have a manufacturing economy. and Japan and 1:52:17.800 --> 1:52:22.420 Germany are forced to do it. They're not explicit about this, 1:52:23.240 --> 1:52:26.900 but that's the underlying tension of what's happening here. This 1:52:26.970 --> 1:52:30.160 is the American empire functioning in the Pax Americana as 1:52:30.240 --> 1:52:33.750 it was designed to function, where, yeah, you have the 1:52:33.790 --> 1:52:36.990 Japanese economy, which in this period is threatening to overtake 1:52:37.729 --> 1:52:39.710 the American economy, it's the largest economy in the world, 1:52:39.750 --> 1:52:42.150 and the US is able to just kneecap it because 1:52:42.189 --> 1:52:44.210 it's like, no, we control the seas, we have a 1:52:44.250 --> 1:52:47.880 million military bases there, We can just dictate your economic policy. 1:52:48.560 --> 1:52:51.320 And this is like Ronald Reagan, right? We're not talking 1:52:51.340 --> 1:52:57.560 about the most subtle, technocratic manager of empire, right? This 1:52:57.620 --> 1:53:01.740 is like a senile actor who's become president, and he's 1:53:01.780 --> 1:53:06.070 able to do this. But Trump is not, right? Trump 1:53:06.189 --> 1:53:09.630 sees the raw power of the American empire and goes, oh, right, 1:53:09.670 --> 1:53:12.150 the point is to use it, right? The thing that 1:53:12.189 --> 1:53:13.769 makes you a man, the thing that makes you a 1:53:13.810 --> 1:53:18.530 nation is... just deploying this shit and killing and trying 1:53:18.570 --> 1:53:22.429 to kill everyone who opposes you. And this has led 1:53:22.490 --> 1:53:27.160 to him ending the basis of American global hegemony, which 1:53:27.200 --> 1:53:30.620 is like for the first time, like since World War II, 1:53:30.720 --> 1:53:34.580 it's like, yeah, no, the US just like can't maintain 1:53:34.820 --> 1:53:38.140 the global shipping supply, right? And you can look at 1:53:38.160 --> 1:53:40.780 the other sort of major challenge to this in OPEC, right? 1:53:40.850 --> 1:53:44.939 Where OPEC is to some extent, doing this attempt to, like, 1:53:45.040 --> 1:53:47.860 prevent the flow of goods through the capitalist economy, but 1:53:47.979 --> 1:53:50.640 OPEC is trying to do it directly from the production end, 1:53:50.900 --> 1:53:52.599 not through the distribution end. 1:53:53.580 --> 1:53:54.180 And the U.S. 1:53:54.640 --> 1:53:57.280 Responds to this and the attempts by a bunch of 1:53:57.320 --> 1:54:00.960 other countries to form what are called mini-PECs, to form, like, 1:54:01.060 --> 1:54:04.160 OPECs for, like, copper instead of oil, to form these, like, 1:54:04.240 --> 1:54:08.460 mini-cartels for all of the sort of, like, world's primary commodities. 1:54:08.479 --> 1:54:08.939 And the U.S. 1:54:09.240 --> 1:54:12.850 Takes this enormously seriously. This is the G8, which was 1:54:12.880 --> 1:54:16.599 originally the G7, was founded specifically to head off this 1:54:16.640 --> 1:54:18.400 threat and to defeat it, right? 1:54:18.420 --> 1:54:18.860 So the U.S. 1:54:18.880 --> 1:54:23.160 Has always taken these kind of threats enormously seriously. But 1:54:23.360 --> 1:54:29.380 even OPEC was threatening the production of primary commodities, right? 1:54:29.420 --> 1:54:31.760 It was threatening oil, but it was threatening oil from 1:54:31.780 --> 1:54:34.080 the production side, not from the distribution end. And now 1:54:34.160 --> 1:54:37.140 it's like, no, the U.S. is losing control of the 1:54:37.200 --> 1:54:44.800 distribution side for no actual strategic reason. And I obviously, like, 1:54:44.820 --> 1:54:47.080 I don't want it to sound like I'm angry that 1:54:47.120 --> 1:54:50.200 the U.S. Empire is failing. I am, in fact, quite 1:54:50.300 --> 1:54:54.320 glad that the U.S. Empire is failing. Although, obviously, you know, 1:54:54.600 --> 1:54:56.680 the way that it's going out in its death spasm 1:54:56.760 --> 1:55:00.910 is going to be absolutely hideous, right? The death of 1:55:01.290 --> 1:55:05.230 rule by a single giant empire, if it's not actually 1:55:05.310 --> 1:55:08.350 replaced by the end of empire more generally, tends to 1:55:08.390 --> 1:55:12.350 become a bunch of different empires fighting and, you know, 1:55:12.830 --> 1:55:16.730 A bunch of empires fighting and also one empire rule 1:55:16.850 --> 1:55:22.800 are both bad. Outcomes that we, Chex Notes, do not like, obviously. 1:55:22.940 --> 1:55:26.580 But it is astonishing the extent to which an incredibly 1:55:26.640 --> 1:55:31.560 sophisticated and old empire has just been torn apart in 1:55:31.580 --> 1:55:36.230 a year for no reason. And now we have to 1:55:36.270 --> 1:55:37.690 sort of grapple with. 1:55:39.280 --> 1:55:42.120 What it means that this older form of empire has 1:55:42.200 --> 1:55:45.830 died and that we're having this sort of new, more 1:55:45.870 --> 1:55:50.750 fascist form of empire rise and fight its horrifying wars. 1:55:51.930 --> 1:55:56.150 And the actual meaning of this is not just the 1:55:56.190 --> 1:55:59.640 peer examination of history. What this all means is something 1:55:59.680 --> 1:56:03.020 that is going to be created by people like you 1:56:03.200 --> 1:56:06.580 and people like me and how we rise or fail 1:56:06.640 --> 1:56:09.600 to rise together. to the moment the death of empire 1:56:09.640 --> 1:56:10.200 is created. 1:56:24.310 --> 1:56:27.720 This is It Could Happen Here, Executive Disorder, our weekly 1:56:27.780 --> 1:56:30.620 newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world, 1:56:30.660 --> 1:56:33.460 and what this means for you. I'm Garrison Davis. Today 1:56:33.480 --> 1:56:36.960 I'm joined by James Stout, Mia Wong, and Sophie Lichterman. 1:56:36.980 --> 1:56:37.500 Yeah. 1:56:37.980 --> 1:56:41.140 This episode we're covering the week of September 2nd to 1:56:41.280 --> 1:56:43.620 September 9th. Welcome. 1:56:44.260 --> 1:56:47.540 Before we start, I have a tiny correction, massive correction, 1:56:47.560 --> 1:56:50.340 depending on who you are. Many people have reached out, 1:56:50.700 --> 1:56:52.400 at least half of the people who live in Florida 1:56:52.430 --> 1:56:54.350 and listen to this podcast, to let me know that 1:56:54.370 --> 1:56:57.890 there are in fact crocodiles in Florida. Many of them 1:56:57.930 --> 1:57:00.290 live near some kind of large power plant. 1:57:00.950 --> 1:57:01.270 Yes. 1:57:01.350 --> 1:57:04.810 I didn't know about this. That is because in my 1:57:04.830 --> 1:57:08.360 life I have avoided Florida. you know, apart from when 1:57:08.380 --> 1:57:11.140 I was eight and went to see the animals that 1:57:11.160 --> 1:57:13.900 they keep in a little prison there. But yeah, thank 1:57:13.920 --> 1:57:16.240 you for letting me know. I'm excited to learn more 1:57:16.280 --> 1:57:18.230 about your crocodiles. Maybe I'll come visit them one day. 1:57:18.740 --> 1:57:23.410 I actually showed this Chompta oligarchy poster to a friend 1:57:23.950 --> 1:57:28.090 who's from Florida after we recorded, and they confirmed it 1:57:28.350 --> 1:57:32.180 is indeed a crocodile, even though alligators are much more common. 1:57:32.440 --> 1:57:34.800 They're like, it probably should have been an alligator. But 1:57:35.360 --> 1:57:37.940 I spent like five minutes looking at like, comparisons of 1:57:37.980 --> 1:57:40.890 crocodile photos and alligator photos. I'm like, I think it's 1:57:40.970 --> 1:57:44.710 maybe a crocodile, but I don't know for sure. Cause it's, it's, 1:57:44.770 --> 1:57:46.390 it's kind of like a, like a crunchy kind of 1:57:46.410 --> 1:57:49.129 low poly image, but crocodile confirmed. 1:57:49.150 --> 1:57:52.900 People in Florida, it turns out really fucking love that crocodile. 1:57:53.460 --> 1:57:54.720 They're pretty cool. They're pretty scary. 1:57:54.920 --> 1:57:55.260 Yeah. 1:57:55.300 --> 1:57:55.820 Yeah. 1:57:56.020 --> 1:57:58.480 Congratulations on having a crocodile. I went bass fishing in 1:57:58.500 --> 1:58:03.290 Florida once. That's the, uh, don't do that. Incredibly dull. Uh, 1:58:03.370 --> 1:58:04.170 let's talk about the news. 1:58:04.610 --> 1:58:07.260 Let's talk about the news. I hope everyone had a 1:58:07.340 --> 1:58:08.730 good fake Labor Day. 1:58:09.830 --> 1:58:11.210 I worked. Also worked. 1:58:11.670 --> 1:58:12.450 Well, there you go. 1:58:12.470 --> 1:58:14.670 I went camping. 1:58:16.030 --> 1:58:20.010 Well, on Monday, Labor Day, Mayor Mamdani signed an executive 1:58:20.050 --> 1:58:23.710 order creating the Office of Worker Power, which will be 1:58:23.770 --> 1:58:27.820 led by labor organizer Tony Perlstein. who recently served as 1:58:27.840 --> 1:58:31.840 the organizing director of the UAW. It's the United Auto Workers. 1:58:32.820 --> 1:58:36.500 This quote-unquote first-in-the-nation office aims to use city resources to 1:58:36.560 --> 1:58:41.240 help workers organize themselves, connect them with contacts, unionize, and 1:58:41.320 --> 1:58:45.650 build power. And this is inspired by the Emergency Workplace 1:58:45.730 --> 1:58:48.610 Organizing Committee, which is a joint initiative by DSA and 1:58:48.670 --> 1:58:51.250 the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers. 1:58:52.370 --> 1:58:52.950 Ah, Ewok. 1:58:53.370 --> 1:58:55.650 Conceptually really interested to see how this turns out. 1:58:56.450 --> 1:58:56.690 Yes. 1:58:57.230 --> 1:59:00.750 And you can go to the website nyc.gov slash worker 1:59:00.830 --> 1:59:05.280 power to learn more. Similar to the rental ripoff hearings 1:59:05.380 --> 1:59:08.160 earlier this year to address the concerns of tenants, the 1:59:08.220 --> 1:59:10.360 Office of Worker Power will be holding public hearings on 1:59:10.400 --> 1:59:13.360 worker issues, which will then drive policy going forward. But 1:59:13.390 --> 1:59:15.490 there's way more than just these hearings as a part 1:59:15.510 --> 1:59:16.070 of this office. 1:59:16.110 --> 1:59:16.310 Yeah. 1:59:16.610 --> 1:59:18.250 And I'm excited to see how this develops in the 1:59:18.310 --> 1:59:19.330 next few months. 1:59:19.710 --> 1:59:22.310 Sounds good. Let's see if it can be executed in 1:59:22.330 --> 1:59:23.030 a very helpful way. 1:59:23.970 --> 1:59:26.610 In other news, according to a new legal opinion by 1:59:26.630 --> 1:59:30.730 the DOJ, states must report any undocumented immigrants that they 1:59:30.770 --> 1:59:35.200 know of to DHS in order to receive federal welfare 1:59:35.240 --> 1:59:39.960 funds to assist low-income families. To quote from this opinion, quote, 1:59:40.660 --> 1:59:43.210 when a state chooses to participate in the temporary assistance 1:59:43.250 --> 1:59:46.930 for needy families and the supplemental security income programs, all 1:59:47.030 --> 1:59:51.510 agencies within that state, not only those that administer benefits, 1:59:52.050 --> 1:59:55.790 must report individuals known to be not lawfully present in 1:59:55.810 --> 1:59:59.570 the United States to the Department of Homeland Security, unquote. 2:00:00.130 --> 2:00:04.430 It's a new interpretation of law, revising an earlier opinion 2:00:04.630 --> 2:00:05.450 from 1998. 2:00:05.450 --> 2:00:07.890 Yeah, I haven't looked into this. I was going to 2:00:07.910 --> 2:00:12.050 look into this. I thought about doing a whole episode 2:00:12.110 --> 2:00:15.110 on like, where we're at with public charge and like 2:00:15.230 --> 2:00:17.670 generally with, uh, so I think I might kind of 2:00:17.690 --> 2:00:18.070 hold off. 2:00:18.390 --> 2:00:18.850 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 2:00:18.930 --> 2:00:24.200 I will say that like, generally the states wouldn't have a, 2:00:25.270 --> 2:00:28.550 they have consciously not kept lists of undocumented people as 2:00:28.590 --> 2:00:29.410 sanctuary states. 2:00:29.470 --> 2:00:29.690 Right. 2:00:30.430 --> 2:00:32.030 Which is largely who this will be targeting. 2:00:32.390 --> 2:00:32.570 Yeah. 2:00:32.710 --> 2:00:35.470 So like, it's not as if like the absence from 2:00:35.550 --> 2:00:39.050 one list does not necessarily mean you're undocumented and like 2:00:39.110 --> 2:00:42.020 that creating a list of undocumented people would be a 2:00:42.030 --> 2:00:46.180 very unwise move so like i don't know what this 2:00:46.280 --> 2:00:48.820 means practically right like if it's if it's saying you 2:00:48.840 --> 2:00:50.480 have if you have a list of undocumented people you 2:00:50.520 --> 2:00:52.220 have to turn it over to get 10th and they 2:00:52.260 --> 2:00:55.390 can just be like we don't have it like cool 2:00:55.440 --> 2:00:56.770 but i i do need to spend a bit more 2:00:56.810 --> 2:01:00.290 time reading up on this in combination with the public 2:01:00.310 --> 2:01:03.390 charge stuff i spoke about a couple weeks ago it's 2:01:03.430 --> 2:01:05.030 just occurred to me the states would probably know who 2:01:05.050 --> 2:01:07.610 would dream us right so they would they would have 2:01:07.630 --> 2:01:08.610 that available to them. 2:01:08.990 --> 2:01:12.270 It is expected that this will face some challenges that 2:01:12.290 --> 2:01:14.880 this new opinion from the DOJ will face challenges in court. 2:01:15.280 --> 2:01:17.850 But this did come out last week. Finally, for me, 2:01:18.680 --> 2:01:22.020 One of the staffers who was fired after posting that 2:01:22.140 --> 2:01:26.080 Ron DeSantis FashWave video in 2023, which we did. 2:01:26.000 --> 2:01:30.879 A whole thing on. 2:01:31.240 --> 2:01:32.880 It had a son and rat. It had all the stuff. 2:01:33.040 --> 2:01:33.720 All the things. 2:01:33.820 --> 2:01:38.150 That staffer now works at the State Department as Mark 2:01:38.210 --> 2:01:44.230 Rubio's chief speechwriter and deputy director of the agency's policy 2:01:44.330 --> 2:01:47.350 planning office, according to reporting from the New York Times. 2:01:47.370 --> 2:01:47.850 Oh, my. 2:01:47.930 --> 2:01:48.070 Yes. 2:01:48.550 --> 2:01:48.870 Yeah. 2:01:49.570 --> 2:01:51.750 That's cool and bad. 2:01:52.070 --> 2:01:52.490 Yeah. 2:01:52.940 --> 2:01:57.200 I'm recalling this sort of language of the left as 2:01:57.240 --> 2:02:03.000 this gross, diseased, anti-civilizational force that was used in Mark 2:02:03.040 --> 2:02:08.170 Rubio's left-wing terrorism address at that conference a few weeks ago. 2:02:08.470 --> 2:02:12.580 And thinking about who his... Chief speechwriter is, it does 2:02:12.620 --> 2:02:17.340 help contextualize some of the words that Mark Rubio and 2:02:17.380 --> 2:02:18.340 others were saying. 2:02:18.360 --> 2:02:18.880 Right. 2:02:20.780 --> 2:02:24.480 All right, moving on. Starting out, a Russian drone transited 2:02:24.540 --> 2:02:28.380 Romanian airspace on Tuesday. They've been like, I don't really 2:02:28.400 --> 2:02:30.770 know how to describe this other than like drone trolling. 2:02:31.240 --> 2:02:34.930 There were two Spanish jets that were stationed there that 2:02:34.970 --> 2:02:39.190 scrambled to like intercept the drone. But they're there. continuation 2:02:39.250 --> 2:02:43.870 of drone trolling states like within the eu and nato 2:02:44.250 --> 2:02:46.670 like this is a serious thing right like this these 2:02:46.750 --> 2:02:51.110 are serious and ongoing provocations yeah secondly the barma flotilla 2:02:51.530 --> 2:02:54.250 uh so the barma flotilla if you remember was reduced 2:02:54.310 --> 2:02:58.870 to six ships on its way to resupply the embattled 2:02:58.930 --> 2:03:01.879 hunter garrison in myanmar it lost five of those six 2:03:01.910 --> 2:03:05.440 ships on the way back Now the flotilla is just 2:03:05.500 --> 2:03:05.840 a boat. 2:03:06.040 --> 2:03:06.680 Incredible. 2:03:07.020 --> 2:03:11.840 Yeah, I think it illustrates how unconventional warfare or guerrilla 2:03:11.880 --> 2:03:15.620 warfare has changed in the last 10 years, right? That 2:03:15.640 --> 2:03:21.560 the Upper Rawadi River now is dominated by the resistance 2:03:21.600 --> 2:03:25.470 with FPV drones. That is what's taking... There are also 2:03:26.010 --> 2:03:27.610 just straight up standing on the bank and shooting them 2:03:27.630 --> 2:03:30.530 with Carl Gustavs, but it's the FPV drones that have 2:03:30.610 --> 2:03:35.210 changed the way that the state can move and in 2:03:35.330 --> 2:03:38.030 this case move, uh, rivers are very important in Myanmar. 2:03:38.250 --> 2:03:40.350 And this is just an illustration of how much harder 2:03:40.370 --> 2:03:44.470 it is for the state to use those rivers. Next, 2:03:44.750 --> 2:03:47.970 a DC circuit court has ruled that the IRS's choice 2:03:47.990 --> 2:03:51.150 to share the information of thousands of taxpayers with DHS 2:03:51.250 --> 2:03:54.760 violates the law. It also said that arguments to the 2:03:54.800 --> 2:03:59.870 contrary were quote weak source. And, uh, The court also 2:03:59.910 --> 2:04:02.190 suggested that there could be civil and criminal consequences for 2:04:02.290 --> 2:04:06.380 IRS staff who keep doing this. The United Kingdom, France 2:04:06.520 --> 2:04:10.280 and Canada this week announced sanctions on some of the 2:04:10.440 --> 2:04:13.500 illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. This is part 2:04:13.540 --> 2:04:17.240 of a new approach that we spoke about some time 2:04:17.300 --> 2:04:20.520 ago on ED, right? Like where they are claiming that 2:04:20.540 --> 2:04:25.060 there will be consequences for some of Israel's more flagrant 2:04:25.090 --> 2:04:28.500 violations of international law. Obviously, not all of them. And 2:04:28.640 --> 2:04:30.420 like this alone, it's not going to be the thing 2:04:30.780 --> 2:04:34.610 that stops Israel just doing what the fuck it wants, including. 2:04:35.190 --> 2:04:37.370 What would have been nice like 50 years ago. 2:04:37.390 --> 2:04:38.370 Yeah, exactly. 2:04:38.390 --> 2:04:38.650 Yeah. 2:04:38.690 --> 2:04:41.190 Like some point in early, in the middle of the 2:04:41.230 --> 2:04:42.770 last century would have been a great time to start 2:04:42.810 --> 2:04:46.070 doing shit. This is an interesting one that I thought 2:04:46.170 --> 2:04:48.900 kind of initially, I thought maybe this fitted into the 2:04:48.980 --> 2:04:53.380 state sponsored attacks on European countries, but a number of 2:04:53.400 --> 2:04:55.960 rocket attacks on German infrastructure have occurred in the last 2:04:55.960 --> 2:04:59.310 10 days. And infrastructure for these rocket attacks have been 2:04:59.350 --> 2:05:02.670 found by German police who arrested a man yesterday. So 2:05:02.710 --> 2:05:05.690 they're claiming the actions are like a single person, perhaps 2:05:05.730 --> 2:05:09.590 someone from like the ecological movement, as opposed to like 2:05:09.650 --> 2:05:13.440 a state incursion. This is still very new. So I'm 2:05:13.450 --> 2:05:16.640 going to keep an eye on this, especially given some 2:05:16.680 --> 2:05:19.700 of the attacks on like energy infrastructure that were mentioned 2:05:19.960 --> 2:05:23.459 by the State Department when they were most recently designated 2:05:23.500 --> 2:05:24.960 organizations to SDGTOs. 2:05:25.690 --> 2:05:31.500 There has been a degree of militant environmentalist action in Germany, 2:05:32.020 --> 2:05:33.340 specifically the past few years. 2:05:33.360 --> 2:05:36.640 It's like the only left-wing movement that's kind of alive there. 2:05:37.700 --> 2:05:39.780 That's a little unfair, but yeah. 2:05:40.740 --> 2:05:43.620 Finally, the White House has posted a picture of New 2:05:43.660 --> 2:05:46.360 Mexico or a map of New Mexico, a part of it, 2:05:46.980 --> 2:05:49.880 but Mexico is crossed out and America is written instead. 2:05:50.420 --> 2:05:51.260 This is very silly. 2:05:51.280 --> 2:05:53.930 I'm going to come back to this a little bit. 2:05:54.670 --> 2:06:00.120 In my section, because it's weirdly Canada related. It's amazing. Yeah. 2:06:00.220 --> 2:06:02.180 I mean, I don't quite know what they're going for here. 2:06:02.240 --> 2:06:05.520 Like it's not, I guess it is all of New Mexico. 2:06:05.560 --> 2:06:08.360 Hey, our Supreme ruler is a toddler. 2:06:08.860 --> 2:06:10.930 I've just noticed this map of New Mexico. Like it 2:06:11.020 --> 2:06:15.390 has the bordering United States states, but it does not 2:06:15.430 --> 2:06:17.730 appear to acknowledge that Mexico exists. 2:06:18.110 --> 2:06:20.130 Great. Great. Yeah. 2:06:20.230 --> 2:06:20.589 Great. 2:06:21.670 --> 2:06:22.510 Sensational. 2:06:22.970 --> 2:06:23.170 Yeah. 2:06:23.620 --> 2:06:28.310 In related news, television show South Park has changed their 2:06:28.330 --> 2:06:30.530 name to South America. 2:06:30.550 --> 2:06:31.440 Wait, what? Really? 2:06:31.610 --> 2:06:34.670 In a, uh, yes way. Their newest season will be 2:06:34.690 --> 2:06:36.130 called South America. 2:06:36.150 --> 2:06:37.090 Jesus Christ. 2:06:37.230 --> 2:06:41.750 Because it's just as I'm sure it's a whole thing 2:06:41.950 --> 2:06:43.190 with mocking Trump. 2:06:43.250 --> 2:06:46.230 They've always been a satirical show, but they've gone very 2:06:46.270 --> 2:06:49.560 hard into Trumpist satire the past few years. 2:06:49.860 --> 2:06:54.900 I don't know. A lot of it's really funny, personally. But, 2:06:55.420 --> 2:06:55.760 you know. 2:06:56.320 --> 2:07:00.080 Finally, we've deployed South Park against the enemy. They're doomed now. 2:07:01.260 --> 2:07:04.400 Some of the most ideological committed libertarians out there. 2:07:05.500 --> 2:07:05.940 Yeah, yeah. 2:07:07.780 --> 2:07:13.730 So speaking of surging fascism in very bleak ways, there 2:07:13.750 --> 2:07:16.690 were recent German state elections in the state of Saxony 2:07:16.830 --> 2:07:19.470 on halt. Now, on the one hand, this is not 2:07:19.510 --> 2:07:25.630 a very well populated state. However, comma, the neo-Nazi party... 2:07:26.220 --> 2:07:30.440 The alternative for Germany has come in first in this 2:07:30.500 --> 2:07:34.160 election with technically sub a majority of 45% of the vote. 2:07:34.200 --> 2:07:37.430 But this is the first time that a fairly overtly 2:07:37.470 --> 2:07:41.290 neo-Nazi party has been the largest party in a German 2:07:41.330 --> 2:07:46.169 election since the Nazis were in power. This is extremely alarming. 2:07:47.010 --> 2:07:48.030 The AFD is. 2:07:50.170 --> 2:07:53.760 The most far-right of the European far-right parties that are 2:07:53.780 --> 2:07:56.440 anywhere close to power, they are further right even than 2:07:56.970 --> 2:07:59.930 something like Marie Le Pen's party in France. They are 2:08:00.040 --> 2:08:04.240 fairly openly talking about kinds of mass deportations that, on 2:08:04.280 --> 2:08:07.930 the one hand, are happening right now in the United States, but... 2:08:08.730 --> 2:08:11.970 journalists repeatedly infiltrating their meetings. You know, the stuff we're 2:08:11.990 --> 2:08:14.450 talking about publicly is the kind of stuff that ICE 2:08:14.490 --> 2:08:15.880 is doing in the United States. The stuff we're talking 2:08:15.910 --> 2:08:18.280 about in private and not even that in private is 2:08:18.680 --> 2:08:22.880 removing all immigrants and Jews from the country. So this 2:08:22.920 --> 2:08:28.780 is extremely alarming. It's unclear exactly if AFD can form 2:08:28.820 --> 2:08:31.380 a government. It kind of doesn't look like it. However, 2:08:31.460 --> 2:08:36.020 there is a small chance that the breakaway... I don't 2:08:36.040 --> 2:08:41.080 even want to call them left... Germany has a another 2:08:41.380 --> 2:08:43.120 kind of like what I would call like a quote 2:08:43.160 --> 2:08:47.740 unquote left wing fascist party called BSW. That was a 2:08:47.780 --> 2:08:50.870 breakaway from their left party. That is a like, what 2:08:50.910 --> 2:08:52.910 if we went fascist on social issues, but also did 2:08:52.950 --> 2:08:56.310 a welfare state party? And if those guys, you know, 2:08:56.350 --> 2:08:58.250 tolerate an AFD government, they could put them in power. 2:08:58.270 --> 2:09:00.629 The problem is in order to form a non AFD government, 2:09:01.250 --> 2:09:04.730 you need every single other party to work together. So 2:09:05.370 --> 2:09:10.880 it's a catastrophe. And the ruling CDU, the Christian Democratic Union, 2:09:10.900 --> 2:09:14.320 which is also like an increasingly right-wing party, lost an 2:09:14.350 --> 2:09:16.470 enormous amount of support and is unable to form a government. 2:09:16.870 --> 2:09:18.230 AFD is just. 2:09:18.250 --> 2:09:21.710 Three seats away from forming a majority on their own 2:09:22.170 --> 2:09:23.290 in the state parliament. 2:09:23.910 --> 2:09:24.190 Yeah. 2:09:24.750 --> 2:09:26.870 And BSW could put them over the line. 2:09:27.510 --> 2:09:31.220 So not great results in the regional election in Germany 2:09:32.000 --> 2:09:33.620 if you care about people. 2:09:34.880 --> 2:09:35.040 Yeah. 2:09:35.060 --> 2:09:35.140 Yeah. 2:09:35.750 --> 2:09:38.490 Also, like, notable, I think, because we had seen this 2:09:38.550 --> 2:09:42.710 tendency towards, like, a Trump endorsement is, like, the death 2:09:43.270 --> 2:09:47.110 knell of electoral success. This has obviously not been the 2:09:47.130 --> 2:09:50.810 case here. Trump truthed about AfD, calling them a populist 2:09:50.870 --> 2:09:51.650 party today. 2:09:51.670 --> 2:09:54.910 And I think it's also worth mentioning that part of 2:09:54.930 --> 2:09:58.810 the danger here is the almost unique dysfunction of the 2:09:58.850 --> 2:10:03.690 German left. which has had its Green Party basically discredited 2:10:03.750 --> 2:10:06.950 by pedophile scandals that we talked about or that Robert 2:10:06.970 --> 2:10:10.310 talked about behind the bastards. Darlinka, their left party, is 2:10:10.330 --> 2:10:13.150 a complete disaster and has been basically since its inception 2:10:13.210 --> 2:10:17.320 as a weird merger of East German communists and Western 2:10:17.340 --> 2:10:21.600 social movements. Even their autonomous theme is a wreck because 2:10:21.680 --> 2:10:24.950 there's a bunch of ultra-Zionists everywhere. Who will do things 2:10:25.010 --> 2:10:27.670 like push people in front of train tracks for not 2:10:27.690 --> 2:10:32.210 supporting Israel. So yeah, one of the things that is 2:10:32.250 --> 2:10:34.550 a contributor to the rise of the AFD and their 2:10:34.570 --> 2:10:40.420 continued rise is the almost unique catastrophe that is the 2:10:40.440 --> 2:10:42.640 German left. There are obviously good people there fighting the 2:10:42.660 --> 2:10:46.020 good fight, but it's a bleak situation. 2:10:47.000 --> 2:10:54.030 Also bleak is the amount of sports betting and other 2:10:54.730 --> 2:11:02.140 life betting apps ads increased a sponsorship fuckery that's been 2:11:02.180 --> 2:11:05.780 happening and in our faces particularly in the last week 2:11:05.820 --> 2:11:07.220 i just want to talk about a few of them 2:11:07.860 --> 2:11:12.980 like former los angeles laker and now active philadelphia 76er 2:11:13.120 --> 2:11:16.230 and and man i used to admire i told the 2:11:16.240 --> 2:11:18.270 team this but i used to have what i call 2:11:18.290 --> 2:11:22.110 my la barbie which was a LeBron James, Kendall. 2:11:22.170 --> 2:11:23.720 I had to put in the basement. I couldn't look 2:11:23.730 --> 2:11:23.910 at him. 2:11:25.100 --> 2:11:27.380 Wait, is this the guy from Space Jam 2? 2:11:27.380 --> 2:11:28.560 That's the guy from Space Jam 2. 2:11:28.560 --> 2:11:28.840 Exactly. 2:11:28.860 --> 2:11:30.680 But not Space Jam 1. That's very important. 2:11:30.820 --> 2:11:31.460 Oh, God. 2:11:31.540 --> 2:11:32.520 Okay, now I understand. 2:11:32.680 --> 2:11:33.580 Very, very different. 2:11:33.640 --> 2:11:33.920 No, no, no. 2:11:33.940 --> 2:11:37.339 The guy from Space Jam 1 made gambling his own problem. 2:11:37.380 --> 2:11:42.150 He didn't make it anybody else's problem. Very different. 2:11:42.270 --> 2:11:44.570 All the goats are involved with gambling in some way 2:11:44.650 --> 2:11:44.890 or another. 2:11:44.910 --> 2:11:45.650 Some way or another. 2:11:45.670 --> 2:11:47.950 But LeBron James. 2:11:48.850 --> 2:11:53.110 is now one of the new faces of the prediction 2:11:53.130 --> 2:11:58.250 market platform, Polymarket. He teased on X the Everything app 2:11:58.830 --> 2:12:02.330 and a ad that was about 14 seconds with him 2:12:02.370 --> 2:12:06.680 like walking into Polymarket HQ and then put out a 2:12:07.070 --> 2:12:10.580 further ad that like showed him with a bunch of 2:12:10.800 --> 2:12:16.650 other very famous athletes and celebrities like Thinking back, it 2:12:16.670 --> 2:12:20.070 was like Derek Jeter, director Spike Lee. 2:12:20.370 --> 2:12:22.950 Spike Lee, brother, come on. You've got to do better 2:12:22.970 --> 2:12:23.270 than this. 2:12:24.610 --> 2:12:25.410 Yeah, that sucks. 2:12:26.360 --> 2:12:30.620 A number of current and both former athletes, Eli Manning, 2:12:31.000 --> 2:12:35.600 across the board and per sportsbusinessjournal.com. quote, the terms of 2:12:35.640 --> 2:12:39.360 his deal with Polymarket have not been discussed, but NBA 2:12:39.400 --> 2:12:43.890 rules restrict players, financial or some companies that offer league-related 2:12:43.930 --> 2:12:47.110 wagering or similar products, including limits on ownership stakes. 2:12:47.870 --> 2:12:50.750 However, back in February. 2:12:51.310 --> 2:12:55.890 Also very famous NBA player Giannis Antetokounmpo, who is now 2:12:56.190 --> 2:13:00.790 on the Miami Heat, wild offseason in the NBA, posted, 2:13:01.410 --> 2:13:04.060 we all on Koushi now. And he posted this like 2:13:04.260 --> 2:13:07.600 this black and white image. Everyone is online. The Internet 2:13:07.640 --> 2:13:09.860 is full of opinions. I decided it was time to 2:13:09.900 --> 2:13:12.590 make some of my own. Today, I'm joining Koushi as 2:13:12.620 --> 2:13:16.880 a shareholder. We all on Koushi now. Giannis Antetokounmpo. I 2:13:16.940 --> 2:13:22.830 think that it is really bad to have active athletes 2:13:23.800 --> 2:13:27.710 as the face of sports betting. Even if LeBron is 2:13:27.770 --> 2:13:33.170 talking not about basketball, you still, when you think LeBron James, 2:13:33.330 --> 2:13:36.190 you think basketball. So it's still having an impact there. 2:13:36.770 --> 2:13:38.380 I wish this out was the only part of the 2:13:38.400 --> 2:13:41.060 story that I was going to talk about. But as 2:13:41.080 --> 2:13:45.060 someone with a uniquely knowledgeable mind when it comes to 2:13:45.080 --> 2:13:48.780 bad people, ads, and podcasting, I have to talk about 2:13:48.860 --> 2:13:52.560 someone who, you know, has, if you could guess by 2:13:52.600 --> 2:13:55.370 the name of Her podcast, Not Great Takes All the Time. 2:13:55.630 --> 2:13:58.170 Amanda Hirsch, the host of the popular, and it is 2:13:58.310 --> 2:14:03.030 very popular. I mean, very, very, very popular. Probably not 2:14:03.070 --> 2:14:08.220 with our audience, but very popular podcast. Not skinny, but 2:14:08.280 --> 2:14:08.840 not fat. 2:14:08.980 --> 2:14:10.100 That's what the podcast is called. 2:14:10.160 --> 2:14:10.460 Jesus Christ. 2:14:11.100 --> 2:14:14.940 Apologized on Sunday, and this is per The Cut, and 2:14:15.000 --> 2:14:17.160 I went and tracked down some of the things that 2:14:17.180 --> 2:14:20.200 they mentioned in this, apologized on Sunday after facing backlash 2:14:20.240 --> 2:14:23.750 for posting a polymarket ad pegged to the Lindsay Clancy trial. 2:14:24.190 --> 2:14:28.690 Her shared a statement calling the ad insensitive, wrong, and 2:14:28.750 --> 2:14:33.050 out of character. But the original ad was posted shortly 2:14:33.150 --> 2:14:35.550 after the judge presiding over the Clancy case declared a mistrial. 2:14:35.890 --> 2:14:40.230 And in this video, she shared that 36% of traitors 2:14:40.520 --> 2:14:43.160 thought that Clancy, who was on trial for strangling her 2:14:43.200 --> 2:14:46.940 three children, would be convicted of murder. Hersh also added 2:14:47.000 --> 2:14:49.480 that she had been so glued to this case and 2:14:49.500 --> 2:14:51.740 it was on the edge of her seat waiting. 2:14:51.460 --> 2:14:52.100 For the verdict. 2:14:53.100 --> 2:14:57.260 According to a screenshot, the ad was captioned, quote, The 2:14:57.300 --> 2:15:00.200 judge declared a mistrial in the Lindsay Cantor trial. On 2:15:00.540 --> 2:15:03.060 at Polymarket, it was predicted that the verdict would be 2:15:03.100 --> 2:15:03.660 not guilty. 2:15:03.900 --> 2:15:04.840 Are you surprised? 2:15:05.080 --> 2:15:10.020 Hashtag Polymarket partner. What the fuck? She since deleted it 2:15:10.100 --> 2:15:15.450 and apologized. But what in the actual fuck are we cooked? 2:15:15.730 --> 2:15:18.670 That was my first thought. I read this article from 2:15:18.710 --> 2:15:21.070 The Cut and I kind of sat in silence for. 2:15:20.910 --> 2:15:22.350 A good amount of time. 2:15:22.370 --> 2:15:22.450 Yeah. 2:15:23.540 --> 2:15:24.980 Like, what are we doing here? 2:15:25.400 --> 2:15:25.700 Yeah. 2:15:25.740 --> 2:15:28.120 What are we doing? What are we doing here? 2:15:28.220 --> 2:15:31.640 Like, she did an ad about betting on a trial 2:15:31.680 --> 2:15:37.390 where multiple children were killed. Like, how despicable are we 2:15:37.590 --> 2:15:42.430 as humans that that's even an option? Like, why are 2:15:42.470 --> 2:15:46.090 we betting on that? Why is that something people can 2:15:46.130 --> 2:15:49.210 bet on? That should not be okay. And then if 2:15:49.270 --> 2:15:51.950 that wasn't, you know, bad enough, I got the whiplash. 2:15:52.580 --> 2:15:55.320 of waking up this morning after staying up far too 2:15:55.360 --> 2:15:59.810 late watching the U.S. Open to see that actor Sidney Sweeney, 2:15:59.930 --> 2:16:04.550 who's dating a horrible ex-manager and famous Zionist Scooter Braun. 2:16:04.630 --> 2:16:07.010 I just wanted to add that context. Quote, this is 2:16:07.030 --> 2:16:09.910 from Variety, Sidney Sweeney stripped down for a steamy new 2:16:10.020 --> 2:16:12.440 ad for Novig. I don't know if that's how you 2:16:12.460 --> 2:16:14.220 pronounce it, but that's how I'm going to pronounce it. 2:16:14.520 --> 2:16:17.880 The latest sports trading app and prediction market for fans 2:16:17.920 --> 2:16:21.810 of football, baseball, soccer, tennis, and more. The Euphoria star 2:16:21.850 --> 2:16:22.710 goes nude. 2:16:22.490 --> 2:16:24.970 In the ad. That's not the problem. Be as naked 2:16:25.010 --> 2:16:25.490 as you want. 2:16:25.930 --> 2:16:29.180 And poses with a variety of sports equipment like footballs, basketballs, 2:16:29.680 --> 2:16:31.480 a hockey net, and other athletic gear. 2:16:31.960 --> 2:16:35.860 She also joins Novig, bad name, as a strategic partner 2:16:35.959 --> 2:16:36.760 and equity holder. 2:16:37.080 --> 2:16:40.590 Quote, the campaign was all about embracing a fun idea, 2:16:40.650 --> 2:16:42.109 said Sweeney in a statement. 2:16:42.470 --> 2:16:43.430 The concept is simple. 2:16:43.830 --> 2:16:47.110 Cut through the noise, and put the focus entirely on sports. 2:16:47.560 --> 2:16:50.459 The campaign brings that idea to life with confidence, humor, 2:16:50.700 --> 2:16:51.440 and playful edge. 2:16:52.020 --> 2:16:55.959 Om, it ruined my morning. it's out of control. Something 2:16:56.020 --> 2:16:56.600 must be done. 2:16:56.620 --> 2:17:00.180 I'm kind of hoping, and I posted this on BlueSky, 2:17:00.220 --> 2:17:02.660 I'm kind of hoping it's like that one time in 2:17:02.680 --> 2:17:04.700 the Super Bowl where a bunch of really famous people 2:17:04.740 --> 2:17:08.170 got in trouble for doing crypto scam ads. And I'm 2:17:08.180 --> 2:17:10.410 kind of hoping that's what happens here. But I don't 2:17:10.470 --> 2:17:13.890 have a lot of faith, especially under this administration, that 2:17:13.930 --> 2:17:14.830 that will be the case. 2:17:15.470 --> 2:17:16.510 Yeah, the last thing I want to say on this, 2:17:16.950 --> 2:17:19.350 this is, I guess, anecdotal, and I don't know if 2:17:19.370 --> 2:17:21.550 it's statistically significant, but I think it is interesting. I 2:17:21.590 --> 2:17:28.199 have been seeing a move from kind of mid-sized, independent 2:17:28.620 --> 2:17:32.760 people who do sports stuff away from getting pissed off 2:17:32.820 --> 2:17:35.220 at sports betting and pushing away from it. And this 2:17:35.240 --> 2:17:37.100 has been people who had taken money from these companies 2:17:37.160 --> 2:17:38.760 before and have looked at what this has done, and 2:17:38.830 --> 2:17:42.629 it's just been like, oh my god. So I'm hoping 2:17:42.650 --> 2:17:48.129 that maybe in the long run, we're seeing sports where 2:17:48.170 --> 2:17:51.560 this was born become a place where people like lower 2:17:51.610 --> 2:17:55.340 down on the totem pole start to push against it 2:17:55.360 --> 2:17:57.460 in a way that can eventually do something but right 2:17:57.520 --> 2:18:00.000 now it's it's so bleak. 2:18:00.520 --> 2:18:03.640 It's bleak and it's just in our faces and speaking 2:18:03.780 --> 2:18:05.800 of things that are bleak and are in our faces 2:18:05.860 --> 2:18:09.879 it's time for our capitalism here's some ads nice. 2:18:21.840 --> 2:18:22.670 All right, we're back. 2:18:24.150 --> 2:18:27.330 And we are now going to discuss two of America's 2:18:27.430 --> 2:18:31.330 longest standing foes. Of course, I'm talking about Iran and Canada. 2:18:31.930 --> 2:18:33.990 No particular order, but we're going to start with Iran 2:18:34.110 --> 2:18:36.390 because it's not the alphabetical one, I guess. So the 2:18:36.550 --> 2:18:41.270 US-Iran conflict has really been significantly escalating again this last week. 2:18:41.879 --> 2:18:46.440 The United States has sunk a tanker. The Houthis have 2:18:46.459 --> 2:18:49.980 been launching in so much as the conflict, and obviously 2:18:50.000 --> 2:18:53.100 the Houthis are neither United States nor Iran, but conflict 2:18:53.140 --> 2:18:55.860 in the region. The Houthis launched a drone barrage on 2:18:55.920 --> 2:19:00.990 Saudi cities, and Iran has responded by threatening boats all 2:19:01.050 --> 2:19:04.090 over the region. So if we start with that Houthi 2:19:04.290 --> 2:19:09.820 drone attack, 73 civilians were injured as infrastructure, including oil refineries, 2:19:10.200 --> 2:19:13.660 other civilian targets were hit by these Houthi long-range drones. 2:19:14.120 --> 2:19:17.699 In response, of course, Saudis have attacked the Houthis. And 2:19:17.760 --> 2:19:21.120 it appears that we're likely to see a return of 2:19:21.220 --> 2:19:24.750 full-scale maneuver warfare in Yemen with Saudi support. 2:19:25.010 --> 2:19:27.490 Just to clarify, the Houthi drone trucks are against positions 2:19:27.530 --> 2:19:28.190 in Saudi Arabia? 2:19:28.430 --> 2:19:29.930 Yes, correct. Yeah, yeah. 2:19:29.950 --> 2:19:33.129 So they're not against positions of the Yemeni state. They're 2:19:33.150 --> 2:19:35.250 there against positions of the Saudi state. 2:19:35.650 --> 2:19:35.890 Yeah. 2:19:36.209 --> 2:19:38.990 That's like a low blow to the Saudis. I don't 2:19:39.010 --> 2:19:40.730 know how to say it. If you go after the Saudis' 2:19:40.790 --> 2:19:43.840 oil refineries, they're going to be pissed. That's a way 2:19:43.860 --> 2:19:44.740 to trigger a response. 2:19:44.780 --> 2:19:45.520 Yeah, yeah. 2:19:45.760 --> 2:19:48.740 Now, the United States has also been going after oil 2:19:48.820 --> 2:19:53.000 infrastructure and transport this week. Notably, they sunk motor tanker 2:19:53.080 --> 2:19:56.939 Kylo this weekend, along with striking two other tankers over 2:19:56.980 --> 2:20:00.950 the weekend. Audio from one of the attacks, which CNN reported, 2:20:01.720 --> 2:20:04.540 I couldn't find the actual audio anywhere, but CNN has 2:20:04.580 --> 2:20:07.050 a transcript of it. So I'm just going to read 2:20:07.110 --> 2:20:10.029 out that transcript. This is from US aircraft on an 2:20:10.090 --> 2:20:14.869 emergency frequency to mariners on those vessels. Motor tanker Stark 1, 2:20:14.870 --> 2:20:18.070 this is the United States military aircraft. I am preparing 2:20:18.110 --> 2:20:20.610 to fire at your stern. You have 10 minutes to 2:20:20.670 --> 2:20:22.330 clear the crew from the stern of your ship. 2:20:22.610 --> 2:20:22.830 Over. 2:20:23.129 --> 2:20:25.150 In a later exchange, ship is warned. This is your 2:20:25.190 --> 2:20:29.400 final warning. Get into your lifeboats and abandon the ship immediately. 2:20:29.990 --> 2:20:33.050 So I do like this vessel, the Mototanka Kaila that 2:20:33.070 --> 2:20:35.590 went down. It does appear that people had gone into 2:20:35.610 --> 2:20:38.550 their lifeboats and evacuated that boat, right? Like I think 2:20:38.570 --> 2:20:42.619 there was some misunderstanding there on the part of some, 2:20:43.040 --> 2:20:45.160 like I saw people, like I think just assuming that 2:20:45.180 --> 2:20:47.740 they'd kind of struck it out the blue. But the 2:20:47.780 --> 2:20:50.580 way they generally do this is they warn the people 2:20:50.620 --> 2:20:54.650 on emergency frequency, which they did again on Tuesday when 2:20:54.680 --> 2:20:59.590 they hit five boats in a single day. So CENTCOM published, 2:21:00.180 --> 2:21:03.920 footage of this. Generally, it's like black and white thermal footage. 2:21:04.620 --> 2:21:08.280 We see a couple of different methodologies here. We see 2:21:09.100 --> 2:21:11.390 strikes in the sterns of the vessels in some cases, 2:21:11.550 --> 2:21:16.310 and in other cases, absolutely massive explosions and multiple munitions 2:21:16.370 --> 2:21:20.310 slamming into ships. One of these was near Karg Island. Now, 2:21:20.330 --> 2:21:22.830 the United States says it is doing this in retaliation 2:21:22.890 --> 2:21:26.510 for Iran firing ballistic missiles at a US ship. Interestingly, 2:21:27.120 --> 2:21:29.660 Not all of the missiles Iran has used recently have 2:21:29.680 --> 2:21:32.980 been anti-ship missiles. They've been using some of those Castle 2:21:33.020 --> 2:21:36.179 Breaker missiles that we spoke about last week as well. 2:21:36.200 --> 2:21:39.539 I don't know if that's because they're trying with that 2:21:39.580 --> 2:21:42.640 maneuverable warhead, just like a different way of trying to 2:21:42.660 --> 2:21:45.410 get past defenses or what they're going for there. Or 2:21:45.440 --> 2:21:48.190 maybe it does suggest that Iran is running into supply 2:21:48.230 --> 2:21:51.570 issues of its own. But either way, it does rather 2:21:51.610 --> 2:21:55.000 undermine the claims of the United States to have destroyed 2:21:55.060 --> 2:21:57.880 Iran's ability to fire ballistic missiles because they are firing 2:21:57.940 --> 2:22:03.660 a shit ton of ballistic missiles right now. Iran today has, 2:22:04.220 --> 2:22:07.500 once again, we're recording on Wednesday for those listening on Friday, 2:22:07.910 --> 2:22:12.610 it's fired missiles at United States destroyers, facilities, and commercial vessels, 2:22:12.770 --> 2:22:16.710 including one in Iraqi waters. Over the weekend, we learned 2:22:16.730 --> 2:22:21.109 that Amman had to rescue 16 mariners after one of 2:22:21.150 --> 2:22:25.230 the strikes last week. And Iran has also attacked Jordan again. 2:22:25.970 --> 2:22:29.260 What we've seen this time is interesting. They're using cluster 2:22:29.340 --> 2:22:35.599 munition-equipped medium-range ballistic missiles. And they are burning through this 2:22:35.680 --> 2:22:40.279 supply of Patriot interceptors, right? We've seen so much reporting 2:22:40.310 --> 2:22:44.349 on the US running low on missiles and specifically interceptors, right? 2:22:45.140 --> 2:22:47.740 And so some of this appears to just be forcing 2:22:47.780 --> 2:22:50.650 the United States to burn up more and more interceptors 2:22:51.270 --> 2:22:55.789 over Jordan. Iran also this week captured a large displacement 2:22:56.010 --> 2:23:02.100 Andril underwater drone. So these had not been confirmed by 2:23:02.120 --> 2:23:05.440 the US military to be operating in the region. And 2:23:05.500 --> 2:23:08.420 so the capture is kind of significant. I don't think 2:23:08.459 --> 2:23:12.360 this is likely a weaponized drone. I'm guessing it is 2:23:12.810 --> 2:23:17.190 used for like reconnaissance work, right? ANDRIL lists a bunch 2:23:17.209 --> 2:23:20.050 of functions on its website, things like ISR, also like 2:23:20.150 --> 2:23:25.270 anti-mine operations. After Iran published photos of this that clearly 2:23:25.330 --> 2:23:28.930 showed the ANDRIL drone, CENTCOM made a comment saying, quote, 2:23:29.230 --> 2:23:32.689 an underwater drone operated by US forces malfunctioned more than 2:23:32.730 --> 2:23:35.700 a day ago. It was surveying regional waters in support 2:23:35.730 --> 2:23:38.789 of ongoing operations. The defective drone was an older model 2:23:39.209 --> 2:23:43.129 that neither collected sensitive data nor carried any classified sonar 2:23:43.150 --> 2:23:47.850 or radio equipment. US operations in area waters continue. You 2:23:47.870 --> 2:23:50.190 could collect sensitive data with a notebook and a pen. 2:23:50.220 --> 2:23:54.690 The age of the drone doesn't matter. I'm not an 2:23:54.790 --> 2:23:59.400 underwater drone guy. I do know underwater drone people. This, 2:23:59.480 --> 2:24:02.220 to me, looks very similar to the model that is 2:24:02.540 --> 2:24:07.019 currently listed on Andrew's website. And it is significant, right, 2:24:07.200 --> 2:24:09.060 that Iran has been able to capture this. Like, if 2:24:09.100 --> 2:24:11.410 nothing else, it'll give them sort of a propaganda victory, 2:24:11.470 --> 2:24:13.490 and Iran loves a propaganda victory. 2:24:13.910 --> 2:24:14.209 Yeah. 2:24:14.730 --> 2:24:17.250 I'm returning after recording this to let everyone know that 2:24:17.310 --> 2:24:22.730 Parmalaki has tweeted, zeted, a touching memorial... to the drone. 2:24:22.850 --> 2:24:26.270 It reads as follows. Everyone watching Iran's state-run TV news 2:24:26.330 --> 2:24:29.959 program probably noticed they picked up an Andril Drive LD, 2:24:30.640 --> 2:24:36.020 a mass-produced, attritable submarine. This particular vehicle has been swimming 2:24:36.140 --> 2:24:40.570 in CENTCOM for months, successfully operating in support of American 2:24:40.629 --> 2:24:43.609 forces for thousands of hours. It was explicitly designed to 2:24:43.670 --> 2:24:46.530 operate in environments too dangerous for humans, where capture is 2:24:46.550 --> 2:24:49.400 an expected possibility. I can't get into the details of 2:24:50.010 --> 2:24:54.160 but it provided significant value for months before capture. Rest 2:24:54.220 --> 2:24:57.840 in peace, little buddy. And then he has included a 2:24:57.860 --> 2:25:01.100 picture of the drone and a picture of an IRGC 2:25:01.200 --> 2:25:03.760 post of the drone where they know that they have 2:25:03.820 --> 2:25:08.529 captured it. Finally, the United States military has begun turning 2:25:08.790 --> 2:25:12.530 off or has advised senators that it's turning off advertising 2:25:12.570 --> 2:25:15.959 trackers on a range of devices. Reuters is claiming an 2:25:16.020 --> 2:25:21.580 exclusive on this. I would hope they're suggesting that the 2:25:21.620 --> 2:25:24.000 turning off, that they have confirmed that these are being 2:25:24.020 --> 2:25:27.490 turned off as an exclusive, because we and others reported 2:25:27.670 --> 2:25:31.090 months ago that Iran was using ad tech to target 2:25:31.170 --> 2:25:35.670 US military personnel. This is the nature of modern warfare. 2:25:36.170 --> 2:25:39.640 The surveillance done on us by capitalism It's even more 2:25:39.700 --> 2:25:41.900 pervasive than the surveillance done on us by the state. 2:25:42.200 --> 2:25:45.720 It makes sense, therefore, that states are going to these 2:25:45.780 --> 2:25:51.250 companies and purchasing that data. Why would you not? It's 2:25:51.450 --> 2:25:53.349 so much cheaper for them to do that than to 2:25:53.610 --> 2:25:57.010 run their own intelligence operations or recruit someone in the 2:25:57.090 --> 2:26:00.970 US military or whatever. This use of ad tech is 2:26:01.030 --> 2:26:03.890 not particularly new. We are finding out about it because 2:26:03.970 --> 2:26:06.710 Ron Wyden, who's an Oregon senator, has been pushing for 2:26:06.850 --> 2:26:09.390 months to get the military to say they've done something 2:26:09.430 --> 2:26:12.830 about this. And they've finally disclosed in a letter that 2:26:12.850 --> 2:26:15.880 they are turning off some of their advertising tracking stuff 2:26:16.200 --> 2:26:18.760 on their devices. But I think it's a really good 2:26:18.800 --> 2:26:24.199 illustration of how pervasive surveillance of capitalism is so much 2:26:24.260 --> 2:26:27.140 more powerful than even... Iran is a state that does 2:26:27.500 --> 2:26:30.600 love to be spying on people. and they still are 2:26:30.640 --> 2:26:33.520 nowhere near as effective at this as we are at 2:26:33.860 --> 2:26:37.670 giving away our own data on our Instagram clicks. Oil 2:26:37.690 --> 2:26:41.730 has hit 100 American dollars a barrel as a result 2:26:41.750 --> 2:26:44.970 of all this fuckery, which is a perfect time for 2:26:45.030 --> 2:26:48.000 us to talk about our other enemy, which also has 2:26:48.060 --> 2:26:50.379 its own strategic oil reserve, Canada. 2:26:50.840 --> 2:26:57.160 So speaking of our other war, our just absolutely baffling 2:26:57.180 --> 2:27:03.280 trade war with Canada for no reason whatsoever other than 2:27:03.320 --> 2:27:05.920 someone showed Trump a graph. 2:27:05.860 --> 2:27:20.830 Of The countries that the U.S. trades with the most, 2:27:20.970 --> 2:27:23.990 and Mexico and Canada, we're at the top because they 2:27:24.030 --> 2:27:26.380 are right next to us and we've integrated our economies 2:27:26.420 --> 2:27:32.560 with them since we're both British colonies, is continuing. Now, 2:27:32.920 --> 2:27:35.080 as we have talked about on this show extensively, Trump 2:27:35.100 --> 2:27:39.710 illegally invoked the almost certainly defunct Smoot-Hawley tariff act to 2:27:39.750 --> 2:27:43.379 impose a 50% sanction rate on a swath of Canadian exports. 2:27:43.420 --> 2:27:47.220 Though again, this does not include key sectors of the 2:27:47.300 --> 2:27:52.580 auto industry or energy imports. Canada threatened retaliatory tariffs on 2:27:52.580 --> 2:27:56.680 $ 20 million of US goods. Now, on Tuesday, as we 2:27:56.700 --> 2:28:01.770 were recording this, those tariffs went into effect. These are 2:28:01.810 --> 2:28:05.190 a range of tariffs. I'm going to do one kind 2:28:05.209 --> 2:28:08.130 of important one and one extremely silly one, as we've 2:28:08.150 --> 2:28:10.870 talked about this before. So as we mentioned last time 2:28:10.910 --> 2:28:14.070 we talked about this, part of the reason these negotiations 2:28:14.090 --> 2:28:15.970 collapsed was the US wanted to be able to set 2:28:16.030 --> 2:28:19.000 Canada's steel tariff rates to put them in line with 2:28:19.090 --> 2:28:21.300 other countries' tariff rates. Canada has responded to this by 2:28:21.400 --> 2:28:24.480 increasing its tariff rate on American steel from 25% to 50%. 2:28:24.480 --> 2:28:28.789 There's also tariffs on cheese. in what seems to be 2:28:28.830 --> 2:28:30.930 a very specific measure to piss off Wisconsin. 2:28:32.320 --> 2:28:34.980 They do this sometimes, right? Like when they do these tariffs, 2:28:35.000 --> 2:28:37.400 they do them on symbolic goods. Like I think the 2:28:37.459 --> 2:28:39.180 EU tariffed bourbon for a while. 2:28:39.520 --> 2:28:39.900 Yeah. 2:28:40.280 --> 2:28:42.539 Well, what's interesting is that the reporting on this has 2:28:42.580 --> 2:28:45.980 said that, oh, there aren't symbolic tariff items that Canada 2:28:46.020 --> 2:28:48.119 did in like 2018. And no, if you read through 2:28:48.140 --> 2:28:53.060 the tariffs, why else are you opposing a tariff on cheese? Now, 2:28:53.420 --> 2:28:57.590 as we mentioned earlier... In the middle of the negotiations 2:28:57.620 --> 2:29:01.740 collapsing and now as these tariffs went into effect, Trump 2:29:01.920 --> 2:29:04.900 has tried to change the name of Lake Ontario to 2:29:05.820 --> 2:29:09.680 Lake America, a thing which Google and other sort of 2:29:09.800 --> 2:29:15.910 bootlicking companies have bowed to, I guess. And also, again, 2:29:15.950 --> 2:29:19.010 as we mentioned earlier, Trump is posting memes about changing 2:29:19.050 --> 2:29:20.770 New Mexico to New America. 2:29:20.790 --> 2:29:25.189 A fun aside on that map thing is, I found 2:29:25.290 --> 2:29:29.310 out after we recorded last week that the company that 2:29:29.490 --> 2:29:36.289 I used to work for that owned HowStuffWorks now owns MapQuest. 2:29:37.220 --> 2:29:38.740 Oh, wow. Great. Incredible. 2:29:38.750 --> 2:29:40.019 It's a based map service. 2:29:40.459 --> 2:29:43.879 Because, like, I don't know if everybody knows this entire thing, 2:29:44.420 --> 2:29:46.619 but they're the ones that said that they would refuse 2:29:46.680 --> 2:29:50.520 to change the map, which, like, great. But, like, some 2:29:50.780 --> 2:29:54.560 personal Sophie history is, like, Before Cool Zone, it was 2:29:54.640 --> 2:29:59.020 like iHeart. Before iHeart, I worked at HowStuffWorks. And before HowStuffWorks, 2:29:59.540 --> 2:30:02.539 the company was owned by a company called System One. 2:30:02.620 --> 2:30:07.230 And then System One sold HowStuffWorks to iHeart. And then 2:30:07.730 --> 2:30:11.089 we started Cool Zone. So there's like this weird thing 2:30:11.110 --> 2:30:13.560 where and then all of a sudden I'm reading it. 2:30:13.690 --> 2:30:16.090 And I was like, I still talk to a couple 2:30:16.110 --> 2:30:19.150 of people that work there because they're lovely. And I 2:30:19.170 --> 2:30:24.070 was like, why the fuck does this company own MapQuest? 2:30:24.090 --> 2:30:26.390 And so that's just a fun aside. Anyways, continue. 2:30:27.150 --> 2:30:28.869 Well, I mean, there is something real here in that 2:30:29.650 --> 2:30:32.269 in these kind of just weird symbolic power moves, you're 2:30:32.290 --> 2:30:34.870 getting to see which companies are sort of purely just 2:30:34.910 --> 2:30:37.209 falling in line with the administration because it's profitable and 2:30:37.230 --> 2:30:39.869 which companies are not because they're trying to cash in 2:30:39.910 --> 2:30:42.850 on the other side. There's probably some genuine principle there, too, 2:30:42.910 --> 2:30:46.300 because this is absolutely ridiculous. The reason I bring up 2:30:46.360 --> 2:30:48.900 Ontario is that Trump has also been specifically feuding with 2:30:48.980 --> 2:30:54.879 Ontario because Ontario's premier, Doug Ford, has been very, very 2:30:54.940 --> 2:30:58.860 vocal in resistance to American tariffs. 2:30:59.420 --> 2:31:01.570 Doug Ford, welcome to the resistance. 2:31:02.250 --> 2:31:04.270 Oh, God, Doug. Jesus Christ. 2:31:04.790 --> 2:31:08.110 One of the worst guys in Canadian politics. I hate 2:31:08.129 --> 2:31:12.410 all of this. So in response to what Trump claims 2:31:12.650 --> 2:31:18.180 is discrimination against– American trade, which again, I can't emphasize enough, 2:31:18.640 --> 2:31:22.020 this is happening because you imposed a 50% tariff on it. 2:31:22.520 --> 2:31:23.440 It's all nonsense. 2:31:23.879 --> 2:31:27.099 Trump is now threatening to put a ban on using 2:31:27.230 --> 2:31:31.100 US government purchasing power to buy planes from Canadian airplane 2:31:31.120 --> 2:31:35.709 manufacturer Bombardier, unless those planes are built in the US. Now, 2:31:35.790 --> 2:31:38.050 Bombardier already has a bunch of plants in the US, 2:31:38.110 --> 2:31:40.870 and this is pissing off Trump's congressional allies who have 2:31:41.050 --> 2:31:44.160 this company's plants in their state. It is not clear 2:31:44.180 --> 2:31:46.580 to me that Trump understands exactly what rate he's stepping 2:31:46.640 --> 2:31:49.820 on here by having the US fuck with a specifically 2:31:49.879 --> 2:31:53.519 a Canadian aircraft manufacturer, where this is the site of 2:31:53.580 --> 2:31:55.920 one of the most humiliating chapters of the history of 2:31:55.940 --> 2:31:58.850 Canada as a branch plant economy. And the destruction of 2:31:58.990 --> 2:32:04.390 the Arvo Aero, which was a really quite good late 2:32:04.410 --> 2:32:07.529 50s Canadian jet fighter that was created by this Canadian 2:32:07.570 --> 2:32:11.029 manufacturer named Arvo, which was supposed to be produced in 2:32:11.060 --> 2:32:13.140 this effort to have Canada become its own kind of 2:32:13.180 --> 2:32:16.920 like semi-independent military power and the ability to have a 2:32:16.940 --> 2:32:18.840 Canadian fighter jet that would be used by the Canadian 2:32:18.900 --> 2:32:20.759 Air Force and then sold to the rest of the world. 2:32:21.440 --> 2:32:24.160 And then the Canadian government, under pressure from the United States, 2:32:24.340 --> 2:32:27.800 scrapped the entire project, destroyed all the planes, and physically 2:32:27.840 --> 2:32:30.800 destroyed all of the manufacturing capacity. And this is one 2:32:30.980 --> 2:32:33.840 of the peak moments of the US just going, absolutely not, 2:32:33.860 --> 2:32:36.200 you are not allowed to sell. You're not allowed to 2:32:36.240 --> 2:32:40.420 develop your own fighter technology. You are a like a 2:32:40.440 --> 2:32:42.140 pseudo colony of the U S and this is the 2:32:42.180 --> 2:32:45.830 kind of, you know, pressure that can and has always 2:32:45.860 --> 2:32:50.029 been leveraged by the United States against Canada. But obviously 2:32:50.050 --> 2:32:52.730 I personally, I want to talk about this because we're 2:32:52.750 --> 2:32:56.150 getting a peek into the imperialist nature of both of 2:32:56.190 --> 2:32:58.990 these settler colonies in that we are talking about sort 2:32:59.030 --> 2:33:01.490 of Canadian independence from the United States in the context 2:33:01.709 --> 2:33:05.089 of a fight over who gets to sell jet fighters 2:33:05.150 --> 2:33:05.970 to the rest of the world. 2:33:05.990 --> 2:33:07.289 Yeah. 2:33:07.310 --> 2:33:07.410 Yeah. 2:33:07.810 --> 2:33:10.370 And, like, you are Canada. What the fuck do you 2:33:10.390 --> 2:33:12.850 need an air force for? Like, why are you, like, 2:33:12.950 --> 2:33:15.350 manufacturing fighter jets? And the answer is to bomb Iraq. 2:33:15.690 --> 2:33:17.940 But, you know, this is. 2:33:17.959 --> 2:33:20.619 I just wanted to have this as a reminder that, A, 2:33:20.700 --> 2:33:25.220 Trump is stepping on very old rakes in Canadian politics 2:33:25.240 --> 2:33:29.040 that he doesn't even seem to understand exist. And then, B, also, like, 2:33:29.920 --> 2:33:32.920 as much as it is, like, obviously trivially true that 2:33:32.940 --> 2:33:35.100 the U.S. is acting as aggressors here and that the U.S. 2:33:35.160 --> 2:33:36.340 Is, you know. 2:33:37.060 --> 2:33:42.250 run by an unbelievably hideous right-wing imperialist government. Canada is 2:33:42.330 --> 2:33:47.670 also a slightly less brutal settler state, so we're not 2:33:47.690 --> 2:33:51.770 dealing with great nationalisms here. Now, technically speaking, and this 2:33:51.790 --> 2:33:55.250 is something that if you get to page nine of 2:33:55.270 --> 2:33:57.070 the reporting on this, you will get to the part 2:33:57.090 --> 2:33:59.879 where the news mentions that these tariffs on both sides 2:33:59.940 --> 2:34:03.480 are on something like 5% and 6% of Canadian and 2:34:03.520 --> 2:34:07.760 American imports. They are, to some extent, more symbolic than 2:34:07.780 --> 2:34:11.900 anything else, although it is worth noting that Trump's threat 2:34:11.920 --> 2:34:16.700 to stop the import and also stop U.S. government from 2:34:16.760 --> 2:34:20.980 purchasing things from Canadian companies is a fairly significant escalation. 2:34:21.560 --> 2:34:23.840 There's two things that are important here. One, Trump is 2:34:23.940 --> 2:34:28.320 once again wielding the hideously illegal powers of the defunct 2:34:28.400 --> 2:34:30.779 Smoot-Hawley terror fact, which he could also use at any 2:34:31.020 --> 2:34:34.010 other country at any point if he wants to. And 2:34:34.030 --> 2:34:36.550 the other thing is that negotiations have broken down completely 2:34:36.629 --> 2:34:39.740 and are unlikely to reach a deal, especially as Trump 2:34:39.770 --> 2:34:43.420 pivots to China in a weird mirror of the Obama 2:34:43.440 --> 2:34:46.720 administration's pivot to Asia in the run-up to his upcoming 2:34:46.740 --> 2:34:50.360 September bilateral meeting with Xi Jinping. Now, I want to 2:34:50.379 --> 2:34:54.160 close by mentioning the U.S. Justice Department is attempting to 2:34:54.240 --> 2:34:58.039 prosecute Chinese electronics manufacturer Huawei. 2:34:59.660 --> 2:35:01.140 I assume this. 2:35:01.060 --> 2:35:02.720 Is just a way of trying to put pressure on 2:35:03.600 --> 2:35:04.039 the U.S. 2:35:04.060 --> 2:35:04.420 Government. 2:35:05.080 --> 2:35:09.879 Nominally, this is about Chinese sanctions violation and also technology theft, 2:35:10.160 --> 2:35:13.840 things that Huawei is doing but hasn't really been cared 2:35:13.879 --> 2:35:16.680 about until now. It's sort of unclear what's going to 2:35:16.700 --> 2:35:20.030 happen with this investigation. It's also weird that this is 2:35:20.070 --> 2:35:22.970 an investigation purely against a corporation and none of its employees, 2:35:24.129 --> 2:35:27.269 which is odd and baffling and why the announcement of 2:35:27.310 --> 2:35:30.410 this seems like a sort of negotiating play. So we 2:35:30.430 --> 2:35:33.790 can also expect there'll be some kind of weird sanction 2:35:33.810 --> 2:35:35.950 stuff with China over the next couple of weeks as 2:35:35.990 --> 2:35:39.810 we go into this meeting with Xi Jinping. And that's 2:35:39.910 --> 2:35:43.470 our trade war that we're fighting for some reason as 2:35:43.870 --> 2:35:45.560 we fight another actual war. 2:35:46.190 --> 2:35:49.220 Yeah, it's six bucks. Six bucks for a gallon of 2:35:49.260 --> 2:35:50.099 gas here now. 2:35:51.040 --> 2:35:52.640 Oh, boy. Yeah. 2:35:52.980 --> 2:35:55.380 Love to live in the consequences of our rulers' actions. 2:35:55.920 --> 2:35:56.520 Yeah, it's great. 2:35:56.540 --> 2:35:59.400 Do you know what else is the consequences of our rulers' actions? 2:35:59.940 --> 2:36:00.100 Yeah. 2:36:00.430 --> 2:36:02.670 It's the products and services that support this podcast. 2:36:03.220 --> 2:36:17.700 Poor to you, but big oil. All right, Garrison, what 2:36:17.720 --> 2:36:18.119 do you got? 2:36:18.959 --> 2:36:22.600 So although we are dealing with, you know, $ 6 gas, 2:36:22.660 --> 2:36:26.620 a pointless war, a pointless trade war, there is one 2:36:26.680 --> 2:36:30.119 thing the Trump government can still do without a problem. 2:36:30.560 --> 2:36:31.320 And that's post. 2:36:31.520 --> 2:36:32.480 Oh, yeah, they'd be posting. 2:36:32.620 --> 2:36:36.860 They can keep on posting. In terms of symbolic actions, 2:36:37.020 --> 2:36:39.500 the actions of this administration have, in the real world, 2:36:39.540 --> 2:36:42.920 have not diminished their ability to take symbolic action online. 2:36:43.500 --> 2:36:47.140 Since Trump took office in 2025, the White House social 2:36:47.180 --> 2:36:50.879 media accounts have been used for some pretty heinous stuff. 2:36:51.520 --> 2:36:55.500 I often think of the ASMR-style edits of people being 2:36:55.540 --> 2:36:56.439 deported from 2025. 2:36:56.440 --> 2:36:56.620 Yeah. 2:36:58.600 --> 2:37:00.220 The one I'm haunted by, I want to mention briefly, 2:37:00.260 --> 2:37:01.840 is the one where they synced up a bunch of 2:37:02.620 --> 2:37:05.580 hits from football players, and at the point of the hit, 2:37:05.620 --> 2:37:08.660 they synced it up to various drone and missile strikes 2:37:08.720 --> 2:37:11.020 killing people. Haunted by that. 2:37:11.040 --> 2:37:14.699 The social media strategy of the second Trump administration has 2:37:15.180 --> 2:37:19.190 nearly fully embraced this kind of internet brain rot fascism 2:37:19.230 --> 2:37:23.320 with edits. I previously mentioned the DeSantis staffer who was 2:37:23.350 --> 2:37:27.269 fired after posting that FashWave edit now works for the 2:37:27.290 --> 2:37:31.300 State Department. And this sort of like edit culture is 2:37:31.320 --> 2:37:33.880 one of the main ways the White House accounts have 2:37:33.920 --> 2:37:37.920 been posting online. But as we've mentioned earlier this episode, 2:37:38.360 --> 2:37:40.900 the White House accounts also get used for a lot 2:37:40.920 --> 2:37:46.179 of just really stupid stuff. New Mexico turning into New America, right? 2:37:46.840 --> 2:37:50.039 Attempts at trolling that kind of just portrays just how 2:37:50.120 --> 2:37:54.100 hollow their politics really are. As Trump has just completely 2:37:54.200 --> 2:37:58.670 failed to economically deliver, has murdered children in a pointless war, 2:37:59.200 --> 2:38:02.429 the public has loudly rejected his inhumane and deadly nativist 2:38:02.790 --> 2:38:05.930 immigration policies, and he's fractured his own right-wing base by 2:38:05.950 --> 2:38:09.930 continuing to unequivocally support Israel, start a neocon-style war, waste 2:38:09.950 --> 2:38:11.450 billions of dollars and kill 18 U.S. 2:38:11.470 --> 2:38:11.990 Service members. 2:38:12.709 --> 2:38:15.769 With this total level of failure, the politics of the 2:38:15.790 --> 2:38:19.990 Trump administration are forced to fall back on punishing their enemies, 2:38:20.280 --> 2:38:25.689 just pure cruelty to satisfy some of their most bloodthirsty supporters, 2:38:26.650 --> 2:38:29.689 and trolling the libs. And in particular, I want to 2:38:29.730 --> 2:38:33.830 focus on the latter here, how this politics as trolling 2:38:34.230 --> 2:38:39.850 reveals how empty their political project really is. A few 2:38:40.090 --> 2:38:42.770 days ago, the White House posted a short AI video 2:38:42.890 --> 2:38:46.770 of Donald Trump using the Green Lantern power ring to 2:38:46.810 --> 2:38:53.310 construct the border wall. to manifest American manufacturing to summon 2:38:53.370 --> 2:38:56.310 military jets, helicopters, and naval vessels. 2:38:56.330 --> 2:38:57.250 I gotta watch this. 2:38:57.270 --> 2:38:59.790 This is timed to the release of the HBO Green 2:38:59.830 --> 2:39:02.550 Lantern TV show. Yeah, that's the link right there. Okay. 2:39:03.190 --> 2:39:05.190 I refuse to watch this. They can't make me. 2:39:06.190 --> 2:39:08.210 I've seen it. You don't need to. 2:39:08.770 --> 2:39:09.810 Jesus wept. 2:39:09.990 --> 2:39:13.609 Just yesterday, they also released this Legend of Zelda video 2:39:13.709 --> 2:39:15.660 to match the Ocarina of Time version. 2:39:16.020 --> 2:39:16.580 What? 2:39:16.700 --> 2:39:20.890 Announcement from Nintendo. But that's just a side point. And 2:39:20.970 --> 2:39:23.550 there's actually a bunch of this kind of cringy Reddit 2:39:23.650 --> 2:39:26.410 stuff that's tied to the release of various pop culture 2:39:26.450 --> 2:39:29.770 shows and games. Earlier this summer, the White House posted 2:39:29.810 --> 2:39:32.869 what is almost certainly an AI-generated version of the Rick 2:39:32.890 --> 2:39:36.030 and Morty opening theme with Trump and J.D. Vance in 2:39:36.150 --> 2:39:40.629 place of Rick and Morty. Great. A CBP agent arrests 2:39:40.650 --> 2:39:43.490 a literal alien and Chuck Schumer's a robot. 2:39:44.690 --> 2:39:51.510 God, they're so boring and just like middle school humor. 2:39:51.629 --> 2:39:53.910 Like, grow up, Mr. President. 2:39:53.950 --> 2:39:54.790 Like, ew. 2:39:55.370 --> 2:39:58.590 Every Wednesday before we do this, I very briefly scroll 2:39:59.150 --> 2:40:03.670 the President of the United States true social feed. Don't 2:40:03.770 --> 2:40:06.630 do that. It's just right now there's like a bunch 2:40:06.670 --> 2:40:11.420 of super cuts of AI stuff about Iran where he 2:40:11.459 --> 2:40:14.779 does not look like himself and a video clip of 2:40:14.820 --> 2:40:17.920 him saying communism will never come to America. All with 2:40:17.959 --> 2:40:19.680 music that he probably didn't pay for the rights for. 2:40:20.160 --> 2:40:21.020 That's wild. 2:40:21.800 --> 2:40:25.879 You should instead not do that and be on my feed, 2:40:25.920 --> 2:40:30.600 which is just Nathan Fielder, Elizabeth Holmes memes from his 2:40:30.660 --> 2:40:31.830 upcoming documentary. 2:40:31.970 --> 2:40:35.050 Every meme is good. I gotta be honest. Every single 2:40:35.110 --> 2:40:37.929 meme hits. Garrison, continue. Sorry. 2:40:38.370 --> 2:40:41.010 Anyway, a month after the White House shared this Rick 2:40:41.050 --> 2:40:46.280 and Morty video, they also posted an X-Men 97 style 2:40:46.340 --> 2:40:51.869 video featuring the presidential cabinet captioned, to me, my mega patriots. 2:40:52.670 --> 2:40:54.630 For like a week in July, the White House just 2:40:54.730 --> 2:41:00.330 kept posting AI hydraulic press videos. What is an AI 2:41:00.350 --> 2:41:04.650 generated video of a hydraulic press crushing various mega slogans, 2:41:04.709 --> 2:41:06.290 like no tax on tips. 2:41:06.490 --> 2:41:08.449 Why would you, that seems like. 2:41:08.730 --> 2:41:09.510 Good question, Jay. 2:41:09.590 --> 2:41:11.510 That's, you know... Okay. 2:41:12.150 --> 2:41:12.990 Fascinating shit. 2:41:13.030 --> 2:41:13.429 Good question. 2:41:14.410 --> 2:41:16.120 During the World Cup, they tried to make one of 2:41:16.160 --> 2:41:20.279 those AI Lego videos. But maybe the worst one of 2:41:20.340 --> 2:41:24.220 these that I've seen was posted on July 4th, titled POV, 2:41:24.940 --> 2:41:28.300 America Entered Its 2000s Era, which is like a 25-second 2:41:28.320 --> 2:41:28.660 2000s nostalgia edit. 2:41:33.690 --> 2:41:36.750 They've used Mr. Brightside here. They've used Mr. 2:41:36.770 --> 2:41:37.350 Brightside. 2:41:38.290 --> 2:41:42.129 It features clips of music videos, video games, and children's 2:41:42.209 --> 2:41:44.090 cartoons from this era. 2:41:44.770 --> 2:41:48.189 We've got Shrek, Simon Cowell, Britney Spears. 2:41:48.690 --> 2:41:50.949 It's like a remember when you were a kid and 2:41:51.060 --> 2:41:55.679 everything was awesome type stuff. That's what they're trying to. 2:41:56.060 --> 2:41:58.879 And everyone was white. It's just exclusively white people, I think. 2:41:59.470 --> 2:42:01.390 There's a lot of content on the White House account 2:42:01.410 --> 2:42:03.730 that's just trying to like pander to Gen Z by 2:42:03.770 --> 2:42:07.450 tapping into this early 2000s nostalgia and launder Trump and 2:42:07.490 --> 2:42:10.880 his policies as like epic based awesome sauce by, hey, look, 2:42:10.900 --> 2:42:14.680 here's the Clone Wars 2008 show. Here's a clip of 2:42:14.940 --> 2:42:18.240 whatever bullshit children's cartoon at the time that's popular in 2:42:18.280 --> 2:42:20.920 Gen Z memes right now. That fucking sucked. 2:42:21.240 --> 2:42:23.720 It was fucking 9-11, the war on terror. 2:42:24.320 --> 2:42:27.390 Katrina and the 2008 economic collapse. Like, what are we 2:42:27.430 --> 2:42:27.800 doing now? 2:42:28.580 --> 2:42:30.240 Well, I think most of the kids that they're trying 2:42:30.280 --> 2:42:33.770 to appeal to don't really remember much of the 2000s, 2:42:33.890 --> 2:42:37.710 but they have this sort of displaced nostalgia about things 2:42:37.770 --> 2:42:38.929 from their childhood, right? 2:42:38.970 --> 2:42:40.290 From being a child, yeah. 2:42:40.310 --> 2:42:42.730 Like, you know, when the war in Iran started back 2:42:42.770 --> 2:42:45.950 in March, the White House posted a video of an 2:42:46.129 --> 2:42:49.980 Operation Epic Theory video game on the Nintendo Wii, which 2:42:50.000 --> 2:42:53.240 was actually just cutting between Wii sports clips and real 2:42:53.300 --> 2:42:54.780 footage of people being blown up. 2:42:55.400 --> 2:42:55.580 Yeah. 2:42:55.600 --> 2:42:55.740 Fuck. 2:42:56.830 --> 2:42:59.150 Both the White House and ICE have previously used Pokemon 2:42:59.270 --> 2:43:02.209 imagery and music in social media posts, leading the Pokemon 2:43:02.390 --> 2:43:06.610 Company International to rebuke the use of their brand. Though, 2:43:07.030 --> 2:43:11.920 besides the occasional musical artists, companies like Pokemon have seemingly 2:43:12.300 --> 2:43:16.080 avoided or failed to take legal action to protect their 2:43:16.140 --> 2:43:21.160 trademark property and brand. Which leads us to why I'm 2:43:21.220 --> 2:43:25.200 talking about all of this today. On September 3rd, the 2:43:25.240 --> 2:43:30.760 White House launched Arcade.gov, five pixel art arcade games where 2:43:30.780 --> 2:43:34.200 you can build the wall, deport immigrants, fill a Trump 2:43:34.220 --> 2:43:38.670 bank account, and remove prepackaged food from kids' school lunches. 2:43:39.350 --> 2:43:42.350 After the site went online, the White House posted a 2:43:42.370 --> 2:43:45.590 series of videos riffing on the GameCube, Xbox 360, and 2:43:45.650 --> 2:43:50.849 PS3 startup animations. This is some of the most Reddit-occupied 2:43:50.900 --> 2:43:54.950 government stuff we've ever seen. These games are really just 2:43:55.060 --> 2:43:59.680 bad copies, like bad, bad copies of other games like 2:43:59.740 --> 2:44:03.900 Flappy Bird, Snake and Tetris with a fascist coat of 2:44:04.020 --> 2:44:05.760 low quality pixel art. Yeah. 2:44:06.040 --> 2:44:06.320 Wow. 2:44:06.920 --> 2:44:11.039 In the Tetris ripoff, you have to build the wall to, quote, 2:44:11.400 --> 2:44:15.640 protect the border from the coming horde as an endless, quote, 2:44:15.860 --> 2:44:21.200 zombie border siege sends green aliens and zombies advancing toward 2:44:21.240 --> 2:44:25.390 the wall. Now, mechanically, this game makes no sense. The 2:44:25.450 --> 2:44:27.550 point of Tetris is to clear rows of blocks, not 2:44:27.950 --> 2:44:31.390 build a wall. And also, upon release, this game was 2:44:31.410 --> 2:44:36.080 just completely broken. The blocks didn't clear after you completed 2:44:36.090 --> 2:44:39.700 a row. Inevitably, the screen just fills up with blocks 2:44:39.740 --> 2:44:42.140 to the top and it forces you into game over. 2:44:42.360 --> 2:44:46.240 It looks like they've removed that one from the... This 2:44:46.500 --> 2:44:51.160 will come up later. Now, even more confusingly, the game 2:44:51.250 --> 2:44:56.619 over screen is labeled border breached. So once you build 2:44:56.680 --> 2:44:59.120 the wall to the top, you lose the game and 2:44:59.160 --> 2:45:00.220 the border is breached. 2:45:00.440 --> 2:45:00.879 That's right. 2:45:02.180 --> 2:45:03.800 From your lips to God's ears. 2:45:03.879 --> 2:45:05.000 Yeah, I will say that. 2:45:05.020 --> 2:45:09.990 Maybe there's a metaphor in here somewhere. So while this 2:45:10.050 --> 2:45:13.269 failed Tetris clone displays the kind of garbage quality of 2:45:13.310 --> 2:45:19.630 their incompetent troll-the-libs provocation, the ripoff of the arcade game Snake... 2:45:19.800 --> 2:45:23.360 openly demonstrates their racist cruelty, even more so than the 2:45:23.500 --> 2:45:27.410 Tetris one, frankly. In Rio Run, you play as a 2:45:27.510 --> 2:45:31.350 pixelized version of Tom Homan patrolling along the Rio Grande, 2:45:31.810 --> 2:45:35.330 rounding up immigrants who have crossed the river, immigrants who 2:45:35.370 --> 2:45:39.790 are almost exclusively a darker pixel shade than Tom Homan, 2:45:40.270 --> 2:45:43.509 who will then follow Homan in a line wearing matching 2:45:43.650 --> 2:45:47.090 orange jumpsuits. At the end of the game, your score 2:45:47.129 --> 2:45:50.930 is labeled as the number of immigrants deported. This is 2:45:51.310 --> 2:45:56.400 obviously gross, empty posturing, troll the libs, etc. In another game, 2:45:56.420 --> 2:45:58.720 you sort through a conveyor belt of food for school lunches, 2:45:58.780 --> 2:46:02.640 removing unhealthy items, and sending healthy food, like beef tallow, 2:46:03.360 --> 2:46:06.920 to children. As a reminder, we are in the midst 2:46:06.959 --> 2:46:09.920 of a food safety crisis, with a record high number 2:46:09.940 --> 2:46:14.240 of food recalls last month, following... Massive staffing cuts to 2:46:14.260 --> 2:46:16.920 the Department of Health and Human Services, the FDA, and 2:46:16.940 --> 2:46:19.540 the Department of Agriculture just last year. And as a 2:46:19.560 --> 2:46:21.720 result of those cuts, the FDA was forced to suspend 2:46:22.040 --> 2:46:23.800 some food safety quality checks. 2:46:25.140 --> 2:46:28.590 For more on that, check out James Stout's episode on 2:46:28.670 --> 2:46:32.470 cyclospora on his weekly podcast, Natural Causes. 2:46:32.490 --> 2:46:33.090 That's right. 2:46:33.170 --> 2:46:36.930 Great interviews, great journalism, bad government. 2:46:37.470 --> 2:46:38.209 Yay. 2:46:38.910 --> 2:46:41.060 Yeah, that is one of our themes over there. 2:46:43.500 --> 2:46:46.730 Based on all the different brands or properties or references 2:46:46.760 --> 2:46:49.990 I mentioned, to date, only one company has come out 2:46:50.110 --> 2:46:53.910 strongly against the Trump administration for stealing their stuff, in 2:46:53.950 --> 2:46:58.629 this case, stealing their game. Pretty soon after RK.gov went live, 2:46:59.160 --> 2:47:02.760 the Tetris company publicly announced it was, quote, not involved 2:47:02.800 --> 2:47:05.620 in the creation of Build the Wall and said, quote, 2:47:06.060 --> 2:47:08.140 at Tetris, we believe in the power of connection and 2:47:08.180 --> 2:47:12.190 bringing people together, not dividing them. we take copier infringement 2:47:12.250 --> 2:47:16.660 very seriously, unquote. And a few days later, the build 2:47:16.680 --> 2:47:19.780 the wall Tetris clone was taken down from the White 2:47:19.820 --> 2:47:20.620 House website. 2:47:21.100 --> 2:47:22.560 Victory for communist Tetris. 2:47:25.590 --> 2:47:27.650 But, you know, we've talked a lot about this stuff 2:47:27.670 --> 2:47:31.470 this episode, you know, renaming the Gulf of Mexico, lakes, 2:47:31.629 --> 2:47:34.500 who knows, maybe renaming a state in honor of America. 2:47:35.150 --> 2:47:38.290 These little arcade games, these annoying social media posts, these 2:47:38.330 --> 2:47:43.870 are all lazily constructed symbolic representations of Trump's political goals 2:47:44.640 --> 2:47:48.440 created or AI generated in hopes of pissing off liberals 2:47:48.520 --> 2:47:51.260 and satisfying the sickos by letting them, in the case 2:47:51.280 --> 2:47:54.980 of these games, literally act out the desires of MAGA 2:47:55.680 --> 2:47:58.930 in the midst of their political failure. Sort out school 2:47:58.950 --> 2:48:02.250 lunches in the midst of a food safety crisis. In 2:48:02.270 --> 2:48:05.650 the midst of total... Total economic failure on the part 2:48:05.670 --> 2:48:10.349 of the Trump administration. And to me, the most interesting 2:48:10.410 --> 2:48:15.129 example of this tendency to like substitute real politics, like 2:48:15.170 --> 2:48:19.920 delivering real politics, actually improving people's lives with this sort 2:48:19.950 --> 2:48:26.699 of punishing your enemies and pissing off liberals comes also 2:48:26.740 --> 2:48:30.359 from this last week. On Sunday, Trump posted an agenda 2:48:30.379 --> 2:48:35.640 redesign for a United States Space Force Service dress uniform. 2:48:36.250 --> 2:48:36.890 Oh, God. 2:48:37.470 --> 2:48:39.710 I will trough this one into the chat here. 2:48:39.730 --> 2:48:42.199 Let me see. Unfortunately, I've seen this. You've seen it? 2:48:42.209 --> 2:48:43.270 All right, all right, all right. Send it to me. 2:48:43.310 --> 2:48:44.349 I want to see. I want to see the. 2:48:44.670 --> 2:48:49.420 Let's drop this right here. It's a long gray tunic 2:48:49.459 --> 2:48:51.780 style jacket with a black belt sitting high on the 2:48:51.820 --> 2:48:55.600 waist and knee-high black shiny boots. Wow. It looks like 2:48:55.620 --> 2:48:58.769 something made for an evil space fascist sci-fi military. 2:48:58.790 --> 2:49:02.240 Yeah, it's giving low budget bad guy. 2:49:02.709 --> 2:49:02.910 Right? 2:49:02.950 --> 2:49:03.709 Yeah, exactly. 2:49:03.770 --> 2:49:07.709 And well, well, well, some very small text near the 2:49:07.770 --> 2:49:11.520 top of the AI image reads, quote, inspired by the 2:49:11.600 --> 2:49:17.220 discipline and functionality of the Starship Trooper uniform, modernized for 2:49:17.260 --> 2:49:22.640 the guardians of the space domain, unquote. Between this Starship 2:49:22.660 --> 2:49:26.539 Trooper uniform and the Marines playing Helldivers 2 music during 2:49:26.740 --> 2:49:31.620 their 250th anniversary celebration, Baudrillard is rolling over in a 2:49:31.730 --> 2:49:33.359 one-to-one map of his grave. 2:49:33.680 --> 2:49:35.750 They've got the Eag on everything here. 2:49:35.810 --> 2:49:37.250 It's pretty astonishing. 2:49:37.670 --> 2:49:40.610 Yeah, because you think an American's going for a gray uniform, 2:49:40.629 --> 2:49:42.609 they're going to be doing Confederacy shit. But no, this 2:49:42.670 --> 2:49:46.890 is just like 90s low budget. I'm pretty sure I've 2:49:46.910 --> 2:49:51.050 seen a puppet animation bad guy He looks like fucking 2:49:51.110 --> 2:49:52.550 Joe Tracy is what he looks like. 2:49:53.390 --> 2:49:57.530 And the book Starship Troopers is a largely pro-war exploration 2:49:57.570 --> 2:50:01.280 of militarism using a science fiction setting in contrast to 2:50:01.320 --> 2:50:05.300 the film adaptation by Paul Vernhoeven, which criticizes and satirizes 2:50:05.340 --> 2:50:08.820 what the book was exploring in earnest. In Vernhoeven's film, 2:50:08.940 --> 2:50:12.490 the officer uniforms are inspired by real military uniforms of 2:50:12.500 --> 2:50:16.470 the 20th century. This AI image posted by Trump seems 2:50:16.510 --> 2:50:19.590 to be more based on the galactic empire in Star Wars. 2:50:20.100 --> 2:50:22.600 whose design was pulling from both the Imperial British and 2:50:22.760 --> 2:50:26.620 German Nazi uniforms. Someone more annoying than me could do 2:50:26.660 --> 2:50:29.920 a whole simulacra and simulation essay about this fucking Space 2:50:30.020 --> 2:50:35.390 Force uniform. But this is a good example of how 2:50:35.410 --> 2:50:39.110 the Trump administration is obsessed with creating these little simulacrums. 2:50:39.930 --> 2:50:43.289 In the case of Arcade.gov, propagating signs and symbols to 2:50:43.330 --> 2:50:47.550 create this illusion of actuality. And as Trump often does, 2:50:48.010 --> 2:50:51.900 scribbling on a map... And voila, the territory is now 2:50:52.020 --> 2:50:52.880 Lake America. 2:50:53.570 --> 2:50:56.449 Should probably note the Space Force already has a dress 2:50:56.530 --> 2:51:00.190 uniform and it doesn't look like this. 2:51:00.530 --> 2:51:00.770 Yes. 2:51:01.470 --> 2:51:04.270 No, this is the new version that may or may 2:51:04.310 --> 2:51:08.129 not ever actually exist. But the image is what's important. 2:51:08.390 --> 2:51:10.900 Right, exactly. Yeah, that's the point. The point is not 2:51:10.920 --> 2:51:13.240 the change. It's the appearance of change. 2:51:13.400 --> 2:51:15.440 Who knows? Huh. 2:51:16.280 --> 2:51:16.460 Well. 2:51:17.160 --> 2:51:22.920 This has all been fun. And let's close by talking 2:51:23.140 --> 2:51:26.840 about 9-11, because 9-11 is this Friday, which means the 2:51:26.920 --> 2:51:33.470 center-right media is being super-duper normal, as usual. Late last month, 2:51:33.510 --> 2:51:38.629 Barry Weiss personally intervened to create the CBS headline, Michigan 2:51:38.670 --> 2:51:42.810 Democrat Abdul El-Sayed's deleted tweets on September 11 attacks invite 2:51:42.870 --> 2:51:47.390 scrutiny of past remarks, unquote. And one of the deleted 2:51:47.550 --> 2:51:53.099 tweets in question reads, quote, Today I mourn the 3,000 lives, 2:51:53.100 --> 2:51:56.800 6,000 injuries, and infrastructural devastation in New York City perpetuated 2:51:57.000 --> 2:52:00.780 ignorantly in the name of my faith. Tomorrow I'll mourn 2:52:00.800 --> 2:52:03.779 the 1 million lives, millions of injuries, and infrastructural devastation 2:52:03.820 --> 2:52:07.570 in three countries perpetuated ignorantly in the name of my country. 2:52:07.590 --> 2:52:14.240 A somewhat brave but completely defensible statement. Yeah. The post 2:52:14.280 --> 2:52:18.320 from CBS promoting this little article of theirs read, quote, 2:52:19.140 --> 2:52:22.780 As the nation prepares to mark 25 years since September 11, 2001, 2:52:22.780 --> 2:52:25.710 Abdul El-Said, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Michigan, 2:52:25.970 --> 2:52:28.990 may be facing the risk of renewed scrutiny and fresh 2:52:29.090 --> 2:52:33.910 political attack. And now today, September 9th, the day of recording, 2:52:33.930 --> 2:52:38.130 an attack ad against Abdul El-Said has been released. with 2:52:38.450 --> 2:52:42.320 like a minute of 9-11 footage, and I will play 2:52:42.640 --> 2:52:45.379 a little bit of the ending here. 2:52:45.379 --> 2:52:49.820 25 years ago, America was attacked, not for something we did, 2:52:50.580 --> 2:52:53.949 but for who we are. The attackers tried to divide 2:52:54.010 --> 2:52:58.370 us with hatred. It had the opposite effect. We united 2:52:58.950 --> 2:53:03.730 with courage and with resolve. But the hatred behind 9-11 2:53:03.790 --> 2:53:04.730 did not disappear. 2:53:05.230 --> 2:53:06.310 America deserved 9-11, dude. 2:53:06.570 --> 2:53:08.580 I hate America so much. 2:53:09.360 --> 2:53:11.939 Abdul El-Sayed gives comfort to that hatred. 2:53:11.959 --> 2:53:14.879 I don't know if that's a chyron or a subtitle. 2:53:15.000 --> 2:53:16.420 Hurt people hurt people. 2:53:16.660 --> 2:53:18.580 It's a quote from Abdul. 2:53:18.660 --> 2:53:18.940 Okay. 2:53:19.160 --> 2:53:22.690 They're getting really, really weird about Hassan. 2:53:23.330 --> 2:53:23.510 Yeah. 2:53:24.129 --> 2:53:24.410 Yes. 2:53:24.629 --> 2:53:28.429 So this ad has about 30 seconds of 9-11 footage 2:53:28.450 --> 2:53:32.360 and then also has some footage of Hassan Piker. Last month, 2:53:32.760 --> 2:53:36.900 mentions of Hasan Piker were very close in total, depending 2:53:36.920 --> 2:53:40.360 on the count, around like 400 mentions on Fox News 2:53:40.400 --> 2:53:43.500 last month, nearly matching the number of mentions of trans 2:53:43.580 --> 2:53:49.259 or transgender. So Hasan and transgender at about equal levels 2:53:49.379 --> 2:53:51.170 of focus on Fox News now. 2:53:51.180 --> 2:53:53.490 Yeah, I think that tells you all the things. 2:53:54.510 --> 2:53:56.690 Well, all right, Hasan, get that up to 100%. I 2:53:56.690 --> 2:54:01.220 believe in you. You can do it. Be useful. 2:54:01.240 --> 2:54:03.220 Hey, take one for the team. 2:54:03.620 --> 2:54:05.660 I was about to say, come on, step up, my guy. 2:54:07.760 --> 2:54:11.470 This ad is pretty, pretty wild. We saw ads like 2:54:11.500 --> 2:54:14.730 this when Mamdani was running in New York last year. 2:54:14.750 --> 2:54:19.090 There's also been articles focused on clips from Al-Dawal Seed's 2:54:19.770 --> 2:54:22.770 podcast from years ago. I'll play a clip here. 9-11 2:54:23.790 --> 2:54:26.470 scarred our country in profound ways. But what we did 2:54:26.570 --> 2:54:29.810 after 9-11 scarred millions of other people. when we talk 2:54:29.850 --> 2:54:33.890 about 9-11, we often fail to center them. Again, completely defensible, 2:54:33.910 --> 2:54:38.330 completely accurate and true statement that is being turned into 2:54:38.770 --> 2:54:39.810 political controversy. 2:54:40.110 --> 2:54:41.270 Yeah, these are completely normal. 2:54:41.330 --> 2:54:45.110 By those on the right, who certainly have no other 2:54:45.170 --> 2:54:47.830 reason to specifically attack Abdul Al-Said. 2:54:47.890 --> 2:54:48.109 Yeah. 2:54:48.610 --> 2:54:51.150 Fascinating choice to appear at an event with someone that 2:54:51.209 --> 2:54:55.420 much taller than you. Like, the high disparity is profound. 2:54:56.110 --> 2:54:56.220 Right. 2:54:56.700 --> 2:54:59.859 James is referencing photos of Hasan Piker and Abdul standing 2:54:59.900 --> 2:55:02.619 next to each other. Yes, there is a considerable height difference. 2:55:03.360 --> 2:55:05.020 It looks like they're on a podium, but I don't 2:55:05.050 --> 2:55:05.530 think they are. 2:55:06.610 --> 2:55:10.090 Speaking of New York City, following months of propaganda from 2:55:10.110 --> 2:55:15.879 the New York Post, earlier this week, ABC ran the headline, quote, 2:55:16.360 --> 2:55:23.860 Mayor Mamdani says he'll attend 9-11 ceremony despite growing criticism. Unquote. 2:55:24.000 --> 2:55:24.420 Insane. 2:55:24.560 --> 2:55:29.680 An insane headline to run. Completely absurd. Journalist Peter Stern 2:55:29.700 --> 2:55:34.490 in New York has talked about how there's about, at most, 5% 2:55:34.490 --> 2:55:39.670 of 9-11 survivor victim families who have been spreading this 2:55:39.910 --> 2:55:45.779 petition to ban Mamdani. And vastly more 9-11 families have 2:55:45.820 --> 2:55:49.970 released a counter-petition in support of the mayor himself. This 2:55:50.070 --> 2:55:52.790 is a controversy that the New York Post and others 2:55:52.830 --> 2:55:55.030 have been stoking for quite a while in the lead 2:55:55.090 --> 2:55:59.750 up to 9-11. But this ABC headline talking about the 2:55:59.770 --> 2:56:02.449 story is completely absurd. There's another story that came out 2:56:02.500 --> 2:56:06.760 today in Variety, which they've edited since publishing because the 2:56:06.780 --> 2:56:11.459 first version just did not address the blatant Islamophobic motivations 2:56:11.720 --> 2:56:15.160 in a lot of the attacks against Mamdani. And the 2:56:15.200 --> 2:56:18.900 Vanity Fair piece also has this crazy quote from Bruce Blakeman. 2:56:19.510 --> 2:56:24.460 the Republican running for governor of New York, talking of Mamdani, quote, 2:56:25.020 --> 2:56:27.340 he's not welcome there because he has yet to say 2:56:27.600 --> 2:56:32.939 anything in opposition to the global intifada, unquote. The whole 2:56:33.000 --> 2:56:37.039 Vanity Fair piece is similar to this ABC article, just 2:56:37.140 --> 2:56:39.700 completely gross. There's no reason to cover it in the 2:56:39.720 --> 2:56:44.100 way that they are. Imagine the actual media crisis, the 2:56:44.140 --> 2:56:47.380 frenzy that would happen if the mayor of New York City, 2:56:47.420 --> 2:56:49.860 if the Muslim mayor of New York City chose to 2:56:49.940 --> 2:56:56.400 not attend the 9-11 service. Like, that would be crazy. 2:56:56.540 --> 2:57:00.130 They would light up, right? This is a perfectly concocted 2:57:00.170 --> 2:57:03.150 political controversy. They could do it either way. Now, Mamdani would, 2:57:03.170 --> 2:57:05.810 of course, never not attend that. That makes no sense. 2:57:06.690 --> 2:57:09.310 But the right and the center media gets to kind 2:57:09.330 --> 2:57:13.699 of position them and talk about the controversy about him attending, 2:57:14.020 --> 2:57:19.100 even though it's like, what's he going to do? Not attend? Meanwhile, 2:57:19.379 --> 2:57:23.920 on Tuesday, Mayor Mamdani released about 170,000 pages of records 2:57:24.060 --> 2:57:27.070 city officials have kept from the public regarding air quality 2:57:27.090 --> 2:57:30.660 at ground zero following the 9-11 attack. These Reports show 2:57:30.680 --> 2:57:33.359 that city officials at the time knew that the air 2:57:33.400 --> 2:57:36.180 was toxic and hazardous and get lied to the public 2:57:36.560 --> 2:57:40.359 by saying it was safe. The mayor said, quote, Now, 2:57:40.660 --> 2:57:44.420 close to 25 years later, more people have died from 2:57:44.440 --> 2:57:50.039 9-11-related illness than were killed on the day itself. These 2:57:50.080 --> 2:57:52.860 documents are now searchable on a new portal, and they 2:57:52.900 --> 2:57:56.280 include the recently discovered, quote-unquote, Harding memo, which was sent 2:57:56.320 --> 2:57:59.940 to the then-deputy mayor, Robert Harding, This memo was titled, quote, 2:58:00.470 --> 2:58:06.449 legislative alternatives to limit the city's liability relating to September 11th, 2001, unquote. 2:58:07.330 --> 2:58:10.830 Mamdani said these records, quote, show what the city knew 2:58:10.970 --> 2:58:14.500 about the toxic air around Ground Zero, when they knew it, 2:58:14.820 --> 2:58:18.820 and how they acted to limit liability. Jon Stewart was 2:58:19.220 --> 2:58:24.080 also at this press conference announcing the release of these documents, 2:58:24.160 --> 2:58:27.560 and he has been a longtime advocate of transparency for 2:58:27.580 --> 2:58:31.430 9-11-related illnesses and supporting the first responders and their families 2:58:31.920 --> 2:58:34.760 who have died or gotten sick in relation to 9-11 2:58:35.820 --> 2:58:39.140 health complications. I'll play a short clip from him before 2:58:39.180 --> 2:58:40.260 we close this episode. 2:58:41.100 --> 2:58:46.020 The city began covering their ass three weeks in, in 2:58:46.080 --> 2:58:51.800 a memo. The memo is entitled Legislative Alternatives to the 2:58:51.879 --> 2:58:56.620 Fiscal Responsibility for 9-11. And what we all knew who 2:58:56.700 --> 2:59:00.800 live in downtown Manhattan is that there was poison in 2:59:00.860 --> 2:59:04.800 the air and on the ground and in the windowsills 2:59:05.320 --> 2:59:09.900 and in your air conditioners and covering your pets and 2:59:09.940 --> 2:59:13.620 your clothes, and it stayed there for months. 2:59:15.120 --> 2:59:15.840 Everyone knew. 2:59:17.250 --> 2:59:20.830 And now it's very clear that the city knew as well. 2:59:21.650 --> 2:59:24.709 And rather than take the steps to ameliorate the damage 2:59:24.730 --> 2:59:28.440 that that would cause to its citizens, And to the 2:59:28.500 --> 2:59:33.180 people that were down there, they instead covered it up 2:59:33.260 --> 2:59:37.170 to get back to business as usual. But unfortunately, after 9-11, 2:59:37.860 --> 2:59:41.470 business will never be usual again. 2:59:43.450 --> 2:59:45.130 If you'd like to email us, you can do so. 2:59:45.230 --> 2:59:48.949 It's coolzontips at proton.me. If you want it to be encrypted, 2:59:48.970 --> 2:59:50.170 send it from a proton address. 2:59:50.610 --> 2:59:51.900 Put a trans girl on your couch. 2:59:52.270 --> 2:59:53.140 We reported the news. 2:59:53.600 --> 2:59:54.400 We reported the news. 3:00:00.450 --> 3:00:03.570 Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week 3:00:03.629 --> 3:00:05.470 from now until the heat death of the universe. 3:00:06.350 --> 3:00:08.770 It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. 3:00:08.990 --> 3:00:13.330 For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, 3:00:13.790 --> 3:00:16.570 or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 3:00:16.970 --> 3:00:19.750 or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find 3:00:19.820 --> 3:00:22.760 sources for It Could Happen Here listed directly in episode descriptions. 3:00:23.260 --> 3:00:23.940 Thanks for listening.