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Speaker 1: Call zone media.

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Speaker 2: Hey, everybody.

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Speaker 3: Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let you know

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Speaker 3: this is a compilation episode. So every episode of the

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Speaker 3: week that just happened is here in one convenient and

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Speaker 3: with somewhat less ads package for you to listen to

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Speaker 3: in a long stretch if you want. If you've been

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Speaker 3: listening to the episodes every day this week, there's going

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Speaker 3: to be nothing new here for you, but you can

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Speaker 3: make your own decisions.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to It Could Happen Here. I'm Garrison Davis, joined

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Speaker 2: by Robert Evans.

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Speaker 1: Hello.

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Speaker 2: Hello, Garrison Davis. How are you doing today? I'm doing okay.

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Speaker 2: I'm really, I'm getting prepared to vote. I'm psyching myself up.

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Speaker 3: Just like the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps told you to do, huh?

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Speaker 2: I think that's what we want to start with. In general,

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Speaker 2: this episode will be kind of going over the midterm

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Speaker 2: polls as they are. in early October, kind of what

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Speaker 2: we can get a sense of the election about a

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Speaker 2: month out, now that we're just a few weeks away

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Speaker 2: from the election. But a few weeks ago, the IRGC,

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Speaker 2: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps... Prince of the Pod.

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Speaker 4: Sure.

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Speaker 2: At this point, man... One bad day, full Stalinist, full Maoist.

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Speaker 2: I mean, that's more, it's a slightly different-ist. A few

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Speaker 2: weeks ago, the IRGC released a 26-page letter, not short.

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Speaker 2: Not strong on brevity, the IRGC. Addressed to the American people,

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Speaker 2: a spokesperson from the IRGC told Reuters, quote, the American

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Speaker 2: people are not knowledgeable about many developments. We believe if

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Speaker 2: they knew more, they would think differently and take other decisions, unquote.

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Speaker 3: You guys might have more faith in the American people

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Speaker 3: than I do at this point.

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Speaker 2: The start of the letter and how it's addressed reads,

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Speaker 2: to the honorable people of the United States of America,

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Speaker 2: the scholars, the students, and the members of the media.

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Speaker 2: I think that last part is important because at least

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Speaker 2: some of them know that The American people are not

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Speaker 2: reading a 26-page letter. This is going to be mostly

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Speaker 2: read by journalists. This is going to be read by

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Speaker 2: nerds on Twitter. And blue sky, I guess. And nerds

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Speaker 2: on Twitter.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Now, I actually was able to get a short video.

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Speaker 2: The IRGC also released a short video kind of summarizing

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Speaker 2: the letter. And I will play that here for Robert.

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Speaker 2: So that's, yeah, that's the special, that's the special video. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: that really is. That's something else. So there's a few

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Speaker 2: sections before. The bulk of the letter is arguing why

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Speaker 2: Iran is the victor in the war, concrete evidence of

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Speaker 2: Iran's victory. They have a section on the meaning of, quote,

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Speaker 2: death to America. Yeah. Which reads, quote, Death to America

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Speaker 2: does not in any way express any ill will toward

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Speaker 2: the American people who have themselves suffered through the same oppression.

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Speaker 2: Death to America is a prayer for the eradication of

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Speaker 2: the diabolical ruling elite whose seat of power is in

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Speaker 2: the White House. And the letter goes on to say

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Speaker 2: that the RGC and the people of Iran have no

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Speaker 2: feeling of hostility toward the American people. And then they ask,

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Speaker 2: how can the U.S. be saved? And this is what

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Speaker 2: leads to the bulk of the letter saying, which is

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Speaker 2: essentially trying to get Americans to vote harder. Oh, which...

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Speaker 2: You're finished, fascism.

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Speaker 3: Oh, man.

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Speaker 2: But there's also a few other interesting kind of like

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Speaker 2: name drops here. Quote, God will come to the aid

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Speaker 2: of the American people if they decide to change course. Thankfully,

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Speaker 2: Americans are waking up to the truth. Over the past

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Speaker 2: two years, Americans have participated in numerous demonstrations in cities

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Speaker 2: across the U.S. to express their outrage at Israel's genocidal

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Speaker 2: actions in Gaza.

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Speaker 5: Moreover.

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Speaker 2: The No Kings rallies that swept across the U.S. last

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Speaker 2: year were a nation- Okay, IRGC. Were a nation, right?

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Speaker 2: Repudiation of the burgeoning autocratic tendencies within the American government.

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Speaker 2: These powerful manifestations of collective action are evidence of a

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Speaker 2: national awakening spreading through the U.S. Polls show that the

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Speaker 2: majority of Americans, especially younger Americans, no longer wish to

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Speaker 2: be complicit in their government's crimes against other nations, unquote.

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Speaker 2: Part of what makes this so funny to me is

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Speaker 2: how diametrically opposed it is to the messaging coming out

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Speaker 2: of like, you know, U.S. based like Maoists or like anti-imperialists,

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Speaker 2: you know? Oh yeah, like the U.S. far left. Absolutely.

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Speaker 3: They're so much, so much more generous to the American people.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's something that's really, that's really funny to me.

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Speaker 2: As for the vote harder section, let's read one paragraph here.

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Speaker 2: Your response may be that you do not accept these

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Speaker 2: atrocious actions, but are powerless to do anything about them.

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Speaker 2: This answer, however, is not acceptable. You are the ones

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Speaker 2: who empower with your votes. The government had allowed to

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Speaker 2: do what it wants. Although American politicians often win your

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Speaker 2: votes through deception of false promises, as Trump did, you

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Speaker 2: can change the makeup of the government if you apply

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Speaker 2: the criteria for good leadership in choosing the people you

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Speaker 2: vote into office.

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Speaker 3: See, guys, I gotta tell you, it's not that easy.

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Speaker 3: First off, I've voted every time I've gotten the chance,

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Speaker 3: pretty much. I don't think I've ever empowered anyone with

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Speaker 3: my votes.

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Speaker 2: You know, it's one of those kind of Adam Curtis moments. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: We have the IRGC advocating the ideal of electoral politics,

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Speaker 2: something that does not exist really in Iran either.

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Speaker 3: It's consistent with there's that one famous interview with an

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Speaker 3: Iranian cleric where he's like, as Alexander de Tocqueville, who

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Speaker 3: I'm sure all Americans have read once said, he's like, guys,

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Speaker 3: you are way overestimating us.

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Speaker 2: So, yeah, if you have any sort of anti-imperialist impulses

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Speaker 2: as per as per the IRGC, get your voter registration

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Speaker 2: up to date.

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Speaker 3: Get your voter registration card and get out there.

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Speaker 2: If you're in line, stay in line. That's right. So

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Speaker 2: part of why this letter was released is because it

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Speaker 2: is just a few weeks away from the midterms. We

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Speaker 2: are less than a month away from the 2026 midterm elections.

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Speaker 2: And so I thought we should do a little update

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Speaker 2: on polling and take a look at some of the

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Speaker 2: close races.

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Speaker 6: Sure.

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Speaker 2: And let's start by talking about the current makeup of Congress.

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Speaker 2: Right now in the House, 218 seats are held by Republicans,

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Speaker 2: 214 by Democrats, and there's one independent who caucuses with

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Speaker 2: the Republicans. 218 seats are what's needed for a majority.

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Speaker 2: This has been a very small majority that the Republicans

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Speaker 2: have been able to hold onto in the House these

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Speaker 2: past few years. The Cook Political Report is forecasting that

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Speaker 2: the Dems will pick up around five to 15 seats

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Speaker 2: in the midterms, likely putting them in charge of the

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Speaker 2: House with anywhere between 220 to 230 seats. And this

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Speaker 2: lead in polling and their projected victory has only grown

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Speaker 2: these past few weeks. It's not becoming a closer race

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Speaker 2: for the Republicans.

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Speaker 3: No, things don't look good for them because gasoline costs

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Speaker 3: all of the money in your pocket now.

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Speaker 2: That is a huge factor. That's a big part of

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Speaker 2: the reason. I'll go over some of the kind of

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Speaker 2: main issues driving the election person polling and gas prices

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Speaker 2: is like number one or number two.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I have trouble imagining anything other than other cost

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Speaker 3: of living stuff being like a larger impact on voters.

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Speaker 2: Something that is interesting, the redistricting across Alabama, California, Florida, Louisiana,

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Speaker 2: North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah is will likely

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Speaker 2: have a minimal impact in the results, like in total.

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Speaker 2: There's obviously for the people actually impacted, the people whose

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Speaker 2: votes are being diluted, especially.

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Speaker 3: Not that this is not bad or a problem. It's

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Speaker 3: just they have fucked up enough that it's not going

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Speaker 3: to benefit them to the extent.

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Speaker 2: That's what it.

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Speaker 3: Seemed like to me, that they're not going to benefit

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Speaker 3: the way that they were.

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Speaker 2: No. So I don't want to discount the impact of

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Speaker 2: the erosion of the Voting Rights Act by any means,

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Speaker 2: or the just larger structural issues of partisan gerrymandering. But

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Speaker 2: an analysis by Harvard estimated a net gain of only

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Speaker 2: two seats for Republicans in these midterms, though other estimates

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Speaker 2: give them a few more seats, anywhere between five to nine.

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Speaker 2: So we're looking at somewhere between a couple seats. I

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Speaker 2: think nine is probably a bit optimistic. Yeah, for the Republicans.

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Speaker 2: Around two to five seats they could net because of

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Speaker 2: the redistricting measures. Could, might, yeah. coming years, going into 2028,

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Speaker 2: when Virginia is able to push forward its redistricting again,

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Speaker 2: which they tried to do earlier, but because of a

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Speaker 2: procedural error, it was shot down. So that will also

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Speaker 2: net Democrats a few more seats that will start to

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Speaker 2: kind of even things out. And then we had this

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Speaker 2: whole little fun redistricting for nothing.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a real, just a marker of how badly

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Speaker 3: they have botched their starting position going into this administration.

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Speaker 3: Just kind of a catastrophic series of political decisions. We'll

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Speaker 3: see if any of that matters, but it really does

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Speaker 3: highlight how pissed off people are.

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Speaker 2: Now, obviously, the Senate is kind of the big question here.

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Speaker 7: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Will Democrats be able to actually take the Senate? Will

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Speaker 2: they be able to control all of Congress, not just

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Speaker 2: the House? Yeah. Currently, the Republicans have a 53-seat majority,

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Speaker 2: plus a Fetterman.

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Speaker 7: Mm-hmm.

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Speaker 2: And the vice president who can vote. So that kind

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Speaker 2: of really throws a wrench in all these numbers, the

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Speaker 2: Fetterman factor and the Vance factor. Democrats just have 45

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Speaker 2: seats plus two independents who caucus with the Democrats, like

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Speaker 2: Bernie Sanders. So essentially, things actually sit at like 54

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Speaker 2: to 46, adjusting for independents and Fetterman. So Democrats really

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Speaker 2: need a net gain of like four to five seats

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Speaker 2: to be able to have the Senate be more of

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Speaker 2: a competitive voting arena, also considering J.D. Vance. There are

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Speaker 2: 35 Senate seats on the ballot next month. So Democrats

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Speaker 2: will need to flip around four to five seats, like

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Speaker 2: I said, and one of the seats Democrats have wanted

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Speaker 2: to flip for a long time, and especially this year,

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Speaker 2: is Maine, with Susan Collins. One of our worst lawmakers.

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Speaker 8: Yes.

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Speaker 2: And ProPublica, as I reported on ED a few weeks ago,

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Speaker 2: ProPublica did that great investigation into military contracting corruption and

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Speaker 2: bribery involving Susan Collins. So union logger Troy Jackson is

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Speaker 2: trying to unseat Collins. Right now, this race leans D

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Speaker 2: or is a toss up. Morrist has Jackson up four

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Speaker 2: points ahead of Collins among registered voters, but with a

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Speaker 2: margin of error of 3.8%. So that's essentially still almost

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Speaker 2: within the margin of error. This is going to be

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Speaker 2: a very close race, right? A margin of error like that.

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Speaker 2: This is still basically a toss up. Other polling shows

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Speaker 2: roughly the same results. Jackson up a few points, but

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Speaker 2: within the margin of error. Per Morrist, among the Maine electorate, 57%

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Speaker 2: think Collins will win. That's not saying 57% want Collins

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Speaker 2: to win, but they think that will happen, right? That's

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Speaker 2: what they think is more likely. A survey from the

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Speaker 2: Maine People's Resource Center found Jackson ahead among independent voters, 58%

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Speaker 2: to 33% for Collins. The Maine People's Resource Center is

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Speaker 2: a progressive-leaning institution. Obviously, this race in Maine has been

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Speaker 2: a big shit show, to say the least. And since

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Speaker 2: Jackson has taken over as the nominee, Democratic Party establishment

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Speaker 2: consultants have really swooped into Maine and have been trying

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Speaker 2: to keep Jackson on a tight leash. Jackson's campaign has

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Speaker 2: not replicated the Platner-style intensive town hall strategy.

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Speaker 3: I think that would be a bad idea. Like, it

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Speaker 3: would be really obvious if he just tried to be

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Speaker 3: Graham Platner without the scandal, right?

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, let's try to be Graham Plattner, but I

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Speaker 2: think it is, the style of campaigning is very different.

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Speaker 2: Jackson's not as accessible to the electorate. Consultants have tried

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Speaker 2: to keep him from doing Q & As at the

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Speaker 2: events that he does end up doing. They've been dissuading

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Speaker 2: him from talking about ICE and Israel and Palestine.

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Speaker 8: Great.

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Speaker 2: So they really have been trying to keep him on

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Speaker 2: a pretty tight leash. There's a story in New York

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Speaker 2: Magazine a few weeks ago that kind of details how

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Speaker 2: Democratic establishment consultants have been trying to lead the Jackson

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Speaker 2: campaign that if people are interested in that specific topic,

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Speaker 2: I recommend they check out. So this is one of

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Speaker 2: the races that Democrats really do need to flip if

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Speaker 2: they have a chance of winning the Senate. And it is,

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Speaker 2: you know, theoretically possible, you know, he may be slightly

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Speaker 2: ahead in the polls, but only very slightly. But I think, yeah,

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Speaker 2: this is this is essentially a toss up. especially looking

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Speaker 2: back at 2020 when the Democrat in that race also was,

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Speaker 2: you know, a little bit ahead and Collins still ended

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Speaker 2: up walking away with it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think they're I mean, they're they're both trying

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Speaker 3: to avoid having another platner who gets like out of

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Speaker 3: control of them and is saying shit that the DNC

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Speaker 3: does not want to have to stand by. And I

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Speaker 3: think they are also hoping that that Plattner's campaign at

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Speaker 3: least did enough damage to Collins that she isn't going

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Speaker 3: to be able to like pull out a win this time.

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Speaker 3: And maybe that'll be the case, you know, that might

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Speaker 3: wind up being a play that works.

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Speaker 2: Definitely.

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Speaker 3: It's not a great position to have someone who is

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Speaker 3: doing as well as Plattner had been doing get dropped

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Speaker 3: out with a scandal that fucked up. Like that's a,

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Speaker 3: that's a, that's not easy to handle.

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Speaker 8: Yes.

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Speaker 2: Especially mobilizing that many people who were already kind of

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Speaker 2: disillusioned with politics, giving them that sort of hope and

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Speaker 2: then having that hope be ripped away And then those

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Speaker 2: people who maybe, some of them who even still want

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Speaker 2: to be politically engaged, the Jackson campaign is not letting

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Speaker 2: them touch the campaign with a 10-foot pole, which you

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Speaker 2: could maybe understand their reasons for. But there's a lot

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Speaker 2: of grassroots, very working-class-oriented activists who want to be involved

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Speaker 2: in some way that are not being tapped.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And as strong as Plattner's campaign was, it was because

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Speaker 2: it was built on the work that they were doing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Not just him as a person. Yeah. So those are

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Speaker 2: sort of complicating factors in this race.

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Speaker 3: And you know what's a complicating factor in this podcast episode, Garrison?

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Speaker 2: The fact that we have to pivot to ads in

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Speaker 2: order to pay the bills. We have to pivot to

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Speaker 2: ads right now.

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Speaker 6: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. That is a complicating factor in our lives. And

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Speaker 2: we're back.

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Speaker 3: How do you feel about North Carolina, Robert? Of the Carolinas,

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Speaker 3: definitely my favorite.

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Speaker 2: That's so true, actually.

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Speaker 3: Easily the best of the Carolinas. Top 50% Carolina. Sorry

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Speaker 3: to everyone in South Carolina. I'm not apologizing. I did

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Speaker 3: not apologize, South Carolina. You need to know that.

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Speaker 2: Well, North Carolina could also be one of the states

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Speaker 2: that flip for the Dems. Former Democratic Governor Roy Cooper

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Speaker 2: is facing former RNC Chair Michael Watley. What a name.

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Speaker 2: Who is running to replace Republican Senator Tom Tillis.

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Speaker 3: Those are both silly names. Have some self-respect.

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Speaker 2: God damn it. This race is leaning Democrat. This is

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Speaker 2: not a toss-up.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Polls from late September have Cooper ahead 5 to 13 points. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: that's pretty good. And last week, a Republican super PAC

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Speaker 2: pulled $ 30 million of ad money out of the state

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Speaker 2: to use in other races. So... That's a sign that

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Speaker 2: at least even among some Republicans, they're kind of giving

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Speaker 2: up on this. Roy Cooper is a pretty strong candidate

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Speaker 2: for this state. I should say, as we're going through

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Speaker 2: all of these sort of candidates, this is not, it

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Speaker 2: could happen here, endorsing any candidate just because they belong

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Speaker 2: to one party or another. Not our thing. I'm just

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Speaker 2: talking about this in terms of what the Democrats want

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Speaker 2: in order to take back power and the sort of

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Speaker 2: how these candidates relate to each state. Roy Cooper... is

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Speaker 2: a relatively liked figure in North Carolina. That is reflected

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Speaker 2: in the polling for this. His campaign is also helped

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Speaker 2: by the fact he's not going up against an incumbent.

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Speaker 2: He's not going up against someone who voters already are

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Speaker 2: familiar with, already like, who they just want to keep

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Speaker 2: in power. He's going up against a new guy, a

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Speaker 2: former RNC chair. So this is one of those states

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Speaker 2: where the Democrats will probably flip. You can kind of

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Speaker 2: count this on the four to five states needed to flip.

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Speaker 2: This is the most kind of certain one. There'd be

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Speaker 2: a massive polling error if it goes the other way

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Speaker 2: or some sort of fuckery. And just a total misread

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Speaker 2: of the situation on the ground. Now, one of the

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Speaker 2: more interesting kind of surprises is Alaska, which could also

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Speaker 2: flip for Democrats. The former Democratic congressman, Mary Peltola, is

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Speaker 2: going up against sitting Senator Dan Sullivan. Paltola is definitely

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Speaker 2: running more as, like, a centrist. Very pro-fossil fuels. You're

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Speaker 2: in Alaska.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Pro-gun, too. Pro-gun. Her campaign slogan is Fish Family Freedom.

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Speaker 7: Yep.

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Speaker 2: That makes sense.

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Speaker 3: Not a terrible slogan for running in Alaska.

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Speaker 2: Not bad for Alaska. And rather than attacking Republicans, a

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Speaker 2: lot of her campaign messaging is focused on taking on, quote, D.C.,

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Speaker 2: You know, it's very much like Alaska versus D.C. Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Corruption is a massive issue for the whole electorate. So

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Speaker 3: that makes sense. Like that's, yeah, kind of the obvious play.

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Speaker 2: And really prioritizing Alaska as like its own special interest

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Speaker 2: because it's so different from every other state. Part of

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Speaker 2: Feltola's strategy is trying to, you know, is trying to

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Speaker 2: attract certain Republicans. So she's not really going hard against

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Speaker 2: Republicans per se, but attacking the sort of like D.C.

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Speaker 2: swamp establishment. That's that's that's her main strategy here. New

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Speaker 2: York Times-Siena poll from late September to early October has

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Speaker 2: Peltola up seven points.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a pretty solid lead. Alaska's been wavering the

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Speaker 3: last couple of elections between blue and red. So this

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Speaker 3: is not like a sea change, right? This is kind

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Speaker 3: of an incremental change in some of the And obviously,

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Speaker 3: the disaster that is this administration has pushed things further

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Speaker 3: along than I think it otherwise would be. But this

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Speaker 3: is it's been moving in this direction a while.

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Speaker 8: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And like Alaska hasn't had a Democratic senator in like

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Speaker 2: almost 20 years. this would be a significant event if

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Speaker 2: this happened. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't mean to

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Speaker 2: say it wouldn't.

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Speaker 3: I've just been like this, this pattern has been occurring

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Speaker 3: since before like Trump too.

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Speaker 9: Right.

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Speaker 2: And obviously there's this general pattern of in the midterms, usually,

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Speaker 2: especially the house, but sometimes the Senate as well, shifts

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Speaker 2: to the opposition party. You know, this is like politics 101.

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Speaker 2: This is a very basic pattern. And what we're looking

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Speaker 2: at is this, this could be even stronger this year

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Speaker 2: than some years previously, probably not as strong as 2018, but,

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Speaker 2: But taking back the Senate and the House would be huge,

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Speaker 2: especially because of how far they have to go in

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Speaker 2: the Senate in order to retake it. Yeah. Now, the

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Speaker 2: race in Alaska, this definitely used to lean Republican, right?

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Speaker 2: This was not seen to be a very competitive race.

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Speaker 2: But recently, this went to a toss-up, right? And now,

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Speaker 2: some models even have it leaning Democrat. So this is

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Speaker 2: one race where there's been a lot of movement. And J.D.

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Speaker 2: Vance was dropped into Alaska to campaign for Sullivan last week.

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Speaker 2: something that they may not have needed to do or

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Speaker 2: thought they needed to do a few months ago. But

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Speaker 2: now now this is competitive enough that they're sending in

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Speaker 2: the vice president. Will J.D. Vance actually help Republicans win

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Speaker 2: the state? That's that's certainly debatable. But I don't know

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Speaker 2: if I would be putting J.D. in as my pen.

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Speaker 2: That's the thing, right? I don't like it. Like, I

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Speaker 2: don't know who.

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Speaker 3: I put in as my pen shitter right now in

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Speaker 3: the Republican bench, but it would not advance would be

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Speaker 3: the bottom of my list.

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Speaker 2: Like, honestly, send in Fetterman. No, legitimately, yes. He'll do

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Speaker 2: better for you in this instance. Sending Fetterman to campaign

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Speaker 2: for the Republicans would be, I think, probably a smarter move. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: you could convince him to do it. What a nightmare.

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Speaker 3: What a horrible situation. It's it's things are really bad, buddy.

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Speaker 3: Things are really bad. I know when like we were

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Speaker 3: getting shot at by federal agents in Portland, things were bad,

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Speaker 3: but things are a lot darker.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I'm about to get maybe shot at by

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Speaker 2: federal agents in like 20 minutes. So, yeah, because they

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Speaker 2: just shot a dude with an actual gun in New York.

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Speaker 7: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Time is a spiral.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Let's talk about Texas.

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Speaker 1: Sure.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm excited to talk about Texas because this is

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Speaker 3: the first time I get to be like a little

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Speaker 3: optimistic about more than like two Texas elections, actually.

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Speaker 2: So, yeah, I'm I'm excited. Let's talk about Talafrico. Talafrico.

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Speaker 2: In terms of the big, big question is Texas with

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Speaker 2: James Talarico going up against Kenny Pax, Ken Paxton. K-Pax,

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Speaker 2: as I like to call him. You probably didn't see

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Speaker 2: that movie, Garrison. It's not good. No, no. I did

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Speaker 2: just see Out of Sight, the Steven Soderbergh movie. I

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Speaker 2: don't know if I've seen that one. From like the 90s.

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Speaker 2: It's like the proto Ocean's Eleven. Okay. It's the hottest

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Speaker 2: I've ever seen George Clooney. Oh, Cloon Tang. Okay. He

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Speaker 2: plays like a serial bank robber. That's a good role

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Speaker 2: for him. Who keeps going to jail, prison, then he

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Speaker 2: breaks out. And then it kind of cuts between a

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Speaker 2: few different timelines as he gets into a sort of

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Speaker 2: doomed romance with a federal marshal played by Jennifer Lopez.

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Speaker 3: Okay, I was going to say I've seen this movie

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Speaker 3: and then... Well, no, I have seen this movie with J-Lo. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 3: I have seen this movie. It's hard to tell because

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Speaker 3: like the first half of that description is like 18

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Speaker 3: different George Clooney movies.

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Speaker 2: Exactly. He's like a bank robber. He keeps going to prison. No,

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Speaker 2: especially like the late 90s, early 2000s. This is like

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Speaker 2: his role. He had this like on lock. Yeah. The

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Speaker 2: hottest bank robber you've ever seen. Yeah, people love a criminal.

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Speaker 2: Speaking of, Ken Paxton, not doing great in the polls. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Marist and New York Times have Tallarico up six points

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Speaker 2: as of late September, with a recent Fox News poll

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Speaker 2: showing Tallarico at 51% to Paxton's 49%. Not good for

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Speaker 2: old Kay Pax. No. There's also this big enthusiasm gap

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Speaker 2: that the Fox News poll really focused on. Among MAGA Republicans, 64%

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Speaker 2: say they're extremely interested in the midterms. But for non-MAGA Republicans,

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Speaker 2: only 50% is extremely interested in the midterms. So that's

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Speaker 2: almost like a 15% gap among Republicans for Republicans. how

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Speaker 2: much they're invested in these midterms. And this difference does

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Speaker 2: not exist on the Democratic side. The Fox News polling

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Speaker 2: has Democrats broken down into two categories, similar to MAGA

436
00:23:40,140 --> 00:23:47,180
Speaker 2: or non-MAGA. They have DSA Democrats and non-DSA Democrats. Which

437
00:23:47,260 --> 00:23:50,260
Speaker 2: is funny on its face. DSA Democrats are at 68%,

438
00:23:50,260 --> 00:23:52,120
Speaker 2: non-DSA is at 67%. So basically no gap.

439
00:23:52,160 --> 00:23:52,500
Speaker 10: Jeez.

440
00:23:57,030 --> 00:23:59,630
Speaker 3: And I think this has less to do with Tallarico's

441
00:23:59,710 --> 00:24:03,290
Speaker 3: specific characteristics as a candidate and everything to do with

442
00:24:03,310 --> 00:24:05,750
Speaker 3: the fact that Ken Paxton is the literal Christian devil.

443
00:24:05,810 --> 00:24:08,429
Speaker 2: Yes, he is Satan. And people want to see him beaten.

444
00:24:08,730 --> 00:24:09,050
Speaker 1: Yes.

445
00:24:11,210 --> 00:24:13,370
Speaker 2: But I mean, these numbers are not just interesting because

446
00:24:13,430 --> 00:24:16,210
Speaker 2: of the gap between MAGA and non-MAGA Republicans, but also

447
00:24:16,570 --> 00:24:21,290
Speaker 2: MAGA Republicans are at 64% for enthusiasm versus Democrats are

448
00:24:21,310 --> 00:24:25,790
Speaker 2: at 67, 68. So that's a few points ahead just

449
00:24:25,830 --> 00:24:30,250
Speaker 2: for enthusiasm. against the mega kind of hardcore. And the

450
00:24:30,270 --> 00:24:33,430
Speaker 2: other really worrying part of this for Republicans is that

451
00:24:33,650 --> 00:24:36,460
Speaker 2: out of the percent that say that they will vote,

452
00:24:37,040 --> 00:24:38,590
Speaker 2: mega is at 76%, non-mega is at 65%. That's an 11% gap.

453
00:24:39,380 --> 00:24:41,080
Speaker 2: And similarly, this gap does not exist for the Democrats,

454
00:24:41,100 --> 00:24:42,540
Speaker 2: DSA or otherwise. That is really interesting.

455
00:24:51,580 --> 00:24:54,780
Speaker 3: And it says a lot about MAGA Republicans that they

456
00:24:54,820 --> 00:24:58,219
Speaker 3: have just completely given up any kind of like moral.

457
00:24:58,140 --> 00:25:00,899
Speaker 2: Standards for their candidates. Do not care. Does not matter

458
00:25:00,940 --> 00:25:01,240
Speaker 2: at all.

459
00:25:02,020 --> 00:25:04,700
Speaker 3: In a lot of the country, Republicans and MAGA Republicans

460
00:25:04,910 --> 00:25:07,550
Speaker 3: are synonyms, but that's not the case in a lot

461
00:25:07,609 --> 00:25:10,970
Speaker 3: of Texas. Like Texas has a lot of Bush Republicans still. Yeah.

462
00:25:11,030 --> 00:25:13,550
Speaker 2: I mean, like those people still likely are going to

463
00:25:13,950 --> 00:25:17,930
Speaker 2: vote for Trump in the presidential election. Absolutely. But oversimplifying their,

464
00:25:18,130 --> 00:25:21,729
Speaker 2: like all of their politics to MAGA is, I think

465
00:25:21,770 --> 00:25:24,310
Speaker 2: it's a sort of theoretical mistake. It's a mistake.

466
00:25:24,750 --> 00:25:27,790
Speaker 3: Those people are not, some of them are, because there's

467
00:25:27,830 --> 00:25:30,560
Speaker 3: a chunk of Republicans that look like they're going to Tallarico, but.

468
00:25:30,540 --> 00:25:31,560
Speaker 2: It's not a huge chunk.

469
00:25:32,080 --> 00:25:34,280
Speaker 3: It's more that some of them just aren't going to

470
00:25:34,320 --> 00:25:36,480
Speaker 3: vote or are going to put in like a protest candidate.

471
00:25:36,500 --> 00:25:38,830
Speaker 3: You know, I've read some interviews to that stance with

472
00:25:38,850 --> 00:25:41,090
Speaker 3: like Republican voters who are on sort of the Bush

473
00:25:41,109 --> 00:25:42,790
Speaker 3: Republican side of things being like, I'm just going to

474
00:25:43,369 --> 00:25:45,310
Speaker 3: put in a protest vote or something, which in this

475
00:25:45,410 --> 00:25:48,869
Speaker 3: instance is just as good as voting for Tallarico in

476
00:25:48,910 --> 00:25:52,320
Speaker 3: terms of stopping Paxton from winning again, because the Republicans

477
00:25:52,340 --> 00:25:54,640
Speaker 3: who have some degree of moral fiber left are also

478
00:25:54,700 --> 00:25:56,020
Speaker 3: disgusted with Ken Paxton.

479
00:25:56,060 --> 00:25:58,740
Speaker 2: He's gross. On that topic. I don't know if you

480
00:25:58,780 --> 00:26:03,810
Speaker 2: saw this. Ken Paxton's ex-wife. who is a Texas state senator,

481
00:26:04,850 --> 00:26:08,210
Speaker 2: was tapped for an election ad where she does not

482
00:26:08,369 --> 00:26:12,500
Speaker 2: even say her ex-husband's name, but just begs people to

483
00:26:12,580 --> 00:26:16,760
Speaker 2: vote for the quote Republican ticket to stay on the team.

484
00:26:17,020 --> 00:26:18,060
Speaker 2: I want to play the ad.

485
00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:19,139
Speaker 1: Yeah.

486
00:26:19,220 --> 00:26:20,080
Speaker 2: God, this is great.

487
00:26:20,369 --> 00:26:22,210
Speaker 11: I'm Texas Senator Angela Paxton.

488
00:26:22,790 --> 00:26:24,149
Speaker 2: People have asked my thoughts about.

489
00:26:23,990 --> 00:26:27,290
Speaker 12: This election and turns out I have some. Let's talk

490
00:26:27,350 --> 00:26:28,270
Speaker 12: about the elephant.

491
00:26:27,990 --> 00:26:28,210
Speaker 10: In the room.

492
00:26:29,040 --> 00:26:31,520
Speaker 11: In a general election, it's not as much about the

493
00:26:31,619 --> 00:26:32,860
Speaker 11: individual players on the team.

494
00:26:33,220 --> 00:26:35,780
Speaker 12: It's about getting the whole team across the finish line.

495
00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:39,199
Speaker 11: Either we hold every Republican seat or we hand the

496
00:26:39,240 --> 00:26:42,590
Speaker 11: future of Texas to the other team. That's why I'm

497
00:26:42,630 --> 00:26:46,030
Speaker 11: voting for the Republican ticket on November 3rd. Let's hold

498
00:26:46,070 --> 00:26:47,190
Speaker 11: the line together.

499
00:26:47,770 --> 00:26:50,869
Speaker 2: Texas PAC is responsible for the content of this advertising. Rousing.

500
00:26:50,950 --> 00:26:53,470
Speaker 3: Won't even say his name. Crazy stuff.

501
00:26:54,369 --> 00:26:59,360
Speaker 2: Wow. Wild stuff. Hold your nose and vote for my

502
00:26:59,540 --> 00:27:02,270
Speaker 2: shitty ex, the psychopath. Especially because she starts by saying,

503
00:27:02,290 --> 00:27:05,310
Speaker 2: let's address the elephant in the room. And then doesn't.

504
00:27:05,550 --> 00:27:07,210
Speaker 2: Does not at all. Does not address the elephant.

505
00:27:07,490 --> 00:27:10,090
Speaker 3: Can't bring herself to say his name.

506
00:27:10,390 --> 00:27:12,730
Speaker 2: Oh my God, that's amazing. It's one of the most

507
00:27:12,810 --> 00:27:15,869
Speaker 2: incredible political ads I've ever seen. Almost as good as,

508
00:27:16,170 --> 00:27:19,340
Speaker 2: we may as well play this one. This is technically

509
00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:22,320
Speaker 2: a House ad. Unfortunately, we're going to drop it here

510
00:27:22,380 --> 00:27:24,739
Speaker 2: in the Senate section. But in terms of talking about

511
00:27:24,760 --> 00:27:28,600
Speaker 2: political ads. This is an ad running in Ohio in

512
00:27:28,660 --> 00:27:32,540
Speaker 2: response to a series of anti-trans ads that the Republicans

513
00:27:32,560 --> 00:27:34,720
Speaker 2: have been blasting in the airwaves.

514
00:27:35,330 --> 00:27:36,210
Speaker 8: Seen these ads?

515
00:27:36,490 --> 00:27:37,930
Speaker 2: They're a complete lie.

516
00:27:38,230 --> 00:27:41,250
Speaker 8: Records show not only is this woman actually from Texas,

517
00:27:41,510 --> 00:27:46,400
Speaker 8: she didn't have any surgery as He protected men who

518
00:27:46,460 --> 00:27:49,879
Speaker 8: abused young girls by voting in the Senate to block

519
00:27:49,920 --> 00:27:53,619
Speaker 8: the release of the Epstein files. Maybe that's because Husted

520
00:27:53,660 --> 00:27:56,940
Speaker 8: took one hundred and sixteen thousand dollars from associates of

521
00:27:57,020 --> 00:28:01,290
Speaker 8: Jeffrey Epstein. Ten times more than any other senator. John

522
00:28:01,330 --> 00:28:02,869
Speaker 8: Husted should be ashamed.

523
00:28:03,050 --> 00:28:04,970
Speaker 13: I'm sure Brown and I approve this message.

524
00:28:05,250 --> 00:28:07,650
Speaker 2: It's that easy. It's that easy, folks. Yeah.

525
00:28:08,390 --> 00:28:10,170
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.

526
00:28:10,230 --> 00:28:13,080
Speaker 2: The ads made for you, really. If the Republicans want

527
00:28:13,100 --> 00:28:17,010
Speaker 2: to make, quote unquote, protecting young girls the center of

528
00:28:17,050 --> 00:28:17,770
Speaker 2: their politics.

529
00:28:17,810 --> 00:28:18,010
Speaker 1: Yeah.

530
00:28:18,450 --> 00:28:22,050
Speaker 2: They fucking handed you the silver platter. The Epstein's right there. Yeah.

531
00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:27,480
Speaker 3: It's frustrating because Tallarico has fucking recently made some kind

532
00:28:27,520 --> 00:28:31,800
Speaker 3: of bows to the anti-trans kids in sports panic shit,

533
00:28:31,859 --> 00:28:33,740
Speaker 3: which was very wishy-washy.

534
00:28:33,780 --> 00:28:37,330
Speaker 2: Wishy-washy, flippy-floppy, not standing firmly where he should be, certainly.

535
00:28:37,480 --> 00:28:40,050
Speaker 3: No, and I don't think that's helping him. Honestly, I

536
00:28:40,070 --> 00:28:42,090
Speaker 3: think the primary thing helping him is that Ken Paxton

537
00:28:42,150 --> 00:28:43,670
Speaker 3: is an abominable monster.

538
00:28:44,310 --> 00:28:47,910
Speaker 2: He's awful. He's the devil. Like.

539
00:28:49,110 --> 00:28:51,150
Speaker 3: And to run against the devil, you simply have to

540
00:28:51,270 --> 00:28:52,230
Speaker 3: not be the devil.

541
00:28:52,450 --> 00:28:53,900
Speaker 2: I guess it's harder than that. Trump won.

542
00:28:54,260 --> 00:28:56,220
Speaker 3: And also offer people real things as well. I think

543
00:28:56,440 --> 00:28:58,580
Speaker 3: I'm not being fair to the campaign. Like he has

544
00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:00,010
Speaker 3: run a much better campaign than that.

545
00:29:00,230 --> 00:29:02,590
Speaker 2: Well, I'm also just saying like in general, I think

546
00:29:02,610 --> 00:29:05,670
Speaker 2: the sort of running as just not Trump. Yes. That's

547
00:29:05,710 --> 00:29:08,050
Speaker 2: not one as a strategy. That's not enough.

548
00:29:08,810 --> 00:29:12,400
Speaker 3: Tallarico has worked hard to portray himself as, other than

549
00:29:12,460 --> 00:29:17,560
Speaker 3: being a Democrat, like a Texas Christian that Texans can

550
00:29:17,840 --> 00:29:19,320
Speaker 3: find respectable, right?

551
00:29:19,940 --> 00:29:20,160
Speaker 7: Yeah.

552
00:29:21,040 --> 00:29:24,790
Speaker 2: We'll talk a little bit more about Texas, but first,

553
00:29:25,510 --> 00:29:26,470
Speaker 2: here are some ads.

554
00:29:37,420 --> 00:29:40,480
Speaker 3: And we're back. I did want to mention one more

555
00:29:40,500 --> 00:29:44,430
Speaker 3: thing about the KPAX campaign. Paxton's Senate campaign recently put

556
00:29:44,590 --> 00:29:48,550
Speaker 3: out a series of missing posters demanding proof of life

557
00:29:48,630 --> 00:29:51,580
Speaker 3: for James Tallarico. Oh, yeah. A little less than two

558
00:29:51,630 --> 00:29:54,920
Speaker 3: weeks ago, he took sick with the flu. He got

559
00:29:54,960 --> 00:29:58,150
Speaker 3: diagnosed on September 30th. And after that, he had to

560
00:29:58,320 --> 00:30:01,300
Speaker 3: like attend. He attended like a Hispanic Business Council meeting

561
00:30:01,540 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 3: via video that had been scheduled to attend in person.

562
00:30:03,920 --> 00:30:04,420
Speaker 2: Yeah.

563
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:06,590
Speaker 3: He told attendees, I'm running a fever and I'm at

564
00:30:06,620 --> 00:30:08,209
Speaker 3: my most contagious right now. And I guess I've been

565
00:30:08,230 --> 00:30:10,010
Speaker 3: shaking too many hands on the campaign trail. So I

566
00:30:10,050 --> 00:30:12,290
Speaker 3: want to keep everybody safe. He stated that if he

567
00:30:12,310 --> 00:30:15,010
Speaker 3: passed his illness to somebody's grandmother or baby, he couldn't

568
00:30:15,070 --> 00:30:19,850
Speaker 3: live with himself. Totally reasonable thing. But Paxton's campaign put

569
00:30:19,910 --> 00:30:23,570
Speaker 3: out this like old West looking like wanted poster of

570
00:30:23,610 --> 00:30:26,410
Speaker 3: him demanding proof of life because he's been absent 12

571
00:30:26,410 --> 00:30:28,120
Speaker 3: days from the campaign trail.

572
00:30:28,340 --> 00:30:32,460
Speaker 2: They're doing the fucking Mitch McConnell bullshit. Yeah, it's it's nonsense.

573
00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:36,200
Speaker 3: He's been making statements. He's just not. He's sick.

574
00:30:36,340 --> 00:30:37,040
Speaker 2: That happens.

575
00:30:37,300 --> 00:30:39,500
Speaker 3: He's booked for a CNN town hall on October 14th.

576
00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:43,560
Speaker 3: There's been a pretty bad illness going around. I think

577
00:30:43,580 --> 00:30:44,540
Speaker 3: there's probably a few.

578
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:47,340
Speaker 2: There is a cold. There is a COVID strain.

579
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:49,390
Speaker 3: And he's young for politics, but he's also at the

580
00:30:49,490 --> 00:30:51,030
Speaker 3: age in which flus and shit hit yard.

581
00:30:51,750 --> 00:30:54,690
Speaker 2: He's not a baby. I did see a clip from

582
00:30:54,870 --> 00:30:57,450
Speaker 2: the president in the past few days talking about this.

583
00:30:57,510 --> 00:31:01,100
Speaker 2: And he said that Paxton's hiding because he's been forced

584
00:31:01,140 --> 00:31:03,720
Speaker 2: to eat meat when running. And so he's been vomiting

585
00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:08,969
Speaker 2: up meat all the time. And that's why he's not... What? Non-visible. Donald, what?

586
00:31:09,730 --> 00:31:14,970
Speaker 2: What the fuck? Because Trump just learned what veganism is. Yeah.

587
00:31:15,050 --> 00:31:17,170
Speaker 2: And he says it really funny. And it's been like

588
00:31:17,210 --> 00:31:20,430
Speaker 2: the main thing he's been attacking Talafrico with is that

589
00:31:20,450 --> 00:31:21,450
Speaker 2: the fact that he's like.

590
00:31:22,020 --> 00:31:25,140
Speaker 3: Alleged vegan, right? Because he's not a vegan.

591
00:31:25,200 --> 00:31:25,740
Speaker 2: Yes.

592
00:31:26,280 --> 00:31:28,160
Speaker 3: No, even if you were a vegan, if you wanted

593
00:31:28,200 --> 00:31:31,300
Speaker 3: to win a major election in Texas, you would lie

594
00:31:31,360 --> 00:31:31,900
Speaker 3: about that.

595
00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:32,280
Speaker 8: Yeah.

596
00:31:32,300 --> 00:31:35,280
Speaker 3: That's almost more of a disqualifying factor in Texas politics

597
00:31:35,320 --> 00:31:36,380
Speaker 3: than being a Democrat.

598
00:31:36,400 --> 00:31:36,540
Speaker 9: Yeah.

599
00:31:37,950 --> 00:31:39,970
Speaker 2: But yeah, that's been the main thing Trump's been trying

600
00:31:40,010 --> 00:31:44,690
Speaker 2: to attack Talifrico for is this alleged vegan status and

601
00:31:44,750 --> 00:31:47,970
Speaker 2: the idea that Talifrico is having to fake being a

602
00:31:48,050 --> 00:31:51,750
Speaker 2: meat eater and has gotten sick from eating meat and

603
00:31:52,010 --> 00:31:56,020
Speaker 2: is thus vomiting. And that's why he's out of the spotlight. Yeah,

604
00:31:56,080 --> 00:32:00,540
Speaker 2: of course. That's definitely it. Simple, basic stuff. Politics 101.

605
00:32:00,540 --> 00:32:05,220
Speaker 3: Yeah, politics something or other. The gubernatorial election is also

606
00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:08,830
Speaker 3: going to be this year for Texas. And this is

607
00:32:08,890 --> 00:32:11,510
Speaker 3: like the first time in a while that it's looked

608
00:32:11,950 --> 00:32:18,190
Speaker 3: actually kind of competitive. Gina Hinojosa is running against Greg Abbott,

609
00:32:18,430 --> 00:32:21,950
Speaker 3: who is. right up there with Ken Paxton in terms

610
00:32:21,970 --> 00:32:24,800
Speaker 3: of being an evil scumbag. Like he is just a monster,

611
00:32:24,860 --> 00:32:27,920
Speaker 3: although a much more popular monster than Ken Paxton is

612
00:32:28,020 --> 00:32:32,060
Speaker 3: with voters. But even so, Hinojosa is giving him a

613
00:32:32,080 --> 00:32:35,700
Speaker 3: run for his money. Right now, the real clear politics

614
00:32:36,090 --> 00:32:41,410
Speaker 3: average trend has Abbott at 48.1 and Hinojosa at 46.4.

615
00:32:41,410 --> 00:32:45,530
Speaker 3: But there are several polls that have Hinojosa ahead, including

616
00:32:45,550 --> 00:32:48,450
Speaker 3: YouGov and The New York Times Siena poll has her

617
00:32:48,510 --> 00:32:52,580
Speaker 3: up by three. Marist has her up by three. Recon

618
00:32:52,720 --> 00:32:54,780
Speaker 3: MR at Siena has her up by four. Now, obviously,

619
00:32:54,800 --> 00:32:57,260
Speaker 3: there are some like Telemundo has Abbott up by seven.

620
00:32:57,720 --> 00:33:00,360
Speaker 3: Fox has Abbott up by five. And there are definitely

621
00:33:00,440 --> 00:33:03,360
Speaker 3: more polls that have Abbott ahead. But this looks close

622
00:33:03,440 --> 00:33:06,270
Speaker 3: enough that like it's being considered by a lot of

623
00:33:06,290 --> 00:33:06,870
Speaker 3: people to be a.

624
00:33:06,890 --> 00:33:09,570
Speaker 2: Toss up or close to a toss up. It's competitive.

625
00:33:10,070 --> 00:33:10,850
Speaker 2: It's competitive.

626
00:33:10,950 --> 00:33:14,150
Speaker 3: Like she really could pull it off. I'm not saying

627
00:33:14,190 --> 00:33:17,960
Speaker 3: I think that's the likeliest. thing to happen here because

628
00:33:17,980 --> 00:33:20,780
Speaker 3: this is still Texas. And I just can't be that

629
00:33:20,940 --> 00:33:24,550
Speaker 3: optimistic about the gubernatorial race. But I would love it

630
00:33:24,810 --> 00:33:27,790
Speaker 3: if Gina could unseat Greg Abbott because he is just

631
00:33:27,870 --> 00:33:28,830
Speaker 3: a fucking monster.

632
00:33:29,470 --> 00:33:32,630
Speaker 2: And yeah, she's running a really good campaign.

633
00:33:32,810 --> 00:33:33,010
Speaker 7: Yeah.

634
00:33:33,050 --> 00:33:36,350
Speaker 3: She's currently in the House of Representatives representing the 49th District.

635
00:33:36,630 --> 00:33:39,470
Speaker 2: The Texas House or the federal? In the Texas House.

636
00:33:39,530 --> 00:33:41,080
Speaker 2: She's a state legislator. The Texas House.

637
00:33:41,130 --> 00:33:41,360
Speaker 9: Okay.

638
00:33:41,710 --> 00:33:42,300
Speaker 2: Got it. Yeah.

639
00:33:42,390 --> 00:33:45,280
Speaker 3: And she worked for the AFL prior to that. She's

640
00:33:45,300 --> 00:33:47,300
Speaker 3: been a lawyer for quite some time. She was part

641
00:33:47,320 --> 00:33:50,460
Speaker 3: of the legal team that sued Tom DeLay. The Hinojos

642
00:33:50,500 --> 00:33:52,780
Speaker 3: are like a prominent North Texas family. I went to

643
00:33:52,820 --> 00:33:55,260
Speaker 3: school with one of her, I don't know if it

644
00:33:55,300 --> 00:33:57,610
Speaker 3: was her kid or like a cousin or something, but

645
00:33:57,650 --> 00:34:00,520
Speaker 3: like the Hino Yoses are like a prominent wealthy family in,

646
00:34:00,700 --> 00:34:01,420
Speaker 3: in North Texas.

647
00:34:01,440 --> 00:34:01,940
Speaker 14: Hmm.

648
00:34:02,280 --> 00:34:05,810
Speaker 3: So, It's very interesting that she's and I haven't enough

649
00:34:05,850 --> 00:34:08,510
Speaker 3: of a deep dive. I think a lot of what's

650
00:34:08,550 --> 00:34:11,780
Speaker 3: helping her is just the general unpopularity of the Republican

651
00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:14,839
Speaker 3: Party right now. And I do kind of suspect that

652
00:34:14,900 --> 00:34:17,540
Speaker 3: Greg Abbott is being dragged down a little bit by

653
00:34:17,580 --> 00:34:21,660
Speaker 3: Ken Paxton, too, like that, just the general the overall trend.

654
00:34:22,080 --> 00:34:24,239
Speaker 3: And also, like, I think he knows is probably benefiting

655
00:34:24,300 --> 00:34:27,239
Speaker 3: from some of the enthusiasm that Tallarico's campaign has helped

656
00:34:27,260 --> 00:34:27,879
Speaker 3: to generate, too.

657
00:34:27,960 --> 00:34:28,120
Speaker 9: Right.

658
00:34:28,360 --> 00:34:30,540
Speaker 3: Obviously, she's also made a lot of really good moves

659
00:34:30,600 --> 00:34:33,489
Speaker 3: on her own that have increased enthusiasm. But in general,

660
00:34:33,989 --> 00:34:37,770
Speaker 3: I think because Texas looks competitive in a way it

661
00:34:37,850 --> 00:34:41,129
Speaker 3: really hasn't, it's benefiting probably both candidates a lot. Just

662
00:34:41,150 --> 00:34:43,730
Speaker 3: that that is bringing more people out to volunteer. It's

663
00:34:43,770 --> 00:34:47,040
Speaker 3: bringing more people out to donate. Just creating this impression

664
00:34:47,060 --> 00:34:49,700
Speaker 3: that like this might be a winnable fight has done

665
00:34:49,760 --> 00:34:50,120
Speaker 3: a lot.

666
00:34:50,380 --> 00:34:50,600
Speaker 2: Yeah.

667
00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:53,520
Speaker 3: So that's one to keep watch on. Again, I would

668
00:34:53,580 --> 00:34:56,719
Speaker 3: say a gun to my head. Abbott's still probably going

669
00:34:56,739 --> 00:34:59,320
Speaker 3: to eke out a victory, but I can't say definitely.

670
00:34:59,850 --> 00:35:03,350
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, he does have that sort of incumbent advantage.

671
00:35:03,370 --> 00:35:07,660
Speaker 2: And that's another factor with the Tallarico-Paxton thing. Paxton does

672
00:35:07,700 --> 00:35:10,259
Speaker 2: not have that incumbent advantage. I think Corbyn would be

673
00:35:10,280 --> 00:35:13,219
Speaker 2: a much harder candidate for Tallarico to beat.

674
00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:15,500
Speaker 3: This wouldn't be an election if Corbyn had won the primary.

675
00:35:15,560 --> 00:35:19,440
Speaker 2: That's why we were sort of softly excited when Paxton won.

676
00:35:19,780 --> 00:35:23,540
Speaker 2: Because as dangerous as it is for Paxton to potentially

677
00:35:23,580 --> 00:35:26,719
Speaker 2: be in the Senate... He has a much bigger attack

678
00:35:27,739 --> 00:35:33,820
Speaker 2: radius or attack surface than Cornyn does. Another one of

679
00:35:33,860 --> 00:35:36,489
Speaker 2: these kind of long shots, actually, I would say the

680
00:35:36,550 --> 00:35:40,049
Speaker 2: biggest long shot for a flip is in Florida with

681
00:35:40,090 --> 00:35:44,350
Speaker 2: progressive Democrat Angie Nixon running against Ashley Moody, who took

682
00:35:44,630 --> 00:35:48,650
Speaker 2: Rubio's seat. The best poll for Nixon as of a

683
00:35:48,700 --> 00:35:52,810
Speaker 2: few days ago is by Florida Politics, and according to them,

684
00:35:52,910 --> 00:35:56,870
Speaker 2: the race is at a tie, 45%. But a recent

685
00:35:56,890 --> 00:36:01,660
Speaker 2: poll from Stetson University has Moody leading 51 to 40,

686
00:36:01,660 --> 00:36:05,560
Speaker 2: so 11 points. A YouGov poll from late September to

687
00:36:05,620 --> 00:36:08,820
Speaker 2: early October has Moody five points ahead, with 5% of

688
00:36:08,860 --> 00:36:13,259
Speaker 2: likely voters still undecided. Though, actually, as of just a

689
00:36:13,280 --> 00:36:16,080
Speaker 2: few hours ago, as of recording, we're recording this on

690
00:36:16,180 --> 00:36:21,489
Speaker 2: Thursday night, Florida Politics did another poll, which shows Moody

691
00:36:21,590 --> 00:36:26,530
Speaker 2: at 47% and Angie Nixon at 45% within margin of error.

692
00:36:27,010 --> 00:36:31,470
Speaker 2: So a slight difference from the last poll that had

693
00:36:31,530 --> 00:36:35,260
Speaker 2: them tied. This is one of those races that the Democrats,

694
00:36:35,700 --> 00:36:38,900
Speaker 2: as the DNC, is not actually expecting Nixon to win.

695
00:36:39,040 --> 00:36:41,759
Speaker 2: They're not really pumping much money in, or really any

696
00:36:42,160 --> 00:36:46,230
Speaker 2: money in. They're not helping. All of this is the

697
00:36:46,270 --> 00:36:49,610
Speaker 2: result of just Nixon being a really good politician. The

698
00:36:49,650 --> 00:36:52,910
Speaker 2: fact that the race is this close. And the Nixons

699
00:36:52,930 --> 00:36:55,550
Speaker 2: are sort of like sleeper candidates. I was not familiar

700
00:36:55,570 --> 00:36:59,520
Speaker 2: with Nixon until the primary. Since then, I've watched videos

701
00:36:59,560 --> 00:37:02,790
Speaker 2: of her working in the state house. from these past

702
00:37:02,830 --> 00:37:07,129
Speaker 2: few years and then campaign appearances, she is great. She

703
00:37:07,250 --> 00:37:11,430
Speaker 2: is really good. A really clear communicator of working class issues,

704
00:37:11,550 --> 00:37:14,859
Speaker 2: issues of impacting the black community in Florida, right? This

705
00:37:14,900 --> 00:37:16,759
Speaker 2: Florida is a state we often like reduced to kind

706
00:37:16,780 --> 00:37:20,040
Speaker 2: of the worst of the worst people, but there's a

707
00:37:20,080 --> 00:37:23,180
Speaker 2: lot of like good people in Florida as well. They

708
00:37:23,200 --> 00:37:27,290
Speaker 2: just haven't been represented in, in politics for almost, almost

709
00:37:27,330 --> 00:37:28,310
Speaker 2: as long as I've been alive. Yeah.

710
00:37:28,790 --> 00:37:29,009
Speaker 9: Yeah.

711
00:37:29,370 --> 00:37:29,790
Speaker 8: Yeah.

712
00:37:29,910 --> 00:37:32,750
Speaker 3: I mean, it gets forgotten, but there's like a reason

713
00:37:32,810 --> 00:37:35,569
Speaker 3: why the 2000 election hinged on Florida. And it was

714
00:37:35,590 --> 00:37:36,870
Speaker 3: because it was really close.

715
00:37:37,730 --> 00:37:39,450
Speaker 2: And I'm really interested to see what the results of

716
00:37:39,489 --> 00:37:41,620
Speaker 2: this race is, because this will indicate kind of how

717
00:37:41,660 --> 00:37:44,660
Speaker 2: much Trump is hurting the Republicans. If it's like a really,

718
00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:47,660
Speaker 2: really close race, if the results are really close. And

719
00:37:47,700 --> 00:37:50,200
Speaker 2: it will also point to Nixon's strength as a candidate.

720
00:37:50,239 --> 00:37:53,870
Speaker 2: And I'm interested to watch what she does after this election,

721
00:37:54,190 --> 00:37:56,989
Speaker 2: whether or not she wins. Now, of course, there's the

722
00:37:57,030 --> 00:38:00,350
Speaker 2: other close race, which is in Michigan, which currently leans

723
00:38:00,390 --> 00:38:04,110
Speaker 2: Democrat with Abdul El-Sayed on average, polling about 3% ahead

724
00:38:04,290 --> 00:38:08,850
Speaker 2: of former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers. A Mars poll from

725
00:38:08,870 --> 00:38:12,830
Speaker 2: late September has El-Sayed at 51 to Rogers 44, a

726
00:38:13,250 --> 00:38:17,319
Speaker 2: seven point lead. That's El-Sayed's most favorable poll. A New

727
00:38:17,340 --> 00:38:20,440
Speaker 2: York Times Siena poll from mid-September shows El-Sayed up five points.

728
00:38:21,120 --> 00:38:24,710
Speaker 2: A Fox poll has him up one point. If Abdul wins,

729
00:38:25,090 --> 00:38:28,390
Speaker 2: Dems could hold on to this seat, strengthening their chances

730
00:38:28,830 --> 00:38:30,980
Speaker 2: of controlling the Senate. But this would not be a flip.

731
00:38:31,380 --> 00:38:33,000
Speaker 2: So this is something that they really need to hold

732
00:38:33,120 --> 00:38:35,700
Speaker 2: on to in order to have a chance. But this

733
00:38:35,719 --> 00:38:37,379
Speaker 2: will not go towards the sort of four to five

734
00:38:37,420 --> 00:38:41,120
Speaker 2: seats they need in order to flip. Before we close,

735
00:38:41,160 --> 00:38:42,299
Speaker 2: I do want to just mention a few of the

736
00:38:42,340 --> 00:38:45,610
Speaker 2: sort of underlying factors that could be influencing this election.

737
00:38:46,230 --> 00:38:49,029
Speaker 2: One of the big ones just is Trump and how

738
00:38:49,070 --> 00:38:51,930
Speaker 2: much everyone hates him. He has a 36% approval rating.

739
00:38:53,570 --> 00:38:58,180
Speaker 2: which is the lowest pre-midterm approval rating in 50 years. Yeah,

740
00:38:58,219 --> 00:39:02,180
Speaker 2: that makes sense. Not good. Not great for the Republicans.

741
00:39:02,500 --> 00:39:04,920
Speaker 2: Not what you'd want, yeah. Not what you would want.

742
00:39:05,040 --> 00:39:07,460
Speaker 2: And remember when I was talking about the enthusiasm gap

743
00:39:07,620 --> 00:39:11,709
Speaker 2: that the Fox poll was showing? The latest KFF health

744
00:39:11,750 --> 00:39:15,250
Speaker 2: tracking poll, it's from the organization formerly known as Kaiser

745
00:39:15,270 --> 00:39:20,030
Speaker 2: Family Foundation. They found a very large enthusiasm gap between

746
00:39:20,090 --> 00:39:24,060
Speaker 2: parties in their last poll with Democratic voters... Much more

747
00:39:24,100 --> 00:39:26,660
Speaker 2: likely than Republican voters to say they're, quote, more motivated

748
00:39:26,780 --> 00:39:32,120
Speaker 2: to vote this year. Way more than usual. It's 63%

749
00:39:32,120 --> 00:39:37,339
Speaker 2: to 38%. That's a huge gap. The cost of healthcare

750
00:39:37,570 --> 00:39:43,270
Speaker 2: and gas tie as voters' top affordability worries. A quarter

751
00:39:43,469 --> 00:39:45,950
Speaker 2: of respondents said that they are very worried about affording

752
00:39:46,130 --> 00:39:51,069
Speaker 2: each ahead of food, utilities, and housing. So 25% said

753
00:39:51,110 --> 00:39:54,450
Speaker 2: they were very worried about affording health care. 25% said

754
00:39:54,690 --> 00:39:58,270
Speaker 2: they're very worried about affording gas. So that's the tie.

755
00:39:58,690 --> 00:40:03,700
Speaker 2: It's 50% of the concern. It's those two. The Democratic

756
00:40:03,719 --> 00:40:06,259
Speaker 2: Party has a clear edge over the Republican Party on

757
00:40:06,400 --> 00:40:09,200
Speaker 2: who voters trust to handle many top issues in the election,

758
00:40:09,280 --> 00:40:13,239
Speaker 2: including cost of health care. 42% of respondents trust the

759
00:40:13,260 --> 00:40:16,770
Speaker 2: Democrats more on these issues. For cost of living, 39%

760
00:40:16,770 --> 00:40:23,799
Speaker 2: of respondents trust Democrats more, going to 25% for the Republicans.

761
00:40:24,380 --> 00:40:26,950
Speaker 2: And the cost of living was the top issue for

762
00:40:27,030 --> 00:40:31,570
Speaker 2: both Democrat and independent voters, while Republican voters wanted candidates

763
00:40:31,610 --> 00:40:36,090
Speaker 2: to discuss, quote, fraud. That's the big issue for Republicans

764
00:40:36,150 --> 00:40:38,450
Speaker 2: right now. This is, you know, J.D. Vance's task force,

765
00:40:38,489 --> 00:40:41,250
Speaker 2: the post kind of doge thing, is they're really obsessed

766
00:40:41,270 --> 00:40:44,870
Speaker 2: with this idea of fraud, and not really the type

767
00:40:44,930 --> 00:40:48,250
Speaker 2: of fraud that Robert or I would talk about. You know,

768
00:40:48,430 --> 00:40:52,239
Speaker 2: I think Everyone's pretty familiar with how much we're all

769
00:40:52,260 --> 00:40:56,040
Speaker 2: being ripped off all the time. Scam culture is huge.

770
00:40:56,080 --> 00:41:00,640
Speaker 2: Corporate fraud. The only culture. It's everything, right? And that's

771
00:41:00,700 --> 00:41:03,960
Speaker 2: not what Republicans are interested in. They are wanting to

772
00:41:04,040 --> 00:41:06,540
Speaker 2: kick people off public benefits, right? That's the type of

773
00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:10,259
Speaker 2: fraud that they are mostly interested in. To close, the

774
00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:13,920
Speaker 2: most interesting part about this KFF poll, though, is the

775
00:41:13,960 --> 00:41:18,459
Speaker 2: numbers around Medicare for all. Quote, two thirds of the public, 66%,

776
00:41:18,460 --> 00:41:21,900
Speaker 2: said they favor Medicare for All, the highest share KFF

777
00:41:21,960 --> 00:41:26,870
Speaker 2: has recorded since it began polling the idea in 2016. And,

778
00:41:27,230 --> 00:41:31,810
Speaker 2: this is the really crazy part, quote, about half, 52%,

779
00:41:31,810 --> 00:41:34,730
Speaker 2: said they would favor Medicare for All if it eliminated

780
00:41:35,050 --> 00:41:39,719
Speaker 2: private health insurance companies, while 47% oppose. That is a

781
00:41:39,800 --> 00:41:44,020
Speaker 2: huge change from like five years ago. This has been

782
00:41:44,040 --> 00:41:46,840
Speaker 2: the biggest kind of protest against Medicare for All is

783
00:41:46,860 --> 00:41:48,839
Speaker 2: the idea that it would take away your private health care.

784
00:41:49,260 --> 00:41:52,580
Speaker 2: When respondents get told this in polling, historically, we've seen

785
00:41:52,620 --> 00:41:55,460
Speaker 2: support for Medicare for All take a big dip. This

786
00:41:55,520 --> 00:41:58,640
Speaker 2: is the first time a majority of respondents have said

787
00:41:58,660 --> 00:42:01,839
Speaker 2: they would still support Medicare for All if it took

788
00:42:01,890 --> 00:42:05,140
Speaker 2: away private health care. To quote KFF, quote, This marks

789
00:42:05,200 --> 00:42:08,279
Speaker 2: a departure from when KFF last asked this question in

790
00:42:08,360 --> 00:42:11,900
Speaker 2: October 2020, when the prospect of eliminating private health insurance

791
00:42:11,940 --> 00:42:14,750
Speaker 2: companies led to lower support for Medicare for All at

792
00:42:14,770 --> 00:42:18,509
Speaker 2: just 37%. So this is a huge thing. And I

793
00:42:19,610 --> 00:42:21,730
Speaker 2: would be remiss to mention, you know, most of these

794
00:42:21,870 --> 00:42:25,480
Speaker 2: candidates we're talking about in the Senate, the Democratic ones,

795
00:42:25,520 --> 00:42:29,690
Speaker 2: you know, Troy Jackson, Angie Nixon, Abdul, Al-Said, they are

796
00:42:29,989 --> 00:42:32,989
Speaker 2: running on Medicare for all. This has become a big

797
00:42:33,050 --> 00:42:36,550
Speaker 2: resurgent topic, this election. The cost of healthcare is a

798
00:42:36,570 --> 00:42:39,430
Speaker 2: big topic in these midterms. And rather than doing this

799
00:42:39,450 --> 00:42:44,430
Speaker 2: sort of Pete Buttigieg style, Medicare for all who want it,

800
00:42:44,489 --> 00:42:47,450
Speaker 2: you know, just kind of vaguely talking about having a

801
00:42:47,570 --> 00:42:51,020
Speaker 2: public option, right? These candidates are being a bit more

802
00:42:51,080 --> 00:42:54,819
Speaker 2: strict about Medicare for all as like an actual policy

803
00:42:54,900 --> 00:42:59,180
Speaker 2: and as a policy guarantee. I think Abdul's policy has

804
00:42:59,239 --> 00:43:02,980
Speaker 2: some slight differences where it does not completely eliminate private

805
00:43:03,040 --> 00:43:05,680
Speaker 2: health care, but it says that private health care should

806
00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:09,410
Speaker 2: become redundant and still has a focus on a universal

807
00:43:09,530 --> 00:43:12,569
Speaker 2: single payer system, which is much closer to the Bernie

808
00:43:12,610 --> 00:43:16,009
Speaker 2: Sanders version than the sort of like half-assed versions that

809
00:43:16,030 --> 00:43:19,840
Speaker 2: we've seen from other progressive candidates, you know, running for

810
00:43:19,880 --> 00:43:23,089
Speaker 2: president like six years ago. So something that, you know,

811
00:43:23,730 --> 00:43:25,410
Speaker 2: maybe two or three years ago, I felt like is

812
00:43:25,450 --> 00:43:27,650
Speaker 2: kind of like a political, you know, bygone. This is

813
00:43:27,690 --> 00:43:30,410
Speaker 2: focused on like Medicare for all is definitely coming back

814
00:43:30,760 --> 00:43:33,920
Speaker 2: in a big way. And people are not nearly as

815
00:43:33,940 --> 00:43:36,300
Speaker 2: scared of the prospect of them not having private insurance

816
00:43:37,219 --> 00:43:41,700
Speaker 2: because private insurance sucks. Yeah, it's gotten even worse. Like

817
00:43:41,780 --> 00:43:45,739
Speaker 2: we're what, like two years after the Mangione assassination, things

818
00:43:45,800 --> 00:43:48,200
Speaker 2: still suck. Everyone still hates health care companies.

819
00:43:48,640 --> 00:43:48,819
Speaker 6: Yeah.

820
00:43:49,420 --> 00:43:52,290
Speaker 2: Only hate them more as time goes on. So, yeah,

821
00:43:52,330 --> 00:43:55,210
Speaker 2: that is the kind of rough overview of the issues

822
00:43:55,250 --> 00:43:59,190
Speaker 2: affecting the midterms and where the polling stands now just

823
00:43:59,390 --> 00:44:02,930
Speaker 2: a few weeks away from November. I want to say third.

824
00:44:03,130 --> 00:44:04,710
Speaker 2: Let's see if I'm right. I am right.

825
00:44:04,830 --> 00:44:05,069
Speaker 7: Boom.

826
00:44:05,469 --> 00:44:07,910
Speaker 2: We'll probably do a few more polling updates on executive

827
00:44:07,930 --> 00:44:11,640
Speaker 2: disorder as we get closer to to Election Day. Absolutely.

828
00:44:12,160 --> 00:44:14,200
Speaker 2: But yeah, that's that's all for me here. Yeah.

829
00:44:14,910 --> 00:44:17,799
Speaker 3: Remember, guys, do what the IRGC would want you to do.

830
00:44:18,540 --> 00:44:21,940
Speaker 3: Register to vote. We're not telling you to vote.

831
00:44:21,960 --> 00:44:25,089
Speaker 2: The IRGC is. No, the Iranian government is. We're not.

832
00:44:30,080 --> 00:44:30,600
Speaker 2: Good stuff.

833
00:44:41,830 --> 00:44:44,049
Speaker 9: Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast where the

834
00:44:44,150 --> 00:44:47,310
Speaker 9: here is France and the it is it.

835
00:44:47,950 --> 00:44:49,470
Speaker 2: I am your host, Mia Wong.

836
00:44:50,130 --> 00:44:53,330
Speaker 9: And today we are going to be talking about the

837
00:44:53,770 --> 00:44:57,370
Speaker 9: enormous and incredibly militant student protests in France.

838
00:44:57,530 --> 00:45:00,680
Speaker 2: And with me to talk about this is Faiza, who

839
00:45:00,739 --> 00:45:04,259
Speaker 2: is a political analyst and feminist theorist in France. And Faiza,

840
00:45:04,320 --> 00:45:05,100
Speaker 2: welcome to the show.

841
00:45:05,120 --> 00:45:07,040
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me, Mia.

842
00:45:07,140 --> 00:45:11,310
Speaker 2: Hello, everybody. Yeah, I'm really excited to talk with you

843
00:45:11,350 --> 00:45:16,220
Speaker 2: about this because there has been so much unbelievably wild

844
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:20,580
Speaker 2: stuff happening both good and bad and like oh my.

845
00:45:20,440 --> 00:45:25,339
Speaker 4: God it's like hundreds of thousands of people in the

846
00:45:25,380 --> 00:45:36,850
Speaker 4: streets most of whom are like 15 16 like oh my.

847
00:45:33,790 --> 00:45:37,509
Speaker 1: God it is so exciting to watch I mean, I've

848
00:45:37,750 --> 00:45:41,299
Speaker 1: wanted to see such an uprising for so long. And

849
00:45:41,380 --> 00:45:44,820
Speaker 1: it's finally starting to happen.

850
00:45:45,239 --> 00:45:45,919
Speaker 12: Yeah.

851
00:45:46,500 --> 00:45:49,100
Speaker 1: It was a slow build up this past couple of years.

852
00:45:49,640 --> 00:45:53,440
Speaker 1: But I feel like something is maybe happening. And not

853
00:45:53,480 --> 00:45:58,489
Speaker 1: just in France. Like the whole Gen Z worldwide is

854
00:45:58,690 --> 00:46:05,210
Speaker 1: really tired of this shit. And is hitting the streets.

855
00:46:05,270 --> 00:46:07,350
Speaker 1: And I love it. And I'm here for it.

856
00:46:07,790 --> 00:46:08,450
Speaker 2: It's amazing.

857
00:46:08,469 --> 00:46:09,220
Speaker 5: It is.

858
00:46:09,360 --> 00:46:11,939
Speaker 9: And yeah, we're going to be getting more into every

859
00:46:12,100 --> 00:46:13,480
Speaker 9: other country that's also.

860
00:46:13,239 --> 00:46:16,399
Speaker 2: Going on right now because it's, you know, it's like.

861
00:46:16,860 --> 00:46:18,840
Speaker 9: It's like India and Spain and Chile.

862
00:46:18,880 --> 00:46:21,280
Speaker 2: We've seen a whole bunch of other countries in the past.

863
00:46:21,620 --> 00:46:22,520
Speaker 1: Yes, we have.

864
00:46:22,580 --> 00:46:25,340
Speaker 2: Six months go up. But I guess I want to

865
00:46:25,540 --> 00:46:30,299
Speaker 2: start with going a bit in to sort of the

866
00:46:30,380 --> 00:46:33,480
Speaker 2: background of this and going into what, what the political

867
00:46:33,520 --> 00:46:37,580
Speaker 2: situation has been in France that's sort of been leading

868
00:46:37,640 --> 00:46:39,799
Speaker 2: up to this and what kinds of conditions have been

869
00:46:39,820 --> 00:46:41,480
Speaker 2: sort of producing this?

870
00:46:42,440 --> 00:46:49,650
Speaker 1: Well, have you heard of neoliberalism? No, like seriously, like that.

871
00:46:49,950 --> 00:46:50,270
Speaker 5: Yeah.

872
00:46:50,350 --> 00:46:54,710
Speaker 1: I mean, well, we've had Macron, which is our very

873
00:46:54,750 --> 00:46:58,750
Speaker 1: dear president. No, I'm kidding. We fucking hate the guy.

874
00:47:00,190 --> 00:47:02,700
Speaker 1: The guy is rotten to his very core. So, yeah,

875
00:47:03,460 --> 00:47:05,299
Speaker 1: he's been president for almost 10 years now.

876
00:47:05,780 --> 00:47:06,549
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ.

877
00:47:07,300 --> 00:47:07,590
Speaker 1: Yeah.

878
00:47:09,150 --> 00:47:09,430
Speaker 6: Yeah.

879
00:47:10,210 --> 00:47:14,969
Speaker 1: And the utter and complete destruction of anything public, like

880
00:47:15,030 --> 00:47:19,280
Speaker 1: public education, public health and everything, didn't start with him.

881
00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:25,180
Speaker 1: But let's just say that he put the final nail

882
00:47:25,840 --> 00:47:31,029
Speaker 1: on the proverbial coffin. And he's been like dismantling public

883
00:47:31,090 --> 00:47:35,399
Speaker 1: education ever since he arrived in And took his job

884
00:47:35,420 --> 00:47:40,970
Speaker 1: as president. And if you want an analogy or something

885
00:47:40,989 --> 00:47:44,030
Speaker 1: in comparison with what's happening in the U.S. with respect

886
00:47:44,050 --> 00:47:49,320
Speaker 1: to your public education. Well, when I saw, like, 10

887
00:47:49,320 --> 00:47:54,339
Speaker 1: years ago, Betsy DeVos arrived as the Secretary of Education. Yeah. Well,

888
00:47:54,380 --> 00:48:01,540
Speaker 1: you remember her? She basically destroyed anything public education-wise. Like

889
00:48:01,760 --> 00:48:06,000
Speaker 1: she wanted to funnel all the money to private schools

890
00:48:06,060 --> 00:48:09,950
Speaker 1: and charter schools. And that's basically what has been happening

891
00:48:09,969 --> 00:48:13,910
Speaker 1: in France too, like in these past 10 years. All

892
00:48:13,989 --> 00:48:18,890
Speaker 1: the money has been funneled in public. More or less

893
00:48:19,610 --> 00:48:23,529
Speaker 1: legal ways to private schools. Yes, I see more or

894
00:48:23,550 --> 00:48:26,110
Speaker 1: less legal ways because there are a lot of loopholes.

895
00:48:27,489 --> 00:48:35,080
Speaker 1: And Macron and his government are experts at using those loopholes. Basically,

896
00:48:35,440 --> 00:48:37,739
Speaker 1: they can look at you in the eye and tell

897
00:48:37,780 --> 00:48:40,719
Speaker 1: you that what they're doing is legal, technically.

898
00:48:40,739 --> 00:48:41,899
Speaker 8: Yeah.

899
00:48:42,480 --> 00:48:45,560
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. And they will say that

900
00:48:45,580 --> 00:48:50,330
Speaker 1: to your face while... destroying everything you hold near and

901
00:48:50,350 --> 00:48:55,090
Speaker 1: dear at the same time. So these past 10 years,

902
00:48:55,110 --> 00:49:02,420
Speaker 1: the money allocated to education has decreased. The number of

903
00:49:02,440 --> 00:49:07,120
Speaker 1: teachers has tremendously decreased, like dramatically decreased.

904
00:49:07,260 --> 00:49:07,720
Speaker 2: Jesus.

905
00:49:08,320 --> 00:49:13,779
Speaker 1: The number of students by class has increased. The way

906
00:49:14,050 --> 00:49:18,080
Speaker 1: this project started is, well, A school year in France

907
00:49:18,100 --> 00:49:23,960
Speaker 1: started in September. It's basically from September to June, July. And, well,

908
00:49:24,760 --> 00:49:30,220
Speaker 1: in the poorest areas of France, high schoolers arrived in

909
00:49:30,239 --> 00:49:34,870
Speaker 1: their high schools and found basically not enough desks, not

910
00:49:34,910 --> 00:49:41,550
Speaker 1: enough chairs, no teachers, holes everywhere. In the roof, water

911
00:49:41,630 --> 00:49:43,190
Speaker 1: leaking in the classrooms.

912
00:49:44,050 --> 00:49:44,570
Speaker 4: Yeah.

913
00:49:45,390 --> 00:49:47,689
Speaker 1: No AC, like that goes without saying, like we don't

914
00:49:47,730 --> 00:49:52,200
Speaker 1: have AC, like this is not the standard thing in France.

915
00:49:52,239 --> 00:49:56,280
Speaker 1: So you could have like a hundred degrees Fahrenheit in,

916
00:49:56,880 --> 00:49:59,779
Speaker 1: you know, and with no AC, like people, like high

917
00:49:59,800 --> 00:50:03,160
Speaker 1: schoolers were cooking in their schools during the winter.

918
00:50:03,239 --> 00:50:03,390
Speaker 7: Yeah.

919
00:50:06,620 --> 00:50:09,880
Speaker 1: Some of these schools, the poorest schools, also don't have heat.

920
00:50:10,780 --> 00:50:12,040
Speaker 2: Oh, Jesus. Yeah.

921
00:50:12,100 --> 00:50:13,980
Speaker 1: So it's freezing.

922
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:14,500
Speaker 2: Oh, exactly.

923
00:50:14,520 --> 00:50:16,660
Speaker 1: I'll let you imagine how you can, how can you...

924
00:50:17,600 --> 00:50:21,489
Speaker 1: learn anything in school while freezing by, I don't know,

925
00:50:21,489 --> 00:50:23,410
Speaker 1: 50 degrees in your school.

926
00:50:23,469 --> 00:50:26,390
Speaker 2: Yeah. Like, you know, like, I remember thinking back to

927
00:50:26,410 --> 00:50:29,730
Speaker 2: my high school, and it's like, well, like, we occasionally

928
00:50:29,750 --> 00:50:32,740
Speaker 2: had drowned rafts falling out of the ceiling, but, like,

929
00:50:32,840 --> 00:50:34,839
Speaker 2: at least we had heat in the winter. Like, we

930
00:50:34,900 --> 00:50:36,100
Speaker 2: would have all died.

931
00:50:36,120 --> 00:50:38,779
Speaker 1: Even if the heat is out of the window, like,

932
00:50:40,300 --> 00:50:43,790
Speaker 1: there's nothing left in some high schools. Like, really nothing.

933
00:50:44,290 --> 00:50:46,890
Speaker 1: And The egregious thing is that you can have a

934
00:50:46,930 --> 00:50:52,500
Speaker 1: very poor area with the poorest high schoolers, with the

935
00:50:52,520 --> 00:50:56,900
Speaker 1: most destroyed high school you can see. And in the

936
00:50:56,940 --> 00:51:03,840
Speaker 1: town nearby, you will find the best high schools with

937
00:51:03,930 --> 00:51:09,049
Speaker 1: the richest population, like, For instance, in Paris, like you

938
00:51:09,090 --> 00:51:13,919
Speaker 1: have Paris, the capital, and you have Parisian suburbs. Some

939
00:51:14,020 --> 00:51:17,440
Speaker 1: are extremely rich and some are basically the poorest ones

940
00:51:18,219 --> 00:51:22,799
Speaker 1: in the whole country. So what has happened is that

941
00:51:23,020 --> 00:51:27,160
Speaker 1: we don't have states. We basically have regions and departments

942
00:51:27,180 --> 00:51:29,839
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, like the way France is cut.

943
00:51:30,980 --> 00:51:34,700
Speaker 1: The map is cut like that. And so the president of,

944
00:51:35,300 --> 00:51:38,489
Speaker 1: it's called the Île-de-France. Basically, Paris is part of a region.

945
00:51:39,160 --> 00:51:43,410
Speaker 1: The president of this region is a right-winger, pretty much

946
00:51:43,510 --> 00:51:48,970
Speaker 1: far right, but officially she's only right-winger. And her specialty

947
00:51:49,010 --> 00:51:53,570
Speaker 1: is to funnel money, public money, to private schools, private

948
00:51:53,590 --> 00:51:54,430
Speaker 1: Catholic schools.

949
00:51:55,210 --> 00:51:55,990
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ.

950
00:51:56,670 --> 00:51:58,310
Speaker 1: Of course.

951
00:51:58,330 --> 00:51:59,290
Speaker 2: Many, many such cases.

952
00:51:59,410 --> 00:52:04,910
Speaker 1: I know, right? Amazing. You see the similarities with Betsy DeVos?

953
00:52:05,030 --> 00:52:06,530
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.

954
00:52:06,690 --> 00:52:10,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's basically, those two women are the same picture.

955
00:52:10,940 --> 00:52:13,640
Speaker 1: Let's just say it like that. So that president has

956
00:52:13,680 --> 00:52:16,920
Speaker 1: been putting a lot of public money in private schools

957
00:52:17,360 --> 00:52:20,900
Speaker 1: in Paris and in the Paris suburb. Rich ones. But

958
00:52:21,400 --> 00:52:22,719
Speaker 1: where is she taking that money?

959
00:52:22,980 --> 00:52:23,280
Speaker 8: Yeah.

960
00:52:23,320 --> 00:52:23,400
Speaker 3: Yeah.

961
00:52:24,100 --> 00:52:29,219
Speaker 1: Well, instead of distributing this money equally across the whole

962
00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:34,150
Speaker 1: territory that she's leading, she's only distributing that money to

963
00:52:34,170 --> 00:52:38,910
Speaker 1: private schools, Catholic schools, and schools that are in the

964
00:52:38,950 --> 00:52:41,280
Speaker 1: richest suburbs and in the richest area.

965
00:52:41,520 --> 00:52:42,140
Speaker 2: That makes sense.

966
00:52:42,580 --> 00:52:46,259
Speaker 1: So that's how you find yourself when you're poor, when

967
00:52:46,280 --> 00:52:48,720
Speaker 1: you're a poor kid. growing up in a poor suburb

968
00:52:49,010 --> 00:52:51,670
Speaker 1: that's how you find yourself going in a high school

969
00:52:52,150 --> 00:52:55,670
Speaker 1: that has holes basically everywhere that doesn't have enough teachers

970
00:52:55,969 --> 00:52:59,770
Speaker 1: that doesn't have enough desks enough chairs that is lacking

971
00:52:59,830 --> 00:53:03,910
Speaker 1: basically everything that has rats running in in the hallways

972
00:53:04,030 --> 00:53:09,359
Speaker 1: and yeah yeah so came last september like a month

973
00:53:09,420 --> 00:53:15,930
Speaker 1: ago high schoolers went back to they found their school

974
00:53:16,330 --> 00:53:19,710
Speaker 1: being just as bad as it was just before when

975
00:53:19,730 --> 00:53:23,529
Speaker 1: they went for the summer holidays and stuff like that.

976
00:53:23,610 --> 00:53:27,180
Speaker 1: And so they came back and they found no teacher.

977
00:53:28,100 --> 00:53:34,200
Speaker 1: They found no desk, no chair, no nothing. And yeah,

978
00:53:34,320 --> 00:53:37,040
Speaker 1: they were mad and they were right. And so they

979
00:53:37,140 --> 00:53:44,650
Speaker 1: started to protest to ask for teachers, money for... desks

980
00:53:44,810 --> 00:53:48,569
Speaker 1: for chairs I mean it's the most basic things like

981
00:53:48,590 --> 00:53:52,299
Speaker 1: they're not asking for they're not asking for the the

982
00:53:52,340 --> 00:53:55,500
Speaker 1: latest uh I don't know iPhone or iPad or whatever

983
00:53:55,520 --> 00:53:58,580
Speaker 1: you know whatever the fuck no no they're asking for

984
00:53:58,600 --> 00:54:02,240
Speaker 1: like the most basic necessities.

985
00:54:02,040 --> 00:54:05,259
Speaker 2: Yeah like we're asking for to be a school like

986
00:54:05,360 --> 00:54:09,620
Speaker 2: exactly desk plus teacher is like the most basic school

987
00:54:10,450 --> 00:54:12,230
Speaker 2: like what what are we doing.

988
00:54:12,070 --> 00:54:16,439
Speaker 1: Here And they're asking for a chance at life.

989
00:54:16,760 --> 00:54:17,240
Speaker 2: Yeah.

990
00:54:17,260 --> 00:54:19,380
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Like, we have a system.

991
00:54:19,960 --> 00:54:21,920
Speaker 1: It's a system that has been in place since 2018.

992
00:54:21,920 --> 00:54:28,090
Speaker 1: It started, so, under Macron, again. And it's a very,

993
00:54:28,510 --> 00:54:32,279
Speaker 1: very opaque system. It's a system that is designed... It's

994
00:54:32,340 --> 00:54:36,870
Speaker 1: an algorithm, basically, that is designed to... Think for you

995
00:54:38,670 --> 00:54:41,210
Speaker 1: what you're going to do next. Basically, when you're in

996
00:54:41,390 --> 00:54:44,049
Speaker 1: 10th grade, so I was telling you that before we

997
00:54:44,090 --> 00:54:48,080
Speaker 1: started taping, but high school in France only has three

998
00:54:48,120 --> 00:54:52,000
Speaker 1: years in it, like 10th to 12th grade. So when

999
00:54:52,040 --> 00:54:56,060
Speaker 1: you get in 10th grade, you have to choose in

1000
00:54:56,120 --> 00:54:59,030
Speaker 1: 10th grade what you're going to do in college or university.

1001
00:54:59,910 --> 00:55:00,970
Speaker 2: Which is ridiculous.

1002
00:55:01,150 --> 00:55:02,490
Speaker 1: It is utterly ridiculous.

1003
00:55:02,510 --> 00:55:03,190
Speaker 2: Like, granted.

1004
00:55:03,310 --> 00:55:03,670
Speaker 4: Awful.

1005
00:55:03,969 --> 00:55:10,410
Speaker 1: Why? You're... You're 15. You're 15. And people are asking

1006
00:55:10,410 --> 00:55:14,529
Speaker 1: 15 years old to pick with high accuracy what they're

1007
00:55:14,550 --> 00:55:17,229
Speaker 1: going to do as adults for the rest of their lives.

1008
00:55:17,370 --> 00:55:21,750
Speaker 1: That is stressful. The level of stress these kids are

1009
00:55:21,810 --> 00:55:24,670
Speaker 1: facing is humongous. Ridiculous. Yeah.

1010
00:55:25,270 --> 00:55:26,050
Speaker 2: It is ridiculous.

1011
00:55:26,510 --> 00:55:32,580
Speaker 1: And the level of attempted suicide among high schoolers. has

1012
00:55:32,820 --> 00:55:37,529
Speaker 1: increased in a way that you cannot comprehend. Like, the

1013
00:55:37,590 --> 00:55:44,589
Speaker 1: numbers are terrifying. Also, that algorithm is a very racist one.

1014
00:55:45,350 --> 00:55:46,609
Speaker 1: It's a very classist one.

1015
00:55:47,070 --> 00:55:47,850
Speaker 9: Yeah. Yeah.

1016
00:55:47,890 --> 00:55:51,330
Speaker 1: It basically is a black box. Like people, we, the public,

1017
00:55:51,370 --> 00:55:54,420
Speaker 1: we don't know what's in the algorithm. Like we do

1018
00:55:54,440 --> 00:55:57,279
Speaker 1: not have access to it. The only thing that we

1019
00:55:57,360 --> 00:56:01,000
Speaker 1: know is the result. And the result is poor kids

1020
00:56:01,400 --> 00:56:08,090
Speaker 1: coming from poor areas have basically zero chance at getting

1021
00:56:08,120 --> 00:56:13,149
Speaker 1: access to a proper university or a university at all.

1022
00:56:13,670 --> 00:56:14,010
Speaker 8: Yeah.

1023
00:56:14,230 --> 00:56:19,759
Speaker 1: Like you could end in a queue, but like the

1024
00:56:19,760 --> 00:56:25,960
Speaker 1: 5,000 kids in a queue to access a public university.

1025
00:56:26,180 --> 00:56:29,720
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about private schools. I'm talking about public schools.

1026
00:56:29,940 --> 00:56:30,300
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1027
00:56:30,880 --> 00:56:35,370
Speaker 1: It's something that is deeply unfair. It's a system of,

1028
00:56:35,930 --> 00:56:39,029
Speaker 1: that when I was in high school didn't exist. When

1029
00:56:39,050 --> 00:56:41,520
Speaker 1: I was in high school, like it was 20, 25

1030
00:56:41,520 --> 00:56:44,860
Speaker 1: years ago, I'm old. But yeah, when I was in

1031
00:56:44,940 --> 00:56:46,779
Speaker 1: high school, basically the only thing you had to do,

1032
00:56:47,020 --> 00:56:49,380
Speaker 1: you had an exam at the end of high school.

1033
00:56:49,920 --> 00:56:53,390
Speaker 1: And if you pass that exam, you could go to university.

1034
00:56:54,010 --> 00:56:56,589
Speaker 1: And that was it. And then the only thing that

1035
00:56:56,670 --> 00:57:00,630
Speaker 1: matters is was your grades in university. That's it.

1036
00:57:00,890 --> 00:57:02,969
Speaker 2: Which is also still like a stressful system, but it's like,

1037
00:57:03,010 --> 00:57:04,310
Speaker 2: we've made it worse.

1038
00:57:06,469 --> 00:57:13,030
Speaker 1: Exactly. It was a stressful system, but it made some sense.

1039
00:57:13,250 --> 00:57:14,430
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.

1040
00:57:14,450 --> 00:57:15,850
Speaker 9: There's a one-to-one correlation.

1041
00:57:16,090 --> 00:57:20,290
Speaker 1: Exactly. There was some logic behind it. The logic now

1042
00:57:20,570 --> 00:57:24,750
Speaker 1: is cruelty. It is violence. It is class violence. It

1043
00:57:24,830 --> 00:57:33,980
Speaker 1: is race violence. It is ableism, obviously, also. And kids, well,

1044
00:57:34,000 --> 00:57:36,000
Speaker 1: they arrive in high school and they already know that

1045
00:57:36,060 --> 00:57:42,480
Speaker 1: their life is screwed. That's what's happening. And the government,

1046
00:57:42,500 --> 00:57:46,950
Speaker 1: the state, doesn't give a fuck. Which is basically why

1047
00:57:46,970 --> 00:57:50,130
Speaker 1: you're seeing the footage you've been seeing for the last weeks.

1048
00:57:50,750 --> 00:57:53,310
Speaker 1: This is why the cops have been beating the shit

1049
00:57:53,370 --> 00:57:55,980
Speaker 1: out of high schoolers. because they don't give a fuck

1050
00:57:56,020 --> 00:57:59,820
Speaker 1: yeah and also they know that they don't have a

1051
00:57:59,880 --> 00:58:01,000
Speaker 1: choice what they're going to.

1052
00:58:01,000 --> 00:58:04,200
Speaker 9: Do yeah it reminds me so much of the protest

1053
00:58:04,220 --> 00:58:06,439
Speaker 9: in india where it's like yeah you're facing the same

1054
00:58:06,500 --> 00:58:08,780
Speaker 9: thing of like this i guess is one of the

1055
00:58:08,900 --> 00:58:11,020
Speaker 9: one of the things of neoliberalism was like on the

1056
00:58:11,140 --> 00:58:15,180
Speaker 9: one hand education was supposed to be like your ticket

1057
00:58:15,340 --> 00:58:16,990
Speaker 9: out right it was supposed to be like if you

1058
00:58:17,640 --> 00:58:19,730
Speaker 9: you know, like meritocratic, if you were like good enough,

1059
00:58:19,770 --> 00:58:22,490
Speaker 9: you could get into a like elite university and that

1060
00:58:22,510 --> 00:58:25,590
Speaker 9: was your like ticket out of poverty. And then simultaneously,

1061
00:58:25,630 --> 00:58:28,710
Speaker 9: we're going to make that impossible. And yeah, I mean,

1062
00:58:28,730 --> 00:58:31,550
Speaker 9: just like thinking about like, yeah, like this, the stories

1063
00:58:31,590 --> 00:58:35,550
Speaker 9: of these kids were forced into this like unbelievably intense,

1064
00:58:36,370 --> 00:58:41,130
Speaker 9: like competitive pressure and are just getting screwed out of

1065
00:58:41,170 --> 00:58:45,010
Speaker 9: the ability to fight their way out of the poverty

1066
00:58:45,050 --> 00:58:46,710
Speaker 9: that they've been born into and just.

1067
00:58:46,570 --> 00:58:49,980
Speaker 2: Being like, fuck this. If they're going to rig the system,

1068
00:58:50,000 --> 00:58:51,700
Speaker 2: we're like, the only thing we can go do is

1069
00:58:51,740 --> 00:58:52,180
Speaker 2: fight them.

1070
00:58:52,420 --> 00:58:56,180
Speaker 1: Exactly. And, you know, you were talking about like meritocracy,

1071
00:58:56,560 --> 00:58:58,920
Speaker 1: like I'm putting it in between quotes for people who

1072
00:58:58,940 --> 00:58:59,520
Speaker 1: can see me.

1073
00:58:59,940 --> 00:59:02,230
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I mean, it was, that, that term was

1074
00:59:02,290 --> 00:59:07,190
Speaker 2: originally a joke. It was originally a joke. It was

1075
00:59:07,230 --> 00:59:08,330
Speaker 2: invented as a joke.

1076
00:59:08,790 --> 00:59:11,240
Speaker 9: Like, and it's, it's the same thing with like the

1077
00:59:11,280 --> 00:59:14,040
Speaker 9: like pulling yourself up by your bootstraps the whole point

1078
00:59:14,080 --> 00:59:15,820
Speaker 9: of that is that you can't it was a joke

1079
00:59:16,160 --> 00:59:17,990
Speaker 9: but no we've like we decided this is a thing

1080
00:59:18,010 --> 00:59:21,290
Speaker 9: that exists in the world even though it doesn't god

1081
00:59:22,170 --> 00:59:25,050
Speaker 9: uh makes me insane all the time you can not.

1082
00:59:25,300 --> 00:59:28,580
Speaker 1: Create a parody out of this reality. Like the, it's

1083
00:59:29,140 --> 00:59:33,610
Speaker 1: the level of like a comedy of dramedy is, is

1084
00:59:34,030 --> 00:59:34,590
Speaker 1: got here.

1085
00:59:34,730 --> 00:59:35,210
Speaker 10: Yeah.

1086
00:59:36,010 --> 00:59:40,130
Speaker 1: I mean, talking about that, like a few days ago, um,

1087
00:59:41,050 --> 00:59:45,090
Speaker 1: we on my stream were watching a clip from the news.

1088
00:59:45,150 --> 00:59:48,840
Speaker 1: I don't remember which news outlet it was, but they

1089
00:59:48,860 --> 00:59:52,140
Speaker 1: were basically talking about a high school, a very famous one, uh,

1090
00:59:52,640 --> 00:59:55,860
Speaker 1: which is called Henri Quatre, Henry the fourth. And this

1091
00:59:55,950 --> 00:59:59,070
Speaker 1: high school is inside of Paris and it is well

1092
00:59:59,110 --> 01:00:02,330
Speaker 1: known for being like a very bourgeois high school. Like

1093
01:00:02,780 --> 01:00:07,720
Speaker 1: this is like basically as bourgeois as you can do,

1094
01:00:08,880 --> 01:00:11,110
Speaker 1: as you can get. Yeah, it's a rich kid one.

1095
01:00:11,930 --> 01:00:14,790
Speaker 1: The anchor, the news anchor, introduced this high school by

1096
01:00:14,830 --> 01:00:20,010
Speaker 1: telling that it was basically poster child for meritocracy. And

1097
01:00:20,130 --> 01:00:25,120
Speaker 1: I choked. I choked on my saliva. I was like, no, no,

1098
01:00:25,540 --> 01:00:29,760
Speaker 1: you mean it's bourgeoisie. You used a word instead of

1099
01:00:29,780 --> 01:00:34,360
Speaker 1: another word. That's not meritocracy. That's bourgeoisie. But basically, that's

1100
01:00:34,390 --> 01:00:36,430
Speaker 1: the same thing. And thank you for saying it out loud.

1101
01:00:36,510 --> 01:00:37,510
Speaker 1: I was like, thank you.

1102
01:00:38,110 --> 01:00:38,490
Speaker 5: Yeah.

1103
01:00:38,830 --> 01:00:41,090
Speaker 9: And it's so funny because it's like it is in

1104
01:00:41,140 --> 01:00:44,160
Speaker 9: the original sense, which is that it was a joke

1105
01:00:44,220 --> 01:00:46,520
Speaker 9: about how it was just rich kids who got into college.

1106
01:00:46,840 --> 01:00:48,920
Speaker 9: But like it's not in the sense you're trying to

1107
01:00:49,070 --> 01:00:49,510
Speaker 9: use it.

1108
01:00:49,610 --> 01:00:50,570
Speaker 2: Like, come on.

1109
01:00:50,610 --> 01:00:53,790
Speaker 1: Yeah, neoliberalism saw the joke and was like, yeah, you

1110
01:00:53,810 --> 01:00:56,150
Speaker 1: know what I can do about it? I can rip

1111
01:00:56,210 --> 01:00:58,280
Speaker 1: the joke out of it. And I can just keep

1112
01:00:58,320 --> 01:01:01,420
Speaker 1: the word and make it something real. How about it?

1113
01:01:01,480 --> 01:01:01,620
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1114
01:01:01,680 --> 01:01:04,380
Speaker 9: It's like, what if all of the metaphors became literal now?

1115
01:01:05,040 --> 01:01:06,860
Speaker 9: And that's like the world that we live in.

1116
01:01:07,060 --> 01:01:07,600
Speaker 2: Exactly.

1117
01:01:07,620 --> 01:01:11,760
Speaker 1: That's the fucking world we live in. Absolutely. The kids

1118
01:01:11,920 --> 01:01:14,940
Speaker 1: have no prospects. I mean, they don't have any in

1119
01:01:14,960 --> 01:01:19,520
Speaker 1: the US. Like Gen Z won't be able to buy

1120
01:01:19,540 --> 01:01:22,700
Speaker 1: a house. That's the same thing in France. Like that's

1121
01:01:22,720 --> 01:01:25,280
Speaker 1: the same thing in Spain. That's the same thing in Chile.

1122
01:01:25,320 --> 01:01:30,130
Speaker 1: That's the same thing in every country. capitalist capitalistic based

1123
01:01:30,170 --> 01:01:34,690
Speaker 1: society basically so yeah what we're seeing worldwide what we

1124
01:01:34,730 --> 01:01:38,730
Speaker 1: were seeing in france right now is the product of

1125
01:01:39,170 --> 01:01:41,430
Speaker 1: what you're seeing in the u.s it's product of what

1126
01:01:41,450 --> 01:01:46,350
Speaker 1: you're seeing in spain it's yeah the neoliberal order it's

1127
01:01:46,490 --> 01:01:51,280
Speaker 1: white supremacy and of course i mean to be honest

1128
01:01:51,360 --> 01:01:55,320
Speaker 1: it's the least surprising thing ever like It's basically one

1129
01:01:55,340 --> 01:01:58,450
Speaker 1: plus one equals two. That's what we're seeing. It's a

1130
01:01:58,490 --> 01:02:03,050
Speaker 1: logical product of our society. So yeah, the kids are mad.

1131
01:02:03,390 --> 01:02:05,610
Speaker 1: They have the right to be, and I'm fully supportive.

1132
01:02:05,970 --> 01:02:06,790
Speaker 9: Like, really.

1133
01:02:07,010 --> 01:02:07,190
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1134
01:02:08,170 --> 01:02:11,390
Speaker 9: So we're going to take an ad break because, yeah,

1135
01:02:11,430 --> 01:02:15,940
Speaker 9: we too are subject to the horrifying violence and whimsy

1136
01:02:16,200 --> 01:02:18,340
Speaker 9: of neoliberal capitalism.

1137
01:02:18,740 --> 01:02:19,200
Speaker 1: I hear you.

1138
01:02:19,220 --> 01:02:20,000
Speaker 14: I hear you.

1139
01:02:30,710 --> 01:02:36,040
Speaker 9: And we are back. So let's talk about what the

1140
01:02:36,100 --> 01:02:37,860
Speaker 9: students have been up to.

1141
01:02:37,880 --> 01:02:40,760
Speaker 1: You mean on the streets or do you mean on

1142
01:02:41,500 --> 01:02:42,440
Speaker 1: social media?

1143
01:02:42,460 --> 01:02:46,150
Speaker 9: Yeah, let's get into, I guess, the streets first. What

1144
01:02:46,210 --> 01:02:48,690
Speaker 9: have the students been doing? What kinds of tactics have

1145
01:02:48,710 --> 01:02:49,470
Speaker 9: they been using?

1146
01:02:49,490 --> 01:02:53,570
Speaker 1: So they've been using blockades, a lot of them. Which

1147
01:02:53,620 --> 01:02:57,410
Speaker 1: is basically a French tradition. We're very good at that.

1148
01:02:57,470 --> 01:03:00,830
Speaker 1: Like whenever there's a protest, especially high school protests and

1149
01:03:00,890 --> 01:03:05,950
Speaker 1: student protests, we build blockades. So we go for a disruption.

1150
01:03:06,450 --> 01:03:10,690
Speaker 1: So the purpose is to disrupt high schools, is to

1151
01:03:10,710 --> 01:03:18,830
Speaker 1: disrupt universities, and to push the adults, basically. to listen

1152
01:03:18,850 --> 01:03:22,450
Speaker 1: to the kids and what they want. So that's what

1153
01:03:22,510 --> 01:03:29,910
Speaker 1: has been happening, except that our dear government basically says, fuck,

1154
01:03:30,390 --> 01:03:35,950
Speaker 1: we don't care, and sent the fuzz. So the cops

1155
01:03:36,030 --> 01:03:40,950
Speaker 1: have been answering to the protest by mutilating kids.

1156
01:03:40,970 --> 01:03:41,090
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1157
01:03:41,950 --> 01:03:46,910
Speaker 1: And mutilating adults, basically. That's been this government's response to

1158
01:03:47,070 --> 01:03:52,530
Speaker 1: any protest since 2017, since Macron arrived in the Élysée,

1159
01:03:52,550 --> 01:03:57,970
Speaker 1: which is our White House, basically. So this time around,

1160
01:03:58,330 --> 01:04:02,410
Speaker 1: even news anchors have been taken aback by the violence

1161
01:04:03,250 --> 01:04:04,190
Speaker 1: coming from the cops.

1162
01:04:04,990 --> 01:04:09,570
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's like actual children. It is.

1163
01:04:10,170 --> 01:04:13,960
Speaker 1: It's children... But on the other side, you have an

1164
01:04:14,020 --> 01:04:20,300
Speaker 1: authoritarian regime. Yeah. And what is evidently behaving as a

1165
01:04:20,320 --> 01:04:23,070
Speaker 1: police state. I mean, come on.

1166
01:04:24,470 --> 01:04:27,210
Speaker 2: Yeah, like you're blowing kids' hands off.

1167
01:04:28,910 --> 01:04:32,370
Speaker 1: You know who they've been getting their inspiration from?

1168
01:04:32,390 --> 01:04:33,930
Speaker 2: The US?

1169
01:04:34,730 --> 01:04:34,890
Speaker 10: ICE.

1170
01:04:35,590 --> 01:04:36,250
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1171
01:04:36,410 --> 01:04:36,770
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1172
01:04:37,030 --> 01:04:37,490
Speaker 8: Yeah.

1173
01:04:38,300 --> 01:04:42,040
Speaker 1: Our government, when they saw ICE, when they saw... how,

1174
01:04:42,400 --> 01:04:48,980
Speaker 1: quote unquote, effective ICE is at handling the public and

1175
01:04:49,000 --> 01:04:49,840
Speaker 1: handling protests.

1176
01:04:50,300 --> 01:04:50,680
Speaker 8: Yeah.

1177
01:04:51,110 --> 01:04:53,910
Speaker 1: They didn't even hide that it was their wood dreams.

1178
01:04:54,630 --> 01:04:59,610
Speaker 1: What we're seeing is the logical evolution of policing in

1179
01:04:59,650 --> 01:05:01,270
Speaker 1: a neoliberal society.

1180
01:05:01,370 --> 01:05:01,690
Speaker 8: Yeah.

1181
01:05:02,010 --> 01:05:04,880
Speaker 1: Like the kids are asking for the most basic stuff

1182
01:05:05,320 --> 01:05:09,250
Speaker 1: and the most basic stuff could lead to a semblance

1183
01:05:09,450 --> 01:05:15,010
Speaker 1: of equality. And they cannot have that. So let's just

1184
01:05:15,070 --> 01:05:18,010
Speaker 1: send the cops. Let's just bit the shit out of

1185
01:05:18,070 --> 01:05:23,320
Speaker 1: the kids and terrorize the fuck out of adults. And

1186
01:05:23,360 --> 01:05:28,320
Speaker 1: let's teach everybody, the whole population, what protest looks like.

1187
01:05:28,720 --> 01:05:33,740
Speaker 1: It looks like blood. It looks like amputation. It looks

1188
01:05:33,780 --> 01:05:36,840
Speaker 1: like losing an eye. The purpose is very clear. It's

1189
01:05:36,860 --> 01:05:40,030
Speaker 1: to put the fear of God in the population. Once

1190
01:05:40,110 --> 01:05:44,550
Speaker 1: the population is scared shitless, the said population will stop

1191
01:05:44,590 --> 01:05:46,930
Speaker 1: protesting and start complaining. Yeah.

1192
01:05:47,330 --> 01:05:52,070
Speaker 2: Which, I will say, the kind of upside of drawing

1193
01:05:52,390 --> 01:05:55,660
Speaker 2: from the American ICE anti-protest model is that that didn't work.

1194
01:05:56,300 --> 01:05:58,660
Speaker 2: Doing that stuff in the US just pissed everyone off,

1195
01:05:58,740 --> 01:06:00,520
Speaker 2: and it was only when they stopped doing that kind

1196
01:06:00,540 --> 01:06:04,710
Speaker 2: of confrontation and, like, move to this like quiet ethnic

1197
01:06:04,750 --> 01:06:07,880
Speaker 2: cleansing model i guess where they didn't do comfort mass

1198
01:06:07,890 --> 01:06:12,360
Speaker 2: confrontation that like everything kind of i don't know that

1199
01:06:12,380 --> 01:06:14,600
Speaker 2: they were like really effectively able to carry out the

1200
01:06:14,640 --> 01:06:17,910
Speaker 2: ethnic cleansing which is bleak in its own right but

1201
01:06:17,950 --> 01:06:20,610
Speaker 2: like it did it did backfire on them like sort

1202
01:06:20,650 --> 01:06:21,890
Speaker 2: of spectacularly yeah.

1203
01:06:22,490 --> 01:06:25,790
Speaker 1: But it was a polite ethnic cleansing like What is

1204
01:06:25,830 --> 01:06:29,390
Speaker 1: scaring me, and it's not surprising, but it's still scary

1205
01:06:29,430 --> 01:06:32,400
Speaker 1: as fuck, is that you can do the most violent

1206
01:06:32,480 --> 01:06:36,450
Speaker 1: things with a polite tone and people just.

1207
01:06:36,890 --> 01:06:38,150
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.

1208
01:06:38,560 --> 01:06:41,240
Speaker 1: Stop look at it and just keep living their lives

1209
01:06:41,550 --> 01:06:44,210
Speaker 1: as long as it's polite as long as it doesn't

1210
01:06:44,230 --> 01:06:46,130
Speaker 1: make a lot of noise as long as it's not

1211
01:06:46,150 --> 01:06:51,170
Speaker 1: disruptive yeah and our government really understands that but yours also.

1212
01:06:50,950 --> 01:06:53,930
Speaker 9: Does sort of i feel like they're they're kind of

1213
01:06:53,990 --> 01:06:58,180
Speaker 9: like like our government's like because our entire government is

1214
01:06:58,240 --> 01:07:02,220
Speaker 9: like designed to produce content it took them a while

1215
01:07:02,240 --> 01:07:03,720
Speaker 9: to figure out that this is the way that you

1216
01:07:03,740 --> 01:07:06,180
Speaker 9: should actually do it because their initial instinct was just

1217
01:07:06,200 --> 01:07:09,820
Speaker 9: to like do these giant confrontations to produce content out of,

1218
01:07:09,860 --> 01:07:13,300
Speaker 9: and then eventually they realize, like, if you just do

1219
01:07:13,360 --> 01:07:15,600
Speaker 9: it quietly, then you can actually do the thing.

1220
01:07:15,620 --> 01:07:15,690
Speaker 10: But.

1221
01:07:16,580 --> 01:07:20,180
Speaker 1: Yeah, because if you do it quietly, then you get

1222
01:07:20,240 --> 01:07:23,330
Speaker 1: the liberals behind you. Because liberals, at the end of

1223
01:07:23,350 --> 01:07:26,730
Speaker 1: the day... They're not disruptive. Like, they want to keep

1224
01:07:26,770 --> 01:07:27,650
Speaker 1: on living their lives.

1225
01:07:27,790 --> 01:07:28,150
Speaker 8: Yeah.

1226
01:07:28,330 --> 01:07:31,140
Speaker 1: They want to keep on, like, being able to consume.

1227
01:07:31,180 --> 01:07:34,500
Speaker 1: They want to be able to go to the movies

1228
01:07:34,620 --> 01:07:41,300
Speaker 1: and go on vacation. And, like, they need that kind

1229
01:07:41,320 --> 01:07:45,320
Speaker 1: of scope. They need that sense of normalcy to keep

1230
01:07:45,380 --> 01:07:48,400
Speaker 1: on going and protest, like, disrupt that sense of normalcy.

1231
01:07:48,660 --> 01:07:48,780
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1232
01:07:48,800 --> 01:07:53,700
Speaker 1: So once you get back to a semblance of normalcy, you...

1233
01:07:53,810 --> 01:07:57,030
Speaker 1: Get liberals on your side, basically. Or at least you

1234
01:07:57,050 --> 01:08:01,010
Speaker 1: stop having liberals against you. Yeah. And yeah, that's what

1235
01:08:01,050 --> 01:08:04,640
Speaker 1: has been happening in the US. That's how our government

1236
01:08:04,700 --> 01:08:09,180
Speaker 1: has been rolling for the past almost 10 years now.

1237
01:08:10,340 --> 01:08:12,660
Speaker 1: What has been happening, though, with this protest is that

1238
01:08:12,760 --> 01:08:16,620
Speaker 1: liberals have been watching their own kids being beaten up.

1239
01:08:16,920 --> 01:08:17,270
Speaker 8: Yeah.

1240
01:08:17,400 --> 01:08:22,050
Speaker 1: They've been watching their own kids losing eyes, like being arrested.

1241
01:08:22,070 --> 01:08:22,150
Speaker 9: Yeah.

1242
01:08:23,050 --> 01:08:26,040
Speaker 1: Put up in jail and stuff like that. And that

1243
01:08:26,120 --> 01:08:30,400
Speaker 1: is way too disruptive. This doesn't fly. So they're going

1244
01:08:30,439 --> 01:08:34,040
Speaker 1: to find another way to do things. I mean, I

1245
01:08:34,100 --> 01:08:36,200
Speaker 1: know how they're going to do stuff. They're just going

1246
01:08:36,240 --> 01:08:40,470
Speaker 1: to point their fingers at black and brown folks and

1247
01:08:40,870 --> 01:08:44,559
Speaker 1: say that these kids are the bad ones. And they

1248
01:08:44,600 --> 01:08:49,430
Speaker 1: deserve everything that's happening to them and that they are

1249
01:08:49,729 --> 01:08:52,670
Speaker 1: like manipulating the good white kids and stuff like that,

1250
01:08:52,810 --> 01:08:57,439
Speaker 1: like through social media, through So what our government also

1251
01:08:57,470 --> 01:09:01,769
Speaker 1: has been doing these past almost 10 years is vilifying

1252
01:09:02,430 --> 01:09:06,650
Speaker 1: anything remotely left-wing. Like, I don't know if you know

1253
01:09:06,670 --> 01:09:07,530
Speaker 1: Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

1254
01:09:07,810 --> 01:09:12,100
Speaker 9: Yeah, he's the kind of... The media used to describe

1255
01:09:12,110 --> 01:09:17,940
Speaker 9: him as like Francis Birdie, but he's like, Actually.

1256
01:09:18,160 --> 01:09:21,150
Speaker 1: That's not so far-fetched. I would say that he's not

1257
01:09:21,370 --> 01:09:23,929
Speaker 1: as left-leaning as Bernie.

1258
01:09:24,350 --> 01:09:24,790
Speaker 5: Yeah.

1259
01:09:25,250 --> 01:09:27,670
Speaker 9: It's very funny because, like, when you read about him

1260
01:09:27,689 --> 01:09:30,410
Speaker 9: in the press, he gets described as, like, the hard

1261
01:09:30,510 --> 01:09:31,030
Speaker 9: left guy.

1262
01:09:31,060 --> 01:09:33,019
Speaker 2: And he's like, no, he's not. This guy's, like, to

1263
01:09:33,040 --> 01:09:35,080
Speaker 2: the right of, like, the PCF, who were, like.

1264
01:09:35,360 --> 01:09:40,939
Speaker 1: Oh, no, no. His political party, France Unabashed, La France Insoumise,

1265
01:09:41,300 --> 01:09:47,070
Speaker 1: has been categorized as far-left. It's social democracy.

1266
01:09:47,090 --> 01:09:50,470
Speaker 2: Social democracy, yeah. It's like, what are we doing here?

1267
01:09:50,490 --> 01:09:53,300
Speaker 2: They're not revolutionary at all.

1268
01:09:53,340 --> 01:09:54,759
Speaker 1: They're not anti-capitalist.

1269
01:09:54,780 --> 01:09:59,139
Speaker 2: They're trying to save capitalism from you. And you're like, no,

1270
01:09:59,180 --> 01:10:00,660
Speaker 2: you're communist. It's like, no.

1271
01:10:00,700 --> 01:10:06,960
Speaker 1: No, they're not even socialist. They're not a less harmful capitalism.

1272
01:10:06,979 --> 01:10:13,030
Speaker 1: It's really social democracy. It's Bernie core democracy. basically. But

1273
01:10:13,610 --> 01:10:16,439
Speaker 1: they might be a little bit more radical than Bernie

1274
01:10:16,900 --> 01:10:20,200
Speaker 1: here and there. Bernie can be more radical in some stances,

1275
01:10:20,640 --> 01:10:23,680
Speaker 1: but you know, none of them, neither Bernie nor Mélenchon

1276
01:10:23,820 --> 01:10:27,460
Speaker 1: are far, far left. Like they're not, they're just not.

1277
01:10:27,800 --> 01:10:32,820
Speaker 1: But when you have such reactionary politics in power, anything

1278
01:10:32,880 --> 01:10:38,070
Speaker 1: remotely left-leaning seems far left. So This is how they've

1279
01:10:38,090 --> 01:10:41,370
Speaker 1: been presenting our opposition. And so coming back to what

1280
01:10:41,390 --> 01:10:44,850
Speaker 1: I was telling you, they are linking the protest to

1281
01:10:45,210 --> 01:10:48,990
Speaker 1: the France Unabashed Party, saying that it was created.

1282
01:10:49,010 --> 01:10:49,770
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1283
01:10:50,189 --> 01:10:54,680
Speaker 1: It originated from France Unabashed and that this political party

1284
01:10:55,120 --> 01:11:00,240
Speaker 1: is instrumentalizing the protest and is basically, it's a big puppeteer.

1285
01:11:02,550 --> 01:11:05,110
Speaker 9: The youth yeah this is like exactly the same shit

1286
01:11:05,130 --> 01:11:07,470
Speaker 9: they did in india except for india there was like

1287
01:11:07,510 --> 01:11:10,490
Speaker 9: i guess well actually i i don't know if if

1288
01:11:10,530 --> 01:11:13,070
Speaker 9: the french government has pulled the islamist card yet but

1289
01:11:13,170 --> 01:11:15,450
Speaker 9: like that was the other one oh it already has

1290
01:11:15,470 --> 01:11:17,820
Speaker 9: yeah yeah they're all the same like.

1291
01:11:18,350 --> 01:11:26,580
Speaker 1: Scott islamophobia transphobia those two things are at the very

1292
01:11:26,620 --> 01:11:32,300
Speaker 1: core of our reactionary figures political figures and as they

1293
01:11:32,520 --> 01:11:37,060
Speaker 1: are as yours and and my like this is white

1294
01:11:37,100 --> 01:11:42,009
Speaker 1: supremacy basically like they're defending what they see as whiteness

1295
01:11:42,990 --> 01:11:48,089
Speaker 1: and white femininity and islam to them is a danger

1296
01:11:48,130 --> 01:11:52,130
Speaker 1: to white women and so is the existence of trans

1297
01:11:52,210 --> 01:11:59,560
Speaker 1: folks so yeah yeah they're coming they're trying left-leaning to

1298
01:12:00,580 --> 01:12:07,580
Speaker 1: trans folks islam uh hamas obviously of course and yeah

1299
01:12:07,600 --> 01:12:09,820
Speaker 1: the muslim brotherhood jesus.

1300
01:12:09,600 --> 01:12:11,860
Speaker 9: Christ at least well okay i'm not gonna say at

1301
01:12:11,960 --> 01:12:15,640
Speaker 9: least but like that that was the the one thing

1302
01:12:15,700 --> 01:12:17,850
Speaker 9: in the u.s to be at least kind of moved

1303
01:12:17,930 --> 01:12:22,599
Speaker 9: past was like we at least kind of stopped accusing

1304
01:12:22,660 --> 01:12:25,019
Speaker 9: everything of being the Muslim Brotherhood because a bunch of

1305
01:12:25,050 --> 01:12:26,510
Speaker 9: people started taking money from the UAE.

1306
01:12:27,150 --> 01:12:29,809
Speaker 2: And then it was like, okay, we're going to quiet

1307
01:12:29,830 --> 01:12:30,540
Speaker 2: it down a little bit.

1308
01:12:30,550 --> 01:12:33,750
Speaker 1: It's the same thing in France. The UAE have a

1309
01:12:33,790 --> 01:12:37,950
Speaker 1: lot of financial interest in France. But they're the good ones.

1310
01:12:38,170 --> 01:12:39,840
Speaker 2: But they still do the loss of brotherhood.

1311
01:12:39,910 --> 01:12:42,180
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they're the good Muslims because, you know, they

1312
01:12:42,200 --> 01:12:46,000
Speaker 1: invest a lot of money. Yeah, yeah. So that's okay.

1313
01:12:46,020 --> 01:12:48,220
Speaker 1: We can do business with them. So if we want

1314
01:12:48,240 --> 01:12:51,300
Speaker 1: to do business with them, we have to be able

1315
01:12:51,320 --> 01:12:54,590
Speaker 1: to say that they're the good ones. So the good ones.

1316
01:12:55,460 --> 01:12:55,920
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1317
01:12:56,280 --> 01:12:57,280
Speaker 1: Algeria.

1318
01:12:57,300 --> 01:12:57,520
Speaker 6: Yeah.

1319
01:12:57,760 --> 01:13:02,960
Speaker 1: Palestine and other Muslim countries. Not so much. Not so much.

1320
01:13:02,979 --> 01:13:05,760
Speaker 9: I feel like we kind of moved from like, it

1321
01:13:05,820 --> 01:13:07,640
Speaker 9: used to be everything was the Muslim Brotherhood and then

1322
01:13:07,660 --> 01:13:11,640
Speaker 9: that changed into everything is Hamas. But it's like, at

1323
01:13:12,090 --> 01:13:15,809
Speaker 9: least we moved from one to the other. But it's like, no, no,

1324
01:13:15,830 --> 01:13:18,920
Speaker 9: we're still doing the Muslim Brotherhood thing. God damn it.

1325
01:13:18,930 --> 01:13:22,470
Speaker 1: Islamophobia is so... Raw.

1326
01:13:22,600 --> 01:13:23,689
Speaker 2: Like, so raw.

1327
01:13:24,110 --> 01:13:27,630
Speaker 1: They don't even think about, like, are they Shiite? Are

1328
01:13:27,670 --> 01:13:29,590
Speaker 1: they Sunni? Are they, like... No.

1329
01:13:29,689 --> 01:13:29,889
Speaker 8: No.

1330
01:13:30,130 --> 01:13:31,590
Speaker 1: Not at all. No, that's like.

1331
01:13:31,710 --> 01:13:33,299
Speaker 2: They're just Muslim.

1332
01:13:34,280 --> 01:13:38,219
Speaker 1: The problem is Islam. The problem is brown and black people. Yeah.

1333
01:13:38,380 --> 01:13:42,540
Speaker 1: And the problem is the left... which is defending Hamas,

1334
01:13:42,580 --> 01:13:46,840
Speaker 1: which is defending the Muslim Brotherhood, which is defending trans folks.

1335
01:13:47,420 --> 01:13:51,170
Speaker 1: When you look at the arguments, that's basically what they're saying.

1336
01:13:53,110 --> 01:13:55,330
Speaker 1: And I'm not even exaggerating. I wish I were, but

1337
01:13:55,370 --> 01:14:00,710
Speaker 1: I'm not. And it's like, they're not even trying. It's

1338
01:14:00,770 --> 01:14:04,150
Speaker 1: so obvious. But it's the same argument that has been

1339
01:14:04,290 --> 01:14:10,300
Speaker 1: fed to the population through our media platforms. for years now.

1340
01:14:10,460 --> 01:14:13,970
Speaker 1: So yeah, people like just eat it up.

1341
01:14:14,590 --> 01:14:14,940
Speaker 8: Yeah.

1342
01:14:15,070 --> 01:14:17,490
Speaker 9: And I guess that leads into this question of like,

1343
01:14:17,930 --> 01:14:22,370
Speaker 9: how has the rest of French society been reacting to this?

1344
01:14:22,590 --> 01:14:25,110
Speaker 9: Have other sort of like movements been mobilizing?

1345
01:14:25,130 --> 01:14:26,690
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1346
01:14:27,479 --> 01:14:32,060
Speaker 1: Well, I was going to say apathy, which is kind

1347
01:14:32,100 --> 01:14:35,580
Speaker 1: of true. If you look at people on the center

1348
01:14:36,200 --> 01:14:39,920
Speaker 1: and on the right, it's apathy. It is, They just

1349
01:14:39,960 --> 01:14:43,020
Speaker 1: want to be able to wear their heads in the

1350
01:14:43,080 --> 01:14:46,979
Speaker 1: sand and keep on going, just like doing business as usual.

1351
01:14:47,780 --> 01:14:52,059
Speaker 1: Left-leaning people, some of them are scared. Some of them

1352
01:14:52,120 --> 01:14:55,910
Speaker 1: are in disbelief. Like they want to believe that if

1353
01:14:55,970 --> 01:14:59,729
Speaker 1: things were as bad as Gen Z is saying it is,

1354
01:15:00,450 --> 01:15:03,730
Speaker 1: they would have somehow managed to see it.

1355
01:15:03,729 --> 01:15:05,769
Speaker 15: Yeah.

1356
01:15:06,830 --> 01:15:10,220
Speaker 1: The majority of people still believe that the media are

1357
01:15:10,240 --> 01:15:13,940
Speaker 1: a honest actor, which they are not. They haven't been

1358
01:15:13,979 --> 01:15:18,100
Speaker 1: for years. And as long as, basically, as long as

1359
01:15:18,140 --> 01:15:23,510
Speaker 1: people keep believing what the media, like mainstream media, traditional

1360
01:15:23,550 --> 01:15:27,750
Speaker 1: media feeds them, then they're not going to be able

1361
01:15:27,790 --> 01:15:28,970
Speaker 1: to see the problem.

1362
01:15:29,010 --> 01:15:29,190
Speaker 9: Yeah.

1363
01:15:30,189 --> 01:15:32,270
Speaker 1: And it's the same thing in the US. I mean,

1364
01:15:32,979 --> 01:15:36,360
Speaker 1: if people keep watching CNN and MSNBC and stuff like that,

1365
01:15:36,840 --> 01:15:41,180
Speaker 1: how can they possibly know how bad things are on

1366
01:15:41,200 --> 01:15:48,550
Speaker 1: the ground? They cannot. They cannot. So that's where we are.

1367
01:15:49,450 --> 01:15:52,469
Speaker 1: And it's scary, but it's the truth.

1368
01:15:53,030 --> 01:15:58,750
Speaker 9: There's this quote from the sociologist Raul Zebechi about how Basically,

1369
01:15:59,030 --> 01:16:00,910
Speaker 9: one of the things that social movements do is like

1370
01:16:00,990 --> 01:16:03,870
Speaker 9: in these moments of rupture, they act like bolts of

1371
01:16:03,930 --> 01:16:07,710
Speaker 9: lightning across the sky, like illuminating the darkness. And that's

1372
01:16:08,250 --> 01:16:11,729
Speaker 9: what social movements do to the actual fundamental nature of reality.

1373
01:16:11,750 --> 01:16:14,910
Speaker 9: They reveal the structures of like power and domination in

1374
01:16:14,950 --> 01:16:18,429
Speaker 9: the world that are otherwise hidden by the sort of darkness.

1375
01:16:18,470 --> 01:16:20,940
Speaker 9: And that's what you're trying. But part of what you're

1376
01:16:20,979 --> 01:16:24,380
Speaker 9: trying to do with these protests is to like make

1377
01:16:24,439 --> 01:16:28,160
Speaker 9: the actual function of society visible. clear for a moment

1378
01:16:28,280 --> 01:16:31,400
Speaker 9: where i don't know if there is a more clear

1379
01:16:31,439 --> 01:16:35,019
Speaker 9: expression of what neoliberalism is than we took all the

1380
01:16:35,060 --> 01:16:37,240
Speaker 9: money from the schools and gave it to the cops.

1381
01:16:37,680 --> 01:16:41,230
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah a lot of signs during the protest like

1382
01:16:41,530 --> 01:16:46,250
Speaker 1: down the streets explicitly say that yeah like the kids

1383
01:16:46,350 --> 01:16:50,189
Speaker 1: know where the money is yeah it is funneled to

1384
01:16:50,210 --> 01:16:53,850
Speaker 1: the very rich through state subsidies and stuff like that

1385
01:16:53,880 --> 01:16:57,070
Speaker 1: and it is funneled to the cops and to the

1386
01:16:57,150 --> 01:17:01,510
Speaker 1: military complex, defense complex, and contractors and stuff like that.

1387
01:17:01,630 --> 01:17:04,150
Speaker 1: They know where it's going. So they know there is money.

1388
01:17:05,100 --> 01:17:07,800
Speaker 1: Even when our presidents say that there is no money

1389
01:17:07,840 --> 01:17:11,990
Speaker 1: left for anything. Like, no, there's always money for the rich, somehow.

1390
01:17:12,790 --> 01:17:13,269
Speaker 12: Go figure.

1391
01:17:13,290 --> 01:17:13,950
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.

1392
01:17:13,970 --> 01:17:16,190
Speaker 2: There's always money for the police, too.

1393
01:17:16,830 --> 01:17:19,430
Speaker 1: Exactly, there's always more money for the police, there's always

1394
01:17:19,490 --> 01:17:23,030
Speaker 1: more budget for the military, there's always more budget for

1395
01:17:23,060 --> 01:17:27,840
Speaker 1: the cops, there's always less budget for hospitals, there's always

1396
01:17:27,979 --> 01:17:30,639
Speaker 1: less budget for teachers and schools and stuff like that. So,

1397
01:17:31,420 --> 01:17:34,880
Speaker 1: people are not stupid. So they kind of, like, can

1398
01:17:34,900 --> 01:17:39,480
Speaker 1: put two and two together. But, People knowing what's happening

1399
01:17:39,520 --> 01:17:42,860
Speaker 1: and people acting on what they know, that's two entirely

1400
01:17:43,300 --> 01:17:43,760
Speaker 1: different things.

1401
01:17:44,160 --> 01:17:44,559
Speaker 7: Yeah.

1402
01:17:44,760 --> 01:17:49,479
Speaker 1: And that's where the issue is, is what people know,

1403
01:17:49,880 --> 01:17:54,370
Speaker 1: people feel the problem like every end of the month

1404
01:17:55,010 --> 01:17:57,550
Speaker 1: when they realize that they don't have any money left

1405
01:17:57,610 --> 01:18:02,250
Speaker 1: in the bank for food and for anything. Yeah. But

1406
01:18:02,930 --> 01:18:06,490
Speaker 1: they don't act on it. Like, it feels impossible to

1407
01:18:06,530 --> 01:18:11,729
Speaker 1: get out of this way of life for the majority

1408
01:18:11,770 --> 01:18:12,170
Speaker 1: of people.

1409
01:18:12,670 --> 01:18:12,810
Speaker 16: Yeah.

1410
01:18:14,390 --> 01:18:17,839
Speaker 1: Call that the liberal mindset also? Like, do you know

1411
01:18:17,850 --> 01:18:20,300
Speaker 1: Thought Slime? Like, do you know the YouTuber Thought Slime?

1412
01:18:20,580 --> 01:18:21,720
Speaker 2: Vaguely familiar.

1413
01:18:23,260 --> 01:18:27,640
Speaker 1: They made a wonderful video about the way liberals think

1414
01:18:27,680 --> 01:18:32,780
Speaker 1: inside of a box and how even the most revolutionary

1415
01:18:33,060 --> 01:18:38,900
Speaker 1: thoughts are still imprisoned within that scope of thought for liberals.

1416
01:18:38,979 --> 01:18:43,930
Speaker 1: Like that scope of thought basically is what makes Bernie

1417
01:18:43,930 --> 01:18:46,450
Speaker 1: or Mélenchon far left to them.

1418
01:18:46,450 --> 01:18:46,860
Speaker 13: Yeah.

1419
01:18:47,420 --> 01:18:52,180
Speaker 1: Because it is so out of their deep possibilities to

1420
01:18:52,220 --> 01:18:56,300
Speaker 1: them that it feels revolutionary, even though it is absolutely

1421
01:18:56,360 --> 01:18:57,220
Speaker 1: not revolutionary.

1422
01:18:57,320 --> 01:18:57,639
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1423
01:18:58,040 --> 01:19:02,550
Speaker 1: And that's why people stay in that apathetic state. Like,

1424
01:19:02,770 --> 01:19:07,230
Speaker 1: it feels impossible to them to ask for the most

1425
01:19:07,250 --> 01:19:12,000
Speaker 1: basic stuff. And that's what keeps... people in that loop

1426
01:19:12,080 --> 01:19:16,140
Speaker 1: of work, waking up, going to work, going back home,

1427
01:19:16,200 --> 01:19:19,360
Speaker 1: wondering how you're going to pay the bills, going to

1428
01:19:19,400 --> 01:19:22,979
Speaker 1: sleep and going back to work the next morning. So

1429
01:19:24,020 --> 01:19:26,700
Speaker 1: I don't think that people don't know what the issue is.

1430
01:19:27,450 --> 01:19:30,189
Speaker 1: But I think the issue is that people feel like

1431
01:19:30,229 --> 01:19:33,090
Speaker 1: they have no leverage on their own lives and on

1432
01:19:33,130 --> 01:19:38,450
Speaker 1: their own governments. And if we stay in a liberal mindset,

1433
01:19:38,570 --> 01:19:41,390
Speaker 1: I think they're right. Which is why we have to

1434
01:19:41,430 --> 01:19:43,850
Speaker 1: get out of that liberal mindset. Which is how we

1435
01:19:43,890 --> 01:19:50,330
Speaker 1: have to throw away the liberal playbook. Because if we

1436
01:19:50,390 --> 01:19:53,189
Speaker 1: keep on playing by those rules, we're fucked.

1437
01:19:53,970 --> 01:20:00,019
Speaker 9: Yeah, you either get more Macron or you get the inheritors.

1438
01:20:00,180 --> 01:20:03,160
Speaker 9: You either get the indirect inheritors of the SS or

1439
01:20:03,180 --> 01:20:04,640
Speaker 9: you get the direct inheritors of the SS.

1440
01:20:06,120 --> 01:20:09,360
Speaker 1: Exactly, exactly. And they're all defending the same thing. They're

1441
01:20:09,380 --> 01:20:14,260
Speaker 1: defending capitalism. Yeah. They're defending the very rich. And we

1442
01:20:14,300 --> 01:20:18,019
Speaker 1: already know who the very rich are. We saw that

1443
01:20:18,060 --> 01:20:21,980
Speaker 1: about 100 years ago. So we know who they're rolling for.

1444
01:20:22,620 --> 01:20:23,920
Speaker 1: They're rolling for fascism.

1445
01:20:23,939 --> 01:20:25,660
Speaker 13: Yeah.

1446
01:20:26,010 --> 01:20:28,390
Speaker 1: That's all there is. So as long as we keep

1447
01:20:28,810 --> 01:20:32,510
Speaker 1: trying to adapt and keep on trying to save liberalism,

1448
01:20:33,689 --> 01:20:37,450
Speaker 1: We're not going to save us, ourselves. Like, we're not

1449
01:20:37,470 --> 01:20:41,030
Speaker 1: going to save the population. We're just going to save capitalism.

1450
01:20:41,950 --> 01:20:55,260
Speaker 1: It drives me crazy.

1451
01:20:55,300 --> 01:21:01,080
Speaker 9: Speaking of doing things, of, like, finding alternatives to saving liberalism, like,

1452
01:21:01,100 --> 01:21:06,030
Speaker 9: this is all happening... At the same time as the

1453
01:21:06,090 --> 01:21:09,139
Speaker 9: giant sort of mass movement in Spain has kicked off.

1454
01:21:09,300 --> 01:21:09,610
Speaker 2: Yes.

1455
01:21:10,520 --> 01:21:14,560
Speaker 9: Which is about, for people unfamiliar, I guess the short

1456
01:21:14,600 --> 01:21:19,740
Speaker 9: and incredibly bleak version is that basically Spanish authorities evicted a.

1457
01:21:19,840 --> 01:21:22,259
Speaker 2: I think it was like an 80, 90-year-old woman.

1458
01:21:22,280 --> 01:21:24,900
Speaker 1: She was 87, I think. Yeah.

1459
01:21:24,960 --> 01:21:25,679
Speaker 2: Yeah, 87.

1460
01:21:25,680 --> 01:21:29,120
Speaker 9: And she fucking died because of it. And this has

1461
01:21:29,160 --> 01:21:33,240
Speaker 9: set off a massive, massive, series of protests I think

1462
01:21:33,260 --> 01:21:35,520
Speaker 9: they put like a couple days ago so we're recording

1463
01:21:35,560 --> 01:21:38,320
Speaker 9: this on like Friday October 9th I think like I

1464
01:21:38,340 --> 01:21:40,430
Speaker 9: think on like the 8th they put a hundred thousand

1465
01:21:40,470 --> 01:21:44,410
Speaker 9: people like in the streets of Barcelona over this there's

1466
01:21:44,450 --> 01:21:47,340
Speaker 9: been a you know they've been reoccupying some of like

1467
01:21:47,420 --> 01:21:50,980
Speaker 9: the core sort of places where Like the year the

1468
01:21:50,979 --> 01:21:53,670
Speaker 9: 2011 protests were born and like that sort of the thing,

1469
01:21:53,689 --> 01:21:55,870
Speaker 9: the thing that became Occupy, like the movement of the squares.

1470
01:21:56,270 --> 01:21:59,310
Speaker 1: There still is a massive protest in Madrid. And yeah,

1471
01:21:59,410 --> 01:21:59,630
Speaker 1: it is.

1472
01:21:59,790 --> 01:22:00,310
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1473
01:22:00,870 --> 01:22:04,010
Speaker 1: It is beautiful to see the solidarity around that woman

1474
01:22:04,870 --> 01:22:09,690
Speaker 1: and around her situation, how she's been evicted from the

1475
01:22:09,710 --> 01:22:12,830
Speaker 1: place she was living for over seven decades.

1476
01:22:14,350 --> 01:22:15,230
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1477
01:22:15,510 --> 01:22:18,349
Speaker 1: It resonated with so many people.

1478
01:22:20,610 --> 01:22:23,519
Speaker 9: I mean, it's social murder, but it's like normally social

1479
01:22:23,530 --> 01:22:26,800
Speaker 9: murder happens at like one more degree of remove than that.

1480
01:22:26,880 --> 01:22:29,400
Speaker 9: And this is like, no, actually, yeah, she was just

1481
01:22:29,500 --> 01:22:31,060
Speaker 9: murdered by the state and the landlords.

1482
01:22:31,260 --> 01:22:32,660
Speaker 1: Exactly. Exactly.

1483
01:22:33,360 --> 01:22:34,800
Speaker 2: So directly. And yeah.

1484
01:22:34,900 --> 01:22:36,160
Speaker 1: And for everybody to see.

1485
01:22:36,560 --> 01:22:36,940
Speaker 7: Yeah.

1486
01:22:37,100 --> 01:22:38,600
Speaker 9: And so I guess I guess my question is like,

1487
01:22:39,320 --> 01:22:42,270
Speaker 9: how are you and how are also like people in

1488
01:22:42,330 --> 01:22:44,970
Speaker 9: the streets kind of like are people looking at this

1489
01:22:45,030 --> 01:22:47,590
Speaker 9: in the context of like the other movements that are

1490
01:22:47,610 --> 01:22:49,269
Speaker 9: happening at the same time? Or are we kind of

1491
01:22:49,350 --> 01:22:53,110
Speaker 9: still in that? what I would call the 2018-2019 mode

1492
01:22:53,130 --> 01:22:55,349
Speaker 9: of isolation, where it's hard for people to see themselves

1493
01:22:55,410 --> 01:22:56,809
Speaker 9: as part of a broader thing?

1494
01:22:57,150 --> 01:22:59,670
Speaker 1: That's a very good question, and I think it's the latter.

1495
01:22:59,689 --> 01:23:05,400
Speaker 1: I think that people are so depoliticized that it is

1496
01:23:05,520 --> 01:23:09,960
Speaker 1: hard for them to link the most obvious linkable stuff together.

1497
01:23:10,990 --> 01:23:14,549
Speaker 2: Yeah, or it's like you and the kids in India.

1498
01:23:14,890 --> 01:23:16,110
Speaker 1: Exactly.

1499
01:23:16,130 --> 01:23:17,010
Speaker 2: I believe in us.

1500
01:23:17,090 --> 01:23:23,960
Speaker 1: That's manufactured. The depoliticization of your population, mine, it's not random.

1501
01:23:24,100 --> 01:23:28,260
Speaker 1: To be able to keep us doing the 9 to

1502
01:23:28,260 --> 01:23:33,590
Speaker 1: 5 and complying and everything, they need a depoliticized population

1503
01:23:34,010 --> 01:23:38,410
Speaker 1: to keep on going forward. So I think that social

1504
01:23:38,450 --> 01:23:41,809
Speaker 1: media managed to get through Gen Z. So they managed

1505
01:23:41,880 --> 01:23:45,040
Speaker 1: to see that what's happening, what has been happening in

1506
01:23:45,080 --> 01:23:48,420
Speaker 1: France has also been happening in other countries. And they

1507
01:23:49,220 --> 01:23:51,120
Speaker 1: managed to put two and two together. And they managed

1508
01:23:51,140 --> 01:23:54,500
Speaker 1: to see that, yeah, the issue is capitalism. The issue

1509
01:23:54,520 --> 01:23:59,750
Speaker 1: is white supremacy. The issue is patriarchy and imperialism. But

1510
01:24:01,130 --> 01:24:04,950
Speaker 1: when you start looking at millennials, Gen Xers....

1511
01:24:07,689 --> 01:24:11,189
Speaker 9: That's... Which is also like, hey, if you're a millennial,

1512
01:24:11,210 --> 01:24:13,589
Speaker 9: we've literally, you've done this twice already.

1513
01:24:13,790 --> 01:24:15,030
Speaker 2: I know!

1514
01:24:15,490 --> 01:24:17,290
Speaker 9: We did 2011, we did 2020. I believe in us.

1515
01:24:17,570 --> 01:24:19,030
Speaker 9: I believe we can figure this out.

1516
01:24:21,050 --> 01:24:22,099
Speaker 2: I know we can do this.

1517
01:24:22,380 --> 01:24:24,120
Speaker 1: There's a part of me that believes in us, but

1518
01:24:24,160 --> 01:24:26,840
Speaker 1: there's also a part of me that knows how effective

1519
01:24:27,560 --> 01:24:34,360
Speaker 1: the capitalistic propaganda is. So the moment you start owning stuff...

1520
01:24:34,750 --> 01:24:37,530
Speaker 1: like a house, you know, an apartment and stuff like that,

1521
01:24:38,189 --> 01:24:41,309
Speaker 1: you start wanting to keep that stuff for yourself. Like,

1522
01:24:41,650 --> 01:24:47,679
Speaker 1: you deserve it. Like, suddenly, meritocracy seems real. And that's

1523
01:24:47,720 --> 01:24:48,620
Speaker 1: where the danger's at.

1524
01:24:48,640 --> 01:24:48,920
Speaker 14: Yeah.

1525
01:24:49,260 --> 01:24:52,300
Speaker 1: And that's where the danger's at. So, I mean, I

1526
01:24:52,380 --> 01:24:56,580
Speaker 1: see people living their lives and having zero realization.

1527
01:24:56,720 --> 01:24:57,180
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1528
01:24:57,320 --> 01:24:59,800
Speaker 1: Like, with respect to what's happening in the streets. Like,

1529
01:25:00,380 --> 01:25:03,900
Speaker 1: it doesn't hit them at all. Like, they keep on going...

1530
01:25:04,220 --> 01:25:07,840
Speaker 1: doing their stuff, and they just don't see how it

1531
01:25:07,860 --> 01:25:11,540
Speaker 1: affects them. Or worse than that, they see how it

1532
01:25:11,560 --> 01:25:16,160
Speaker 1: affects them, but they seem to have accepted, like.

1533
01:25:16,540 --> 01:25:17,849
Speaker 2: Yeah, nothing can be done about it.

1534
01:25:18,560 --> 01:25:22,350
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like, I've suffered, you're going to suffer.

1535
01:25:22,620 --> 01:25:22,900
Speaker 8: Yeah.

1536
01:25:23,060 --> 01:25:25,870
Speaker 1: That's how shit works. And to me, this is the

1537
01:25:25,910 --> 01:25:28,979
Speaker 1: scariest thing. This is the scariest thing. I don't have

1538
01:25:29,020 --> 01:25:32,519
Speaker 1: an answer to how I have to deal with that.

1539
01:25:32,780 --> 01:25:35,950
Speaker 1: I just know that, again, liberal mindset, and we have

1540
01:25:35,970 --> 01:25:38,790
Speaker 1: to get rid of that. I don't think that we're

1541
01:25:38,830 --> 01:25:42,350
Speaker 1: going to be able to convince the majority of people

1542
01:25:42,790 --> 01:25:45,710
Speaker 1: that what we are doing is the right thing. But

1543
01:25:45,729 --> 01:25:50,099
Speaker 1: then again, a hundred years ago, when we were fighting

1544
01:25:50,120 --> 01:25:59,680
Speaker 1: against fascism and Nazism, the majority of people So we

1545
01:25:59,729 --> 01:26:00,930
Speaker 1: don't need a majority of people.

1546
01:26:01,750 --> 01:26:04,650
Speaker 9: Yeah, this is the actual lesson of the storming of

1547
01:26:04,670 --> 01:26:09,430
Speaker 9: the Winter Palace. The actual lesson of the October Revolution

1548
01:26:09,610 --> 01:26:12,760
Speaker 9: is that You don't need everyone on your side. You

1549
01:26:12,780 --> 01:26:14,240
Speaker 9: just need your enemies to stay home.

1550
01:26:14,400 --> 01:26:14,960
Speaker 1: Exactly.

1551
01:26:14,979 --> 01:26:17,979
Speaker 2: Then you can knock off Kerensky.

1552
01:26:18,000 --> 01:26:21,960
Speaker 9: All you need is for them to stay home. Your

1553
01:26:22,040 --> 01:26:24,810
Speaker 9: enemies to stay home and enough of your allies to

1554
01:26:24,850 --> 01:26:25,210
Speaker 9: come out.

1555
01:26:25,630 --> 01:26:26,450
Speaker 2: And you can do this.

1556
01:26:27,050 --> 01:26:30,130
Speaker 1: You can see this liberal mindset is so hell-bent on

1557
01:26:30,189 --> 01:26:34,210
Speaker 1: trying to convince the majority of people. Like, No, we're

1558
01:26:34,250 --> 01:26:36,310
Speaker 1: not going to make it. It's not going to happen.

1559
01:26:36,530 --> 01:26:39,910
Speaker 1: This is why the very rich are owning all the media.

1560
01:26:40,430 --> 01:26:40,790
Speaker 5: Yeah.

1561
01:26:41,010 --> 01:26:44,559
Speaker 1: Because they know. They know what you want to do.

1562
01:26:45,220 --> 01:26:47,420
Speaker 1: And they see what you want to do. And they

1563
01:26:47,760 --> 01:26:55,479
Speaker 1: have already put their chess pieces in place to disrupt that.

1564
01:26:55,720 --> 01:26:59,510
Speaker 1: So you have to do stuff differently. We have to

1565
01:26:59,570 --> 01:27:00,310
Speaker 1: organize differently.

1566
01:27:00,330 --> 01:27:00,769
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1567
01:27:01,530 --> 01:27:06,340
Speaker 9: Speaking of doing something differently, I want to close on... So, okay,

1568
01:27:06,380 --> 01:27:10,240
Speaker 9: I think people in France kind of understand logistically what

1569
01:27:10,300 --> 01:27:13,180
Speaker 9: it means when you're doing a blockade of a school.

1570
01:27:13,860 --> 01:27:16,480
Speaker 9: But for people, for example, in the US, we're like,

1571
01:27:17,140 --> 01:27:21,070
Speaker 9: I guess I have seen schools... I have seen colleges blockaded,

1572
01:27:21,689 --> 01:27:24,570
Speaker 9: but I've never been involved in a high school blockade.

1573
01:27:24,810 --> 01:27:27,830
Speaker 9: What does that actually just look like on a practical level?

1574
01:27:27,950 --> 01:27:28,370
Speaker 2: Is it like.

1575
01:27:29,060 --> 01:27:32,340
Speaker 9: We're, like, blockading the street leading up to the school?

1576
01:27:32,460 --> 01:27:35,170
Speaker 9: Is it like we're barring the entrance? What does that actually, like,

1577
01:27:35,670 --> 01:27:36,870
Speaker 9: physically look like?

1578
01:27:37,370 --> 01:27:41,960
Speaker 1: Well, basically, physically, you are barring the entrance... Borrowing the

1579
01:27:42,000 --> 01:27:46,300
Speaker 1: street is complicated because for a lot of legal reasons

1580
01:27:46,600 --> 01:27:49,639
Speaker 1: and logistical reasons, it can be really difficult to block

1581
01:27:50,200 --> 01:27:51,040
Speaker 1: a whole street.

1582
01:27:51,320 --> 01:27:51,620
Speaker 10: Yeah.

1583
01:27:51,820 --> 01:27:54,080
Speaker 1: But yeah, you can block the entry of the school.

1584
01:27:54,860 --> 01:27:58,400
Speaker 1: You can put in front of the school whatever you want,

1585
01:27:58,479 --> 01:28:05,660
Speaker 1: like trash bins, barriers. Whatever. You can take desks from

1586
01:28:05,700 --> 01:28:11,650
Speaker 1: the inside, put them outside, pile them up. Yeah. Like anything.

1587
01:28:12,189 --> 01:28:15,479
Speaker 9: Classic French revolutionary tradition. Stack all the desks.

1588
01:28:16,360 --> 01:28:17,800
Speaker 1: You know, it surprised me when you asked me that

1589
01:28:17,820 --> 01:28:20,480
Speaker 1: because I was like, what? People don't know that? You

1590
01:28:20,500 --> 01:28:23,000
Speaker 1: take shit and you put that in front of the

1591
01:28:23,140 --> 01:28:24,950
Speaker 1: door and that's it.

1592
01:28:25,479 --> 01:28:28,960
Speaker 2: Yeah. We have less of a tradition of that.

1593
01:28:29,720 --> 01:28:34,530
Speaker 1: Exactly. Just like burning trash cans and stuff like that.

1594
01:28:35,270 --> 01:28:38,689
Speaker 1: It's a tradition. We do that all the time. That's

1595
01:28:38,750 --> 01:28:43,220
Speaker 1: protest shit. Like, of course, we're going to burn the trash.

1596
01:28:43,729 --> 01:28:45,460
Speaker 12: Like, it's normal.

1597
01:28:45,760 --> 01:28:49,400
Speaker 1: It's normal. But yeah, it's really, it's that simple. The

1598
01:28:49,439 --> 01:28:53,780
Speaker 1: purpose is to disrupt. So you do everything in your

1599
01:28:53,820 --> 01:28:56,820
Speaker 1: power to stop people from getting in the school.

1600
01:28:56,840 --> 01:28:57,240
Speaker 8: Yeah.

1601
01:28:57,790 --> 01:28:59,349
Speaker 1: Because you don't want them to be able to get

1602
01:28:59,410 --> 01:29:02,170
Speaker 1: into school because you want them to ask for the

1603
01:29:02,189 --> 01:29:04,820
Speaker 1: same thing as you do so that they can go

1604
01:29:05,420 --> 01:29:06,179
Speaker 1: back to school.

1605
01:29:07,200 --> 01:29:07,639
Speaker 17: Yeah.

1606
01:29:07,760 --> 01:29:10,800
Speaker 1: So yeah, you forbid them from getting into school and

1607
01:29:10,840 --> 01:29:15,400
Speaker 1: you push them to support you. That's the whole blockade mindset.

1608
01:29:15,729 --> 01:29:16,229
Speaker 2: Makes sense.

1609
01:29:16,550 --> 01:29:18,330
Speaker 1: That's how strikes work, basically, also.

1610
01:29:19,090 --> 01:29:19,990
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1611
01:29:20,030 --> 01:29:23,139
Speaker 9: Which I guess is the other angle of like... Something

1612
01:29:23,160 --> 01:29:25,200
Speaker 9: I've been thinking about a lot, talking to you, because

1613
01:29:25,240 --> 01:29:26,970
Speaker 9: one of the things that struck me about these protests

1614
01:29:26,990 --> 01:29:29,689
Speaker 9: is the extent to which when you like read over

1615
01:29:29,729 --> 01:29:32,210
Speaker 9: the student grievances, it's like, oh, this is like exactly

1616
01:29:32,229 --> 01:29:34,170
Speaker 9: the same grievances you would have for a teacher strike.

1617
01:29:34,590 --> 01:29:34,810
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1618
01:29:35,170 --> 01:29:37,880
Speaker 9: Like it's the same things. It's like, oh, wow, class

1619
01:29:37,900 --> 01:29:39,520
Speaker 9: size too big. Don't have teachers.

1620
01:29:39,979 --> 01:29:41,920
Speaker 1: That's very good that you talk about that because our

1621
01:29:41,979 --> 01:29:44,280
Speaker 1: teachers are not really supportive.

1622
01:29:43,840 --> 01:29:46,660
Speaker 2: Of Yeah, which is like, what is wrong with you? Like,

1623
01:29:47,380 --> 01:29:48,280
Speaker 2: you gotta go now.

1624
01:29:48,340 --> 01:29:50,640
Speaker 9: Like, if you want your conditions to suck less, you

1625
01:29:50,660 --> 01:29:51,900
Speaker 9: need to move right now.

1626
01:29:52,200 --> 01:29:53,729
Speaker 2: Like, this is the best you're gonna get.

1627
01:29:54,020 --> 01:29:56,680
Speaker 1: Well, in France, like, a few decades ago, teachers used

1628
01:29:56,700 --> 01:30:00,620
Speaker 1: to be seen as left-leaning, left-wing. They're no longer left-wing.

1629
01:30:00,740 --> 01:30:04,969
Speaker 1: I'm sure they're really, like, right-wingers. Like, they want to

1630
01:30:05,010 --> 01:30:08,970
Speaker 1: be paid more, which they deserve to be paid more. Like, really,

1631
01:30:09,070 --> 01:30:10,889
Speaker 1: they're not paid enough.

1632
01:30:11,090 --> 01:30:11,350
Speaker 2: But.

1633
01:30:12,110 --> 01:30:15,979
Speaker 1: they're not asking for it like in a disruptive manner

1634
01:30:16,000 --> 01:30:20,040
Speaker 1: and basically they're not getting paid more. Oh, shocking. I know.

1635
01:30:20,060 --> 01:30:24,320
Speaker 1: But so yeah, the, the teachers are not really supportive

1636
01:30:24,760 --> 01:30:28,510
Speaker 1: of the, their students, which shows you everything you need

1637
01:30:28,530 --> 01:30:31,970
Speaker 1: to know about the state of affairs basically. Yeah.

1638
01:30:32,010 --> 01:30:33,450
Speaker 9: Which like that has been like one of the things

1639
01:30:33,490 --> 01:30:36,689
Speaker 9: that's been heartening in the U S is seeing a

1640
01:30:36,729 --> 01:30:39,700
Speaker 9: lot of kind of like, like students coming out to

1641
01:30:39,740 --> 01:30:42,570
Speaker 9: support teacher strikes and like, things like that, where, like,

1642
01:30:42,590 --> 01:30:45,469
Speaker 9: teachers are sometimes, like, are supporting, like, student walkouts and stuff.

1643
01:30:45,490 --> 01:30:47,030
Speaker 2: And that's really sad.

1644
01:30:47,050 --> 01:30:50,939
Speaker 9: Because, like, I don't know, like, if you were a teacher, like,

1645
01:30:50,979 --> 01:30:54,080
Speaker 9: the thing that you have the responsibility to do is

1646
01:30:54,120 --> 01:30:56,880
Speaker 9: to care for your students. And if you're not doing that, then, like, yeah,

1647
01:30:56,920 --> 01:30:58,840
Speaker 9: I mean, I guess you are just the kind of, like,

1648
01:30:59,620 --> 01:31:02,060
Speaker 9: you're doing education in the Napoleonic sense, if, like, yeah,

1649
01:31:02,100 --> 01:31:04,100
Speaker 9: we're cranking you out so you can, like, be cannon

1650
01:31:04,140 --> 01:31:06,750
Speaker 9: fodder for, like, the French Imperial Army.

1651
01:31:06,830 --> 01:31:06,990
Speaker 7: Like.

1652
01:31:07,310 --> 01:31:09,030
Speaker 1: Exactly. No, that's what's happening.

1653
01:31:09,250 --> 01:31:09,390
Speaker 2: Like.

1654
01:31:10,410 --> 01:31:17,230
Speaker 1: Again, neoliberalism is a deeply individualistic way of life. And

1655
01:31:17,590 --> 01:31:20,390
Speaker 1: you can see that in the way teachers are not

1656
01:31:20,430 --> 01:31:25,360
Speaker 1: supporting their students who are asking for stuff that teachers

1657
01:31:25,540 --> 01:31:30,270
Speaker 1: are also asking for. So logically, you should see teachers

1658
01:31:30,310 --> 01:31:34,800
Speaker 1: support students. But when you look at reality, they are not.

1659
01:31:35,200 --> 01:31:38,760
Speaker 1: They're not. So, yeah, because they only think about what's

1660
01:31:38,800 --> 01:31:41,700
Speaker 1: in it for me. And we've been molded into only

1661
01:31:41,740 --> 01:31:44,809
Speaker 1: thinking about what's good for me, what's in it for me.

1662
01:31:45,610 --> 01:31:49,010
Speaker 1: And we've stopped thinking us as a society, but just

1663
01:31:49,050 --> 01:31:52,150
Speaker 1: as a set of individuals. And that's one of the

1664
01:31:52,170 --> 01:31:54,549
Speaker 1: biggest issues we're facing, politically speaking.

1665
01:31:54,750 --> 01:31:58,990
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, do you

1666
01:31:59,010 --> 01:32:01,670
Speaker 2: have anything else that you want to make sure people

1667
01:32:01,850 --> 01:32:03,330
Speaker 2: know before we wrap things up?

1668
01:32:03,990 --> 01:32:06,540
Speaker 1: Yeah, I really want to stress the fact that what's

1669
01:32:06,580 --> 01:32:09,820
Speaker 1: happening in France and the problem is at its root.

1670
01:32:10,580 --> 01:32:14,280
Speaker 1: It's the same problem that is happening in the US.

1671
01:32:14,420 --> 01:32:16,740
Speaker 1: It's the same one that is happening in Spain, in

1672
01:32:16,780 --> 01:32:22,229
Speaker 1: the UK, in Germany, and basically the whole West and

1673
01:32:22,390 --> 01:32:25,510
Speaker 1: even more like in Japan, in South Korea.

1674
01:32:25,530 --> 01:32:25,769
Speaker 8: Yeah.

1675
01:32:26,320 --> 01:32:30,160
Speaker 1: In India, just like what we're talking about, that is neoliberalism,

1676
01:32:30,229 --> 01:32:34,590
Speaker 1: that is capitalism, that is imperialism, that is white supremacy,

1677
01:32:35,010 --> 01:32:38,350
Speaker 1: that is patriarchy. And we need to come together. I

1678
01:32:38,470 --> 01:32:42,390
Speaker 1: don't think that fighting within our borders is going to

1679
01:32:42,470 --> 01:32:47,050
Speaker 1: lead to anything, but we cannot change stuff by just

1680
01:32:47,510 --> 01:32:51,470
Speaker 1: fighting for our countries individually.

1681
01:32:51,900 --> 01:32:52,139
Speaker 7: Yeah.

1682
01:32:52,260 --> 01:32:55,260
Speaker 1: Like we have to fight together because, well, capital doesn't

1683
01:32:55,300 --> 01:33:01,180
Speaker 1: know borders. Yeah. We share the same enemy. We share

1684
01:33:01,200 --> 01:33:05,300
Speaker 1: the same enemy and we have to coalesce and organize

1685
01:33:06,189 --> 01:33:09,250
Speaker 1: worldwide in order to fight back and have a chance

1686
01:33:09,270 --> 01:33:10,370
Speaker 1: of fighting back properly.

1687
01:33:10,390 --> 01:33:11,650
Speaker 18: Yeah.

1688
01:33:12,400 --> 01:33:16,750
Speaker 1: So yeah, organize internationally. Talk to your French folks, to

1689
01:33:16,770 --> 01:33:18,970
Speaker 1: your British folks, Spanish.

1690
01:33:18,650 --> 01:33:19,330
Speaker 12: Folks, etc.

1691
01:33:19,390 --> 01:33:22,830
Speaker 1: And yeah, teach what you know and learn from them.

1692
01:33:22,850 --> 01:33:25,680
Speaker 1: And I think that's the only way out of that

1693
01:33:25,760 --> 01:33:26,679
Speaker 1: shit hole.

1694
01:33:28,479 --> 01:33:28,880
Speaker 2: Hell yeah.

1695
01:33:29,540 --> 01:33:31,900
Speaker 9: Faiza, thank you so much. Thank you so much for

1696
01:33:31,939 --> 01:33:33,760
Speaker 9: coming on. Where can people find your work?

1697
01:33:34,360 --> 01:33:36,700
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me, Mia. People can find me

1698
01:33:36,970 --> 01:33:44,920
Speaker 1: on Twitch. at a phaser so f-a-y-z-a underscore underscore and

1699
01:33:45,060 --> 01:33:50,420
Speaker 1: also on instagram and blue sky and sometimes on tiktok.

1700
01:33:51,120 --> 01:33:53,220
Speaker 9: Cool yeah we will have links to that in the

1701
01:33:53,280 --> 01:33:56,290
Speaker 9: show notes yeah thank you so much for coming on

1702
01:33:56,550 --> 01:33:59,790
Speaker 9: and i don't know i hope i hope y'all fucking win.

1703
01:33:59,610 --> 01:34:04,730
Speaker 1: Thank you i also hope that much thank you thank

1704
01:34:04,750 --> 01:34:07,740
Speaker 1: you thank you and thank you again for having me Yeah,

1705
01:34:07,939 --> 01:34:09,160
Speaker 1: it's been great.

1706
01:34:21,720 --> 01:34:22,380
Speaker 2: Hi, everyone.

1707
01:34:22,620 --> 01:34:25,260
Speaker 19: You're listening to It Could Happen Here. My name is

1708
01:34:25,340 --> 01:34:29,189
Speaker 19: Carlos Berrios Polanco. And today I'm going to be talking

1709
01:34:29,310 --> 01:34:33,769
Speaker 19: about breadfruit, the climate change resistant crop that also works

1710
01:34:33,890 --> 01:34:37,480
Speaker 19: as a tool for emergency preparedness. But before I get

1711
01:34:37,500 --> 01:34:40,559
Speaker 19: into that, let me tell you why I started thinking

1712
01:34:40,600 --> 01:34:44,380
Speaker 19: about breadfruit in the first place. If you're anything like me,

1713
01:34:44,939 --> 01:34:48,200
Speaker 19: the effects of human-caused climate change on the food that

1714
01:34:48,220 --> 01:34:50,640
Speaker 19: we eat and grow have been on your mind lately.

1715
01:34:51,720 --> 01:34:53,960
Speaker 19: Maybe you've been thinking about it because you saw a

1716
01:34:54,140 --> 01:34:58,240
Speaker 19: scary-looking graph that shows the global temperature shooting up over

1717
01:34:58,260 --> 01:35:01,559
Speaker 19: the last few years and only increasing over the next

1718
01:35:01,620 --> 01:35:04,930
Speaker 19: couple of decades. When this type of graph comes up

1719
01:35:04,970 --> 01:35:08,320
Speaker 19: in an article about food, It's usually accompanied by a

1720
01:35:08,400 --> 01:35:12,710
Speaker 19: rice or cornfield so dry that the ground is cracked

1721
01:35:13,010 --> 01:35:15,290
Speaker 19: to show how bad it's gotten and how much worse

1722
01:35:15,430 --> 01:35:19,090
Speaker 19: it can get. Or maybe you're thinking about it because

1723
01:35:19,130 --> 01:35:22,000
Speaker 19: the price of foods that have become staples in your diet,

1724
01:35:22,400 --> 01:35:26,720
Speaker 19: like rice, chicken, and coffee, have gone up significantly year

1725
01:35:26,800 --> 01:35:30,700
Speaker 19: over year because of a mixture of different climate-related causes

1726
01:35:31,160 --> 01:35:34,300
Speaker 19: has caused crop losses all over the world, and for

1727
01:35:34,320 --> 01:35:37,880
Speaker 19: the very process of planting and harvesting to become more expensive,

1728
01:35:38,560 --> 01:35:42,599
Speaker 19: a process known as quote-unquote climateflation. And in the case

1729
01:35:42,660 --> 01:35:46,650
Speaker 19: of more specialty foods, like Florida oranges, for example, maybe

1730
01:35:46,670 --> 01:35:49,610
Speaker 19: they're not even available at the grocery store anymore because

1731
01:35:49,650 --> 01:35:52,050
Speaker 19: of how hard crops have been hit by extreme weather

1732
01:35:52,070 --> 01:35:56,530
Speaker 19: events and illness. To be clear, climate change isn't the

1733
01:35:56,650 --> 01:35:59,550
Speaker 19: only reason that food prices have gone up lately. The

1734
01:35:59,610 --> 01:36:01,889
Speaker 19: closure of the Strait of Hormuz because of the U.S.

1735
01:36:01,890 --> 01:36:05,009
Speaker 19: 's war on Iran has also certainly led to prices

1736
01:36:05,070 --> 01:36:08,389
Speaker 19: going up for everything across the board. But climate change

1737
01:36:08,550 --> 01:36:12,200
Speaker 19: is the main thing that has been and will continue

1738
01:36:12,240 --> 01:36:14,759
Speaker 19: to affect the way that we consume food into the future,

1739
01:36:15,300 --> 01:36:19,560
Speaker 19: especially as resources become scarcer and we as a planet

1740
01:36:19,580 --> 01:36:22,650
Speaker 19: start realizing that what once worked to feed us isn't

1741
01:36:22,710 --> 01:36:26,290
Speaker 19: going to be viable forever. A study by the Climate

1742
01:36:26,390 --> 01:36:30,630
Speaker 19: Impact Lab found that every additional degree Celsius of global

1743
01:36:30,670 --> 01:36:37,770
Speaker 19: warming will lead to global production of six stable crops, corn, soybean, rice, wheat, cassava,

1744
01:36:37,850 --> 01:36:43,520
Speaker 19: and sorghum, to decrease by 4.4%, which is roughly equivalent

1745
01:36:43,560 --> 01:36:44,910
Speaker 19: to a loss of 120 calories per person per day.

1746
01:36:47,920 --> 01:36:51,460
Speaker 19: As Solomon Sheehan, one of the senior authors of this

1747
01:36:51,500 --> 01:36:55,299
Speaker 19: study and a professor of environmental sciences at Stanford Doerr

1748
01:36:55,360 --> 01:37:00,590
Speaker 19: School of Sustainability, told the UK Telegraph, quote, if climate

1749
01:37:00,689 --> 01:37:04,310
Speaker 19: warms by three degrees, that's basically like everyone on the

1750
01:37:04,350 --> 01:37:09,640
Speaker 19: planet giving up breakfast, end quote. This is pretty bad already,

1751
01:37:09,950 --> 01:37:13,080
Speaker 19: but it's going to affect the people already suffering from

1752
01:37:13,160 --> 01:37:16,890
Speaker 19: food insecurity the worst. And that's not to say that

1753
01:37:16,930 --> 01:37:19,870
Speaker 19: we're not growing enough food, just that it's not being

1754
01:37:19,930 --> 01:37:23,820
Speaker 19: distributed to the people who need it most. Three degrees

1755
01:37:23,880 --> 01:37:28,139
Speaker 19: of warming would also cause cataclysmic ecological effects for millions

1756
01:37:28,180 --> 01:37:31,220
Speaker 19: of people around the world, to include cities submerged by

1757
01:37:31,280 --> 01:37:35,960
Speaker 19: rising sea levels, months-long deadly heat waves, and turn people

1758
01:37:36,040 --> 01:37:40,250
Speaker 19: into refugees by the millions. The regions most affected by

1759
01:37:40,310 --> 01:37:43,809
Speaker 19: climate change right now, like Africa, Southern Asia, and the

1760
01:37:43,850 --> 01:37:48,050
Speaker 19: Caribbean are would be the most affected by this. So

1761
01:37:48,110 --> 01:37:50,890
Speaker 19: I've really been thinking a lot about that lately, and

1762
01:37:50,950 --> 01:37:53,269
Speaker 19: I did what I always do whenever I start to

1763
01:37:53,310 --> 01:37:56,370
Speaker 19: think about collapse and cataclysm like that. I look for

1764
01:37:56,390 --> 01:37:58,550
Speaker 19: the ways that people around me are trying to deal

1765
01:37:58,570 --> 01:38:01,730
Speaker 19: with the effects of climate change in the best way

1766
01:38:01,770 --> 01:38:02,480
Speaker 19: that they can.

1767
01:38:03,180 --> 01:38:03,700
Speaker 12: That's why.

1768
01:38:04,550 --> 01:38:07,299
Speaker 19: On a recent Friday morning, I found myself about an

1769
01:38:07,400 --> 01:38:10,260
Speaker 19: hour away from my hometown of Caguas in a tiny

1770
01:38:10,320 --> 01:38:13,880
Speaker 19: little neighborhood called Mariana that's nestled into the mountains of

1771
01:38:13,920 --> 01:38:18,600
Speaker 19: the municipal borderline between Yabucoa and Umacao. As I made

1772
01:38:18,660 --> 01:38:21,100
Speaker 19: my way through the labyrinth-like roads up to the mountain

1773
01:38:21,150 --> 01:38:23,830
Speaker 19: that definitely were not made to fit two cars side

1774
01:38:23,870 --> 01:38:26,670
Speaker 19: by side, I knew that I was getting close because

1775
01:38:26,710 --> 01:38:31,060
Speaker 19: I started seeing nearly 100-foot-tall breadfruit trees reach towards the heavens.

1776
01:38:31,950 --> 01:38:34,179
Speaker 19: I was there in late September right at the tail

1777
01:38:34,260 --> 01:38:37,960
Speaker 19: end of the breadfruit's harvest season. So the bright yellow-green

1778
01:38:38,020 --> 01:38:40,979
Speaker 19: football-sized fruits weren't as plentiful as they would be if

1779
01:38:41,040 --> 01:38:43,639
Speaker 19: I had come earlier in the month. If you've never

1780
01:38:43,680 --> 01:38:46,559
Speaker 19: seen a breadfruit or never tasted one, you should probably

1781
01:38:46,660 --> 01:38:48,139
Speaker 19: fix that as soon as you can.

1782
01:38:48,439 --> 01:38:49,100
Speaker 12: It's delicious.

1783
01:38:49,900 --> 01:38:52,780
Speaker 19: Breadfruit trees can grow up to 100 feet tall and

1784
01:38:52,820 --> 01:38:56,240
Speaker 19: are covered in large green leaves. The fruit itself can

1785
01:38:56,280 --> 01:38:59,509
Speaker 19: grow to be almost 15 pounds, but usually tops out

1786
01:38:59,660 --> 01:39:03,059
Speaker 19: at about 6 to 10 pounds. Per the Breadfruit Institute

1787
01:39:03,090 --> 01:39:06,349
Speaker 19: in Hawaii, it's an energy-rich food and a good source

1788
01:39:06,410 --> 01:39:10,350
Speaker 19: of complex carbs, fiber, and minerals like potassium and calcium

1789
01:39:10,430 --> 01:39:11,650
Speaker 19: as well as vitamin.

1790
01:39:11,290 --> 01:39:12,090
Speaker 2: B and others.

1791
01:39:12,830 --> 01:39:15,930
Speaker 19: Although some varieties grow with seeds, in my experience, the

1792
01:39:15,970 --> 01:39:20,010
Speaker 19: majority don't. Therefore, about 90% of the time, you're more

1793
01:39:20,050 --> 01:39:23,730
Speaker 19: likely to see breadfruit propagated through root cuttings or tissue

1794
01:39:23,770 --> 01:39:28,290
Speaker 19: cultures or something like that, rather than from seed. Breadfruit

1795
01:39:28,350 --> 01:39:32,290
Speaker 19: trees grow extremely quickly, like up to four feet per year,

1796
01:39:32,590 --> 01:39:35,689
Speaker 19: and will begin producing fruit in about three years. And

1797
01:39:35,729 --> 01:39:40,040
Speaker 19: it produces a lot of fruit, like between 100 or

1798
01:39:40,040 --> 01:39:43,380
Speaker 19: 200 individual fruits per tree, although some trees could blow

1799
01:39:43,460 --> 01:39:47,510
Speaker 19: past that. Harvest season depends on where these trees are grown,

1800
01:39:48,010 --> 01:39:51,930
Speaker 19: but it's generally late summer to fall, usually. The tree

1801
01:39:51,990 --> 01:39:55,550
Speaker 19: itself doesn't need too much care or perfect growing conditions.

1802
01:39:55,990 --> 01:39:58,700
Speaker 19: Far from it, actually. As long as you can provide

1803
01:39:58,720 --> 01:40:01,660
Speaker 19: it with medium amounts of water and deep, fertile, and

1804
01:40:01,700 --> 01:40:05,439
Speaker 19: well-draining soils, it'll grow for you. And even then, some

1805
01:40:05,460 --> 01:40:09,300
Speaker 19: varieties grow in atolls that are shallow and sandy, according

1806
01:40:09,320 --> 01:40:12,870
Speaker 19: to the Breadfruit Institute. And it'll also grow on hillsides.

1807
01:40:13,500 --> 01:40:17,850
Speaker 19: That's why it's often touted as a quote-unquote climate-resilient tree,

1808
01:40:18,020 --> 01:40:21,490
Speaker 19: because it'll grow in a bunch of different conditions. It's

1809
01:40:21,910 --> 01:40:25,310
Speaker 19: really the goat of trees. As to what the fruit

1810
01:40:25,350 --> 01:40:28,270
Speaker 19: tastes like, well, it's in the name. When cooked, it

1811
01:40:28,310 --> 01:40:30,870
Speaker 19: tastes like bread, although I've read some people can describe

1812
01:40:30,930 --> 01:40:33,060
Speaker 19: it as kind of like a starchy and nutty potato.

1813
01:40:33,840 --> 01:40:36,200
Speaker 19: It can be used in a million different recipes and

1814
01:40:36,320 --> 01:40:41,400
Speaker 19: used in all states of ripeness, from completely raw to overripe. Personally,

1815
01:40:41,600 --> 01:40:44,080
Speaker 19: my favorite way to eat it is cooked into tostones,

1816
01:40:44,220 --> 01:40:47,090
Speaker 19: which are these kind of twice-fried flattened fritters that are

1817
01:40:47,160 --> 01:40:50,150
Speaker 19: usually made from plantain, but I prefer when they're made

1818
01:40:50,189 --> 01:40:53,710
Speaker 19: out of breadfruit. I've been to Mariana before, about three

1819
01:40:53,750 --> 01:40:56,350
Speaker 19: years ago, to work on a story about how communities

1820
01:40:56,470 --> 01:41:00,070
Speaker 19: affected by the destruction caused by Hurricane Maria in 2017

1821
01:41:00,070 --> 01:41:03,950
Speaker 19: and Hurricane Fiona in 2022 were designing their just recovery

1822
01:41:04,030 --> 01:41:08,260
Speaker 19: through bottom-up methods, like a community aqueduct to help ail

1823
01:41:08,300 --> 01:41:11,600
Speaker 19: the neighborhood's decades-long water issues, as well as a community

1824
01:41:11,660 --> 01:41:14,380
Speaker 19: census to know who is the most vulnerable in case

1825
01:41:14,420 --> 01:41:17,840
Speaker 19: of an emergency and make sure they got help first.

1826
01:41:18,760 --> 01:41:20,960
Speaker 19: And in a sense, I was back there to cover

1827
01:41:21,060 --> 01:41:24,200
Speaker 19: essentially the same thing, except that this time it was

1828
01:41:24,320 --> 01:41:27,689
Speaker 19: community preparedness through a breadfruit farm that they've planted at

1829
01:41:28,310 --> 01:41:31,250
Speaker 19: La Loma de la Niña Mariana, a kind of community

1830
01:41:31,310 --> 01:41:36,189
Speaker 19: park slash rec space. It's a really serene space. especially

1831
01:41:36,280 --> 01:41:39,450
Speaker 19: when it's empty. It's surrounded by breadfruit and other trees,

1832
01:41:39,510 --> 01:41:42,090
Speaker 19: so there's a lot of green, and the breeze is

1833
01:41:42,110 --> 01:41:45,670
Speaker 19: a welcoming reprieve from the near triple-digit temperatures we've been

1834
01:41:45,710 --> 01:41:48,970
Speaker 19: having lately. Mariana is the neighborhood that grows the most

1835
01:41:49,050 --> 01:41:53,430
Speaker 19: breadfruit in Humacao, Rosalina Abreu tells me. She's a community

1836
01:41:53,470 --> 01:41:57,570
Speaker 19: leader who's part of the neighborhood's non-profit organization, Arecma, which

1837
01:41:57,630 --> 01:42:01,470
Speaker 19: is in charge of community participation and development. As a

1838
01:42:01,510 --> 01:42:04,650
Speaker 19: quick note, I interviewed Rosalina in our native Spanish, but

1839
01:42:04,729 --> 01:42:07,650
Speaker 19: Mia from the Cool Zone team was gracious enough to

1840
01:42:07,870 --> 01:42:11,330
Speaker 19: read a translation of that interview here and in following sections.

1841
01:42:14,850 --> 01:42:18,380
Speaker 2: It's a tree with a strong root. It's resistant to

1842
01:42:18,439 --> 01:42:22,760
Speaker 2: hurricanes and any environmental changes. And a mature tree can

1843
01:42:22,800 --> 01:42:24,939
Speaker 2: yield a harvest of between 100 and 300 to 400 breadfruits.

1844
01:42:25,020 --> 01:42:25,620
Speaker 13: Therefore....

1845
01:42:29,060 --> 01:42:31,240
Speaker 2: The harvest is fruitful and abundant.

1846
01:42:33,200 --> 01:42:36,660
Speaker 19: Breadfruit has a long history here. Rosalina tells me that

1847
01:42:36,700 --> 01:42:39,390
Speaker 19: her family has always had a breadfruit tree or a

1848
01:42:39,439 --> 01:42:43,849
Speaker 19: couple growing near them going back generations because of how

1849
01:42:43,890 --> 01:42:46,660
Speaker 19: much food it produces and because when you preserve it,

1850
01:42:46,970 --> 01:42:51,030
Speaker 19: it can last months with proper refrigeration. In Puerto Rico,

1851
01:42:51,430 --> 01:42:54,800
Speaker 19: it was originally used as sustenance for pigs and other livestock,

1852
01:42:54,979 --> 01:42:58,140
Speaker 19: but little by little, people started paying attention to how

1853
01:42:58,220 --> 01:43:01,740
Speaker 19: good the fruit was, how many nutrients it provided, and

1854
01:43:01,800 --> 01:43:05,520
Speaker 19: people started using it for everything. Mariana has been hosting

1855
01:43:05,650 --> 01:43:08,570
Speaker 19: a breadfruit festival between the end of August and the

1856
01:43:08,610 --> 01:43:12,930
Speaker 19: start of September amid the peak breadfruit harvest for 38 years.

1857
01:43:13,689 --> 01:43:17,090
Speaker 19: The community has also created a breadfruit recipe book that

1858
01:43:17,130 --> 01:43:19,990
Speaker 19: I'm flipping through as I read this script, and it

1859
01:43:20,010 --> 01:43:23,070
Speaker 19: has dozens and dozens of different things you make with

1860
01:43:23,110 --> 01:43:27,849
Speaker 19: it from fritters to flan and even juice. When Hurricane Maria,

1861
01:43:28,010 --> 01:43:32,769
Speaker 19: a Category 4 hurricane, tore through Puerto Rico in 2017,

1862
01:43:32,770 --> 01:43:37,070
Speaker 19: leaving thousands of people dead and causing more than $ 91

1863
01:43:36,350 --> 01:43:41,229
Speaker 19: billion in damages, Mariana was left more or less incommunicated

1864
01:43:41,290 --> 01:43:44,689
Speaker 19: from the rest of the world. Rosalina told me years

1865
01:43:44,760 --> 01:43:46,719
Speaker 19: ago that it was like a bomb had been dropped

1866
01:43:47,140 --> 01:43:50,679
Speaker 19: in their neighborhood. But knowing that the government wasn't coming

1867
01:43:50,720 --> 01:43:53,760
Speaker 19: to help their small rural community, they knew that the

1868
01:43:53,880 --> 01:43:57,610
Speaker 19: only people they could count on or themselves. So they

1869
01:43:57,630 --> 01:44:00,570
Speaker 19: got to work and opened a food distribution center at

1870
01:44:00,610 --> 01:44:04,150
Speaker 19: La Loma where they were feeding members of the community

1871
01:44:04,189 --> 01:44:06,890
Speaker 19: with whatever food they had on hand and whatever food

1872
01:44:06,910 --> 01:44:09,610
Speaker 19: they could gather from the hundreds of breadfruit trees and

1873
01:44:09,689 --> 01:44:10,710
Speaker 19: others in the neighborhood.

1874
01:44:16,210 --> 01:44:19,910
Speaker 2: We've seen that when the need arises, people come here

1875
01:44:19,970 --> 01:44:23,440
Speaker 2: to look for breadfruit. And not only that, But the

1876
01:44:23,490 --> 01:44:26,180
Speaker 2: environment is full of trees that keep us cool, that

1877
01:44:26,200 --> 01:44:30,360
Speaker 2: provide a natural space for growth. And eventually we know

1878
01:44:30,700 --> 01:44:32,500
Speaker 2: that we are going to be one of the neighborhoods

1879
01:44:32,580 --> 01:44:35,620
Speaker 2: best prepared for any situation that involves a food shortage.

1880
01:44:36,100 --> 01:44:38,320
Speaker 2: We're going to have breadfruit to share and to use.

1881
01:44:39,740 --> 01:44:42,690
Speaker 2: In fact, we have a kitchen here, a semi-industrial kitchen

1882
01:44:42,710 --> 01:44:46,110
Speaker 2: that opens to feed the neighborhood. During the time of Maria,

1883
01:44:46,170 --> 01:44:49,710
Speaker 2: we served 400 people daily that came looking for food here.

1884
01:44:50,790 --> 01:44:53,430
Speaker 2: We already have the kitchen, we have the trees planted.

1885
01:44:53,450 --> 01:44:57,760
Speaker 2: So we're already a step ahead for the survival of

1886
01:44:57,800 --> 01:45:02,940
Speaker 2: our people if an event occurs.

1887
01:45:03,860 --> 01:45:07,600
Speaker 19: Neighbors in Mariana have planted about 80 breadfruit trees throughout

1888
01:45:07,620 --> 01:45:11,590
Speaker 19: La Loma as a kind of disaster insurance policy. There

1889
01:45:11,630 --> 01:45:14,670
Speaker 19: is probably not a fruit tree that can really withstand

1890
01:45:14,750 --> 01:45:17,890
Speaker 19: a hurricane or severe flooding or something like that. But

1891
01:45:17,930 --> 01:45:20,590
Speaker 19: if a breadfruit tree goes down, it'll likely start to

1892
01:45:20,630 --> 01:45:23,689
Speaker 19: spring back up from the roots. Of the four people

1893
01:45:23,729 --> 01:45:26,110
Speaker 19: that I interviewed for this episode, all of them told

1894
01:45:26,170 --> 01:45:30,110
Speaker 19: me something similar. And if a breadfruit tree gets stripped

1895
01:45:30,189 --> 01:45:32,680
Speaker 19: of its leaves and its fruits by a storm, it'll

1896
01:45:32,720 --> 01:45:36,820
Speaker 19: probably start sprouting leaves a few weeks after and will

1897
01:45:36,860 --> 01:45:41,180
Speaker 19: probably produce breadfruit next harvest season. Something similar, although to

1898
01:45:41,220 --> 01:45:45,990
Speaker 19: a lower degree, happened when Hurricane Fiona hit in 2022.

1899
01:45:45,990 --> 01:45:49,730
Speaker 19: Rosalina explained to me that in the 1920s and.

1900
01:45:49,689 --> 01:45:50,430
Speaker 10: 1930s, the U.S.

1901
01:45:50,470 --> 01:45:53,590
Speaker 19: Government tried to take down breadfruit trees to grow potatoes,

1902
01:45:54,330 --> 01:45:56,250
Speaker 19: but they didn't take away the roots, so it just

1903
01:45:56,290 --> 01:45:59,410
Speaker 19: sprang back up again. She also says that Puerto Rico's

1904
01:45:59,450 --> 01:46:03,099
Speaker 19: farmers took the tree up into the mountains. It usually

1905
01:46:03,140 --> 01:46:05,700
Speaker 19: grows closer to the beach and other places where it

1906
01:46:05,740 --> 01:46:07,099
Speaker 19: has thrived ever since.

1907
01:46:11,460 --> 01:46:13,850
Speaker 2: It looks like a Christmas tree with its bulbs because

1908
01:46:13,979 --> 01:46:17,250
Speaker 2: each branch has two or three bread fruits. And when

1909
01:46:17,270 --> 01:46:19,740
Speaker 2: they're ripe, when it's harvest time, you look at it,

1910
01:46:19,890 --> 01:46:26,510
Speaker 2: and it's really miraculous. Plus, it provides food, provides shade,

1911
01:46:26,710 --> 01:46:29,230
Speaker 2: it's resistant to the soil, meaning you can plant it

1912
01:46:29,310 --> 01:46:32,930
Speaker 2: in areas prone to landslides, and it will preserve the

1913
01:46:32,970 --> 01:46:39,120
Speaker 2: terrain so there's no collapses or landslides. So, for many.

1914
01:46:38,979 --> 01:46:45,230
Speaker 20: Reasons, it's a tree we could consider miraculous.

1915
01:46:46,729 --> 01:46:49,230
Speaker 19: Breadfruit is one of the first crops to grow back

1916
01:46:49,330 --> 01:46:52,590
Speaker 19: in Puerto Rico after an extreme weather event. It also

1917
01:46:52,630 --> 01:46:55,930
Speaker 19: grows pretty much everywhere throughout the archipelago. And this is

1918
01:46:56,010 --> 01:46:58,790
Speaker 19: super important because Puerto Rico is one of the countries

1919
01:46:59,050 --> 01:47:02,850
Speaker 19: most affected by climate change, ranking sixth on German Watch's

1920
01:47:02,950 --> 01:47:06,520
Speaker 19: Climate Risk Index. which looks at how countries are affected

1921
01:47:06,610 --> 01:47:09,110
Speaker 19: by extreme weather events and how they cause loss of

1922
01:47:09,170 --> 01:47:12,670
Speaker 19: life and how it impacts their GDP. Puerto Rico has

1923
01:47:12,729 --> 01:47:16,550
Speaker 19: experienced several disasters caused by extreme weather over the years,

1924
01:47:16,790 --> 01:47:19,770
Speaker 19: the biggest of which were Hurricanes Irma and Maria and Fiona.

1925
01:47:20,380 --> 01:47:24,700
Speaker 19: Maria caused a loss of around 80% of the archipelago's crops,

1926
01:47:24,880 --> 01:47:28,880
Speaker 19: or about $ 800 million worth of food, according to the

1927
01:47:28,900 --> 01:47:33,730
Speaker 19: New York Times. Meanwhile, Fiona caused about $ 159 million in

1928
01:47:33,770 --> 01:47:36,630
Speaker 19: losses for the agricultural industry per the AP.

1929
01:47:37,310 --> 01:47:42,880
Speaker 21: Breadfruit has proven to be drought resistant. It's wind resistant.

1930
01:47:42,979 --> 01:47:46,900
Speaker 21: After Hurricane Maria, we were eating breadfruit first than we

1931
01:47:46,920 --> 01:47:51,630
Speaker 21: were eating local bananas and local plantains. Because they were

1932
01:47:51,710 --> 01:47:54,450
Speaker 21: highly affected by the winds, but they would come back.

1933
01:47:55,070 --> 01:47:59,760
Speaker 21: So it's very interesting how... Even if the fruits are smaller,

1934
01:47:59,900 --> 01:48:02,730
Speaker 21: it will bear fruit, especially in a drought season.

1935
01:48:03,360 --> 01:48:07,970
Speaker 19: That's Marisol Villalobos, a co-founder of Amazar, a company that

1936
01:48:07,990 --> 01:48:11,230
Speaker 19: sells breadfruit flour that's shelf-stable and can last years with

1937
01:48:11,270 --> 01:48:15,330
Speaker 19: no problems. Their farm's in Hayuya, and in 2017, her

1938
01:48:15,350 --> 01:48:18,570
Speaker 19: and her husband, who's also a co-founder, had planted about

1939
01:48:18,790 --> 01:48:21,469
Speaker 19: two acres of their farm worldwide. breadfruit, but the saplings

1940
01:48:21,510 --> 01:48:25,340
Speaker 19: were little tiny sticks when Maria hid, and only one survived.

1941
01:48:25,770 --> 01:48:30,720
Speaker 19: Marisol now calls it the quote-unquote matriarch tree. Nearly 10

1942
01:48:30,720 --> 01:48:34,479
Speaker 19: years after that, their farm now has 500 breadfruit trees

1943
01:48:34,520 --> 01:48:37,560
Speaker 19: that are producing hundreds and hundreds of pounds of breadfruit

1944
01:48:37,620 --> 01:48:40,530
Speaker 19: that they turn into flour every year. They're one of

1945
01:48:40,570 --> 01:48:42,990
Speaker 19: the first farms in Puerto Rico to grow breadfruit and

1946
01:48:43,050 --> 01:48:46,269
Speaker 19: cocoa at the same time. The breadfruit trees provide the

1947
01:48:46,330 --> 01:48:50,450
Speaker 19: necessary shade for cocoa to grow. They've also planted several

1948
01:48:50,520 --> 01:48:53,640
Speaker 19: other native trees throughout their farms. If you wanted to

1949
01:48:53,680 --> 01:48:57,600
Speaker 19: produce breadfruit at an industrial scale, this probably isn't the

1950
01:48:57,640 --> 01:49:01,720
Speaker 19: best way to go. Most industrial agriculture has one singular

1951
01:49:01,800 --> 01:49:06,070
Speaker 19: crop planted over large swaths of land to maximize production,

1952
01:49:06,210 --> 01:49:11,840
Speaker 19: ease of gathering, and resources. This is called monoculture. However,

1953
01:49:11,860 --> 01:49:15,780
Speaker 19: there's serious downsides to it, like needing to pump tons

1954
01:49:15,850 --> 01:49:18,810
Speaker 19: of fertilizer and compost into the soil to keep it

1955
01:49:18,970 --> 01:49:22,190
Speaker 19: growing the same thing over and over again, as well

1956
01:49:22,229 --> 01:49:25,030
Speaker 19: as increasing the risk that a pest or illness will

1957
01:49:25,110 --> 01:49:28,929
Speaker 19: wreak havoc throughout the crop. The way Marisol grows breadfruit

1958
01:49:29,229 --> 01:49:32,870
Speaker 19: isn't ideal if they wanted to maximize production, but Marisol

1959
01:49:33,170 --> 01:49:36,550
Speaker 19: isn't really bothered by it. Instead, she thinks it's better

1960
01:49:36,810 --> 01:49:39,610
Speaker 19: that way because of its positive effects on the soil

1961
01:49:39,720 --> 01:49:40,439
Speaker 19: and on the plants.

1962
01:49:41,060 --> 01:49:44,519
Speaker 21: Some people say, no, it might not be the best synergy.

1963
01:49:45,060 --> 01:49:47,880
Speaker 21: I see it in a way, you know, I'm enriching

1964
01:49:48,020 --> 01:49:52,220
Speaker 21: my model of agroforestry. And what we produce is what

1965
01:49:52,240 --> 01:49:56,160
Speaker 21: we produce. But if I have a more secure crop

1966
01:49:56,240 --> 01:50:01,420
Speaker 21: in terms of resilience and protection from sicknesses, illnesses in place,

1967
01:50:01,760 --> 01:50:02,800
Speaker 21: I'm very happy with that.

1968
01:50:03,500 --> 01:50:07,700
Speaker 19: Puerto Rico grows very little of its own food, about 10-15%

1969
01:50:08,240 --> 01:50:11,760
Speaker 19: depending on the source that you look at. While breadfruit

1970
01:50:11,780 --> 01:50:15,360
Speaker 19: has been part of Puerto Ricans' diets for centuries, production

1971
01:50:15,400 --> 01:50:17,820
Speaker 19: of it has been going down over the last few

1972
01:50:17,900 --> 01:50:21,460
Speaker 19: years as Puerto Rico becomes even more reliant on imports.

1973
01:50:22,340 --> 01:50:26,820
Speaker 19: Per data from the Archipelago's Department of Agriculture, production of

1974
01:50:26,900 --> 01:50:31,190
Speaker 19: breadfruit has gone down from 1991 to 2019, the last

1975
01:50:31,229 --> 01:50:34,550
Speaker 19: year for which public data is available, by about 771,000 pounds.

1976
01:50:34,610 --> 01:50:36,650
Speaker 19: Only about 650,000 pounds of breadfruit were produced in Puerto

1977
01:50:36,720 --> 01:50:38,840
Speaker 19: Rico in 2019, according to the data. Meanwhile, imports have

1978
01:50:38,880 --> 01:50:40,320
Speaker 19: risen rapidly from 2015 to 2019, reaching about 830,000 pounds

1979
01:50:40,380 --> 01:50:43,299
Speaker 19: of breadfruit imported in 2019. So people are still eating breadfruit.

1980
01:50:43,320 --> 01:50:45,680
Speaker 19: They're eating more of it, but we just can't grow

1981
01:50:45,820 --> 01:50:46,519
Speaker 19: it fast enough.

1982
01:51:03,310 --> 01:51:06,800
Speaker 21: So we definitely have a great opportunity in Puerto Rico

1983
01:51:06,860 --> 01:51:10,719
Speaker 21: to increase local production and local consumption with a crop

1984
01:51:10,740 --> 01:51:16,260
Speaker 21: like breadfruit and especially incorporating other crops with it. Beans, vegetables,

1985
01:51:16,520 --> 01:51:18,189
Speaker 21: a lot of farinacios, taro.

1986
01:51:18,210 --> 01:51:19,470
Speaker 1: Plantains, all that. Yeah.

1987
01:51:19,970 --> 01:51:24,110
Speaker 21: And even animals, you know, nice farms that have both things,

1988
01:51:24,370 --> 01:51:28,610
Speaker 21: silver pasture with trees and with the animals. And then

1989
01:51:28,640 --> 01:51:30,519
Speaker 21: we have a little bit more protein there too.

1990
01:51:30,580 --> 01:51:30,820
Speaker 1: So yeah.

1991
01:51:31,270 --> 01:51:33,270
Speaker 19: When we get back from the ad break, we're going

1992
01:51:33,290 --> 01:51:36,350
Speaker 19: to be talking about the history of breadfruit's voyage from

1993
01:51:36,370 --> 01:51:39,110
Speaker 19: the Pacific to the Caribbean and the rest of the

1994
01:51:39,150 --> 01:51:42,710
Speaker 19: world and how breadfruit is being distributed to help combat

1995
01:51:42,810 --> 01:51:57,150
Speaker 19: hunger crises everywhere. And we're back. You're listening to It

1996
01:51:57,170 --> 01:52:00,030
Speaker 19: Could Happen Here. I'm Carlos, your host for today's episode.

1997
01:52:01,100 --> 01:52:04,220
Speaker 19: And while breadfruit has become a staple in the Caribbean

1998
01:52:04,280 --> 01:52:06,680
Speaker 19: because of how easily it grows and its ability to

1999
01:52:06,700 --> 01:52:11,380
Speaker 19: be turned into a gazillion different things, it's not native here. Instead,

2000
01:52:11,400 --> 01:52:15,440
Speaker 19: it's originally from the western Pacific, specifically from New Guinea

2001
01:52:15,580 --> 01:52:19,160
Speaker 19: and the Indo-Malay region. Thousands of years ago, it was

2002
01:52:19,200 --> 01:52:22,800
Speaker 19: spread by the indigenous Polynesians who were the literal first

2003
01:52:22,880 --> 01:52:26,410
Speaker 19: people to travel across the region. They would travel on

2004
01:52:26,470 --> 01:52:29,410
Speaker 19: double-hulled canoes that are nothing like what we know of

2005
01:52:29,570 --> 01:52:32,570
Speaker 19: as canoes today. Instead, each hull could reach up to

2006
01:52:32,570 --> 01:52:35,120
Speaker 19: 100 feet in length, they had a sail, and they

2007
01:52:35,140 --> 01:52:37,760
Speaker 19: could fit entire families as well as the food and

2008
01:52:37,840 --> 01:52:41,100
Speaker 19: resources they needed to settle on the islands they were

2009
01:52:41,140 --> 01:52:44,420
Speaker 19: traveling to. And one of the things they carried were

2010
01:52:44,500 --> 01:52:47,820
Speaker 19: breadfruit saplings because of how much fruit it would produce

2011
01:52:48,000 --> 01:52:48,720
Speaker 19: when planted.

2012
01:52:49,340 --> 01:52:51,560
Speaker 20: In the case of breadfruit, it was usually the little

2013
01:52:51,600 --> 01:52:53,700
Speaker 20: saplings that shoot up from the roots. They would cut

2014
01:52:53,740 --> 01:52:56,180
Speaker 20: them and pack them in a ball of earth and

2015
01:52:56,240 --> 01:52:59,350
Speaker 20: leaves and keep them moist so that they could plant

2016
01:52:59,390 --> 01:53:01,730
Speaker 20: them on the new island and have the same familiar

2017
01:53:01,790 --> 01:53:04,530
Speaker 20: foods that they were used to wherever they were coming from.

2018
01:53:05,210 --> 01:53:09,590
Speaker 19: That's Russell Fielding, an associate professor at Coastal Carolina University

2019
01:53:09,710 --> 01:53:14,210
Speaker 19: in South Carolina who researches geography and environmental justice and

2020
01:53:14,370 --> 01:53:17,390
Speaker 19: who wrote the book Red Fruit, Free Global Journeys of

2021
01:53:17,430 --> 01:53:21,040
Speaker 19: a Bountiful Tree. He explained, that one of the Pacific

2022
01:53:21,080 --> 01:53:24,220
Speaker 19: people's earliest uses for breadfruit was roasting it in an

2023
01:53:24,300 --> 01:53:26,720
Speaker 19: earth oven, which is when you create a pit, put

2024
01:53:26,760 --> 01:53:30,009
Speaker 19: burning coals in there, then the fruit, then more coals

2025
01:53:30,090 --> 01:53:32,190
Speaker 19: on top, and then you cover it all with stones

2026
01:53:32,320 --> 01:53:35,310
Speaker 19: and soil. This type of cooking is common to a

2027
01:53:35,350 --> 01:53:38,750
Speaker 19: bunch of indigenous cultures across the world, and it produces

2028
01:53:38,970 --> 01:53:42,970
Speaker 19: delicious food. Another way that the people of the Pacific

2029
01:53:43,229 --> 01:53:46,070
Speaker 19: used breadfruit that Russell's never seen outside of the region

2030
01:53:46,229 --> 01:53:49,650
Speaker 19: is putting it into a dark pit, making sure there's

2031
01:53:49,729 --> 01:53:53,330
Speaker 19: no airflow, and then letting it ferment. This turns it

2032
01:53:53,410 --> 01:53:55,809
Speaker 19: into a sort of paste that can be stored for

2033
01:53:55,850 --> 01:53:59,179
Speaker 19: a long time. It tastes kind of tart, almost like citrus,

2034
01:53:59,270 --> 01:54:02,760
Speaker 19: Russell told me. Its name depends on which Pacific island

2035
01:54:02,780 --> 01:54:05,839
Speaker 19: you're on, but the people of the Marquesas call it ma.

2036
01:54:06,500 --> 01:54:10,300
Speaker 20: And so this fermented breadfruit was used as kind of

2037
01:54:10,320 --> 01:54:14,320
Speaker 20: an insurance against times of scarcity, where, you know, if

2038
01:54:14,340 --> 01:54:16,840
Speaker 20: you get a big crop of breadfruit, like you said,

2039
01:54:17,520 --> 01:54:20,360
Speaker 20: A single tree in a single season produces lots of fruit.

2040
01:54:20,900 --> 01:54:22,559
Speaker 20: So if it's more than you need for the time being,

2041
01:54:22,620 --> 01:54:24,840
Speaker 20: you can ferment some of it to store it away

2042
01:54:24,900 --> 01:54:27,580
Speaker 20: for later. And then maybe there's a drought or a

2043
01:54:27,640 --> 01:54:30,240
Speaker 20: famine at some point and you have to dip into

2044
01:54:30,280 --> 01:54:30,919
Speaker 20: your reserves.

2045
01:54:31,780 --> 01:54:34,740
Speaker 19: This shows that the history of breadfruit as an emergency

2046
01:54:34,800 --> 01:54:40,200
Speaker 19: preparedness tool goes back millennia. People and the breadfruit they

2047
01:54:40,240 --> 01:54:44,760
Speaker 19: carried continued spreading across the Pacific. When the Europeans colonized

2048
01:54:44,780 --> 01:54:47,820
Speaker 19: the region, they essentially forced the people to switch from

2049
01:54:47,880 --> 01:54:52,980
Speaker 19: breadfruit to imports from the globalized market. Crops like coffee, pineapples,

2050
01:54:53,160 --> 01:54:57,240
Speaker 19: and sugar overtook the breadfruit groves in taro patches, while

2051
01:54:57,310 --> 01:55:00,530
Speaker 19: rice became a staple of the Pacific diet, according to

2052
01:55:00,570 --> 01:55:05,170
Speaker 19: Russell's book. It's a story anyone familiar with colonization or

2053
01:55:05,210 --> 01:55:08,290
Speaker 19: who's been a victim of it knows all too well. However,

2054
01:55:08,950 --> 01:55:12,170
Speaker 19: breadfruit has seen a resurgence in recent times. In Hawaii,

2055
01:55:12,830 --> 01:55:16,290
Speaker 19: According to an article in Civil Beat, breadfruit production is booming,

2056
01:55:16,750 --> 01:55:20,030
Speaker 19: but similar to Puerto Rico, farmers can't keep up with demand.

2057
01:55:20,930 --> 01:55:23,820
Speaker 19: We'll get back to the modern-day breadfruit situation in a second.

2058
01:55:24,160 --> 01:55:27,020
Speaker 19: But before that, let's talk about how breadfruit made its

2059
01:55:27,100 --> 01:55:29,640
Speaker 19: way all the way from the Pacific to the Caribbean.

2060
01:55:30,220 --> 01:55:33,060
Speaker 20: It wasn't until the very end of the 18th century

2061
01:55:33,620 --> 01:55:37,340
Speaker 20: that breadfruit made its jump to the Caribbean. And this

2062
01:55:37,380 --> 01:55:42,690
Speaker 20: was intentional. This was directed by the European colonialists. It

2063
01:55:42,710 --> 01:55:45,770
Speaker 20: was the British that eventually succeeded first, but they weren't

2064
01:55:45,810 --> 01:55:48,650
Speaker 20: the only ones trying. The French had also made efforts

2065
01:55:48,720 --> 01:55:52,620
Speaker 20: to bring breadfruit to the Caribbean. And there's some hypothesis

2066
01:55:52,640 --> 01:55:56,160
Speaker 20: that the Spanish were also moving breadfruit around the same time.

2067
01:55:56,200 --> 01:55:57,720
Speaker 20: But the British did it first.

2068
01:55:58,360 --> 01:56:01,140
Speaker 19: You might have heard this story before. The story of

2069
01:56:01,180 --> 01:56:04,400
Speaker 19: the mutiny on the bounty. Every time I mentioned to

2070
01:56:04,980 --> 01:56:08,000
Speaker 19: someone that I was working on this breadfruit project, They

2071
01:56:08,040 --> 01:56:12,050
Speaker 19: would mention the original 1945 movie, The Muni on the Bounty,

2072
01:56:12,150 --> 01:56:16,090
Speaker 19: or the 1962 remake with Marlon Brando to me. And

2073
01:56:16,130 --> 01:56:18,890
Speaker 19: I would be like, yeah, for sure. But let me

2074
01:56:18,930 --> 01:56:21,570
Speaker 19: be honest with you, dear listener. I did not know

2075
01:56:21,610 --> 01:56:24,050
Speaker 19: that these movies existed up until a couple of weeks

2076
01:56:24,130 --> 01:56:25,570
Speaker 19: before recording this episode.

2077
01:56:25,590 --> 01:56:28,170
Speaker 2: And to be honest, they're pretty good.

2078
01:56:28,170 --> 01:56:33,990
Speaker 19: 3.5 stars on Letterboxd. Anyway, as European colonization wrecked terror

2079
01:56:34,090 --> 01:56:37,230
Speaker 19: and death throughout the Caribbean... The British came up with

2080
01:56:37,290 --> 01:56:41,170
Speaker 19: a plan to transport breadfruit from their Pacific colonies to

2081
01:56:41,210 --> 01:56:43,790
Speaker 19: their Caribbean colonies, all of which had more or less

2082
01:56:43,830 --> 01:56:47,480
Speaker 19: the same climate, to feed the enslaved people that they

2083
01:56:47,490 --> 01:56:52,180
Speaker 19: had kidnapped from Africa and forced to work on sugar plantations. So,

2084
01:56:52,820 --> 01:56:56,720
Speaker 19: the British assigned William Bly to the HMS Bounty, and

2085
01:56:56,740 --> 01:57:00,540
Speaker 19: they traveled to Tahiti to load upon breadfruit. Bly, as

2086
01:57:00,620 --> 01:57:04,420
Speaker 19: authoritarians commonly do, was quick to anger and routinely verbally

2087
01:57:04,460 --> 01:57:08,580
Speaker 19: berated and physically assaulted his crew, who eventually mutinied and

2088
01:57:08,640 --> 01:57:13,380
Speaker 19: sent Bly in his loyalist packing. However, Bly eventually made

2089
01:57:13,420 --> 01:57:15,800
Speaker 19: his way back to England, where he would once again

2090
01:57:15,940 --> 01:57:18,780
Speaker 19: make his way back to Tahiti and eventually reach his

2091
01:57:18,840 --> 01:57:22,920
Speaker 19: original goal of bringing breadfruit to the Caribbean. He first

2092
01:57:22,980 --> 01:57:25,800
Speaker 19: stopped in St. Vincent in 1793, then Jamaica shortly after.

2093
01:57:28,630 --> 01:57:31,470
Speaker 19: Then breadfruit was all over the Caribbean in a few

2094
01:57:31,530 --> 01:57:34,350
Speaker 19: short years, even reaching the state of Florida a few

2095
01:57:34,390 --> 01:57:37,990
Speaker 19: decades later, where it's still really the only place in

2096
01:57:38,010 --> 01:57:40,990
Speaker 19: the continental U.S. where it can grow outside without too

2097
01:57:41,010 --> 01:57:44,790
Speaker 19: much trouble. Although it really only mostly grows in the

2098
01:57:44,890 --> 01:57:47,810
Speaker 19: Keys and the warmest parts of South Florida because it's

2099
01:57:48,020 --> 01:57:50,640
Speaker 19: super susceptible to a cold snap.

2100
01:57:51,800 --> 01:57:55,620
Speaker 20: It was specifically intended to feed people that were enslaved

2101
01:57:56,240 --> 01:58:01,420
Speaker 20: on sugar plantations and or otherwise impoverished. I know that

2102
01:58:01,460 --> 01:58:03,940
Speaker 20: not every island was practicing slavery at the time that

2103
01:58:03,960 --> 01:58:08,220
Speaker 20: breadfruit was imported to that island, but breadfruit was never

2104
01:58:08,340 --> 01:58:11,910
Speaker 20: really intended as a food for everyone. It was for

2105
01:58:12,020 --> 01:58:15,740
Speaker 20: the poor and the enslaved. And unfortunately, that gave breadfruit

2106
01:58:16,300 --> 01:58:19,560
Speaker 20: something of a stigma or a negative reputation in a

2107
01:58:19,600 --> 01:58:21,540
Speaker 20: lot of places throughout the Caribbean. And you can even

2108
01:58:21,580 --> 01:58:24,400
Speaker 20: still find traces of that today, where it's referred to

2109
01:58:24,520 --> 01:58:28,040
Speaker 20: as you know, poor man's food or comida y barro,

2110
01:58:28,260 --> 01:58:31,580
Speaker 20: where it's still got that association today with poverty.

2111
01:58:32,340 --> 01:58:35,720
Speaker 19: Russell explained that while slavery was still going on, people

2112
01:58:35,760 --> 01:58:39,040
Speaker 19: that were able to eat something else absolutely refused to

2113
01:58:39,140 --> 01:58:42,570
Speaker 19: eat breadfruit. That's how hated it was, and who could

2114
01:58:42,590 --> 01:58:46,470
Speaker 19: really blame them? This reputation as a food for enslaved

2115
01:58:46,510 --> 01:58:50,300
Speaker 19: people or something that only people in poverty ate stuck

2116
01:58:50,460 --> 01:58:53,360
Speaker 19: around for decades, and one could make the argument that

2117
01:58:53,420 --> 01:58:58,000
Speaker 19: some of that sentiment still lingers today. Even if breadfruit's

2118
01:58:58,060 --> 01:59:00,940
Speaker 19: reputation has started to turn around, so much of that

2119
01:59:01,080 --> 01:59:06,130
Speaker 19: evil history of colonialism and slavery is inescapable. Even now,

2120
01:59:06,390 --> 01:59:08,370
Speaker 19: as I read this script, I think about how the

2121
01:59:08,410 --> 01:59:11,190
Speaker 19: communities where this fruit grows the most are some of

2122
01:59:11,230 --> 01:59:15,450
Speaker 19: the ones most affected by human-caused climate change, which they

2123
01:59:15,510 --> 01:59:20,340
Speaker 19: contribute the least to. The Caribbean historically accounts for less

2124
01:59:20,400 --> 01:59:24,460
Speaker 19: than 1% of the world's global greenhouse gas emissions, according

2125
01:59:24,480 --> 01:59:29,540
Speaker 19: to the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research. Theoretically, there

2126
01:59:29,580 --> 01:59:32,380
Speaker 19: could come a day when breadfruit is not as bountiful

2127
01:59:32,500 --> 01:59:34,820
Speaker 19: as it once was because of the heat or even

2128
01:59:34,880 --> 01:59:39,930
Speaker 19: refuse to grow altogether. Even though breadfruit is certainly climate

2129
01:59:39,970 --> 01:59:42,790
Speaker 19: resilient and it can take a lot, it can't survive

2130
01:59:43,070 --> 01:59:46,370
Speaker 19: without soil and water. both of which are becoming harder

2131
01:59:46,510 --> 01:59:50,850
Speaker 19: and harder to come by day by day. The global south,

2132
01:59:51,090 --> 01:59:53,590
Speaker 19: a lot of which relies on breadfruit as part of

2133
01:59:53,630 --> 01:59:56,610
Speaker 19: their diet, will no longer be able to grow this

2134
01:59:56,690 --> 02:00:00,960
Speaker 19: bountiful tree if we reach certain levels of warming. As

2135
02:00:01,000 --> 02:00:03,800
Speaker 19: the hottest year on record morphs into the hottest year

2136
02:00:03,840 --> 02:00:07,220
Speaker 19: so far, the global north will likely get to experience

2137
02:00:07,360 --> 02:00:09,940
Speaker 19: breadfruit for the first time as areas that were once

2138
02:00:10,020 --> 02:00:13,900
Speaker 19: hostile to breadfruit become its new home. This seems to

2139
02:00:14,080 --> 02:00:17,340
Speaker 19: already be happening in the Marshall Islands, another place that

2140
02:00:17,400 --> 02:00:20,940
Speaker 19: is very, very, very affected by climate change, as in

2141
02:00:21,080 --> 02:00:26,990
Speaker 19: they're literally disappearing before our eyes. Their breadfruit, which they

2142
02:00:27,030 --> 02:00:30,470
Speaker 19: call ulu, similar to other places in the Pacific, has

2143
02:00:30,530 --> 02:00:34,930
Speaker 19: seen better days. They're growing smaller and less bountiful, according

2144
02:00:34,970 --> 02:00:39,100
Speaker 19: to one farmer the Civil Beat interviewed. He thinks it's

2145
02:00:39,160 --> 02:00:42,870
Speaker 19: salt getting into the soil or the aquifer. While breadfruit

2146
02:00:42,890 --> 02:00:47,810
Speaker 19: can resist some salt, the constant presence is killer. Per

2147
02:00:47,870 --> 02:00:50,970
Speaker 19: a study published in PLOS Climate about how breadfruit can

2148
02:00:51,030 --> 02:00:54,760
Speaker 19: contribute to climate-resilient food systems in areas near the equator,

2149
02:00:55,770 --> 02:00:59,120
Speaker 19: the area suitable for breadfruit cultivation in the tropics and

2150
02:00:59,180 --> 02:01:04,120
Speaker 19: subtropics is projected to decrease by 4.4% in a scenario

2151
02:01:04,160 --> 02:01:09,080
Speaker 19: where we stabilize emissions. aka where emission levels go down

2152
02:01:09,200 --> 02:01:11,900
Speaker 19: but do not reach net zero by the year 2100,

2153
02:01:11,900 --> 02:01:18,020
Speaker 19: and they'll decrease by about 4.5% in a high-emission scenario,

2154
02:01:18,140 --> 02:01:21,350
Speaker 19: which essentially means if we burn even more fossil fuels

2155
02:01:21,550 --> 02:01:26,670
Speaker 19: by 2100. In these scenarios, the areas most affected will

2156
02:01:26,690 --> 02:01:29,850
Speaker 19: be Latin America and the Caribbean. where a suitable range

2157
02:01:29,900 --> 02:01:34,370
Speaker 19: for breadfruit growth will decrease by 10.1% if we stabilize

2158
02:01:34,410 --> 02:01:40,970
Speaker 19: emissions and 11.5% in a high-emission scenario. Meanwhile, in Southeast

2159
02:01:41,110 --> 02:01:45,890
Speaker 19: Asia and the Pacific, yield quality and consistency show minimal

2160
02:01:45,930 --> 02:01:49,390
Speaker 19: decreases under a high-emission scenario, while the land where you

2161
02:01:49,410 --> 02:01:52,950
Speaker 19: can plant breadfruit will likely go up. In all regions,

2162
02:01:53,170 --> 02:01:57,070
Speaker 19: a high-emission scenario will lead to reduced consistency and quality

2163
02:01:57,140 --> 02:02:00,550
Speaker 19: of breadfruit harvests. The narrative of the study ends by

2164
02:02:00,630 --> 02:02:04,190
Speaker 19: saying that breadfruit may play a role in alleviating current

2165
02:02:04,250 --> 02:02:10,160
Speaker 19: and future food insecurity, particularly in equatorial Africa. When instituted

2166
02:02:10,200 --> 02:02:13,520
Speaker 19: with an agroforestry model, as Marisol is doing, it could

2167
02:02:13,560 --> 02:02:18,480
Speaker 19: be a potent climate adaptation strategy. This study also mentions

2168
02:02:18,540 --> 02:02:21,500
Speaker 19: that its role can be expanded in countries that already

2169
02:02:21,580 --> 02:02:24,360
Speaker 19: produce it to become even more of a staple and

2170
02:02:24,400 --> 02:02:27,160
Speaker 19: help address growing climate-related issues there.

2171
02:02:28,110 --> 02:02:32,050
Speaker 13: Ironically, tropical regions are where you do find some of

2172
02:02:32,130 --> 02:02:37,910
Speaker 13: the world's underserved people, people with hunger and malnutrition as

2173
02:02:38,010 --> 02:02:41,930
Speaker 13: part of their risks of daily living. So the kinds

2174
02:02:41,990 --> 02:02:45,610
Speaker 13: of tree that we plant and the need are very

2175
02:02:45,890 --> 02:02:46,850
Speaker 13: well matched.

2176
02:02:47,890 --> 02:02:51,650
Speaker 19: That was Mike McLaughlin, co-founder and secretary of the Trees

2177
02:02:51,710 --> 02:02:56,850
Speaker 19: That Feed Foundation. a Chicago-based nonprofit whose mission is to

2178
02:02:56,890 --> 02:03:00,940
Speaker 19: feed people, create jobs, and benefit the environment. Mike and

2179
02:03:00,960 --> 02:03:04,040
Speaker 19: his wife, Mary, who's president of Trees That Feed, grew

2180
02:03:04,100 --> 02:03:08,760
Speaker 19: up in Jamaica, where breadfruit is incredibly common. However, they

2181
02:03:08,780 --> 02:03:12,020
Speaker 19: didn't think of planting it until years later when they

2182
02:03:12,080 --> 02:03:15,910
Speaker 19: realized how badly climate change was affecting the environment as

2183
02:03:16,010 --> 02:03:19,210
Speaker 19: well as the problems it was causing around the world.

2184
02:03:19,230 --> 02:03:22,150
Speaker 19: And then they started thinking about what they could do

2185
02:03:22,210 --> 02:03:22,510
Speaker 19: about it.

2186
02:03:23,340 --> 02:03:26,420
Speaker 15: And the reason we wanted to plant fruit trees, it

2187
02:03:26,460 --> 02:03:30,550
Speaker 15: was kind of an easier sell. There were, and there

2188
02:03:30,630 --> 02:03:34,990
Speaker 15: still are, climate change skeptics, people that don't think anything

2189
02:03:35,030 --> 02:03:39,590
Speaker 15: is happening. They're not worried about super El Nino. They're

2190
02:03:39,630 --> 02:03:44,340
Speaker 15: not doing anything to reduce our fossil fuel use, our

2191
02:03:44,420 --> 02:03:48,680
Speaker 15: carbon footprint. And so because of the skeptics, we said

2192
02:03:48,720 --> 02:03:53,240
Speaker 15: if we lead our effort with with climate change and

2193
02:03:54,220 --> 02:03:58,340
Speaker 15: solving that problem, we kind of have to do more explaining.

2194
02:03:58,360 --> 02:04:00,880
Speaker 15: We're going to be more skeptics. But if we say

2195
02:04:00,900 --> 02:04:04,830
Speaker 15: we're planting trees to feed people, everybody understands that.

2196
02:04:04,910 --> 02:04:05,850
Speaker 13: They know that.

2197
02:04:06,610 --> 02:04:10,390
Speaker 19: Trees that feed gives breadfruit and other trees to farmers

2198
02:04:10,570 --> 02:04:13,450
Speaker 19: in more than 20 countries, then teaches them how to

2199
02:04:13,490 --> 02:04:17,190
Speaker 19: take care of them, harvest the breadfruit and process it

2200
02:04:17,730 --> 02:04:20,370
Speaker 19: so that it can be sold and used to feed

2201
02:04:20,410 --> 02:04:23,860
Speaker 19: their families. Part of the reason they have this emphasis

2202
02:04:23,920 --> 02:04:27,700
Speaker 19: with farmers is that it reduces reliance on imported food,

2203
02:04:28,380 --> 02:04:31,860
Speaker 19: which means that more money circulates in the local economy

2204
02:04:32,480 --> 02:04:37,570
Speaker 19: instead of going elsewhere. The organization also buys breadfruit flour

2205
02:04:37,650 --> 02:04:42,530
Speaker 19: and other breadfruit-based products from processors and bakeries, then donates

2206
02:04:42,590 --> 02:04:45,450
Speaker 19: them to schools as part of their school feeding programs.

2207
02:04:45,840 --> 02:04:49,030
Speaker 19: which serves more than 20 schools and orphanages in Haiti,

2208
02:04:49,190 --> 02:04:51,710
Speaker 19: which is the second country that they started working with,

2209
02:04:51,910 --> 02:04:56,830
Speaker 19: Mike explained. 5.8 million Haitians, a little more than half

2210
02:04:56,870 --> 02:05:00,480
Speaker 19: of the country's total population, face crisis levels of food

2211
02:05:00,520 --> 02:05:04,820
Speaker 19: insecurity or worse, according to the United Nations World Food Programme.

2212
02:05:05,520 --> 02:05:09,900
Speaker 19: More than 250,000 children aged 6 to 59 months are

2213
02:05:09,970 --> 02:05:14,750
Speaker 19: projected to suffer from acute malnutrition between June 2026 and

2214
02:05:14,810 --> 02:05:20,010
Speaker 19: May 2027, per a UN analysis. Some people in Haiti

2215
02:05:20,110 --> 02:05:23,110
Speaker 19: are forced to eat mud cookies, which are exactly what

2216
02:05:23,130 --> 02:05:25,110
Speaker 19: they sound like, a little bit of earth, salt, and

2217
02:05:25,270 --> 02:05:29,110
Speaker 19: oil that's meant to curb hunger pangs. It's the saddest

2218
02:05:29,150 --> 02:05:31,950
Speaker 19: thing Mike's ever heard of, he told me. Trees that

2219
02:05:31,990 --> 02:05:35,280
Speaker 19: feed Foundation have tried to substitute that where they can,

2220
02:05:35,950 --> 02:05:38,830
Speaker 19: with con pared, a type of bread that's dense like

2221
02:05:38,890 --> 02:05:42,770
Speaker 19: cake or a breadfruit porridge. These recipes were co-produced with

2222
02:05:42,810 --> 02:05:46,670
Speaker 19: bakers in Haiti and North America, according to the organization's website.

2223
02:05:47,470 --> 02:05:50,570
Speaker 19: Part of the trouble of growing so much breadfruit is

2224
02:05:50,640 --> 02:05:53,840
Speaker 19: that it ripens really quickly, like within a couple of days,

2225
02:05:53,960 --> 02:05:56,680
Speaker 19: it might start rotting if you don't refrigerate it. So

2226
02:05:56,720 --> 02:06:00,440
Speaker 19: to combat that, Mike helped create a solar dehydrator that

2227
02:06:00,480 --> 02:06:03,260
Speaker 19: can dehydrate breadfruit so that it can be stored without

2228
02:06:03,300 --> 02:06:08,640
Speaker 19: refrigeration without affecting the nutritional benefits of the food. This

2229
02:06:08,730 --> 02:06:11,660
Speaker 19: means that it can be stored for up to several

2230
02:06:11,740 --> 02:06:17,220
Speaker 19: years and still maintain the same nutritional value. What Trees

2231
02:06:17,240 --> 02:06:20,100
Speaker 19: That Feed is doing, using breadfruit as a tool for

2232
02:06:20,160 --> 02:06:23,580
Speaker 19: sustainable development, is part of its history all along, Russell,

2233
02:06:23,640 --> 02:06:26,060
Speaker 19: who's also a board member of the organization, told me

2234
02:06:26,100 --> 02:06:30,150
Speaker 19: during our interview. When indigenous communities were carrying it across

2235
02:06:30,170 --> 02:06:33,510
Speaker 19: the Pacific, they were hoping to feed themselves wherever they settled.

2236
02:06:34,300 --> 02:06:36,820
Speaker 19: Although it was a weapon in service of the evils

2237
02:06:36,860 --> 02:06:40,220
Speaker 19: of slavery, the British brought breadfruit to the Caribbean to

2238
02:06:40,260 --> 02:06:43,860
Speaker 19: provide food when it became scarce, in large part because

2239
02:06:43,900 --> 02:06:48,460
Speaker 19: of their own actions planting monoculture sugar plantations everywhere, to

2240
02:06:48,480 --> 02:06:53,420
Speaker 19: be clear. Meanwhile, in modern times, it continues spreading across

2241
02:06:53,460 --> 02:06:56,400
Speaker 19: the world as an attempt to feed people suffering through

2242
02:06:56,460 --> 02:07:01,060
Speaker 19: hunger because of climate change and other crises. It's time

2243
02:07:01,090 --> 02:07:03,130
Speaker 19: to throw the ads, but when we come back, We'll

2244
02:07:03,150 --> 02:07:05,530
Speaker 19: wrap this episode up by talking about how the real

2245
02:07:05,610 --> 02:07:08,010
Speaker 19: power of breadfruit might have been the friends that we

2246
02:07:08,050 --> 02:07:22,440
Speaker 19: made along the way. You're listening to It Could Happen Here.

2247
02:07:22,460 --> 02:07:25,660
Speaker 19: I'm your host for today, Carlos. And one thing I

2248
02:07:25,700 --> 02:07:29,160
Speaker 19: haven't mentioned yet is about what we call breadfruit in Spanish.

2249
02:07:29,960 --> 02:07:34,620
Speaker 19: It has a bunch of names depending on where you are. Panapeng, frutipang, masapang, buempang.

2250
02:07:34,860 --> 02:07:35,520
Speaker 1: You get the idea.

2251
02:07:35,580 --> 02:07:36,900
Speaker 2: They're all bread related.

2252
02:07:37,420 --> 02:07:41,180
Speaker 19: However, what I and millions of other Puerto Ricans call

2253
02:07:41,220 --> 02:07:46,180
Speaker 19: it is pana, which is exactly the same way that

2254
02:07:46,220 --> 02:07:50,160
Speaker 19: we refer to a close friend. A direct translation would

2255
02:07:50,180 --> 02:07:55,200
Speaker 19: be something like buddy or homie. So every breadfruit is

2256
02:07:55,510 --> 02:07:59,670
Speaker 19: a friend. This fruit that grows quickly and produces hundreds

2257
02:08:00,120 --> 02:08:02,760
Speaker 19: of pounds of food from a single tree that has

2258
02:08:02,820 --> 02:08:06,810
Speaker 19: accompanied people into the unknown and been turned from a

2259
02:08:06,890 --> 02:08:11,250
Speaker 19: weapon that sustained humanity's greatest evil into a food that

2260
02:08:11,310 --> 02:08:15,370
Speaker 19: now helps sustain millions and millions of people every day

2261
02:08:16,270 --> 02:08:20,440
Speaker 19: that has started sprouting weeks after disaster raised every other crop,

2262
02:08:20,660 --> 02:08:23,480
Speaker 19: that will grow tall and wild without much help, and

2263
02:08:23,640 --> 02:08:28,810
Speaker 19: almost always has something to give, is literally named Friend.

2264
02:08:29,690 --> 02:08:32,850
Speaker 19: That's the kind of beautiful and surreal that only real

2265
02:08:32,910 --> 02:08:37,550
Speaker 19: life could ever be? Marisol from Amazar has a theory

2266
02:08:37,590 --> 02:08:40,140
Speaker 19: about why it's called Pana that I think is worth sharing.

2267
02:08:40,800 --> 02:08:42,580
Speaker 21: We in Amazar have a theory that it has to

2268
02:08:42,620 --> 02:08:48,840
Speaker 21: do that. We have a very strong relationship in Puerto

2269
02:08:48,860 --> 02:08:52,960
Speaker 21: Rico with our godfathers. And comadre and compadre is that

2270
02:08:53,000 --> 02:08:57,340
Speaker 21: relationship of the parents of the godchild with the godfather

2271
02:08:57,400 --> 02:09:00,120
Speaker 21: and godmother of that child. So if I were to

2272
02:09:00,200 --> 02:09:04,960
Speaker 21: visit in the 1800s, and we were very, very, very poor,

2273
02:09:05,160 --> 02:09:08,980
Speaker 21: extremely poor, and a lot of malnutrition, if I were

2274
02:09:09,020 --> 02:09:12,080
Speaker 21: to visit a friend, I would bring a pana. with

2275
02:09:12,160 --> 02:09:15,100
Speaker 21: me and here's your pana, here's your pana, a pana.

2276
02:09:15,120 --> 02:09:18,440
Speaker 21: So it was kind of like that connotation of I'm

2277
02:09:18,500 --> 02:09:21,240
Speaker 21: giving you something to help nurture your family. So that's

2278
02:09:21,260 --> 02:09:24,260
Speaker 21: something very special. So if you're really my pana, you're

2279
02:09:24,300 --> 02:09:26,120
Speaker 21: dear to me, I will protect you. I will take

2280
02:09:26,180 --> 02:09:28,580
Speaker 21: care of you and I will, I will have your back.

2281
02:09:29,700 --> 02:09:32,360
Speaker 19: I want to end this episode by returning back to

2282
02:09:32,400 --> 02:09:36,010
Speaker 19: La Loma de la Niña Mariana. After my interview with Rosalina,

2283
02:09:36,290 --> 02:09:38,430
Speaker 19: when I was on my way out, I stopped to

2284
02:09:38,470 --> 02:09:41,230
Speaker 19: take a photo of a mosaic made with hundreds of

2285
02:09:41,290 --> 02:09:45,470
Speaker 19: little pieces of colorful tiles. It depicts about a dozen

2286
02:09:45,510 --> 02:09:48,650
Speaker 19: hands together in a circle, like they're about to go three, two, one,

2287
02:09:48,730 --> 02:09:49,380
Speaker 19: go team.

2288
02:09:50,020 --> 02:09:51,060
Speaker 2: There's a breadfruit at.

2289
02:09:51,020 --> 02:09:53,320
Speaker 19: The center of the circle, almost as if it's the

2290
02:09:53,360 --> 02:09:56,900
Speaker 19: thing they've put their whole faith in. But the inscription

2291
02:09:57,000 --> 02:10:01,160
Speaker 19: under the mosaic, glory to the hands that work, makes

2292
02:10:01,220 --> 02:10:03,420
Speaker 19: it clear that even though breadfruit might be at the

2293
02:10:03,440 --> 02:10:05,560
Speaker 19: center of this art and one of the most important

2294
02:10:05,590 --> 02:10:08,590
Speaker 19: things in this community, The real greatest thing that this

2295
02:10:08,630 --> 02:10:12,070
Speaker 19: neighborhood has are its people, the ones that are putting

2296
02:10:12,090 --> 02:10:13,800
Speaker 19: in the work when it's needed, the ones that are

2297
02:10:13,840 --> 02:10:17,140
Speaker 19: making sure to help their neighbors when they need help,

2298
02:10:17,400 --> 02:10:20,040
Speaker 19: the ones that are using all this breadfruit and have

2299
02:10:20,160 --> 02:10:22,860
Speaker 19: used it to cook for years and years whenever there's

2300
02:10:22,880 --> 02:10:27,550
Speaker 19: a crisis. It can't happen without them. Breadfruit might grow

2301
02:10:27,810 --> 02:10:31,570
Speaker 19: super quickly. It might be incredibly abundant as a source

2302
02:10:31,610 --> 02:10:34,530
Speaker 19: of food, but it can't be used to feed people

2303
02:10:35,240 --> 02:10:38,340
Speaker 19: without the community putting in the work to gather it,

2304
02:10:38,500 --> 02:10:40,980
Speaker 19: cook it, store it, and then bring it back out

2305
02:10:41,270 --> 02:10:41,860
Speaker 19: when it's needed.

2306
02:10:44,770 --> 02:10:48,910
Speaker 9: Because to us, if we've done anything, it's that we've

2307
02:10:48,950 --> 02:10:53,690
Speaker 9: seeded solidarity. I mean, whenever a situation happens here, people

2308
02:10:53,730 --> 02:10:57,250
Speaker 9: show up and immediately ask, how can I help? What

2309
02:10:57,290 --> 02:11:00,470
Speaker 9: can I do? Where can I pitch in? People get

2310
02:11:00,530 --> 02:11:03,910
Speaker 9: here hauling water with whatever they have at home. Cans

2311
02:11:03,950 --> 02:11:07,990
Speaker 9: of beans, rice. Look, I have this, you can start cooking.

2312
02:11:08,630 --> 02:11:11,130
Speaker 9: People say, I can get to such and such place

2313
02:11:11,190 --> 02:11:13,130
Speaker 9: because I have the right equipment. What can I do?

2314
02:11:13,630 --> 02:11:17,510
Speaker 9: We have that in abundance. This community's greatest resource is

2315
02:11:17,570 --> 02:11:21,410
Speaker 9: its people. We've always said so. We might not have

2316
02:11:21,450 --> 02:11:24,300
Speaker 9: the vast financial resources, but we do have the people.

2317
02:11:24,310 --> 02:11:26,000
Speaker 2: And that is.

2318
02:11:25,980 --> 02:11:28,880
Speaker 9: The primary resource we work with, and the people to

2319
02:11:28,920 --> 02:11:30,360
Speaker 9: whom we owe everything we have here.

2320
02:11:34,290 --> 02:11:37,490
Speaker 19: I've been thinking about that mosaic pretty much every day

2321
02:11:37,880 --> 02:11:41,160
Speaker 19: since I was at La Loma. While breadfruit is at

2322
02:11:41,200 --> 02:11:44,080
Speaker 19: the center, it's the people that are putting in the

2323
02:11:44,120 --> 02:11:47,420
Speaker 19: work who are actually able to help one another by

2324
02:11:47,760 --> 02:11:51,490
Speaker 19: using breadfruit. It's a powerful reminder that the only way

2325
02:11:51,690 --> 02:11:54,730
Speaker 19: out of a crisis is through, that the only way

2326
02:11:54,790 --> 02:11:57,630
Speaker 19: through is together. Thanks for listening.

2327
02:12:09,160 --> 02:12:11,380
Speaker 3: Welcome back to It Could Happen Here, a show about

2328
02:12:11,420 --> 02:12:16,080
Speaker 3: things falling apart. I'm Robert Evans. We all know what

2329
02:12:16,120 --> 02:12:19,570
Speaker 3: happened at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021. Those

2330
02:12:19,590 --> 02:12:23,250
Speaker 3: events were so consequential and infamous that I fear people

2331
02:12:23,270 --> 02:12:26,150
Speaker 3: have forgotten how they felt about the possibility of an

2332
02:12:26,210 --> 02:12:29,520
Speaker 3: attack on the Capitol by a mob of citizens on

2333
02:12:29,580 --> 02:12:32,900
Speaker 3: January 5th. That's not something I can forget. as I

2334
02:12:32,940 --> 02:12:35,660
Speaker 3: spent my first days of January that year digging through

2335
02:12:35,720 --> 02:12:39,060
Speaker 3: thousands of comments on social media and MAGA-focused message boards.

2336
02:12:39,620 --> 02:12:41,760
Speaker 3: I came away from my research convinced an attack on

2337
02:12:41,800 --> 02:12:44,460
Speaker 3: the Capitol was possible, and I tried to warn people.

2338
02:12:45,160 --> 02:12:47,120
Speaker 3: I was not the only researcher who wrote about the

2339
02:12:47,160 --> 02:12:50,260
Speaker 3: possibility of an attack on the Capitol before January 6th.

2340
02:12:50,920 --> 02:12:53,740
Speaker 3: None of our warnings were heeded, in part because the authorities,

2341
02:12:53,900 --> 02:12:57,390
Speaker 3: like most people, considered the odds of a mob successfully

2342
02:12:57,570 --> 02:13:01,580
Speaker 3: occupying the Capitol to be right around 0%. The United

2343
02:13:01,640 --> 02:13:04,660
Speaker 3: States is the most powerful nation in history, the argument went,

2344
02:13:05,060 --> 02:13:07,710
Speaker 3: and the Capitol building and nearby government facilities are some

2345
02:13:07,730 --> 02:13:10,410
Speaker 3: of the most hardened targets on Earth. There's no way

2346
02:13:10,470 --> 02:13:13,830
Speaker 3: a mob of mostly unarmed protesters could just storm them

2347
02:13:13,990 --> 02:13:17,220
Speaker 3: like the Winter Palace and put lawmakers' lives at risk.

2348
02:13:17,640 --> 02:13:18,900
Speaker 2: Your fears are a fantasy.

2349
02:13:18,980 --> 02:13:20,440
Speaker 3: You're just trying to scare people.

2350
02:13:20,840 --> 02:13:21,250
Speaker 1: Shut up.

2351
02:13:21,780 --> 02:13:25,220
Speaker 3: Well, we were correct about January 6th, and over the

2352
02:13:25,260 --> 02:13:27,770
Speaker 3: last few years, I've begun to worry about something new.

2353
02:13:28,430 --> 02:13:32,370
Speaker 3: The name I've given this fear is Nuclear January 6th. Now,

2354
02:13:32,710 --> 02:13:35,410
Speaker 3: I'm not talking about an all-out nuclear war here, and

2355
02:13:35,430 --> 02:13:38,030
Speaker 3: I'm certainly not talking about a nuclear strike on the U.S. Capitol,

2356
02:13:38,050 --> 02:13:40,950
Speaker 3: although that's one possible way this could occur. You're all

2357
02:13:41,230 --> 02:13:45,510
Speaker 3: readily familiar with the possibility and consequences of Atomic Holocaust,

2358
02:13:45,950 --> 02:13:47,840
Speaker 3: and I'm not using that term for the possibility of

2359
02:13:47,880 --> 02:13:51,460
Speaker 3: a terrorist organization or their non-state actor acquiring a nuke

2360
02:13:51,540 --> 02:13:55,620
Speaker 3: or dirty bomb, which remains possible, but let's say unlikely.

2361
02:13:56,430 --> 02:13:59,810
Speaker 3: A nuclear January 6th would be a lot like its namesake,

2362
02:14:00,070 --> 02:14:03,980
Speaker 3: a catastrophic event that would have seemed impossible, even laughably so,

2363
02:14:04,100 --> 02:14:07,320
Speaker 3: before it occurred and involves the use of a nuclear weapon.

2364
02:14:08,100 --> 02:14:11,540
Speaker 3: A nuclear January 6th, then, would be a fuck-up, either

2365
02:14:11,600 --> 02:14:15,260
Speaker 3: a disastrous nuclear error caused by incompetence or a limited

2366
02:14:15,340 --> 02:14:20,450
Speaker 3: nuclear deployment inspired by incompetence. Either way, the scenario I'm

2367
02:14:20,490 --> 02:14:23,490
Speaker 3: envisioning doesn't mean the end of the world, It means

2368
02:14:23,710 --> 02:14:25,850
Speaker 3: one or at most a small number of warheads are

2369
02:14:25,950 --> 02:14:29,300
Speaker 3: detonated for a very stupid reason, and we're all left

2370
02:14:29,360 --> 02:14:31,940
Speaker 3: to move forward in a world that is now permanently

2371
02:14:32,020 --> 02:14:37,580
Speaker 3: less safe. In 1989, American political scientist Robert Jervis published

2372
02:14:37,600 --> 02:14:41,010
Speaker 3: a book titled The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution, Statecraft

2373
02:14:41,070 --> 02:14:44,310
Speaker 3: and the Prospect of Armageddon. Looking out at the international

2374
02:14:44,350 --> 02:14:47,190
Speaker 3: situation at the tail end of the Cold War, Jervis

2375
02:14:47,310 --> 02:14:51,520
Speaker 3: argued that war between nuclear powers was now unthinkable. Within

2376
02:14:51,540 --> 02:14:54,040
Speaker 3: the context of that conflict, he was correct.

2377
02:14:54,480 --> 02:14:55,160
Speaker 2: Both the U.S.

2378
02:14:55,200 --> 02:14:58,340
Speaker 3: And the USSR, despite their separate battalions of war hawks

2379
02:14:58,400 --> 02:15:02,970
Speaker 3: and substantial doses of paranoia, avoided stepping over the nuclear brink.

2380
02:15:03,590 --> 02:15:07,750
Speaker 3: The men who ran both nations clearly considered nuclear war unthinkable.

2381
02:15:08,550 --> 02:15:10,970
Speaker 3: In the decades since the Cold War's end, the nations

2382
02:15:11,010 --> 02:15:13,510
Speaker 3: of the world have continued to avoid nuking us all

2383
02:15:13,550 --> 02:15:16,990
Speaker 3: into Cormac McCarthy's The Road. But there is an unfortunate

2384
02:15:17,040 --> 02:15:19,200
Speaker 3: amount of evidence that some of the people in charge

2385
02:15:19,240 --> 02:15:22,000
Speaker 3: of the great powers of our time no longer find

2386
02:15:22,080 --> 02:15:25,820
Speaker 3: deploying a nuke to be unthinkable, even against other nuclear powers.

2387
02:15:26,640 --> 02:15:29,420
Speaker 3: The clearest example of this comes from the Russian Federation

2388
02:15:29,480 --> 02:15:33,020
Speaker 3: and its activities in Ukraine. Back in January, The Bell,

2389
02:15:33,150 --> 02:15:36,510
Speaker 3: an independent Russian news site, reported on building support in

2390
02:15:36,550 --> 02:15:39,850
Speaker 3: the Kremlin for the battlefield use of a tactical nuclear weapon.

2391
02:15:40,410 --> 02:15:43,190
Speaker 3: This was thought to most likely occur over Crimea.

2392
02:15:43,550 --> 02:15:43,890
Speaker 5: A 2022 U.S.

2393
02:15:44,010 --> 02:15:49,190
Speaker 3: Intel assessment independently estimated 50% odds that Putin would order

2394
02:15:49,210 --> 02:15:52,470
Speaker 3: a nuclear strike if the defenses around Crimea began to fail.

2395
02:15:53,170 --> 02:15:56,510
Speaker 3: Russian nuclear doctrine today supports the use of atomic weapons

2396
02:15:56,570 --> 02:15:59,930
Speaker 3: against an existential threat. And as Kieran Monks writes in

2397
02:15:59,970 --> 02:16:04,040
Speaker 3: a piece for iNews, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Rybakov

2398
02:16:04,120 --> 02:16:06,860
Speaker 3: said this morning this meant encroachments on Russia or its

2399
02:16:06,900 --> 02:16:10,720
Speaker 3: territorial integrity by aggressors, including those who may possess such weapons,

2400
02:16:11,100 --> 02:16:14,140
Speaker 3: could prompt us to use these weapons in the worst-case scenario.

2401
02:16:14,980 --> 02:16:17,820
Speaker 3: The loss of Crimea, which Putin calls an inseparable part

2402
02:16:17,860 --> 02:16:22,370
Speaker 3: of Russia, could technically reach that threshold, said Dr. Pavel Podvig,

2403
02:16:22,470 --> 02:16:25,310
Speaker 3: a senior researcher and specialist on Russia's nuclear forces at

2404
02:16:25,350 --> 02:16:29,850
Speaker 3: the UN Institute for Disarmament Research. Now, my understanding of

2405
02:16:29,890 --> 02:16:32,670
Speaker 3: the situation in Ukraine is that Crimea is not under

2406
02:16:32,730 --> 02:16:37,500
Speaker 3: imminent danger of being retaken by Ukrainian forces, somewhat unfortunately. However,

2407
02:16:37,580 --> 02:16:41,020
Speaker 3: the vagueness of Russia's nuclear line being an existential threat

2408
02:16:41,550 --> 02:16:43,789
Speaker 3: means that they might well decide one day that diesel

2409
02:16:43,830 --> 02:16:47,110
Speaker 3: refining facilities count, given the centrality of oil exports to

2410
02:16:47,129 --> 02:16:51,300
Speaker 3: their economy. Sergei Karaganov, head of a defense industry think

2411
02:16:51,340 --> 02:16:54,180
Speaker 3: tank in Moscow and former advisor to Putin, is among

2412
02:16:54,240 --> 02:16:57,820
Speaker 3: Russia's largest nuclear hawks. He has recently argued for limited

2413
02:16:57,879 --> 02:17:01,300
Speaker 3: nuclear strikes on Ukraine's European allies. I bring this up

2414
02:17:01,340 --> 02:17:04,199
Speaker 3: not because that's a scenario I'm discussing today. If Russia

2415
02:17:04,250 --> 02:17:06,430
Speaker 3: nuked a NATO country, that would be a de facto

2416
02:17:06,450 --> 02:17:08,490
Speaker 3: strike on a nuclear power and would likely end up

2417
02:17:08,530 --> 02:17:12,019
Speaker 3: being much worse than my nuclear January 6th theory. I

2418
02:17:12,060 --> 02:17:14,560
Speaker 3: bring this up because comments like this from Russia have

2419
02:17:14,580 --> 02:17:17,100
Speaker 3: contributed to an unfortunate trend in U.S.

2420
02:17:17,120 --> 02:17:17,900
Speaker 2: Defense circles.

2421
02:17:18,459 --> 02:17:23,250
Speaker 3: Serious discussion about the need for expanded low-yield tactical nuclear options.

2422
02:17:23,370 --> 02:17:27,110
Speaker 3: And folks, remember, when we're saying low-yield nuclear weapons, we're

2423
02:17:27,150 --> 02:17:29,869
Speaker 3: still often talking about stuff at least on par with

2424
02:17:29,890 --> 02:17:33,920
Speaker 3: the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, if not still considerably more powerful.

2425
02:17:33,980 --> 02:17:38,480
Speaker 3: Those count as low-yield weapons today. For most of our lifetimes,

2426
02:17:38,890 --> 02:17:41,550
Speaker 3: The U.S. has focused its nuclear research and buildup on

2427
02:17:41,590 --> 02:17:45,580
Speaker 3: what we might call big civilization-ending doomsday nukes. I'm using

2428
02:17:45,620 --> 02:17:48,050
Speaker 3: a little hyperbole there, but not much. Most of our

2429
02:17:48,129 --> 02:17:49,970
Speaker 3: standing nuclear weapons are strategic.

2430
02:17:50,340 --> 02:17:50,820
Speaker 2: In nature.

2431
02:17:51,240 --> 02:17:53,539
Speaker 3: That means they're very big, and they're meant to deter

2432
02:17:53,620 --> 02:17:56,400
Speaker 3: an enemy from launching a full-scale nuclear attack on us.

2433
02:17:57,120 --> 02:18:00,939
Speaker 3: The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists estimates that about 94% of

2434
02:18:01,140 --> 02:18:05,690
Speaker 3: all actively deployed U.S. warheads are long-range strategic weapons. As

2435
02:18:05,750 --> 02:18:08,650
Speaker 3: Gabriel Honrada noted in an article for Asia Times, this

2436
02:18:08,709 --> 02:18:12,910
Speaker 3: makes tactical nukes a, quote, small, specialized component of overall U.S.

2437
02:18:12,950 --> 02:18:13,769
Speaker 2: Nuclear posture.

2438
02:18:14,490 --> 02:18:16,769
Speaker 3: You and I might consider that a good thing because

2439
02:18:16,890 --> 02:18:19,230
Speaker 3: any nuke small enough to use safely is likelier to

2440
02:18:19,350 --> 02:18:23,080
Speaker 3: get used. However, when defense planners hear the U.S. has

2441
02:18:23,140 --> 02:18:27,039
Speaker 3: very few tactical nukes alongside news articles about Russia threatening

2442
02:18:27,080 --> 02:18:30,580
Speaker 3: to use small tactical nukes, a funny thing happens. They

2443
02:18:30,600 --> 02:18:33,620
Speaker 3: begin to worry about a gap between our capability and

2444
02:18:33,660 --> 02:18:36,470
Speaker 3: that of an adversary. Fears of that gap have been

2445
02:18:36,550 --> 02:18:40,830
Speaker 3: further exacerbated by recent significant modernization of China's nuclear arsenal.

2446
02:18:41,530 --> 02:18:44,370
Speaker 3: In the last few years, the Chinese military has massively

2447
02:18:44,430 --> 02:18:47,770
Speaker 3: increased the quality of their nuclear weapons and the related equipment,

2448
02:18:47,810 --> 02:18:50,660
Speaker 3: the delivery devices and such. I'm not going to go

2449
02:18:50,740 --> 02:18:53,860
Speaker 3: into a nerdy, fear-mongery deep dive about the exact capabilities

2450
02:18:53,900 --> 02:18:56,950
Speaker 3: of these new tools. That doesn't really matter today. What

2451
02:18:57,030 --> 02:19:00,920
Speaker 3: does matter is that in August of 2026, U.S. Undersecretary

2452
02:19:00,950 --> 02:19:04,759
Speaker 3: of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby initiated a policy review

2453
02:19:04,980 --> 02:19:08,340
Speaker 3: of the nation's nuclear posture. The stated goal of this

2454
02:19:08,420 --> 02:19:11,990
Speaker 3: review is, per coverage by Breaking Defense, quote, focused on

2455
02:19:12,020 --> 02:19:16,430
Speaker 3: providing more options for the White House. Undersecretary Colby expressed

2456
02:19:16,470 --> 02:19:19,930
Speaker 3: the need for what he called rational nuclear options to

2457
02:19:19,970 --> 02:19:22,810
Speaker 3: deal with the changing threats from China and Russia. And,

2458
02:19:22,970 --> 02:19:26,179
Speaker 3: as Honrada wrote in his article, The policy review comes

2459
02:19:26,240 --> 02:19:30,560
Speaker 3: amid longstanding U.S. DOD concerns over foreign deployments in low-yield warheads,

2460
02:19:30,640 --> 02:19:35,039
Speaker 3: which risk leaving the U.S. without proportional non-strategic responses. An

2461
02:19:35,080 --> 02:19:38,630
Speaker 3: expansion in the number of, and potentially the in-theater deployment of,

2462
02:19:38,830 --> 02:19:43,070
Speaker 3: low-yield nuclear weapons does not guarantee their use. Low-yield nukes

2463
02:19:43,090 --> 02:19:45,929
Speaker 3: have been deployed to hot zones or potential hot zones before,

2464
02:19:46,190 --> 02:19:48,490
Speaker 3: albeit decades ago during the height of the Cold War.

2465
02:19:49,180 --> 02:19:51,920
Speaker 3: But I have trouble looking at this current administration in

2466
02:19:51,959 --> 02:19:55,260
Speaker 3: the U.S. and so much of the bombastic, kill-obsessed rhetoric

2467
02:19:55,300 --> 02:19:57,930
Speaker 3: that comes out of the Department of War these days

2468
02:19:58,490 --> 02:20:01,490
Speaker 3: and believing that the terms low-yield and tactical won't be

2469
02:20:01,530 --> 02:20:05,810
Speaker 3: interpreted as safe to use. In fact, there's a real

2470
02:20:05,910 --> 02:20:08,100
Speaker 3: chance that just by accepting the need for more of

2471
02:20:08,110 --> 02:20:11,600
Speaker 3: these weapons and deploying some near-conflict regions, we'll start a

2472
02:20:11,660 --> 02:20:14,940
Speaker 3: countdown whereby some of our current defense thinkers convince themselves

2473
02:20:14,980 --> 02:20:17,120
Speaker 3: there's a ticking clock. and they need to find a

2474
02:20:17,220 --> 02:20:20,280
Speaker 3: target for a low-yield nuclear strike to prove we've got

2475
02:20:20,340 --> 02:20:23,730
Speaker 3: the guts to use this thing. If that sounds far-fetched,

2476
02:20:23,940 --> 02:20:25,340
Speaker 3: I want you to think back to April of 2017,

2477
02:20:25,330 --> 02:20:28,990
Speaker 3: when the U.S. conducted an airstrike in Afghanistan using the

2478
02:20:29,030 --> 02:20:32,790
Speaker 3: largest non-nuclear weapon we've got, the MOAB. There were some

2479
02:20:32,870 --> 02:20:35,810
Speaker 3: logical reasons for such a strike. ISIS fighters were using

2480
02:20:35,870 --> 02:20:38,110
Speaker 3: a tunnel network, and the MOAB is meant to penetrate

2481
02:20:38,150 --> 02:20:41,310
Speaker 3: and take out such underground targets. That said, there's no

2482
02:20:41,390 --> 02:20:44,849
Speaker 3: evidence this facility or the 36-ish ISIS fighters killed in

2483
02:20:44,879 --> 02:20:48,090
Speaker 3: the blasts represented a threat to U.S. interests in the region,

2484
02:20:48,150 --> 02:20:52,730
Speaker 3: necessitating such a dramatic response. Many pundits suspected the real

2485
02:20:52,810 --> 02:20:54,950
Speaker 3: reason we dropped this big bomb had more to do

2486
02:20:54,990 --> 02:20:58,230
Speaker 3: with Trump's campaign promise to bomb the shit out of ISIS.

2487
02:20:58,950 --> 02:21:02,750
Speaker 3: Faisal Pervez, an analyst for the military intelligence forum Stratfor,

2488
02:21:03,129 --> 02:21:06,879
Speaker 3: told Vice his suspicions. We drop a bomb that weighs

2489
02:21:06,879 --> 02:21:07,240
Speaker 3: 21,000 pounds.

2490
02:21:07,330 --> 02:21:08,240
Speaker 2: That's so big.

2491
02:21:08,610 --> 02:21:10,209
Speaker 3: I think a part of it, or some part of it,

2492
02:21:10,280 --> 02:21:12,860
Speaker 3: is the messaging and the symbolic significance that the U.S.

2493
02:21:12,900 --> 02:21:15,180
Speaker 3: is sending out to countries such as Russia. that we

2494
02:21:15,220 --> 02:21:17,520
Speaker 3: are the premier military in the world. We are the

2495
02:21:17,540 --> 02:21:19,890
Speaker 3: biggest power. We have the tools and weapons to show

2496
02:21:19,910 --> 02:21:23,029
Speaker 3: you that this is the case. Well, the same man

2497
02:21:23,070 --> 02:21:25,450
Speaker 3: who dropped that bomb is back in power now. We

2498
02:21:25,490 --> 02:21:27,930
Speaker 3: are fighting a losing war with Iran that has endangered

2499
02:21:27,970 --> 02:21:32,150
Speaker 3: his power. Back in April of 2026, President Trump threatened

2500
02:21:32,190 --> 02:21:35,629
Speaker 3: Iran by saying, a whole civilization will die tonight if

2501
02:21:35,670 --> 02:21:39,010
Speaker 3: the Strait of Hormuz was not reopened. More recently, he's

2502
02:21:39,050 --> 02:21:41,730
Speaker 3: mused that Iran might take out Los Angeles or San

2503
02:21:41,750 --> 02:21:44,620
Speaker 3: Diego with a nuclear weapon someday. which he viewed as

2504
02:21:44,650 --> 02:21:46,910
Speaker 3: a small price to pay for the permission that would

2505
02:21:46,950 --> 02:21:50,670
Speaker 3: give the U.S. to annihilate Iran in return. We'll keep

2506
02:21:50,709 --> 02:21:53,290
Speaker 3: talking about this, but first, here's some ads.

2507
02:22:04,720 --> 02:22:05,140
Speaker 2: We're back.

2508
02:22:06,720 --> 02:22:10,480
Speaker 3: If more low-yield nuclear weapons are built and deployed, they

2509
02:22:10,520 --> 02:22:14,250
Speaker 3: will become in startlingly short time just another option on

2510
02:22:14,270 --> 02:22:18,820
Speaker 3: the menu for military planners. We might expect decade-standing traditions

2511
02:22:18,959 --> 02:22:21,800
Speaker 3: against using such weapons to count for something, but as

2512
02:22:21,820 --> 02:22:24,500
Speaker 3: you're aware, Pete Hegseth has purged a huge number of

2513
02:22:24,560 --> 02:22:27,860
Speaker 3: veteran leaders from the Department of Defense. Similar brain drains

2514
02:22:27,900 --> 02:22:31,210
Speaker 3: have occurred across all of our primary national security institutions.

2515
02:22:31,670 --> 02:22:33,810
Speaker 2: There are fewer cooler heads to prevail.

2516
02:22:33,830 --> 02:22:37,410
Speaker 3: Hegseth has also made lethality and kill count into our

2517
02:22:37,450 --> 02:22:41,710
Speaker 3: military's primary measure of operational success. More to my point, today,

2518
02:22:41,750 --> 02:22:45,860
Speaker 3: the entire Trump administration runs on social media. Truth social, Twitter,

2519
02:22:45,879 --> 02:22:49,260
Speaker 3: and TikTok aren't just organs the regime uses to disseminate propaganda.

2520
02:22:49,300 --> 02:22:51,619
Speaker 3: They are where Donald Trump and his advisors go for

2521
02:22:51,680 --> 02:22:55,300
Speaker 3: information and to take the pulse of the nation. Let's

2522
02:22:55,340 --> 02:22:58,700
Speaker 3: consider one possible chain of events. Some months from now,

2523
02:22:58,940 --> 02:23:02,000
Speaker 3: Trump orders a tactical nuke deployed with our forces attacking Iran.

2524
02:23:02,379 --> 02:23:04,550
Speaker 3: The plan isn't to use it, but to threaten the

2525
02:23:04,620 --> 02:23:08,070
Speaker 3: enemy and generate a groundswell of rage among Trump's domestic enemies,

2526
02:23:08,110 --> 02:23:11,070
Speaker 3: which is always something he thinks about. Soon after the

2527
02:23:11,110 --> 02:23:14,750
Speaker 3: weapon arrives, Iranian forces score a major hit. Maybe one

2528
02:23:14,770 --> 02:23:17,429
Speaker 3: of their ballistic missile strikes and damages a naval vessel

2529
02:23:17,490 --> 02:23:20,129
Speaker 3: killing soldiers. Maybe they hit a base and cause an

2530
02:23:20,190 --> 02:23:23,640
Speaker 3: unprecedented loss of lives and materiel. Such a strike is

2531
02:23:23,750 --> 02:23:26,820
Speaker 3: not impossible. It could happen tomorrow, and it would not

2532
02:23:26,900 --> 02:23:30,140
Speaker 3: need to debilitate or cripple our military forces long term

2533
02:23:30,440 --> 02:23:33,620
Speaker 3: to provoke Donald Trump into a nuclear response. All it

2534
02:23:33,660 --> 02:23:36,600
Speaker 3: would need to do is embarrass him. At his footage

2535
02:23:36,680 --> 02:23:39,720
Speaker 3: spreads of fire raging atop an aircraft carrier or a

2536
02:23:39,800 --> 02:23:42,840
Speaker 3: burning frigate listing at sea or wounded and dying U.S.

2537
02:23:42,900 --> 02:23:46,730
Speaker 3: soldiers near a base, Trump's followers begin howling for blood

2538
02:23:46,780 --> 02:23:50,090
Speaker 3: on social media. One cry sounds out louder than all

2539
02:23:50,110 --> 02:23:50,550
Speaker 3: the others.

2540
02:23:51,129 --> 02:23:53,830
Speaker 2: Nuke the bastards. Trump might.

2541
02:23:54,590 --> 02:23:56,949
Speaker 3: Such a strike would be unlikely to cause an immediate

2542
02:23:56,990 --> 02:24:01,330
Speaker 3: apocalyptic cascade into nuclear war. There would be international outrage,

2543
02:24:01,370 --> 02:24:05,209
Speaker 3: but not outright retaliation. Even so, in a stroke, Trump

2544
02:24:05,230 --> 02:24:08,150
Speaker 3: would have dissolved any remaining stigma against the use of

2545
02:24:08,209 --> 02:24:12,160
Speaker 3: nuclear weapons in war. This would make Russia much likelier

2546
02:24:12,220 --> 02:24:15,640
Speaker 3: to use a tactical nuke in Ukraine. It might change

2547
02:24:15,720 --> 02:24:19,800
Speaker 3: Chinese calculations, RE Taiwan, but what it would inarguably do

2548
02:24:20,220 --> 02:24:24,689
Speaker 3: is make nuclear weapons a normal, conceivable, usable tool of

2549
02:24:24,790 --> 02:24:28,170
Speaker 3: conventional war. I don't know how long it would take

2550
02:24:28,250 --> 02:24:31,070
Speaker 3: the breaking of that taboo to generate a larger nuclear war,

2551
02:24:31,550 --> 02:24:33,910
Speaker 3: But I believe after this point, such a future would

2552
02:24:33,930 --> 02:24:38,089
Speaker 3: become almost inevitable. It is still quite possible, even likelier,

2553
02:24:38,290 --> 02:24:40,709
Speaker 3: that Russia would be the first nation-state to break the

2554
02:24:40,750 --> 02:24:43,209
Speaker 3: taboo and use a tactical nuke for the reasons I've

2555
02:24:43,230 --> 02:24:46,699
Speaker 3: just outlined. This might lead to a similar outcome worldwide,

2556
02:24:46,720 --> 02:24:49,280
Speaker 3: although I'm less certain of that. Russia is considered an

2557
02:24:49,300 --> 02:24:52,140
Speaker 3: international pariah to many in ways that the United States

2558
02:24:52,220 --> 02:24:55,660
Speaker 3: still isn't quite. That said, I have no doubt that

2559
02:24:55,680 --> 02:24:58,080
Speaker 3: the ultimate chain of events leading to such a deployment

2560
02:24:58,120 --> 02:24:59,820
Speaker 3: would be just as stupid as they would be in

2561
02:24:59,860 --> 02:25:03,610
Speaker 3: the United States. China feels less likely to be the

2562
02:25:03,629 --> 02:25:07,350
Speaker 3: direct cause of such a deployment. Their nuclear policy originated

2563
02:25:07,410 --> 02:25:10,830
Speaker 3: from Mao Zedong. He did not love nuclear weapons, calling

2564
02:25:10,850 --> 02:25:13,400
Speaker 3: them a paper tiger and talking shit on the US

2565
02:25:13,440 --> 02:25:15,959
Speaker 3: and the USSR for building so many of the damn things.

2566
02:25:16,420 --> 02:25:19,660
Speaker 3: When China became a nuclear state in 1964, Mao stated

2567
02:25:19,680 --> 02:25:22,599
Speaker 3: the only use for this thing, his term for the bomb,

2568
02:25:23,020 --> 02:25:27,080
Speaker 3: was to deter other nuclear-armed countries. As a result, China

2569
02:25:27,100 --> 02:25:30,990
Speaker 3: has always had an official no-first-use policy with their nuclear arsenal.

2570
02:25:31,470 --> 02:25:33,849
Speaker 3: This differs from the U.S. and Russia, who operate by

2571
02:25:33,930 --> 02:25:36,450
Speaker 3: launch on warn. In other words, if we think you're

2572
02:25:36,490 --> 02:25:40,000
Speaker 3: going to nuke us, we will nuke you. China's official

2573
02:25:40,040 --> 02:25:44,580
Speaker 3: policy is minimum deterrence. That's generally translated to mean we

2574
02:25:44,620 --> 02:25:47,620
Speaker 3: keep our arsenal at the minimum level necessary to deter

2575
02:25:47,700 --> 02:25:50,900
Speaker 3: our adversaries. However, in an article on the evolution of

2576
02:25:50,959 --> 02:25:55,260
Speaker 3: China's nuclear posture, the website DEFCON Warning System notes, This

2577
02:25:55,320 --> 02:26:00,020
Speaker 3: declaratory posture also embodies China's strategic ambiguity. For one, minimum

2578
02:26:00,060 --> 02:26:03,980
Speaker 3: deterrence remains undefined. Chinese officials have never quantified what a

2579
02:26:04,060 --> 02:26:07,180
Speaker 3: minimum nuclear capability means in practice. Is it a few

2580
02:26:07,240 --> 02:26:08,820
Speaker 3: dozen warheads able to strike back?

2581
02:26:09,120 --> 02:26:09,760
Speaker 2: A few hundred?

2582
02:26:10,340 --> 02:26:13,970
Speaker 3: As China's arsenal grows, the goalposts appear to shift. Similarly,

2583
02:26:14,050 --> 02:26:17,690
Speaker 3: what constitutes an arms race is left vague. Beijing's current buildup,

2584
02:26:17,790 --> 02:26:20,830
Speaker 3: by far its largest and fastest ever, ostensibly does not

2585
02:26:20,870 --> 02:26:23,510
Speaker 3: violate its pledge to avoid arms racing, at least in

2586
02:26:23,570 --> 02:26:27,090
Speaker 3: its own view. Crucially, China's nuclear doctrine has begun to

2587
02:26:27,140 --> 02:26:31,660
Speaker 3: stress achieving strategic counterbalance with other powers. Though not officially defined,

2588
02:26:31,720 --> 02:26:34,800
Speaker 3: this phrase suggests Beijing sees its nuclear forces as vital

2589
02:26:34,840 --> 02:26:37,859
Speaker 3: to shaping the global power equilibrium. It implies a more

2590
02:26:37,920 --> 02:26:40,740
Speaker 3: assertive role for nukes, not merely to deter an attack

2591
02:26:40,820 --> 02:26:43,859
Speaker 3: on China, but to offset the overall military might of rivals,

2592
02:26:43,959 --> 02:26:48,210
Speaker 3: particularly the United States. This nuanced shift in language contributes

2593
02:26:48,250 --> 02:26:52,170
Speaker 3: to uncertainty. Does counterbalance mean China seeks nuclear parity with

2594
02:26:52,190 --> 02:26:55,430
Speaker 3: the U.S. or simply a survivable second strike? The lack

2595
02:26:55,470 --> 02:26:59,350
Speaker 3: of clarity keeps observers guessing. Now, I don't bring any

2596
02:26:59,370 --> 02:27:02,189
Speaker 3: of this up with the interest of fear-mongering over China,

2597
02:27:02,230 --> 02:27:05,390
Speaker 3: but because the questions and ambiguities outlined in that segment

2598
02:27:05,470 --> 02:27:08,400
Speaker 3: are a real cause for concern to the defense analysts

2599
02:27:08,450 --> 02:27:10,619
Speaker 3: who study China, not just for the U.S.

2600
02:27:10,680 --> 02:27:12,000
Speaker 2: Government, but over in New Delhi.

2601
02:27:12,540 --> 02:27:15,420
Speaker 3: The Indian state is locked in a continuous low-level border

2602
02:27:15,480 --> 02:27:19,620
Speaker 3: conflict with China, alongside their border conflict with Pakistan, also

2603
02:27:19,660 --> 02:27:23,520
Speaker 3: a nuclear-armed state. Both China and India have been extremely

2604
02:27:23,580 --> 02:27:27,030
Speaker 3: careful to avoid bringing nuclear threats to the table. But

2605
02:27:27,050 --> 02:27:30,250
Speaker 3: that only underlines how much leaders in both nations fear

2606
02:27:30,290 --> 02:27:34,010
Speaker 3: the possibility. And over on their border with Pakistan, nuclear

2607
02:27:34,030 --> 02:27:37,810
Speaker 3: threats have come up recently. 2025 saw a large skirmish

2608
02:27:37,850 --> 02:27:39,930
Speaker 3: between India and Pakistan that included crossfire.

2609
02:27:40,600 --> 02:27:41,300
Speaker 2: Aerial raids.

2610
02:27:41,820 --> 02:27:44,780
Speaker 3: After several days of this, Pakistan's foreign secretary issued a

2611
02:27:44,820 --> 02:27:47,860
Speaker 3: statement on May 28th. We will not hesitate to use

2612
02:27:48,060 --> 02:27:51,200
Speaker 3: any weapon in our arsenal to defend our territorial integrity.

2613
02:27:52,050 --> 02:27:54,609
Speaker 3: This was interpreted as a nuclear threat and caused a

2614
02:27:54,790 --> 02:27:58,619
Speaker 3: massive international ruckus. which prompted a spokesman for Pakistan's government

2615
02:27:58,640 --> 02:28:02,039
Speaker 3: to clarify that that was not the intent. We all

2616
02:28:02,120 --> 02:28:05,180
Speaker 3: lucked out that the May 2025 conflict did not occur

2617
02:28:05,240 --> 02:28:07,760
Speaker 3: at the same time as another uptick in hostility between

2618
02:28:07,800 --> 02:28:10,820
Speaker 3: Beijing and New Delhi, but it's easy to imagine something

2619
02:28:10,840 --> 02:28:13,720
Speaker 3: like that might occur. In the event of such a conflict,

2620
02:28:13,900 --> 02:28:17,250
Speaker 3: Pakistan would rely heavily on their naval forces, armed with

2621
02:28:17,280 --> 02:28:20,730
Speaker 3: nuclear weapons, to complete the third leg of their nuclear triad.

2622
02:28:21,530 --> 02:28:25,129
Speaker 3: Having a nuclear triad, which means having separate land, sea,

2623
02:28:25,190 --> 02:28:28,720
Speaker 3: and air-based weapon systems that can deploy nuclear weapons, is

2624
02:28:28,750 --> 02:28:32,900
Speaker 3: considered the gold standard for nuclear deterrence. Most nations that

2625
02:28:33,040 --> 02:28:35,580
Speaker 3: have one fulfill the third leg of the triad with

2626
02:28:35,640 --> 02:28:39,740
Speaker 3: nuclear-armed attack submarines. The most advanced of these are, inarguably,

2627
02:28:40,000 --> 02:28:44,120
Speaker 3: the deadliest weapon systems ever devised by man. Pakistan is

2628
02:28:44,200 --> 02:28:46,600
Speaker 3: generally considered to be the nuclear power with the least

2629
02:28:46,670 --> 02:28:50,590
Speaker 3: reliable protections for their arsenal. These have long inspired fear

2630
02:28:50,610 --> 02:28:53,000
Speaker 3: that Pakistan might lose control of a weapon or that

2631
02:28:53,060 --> 02:28:55,600
Speaker 3: rogue elements of their security services might give one to

2632
02:28:55,640 --> 02:28:58,900
Speaker 3: a terrorist group. That's not my concern here. One of

2633
02:28:58,940 --> 02:29:01,340
Speaker 3: my sources for these episodes was an article in the

2634
02:29:01,379 --> 02:29:04,550
Speaker 3: Defense and Security Analysis Journal. Its authors point out that

2635
02:29:04,580 --> 02:29:07,129
Speaker 3: in recent years, Pakistan has done a decent job of

2636
02:29:07,209 --> 02:29:09,670
Speaker 3: sealing some of the former security holes in their nuclear

2637
02:29:09,709 --> 02:29:14,269
Speaker 3: weapons systems. However, as one researcher noted in 2014, Parts

2638
02:29:14,310 --> 02:29:17,350
Speaker 3: of Pakistan's nuclear management system, like its command element, have

2639
02:29:17,370 --> 02:29:20,600
Speaker 3: been reasonably transparent. Other parts, like the physical security and

2640
02:29:20,680 --> 02:29:23,900
Speaker 3: surety human reliability elements, have been at best translucent.

2641
02:29:24,300 --> 02:29:25,720
Speaker 2: In many areas, there are only.

2642
02:29:25,580 --> 02:29:28,000
Speaker 3: Bald assertions that programs and methods have been put into

2643
02:29:28,040 --> 02:29:31,480
Speaker 3: place with very few details provided. One of the parts

2644
02:29:31,560 --> 02:29:34,200
Speaker 3: of their management system we know least about is the

2645
02:29:34,280 --> 02:29:39,050
Speaker 3: rules under which shipboard nuclear weapons operate. In theory, any

2646
02:29:39,129 --> 02:29:42,390
Speaker 3: nuclear weapons used by Pakistani forces would have to be

2647
02:29:42,629 --> 02:29:46,900
Speaker 3: authorized by a special 10-man committee. It's believed, but not known,

2648
02:29:47,180 --> 02:29:50,600
Speaker 3: that some systems require both a civilian and military key

2649
02:29:50,640 --> 02:29:53,340
Speaker 3: to be provided in order for the weapons to become operable.

2650
02:29:54,000 --> 02:29:56,570
Speaker 3: This is because Pakistan's military has a long history of

2651
02:29:56,620 --> 02:29:59,990
Speaker 3: outright running the shop. Today, civilian leadership is meant to

2652
02:30:00,030 --> 02:30:02,730
Speaker 3: have much more oversight. One example of this is the

2653
02:30:02,770 --> 02:30:05,730
Speaker 3: fact that all air and land-based nuclear weapons in Pakistan

2654
02:30:05,830 --> 02:30:09,290
Speaker 3: are stored separate from their delivery systems. This makes them

2655
02:30:09,370 --> 02:30:11,910
Speaker 3: harder to steal and makes it more complex for, say,

2656
02:30:12,050 --> 02:30:14,190
Speaker 3: rogue military leaders to get a hold of a piece

2657
02:30:14,230 --> 02:30:17,699
Speaker 3: of the arsenal. But we already know that Pakistan's naval

2658
02:30:17,740 --> 02:30:20,959
Speaker 3: nukes do not work exactly the same way. Per that

2659
02:30:21,000 --> 02:30:24,580
Speaker 3: journal article, quote, Little information is available for the naval

2660
02:30:24,620 --> 02:30:27,600
Speaker 3: leg of Pakistan's deterrent, currently based on the Babur III

2661
02:30:27,680 --> 02:30:31,940
Speaker 3: submarine-launched cruise missile. First test-fired in 2017 and described by

2662
02:30:32,000 --> 02:30:36,240
Speaker 3: Pakistan's Inter-Services Public Relations as a second-strike capability because of

2663
02:30:36,280 --> 02:30:38,660
Speaker 3: its naval requirements, the Babur III is assumed to be

2664
02:30:38,760 --> 02:30:42,300
Speaker 3: pre-mated and contained within a vertical launch system or similar

2665
02:30:42,360 --> 02:30:46,760
Speaker 3: canisterized device. Procedures meant to inhibit the use of nuclear

2666
02:30:46,800 --> 02:30:51,330
Speaker 3: weapons outside authorized uses are called negative controls. We do

2667
02:30:51,390 --> 02:30:55,090
Speaker 3: not know what negative controls Pakistan has for their naval weapons.

2668
02:30:55,540 --> 02:30:59,310
Speaker 3: it is entirely possible the military remains in total control

2669
02:30:59,350 --> 02:31:03,050
Speaker 3: here and justifies that as necessary for guaranteeing their ability

2670
02:31:03,090 --> 02:31:06,750
Speaker 3: to launch retaliatory strikes against India. I want you to

2671
02:31:06,870 --> 02:31:10,150
Speaker 3: think right now about a fun new development in technology

2672
02:31:10,190 --> 02:31:13,360
Speaker 3: that we've all witnessed, the growth of generative AI tools

2673
02:31:13,420 --> 02:31:16,560
Speaker 3: that can convincingly mimic both human posters on social media

2674
02:31:16,940 --> 02:31:21,280
Speaker 3: and create believable fake videos, including fake news videos. These

2675
02:31:21,340 --> 02:31:24,039
Speaker 3: and similar tools make it possible to flood any region

2676
02:31:24,070 --> 02:31:27,510
Speaker 3: with targeted disinformation and make it seem legitimate, at least

2677
02:31:27,550 --> 02:31:30,950
Speaker 3: for a short span of time. Earlier this year, in

2678
02:31:30,990 --> 02:31:34,930
Speaker 3: March of 2026, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists published

2679
02:31:34,950 --> 02:31:38,320
Speaker 3: a theoretical article by Herbert Lin. He's a Stanford fellow

2680
02:31:38,379 --> 02:31:41,460
Speaker 3: and expert on cyber warfare operations who in 2016 worked

2681
02:31:41,480 --> 02:31:44,740
Speaker 3: for the Obama administration. Back in the 1980s, he was

2682
02:31:44,780 --> 02:31:47,520
Speaker 3: a staff scientist for the House Armed Services Committee, so

2683
02:31:47,540 --> 02:31:49,949
Speaker 3: he's a guy with some knowledge of this area. The

2684
02:31:50,000 --> 02:31:53,280
Speaker 3: article he put together envisions several scenarios in which AI

2685
02:31:53,340 --> 02:31:57,340
Speaker 3: tools might help cause or exacerbate a nuclear conflict. None

2686
02:31:57,360 --> 02:32:00,720
Speaker 3: of his scenarios involved anything like Skynet. The dangers he

2687
02:32:00,780 --> 02:32:03,490
Speaker 3: foresees from AI come not from its intelligence so much

2688
02:32:03,550 --> 02:32:06,550
Speaker 3: as its ability to automate the production of targeted bullshit

2689
02:32:06,870 --> 02:32:10,789
Speaker 3: and influence the decisions of political leaders. And speaking of

2690
02:32:10,850 --> 02:32:13,000
Speaker 3: targeted bullshit, here's some ads.

2691
02:32:24,590 --> 02:32:25,070
Speaker 2: We're back.

2692
02:32:25,290 --> 02:32:27,490
Speaker 3: And I was talking about an article for the Bulletin

2693
02:32:27,629 --> 02:32:31,670
Speaker 3: of the Atomic Scientists written by Herbert Lin. One of

2694
02:32:31,709 --> 02:32:35,090
Speaker 3: his scenarios envisioned a blockade of Taiwan in which the

2695
02:32:35,129 --> 02:32:38,470
Speaker 3: Chinese military deployed an army of AI chatbots to lie

2696
02:32:38,510 --> 02:32:41,160
Speaker 3: about military maneuvers in order to create the impression of

2697
02:32:41,240 --> 02:32:45,500
Speaker 3: high military readiness to deter U.S. intervention. I don't consider

2698
02:32:45,540 --> 02:32:48,220
Speaker 3: this specific scenario very likely, but I do think he's

2699
02:32:48,379 --> 02:32:51,430
Speaker 3: on to something with passages like this. The accounts adopt

2700
02:32:51,490 --> 02:32:54,500
Speaker 3: personas of professionals or students isolated by the crisis and

2701
02:32:54,540 --> 02:32:57,360
Speaker 3: connect with foreigners through the full suite of channels described above.

2702
02:32:57,860 --> 02:33:01,650
Speaker 3: These spaces attract not only their regular users, but also journalists, analysts,

2703
02:33:01,680 --> 02:33:05,310
Speaker 3: and even mid-level Pentagon staffers looking for unfiltered intelligence. In

2704
02:33:05,410 --> 02:33:08,430
Speaker 3: one instance, a bot mimicking a 28-year-old engineer named Li

2705
02:33:08,470 --> 02:33:12,640
Speaker 3: Wei claims, I saw convoys with TELs heading east. DF-26

2706
02:33:12,760 --> 02:33:16,490
Speaker 3: is probably, referring to mobile transporter erector launches used to

2707
02:33:16,530 --> 02:33:21,349
Speaker 3: launch ballistic missiles and land-based dual-capable DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missiles.

2708
02:33:21,810 --> 02:33:26,490
Speaker 3: Before adding, sirens everywhere, evacuation starting. Then screenshots start flooding

2709
02:33:26,510 --> 02:33:29,570
Speaker 3: the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, amplified

2710
02:33:29,610 --> 02:33:33,269
Speaker 3: by coordinated sock puppets. The bots adapt seamlessly to queries,

2711
02:33:33,629 --> 02:33:37,910
Speaker 3: cross-referencing real-time U.S. open-source chatter for added plausibility. A user

2712
02:33:37,950 --> 02:33:40,500
Speaker 3: of Tinder, a dating app in Washington, D.C., matched with

2713
02:33:40,560 --> 02:33:44,490
Speaker 3: Wang Mei, a fabricated nurse in Ximen, who relays her

2714
02:33:44,530 --> 02:33:47,510
Speaker 3: alleged eyewitness panic about explosions near the port and prepping

2715
02:33:47,550 --> 02:33:50,830
Speaker 3: of hypersonic weapons, which aligns with the partial satellite imagery

2716
02:33:50,870 --> 02:33:53,970
Speaker 3: glitches caused by Chinese jamming and begins to see doubt

2717
02:33:54,070 --> 02:33:58,029
Speaker 3: in U.S. intelligence assessments. State media subtly echoes these stories,

2718
02:33:58,170 --> 02:34:00,120
Speaker 3: framing them as grassroots outrage at U.S.

2719
02:34:00,160 --> 02:34:00,760
Speaker 2: Provocation.

2720
02:34:01,320 --> 02:34:03,820
Speaker 3: In the United States, some of this material migrates into

2721
02:34:03,879 --> 02:34:07,900
Speaker 3: expert discourse. Open-source intelligence analysts, journalists, and think tank experts

2722
02:34:07,940 --> 02:34:12,039
Speaker 3: incorporate screenshots and chat logs into maps, timelines, and situation reports,

2723
02:34:12,540 --> 02:34:14,740
Speaker 3: and present them on cable news and in policy briefs

2724
02:34:14,800 --> 02:34:18,840
Speaker 3: as independent confirmations of missile movements. Congressional staffers and allied

2725
02:34:18,879 --> 02:34:21,720
Speaker 3: governments cite these products in their own assessments, generating a

2726
02:34:21,780 --> 02:34:26,100
Speaker 3: feedback loop in which fabricated chats appear as triangulated, multi-source evidence.

2727
02:34:27,620 --> 02:34:29,920
Speaker 3: I think the only weakness of Lin's article is his

2728
02:34:30,020 --> 02:34:33,730
Speaker 3: focus on scenarios that lead to mass nuclear exchange and

2729
02:34:33,770 --> 02:34:36,670
Speaker 3: in his insistence on considering nation states as the only

2730
02:34:36,750 --> 02:34:40,110
Speaker 3: relevant actors in most of these escalation cycles. But the

2731
02:34:40,129 --> 02:34:43,709
Speaker 3: basic process he outlined there, a bad actor flooding regional

2732
02:34:43,770 --> 02:34:46,949
Speaker 3: social media with disinformation designed to look like OSINT that

2733
02:34:47,010 --> 02:34:51,580
Speaker 3: suggests an imminent attack, that's entirely possible and you wouldn't

2734
02:34:51,640 --> 02:34:54,010
Speaker 3: need a nation state level actor to pull it off.

2735
02:34:54,790 --> 02:34:59,070
Speaker 3: Let's say you have a well-funded non-state group of ideological hardliners.

2736
02:34:59,129 --> 02:35:02,530
Speaker 3: Let's imagine them as partisans of India or Pakistan, right?

2737
02:35:02,970 --> 02:35:05,349
Speaker 3: You could also imagine they're just trolls, eager to add

2738
02:35:05,420 --> 02:35:09,260
Speaker 3: confusion for the lulz. Or more insidiously, you could imagine

2739
02:35:09,280 --> 02:35:12,180
Speaker 3: them as motivated to pull off a massive score gambling

2740
02:35:12,220 --> 02:35:15,180
Speaker 3: on world events by betting on a limited nuclear attack

2741
02:35:15,379 --> 02:35:19,199
Speaker 3: and then making one happen. Returning to our hypothetical border

2742
02:35:19,240 --> 02:35:23,220
Speaker 3: conflict between India and Pakistan, let's imagine another outbreak of

2743
02:35:23,320 --> 02:35:27,380
Speaker 3: actual shooting like May of 2025. Imagine whichever of those

2744
02:35:27,440 --> 02:35:31,240
Speaker 3: hypothetical non-state groups you like to pick floods the region

2745
02:35:31,340 --> 02:35:35,510
Speaker 3: with reports of Indian nuclear forces mobilizing or even weapons inbound.

2746
02:35:36,070 --> 02:35:39,730
Speaker 3: This would occur alongside the already nightmarish disruption of communication

2747
02:35:39,790 --> 02:35:42,250
Speaker 3: and command and control that will occur during such times

2748
02:35:42,290 --> 02:35:45,940
Speaker 3: of conflict. Is it so crazy to imagine that one

2749
02:35:45,980 --> 02:35:50,140
Speaker 3: of those Pakistani ships chooses to fire its payload? There's

2750
02:35:50,180 --> 02:35:52,980
Speaker 3: a very good reason why most nuclear-armed nations do not

2751
02:35:53,080 --> 02:35:55,640
Speaker 3: give military leaders direct control over how and when to

2752
02:35:55,680 --> 02:35:59,000
Speaker 3: fire these weapons. We don't know how Pakistan governs the

2753
02:35:59,140 --> 02:36:01,780
Speaker 3: use of their naval nukes, not really, and that means

2754
02:36:01,820 --> 02:36:05,420
Speaker 3: we cannot discount such a possibility. The kind of decisions

2755
02:36:05,520 --> 02:36:07,610
Speaker 3: made in nuclear war planning tend to come with a

2756
02:36:07,670 --> 02:36:10,630
Speaker 3: timer of less than a half hour. New weapon systems

2757
02:36:10,670 --> 02:36:14,000
Speaker 3: like hypersonic missiles have shortened that even further. This means

2758
02:36:14,070 --> 02:36:16,970
Speaker 3: any decision about when to deploy nuclear weapons is likely

2759
02:36:17,010 --> 02:36:19,390
Speaker 3: going to be made on a very short time frame

2760
02:36:19,430 --> 02:36:23,610
Speaker 3: by frightened people. Another equally terrifying vision of that scenario

2761
02:36:23,650 --> 02:36:26,690
Speaker 3: could lead China, Pakistan, and India to each conclude, based

2762
02:36:26,750 --> 02:36:29,510
Speaker 3: on a mix of real movements by neighboring forces and

2763
02:36:29,550 --> 02:36:33,030
Speaker 3: a flood of AI disinformation, to activate and position their

2764
02:36:33,070 --> 02:36:39,580
Speaker 3: nuclear arsenals just in case. Once you have nuclear weapons assembled, deployed,

2765
02:36:39,740 --> 02:36:43,629
Speaker 3: and aimed properly, the odds rise exponentially that something might

2766
02:36:43,690 --> 02:36:46,350
Speaker 3: go wrong, even if no one chooses to fire them.

2767
02:36:46,930 --> 02:36:50,470
Speaker 3: And the same sort of concerted digital disinformation attack, executed

2768
02:36:50,510 --> 02:36:53,730
Speaker 3: by a state or non-state actor, could happen today, during

2769
02:36:53,850 --> 02:36:58,300
Speaker 3: literally any tense international situation with a potential for nuclear escalation.

2770
02:36:59,140 --> 02:37:01,440
Speaker 3: As I said, my interest here is not in an

2771
02:37:01,520 --> 02:37:05,480
Speaker 3: apocalypse narrative, but in the possibility of a limited nuclear fuck-up.

2772
02:37:06,459 --> 02:37:09,660
Speaker 3: Let me propose another that might occur in this situation.

2773
02:37:10,280 --> 02:37:12,720
Speaker 3: In the U.S., all nuclear weapons are built to be

2774
02:37:12,760 --> 02:37:16,060
Speaker 3: what's called one-point safe. This means the weapon has a

2775
02:37:16,160 --> 02:37:18,660
Speaker 3: probability of less than one in a million of causing

2776
02:37:18,720 --> 02:37:23,110
Speaker 3: a nuclear detonation if the weapon explodes unintentionally. We have

2777
02:37:23,150 --> 02:37:26,530
Speaker 3: had nuclear weapons destroyed in plane crashes, and so far

2778
02:37:26,570 --> 02:37:29,949
Speaker 3: they have never detonated in a proper nuclear explosion on accident.

2779
02:37:30,060 --> 02:37:34,740
Speaker 3: Because they're one point safe Other nations do not necessarily

2780
02:37:34,840 --> 02:37:37,830
Speaker 3: abide by the same safety rules in their nuclear weapons

2781
02:37:38,200 --> 02:37:41,210
Speaker 3: And we simply do not know if Pakistan's nukes are

2782
02:37:41,250 --> 02:37:44,590
Speaker 3: safe in the same way Imagine then, as the border

2783
02:37:44,629 --> 02:37:48,250
Speaker 3: conflict heats up Pakistan's military assembles their arsenal and begins

2784
02:37:48,330 --> 02:37:52,070
Speaker 3: flying it in theater A plane crashes or gets shot down,

2785
02:37:52,410 --> 02:37:56,050
Speaker 3: and the weapon inside detonates in a proper nuclear fireball.

2786
02:37:57,010 --> 02:38:01,190
Speaker 3: Every one of my nuclear fuck-up scenarios relies on terrible decision-making.

2787
02:38:01,670 --> 02:38:04,830
Speaker 3: Clear-thinking civilian and military leaders do not take the kind

2788
02:38:04,870 --> 02:38:08,530
Speaker 3: of risks that would lead to a nuclear January 6th. Alas,

2789
02:38:08,870 --> 02:38:11,750
Speaker 3: clear-thinking civilian and military leaders are thin on the ground

2790
02:38:11,800 --> 02:38:15,390
Speaker 3: these days, especially where I live. As I noted earlier,

2791
02:38:15,590 --> 02:38:18,390
Speaker 3: the decision makers in any of these situations, regardless of

2792
02:38:18,430 --> 02:38:21,480
Speaker 3: national identity, might have only minutes to make their decisions.

2793
02:38:21,879 --> 02:38:25,120
Speaker 3: They'll be frightened and probably sleep-deprived. And what do frightened,

2794
02:38:25,160 --> 02:38:27,720
Speaker 3: sleep-deprived people turn to these days when they need to

2795
02:38:27,760 --> 02:38:28,340
Speaker 3: get work done?

2796
02:38:28,900 --> 02:38:30,400
Speaker 2: That's right, AI.

2797
02:38:31,280 --> 02:38:33,920
Speaker 3: In a CNN article from earlier this year, Katie Lillis

2798
02:38:33,980 --> 02:38:36,820
Speaker 3: and Zachary Cohen write, Across the US military and the

2799
02:38:36,860 --> 02:38:39,810
Speaker 3: intelligence community, officials are pushing to weave AI into nearly

2800
02:38:39,840 --> 02:38:42,410
Speaker 3: every facet of their work, from analyzing the huge volumes

2801
02:38:42,450 --> 02:38:45,470
Speaker 3: of raw intelligence the US collects and selecting targets for strikes,

2802
02:38:45,890 --> 02:38:49,550
Speaker 3: to more mundane applications like managing budgeting, logistics, and supply chains.

2803
02:38:50,170 --> 02:38:53,580
Speaker 3: Just a few months ago, back in the spring of 2026,

2804
02:38:53,580 --> 02:38:56,520
Speaker 3: one member of the intel community, an analyst, asked one

2805
02:38:56,540 --> 02:38:59,619
Speaker 3: of these chatbots to analyze intelligence around a Chinese vessel

2806
02:38:59,740 --> 02:39:02,289
Speaker 3: sailing to the Middle East. The bot was likely an

2807
02:39:02,350 --> 02:39:05,390
Speaker 3: internal tool, but as one senior U.S. official told CNN,

2808
02:39:05,709 --> 02:39:08,170
Speaker 3: the internal tools are mostly just copies of the commercial

2809
02:39:08,209 --> 02:39:11,890
Speaker 3: stuff wearing lipstick. Said bot did what bots do best.

2810
02:39:12,150 --> 02:39:14,360
Speaker 3: It mixed a bunch of different sources together to create

2811
02:39:14,379 --> 02:39:17,200
Speaker 3: a product for its user. This analysis, based on a

2812
02:39:17,220 --> 02:39:20,560
Speaker 3: mix of OSINT and secret intel, concluded that the Chinese

2813
02:39:20,600 --> 02:39:23,560
Speaker 3: ship was carrying components used in the production of nuclear weaponry.

2814
02:39:24,120 --> 02:39:26,859
Speaker 3: The analyst asked his AI tool to take its finding

2815
02:39:26,920 --> 02:39:29,360
Speaker 3: and produce an intelligence report, which was sent up the

2816
02:39:29,390 --> 02:39:32,180
Speaker 3: chain of command. Since the vessel was headed in the

2817
02:39:32,280 --> 02:39:35,810
Speaker 3: general direction of Iran, and since China does sell conventional

2818
02:39:35,850 --> 02:39:39,570
Speaker 3: weapons to Iran, this sparked a panic. Heard that CNN article?

2819
02:39:39,990 --> 02:39:40,290
Speaker 2: The U.S.

2820
02:39:40,310 --> 02:39:43,230
Speaker 3: Military swung into action with plans to intercept the vessel,

2821
02:39:43,290 --> 02:39:45,010
Speaker 3: according to four sources familiar.

2822
02:39:44,750 --> 02:39:45,430
Speaker 2: With the episode.

2823
02:39:45,730 --> 02:39:48,070
Speaker 3: According to two of the sources, armed members of the U.S.

2824
02:39:48,110 --> 02:39:51,470
Speaker 3: military were preparing to board the ship. Military planes were

2825
02:39:51,570 --> 02:39:53,709
Speaker 3: in the air, one of these sources and another source

2826
02:39:53,730 --> 02:39:56,590
Speaker 3: familiar with the incident said. There was only one issue.

2827
02:39:57,110 --> 02:40:00,690
Speaker 3: The AI chatbot that Analyst used had hallucinated. Every piece

2828
02:40:00,730 --> 02:40:03,530
Speaker 3: of that report was wrong. China was not sending nuclear

2829
02:40:03,570 --> 02:40:06,250
Speaker 3: weapons equipment to Iran or anywhere else because of fucking

2830
02:40:06,330 --> 02:40:09,920
Speaker 3: course they weren't. But we came calamitously close to attacking

2831
02:40:09,980 --> 02:40:13,280
Speaker 3: a Chinese ship with military force due to that hallucination.

2832
02:40:14,140 --> 02:40:17,140
Speaker 3: In January, Pete Hegseth gave a speech outlining our Department

2833
02:40:17,160 --> 02:40:21,960
Speaker 3: of Defense's new AI strategy. He insisted, we will unleash experimentation,

2834
02:40:22,040 --> 02:40:25,860
Speaker 3: eliminate bureaucratic barriers, focus our investments, and demonstrate the execution

2835
02:40:25,879 --> 02:40:29,350
Speaker 3: approach needed to ensure we lead in military AI. All

2836
02:40:29,370 --> 02:40:31,610
Speaker 3: that says to me is that these tools will only

2837
02:40:31,650 --> 02:40:34,720
Speaker 3: become more critical to the production of intelligence products than

2838
02:40:34,750 --> 02:40:37,609
Speaker 3: ever before, and we know they'll continue to hallucinate too.

2839
02:40:38,480 --> 02:40:40,840
Speaker 3: This change isn't just happening in the United States. It's

2840
02:40:40,879 --> 02:40:43,780
Speaker 3: occurring in governments and militaries all across the world, and

2841
02:40:43,800 --> 02:40:46,300
Speaker 3: it's happening at the same time as some nuclear-armed nations

2842
02:40:46,340 --> 02:40:50,720
Speaker 3: seek to expand their low-yield stockpiles. Simultaneously, the U.S. war

2843
02:40:50,760 --> 02:40:53,000
Speaker 3: against Iran and the ongoing war in Ukraine have made

2844
02:40:53,020 --> 02:40:55,460
Speaker 3: it clear to every nation-state actor that the only real

2845
02:40:55,520 --> 02:40:59,790
Speaker 3: guarantee of national sovereignty is a nuclear arsenal. More nations

2846
02:40:59,830 --> 02:41:02,170
Speaker 3: will work to acquire nukes in the near future. This

2847
02:41:02,209 --> 02:41:04,750
Speaker 3: means more nuclear weapons and more conflicts where they might

2848
02:41:04,790 --> 02:41:08,170
Speaker 3: get used, alongside an even wider proliferation of tools like

2849
02:41:08,200 --> 02:41:09,480
Speaker 3: the ones I just described.

2850
02:41:10,400 --> 02:41:11,580
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to be.

2851
02:41:11,540 --> 02:41:14,160
Speaker 3: Apocalyptic here, because again, that's.

2852
02:41:13,720 --> 02:41:15,360
Speaker 2: Not really the immediate worry.

2853
02:41:15,720 --> 02:41:18,120
Speaker 3: The worry is that a mix of increasing acceptance that

2854
02:41:18,140 --> 02:41:21,920
Speaker 3: it's okay to use small nukes, and increasing reliance on

2855
02:41:21,940 --> 02:41:25,730
Speaker 3: these AI tools, alongside the conflicts that we have always

2856
02:41:25,790 --> 02:41:29,030
Speaker 3: had between nations, will lead to a situation in which

2857
02:41:29,070 --> 02:41:32,390
Speaker 3: a very limited nuclear fuck-up not only is disastrous to

2858
02:41:32,410 --> 02:41:35,379
Speaker 3: people on the ground or wherever it occurs, but changes

2859
02:41:35,450 --> 02:41:37,959
Speaker 3: the very nature and all of the decision-making calculus in

2860
02:41:37,980 --> 02:41:40,400
Speaker 3: the world that we live in. I hope it doesn't happen,

2861
02:41:40,500 --> 02:41:42,500
Speaker 3: but that's what I'm thinking about these days.

2862
02:41:43,879 --> 02:42:00,100
Speaker 2: That's everything for today. We'll be back tomorrow. This is

2863
02:42:00,240 --> 02:42:04,129
Speaker 2: It Could Happen Here, Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering

2864
02:42:04,170 --> 02:42:06,789
Speaker 2: what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world, and

2865
02:42:06,830 --> 02:42:09,210
Speaker 2: what this means for you. I'm Garrison Davis. Today I'm

2866
02:42:09,250 --> 02:42:15,170
Speaker 2: joined by Mia Wong, Robert Evans, and Sophie Lichterman. Not allegedly. Yeah, no,

2867
02:42:15,190 --> 02:42:17,760
Speaker 2: that's definitely Sophie, but you can't prove it's me. I

2868
02:42:17,820 --> 02:42:18,900
Speaker 2: can prove it's you.

2869
02:42:18,940 --> 02:42:23,260
Speaker 3: Sophie, you have no idea where I am, Sophie, or

2870
02:42:23,320 --> 02:42:23,940
Speaker 3: what I'm doing.

2871
02:42:24,080 --> 02:42:28,240
Speaker 5: I know exactly where you are, and I know exactly.

2872
02:42:27,430 --> 02:42:29,730
Speaker 2: What you're doing. This is the first episode where we're

2873
02:42:29,750 --> 02:42:31,210
Speaker 2: testing AI Robert.

2874
02:42:31,950 --> 02:42:32,590
Speaker 1: Oh, no.

2875
02:42:32,610 --> 02:42:36,690
Speaker 2: We're not testing, there's no AI Robert. Don't yell at me,

2876
02:42:36,709 --> 02:42:37,670
Speaker 2: I'm Blue Sky.

2877
02:42:38,660 --> 02:42:43,619
Speaker 3: It'd be shit. You'll know there's no AI Robert because

2878
02:42:43,640 --> 02:42:45,810
Speaker 3: they would have trained an AI Robert on like the

2879
02:42:46,070 --> 02:42:48,070
Speaker 3: subreddit and all of the different jokes that I can

2880
02:42:48,129 --> 02:42:50,910
Speaker 3: no longer do because people have taken it too seriously.

2881
02:42:51,209 --> 02:42:53,650
Speaker 3: Like if I start talking about a child hunting island,

2882
02:42:54,030 --> 02:42:56,030
Speaker 3: like you'll know it's the AI me.

2883
02:42:56,190 --> 02:42:58,830
Speaker 2: It'll pull like a bagel throwing reference from like nine

2884
02:42:58,870 --> 02:42:59,370
Speaker 2: years ago.

2885
02:42:59,390 --> 02:43:03,250
Speaker 5: Yeah, all of a sudden you start talking about Doritos

2886
02:43:03,320 --> 02:43:04,740
Speaker 5: like you did 10 years ago.

2887
02:43:05,590 --> 02:43:08,110
Speaker 3: Yeah, talking about Doritos like 10 years ago or talking

2888
02:43:08,129 --> 02:43:10,110
Speaker 3: about the Jamie Loftus murder thing, which I don't do

2889
02:43:10,170 --> 02:43:12,630
Speaker 3: anymore because now there's a real serial killer in the

2890
02:43:12,770 --> 02:43:14,750
Speaker 3: area that people were making comments about.

2891
02:43:15,190 --> 02:43:16,550
Speaker 2: And being like, what is it, Jamie? I'm like, guys,

2892
02:43:16,590 --> 02:43:19,350
Speaker 2: there's really people dead. We don't keep the bit up

2893
02:43:19,450 --> 02:43:20,730
Speaker 2: at this point. All right.

2894
02:43:21,050 --> 02:43:21,470
Speaker 1: Here.

2895
02:43:22,110 --> 02:43:25,510
Speaker 2: This episode, we're covering the week of October 7th to

2896
02:43:25,590 --> 02:43:30,030
Speaker 2: October 14th. And we're actually going to jump straight to

2897
02:43:30,090 --> 02:43:35,690
Speaker 2: our first main story. Last Thursday afternoon, October 8th, ICE

2898
02:43:35,870 --> 02:43:39,570
Speaker 2: shot a 28-year-old man named Oscar Belgal in the New

2899
02:43:39,590 --> 02:43:43,400
Speaker 2: York City neighborhood of Marble Hill, which is physically located

2900
02:43:43,459 --> 02:43:46,040
Speaker 2: in the Bronx, but technically in the borough of Manhattan.

2901
02:43:47,080 --> 02:43:51,160
Speaker 2: Oscar was in a car with his five-year-old son. Per

2902
02:43:51,600 --> 02:43:55,580
Speaker 2: video released by the NYPD, around 4 p.m., just in

2903
02:43:55,600 --> 02:43:59,410
Speaker 2: the middle of the day, masked plainclothes agents, some wearing

2904
02:43:59,550 --> 02:44:02,650
Speaker 2: yellow construction vests, ran up to a parked car with

2905
02:44:02,730 --> 02:44:07,850
Speaker 2: guns already drawn. The driver, Oscar, started backing away, and

2906
02:44:07,870 --> 02:44:10,369
Speaker 2: then an agent began hitting the car windows with the

2907
02:44:10,390 --> 02:44:13,550
Speaker 2: butt of his gun. Oscar then pulls into the street

2908
02:44:13,670 --> 02:44:17,920
Speaker 2: and drives off screen, as agents point their guns at

2909
02:44:18,030 --> 02:44:22,600
Speaker 2: the windshield. The actual shooting itself is not captured on

2910
02:44:22,780 --> 02:44:26,180
Speaker 2: this video, but I'll play it here for us to reference.

2911
02:44:26,720 --> 02:44:28,800
Speaker 2: This is security camera footage.

2912
02:44:29,660 --> 02:44:33,020
Speaker 5: Yeah, one of the things that was, like, noticeably unsettling

2913
02:44:33,280 --> 02:44:36,020
Speaker 5: besides all of it was the fact that, like, these

2914
02:44:36,060 --> 02:44:39,320
Speaker 5: guys were dressed like crossing guards.

2915
02:44:40,400 --> 02:44:42,060
Speaker 2: Construction workers, crossing guards.

2916
02:44:42,080 --> 02:44:44,480
Speaker 12: They had, like, on normal clothes and then.

2917
02:44:44,390 --> 02:44:44,930
Speaker 10: Just, like, a.

2918
02:44:45,390 --> 02:44:46,310
Speaker 2: High-vis vest.

2919
02:44:46,370 --> 02:44:51,539
Speaker 12: Yeah, which, you know, somebody in a high-vis vest and a...

2920
02:44:52,430 --> 02:44:55,250
Speaker 12: Machine gun comes towards me. That's scary.

2921
02:44:55,550 --> 02:44:57,349
Speaker 2: They look like, like, especially the guy with the long gun.

2922
02:44:57,390 --> 02:44:59,020
Speaker 2: He looks like a mass shooter. They look like.

2923
02:44:58,930 --> 02:45:02,160
Speaker 3: Fucking mass shooters. Like, I would not assume those were

2924
02:45:02,220 --> 02:45:04,939
Speaker 3: police officers. And I might take steps to defend myself

2925
02:45:05,020 --> 02:45:08,320
Speaker 3: in that situation because they just look like fucking mass shooters.

2926
02:45:08,420 --> 02:45:08,840
Speaker 12: Correct.

2927
02:45:09,180 --> 02:45:12,400
Speaker 2: Mayor Zora Mamdani said, quote, There was no reasonable way

2928
02:45:12,459 --> 02:45:16,039
Speaker 2: to identify them as ICE agents. School had just gotten out.

2929
02:45:16,780 --> 02:45:19,330
Speaker 2: The street was crowded with families and children.

2930
02:45:19,620 --> 02:45:20,020
Speaker 7: Unquote.

2931
02:45:21,810 --> 02:45:25,390
Speaker 2: According to the NYPD, at least one agent fired seven shots.

2932
02:45:25,930 --> 02:45:29,080
Speaker 2: We do not have footage of the actual shooting. As

2933
02:45:29,140 --> 02:45:32,540
Speaker 2: I said, Oscar's five-year-old son was in the backseat of

2934
02:45:32,600 --> 02:45:37,459
Speaker 2: the car. Thank God he is physically unharmed. But, of course,

2935
02:45:37,500 --> 02:45:40,980
Speaker 2: he still had to watch masked men with guns run up,

2936
02:45:41,459 --> 02:45:45,120
Speaker 2: shoot his dad in the neck, and drag his body away.

2937
02:45:45,400 --> 02:45:50,289
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ. DHS Secretary Mullen said that agents were not

2938
02:45:50,379 --> 02:45:53,240
Speaker 2: aware a kid was in the car. Uh-huh, because they

2939
02:45:53,260 --> 02:45:55,160
Speaker 2: didn't care. Air check.

2940
02:45:55,959 --> 02:45:58,020
Speaker 12: Shoot first, ask questions later.

2941
02:45:58,040 --> 02:46:01,940
Speaker 2: The child's mother told Governor Hochul that her son is

2942
02:46:02,000 --> 02:46:06,680
Speaker 2: traumatized and won't talk. Quote, the child is not speaking.

2943
02:46:07,310 --> 02:46:08,170
Speaker 12: That's terrible.

2944
02:46:08,330 --> 02:46:09,189
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean.

2945
02:46:09,600 --> 02:46:10,760
Speaker 2: Sure, of course.

2946
02:46:11,180 --> 02:46:11,550
Speaker 4: Jesus.

2947
02:46:11,570 --> 02:46:12,910
Speaker 12: That's horrible, you guys.

2948
02:46:13,190 --> 02:46:15,189
Speaker 3: I mean, I can't really think of anything worse that

2949
02:46:15,209 --> 02:46:18,410
Speaker 3: could happen to a child than to watch their parent

2950
02:46:18,550 --> 02:46:20,830
Speaker 3: shot in the neck at random when, like, in a

2951
02:46:21,190 --> 02:46:23,349
Speaker 3: normally safe situation like that.

2952
02:46:23,879 --> 02:46:28,960
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ. ICE has still not released body cam footage

2953
02:46:29,100 --> 02:46:32,660
Speaker 2: of the shooting. DHS has said that they were conducting a, quote,

2954
02:46:32,820 --> 02:46:37,650
Speaker 2: targeted enforcement operation and that Oscar, quote, weaponized his vehicle.

2955
02:46:38,560 --> 02:46:40,760
Speaker 2: This is the thing they always say when something like

2956
02:46:40,780 --> 02:46:41,280
Speaker 2: this happens.

2957
02:46:41,640 --> 02:46:43,340
Speaker 12: Spoiler plate ass statement.

2958
02:46:44,080 --> 02:46:48,370
Speaker 2: DHS also claimed that after Ice shot and arrested Oscar, agents, quote,

2959
02:46:48,770 --> 02:46:51,410
Speaker 2: rendered first aid and then took him to the hospital.

2960
02:46:52,570 --> 02:46:55,789
Speaker 2: This is a lie. This did not happen. This is

2961
02:46:56,050 --> 02:47:00,890
Speaker 2: a plain-faced lie from DHS. Body camera footage released by

2962
02:47:01,070 --> 02:47:04,110
Speaker 2: NYPD from when they first got to the scene, when

2963
02:47:04,140 --> 02:47:07,260
Speaker 2: the cops got to the scene, Show Oscar just sitting

2964
02:47:07,300 --> 02:47:10,380
Speaker 2: in the street, bleeding out, with his hands handcuffed behind

2965
02:47:10,420 --> 02:47:13,100
Speaker 2: his back, surrounded by ICE agents who are just standing

2966
02:47:13,150 --> 02:47:15,310
Speaker 2: in a circle around him, offering no assistance.

2967
02:47:15,750 --> 02:47:17,410
Speaker 9: Yeah, and they do this all the fucking time when

2968
02:47:17,430 --> 02:47:17,949
Speaker 9: they shoot someone.

2969
02:47:17,950 --> 02:47:20,200
Speaker 2: Because they just, like, stand there and handcuff them. The

2970
02:47:20,300 --> 02:47:24,360
Speaker 2: NYPD rushes over in this footage, picks up and carries Oscar,

2971
02:47:24,760 --> 02:47:28,360
Speaker 2: who now appears to be going unconscious. They take Oscar

2972
02:47:28,459 --> 02:47:30,640
Speaker 2: into a squad car, they render aid, put pressure on

2973
02:47:30,660 --> 02:47:33,080
Speaker 2: the wound, and drive him to the hospital down the street.

2974
02:47:33,379 --> 02:47:35,020
Speaker 9: Do you know how hard it is to have less

2975
02:47:35,060 --> 02:47:37,440
Speaker 9: concern for human life than the New York Police Department?

2976
02:47:38,280 --> 02:47:42,580
Speaker 3: My God, that's astonishing. That's that's that takes some work.

2977
02:47:42,840 --> 02:47:47,520
Speaker 3: Jesus Christ. We're reaching average Los Angeles sheriff's deputy levels

2978
02:47:47,580 --> 02:47:48,270
Speaker 3: of empathy here.

2979
02:47:48,510 --> 02:47:49,430
Speaker 2: Like it's shocking.

2980
02:47:49,870 --> 02:47:51,890
Speaker 9: It's like it's like the CPD detectives they brought in

2981
02:47:51,930 --> 02:47:53,770
Speaker 9: to do torture after 9-11.

2982
02:47:54,190 --> 02:47:59,470
Speaker 2: Like that kind of shit. We don't really know what

2983
02:47:59,490 --> 02:48:01,450
Speaker 2: would have happened if NYPD did not get to the

2984
02:48:01,490 --> 02:48:05,220
Speaker 2: scene as quick as they did. In the body camera

2985
02:48:05,240 --> 02:48:10,119
Speaker 2: footage of them carrying Oscar, his body is fully limp.

2986
02:48:10,440 --> 02:48:11,100
Speaker 2: He's out of it.

2987
02:48:11,180 --> 02:48:13,170
Speaker 3: He looks like he's been shot in the neck.

2988
02:48:13,790 --> 02:48:18,010
Speaker 2: NYPD had no involvement in the federal operation prior to

2989
02:48:18,050 --> 02:48:19,490
Speaker 2: this point, prior to the shooting.

2990
02:48:19,510 --> 02:48:21,990
Speaker 3: Quite frankly, this kind of shit isn't what they do.

2991
02:48:22,050 --> 02:48:23,890
Speaker 3: They do other bad things, but they don't just like,

2992
02:48:24,870 --> 02:48:28,570
Speaker 3: shoot and like charge people's cars with guns when they're

2993
02:48:28,610 --> 02:48:30,570
Speaker 3: like driving away from school with it. Like that's just

2994
02:48:30,709 --> 02:48:33,430
Speaker 3: that that's this is so much of an escalation of

2995
02:48:33,450 --> 02:48:35,950
Speaker 3: like our normal police bullshit is what I'm saying.

2996
02:48:37,370 --> 02:48:40,690
Speaker 2: DHS has tried to justify their targeting of Oscar, calling

2997
02:48:40,720 --> 02:48:44,000
Speaker 2: him a, quote, criminal illegal alien from the Dominican Republic.

2998
02:48:44,530 --> 02:48:44,900
Speaker 5: Great.

2999
02:48:45,240 --> 02:48:48,800
Speaker 2: And pointed to prior arrests and a criminal conviction for

3000
02:48:48,920 --> 02:48:54,800
Speaker 2: grand larceny and claim Oscar's, quote, associated crimes. With a gang.

3001
02:48:55,280 --> 02:48:58,760
Speaker 2: That's the word they keep using. Associated or association. They

3002
02:48:58,800 --> 02:49:01,840
Speaker 2: won't even say he's like a member. They'll say he's

3003
02:49:01,890 --> 02:49:03,110
Speaker 2: associated with a gang.

3004
02:49:03,790 --> 02:49:04,090
Speaker 8: Yeah.

3005
02:49:04,990 --> 02:49:07,530
Speaker 2: I'll play a short clip here from the mayor's press

3006
02:49:07,570 --> 02:49:11,450
Speaker 2: conference later that evening, just down the street from this

3007
02:49:11,470 --> 02:49:12,170
Speaker 2: side of the shooting.

3008
02:49:12,930 --> 02:49:17,580
Speaker 10: There is no explanation for federal officers firing this many

3009
02:49:17,640 --> 02:49:21,039
Speaker 10: rounds into a car that has a five-year-old in the car.

3010
02:49:21,780 --> 02:49:25,830
Speaker 10: there is no explanation we are standing here so close

3011
02:49:25,890 --> 02:49:28,930
Speaker 10: to the site of where this actually took place and

3012
02:49:29,010 --> 02:49:31,240
Speaker 10: look at how many people live right here this is

3013
02:49:31,300 --> 02:49:34,140
Speaker 10: a residential neighborhood we are right here by a subway

3014
02:49:34,720 --> 02:49:37,940
Speaker 10: And the pretext of ICE is, in their words, to

3015
02:49:38,020 --> 02:49:41,540
Speaker 10: keep this country safe. How is it keeping anyone safe

3016
02:49:42,080 --> 02:49:44,260
Speaker 10: to have, as you just heard from the police commissioner,

3017
02:49:44,720 --> 02:49:49,060
Speaker 10: individuals wearing construction vests and masks with long guns?

3018
02:49:49,420 --> 02:49:53,230
Speaker 16: Residents have no idea if these are law enforcement agents

3019
02:49:53,580 --> 02:49:56,280
Speaker 16: or if they are simply attacking someone on the street.

3020
02:49:56,580 --> 02:49:58,410
Speaker 16: And when it comes to ICE, it begs the question,

3021
02:49:58,790 --> 02:50:01,430
Speaker 16: what's the difference? There is no explanation for this.

3022
02:50:02,379 --> 02:50:07,940
Speaker 2: After the shooting, soon-to-be DSA Congresswoman Daria-Liza Avila-Chavier quickly went

3023
02:50:07,980 --> 02:50:10,140
Speaker 2: up to the Bronx and saw that federal agents were

3024
02:50:10,180 --> 02:50:14,360
Speaker 2: going door-to-door, quote-unquote, collecting evidence and trying to question residents

3025
02:50:14,379 --> 02:50:17,800
Speaker 2: about the shooting, writing down people's names and numbers. So

3026
02:50:18,020 --> 02:50:22,600
Speaker 2: Daria-Liza followed behind these HSI agents, informing residents that they

3027
02:50:22,640 --> 02:50:25,840
Speaker 2: did not need to speak to or answer questions from

3028
02:50:26,220 --> 02:50:32,129
Speaker 2: these federal agents. Meanwhile, soon-to-be former congressman Adriano Espaillat And

3029
02:50:32,150 --> 02:50:36,250
Speaker 2: Oscar's own family weren't allowed to see Oscar at the hospital.

3030
02:50:36,270 --> 02:50:37,590
Speaker 1: Jesus.

3031
02:50:38,110 --> 02:50:40,430
Speaker 2: Now, outside the hospital where Oscar is being treated, a

3032
02:50:40,470 --> 02:50:43,310
Speaker 2: few hundred New Yorkers gathered to protest ICE and the

3033
02:50:43,350 --> 02:50:46,270
Speaker 2: shooting of one of their neighbors. Earlier in the evening,

3034
02:50:46,560 --> 02:50:51,880
Speaker 2: ICE vehicles were driving through protesters. But pretty quickly, NYPD

3035
02:50:52,140 --> 02:50:54,620
Speaker 2: arrived to do crowd control and clear the street for

3036
02:50:54,660 --> 02:50:57,800
Speaker 2: vehicles to enter and exit the hospital. This led to

3037
02:50:58,020 --> 02:51:01,700
Speaker 2: violent shoving matches over metal fence barricades that NYPD was

3038
02:51:01,720 --> 02:51:05,440
Speaker 2: trying to set up around the street. Daria Liza moved

3039
02:51:05,459 --> 02:51:08,580
Speaker 2: to this protest, and she was trying to de-escalate conflict.

3040
02:51:09,320 --> 02:51:12,520
Speaker 2: But NYPD got very aggressive, and Daria Liza was shoved

3041
02:51:12,540 --> 02:51:15,859
Speaker 2: to the ground by a community affairs officer. The NYPD

3042
02:51:15,910 --> 02:51:19,970
Speaker 2: blue shirts. The ones that are, you know, supposed to

3043
02:51:20,470 --> 02:51:22,250
Speaker 2: de-escalate conflict at protests.

3044
02:51:22,330 --> 02:51:27,070
Speaker 9: Yeah, average example of community affairs is shoving a congressperson.

3045
02:51:26,430 --> 02:51:31,000
Speaker 2: To the ground. I arrived at the hospital just after

3046
02:51:31,060 --> 02:51:35,850
Speaker 2: this first big clash over police barricades, during which NYPD

3047
02:51:35,870 --> 02:51:40,330
Speaker 2: arrested five protesters. After that, things seemed to settle down

3048
02:51:40,470 --> 02:51:44,430
Speaker 2: for a little bit. The crowd got smaller. And about

3049
02:51:44,530 --> 02:51:47,250
Speaker 2: like a little over an hour later, just before 11 p.m.,

3050
02:51:47,910 --> 02:51:51,230
Speaker 2: police rapidly cleared the street again, pushing protesters onto the

3051
02:51:51,270 --> 02:51:55,330
Speaker 2: sidewalk as a small caravan of feds departed the hospital

3052
02:51:55,480 --> 02:51:59,020
Speaker 2: at dangerously high speeds. They were zooming by.

3053
02:51:59,040 --> 02:52:12,310
Speaker 14: Ice just pulled away.

3054
02:52:12,330 --> 02:52:19,070
Speaker 7: The crowd chased him a little bit. It's 10.40 p.m.

3055
02:52:20,350 --> 02:52:24,650
Speaker 7: We've got a group of NYPD now leaving the area

3056
02:52:24,950 --> 02:52:28,150
Speaker 7: and the crowd is falling behind, yelling.

3057
02:52:27,970 --> 02:52:31,530
Speaker 2: At them as well. Again, NYPD is putting off into

3058
02:52:32,760 --> 02:52:38,300
Speaker 2: two directions. Oscar was in one of these vehicles leaving

3059
02:52:38,340 --> 02:52:41,180
Speaker 2: the hospital. After the feds left the hospital, the crowd

3060
02:52:41,260 --> 02:52:45,179
Speaker 2: continued to dwindle to about 40 people who then marched forward.

3061
02:52:45,570 --> 02:52:48,270
Speaker 2: up over the bridge to protest in front of Zoran's

3062
02:52:48,470 --> 02:52:52,470
Speaker 2: press conference. At the press conference, Zoran said that for

3063
02:52:52,510 --> 02:52:54,400
Speaker 2: the past two hours, he had been on the phone

3064
02:52:54,590 --> 02:52:59,099
Speaker 2: negotiating with President Trump and Secretary Mullen for Oscar's release,

3065
02:52:59,720 --> 02:53:03,900
Speaker 2: but that those negotiations were unsuccessful. I think it is

3066
02:53:03,940 --> 02:53:06,820
Speaker 2: worth noting here that earlier this year, Trump did release

3067
02:53:06,860 --> 02:53:10,959
Speaker 2: someone from ICE custody following a request by Mayor Mamdani.

3068
02:53:11,840 --> 02:53:15,510
Speaker 2: With the cries of protesters heard in the background, The

3069
02:53:15,530 --> 02:53:18,850
Speaker 2: mayor reiterated calls for ICE to be abolished, saying, quote,

3070
02:53:19,430 --> 02:53:23,080
Speaker 2: ICE is rotten to its core, operates with impunity, sows

3071
02:53:23,120 --> 02:53:27,060
Speaker 2: chaos and terror across our country, and they have killed

3072
02:53:27,160 --> 02:53:29,539
Speaker 2: far more of our neighbors than they could have ever

3073
02:53:29,820 --> 02:53:30,760
Speaker 2: claimed to save.

3074
02:53:31,600 --> 02:53:33,670
Speaker 16: I stand here not just as the mayor of our city,

3075
02:53:34,110 --> 02:53:35,890
Speaker 16: but as someone who is proud to be an immigrant

3076
02:53:35,930 --> 02:53:38,850
Speaker 16: in our city. And I know that these kinds of raids,

3077
02:53:38,890 --> 02:53:42,590
Speaker 16: this kind of terrorizing of this city, leaves the three

3078
02:53:42,629 --> 02:53:45,410
Speaker 16: million immigrants of this city asking if they are safe here,

3079
02:53:45,810 --> 02:53:48,270
Speaker 16: if they belong here, if this too can be their

3080
02:53:48,310 --> 02:53:53,030
Speaker 16: home here. We will not normalize ICE's viciousness. We will

3081
02:53:53,070 --> 02:53:57,520
Speaker 16: not accept its cruelty. We know, and I have said

3082
02:53:57,560 --> 02:54:00,859
Speaker 16: this directly, whether to the president or to the public,

3083
02:54:01,720 --> 02:54:03,720
Speaker 16: ICE undermines public safety.

3084
02:54:04,560 --> 02:54:06,199
Speaker 2: It makes us less safe.

3085
02:54:07,200 --> 02:54:10,400
Speaker 16: New York City will not stand by while ICE agents

3086
02:54:10,459 --> 02:54:13,880
Speaker 16: shoot New Yorkers. And we will not back down from

3087
02:54:13,920 --> 02:54:16,900
Speaker 16: the demand that so many, including myself, have put forward

3088
02:54:17,240 --> 02:54:21,080
Speaker 16: time and again. This is an agency that must be abolished.

3089
02:54:21,920 --> 02:54:25,859
Speaker 2: Commissioner Jessica Tisch then gave some more details about the shooting,

3090
02:54:25,879 --> 02:54:29,420
Speaker 2: some of which I've already echoed, but also read off

3091
02:54:29,520 --> 02:54:34,400
Speaker 2: Oscar's NYPD rap sheet. Average Commissioner Tisch move. Including two

3092
02:54:34,500 --> 02:54:38,279
Speaker 2: prior arrests. one for robbery, which he pleaded guilty to

3093
02:54:38,920 --> 02:54:43,140
Speaker 2: and received probation, and another for drug possession. When Zoran

3094
02:54:43,160 --> 02:54:46,700
Speaker 2: got the microphone back, he again undermined ICE's legitimacy and

3095
02:54:46,750 --> 02:54:49,390
Speaker 2: said that while negotiating with the president and Secretary Mullen,

3096
02:54:49,730 --> 02:54:52,510
Speaker 2: he requested ICE agents leave the scene entirely and demanded

3097
02:54:52,570 --> 02:54:56,330
Speaker 2: that ICE stop its enforcement actions in the city.

3098
02:54:56,650 --> 02:54:59,710
Speaker 16: There is no justification for what we have seen today

3099
02:54:59,810 --> 02:55:02,580
Speaker 16: and we know. That what we have seen today is

3100
02:55:02,620 --> 02:55:05,780
Speaker 16: but a microcosm of what ICE does on a daily

3101
02:55:05,860 --> 02:55:09,290
Speaker 16: basis across this country. How can that be how we

3102
02:55:09,330 --> 02:55:10,369
Speaker 16: describe public safety?

3103
02:55:10,650 --> 02:55:11,289
Speaker 8: It can't be.

3104
02:55:11,530 --> 02:55:13,710
Speaker 16: And I've shared that with the president. I've shared that

3105
02:55:13,730 --> 02:55:18,080
Speaker 16: with the secretary. This city wants ICE out. We want

3106
02:55:18,200 --> 02:55:20,600
Speaker 16: ICE out of our city, ICE out of our schools,

3107
02:55:20,760 --> 02:55:22,759
Speaker 16: ICE out of our hospitals, ICE out of our streets,

3108
02:55:23,160 --> 02:55:25,930
Speaker 16: ICE away from our kids. We want that because we

3109
02:55:25,990 --> 02:55:28,510
Speaker 16: want to keep the city safe. We do not need

3110
02:55:28,550 --> 02:55:31,330
Speaker 16: them to do so. All they do is terrorize the city.

3111
02:55:32,310 --> 02:55:36,150
Speaker 2: Now, the people chanting outside the press conference weren't just

3112
02:55:36,270 --> 02:55:41,360
Speaker 2: protesting ICE, but also the NYPD and Zoran himself, with

3113
02:55:41,420 --> 02:55:46,480
Speaker 2: chants of, quote, Mamdani is complicit. most of the ire

3114
02:55:46,520 --> 02:55:50,940
Speaker 2: directed at Mayor Mamdani was due to NYPD facilitating ICE's

3115
02:55:51,120 --> 02:55:54,710
Speaker 2: exit by clearing protesters in front of the hospital off

3116
02:55:54,730 --> 02:55:58,970
Speaker 2: the street before the agents sped off. After leaving the hospital,

3117
02:55:59,010 --> 02:56:02,290
Speaker 2: DHS moved Oscar to New Jersey and then back to

3118
02:56:02,350 --> 02:56:05,289
Speaker 2: New York, where he's currently in federal custody at the

3119
02:56:05,330 --> 02:56:11,370
Speaker 2: Metropolitan Detention Center. On Monday, Oscar's lawyers released a statement, quote, Mr.

3120
02:56:11,410 --> 02:56:16,010
Speaker 2: Belgal is living through an unimaginable nightmare. While he is

3121
02:56:16,080 --> 02:56:20,940
Speaker 2: currently in solitary confinement, a bullet remains lodged in his neck.

3122
02:56:21,640 --> 02:56:24,200
Speaker 2: The left side of his face is numb and he

3123
02:56:24,240 --> 02:56:27,879
Speaker 2: can barely hear out of his left ear. Doctors have

3124
02:56:27,940 --> 02:56:32,600
Speaker 2: told him he urgently needs surgery, unquote. Awful. A federal

3125
02:56:32,640 --> 02:56:36,920
Speaker 2: judge has also temporarily blocked Oscar's deportation. The day after

3126
02:56:36,940 --> 02:56:40,560
Speaker 2: the shooting, Daria Liza called for NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch

3127
02:56:40,620 --> 02:56:44,200
Speaker 2: to step down in a statement, quote, Last night, the

3128
02:56:44,300 --> 02:56:48,160
Speaker 2: NYPD and Commissioner Tisch violated the spirit, if not the letter,

3129
02:56:48,660 --> 02:56:52,519
Speaker 2: of our sanctuary city policies and fueled the Trump administration's

3130
02:56:52,640 --> 02:56:56,900
Speaker 2: attempts to demonize our communities. The NYPD's Strategic Response Group,

3131
02:56:56,980 --> 02:57:00,590
Speaker 2: or the SRG, must be disbanded as quickly as possible,

3132
02:57:01,209 --> 02:57:04,890
Speaker 2: and Commissioner Tisch must step down. New York City DSA

3133
02:57:05,050 --> 02:57:07,470
Speaker 2: also released a statement, of which I'll quote a small

3134
02:57:07,510 --> 02:57:10,550
Speaker 2: portion of. ICE's devastating shooting of a New Yorker in

3135
02:57:10,610 --> 02:57:14,410
Speaker 2: front of his child cannot stand. Neither can the NYPD's

3136
02:57:14,470 --> 02:57:17,000
Speaker 2: attack on New Yorkers who stood up for their neighbors.

3137
02:57:17,560 --> 02:57:20,250
Speaker 2: ICE is a terrorist agency that must be expelled from

3138
02:57:20,270 --> 02:57:23,660
Speaker 2: New York City and abolished. Jessica Tisch must get ICE

3139
02:57:23,720 --> 02:57:27,580
Speaker 2: out of New York and end NYPD complicity with these terrorists.

3140
02:57:28,320 --> 02:57:30,540
Speaker 2: If the commissioner can't put a stop to these injustices,

3141
02:57:30,920 --> 02:57:36,730
Speaker 2: she must be fired. Unquote. Now, initial reports claim that SRG,

3142
02:57:36,760 --> 02:57:40,390
Speaker 2: the strategic response group, was deployed to handle this protest

3143
02:57:40,610 --> 02:57:43,990
Speaker 2: at the hospital. And this is notable because Zoran ran

3144
02:57:44,050 --> 02:57:48,470
Speaker 2: on disbanding the SRG. And right now, any SRG deployment

3145
02:57:48,550 --> 02:57:52,050
Speaker 2: must get approval from City Hall, according to reporting from Politico.

3146
02:57:52,680 --> 02:57:56,320
Speaker 2: So the idea that Mamdani personally sent the SRG to

3147
02:57:56,360 --> 02:58:00,080
Speaker 2: crack skulls of anti-ice protesters fueled a lot of the

3148
02:58:00,270 --> 02:58:04,530
Speaker 2: anger coming from protesters that night. The SRG, or the

3149
02:58:04,570 --> 02:58:08,330
Speaker 2: Strategic Response Group, is a specialized unit within the NYPD,

3150
02:58:09,030 --> 02:58:14,850
Speaker 2: which focuses on counterterrorism, but also policing protests. They're sort

3151
02:58:14,870 --> 02:58:18,300
Speaker 2: of the city's de facto riot cops. The unit has

3152
02:58:18,340 --> 02:58:23,810
Speaker 2: been long criticized for violently suppressing political protest. The SRG

3153
02:58:23,850 --> 02:58:28,710
Speaker 2: did not respond to that protest, though. Instead, NYPD sent

3154
02:58:28,810 --> 02:58:34,190
Speaker 2: officers from community affairs, as mentioned, and the transit bureau's, quote,

3155
02:58:34,410 --> 02:58:39,770
Speaker 2: anti-terrorism unit, which doesn't need City Hall's direct sign-off. So

3156
02:58:39,820 --> 02:58:43,500
Speaker 2: while Zoran did not personally send the SRG to crack

3157
02:58:43,540 --> 02:58:48,800
Speaker 2: down on this protest, the violence from NYPD demonstrates that

3158
02:58:49,360 --> 02:58:53,840
Speaker 2: this issue is bigger than just one specific unit. But

3159
02:58:54,420 --> 02:58:57,480
Speaker 2: there is this larger question of like crowd control at

3160
02:58:57,500 --> 02:59:01,260
Speaker 2: these protests. And I think this question demonstrates the diverging

3161
02:59:01,320 --> 02:59:05,490
Speaker 2: interests on the part of protesters and city hall. Some

3162
02:59:05,750 --> 02:59:10,310
Speaker 2: protesters want no NYPD crowd control. People want to directly

3163
02:59:10,410 --> 02:59:12,650
Speaker 2: fight ICE and they're willing to put their body on

3164
02:59:12,670 --> 02:59:15,330
Speaker 2: the line. Yeah. Even if that means they might get hurt.

3165
02:59:15,910 --> 02:59:18,440
Speaker 2: As we've seen in other cities, physical confrontations against ICE

3166
02:59:19,060 --> 02:59:21,760
Speaker 2: could result in DHS sending more troops to New York

3167
02:59:21,780 --> 02:59:26,070
Speaker 2: and possibly triggering a political crisis, which some on the

3168
02:59:26,090 --> 02:59:28,400
Speaker 2: left also desire. There is a sort of like accelerationist

3169
02:59:28,440 --> 02:59:30,340
Speaker 2: bent towards some of these protests. They kind of want

3170
02:59:30,360 --> 02:59:33,060
Speaker 2: this political crisis and they want to directly fight and

3171
02:59:33,100 --> 02:59:36,660
Speaker 2: oppose ICE. On the other hand, for someone in Zoran's position,

3172
02:59:37,100 --> 02:59:39,830
Speaker 2: there's a desire to prevent ICE agents from hurting more people,

3173
02:59:39,870 --> 02:59:43,570
Speaker 2: whether by running people over or shooting more New Yorkers.

3174
02:59:44,209 --> 02:59:46,170
Speaker 2: I think all of these questions definitely exist in the

3175
02:59:46,209 --> 02:59:50,410
Speaker 2: shadow of Minneapolis. And furthermore, the mayor wants to limit

3176
02:59:50,440 --> 02:59:53,030
Speaker 2: the amount of DHS and ICE agents deployed to the city.

3177
02:59:53,730 --> 02:59:57,070
Speaker 2: So to that end, NYPD may end up doing some

3178
02:59:57,090 --> 03:00:00,010
Speaker 2: level of crowd control to limit protesters' interactions with ICE

3179
03:00:00,730 --> 03:00:05,720
Speaker 2: to avoid provoking a larger deployment. So even if protesters

3180
03:00:05,800 --> 03:00:10,459
Speaker 2: and Zoran have similar ultimate goals vis-a-vis ICE, their respective

3181
03:00:10,500 --> 03:00:15,970
Speaker 2: positions lead them to contradictory impulses. Zorn has said that

3182
03:00:16,000 --> 03:00:18,550
Speaker 2: he will not justify the use of force against protesters

3183
03:00:18,629 --> 03:00:21,810
Speaker 2: on Thursday night and told MSNOW he'll be conducting a

3184
03:00:21,810 --> 03:00:25,050
Speaker 2: review of the entire 24-hour period, quote, from the ICE

3185
03:00:25,110 --> 03:00:28,070
Speaker 2: shooting to the NYPD response to the incident and the

3186
03:00:28,110 --> 03:00:31,869
Speaker 2: ensuing protests to ICE's use of a privately owned parking

3187
03:00:31,890 --> 03:00:34,849
Speaker 2: lot as a staging location to every tool that we

3188
03:00:34,910 --> 03:00:39,010
Speaker 2: have at our disposal to keep New Yorkers safe, unquote.

3189
03:00:39,129 --> 03:00:42,170
Speaker 2: And on one of those last parts, AOC has also

3190
03:00:42,209 --> 03:00:45,760
Speaker 2: mentioned this, that ICE has been using the rooftop parking

3191
03:00:45,780 --> 03:00:48,720
Speaker 2: lot of a Target in the Bronx to stage before

3192
03:00:48,780 --> 03:00:51,920
Speaker 2: going out to do arrests. And that's something that electeds

3193
03:00:52,120 --> 03:00:56,180
Speaker 2: are looking to crack down on if they can. But

3194
03:00:56,620 --> 03:00:59,500
Speaker 2: Zoran has said that there are no plans to replace

3195
03:00:59,600 --> 03:01:03,050
Speaker 2: Commissioner Tisch, pointing to her history of uprooting NYPD corruption

3196
03:01:03,100 --> 03:01:07,869
Speaker 2: and the later Adams administration and the record low number

3197
03:01:07,890 --> 03:01:12,230
Speaker 2: of murders, shootings and shooting victims. But Zoran has reiterated

3198
03:01:12,270 --> 03:01:15,150
Speaker 2: multiple times this week his intention to disband the SRG

3199
03:01:15,590 --> 03:01:17,750
Speaker 2: and said he will provide an update on that timeline

3200
03:01:17,850 --> 03:01:21,010
Speaker 2: in the coming months. Also to the dismay of the

3201
03:01:21,050 --> 03:01:23,980
Speaker 2: police union, the mayor announced this week that his administration

3202
03:01:24,000 --> 03:01:27,160
Speaker 2: will be conducting the first comprehensive review of NYPD use

3203
03:01:27,200 --> 03:01:30,120
Speaker 2: of force policies and practices for the first time in

3204
03:01:30,160 --> 03:01:33,539
Speaker 2: a decade and will crack down on officers getting out

3205
03:01:33,600 --> 03:01:37,770
Speaker 2: of misconduct proceedings by retiring before disciplinary action can take

3206
03:01:37,810 --> 03:01:40,940
Speaker 2: place after this was announced yesterday. There was a very

3207
03:01:41,040 --> 03:01:45,420
Speaker 2: angry statement from the police union about this. And because

3208
03:01:45,459 --> 03:01:49,370
Speaker 2: New York has already ended qualified immunity, the biggest thing

3209
03:01:49,410 --> 03:01:52,790
Speaker 2: City Hall could do to undermine police power is to

3210
03:01:52,830 --> 03:01:56,390
Speaker 2: move certain public safety and administrative roles outside of the NYPD,

3211
03:01:56,670 --> 03:01:59,490
Speaker 2: which Zorn wants to do with the Department of Community Safety,

3212
03:01:59,550 --> 03:02:03,590
Speaker 2: but that has faced budgetary constraints, especially following the discovery

3213
03:02:03,670 --> 03:02:07,730
Speaker 2: of the $ 12 billion deficit left over by Mayor Adams. Now,

3214
03:02:07,730 --> 03:02:11,110
Speaker 2: 10 months into his administration, Zoran has not been eager

3215
03:02:11,370 --> 03:02:14,990
Speaker 2: to spend political capital taking on the NYPD. Where he

3216
03:02:15,030 --> 03:02:18,140
Speaker 2: has been spending political capital, it's mostly been to strengthen labor,

3217
03:02:18,820 --> 03:02:21,820
Speaker 2: investing in the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, creating

3218
03:02:21,840 --> 03:02:24,700
Speaker 2: and enforcing a new click-to-cancel rule to crack down on

3219
03:02:25,000 --> 03:02:29,960
Speaker 2: impossible-to-end subscriptions, winning hundreds of millions of dollars for delivery workers,

3220
03:02:30,379 --> 03:02:33,600
Speaker 2: fighting to pass the Delivery Protection Act to strengthen Amazon workers'

3221
03:02:34,080 --> 03:02:37,560
Speaker 2: right to unionize, and partnering with labor unions to modernize

3222
03:02:37,580 --> 03:02:39,980
Speaker 2: the process of applying for city jobs and launching the

3223
03:02:40,000 --> 03:02:43,480
Speaker 2: mayor's office of worker power. And this is in addition

3224
03:02:43,520 --> 03:02:46,760
Speaker 2: to universal child care and the rent freeze, which just

3225
03:02:46,800 --> 03:02:51,260
Speaker 2: went into effect earlier this month. But after attending protests

3226
03:02:51,379 --> 03:02:54,510
Speaker 2: this week, my general sense is that when it comes

3227
03:02:54,550 --> 03:02:59,410
Speaker 2: to NYPD and ICE, protesters want more than just well-worded

3228
03:02:59,470 --> 03:03:04,090
Speaker 2: statements and these reviews. They want to see more actionable change.

3229
03:03:04,720 --> 03:03:07,740
Speaker 2: whether that's using his position as mayor as a sort

3230
03:03:07,760 --> 03:03:12,519
Speaker 2: of bully pulpit to rally the masses against ICE, or

3231
03:03:12,620 --> 03:03:15,890
Speaker 2: employ more direct measures to protect New Yorkers from ICE.

3232
03:03:16,570 --> 03:03:20,730
Speaker 2: What those measures may be is not entirely clear. And

3233
03:03:21,270 --> 03:03:23,630
Speaker 2: if the left wants to be effective in agitating for

3234
03:03:23,690 --> 03:03:27,610
Speaker 2: larger social change, beyond making just general demands of electeds,

3235
03:03:27,770 --> 03:03:31,250
Speaker 2: it may be worth closely considering why an elected is

3236
03:03:31,330 --> 03:03:34,230
Speaker 2: taking certain actions, the constraints of their power and the

3237
03:03:34,290 --> 03:03:38,450
Speaker 2: contradictions inherent to holding office, so that those not in

3238
03:03:38,510 --> 03:03:41,990
Speaker 2: office can apply targeted outside pressure to counteract the pressure

3239
03:03:42,110 --> 03:03:44,890
Speaker 2: coming from the federal and state level, and just the

3240
03:03:44,930 --> 03:03:50,060
Speaker 2: pressures of governing itself. Though firing Tisch may please some

3241
03:03:50,090 --> 03:03:54,099
Speaker 2: of Zoran's left-wing base, more broadly it is politically risky

3242
03:03:54,280 --> 03:03:56,600
Speaker 2: and could damage Zoran as he tries to enact his

3243
03:03:56,660 --> 03:04:00,470
Speaker 2: economic agenda while contending with a centrist governor and a

3244
03:04:00,810 --> 03:04:04,970
Speaker 2: very hostile federal administration. From City Hall's perspective, choosing to

3245
03:04:05,010 --> 03:04:07,929
Speaker 2: go to war with the NYPD right now could undermine

3246
03:04:08,129 --> 03:04:11,880
Speaker 2: Zoran's ability to protect New York from ICE, whether by limiting...

3247
03:04:11,970 --> 03:04:15,510
Speaker 2: the scale of ICE operations, or ideally keeping ICE out

3248
03:04:15,550 --> 03:04:17,910
Speaker 2: of the city entirely. Of course, none of this means

3249
03:04:17,930 --> 03:04:22,300
Speaker 2: that people should stop protesting. Protesting is the crucial thing

3250
03:04:22,320 --> 03:04:24,580
Speaker 2: that could apply pressure here. But it's also going to

3251
03:04:24,600 --> 03:04:27,619
Speaker 2: have to be more than 400 of New York's most

3252
03:04:27,740 --> 03:04:31,140
Speaker 2: left-wing protesters. It's going to have to require mass engagement.

3253
03:04:31,780 --> 03:04:33,860
Speaker 2: But the thing I wanted to emphasize here at the

3254
03:04:33,920 --> 03:04:37,990
Speaker 2: end is that a socialist elected to an executive position

3255
03:04:38,410 --> 03:04:42,090
Speaker 2: and a protester and an organizer outside of government are

3256
03:04:42,150 --> 03:04:46,269
Speaker 2: very different kinds of political actors whose positions strongly influence

3257
03:04:46,290 --> 03:04:49,039
Speaker 2: the actions they take or may be inclined to take.

3258
03:04:49,580 --> 03:04:53,020
Speaker 2: Protests supply an important pressure on city leaders to pursue

3259
03:04:53,080 --> 03:04:56,580
Speaker 2: certain aims, but our political analysis must take account of

3260
03:04:56,660 --> 03:04:59,960
Speaker 2: the balance of forces within the state. Does anyone else

3261
03:04:59,980 --> 03:05:02,789
Speaker 2: have any thoughts on this? I'm sure Mia does.

3262
03:05:03,470 --> 03:05:07,490
Speaker 9: Yeah, well, I think part of what's happening here on

3263
03:05:07,510 --> 03:05:11,590
Speaker 9: a broader scale is that, like, One of the reasons

3264
03:05:11,610 --> 03:05:15,590
Speaker 9: that ICE has been successful over the last, call it

3265
03:05:15,640 --> 03:05:22,019
Speaker 9: like three or four months, in significant escalations of raids,

3266
03:05:22,320 --> 03:05:24,080
Speaker 9: and we've talked about this a little bit on this show,

3267
03:05:24,120 --> 03:05:26,539
Speaker 9: but there have been huge escalations in raids in Texas

3268
03:05:26,700 --> 03:05:30,240
Speaker 9: and raids in Florida. And there's also been kind of

3269
03:05:30,340 --> 03:05:34,650
Speaker 9: beneath the notice of people who aren't there, a really

3270
03:05:34,670 --> 03:05:39,570
Speaker 9: significant escalation in places like Minneapolis and But they're doing

3271
03:05:39,610 --> 03:05:40,190
Speaker 9: it quietly.

3272
03:05:40,410 --> 03:05:40,610
Speaker 2: Yeah.

3273
03:05:40,629 --> 03:05:43,090
Speaker 9: Like, they're not fighting with protesters. They're going in, they're

3274
03:05:43,110 --> 03:05:45,950
Speaker 9: grabbing people, and they're leaving. And I think this is

3275
03:05:45,990 --> 03:05:48,650
Speaker 9: one of the things the protesters are thinking about to

3276
03:05:48,670 --> 03:05:51,449
Speaker 9: some extent, which is part of why their calculus is

3277
03:05:51,470 --> 03:05:54,529
Speaker 9: different in the mayor's office, because, you know, one of

3278
03:05:54,580 --> 03:05:57,300
Speaker 9: the things that's been allowing all of this to happen

3279
03:05:57,500 --> 03:05:59,600
Speaker 9: is that ICE has been able to do this smoothly.

3280
03:05:59,800 --> 03:06:00,039
Speaker 1: Yeah.

3281
03:06:00,560 --> 03:06:04,220
Speaker 9: The fact that they'll do it smoothly, quietly, and without disturbing, like,

3282
03:06:04,400 --> 03:06:05,540
Speaker 9: the broader public order.

3283
03:06:05,560 --> 03:06:05,640
Speaker 1: Yeah.

3284
03:06:06,690 --> 03:06:08,760
Speaker 9: Is a big part of how they've been able to

3285
03:06:09,459 --> 03:06:12,560
Speaker 9: really ramp up rates without the kind of mass resistance

3286
03:06:12,640 --> 03:06:14,340
Speaker 9: that we saw.

3287
03:06:14,160 --> 03:06:15,020
Speaker 13: Earlier in the year.

3288
03:06:15,040 --> 03:06:21,830
Speaker 9: But this leads you to a structural problem with the

3289
03:06:21,850 --> 03:06:26,070
Speaker 9: position of someone holding office, which is that, A, holding

3290
03:06:26,110 --> 03:06:28,410
Speaker 9: office in the U.S. does not give you a monopoly

3291
03:06:28,470 --> 03:06:32,220
Speaker 9: on violence because the police are effectively a semi-independent force.

3292
03:06:33,290 --> 03:06:37,420
Speaker 9: And you can do oversight on them to some extent,

3293
03:06:38,110 --> 03:06:41,020
Speaker 9: but as long as you're sending them there, even if

3294
03:06:41,060 --> 03:06:43,600
Speaker 9: you tell them, hey, don't beat up protesters, they're going

3295
03:06:43,640 --> 03:06:46,500
Speaker 9: to go beat up Congress people. And then you have

3296
03:06:46,520 --> 03:06:49,400
Speaker 9: a secondary problem, which is that if you're running the

3297
03:06:49,440 --> 03:06:52,380
Speaker 9: government of New York, your job is to maintain public order.

3298
03:06:53,160 --> 03:06:55,859
Speaker 9: And the way that you defeat ICE is through breaking

3299
03:06:56,040 --> 03:07:00,340
Speaker 9: public order. And this puts you inherently in tension. with

3300
03:07:00,760 --> 03:07:04,100
Speaker 9: the state itself in a position where Mondani ends up

3301
03:07:04,120 --> 03:07:09,860
Speaker 9: being aligned structurally with the police trying to do protest control.

3302
03:07:10,920 --> 03:07:14,209
Speaker 9: And this is just sort of like the structural limits

3303
03:07:14,530 --> 03:07:17,430
Speaker 9: of what kind of power you actually hold in the

3304
03:07:17,470 --> 03:07:21,010
Speaker 9: United States when you are elected. Because, yeah, I was like, no,

3305
03:07:21,030 --> 03:07:27,580
Speaker 9: we're keeping on fucking Adams-era police commissioner because if you

3306
03:07:27,610 --> 03:07:31,080
Speaker 9: want to try to have the body that's nominally enforcing

3307
03:07:31,120 --> 03:07:35,240
Speaker 9: your legitimacy on violence, you have to go to war

3308
03:07:35,280 --> 03:07:40,200
Speaker 9: with people who can fight you. And that's just a

3309
03:07:40,220 --> 03:07:44,280
Speaker 9: huge structural problem with power in the American government. Yeah,

3310
03:07:44,320 --> 03:07:49,709
Speaker 9: and Tisch was also retained. essentially following requests from hokal

3311
03:07:49,890 --> 03:07:52,230
Speaker 9: as a sort of like yeah sign to hokal that

3312
03:07:52,270 --> 03:07:55,919
Speaker 9: like zorn will still be like a competent administrator essentially

3313
03:07:55,980 --> 03:07:57,279
Speaker 9: it was it was it was it was assigned to

3314
03:07:57,320 --> 03:08:00,180
Speaker 9: her to kind of get her on board during the

3315
03:08:00,220 --> 03:08:03,539
Speaker 9: general election yeah and then also you know extract economic

3316
03:08:04,080 --> 03:08:07,000
Speaker 9: wins and revenue from the state so that mom donnie

3317
03:08:07,020 --> 03:08:09,650
Speaker 9: can have the funding for things like universal child care

3318
03:08:09,670 --> 03:08:11,350
Speaker 9: and it's that was one of the calculations that was

3319
03:08:11,390 --> 03:08:14,120
Speaker 9: made and and he did like announce his intention to

3320
03:08:14,180 --> 03:08:16,439
Speaker 9: retain her during, during the campaign. So this wasn't, is it,

3321
03:08:16,440 --> 03:08:19,320
Speaker 9: this isn't necessarily one of his campaign promises, the way

3322
03:08:19,820 --> 03:08:21,180
Speaker 9: abolishing SRG is.

3323
03:08:21,730 --> 03:08:24,990
Speaker 2: Yeah. And which he seems to be still trying to

3324
03:08:25,050 --> 03:08:27,390
Speaker 2: work on and you can apply, but as we see from,

3325
03:08:27,690 --> 03:08:30,750
Speaker 2: you know, NYC DSA, Zoran's political home, a pressure can

3326
03:08:30,770 --> 03:08:33,209
Speaker 2: still be applied on both of these things. Yeah. And, and,

3327
03:08:33,270 --> 03:08:35,230
Speaker 2: and should be in that pressure is necessary. Even if

3328
03:08:35,270 --> 03:08:38,350
Speaker 2: that means you're going to be going against someone who

3329
03:08:38,410 --> 03:08:41,330
Speaker 2: is like, you know, an economic ally, right. In terms of,

3330
03:08:41,500 --> 03:08:43,629
Speaker 2: in terms of, yeah. how he's trying to run the city.

3331
03:08:44,129 --> 03:08:47,190
Speaker 2: But there are going to be these contradictions that part

3332
03:08:47,230 --> 03:08:49,930
Speaker 2: of the left winning power in these places means we

3333
03:08:49,970 --> 03:08:52,110
Speaker 2: have to deal with those contradictions. You have to go

3334
03:08:52,150 --> 03:08:54,490
Speaker 2: through them, not just avoid them. You can't just avoid

3335
03:08:54,570 --> 03:08:58,050
Speaker 2: conflict here. You have to pursue it with focus and determination.

3336
03:08:58,790 --> 03:09:02,770
Speaker 2: I think sometimes, at least in conversations in New York

3337
03:09:03,050 --> 03:09:05,470
Speaker 2: over the NYPD aspect, I definitely do not want to

3338
03:09:05,850 --> 03:09:09,270
Speaker 2: distract from the ice angle here as there is a

3339
03:09:09,290 --> 03:09:11,849
Speaker 2: man With a bullet still literally in his neck.

3340
03:09:12,110 --> 03:09:12,330
Speaker 4: Yeah.

3341
03:09:12,570 --> 03:09:15,350
Speaker 2: And I hope that that gets some more focus in

3342
03:09:15,400 --> 03:09:19,959
Speaker 2: these next few days. Yeah. Because that situation has not

3343
03:09:20,000 --> 03:09:37,990
Speaker 2: resolved itself. In the episode description, I will link New

3344
03:09:38,010 --> 03:09:43,070
Speaker 2: York City's immigration resources, the Immigration Legal Support Hotline, the

3345
03:09:43,230 --> 03:09:46,970
Speaker 2: intake form for the Rapid Response Legal Collaborative for people

3346
03:09:47,050 --> 03:09:50,920
Speaker 2: facing the threat of detention or deportation, as well as

3347
03:09:51,000 --> 03:09:53,640
Speaker 2: the Know Your Rights booklets that the city offers in

3348
03:09:53,720 --> 03:09:57,800
Speaker 2: multiple languages. It's time for us to go on an

3349
03:09:57,900 --> 03:10:00,300
Speaker 2: ad break, and then we will return for more news,

3350
03:10:00,320 --> 03:10:13,859
Speaker 2: because it has been a busy week. We are back.

3351
03:10:15,560 --> 03:10:19,200
Speaker 2: Let's now go through some of our small things here. Mia,

3352
03:10:19,240 --> 03:10:20,340
Speaker 2: do you want to start us off?

3353
03:10:21,320 --> 03:10:21,680
Speaker 8: Yeah.

3354
03:10:21,800 --> 03:10:26,310
Speaker 9: So speaking of the filmed shooting of people in America,

3355
03:10:26,330 --> 03:10:31,530
Speaker 9: Pete Hegseth has announced that he is planning to live

3356
03:10:31,550 --> 03:10:35,220
Speaker 9: stream the execution by firing squad of the 2009 Fort

3357
03:10:35,250 --> 03:10:39,660
Speaker 9: Hood shooter. He announced this by email. Quote tweeting a

3358
03:10:39,860 --> 03:10:44,849
Speaker 9: CBS News tweet about the Pentagon's plan with a quote

3359
03:10:44,890 --> 03:10:49,369
Speaker 9: tweet that says, quote, correct. And that's that's how it

3360
03:10:49,410 --> 03:10:52,330
Speaker 9: was announced by the U.S. government that we were going

3361
03:10:52,390 --> 03:10:56,070
Speaker 9: to execute a man by firing squad. A thing that

3362
03:10:56,330 --> 03:11:00,140
Speaker 9: the military hasn't executed someone in 65 years. And live streamed.

3363
03:11:00,300 --> 03:11:04,180
Speaker 9: The live streaming part specifically is that is 30s lynching shit.

3364
03:11:04,420 --> 03:11:05,240
Speaker 9: That's crazy.

3365
03:11:05,930 --> 03:11:08,550
Speaker 3: Like, to be honest, I don't support the death penalty

3366
03:11:08,590 --> 03:11:10,869
Speaker 3: for the military. Like, the state shouldn't be doing that,

3367
03:11:10,910 --> 03:11:13,480
Speaker 3: in my opinion. But among death penalty options, I don't

3368
03:11:13,520 --> 03:11:16,060
Speaker 3: care about, like, a firing squad. Like, I actually think

3369
03:11:16,080 --> 03:11:18,900
Speaker 3: that's more ethical than the fucking lethal injections they're doing.

3370
03:11:19,379 --> 03:11:23,140
Speaker 2: But live streaming? It's depraved. It's sick shit.

3371
03:11:23,240 --> 03:11:23,560
Speaker 1: Yeah.

3372
03:11:23,780 --> 03:11:25,930
Speaker 2: That also just more so points to the brutality of

3373
03:11:25,950 --> 03:11:27,789
Speaker 2: lethal injection, despite it being this.

3374
03:11:27,890 --> 03:11:28,029
Speaker 3: Yeah.

3375
03:11:28,550 --> 03:11:32,170
Speaker 2: Thing that's marketed as peaceful and civil. Yes, I'm not

3376
03:11:32,230 --> 03:11:35,000
Speaker 2: saying it's nice to shoot people. Yeah, it's also horrible.

3377
03:11:35,040 --> 03:11:38,480
Speaker 2: It's much worse than shooting them. Yeah, the fact that

3378
03:11:38,520 --> 03:11:41,060
Speaker 2: lethal injection is by all accounts actually a more horrific

3379
03:11:41,080 --> 03:11:46,289
Speaker 2: way to die than a literal firing squad is itself crazy.

3380
03:11:47,090 --> 03:11:50,010
Speaker 2: If you know what you're doing, a bullet's quick. But

3381
03:11:50,030 --> 03:11:51,720
Speaker 2: I mean, the live streaming thing is insane.

3382
03:11:51,750 --> 03:11:56,160
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's horrible. Like, obviously, there's been widespread condemnation of this.

3383
03:11:56,440 --> 03:11:58,859
Speaker 9: The people who have been really in support of this

3384
03:11:59,100 --> 03:12:01,840
Speaker 9: have been a bunch of the worst Silicon Valley fascists.

3385
03:12:02,580 --> 03:12:05,930
Speaker 9: There was a quote from Palmer Luckey, who is one

3386
03:12:05,950 --> 03:12:09,609
Speaker 9: of the founders of Andriel, which is a Silicon Valley

3387
03:12:09,670 --> 03:12:11,090
Speaker 9: weapons manufacturer we've talked about.

3388
03:12:11,110 --> 03:12:13,250
Speaker 2: They make drones. They make a bunch of other shit.

3389
03:12:14,110 --> 03:12:17,550
Speaker 9: Who said, quote, and then there are those who suggest

3390
03:12:17,750 --> 03:12:21,300
Speaker 9: any revel in the death of those who truly deserve

3391
03:12:21,340 --> 03:12:23,860
Speaker 9: it is an indicator of a broken or diseased mind.

3392
03:12:24,020 --> 03:12:27,000
Speaker 9: To the contrary, it is normal, good, and aligned with

3393
03:12:27,060 --> 03:12:29,920
Speaker 9: our natural order that it has not been done here

3394
03:12:29,980 --> 03:12:32,340
Speaker 9: in 60 years as an indictment in and of itself.

3395
03:12:33,080 --> 03:12:35,210
Speaker 9: And the thing I would say about this is to

3396
03:12:35,290 --> 03:12:38,610
Speaker 9: everyone who wants to do this, like, are you sure

3397
03:12:38,709 --> 03:12:41,010
Speaker 9: you want to live in the world where you've opened

3398
03:12:41,050 --> 03:12:41,369
Speaker 9: this door?

3399
03:12:42,410 --> 03:12:42,730
Speaker 1: Yeah.

3400
03:12:42,850 --> 03:12:44,930
Speaker 2: Like, are you sure you want what follows?

3401
03:12:45,450 --> 03:12:49,520
Speaker 3: Do you want us to talk about live streaming executions?

3402
03:12:49,560 --> 03:12:51,740
Speaker 3: Because I will tell you, I don't think a lot

3403
03:12:51,780 --> 03:12:54,560
Speaker 3: of Americans want to watch this execution live stream, but

3404
03:12:54,600 --> 03:12:56,980
Speaker 3: there are some executions I can imagine a lot of

3405
03:12:57,040 --> 03:12:59,310
Speaker 3: Americans would want to watch on a live stream.

3406
03:12:59,340 --> 03:13:02,670
Speaker 9: Read up on your Chochescu is all I'm saying about this.

3407
03:13:02,690 --> 03:13:05,750
Speaker 3: Look at your poll numbers and read about Chochescu.

3408
03:13:05,770 --> 03:13:09,320
Speaker 2: Yeah. You can't help but think of like, When our

3409
03:13:09,379 --> 03:13:12,359
Speaker 2: term comes, we shall make no excuse for the terror. Like,

3410
03:13:13,440 --> 03:13:18,890
Speaker 2: I'm there, baby. I've never understood those words so much

3411
03:13:18,950 --> 03:13:19,869
Speaker 2: as I do now.

3412
03:13:19,930 --> 03:13:21,910
Speaker 9: I would prefer that that door remained shut because I

3413
03:13:21,950 --> 03:13:23,890
Speaker 9: don't think you should be publicly executing people. I don't

3414
03:13:23,910 --> 03:13:26,230
Speaker 9: think you should be publicly executing people on livestream. But like,

3415
03:13:27,350 --> 03:13:29,820
Speaker 9: you're opening this fucking door. If that's what we're doing,

3416
03:13:29,879 --> 03:13:30,620
Speaker 9: it's like.

3417
03:13:32,230 --> 03:13:34,870
Speaker 3: I can I can agree. Perhaps the country would be

3418
03:13:34,910 --> 03:13:38,289
Speaker 3: better if everyone couldn't buy an AR-15. But you opened

3419
03:13:38,310 --> 03:13:41,250
Speaker 3: the door. So I have like six. Right.

3420
03:13:42,140 --> 03:13:45,560
Speaker 2: It's also it has been reported that Trump is debating

3421
03:13:45,820 --> 03:13:49,360
Speaker 2: canceling the live stream only after he learned that the

3422
03:13:49,400 --> 03:13:52,760
Speaker 2: shooter was paralyzed, which is very interesting.

3423
03:13:54,000 --> 03:13:56,959
Speaker 3: Every now and then, you get a little insight into

3424
03:13:56,980 --> 03:14:00,160
Speaker 3: the fact that Trump does have some kind of moral

3425
03:14:00,240 --> 03:14:03,900
Speaker 3: schema in his head, and it's always baffling when you

3426
03:14:03,940 --> 03:14:05,750
Speaker 3: get a hint of how it really looks.

3427
03:14:06,200 --> 03:14:09,410
Speaker 2: It's always just completely unhinged. I mean, that just might

3428
03:14:09,430 --> 03:14:12,390
Speaker 2: be an optics thing, too. Yeah, that is an optics thing,

3429
03:14:12,410 --> 03:14:14,130
Speaker 2: but it's showing his awareness of the moral component and

3430
03:14:14,150 --> 03:14:14,390
Speaker 2: the optics.

3431
03:14:14,410 --> 03:14:14,510
Speaker 6: Yeah.

3432
03:14:21,160 --> 03:14:23,620
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. It's just nuts. It's just like, that was

3433
03:14:23,640 --> 03:14:28,260
Speaker 2: your line, huh? Maybe. Like, okay. Oh, God.

3434
03:14:28,340 --> 03:14:28,680
Speaker 8: All right.

3435
03:14:30,600 --> 03:14:34,980
Speaker 2: Quick update here. On Thursday, President Trump did, in fact,

3436
03:14:35,080 --> 03:14:39,840
Speaker 2: cancel the planned live stream of the Fort Hood shooter's execution.

3437
03:14:41,250 --> 03:14:46,209
Speaker 2: Moving on. On Monday, DHS and HSI Homeland Security Investigations

3438
03:14:46,450 --> 03:14:50,900
Speaker 2: raided the D.C. home of Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar. This

3439
03:14:50,959 --> 03:14:56,679
Speaker 2: follows confirmation at the midterm RNC from Secretary Mullen that

3440
03:14:57,080 --> 03:15:01,170
Speaker 2: there is an investigation into the allegations of immigration fraud

3441
03:15:01,350 --> 03:15:05,510
Speaker 2: made against Omar based on a years old racist conspiracy theory.

3442
03:15:06,110 --> 03:15:09,010
Speaker 2: After the raid on Monday, Ilhan made a statement, quote,

3443
03:15:09,890 --> 03:15:13,300
Speaker 2: I'm OK. Make no mistake. This is an attempt to

3444
03:15:13,350 --> 03:15:17,610
Speaker 2: target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement. 10 years,

3445
03:15:17,730 --> 03:15:21,240
Speaker 2: Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns.

3446
03:15:21,770 --> 03:15:24,879
Speaker 2: This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of

3447
03:15:24,940 --> 03:15:28,900
Speaker 2: political intimidation. I will not be silenced, unquote.

3448
03:15:28,920 --> 03:15:31,459
Speaker 9: It's also worth noting, like, we're coming up on the elections,

3449
03:15:31,620 --> 03:15:33,320
Speaker 9: and this is the shit that's happening right now.

3450
03:15:34,000 --> 03:15:38,060
Speaker 2: Quick update here. Shortly after recording, the Wall Street Journal

3451
03:15:38,200 --> 03:15:44,020
Speaker 2: reported that the Trump administration's investigations into Representative Omar's is

3452
03:15:44,240 --> 03:15:47,120
Speaker 2: specifically aimed at building a case to strip her of

3453
03:15:47,180 --> 03:15:51,720
Speaker 2: her U.S. citizenship and ultimately deport her. We will likely

3454
03:15:51,820 --> 03:15:53,320
Speaker 2: talk about this more next week.

3455
03:15:54,420 --> 03:15:56,720
Speaker 3: I do want to take us a little bit further

3456
03:15:57,060 --> 03:16:01,420
Speaker 3: from the United States to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

3457
03:16:01,440 --> 03:16:06,070
Speaker 3: There's a long ongoing conflict there between the Congolese government

3458
03:16:06,350 --> 03:16:09,170
Speaker 3: and the rebel group M23, which is backed by the

3459
03:16:09,209 --> 03:16:14,310
Speaker 3: Rwandan state. Eric Prince and his mercenary corporation, Vectus, have

3460
03:16:14,330 --> 03:16:17,600
Speaker 3: been contracted by the Congolese government to fight against M23.

3461
03:16:17,680 --> 03:16:20,900
Speaker 3: What I'm talking about actually happened on September 17th, but

3462
03:16:20,920 --> 03:16:22,879
Speaker 3: we just found out about it within the last couple

3463
03:16:22,920 --> 03:16:26,580
Speaker 3: of days. During intense fighting in the Menemwe highlands, a

3464
03:16:26,660 --> 03:16:31,450
Speaker 3: group of Prince's mercenaries were ambushed and roughly 20 of

3465
03:16:31,510 --> 03:16:34,730
Speaker 3: them were killed or injured. This came after a clash

3466
03:16:34,750 --> 03:16:37,650
Speaker 3: earlier in September in which several Colombian contractors were killed.

3467
03:16:38,160 --> 03:16:42,280
Speaker 3: During this most recent ambush, a New Zealand military veteran

3468
03:16:42,490 --> 03:16:46,130
Speaker 3: was killed and an American named Tim Kennedy, who was

3469
03:16:46,150 --> 03:16:48,949
Speaker 3: a former Green Beret, and then after being a Green Beret,

3470
03:16:48,970 --> 03:16:52,420
Speaker 3: a former UFC fighter. fighter, was badly injured. I think

3471
03:16:52,440 --> 03:16:54,000
Speaker 3: he got shot three times in the leg. Sounds like

3472
03:16:54,020 --> 03:16:55,660
Speaker 3: there's a good chance he'll lose a leg, but I

3473
03:16:55,680 --> 03:16:59,180
Speaker 3: don't really know for certain. And was evac'd and wound

3474
03:16:59,240 --> 03:17:02,340
Speaker 3: up eventually at a U.S. military hospital in Germany. So

3475
03:17:03,620 --> 03:17:04,900
Speaker 3: there's a couple of things about this. First off, I've

3476
03:17:04,920 --> 03:17:06,250
Speaker 3: seen people being like, why is the U.S.

3477
03:17:06,280 --> 03:17:06,750
Speaker 2: Military.

3478
03:17:07,300 --> 03:17:08,860
Speaker 3: Yeah, paying for the health care of a mercenary because

3479
03:17:08,900 --> 03:17:11,180
Speaker 3: he's a veteran. It's not weird that he went to

3480
03:17:11,200 --> 03:17:14,130
Speaker 3: a military hospital, right? He's entitled to that, to health

3481
03:17:14,150 --> 03:17:16,590
Speaker 3: care of that kind. The bigger issue is that Eric

3482
03:17:16,610 --> 03:17:19,170
Speaker 3: Prince has a mercenary corporation that's active in the Congo.

3483
03:17:19,709 --> 03:17:22,450
Speaker 3: Things do not seem to be going well for Prince

3484
03:17:22,650 --> 03:17:25,670
Speaker 3: or for Vectis in the Congo. Although, again, we don't

3485
03:17:25,709 --> 03:17:27,460
Speaker 3: know that. We just know 20 injured and killed. I

3486
03:17:27,450 --> 03:17:28,800
Speaker 3: don't know how many killed. I don't know what their

3487
03:17:28,820 --> 03:17:31,220
Speaker 3: nationalities were. They're not a real military, so they don't

3488
03:17:31,240 --> 03:17:32,920
Speaker 3: have to tell anybody that shit, right?

3489
03:17:33,300 --> 03:17:33,859
Speaker 8: Yeah.

3490
03:17:33,920 --> 03:17:36,699
Speaker 3: Once James is back, I'm sure we'll put together an episode.

3491
03:17:37,200 --> 03:17:39,560
Speaker 3: covering in more detail, like what's happening in the Congo,

3492
03:17:39,580 --> 03:17:41,750
Speaker 3: because that's important. And it's not really a topic we've

3493
03:17:41,830 --> 03:17:44,230
Speaker 3: covered a lot on this show. As a little bit

3494
03:17:44,270 --> 03:17:47,050
Speaker 3: of a fun note, because this really pissed off a

3495
03:17:47,090 --> 03:17:49,890
Speaker 3: lot of people on X, the everything app, like a

3496
03:17:49,930 --> 03:17:52,250
Speaker 3: lot of right wingers who are angry that turns out

3497
03:17:52,350 --> 03:17:54,970
Speaker 3: US Special Forces guys aren't nearly as badass without air support.

3498
03:17:55,110 --> 03:17:56,810
Speaker 2: Yeah, they can just get killed in the jungle like

3499
03:17:56,910 --> 03:17:57,510
Speaker 2: anybody else.

3500
03:17:58,030 --> 03:18:00,610
Speaker 3: Bullets don't discriminate on how much training or whatever you have,

3501
03:18:00,660 --> 03:18:03,440
Speaker 3: how cool you look in pictures. So this started a

3502
03:18:03,480 --> 03:18:06,439
Speaker 3: discourse that ended ultimately with a poll and a week

3503
03:18:06,500 --> 03:18:09,620
Speaker 3: long discussion as to whether or not all of Europe

3504
03:18:10,140 --> 03:18:12,200
Speaker 3: in 1939 could conquer modern 2026 Africa. 78% of X

3505
03:18:12,250 --> 03:18:17,550
Speaker 3: voted they believe 1939 Europe. Let me tell you something, folks.

3506
03:18:17,910 --> 03:18:20,750
Speaker 3: This is objectively true. Anyone who knows anything about modern

3507
03:18:20,910 --> 03:18:23,490
Speaker 3: 20th century warfare will tell you it wouldn't take all

3508
03:18:23,530 --> 03:18:28,650
Speaker 3: of Africa. Egypt alone could wipe out 1939 Europe. to

3509
03:18:28,680 --> 03:18:32,689
Speaker 3: the man militarily without a single soldier landing in Africa.

3510
03:18:33,090 --> 03:18:38,050
Speaker 3: They have Rafale fighters. They have 1,100 Abrams tanks. Even

3511
03:18:38,070 --> 03:18:40,760
Speaker 3: if you were to take somehow and magically transport all

3512
03:18:40,780 --> 03:18:44,020
Speaker 3: of the tanks in Europe in 1939. And remember, in 1939,

3513
03:18:44,020 --> 03:18:46,439
Speaker 3: none of the cool shit from World War II existed yet,

3514
03:18:46,560 --> 03:18:48,940
Speaker 3: by the way. The German army, I mean, it ended

3515
03:18:48,980 --> 03:18:51,699
Speaker 3: the war horse-based, but it was really horse-based in 1939, right?

3516
03:18:52,490 --> 03:18:54,650
Speaker 3: If you were to take all of the tanks, every

3517
03:18:54,750 --> 03:18:58,430
Speaker 3: armored vehicle, and put them against just Egypt's Abrams tanks,

3518
03:18:58,510 --> 03:19:01,530
Speaker 3: and by the way, there's 600 T-90 tanks or something

3519
03:19:01,570 --> 03:19:04,070
Speaker 3: like that in Algeria. I don't know how many Abrams

3520
03:19:04,090 --> 03:19:06,590
Speaker 3: tanks fucking Morocco has, but it's a lot. But if

3521
03:19:06,610 --> 03:19:09,550
Speaker 3: you take just Egypt's Abrams tanks, there was not a

3522
03:19:09,709 --> 03:19:12,830
Speaker 3: single man or vehicle portable weapon on the planet that

3523
03:19:12,850 --> 03:19:17,610
Speaker 3: could pierce Chobham armor in 1939. The battle would be

3524
03:19:17,670 --> 03:19:18,369
Speaker 3: over in seconds.

3525
03:19:18,610 --> 03:19:18,850
Speaker 2: Yeah.

3526
03:19:19,330 --> 03:19:24,810
Speaker 3: Anyway, one of the more amusing pieces of derangement online lately. Oh, God,

3527
03:19:24,850 --> 03:19:26,670
Speaker 3: I just love it when people are crazy. That's what

3528
03:19:26,690 --> 03:19:26,990
Speaker 3: I got.

3529
03:19:28,450 --> 03:19:31,780
Speaker 2: One of the other things that James, I assume James

3530
03:19:31,800 --> 03:19:34,480
Speaker 2: will want to talk more once he gets back, is

3531
03:19:34,500 --> 03:19:37,720
Speaker 2: early this week, J.D. Vance, as part of his fraud

3532
03:19:37,840 --> 03:19:42,920
Speaker 2: task force, announced big crackdowns on H-1B visas at Microsoft

3533
03:19:43,020 --> 03:19:47,070
Speaker 2: and J-1 visas at universities. Hmm. So this is something

3534
03:19:47,090 --> 03:19:50,910
Speaker 2: that does deserve more dedicated focus in a future episode.

3535
03:19:50,930 --> 03:19:56,090
Speaker 2: Netflix this week has laid off about 1,000 employees. That's

3536
03:19:56,140 --> 03:19:58,360
Speaker 2: roughly 6% of their workforce.

3537
03:19:59,000 --> 03:19:59,620
Speaker 20: Oh, it sucks.

3538
03:20:00,220 --> 03:20:05,240
Speaker 2: Before Paramount acquired Warner Brothers, Netflix was trying to acquire

3539
03:20:05,280 --> 03:20:10,420
Speaker 2: Warner Brothers. In election news, but an even cooler kind,

3540
03:20:10,800 --> 03:20:15,000
Speaker 2: Sean Fain and his left-wing slate at United UAW Just

3541
03:20:15,260 --> 03:20:19,199
Speaker 2: swept the United Auto Worker elections. We are the incumbents now.

3542
03:20:19,780 --> 03:20:20,820
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes.

3543
03:20:20,860 --> 03:20:22,280
Speaker 2: Just totally demolished.

3544
03:20:22,740 --> 03:20:26,179
Speaker 3: And look, do some of us find it entertaining that

3545
03:20:26,230 --> 03:20:28,970
Speaker 3: his name sounds a lot like the Irish political party

3546
03:20:29,010 --> 03:20:29,510
Speaker 3: Sinn Féin?

3547
03:20:29,810 --> 03:20:33,030
Speaker 2: Of course. That's all I have to say.

3548
03:20:33,050 --> 03:20:35,930
Speaker 12: How much did he win by, Ger?

3549
03:20:36,290 --> 03:20:44,780
Speaker 2: Sion Féin won with 67.98%. To runner up Rich Boyer's 14%.

3550
03:20:44,780 --> 03:20:51,250
Speaker 2: Nice work, Rich. I'll glitter it. Nailed it. You really

3551
03:20:51,280 --> 03:20:52,650
Speaker 2: hit the zeitgeist there, my man.

3552
03:20:52,670 --> 03:20:56,070
Speaker 9: You think that like regular politicians have incumbency advantage? You

3553
03:20:56,110 --> 03:20:57,890
Speaker 9: have never seen a union election.

3554
03:20:57,910 --> 03:21:01,470
Speaker 2: Oh, my God. Especially a union election for a guy

3555
03:21:01,490 --> 03:21:05,040
Speaker 2: who like made things better in the union. Like, damn. Yeah, yeah.

3556
03:21:05,629 --> 03:21:08,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's just a Catholic school in Oregon that fired

3557
03:21:08,090 --> 03:21:09,920
Speaker 3: their football coach because he won by too much.

3558
03:21:10,020 --> 03:21:10,440
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.

3559
03:21:10,480 --> 03:21:13,619
Speaker 3: He was scoring points when it was just kind of mean.

3560
03:21:13,900 --> 03:21:15,930
Speaker 3: I feel that way about Sean. It's like, okay, man,

3561
03:21:16,300 --> 03:21:18,120
Speaker 3: did you really need 67% of the vote?

3562
03:21:18,940 --> 03:21:21,940
Speaker 9: For details, by the way, that guy ran an onside

3563
03:21:22,020 --> 03:21:24,350
Speaker 9: kick before halftime up 57.

3564
03:21:24,350 --> 03:21:28,690
Speaker 2: So that's some sicko shit. But also, I did not

3565
03:21:28,750 --> 03:21:29,990
Speaker 2: know Sean had game like that.

3566
03:21:30,010 --> 03:21:30,890
Speaker 4: Yeah.

3567
03:21:33,379 --> 03:21:37,060
Speaker 2: Starting this week, the White House has a new press secretary,

3568
03:21:37,580 --> 03:21:41,400
Speaker 2: Katie Zachariah. And I'll be the first to say she's

3569
03:21:41,440 --> 03:21:44,840
Speaker 2: doing great. She's amazing work. You know, no notes. I

3570
03:21:45,080 --> 03:21:46,240
Speaker 2: think we can move on, right?

3571
03:21:47,340 --> 03:21:48,840
Speaker 17: I adore my family.

3572
03:21:49,080 --> 03:21:49,840
Speaker 2: I love them.

3573
03:21:49,879 --> 03:21:53,500
Speaker 17: They are my priority. I love being with my kids.

3574
03:21:53,879 --> 03:21:57,200
Speaker 17: The idea of not spending evenings with my kids is

3575
03:21:57,440 --> 03:22:03,930
Speaker 17: completely unacceptable. So my president, excuse me, my husband, that's

3576
03:22:03,950 --> 03:22:06,250
Speaker 17: a good one. My husband is out here.

3577
03:22:07,140 --> 03:22:12,430
Speaker 2: Incredible. Oh, my God. Incredible slip. Oh, my God. Incredible slip. Oh,

3578
03:22:12,510 --> 03:22:15,090
Speaker 2: my God. Is she the one that was, like, claiming

3579
03:22:15,110 --> 03:22:15,810
Speaker 2: to be a lawyer?

3580
03:22:16,030 --> 03:22:16,330
Speaker 1: Yes.

3581
03:22:17,270 --> 03:22:20,880
Speaker 2: Yes, in China. In China. She passed the bar in China?

3582
03:22:20,940 --> 03:22:23,160
Speaker 2: Let me be clear. No, she didn't.

3583
03:22:24,080 --> 03:22:29,910
Speaker 9: Like, I would bet my life she did not pass

3584
03:22:29,940 --> 03:22:30,750
Speaker 9: the bar in China.

3585
03:22:31,410 --> 03:22:32,629
Speaker 2: Like, I am that certain.

3586
03:22:32,650 --> 03:22:32,990
Speaker 1: Wow.

3587
03:22:33,090 --> 03:22:35,190
Speaker 9: Like, I am as certain of that as I am

3588
03:22:35,250 --> 03:22:37,990
Speaker 9: certain that 90% of people who write about Taiwanese politics

3589
03:22:38,070 --> 03:22:39,390
Speaker 9: can't name three Taiwanese cities.

3590
03:22:40,090 --> 03:22:42,710
Speaker 2: I don't know, Mia. She seems to have a pretty

3591
03:22:42,790 --> 03:22:46,970
Speaker 2: solid grasp of foreign policy. Let's see her Mandarin. Here's

3592
03:22:47,010 --> 03:22:49,070
Speaker 2: her talking about Venezuela.

3593
03:22:49,840 --> 03:22:53,250
Speaker 17: He had a historic one-day war, and now we have

3594
03:22:53,270 --> 03:22:58,359
Speaker 17: a booming economy and a great relationship with Venezuela.

3595
03:22:59,230 --> 03:22:59,890
Speaker 2: Incredible.

3596
03:23:00,070 --> 03:23:02,670
Speaker 5: I'm looking forward to covering her. I don't know what

3597
03:23:02,690 --> 03:23:04,330
Speaker 5: you're talking about. This is going to be great.

3598
03:23:04,570 --> 03:23:06,879
Speaker 9: By the way, for people who can't see this clip,

3599
03:23:07,280 --> 03:23:10,500
Speaker 9: the amazing part is she, when she stops before she

3600
03:23:10,540 --> 03:23:13,460
Speaker 9: says Venezuela, she is looking down at the page.

3601
03:23:13,580 --> 03:23:15,359
Speaker 2: She looks down at her notes.

3602
03:23:15,760 --> 03:23:20,380
Speaker 9: To remember what country she's talking about. Incredible stuff.

3603
03:23:20,620 --> 03:23:23,810
Speaker 2: We could do a whole episode about this first press conference.

3604
03:23:23,850 --> 03:23:26,550
Speaker 2: There's some great clips going around if you want to

3605
03:23:26,590 --> 03:23:27,050
Speaker 2: have fun.

3606
03:23:27,070 --> 03:23:27,570
Speaker 1: God.

3607
03:23:28,450 --> 03:23:32,830
Speaker 2: Less fun, on the afternoon of October 7th in Sacramento,

3608
03:23:33,520 --> 03:23:36,620
Speaker 2: a day after the county began mailing out ballots, an

3609
03:23:36,660 --> 03:23:39,500
Speaker 2: SUV pulled up to a USPS mail truck. A masked

3610
03:23:39,540 --> 03:23:42,120
Speaker 2: man got out of the SUV and stole trays of

3611
03:23:42,200 --> 03:23:46,440
Speaker 2: mail from the truck. Residents have reported their mail-in ballots

3612
03:23:46,550 --> 03:23:50,170
Speaker 2: are now missing. Great stuff happening here. Love this country.

3613
03:23:50,490 --> 03:23:55,610
Speaker 2: A few days later, the National Guard were videoed standing

3614
03:23:56,070 --> 03:24:01,550
Speaker 2: in front of... Ballot drop boxes in D.C. They claimed

3615
03:24:01,570 --> 03:24:05,450
Speaker 2: that they were not legally guarding the boxes because that's illegal.

3616
03:24:05,470 --> 03:24:11,310
Speaker 2: But they were meandering in front of ballot drop boxes.

3617
03:24:11,830 --> 03:24:12,129
Speaker 1: Yeah.

3618
03:24:13,090 --> 03:24:20,240
Speaker 2: God. Not great stuff just a few weeks before the election. Lastly,

3619
03:24:20,959 --> 03:24:26,070
Speaker 2: while addressing a MAGA crowd in Tennessee... Trump made this

3620
03:24:26,390 --> 03:24:29,120
Speaker 2: very accurate comment. No, it's true.

3621
03:24:29,600 --> 03:24:38,820
Speaker 6: No, there's such love. It's like, like, I mean, it's amazing.

3622
03:24:39,280 --> 03:24:41,360
Speaker 6: When you stand up here, it's just like the love.

3623
03:24:41,780 --> 03:24:44,170
Speaker 6: I could say the stupidest things and you're clapping, oh,

3624
03:24:44,200 --> 03:24:44,810
Speaker 6: I love you so much.

3625
03:24:45,330 --> 03:24:45,830
Speaker 2: That's true.

3626
03:24:47,490 --> 03:24:49,850
Speaker 6: But we don't say the stupidest things. We say things

3627
03:24:49,910 --> 03:24:50,830
Speaker 6: of common sense.

3628
03:24:50,850 --> 03:24:53,310
Speaker 5: There's so much clapping to that.

3629
03:24:57,140 --> 03:24:58,620
Speaker 2: He knows his fans. What can you say?

3630
03:24:58,640 --> 03:25:00,960
Speaker 12: He certainly does.

3631
03:25:00,980 --> 03:25:04,940
Speaker 5: And speaking of fans, I have a segment here for us.

3632
03:25:05,240 --> 03:25:06,580
Speaker 12: It is sports season for me.

3633
03:25:07,480 --> 03:25:10,970
Speaker 5: With the WNBA and MLB playoffs going on and the

3634
03:25:11,090 --> 03:25:12,930
Speaker 5: NBA season starting, it's exciting.

3635
03:25:12,950 --> 03:25:15,050
Speaker 2: I have not approved this message. Fuck off.

3636
03:25:15,490 --> 03:25:16,650
Speaker 12: It's exciting for.

3637
03:25:16,550 --> 03:25:20,250
Speaker 5: Me, but it also means I'm exposed to television commercial advertisements.

3638
03:25:20,290 --> 03:25:20,490
Speaker 9: Oh, my God.

3639
03:25:20,610 --> 03:25:22,040
Speaker 12: It's so bad.

3640
03:25:22,140 --> 03:25:24,800
Speaker 5: Besides the alarming number of sports betting ads, a new

3641
03:25:24,820 --> 03:25:28,310
Speaker 5: trend I'm upset about is AI ads targeting seniors.

3642
03:25:28,370 --> 03:25:29,370
Speaker 12: Let's take a listen.

3643
03:25:30,660 --> 03:25:32,640
Speaker 21: Can you go to my calendar and find me a

3644
03:25:32,700 --> 03:25:35,000
Speaker 21: half an hour tomorrow so I can mail some of

3645
03:25:35,040 --> 03:25:36,780
Speaker 21: these cookies to my grandson?

3646
03:25:37,060 --> 03:25:38,680
Speaker 1: I've added a post office trip at town.

3647
03:25:38,700 --> 03:25:39,820
Speaker 13: All right, Esther, we're ready.

3648
03:25:40,040 --> 03:25:42,449
Speaker 17: ChatGPT boys.

3649
03:25:42,890 --> 03:25:45,870
Speaker 9: ChatGPT boys got a whole lot more useful.

3650
03:25:46,150 --> 03:25:50,070
Speaker 1: It's no longer just answering questions. It's better at getting

3651
03:25:50,190 --> 03:25:50,949
Speaker 1: things done.

3652
03:25:51,629 --> 03:25:52,510
Speaker 5: Don't do me.

3653
03:25:54,100 --> 03:25:54,920
Speaker 8: Oh, honey.

3654
03:25:54,940 --> 03:25:56,220
Speaker 2: Let me show you an example.

3655
03:25:56,459 --> 03:25:58,459
Speaker 9: Can you go into my finances and let me know

3656
03:25:58,520 --> 03:26:00,119
Speaker 9: if you see any duplicate charges?

3657
03:26:00,160 --> 03:26:00,820
Speaker 2: Jesus. Sure.

3658
03:26:00,900 --> 03:26:01,720
Speaker 1: Checking your accounts.

3659
03:26:02,040 --> 03:26:02,260
Speaker 7: Okay.

3660
03:26:02,480 --> 03:26:05,000
Speaker 9: It looks like you're paying twice for a magazine called

3661
03:26:05,060 --> 03:26:05,970
Speaker 9: Sound and Stereo.

3662
03:26:06,100 --> 03:26:09,050
Speaker 2: Well, that's odd. Can you cancel the duplicate and send

3663
03:26:09,090 --> 03:26:09,850
Speaker 2: an e-refund?

3664
03:26:10,110 --> 03:26:10,429
Speaker 18: Of course.

3665
03:26:11,490 --> 03:26:13,830
Speaker 3: So you're just giving it access to your bank details

3666
03:26:13,990 --> 03:26:15,970
Speaker 3: as an old person. That doesn't seem like it'll lead

3667
03:26:16,010 --> 03:26:17,470
Speaker 3: you to getting scammed anymore.

3668
03:26:17,550 --> 03:26:19,850
Speaker 12: Yeah, I was pretty angry when I first saw that.

3669
03:26:19,870 --> 03:26:21,720
Speaker 5: I thought I was being irrationally angry, but now I

3670
03:26:21,740 --> 03:26:23,420
Speaker 5: think I'm just rational and that it sucks.

3671
03:26:23,840 --> 03:26:26,820
Speaker 3: I can't think of any way in which a chatbot

3672
03:26:26,860 --> 03:26:30,120
Speaker 3: that pulls for its answers from places like Reddit and

3673
03:26:30,120 --> 03:26:33,310
Speaker 3: the social Internet would spread like bad advice on what

3674
03:26:33,310 --> 03:26:36,020
Speaker 3: old people should do with their money once it has

3675
03:26:36,020 --> 03:26:39,269
Speaker 3: access to their bank accounts. I can't imagine that causing

3676
03:26:39,270 --> 03:26:41,689
Speaker 3: a problem. So I don't see what your issue is, Sophie.

3677
03:26:42,450 --> 03:26:45,709
Speaker 12: From the New York Post quote, it's very concerning, says Dr.

3678
03:26:45,730 --> 03:26:49,580
Speaker 5: Stacey Wood, clinical neuropsychologist and professor at Scripps College. Older

3679
03:26:49,610 --> 03:26:53,160
Speaker 5: people are maybe less aware of the algorithm's power, like

3680
03:26:53,200 --> 03:26:55,660
Speaker 5: how they work. It's really hard for them to discern

3681
03:26:55,680 --> 03:26:59,000
Speaker 5: what's credible and what's not. Older people are also taking

3682
03:26:59,070 --> 03:27:02,160
Speaker 5: up AI en masse. Hugh Data from February found that

3683
03:27:02,200 --> 03:27:06,520
Speaker 5: a full 23% of senior citizens use chatbots and 42%

3684
03:27:06,520 --> 03:27:09,360
Speaker 5: of those aged 50 to 64 are the same. And,

3685
03:27:09,420 --> 03:27:11,400
Speaker 5: you know, like keeping up with tech is not necessarily

3686
03:27:11,440 --> 03:27:12,220
Speaker 5: a bad thing.

3687
03:27:12,840 --> 03:27:15,080
Speaker 12: But Dr. Stacey Wood says it's a slippery slope.

3688
03:27:15,180 --> 03:27:17,500
Speaker 5: As people age, Wood noted, they also tend to be

3689
03:27:17,540 --> 03:27:20,060
Speaker 5: more likely to believe something is true because it is

3690
03:27:20,080 --> 03:27:22,840
Speaker 5: simply repeated to them over and over. And they're generally

3691
03:27:22,890 --> 03:27:26,670
Speaker 5: more susceptible to sensationalized and highly partisan content.

3692
03:27:26,970 --> 03:27:29,390
Speaker 2: I can say the dumbest things and you people would

3693
03:27:29,410 --> 03:27:29,970
Speaker 2: clap for me.

3694
03:27:30,410 --> 03:27:31,010
Speaker 12: Yeah.

3695
03:27:31,510 --> 03:27:33,550
Speaker 3: One of the issues, as you stated, Sophie, is that

3696
03:27:33,590 --> 03:27:36,629
Speaker 3: like it's actually more important, I think, for the elderly

3697
03:27:36,730 --> 03:27:39,550
Speaker 3: to be aware of what AI is capable of than

3698
03:27:39,570 --> 03:27:41,709
Speaker 3: a lot of other groups because they're being targeted so

3699
03:27:41,770 --> 03:27:45,750
Speaker 3: relentlessly by different kind of AI based scams. Unfortunately, that

3700
03:27:45,900 --> 03:27:48,820
Speaker 3: usually gets translated into you should be using AI, which

3701
03:27:48,879 --> 03:27:50,080
Speaker 3: is going to make a lot of these people more

3702
03:27:50,120 --> 03:27:51,080
Speaker 3: vulnerable to scams.

3703
03:27:51,730 --> 03:27:54,009
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, like, I don't like that there's this

3704
03:27:54,030 --> 03:27:57,300
Speaker 5: like trend that AI can can replace like human to

3705
03:27:57,320 --> 03:28:01,260
Speaker 5: human contact for our seniors. You guys, Garen, Robert, you

3706
03:28:01,280 --> 03:28:04,330
Speaker 5: saw a number of products at this year's CES that

3707
03:28:04,370 --> 03:28:06,209
Speaker 5: were targeting seniors in that way.

3708
03:28:06,870 --> 03:28:09,410
Speaker 3: We saw one or two reasonable ones and a lot

3709
03:28:09,430 --> 03:28:10,010
Speaker 3: of bad ones.

3710
03:28:10,400 --> 03:28:11,240
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.

3711
03:28:11,560 --> 03:28:14,240
Speaker 12: And, you know, I guess slippery slope.

3712
03:28:14,360 --> 03:28:17,900
Speaker 5: But this commercial comes on a lot with different versions

3713
03:28:18,140 --> 03:28:21,830
Speaker 5: of seniors, almost always seniors that are women doing things and,

3714
03:28:21,970 --> 03:28:26,320
Speaker 5: you know. the chat GPT or whatever AI helping them.

3715
03:28:27,000 --> 03:28:29,340
Speaker 5: I just don't see a reason why chat GPT should

3716
03:28:29,360 --> 03:28:33,500
Speaker 5: have access to these people's calendars, finances, that kind of

3717
03:28:33,520 --> 03:28:36,460
Speaker 5: a thing. I don't see this ending well for so

3718
03:28:36,500 --> 03:28:40,240
Speaker 5: many folks. It lacks security and I'm angry about it

3719
03:28:40,600 --> 03:28:43,750
Speaker 5: and I wish it wasn't a trend that I see increasing,

3720
03:28:43,810 --> 03:28:45,670
Speaker 5: but that seems to be the path we're going on.

3721
03:28:45,690 --> 03:28:46,210
Speaker 2: Yeah.

3722
03:28:46,290 --> 03:28:48,030
Speaker 5: That's all I had on that. I just felt it

3723
03:28:48,070 --> 03:28:51,070
Speaker 5: was worth mentioning because it was On my mind.

3724
03:28:51,350 --> 03:28:52,090
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah.

3725
03:28:52,209 --> 03:28:54,070
Speaker 3: Another story that's come out this week is that a

3726
03:28:54,090 --> 03:28:56,879
Speaker 3: bunch of anthropic researchers are now, or at least there's

3727
03:28:56,900 --> 03:29:00,600
Speaker 3: been stories in San Francisco. And you should always take

3728
03:29:00,640 --> 03:29:01,920
Speaker 3: this stuff with a grain of salt, but this is

3729
03:29:01,940 --> 03:29:04,280
Speaker 3: consistent with a lot of internal conversations that a lot

3730
03:29:04,300 --> 03:29:06,300
Speaker 3: of them have been taking up smoking because they're like,

3731
03:29:06,379 --> 03:29:10,320
Speaker 3: AI will cure cancer, right? And this has been occurring alongside,

3732
03:29:10,379 --> 03:29:12,560
Speaker 3: like there was just an interview with an AI researcher

3733
03:29:12,860 --> 03:29:16,320
Speaker 3: on the Delphi podcast for Anthropic who said he's enjoying

3734
03:29:16,360 --> 03:29:18,970
Speaker 3: his last six months. Part of the issue here is

3735
03:29:20,120 --> 03:29:22,140
Speaker 3: that if you try to engage with what these people

3736
03:29:22,200 --> 03:29:24,910
Speaker 3: are saying, then you wind up sounding to a lot

3737
03:29:24,950 --> 03:29:28,340
Speaker 3: of folks like you're just like ignoring the potential of

3738
03:29:28,420 --> 03:29:30,860
Speaker 3: AI and the things that it is actually capable of doing.

3739
03:29:31,690 --> 03:29:34,030
Speaker 3: But you have to engage with what the people making

3740
03:29:34,050 --> 03:29:36,369
Speaker 3: it are saying. And everything that the company is making

3741
03:29:36,410 --> 03:29:38,390
Speaker 3: this stuff is saying it's nuts.

3742
03:29:38,810 --> 03:29:41,510
Speaker 2: It's bullshit. It's lies. And it's insane.

3743
03:29:41,930 --> 03:29:44,190
Speaker 3: And that doesn't mean that these are not incredibly powerful

3744
03:29:44,250 --> 03:29:45,449
Speaker 3: and very dangerous tools.

3745
03:29:45,470 --> 03:29:45,730
Speaker 9: They are.

3746
03:29:45,770 --> 03:29:49,110
Speaker 3: They are extraordinarily dangerous because, among other things, they have

3747
03:29:49,330 --> 03:29:52,900
Speaker 3: automated the ability of small groups of nation states of

3748
03:29:52,980 --> 03:29:57,560
Speaker 3: non-state actors. to carry out massive digital attacks with a

3749
03:29:57,580 --> 03:30:00,460
Speaker 3: level of penetration and speed that was not possible before.

3750
03:30:00,879 --> 03:30:04,660
Speaker 3: And that's a huge problem. These things are very capable tools.

3751
03:30:05,150 --> 03:30:07,890
Speaker 3: It's just that everything being said by the people making

3752
03:30:07,930 --> 03:30:11,050
Speaker 3: them is insane bullshit, and it makes it very hard

3753
03:30:11,150 --> 03:30:13,610
Speaker 3: to have reasonable conversations about what should be done.

3754
03:30:14,250 --> 03:30:18,380
Speaker 2: Anyway. That's a really good point. Fuck these guys. Yeah.

3755
03:30:18,400 --> 03:30:22,879
Speaker 2: Let's go to ads real quick. Enjoy these hopefully non-AI products.

3756
03:30:23,200 --> 03:30:23,540
Speaker 8: Yeah.

3757
03:30:34,650 --> 03:30:36,109
Speaker 2: And we're back.

3758
03:30:37,550 --> 03:30:41,000
Speaker 3: And I think it's time for us to head south

3759
03:30:41,280 --> 03:30:44,080
Speaker 3: of the border that is south of the Polish border

3760
03:30:44,480 --> 03:30:47,330
Speaker 3: to talk about Ukraine. I don't know why I decided

3761
03:30:47,370 --> 03:30:48,550
Speaker 3: to lead in that way, but I did.

3762
03:30:48,610 --> 03:30:49,030
Speaker 5: Baffling.

3763
03:30:49,520 --> 03:30:52,290
Speaker 3: Things have unfortunately been very spicy in Ukraine over this

3764
03:30:52,310 --> 03:30:55,410
Speaker 3: last week. Last Friday, President Donald Trump announced that his

3765
03:30:55,470 --> 03:30:58,359
Speaker 3: Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, and he had made a deal

3766
03:30:58,459 --> 03:31:02,119
Speaker 3: to release 300,000 tons of Russian diesel fuel to, quote,

3767
03:31:02,220 --> 03:31:05,680
Speaker 3: the American and global marketplace immediately. This came as a

3768
03:31:05,720 --> 03:31:08,350
Speaker 3: massive surprise to everyone because last month, Trump signed a

3769
03:31:08,360 --> 03:31:11,289
Speaker 3: massive sanctions law to stop Russia from making money selling

3770
03:31:11,370 --> 03:31:13,330
Speaker 3: oil and gas to fuel their war against Ukraine.

3771
03:31:13,730 --> 03:31:15,470
Speaker 2: The midterms crunch is really hurting.

3772
03:31:16,590 --> 03:31:20,770
Speaker 3: It's really making strange, not strange, but I guess normal bedfellows.

3773
03:31:21,370 --> 03:31:23,290
Speaker 3: All of this seems to be in response to continuing

3774
03:31:23,330 --> 03:31:27,640
Speaker 3: disastrous polling numbers of Republicans in the midterms. An APNORC

3775
03:31:27,690 --> 03:31:31,200
Speaker 3: poll published on October 1st showed that most Americans disapprove

3776
03:31:31,240 --> 03:31:34,020
Speaker 3: of Trump's war with Iran and blame him personally for

3777
03:31:34,080 --> 03:31:38,230
Speaker 3: higher gas prices because he's why we have higher gas prices.

3778
03:31:39,150 --> 03:31:42,840
Speaker 9: He has destroyed a generation of work. So trying to

3779
03:31:42,860 --> 03:31:45,100
Speaker 9: tell people the president does not control gas prices by

3780
03:31:45,160 --> 03:31:47,260
Speaker 9: finding the only possible way to actually.

3781
03:31:47,100 --> 03:31:47,939
Speaker 2: Increase gas prices. He really did.

3782
03:31:47,959 --> 03:31:51,199
Speaker 3: He definitely did. This is the first time that's been true.

3783
03:31:51,730 --> 03:31:53,949
Speaker 3: This is like the first time we've been in what

3784
03:31:53,990 --> 03:31:56,190
Speaker 3: is effectively a recession. You can say, no, it's directly

3785
03:31:56,230 --> 03:31:59,209
Speaker 3: as responsive to current policies, like literally direct. Like, I mean,

3786
03:31:59,250 --> 03:32:01,670
Speaker 3: obviously the 2008 crash, a lot, Bush did a lot

3787
03:32:01,709 --> 03:32:02,980
Speaker 3: to do with it, but most of that didn't hit

3788
03:32:03,000 --> 03:32:03,580
Speaker 3: until anyway.

3789
03:32:03,900 --> 03:32:05,740
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying, right? Yeah. I did that.

3790
03:32:06,120 --> 03:32:06,380
Speaker 6: Yeah.

3791
03:32:06,580 --> 03:32:07,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.

3792
03:32:07,820 --> 03:32:10,660
Speaker 3: So Trump's goal was to make a deal with Putin

3793
03:32:10,720 --> 03:32:13,960
Speaker 3: to lower diesel prices in particular, as diesel prices have

3794
03:32:13,980 --> 03:32:17,670
Speaker 3: been debilitating to American farmers who tend to support Trump.

3795
03:32:17,810 --> 03:32:19,470
Speaker 3: And I think also just a lot of the ads

3796
03:32:19,490 --> 03:32:21,250
Speaker 3: that have been running with farmers being like Trump fucked

3797
03:32:21,290 --> 03:32:24,830
Speaker 3: me are really bad for Donald and for MAGA. in

3798
03:32:24,890 --> 03:32:27,850
Speaker 3: addition to the immediate 300,000 tons of diesel promised to

3799
03:32:27,890 --> 03:32:31,130
Speaker 3: be released, another 500,000 tons of Russian diesel were to

3800
03:32:31,170 --> 03:32:33,710
Speaker 3: be released by Russia in November, and 1 million more

3801
03:32:33,750 --> 03:32:37,320
Speaker 3: tons were to be released immediately hereafter. It's not actually

3802
03:32:37,360 --> 03:32:39,140
Speaker 3: clear if this is any kind of formal deal or

3803
03:32:39,180 --> 03:32:42,200
Speaker 3: if any of this is actually promised anywhere, what these

3804
03:32:42,240 --> 03:32:44,180
Speaker 3: numbers are based on. A lot of what Trump says

3805
03:32:44,220 --> 03:32:47,600
Speaker 3: is just nonsensical. So he says that in November, we'll

3806
03:32:47,620 --> 03:32:50,470
Speaker 3: get another half million, and then another million immediately hereafter,

3807
03:32:50,770 --> 03:32:53,430
Speaker 3: and then 3 million more tons within a short period

3808
03:32:53,450 --> 03:32:57,430
Speaker 3: of time. That's not what we what are you at?

3809
03:32:57,530 --> 03:32:59,920
Speaker 3: How much fuel is supposed to be released? This might

3810
03:33:00,030 --> 03:33:03,820
Speaker 3: be market manipulation. Genuinely, this might just be market manipulation.

3811
03:33:03,879 --> 03:33:07,480
Speaker 3: It's entirely possible as that probably leads you to believe

3812
03:33:07,500 --> 03:33:09,820
Speaker 3: there are serious doubts as to whether anything like what

3813
03:33:09,860 --> 03:33:12,369
Speaker 3: Trump has promised is possible to get out of Russia

3814
03:33:12,410 --> 03:33:14,330
Speaker 3: right now. And I will talk about the ethical and

3815
03:33:14,350 --> 03:33:16,570
Speaker 3: like Ukraine stuff. But I'm just talking about like, can

3816
03:33:16,590 --> 03:33:18,490
Speaker 3: they do this right? Like, do they even have the

3817
03:33:18,530 --> 03:33:20,670
Speaker 3: ability to get this fuel on the marketplace?

3818
03:33:20,690 --> 03:33:20,890
Speaker 2: Right.

3819
03:33:21,209 --> 03:33:23,260
Speaker 3: Per an article in the LA Times, quote, Now, while

3820
03:33:23,280 --> 03:33:24,779
Speaker 3: he says half of Russia's refining capacity has been damaged,

3821
03:33:24,820 --> 03:33:26,540
Speaker 3: that doesn't necessarily mean that, like, they're down by 50%.

3822
03:33:26,540 --> 03:33:49,900
Speaker 3: The IEA, the International Energy Association, said, Estimates that Ukrainian

3823
03:33:49,920 --> 03:33:52,940
Speaker 3: strikes on Russian refineries have cut Russia's diesel output by

3824
03:33:52,940 --> 03:33:55,510
Speaker 3: 30 percent or so. That also could mean that they're

3825
03:33:55,550 --> 03:33:58,580
Speaker 3: like gas fuel output is by more than averages to 50.

3826
03:33:58,570 --> 03:34:00,910
Speaker 3: I don't fully know. I don't know anyone has other

3827
03:34:00,930 --> 03:34:03,850
Speaker 3: than the Russian government exact numbers on how much Russia's

3828
03:34:04,270 --> 03:34:08,500
Speaker 3: refining capacity has been damaged. Russia's deputy prime minister has

3829
03:34:08,540 --> 03:34:12,800
Speaker 3: tried to repost claims like what the Polish deputy minister

3830
03:34:12,840 --> 03:34:15,820
Speaker 3: said yesterday. Our foreign minister said, arguing that Russian exports

3831
03:34:15,860 --> 03:34:19,580
Speaker 3: would rise in November and December as previously damaged refineries

3832
03:34:19,640 --> 03:34:22,270
Speaker 3: return from maintenance. And obviously, I don't doubt that the

3833
03:34:22,290 --> 03:34:25,450
Speaker 3: Russian state is actively repairing and refurbishing damaged facilities and

3834
03:34:25,470 --> 03:34:28,230
Speaker 3: that some of them will come back online periodically. But

3835
03:34:28,250 --> 03:34:31,369
Speaker 3: they also will continue to face targeting from Ukrainian drone strikes.

3836
03:34:31,470 --> 03:34:31,609
Speaker 2: Yeah.

3837
03:34:32,270 --> 03:34:34,610
Speaker 3: This current phase of the war is largely focused on

3838
03:34:34,720 --> 03:34:38,359
Speaker 3: deep ranging drone strikes into Russian territory with retaliatory drone

3839
03:34:38,400 --> 03:34:41,060
Speaker 3: swarms and missile attacks from Russia into Ukraine as the

3840
03:34:41,080 --> 03:34:44,220
Speaker 3: front remains locked in a relatively stable position. Ukraine's hitting

3841
03:34:44,220 --> 03:34:47,700
Speaker 3: 1500 miles beyond the line of contact now with drones,

3842
03:34:47,780 --> 03:34:50,429
Speaker 3: which is nuts. Like that's air power levels, right?

3843
03:34:50,510 --> 03:34:50,770
Speaker 10: Yeah.

3844
03:34:50,830 --> 03:34:52,690
Speaker 3: There's a lot of kvetching about like, oh, it's going

3845
03:34:52,709 --> 03:34:55,170
Speaker 3: to change warfare. We've already seen the biggest change in

3846
03:34:55,230 --> 03:34:57,350
Speaker 3: warfare that I think will occur in my lifetime. lifetime,

3847
03:34:57,709 --> 03:35:02,370
Speaker 3: maybe I'm wrong, but it's drones. Careful what you wish for. Yeah,

3848
03:35:03,350 --> 03:35:05,310
Speaker 3: I may be biased because a drone tried to kill

3849
03:35:05,350 --> 03:35:08,080
Speaker 3: me once, but I have trouble imagining something altering the

3850
03:35:08,140 --> 03:35:10,900
Speaker 3: experience of the regular soldier on the ground more than

3851
03:35:10,940 --> 03:35:11,500
Speaker 3: drones have.

3852
03:35:11,860 --> 03:35:15,580
Speaker 2: Robert, I'm so excited for the plague weapons. We'll see.

3853
03:35:16,100 --> 03:35:19,720
Speaker 3: Obviously, I'm not counting the possibility of currently illegal weapons

3854
03:35:19,760 --> 03:35:23,160
Speaker 3: like biologicals or nuclear weapons becoming.

3855
03:35:22,700 --> 03:35:23,760
Speaker 2: Regularly deployed, right?

3856
03:35:24,820 --> 03:35:29,440
Speaker 3: Immediately after Trump announced this deal, Ukrainian President Zelensky issued

3857
03:35:29,520 --> 03:35:33,010
Speaker 3: a furious statement on his nation's behalf. In Kiev, a

3858
03:35:33,050 --> 03:35:35,590
Speaker 3: protest gathered at the Memorial to Fallen Soldiers in the

3859
03:35:35,629 --> 03:35:38,629
Speaker 3: Maidan to express their anger. Within a matter of hours

3860
03:35:38,709 --> 03:35:41,949
Speaker 3: after Trump's announcement, Ukraine hit the loading terminal to Russia's

3861
03:35:42,370 --> 03:35:47,509
Speaker 3: Novoshakhtynsk oil refinery, causing a massive fire. For weeks prior,

3862
03:35:47,629 --> 03:35:51,090
Speaker 3: Trump had begged Zelensky to halt strikes on Russian energy infrastructure,

3863
03:35:51,250 --> 03:35:54,209
Speaker 3: even as Russia has continued to hit Ukraine's energy infrastructure.

3864
03:35:54,629 --> 03:35:57,880
Speaker 3: When news broke of this new Ukrainian strike, Trump reacted

3865
03:35:57,900 --> 03:36:00,480
Speaker 3: with fury, telling Ukraine that it needed a new president

3866
03:36:00,580 --> 03:36:03,410
Speaker 3: and blaming Zelensky for losing 30 percent of your country.

3867
03:36:04,810 --> 03:36:06,890
Speaker 3: people had been killed in a war that never should

3868
03:36:06,910 --> 03:36:07,670
Speaker 3: have been started.

3869
03:36:07,690 --> 03:36:10,010
Speaker 2: I agree. Putin shouldn't have started the war.

3870
03:36:10,410 --> 03:36:12,570
Speaker 3: Trump has repeatedly stated his belief that it wouldn't have

3871
03:36:12,590 --> 03:36:14,870
Speaker 3: occurred if he'd been president when Biden was.

3872
03:36:15,470 --> 03:36:17,630
Speaker 2: I think that's nonsense. By the way, his number is

3873
03:36:17,690 --> 03:36:18,170
Speaker 2: also wrong.

3874
03:36:18,209 --> 03:36:22,310
Speaker 3: Russia currently controls about 20% of Ukraine's territory, not 30%.

3875
03:36:22,310 --> 03:36:24,770
Speaker 3: We don't have official death tolls for this war. We

3876
03:36:24,830 --> 03:36:28,490
Speaker 3: know Russia has lost at least about 500,000 soldiers killed.

3877
03:36:28,850 --> 03:36:32,120
Speaker 3: So it's reasonable to assume Ukrainian civilian and military fatalities

3878
03:36:32,140 --> 03:36:35,400
Speaker 3: would be somewhere in that ballpark. I should also note

3879
03:36:35,420 --> 03:36:38,340
Speaker 3: that Trump made this announcement, you know, complaining about Ukraine

3880
03:36:38,360 --> 03:36:41,820
Speaker 3: hitting Russian energy infrastructure and promising to buy Russian diesel

3881
03:36:41,980 --> 03:36:45,700
Speaker 3: directly after 20 civilians in Ukraine were killed by Russian strikes,

3882
03:36:45,780 --> 03:36:49,890
Speaker 3: including three children. Russia has continued to devote significant effort

3883
03:36:49,910 --> 03:36:53,920
Speaker 3: to striking Ukrainian civilian property and infrastructure. On October 13th

3884
03:36:53,930 --> 03:36:57,420
Speaker 3: and 14th, Russian strikes cut power to more than 600,000 Ukrainians.

3885
03:36:57,860 --> 03:37:00,619
Speaker 3: This came just four days after Trump licensed imports of

3886
03:37:00,660 --> 03:37:04,220
Speaker 3: Russian diesel. It also came after an energy ceasefire that

3887
03:37:04,240 --> 03:37:07,720
Speaker 3: Trump unilaterally announced during the weekend in response to Ukraine's

3888
03:37:07,740 --> 03:37:09,820
Speaker 3: strike on that binary. Trump was like, there's an energy

3889
03:37:09,860 --> 03:37:13,030
Speaker 3: ceasefire now. Nobody's striking. And then there were strikes. He

3890
03:37:13,050 --> 03:37:15,550
Speaker 3: was like, well, nobody's striking diesel. And then there were

3891
03:37:15,590 --> 03:37:18,850
Speaker 3: more strikes, right? And Zelensky pointed out on Monday that

3892
03:37:18,910 --> 03:37:22,230
Speaker 3: Russia had already violated the ceasefire. Since his announcement, Trump

3893
03:37:22,270 --> 03:37:24,879
Speaker 3: has escalated his efforts to defray blame for the high

3894
03:37:24,940 --> 03:37:27,720
Speaker 3: cost of gas. And his current strategy is blaming high

3895
03:37:27,740 --> 03:37:30,660
Speaker 3: diesel prices in the states on Ukrainian resistance.

3896
03:37:30,680 --> 03:37:31,699
Speaker 2: He is in speeches.

3897
03:37:31,740 --> 03:37:33,560
Speaker 3: He is saying, like, Ukraine is why your diesel is

3898
03:37:33,580 --> 03:37:37,490
Speaker 3: so expensive, which it's not. And again, they've been fighting

3899
03:37:37,510 --> 03:37:41,970
Speaker 3: in Ukraine for years. Diesel prices didn't skyrocket until Trump

3900
03:37:41,990 --> 03:37:46,030
Speaker 3: decided to fuck with Iran. On October 11th, Ukraine also

3901
03:37:46,070 --> 03:37:48,990
Speaker 3: struck a facility belonging to Yandex, which I would casually

3902
03:37:49,030 --> 03:37:52,890
Speaker 3: describe as Russian Google. This facility hosted a massive supercomputer,

3903
03:37:52,930 --> 03:37:56,310
Speaker 3: two massive supercomputers actually, used to train neural networks. It

3904
03:37:56,350 --> 03:37:58,830
Speaker 3: also part of like the Yandex facility there was like

3905
03:37:58,890 --> 03:38:01,760
Speaker 3: a military research facility. By any term, this is a

3906
03:38:01,770 --> 03:38:03,950
Speaker 3: valid target in war, by the way, just I wanted

3907
03:38:04,000 --> 03:38:07,140
Speaker 3: to make that clear. The strikes caused massive disruption to

3908
03:38:07,200 --> 03:38:11,360
Speaker 3: Yandex services across Russia. Yandex is an interesting company. The founder,

3909
03:38:11,480 --> 03:38:14,340
Speaker 3: Arkady Voloz, was not willing to fall in line and

3910
03:38:14,360 --> 03:38:17,140
Speaker 3: support Putin after the expanded invasion of Ukraine. He went

3911
03:38:17,180 --> 03:38:19,330
Speaker 3: so far as to condemn the war. This forced his

3912
03:38:19,390 --> 03:38:21,490
Speaker 3: exit from working in Russia, and a deal was arranged

3913
03:38:21,530 --> 03:38:24,550
Speaker 3: in 2024 to put Yandex under Kremlin control. This is

3914
03:38:24,570 --> 03:38:28,630
Speaker 3: why Arkady wins my least problematic Russian billionaire award. The

3915
03:38:28,670 --> 03:38:31,629
Speaker 3: strike on that Yandex hub was Ukraine's third major hit

3916
03:38:31,730 --> 03:38:35,150
Speaker 3: on Russian tech infrastructure in four days. It cut access

3917
03:38:35,190 --> 03:38:38,550
Speaker 3: to huge numbers of services for Russians and people, not

3918
03:38:38,570 --> 03:38:40,720
Speaker 3: just Russians, right? A number of countries that border Russia,

3919
03:38:40,740 --> 03:38:42,879
Speaker 3: including countries that are worried about getting invaded by Russia.

3920
03:38:43,350 --> 03:38:46,080
Speaker 3: Yandex is still like an important service for them. And

3921
03:38:46,100 --> 03:38:48,160
Speaker 3: this was not just like they lost access to Google.

3922
03:38:48,220 --> 03:38:51,420
Speaker 3: They lost access to like ride sharing apps and like AI,

3923
03:38:51,700 --> 03:38:53,720
Speaker 3: like all their AI apps. Like it did a bunch

3924
03:38:53,760 --> 03:38:56,640
Speaker 3: of damage to just like people being able to use

3925
03:38:56,700 --> 03:38:58,560
Speaker 3: the Internet the way that most people do. people are

3926
03:38:58,600 --> 03:39:00,800
Speaker 3: used to in the 21st century, not just in Russia,

3927
03:39:00,840 --> 03:39:04,800
Speaker 3: but in bordering countries. This has caused confusion online. In

3928
03:39:04,820 --> 03:39:07,280
Speaker 3: the immediate wake of the strikes, reports began to spread

3929
03:39:07,340 --> 03:39:10,180
Speaker 3: that Yandex going down had cut bot traffic to huge

3930
03:39:10,260 --> 03:39:13,640
Speaker 3: portions of the Internet. That is objectively true. What bot

3931
03:39:13,680 --> 03:39:17,980
Speaker 3: traffic means is often misinterpreted. Specific claims were made that

3932
03:39:18,040 --> 03:39:21,070
Speaker 3: traffic had plunged for off day, the German far right

3933
03:39:21,100 --> 03:39:24,650
Speaker 3: party that like their people commenting and like pro off

3934
03:39:24,670 --> 03:39:27,029
Speaker 3: day boards and stuff had like fallen off a cliff.

3935
03:39:27,370 --> 03:39:30,670
Speaker 3: and that the conservative subreddit was also down, that there

3936
03:39:30,690 --> 03:39:34,800
Speaker 3: were no more Magabots online, that the Russian bots had declined.

3937
03:39:35,240 --> 03:39:37,220
Speaker 3: And evidence for these claims was posted in the form

3938
03:39:37,260 --> 03:39:40,730
Speaker 3: of cloud flare graphs that purported to show plunging bot activity.

3939
03:39:41,190 --> 03:39:41,510
Speaker 2: And again.

3940
03:39:42,270 --> 03:39:43,850
Speaker 3: some of those graphs were real, some of them weren't.

3941
03:39:43,890 --> 03:39:47,330
Speaker 3: There is plunging bot activity. The problem is that, and

3942
03:39:47,370 --> 03:39:49,390
Speaker 3: I made a joking comment about like, this is why

3943
03:39:49,410 --> 03:39:52,709
Speaker 3: we should keep airstriking data centers and then tried to

3944
03:39:52,750 --> 03:39:55,740
Speaker 3: follow it up by claiming like, look guys, no one

3945
03:39:55,760 --> 03:39:58,779
Speaker 3: has to abide by the truth in politics anymore.

3946
03:39:58,820 --> 03:40:00,039
Speaker 2: Like, why should we, right?

3947
03:40:00,320 --> 03:40:02,940
Speaker 3: But the reality of the situation is that bot traffic

3948
03:40:03,060 --> 03:40:07,080
Speaker 3: did drop precipitously as a result of this attack. Cloudflare

3949
03:40:07,120 --> 03:40:10,530
Speaker 3: reported that Yandex bot traffic is like 0.4% of the

3950
03:40:10,570 --> 03:40:13,490
Speaker 3: max number of HTTP requests that had been reported over

3951
03:40:13,530 --> 03:40:15,840
Speaker 3: the prior two weeks. But that doesn't mean there are

3952
03:40:15,940 --> 03:40:19,910
Speaker 3: fewer Russian bot accounts on the internet, right? I'll refer

3953
03:40:19,970 --> 03:40:22,590
Speaker 3: to an analysis by Brandon Beeb that he put together

3954
03:40:22,629 --> 03:40:24,610
Speaker 3: on his Substack that does a good job of explaining

3955
03:40:24,660 --> 03:40:27,760
Speaker 3: the disconnect in many people's understandings. The bots that dropped

3956
03:40:27,800 --> 03:40:31,360
Speaker 3: are mostly Yandex's own search engine crawler. They aren't troll accounts.

3957
03:40:31,500 --> 03:40:35,000
Speaker 3: No primary data shows that Russian social media bots went offline.

3958
03:40:35,360 --> 03:40:38,240
Speaker 3: None shows that Engagement Reform UK, The Off Day, or

3959
03:40:38,280 --> 03:40:40,080
Speaker 3: MAGA accounts fell because of the strikes.

3960
03:40:40,520 --> 03:40:41,280
Speaker 2: Here's what matters.

3961
03:40:41,400 --> 03:40:44,680
Speaker 3: In Cloudflare's language, a bot is any automated web request.

3962
03:40:44,860 --> 03:40:48,080
Speaker 3: Nearly all automated traffic from Yandex's network is Yandex bot.

3963
03:40:48,140 --> 03:40:50,779
Speaker 3: It's search crawler, which is Russia's version of Google bot.

3964
03:40:51,060 --> 03:40:51,240
Speaker 7: Right.

3965
03:40:51,560 --> 03:40:55,080
Speaker 3: So that's what has declined. Now, while the people who

3966
03:40:55,120 --> 03:40:57,459
Speaker 3: are saying like, no, it's wrong that like Russian bot.

3967
03:40:58,120 --> 03:41:01,020
Speaker 3: you know, influence operations collapse as a result of these strikes.

3968
03:41:01,420 --> 03:41:03,000
Speaker 3: That's also led some people to say, like, there's been

3969
03:41:03,060 --> 03:41:05,700
Speaker 3: no impact in Russia's influence operations as a result of

3970
03:41:05,720 --> 03:41:08,250
Speaker 3: these strikes. I can't imagine that's true. It's just not

3971
03:41:08,290 --> 03:41:11,030
Speaker 3: true in the way people online assumed it is, right? Like,

3972
03:41:11,350 --> 03:41:14,970
Speaker 3: they lost a massive access to a massive supercomputer center

3973
03:41:15,010 --> 03:41:18,180
Speaker 3: that the military used, right? This has certainly done some

3974
03:41:18,200 --> 03:41:22,620
Speaker 3: damage of damage. It certainly frustrated some to some degree,

3975
03:41:22,720 --> 03:41:25,039
Speaker 3: some of the shit that the Russian government does online.

3976
03:41:25,420 --> 03:41:28,030
Speaker 3: It just hasn't gotten rid of all of the bot

3977
03:41:28,110 --> 03:41:30,930
Speaker 3: accounts because that's just like not how any of this works.

3978
03:41:31,190 --> 03:41:32,870
Speaker 9: No, like there's not like a Death Star you can

3979
03:41:32,890 --> 03:41:35,640
Speaker 9: blow up that like make Russian influence operation go away.

3980
03:41:35,760 --> 03:41:36,519
Speaker 8: Like, no, no.

3981
03:41:37,400 --> 03:41:40,160
Speaker 2: It's bad for Russia that these got struck, right? They

3982
03:41:40,200 --> 03:41:41,210
Speaker 2: prefer that not happen.

3983
03:41:41,629 --> 03:41:45,270
Speaker 3: And that will presumably have impacts that are broader ranging

3984
03:41:45,310 --> 03:41:47,650
Speaker 3: and that are probably kind of obscure to us on

3985
03:41:47,950 --> 03:41:50,160
Speaker 3: a number of their operations. But it's not as simple

3986
03:41:50,180 --> 03:41:52,019
Speaker 3: as all of the bots went away. That's just not

3987
03:41:52,060 --> 03:41:52,519
Speaker 3: what happened.

3988
03:41:53,100 --> 03:41:55,240
Speaker 2: Interesting. Interesting and informative.

3989
03:41:56,300 --> 03:41:59,920
Speaker 9: So let's close with a segment I am calling Dispatches

3990
03:41:59,959 --> 03:42:03,619
Speaker 9: from a World in Revolt with the starting claim that, yeah,

3991
03:42:03,660 --> 03:42:06,460
Speaker 9: we're kind of back, by which I mean we're kind

3992
03:42:06,500 --> 03:42:09,230
Speaker 9: of back in what appears to be at least the

3993
03:42:09,260 --> 03:42:12,690
Speaker 9: beginning of another global era of mass protests along the

3994
03:42:12,730 --> 03:42:17,379
Speaker 9: lines of sort of 2011 or 2019, 2020. We have

3995
03:42:17,420 --> 03:42:19,160
Speaker 9: talked about some of these protests on the show. We're

3996
03:42:19,200 --> 03:42:22,360
Speaker 9: going to be going through a few areas that have

3997
03:42:22,379 --> 03:42:25,620
Speaker 9: seen large protests here. Today, we are mostly going to

3998
03:42:25,640 --> 03:42:29,300
Speaker 9: be focusing on India. Now, previously on the show, we've

3999
03:42:29,340 --> 03:42:32,280
Speaker 9: talked about the massive wave of student protests in India

4000
03:42:32,340 --> 03:42:35,359
Speaker 9: under the banner of the meme Cockroach Janta Party, which

4001
03:42:35,420 --> 03:42:38,880
Speaker 9: is named after a Supreme Court justice calling unemployed youths

4002
03:42:38,920 --> 03:42:41,810
Speaker 9: their cockroaches. So it's a play on the BJP. It's

4003
03:42:41,840 --> 03:42:45,230
Speaker 9: like the BJP, but it's the CJP because it's cockroaches. Okay,

4004
03:42:45,410 --> 03:42:48,720
Speaker 9: with that out of the way, Those original protests from

4005
03:42:48,740 --> 03:42:51,340
Speaker 9: a few months ago have sort of won. The CJP

4006
03:42:51,459 --> 03:42:54,610
Speaker 9: declared victory recently after forcing the resignation of the Minister

4007
03:42:54,629 --> 03:43:01,480
Speaker 9: of Education, after government officials leaked the answers to standardized tests. But, comma,

4008
03:43:02,620 --> 03:43:06,129
Speaker 9: Protests in India have continued, and they have continued over

4009
03:43:06,190 --> 03:43:10,750
Speaker 9: the BJP's attempt to remove 130 million people from the

4010
03:43:10,810 --> 03:43:11,410
Speaker 9: voting rolls.

4011
03:43:12,030 --> 03:43:15,530
Speaker 3: Now, Mia, I've never done a number before. Is that

4012
03:43:15,650 --> 03:43:16,510
Speaker 3: a lot of people?

4013
03:43:17,459 --> 03:43:19,320
Speaker 9: That would be the 12th largest country on Earth. That

4014
03:43:19,379 --> 03:43:22,560
Speaker 9: is larger than the population of Japan. It is slightly,

4015
03:43:23,020 --> 03:43:26,459
Speaker 9: slightly less than the population of Mexico that they are

4016
03:43:26,480 --> 03:43:29,650
Speaker 9: trying to strip from the voting rolls. The rhetoric coming

4017
03:43:29,670 --> 03:43:31,530
Speaker 9: out of the BJP is in a lot of ways,

4018
03:43:31,570 --> 03:43:34,290
Speaker 9: very similar to the rhetoric you see from fascist parties

4019
03:43:34,330 --> 03:43:38,629
Speaker 9: around the world. They're screaming about like illegal Muslim aliens

4020
03:43:38,670 --> 03:43:42,590
Speaker 9: casting fake votes. And so like, basically they're doing on

4021
03:43:42,629 --> 03:43:45,580
Speaker 9: the scale of 130 million people, a thing that like

4022
03:43:46,100 --> 03:43:47,400
Speaker 9: you see in the U S where they go through

4023
03:43:47,420 --> 03:43:49,740
Speaker 9: the voting rolls and like purge everyone with a nonwhite name.

4024
03:43:49,800 --> 03:43:51,680
Speaker 9: And here it's like, yeah, they're purging people with Muslim

4025
03:43:51,720 --> 03:43:55,660
Speaker 9: names at the scale of the 12th largest country on earth.

4026
03:43:56,280 --> 03:44:00,260
Speaker 9: So yeah, In response to this, India's, I would call

4027
03:44:00,280 --> 03:44:05,690
Speaker 9: them largely feckless opposition parties, actually finally did something and

4028
03:44:05,810 --> 03:44:09,189
Speaker 9: they deployed their... So Congress, which is like the main INC,

4029
03:44:09,930 --> 03:44:13,880
Speaker 9: are India's main opposition party. They are the party that

4030
03:44:14,180 --> 03:44:17,880
Speaker 9: is like the party that did Indian independence. And they

4031
03:44:17,900 --> 03:44:20,680
Speaker 9: have connected their legacy to Gandhi. And so they deployed

4032
03:44:20,720 --> 03:44:23,320
Speaker 9: their one strategy, which is throwing Gandhi's at the problem.

4033
03:44:24,379 --> 03:44:27,540
Speaker 9: So they staged a protest outside of the Electoral Commission.

4034
03:44:27,560 --> 03:44:30,900
Speaker 3: That's not honestly an enjoyable mental image. I'm just savoring that.

4035
03:44:30,820 --> 03:44:33,679
Speaker 2: For a second. Literally, physically, it is what they're doing.

4036
03:44:33,720 --> 03:44:38,450
Speaker 2: They threw Raul Gandhi. How many Gandhis we got? A lot.

4037
03:44:38,750 --> 03:44:41,230
Speaker 2: They have a lot of Gandhi descendants. They got a

4038
03:44:41,350 --> 03:44:43,170
Speaker 2: lot of his family tree down there. Pick on the

4039
03:44:43,190 --> 03:44:45,570
Speaker 2: ground the Gandhis are these days. That's good to know.

4040
03:44:46,110 --> 03:44:49,930
Speaker 9: Yeah, so Rahul Gandhi and his sister, who's also in

4041
03:44:49,950 --> 03:44:51,450
Speaker 9: the party and is like a high ranking party official,

4042
03:44:51,510 --> 03:44:54,600
Speaker 9: Rahul Gandhi is like the opposition leader. They went and

4043
03:44:54,640 --> 03:44:57,060
Speaker 9: were nominally they were trying to like they went to

4044
03:44:57,080 --> 03:44:58,920
Speaker 9: the Electoral Commission. We're trying to talk to the guy

4045
03:44:58,940 --> 03:45:01,640
Speaker 9: who's in charge of the Electoral Commission. And they got

4046
03:45:01,680 --> 03:45:04,310
Speaker 9: arrested like multiple times. There's a bunch of scenes of

4047
03:45:04,390 --> 03:45:06,850
Speaker 9: like Rahul Gandhi trying to like crawl out of a

4048
03:45:07,050 --> 03:45:09,890
Speaker 9: bus that he was being held. This is like this

4049
03:45:09,910 --> 03:45:11,990
Speaker 9: was like a week ago Wednesday.

4050
03:45:12,010 --> 03:45:12,090
Speaker 1: Yeah.

4051
03:45:12,709 --> 03:45:16,090
Speaker 9: Yeah, on October 7th, or maybe it was October 6th

4052
03:45:16,110 --> 03:45:18,490
Speaker 9: or 7th. Basically, it was last week from when we

4053
03:45:18,530 --> 03:45:22,420
Speaker 9: were recording this. And this has led to a bunch

4054
03:45:22,700 --> 03:45:26,620
Speaker 9: more protests, including the CJP, like the cockroach party, like

4055
03:45:26,680 --> 03:45:30,820
Speaker 9: going out against these electoral purges. But it's also led

4056
03:45:30,920 --> 03:45:33,680
Speaker 9: to a sort of astonishing level of repression in India,

4057
03:45:34,459 --> 03:45:37,900
Speaker 9: and particularly in the capital of New Delhi. that has

4058
03:45:37,980 --> 03:45:42,220
Speaker 9: turned it over over the last weekend into effectively a

4059
03:45:42,959 --> 03:45:47,550
Speaker 9: fairly overt police state. On Saturday, Indian police arrested the

4060
03:45:47,590 --> 03:45:50,510
Speaker 9: founder of the cockroach party as an attempt to try

4061
03:45:50,530 --> 03:45:53,150
Speaker 9: to stop the protest. There was a huge militarized police

4062
03:45:53,170 --> 03:45:56,570
Speaker 9: deployment in New Delhi itself trying to stop anyone from

4063
03:45:56,590 --> 03:45:58,670
Speaker 9: being able to assemble and form protests in the first place.

4064
03:45:58,690 --> 03:46:02,210
Speaker 9: They've also shut down the mile long road to Junter Munter,

4065
03:46:02,230 --> 03:46:06,840
Speaker 9: which is basically there's a road there that has been

4066
03:46:06,860 --> 03:46:09,320
Speaker 9: a massive site of protests since like the 90s. Basically,

4067
03:46:09,340 --> 03:46:12,140
Speaker 9: whenever someone's doing a protest in the Capitol, you show

4068
03:46:12,140 --> 03:46:14,590
Speaker 9: up here and you do a protest on the street

4069
03:46:14,590 --> 03:46:17,330
Speaker 9: and you like occupy the street for a while. And

4070
03:46:17,330 --> 03:46:19,250
Speaker 9: this was also a huge hub of of the car

4071
03:46:19,270 --> 03:46:22,810
Speaker 9: crash movement was a giant sit in here. And like

4072
03:46:22,850 --> 03:46:25,270
Speaker 9: the entire street has been declared like not a valid

4073
03:46:25,330 --> 03:46:28,320
Speaker 9: site of protest by the police and the police have

4074
03:46:28,330 --> 03:46:30,560
Speaker 9: been trying to funnel protesters into other sites around the

4075
03:46:30,590 --> 03:46:32,600
Speaker 9: city that are like significantly further from the center of

4076
03:46:32,640 --> 03:46:33,500
Speaker 9: the city, man.

4077
03:46:34,330 --> 03:46:39,429
Speaker 3: Sometimes the just international like reflexive solidarity between police officers

4078
03:46:39,550 --> 03:46:40,510
Speaker 3: is just really beautiful.

4079
03:46:40,690 --> 03:46:43,610
Speaker 2: You know, it's always the same the same move. No, no, no.

4080
03:46:43,629 --> 03:46:45,850
Speaker 2: You can't do it there, though. Can't do it there. Sorry.

4081
03:46:45,910 --> 03:46:49,030
Speaker 2: This is just free speech zones. Sorry.

4082
03:46:49,080 --> 03:46:49,300
Speaker 8: Sorry.

4083
03:46:49,320 --> 03:46:51,140
Speaker 2: This is not a free speech zone. Yeah, it's a

4084
03:46:51,160 --> 03:46:53,060
Speaker 2: free speech zone. Yeah, they always do this like, oh,

4085
03:46:53,080 --> 03:46:55,500
Speaker 2: but there. No, it's fine what you're doing, but not there.

4086
03:46:55,520 --> 03:46:55,600
Speaker 1: Yeah.

4087
03:46:56,040 --> 03:46:56,360
Speaker 4: Yeah.

4088
03:46:57,990 --> 03:47:00,109
Speaker 9: Like over the weekend, there were these massive attempts to

4089
03:47:00,129 --> 03:47:02,410
Speaker 9: stop the protests, and that did kind of cut down

4090
03:47:02,470 --> 03:47:05,880
Speaker 9: on numbers. But on Monday the 12th, the Congress party,

4091
03:47:06,190 --> 03:47:09,260
Speaker 9: the terminology is mildly confusing to Americans. But yeah, like

4092
03:47:09,560 --> 03:47:13,500
Speaker 9: a lot of like Congress political leaders and a bunch

4093
03:47:13,520 --> 03:47:15,519
Speaker 9: of protesters were able to take the streets again on Monday.

4094
03:47:16,020 --> 03:47:19,220
Speaker 9: On Tuesday, cockroach protest leaders like tried to retake that

4095
03:47:19,260 --> 03:47:21,960
Speaker 9: street and a bunch of their leaders got arrested after

4096
03:47:22,020 --> 03:47:25,379
Speaker 9: trying to take the main square again. The protests do

4097
03:47:25,440 --> 03:47:28,060
Speaker 9: not seem to be slowing down as of now. Congress

4098
03:47:28,080 --> 03:47:29,879
Speaker 9: has been trying to turn this into a sort of

4099
03:47:29,920 --> 03:47:34,150
Speaker 9: sustained attempt to challenge Modi's rule. I think even as

4100
03:47:34,200 --> 03:47:37,269
Speaker 9: he's trying to purge 130 million people from the voting rolls,

4101
03:47:37,310 --> 03:47:40,769
Speaker 9: which would be the end of anything even remotely democratic

4102
03:47:40,790 --> 03:47:44,010
Speaker 9: in the Indian system, this is a real moment of

4103
03:47:44,030 --> 03:47:47,190
Speaker 9: weakness for him. And the escalation of these protests has

4104
03:47:47,250 --> 03:47:50,260
Speaker 9: been very damaging for the regime, even after they were

4105
03:47:50,360 --> 03:47:54,480
Speaker 9: kind of able to like slow down and stop the

4106
03:47:54,540 --> 03:47:59,570
Speaker 9: original cockroach protests. Now that's been reignited and Congress has

4107
03:47:59,610 --> 03:48:01,690
Speaker 9: been throwing their base into it. So we're going to

4108
03:48:01,709 --> 03:48:05,800
Speaker 9: continue to fill you in on what's going on there.

4109
03:48:06,590 --> 03:48:10,070
Speaker 2: Do they have any specific demands when it comes to

4110
03:48:10,350 --> 03:48:11,770
Speaker 2: the voter roll purchase?

4111
03:48:12,150 --> 03:48:16,160
Speaker 9: Yeah, the main one, obviously, they want everyone put back

4112
03:48:16,280 --> 03:48:18,500
Speaker 9: in and they want the chief of the electoral commission

4113
03:48:18,520 --> 03:48:18,940
Speaker 9: to resign.

4114
03:48:19,340 --> 03:48:22,840
Speaker 2: Okay. Those are the demands that everyone seems to agree to, basically.

4115
03:48:23,360 --> 03:48:30,310
Speaker 9: Congress and the cockroach protesters aren't... one-to-one overlapping political bases, right? So,

4116
03:48:30,410 --> 03:48:33,910
Speaker 9: you know, it's a bit complicated there. But yeah, those

4117
03:48:33,950 --> 03:48:37,150
Speaker 9: are the main demands that we've seen so far. I

4118
03:48:37,170 --> 03:48:42,510
Speaker 9: want to turn to Europe, where we've also seen continuations of, well,

4119
03:48:42,530 --> 03:48:45,629
Speaker 9: both the protests in France and Spain, there were large

4120
03:48:45,930 --> 03:48:49,750
Speaker 9: French student protests over the weekend. I've seen numbers that

4121
03:48:49,770 --> 03:48:51,310
Speaker 9: suggest it was down to about 160,000, down from like

4122
03:48:51,310 --> 03:48:56,780
Speaker 9: 300,000 the week before. You know, and obviously the police

4123
03:48:56,800 --> 03:49:00,180
Speaker 9: have continued to attack student protesters. Things are still really bleak.

4124
03:49:00,200 --> 03:49:03,679
Speaker 9: There's like a horrifying picture of like a kid getting

4125
03:49:03,820 --> 03:49:05,780
Speaker 9: crushed by a gate that a bunch of like a

4126
03:49:05,920 --> 03:49:08,600
Speaker 9: giant metal gate that a bunch of cops are pushing. Yeah,

4127
03:49:08,620 --> 03:49:11,420
Speaker 9: so they're still doing absolutely horrific stuff there. We did

4128
03:49:11,480 --> 03:49:16,020
Speaker 9: a larger episode about this earlier this week. Now, the

4129
03:49:16,040 --> 03:49:19,440
Speaker 9: student protests have also begun to spread, although kind of

4130
03:49:19,480 --> 03:49:22,700
Speaker 9: in small forms as of this week. We've seen versions

4131
03:49:22,760 --> 03:49:26,920
Speaker 9: of them break out in Greece, Albania and Belgium. Greek protesters,

4132
03:49:26,940 --> 03:49:29,870
Speaker 9: student protesters put up tents in Stigmata Square, which is

4133
03:49:29,890 --> 03:49:32,230
Speaker 9: another historic protest site that was, I mean, it's been

4134
03:49:32,250 --> 03:49:36,070
Speaker 9: the core of a hundred million protests, but it's notably

4135
03:49:36,130 --> 03:49:37,710
Speaker 9: was one of the places that was the core of

4136
03:49:37,730 --> 03:49:40,890
Speaker 9: the protest in 2011, which, you know, I think links

4137
03:49:40,950 --> 03:49:43,320
Speaker 9: back in a lot of ways to the ways that

4138
03:49:43,330 --> 03:49:45,920
Speaker 9: the protests in Spain have been reoccupying a lot of

4139
03:49:46,460 --> 03:49:51,780
Speaker 9: the like 2011 historic protest sites. The Albanian ones, I think,

4140
03:49:51,840 --> 03:49:58,320
Speaker 9: have been pretty small so far. of multiple fairly large

4141
03:49:58,350 --> 03:50:00,980
Speaker 9: protests going on. There was a student protest on Monday,

4142
03:50:01,020 --> 03:50:03,720
Speaker 9: but then also earlier in like last week, there was

4143
03:50:03,760 --> 03:50:06,500
Speaker 9: a giant anti-austerity protest. There's about like 10,000, well, it's

4144
03:50:06,520 --> 03:50:09,800
Speaker 9: about like 10,000 people. Pretty large, much smaller than the

4145
03:50:10,600 --> 03:50:15,370
Speaker 9: sort of full-scale stuff in France and Spain, but also, yeah,

4146
03:50:15,470 --> 03:50:19,160
Speaker 9: similar cops have been attacking them fairly significantly. The cops

4147
03:50:19,200 --> 03:50:22,150
Speaker 9: arrested 10 people, like nine of whom are minors. So

4148
03:50:22,360 --> 03:50:25,350
Speaker 9: the student protests have a very similar sort of composition

4149
03:50:25,410 --> 03:50:27,030
Speaker 9: of like, it's like these high school students going into

4150
03:50:27,070 --> 03:50:31,290
Speaker 9: revolt that you see in France. Meanwhile, in Spain, there

4151
03:50:31,310 --> 03:50:35,070
Speaker 9: was like another massive round of the giant protest they've

4152
03:50:35,090 --> 03:50:36,950
Speaker 9: been having. A bunch of the occupations are still going.

4153
03:50:36,990 --> 03:50:39,490
Speaker 9: We're probably going to talk to James next week a

4154
03:50:39,530 --> 03:50:41,680
Speaker 9: bit more in detail about what's been happening there. I

4155
03:50:42,500 --> 03:50:45,040
Speaker 9: think it's also fairly notable that there's been a pretty

4156
03:50:45,060 --> 03:50:49,960
Speaker 9: significant attempt to by the... Okay, so this is where

4157
03:50:49,980 --> 03:50:53,540
Speaker 9: we have to make a distinction between socialist party and socialist.

4158
03:50:54,220 --> 03:50:58,310
Speaker 9: The socialist party government of Pedro Sanchez, with the caveat

4159
03:50:58,350 --> 03:51:01,630
Speaker 9: that in Spain, the socialist party has been kind of

4160
03:51:01,670 --> 03:51:07,510
Speaker 9: the equivalent of the Democrats for many, many, many years now.

4161
03:51:07,530 --> 03:51:09,090
Speaker 9: The socialist party was one of the two parties that

4162
03:51:09,690 --> 03:51:12,260
Speaker 9: the protests in 2011 were against, which led to the

4163
03:51:12,280 --> 03:51:13,140
Speaker 9: formation of Podemos.

4164
03:51:13,180 --> 03:51:14,180
Speaker 2: That's a whole other story.

4165
03:51:15,360 --> 03:51:17,900
Speaker 9: But Pedro Sanchez has been trying to use these protests

4166
03:51:17,940 --> 03:51:20,360
Speaker 9: to save his government, even though it has also been

4167
03:51:20,420 --> 03:51:26,170
Speaker 9: his government that has been presiding over the housing crisis

4168
03:51:26,190 --> 03:51:30,070
Speaker 9: and these evictions. He's been attempting to co-opt the protests

4169
03:51:30,110 --> 03:51:34,910
Speaker 9: in order to save his flagging electoral things, which obviously, yeah,

4170
03:51:34,930 --> 03:51:36,530
Speaker 9: it would be worse if the far right took power,

4171
03:51:36,570 --> 03:51:39,900
Speaker 9: and that's kind of what things have been looking towards. Yeah,

4172
03:51:39,920 --> 03:51:44,840
Speaker 9: because the far right killed two pro-tenant bills in parliament

4173
03:51:45,180 --> 03:51:47,380
Speaker 9: like earlier this month yeah and then he's kind of

4174
03:51:47,460 --> 03:51:50,100
Speaker 9: used that and the protests yep to call for an

4175
03:51:50,140 --> 03:51:52,840
Speaker 9: election yeah and but this has also been paired with

4176
03:51:52,880 --> 03:51:55,720
Speaker 9: attempts to sort of like directly co-opt the protests themselves

4177
03:51:55,820 --> 03:51:58,380
Speaker 9: which there's been a whole bunch of stuff around that

4178
03:51:58,400 --> 03:51:59,940
Speaker 9: there that we can get into more detail with later

4179
03:52:00,040 --> 03:52:03,640
Speaker 9: but that's a dynamic that we're going to see frequently

4180
03:52:03,720 --> 03:52:08,890
Speaker 9: here i mean you don't often get one as blatant

4181
03:52:09,150 --> 03:52:11,030
Speaker 9: as the like hey this is the government that did

4182
03:52:11,050 --> 03:52:12,790
Speaker 9: this that's like now trying to use your movement to

4183
03:52:12,810 --> 03:52:16,480
Speaker 9: do something but Yeah, this is a very common dynamic

4184
03:52:16,800 --> 03:52:19,780
Speaker 9: in protests like this. And yeah, we're going to be

4185
03:52:19,820 --> 03:52:22,600
Speaker 9: seeing it more and more as protests continue. And we

4186
03:52:22,620 --> 03:52:26,500
Speaker 9: will let you know what other places start having mass protests.

4187
03:52:26,680 --> 03:52:29,220
Speaker 9: I'm just going to briefly note there were some also

4188
03:52:29,260 --> 03:52:32,340
Speaker 9: education protests a little bit before this in Chile. There's

4189
03:52:32,360 --> 03:52:35,900
Speaker 9: been anti-Bolsonaro protests happening all over Brazil. But yeah, we

4190
03:52:35,920 --> 03:52:39,300
Speaker 9: will keep you updated as we get more really large

4191
03:52:39,680 --> 03:52:40,320
Speaker 9: protest waves.

4192
03:52:41,560 --> 03:52:44,220
Speaker 2: Yeah. All right. That does it for us here at

4193
03:52:44,360 --> 03:52:47,400
Speaker 2: It Could Happen Here. If you want to send James

4194
03:52:47,440 --> 03:52:51,520
Speaker 2: a marketing email, you can do so at coolzontips at proton.me.

4195
03:52:51,540 --> 03:52:52,700
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4196
03:52:52,720 --> 03:52:56,560
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4197
03:52:56,580 --> 03:52:58,200
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4198
03:52:58,220 --> 03:53:02,780
Speaker 2: That email is actually for news-related tips and information. Put

4199
03:53:02,800 --> 03:53:05,640
Speaker 2: a trans girl on your couch. We reported the news.

4200
03:53:07,240 --> 03:53:08,020
Speaker 13: We reported the news.

4201
03:53:13,670 --> 03:53:16,790
Speaker 3: Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week

4202
03:53:16,870 --> 03:53:18,710
Speaker 3: from now until the heat death of the universe.

4203
03:53:19,570 --> 03:53:21,990
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4204
03:53:22,230 --> 03:53:26,580
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4205
03:53:27,020 --> 03:53:29,820
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4206
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4207
03:53:30,680 --> 03:53:31,740
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4208
03:53:31,760 --> 03:53:34,200
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4209
03:53:34,280 --> 03:53:35,980
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4210
03:53:36,480 --> 03:53:37,160
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