Speaker 1: Cools Media.
Speaker 2: This is it could happen here. Executive Disorder, our weekly
Speaker 2: newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling
Speaker 2: of our world, and what it means for you. I'm
Speaker 2: Garrison Davis today I'm joined by Mia Wong, James Stout,
Speaker 2: and Robert Evans. This week we are covering the week
Speaker 2: of January twenty ninth to February fifth, and oh boy,
Speaker 2: has this week felt like a month. I am absolutely exhausted.
Speaker 2: And let's start, I guess by talking about what Trump did.
Speaker 2: Tuesday night. He had a press conference with both himself
Speaker 2: and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin and Yahoo to announce that
Speaker 2: the United States would qute unquote take over the Gaza Strip,
Speaker 2: resulting in quote unquote long term ownership. Previously on that day,
Speaker 2: Trump also signed an order pulling out of the United
Speaker 2: Nation When Rights Counsel and cutting off aid to UNRA.
Speaker 2: Let's start with this topic. Hopefully we will have a
Speaker 2: later episode, maybe next week, covering what's happening in Palestine.
Speaker 2: But you know, this is as of right now, the
Speaker 2: current most development.
Speaker 3: This is one of the more like crazy things that
Speaker 3: he's like, like you could see net and Yahoo even
Speaker 3: like in the room clearly finding out about this for
Speaker 3: the first time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that there was a real, oh shit really vibe.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure how long Trump and Nantyaho actually had
Speaker 2: this like entire thing planned that that is a distinct
Speaker 2: possibility that like, this has been Netanyahu's goal for a while,
Speaker 2: and this was like impacted his negotiations with Biden, like
Speaker 2: knowing that he wanted this to be like the outcome
Speaker 2: where the US basically just takes and holds the territory
Speaker 2: of Gaza as a US territory, like indefinitely.
Speaker 3: I think Babe knew that Trump would give him a
Speaker 3: positive outcome in any number of ways, right, like to
Speaker 3: include just saying like bomb it off the map, Like
Speaker 3: I think it's reasonable to assume that.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean something like this was I think the
Speaker 4: obvious outcome as soon as Trump, I mean, from before
Speaker 4: Trump won, right, Yeah, net and Yahoo never had any
Speaker 4: intention of letting things go back to the way they
Speaker 4: were before October seventh, And Trump has a vested interest
Speaker 4: in giving Netanyahu whatever he wants the most, Like it's
Speaker 4: a I don't know, I'm not surprised by it. I
Speaker 4: guess I'm a little bit like Okay, at least now
Speaker 4: we know what they're going to do next.
Speaker 2: It's in line with the manifest destiny territorial expansion Trump
Speaker 2: has been talking about the past few weeks. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: Joe Biden laid the groundwork for this by giving like
Speaker 2: Israel the actual like bombs and materials to to like
Speaker 2: do the demolition side of this project. And now Trump
Speaker 2: continues to discuss relocating Palestinians to Egypt and Jordan, while
Speaker 2: promising to turn Gaza into quote unquote the riviera of
Speaker 2: the Middle East, level it out create an economic development unquote.
Speaker 3: He has also said that he's gonna again said he's
Speaker 3: going to withdraw US troops from Syria, which would leave
Speaker 3: two thousand people in senth Coom to deploy to Gaza.
Speaker 3: I guess if that's what they want to do.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I feel like there's no possible way
Speaker 5: this can go quote unquote, Well this is going to
Speaker 5: be a fucking catastrophe.
Speaker 6: The basic plan here is to do a genocide.
Speaker 2: And then I mean, this is this is part of
Speaker 2: a genas title operation. Yeah, it's like, this is like
Speaker 2: what we're doing. We're doing at second larger genosiside this
Speaker 2: is like the finishing touch.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: But then but you know, like on a sort of
Speaker 5: practical level, it's like, Okay, the US couldn't hold Afghanistan,
Speaker 5: right like, and like obviously this is this isn't like
Speaker 5: a quote unquote easier occupation, but it's like, this is
Speaker 5: gonna be a fucking ship like a nightmare, like and
Speaker 5: I don't know, I mean by my assumption is that
Speaker 5: this is going to be just like if he if
Speaker 5: he actually like you know, does a deployment of US troops,
Speaker 5: this is going to be hideously unpopular. People are going
Speaker 5: to be coming back in body bags and it's gonna
Speaker 5: fucking I don't know's it's.
Speaker 6: Going to be a nightmare for everyone involved.
Speaker 5: And yeah, it's a it's a absolutely terrible idea.
Speaker 2: I'm more scared that they're gonna get away with it.
Speaker 2: I think it's I'm more scared that things will go
Speaker 2: fine for them and this just becomes like an actually
Speaker 2: stable US territory in the Middle East.
Speaker 3: There will be significant pushbacks not the word right like
Speaker 3: that there will be guerrilla warfare right Like, It's very
Speaker 3: hard to take and hold significantly large urban areas as
Speaker 3: the US has found out for twenty years. Whether or
Speaker 3: not people will accept that, I think I think they might,
Speaker 3: Like I think Trump kind of needs an enemy, you know,
Speaker 3: like a war, and and like a quote unquote you know,
Speaker 3: he can he can paint almost anything as a win,
Speaker 3: and I think people might be more willing than we'd
Speaker 3: like to think to accept people coming home in body bags.
Speaker 4: From that, I'm not really sure. I think we're actually
Speaker 4: going to see the kind of troop deployment that people
Speaker 4: think based on what Trump has said as opposed to
Speaker 4: expand and support for what the Israelis have already been doing,
Speaker 4: which has like done a significant job to depopulate the
Speaker 4: area as it stands. Like, Yeah, I think we have
Speaker 4: to be has a tempt to draw too strong a
Speaker 4: line between the rhetoric and what Trump is actually going
Speaker 4: to do, Which doesn't mean I don't think that it's
Speaker 4: not very likely that you're going to continue to see
Speaker 4: massy population in Gaza. I think it's just that, like,
Speaker 4: I don't know that. I think the only way that
Speaker 4: happens is something that looks like most of the occupations
Speaker 4: of the last century have looked like from a US
Speaker 4: point of view.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the new model is this serial model, right,
Speaker 3: make of a relatively small footprint and then in a
Speaker 3: local partner forth at the IDF pulling security for US
Speaker 3: contracts and in US money like that.
Speaker 4: Right, the IDF and a lot of third party corporate PMCs. Yeah, PMCs,
Speaker 4: you know, like that's what that We've We've got guys
Speaker 4: champing at the bit to do that. And like I
Speaker 4: that looks a lot likelier to me than the tenth
Speaker 4: Mountain Division, you know, occupying large chunks of Gaza.
Speaker 3: Agreed, Yeah, Eric Prince is ready to ready to get
Speaker 3: sadly All.
Speaker 2: Right, let's let's transition to our new segment titled Stinky Musk,
Speaker 2: which I came up with last night. Delirious and yes
Speaker 2: it's bad. No, I'm not going to fix it. South
Speaker 2: African Gang does a hostile takeover of the United States.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're hidden, you're hdden Today Garrison.
Speaker 2: Elon Musk and a gig of overly online gen z
Speaker 2: interns are doing an oligarchic cybercup of the federal government,
Speaker 2: starting with the Office of Management and Budget and moving
Speaker 2: on to USAID, A, General Services Administration, the Treasury, and
Speaker 2: as of Recording uh Noah, as well as many other agencies,
Speaker 2: smaller agencies, bigger agencies that they are infiltrating both physically
Speaker 2: and digitally. Employees of these agencies have been locked out,
Speaker 2: both physically and digitally as the DOGE team ransacks various
Speaker 2: departments and accesses sensitive data with no oversight. And that's
Speaker 2: like government data about you, possibly in the hands of
Speaker 2: a literal Nick Fuentes pilled Groper. Intern security officials who
Speaker 2: tried to resist Musk's seizure of classified materials have been fired,
Speaker 2: and do personnel threatened to call the US Marshals to
Speaker 2: be let into buildings. I have some more info on this,
Speaker 2: as will as we will go on, but I guess
Speaker 2: this is this is an okay time just to discuss.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think the response to this is one of
Speaker 4: the more hopeful things going on right now. And kind
Speaker 4: of what led me to think that is looking at
Speaker 4: twenty twenty, looking at the fallout from twenty twenty and
Speaker 4: what worked and what didn't largely what didn't work, and
Speaker 4: thinking like, okay, well, if we're going to actually get
Speaker 4: any kind of functional resistance to what's happening, what does
Speaker 4: that look like? And it doesn't look like the same
Speaker 4: cruise of people doing the same thing that they did
Speaker 4: four or five years ago, Which is why I've got
Speaker 4: some hope in the fact that you've got a different
Speaker 4: crowd of people who are radicalizing and taking to the streets.
Speaker 4: And you know, we federal employees federal employees, right, and
Speaker 4: you've got a lot of like or former Yeah, most
Speaker 4: of them are still current, but you know it's a
Speaker 4: mix of former and current federal employees. These are these
Speaker 4: are the people who do a lot of the nuts
Speaker 4: and bolts stuff at the Office of Personnel Management, Office
Speaker 4: Management Budget like. These are the people who like make
Speaker 4: keep things functioning at like a ground level, and a
Speaker 4: lot of them are are pissed off in a way
Speaker 4: that I don't think we have really seen before. And
Speaker 4: I think there's a potential And who's to say, Like
Speaker 4: right now, we just had a big protest in front
Speaker 4: of Treasury about a full city block or so of people,
Speaker 4: many if not the vast majority of whom we're federal employees,
Speaker 4: rallying alongside a lot of Democratic members of Congress. And
Speaker 4: you know that's not that doesn't accomplish anything on its own,
Speaker 4: but it's a potential start to accomplishing something. You know,
Speaker 4: if you get those people out in the street, it provides,
Speaker 4: among other things, a lot of cover for everyone else.
Speaker 4: And it also is the start of, you know, what
Speaker 4: you might call a reverse January sixth. You know, if
Speaker 4: January six was a bunch of random people taking an
Speaker 4: occupying government buildings without any knowledge of what they are
Speaker 4: or how things actually function inside of them, the kind
Speaker 4: of thing that we might be looking at in the
Speaker 4: near future is the opposite of that, where a bunch
Speaker 4: of people who absolutely do know how those organizations and
Speaker 4: buildings function trying to take and occupy them. And that's
Speaker 4: the feeling I got because I talked to some folks
Speaker 4: who are at the Treasury protest. One person that I
Speaker 4: talked to most extensively as a federal contractor who was
Speaker 4: present in twenty seventeen at the travel ban protests if
Speaker 4: you remember those, which is back when Trump announced his
Speaker 4: first Muslim bound and a bunch of people started occupying
Speaker 4: like airports and stuff like I was at the LAX
Speaker 4: for that. This person was at some of those protests
Speaker 4: and it was out in front of Treasury, and the
Speaker 4: quote that I've got from them there was I was
Speaker 4: expecting it it being this protest, the Treasury protest to
Speaker 4: feel like the travel ban protests.
Speaker 6: It didn't.
Speaker 4: It was a lot angrier than the travel ban protests.
Speaker 4: The travel ban protests were kind of an indefense of
Speaker 4: another person's sort of anger, and this was narrowly focused
Speaker 4: anger at a very specific group of people. There are
Speaker 4: a lot of people yelling and screaming outside of their
Speaker 4: congressman's offices and the like, and like, there hasn't been
Speaker 4: that much disruption compared to what we're going to see, right,
Speaker 4: Social Security payments haven't stopped going out in moss. So
Speaker 4: if we're seeing something like this at this early stage,
Speaker 4: I think there's a lot of potential there. And the
Speaker 4: thing this person brought up repeatedly is like when we
Speaker 4: start seeing congressmen kicking indoors is when things are going
Speaker 4: to get interesting. If that happens, Like that's kind of
Speaker 4: the stage at which there's a lot of potential for
Speaker 4: this to turn into something that could actually cause change,
Speaker 4: Like if you actually start getting government employees who are
Speaker 4: willing to do more than stand outside of their offices,
Speaker 4: like who are willing to take direct action to occupy
Speaker 4: those buildings or stop other people from and you've seen
Speaker 4: little bits of that. Right. One of the things we
Speaker 4: did see is as these doge kids came along, federal
Speaker 4: employees refusing them entry, keeping doors locked. Now that was
Speaker 4: not illegal because these were literally, as it's been described
Speaker 4: in me by multiple people, just kids showing up demanding
Speaker 4: entry without any kind of a badge or evidence of
Speaker 4: who they are. Right right, when you when you get
Speaker 4: people who are willing to escalate from that and refuse entry,
Speaker 4: that's when we might actually see some things start to
Speaker 4: seriously shift here.
Speaker 2: I mean based on how much of what Musk is
Speaker 2: doing is just like bypassing Congress and doing like like
Speaker 2: a very kind of like typical like like Ola garcic
Speaker 2: Co coup, Like he's doing all those steps. And if
Speaker 2: you look at like what happened in South Korea a
Speaker 2: few months ago, we are not at the point where
Speaker 2: congressmen are literally like like you know, climbing over like
Speaker 2: fences barricading doorns.
Speaker 4: We're not in South Korea territory yet, but yeah, but like.
Speaker 2: Their lawmakers like we're willing to do that. And there
Speaker 2: is like I think waiting from people to like wait
Speaker 2: and see if our lawmakers are going to be willing
Speaker 2: to do the same to like protect the actual like
Speaker 2: functional aspects of our government, and like things are already happening,
Speaker 2: like we are in some ways kind of already at
Speaker 2: this point. The USAYED website is now like completely removed,
Speaker 2: leaving only a note that claims that all personnel have
Speaker 2: been put on administrative leave, including overseas personnel. But and
Speaker 2: this essentially leaves a whole agency shut down, but all
Speaker 2: done with like without an Act of Congress or even
Speaker 2: like an overstepping executive order from Trump. It was just
Speaker 2: it was just the unelected Elon Musk who decided to
Speaker 2: and carried out the closure of a government agency, which
Speaker 2: like should be like like should actually be like a
Speaker 2: criminal like there is like statutes that are designed to
Speaker 2: stop this from happening, just no one's enforcing them because
Speaker 2: they control almost every aspect of government. Musk has also
Speaker 2: closed the IRS direct file tax system, which which has
Speaker 2: now forced taxpayers to use third party paid services, so
Speaker 2: like he's doing this like one by one.
Speaker 5: I think the weakness that they have right now is
Speaker 5: that because you're causing so much chaos, because they're you're
Speaker 5: gonna talk about the FBI, pers they're trying to do
Speaker 5: like you know, but the thing that they're relying on
Speaker 5: is everyone is just going to let them in and
Speaker 5: just let them get walked over. But it's like, Okay,
Speaker 5: the thing about acting this muscleside the law is what
Speaker 5: guys with guns do you have who you can use
Speaker 5: to enforce this. That's the thing where it's it's legitimately
Speaker 5: like if theyre's serious resistance to them, they might start
Speaker 5: to crumple. Because the reason you work inside of the
Speaker 5: legal order or you have your own paramilitaries is so
Speaker 5: that you can have like the guy with the gun
Speaker 5: to make you open the door. And the more people
Speaker 5: who are willing to just be like no, fuck you
Speaker 5: like and like force them to actually like find guys
Speaker 5: with guns who're willing to.
Speaker 4: Do this, the odds are lower that you get a
Speaker 4: positive shift because people engage directly and aggressively with the cops.
Speaker 4: Then you have when some sort of like mid level
Speaker 4: military functionary is asked to drive a tank over a
Speaker 4: school teacher, right Like, Historically, historically, if you look at
Speaker 4: when regimes fall, that happens more often than the waving
Speaker 4: a flag on top of like a pile of corpses. Yeah, right,
Speaker 4: Like demands are ordered illegal illegal orders are given to
Speaker 4: people with guns, and they're like, no, I'm not going
Speaker 4: to shoot at a bunch of teachers today. That's not the
Speaker 4: only way this kind of thing happens, but at least,
Speaker 4: like for my money, that's the likeliest positive outcome, right, Yeah.
Speaker 5: And if you look at the last world historical empire
Speaker 5: run by it incredibly unpopular geneotocracy, it was the Soviets,
Speaker 5: and look at how they fell apart.
Speaker 4: That's that's more or less what happened.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And like it's interesting that if we use
Speaker 3: a Bavarian definition of the state like that has the
Speaker 3: monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, right, that they've
Speaker 3: dismantled their apparatus for state violence as well. And this
Speaker 3: could just be like the blunt instrument of apparently offering
Speaker 3: every federal employee I know. I've heard that they've tried
Speaker 3: to unretire Worldland firefighters who accepted their offer of retirement.
Speaker 3: It's extremely funny, but like it's it's very Yeah, if
Speaker 3: you're going to work, you're going to retire a bunch
Speaker 3: of FBI agents or fire them because, like Mia said,
Speaker 3: they are going to need hitters. They're going to need
Speaker 3: to use coercive force at some point, possibly very soon, Yeah,
Speaker 3: to get what they want to do done.
Speaker 4: And I think when it comes to that, the question
Speaker 4: is like which hitters, Yeah, because the FBI and the CIA,
Speaker 4: I mean are getting are getting gutted at the moment
Speaker 4: right now. Like so you're looking at like in the NSA,
Speaker 4: you're looking at local police, Federal Protective Services, Department of
Speaker 4: Homeland Security, you know, and the marshals, right like like
Speaker 4: these are kind of like the shooters Trump has to
Speaker 4: play with, and the military will remain an open question
Speaker 4: until the critical moment, right Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, FPS is infinitely expandable and it's mostly contract
Speaker 3: through wordman. I aspect about it before, but like that's
Speaker 3: the one that has a lot of potential to grow.
Speaker 3: And I think within local especially sheriff's departments, you got
Speaker 3: some people who weren't bat annihilateding some of those.
Speaker 4: Oh no, no, no, absolutely not. And I do think that,
Speaker 4: like sheriff's departments are kind of what haunt me the most.
Speaker 4: But that's also it's not purely a matter of like
Speaker 4: which agencies and organizations are going to back Trump in
Speaker 4: this it's also a matter of like geographic location and DC.
Speaker 4: In DC, at least he can count on a lot
Speaker 4: less of those guys because like the Capitol Police aren't
Speaker 4: thrilled right now.
Speaker 2: You know, essentially what Elon is doing right now is
Speaker 2: exactly what he did to Twitter, except to the entire
Speaker 2: United States of America. And like, by the end of
Speaker 2: this process, it still might function on some level, right,
Speaker 2: Like Twitter still kind of functions, but it's just worse
Speaker 2: in every way. It's worse. It doesn't have the quote
Speaker 2: unquote good features it used to. It's it's buggy, it's
Speaker 2: full of Nazis. It's just it's it sucks more Like
Speaker 2: the previous version was was already bad and harmful, but
Speaker 2: the new one is just worse without the aspects that
Speaker 2: made it semi worthwhile. And like I'm going to do
Speaker 2: an episode like next week, like kind of about this,
Speaker 2: like specifically and how Musk is twitterifying the entire government
Speaker 2: using like all of the same tactics, like refusing to
Speaker 2: pay leases on buildings, installing beds in agency headquarters to
Speaker 2: make employees sleep there overnight, having teenagers review code of
Speaker 2: like long standing employees. It's the exact same process. And
Speaker 2: if you didn't like what happened to Twitter, that process
Speaker 2: is now happening to the government itself.
Speaker 3: I can't wait for the I R s to send
Speaker 3: me a letter saying my pussy and bio like that.
Speaker 4: That will be Hey, now now you've now you've gotten
Speaker 4: me back on the Trump trained you know what. I'm
Speaker 4: peacing out for the day. I'm on board.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 2: Before we close the segment and pivot to adds, I
Speaker 2: do want to shout out the work that Wired is
Speaker 2: doing right now.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Wired magazine is doing for some fantastic reporting on this.
Speaker 2: The DC Attorney is currently promising and to go after
Speaker 2: individuals who post about Doge employees. They might end up
Speaker 2: going after some of these Wired journalists who identified this
Speaker 2: gen Z Doge team that is wreaking havoc throughout the
Speaker 2: government with no oversight. Wired provided what should be you know,
Speaker 2: legally required and necessary identification of public workers who Musk
Speaker 2: is trying to keep secret. The DC Attorney, and like
Speaker 2: Trump's DOJ, is very mad about that. They might end
Speaker 2: up like going after these people. But fantastic work coming
Speaker 2: out of Wired right now. If you want to keep
Speaker 2: up to date on Musk's takeover. I strongly recommend checking
Speaker 2: out their work. I'll post some of those in the
Speaker 2: sources below. Let's go on a quick ad break and
Speaker 2: then come back to talk about the continuing kind of
Speaker 2: fake trade wars and immigration sick. All right, we're back.
Speaker 2: I'm going to pivot towards James and Mia to discuss
Speaker 2: tariffs and immigration take it away.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So on Monday, Trump sort of averted the market
Speaker 5: collapse that he had set off with his declaration that
Speaker 5: they are going to be twenty five percent tariffs on
Speaker 5: all goods and hanna in Mexico and also ten percent
Speaker 5: tariff on China. So let's let's go into like what
Speaker 5: actually happened. So the tariffs on Mexico and Canada are
Speaker 5: on hold for a month. However, the ten percent tariff
Speaker 5: on all Chinese goods did go into effect, and we'll
Speaker 5: get some more about what that's going to do in
Speaker 5: a second. But much more importantly, Trump eliminated the Deminimus exception,
Speaker 5: which allowed like people and companies to ship goods from
Speaker 5: China that were worth under eight hundred dollars and not
Speaker 5: have to go through the formal customs process and you know,
Speaker 5: pay tariffs on it and also have to spend all
Speaker 5: of that time paperwork and shit. And before we get
Speaker 5: into the sort of devastating effect this is going to
Speaker 5: have on businesses, I want to make it clear that,
Speaker 5: like regular people in China used this to send things
Speaker 5: to people in the US, Like that's a that's a
Speaker 5: very normal thing.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that is now really really difficult.
Speaker 4: And about a third of YouTube ads are supported by
Speaker 4: people who run companies that make use of this loophole.
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, So on the business side, this is actually
Speaker 5: really interesting because I think it's one of the I mean,
Speaker 5: not the first, but I think it's going to be
Speaker 5: a very very early example of Trump completely fucking a
Speaker 5: base that's been very very supportive of him, because this
Speaker 5: is going to liquidate huge portions of the drop shippy economy, right,
Speaker 5: like all of the stupid YouTube shirts, like all of
Speaker 5: that stuff is just going to be annihilated.
Speaker 3: Can you explain drop shipping if people aren't familiar mere
Speaker 3: just like ten second versions.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so drop shipping is a thing where you do
Speaker 5: an order and instead of having like an inventory, normally
Speaker 5: you'd have a warehouse at had shirts in it. Drop
Speaker 5: shipping you don't do that. You are now the intermediary
Speaker 5: and you have these manufacturers like print to consumption basically,
Speaker 5: and you can do this very cheaply, and then you
Speaker 5: can run the entire markup. But it works because of
Speaker 5: how cheap it is to get these like sort of
Speaker 5: small scale Chinese firms to like make stuff for you.
Speaker 6: Those people are screwed.
Speaker 5: Companies like Tamu and Sheian are either going to have
Speaker 5: to just completely eat shit or they're going to have
Speaker 5: to figure out a way to move their entire supply
Speaker 5: line through countries like Vietnam, which is going to be
Speaker 5: very difficult. I mean because Temo even getting stuff to
Speaker 5: the US has been kind of hard for them because
Speaker 5: of how the logistics network works. Yeah, and so obviously,
Speaker 5: like I don't, I don't think most people who listen
Speaker 5: to the show are that sad about she and Temo
Speaker 5: eating shit.
Speaker 4: But no, it is like a mixed bag because a
Speaker 4: whole lot of the the MLM industry is going to
Speaker 4: take a header as a result of this.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, there's some stuff to like fuck them. But
Speaker 5: on the other hand, there are a lot of people
Speaker 5: who are going to eat shit who are not those people.
Speaker 5: And this is there is a huge like range of
Speaker 5: industries that are run by very very small businesses, like
Speaker 5: it was even just like an individual person who like
Speaker 5: makes crafts and sells it. And those people are also
Speaker 5: screwed because they rely on getting the resources in from China.
Speaker 5: And there's a lot of sort of you know things
Speaker 5: like like people who build like hand like retro handheld consoles.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, and like out a like custom ariosoft rifles
Speaker 5: I J you talk about, like there's a whole bunch
Speaker 5: of industries like that that are these like small scale
Speaker 5: production things that are just screwed that rely on this stuff.
Speaker 5: And so the ripples of this specific part of it
Speaker 5: are going to keep playing out basically no matter what
Speaker 5: else happens in this trade war. Yeah, it's also worth
Speaker 5: noting that Trump's tariffs on Mexico and Canada aren't gone.
Speaker 5: They've just been postponed for a month. So there is
Speaker 5: a real chance that we end up in exactly the
Speaker 5: same place that we were going into the weekend, where
Speaker 5: no one knows where these terrifts are going to take effected,
Speaker 5: basically blow a smoking crater in the world economy, and
Speaker 5: we get another round of the negotiations that James is
Speaker 5: going to talk about it's already setting off a really
Speaker 5: sort of staggering right wing i mean, not even necessarily
Speaker 5: right wing, just like a nationalist backlash in Canada. That's
Speaker 5: kind of been like tearing up this sort of international
Speaker 5: right wing alliance and nationalists because suddenly Trump's coming after
Speaker 5: them and now they're they're really mad about it.
Speaker 2: Well, and because Trudeau announced that he would be targeting,
Speaker 2: you know, like rattal laitary tariffs is specifically at red states,
Speaker 2: we now have people calling him dark, woke or dark Trudeau,
Speaker 2: you know, for very different reasons than they used to
Speaker 2: call him Trudeau.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, that's magnificent.
Speaker 6: All right, all right, shop my high.
Speaker 4: Right, all right, you're gonna get canceled if you're not careful.
Speaker 3: No outstanding.
Speaker 5: Speaking of getting canceled, what hasn't gotten canceled is the
Speaker 5: ten percent tariff on all Chinese goods, which is just
Speaker 5: now in effect. It's just happening. That's bad. It's going
Speaker 5: to increase inflation. It's also it's you know, it's it's
Speaker 5: sort of the opening round of this escalation to a
Speaker 5: trade war. China has retaliated with tariffs that are not
Speaker 5: a very big deal on US goods and some product
Speaker 5: control stuff, on export control stuff on some rare earth
Speaker 5: minerals actually do with the rare smills, but like minerals,
Speaker 5: you need for production stuff that isn't a big deal
Speaker 5: yet but could be.
Speaker 2: I mean, and we were all expecting Chinese tariffs. Having
Speaker 2: twenty five percent tariffs of Canada was not something I
Speaker 2: thought was like looming.
Speaker 6: Now yeah, yeah, I mean, I thought they'd do Mexica.
Speaker 6: I didn't know about it.
Speaker 3: I'm very worried about the offshoring of Chinese labor and
Speaker 3: the impact that we'll have in places like Myanma, where
Speaker 3: China has these special economic zones. I mean, something we
Speaker 3: will cover. We obviously have a lot of.
Speaker 6: So Monday, on Monday, we're going to cover this war.
Speaker 5: So I think something that's important to understand about these
Speaker 5: tariffs is that these terrorifts are not economic policy. This
Speaker 5: is this is the mistake that all of the capitalists
Speaker 5: who backed Trump made, is that they assumed that just
Speaker 5: like every other's president who's made promises like this, like
Speaker 5: Obama's promised to renegotiate NAFTA, they all assumed that because
Speaker 5: of economic policy, they'd be able to just like get
Speaker 5: Trump to be pro business and then he wouldn't do it.
Speaker 5: The miscalculation they made is that these are not economic tariffs.
Speaker 5: These are directly foreign policy, geopolitical tariffs. Right, their international
Speaker 5: relations are to the deal bullshit and the goal of it.
Speaker 5: And he's been deploying this against like I mean, Columbia, Denmark,
Speaker 5: He's threatening the EU. Now he's going to keep doing
Speaker 5: this with China. The goal of this is to directly
Speaker 5: use American consumer powers as a weapon of imperialism to
Speaker 5: make this country fall into line. Yeah, and now I
Speaker 5: will pass the jam to talk about what he was
Speaker 5: specifically trying to get out of Mexico and Canada in
Speaker 5: this round.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, like we have spoke about falling into line there,
Speaker 3: and I think it's probably a good place to start. Like
Speaker 3: this kind of Trump brinksmanship is very typical of his style. Right,
Speaker 3: Nearly every media outlet I think, fell for it this time,
Speaker 3: just that it did in his first term, Like we
Speaker 3: got this, like this is going to cause the crisis.
Speaker 3: Trump was very nebulous in his goals for these tariffs,
Speaker 3: and as almost always, like he talked a lot about
Speaker 3: like America being treated unfairly, right, he talked about the border,
Speaker 3: and he talked specifically about fentanyl. So whets begin by
Speaker 3: talking about fentanyl, It's just to be clear. It is
Speaker 3: true that some fentanyl comes into the USA from Mexico
Speaker 3: and to a lesser degree or so from Canada. The
Speaker 3: vast majority of the fentanyl that enters the USA from Mexico,
Speaker 3: about eighty percent of the convictions made it as a
Speaker 3: result of that fentanyl entering the USA are made on
Speaker 3: US citizens, right, and ninety percent of the fentanyl that
Speaker 3: is seized is seized at ports of entry. So this
Speaker 3: idea that there are like Mexican nationals backpacking fentanel through
Speaker 3: the desert, that exists, but it is not what is
Speaker 3: bringing the bulk of the fentanyl that is killing the
Speaker 3: people in this country into this country. There are multiple
Speaker 3: cases of CBP agents taking bribes to allow the drug
Speaker 3: into the country. I will link to two of them
Speaker 3: in the show notes, but know that there are more
Speaker 3: of them, and given the relatively high bart for cbpagent,
Speaker 3: anyone in DHS to be investigated. Right, we can assume
Speaker 3: that there's something that happens on at least a semi
Speaker 3: regular basis. So what did Trump do to stop this
Speaker 3: fencinel coming into the country.
Speaker 6: What did he get.
Speaker 3: He got this promise that Mexico will deploy ten thousand
Speaker 3: troops to its border. In reality, this isn't much of
Speaker 3: a concession at all. The Mexican National Guard has been
Speaker 3: deployed to the border for years. Specifically, it's been deployed
Speaker 3: at gaps in the US border wall for more than
Speaker 3: a year. So people will remember our coverage of the
Speaker 3: open air attention sites in the Cumbernese County San Diego.
Speaker 3: All of those open air detention sites correspond to gaps
Speaker 3: in the border wall where migrants would enter, surrendered to
Speaker 3: border patrol, and then be detained in open air. Each
Speaker 3: of those gaps now has a Mexican National Guard checkpoint
Speaker 3: in front of it, and they're there in conjunction with
Speaker 3: the IM the National Institute of Migration in English and
Speaker 3: the I inm has camps for the migrants who do
Speaker 3: come there. This is something that Biden obtained in I
Speaker 3: think late twenty three, early twenty four, and that's why
Speaker 3: we aren't seeing open air attention one of the reasons,
Speaker 3: the other reason being bid them to a sylum band.
Speaker 3: We aren't seeing as many people crossing the border.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: Mexican border towns also tend to be areas where the
Speaker 3: Mexican military deploys its troops because often they are places
Speaker 3: where organized crime occurs due to their proximity to the
Speaker 3: border and the market for drugs, and the fact that
Speaker 3: weapons from the US tend to flow into Mexico and
Speaker 3: that that's where large numbers of weapons for organized crime
Speaker 3: come from. Right. For more than a year, I've received
Speaker 3: press releases from Tijuana constantly talking about new unit arrives,
Speaker 3: Special Forces arrives, Army arrived, and then they'll have pictures
Speaker 3: of a parade.
Speaker 6: Right now.
Speaker 3: They never tell us when those units are leaving. They
Speaker 3: just keep telling us that coming. So it's very hard
Speaker 3: to get a sense of actually how many troops are there. Sure,
Speaker 3: but the idea that Mexico is suddenly miniaturizing it's its
Speaker 3: border is kind of fossical.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I want to There's been a lot of
Speaker 5: sort of cheerleading of shine Bomb, sort of like standing
Speaker 5: up to the US, and I don't think people in
Speaker 5: the US really understand the securitization on the Mexican border,
Speaker 5: and so something that I'm realizing that I don't think
Speaker 5: I just assume people knew about this, but I don't
Speaker 5: think everyone made it into the western press much.
Speaker 6: Is that?
Speaker 5: So Like a few months ago in October, the Mexican
Speaker 5: army just like opened fire on a convoy of like
Speaker 5: on a convoy of immigrants and this was on the
Speaker 5: border of Guatemala and just like killed six of them,
Speaker 5: shot twelve other people. So like, and like there are
Speaker 5: massacres like that, like not infrequently, right, Like, this is
Speaker 5: not a this is not a Mexico is pro immigrant,
Speaker 5: like the US is anti immigrant thing.
Speaker 3: Like.
Speaker 5: Part of the part of the reason why Trump can like,
Speaker 5: you know, sort of the clear victory without getting any
Speaker 5: concessions or whatever is because of how murderous the Mexican armies,
Speaker 5: like border policy is already.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the Mexican leaders have succesfully been able to
Speaker 3: paint themselves as leftists, exclusively being two inches to the
Speaker 3: left of a further and further right regime in Washington, DC.
Speaker 3: People can listen to the last episode of My Daddy
Speaker 3: and Gap series for an idea of how Mexico is
Speaker 3: constantly deporting migrants to its own certain states. I'm going
Speaker 3: to talk a little bit about the Canadian concessions. Very briefly, again,
Speaker 3: ten thousand agents and a border spending that really doesn't
Speaker 3: change much in what in terms of what was already
Speaker 3: becoming a more militarized border.
Speaker 6: There has actually been a.
Speaker 3: Significant flow of migrants from the US to Canada in
Speaker 3: the last couple of years, specifically a Francophone African people
Speaker 3: who would take that route. I'm aware of several TikTok influencers,
Speaker 3: as one guy or following Chad who or he's in
Speaker 3: Canada now, but he's from Chad and he makes these
Speaker 3: videos explaining to Chaddian people how to go from Mexico
Speaker 3: into the US and then move up to Canada obviously
Speaker 3: where they can speak an That makes their lives much easier, right,
Speaker 3: It makes it much easier for not to not have
Speaker 3: to learn a language. Trudeau did agree to list cartels
Speaker 3: as terrorist organizations.
Speaker 4: That seems to be from what I can tell, the
Speaker 4: big move that he made.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it does allow for some economic sanctions, right
Speaker 3: if they attempt to use that Canadian border and sort
Speaker 3: of get around the United States. It's much less significant
Speaker 3: than a US listing, which we believe is coming. Canada's
Speaker 3: not going to use it to do covert operations inside Mexico.
Speaker 3: I don't think Canada's not going to be drone striking anyone.
Speaker 3: But like when Trump listed the Kodes Force, he then
Speaker 3: structs its leader right with a drone. I don't think
Speaker 3: Trudeau is going to be I don't think Canada's going
Speaker 3: to be doing that. But nonetheless that is a concession,
Speaker 3: and perhaps there is some plan for that.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 3: It certainly allows for, and I've said this before, the
Speaker 3: economic sanctioning of people who provide material benefit to those organizations,
Speaker 3: or potentially the arrest of people who provide material benefit
Speaker 3: to his organizations, which is a large number of businesses
Speaker 3: in Mexico which end up being extorted or paying protection money. Right,
Speaker 3: So we don't know what is going to happen with that,
Speaker 3: but it's one of the tools that Trump now has
Speaker 3: who use as another cudgel against it against Mexico. The
Speaker 3: last and perhaps most sinister of all development is this
Speaker 3: deal that Marco Rubio is struck with Boukele in El Salvador.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 3: El Salvador has said it will host US citizen criminals
Speaker 3: and deportees from any nation in its jail system. So
Speaker 3: I just read Bouquel's tweet, it's very short. We are
Speaker 3: willing to take in only convicted criminals parentheses, including convicted
Speaker 3: US citizens, into a mega prison second, in exchange for
Speaker 3: a fee. The fee would be relatively low for the US,
Speaker 3: but significant for US, making our entire prison system sustainable.
Speaker 3: If you're not familiar, it means counter Terrorism Confinements Center
Speaker 3: in Spanish for people who haven't heard about this. It's
Speaker 3: the largest prison in the world that Bucheli opened in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three, and it's a terrible place. There are
Speaker 3: cells of one hundred people. In that cell, there are
Speaker 3: eighty bunks, two toilets, and two basins. They are extremely confined.
Speaker 3: I think they get six point five feet of space
Speaker 3: per person. They get thirty minutes outside a day. They're
Speaker 3: forced to shave their heads, their ankles and wrists are chained.
Speaker 3: People are arbitrarily detained there. Sometimes the things like looking
Speaker 3: like they might be in a gang. Multiple human rights
Speaker 3: organizations including that well, the State Department is not a
Speaker 3: human rights organization. Sometimes it's the opposite of that. The
Speaker 3: State Department itself has raised concerns about human rights abuse
Speaker 3: due to the quote unquote a state of exception which
Speaker 3: exists in Elsalvador, which allows the government to do these
Speaker 3: things without really any human rights oversight. The US has
Speaker 3: already seemingly moved some migrants to Guantanamo Bay, to the
Speaker 3: Guantanamo Bay Detention Center, and satellite imagery has shown tents
Speaker 3: going up there. Very few at the current time, and
Speaker 3: they seem to come from Fort Lewis McCord, which can
Speaker 3: work out. But there are tents. I guess I think
Speaker 3: I was watched the Post had these satellite images of
Speaker 3: tents being constructed there. I'm trying to keep an eye
Speaker 3: on that satellite imagery. Of course, Biden opened the door
Speaker 3: to outdoor attention. It's not impossible that we will see
Speaker 3: that again. But this Kaylic plan, this this plan to
Speaker 3: send people to Al Salbador, especially US citizens, evidently this
Speaker 3: is unconstitutional. The courts get to decide how much that matters, right,
Speaker 3: we don't. But this is deeply concerning.
Speaker 2: All we're all waiting on the courts and we're all
Speaker 2: deeply concerned.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, there you.
Speaker 2: Go, one final break and then we'll come back to
Speaker 2: end and discuss Trump's targeting of teachers in relation to
Speaker 2: gender ideology. Welcome back. So, last week, Trump signed an
Speaker 2: executive order titled Ending Radical Andation in K through twelve Schooling,
Speaker 2: and part of its focus was to prevent teachers from
Speaker 2: calling trans students by their names and preferred pronouns, even
Speaker 2: promising to inflict legal punishment for doing so, basically like
Speaker 2: mandating dead naming, misgendering, and forcibly de transitioning students. And
Speaker 2: this order specifically took aim quote unquote social transition, right,
Speaker 2: this is like the non medical social aspects of transitioning,
Speaker 2: like changing gender, names, pronouns, you know what facilities you use, socialization,
Speaker 2: and like this stuff has historically been, you know, the
Speaker 2: most common form of transition for minors. It's it's the
Speaker 2: easiest to do. You don't even need you like, your parents' help.
Speaker 2: But this order blames schools for indoctrinating children in quote
Speaker 2: radical anti American ideologies unquote, which they include gender ideology.
Speaker 2: As a part of the order, tries to mandate a
Speaker 2: national school bathroom band, restrict participation in school sports, and
Speaker 2: states that within ninety days, the Secretary of Education, the
Speaker 2: Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Health and you
Speaker 2: Human Services, and the Attorney General shall provide Trump with
Speaker 2: a quote unquote ending in doctrination strategy to protect parental
Speaker 2: rights and eliminate all federal funding that directly or indirectly
Speaker 2: supports gender ideology and doctrination in K through twelve schools,
Speaker 2: including curriculums, teacher education, certification, licensing, employment, and training. To
Speaker 2: quote from the order quote, the Attorney General shall coordinate
Speaker 2: with state attorneys general and local district attorneys in their
Speaker 2: efforts to enforce the law and file appropriate actions against
Speaker 2: K through twelve teachers who violate the law by one
Speaker 2: sexually exploiting minors, two unlawfully practicing medicine by offering diagnoses
Speaker 2: and treatment without the requisite license, and three otherwise unlawfully
Speaker 2: facilitating in the social transition of a minor unquote. So basically,
Speaker 2: the goal is to try to make calling a student
Speaker 2: by their name and pronouns illegal and wrapping this in
Speaker 2: either with some form of sexual exploitation, practicing medicine with
Speaker 2: a license, and using those as justifications for making this
Speaker 2: practice illegal. Now. In response, school districts in Columbus, Ohio, Harrisburg, Virginia,
Speaker 2: and Montgomery County, Maryland announced that they would not comply
Speaker 2: with the order and continue to defend their students, according
Speaker 2: to journalists. To Aaron Reid, Seattle Public Schools published a
Speaker 2: statement reaffirming their commitment to protecting LGBTQ students and staff,
Speaker 2: and later the California Department of Education pushed back on
Speaker 2: the legality of Trump's order. Other blue cities and states
Speaker 2: have stayed quiet in the week since the order, with
Speaker 2: teachers and parents calling on places like the New York
Speaker 2: City Public School System to take a stance on if
Speaker 2: they will stand up for their trans students. So this
Speaker 2: is one side of the coin right now. The other
Speaker 2: side is healthcare, which we will close on now. In
Speaker 2: relation to Trump's executive order from his first week entitled
Speaker 2: Defending Women from gender ideology, Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth
Speaker 2: to the Federal Government. Now, some hospitals have begun complying
Speaker 2: in advance by cancelling patient appointments for gender affirming care.
Speaker 2: Denver Health and University of Colorado Health sacrificed the care
Speaker 2: of their patients for Trump's promise of continued funding by
Speaker 2: announcing that they would no longer be offering care including
Speaker 2: blockers and hormone replacement therapy for patients eighteen and under.
Speaker 2: The Virginia Commonwealth University and Children's Hospital of Richmond have
Speaker 2: also ceased providing gender affirming care to those under nineteen.
Speaker 2: This past Monday, thousands of people gathered outside at the
Speaker 2: NYU Langhan Hospital in protest of the hospital's choice to
Speaker 2: proactively comply with Trump's order to restrict health care as
Speaker 2: the cancelation of two appointments for transpatients under the age
Speaker 2: of nineteen. Now after these protests, which saw thousands of
Speaker 2: people protesting out in the streets, after this, the New
Speaker 2: York at Twity General sent a letter to the state
Speaker 2: healthcare systems saying that the state law requires that hospitals
Speaker 2: provide gender affirming care and claimed that the federal funding
Speaker 2: would not be impacted by inexecutive order. And like this
Speaker 2: really hammers on the point that like none of these
Speaker 2: executive orders are self in these all require proactive implementation
Speaker 2: by local actors. Doctor Jeremy Bernbaum was quoted in The
Speaker 2: New York Times. He's a pediatrician at the state run
Speaker 2: University Hospital of Brooklyn. He was quoted as saying, quote,
Speaker 2: I am willing to go to jail to continue to
Speaker 2: provide your care, unquote, and you really can like protest
Speaker 2: hospitals that comply in advance, the same thing with schools.
Speaker 2: These are targets that can provide actual pressure, and there's
Speaker 2: probably people on staff who are very sympathetic, and they
Speaker 2: just might be too scared to take a stance. Right now,
Speaker 2: and we have some breaking news as of this morning.
Speaker 2: State attorney general from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts,
Speaker 2: New Jersey, Rhode Island, Nevada, Vermont, and Wisconsin released a
Speaker 2: statement saying that Trump's executive order banning trans healthcare is
Speaker 2: unlawful and the hospitals have a duty to provide care.
Speaker 2: So this is like the most optimistic thing that we've
Speaker 2: seen so far. Now, obviously these are blue states. This
Speaker 2: is not going to impact and states who already have
Speaker 2: these types of bands either in process or you know,
Speaker 2: are going to have them down the line. At Georgia
Speaker 2: just just put out a Trance healthcare band this morning
Speaker 2: for you know, a bill that'll reach our Senate in
Speaker 2: the next few weeks. But this is this is the
Speaker 2: current situation. Protests seem to have applied a degree of
Speaker 2: pressure that has gotten the state's attorney general to actually
Speaker 2: make a statement on this issue.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I will say, like so I still teach, right
Speaker 3: a teach at community college and sometimes through that we
Speaker 3: also teach high school students. If you are an educator
Speaker 3: or someone in healthcare, now is the time to be
Speaker 3: talking to your union about like how you meet this,
Speaker 3: because like, the stronger we are, the better we can
Speaker 3: confront this. And the only way to confront this is
Speaker 3: we all need to do it together, and like, these
Speaker 3: are conversations that we need to be having right now,
Speaker 3: Like we do not have time, and our unions are
Speaker 3: a very valuable tool for preserving our rights.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's actually part of what I was going to say.
Speaker 5: I've talked to a few union teachers who are like, yeah,
Speaker 5: we're gonna we're gonna go do this, We're gonna go fight.
Speaker 5: So I expect in the next couple of weeks we're
Speaker 5: going to see more movement from the teachers' unions. And
Speaker 5: I think there's you know, there's another I mean, there's
Speaker 5: on the one hand, there is the threat that you know,
Speaker 5: these people do want to privatize the education system, right,
Speaker 5: so there is a chance that this is you know,
Speaker 5: trying to draw a backlash out of this is something
Speaker 5: that they're going to try to use to just completely
Speaker 5: eliminate like national federal education. But also, you know, this
Speaker 5: is something we've I want to close this episode on
Speaker 5: that we've been talking about this whole time, right, is
Speaker 5: that this, this whole coup is being carried out by
Speaker 5: a bunch of people with laptops and pieces of paper
Speaker 5: walking up the bureaucrats, and the bureaucrats are doing what
Speaker 5: they're being told. Right, this is this is not a
Speaker 5: coup that's working with like an army that is showing
Speaker 5: up on your street. And you can go, like find
Speaker 5: the local bureaucrats who are the people who are supposed
Speaker 5: to enforce this stuff, and you can protest them and
Speaker 5: you can put some steel in their spine and make
Speaker 5: them a maze.
Speaker 6: The administration actually try to do this. It's not that
Speaker 6: hard and they'll fucking cave.
Speaker 4: Yes. Yes, that's that's entirely what I was trying to
Speaker 4: get at earlier, And you know it ties into what
Speaker 4: James was saying, is like, this is the time to
Speaker 4: be making connections across as white a swath of the
Speaker 4: country as you can, including like everyone you can get
Speaker 4: in touch with who is not someone you would normally
Speaker 4: organize with, like this is a moment of potential, and
Speaker 4: it's it's during moments of potential that you should be
Speaker 4: widening the swath of people that you connect to, because
Speaker 4: otherwise there's just no getting through this sort of shit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we will be covering all these topics more in
Speaker 2: depth in our regular like daily episodes. I have a
Speaker 2: mind boggling, very frustrating episode on musk and the Trump
Speaker 2: campaign's promises of abolishing different departments of government, as well
Speaker 2: as a deep dive on like affirmative action and DEI
Speaker 2: wokeness in the coming weeks, and I'm sure we will
Speaker 2: we will all be focusing on different parts of us
Speaker 2: in our continuing episodes. But that does it for us today.
Speaker 2: See you on the other side. We reported the news.
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