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Speaker 4: Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday.
Speaker 1: Have an amazing show for everybody today. We have the
Speaker 1: bro Show Ryan people live for the Pound as.
Speaker 3: They today, We've got a great show for everybody today.
Speaker 1: Man, this is tough.
Speaker 3: Crystal's on spring break with her children this week, so
Speaker 3: she's having a great time and we hope that she's
Speaker 3: staying offline, even though we know she's she's almost.
Speaker 1: She's going to be living on She's going to be making.
Speaker 5: A lot of tikeboks.
Speaker 3: Okay, So if you want to see when she's up
Speaker 3: to you can go and follow her TikTok account. Let's
Speaker 3: see what we got here, the toughest part of the job.
Speaker 3: We're going to talk about deportations. I know everybody wants
Speaker 3: to hear more of that, except this time we've got
Speaker 3: that's it. That's that's the whole show. The whole show
Speaker 3: is just deep joking, joking. We've got Glenn Greenwald on
Speaker 3: the show. He's going to yell at me.
Speaker 5: I'm joking.
Speaker 1: We're all going to talk about it. We're going to
Speaker 1: talk about it, and we're going to have a.
Speaker 3: Great conversation around some of the Eagle issues due process,
Speaker 3: what all of this means, how it could be done differently,
Speaker 3: the implications, et cetera.
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to talk to Glenn about that.
Speaker 3: We're going to talk about the rallies that they covered
Speaker 3: a little bit on Friday. Bernie Sanders really barnstorming the country,
Speaker 3: bringing you know, tens of thousands of people to various
Speaker 3: different rallies, some of the biggest rallies he has actually ever
Speaker 3: done in his entire career. Interesting juxtaposition with Chuck Schumer
Speaker 3: and the Democratic strategy. We're going to talk about corruption.
Speaker 3: Elon Musk Starlink is set to get billions of dollars
Speaker 3: in government contracts. We are going to talk about Steve Witkoff,
Speaker 3: who recently appeared on The Carlson Show sounding a little
Speaker 3: bit of a different tune now on the Israel conflict.
Speaker 3: Appears that they definitely got to him on this one,
Speaker 3: as the war continues on the ground there. We're going
Speaker 3: to talk about the economy, some various different signs inside
Speaker 3: of that. Perhaps the most troubling one to me is
Speaker 3: the fact that you can now finance your uber eats order.
Speaker 3: Can't think of a single worst financial decision, and yet
Speaker 3: I'm sure it will be overwhelmingly popular. Finally, we're going
Speaker 3: to talk about soda. Ryan, You and I just love
Speaker 3: this story. You know, a bunch of conservative influencers allegedly
Speaker 3: got caught taking money to shill for Big Soda on
Speaker 3: foodstamp program. So we can talk about the efficacy of that,
Speaker 3: but also more what it says about the growing you know,
Speaker 3: right wing influencer dumb as we see it interact with
Speaker 3: the corridors of power. Right, Shall we do that? Okay,
Speaker 3: let's go ahead. Glenn Greenwald is standing by. Let's get
Speaker 3: to it. We're very excited now to be joined by
Speaker 3: friend of the show, Glenn Greenwald. He's here to yell
Speaker 3: at me, and he's here to school me. Is here
Speaker 3: to educate me on my misgivings, my wrongs that I've
Speaker 3: made here on the show. But more importantly, he is
Speaker 3: here really as somebody who I just looked top act
Speaker 3: so deeply on these issues, who's thought a lot about it.
Speaker 1: So, Gwenn, it's really great to see you.
Speaker 6: Greatest, see you soccer. I obviously have a lot of
Speaker 6: things to tell at you about. If we did them all,
Speaker 6: it would take three hours. That's right, to focus on
Speaker 6: just one or two.
Speaker 5: That's right.
Speaker 1: We're going to focus just on one or two.
Speaker 3: Let's start with Tom Homan here, responding to criticism that
Speaker 3: these migrants from Venezuela who were declared terrorists by the
Speaker 3: Trump administration were deported to an El Salvador in prison
Speaker 3: with no due process. The response there from Tom Homan
Speaker 3: is that many victims of illegal immigration and crime themselves
Speaker 3: were not given due process. You had a very interesting
Speaker 3: response to that, So let's play the clip and then
Speaker 3: we'll hear your take.
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 7: How do you determine or how do your people in
Speaker 7: the field determine that somebody is a gang member?
Speaker 8: Doctor's various methods. I've noticed in the immedia storyc a
Speaker 8: lot of them don't have criminal histories. Well, a lot
Speaker 8: of gang mergers don't have criminal histories, just like a
Speaker 8: lot of terrorists in this world. They're not in any
Speaker 8: terrorist database, right. We only know that information within databases
Speaker 8: based on for instance, most terrorists we arrest, they are
Speaker 8: identified US gemer, are later identified through a Title three
Speaker 8: investigation or through an undercover operation. They're not in any
Speaker 8: terror screen in bass In screening database. We know that
Speaker 8: a lot of gang members I started as a cop
Speaker 8: nineteen eighty four, many gangmers don't have a criminal history.
Speaker 8: We have a kind of social media who has count
Speaker 8: of surveillance techniques. Who had to count on swarren statements
Speaker 8: from other gang members if you had to count on,
Speaker 8: you know, or wire taps and Title threes. Everything involved
Speaker 8: with the criminal investigations come into play. So just because
Speaker 8: someone doesn't hasn't been arrested in charge of the crime yet,
Speaker 8: doesn't mean they're a member of a gang.
Speaker 7: But how do you I mean what we've heard from
Speaker 7: lawyers representing some of these people, is that they deny
Speaker 7: that they're members of this of this gang or either
Speaker 7: you know, trynd to de Aragua or MS thirteen. Do
Speaker 7: they get a chance to prove that before you take
Speaker 7: them out of the country and put them in to
Speaker 7: a notorious prison in a country that they're not even from.
Speaker 5: Did they have any due process at all?
Speaker 8: Confidence? Due process? Where's Lake and Rhine's due process? Where
Speaker 8: are all these young women that were killed and raped
Speaker 8: by members TDA? Where was their due process? Well?
Speaker 5: Well, the people that by the.
Speaker 8: Subway, where's her due process? The bottom line is that
Speaker 8: plan was full of people, says as terrorists number one,
Speaker 8: number two. Every every Venzowhelan migrant on that flight was
Speaker 8: was was a TDA member based on numerous criminal investigation,
Speaker 8: on intelligence reports, and a lot of work by Ice officers.
Speaker 1: Glenn, what do you make of that argument?
Speaker 6: First of all, it's kind of weird because the older
Speaker 6: you get, the more you realize that history really does
Speaker 6: just repeat itself, and not by century, but even by decade.
Speaker 4: We're back in two thousand and two where we're hearing
Speaker 4: all of the arguments from the Bush.
Speaker 6: And Chainy administration that they have the right to do
Speaker 6: anything they want to people. They and they alone have
Speaker 6: decided our terrors, and that includes putting people into prison
Speaker 6: and definitely with no due process, torturing them, kidnapping them,
Speaker 6: rendering them whatever else they wanted to do. And when
Speaker 6: people objected and said, wait a minute, these people don't
Speaker 6: even have an opportunity to go into court and disprove
Speaker 6: or contest the accusations that you've made against them that
Speaker 6: they're not part of a terrorist organization, what we heard was, Oh,
Speaker 6: don't worry. We vetted these people, and we can assure
Speaker 6: you that these people are not just terrorists, but they're
Speaker 6: the worst of the worst. As it turns out, many,
Speaker 6: according to Colin Power Chief of Staff Larry Wilkinson, most
Speaker 6: ended up not being part of any terrorist organization. They
Speaker 6: were picked up randomly, the intelligence was wrong, sometimes vindictively.
Speaker 6: People reported them to the US military all kinds of reasons.
Speaker 6: The government makes mistakes, and that's the whole point of
Speaker 6: due process is we don't trust just one branch of
Speaker 6: government to do something as cataclysmic as throw people into
Speaker 6: a dungeon for a life without even bothering to have
Speaker 6: to present evidence that they're guilty. And giving the people
Speaker 6: who are so accused the opportunity to contest it. And
Speaker 6: the other point that he made that makes absolutely no sense,
Speaker 6: and a police officer should know this better than anyone
Speaker 6: is due process is most necessary for people who are
Speaker 6: accused of horrific crimes. Lincoln Riley's killers didn't just get
Speaker 6: thrown in the dungeon because the government decided that they
Speaker 6: were guilty. They were given lawyers, formal charges, went through
Speaker 6: all of our judicial procedures, were found guilty in a
Speaker 6: court of law and sentenced to life in prison without paroles.
Speaker 6: So the idea that of course no murderers, no kidnappers,
Speaker 6: no rapist give their victims due process, But we still
Speaker 6: give due process to the people who are accused of
Speaker 6: criminality before we could punish them, because the founders knew
Speaker 6: first and foremost that humans are not infallible, and they're
Speaker 6: going to make mistakes. And we've made mistakes all the time.
Speaker 6: Even with due process, we've convicted people wrongly and and justly.
Speaker 6: Imagine how many mistakes get made when you just hand
Speaker 6: over the power to government officials and the execus the
Speaker 6: branch dec and who is and is not guilty, with
Speaker 6: no opportunity for the person who's accused to disprove the charges,
Speaker 6: and that is exactly what's happening, Glenn.
Speaker 3: I think what's made this so difficult for me is
Speaker 3: it feels dispositionally as if the law is something that
Speaker 3: is being almost used in a process way, not just
Speaker 3: due process, but it's one where it feels as if
Speaker 3: the constitution and the law seems to apply only for deportation,
Speaker 3: but it didn't necessarily apply let's say, when people were
Speaker 3: being allowed into the country, and then we're victimizing people
Speaker 3: who were here. It does feel, at least to me,
Speaker 3: as if this argumentation and this love of due process,
Speaker 3: et cetera, only comes into play whenever it's the you know,
Speaker 3: supposedly sympathetic group here, let's say, of migrants. When we
Speaker 3: don't necessarily hear the same for let's say, people who
Speaker 3: are coming here illegally committing crimes, then it's like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: of course this is something that is naturally to happen.
Speaker 3: They have a lower, let's say, crime rate than the
Speaker 3: natural born population.
Speaker 1: The implication that you shouldn't even.
Speaker 3: Worry about So for people like me who have really
Speaker 3: complicated feelings about this stuff, how should we feel watching
Speaker 3: this and trying to balance those two issues of wanting
Speaker 3: let's say, mass deportation the selective application, let's say of concern.
Speaker 1: What would you say to those critics, Well, the.
Speaker 6: Whole reason Trump has made the specificted to issue of
Speaker 6: mass deportation and he won twice, and pulls clearly show
Speaker 6: in addition to that that people support mass deportation was
Speaker 6: because the idea was that people entering our country illegally
Speaker 6: have done something wrong, have done something criminal. So the
Speaker 6: idea is though, oh, because they didn't give us due process,
Speaker 6: or they didn't get due process.
Speaker 4: We should now relinquish due process.
Speaker 6: Is essentially to say, let's copy and replicate and adopt
Speaker 6: the worst abuses of the policies that Donald Trump, for
Speaker 6: a decade has been most harshly criticizing. I think the
Speaker 6: bigger point, though, is that when Donald Trump has stood
Speaker 6: up for a decade now and argued for mass deportation, typically,
Speaker 6: mass deportation, not just typically, but almost in every case
Speaker 6: means that you take somebody who is in your country
Speaker 6: illegally and you send them back to their country of origin.
Speaker 6: You send them back to where they're a citizen, or
Speaker 6: where they came from. That is always how deportation works.
Speaker 6: The reason this has become so controversial is because the
Speaker 6: Trump administration is not picking up Venezuelans or others and
Speaker 6: sending them back to their country of origin. They're sending
Speaker 6: them on purpose to a third country that these people
Speaker 6: have nothing to do with. They're not citizens of Al Salvador.
Speaker 6: Most of them, if not all of them, have never
Speaker 6: been to Al Salvador. And the reason we're sending them
Speaker 6: to Al Salvador is because we know they have a
Speaker 6: repressive prison system, probably the worst in the world, where
Speaker 6: they're not only going to be humiliated in torture and
Speaker 6: script of all human rights, but it's extremely unlikely that
Speaker 6: they're ever going to leave. So this is a radical
Speaker 6: departure from what we think of and called deportation. This
Speaker 6: is consigning somebody not just to life in prison, but
Speaker 6: to one of the worst prisons. Life in one of
Speaker 6: the worst prisons that people very readily leave. And if
Speaker 6: you don't believe that the government, the US government under
Speaker 6: the Constitution, owes people the right of due process, of
Speaker 6: a hearing, of an opportunity to disprove the accusations, not
Speaker 6: before we deport them back to their country of origin,
Speaker 6: but before we send them on purpose to a hellhole
Speaker 6: of a prison that they're likely never going to leave
Speaker 6: prison for life without even an inkling of a process,
Speaker 6: a requirement the government showed the evidence and the opportunity
Speaker 6: of the person so accused to contest it. Then you
Speaker 6: don't believe in due process at all. Then you simply
Speaker 6: believe in an authoritarian government that can just accuse people
Speaker 6: in secret of being guilty. And that's the end of
Speaker 6: the story. And that has never been the founding value of.
Speaker 4: The United States.
Speaker 6: You mentioned the Benjamin Franklin quote that I had cited,
Speaker 6: where he said, it is more just to allow one
Speaker 6: hundred guilty people to go free than to punish wrongfully
Speaker 6: a single innocent person that comes from blode which is
Speaker 6: the foundation of American and British law. Thomas Jefferson is
Speaker 6: attributed to say something very similar, but certainly all of
Speaker 6: his writings and all of the founder's writings, that was
Speaker 6: the idea. Let me just give you a quick example.
Speaker 6: We impose limits on police officers that make it more
Speaker 6: difficult for them to catch violent criminals. They're not, for example,
Speaker 6: allowed to just burst into houses where they suspect that
Speaker 6: somebody guilty might be there, they first have to.
Speaker 4: Go to a court get a warrant.
Speaker 6: And we require that, even knowing that sometimes it's going
Speaker 6: to mean that violent criminals get away because we're putting
Speaker 6: barriers in front of the police.
Speaker 4: But we're a country of liberty.
Speaker 6: We've decided we would rather have those liberties, even if
Speaker 6: there's a cost to it. And due process is exactly that,
Speaker 6: and it's something foundational to the United States, and it
Speaker 6: can't be waived simply because people are frustrated with the
Speaker 6: legal immigration, especially when it's not sending them back to
Speaker 6: their home country but putting them into a horrific prison
Speaker 6: in a dictatorial country in El Salvador, where you've seen
Speaker 6: all the video of things that they do to these.
Speaker 4: People that would never be permitted in the United States.
Speaker 9: And there's also that famous quote, you know, people who
Speaker 9: trade liberty for security will get will get neither. Just
Speaker 9: to sketch in how that unfolded in this moment, we
Speaker 9: can just very quickly run through a couple of the examples,
Speaker 9: because we're talking about it, you know, the question on principle,
Speaker 9: but also in practice, we see exactly what unfolded role
Speaker 9: A two really quickly.
Speaker 5: This is just like a gay barber who is.
Speaker 9: Like, we're we're asking people to just use their common sense.
Speaker 9: Does this dude look like a thug from the trend
Speaker 9: a Aragua gang.
Speaker 5: It's like, no, it looks like.
Speaker 4: James Charles is one of those gay like beauty influencers.
Speaker 6: Is like welcoming with open arms, openly gay flamboyantly gay
Speaker 6: hairdressers who fled Venezuela claiming persecution on LGBT grounds. You
Speaker 6: think that's a likely member of a trend de Aragua gang.
Speaker 6: And then or shouldn't there at least be a hearing
Speaker 6: about that?
Speaker 5: Firstlet's determine if he's guilty, let's hear the charges. So
Speaker 5: then A three.
Speaker 9: This is one we wrote about over at drop site.
Speaker 9: Herse Barrios Rays Barrios. He's a professional goalkeeper who protested
Speaker 9: the Maduro regimes, kicking off his opposition from the presidential ballot.
Speaker 5: He had a hearing scheduled.
Speaker 9: For April seventeenth to make his case for political asylum.
Speaker 9: He was actually removed from maximum security prison after his
Speaker 9: family was able to get an affid David from the
Speaker 9: tattoo artist. It was like, no, this crown is related
Speaker 9: to Real Madrid, his favorite soccer team. So that Ice
Speaker 9: is finally like, okay, we'll let him out of maximum
Speaker 9: security prison very quickly. They instead they just supporting him
Speaker 9: and taking him out. DHS stood behind that one in
Speaker 9: a comment to us, saying, you know, we feel like
Speaker 9: the tattoo was gang related at the same time, and
Speaker 9: you can put up a four. While I'm talking about this,
Speaker 9: they have a not Actually this is just a bunch
Speaker 9: of other people who was their family are saying, no,
Speaker 9: these are just tattoos.
Speaker 5: These guys are nothing to do with gangs.
Speaker 9: DHS has said one hundred and one of the people
Speaker 9: this is an this is for his this guy's for
Speaker 9: his autistic brother. This is like the autistic like awareness
Speaker 9: and acceptance symbol. One hundred and one of the people
Speaker 9: that were deported. They don't claim we're in a gang.
Speaker 9: Yet every time we come with evidence that this guy
Speaker 9: is not a gang, DHS responds, they're actually in a gang. Now,
Speaker 9: I don't really have a question because I agree.
Speaker 5: With you on this one.
Speaker 9: I'm just just be a pot plant for the rest.
Speaker 5: Of this conversation. I just wanted to add that.
Speaker 3: I think this is all fair, and this is what
Speaker 3: I think makes the difficulty. Again, I'll just explain, you know,
Speaker 3: for me, I feel as if that the law was
Speaker 3: not applied for several years millions of people illegally entered
Speaker 3: our country, and you know, any often the discussion for
Speaker 3: those years, if we brought up someone like Lake and
Speaker 3: Riley or the victim of crime in that respect, it was,
Speaker 3: oh well, that is simply the consequence of Ryan, let's say,
Speaker 3: in your case of our meddling in Venezuela, almost as
Speaker 3: if we deserve it right for that to happen, or
Speaker 3: and or lawlessness.
Speaker 1: Of not you know, taking the names of many of these.
Speaker 3: People, or you know, not pursuing deportation or detainers or
Speaker 3: the willful either you know, expulsion from let's say, from
Speaker 3: prison during without bail. And it seems that as if
Speaker 3: you know, here, you know, we can highlight these examples,
Speaker 3: of course, of which, look, it is clear that there
Speaker 3: were like terrible mistakes. And I don't even disagree with
Speaker 3: you Glenn on a human level, and I think I
Speaker 3: am coming around to your point of view. It just
Speaker 3: does feel, you know, for in terms of let's say,
Speaker 3: the sympathy and who we decide to like look at
Speaker 3: these things has eroded much of the discourse around this,
Speaker 3: and so both at an emotional level and also with
Speaker 3: with Ryan's what Ryan is saying, because I'm sure there
Speaker 3: are a lot of people who listen to this who
Speaker 3: probably initially had my response as well, what do you
Speaker 3: think that they need to hear both about not the
Speaker 3: not only equal application of the law, but why it
Speaker 3: is so important what you're saying.
Speaker 6: So I do absolutely agree that we have democratically ratified
Speaker 6: a program of mass deportation. There's all polls showing across
Speaker 6: political lines that people believe that the massive info of
Speaker 6: people into our country who aren't documented, who have no
Speaker 6: right to be here, who cross the border illegally, is
Speaker 6: a huge problem and needs to be rectified. And again,
Speaker 6: I think Trump has won a democratic mandate to mass
Speaker 6: deport people who are in the.
Speaker 4: United States illegally and to close the border. I don't
Speaker 4: have any doubts about that.
Speaker 6: Whether I agree with that policy or not, that is
Speaker 6: the democratic decision. There is a process in place though,
Speaker 6: that is designed to do that. You can deport people.
Speaker 6: Obama and Trump in his first term and Biden in
Speaker 6: his first term deported a lot of people, and you
Speaker 6: can deport a lot more legally using the legal mechanisms
Speaker 6: that are set up.
Speaker 4: The problem with Biden was not that there.
Speaker 6: Aren't legal processes sufficient to deport a lot of people.
Speaker 6: The problem is that the Democrats had no political will
Speaker 6: to do so. They were controlled by pro immigration groups.
Speaker 6: But if you want to, you can abide by the
Speaker 6: law and mass deport at the same time and minimally
Speaker 6: safeguard human rights and the ability of people not to
Speaker 6: be wrongly accused.
Speaker 4: And I don't think we.
Speaker 6: Would even be having this debate saga if not for
Speaker 6: the fact that Trump gets in. There hasn't really been
Speaker 6: mass deportations, by the way.
Speaker 1: Well there has not.
Speaker 4: The number that's very important.
Speaker 6: There has not been messed right, And what we're getting
Speaker 6: instead are distractions from kind of exploiting the idea of
Speaker 6: mass deportation, first to go after people who are in
Speaker 6: the country legally green card holders and visas who are
Speaker 6: being expelled for the crime of criticizing and protesting against Israel,
Speaker 6: which I know you do not support, and so part
Speaker 6: of that is an exploitation for a completely different issue.
Speaker 6: But the other part is deportations are not about sending
Speaker 6: people to prison for life. That we've never regarded life
Speaker 6: in prison as an appropriate punishment for people who enter
Speaker 6: our country, especially in a country that's not theirs. That
Speaker 6: is only appropriate prison for people who are proven to
Speaker 6: have committed violent crimes. And there's a lot of doubt
Speaker 6: about whether the people sent to El Salvador were in
Speaker 6: fact guilty, and even if there was a doubt, even
Speaker 6: if they all seem kind of guilty based on this
Speaker 6: very tenuous art of interpreting people's tattoos, which, by the way,
Speaker 6: liberals did with Pete Hegstath in a way that turned
Speaker 6: out to be completely misguided. There was a New Yorker
Speaker 6: fact checker, Talia Levine, who accused an ICE agent of
Speaker 6: having a Nazi tattoo.
Speaker 4: She had to quit because she misinterpreted the tattoo.
Speaker 6: These are very very thin reads on which to proclaim
Speaker 6: somebody guilty. If it had just been the kind of
Speaker 6: deportation that Trump was promising, I don't think there'd be
Speaker 6: a controversy. The problem is is that these are not
Speaker 6: deportations in the traditional sense of the word. And we
Speaker 6: should have learned from the War on Terror that if
Speaker 6: the government says, trust us. Everyone we're punishing is guilty.
Speaker 6: You don't need a hearing, you don't need to see
Speaker 6: the evidence. We know for sure people are going to
Speaker 6: be wrongfully accused. And there's a big difference between I
Speaker 6: mean just sending them back to their home country, although
Speaker 6: that could be pretty devastating for people here a long
Speaker 6: time or married to an American citizen, as monkalides, but
Speaker 6: it's still way worse to send them to a dungeon
Speaker 6: in Alsawador with no due process.
Speaker 3: Glenn, what is the legal process that the government has
Speaker 3: to follow. Let's say, like I know, this happened with
Speaker 3: a lot of GETMO detainees, where we're like, okay, we
Speaker 3: want to send them back, but then their country's like, no,
Speaker 3: we don't want them back. So and this was some
Speaker 3: of the wrangling that I've seen as well, that while
Speaker 3: the Venezuelan government has agreed to accept some deportation flights,
Speaker 3: let's say, in the case of many of these migrants
Speaker 3: to the United States, if they did not want to accept,
Speaker 3: then what process must the government follow. Because it does
Speaker 3: feel a bit preposterous that if the government doesn't want
Speaker 3: to accept them, that they have to let's say stay
Speaker 3: here on the dime of the US hax.
Speaker 4: Bear Well, Guantanamo is a perfect example.
Speaker 6: You may remember that at one time there was an
Speaker 6: excess of one thousand detainees at Guantanamo, again who we
Speaker 6: were told were the worst of the worst, the incorrigible
Speaker 6: terrorists who would never be recuperated.
Speaker 4: And now there's fewer than forty people. What happened to
Speaker 4: all of those people.
Speaker 6: Apparently they got released because the government realized or they
Speaker 6: proved in court that they weren't actually threats a terrorist threats,
Speaker 6: they didn't belong to a terrorist organization, and sometimes their
Speaker 6: countries didn't want them back, but the US used diplomacy
Speaker 6: and was able to place them all all throughout the world.
Speaker 6: They didn't get sent back to prison. They were put
Speaker 6: into other countries. Some of them are like in Caribbeani.
Speaker 6: The United States is a very powerful country. We have
Speaker 6: all sorts of ways diplomatically to do deals with other countries,
Speaker 6: including with Venezuela that has now said they're going to
Speaker 6: accept the deported Venezuelan citizens. So this was not saga,
Speaker 6: an attempt to just be like, oh, we don't really
Speaker 6: have anything to do with them.
Speaker 4: Because Venezuela won't accept them.
Speaker 6: This was a huge rush that was designed really to
Speaker 6: be deterrence, to say, if you come into our country illegally,
Speaker 6: we're going to make examples of these people, and we're
Speaker 6: going to make videos of it with them being humiliated
Speaker 6: and stripped of their humanity.
Speaker 4: And it was done in a very rush fashion.
Speaker 6: There was no real attempt to diplomatically negotiate with Venezuela
Speaker 6: or anybody else who might take them. The whole cruelty
Speaker 6: and horror of the process, again without due process, was
Speaker 6: part of what they were purposely trying to do, and
Speaker 6: that is not an appropriate means of the justice system
Speaker 6: to make, you know, That's what monarchs used to do,
Speaker 6: is they would cut off people's heads who they heard
Speaker 6: were criticizing them and then hang them in the town
Speaker 6: square as a warning to others who might do that.
Speaker 6: That is not American justice, That has nothing to do
Speaker 6: with our value system.
Speaker 4: It's a huge assault on it.
Speaker 6: And I think there's obvious ways for the US government
Speaker 6: diplomatically to get these people back to their home countries.
Speaker 3: Last question for you, Glenn, from me is why does
Speaker 3: due process for illegal immigrants matter? That's something that I
Speaker 3: really struggle with is just this idea. You can come
Speaker 3: to the United States, you can violate our laws, you
Speaker 3: can then receive better treatment, you know, than you would
Speaker 3: in your own home country. And we're almost like a
Speaker 3: victim of our own compassion and of our openness when
Speaker 3: we didn't enforce the law and then are required to
Speaker 3: enforce the law once you are here illegally.
Speaker 1: Why do you think that it matters?
Speaker 3: And I did not even realize until I started listening
Speaker 3: to you that the precedence for due process for people
Speaker 3: president of the country illegally goes all the way back
Speaker 3: to the eighteen hundred. So it's pretty clear that we
Speaker 3: have been grappling with this question for a long time.
Speaker 1: But it's obviously been politically controversial.
Speaker 3: So why do you think it matters even for illegal immigrants, for,
Speaker 3: of course, people like mack Mud Khalil and others.
Speaker 10: The Bill of.
Speaker 6: Rights was never intended to be, and the courts have
Speaker 6: never interpreted as a kind of list of privileges that
Speaker 6: only a certain group of human beings possessed, namely American citizens.
Speaker 6: In fact, the Fourteenth Amendment was deliberately written to say
Speaker 6: that any persons inside the United States, not citizens, but persons,
Speaker 6: not even legally here, but just persons in general. Human
Speaker 6: beings have the right of the equal applipation, equal protection
Speaker 6: of the law. They have the right of due process.
Speaker 6: And that's why this is not something of liberal courts
Speaker 6: in the nineteen sixties, as you say, it goes back
Speaker 6: to the eighteen hundred and again when the United States
Speaker 6: put obviously all non citizens in Guantanamo.
Speaker 4: The Supreme Court in two thousand.
Speaker 6: And eight ruled that even though they're not in citizens,
Speaker 6: because they're under US sovereignty, they have the right of
Speaker 6: habeas corpus, the right to go into court and to
Speaker 6: demonstrate that the charges against them are illegal. And the
Speaker 6: reason is the Bill of Rights is not a list
Speaker 6: of privileges assigned to particular people. It's a constraint on
Speaker 6: the US government with regard to everybody under their control.
Speaker 4: And the reason is is because.
Speaker 6: It's simply so inherently morally unjust, horrifyingly unjust to do
Speaker 6: something like throw someone into prison for life without any
Speaker 6: opportunity for them to prove that that is an unjust punishment.
Speaker 6: Deportation itself, real deportation, send them back to the country,
Speaker 6: has a very minimal standard of due process. It's just
Speaker 6: a kind of immigration court within the Justice Department. And
Speaker 6: as long as they're here illegally, in the go can
Speaker 6: prove that they'll approve them going back to their country
Speaker 6: of origin. You don't have to prove guilt or crime.
Speaker 6: The prime is entering the country illegally. We're talking about
Speaker 6: something much much different here. And I think that's the
Speaker 6: reason it has become so alarming. And it's not just
Speaker 6: alarming in these cases, but as a precedent that will
Speaker 6: obviously expand outward in a way that we saw happen
Speaker 6: repeatedly in the Cold.
Speaker 4: War, the War, and terror in every other abuse of
Speaker 4: civil liberties.
Speaker 9: The only other point I'd make is these are radical ideas.
Speaker 9: Free speech, protection of people who are accused of crimes,
Speaker 9: of due process, for every person, whether they're a citizen
Speaker 9: or not. Like we are unique around the world in
Speaker 9: defending these liberties. It's and like I said, it is
Speaker 9: like you go to other countries, they are like this
Speaker 9: full First Amendment thing you have, this is a radical
Speaker 9: idea and it's just not accepted in a lot of
Speaker 9: other places that you have these liberties. And so in
Speaker 9: dark times like this, you got like, that's when you
Speaker 9: really have to them or then we're just like what
Speaker 9: are we then? Anyway, So that's my only point. I
Speaker 9: don't know if any final.
Speaker 1: Thoughts, Glenn, any final thoughts here.
Speaker 10: No.
Speaker 6: I think it's a crucial point, and I would just
Speaker 6: add one thing, which is that one of the ways
Speaker 6: that governments traditionally try and get around the constraints on
Speaker 6: them from the Constitution is to try and say we're
Speaker 6: in war time and therefore we can't afford those And
Speaker 6: as I'm sure you know this seventeen, this Alien's Enemies
Speaker 6: Act was invoked only three times in history of the war
Speaker 6: of eighteen twelve, World War one, world War two, where even.
Speaker 4: Then it was very sketchy.
Speaker 6: Courts were very skeptical of the right to deny view
Speaker 6: process based on it the idea that mass immigration is
Speaker 6: some kind of a war in the traditional sense where
Speaker 6: Congress declares war against the foreign power. That in itself
Speaker 6: is extremely dangerous, because that is what we saw in
Speaker 6: World War two, an attempt to impose a war paradigm.
Speaker 4: What really was a.
Speaker 6: Criminal problem of international terrorism that we could solve with
Speaker 6: due processing courts, And if you just allow the government
Speaker 6: to declare war willy nilly, and therefore all the powers
Speaker 6: that go with it, the constitutions is going to become
Speaker 6: illusory because the government can just get around it by saying, oh,
Speaker 6: we're at war, We're war against this problem, this problem,
Speaker 6: this problem, and that I think is maybe the most
Speaker 6: dangerous theory that the Trump administration is promagating.
Speaker 3: Well, Glenn, you've always given me a lot to think about.
Speaker 3: I think I think you have convinced me. But it's
Speaker 3: a difficult emotional process to get here, and I really
Speaker 3: do thank you for coming on the show, for being
Speaker 3: willing to do this, and for just continuing to always
Speaker 3: stand up and you believe, and you're one of my
Speaker 3: heroes that's out there.
Speaker 5: So thank you.
Speaker 4: Thanks Zager.
Speaker 6: I appreciate your having me on knowing that we were
Speaker 6: gonna that it was gonna yellow you.
Speaker 5: Well, it's good.
Speaker 3: It's good for me. I think it makes me stronger. Right,
Speaker 3: all right, we appreciate you, Glenn. Thanks very much.
Speaker 4: Good talking to you guys.
Speaker 3: All right, let's go ahead and get to these rallies,
Speaker 3: and then afterwards we're going to talk a little bit
Speaker 3: to Dave Weigel, reporter at Semaphore who actually was on
Speaker 3: the ground for some of these and he spoke to
Speaker 3: the participants involved. Let's put the first part up here
Speaker 3: on the screen. This is just some images that came
Speaker 3: out of these rallies all across the United States as
Speaker 3: part of the quote Fight Oligarchy tour by Bernie Sanders.
Speaker 3: I mean, look, you got to respect the game. Crowds matter.
Speaker 3: As we learned in the twenty sixteen presidential campaign, both
Speaker 3: Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump were able to bring out
Speaker 3: just tens of thousands of people aren't really normally engaged
Speaker 3: in politics. And what's fascinating about this one, Ryan, is
Speaker 3: not only the sheer crowd size, but also the makeup
Speaker 3: of those crowd sizes. So a Bernie AOC rally, you
Speaker 3: and I've been covering this for a while. You know,
Speaker 3: it's got a certain esthetic, it's a it's got a
Speaker 3: certain group like they're fishheads, as Ryan can announced this
Speaker 3: time around. Though there's some moms there, there's some people
Speaker 3: there that are traditionally part of the progressive left wing movement.
Speaker 3: And something that we always respect here on this show
Speaker 3: is not only crowd size, but the ability to build
Speaker 3: new coalitions. I mean, Donald Trump is very effective at
Speaker 3: Bernie Bernie in his waning days arguably the most impressive
Speaker 3: feat of his political career so far.
Speaker 9: And you have some right wing commentators, influencers whatever you
Speaker 9: want to call them, who are throwing cold water on
Speaker 9: this and saying, according to our cell phone analysis of
Speaker 9: these characters who are out there protesting, you know, these
Speaker 9: folks have also gone to Black Lives Matter protests as well,
Speaker 9: like a if you're American and you're remotely on this
Speaker 9: in the center or the left, you were out of
Speaker 9: Black Lives Matter. They were like, that's twenty million people
Speaker 9: or something a lot. It's basically everybody that's right. And
Speaker 9: they said, and it's not grassroots, because we have identified
Speaker 9: that this organization, Indivisible, was involved with helping to organize
Speaker 9: these rallies. Indivisible is an organic, grassroots organization that does
Speaker 9: yet some like foundation funding, but that doesn't mean it
Speaker 9: isn't a membership based and like powered organization where you
Speaker 9: have like an Indivisible and Chevy Chase and Indivisible and
Speaker 9: all of these little tiny neighborhoods have Indivisible chapters. Those
Speaker 9: are generally normy Democrats, like those they came out of
Speaker 9: the Women's March era. So the fact that they are
Speaker 9: at a Bernie AOC rally does not undercut the kind
Speaker 9: of potential that it shows. It actually fuels because it's like, oh,
Speaker 9: now you've got the normy dams who are showing up
Speaker 9: at a Bernie rally.
Speaker 5: That's that's a change well run.
Speaker 3: As you and I know, oppositions always like to downplay
Speaker 3: the grassroots elebrate and actually like the TV this exactly.
Speaker 3: And so let's take it back to twenty and ten.
Speaker 3: And so I was a student here in Washington. We
Speaker 3: were a wash in crowds. We had the Glenn Beck rally.
Speaker 3: I'll never forget. That was actually while I was moving
Speaker 3: into my dorm, my freshman year dorm. I was stunned.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh my god. I was like, something
Speaker 3: that is happening here in Washington. The entire city is
Speaker 3: taken over by all of these like anti Obamacare protesters,
Speaker 3: Glenn Beck's rally. I mean that was hundreds of thousands
Speaker 3: of people. What was the comment, Oh, they're being bust
Speaker 3: in by the Koch brothers. And it's like, yeah, that
Speaker 3: might even be true, but guess what, They're still showing
Speaker 3: up to vote, Like as most people like. It's pretty
Speaker 3: rare to actually physically being paid to go to a protest.
Speaker 3: Not saying it doesn't happen, it certainly does. But at
Speaker 3: a mass level, no, that's not true. Providing organization, bust
Speaker 3: is and all that is a long standing part of
Speaker 3: all political coalitions that Donald Trump campaign use that to
Speaker 3: a great effect. Of course, try to make sure that
Speaker 3: your rallies are always crowded. This is like standard political stuff.
Speaker 3: The fact is is when you have all these people here,
Speaker 3: it means something. Now we don't know what yet, but
Speaker 3: it definitely means something to me.
Speaker 9: One fun irony, though, the only person who really flagrantly
Speaker 9: actively paid people to be part of their political operation
Speaker 9: is Elon Musk.
Speaker 10: He's like, I'll, I.
Speaker 5: Will pay you one hundred dollars.
Speaker 9: It worked off though, and it worked out right, So
Speaker 9: it's hilarious that he would be like pointing fingers at this.
Speaker 9: But you're you're so right. And at the time I
Speaker 9: remember the left saying this is all Coke Brothers stuff.
Speaker 9: And my argument to the left was this type of
Speaker 9: cope screws you because you need an objective, clear eyed
Speaker 9: analysis of your opposition or else you're not going to
Speaker 9: see what their assets are, and you won't be able
Speaker 9: to come at them and defend your own position. And
Speaker 9: the Kochs were funding the Right for decades at that
Speaker 9: point and had never managed to bring hundreds of thousands
Speaker 9: of people out to the MA all. So the fact
Speaker 9: of the money is sometimes necessary to get the people
Speaker 9: out there.
Speaker 5: But it's not sufficient.
Speaker 3: Yes, you have to have actual or people need to
Speaker 3: be pissed off, people to be mad that people need
Speaker 3: to be politically engaged.
Speaker 9: And these foundations were funding Indivisible to the tune of
Speaker 9: a couple hundred thousand dollars two years ago, but they
Speaker 9: weren't pulling all.
Speaker 3: This money mattered. Joe Biden will be president or Comma
Speaker 3: can still be president. And I say, as we were
Speaker 3: knowing people sa Kamala Harris would have gone exactly, people matter,
Speaker 3: actually matter more than anything. And so we've got this
Speaker 3: some clips here from Bernie Sanders, which I think if
Speaker 3: I had to, you know, as people here know, I've
Speaker 3: got the softest spart of mind of all the Democrats,
Speaker 3: it's Burt Bernie. For me, he's the OG. I have
Speaker 3: a very difficult time, especially when he goes the route.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's we'll talk about that so especially as old school.
Speaker 3: So I just think the guy I don't know, there's
Speaker 3: something about him tugs at my heart strings. And something
Speaker 3: I appreciate the most about Bernie is to me, Bernie
Speaker 3: just feels American, and that is what really hit home
Speaker 3: in some of these speeches.
Speaker 1: Let's take a list.
Speaker 5: We don't want a king in the United States. We
Speaker 5: all the throw a kaing.
Speaker 4: Money.
Speaker 11: They control our economy, they own much of the media,
Speaker 11: and they have an enormous influence over our political sicemy.
Speaker 11: But from the bottom of my heart, I am convinced.
Speaker 10: That they can be the.
Speaker 12: We need a democratic party that fights harder for us too.
Speaker 12: That means our communities, each and every one of us,
Speaker 12: choosing and voting for Democrats and elected officials who know
Speaker 12: how to stand for the working class.
Speaker 13: Our job is to break up the big corporate monopolies
Speaker 13: that are screwing us every single day. Bring down housing
Speaker 13: prices for good, bring down grocery prices for good, require
Speaker 13: good living wages for a fold day's work. Put power
Speaker 13: back in the hands of everyday people from Arizona to Texas,
Speaker 13: all across America.
Speaker 1: All right, So very I mean look, you have to
Speaker 1: respect it.
Speaker 3: And like I said at the top there for Bernie,
Speaker 3: I remember his most effective political ad, the America Ad
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen. Also here, you know, bringing back to the
Speaker 3: spirit of the American Revolution and or the labor movements,
Speaker 3: something that he's very intimately familiar with and he's been
Speaker 3: rawn on for quite a some time. And I do
Speaker 3: think that that is a very potent political message right now,
Speaker 3: and it's I think important for him, you know, with
Speaker 3: the Oligarchy tour there, not only against Elon and some
Speaker 3: of the political feelings, but in terms of like where
Speaker 3: this movement can go. Because again, as you and I know,
Speaker 3: the reason why the Tea Party was funded to the
Speaker 3: tune that it was was to specifically direct grassroots anger,
Speaker 3: which let's all be honest, people didn't care about Obamacare, Okay,
Speaker 3: they just hated Obama. What they wanted to take that
Speaker 3: feeling around that and channel it into an agenda that
Speaker 3: was well planned, right, so you could give This is
Speaker 3: where leadership really matters at a political level, not only
Speaker 3: in terms of the organization at the top, but electing
Speaker 3: and selecting candidates that specifically agreed, let's say, on the
Speaker 3: debt ceiling or Obamacare and all that and telling them
Speaker 3: what their mandate was.
Speaker 1: So, yes, you need to fight. You need to fight
Speaker 1: specifically on a set of issues. Now.
Speaker 3: Last time around, the Donald Trump resistance of twenty seventeen
Speaker 3: was built physically around Donald Trump. It was specifically built around, oh,
Speaker 3: we need to impeach Trump or show he's not democratic.
Speaker 3: That doesn't mean anything, right, and especially if it's built
Speaker 3: on a bullshit lie, which is what Russia Gate was
Speaker 3: this time around. Though, if you have an actual critique
Speaker 3: right of what a policy level is, that will lead you.
Speaker 3: That's the decision tree from which everything happens. If and
Speaker 3: when you do get elected in two thousand and twenty
Speaker 3: six for the mid terms, what type of hearings you call?
Speaker 3: Are you going to be doing Russiagate hearings or are
Speaker 3: we gonna, let's say, a Starlink hearing.
Speaker 1: I can tell you which one's gonna be more politically palatable.
Speaker 1: By the way, it's definitely going to be the latter one.
Speaker 5: Yes, And that was Greg Kasar at the end there, who.
Speaker 1: I didn't know he had that in him. He's actually
Speaker 1: not bad, I'll be honest. After he was on the show,
Speaker 1: wasn't that a brestpot. Yeah, we hear like we had
Speaker 1: him on we had him on a Friday Sue.
Speaker 9: Yeah, yes, and he's really he's in his element when
Speaker 9: he's fighting the billionaires and the oligarchs.
Speaker 5: Did you see John Ossoff? Yes?
Speaker 4: I did.
Speaker 3: I was stunned the actually to see because I'm like, okay,
Speaker 3: that's where you know, my critic cat comes and it's like,
Speaker 3: all right, dude, you know we're talking about oligarchs and Billy.
Speaker 3: It's like, come on, all right, let's let's remember a
Speaker 3: little mister Ossoff's career here in Washington and exactly who
Speaker 3: we got him elected.
Speaker 9: Well, now I'm ann asof hipster here asoff defender. He
Speaker 9: when he was a Hill staffer, he's parties right yeah,
Speaker 9: and yeah, like he was we can say this at
Speaker 9: this point now I know like Lee fond knew him well,
Speaker 9: and he was he was one of the Hill staffers
Speaker 9: who was the most aggressive against surveillance, civil liberties.
Speaker 5: The NSA CIA.
Speaker 9: He was he was a threat to that national security,
Speaker 9: a deep state.
Speaker 5: He was also working.
Speaker 9: He was also doing like documentaries in Africa about colonialism
Speaker 9: and corruption and prison conditions, and I think the as
Speaker 9: off you're seeing now.
Speaker 5: Is the actual one.
Speaker 9: And politically he's liberated the not the Obama impersonating one
Speaker 9: of like the twenty seventeen House race, but his last
Speaker 9: couple of Senate runs, he's been like, if that's the
Speaker 9: Democratic Party, huh, Like that's a that's a cool Democratic Party.
Speaker 9: And so if you missed as he was saying that,
Speaker 9: he was making the point that the Trump cabinet I
Speaker 9: think is worth something like sixty billion dollars before you
Speaker 9: get to like Trump in Elma. He's like, they are
Speaker 9: the elites that they're telling you that they're coming after,
Speaker 9: and I don't know if it's too late. So part
Speaker 9: of this almost feels like poignant, like now now the
Speaker 9: Democrats are finally getting it, when you know, there's been
Speaker 9: room on the left for this, and there's been a
Speaker 9: hunger on the left for this class based Bernie Sanders,
Speaker 9: the millionaires and the billionaires, the one percent that analysis
Speaker 9: the occupy flowing out of the Occupy Wall Street analysis.
Speaker 5: That's it's been there, and then it.
Speaker 9: Got diverted, you know, you know, first by the Hillary
Speaker 9: Clinton campaign and then by the kind of greater wokening
Speaker 9: yes from twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't think it's an accident.
Speaker 3: The Greater Wakening actually happened the exact same year as
Speaker 3: Occupy twenty eighteen. That was the exact time that we
Speaker 3: both had the Occupy Wall Street movement and you had
Speaker 3: the Greater Wokening. The Great Opening is a term that
Speaker 3: actually does have meaning. By the way, you can go
Speaker 3: and look at the skyrocketing use of you know, quote unquote.
Speaker 1: Work terminology that it does not an accident.
Speaker 3: Also that twenty fifteen, the Obergerfel case happens in the
Speaker 3: entire landscape social politics in America.
Speaker 1: Changing.
Speaker 9: Our system is so our capitalist system is so good
Speaker 9: at protecting its own interests that it's able to kind
Speaker 9: of produce these antibodies to actual threats to it. It
Speaker 9: spotted a real threat to it in the form of
Speaker 9: Occupy and Bernie and this energy and the anti body
Speaker 9: was this Great Wokening.
Speaker 1: That's an interesting yeah.
Speaker 9: And so now now has the antibody faded, But it
Speaker 9: might be too late, like now maybe the oligarchs are
Speaker 9: in firm control.
Speaker 1: Well, I think what makes it too late are not only.
Speaker 5: We have a terminal condition.
Speaker 3: We had not only an eleven year legacy here of
Speaker 3: the Great Wokening, which is if you think about that,
Speaker 3: that means that a eight year old at that now
Speaker 3: grew up and became politically conscious in a quote unquote
Speaker 3: woke period, and attitudes have significantly changed among So we
Speaker 3: didn't unfortunately, and on Thursday and have time to go
Speaker 3: into the analysis there the best analysis the twenty eight
Speaker 3: million survey of voters, and specifically how different white college
Speaker 3: educated women are than the rest of the population, white
Speaker 3: college ADKA and women of corps being one of the
Speaker 3: bedrocks of the Democratic Party, and especially with the divide
Speaker 3: in income and in class that we now see where
Speaker 3: a lot of lower income Americans or and or non
Speaker 3: white Americans find themselves Republicans or at the very least
Speaker 3: Trump voters and Trump not as Trumps skeptical, whereas like
Speaker 3: resistance in and of itself is kind of cringe and
Speaker 3: is basically what the home of the liberal base now.
Speaker 1: Well could a lot can change, of course, you know,
Speaker 1: people change all the time.
Speaker 5: And think about what the Greater Wokening left us with
Speaker 5: in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 9: As Sanders is rising, the big problem that was associated
Speaker 9: with him, according to all his critics too many young
Speaker 9: white men was toxic who were angry. They were supporting
Speaker 9: Bernie bros. Now the problem Democrats has that they are
Speaker 9: all Trump supporting.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 3: It is funny because though that prototypical Bernie Brow is
Speaker 3: now the prototypical podcast bro who is the you know Republicans.
Speaker 3: Literally the Joe Rogan pipeline is is real in Rogan's kse.
Speaker 3: I would say, actually, in a lot of these guys cases,
Speaker 3: people who are a lot I know quite a few
Speaker 3: of them, Like they're not Republicans by any of they
Speaker 3: don't really care about tax policy or.
Speaker 1: Something like that.
Speaker 3: They're much more uh, either radicalized on social issues and
Speaker 3: or just very anti establishment. They feel like the left
Speaker 3: is just too deeply tied to the overall like commanding
Speaker 3: heights of stablishing.
Speaker 1: And I understand.
Speaker 9: And they gave up on the idea that there could
Speaker 9: be collective change in this country, and so they've channeled
Speaker 9: that energy inward.
Speaker 5: They're going to work out more.
Speaker 9: They're gonna worry, worry about theirs they take.
Speaker 1: Because Trump is what. Trump's a wrecking ball, right, It's like, well,
Speaker 1: that's the best that we can do. It's kind of
Speaker 1: a screw you to everybody. It was interesting. Now the
Speaker 1: media is taking notice.
Speaker 3: Here we have ABC News John Carl talking about Bernie
Speaker 3: Sanders and his rise.
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 10: How's the Democratic Party doing challenging us?
Speaker 5: They got to be a little tougher, but being a bunch.
Speaker 1: Of dormant stranded when everything.
Speaker 3: So you can see people are mad. But Bernie, this
Speaker 3: is again got to appreciate the guy. Bernie has an
Speaker 3: actual worldview. He doesn't just go with the tides. Okay,
Speaker 3: he does sometimes, if we're all being honest, on Ukraine,
Speaker 3: on a pro live, a few few of the things,
Speaker 3: especially on blmun guns. Yeah, but on immigration, he's always
Speaker 3: had something to say. And that's why there's a lot
Speaker 3: of people on the left. They don't know what to
Speaker 3: do with this Bernie, the guy who he's always been.
Speaker 3: Let's take a list.
Speaker 7: Is there anything that you think Trump has done right?
Speaker 12: Yeah?
Speaker 11: I mean I think cracking down on fetanyl, making sure
Speaker 11: our borders are stronger.
Speaker 5: Look, nobody thinks it legal immigration is appropriate.
Speaker 9: Oh interesting, okay, And people were like, oh, what about
Speaker 9: you in twenty twenty. Yeah, like the inauthentic Bernie on
Speaker 9: immigration was the twenty twenty one who went with the
Speaker 9: Democratic tide, which was produced by the Democratic outrage at
Speaker 9: kids in cages and child separation and real.
Speaker 3: Searching insane moment too, because that was when you know,
Speaker 3: this idea that Elizabeth Warren makes up a story about
Speaker 3: how Bernie was sexist to her like eight years ago
Speaker 3: or whatever.
Speaker 1: That had actual currency.
Speaker 3: You know, it's like actual currency not only in his campaign,
Speaker 3: but in the broader media environment, and I would say
Speaker 3: at least with a limited portion of the Democratic base. Now,
Speaker 3: you know, those of people who watched this show always
Speaker 3: thought it was bullshit and that it was an invented smear.
Speaker 3: But you know, let's not, you know, make it up
Speaker 3: like it was a scandal at that time in terms
Speaker 3: of the right going right in Iowa the same in particular,
Speaker 3: when we think about the campaign in twenty twenty was
Speaker 3: really just a meeting of forces that were really, in
Speaker 3: my opinion, it's not meant to co exist, like you
Speaker 3: come off this great awokening me too. All of these
Speaker 3: other social in my opinion, like insane like periods like
Speaker 3: literal temporary mass psychosis mirrored or sorry paired with an
Speaker 3: original like economic populace campaign of twenty sixteen, which had
Speaker 3: nothing to do with any of that. If anything is
Speaker 3: like diametrically opposed, I would say that the great failure
Speaker 3: of his twenty twenty campaign was the inability to reject
Speaker 3: a lot of that and to return to his roots
Speaker 3: to the America AD and also just not being able
Speaker 3: to prosecute a kay. This is his own personal failings
Speaker 3: in my opinion, where he's independent, he calls out the
Speaker 3: Democratic Party, but Joe Biden. I mean, if were all
Speaker 3: recall my great friend Joe, they're like, well, what was
Speaker 3: up with that? You know, he can't it doesn't work
Speaker 3: that way, or if it does, and you're actually just
Speaker 3: one of them, which is what I think a lot
Speaker 3: of people also feel. Also one of the reasons why,
Speaker 3: you know, his campaign and his willingness there at the
Speaker 3: end basically just endorsed Biden for nothing.
Speaker 1: Remember what he said.
Speaker 3: He's like, Joe, I understand that you also want to
Speaker 3: cancel or raise the fifteen dollars minimum wage.
Speaker 1: And he's like, yes, Bernie, I do.
Speaker 3: Didn't happen, right, It's one of those where and then
Speaker 3: didn't really hear much about it.
Speaker 10: You know.
Speaker 3: The entire time he was a good soldier for forty,
Speaker 3: which is a weird role to see him.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people felt betrayed by that.
Speaker 9: Oh yes, you know, his image took a big hit
Speaker 9: on the on the left, and but you know, I
Speaker 9: think people are like, don't expect him to run for
Speaker 9: president again. Yeah, so there's a little bit more grace
Speaker 9: and also there's nothing else to cheer for, and so
Speaker 9: I think I think AOC is stepping into that as well,
Speaker 9: like she also you know took, you know, has been
Speaker 9: has taken you know, huge, huge hits from the left
Speaker 9: for years. Yes, but there's nothing else out there, And
Speaker 9: so a lot of people like, all right, well, so
Speaker 9: did she say that she's saying the things again.
Speaker 3: Right, but you know, why should you have trust now,
Speaker 3: right because she said it before? Well, I think, and
Speaker 3: she ran for the oversight thing, and she was a
Speaker 3: good soldier. She endorsed Biden, She even defended Biden after.
Speaker 3: You know, she was more vociferous in defense of Biden
Speaker 3: then Nancy.
Speaker 9: Plus, I don't think you're going to get a world
Speaker 9: where people blindly trust either, right. But I think it's like,
Speaker 9: if you're involved, you know, you need a horse. There's
Speaker 9: nobody else riding this is it right?
Speaker 10: All right?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 3: Yeah, as I always say, you go to war with
Speaker 3: the with the troopers that you have. These are the
Speaker 3: We've got Dave Wygel standing by. He's going to break
Speaker 3: a lot of this down for us. He's got some
Speaker 3: great reporting on the subject. Let's get to it. Joining
Speaker 3: us now is Dave Wygel. He's a fantastic national political
Speaker 3: reporter for Semaphore, a great friend of the show.
Speaker 1: Good to see Dave sit here.
Speaker 10: Thank you so, Dave.
Speaker 3: He wrote some really interesting stuff here about Tim Wallas.
Speaker 3: We just talked a lot about Bernie Sanders, but Tim
Speaker 3: Walls is also holding town halls and meetings, and he's
Speaker 3: been on somewhat of an apology tour. I guess you
Speaker 3: could say, let's put it up there on the screen
Speaker 3: whilst on governing under Trump.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to enable him.
Speaker 3: So what did you learn at this rally or with
Speaker 3: in Wisconsin? Tim wallss was there? It was and I
Speaker 3: told you so tour? It was an apology tour. What
Speaker 3: is his theory about where things went wrong? And also
Speaker 3: how is he positioning himself visa VI Bernie and AOC.
Speaker 14: Well, he doesn't really have answers to what went wrong.
Speaker 14: That's part of it. It was this town hall style event.
Speaker 14: The questions were a little bit coordin not coordinated, but
Speaker 14: vetted before they were asked.
Speaker 10: The crowd was all Democrats.
Speaker 14: There were couple of Megan, I didn't see them at
Speaker 14: a friend from Wisconsin paper saw maget people trying to
Speaker 14: get in and they want.
Speaker 10: To live in.
Speaker 14: So it wasn't it was asking what went wrong without
Speaker 14: bringing people in who voted against Democrats.
Speaker 10: Maybe not that effective.
Speaker 14: And the Wall general theory a little bit of self serving,
Speaker 14: which is that he has a political style, a very
Speaker 14: blunt political style, sometimes goofy, often goofy that he thought
Speaker 14: would have was hemmed in by the Harris campaign.
Speaker 10: The policy part of it.
Speaker 14: He just thinks Democrats didn't do enough when they had
Speaker 14: power to convince working class voters that they're on their side.
Speaker 14: That rhymes with Bernie's saying, and that's irritating to lots
Speaker 14: of Democrats because they look at the Biden agenda and say,
Speaker 14: we actually did. There's the faction of Democrats say we
Speaker 14: listened too much to the Warren staffers and the Bernie
Speaker 14: staffers and did as much as we could off your
Speaker 14: policy agenda, and the Teamsters went from endorsing us to
Speaker 14: unendorsing us, even though we shoveled money at them and
Speaker 14: saved their pension. Yeah, so he didn't have answers. He
Speaker 14: just had a they should have listened to me more
Speaker 14: and they should be more more populist TBD or victory.
Speaker 9: What is the kind of Bernie Warren Wing response to that,
Speaker 9: because it is the case that they pushed through basically
Speaker 9: whatever they could, Like, certainly on a ron klaym, Bernie
Speaker 9: was calling Joe all the time and and it was,
Speaker 9: you know, Joe Mansion slowing things down.
Speaker 5: Cinemas, that's slowing things down. What does the Bernie wings
Speaker 5: say to that that, Like.
Speaker 10: It's mostly that part.
Speaker 14: It's that it's the cinema and mentioned slowed this down
Speaker 14: and more real populism hasn't been tried. We should be
Speaker 14: What if we were defending right now child it expanded
Speaker 14: child tackles right, What if we're defending right now dental
Speaker 14: care as part of medicare. That's that's kind of the
Speaker 14: Bernie answer. Because his speech is shorter than some of
Speaker 14: the speeches he gives. His policy agenda is not just
Speaker 14: you should have elected me. It is implying we can
Speaker 14: build on some of what Biden did, but not saying
Speaker 14: and Biden did some things right. The only time he
Speaker 14: mentions Biden is criticism of the funding for Israel war machine.
Speaker 10: That's all.
Speaker 1: That's all he does interesting and he brings up Biden.
Speaker 14: But it is it just it just says, yeah, and
Speaker 14: we need to keep building and doing more progressive things.
Speaker 10: But no mention of the Biden agenda.
Speaker 3: Dave, how are you thinking about this moment? So I
Speaker 3: knew you and I talked a little bit and I
Speaker 3: was like, man, this minus touched thing, like as somebody
Speaker 3: who does this for a living. I'm like, this is crazy.
Speaker 3: And I don't see a lot of elite media grappling
Speaker 3: with that. I think it's because not only are the
Speaker 3: outside but they're not like capital d Democrats, as in
Speaker 3: they're all like yay Schumer. They're like, no, actually, Schumer,
Speaker 3: screw you. How are the people in Washington, Tim Walls
Speaker 3: and all those other people are they picking up on that?
Speaker 3: I can see that with Bernie and with AFC, they're
Speaker 3: aware of this burgeoning online resistance, but I don't see
Speaker 3: the bubbles up here yet.
Speaker 14: The difference between Democrats on their strategy is really fighting
Speaker 14: or building right now and fighting later.
Speaker 10: That's basically it.
Speaker 14: And that's another harmony between Walls and Sanders and frankly
Speaker 14: people showing up because what was interesting in these crowds,
Speaker 14: the Walls crowd was all people who voted for Harrison Walls,
Speaker 14: the Bernie crowd. Remember the first eight people I talked
Speaker 14: to in Greeley, which is the University of Northern Colorado,
Speaker 14: the probably the most conservative district.
Speaker 10: Tea campaigned in every weekend.
Speaker 14: The first eight people had not voted for him in
Speaker 14: any of the primaries, and I was kind of I
Speaker 14: wouldn't say it was looking for people who might not have,
Speaker 14: but I was saying, oh, you're a woman in your
Speaker 14: sixty probably you know you have resistance gear. You probably
Speaker 14: weren't a huge Britney fan. And they weren't. They like AOC,
Speaker 14: but they say, just Democrats aren't doing enough to fight.
Speaker 14: Where are they? Where are they not stopping this? Why
Speaker 14: can't they stop this? Why can't they fill a buster?
Speaker 14: I mean that was the question I had for Walls.
Speaker 10: So you dealt with this.
Speaker 14: You got elected in two thousand and six, and people
Speaker 14: were furious that you didn't cut off funding for the
Speaker 14: Iraq war, and he had he had an answer, but
Speaker 14: the answer there was, yeah, I just take the l
Speaker 14: and win the two thousand and eight election, and I
Speaker 14: fun the war in the meantime. And that's just not
Speaker 14: satisfying these Democrats. They look at Trump and say, not
Speaker 14: only is he rude, does he offend our values?
Speaker 10: But he wins a lot of what he wants.
Speaker 14: He's not trying to do anything like omper Pelbambcair wouldn't
Speaker 14: win that right now, but he wins, and they want
Speaker 14: someone who wins.
Speaker 10: And that's the difference.
Speaker 14: It's not how have you scored your Medicare for all planned,
Speaker 14: is like, are you convincing me that at the end
Speaker 14: of the day you actually scored a hit on Trump's
Speaker 14: in some way?
Speaker 10: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 9: And so you were seeing a lot of these people
Speaker 9: then that are into that funny category that I started
Speaker 9: seeing emerge right after AOC, one who were like Norman
Speaker 9: Democrats who are like, I don't like Bernie, but I
Speaker 9: do like AOC, which is the reverse of some people
Speaker 9: on the left who are like I like Bernie, but
Speaker 9: I don't like AOC. And in both cads you're like
Speaker 9: they pretty much just saying the exact same things more
Speaker 9: or less.
Speaker 5: Some emphasis varies here or there.
Speaker 9: So are those people now who are like, I don't
Speaker 9: like Bernie, but I like AOC. They kind of like
Speaker 9: Bernie a little more because he's maybe less of a
Speaker 9: threat and he's not going to probably run for president.
Speaker 9: And could you imagine these like centrist ish whatever you
Speaker 9: want to call him, resistance democrats really getting behind AOC
Speaker 9: as as a party leader type figure.
Speaker 14: Oh, as a party leader, so some of that, yeah,
Speaker 14: they see as a senate candidate. Sure, But I started
Speaker 14: asking people at the Greeley and the Denver rallies, and
Speaker 14: I feel a little bit, even though it's part of
Speaker 14: the job, I feel weird asking normal people about presidential
Speaker 14: elections three out of advance. But okay, it'll be in
Speaker 14: the conversation. I leave this rally and people says, you're
Speaker 14: running for something.
Speaker 10: And I was struck.
Speaker 14: The same people I was finding who had strange new
Speaker 14: respect for Bernie or AOC, they were already worried that
Speaker 14: she was not electable nationwide, like, oh, she's not white guy,
Speaker 14: and maybe that won't work, and she said some left
Speaker 14: wing things, maybe that won't They really were snake bit
Speaker 14: by the Harris experience. And that's a bit ironic that
Speaker 14: Kamala Harris, who the ungenerous version of what she did
Speaker 14: in twenty twenty is endorse a lot of left wing
Speaker 14: ideas that she couldn't commit to or believe in, and
Speaker 14: they haunted her for six years. That was the worry
Speaker 14: they already had about AOC, but as a leader in
Speaker 14: the party. Yeah, so they were cheering for their own senator.
Speaker 14: She was shouting out every center who voted against the
Speaker 14: CR for example, and they liked that she was saying,
Speaker 14: there are Democrats doing the right thing. We were talking
Speaker 14: about a handful of Democrats who are not doing the
Speaker 14: right thing and a one hundred percent majority of Republicans
Speaker 14: doing the wrong thing.
Speaker 10: You need to get rid of the content of her speech.
Speaker 14: There was I'm a working class person who Republicans make
Speaker 14: fun of because I'm working class and I know these
Speaker 14: policies work, and we did get Republicans were bad for them.
Speaker 14: So there was nothing she said that was even testing,
Speaker 14: like are you be on this so you're willing to
Speaker 14: go and endorse this policy? I ran on twenty eighteen,
Speaker 14: even when they talked about green jobs it was a
Speaker 14: green jobs program. They did not mention the word green
Speaker 14: new deal, and she already was I wouldn't. I'm not
Speaker 14: trying to say it cynical, but she already was not
Speaker 14: mentioning the sort of you know, bingo car jargon that
Speaker 14: made a lot of sense to people in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 14: Like he didn't say medicare for all, you didn't say green.
Speaker 10: She wasn't doing that.
Speaker 14: She was saying, here is a almost, here's an inspiring
Speaker 14: populist democratic agenda. Take it if you want it, and
Speaker 14: I'm here to give speeches about it because I can
Speaker 14: get crowds.
Speaker 10: That was what the opera was. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Interesting, Let's compare that to Chuck Schumer and his theory
Speaker 3: of resistance. Let's take a listen, we'll get your reaction.
Speaker 15: Our plan, which we're united on, is to make Donald
Speaker 15: Trump the quickest lane duck in modern history by showing
Speaker 15: how bad his policies are. He represents the oligarchs. As
Speaker 15: I said, he's hurting average people in every way, and
Speaker 15: we are through oversight hearings, we're exposing what he's doing
Speaker 15: through the courts, which I mentioned. We've had some real
Speaker 15: success through legislation and through organizing and all the districts
Speaker 15: throughout the country. So that I believe that when because
Speaker 15: the Republicans are already nervous, you know a lot of
Speaker 15: them said don't hold town hall meetings. I believe by
Speaker 15: twenty twenty six the Republicans in the House and said
Speaker 15: it will feel like their rats on a sinking ship
Speaker 15: because we have so gone after Trump and all the
Speaker 15: horrible things he's doing, and they will see it hate it.
Speaker 3: So Dave, that's like the process theory of resistance that's
Speaker 3: not working for a lot of these voters.
Speaker 14: No, and he answers the questions that are asked. He
Speaker 14: doesn't pivot because the interviewer might say, but you be
Speaker 14: tell us what you're doing to fix this problem the party.
Speaker 14: But there's not the democratic agenda there. And that is
Speaker 14: when Schumer was on the rise, and Schumer and ram
Speaker 14: were in this kind of the same train going together
Speaker 14: in two thousand and four to two thousand and five,
Speaker 14: they led with policy. They said, well, the Iraq war's unpopular,
Speaker 14: that's taking care of itself, and we need to come
Speaker 14: up with some sort of agenda that we can run
Speaker 14: on everywhere in the Ohio River Valley in the six
Speaker 14: six or six And that's a deep cut in the Yeah,
Speaker 14: oh yeah, I thought I had deep custods.
Speaker 10: And the super view of things.
Speaker 14: Yeah, you do this, you make them up popularly, come
Speaker 14: back and say, if you're ready to come back to Democrats,
Speaker 14: here's our offer. And the progressive populist version is they
Speaker 14: already assumed that Trump's beat. There's all these voters who
Speaker 14: less than before, but who assume this thing that is
Speaker 14: not going to go well. They want him to sha
Speaker 14: break up the system. They'll be ready once the system's
Speaker 14: broken up for something else. And we need to tell
Speaker 14: them right now because they look at Democrats and don't
Speaker 14: take us seriously. And that was the other part of
Speaker 14: what Sanders was saying. More in interviews, he said this
Speaker 14: to Times, said to me that he's just trying to
Speaker 14: find more candidates to run for office, and he had
Speaker 14: the Denver He said, AOC's an inspiration people can do
Speaker 14: what she did. Find their friends run as maybe independence,
Speaker 14: not independence, running as a spoiler, an electing a Republican independent,
Speaker 14: saying the Dan Osborne model in Nebraska, though it didn't work,
Speaker 14: Sanders Motte, which does work. There might be people who
Speaker 14: just think the party is so toxic that you need
Speaker 14: to run outside of it. And that is not fixing
Speaker 14: the party's problems with Trump. That is saying we need
Speaker 14: to replace the Republicans with whatever chess piece is available,
Speaker 14: can be a Democrat, can be independent, the whole Trump
Speaker 14: bad thing. All Right, people know that we're not getting
Speaker 14: in with that argument. We probably gonna say that I've
Speaker 14: talked a lot.
Speaker 10: Is that half to see?
Speaker 14: These speeches are about things Trump is doing, but they're
Speaker 14: focused on He is firing FTC commissioners, he is firing
Speaker 14: federal workers to enrich his friends and his donors.
Speaker 10: It's much more coherent than he'll become unpopular later.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very smart.
Speaker 10: Now.
Speaker 1: The last question here is exactly about that point.
Speaker 3: I don't remember specifically at this time in the Tea
Speaker 3: Party did they have announced candidates. How soon should we
Speaker 3: start to look for those primary races which became such
Speaker 3: an important part.
Speaker 10: Of the narrative.
Speaker 14: No, very good question, because I think candidate filing in
Speaker 14: these Virginia races this year, that's wrapping up without much
Speaker 14: of a challenge the internal party. It'll be later later
Speaker 14: this summer we'll see some of that. I wasn't even
Speaker 14: with Sanders, and Asca wasn't seeing much of a tumult
Speaker 14: for we need to primary a lot of Democrats because
Speaker 14: they just aren't. Look at the cr vote in the House,
Speaker 14: in the Senate that says there's somebody going to may
Speaker 14: probably primary Brian shots over that.
Speaker 10: They're not giving them a lot of material to do that.
Speaker 14: West Worth, the Tea part at this point, had people
Speaker 14: all these problics on the record for tarp right, there
Speaker 14: was something you could easily go out and tell people
Speaker 14: they screwed you.
Speaker 3: A ultracks such a good point. I didn't think about
Speaker 3: a litmus test.
Speaker 14: Yeah, there's not the same litmus test for their candidates,
Speaker 14: but I'd say later in the year. Uh, and they
Speaker 14: the the challenge of getting the progressives through the primary process.
Speaker 10: Justice Democrats are still trying to do that.
Speaker 14: These groups are troops, still trying to do that, but
Speaker 14: they really are trying to win an argument first, so
Speaker 14: that even the moderate candidate is going to end up like, look,
Speaker 14: there's all these people who are not on TV every
Speaker 14: day but voted with Maxie Waters on everything this year.
Speaker 14: And that's that's more of the thinking, how do we
Speaker 14: have a coherent popular agenda that is rooted in Elon
Speaker 14: Musk is trying to rob you that somebody can run
Speaker 14: in a plus four Trump seed. We're not necessarily going
Speaker 14: to say you didn't sign our petition. We want we
Speaker 14: want to win that argument so that every time every
Speaker 14: Republicans are being asked there, asked if they support Doge
Speaker 14: in a negative way everywhere they go there is it's
Speaker 14: whom the Democrats going to tax the rich and give
Speaker 14: us benefits. So yeah, long answer to your question, I
Speaker 14: would say in a few months, but it justice Democrats
Speaker 14: recruitment was starting much earlier, a couple of cycles ago.
Speaker 14: Right now they're looking at the field and saying, also,
Speaker 14: what is Crypto, what is APAC going to do and
Speaker 14: try to undermine us. We need a robust theory for
Speaker 14: these candidates before the money comes in and makes them
Speaker 14: not electable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, smart, Yeah, all right, Dave, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us, man. We appreciate it.