Speaker 1: Colz Media.
Speaker 2: This is it could happen here at Executive Disorder, our
Speaker 2: weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the
Speaker 2: crumbling world, and what it means for you. I'm Garrison
Speaker 2: Davis to Dame, joined by James Stout, Mia Wong and
Speaker 2: Robert Evans. This episode, we are covering the week of
Speaker 2: April first to April eighth. The DHS shutdown has surpassed
Speaker 2: fifty days. Last week, House Republicans tentatively agreed to the
Speaker 2: Senate deal to fund DHS without ICE and CBP, though
Speaker 2: this agreement is stalled while Congress is out of session
Speaker 2: till April fourteenth. Fox News has partnered with Calshi to
Speaker 2: incorporate its political betting data into news coverage. Fox joints CNN, CNBC,
Speaker 2: and The AP in entering into deals with the so
Speaker 2: called prediction market Calshi. Calshe announced quote prediction markets at
Speaker 2: accountability by rewarding accurate See that's why the three leading
Speaker 2: networks have chosen Calshi.
Speaker 3: No spin, no partisan lens, just incentives to.
Speaker 4: Be right unquote.
Speaker 1: It's just gambling.
Speaker 4: It's so cool that the whole world, all media is now.
Speaker 1: Just ESPN incentives to be right again, like people are.
Speaker 1: There's like one of the sub markets within CALSHI is
Speaker 1: people like bringing in lawyers to make threats over like
Speaker 1: tiny differences in grammar that invalidate them either losing money
Speaker 1: or mean that they should have won the art like
Speaker 1: like none of this is about what actually happened. It's
Speaker 1: it's becoming as much about what you can game or
Speaker 1: like threaten the news into not reporting, as we talked
Speaker 1: about the week before last with that case in Israel
Speaker 1: and insider trading and insider trading.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's it's just turning politics into like a
Speaker 2: corrupt casino.
Speaker 4: Yep, yeah, it's just mob sports betting.
Speaker 2: It's worse than sports betting because sports betting is actually
Speaker 2: based on like real odds, right, These odds are completely
Speaker 2: created by users with their money. Like it's it's it's
Speaker 2: completely manufactured. There's no actual basis for a lot of
Speaker 2: these bets, right, Like like the betting on the papal conclave.
Speaker 2: There's no basis for an American pope getting elected, Right,
Speaker 2: there's no actual odds that were like mathematically certain. It's
Speaker 2: just created through through money. Well, to be fair, the
Speaker 2: sports ods are also just kind of made up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, guys too, but like yeah, you no real, it's
Speaker 4: like just a tidy fit vibes based like it's people
Speaker 4: looking at horses.
Speaker 5: It's a lot of what's happening in sports, Betty.
Speaker 1: Yah, Yes, making approving.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think I saw that something close to a
Speaker 5: billion dollars was bet on oil prices as we approached
Speaker 5: Trump's deadline.
Speaker 4: We already had that just play. The oil futures market
Speaker 4: too complicated for people, I guess, God, damn.
Speaker 2: It, No, it's really bad. According to a March poll
Speaker 2: from the Institute for a Middle East Understanding Policy Project
Speaker 2: sampling almost six hundred Texas Democratic primary voters, seventy six
Speaker 2: percent say Israel's committing sun Gazen, eighty percent support ending
Speaker 2: weapons funding to Israel. Forty four percent of Tallarika voters
Speaker 2: said his criticism of Israel was important to them and
Speaker 2: swayed their vote over one in five voters. Twenty two
Speaker 2: percent said reducing support for Israel was one of their
Speaker 2: top three factors impacting their vote, while only two percent
Speaker 2: said the same about increasing or maintaining support for Israel,
Speaker 2: and eighty eight percent of voters said they agreed with
Speaker 2: the statement Tallerico made during a primary debate about cutting
Speaker 2: off weapons to Israel. On Sunday night, thirteen gunshots were
Speaker 2: fired into the front door of Indianapolis City County councilor
Speaker 2: Ron Gibson, who just voted to approve a half a
Speaker 2: billion dollar data center. A note was left under the
Speaker 2: doormat that read no data centers, quote unquote. Gibson and
Speaker 2: his son were home at the time of the shooting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, these data centers are really staggeringly unpopular. There's been
Speaker 4: a bunch of reporting on even the ones that are
Speaker 4: tempted to be built, something like fifty percent of them
Speaker 4: are just not able to do it because of massive
Speaker 4: public local backlash.
Speaker 1: Because it makes life worse around them. Akey power bells
Speaker 1: go up, they're loud.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like it's like old school. It's like old
Speaker 4: school environmental nimbiism, sort of like I don't want these
Speaker 4: assholes in my small town stuff. There's just like the
Speaker 4: anti sentiment in general. They're hideously unpopular and this kind
Speaker 4: of stuff is just going to continue as these data
Speaker 4: centers continue to be built.
Speaker 1: Okay, time for me.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 5: Donald Trump has said that he will discuss the United
Speaker 5: States withdrawal from NATO for those who work in the
Speaker 5: New York Times as a North Atlantic Treaty organization with
Speaker 5: Mark Rutter, who is the NATO Secretary General, during their
Speaker 5: meeting which will happen today which is Wednesday, April eighth.
Speaker 4: If question Mark this happens, it would be utterly apocal,
Speaker 4: like it would be one of the two things are
Speaker 4: going to point out as like the dawning of the new.
Speaker 1: Era of yes, seismic shift, Yeah, like.
Speaker 4: What geopolitics is, this is like the fundamental basis of
Speaker 4: this in this week or like ceasing to exist.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Shirley Kittelsen has been released by Katipo's buller after they
Speaker 5: made her read a video confession in which she confessed
Speaker 5: and to be very clear, this is very clearly extracted fashion. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 5: the thing in this is it's true. But in the
Speaker 5: video they made her confess to passing information to US
Speaker 5: consulate in Baghdad. In one point in the video she
Speaker 5: said she had been collecting information on leaders but forgotten
Speaker 5: their names, which is very credible and.
Speaker 4: True most real toed fashion.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's ludicrous. Her release came after Iraq released several
Speaker 5: Katipa's BULLA members, so seems like a straight swap, which
Speaker 5: is what this was about in the first place. Right,
Speaker 5: it's not about her or her work per se. It's
Speaker 5: about her being a trading chip that they can trade. Finally,
Speaker 5: Republican Brandon gil has sharply critics so it's a dignityes
Speaker 5: like Dignity dald Act. Recently, and this has become like
Speaker 5: something of an online discourse topic on the right. I'm
Speaker 5: not exactly sure why it's happening now.
Speaker 1: Rep.
Speaker 5: Salazar from Florida has tried to introduce this act several.
Speaker 1: Times in the last few years.
Speaker 5: We've actually covered it when it was introduced in twenty
Speaker 5: twenty five on this show. It's a bipartisan act to
Speaker 5: reform the immigration system.
Speaker 4: That is bad.
Speaker 5: It creates what's called a dignity status, which is essentially
Speaker 5: like an underclass of people who there is no pathway sitizenship.
Speaker 5: There is no pathway to voting, but it comes with
Speaker 5: the right to renew it and the right to residency right,
Speaker 5: so it creates like a sub citizen class. It's bad
Speaker 5: that it's not a progressive immigration reform.
Speaker 3: But is Brandon Gill criticizing it from the right gil is.
Speaker 5: Coming from another perspective, then, I am. They think it
Speaker 5: gives incentives for illegal immigration and it's an amnesty.
Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah, so he's criticizing from the right.
Speaker 5: It's interesting to see the split among Republicans on this,
Speaker 5: and that's why I wanted to bring it in right
Speaker 5: that we spoke last time about the Florida sheriffs breaking
Speaker 5: with Trump on mass deportations. There are a number of
Speaker 5: things which indicate that there is clearly a faction of
Speaker 5: the Republican Party which has realized massive deportation of people
Speaker 5: who have not been accused or convicted of any crime
Speaker 5: is not a popular stance, especially when you keep killing people.
Speaker 5: On that note, actually, Ice have shot somebody else that
Speaker 5: this broke relatively late on Tuesday night. They shot someone
Speaker 5: in Patterson, California. The person has been identified as Carlos
Speaker 5: Iva Mendoso Hernandez. He's wanted in El Salvador for questioning
Speaker 5: a connection to a murder. It is another of those
Speaker 5: incidents in which they accused a person of weaponizing their vehicle.
Speaker 5: And there is a dash cam video which has been
Speaker 5: released which shows a person attempting to leave in a vehicle.
Speaker 5: It's a little hard if the person who's attempting to
Speaker 5: weaponize their vehicle, but it doesn't look that way to me,
Speaker 5: say that person is trying to make an exit. We
Speaker 5: have seen a number of these right where federal immigration
Speaker 5: agents have shot people behind the wheel of their car. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I should add that his attorney claims that he is
Speaker 5: not wanted in connection with that murder and has provided
Speaker 5: a document from the government of El Salbador which seems
Speaker 5: to confirm that. So we have once again the DHS
Speaker 5: said versus what we seem to be seeing proved out
Speaker 5: by documents.
Speaker 2: Right before we get to Iran, which there's a lot
Speaker 2: to discuss, there is another news story a little bit
Speaker 2: closer to us that we think deserves some fair coverage.
Speaker 2: Statements made on a podcast last year by a top
Speaker 2: FEMA official resurfaced this last week. Greg Phillips, who is
Speaker 2: in charge of disaster response, claims that he wants teleported
Speaker 2: to a waffle house in Rome, Georgia. Phillips also says
Speaker 2: he experienced a separate incident in which he teleported in
Speaker 2: front of a church, which the fact that this was
Speaker 2: a waffle house does lend a story a bit of
Speaker 2: credibility I have suspected for years there's some sort of
Speaker 2: paranormal field around waffle houses. Personally, I believe that when
Speaker 2: you walk into one, there was a small chance you
Speaker 2: could walk out of another in a separate location. The
Speaker 2: craft store Michaels has a similar has a similar energy
Speaker 2: to it.
Speaker 1: Look, anyone who's gone drunk to enough waffle houses knows
Speaker 1: that that's true.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: So there is an aspect of the story which is
Speaker 3: very believable.
Speaker 2: But there's some details that Phillips has included that makes
Speaker 2: me a bit more skeptical of his characterization of this incident.
Speaker 2: Let's listen to his claim on this podcast right now.
Speaker 6: We had a temble report at incident, two of them,
Speaker 6: which transported me about forty miles from from where I
Speaker 6: was and near Albany, Georgia, to the ditch of a
Speaker 6: to the ditch of a of a chure chained up
Speaker 6: at a waffle house like fifty miles away from where
Speaker 6: I was.
Speaker 2: So to the so, to defend these statements, Phillips has
Speaker 2: taken to truth social to share biblical accounts of teleportation
Speaker 2: as supporting evidence of teleportation. Great employees at the three
Speaker 2: waffle houses in Rome Georgia were interviewed by The New
Speaker 2: York Times, and they say they do not recall anyone
Speaker 2: being transported there by means of teleportation, nor did they
Speaker 2: recognize pictures of Greg Phillips. But in a follow up
Speaker 2: statement by Phillips on truth Social, he said he was
Speaker 2: going through cancer treatment at the time of this alleged
Speaker 2: teleportation incident.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 2: I was healed of cancer and it was a miracle.
Speaker 2: The podcast at the center of this controversy was part
Speaker 2: of chronicling that journey, and during that journey things happened
Speaker 2: that I can't explain. I was in the opening days
Speaker 2: of intensive treatment, heavily medicated, not thinking about future headlines.
Speaker 2: That context was nowhere in the reporting.
Speaker 3: Unquote. I think it is important here that he says
Speaker 3: he was heavily medicated during the time around Yeah.
Speaker 5: I love how he uses copvoys like a teleportation incident.
Speaker 4: Yeah. But however, I'm gonna point out that Garrison the
Speaker 4: next thing you're about to read, he was not heavily
Speaker 4: medicated when he said this.
Speaker 2: So Phillips added to this truth quote, the word teleportation
Speaker 2: was not mine. It was used by someone else in
Speaker 2: the conversation. Reaching for a language describe something with no
Speaker 2: easy name, which is not true.
Speaker 4: He said teleport. He said telephone.
Speaker 2: I think what he means is he didn't wasn't his
Speaker 2: like initial term, then started using it.
Speaker 3: Yes, he keeps using it, he continues.
Speaker 1: Quote.
Speaker 2: The more accurate biblical terms are translated or transported, not
Speaker 2: new ideas for people of faith. If you believe that
Speaker 2: God moves in ways we can not fully explain, as
Speaker 2: I do, then having faith is not a SoundBite.
Speaker 3: It is the whole point.
Speaker 2: I believe in miracles, all caps, God bless America. He
Speaker 2: has risen unquote. Now, one detail from the podcast that
Speaker 2: has not been mentioned as much, I think offers to
Speaker 2: help some idea of what's what's really going on here.
Speaker 6: It was an incredibly frightening moment to experience yourself in your.
Speaker 1: Car flying through the air.
Speaker 6: It was possible, it was real.
Speaker 1: He was telepointed in his car.
Speaker 2: He was in his car, which for me changes this
Speaker 2: entire thing, because these headlines were kind of kind of
Speaker 2: imagine as if his body like dematerialized somewhere, remateialized in
Speaker 2: a waffle house.
Speaker 3: Something that's you know, you know, certainly he just blacked
Speaker 3: out while driving, which is very different, which is.
Speaker 1: Very different story.
Speaker 5: Guy in a car when we were driving around Texas.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I tell I hell impointed on xanax one yes,
Speaker 1: about thirty hours into the future.
Speaker 2: So the fact that he owned doubt while driving and
Speaker 2: ended up at a waffle house much more, much more
Speaker 2: explainable because many many people in slightly and slightly all
Speaker 2: down right downright outside of waffle.
Speaker 3: Houses in their car. This is a very common occurve.
Speaker 2: This is probably about maybe ten to ten to thirty
Speaker 2: percent of the waffle house clientele shows up in this
Speaker 2: sort of environment where they are they are not operating
Speaker 2: on their full faculties, either through some sort of drugs, alcohol, medication,
Speaker 2: what have you.
Speaker 1: I've seen UFOs at a waffle house before.
Speaker 2: No, right, the waffle houses are you know, are or
Speaker 2: have some kind of pole that I think attracts people
Speaker 2: like a magnet who are in US in an altered state,
Speaker 2: towards them as like a beacon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that that poll is smothered and covered hash browns.
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 1: So, and the fact that they're open at four am. Oh,
Speaker 1: and bathrooms you can do a harrow win in. Don't
Speaker 1: forget that says it on the sign.
Speaker 4: I also want to make sure that we mentioned that.
Speaker 4: In the same week in which The New York Times
Speaker 4: the guy who was writing the headline didn't know what
Speaker 4: NATO stood for. They also titled the initial title of
Speaker 4: the article they wrote about this was and I quote
Speaker 4: FEMA official says he teleported to waffle house. Experts are dubious.
Speaker 4: This might be the worst experts disagree headline ever.
Speaker 3: Rach, I think this is good.
Speaker 2: I actually, out of the two polls of New York
Speaker 2: Times headlines this week, the data one is iffy. This
Speaker 2: one fully I fully agree with. I fully agree with
Speaker 2: their their choice to say that experts a due becaus
Speaker 2: about the teleportation.
Speaker 5: This does make me sad because The New York Times
Speaker 5: is also the outlet that ran what is, in my opinion,
Speaker 5: the best headline ever written. It was about the fact
Speaker 5: that more good Okay. It was on the subject of
Speaker 5: a scientist fixed study which looked at moray eels and
Speaker 5: their ability to climb a ramp out of a pool
Speaker 5: to eat some food, which proved in theory that moray
Speaker 5: eels could hunt on land, and the headline was when
Speaker 5: an eel climbs a ramp to eat a squid from
Speaker 5: a clamp.
Speaker 4: That's a more ray title from a better time.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, what a different Yeah yeah, whoever wrote that.
Speaker 5: I hope you're doing well.
Speaker 2: We will now teleport to an ad break and re
Speaker 2: materialize to discuss the back and forth ceasefire not ceasefire
Speaker 2: with Iran.
Speaker 1: We're back, and depending on when you listen to this,
Speaker 1: we may either read back to war with Iran the
Speaker 1: straight up four moves could be closed or open. We're
Speaker 1: in like just this, this beautiful roadingers. No one knows
Speaker 1: where it's gonna go after this.
Speaker 5: Yeah, if you don't open your phone then and you
Speaker 5: never know how many wars and cease fires have started
Speaker 5: since the last time you opened your phone.
Speaker 1: That's right. They can't make you believe that a war
Speaker 1: is going on if you choose to not be informed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: other than by looking at gas prices. Yeah, yeah, that
Speaker 1: is a thing.
Speaker 4: God.
Speaker 5: All right, let's let's try and do this in chronological order,
Speaker 5: because this week has been bonkers.
Speaker 1: So let's start with last Friday, when you last listen
Speaker 1: to ED.
Speaker 5: If you listen to Baby release him good Friday. And
Speaker 5: that is kind of important because a United States Air
Speaker 5: Force A fifteen eight strike Eagle belonging to the forty
Speaker 5: eighth Fighter Wing, crashed in southwestern Irun last Friday after
Speaker 5: being hit by a man pad. I bet the manpads
Speaker 5: is a shoulder fired surface to air missile. The plane
Speaker 5: carries a pilot and a WHIZZO WSOS an ancronym. It
Speaker 5: means weapons systems officer or weapons systems operator. I'm just
Speaker 5: going to call them a weapons officer just to make
Speaker 5: it easier for everyone going forward, and both crew members
Speaker 5: safely self ejected from the plane. The United States very
Speaker 5: quickly launched a massive CISAR that's combat search and rescue
Speaker 5: operation involving helicopters, low flying aircraft, and close air support
Speaker 5: from both MQ nine Reaper drones and eight ten aircraft.
Speaker 5: During this operation, in which the aircraft flew within small
Speaker 5: arms range of the ground in Kuzuzstan Province, several aircraft
Speaker 5: were damaged. One of the Jolly Green to Rescue helicopters
Speaker 5: was hit with small arms fire. An eight ten Thunderbolt
Speaker 5: crashed in the strait of Horn Moves and the pilot
Speaker 5: was recovered. Another was hit and the pilot ejected over
Speaker 5: Q eight, but this effort did result in the safe
Speaker 5: recovery of the F fifteens pilot, but not the weapon.
Speaker 4: The following day.
Speaker 5: That happened during the day, right in daylight hours, which
Speaker 5: is remarkable, like it is extremely rare to see this
Speaker 5: happening right like low flying helicopters over what is notion
Speaker 5: the enemy territory in the middle of the daytime. On
Speaker 5: Easter Sunday, the United States launched a huge operation which
Speaker 5: resulted in the recovery of the weapons officer. This was
Speaker 5: preceded by a disinformation campaign which hoped to make the
Speaker 5: Iranian state believe that they had extracted the weapons officer
Speaker 5: by land, which they hadn't. The operation involved a ton
Speaker 5: of Special Operations Forces assets who flew to an agricultural
Speaker 5: airstrip outside Isfahan, YEP. This seems to have gone largely
Speaker 5: unremarked upon in the reporting. There is some crackpot theory
Speaker 5: that this was all cover for an operation that extracted
Speaker 5: enriched uranium from Isfahan, because there is a nuclear research
Speaker 5: acidity of Isfahan. I have not seen any evidence to
Speaker 5: support that, but I think it is likely that they
Speaker 5: knew of this agricultural airstrip because of plans which were
Speaker 5: made for a potential raid on the Isfahan Nuclear Research
Speaker 5: Facility during the Operation MQ nine and RepA drones bombed
Speaker 5: quote military age males who were close to the m
Speaker 5: and I Ran had offered a reward of sixty thousand
Speaker 5: dollars for capturing this person before the United States got
Speaker 5: to them. And it is common for people in this
Speaker 5: area who like, if you're like herding animals, right to
Speaker 5: carry a gun, like to protect their animals or to
Speaker 5: protect themselves. There were some kind of propaganday videos of
Speaker 5: like local people looking for the m and right they
Speaker 5: were carrying like Iranian flags and their like antiquated bolt
Speaker 5: action rifles. But it's also very possible that some of
Speaker 5: these drone strikes may have occurred against people who were
Speaker 5: just going about their business in the region, right, Like
Speaker 5: if they didn't said military age males.
Speaker 1: That it's a broad.
Speaker 5: Remit anyone who with out there being a shepherd would
Speaker 5: be a military age.
Speaker 3: Male, right, would be a military aged Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is like one of the most sickening terms
Speaker 4: US warfare is invented.
Speaker 5: Yeah, military age mail is like anyone anytime people are
Speaker 5: using that like a doesn't pass the SNIF test.
Speaker 2: No, it could be anyone from to like fourteen years
Speaker 2: old to like sixty nine exactly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: You'll be surprised who looks like an adult when you're
Speaker 1: a scared man with a gun.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, or looking from thousands of feet up on
Speaker 5: a drone camera.
Speaker 4: Right. Yeah. It's a term invented for we are just
Speaker 4: going to start shooting at random people. We have no
Speaker 4: idea who they are. We're just going to kill thee Yeah,
Speaker 4: and it's hideous.
Speaker 5: I was recently rereading this. I think it's called a
Speaker 5: Theory of the Drone. It's a philosophy book about drones
Speaker 5: and drone warfare, and there's a scene in the opening
Speaker 5: of that which I think is which you can probably
Speaker 5: get the free preview of the book if you have
Speaker 5: a kindle and read that scene. But it's very illustrative
Speaker 5: of how vague this term can be. The rescue operation
Speaker 5: saw the planes land at an airstrip. Then a little
Speaker 5: bird helicopter took off collected the airmen who had been evading,
Speaker 5: capturing a mountainous area. He was then carried back by
Speaker 5: the helicopter to the airstrip where the two larger aircraft
Speaker 5: that had bought the helicopter and all the personnel had
Speaker 5: become stuck.
Speaker 4: Incredible.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I guess normally they would do some
Speaker 5: kind of soil sampling, but I think there probably.
Speaker 1: Just wasn't time.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So the United States elected to destroy those aircraft
Speaker 5: in place and send three more aircraft to recover their personnel.
Speaker 5: And we can see that the Iran has published footage
Speaker 5: to that. Right, it seems that they also destroyed the
Speaker 5: Little Bird helicopters. I've seen some reporting that the Little
Speaker 5: Bird helicopters were just like on a one way flight,
Speaker 5: that they flew into Iran knowing that their range wasn't
Speaker 5: long enough for them to fly back, and that they
Speaker 5: always planned to destroy them. I don't think that's the case.
Speaker 5: I think they got them out the back because he
Speaker 5: won thirties and assembled them quickly. That yeah, that is
Speaker 5: that is a thing they have the capacity to do,
Speaker 5: and that is what makes them most sense. So on
Speaker 5: that same day, Easter Sunday, kind of a big deal
Speaker 5: for the Christian folks, Donald Trump truth the following quote,
Speaker 5: Tuesday will be power plant Day and bridge Day all
Speaker 5: wrapped up in one.
Speaker 1: In Iran.
Speaker 5: There will be nothing like it. Open the fucking straight,
Speaker 5: you crazy bastards, or you will be living in hell.
Speaker 5: Just watch praise be to Allah.
Speaker 1: I love the President.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, that is a that is a leader of
Speaker 5: the free world.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: My extremely low stationed conspiracy is that this was not Trump,
Speaker 4: this was written by Trump's staff, because it's slightly off, it.
Speaker 1: Could have been. It doesn't sound like him really, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's not normally a swearer like you gets anger. Yeah,
Speaker 1: alat of stuff isn't really him. No, that's a weird
Speaker 1: thing for him to throw it.
Speaker 2: I give very easily believe that this is the This
Speaker 2: is him like going nuts on something.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like he could have done possible. I think there's
Speaker 4: a low chance that this was what. This was like
Speaker 4: a staff written thing.
Speaker 1: It's just it's it's it's weird wording from him, Like
Speaker 1: it's a strange message, although the last couple from him
Speaker 1: have all seemed kind of strange.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he is just out of it.
Speaker 1: The one he put up after the ceasefire announcement where
Speaker 1: he's like where he puts in quotations that the Navy
Speaker 1: will be hanging round. Yeah, yeah, that's that's not doesn't
Speaker 1: sound like him much either, But also like who else
Speaker 1: would he let write that it's he's it's just but
Speaker 1: it is weird, right? That does not sound like any
Speaker 1: previous Trump post.
Speaker 5: Hanging round to say fuck in a Trump in a
Speaker 5: presidential tweet like I didn't know why a Stappa would
Speaker 5: do that.
Speaker 1: No, and I I agree with you, James.
Speaker 2: These things are usually transcribed like usually he reads these
Speaker 2: out loud and someone writes them down and then he
Speaker 2: looks at them and and then and then and then
Speaker 2: they hit post like that. That's that's how all of
Speaker 2: his truths were structured in that documentary.
Speaker 1: Yes, does he dictate the capitalization.
Speaker 3: When he looks them over like he may?
Speaker 5: Okay, because he has a fascinating and quite unique approach
Speaker 5: to capitalization.
Speaker 2: Like specifically like there will be nothing like it is
Speaker 2: definitely like a Trump a Trump verbal text.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, that's a super Trump line.
Speaker 4: Yeah. But then like the next part, I is weird.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but hanging around that's that's not really a Trump
Speaker 1: sounding line.
Speaker 4: Okay, sorry, it's weird. We've all been distracted.
Speaker 5: So let's talk about what he said on Tuesday, power
Speaker 5: Plant Day, Bridge Day. Yeah, he said, quote, A whole
Speaker 5: civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.
Speaker 1: That's a Trump line.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. However,
Speaker 5: now that we have complete and total regime change, a different,
Speaker 5: smarter and less radicalized minds prevail. Maybe something, maybe some Yeah,
Speaker 5: I don't know, I'm not so sure. Maybe something revolutionarily
Speaker 5: wonderful can happen.
Speaker 4: Who knows.
Speaker 5: We will find out tonight when the most important moments
Speaker 5: in the long and complex history of the world, forty
Speaker 5: seven years of extortion, corruption and death will finally end.
Speaker 5: God bless the great people of Iran. Real journey that
Speaker 5: you go on, Yeah, from a civilization will die tonight
Speaker 5: to God bless the great people of Iran.
Speaker 4: Nightmarish.
Speaker 5: I don't know what to make of that, Like it
Speaker 5: seems like he's just they obviously striking civilian target. It
Speaker 5: is a war crime. It is a war crime Israel
Speaker 5: does all the time. We covered that last time we
Speaker 5: spoke a whole civilization will die tonight seems borderlined, like
Speaker 5: genocidal as a threat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's not borderline, I think that is.
Speaker 4: I think that's a thread of genocide. Yeah, Like this
Speaker 4: is which, by the way, is also like if you
Speaker 4: say this and then kill one person, like you are
Speaker 4: guilty of the crime of genocide. Yeah yeah, like I
Speaker 4: heard the genocide like.
Speaker 1: It's not good. It is not good.
Speaker 5: Let's talk about what actually happened. Right since then, just
Speaker 5: before the deadline, a huge number of strikes hit run,
Speaker 5: including the Ministry of Intelligence building at Chiraz. There's some
Speaker 5: evidence that that may have had some tunnels underneath it,
Speaker 5: Aerospace Research Institute, bridges and aluminium factory. Brigadier General Majid Hadmi,
Speaker 5: who is the head of IRGC Intelligence was also killed
Speaker 5: in the targeted strike. And we hit carg Island again.
Speaker 5: Good finally, yeah, yeah. Let a lot of people think
Speaker 5: that this might have been a precursor to some kind
Speaker 5: of US land operation however.
Speaker 3: Or nuclear weapons a lot, right, yeah, right.
Speaker 1: We've seen this a lot. Right Again, when the president's
Speaker 1: saying you're going to wipe out it doesn't it doesn't
Speaker 1: make me feel calm. You should you should assume that
Speaker 1: the president might actually try to wipe out a culture.
Speaker 4: I mean, I like that is.
Speaker 1: My strong stance on this, is that based on what
Speaker 1: he's saying, it is not unreasonable for people to flip
Speaker 1: out over the statement. It's absolutely not people should be
Speaker 1: outraged that a president said he they were pretty strong enough.
Speaker 1: It's really bad, but like it's very bad.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like he should be hauled up in front of
Speaker 4: a tribunal like Melosovic, Like I am not on team.
Speaker 1: We should just move past this absolutely.
Speaker 5: Not like it's easy because everything's so insane to be
Speaker 5: like another insane thing. Everything's this is a guy who
Speaker 5: has the trigger for all the nukes saying he's going
Speaker 5: to wipe out a civilization, Like I would love.
Speaker 1: To be the nothing ever happens, nothing happened here. It's fine,
Speaker 1: Like don't don't yield the Trump derangement syndrome guy, because
Speaker 1: it's a lot easier. But like, this is not something
Speaker 1: anyone should move past. He should go on trial for
Speaker 1: like this alone, like outside of the other stuff.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, each of these tweets would constitute a
Speaker 5: reason for a trial in any previous presidency.
Speaker 1: Since then, Pakistan.
Speaker 5: Offered to mediate a ceasefire and these are negotiates touirrel
Speaker 5: going as Donald Trump was true thing. Irun reportedly made
Speaker 5: a list of its own demands. This is a translation
Speaker 5: from Persian, so not a word for word quotation.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 5: It listed these in its telegram channels as control passage
Speaker 5: through the Straight Offorn moos in coordination with Iran's armed forces,
Speaker 5: the necessity of ending the war against all components of
Speaker 5: the Axis of Resistance, that withdrawal of US combat forces
Speaker 5: from all bases and deployments in the region, establishing a
Speaker 5: secure transit protocol, and the straight ofform MOOS that guarantees
Speaker 5: Iranian control, full payment of damages to Iran, removal of
Speaker 5: all primary and secondary sanctions, the release of frozen Iranian
Speaker 5: assets and property abroad, and the ratification of all these
Speaker 5: items in a binding UN Security Council resolution.
Speaker 1: The parties then.
Speaker 5: Agreed to a two week ceasefire. Trump again shared the
Speaker 5: news of this on true social kind of done reading.
Speaker 5: I'm going to skip that one. That was a hanging
Speaker 5: around one. Very shortly thereafter, Israel began a massive bombing
Speaker 5: campaign in Lebanon and Iran need to launch missiles at
Speaker 5: the occupied territories. Karenin Levitt has said that Trump refused
Speaker 5: the Iranian plan.
Speaker 8: The Iranians originally put forward a ten point plan that
Speaker 8: was fundamentally unserious, unacceptable, and completely discarded. It was literally
Speaker 8: thrown in the garbage by President Trump and his negotiating team.
Speaker 8: Many outlets in this room have falsely reported on that
Speaker 8: plan as being acceptable to the United States, and that
Speaker 8: is false.
Speaker 5: So she was pretty emphatic about that. Trump attacks CNN
Speaker 5: for publishing the plan this morning. Trump has said that
Speaker 5: the Israeli attacks on Lebanon were quote a separate skirmish.
Speaker 5: Israels strike Lebanon a hundred times in just over ten
Speaker 5: minutes today, they dropped whole tower blocks in Beirut. That
Speaker 5: that is not a skirmish.
Speaker 1: Nah.
Speaker 5: He said, they're not part of the deal because US
Speaker 5: Buller's not part of the deal. Of course, in it
Speaker 5: run state media pushing that they have somehow achieved all
Speaker 5: of their ten points, which I think were their sort
Speaker 5: of goals for negotiation or a basis for negotiation. Trump
Speaker 5: has said to one reporter that the tolls on the
Speaker 5: Straight could be a joint venture between the United States
Speaker 5: and Iran, which.
Speaker 2: Suggest there are some parts of this of this deal
Speaker 2: that that that are true that he has kind of agreed.
Speaker 5: On that are at least on the table, right like
Speaker 5: these are the bases, which was how they were initially
Speaker 5: reported by CNN and others that these had been accepted
Speaker 5: as a basis for negotiation. They had not been accepted
Speaker 5: whole cloth. Some people of some whom I think are
Speaker 5: acting in bad faith, have said. Since this morning, the
Speaker 5: Wall Street Journal has reported that the tolls will be
Speaker 5: paid in cryptocurrency or Chinese one. Yeah, and that Iran
Speaker 5: is broadcasting VHF messages. It's very high frequency. It's radio
Speaker 5: frequency warning non paying ships crossing the straight ofform Moves
Speaker 5: that they will be targeted. Trump had providly said the
Speaker 5: straight ofform Moves is open. This doesn't seem like that.
Speaker 3: The tolls about like two million, right.
Speaker 5: Well, there have been various proposals. Some I said two
Speaker 5: million dollars. I've seen different dollar sums per barrel of
Speaker 5: oil transiting the strait. I guess it would depends if
Speaker 5: it's if it's it's a US Iranian partnership. You know
Speaker 5: how we're going to account for the exchange rate. Everyone
Speaker 5: has to get their peace right.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yes, the two million dollars number was thrown around a lot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's worth noting that the strait is not
Speaker 4: open now. It is simply not the number.
Speaker 1: Is there a lessons stopp launching strikes?
Speaker 5: Well, even if they wanted to open it right now,
Speaker 5: they would have to remove the mines that they've put
Speaker 5: in it.
Speaker 1: Right, we don't know how how many mines there are,
Speaker 1: if there are.
Speaker 4: So there are still ships going through, there's not many
Speaker 4: of them, Like there's I think it was the number
Speaker 4: I saw for today was four.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like so like it is technic, it is possible
Speaker 4: to go through, but the four is like one of
Speaker 4: the lowest numbers that has happened since the strait was
Speaker 4: first closed. So it has has simply not been reopened.
Speaker 4: Trump says this constantly.
Speaker 5: It's down to one channel, would be my guests, right, Like,
Speaker 5: it's because and then that they're advising those ships. I'm
Speaker 5: guessing we're sending a pilot craft perhaps to go between
Speaker 5: the mines.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I haven't seen any reporting on how they're getting
Speaker 4: them through.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I haven't. The extent to which they've laid minds
Speaker 1: is really unclear. Yeah, Like all we know is that
Speaker 1: they have the capacity to do so, in that the
Speaker 1: US has been striking craft that are set to lay minds.
Speaker 1: But like, I haven't heard of any evidence of a
Speaker 1: ship getting hit with the mine yet.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, neither of I.
Speaker 1: So perhaps they haven't laid any or we don't know
Speaker 1: what they've done. They may have decided that that was
Speaker 1: more of than they needed to do at this point. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And so far, all of the attacks on ships
Speaker 4: have been with other more conmitional weapons.
Speaker 5: Yeah, either sea drones or missiles of various kinds.
Speaker 4: Yeah, shooting them with guns in a couple of cases.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: Garrison, let's start with this clip of JDV talking about
Speaker 5: the inclusion of Lebanon in this ceasefire.
Speaker 7: First of all, I actually think and there's a lot
Speaker 7: of bad faith negotiation and a lot of bad faith,
Speaker 7: you know, propaganda going on. I think this comes from
Speaker 7: a legitimate misunderstanding. I think the Iranians thought that the
Speaker 7: ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn't. We never made
Speaker 7: that promise, We never indicated that was going to be
Speaker 7: the case. What we said is that the ceasefire would
Speaker 7: be focused on Iran, and the ceasefire would be focused
Speaker 7: on America's allies, both Israel and the Golf are of states.
Speaker 5: So yeah, let's talk about Israel, right, a country which
Speaker 5: famously loves it to respect a ceasefire, Israel has continued
Speaker 5: to strike inside it ran it has not stopped since
Speaker 5: the announcement of this ceasefire, right, it has shown no
Speaker 5: indication of wanting to stop. It is also continued, as
Speaker 5: I said, it's massive bombing campaign inside Lebanon. It seems
Speaker 5: to be the case, whatever was negotiated, the Israelis do
Speaker 5: not perceive the ceasefire as applying to them, or at
Speaker 5: least the IDF does not, I should say, rather than
Speaker 5: the ralis right, and therefore Iran does not perceive it
Speaker 5: as being obliged to no longer strike Israel.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, the whole situation right now is very unclear
Speaker 2: and is literally changing by the hour.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Like by the time we're done recording this, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So we're recording this Wednesday afternoon.
Speaker 2: By the time this comes out Thursday night slash Friday morning,
Speaker 2: there could be a whole different situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I'll try and record a pickup if we
Speaker 1: have to.
Speaker 2: But yeahs, as of Wednesday afternoon, this is what the
Speaker 2: sort of ambiguity around around the deal looks like, and
Speaker 2: the level of compliance regarding Israel and the United States.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there are two more things I want to talk
Speaker 5: about that have been reported on the last Obviously, this
Speaker 5: has been reported and widely because it is a threat
Speaker 5: to all of our lives if we're going to start
Speaker 5: a nuclear war. The pak is head down. Freedom Party
Speaker 5: says it's leader's headquarters. This was interally reported as home.
Speaker 5: They did send me a text to use the word
Speaker 5: home WhatsApp, but I think, judging by what I have
Speaker 5: heard from other reports in the region, it's better described
Speaker 5: as headquarters. Were struck with several Iranian missiles. This came after,
Speaker 5: according to Fox News, the President claimed that the United
Speaker 5: States sent weapons to protesters in Iran in January, but
Speaker 5: that quote the Kurds kept them.
Speaker 4: Now, a video of Trump.
Speaker 5: Addressing the issue does not explicitly name the Curds, it
Speaker 5: does imply that they don't have guns.
Speaker 9: You know, we send some guns, but the group that
Speaker 9: was supposed to give which I said.
Speaker 4: What happened to my people?
Speaker 9: I said it.
Speaker 4: I called it exactly.
Speaker 9: We sent guns, a lot of guns. They were supposed
Speaker 9: to go to the people said they could fight back
Speaker 9: against these ducks. You know what happened The people that
Speaker 9: they sent them to kept them because they said, what
Speaker 9: a beautiful gun.
Speaker 5: I think I'll keep it.
Speaker 9: So I'm very upset with this. Certain group of people
Speaker 9: and they're gonna pay a big price for that. But
Speaker 9: the Iranian people will fight back as soon as they
Speaker 9: know they're not going to be shot and as soon
Speaker 9: as they can get weapon.
Speaker 3: This is one of the most things I've seen.
Speaker 5: It's up there with him threatening to Easter Bunny.
Speaker 2: I hesitate to use the word Lynchian because that work
Speaker 2: gets misapplied a lot and and asks him and this
Speaker 2: is not a perfect invocation of Lynchian either, but it's
Speaker 2: getting closer with this with the sort of one of.
Speaker 1: The more Lynchian things to happen in real life.
Speaker 2: It's incredible stuff with like the Eastern jazz in the back,
Speaker 2: crash of vibes. Yeah, as there's like flowers over the archway, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think no. This there's sort of the sort of juxtaposition, right,
Speaker 2: which I think is the is the key part of
Speaker 2: lynch is like is the surreal with the mundane, And
Speaker 2: you have parts of this here where you have this
Speaker 2: sort of a tensity of the stuff Truck's talking about
Speaker 2: with the Eastern jazz and his like purple tie and
Speaker 2: the Easter decorations in the background. This is this is
Speaker 2: a stunning piece of media.
Speaker 1: Stunning piece of history.
Speaker 5: God yeah, I saw this yesterday and I thought I
Speaker 5: need to expose my colleagues to this, like one of
Speaker 5: the most incredible thirty seconds of video. To come back
Speaker 5: to topic at hand, various Rogulati groups have denied this,
Speaker 5: and it would be an extreme logistical challenge to provide
Speaker 5: weapons to Kurdish arm groups, most of whom have most
Speaker 5: of their personnel in Iraq, and for them to transit
Speaker 5: those weapons to Tehran. I don't believe that that would
Speaker 5: have been something that any US administration would entertain.
Speaker 1: What guns would they give them that they don't because
Speaker 1: if these groups tend to be pretty well supplied with
Speaker 1: small personal arms we're talking about like your battle rifles
Speaker 1: and you know, long range precision rifles and the like,
Speaker 1: what they lack is man portable anti aircraft and man
Speaker 1: portable anti armor. Those are kind of some of the
Speaker 1: most precious pieces of gear to them, and I doubt
Speaker 1: Trump was offering to send that into Iran, among other things.
Speaker 1: We probably don't want to be sending a bunch of
Speaker 1: man portable anti aircraft into Iran.
Speaker 5: Right now, Like that's spamfire.
Speaker 1: But that's the only shit I can see These different
Speaker 1: groups wanting to take for themselves.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's especially strange because, like I watched a lot
Speaker 5: of videos of armed attacks on uh like Iranian police
Speaker 5: in January of this year, and they were using very
Speaker 5: basic weapons, to include quite a few of the pak
Speaker 5: using pump action shotguns.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I don't think the US sent them pump action shotguns.
Speaker 1: No, that would be a weird We don't. The US
Speaker 1: military doesn't have a lot of pump action shot is
Speaker 1: just laying around. Yeah, that's not like the first gun
Speaker 1: they'd have a bunch of to hand over to somebody.
Speaker 4: They've probably got more.
Speaker 1: Ak's than that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and like there were ak's used as well, but
Speaker 5: like these are very basic episodes, as you say, like
Speaker 5: this doesn't seem like anything that would come from the US. Also,
Speaker 5: in Kurdistan and Iranian drones struck Zagazawi village, killing Musa
Speaker 5: anwar Rasul age thirty nine, and his wife Musta Asad Hassan.
Speaker 5: Their children both survived. This is really heartbreaking, and like
Speaker 5: there are really horrible videos of their children like confronting
Speaker 5: the fact that they are now orphans. Right and because
Speaker 5: of stories like this one, which I do not see
Speaker 5: any basis for in fact, Kurdistan is being absolutely hammered
Speaker 5: by Iranian bonds, right. Little children are losing their parents,
Speaker 5: and like, I'm really disturbed, as I say every week,
Speaker 5: by the campus tendency to ignore this or to say
Speaker 5: that it has to happen because the Kurds don't have
Speaker 5: a state, or even the sort of blue wave tendency
Speaker 5: to sort of handwave this and say, well, Donald Trump
Speaker 5: started the war, so Iran gets to murder Curtis Villians
Speaker 5: Like I just.
Speaker 4: Find it so heartbreaking.
Speaker 5: And Robert and I have both spent time in Kurdistan,
Speaker 5: and the fondness for the people there but makes me mad.
Speaker 1: It's all pretty bleak and disappointing. Well, you know what
Speaker 1: else disappointing every week we have to do this. It's
Speaker 1: an ad break.
Speaker 3: All right, we're back.
Speaker 2: We still have three or four important stories that we're
Speaker 2: gonna do here before we close, James, want to start.
Speaker 3: With your section on the threat to press freedom.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I think this is important. President Trump has
Speaker 5: said that his doj will seek to prosecute the person
Speaker 5: who quote leaked the information that the F fifteen's weapon
Speaker 5: safety officer was missing an evading caption Iran quote, We're
Speaker 5: going to go to the media company that released it,
Speaker 5: and we're going to say national security.
Speaker 4: Give it up or go to jail. Trump said, quote.
Speaker 5: The entire country of Iran knew that there was a
Speaker 5: pilot that was somewhere on their land that was fighting
Speaker 5: for his life. It wasn't pilots, It was a weapons officer,
Speaker 5: but airmen.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: I can't quite find who broke the story, because it's
Speaker 5: not really a story that broke. It didn't require anyone
Speaker 5: to leak anything to know that someone was missing because
Speaker 5: the wreckage, and without seeing the wreckage, people weren't really
Speaker 5: willing to publish the story, right, They had no confirmation
Speaker 5: and around says wild shit all the time. Yeah, the
Speaker 5: wreckage was photographed and published by presumably Iranian sources, and
Speaker 5: it very clearly showed the livery of a US Air
Speaker 5: Force F fifteen based out of Lake and Heath, which
Speaker 5: is near Cambridge in the United Kingdom. There were some
Speaker 5: very early reports before we fore photos that the plane
Speaker 5: should shut down was an F thirty five and that
Speaker 5: would have been a single seater, right, But as soon
Speaker 5: as the images came out, everyone knew that wasn't the case.
Speaker 1: It was an F fifth Strike Eagle.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and there are single seat to F fifteen variants,
Speaker 5: but I don't believe any of them are active duty
Speaker 5: US Air Force Strike Eagles will always.
Speaker 1: Have two people.
Speaker 5: It's not a single seater, right, So nobody had to
Speaker 5: leak that information for it to be obvious that if
Speaker 5: they had collected one person, then there was still one person.
Speaker 5: This does represent quite a serious attack on the First Amendment.
Speaker 5: People are killing and dying over IRUN, and our tax
Speaker 5: dollars are supporting that have a right to know. Journalism
Speaker 5: has played a role in the way Americans perceive conflict
Speaker 5: for a very long time.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: We can think about the Napalm Girl photo. Understand that
Speaker 5: photo now has disputed authorship. We can think about well
Speaker 5: to cronkite Vietnam War.
Speaker 1: We can think about Abba.
Speaker 5: Gray hib There is no federal press shield law though,
Speaker 5: and journalists have been held in contempt for refusing to
Speaker 5: reveal sources on that security issues before. This is a
Speaker 5: serious threat and it's one that I think everyone should
Speaker 5: take very seriously.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and it's a very important part of the last
Speaker 2: little section of the Newsroom TV show. There's a whole
Speaker 2: plot line about death and it shows.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, Gareth, there sure is.
Speaker 3: So I just thought that's worth mentioning.
Speaker 5: You guys have told me not to what size. It'll
Speaker 5: make me angry, and I've respected that.
Speaker 1: You should not, James Will, you will lose your mind.
Speaker 1: It's not good for you.
Speaker 5: There's a lot of stuff spaking me angry right now.
Speaker 5: So I'm gonna give that one.
Speaker 1: Too much Sorkin at the moment is very quickly becomes toxic.
Speaker 5: Too much Sorkin has really fucked up a lot of
Speaker 5: people in this country.
Speaker 1: Yeah, speaking of things that will really fuck you up,
Speaker 1: our beautiful tariff music jaz rocky jazz rock, jazz rocky jazz. Ah.
Speaker 1: So glad that we're back to talking about tariffs.
Speaker 4: So okay, if we have a couple of wrong related
Speaker 4: tariff things, Garrett, are we playing the nightmare clip? We
Speaker 4: have to play the nightmare clip. We're playing the nightmare clip. Okay,
Speaker 4: this is okay. When when inevitably, in the course of
Speaker 4: humanity they have to make a museum to explain to
Speaker 4: people what capitalism was, this is what they are going
Speaker 4: to show.
Speaker 2: This is a clip from the quote unquote news agency
Speaker 2: c NBC.
Speaker 10: Deadline that President Trump has set a PM has threatened
Speaker 10: to destroy a civilization. How do how does how does
Speaker 10: an investor process that is it is it a bigger
Speaker 10: upside risk or downside risk?
Speaker 1: Big upside risk are downside risk to genocide? How do
Speaker 1: we do? She kind of looks up and then just
Speaker 1: goes right in.
Speaker 4: Like when when they have to like explain to people,
Speaker 4: right like how how eight billion people were like consumed
Speaker 4: into these like roles that they were forced to inhabit
Speaker 4: by the machination of capital. This is gonna be the one.
Speaker 4: Oh god.
Speaker 2: It turns out the markets responded very positively to Trump's
Speaker 2: threats to destroy a civilization.
Speaker 4: It's I you know, what if we didn't have market,
Speaker 4: what if there wasn't a line? I oh god. Okay,
Speaker 4: so speaking of bad things, I guess so. On Wednesday,
Speaker 4: Trump posted on truth Social quote a country capital CE
Speaker 4: country supplying capital M military weapons to Iran will be
Speaker 4: immediately triffed on any and all goods sold to the
Speaker 4: United States of America fifty effective immediately. There will be
Speaker 4: no exclusions or exemptions.
Speaker 3: So can he do this?
Speaker 4: Yes? Key nined Listeners may remember that the legal authority
Speaker 4: he was claiming to have to do this. The Supreme
Speaker 4: Court made go away, so can you do this? Look okay,
Speaker 4: the way he's describing this right sounds like he's using
Speaker 4: trade authority. It may be that buried somewhere deep in
Speaker 4: the annals of like sanction policy or some shit. Maybe
Speaker 4: there's something. I went through all of the trade authority
Speaker 4: that I know of to try to find any legal
Speaker 4: authority for this. The short version is there isn't. The
Speaker 4: long version is okay, So I guess in theory, maybe
Speaker 4: if you squint right, you could use Session three oh
Speaker 4: one of the nineteen seventy four Trade Act. But that's
Speaker 4: supposed to be a national security risk from unfair trade practices,
Speaker 4: so it could technically work. But the thing is you
Speaker 4: also have to that specific one. We've talked about this
Speaker 4: on the show before. You have to like set up
Speaker 4: a commission and do a trade study. And there's like
Speaker 4: all this stuff, so it can't work immediately.
Speaker 3: No, And Trump doesn't seem like a big set up
Speaker 3: a commission guy.
Speaker 4: I mean, well, thing is that they actually have done
Speaker 4: this for China already. But I don't know if you
Speaker 4: squint like really hard, like like if you like really
Speaker 4: really squint at like section two thirty two, like maybe
Speaker 4: in theory, like but like no, like, if you're really
Speaker 4: willing to believe that, like the president has the ability
Speaker 4: to be like this is what the law says, then
Speaker 4: maybe the only way I can see this working is
Speaker 4: if he invokes section three thirty eight, which is the
Speaker 4: this is like the remaining part of the Smoot Holly tariffs.
Speaker 1: Now fantasy goods.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so like, Okay, there is a small chance that,
Speaker 4: like you the listeners may have heard of the Smoot
Speaker 4: Holly tariffs, and that's because it's the one that made
Speaker 4: the Great Depression worse yep, and no one's ever used them,
Speaker 4: since it's not even clear if they're on the books anymore,
Speaker 4: because like this is a legitimate thing of academic discussions,
Speaker 4: like whether these are even still in a fact, because
Speaker 4: they haven't been used, they're technically still there, but also
Speaker 4: no one has like ever used them. And also there's
Speaker 4: been like subsequent laws regulating trade. So I don't know,
Speaker 4: there's no way he can do this legally that wouldn't
Speaker 4: immediately fall apart, It wouldn't fall apart eventually to a
Speaker 4: court challenge, except maybe the Smooth Holly like nuclear bomb
Speaker 4: desperation thing. I don't know. It's very unclear to me
Speaker 4: whether any of this is ever even going to be
Speaker 4: attempted to be implemented. He shouldn't be able to do this.
Speaker 4: It's just Calvin ball bullshit.
Speaker 5: But who knows it would be China era pajamas what
Speaker 5: he's going for there, right, Like China's so weapons to Ryan.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and like there's also a lot of speculation, like
Speaker 4: I think Reuters reported this that this might be a
Speaker 4: thing because there's going to be a trade summit with Beijing.
Speaker 4: But if you're a trade person in Beijing, you also
Speaker 4: know that he can't do this, So it's not real leverage.
Speaker 4: I don't know, nightmare. Let's talk about some relatively fun
Speaker 4: I guess news back at home.
Speaker 3: Interesting certainly.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So one of the things that happened this week
Speaker 4: was there was a series of elections and the result
Speaker 4: of those elections was the Republicans got absolutely hammered, like
Speaker 4: all up and down the ballot in Wisconsin. They did
Speaker 4: they performed terribly in Georgia. So the big Democratic win
Speaker 4: was in Wisconsin. So polls had Chris Taylor, who was
Speaker 4: the Democratic candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court up by
Speaker 4: about seven or eight percent. Chris Taylor won this election
Speaker 4: by twenty oh wow. Yeah, there was also a full
Speaker 4: sweep of the whole like mombs for liberty school board
Speaker 4: slates in a bunch of elections in very conservative Wakeisha County.
Speaker 4: The specific one where every single one of them lost
Speaker 4: and they fully cleared out all of the monster liberty
Speaker 4: people was a very petifical one that was famous for
Speaker 4: doing a whole bunch of these right wing book bands
Speaker 4: and stuff like that, and they're they're all gone. And
Speaker 4: this is this is you know, a continuation of a
Speaker 4: trend that we've seen over the past couple of years.
Speaker 4: Really were like year year and a half where all
Speaker 4: of these weird monster liberty widers just get clobbered. Now,
Speaker 4: also in that same county in the actual like mayoral
Speaker 4: election of Wakisha, like the city of Wakeisha, the Democrats
Speaker 4: won that election, which they haven't done in ages.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is like one of their biggest Republican like
Speaker 2: the stronghold victories, and like they will always win this seat.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, and this is something that like everyone
Speaker 4: from wiscons has been talking about, which is if they
Speaker 4: can't win here, they can't win Wisconsin at all. Yeah,
Speaker 4: there's there's no way, right, And again, like you know,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna get into this more in a second, but
Speaker 4: like the Democrats were projected to win this seat and
Speaker 4: this is obviously a by election, and this this is
Speaker 4: this the Supreme Court seat that they won is like
Speaker 4: them getting to five Q. So it wasn't like the
Speaker 4: majority seat in the way that the last one of
Speaker 4: these elections were. But they were projected to win by
Speaker 4: like seven and they won by twenty.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's that's big wow, which is astonishing.
Speaker 1: Part of again you mentioned the a bunch of these,
Speaker 1: like school board elections in Wisconsin. It's not just Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: I mean in a lot of the most conservative tarot
Speaker 1: to the most conservative counties in Texas. Over the last year,
Speaker 1: basically every school district that was taken by the Moms
Speaker 1: for Liberty types has been completely like they have been
Speaker 1: completely thrown out. And that has been happening around the country.
Speaker 1: There's a lot that people are focusing on when looking
Speaker 1: at like why are numbers so fucking dogshit for Republicans
Speaker 1: white night right now? Why are they getting beaten by
Speaker 1: such wide margins? And it's certainly way more than one
Speaker 1: thing is responsible. But I think something that has not
Speaker 1: gotten enough attention that has been dooming them Republicans electorally
Speaker 1: is that they got what they wanted in the branch
Speaker 1: of the chunk of our government that is hardest to
Speaker 1: ignore for the average American, which is like, what's happening
Speaker 1: to their kids in schools? And a bunch of regular
Speaker 1: people who were not all that political saw that, like,
Speaker 1: my kid can't like check books out any the fuck
Speaker 1: is raw happening here?
Speaker 4: And they went crazy.
Speaker 1: They not crazy, they got really pissed off, rightfully, so,
Speaker 1: and I think this is going My hope is that
Speaker 1: this turns out to be one of their worst strategic
Speaker 1: missteps in this period of time is their belief that
Speaker 1: we can just go fucking ape shit on schools and
Speaker 1: no one will care.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, and this brings me back to something I've
Speaker 4: been talking about for a while, which is that so,
Speaker 4: like one of the other results that we're sort of
Speaker 4: looking at here is so there was an election in
Speaker 4: Georgia in this like as a Stou's special election for
Speaker 4: the seat that was Mergory Taylor Green's old district. This
Speaker 4: is like one of the most unhinge Republican districts in
Speaker 4: the entire country. Trump won it by forty and the
Speaker 4: Republican Clay Fuller, did win, but he only he won
Speaker 4: by twelve points in a county that Trump carried by four. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's like it's like it's like a twenty eight point ship.
Speaker 4: Yeah right, it's it's unbelievable. Now, obviously they didn't win here,
Speaker 4: but there's been a lot of stuff about how, Okay, well,
Speaker 4: this is just because democrats. Democrats do better among high
Speaker 4: information voters. Those are the people who vote in these
Speaker 4: off cycle elections that aren't during the normal election cycle.
Speaker 4: Blah blah blah. There's a lot of this kind of stuff.
Speaker 4: That's a kind of stuff that puts you ahead, as
Speaker 4: as the polls were showing in Wisconsin that puts you
Speaker 4: ahead by like seven that that does not explain a
Speaker 4: thirteen percent over performance. Yeah, yeah, right. And I think
Speaker 4: what is happening here is something I've said consistently, and
Speaker 4: this is something that I think Robert is sort of
Speaker 4: explaining why this is happening, is that polars are still
Speaker 4: using's they're still using as as their basis for what
Speaker 4: they assume the electure is going to be. They're using
Speaker 4: the data from the electorate from the twenty twenty four election. Yeah,
Speaker 4: because that's that's the standard practice, right, you use as
Speaker 4: a sample, you know, and you make some like adjustments
Speaker 4: because it's a by election and stuff like that. But
Speaker 4: like they're using as as a sample base of voters
Speaker 4: the people from twenty twenty four and that electorate does
Speaker 4: not exist anymore because it's been completely destroyed. Yeah, right,
Speaker 4: all of these people have suddenly been mobilized. Like the
Speaker 4: whole city of Minneapolis has been like turned into this
Speaker 4: like weird I don't know, I mean, guess on negative.
Speaker 4: It's like there's like Minneapolis has had a level of
Speaker 4: mobilization that is like possibly has never been seen before
Speaker 4: in US history. All of these like people who had
Speaker 4: been you know, just like not political at all are
Speaker 4: And this is the other thing with like these school
Speaker 4: board election is that these are mostly people who were
Speaker 4: not political people at all, who just swept in because
Speaker 4: they're like their school's got fucked with. The entire electorate
Speaker 4: has changed. It shows there's like a deep fluidity here. Right.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of people who supported Trump because of
Speaker 2: economic conditions which were blamed on the Democrats and they
Speaker 2: moved for Trump, and there was a lot of these
Speaker 2: same people are not like Trump or Republican loyalists. They're
Speaker 2: they're reacting to the economic conditions and the messaging from
Speaker 2: each party. And this is reflected in the you know,
Speaker 2: the number of Trump's zorn voters, even the number of
Speaker 2: people who vote Trump and AOC in New York.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're not like mega loyalists, right, But but it's
Speaker 2: showing how there is a big fluidity among the types
Speaker 2: of people that do decide elections.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but then there's all there's also and this is
Speaker 4: I think the the other side of this too, right,
Speaker 4: is that there's once people who haven't voted, I just
Speaker 4: didn't give a shit at all, and those people are
Speaker 4: suddenly being mobilized, and this is turning into like the
Speaker 4: Democrats are like winning a whole bunch of like rural
Speaker 4: counties in these elections. Right yeah. Yeah, And now the
Speaker 4: last thing I want to talk about in sort of
Speaker 4: this kind of section of everybody hates the Republicans is
Speaker 4: that the Issues in Insights CPP survey for April shows
Speaker 4: Trump with a thirty nine percent approval rating. This poll,
Speaker 4: which has done a bunch of times. Every year they
Speaker 4: give they give like a bunch of topics where they
Speaker 4: give a through F rankings from like immigration to the
Speaker 4: economy to like the wars in Iran Ukraine, and like
Speaker 4: a plurality of the votes were an F on every
Speaker 4: single one. Even immigration immigrants was the one that was
Speaker 4: kind of close between that and like A. Every single
Speaker 4: other one was down double digits. Okay, if you look
Speaker 4: at like c DF versus like AB or if you
Speaker 4: like ignore C right, it's so much more in the
Speaker 4: category of like d's and.
Speaker 3: F's on the negative side in general.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, like this is for every single issue.
Speaker 5: I'm guessing it was kind of a binary distribution, right,
Speaker 5: like a lot of a's or a lot of f's
Speaker 5: and not much.
Speaker 4: There's actually a surprising number of b's, but that's interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and like a decent number of d's, but yeah, it
Speaker 4: was like mostly f's and then everything else is kind
Speaker 4: of spread up between the other ones. I mean, all
Speaker 4: of this is before the like I'm a civilization will
Speaker 4: die tonight stuff.
Speaker 2: Which which did cause negative reactions from people in the
Speaker 2: in the conservative base. Yeah, and the people voting in
Speaker 2: Georgia and and Wisconsin. I want to play this clip here.
Speaker 2: This was a clip from from from Georgia of a
Speaker 2: Georgia voter who is interviewed on election day.
Speaker 11: It's giving war crime. You can't do that. We don't
Speaker 11: just annihilate people because we can and you know, make
Speaker 11: a grab for the money and the old. And that's
Speaker 11: what we've done in Venezuela, and that's what we're doing
Speaker 11: in Orion.
Speaker 1: It's giving war crime.
Speaker 3: It's giving war crime.
Speaker 1: I need to take it. This is this is it's
Speaker 1: beautiful positive. Yes, that's the message. And the Democrats to
Speaker 1: come up with on this.
Speaker 2: This is this is like a well then her thirties
Speaker 2: or forties, yeah, holding holding a kid at nine. This
Speaker 2: broadcast was at nine thirty three am in Rome, Georgia,
Speaker 2: on election day.
Speaker 3: Yep, it is it's giving war crime.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And you know, if if you look at that
Speaker 4: like the Yugo of Economist poll, which is from like
Speaker 4: April first, but like even at April first, he had
Speaker 4: just an atrocious thirty five percent approval rating, which is
Speaker 4: that's like that's like end of the Bush administration shit.
Speaker 4: All of this. The important part of this is that
Speaker 4: like the Democrats are still really historically unpopular right now
Speaker 4: because everyone's piss at them for not doing anything, but
Speaker 4: the actual mass of people in this country fucking hate
Speaker 4: all of this. They're pissed off everything that is happening.
Speaker 4: Everything you ask about that Trump is doing, they are
Speaker 4: fucking angry about. And you know, this is this is
Speaker 4: this is the kind of anger and the kind of
Speaker 4: just generalized rays that I think there's no really good
Speaker 4: way to measure outside of the tools that we've developed
Speaker 4: for elections or in terms of just like you know,
Speaker 4: sometimes you get street mobilizations like this anger like is
Speaker 4: the defining thing of the United States right now, So
Speaker 4: that everybody's pissed the fuck off about this, and yeah,
Speaker 4: and every opportunity they get to express that this shit
Speaker 4: fucking sucks, they do. This is what American politics is,
Speaker 4: even as everything is unbelievably hideously bleak from all of
Speaker 4: the shit that people are doing.
Speaker 2: Speaking of people who are pissed off, there's one final
Speaker 2: story that I'll go through pretty quick before we close
Speaker 2: this episode. Last Wednesday, to celebrate April Fool's Day, Trump
Speaker 2: fired Pam Bondi as Attorney General. Trump told Bondi about
Speaker 2: his plan to fire her while in the car together
Speaker 2: to watch the Supreme Court oral arguments on birthright citizenship.
Speaker 4: Jesus, there's video of it.
Speaker 1: There's video of it. It's amazing, like credit to Fox,
Speaker 1: but they got a shot of them in the limo
Speaker 1: and Trump is clearly telling her, and it's when we
Speaker 1: know he was telling her. It's an amazing little artifact.
Speaker 1: All you can make out is their faces kind of
Speaker 1: and their body language. But it rips. It's so funny.
Speaker 2: Bondi tried to convince Trump to let her stay on
Speaker 2: till at least summer, but to no avail. Trump appointed
Speaker 2: Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to serve as acting Attorney
Speaker 2: General until the President nominates a full replacement. On Tuesday,
Speaker 2: Blanche said quote, nobody has an the idea why Bondi
Speaker 2: was fired, except for President Trump. Those sources close to
Speaker 2: the White House have told multiple outlets that Trump had
Speaker 2: a growing frustration with Bondi for a while, especially related
Speaker 2: to her failure to successfully prosecute certain political enemies and
Speaker 2: the fallout from her handling of the Epstein files. Environmental
Speaker 2: Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zelden has been floated as a
Speaker 2: prospective replacement for Attorney General at the EPA, Zelden has
Speaker 2: led efforts to roll back environmental regulations and climate protections
Speaker 2: related to endangered species, wetlands, and emissions before working in
Speaker 2: the second Trump administration. Zelden lost the race for New
Speaker 2: York governor to Kathy Hochel by seven percentage points, a
Speaker 2: relatively close race for New York. Zelden is a Trump loyalist,
Speaker 2: fought against the presidents to impeachments while in Congress and
Speaker 2: refused to certify the twenty twenty election results. Zelden's a
Speaker 2: retired U. S. Army lieutenant colonel who served four years
Speaker 2: in active duty as a military intelligent officer, federal prosecutor,
Speaker 2: and military magistrate, and two thousand and six was deployed
Speaker 2: with the eighty second Airborne Division during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Speaker 4: Wait, so, if he's a troop cop, military magisty, a
Speaker 4: troop judge, he served he served in a few roles. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's troop cop shit.
Speaker 3: He started as a prosecutor and a judge, the.
Speaker 4: Hated and reviled Ye troop cop.
Speaker 5: He looks like maybe he at some point went to
Speaker 5: law school there.
Speaker 2: Right, he went to law school in New York, either
Speaker 2: during that time or beforehand. It all kind of takes
Speaker 2: place around because I think he got out of law
Speaker 2: schol around thousand and four. At at the time he
Speaker 2: was the youngest person to finish law school in New York.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, he was in his early twenties. After he
Speaker 2: got out of the military or out of active duty,
Speaker 2: he briefly served as an attorney for the Port Authority
Speaker 2: of New York and New Jersey and also private practice
Speaker 2: for a little bit before he went into the State
Speaker 2: Senate and then eventually US Congress. Now before Bondie's firing,
Speaker 2: Hambondi was scheduled to testify in front of the House
Speaker 2: Oversight Committee about the EPSO files on April fourteenth. Now,
Speaker 2: Democrats on the committee still want her to testify, as
Speaker 2: she holds relevant knowledge, but on Wednesday morning, the Justice
Speaker 2: Department released a statement saying Bondi would not appear at
Speaker 2: the hearing on the fourteenth quote since she is no
Speaker 2: longer Attorney General and was subpoenaed in her capacity as
Speaker 2: Attorney General unquote. This is a little bit untrue. She
Speaker 2: was not subpoenaed by her title as Attorney General. She
Speaker 2: was subpoenaed by name as Pam Bondi now Oversite Commitee.
Speaker 2: Democrats have responded by saying, if Bonnie does not comply
Speaker 2: with the bipartisan subpoena addressed to her by name, they
Speaker 2: will quote begin contempt charges unquote. Republican Nancy Mace has said,
Speaker 2: quote Pam Bondi cannot escape accountability simply because she no
Speaker 2: longer holds the office of Attorney General. Our motion to
Speaker 2: subpoena Panbondy, which was passed by the Oversset Committee, was
Speaker 2: for a Bondi by name, not by title. She will
Speaker 2: still have to appear before the Oversight Committee for a
Speaker 2: sworn deposition. The American people deserve answers, and we expect
Speaker 2: her to appear as soon as a new date is
Speaker 2: set unquote. So it appears they will try to reschedule
Speaker 2: her for a new date. Bondie's firing is interesting in
Speaker 2: the context of Christy nomes firing, as for the first
Speaker 2: year or so of Trump's second term, he really resisted
Speaker 2: making changes to his cabinet. Right These these sorts of
Speaker 2: frequent changes were a hallmark of his first of his
Speaker 2: first term, yeah, and for the start of his second
Speaker 2: he seemed to not want to do that and instead
Speaker 2: got like his ranks of loyalists that he was going
Speaker 2: to work with. But since Christi nomes firing, that has
Speaker 2: clearly changed, and this is prompted speculation about who could
Speaker 2: be next, from people like Tulci Gabbard to Cash Betel
Speaker 2: or Pete haig Seth.
Speaker 3: I think Gabbard.
Speaker 2: Is certainly certainly one of one of the people. If
Speaker 2: I was one of these three would I would be
Speaker 2: most nervous if I was Gabbard. Tell's an odd is
Speaker 2: an odd character. I'm really am not sure what's in
Speaker 2: the future for him a podcast, and I think that
Speaker 2: what happens eventually in Iran will determine what goes on
Speaker 2: with haig Seth.
Speaker 5: I've been rumored that some of the reason that heg
Speaker 5: Seth has been sort of purging high command in the
Speaker 5: military is that he has concerned that those people would
Speaker 5: be his replacements, like alternates for him sec death. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: yeah yeah. Ptel was under more heat. I feel like
Speaker 5: during I've been following the shooting of Charlie kirk Great
Speaker 5: the assassination, and that their failure to find the assassin
Speaker 5: for some time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and his and his uh plane tickets and his
Speaker 2: trips with his girlfriends.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the failure with Savannah Guthrie too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Trump Trump did not like that clip of him
Speaker 2: in the hockey locker room.
Speaker 5: H Yeah, yeah, there have been quite a few. Now
Speaker 5: you mentioned them.
Speaker 2: Before we go, we should mention there is still about
Speaker 2: a week left of Webby voting. It could happen here
Speaker 2: is nominated for a Webby as Is James series Migrating
Speaker 2: to America, which aeredon. It could happen here and of
Speaker 2: course behind the Bastards. Links to vote for our shows
Speaker 2: in the Webby Awards will be in the episode description.
Speaker 2: Voter goes till April sixth, the most important election of
Speaker 2: our lives. Stay in line, vote early and often, et cetera,
Speaker 2: et cetera.
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Speaker 3: You, all right. That does it for us here at
Speaker 3: it could happen here, Put.
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