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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,

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Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of

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Speaker 1: today's best minds, and more than thirty Republican congressmen have

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Speaker 1: announced there leaving conference, we have said you great Joe

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Speaker 1: for you. Today, the Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson joins

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Speaker 1: us to discuss the Trump Administration's attempt to cover up

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Speaker 1: the murder of Renee Good, and we'll talk to the

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Speaker 1: New Yorkers Johnathan Blitzer about how the Trump administration is

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Speaker 1: making Democratic Congresswoman le Monica mcgiver's life hell. But first

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Speaker 1: we have the stories the media is missing Somali.

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Speaker 2: We are known haters of AI and it wiped out

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Speaker 2: four hundred billion dollars for the stock market this week.

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Speaker 2: And one of the funniest things is this week is

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Speaker 2: as this is happening, we find out that a bunch

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Speaker 2: of tech bros tried to create a hyperstition for those

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Speaker 2: who don't know hyperstitions where you say something and try

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Speaker 2: to make it real even though it's not real, and

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Speaker 2: you know it. That these claud bots were all talking

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Speaker 2: to each other that AI has said to you, it's well,

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Speaker 2: it's well at more advanced than it actually is, and

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Speaker 2: because of all this mythologizing, we are seeing a massive

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Speaker 2: re structuring of our economy.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to make this clear. AI is not doing

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Speaker 1: what they told us it was going to do. It

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Speaker 1: is not this sentient super being. It is just better computing,

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Speaker 1: but is not changing the world. We are not going

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Speaker 1: to all lose our jobs because of AI. This is

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Speaker 1: good news, This should be good news. The problem is

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Speaker 1: our entire economy is puffed up on the fantasy that

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Speaker 1: AI is supercomputers. And so either what had to happen

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Speaker 1: was that the stock market was going to create or

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Speaker 1: AI was going to replace all of us, and we

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Speaker 1: were going to live, as Elon Mush says, live care

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Speaker 1: free in the world of Elon Mush, and we were

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Speaker 1: all going to get universal basic income, not from him,

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Speaker 1: of course, and not from our government. Well here's what's happened.

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Speaker 1: The truth is AI is good and getting better, but

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Speaker 1: he's not going to replace all of us, and that's

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Speaker 1: really probably good news. And if our stock market had

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Speaker 1: been normal, we would be fine. But instead it has

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Speaker 1: puffed up our economy and so everybody's going to lose

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Speaker 1: a lot of money. And that's what we saw this week.

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Speaker 1: AI four hundred billion this week in paper returns in

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Speaker 1: the market. So that sucks, and it sucks for people

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Speaker 1: like Cora sam Altman, who felt useless and sad using

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Speaker 1: his own AI to code. All right, honestly, fuck all

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Speaker 1: of them. We could have avoided all of this if

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Speaker 1: people hadn't been fucking liars, and that is how we

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Speaker 1: got here, so conned again by stupid white guys.

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Speaker 3: And as a side effect, we all get higher electricity fees.

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Speaker 1: But I'm just glad that there are enormous data centers

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Speaker 1: built everywhere in our country using water to make AI

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Speaker 1: slop of Donald Trump. So just say no to AI.

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Speaker 1: Don't use it, don't post the photos, don't let them

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Speaker 1: fuck up stuff, just let it go.

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Speaker 2: So in really ridiculous news and something that I uh.

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Speaker 1: Find Mark Ebstein, I'm sorry. I see the headline of

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Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein's brother, and I know and by the way

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Speaker 1: I say this, I take no pleasure to report that.

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Speaker 1: This makes me so angry. But you go and then

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Speaker 1: I'll tell you why Mark Ebstein makes me furious.

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Speaker 2: Okay, So over the weekend, what we saw is that

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Speaker 2: first there is a big controversy where Jeffrey Epstein's death

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Speaker 2: statement is dated the day before it happened, which there

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Speaker 2: is some rational explanations for this. But another thing everybody's

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Speaker 2: been discussing all week is that Mark Epstein submitted a

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Speaker 2: tip that Donald Trump ordered the execution of his brother

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Speaker 2: Jeffrey Epstein to cover up for him naming names. And

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Speaker 2: he confirmed to the Independent that he did indeed submit

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Speaker 2: this tip.

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Speaker 1: All right, listen, here's the deal. What if the conspiracy

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Speaker 1: is not any of these conspiracies, but it's a conspiracy

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Speaker 1: that a rich, white, sociopathic guy and his horrendous British

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Speaker 1: girlfriend got away with sex trafficking thousands of women and girls.

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Speaker 1: What if that is the scandal. What if that is

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Speaker 1: the conspiracy. What if the conspiracy is a conspiracy of silence.

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Speaker 1: What if the conspiracy is that people still let these

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Speaker 1: people be in government. What if the conspiracy is that

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump was friends with Jeffrey Epstein, that half of

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Speaker 1: his cabinet did business. I mean, you got Letnick doing

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Speaker 1: business with jeffff You got John Phalen riding in Jeffrey

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Speaker 1: Epstein's plane. Michael Wolfe has a huge substack and he

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Speaker 1: is was giving media advice and getting free shoes from

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Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein. Jeffrey Epstein spent ten thousand dollars buying underwear

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Speaker 1: for Woody Allen. What if the conspiracy is that these

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Speaker 1: fucking guys get to serve in our government and walk

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Speaker 1: among us. What if that's the conspiracy. What if it's

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Speaker 1: the fact that no one got prosecuted except Glayne, That,

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Speaker 1: in my mind is a bigger conspiracy than anything else.

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Speaker 1: And am I saying that Jeffrey Epstein wasn't murdered. I

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Speaker 1: don't know what happened to Jeffrey Epstein, but I honestly

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Speaker 1: care more about why there are not other people being

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Speaker 1: held accountable. And that is what makes me the most furious.

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Speaker 1: So that is why I say, do not get involved

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Speaker 1: in the conspiracies. Get involved in the larger conspiracy, which

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Speaker 1: is we do not believe women victims. That should be

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Speaker 1: the conspiracy. Women are being treated terribly. They're being raped

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Speaker 1: and assaulted and abused, and people are not listening to them.

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Speaker 1: And is year twenty twenty six. That is a conspiracy

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Speaker 1: that I think deserves your attention.

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Speaker 4: Agreed.

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Speaker 2: So we saw a big controversy this week where apparently

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Speaker 2: Donald Trump wanted a bunch of things named after him

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Speaker 2: and exchanged for unfreezing some funding. And this week we

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Speaker 2: saw a US judge unfreeze the funding for the Gateway Tunnel,

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Speaker 2: which would go from Central Manhattan to Union City, New

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Speaker 2: Jersey and help lots of trades move faster and really

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Speaker 2: help our economy.

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Speaker 3: What do you see it here, Molly.

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Speaker 1: It comes back to this central law of Trumpism, which

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Speaker 1: is Trump is trying to do a lot of illegal shit,

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Speaker 1: and if you fight back in the courts, he loses.

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Speaker 1: And that's what this is, right, Donald Trump said, I'll

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Speaker 1: give you the money. It's not his to give. Okay,

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Speaker 1: it's federal money put together by the federal government and

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump briefly as president again, but that does not

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Speaker 1: make this money his. And like, the problem with the

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Speaker 1: Trump cryptocracy is that my man behaves like a monarch

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Speaker 1: and everyone's like, oh, it's his to give. It's not

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Speaker 1: his to give. I mean, this is one of the

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Speaker 1: big problems of where we are at this moment. A

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Speaker 1: lot of this is just norms and not laws. So

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Speaker 1: we expect our president to behave a certain way because

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Speaker 1: of norms, when in fact we should have laws in

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Speaker 1: place because when you get someone who doesn't follow laws,

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Speaker 1: like oh, Donald Trump, this is what happens. So again

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Speaker 1: the judge unfreezes the funding. It was frozen by Trump.

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Speaker 1: It's sixteen billion dollars. It was allocated to this tunnel project.

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump has been playing I'm not going to give

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Speaker 1: it to you unless he told Chuck Schumer that he

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Speaker 1: want a Penn station named after him. Again, why anyone

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Speaker 1: would want Penn station named after you, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: but it's a good point, Like none of this is his.

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Speaker 1: You know, you just have to keep going in court.

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Speaker 1: The illegal stuff will not stay. You know, we do

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Speaker 1: think God have judges and laws and we are not

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Speaker 1: of an honor republic, and so people have to just fight.

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Speaker 1: And you know it's unfrozen. They'll be able to eventually

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Speaker 1: build this tunnel. Donald Trump will costs us all billions

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Speaker 1: of dollars. And you know he's doing this because he's

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Speaker 1: mad that none of us voted for him. Because he's

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Speaker 1: a fucking criminal, and that is where we are, so

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Speaker 1: none of us should be surprised. It's just what he does.

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Speaker 1: This is how we got here, this is what it is,

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Speaker 1: and we need our Democrats to fight, fight, fight and

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Speaker 1: protect our norms and institutions and also you know, everything

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Speaker 1: else and everyone else.

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Speaker 2: So to go back to the beginning of this broadcast

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Speaker 2: where we were talking about AI and how it's pretty incompetent.

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Speaker 2: You know what, I don't want it doing what scanting

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Speaker 2: photos of ice protesters and then removing people at scans

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Speaker 2: from the TSA pre check. It seems like nothing will

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Speaker 2: go wrong with that, definitely not.

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Speaker 1: The other thing that's kind of amazing about it is

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Speaker 1: it's such a like trumpy idea. It's like, we're going

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Speaker 1: to make it harder for them in the airport. That's

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Speaker 1: how we're going to stick it to them. It's just

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Speaker 1: a completely stupid I think that this is very stupid.

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Speaker 1: I think that it's not going to work. I think

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Speaker 1: that at every point they're trying to interest closer to

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Speaker 1: a police state. The good news is the technology is

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Speaker 1: not there. But next time there's going to be a

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Speaker 1: president and the technology is going to be there. And

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Speaker 1: the question is when we have the laws in place

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Speaker 1: to prevent him from doing the kind of stuff that

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Speaker 1: Trump has tried to do here. And I think that

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Speaker 1: should be something that all of us are thinking about

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Speaker 1: all the time. Rick Wilson is the founder of the

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Speaker 1: Lincoln Project and the host of the Enemy's List. Rick Wilson,

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Speaker 1: how are you?

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Speaker 4: I am.

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Speaker 1: Very cold in the northeast here. Things are not Mistakes

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Speaker 1: were made, and we all now we're long underwear speaking

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Speaker 1: of mistakes being made. Tell us the Gabbard. First of all,

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Speaker 1: you know some of the worst people in Trump's administration.

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Speaker 1: I take no pleasure to say this are Democrats. Talk

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Speaker 1: us through this whistleblower.

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Speaker 4: Sure, sure, so. Last year, sometime prior to June sixth,

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Speaker 4: we know that part the National Security Agency picked up

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Speaker 4: a person quote unquote close to Trump discussing intelligence matters

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Speaker 4: concerning Iran with someone in a hostile foreign intelligence service.

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Speaker 4: That's what we know so far. Gabbered, instead of reporting

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Speaker 4: this appropriately throughout the intelligence community to develop countermeasures for it,

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Speaker 4: et cetera, took it directly to Susie Wiles. This is

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Speaker 4: way outside the normal procedure that one would do on this,

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Speaker 4: and gave it to Susie Wiles for unknown purposes. After that,

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Speaker 4: someone in the intelligence community said, whatever happened to that?

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Speaker 4: And they were told basically shut the fuck up and

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Speaker 4: to pay no attention. And so they reported it through

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Speaker 4: the inspector general system in the intelligence community in the

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Speaker 4: d and I apparently Tulsi Gabbard decided not to follow

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Speaker 4: the rules and the law where that has to be

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Speaker 4: made known within thirty days to the Gang of Eight

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Speaker 4: in Congress, this the eight senior bipartisan Intelligence and Defense

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Speaker 4: Oversight members. Because of that, we had to wait a

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Speaker 4: year almost until we found out about this. And Gabbard

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Speaker 4: has now been out lying about the sequence of events,

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Speaker 4: lying about the timeline, lying about what the Inspector General said,

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Speaker 4: And she is in some deep, deep, deep deep shit.

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Speaker 4: This is one of those things that's like the intelligence community.

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Speaker 4: People that are still around, they give a damn about

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Speaker 4: their job, they give a damn about the country and

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Speaker 4: the security, and she has put us in danger.

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Speaker 1: There are sort of all these different national security protocols

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Speaker 1: and ways that it's supposed to be done. Tulsey flouted those.

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Speaker 1: But also the security the information that's been leaked or

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Speaker 1: had that she leaked is like the highest level. Can

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Speaker 1: you explain that.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, this is something that is so compartmentalized. So folks

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Speaker 4: have all heard about secret and top secret, and a

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Speaker 4: lot of people now have heard about what they call

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Speaker 4: sci compartmentalized information, and a compartmentalized program could have a

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Speaker 4: thousand people in it, or it could have four people

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Speaker 4: in it. This is at a level apparently that is

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Speaker 4: so above and beyond because of both the nature of

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Speaker 4: the target whoever this foreign intelligence person was, and the

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Speaker 4: collection system from the NESSA that got the information. So

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Speaker 4: this is something incredibly sensitive Crown Jewels level stuff, to

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Speaker 4: the point where it could not have been transmitted outside

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Speaker 4: of a group of probably like a dozen people in

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Speaker 4: the entire government. This is a very like blazing red

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Speaker 4: flag about Gabbard's inability and lack of temperament to do

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Speaker 4: this job.

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Speaker 1: Is it worse or better than being at than adding

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Speaker 1: the editorom chief of The Atlantic to a signal chat

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Speaker 1: about bombing around?

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Speaker 4: This is wild worse.

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Speaker 1: So how bad can it be? That seems good.

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Speaker 4: Because that foreign intelligence person almost certainly will now become

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Speaker 4: aware that we are targeting them in a certain way

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Speaker 4: using a certain method, they will communicate differently. The other

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Speaker 4: part of this is what it implicates in the Trump administration.

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Speaker 4: We have seen in what we know of the complaints

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Speaker 4: so far, is that the person they were talking to

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Speaker 4: was quote close to Trump. This does not mean it

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Speaker 4: is a government official, given Donald Trump's propensity for using

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Speaker 4: outside actors Steve Whitcoff, Jared Kushner, et cetera, who are

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Speaker 4: not government officials to conduct diplomacy and intelligence and foreign policy.

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Speaker 4: I'm deeply concerned that somebody inside the Trump government told

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Speaker 4: what say it was Jared. I have no evidence that

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Speaker 4: it was Jared someone, but let's say it's someone like

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Speaker 4: a Jared who gets on the phone and calls another person.

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Speaker 1: By the way, many investors, did you.

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Speaker 4: Hear about this? Correct? Did you hear about this thing

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Speaker 4: that we're doing. I don't think this that's.

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Speaker 1: The scenario you're describing.

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Speaker 4: I don't think it right. I don't think it's Jared

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Speaker 4: per se, but it is. I think it is a

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Speaker 4: person in that category, most likely, because if it had

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Speaker 4: been a government official, they would have said a Trump

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Speaker 4: administration official in the.

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Speaker 1: Compute, and they would have been fired.

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Speaker 4: Hypothetically in a normal admiration, in a world where you

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Speaker 4: and I were in charge, they'd be right.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to actually want to move on for a

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Speaker 1: minute to something that is not on our schedule, but

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Speaker 1: I think is important. Is like this week, there was

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Speaker 1: huge reporting out of the Wall Street Journal about the

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Speaker 1: crypto scam amazing and how the Trump kids, the boys,

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Speaker 1: even Barren are involved in this making handover first money

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Speaker 1: in crypto and then cashing out before the investors.

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Speaker 4: Yes, you know why they're Actually they may not be

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Speaker 4: a smart family, but they recognize when they're in a

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Speaker 4: con and they're gonna rug pull people, they need to

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Speaker 4: get out before the rug gets pulled.

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Speaker 1: But half the rug was sold to the United Arab Emirates.

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Speaker 4: Discuss one of those many many things where if you

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Speaker 4: added up all the bs that the House Oversight Committee

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Speaker 4: claimed that Hunter Biden was involved in, they said, oh,

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Speaker 4: Hunter Biden and the Biden family brought in twenty seven

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Speaker 4: million dollars.

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Speaker 1: The Biden crime family.

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Speaker 4: Biden crime family. Yes, exactly twenty seven million dollars so far,

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Speaker 4: as the Times outlined, we're talking about five hundred million,

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Speaker 4: five point fifty. I think it was from the UAE,

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Speaker 4: from the Shadowy Prince as they called him, who runs

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Speaker 4: the UA's intelligence services, because that couldn't possibly be a

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Speaker 4: conflict at all, who also does a lot of business

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Speaker 4: with China.

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Speaker 1: Yeah no, no, I mean the klepto krat stuff. The

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Speaker 1: kryptocracy is just astounding. And it's so astounding that Andrew

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Speaker 1: McCarthy talk us through that, because that is so when

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Speaker 1: you've lost.

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Speaker 4: From yeah, lost Andrew McCarty. Now look, let me let

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Speaker 4: me describe it. Andrew. Andy McCarthy is I know, you know,

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Speaker 4: Andrew McCarthy is a Republican attorney, former DJ Guy conservative,

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Speaker 4: no fan of either Barack Obama or Joe Biden by

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Speaker 4: any conceivable circumstances. But I will give Andy credit on something.

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Speaker 4: He's been a very straight shooter on the Trump corruption issue.

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Speaker 4: And he has said quite openly and to the and

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Speaker 4: to the very ugly reaction of their readers, to the

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Speaker 4: readers of National Review, this corruption stinks on ice. It

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Speaker 4: is unbelievably enormous and consequential and dangerous for this country.

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Speaker 4: And Donald Trump is running basically a racket. And he

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Speaker 4: wrote a very very strong piece about it. You know,

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Speaker 4: he continued to condemn the Biden's fine whatever, but he

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Speaker 4: he laid out this unbelievably powerful case against Trump. And

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Speaker 4: the right wing reaction has been very like, how dare you, sir,

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Speaker 4: point out the criminality of our criminal.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And and I mean I think that's the problem

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Speaker 1: that you see these people are incentivized to go along

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Speaker 1: with everything because the base is so radicalized and the

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Speaker 1: base is so convinced that anything any kind of criticism

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Speaker 1: of Trump is you know, but I want you.

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Speaker 4: To get They think it gives the Libs a.

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Speaker 1: Win right, exactly as opposed, and the road to just

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Speaker 1: a complete dictatorship is paved with don't let win right

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Speaker 1: and and just this insane propaganda that Trump world needs.

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Speaker 1: And by the way, I mean that's why I want

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Speaker 1: to get to this Renee Good stuff, because.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, there's more.

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Speaker 1: It's think every day is just a nightmare of news.

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Speaker 1: Renee Good, she was murdered by Ross Jonathan Ross, an

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Speaker 1: ice agent. Now there was that one video where it

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Speaker 1: almost looked like she They had one video which was

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Speaker 1: from like ten miles away that made it look like

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Speaker 1: maybe she was trying to hit him, But every other

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Speaker 1: piece of forensic evin and shows.

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Speaker 4: It exactly was the case.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, she was turning the car, she was driving away.

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Speaker 1: She was I'm not mad, bro, and he was any shotter.

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Speaker 1: So talk to us about cash Battel.

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Speaker 4: We now know that when the FBI agents assigned to

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Speaker 4: the Minneapolis Field office began to do what they were

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Speaker 4: required by law to do, which is to their education,

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Speaker 4: their jobs, to open an investigation of the killing of

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Speaker 4: an American citizen by federal law enforcement officers. They were

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Speaker 4: told to stand down. They were examining Renee Goods vehicle

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Speaker 4: when they were told by senior FBI agents now from reporting,

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Speaker 4: including cash Ptel himself, to stop. Why would he order that?

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Speaker 4: Why would he wandered that, Molly, he would order that

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Speaker 4: because they understand what they did. They understood right away

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Speaker 4: what happened. They understand that if you, if you allow

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Speaker 4: the process of the law to play out, Jonathan Ross

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Speaker 4: and the other FBI or the other ICE agents that

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Speaker 4: were in the street that day are going to prison. Yeah,

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Speaker 4: and Trump cannot afford to let Jonathan Ross or the

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Speaker 4: guys who shot Alex Pretty go to prison. His base

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Speaker 4: has been conditioned, like you just talked about. The insane

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Speaker 4: propaganda has told seventy million Americans who loved Donald Trump

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Speaker 4: that Alex Pretty was a murderer of domestic terrorists coming

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Speaker 4: there to slaughter ICE agents, and Renee Good was a

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Speaker 4: radical left wing paid activist, lesbian danger to the lives

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Speaker 4: of these poor innocent ICE agents trying to do their job.

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Speaker 4: That propaganda machine cannot have those people go down. And

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Speaker 4: so that's why cash Bettel directly intervened, suborting a legitimate

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Speaker 4: civil rights and law enforcement investigation into the murder of

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Speaker 4: Renee Good to protect Donald Trump, and to protect worse

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Speaker 4: than just protect Donald Trump, to protect the Magan narrative.

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Speaker 4: If you're saddened and disgusted by it, folks, that's the

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Speaker 4: reaction of a normal human being.

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Speaker 1: I also think that much of the people in Trump's

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Speaker 1: second administration are here to cover for him, Yeah, cover

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Speaker 1: for his bad policy.

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Speaker 4: Abler, Right.

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Speaker 1: So it's either you know, they're covering for bad policy

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Speaker 1: and they're covering for poorly trained ice agents, or they're

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Speaker 1: covering for kleptocracy, or they're I mean, like the central

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Speaker 1: theme of this conversation right now is watching members of

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Speaker 1: Trump administration. And again, Tulsea Gabbert is a good example.

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Speaker 1: Like Tulsey knew that somebody in that talk with someone

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Speaker 1: that what she was put in place to keep from

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Speaker 1: getting in trouble wick Cough.

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Speaker 4: If it's a if it's a Cushner, if it's.

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Speaker 1: A whoever, whoever.

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Speaker 4: She she put politics above national security.

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Speaker 1: Right, And cash Battel put law and order, law and order,

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Speaker 1: and at every point here what we're seeing is an

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Speaker 1: administration that exists largely to protect Trump and protect trump Ism.

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Speaker 1: And by the way, it's a stark contrast to the Democrats,

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Speaker 1: who are I mean, what's going on.

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Speaker 4: Look, I'm going to give them props on one thing

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Speaker 4: this week because mostly my love is just tough, not

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Speaker 4: just love. But but the Democrats correctly this year held

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Speaker 4: the line on all this redistricting crap. Yes, Texas has

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Speaker 4: blown up on them and the and the whining bitches

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Speaker 4: like ted cruising, how dare you do this? But is

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Speaker 4: it redising? Which, yeah, yeah, you started it, We finished it.

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Speaker 1: Sorry Pale Virginia.

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Speaker 4: But look, they need to hold the line on on

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Speaker 4: this Epstein stuff and on Ice. They need to keep

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Speaker 4: the pressure up, not let it go down. And I

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Speaker 4: know the natural instinct of people like Chuck Schumer is like,

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Speaker 4: let's let let's breathe, let's let's all sit and reason together.

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Speaker 1: Right, that's a by gone No, my.

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Speaker 4: Honorable friend across the aisle. No, you have no honorable

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Speaker 4: friends across the aisle anymore, buddy, Yeah, they don't exist.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think there will be a moment when

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Speaker 1: things start to shift back to what American democracy once

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Speaker 1: was in the you know progs would and there is

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Speaker 1: going to need to be real introspection of how we

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Speaker 1: got here. And it means that, as you know, even

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Speaker 1: though Trump was the kleptocrat that you know that was

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Speaker 1: that that really moved us to the next level of

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Speaker 1: democratic rod there were there are ways in which we

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Speaker 1: failed to regulate that Goddess here hundreds.

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Speaker 4: Of different examples in our current moment, Molly where and

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Speaker 4: it's not always, and it's not universal. Where where normalcy

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Speaker 4: bias made Democrats think, Okay, well, I you know, the

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Speaker 4: Republican My Republican buddies are faking this. It's okay, we'll

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Speaker 4: work it out. Or hundreds of examples of normalcy bias

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Speaker 4: with Republicans who thought, you know, we can uh, he

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Speaker 4: wants to do the silly shit on Twitter, will run

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Speaker 4: the government. None of those things held up. And they

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Speaker 4: didn't hold up because as an as a country that

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Speaker 4: once believed institutions had power to keep things glued together,

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Speaker 4: those institutions kept handing Trump individually more and more and

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Speaker 4: more and more power, whether it was the Supreme Court,

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Speaker 4: whether it was Congress, whether it was the media, all

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Speaker 4: of these institutions that should have been fighting instead said,

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Speaker 4: you know what, it's too much noise, it's too loud,

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Speaker 4: there's too much risk, there's too much pain. I don't

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Speaker 4: want to be the one who goes out and loses

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Speaker 4: my job over over telling you know the truth about

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Speaker 4: this guy, and over and over again. I think that

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Speaker 4: really has something. I think you're right, we have to

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Speaker 4: We're gonna have to have a painful reconciliation when this

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Speaker 4: is over Nuremberg and it's gonna Yeah, it's gonna have

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Speaker 4: to people unless some people go to.

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Speaker 1: Jail, yeah over this and will keep happening.

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Speaker 4: It will keep happening. The incentive structure of bad action

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Speaker 4: right now has not yet met a single person being

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Speaker 4: punished for the bad actions.

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Speaker 1: That's right. I think we have to realize that it

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Speaker 1: has to change. I want to talk to you about

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Speaker 1: the This I think is actually kind of a good thing.

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Speaker 1: So Donald Trump did a racist, disgusting thing, which is

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Speaker 1: in case you're wondering his brand.

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Speaker 4: This should not surprise anyone.

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Speaker 1: Go on, Yeah, racist disgusting thing, posting a photo of

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Speaker 1: the Obamas apes, a video that had the Obamas apes.

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Speaker 1: I think this is meaningful, and you and I both

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Speaker 1: agree he was condemned.

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Speaker 4: Even by a lot of Republicans.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

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Speaker 3: I mean they.

437
00:25:41,920 --> 00:25:43,800
Speaker 4: Didn't and a lot of them didn't couch it in

438
00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:47,720
Speaker 4: the usual like this can't possibly be my beloved Donald Trump,

439
00:25:47,840 --> 00:25:51,040
Speaker 4: racial healer. Most of them like this is disgusting. Take

440
00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:51,840
Speaker 4: it the fuck down.

441
00:25:52,320 --> 00:25:56,359
Speaker 1: So we had Susan Collins, we had Tim Scott. So

442
00:25:56,440 --> 00:25:59,160
Speaker 1: what do you think? I mean, I don't think. Look,

443
00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:01,560
Speaker 1: they know he's a racist. He does a lot of

444
00:26:01,600 --> 00:26:05,879
Speaker 1: disgusting shit all the time. I think they see the

445
00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:06,920
Speaker 1: poll numbers.

446
00:26:07,400 --> 00:26:10,200
Speaker 4: I think you are absolutely correct. They see the poll

447
00:26:10,280 --> 00:26:13,119
Speaker 4: numbers and what and inside those poll numbers, And I

448
00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:15,440
Speaker 4: know this is a weird, like flashback to that redistricting

449
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:18,080
Speaker 4: conversation we were just having. When the Texas folks built

450
00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:21,400
Speaker 4: that redistricting model, they thought all Hispanic voters will behave

451
00:26:21,480 --> 00:26:23,880
Speaker 4: like they did in twenty twenty four and they'll stick

452
00:26:23,920 --> 00:26:24,399
Speaker 4: with Trump.

453
00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:26,600
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know why they thought that.

454
00:26:27,040 --> 00:26:30,160
Speaker 4: They're just not that bright. Yeah, honestly, that's a real

455
00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:32,640
Speaker 4: that's the true answer. Now they've been in a they've

456
00:26:32,640 --> 00:26:34,880
Speaker 4: been in a super majority for so long, they're arrogant.

457
00:26:34,920 --> 00:26:37,120
Speaker 4: But inside those polling numbers, we they're seeing right now

458
00:26:37,760 --> 00:26:41,800
Speaker 4: not only have the numbers with African Americans including young men,

459
00:26:41,840 --> 00:26:43,960
Speaker 4: which is where they did make some progress in twenty four,

460
00:26:44,320 --> 00:26:46,760
Speaker 4: but all African Americans, including the people they won in

461
00:26:46,800 --> 00:26:49,320
Speaker 4: twenty four, they've gone way back in the other direction.

462
00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:52,920
Speaker 4: It's worse than it's ever been for Republicans. Hispanics are

463
00:26:53,840 --> 00:26:56,440
Speaker 4: have moved way back in most states. In a couple

464
00:26:56,440 --> 00:26:58,840
Speaker 4: of states it's still lagging a little bit, But in

465
00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:01,440
Speaker 4: most states, Hispanic have gone all the way back to

466
00:27:01,520 --> 00:27:02,960
Speaker 4: where they were, or a little worse.

467
00:27:03,600 --> 00:27:07,760
Speaker 1: Ask the Democratic Mayor of Miami.

468
00:27:08,080 --> 00:27:14,080
Speaker 4: Correct and and and the consequences of ice DHS, the

469
00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:19,119
Speaker 4: ending of the TPS program throughout the Cuban and Venezuelan communities,

470
00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:21,920
Speaker 4: all these things are rippling out right now. And that

471
00:27:22,040 --> 00:27:26,160
Speaker 4: so that damage hasn't stopped, it's only just started. And

472
00:27:26,160 --> 00:27:28,560
Speaker 4: and when you go out and you use one of

473
00:27:28,600 --> 00:27:35,080
Speaker 4: the most grotesque tropes about black Americans, mm hmm. If

474
00:27:35,080 --> 00:27:37,120
Speaker 4: you want to go back to the Jim Crow era,

475
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:39,440
Speaker 4: are you want to go back to the to the

476
00:27:39,480 --> 00:27:42,280
Speaker 4: to the reconstruction era? What was it? What was the

477
00:27:42,320 --> 00:27:45,480
Speaker 4: image of black people that was portrayed in in newsprint

478
00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:48,480
Speaker 4: back then. It was the savage ape. It was the

479
00:27:48,800 --> 00:27:52,960
Speaker 4: it was the mindless you know, monkey raping women. It's

480
00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:57,400
Speaker 4: such a shitty, horrible, ancient trope. And by the way,

481
00:27:57,440 --> 00:28:00,840
Speaker 4: Trump's old enough to kind of remember some of that stuff. Yeah,

482
00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:05,560
Speaker 4: that was that had not vanished from the white discourse

483
00:28:05,640 --> 00:28:09,760
Speaker 4: about race, even in Queens in the nineteen fifties when

484
00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:10,680
Speaker 4: he was growing up.

485
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:18,600
Speaker 1: Rick Wilson Mama drunk Fast. Jonathan Blitzer is a reporter

486
00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:23,359
Speaker 1: at The New Yorker. Welcome, Welcome, Jonathan, Thanks thanks for

487
00:28:23,359 --> 00:28:28,120
Speaker 1: having me tell us the story of La Monica Magiver.

488
00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:30,920
Speaker 5: Okay, the plot itself is a little complicated, which I

489
00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:34,040
Speaker 5: think is actually part of the point of why the

490
00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:36,600
Speaker 5: administration has gone after her in the first place. Lamonica

491
00:28:36,680 --> 00:28:41,320
Speaker 5: MacIvor is a first term Democratic congresswoman from Newark and

492
00:28:41,640 --> 00:28:45,040
Speaker 5: has been a pretty outspoken advocate of immigrants rights. Not

493
00:28:45,200 --> 00:28:48,480
Speaker 5: someone by the way, who campaigned on this when she

494
00:28:48,560 --> 00:28:50,760
Speaker 5: first ran for office. This is an issue that I

495
00:28:50,760 --> 00:28:52,640
Speaker 5: think kind of fell in her lap because she saw

496
00:28:52,840 --> 00:28:54,680
Speaker 5: the you know, the way the country was going and

497
00:28:54,720 --> 00:28:56,240
Speaker 5: what was starting to happen in her district, and so

498
00:28:56,280 --> 00:28:59,240
Speaker 5: what was happening in her district was that the first

499
00:28:59,400 --> 00:29:03,200
Speaker 5: detentions center to open under the current administration is a

500
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:08,040
Speaker 5: place called Delaney Hall in Newark, which almost immediately is controversial,

501
00:29:08,080 --> 00:29:11,040
Speaker 5: not just because it's involved in the administration's broader sort

502
00:29:11,080 --> 00:29:14,840
Speaker 5: of mass deportation campaign, but because local officials from the

503
00:29:14,840 --> 00:29:17,960
Speaker 5: mayor's office and beyond were saying from the very beginning

504
00:29:18,480 --> 00:29:21,800
Speaker 5: that the private prison company that ran this facility, called

505
00:29:21,840 --> 00:29:26,040
Speaker 5: the Geogroup, wasn't getting any of the necessary municipal permits

506
00:29:26,080 --> 00:29:29,520
Speaker 5: for plumbing, for fire hazard, all the obvious stuff. They

507
00:29:29,560 --> 00:29:34,120
Speaker 5: were claiming that this was, you know, all happening on

508
00:29:34,160 --> 00:29:37,800
Speaker 5: an expedited basis. City authorities weren't being consulted. There was

509
00:29:37,840 --> 00:29:40,920
Speaker 5: all kinds of complaints about what was happening inside the facility,

510
00:29:41,200 --> 00:29:44,800
Speaker 5: and so on May ninth of last year, Congresswoman MacIvor

511
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:48,280
Speaker 5: and two other Democrats showed up unannounced to take a

512
00:29:48,360 --> 00:29:50,840
Speaker 5: tour of this detention center. Now, this is something that

513
00:29:50,880 --> 00:29:53,160
Speaker 5: members of Congress have a legal right to do. It

514
00:29:53,240 --> 00:29:56,200
Speaker 5: is written into a statute. Actually, this statute grew out

515
00:29:56,200 --> 00:29:59,320
Speaker 5: of abuses committed during Trump's first term where members of

516
00:29:59,360 --> 00:30:02,520
Speaker 5: Congress based decided that you know, if Congress is going

517
00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:05,000
Speaker 5: to appropriate money to the Department for Land Security. There

518
00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:08,800
Speaker 5: need to be some basic checks and basic oversight responsibilities

519
00:30:08,800 --> 00:30:10,800
Speaker 5: that members of Congress are allowed to have, and that

520
00:30:10,840 --> 00:30:15,280
Speaker 5: if members of Congress alert detention center authorities that they're

521
00:30:15,320 --> 00:30:17,320
Speaker 5: going to show up at a given place to conduct

522
00:30:17,320 --> 00:30:19,920
Speaker 5: a tour ahead of time, then what often happens is

523
00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:23,440
Speaker 5: the conditions get sanitized, things get clean, detainees are better treated,

524
00:30:23,440 --> 00:30:26,120
Speaker 5: et cetera. And so the idea from the very beginning

525
00:30:26,280 --> 00:30:28,280
Speaker 5: was that members of Congress should have the right to

526
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:32,000
Speaker 5: show up unannounced and give it and receive some sort

527
00:30:32,040 --> 00:30:35,280
Speaker 5: of tour of the facilities pursuant to their oversight responsibilities

528
00:30:35,280 --> 00:30:38,200
Speaker 5: in Congress. So Congresswaran MacIvor on May ninth shows up

529
00:30:38,280 --> 00:30:42,080
Speaker 5: with Bonnie Watson Coleman and Rob men Endez Junior to

530
00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:45,400
Speaker 5: conduct one of these tours, and they're basically stonewall two.

531
00:30:45,280 --> 00:30:47,400
Speaker 1: Other New Jersey congress people.

532
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:50,280
Speaker 5: That's right, and you know, both of whom are you know,

533
00:30:50,360 --> 00:30:53,880
Speaker 5: pretty outspoken immigrants rights advocates, kind of well versed in

534
00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:55,240
Speaker 5: this procedure.

535
00:30:55,400 --> 00:30:57,360
Speaker 3: Bonnie Watson Coleman is eighty years old.

536
00:30:57,560 --> 00:31:00,480
Speaker 5: They had recently the three of them visited in another

537
00:31:00,520 --> 00:31:02,720
Speaker 5: facility in New Jersey, and.

538
00:31:02,960 --> 00:31:03,760
Speaker 3: You know, showed up.

539
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:07,160
Speaker 5: Initially, the guard at the front kind of gave them

540
00:31:07,320 --> 00:31:09,680
Speaker 5: a little bit of a run around. Bonnie Watson Coleman,

541
00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:12,920
Speaker 5: eighty year old, sort of fierce season member of Congress,

542
00:31:13,240 --> 00:31:17,600
Speaker 5: produces a printed copy of the statute. They're eventually waved in,

543
00:31:17,840 --> 00:31:22,960
Speaker 5: given a tour. No problems this time. They're basically railroaded

544
00:31:23,040 --> 00:31:26,440
Speaker 5: and kind of given a whole run around. An hour passes,

545
00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:29,640
Speaker 5: an hour and a half pass. Still they're not granted

546
00:31:29,880 --> 00:31:34,000
Speaker 5: access to this particular facility. Congressman MacIver is especially annoyed

547
00:31:34,280 --> 00:31:38,560
Speaker 5: because months earlier, she and Menendez, the other congressman, had

548
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:41,960
Speaker 5: actually met with ice officers in the state to talk

549
00:31:42,040 --> 00:31:45,200
Speaker 5: precisely about doing this sort of thing, and they had

550
00:31:45,240 --> 00:31:48,080
Speaker 5: both felt like those conversations went well, that they had

551
00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:50,280
Speaker 5: been totally transparent, that they had acted in good faith,

552
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:53,200
Speaker 5: and here they were basically getting stonewalled now before they

553
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:55,040
Speaker 5: showed up. And the reason I'm telling you this whole

554
00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:58,440
Speaker 5: plot is because it actually matters. So before they showed up,

555
00:31:58,480 --> 00:32:01,440
Speaker 5: they had coordinated with the mayor of Newark, Ross Baraka

556
00:32:01,480 --> 00:32:04,360
Speaker 5: to meet them outside the facility after they were done

557
00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:07,280
Speaker 5: with their tour for a press conference, Baraka shows up.

558
00:32:07,400 --> 00:32:09,880
Speaker 5: He doesn't see the members of Congress. He assumes that

559
00:32:09,880 --> 00:32:12,160
Speaker 5: they're finishing their tour because at this point it would

560
00:32:12,160 --> 00:32:13,640
Speaker 5: have been, you know, at least a couple of hours

561
00:32:13,680 --> 00:32:17,520
Speaker 5: since they arrived. He, while standing outside, is basically allowed

562
00:32:17,680 --> 00:32:20,920
Speaker 5: in by one of the private prison guards who mans

563
00:32:20,960 --> 00:32:24,000
Speaker 5: the outer gate of the facility. He stands basically in

564
00:32:24,040 --> 00:32:26,640
Speaker 5: the outer parking lot waiting for the members of Congress

565
00:32:26,720 --> 00:32:29,480
Speaker 5: to come out. And then what follows becomes the basis

566
00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:32,840
Speaker 5: of these criminal charges brought against Congressman MacIvor, which.

567
00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:37,040
Speaker 3: Is first a bunch of armed DHS agents march out

568
00:32:37,080 --> 00:32:39,080
Speaker 3: to the parking lot, right past the three members of

569
00:32:39,160 --> 00:32:41,720
Speaker 3: Congress who have been waiting to gain entry for this tour.

570
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:46,120
Speaker 3: They go to arrest the mayor ross Baraka for trespassing. Now,

571
00:32:46,120 --> 00:32:48,920
Speaker 3: when they first threaten him with this arrest, he eventually,

572
00:32:49,080 --> 00:32:53,600
Speaker 3: after some initial hesitation, actually leaves the facility. The DHS

573
00:32:53,640 --> 00:32:58,160
Speaker 3: agents and in this case specifically ICE agents nevertheless go

574
00:32:58,360 --> 00:33:01,760
Speaker 3: outside the gates of the facility to public property to

575
00:33:01,960 --> 00:33:05,680
Speaker 3: arrest him on public property for trespassing. What we now

576
00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 3: know we didn't know in the moment, but what we now.

577
00:33:07,720 --> 00:33:10,880
Speaker 5: Know based on body camera footage was that the lead

578
00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:15,400
Speaker 5: ICE agent who goes outside to make this arrest is

579
00:33:15,480 --> 00:33:18,480
Speaker 5: on the phone, and when he finishes his call, we

580
00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:20,440
Speaker 5: don't know specifically who he's on the phone with, but

581
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:22,360
Speaker 5: when he hangs up his cell phone, he turns to

582
00:33:22,400 --> 00:33:24,960
Speaker 5: the other agents and he says to them explicitly, we

583
00:33:25,080 --> 00:33:28,320
Speaker 5: have orders from the Deputy Attorney General of the United States,

584
00:33:28,320 --> 00:33:31,760
Speaker 5: this is Todd Blanche at the Justice the number two

585
00:33:31,840 --> 00:33:35,320
Speaker 5: at the Justice Department, to go arrest the mayor of Newark,

586
00:33:35,400 --> 00:33:38,240
Speaker 5: even though he was now on public property. And so

587
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:42,680
Speaker 5: the members of Congress who are on hand are obviously outraged.

588
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:46,800
Speaker 5: They try to intercede. What follows is an incredibly chaotic

589
00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:47,760
Speaker 5: mess of a.

590
00:33:47,720 --> 00:33:50,840
Speaker 1: Situation which I've seen videos exactly.

591
00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:51,880
Speaker 5: And a lot of people have probably at this point

592
00:33:51,880 --> 00:33:55,400
Speaker 5: seen some snippet of video, and in the course of

593
00:33:55,560 --> 00:33:58,400
Speaker 5: this kind of general altercation is these agents try to

594
00:33:58,440 --> 00:34:03,280
Speaker 5: surround and arrest ross Broca. Congresswoman MacIver makes contact with

595
00:34:03,440 --> 00:34:06,600
Speaker 5: two of the ICE agents at two different moments in

596
00:34:06,640 --> 00:34:10,240
Speaker 5: this kind of whole scene, and at the time doesn't

597
00:34:10,239 --> 00:34:14,640
Speaker 5: even realize that she did anything that the government found objectionable,

598
00:34:14,680 --> 00:34:18,120
Speaker 5: because what happened was these ICE agents eventually take ross

599
00:34:18,120 --> 00:34:20,640
Speaker 5: Baraka away, and the three members of Congress after this

600
00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:23,919
Speaker 5: whole drama are basically allowed to go on their tour.

601
00:34:24,239 --> 00:34:27,200
Speaker 5: And so it's not until ten days later that the

602
00:34:27,280 --> 00:34:31,480
Speaker 5: congresswoman realizes, in the form of hearing an announcement from

603
00:34:31,520 --> 00:34:35,360
Speaker 5: the then US Attorney in New Jersey, that she was

604
00:34:35,400 --> 00:34:38,480
Speaker 5: being charged with a crime of assaulting to federal agents.

605
00:34:38,560 --> 00:34:42,280
Speaker 5: And when the US Attorney announces that, she simultaneously announces

606
00:34:42,280 --> 00:34:45,400
Speaker 5: that they're actually dropping the trespassing charges against Ross Barrokka

607
00:34:45,480 --> 00:34:47,360
Speaker 5: because there was never any substance of those charges to

608
00:34:47,360 --> 00:34:50,160
Speaker 5: begin with. And that's what begins this legal saga for

609
00:34:50,200 --> 00:34:51,440
Speaker 5: Congresswoman maciv.

610
00:34:51,400 --> 00:34:54,279
Speaker 1: And is she the only one of that group that's

611
00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:55,200
Speaker 1: being prosecuted?

612
00:34:55,440 --> 00:34:55,879
Speaker 3: That's right?

613
00:34:56,200 --> 00:34:56,640
Speaker 1: Why?

614
00:34:56,920 --> 00:34:58,120
Speaker 3: Well, it's a good question. You know.

615
00:34:58,160 --> 00:34:59,880
Speaker 5: I've thought a lot about this, and I think there

616
00:35:00,120 --> 00:35:03,600
Speaker 5: probably two general ways to explain. The first is just

617
00:35:03,680 --> 00:35:06,160
Speaker 5: in terms of the actual plot points of what happened

618
00:35:06,160 --> 00:35:09,719
Speaker 5: that day. There is no question that Congressman MacIvor, as

619
00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:12,880
Speaker 5: compared to the other two congressmen there was the most exercised,

620
00:35:12,920 --> 00:35:16,160
Speaker 5: the most upset, the most willing to dive into the fray.

621
00:35:16,440 --> 00:35:19,040
Speaker 1: Not illegal, though not illegal.

622
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:21,080
Speaker 5: Not particularly objectionable, and I will say, by the way,

623
00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:24,480
Speaker 5: I've now interviewed a number of current and former DOJ

624
00:35:24,800 --> 00:35:28,360
Speaker 5: officials who had visibility into these types of investigations. In

625
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:30,160
Speaker 5: the past, there used to be an office at the

626
00:35:30,160 --> 00:35:33,440
Speaker 5: Department of Justice called the Public Integrity Section that basically

627
00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:36,719
Speaker 5: would be consulted and would need to sign off anytime

628
00:35:36,760 --> 00:35:39,920
Speaker 5: the Department of Justice wanted to charge a member of Congress,

629
00:35:40,160 --> 00:35:43,839
Speaker 5: precisely because after Watergate there was this great fear that,

630
00:35:43,920 --> 00:35:47,040
Speaker 5: if unchecked, the Department of Justice could weaponize the justice

631
00:35:47,040 --> 00:35:50,520
Speaker 5: system against political opponents. But you know, a week before

632
00:35:51,040 --> 00:35:55,000
Speaker 5: Congressman Macchiv was charged, that office, the Public Integrity Section

633
00:35:55,080 --> 00:35:58,560
Speaker 5: was basically dismantled, And so you know, by any objective standard,

634
00:35:58,560 --> 00:36:01,319
Speaker 5: the idea that they're bringing charges against her is outlandish

635
00:36:01,400 --> 00:36:05,120
Speaker 5: and very scary. But if you spend time pouring over

636
00:36:05,400 --> 00:36:08,680
Speaker 5: this footage, she I think probably looks like the easiest

637
00:36:08,719 --> 00:36:12,759
Speaker 5: target because she really is upset, she's swearing, she's outspoken.

638
00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:15,360
Speaker 5: I will say, for what it's worth, you know, Bonnie

639
00:36:15,400 --> 00:36:18,240
Speaker 5: Watson Coleman is eighty years old. She's right there next

640
00:36:18,239 --> 00:36:20,759
Speaker 5: to Maciv by the way, But I think probably a

641
00:36:20,840 --> 00:36:22,399
Speaker 5: lot harder to make a strong.

642
00:36:22,160 --> 00:36:24,520
Speaker 3: Case against an eighty year old member of Congress.

643
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:26,000
Speaker 5: I first, like want to go through those sort of

644
00:36:26,080 --> 00:36:29,160
Speaker 5: plot preliminaries before I say this, but I do think

645
00:36:29,480 --> 00:36:32,640
Speaker 5: race has a lot to do with the fact that

646
00:36:32,120 --> 00:36:35,160
Speaker 5: the government has alighted on Congresswoman MacIvor.

647
00:36:35,239 --> 00:36:39,040
Speaker 3: You have a young black congresswoman in her first term from.

648
00:36:38,920 --> 00:36:42,879
Speaker 5: Newark, who doesn't have a deep pocket, who doesn't have

649
00:36:43,120 --> 00:36:46,400
Speaker 5: a lot of resources at her disposal, who has turned into,

650
00:36:46,719 --> 00:36:49,600
Speaker 5: by the government's design, the kind of face of this,

651
00:36:49,920 --> 00:36:52,800
Speaker 5: you know, sort of angry, physical resistance to ice. And

652
00:36:53,120 --> 00:36:56,040
Speaker 5: that's kind of what the government script has been from

653
00:36:56,040 --> 00:36:58,640
Speaker 5: the very start, and so to the extent that they can,

654
00:36:58,920 --> 00:37:03,160
Speaker 5: they've tried to isolate images of just her physically clashing

655
00:37:03,160 --> 00:37:06,480
Speaker 5: with these agents without really panning out and allowing people

656
00:37:06,480 --> 00:37:08,200
Speaker 5: to see or understand the broader context.

657
00:37:08,560 --> 00:37:10,560
Speaker 3: And at various points.

658
00:37:10,160 --> 00:37:12,520
Speaker 5: In this kind of legal saga, which is very much ongoing,

659
00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:16,600
Speaker 5: the government has actually put out very obvious lies about

660
00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:19,120
Speaker 5: what happened. And this isn't my judgment, This isn't even

661
00:37:19,120 --> 00:37:21,640
Speaker 5: my judgment after having watched the tape and interviewed people

662
00:37:21,680 --> 00:37:24,760
Speaker 5: and interviewed witnesses and so on. But an actual district

663
00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:27,000
Speaker 5: court judge who's been hearing this case at a certain

664
00:37:27,040 --> 00:37:29,840
Speaker 5: point had to issue orders to the Justice Department saying, look,

665
00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:34,480
Speaker 5: you can't have government agencies putting out lies and misinformation

666
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:36,640
Speaker 5: about the details of this case while this case is pending.

667
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:38,279
Speaker 5: And at a certain point I was in court what

668
00:37:38,400 --> 00:37:41,359
Speaker 5: had happened. One of the DOJ lawyers basically shrugged and said,

669
00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:44,839
Speaker 5: this is all coming from headquarters at the Department of Homelandsecurity.

670
00:37:44,880 --> 00:37:47,040
Speaker 5: We don't have control over this, which gives you a

671
00:37:47,080 --> 00:37:49,399
Speaker 5: sense I think of how this whole thing has been

672
00:37:49,480 --> 00:37:52,760
Speaker 5: really a kind of political project from the start.

673
00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:54,200
Speaker 1: Where is the case now?

674
00:37:54,480 --> 00:37:58,959
Speaker 5: The case now is basically in a process of pre

675
00:37:59,040 --> 00:38:03,239
Speaker 5: trial appeals, so basically comes from Maciver's lawyers tried to

676
00:38:03,239 --> 00:38:05,319
Speaker 5: get the case thrown out on two grounds. First that

677
00:38:05,360 --> 00:38:10,040
Speaker 5: this represented a selective and vindictive prosecution of democratic critic of.

678
00:38:10,040 --> 00:38:13,040
Speaker 1: The administration, which it clearly did. Which it did, but which.

679
00:38:12,960 --> 00:38:16,239
Speaker 5: Like legally, is a very hard thing to prove and

680
00:38:16,400 --> 00:38:18,120
Speaker 5: was kind of always going to be an uphill battle

681
00:38:18,200 --> 00:38:23,480
Speaker 5: from a legal perspective. The second claim that Maciver's lawyers made,

682
00:38:23,480 --> 00:38:25,800
Speaker 5: which I actually thought potentially would have more attraction.

683
00:38:25,880 --> 00:38:26,520
Speaker 3: I'm not a lawyer.

684
00:38:26,520 --> 00:38:28,359
Speaker 5: But my understanding was that this had a little bit

685
00:38:28,400 --> 00:38:31,759
Speaker 5: more give was that she had legislative community because she

686
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:34,479
Speaker 5: basically showed up that day to conduct oversight. She wasn't

687
00:38:34,480 --> 00:38:38,439
Speaker 5: there to participate in a protest, and arguably even when

688
00:38:38,440 --> 00:38:41,200
Speaker 5: she left the facility to figure out what was going on.

689
00:38:41,640 --> 00:38:43,880
Speaker 5: You know, her lawyers have said, look, Ross Broka, the

690
00:38:43,920 --> 00:38:46,600
Speaker 5: mayor of Newark is one of her constituents. I mean,

691
00:38:46,600 --> 00:38:50,480
Speaker 5: insofar as she's there to oversee ICE's conduct and behavior

692
00:38:50,520 --> 00:38:53,560
Speaker 5: at this facility, it's not out of the question to

693
00:38:53,760 --> 00:38:57,360
Speaker 5: characterize her even being outside the facility interceding in that moment,

694
00:38:57,600 --> 00:39:00,440
Speaker 5: as being some form of oversight. But that does require

695
00:39:00,520 --> 00:39:02,760
Speaker 5: a bit of an extended legal argument, and the judge

696
00:39:02,920 --> 00:39:06,120
Speaker 5: so far has refused to accept those claims. And so

697
00:39:06,160 --> 00:39:09,319
Speaker 5: this case is moving toward a jury trial. There's going

698
00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:10,640
Speaker 5: to be kind of a little bit more back and

699
00:39:10,680 --> 00:39:13,520
Speaker 5: forth in the appellate process, but it seems possible, if

700
00:39:13,520 --> 00:39:15,719
Speaker 5: not likely, that this case will go to trial this year.

701
00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:17,879
Speaker 5: And to be clear of the stakes, you know, all

702
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:20,080
Speaker 5: the chargers have these kind of maximum sentences. If you

703
00:39:20,160 --> 00:39:23,960
Speaker 5: add them all up, what she faces potentially is seventeen

704
00:39:24,040 --> 00:39:27,920
Speaker 5: years in prison for allegedly assaulting these two federal agents.

705
00:39:28,360 --> 00:39:32,000
Speaker 1: This is so fucking nuts. Now, I want you to

706
00:39:32,120 --> 00:39:36,640
Speaker 1: talk about another piece you wrote five years ago when

707
00:39:36,680 --> 00:39:39,440
Speaker 1: we were all still in our thirties. Actually I was

708
00:39:39,640 --> 00:39:42,799
Speaker 1: just in my forties, but when we were young and

709
00:39:43,400 --> 00:39:48,840
Speaker 1: life was good, the salad days. Explain to us this story.

710
00:39:48,640 --> 00:39:50,120
Speaker 3: This is about Stephen Miller.

711
00:39:50,280 --> 00:39:50,680
Speaker 1: Yeah.

712
00:39:50,760 --> 00:39:55,160
Speaker 5: Well, you know, it's interesting because this story about hungressoan MacIvor.

713
00:39:55,600 --> 00:39:57,840
Speaker 5: In some ways, there is also a story about Miller's

714
00:39:58,160 --> 00:40:01,600
Speaker 5: increasing influence from Trump One to Trump too. At the

715
00:40:01,719 --> 00:40:05,480
Speaker 5: tail end of the first Trump administration, I profiled Stephen Miller,

716
00:40:05,480 --> 00:40:08,839
Speaker 5: and at the time I was fascinated by his role

717
00:40:08,880 --> 00:40:11,880
Speaker 5: in that administration, particularly because you know, I spent most

718
00:40:11,920 --> 00:40:15,040
Speaker 5: of my time covering immigration and politics at the New Yorker,

719
00:40:15,360 --> 00:40:17,840
Speaker 5: and what I was seeing and hearing from people inside

720
00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:20,880
Speaker 5: that first Trump administration, whether you know high ranking political

721
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:25,080
Speaker 5: appointees or you know career civil servants at key agencies

722
00:40:25,160 --> 00:40:29,360
Speaker 5: or in key offices, was that this young upstart Stephen Miller,

723
00:40:29,440 --> 00:40:31,880
Speaker 5: who for you know, much of his career in Washington,

724
00:40:32,320 --> 00:40:34,200
Speaker 5: was kind of in the wilderness of the Republican Party

725
00:40:34,239 --> 00:40:36,320
Speaker 5: and was seen as something of a crank and an

726
00:40:36,360 --> 00:40:39,920
Speaker 5: absolutely unhinged ideologue on the issue of immigration, was actually

727
00:40:39,960 --> 00:40:42,960
Speaker 5: punching above his weight inside that administration and getting major

728
00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:43,640
Speaker 5: things done.

729
00:40:43,760 --> 00:40:45,359
Speaker 3: And so the idea was to try to understand how

730
00:40:45,360 --> 00:40:46,040
Speaker 3: that was happening.

731
00:40:46,200 --> 00:40:50,040
Speaker 1: And it's important just to remind people that he worked

732
00:40:50,400 --> 00:40:56,640
Speaker 1: for the really the absolute worst Alabama senator, is that

733
00:40:56,719 --> 00:40:59,080
Speaker 1: fair to say, And that's how he came up. Talk

734
00:40:59,120 --> 00:41:00,000
Speaker 1: about how he came up.

735
00:41:00,160 --> 00:41:04,880
Speaker 5: Miller's trajectory is incredibly interesting in striking because he basically

736
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:08,239
Speaker 5: went from you know, really being in a kind of

737
00:41:08,320 --> 00:41:11,680
Speaker 5: circle of the Republican Party that most Republicans wrote off

738
00:41:11,960 --> 00:41:15,719
Speaker 5: as being crazy and irrelevant. So basically, Miller kind of

739
00:41:15,760 --> 00:41:19,320
Speaker 5: first came to semi prominence in Republican circles in Washington

740
00:41:19,400 --> 00:41:23,080
Speaker 5: when he worked as the communications director to then Alabama

741
00:41:23,120 --> 00:41:24,560
Speaker 5: Senator Jeff Sessions.

742
00:41:24,440 --> 00:41:28,640
Speaker 1: Right, who was one of the first Trump endorsements, right.

743
00:41:28,840 --> 00:41:32,600
Speaker 5: The first Republican senator to endorse Trump in twenty sixteen.

744
00:41:32,840 --> 00:41:36,560
Speaker 5: And actually that story is interesting because you know, Sessions

745
00:41:36,600 --> 00:41:40,560
Speaker 5: was someone who inside the Republican Party had always been

746
00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:45,000
Speaker 5: probably one of the most conservative, hostile voices on immigration

747
00:41:45,200 --> 00:41:48,400
Speaker 5: in all forms, not just the idea of border crossings.

748
00:41:48,400 --> 00:41:51,920
Speaker 5: And so on but specifically wanting to actually restrict the

749
00:41:52,000 --> 00:41:55,400
Speaker 5: legal immigration system. He's someone who had a kind of deep,

750
00:41:55,600 --> 00:41:58,960
Speaker 5: thorough going vision of you know, the need for the

751
00:41:59,040 --> 00:42:02,799
Speaker 5: US to tamp down on immigration in all forms. And

752
00:42:02,840 --> 00:42:05,840
Speaker 5: as a result, he again was on the margins of

753
00:42:05,880 --> 00:42:09,040
Speaker 5: the Republican Party. He didn't have the influence to persuade

754
00:42:09,040 --> 00:42:12,200
Speaker 5: people to his position, but he and Miller quickly realized

755
00:42:12,200 --> 00:42:16,239
Speaker 5: that they had the influence to sabotage, you know, legislative

756
00:42:16,280 --> 00:42:19,239
Speaker 5: efforts to you know, work on this issue. And so

757
00:42:19,280 --> 00:42:22,839
Speaker 5: in twenty thirteen, when the Obama administration was trying to

758
00:42:22,880 --> 00:42:26,560
Speaker 5: shepherd comprehensive immigration reform through Congress, you know, it passed

759
00:42:26,600 --> 00:42:29,200
Speaker 5: through the Senate and basically languished in the House, which

760
00:42:29,239 --> 00:42:31,360
Speaker 5: at the time was controlled by Republicans, and the Republican

761
00:42:31,360 --> 00:42:32,880
Speaker 5: speaker didn't want to bring it to the floor for

762
00:42:32,920 --> 00:42:35,279
Speaker 5: a vote because it was, you know, kind of too

763
00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:39,360
Speaker 5: tendentious inside his conference, even though a majority of members

764
00:42:39,360 --> 00:42:42,640
Speaker 5: of Congress probably would have supported that comprehensive reform push.

765
00:42:42,760 --> 00:42:46,080
Speaker 5: And the role of Miller in Sessions in scuttling that

766
00:42:46,200 --> 00:42:50,560
Speaker 5: deal is quite important because it showed, first of all,

767
00:42:50,680 --> 00:42:54,680
Speaker 5: that they could have significant influence even though they were

768
00:42:54,760 --> 00:42:57,080
Speaker 5: on the margins. I mean, Miller is someone who you know,

769
00:42:57,080 --> 00:42:59,239
Speaker 5: I should say, And this came up when I first

770
00:42:59,239 --> 00:43:03,319
Speaker 5: profiled him. You know, I interviewed congressional staffers, members of Congress,

771
00:43:03,360 --> 00:43:06,840
Speaker 5: the usual suspects in Republican life in DC at that time,

772
00:43:07,040 --> 00:43:10,920
Speaker 5: who basically said, every day they get these crazy, long,

773
00:43:11,440 --> 00:43:16,399
Speaker 5: nutty emails for Miller, pushing all kinds of outrageous conspiracy

774
00:43:16,400 --> 00:43:19,600
Speaker 5: theories or kind of racist views of immigration and immigrants,

775
00:43:19,920 --> 00:43:22,319
Speaker 5: and they would basically just delete these emails and like

776
00:43:22,320 --> 00:43:24,120
Speaker 5: to the extent that any of them could ignore the

777
00:43:24,160 --> 00:43:27,600
Speaker 5: guy because he was just so far afield. But here

778
00:43:27,640 --> 00:43:30,799
Speaker 5: in twenty thirteen twenty fourteen, there was this real kind

779
00:43:30,800 --> 00:43:34,960
Speaker 5: of inflection point inside the party where Miller and Sessions

780
00:43:35,040 --> 00:43:39,719
Speaker 5: were able to attack other Republicans for being kind of

781
00:43:39,760 --> 00:43:42,680
Speaker 5: insufficiently conservative on the immigration issue. And this is where

782
00:43:42,680 --> 00:43:45,560
Speaker 5: they started to flirt with really blasting out lies about

783
00:43:45,560 --> 00:43:48,240
Speaker 5: different aspects of that reform bill. They went at people

784
00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:50,759
Speaker 5: like Marco Rubio, people who at the time had a

785
00:43:50,760 --> 00:43:54,800
Speaker 5: more moderate bent on immigration reform, and in the process

786
00:43:54,960 --> 00:43:57,279
Speaker 5: a number of people said to me, Miller kind of

787
00:43:57,320 --> 00:44:02,359
Speaker 5: got this perverse education in immigration policy and immigration law,

788
00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:04,879
Speaker 5: because essentially what he was doing was trying to find

789
00:44:04,880 --> 00:44:07,200
Speaker 5: where all of the bodies were buried in terms of

790
00:44:07,239 --> 00:44:11,319
Speaker 5: past legislative consensus on immigration policy, because he was now

791
00:44:11,320 --> 00:44:15,200
Speaker 5: trying to weaponize this issue to go after other Republicans

792
00:44:15,239 --> 00:44:17,040
Speaker 5: to get them on sort of more or less on

793
00:44:17,080 --> 00:44:19,759
Speaker 5: his side, or the very least, you know, lining them

794
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:23,240
Speaker 5: up against any kind of productive legislation on the subject.

795
00:44:23,440 --> 00:44:25,720
Speaker 5: And so this is where Miller really, i think, first

796
00:44:25,840 --> 00:44:30,120
Speaker 5: rose to prominence. And when Trump announced his candidacy back

797
00:44:30,160 --> 00:44:33,960
Speaker 5: in twenty fifteen, there was a fascinating conversation that Joshua

798
00:44:33,960 --> 00:44:35,960
Speaker 5: Green reports on in his book, which I think remains

799
00:44:35,960 --> 00:44:38,600
Speaker 5: the kind of definitive account of this conversation what josh

800
00:44:38,719 --> 00:44:41,879
Speaker 5: Wass book, Devil's Bargain, It's about Steve Bannon and kind

801
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:45,880
Speaker 5: of this world. And it was incredibly illuminating to me

802
00:44:45,920 --> 00:44:48,319
Speaker 5: at the time because it was a conversation essentially in

803
00:44:48,360 --> 00:44:54,240
Speaker 5: which Steve Bannon had this talk with Jeff Sessions and said, look,

804
00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:57,840
Speaker 5: this is your chance. You have had this view on

805
00:44:57,920 --> 00:45:01,920
Speaker 5: immigration forever, and you're basically and finally you have a

806
00:45:01,960 --> 00:45:06,280
Speaker 5: guy in Trump who's charismatic enough and who's forceful enough

807
00:45:06,680 --> 00:45:11,400
Speaker 5: to kind of personify your positions and to actually, you know,

808
00:45:12,000 --> 00:45:15,920
Speaker 5: be a mouthpiece for a worldview that you've had forever.

809
00:45:16,280 --> 00:45:20,120
Speaker 5: So you know, endorse this guy and like your agenda

810
00:45:20,239 --> 00:45:24,839
Speaker 5: will finally get the kind of prominence it deserves. And

811
00:45:24,880 --> 00:45:27,800
Speaker 5: that was the basis of Sessions coming out and endorsing

812
00:45:27,800 --> 00:45:30,280
Speaker 5: Trump and being the first Republican senator to endorsed Trump.

813
00:45:30,360 --> 00:45:32,520
Speaker 5: And it mattered at the time very much for Trump,

814
00:45:32,640 --> 00:45:36,160
Speaker 5: who didn't have the conservative credentials among the real ideologues,

815
00:45:36,200 --> 00:45:38,600
Speaker 5: and so the idea of having someone like Jeff Sessions

816
00:45:38,960 --> 00:45:42,640
Speaker 5: vouch for his conservatism, you know, meant something to the

817
00:45:42,640 --> 00:45:45,680
Speaker 5: ideologus and the party. And Miller was one of the

818
00:45:45,719 --> 00:45:50,080
Speaker 5: first people to actually work on Trump's nascent presidential campaign

819
00:45:50,120 --> 00:45:52,080
Speaker 5: at a time when you know, most people wrote it

820
00:45:52,120 --> 00:45:53,239
Speaker 5: off as a clown show.

821
00:45:53,320 --> 00:45:57,319
Speaker 3: And so that began Miller's real assent in Trump's.

822
00:45:57,080 --> 00:46:03,840
Speaker 1: Washington unbelievably disturbing and also insane. Yeah, oh yeah, Jonathan,

823
00:46:03,920 --> 00:46:05,720
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you for joining us.

824
00:46:05,840 --> 00:46:06,880
Speaker 3: Oh thanks for having me.

825
00:46:09,239 --> 00:46:14,239
Speaker 1: No moment time, Rick Wilson by the junk folst we

826
00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:15,080
Speaker 1: are at that time?

827
00:46:15,400 --> 00:46:17,200
Speaker 4: Is it that moment of fuckery? I have one for

828
00:46:17,239 --> 00:46:17,640
Speaker 4: this week?

829
00:46:17,920 --> 00:46:20,680
Speaker 1: Yes, we hear it. Yes, So if you are a.

830
00:46:20,600 --> 00:46:24,040
Speaker 4: Guy brought in by a billionaire to run a fabled,

831
00:46:24,600 --> 00:46:28,759
Speaker 4: storied journalistic institution like the Washington Post, and then you

832
00:46:28,800 --> 00:46:34,040
Speaker 4: proceed to turn it into a Trump cheer squad, and

833
00:46:34,400 --> 00:46:37,040
Speaker 4: it starts to fall apart, you start losing readership because

834
00:46:37,080 --> 00:46:39,840
Speaker 4: no one needs Fox Light, no one wants diet Fox

835
00:46:39,880 --> 00:46:42,360
Speaker 4: as I like to say that if they wanted that

836
00:46:42,440 --> 00:46:44,400
Speaker 4: kind of crap, they go to the Washington Times. And

837
00:46:44,440 --> 00:46:47,080
Speaker 4: then you destroy the quality of the paper. Then you

838
00:46:47,480 --> 00:46:51,200
Speaker 4: fire a third of the staff seemingly kind of at random,

839
00:46:51,640 --> 00:46:55,480
Speaker 4: and then you go and have parties at the Super

840
00:46:55,480 --> 00:46:58,000
Speaker 4: Bowl week out in San Francisco and don't even bother

841
00:46:58,160 --> 00:47:00,680
Speaker 4: to join the zoom call. Firing eight hundred people.

842
00:47:00,719 --> 00:47:02,120
Speaker 1: Walk the ropeline.

843
00:47:02,560 --> 00:47:06,680
Speaker 4: Maybe maybe when you get fired yourself, it's karma. And

844
00:47:06,760 --> 00:47:09,040
Speaker 4: I think the karma of him getting fired at the

845
00:47:09,080 --> 00:47:10,680
Speaker 4: Post is perfection.

846
00:47:11,120 --> 00:47:14,360
Speaker 1: And you'll remember that Will Lewis did not want to

847
00:47:14,480 --> 00:47:18,879
Speaker 1: cover the phone hacking scandal which he was involved in,

848
00:47:19,360 --> 00:47:23,239
Speaker 1: and that is why Sally Buzby, the editor of the

849
00:47:23,320 --> 00:47:27,840
Speaker 1: Washington Post, quit, So he has long been a bad actor.

850
00:47:27,960 --> 00:47:29,520
Speaker 1: During his two year term, he.

851
00:47:29,520 --> 00:47:32,080
Speaker 4: Comes out of the rupert versus people right.

852
00:47:32,239 --> 00:47:36,000
Speaker 1: Now that said, the Wall Street Journal is doing excellent reporting.

853
00:47:36,200 --> 00:47:37,920
Speaker 4: So I got to give the Wall Street Journal a

854
00:47:37,960 --> 00:47:39,960
Speaker 4: lot of credit right now, Molly, they have been hammering

855
00:47:40,000 --> 00:47:43,400
Speaker 4: tongs on all this stuff lately, and there seems to

856
00:47:43,400 --> 00:47:45,200
Speaker 4: be a flavor change over there. I don't know what

857
00:47:45,280 --> 00:47:46,239
Speaker 4: it is quite.

858
00:47:46,160 --> 00:47:50,239
Speaker 1: From the Tucker Baby woman had her own chief. God blesser, yeah,

859
00:47:50,280 --> 00:47:53,600
Speaker 1: God blesser. But I do think. Look, Jeff Bezos has

860
00:47:53,880 --> 00:47:57,640
Speaker 1: many billions of dollars. He has bought the Washington Post.

861
00:47:58,000 --> 00:48:01,040
Speaker 1: He has destroyed the Washington Post. Now he refuses to

862
00:48:01,080 --> 00:48:05,160
Speaker 1: sell the Washington Post. Right, someday Jeff Bezos, probably sooner

863
00:48:05,239 --> 00:48:08,520
Speaker 1: rather than later, will pretend that he never did any

864
00:48:08,560 --> 00:48:11,960
Speaker 1: of this. Just like when you watch those videos of

865
00:48:12,080 --> 00:48:16,000
Speaker 1: Jadvan's being booed at the Olympics, you know that this

866
00:48:16,080 --> 00:48:18,560
Speaker 1: worm is going to turn real fast and these people

867
00:48:18,960 --> 00:48:21,480
Speaker 1: are going to have to pretend they were never involved

868
00:48:21,480 --> 00:48:21,759
Speaker 1: in it.

869
00:48:22,000 --> 00:48:24,560
Speaker 4: There's a book out right now. It's about Israel and Gaza,

870
00:48:24,600 --> 00:48:27,840
Speaker 4: but it's called Someday Everyone will have been against this. Yeah,

871
00:48:27,880 --> 00:48:30,720
Speaker 4: and someday everyone will have been against all of this. Yeah,

872
00:48:30,880 --> 00:48:33,640
Speaker 4: they will all know. I wasn't me, man, I wasn't

873
00:48:33,680 --> 00:48:35,799
Speaker 4: that guy. But they all will be that guy the

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00:48:35,840 --> 00:48:37,160
Speaker 4: Internet does not forget.

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Speaker 1: Hopefully that'll be sooner rather than later. Thank you, Rick Wilson.

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Speaker 4: See Yah.

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Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in

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Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best

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00:48:53,600 --> 00:48:57,920
Speaker 1: minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If

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00:48:57,920 --> 00:49:01,000
Speaker 1: you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend

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00:49:01,400 --> 00:49:04,640
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.