WEBVTT - Trump Has Created An Environment That's Ripe For Political Violence 0:00:03.720 --> 0:00:06.800 Well, good Monday morning, Welcome to another episode of the 0:00:06.920 --> 0:00:10.400 Chuck Podcast. I really want to be uplifting. I'm not 0:00:10.440 --> 0:00:12.959 gonna lie to you, but first of all, even in 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:19.160 my even in the world of lightness, meaning my sports fandom, 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:22.280 I'm feeling down in the dumps thanks to the Nats 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:30.840 getting swept by the Freakin' Marlins, the forkin' Marlins. I'm 0:00:30.880 --> 0:00:33.879 going to get this rant out of the way really fast, 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:37.360 but let me just say, as much as I love 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:40.440 Davey Martinez, it's time to go. It is time to go. 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:43.520 We need a house cleaning with the Gnats. It's pretty 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:46.800 clear this coaching staff and these players are not connecting, 0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:49.320 and he threw the players under the bus over the weekend. 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:51.559 It's bad. So I say. 0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:56.440 This, this is the lightest thing I'm going to talk about, 0:00:56.560 --> 0:00:59.880 because we are obviously living into some a very very 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:02.280 dark period. So if you are listening this on a 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:06.760 Monday morning, it is painfully obvious. But the world and 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:10.160 this country are in desperate need of presidential leadership, and 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:12.320 we're about to find out whether Donald Trump is up 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:15.919 to the moment. And I'm saying it that way because 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:19.039 we almost have no choice, because I know many of 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:21.200 you don't believe he's up to the moment. I know 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:24.039 many of you believe he's caused all these moments. I'm 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:27.200 a huge skeptic myself. But here's the reality. We don't 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:29.520 get to pick a different president just because the moment 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:32.080 feels bigger than the man in office. At least, we 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:34.479 don't get to pick one yet. You only get one 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:36.399 president at a time. And when you consider the two 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:41.080 biggest stories dominating the globe right now, growing unrest in 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:43.960 the United States and a spiraling hot war in the 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:47.400 Middle East, both require someone who can lower the temperature. 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:52.120 And right now there's only one person who who can 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:55.800 do this if he so chooses, and it is Donald 0:01:56.000 --> 0:01:59.640 John Trump. Ironically, he may be more inclined to try 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:04.000 to turn the temperature down overseas before he ever considers 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:05.720 that doing it here at home. And I'll get to 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:09.520 that Sunday Night on my new program for Newsphere, the 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:12.600 app Sunday Nights with Chuck Todd. Please take a look 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:14.960 get the Free trial right now you can catch up 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:18.040 with the ban and interview in this My latest interview 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:20.680 is with Treta Parsi. He's written three books on Israel 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:23.680 and Iran. He's easily one of the most sober clinically 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:27.360 minded journalists and observers of that region and conflict you 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:32.000 can find deeply sourced in Jerusalem and Tehran. And he 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:34.720 made one thing clear in our conversation. There's only one 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:36.800 person who can bring this war to an end right now, 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:40.640 and it's Donald Trump. Because if the American President can't 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:44.120 pull the right levers, no one else can in that region. 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:47.400 No one else can get both either Iran or Israel 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:50.920 to pull back from the break here. And yet you 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:53.800 do have a situation where Trump's political base is not 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:58.960 exactly looking for more political, more foreign entanglements. You could 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:02.000 argue that Trump rose to power taking over the Republican 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:04.959 Party by attacking the neo conservative foreign policy of the 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:10.560 Bush Romney wing, or frankly, the Eisenhower Romney foreign policy 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:15.440 consensus that has dominated Republican politics for a couple of generations. 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:18.600 He branded Bush era interventionism as a failure, and he 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:22.320 turned much of the GOP against it. His America first 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:25.440 instincts are now baked into his coalition, particularly when it 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:28.760 comes to Ukraine, for instance. And we're going to find 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:31.800 out about Iran it is a different ballgame, but it 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:35.720 may be similar feelings about it. Some of Trump's biggest 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:37.960 donors and even some of his business partners in the 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:44.280 region are actually strongly supportive of Israel's campaign to weaken Iran, 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:48.520 but not the active rank and file base, the ones 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:52.280 that buy into America First and a bit of the isolationism. 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:55.119 And it's been interesting to watch Trump over the last 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:57.200 seventy two hours. He claimed that since he is the 0:03:57.200 --> 0:04:00.000 only one, it's interesting here and this whole idea is 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:02.680 violating his America First policies. Well, he was asked this 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:05.600 earlier on Sunday and he said he was the only one. 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:08.320 He says, well, considering that I'm the one that developed 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:11.040 America First, and he put that in quotes, and considering 0:04:11.040 --> 0:04:13.160 that the term wasn't used until I came along, I 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:16.640 think I'm the one that decides that, meaning what falls 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:20.560 under the American First umbrella. Now, Donald Trump, obviously no 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:24.880 student of history isn't fully either isn't aware or chooses 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:27.080 not to be aware that America First was a big 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:29.400 movement inside the Republican Party. 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:30.719 In the nineteen twenties and thirties. 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:36.160 So he is simply borrowing something that existed before rebranding 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:39.080 it as his and claiming no one's ever invented a 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:41.680 political movement like this. So the bottom line is, though, 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:45.120 is that what it does tell you is that he's 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:47.680 going to try to whatever he ends up doing, he's 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:50.400 going to try to sell his base that this is 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:53.479 a good thing and that this falls under America First. 0:04:53.960 --> 0:04:57.080 So that may explain why you've seen a bit of 0:04:57.120 --> 0:05:01.600 whiplash with Trump, while so him quickly praise what appeared 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:06.360 to be an early Israeli success. Right, the decapitation strike 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:09.000 on the military leadership of Iran felt like we were 0:05:09.000 --> 0:05:13.120 seeing a rerun of what happened with Hesbola. But the strike, 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:19.280 while lethal, wasn't necessarily decapitating. Right, the nuclear program remains intact, 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:22.520 and now the war threatens to escalate, and there doesn't 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:25.120 appear to be a clear exit strategy because you now 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:30.720 have domestic you have domestic influences on both Iran and 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:35.520 Iran's leaders and Israel's leaders that are going to essentially, 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:39.200 I think, prevent a quick walk back, not without the 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:44.240 intervention of the United States. Now here's the hard truth. 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:48.640 Israel could cannot finish this mission by themselves. They lack 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:51.560 those bunk or busting capability bombs that are capable of 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:55.880 destroying Iran's underground nuclear sites. They have to get US 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:59.560 firepower to do that, and without it, this conflict I 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:03.560 don't know how it ends. And I'll tell you. If 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:07.560 the US gets in, how do they get out? How 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:10.520 do we get out? We've been down this road before. 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:13.719 Now there's a growing sense and no one really knows 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:15.960 what's going on. Did the United States give Israel a 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:18.080 green light or not? Did we think the threat of 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:21.240 Israeli action would bring around to the negotiating table? Were 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:24.480 we leading around on while giving Israel space to strike? 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:28.520 Are we active players in this or were we passive bystanders. 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:33.480 Whatever we were may not matter. It's what is perceived 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:37.520 and believed in the region that may matter more. Here 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:41.400 there's no doubt that for now, this ambiguity is intentional 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:43.800 by the United States. Our government is trying to have 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:48.080 it both ways, cheerleading success if Israel prevails, denying involvement 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:50.840 if things go sideways. In fact, that's sort of a 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:53.560 Trump staple on most things in life that he's tried 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:56.320 to deal with, and that's part of the trust deficit 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:59.159 though we're all experiencing. Middle East is long in a 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:02.599 place where truth is and perception is weaponized. But now 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:05.880 that sense of confusion is creeping into our domestic life, 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:07.760 and I want to get to that as well. And 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:09.479 here's the thing. Donald Trump's at the center of both. 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:10.960 In the Middle East, he could very well be the 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:13.400 person to broker peace, strange as that may sound, but 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:16.679 here at home, it's increasingly clear he's been a driver 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:21.280 of instability, not a buffer against it. Take immigration. His 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:25.360 latest round of aggressive deportation tactics sparked protests nationwide, particularly 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:28.080 though in Los Angeles. But behind the scenes now he's 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:32.080 pulling back, pressured by agricultural and hospitality interest warning of 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:37.000 dire economic consequences for their industries. Translations, we don't get 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:40.720 our food supply without migrants, and you don't get your 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:45.040 bed made at hotels without migrants. Apparently that includes some 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:48.880 of his own backers, hotel owners, something he's familiar with, 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:53.720 and farm and the farm corporations, people who rely on 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:57.800 that undocumented labor to keep their businesses afloat. Here's the 0:07:57.840 --> 0:08:01.160 economic reality. Farmers are reporting shortages and harvest cruz crops 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:04.080 are at risk of rotting and fields. Meat processors are 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:06.280 already warning of bottlenecks, and as we head into the 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:10.320 summer travel season, resorts in hotels and tourist towns are 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:13.560 facing major staffing shortfalls. Guests are already noticing longer waits, 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:19.480 fewer amenities, and rising costs, all due to essentially a 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:25.400 choice in how Donald Trump's gone about deportation. And that's 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:28.440 just the political fight. It's also a supply chain crisis 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:30.440 in the making, and the president knows it. So it's 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:34.240 quiet backpedaling while avoiding public acknowledgment. Sort of is a 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:37.400 contradiction between his populis rhetoric and his business first impulses. 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:40.000 He needs the tough talk to energize his base, but 0:08:40.040 --> 0:08:42.680 he can't afford the economic fallout that comes with actually 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:47.280 falling through. In this case, the business world is cheering 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:50.920 for Taco Trump. They want Trump to taco i e. 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:54.120 You know, the acronym Trump always chickens out. They're desperate 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:57.880 for him to chicken out on this immigration stuff. Look, 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:01.920 and considering what we went through last week and what 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:04.920 happened between Homeland Security and that security detail and the 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:09.679 US Senator Alex Padilla, none of this what was a 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:13.480 net positive for him, the immigration and being aggressive with 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:17.600 these tactics is going to start to turn south on him. 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:20.360 And then there's Minnesota. 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:23.240 Two elected Democrats are gonne down and what now appears 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:27.000 to be a politically motivated attack. The alleged shooter apparently 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:29.199 had a list of dozens of names of other Democratic 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:33.320 officials over seventy You would think a story like this 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:35.680 would stop us all on our tracks, But in a 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:39.120 week like this, I honestly don't know if anything can 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:42.120 sort of sober us up or make us go wait 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:45.280 a minute, we've got to change something here. We still 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:47.400 have the detail, We still are looking for the details. 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:50.520 As of my conversation here, we still hadn't gotten the guy. 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:55.200 But there's a familiarity to this, and least of what 0:09:55.240 --> 0:10:00.160 we've known about the suspect, it has the hallmarks. 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:01.200 Of some thing we've seen before. 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:04.400 The Tree of Life synagogue shooting, the country music festival 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:07.319 massacre in Las Vegas in particular, both very heinous acts 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:12.800 committed by older men, middle aged men radicalized apparently online. 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:14.600 We don't quite know that about the Vegas guy. 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:16.960 We do know that on the Tree of Life guy, 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:20.720 and it's hard to imagine with this won't be the 0:10:20.800 --> 0:10:27.760 case with this Minnesota assassin, with what's happening online, right, 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:33.200 And look, I know there is this sense of, oh, 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:36.400 you know, these guys are crazy people. Rhetoric's just rhetoric. 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:39.800 But we know crazy people get triggered by rhetoric. And 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:43.520 here's the uncomfortable pattern. The politically motivated violence in this 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:46.920 country has been more often coming from the right than 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:47.360 the left. 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:48.200 Now, the right. 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:52.880 Ecosystem will respond and attack me. For instance, I was 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:56.160 saying this by trying to equate violence from protests with 0:10:56.280 --> 0:11:01.600 the same violence from these radicalized assassin But the two 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:04.440 are not the same. Right one is collective outrage that 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:09.360 can sometimes spiral into chaos because bad actors infiltrate the 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:17.280 other's premeditated, premeditated political murder. Ten X, I'm sorry than anything, 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:19.520 you can equate with what happened, whether you want to 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:24.520 equate during the George Floyd protests or what we've seen 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:28.480 with these other protests, and the distinction matters a lot. 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:33.559 So look, and let me accept the premise of the 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:35.400 right wing for a minute. In fact, let's say you 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:36.839 are on the right and you believe the left is 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:40.920 a more violent political movement than you are. Then it 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:44.360 should be all the more reason to condemn this action 0:11:44.480 --> 0:11:50.520 in Minnesota with even more vigor and more outrage, because 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:53.640 if you believe this is not becoming of the right wing, 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:56.800 this is not becoming of the conservative movement in some ways, 0:11:56.800 --> 0:11:58.800 there should be more outrage from the right about this. 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:04.480 A whole bunch of what about is because one of 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:08.240 the things that drives me batshit crazy when it comes 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:11.240 to our political debate is the number of people that 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:14.760 justify their bad actions by pointing to the other side. 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:17.920 Nobody seems to want to live by the adage of 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:18.959 two wrongs don't. 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:19.959 Make a right. 0:12:20.679 --> 0:12:23.360 And look, it's pretty clear Donald Trump is not interested 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:26.160 in lowering the temperature. Let me quote from you. Let 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:30.360 me quote you what he said on Sunday when asked 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:34.000 about the situation of Minnesota. The President said, well, that's 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:38.000 a terrible thing. Then he's referring to Tim Walls. I 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:40.640 think he's a terrible governor. I think he's a grossly 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:43.560 incompetent person. But I may I may call him, I 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:45.079 may call other people too. 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:46.480 The question was about whether. 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:48.840 He was going to call the governor of Minnesota think 0:12:48.880 --> 0:12:50.600 about just let me read this statement again. 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:52.160 This is again. 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:55.120 In the last forty eight hours, Tim Walls finds out 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:57.640 two people he worked quite closely with were gunned down 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:02.240 by an assassin a bunch of friends. He's probably on 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:04.640 this target list as well. We don't know that for sure. 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:07.480 Tina Smith, the US Senator, said she's on the list, 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:10.920 but a slew of Democrats are on the list. Pretty 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:15.600 Much every elected official in Minnesota is scared assless. Okay, 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:19.679 and Donald Trump says the following. I think he's a 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:22.240 terrible governor. I think he's a grossly incompetent person. But 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:24.000 I may I may call him, I may call other 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:28.200 people too. In the pre Trump era, moment like this 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:32.160 might prompt an American president to give a unifying speech, 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:34.839 maybe even a prime time speech. We got to turn 0:13:35.000 --> 0:13:38.599 the temperature down. But the president isn't going to do this. 0:13:38.679 --> 0:13:42.080 It's not this president because confrontation is his comfort zone. 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:46.440 Reflection is not in his rhetorical playbook, and he won't 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:50.880 accept the premise that he has contributed to this atmosphere. 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:51.240 That we're all living in. 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:55.360 Okay, I could argue and make a strong case that 0:13:55.440 --> 0:14:01.440 he is he is the instigator here, but I'm going 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:03.840 to accept the premise that there are more than one instigators. 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:06.559 But here's the thing. He chose to be president of 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:09.480 the United States of all Americans, and I know he 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:12.120 only wants to govern for his base, but this is 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:17.120 a moment where if he doesn't do it, we're on 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:20.760 the precipice and we all are feeling this way. One 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:22.960 spark feels like it's going to set us off into 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:26.920 some explosive, horrendous moment. Now, none of this is playing 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:29.520 well for him politically. In fact, you actually saw that 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:32.800 on display at as military theme birthday parade this weekend. 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:38.520 Whether was grim, crowd was thin, and the mood was flat. Meanwhile, 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:41.040 the No King's protests drew thousands from coast to coast. 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:44.240 A lot of those protests were also in the rain, 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:46.880 and yet they showed up for those might be the 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:49.760 clearest signal yet where the political energy in this country 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:54.000 is heading. And that's the thing, you know. The irony 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:57.640 here is that if Donald Trump would accept the tiniest bit, 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:01.240 except the tiny his bed of the premise that he 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:07.440 is participating and contributing to this current unstable political environment, 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:13.480 he could buy himself some political some political lifelines here. 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:16.320 A little bit he could, it would turn the temperature 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:19.560 down and would give him an opportunity to try to 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:24.040 try to actually heal politically. But he's going to go 0:15:24.040 --> 0:15:28.400 down this road, and this isn't going to this isn't 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:31.040 going to live well. Look, I lived through this cycle myself. 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:32.880 In twenty eighteen, I had to wake up to the 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:35.880 news of a man who mailed pipe bombs to CNN, 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:38.840 Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and others. Turned out, he had 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:43.120 my face on his van literally with a group of 0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:45.640 four of the reporters that were considered the quote enemy 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:48.440 of the people, a phrase that of course he got 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:53.560 and was inspired by Donald Trump. It was that phrase 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:55.920 all came from him, and all of this man's rhetoric 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:58.320 came from him. I'm not saying Donald Trump ordered this 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:04.920 crazy man to attack members of the press, democratic office holders, 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:09.640 but he is creating an environment and is inspiring weak 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:14.080 minded individuals who are a bit broken, who take his 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:19.280 words literally and seriously and in some cases act upon them. 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:24.960 And not once has this man has ever acknowledged the 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:29.400 role he's done in there. And you know, I had 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:32.200 to be honest, I still to this day was not 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:35.120 comforted when I got visited by the FBI inform me, hey, 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:37.360 by the way, this guy targeted you. This is what's 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:39.720 happening to all these elected officials in Minnesota. They're getting 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:41.440 a visit from the FBI to let them know he's 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:43.360 on their list. You know what all that does is dud. 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:46.200 It's like, g thanks, Now, what am I supposed to do? 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:48.200 What we just want to let you know and what 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:53.520 it is, it's the FBI doing a little cya. But look, 0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:58.440 he has created an environment of violence. Right, he pardoned 0:16:58.440 --> 0:17:01.760 the January sixth rioters, right if he didn't believe, if 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:05.119 he thought political violence was wrong, He never pardons those folks, 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:08.320 but he sent a clear message political violence is tolerable 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:12.159 if the target is your enemy. That's the message he 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:15.439 sent with those pardons. And you know, you live in 0:17:15.440 --> 0:17:19.359 a world where you reap what you sew. And what's 0:17:19.400 --> 0:17:24.800 not fair is that state representative. She didn't do this, 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:30.399 She didn't create these conditions. This crazy man was whipped 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:34.120 up and he's responding to a whipped up political environment. 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:38.560 And it's a whipped up political environment led by one man. 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:43.000 Now here's the thing he can tone it down. He 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:45.720 has the ability to do this if he wants to 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:48.600 be president of a country that doesn't hate each other 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:51.040 and isn't on the brink of some sort of hot war. 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:56.199 But he is creating a terrible situation. And this is, 0:17:56.480 --> 0:17:59.720 you know, it's morally wrong, and it's how republics fall. 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:04.159 And here's another thing, considering that the president was a 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:09.800 target himself of an assassination attempt and a second assassin 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:13.359 that seemed to be stalking him, that he could be 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:19.040 speaking to this issue with credibility, with a kind of 0:18:19.280 --> 0:18:23.320 a different kind of credibility. Unfortunately, as somebody who has 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:27.840 felt this moment, and it clearly impacted him for a 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:32.520 period of time, So it almost makes it even more 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:36.560 head scratching and more frustrating that he doesn't. 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:37.200 Speak to this moment. 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:40.680 Finally, I want to end on a thought that's been 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:42.640 haunting me all week. As we've witnessed some of these 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:48.919 historically horrific moments, we've entered what I call an Orwellian moment, 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:52.000 and easily I think the last week was the most 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:55.399 Orwellian week we've lived in the Trump era. Because you 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:57.800 go online and you don't know which images are real, 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:00.359 You can't trust what you see what you read or 0:19:00.359 --> 0:19:04.040 even what you think you know. In Los Angeles, manipulated videos, 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:08.120 AI generated vote photos, They spread confusion, and they did 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:11.680 so faster than any fact check could catch up. I mean, 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:13.600 I had to use my own network of people in 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:17.760 LA that I trust to really understand what was going on. 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:21.359 You could not trust what you saw online. And that 0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:24.440 is a scary moment. And we know there are professional 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:27.080 propagandas out there. Some of them are domestic who just 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:30.480 are trying for clicks. Some are funded by foreign adversaries 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:33.359 like russ of China, north of Korea, and they flood 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:36.240 the zone with all of this junk. And the goal 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:39.760 is in persuasion. It's paralysis. If they can make everything 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:43.320 feel a bit unknowable, then nothing can be acted upon 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:47.000 canon And when the public no longer trusts what it sees, 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:49.720 when truth itself feels up for grabs, that's when democratic 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:53.200 systems start to wabble. We're watching that unfold right now. 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:55.080 The chaos in LA this week felt like a test 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:58.440 run for that uncertainty. And it's not just by the way. 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:02.639 I mean, listen to the garbage writer that Christy Nome used. 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:06.200 She was talking about liberating Los Angeles from some socialists. 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:09.359 What the fork is she talking about? And can you 0:20:09.400 --> 0:20:14.120 imagine if Ali Mayorcis said something about liberating a Texas 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:18.960 town from its racist tendencies or something like that. This 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:22.760 is insane rhetoric being used by a cabinet official, and 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:26.679 not just any cabinet official, a very important one, all right, 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:30.720 I would you know, no offense to laborhood, but DHS 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:35.080 is one of the big five after Treasury, State, Pentagon, 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:38.400 and Attorney General, and I have that kind of sloppy rhetoric, 0:20:39.640 --> 0:20:42.960 ridiculous rhetoric. And it was a sentence that was said 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:52.920 right before her security detailed tackled Senator Alex Badia. Anyway, Look, 0:20:54.600 --> 0:20:56.480 it's not just a domestic problem. By the way, this 0:20:57.040 --> 0:20:59.840 issue of this Orwellian moment we're living and we've had 0:20:59.840 --> 0:21:02.640 this same cloud of ambiguity over the role over our 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:05.280 role in the Israel Iran conflicts. I told you before, 0:21:05.400 --> 0:21:07.720 did we help, did we know? Are we responsible? Nobody 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:11.880 seems to know for sure, and that ambiguity again, may 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:15.520 it may help short term for us politically, long term, 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:17.800 no one knows what's going on. This used to be 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:20.440 the kind of uncertainty you'd only expect in the Middle East, 0:21:20.560 --> 0:21:24.120 or you might expect in Moscow or Beijing, authoritarian places. 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:27.480 But now it's here. It's in Los Angeles, it's in Washington, 0:21:27.560 --> 0:21:30.080 it's in your Twitter or TikTok feed. And when the 0:21:30.080 --> 0:21:32.400 public's instinct is to say I don't know what to believe, 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:39.119 that is when you know the democracy itself is extraordinarily vulnerable. 0:21:39.480 --> 0:21:41.280 I don't know what to believe is a phrase you 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:45.320 hear all the time in Russia, all the time. So no, 0:21:45.520 --> 0:21:48.680 this wasn't the uplifting, feel good Father's Day PostScript I 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:49.360 was hoping for. 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:50.960 But here we are. 0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:54.560 The world is unstable, our country is unsettled, and the 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:56.480 one person who may be able to calm things down 0:21:56.600 --> 0:21:58.920 is also the one person who's helped stoke this fire. 0:21:59.080 --> 0:22:01.040 I think he might try to else the flames abroad. 0:22:01.640 --> 0:22:03.640 I fear he has no interest in doing it here 0:22:03.680 --> 0:22:07.400 at home. So on that uplifting note, I actually have 0:22:08.400 --> 0:22:11.080 a fun and I would hope to think. Actually a 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:15.119 slightly more uplifting conversation. It's with Mike Pesca. He's the 0:22:15.160 --> 0:22:17.920 man behind the gist. You may be longtime listeners of 0:22:18.000 --> 0:22:21.680 him on Slady to Me He's like an original podcaster. 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:23.399 He was doing it before anybody thought it was that 0:22:23.520 --> 0:22:27.800 cool to do it. His Gist substack is a lot 0:22:27.800 --> 0:22:31.760 of fun, It's smart, and MY favorite thing about Mike 0:22:32.800 --> 0:22:37.480 is that he is always asking a question. Sort of 0:22:37.480 --> 0:22:40.280 a professional he is. When I think of somebody that 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:43.280 is a professional skeptic who should practice Joe who does 0:22:43.320 --> 0:22:46.600 practice journalism sort of as a professional skeptic. 0:22:46.440 --> 0:22:47.720 I'd like to think I do that. 0:22:48.240 --> 0:22:50.720 I know Mike does it, and it's what I think 0:22:50.800 --> 0:22:53.400 makes him so readable and so interesting. 0:22:53.920 --> 0:22:56.200 And I think you're going to up this conversation. 0:23:05.080 --> 0:23:07.840 Well joining me now we did a home and away, 0:23:08.560 --> 0:23:11.760 I think is the way to do it. It's Mike Pesca, who, 0:23:11.800 --> 0:23:14.199 of course is best known as host of The Gist. 0:23:15.480 --> 0:23:18.960