Air Date 3/11/2025

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#1687 Respite: Ceasefire in Gaza and the Legacy of Imperial Folly in the Middle East

 

Gaza Ceasefire Explained Reading Between The Lines Part 2 - The Socialist Program - Air Date 1-16-25

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BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: There's a lot to talk about. What does Biden say about the agreement? What does Donald Trump say about the agreement? What does Netanyahu and the Israelis say about the agreement? Again, what did the regional actors say about it? Okay, and we want to talk about what the Palestinian people say, and the Palestinian resistance forces. We want to hear their voices. You know, the United States characterizes every Palestinian resistance organization as a terrorist entity. So if you show solidarity with the Palestinian people, you're frequently labeled in the United States, as aiding and abetting terrorism. I mean, the U. S. said the same thing about the ANC and Nelson Mandela in South Africa up until 1988 and even beyond, actually. But I want for our audience to hear what the Palestinian resistance forces say about this agreement. 

Now, first of all, it's a three stage agreement. I wanna go over the three stages with you, [00:01:00] but let's first hear if you have it, what did Hamas say about it? What is Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian resistance group? What did the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine? All of these organizations, again, identified as terrorist entities such that the US media and the US people never hear, or the US media never tells what they think, and the US people never hear what they think. But I want people to hear what they're saying about the ceasefire agreement. 

LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: Absolutely. I think that's really important. Hamas has made (an) official statement and also has had a few speeches from different members of the political bureau. They have announced a ceasefire agreement. They have said, I'm quoting here, "The ceasefire agreement is the result of the legendary steadfastness of our great Palestinian people, and our valiant resistance in the Gaza Strip, over the course of more than 15 months. This agreement to halt the agression is an achievment for our people, our resistance, our nation, and the free people of the world. It comes as part of our responsibility towards our [00:02:00] steadfast and patient people in the proud Gaza Strip." They also announced in a speech just within the past hour that In their assessment, the ceasefire represents the achievement of all of their demands since the beginning of the genocide, and they laid out the framework of the ceasefire.

BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: Okay.

LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: Now, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad had a very similar tone. They said, "Our people and their resistance are imposing an honorable agreement to stop the aggression, withdraw, and conduct an honorable prisoner exchange due to their legendary steadfastness and brave and valiant fighters." They also mourn the righteous martyrs, and they look forward to healing the wounds of the Palestinian people, and extend greetings to all of the steadfast fighters in the Gaza Strip.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine released a statement just before the official announcement of the ceasefire, where they condemned the ongoing assassinations and bombardments that Israel was still carrying out today. 

BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: They assassinated- the Israelis, using a drone, [00:03:00] assassinated a Palestinian journalist as he was announcing a ceasefire.

LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: Just after. He was- those moments right before the ceasefire, you know, kept getting closer and closer. The whole world, people of Gaza were like, "It's going to be announced. It's going to be announced," over the past couple of days. No one has slept for the past couple of days. And this young journalist was speaking live on his social media saying, "I'm so excited for the ceasefire to be announced." And then just after that, he was assassinated. Horrific. 

BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: By a drone. A drone strike.

LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: Yes. And over the past, I think, a couple of days, more than 86 Palestinians have been killed in bombardments. And it was going right up until the ceasefire was officially announced.

BRIAN BECKER - HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: So the PFLP statement condemns that. And what, how do they characterize the ceasefire?

LAYAN SIMA FULEIHAN: They say that the- this is right before it was announced they said, "Amid this continued aggression," which is the ongoing bombardment, "the Palestinian resistance factions are intensifying their efforts to halt this aggression as soon as possible. [00:04:00] War criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, mired in his failures and defeats, will ultimately find himself and his fascist government compelled to agree to a ceasefire after their catastrophic failure to achieve any of their objectives beyond inflicting death and destruction on unarmed civilians."

On the Situation in Syria and its Implications for the Region - Revolutionary Left Radio - Air Date 1-6-25

BREHT O'SHEA - HOST, REVOLUTIONARY LEFT RADIO: So most listeners will have been aware that the Assad government has collapsed, but who are the forces and individuals that are attempting to replace him? And what is the current state of Syria overall in the wake of recent events? 

ANGIE: So I can speak to this a bit. Apologies in advance. My cat tends to be a little bit active in the background. In terms of actors, I would say we can go ahead and say everyone is a free Syrian today. I would argue primarily the actors that we have to focus on are Khayat al Tahrir al Sham, the HTS, led by Mohammed al Zawlani.

There's still confrontation with other forces, from the SDF to other Turkish groups, that are [00:05:00] continuing to, we can say, resist or experience skirmishes in different areas of the region, that are just still trying to establish what law is under what area, and what individuals are essentially permitted to remain in their homes.

There's still certain local militias within the Valley of the Christians that have not completely disbanded, despite orders for disarmament, but the actors that we have to focus on in Syria are Hayat Tahrir al Sham and everybody in the West. So I would argue this includes Turkey, this includes Israel, this includes actors like Iran and Russia, this includes France, this includes Germany, this obviously includes the United States.

But the actors that we need to look at in particular are puppet masters in Syria right now. And so what we're looking at in terms of the actual event is a performance at the moment. 

BREHT O'SHEA - HOST, REVOLUTIONARY LEFT RADIO: Yeah, and would anybody like to follow up on that? And maybe even just tell us a little bit more about exactly [00:06:00] what happened, because I'm sure there are perhaps even some people in our audience that are totally unaware of exactly what even has occurred, so maybe setting that up could be helpful.

In terms of what happened, that's still being parsed out. The fact that the Syrian army just laid down its arms with no fight, that it kept receiving orders to retreat, And that Assad very abruptly left, is still something that everybody, every actor in the region is trying to piece together. What we know for sure is that Assad was declared the victor of the Syrian civil war for the sheer reason that it was launched to oust him and he remained in power. However, that victory that he had was an incredibly fragile one.

He presided over a country that had been radically, dramatically de-developed by bombing, by foreign intervention, by the US administered [00:07:00] occupation of a third of the country, which happens to be the most lucrative region in terms of its wheat and oil supplies. So, he presided over a very fragile Syria, whose economy had been devastated by, again, many of its major cities being decimated. By its breadbasket and its oil fields being largely occupied by the US proxies in the region as well as the US military itself. So that it collapsed so quickly is what I think surprised everybody. Because I sometimes I often think of how when the Berlin Wall fell not even the CIA was prepared for it. You know, so this resulted in such a stunning collapse as something that is probably going to be studied for the immediate future and probably well past that, but [00:08:00] again, anybody who wants to- 

MOHAMMAD: I just have a quick thing to add in addition to what Ed already stated, which is that all of this has to be taken within the context of the sanctions that have been placed on Syria as well, which these sanctions, again, have had a severe impact on the Syrian population and then perceptions of Assad as well. And on the region all together. So all of this is also not without taking into consideration the interventionist policies of the United States and other imperial forces. 

BREHT O'SHEA - HOST, REVOLUTIONARY LEFT RADIO: Absolutely. And we'll definitely get back to that and talk about that in more detail. But Angie, go ahead. 

ANGIE: Yeah, I don't want to go too far into the sanctions at the moment, since I'm sure we'll circle back. But I think from that point that Mohammed makes, it's important to also recognize that the interventionism in Syria cannot, at any point, be separated from Syria's stance and position towards Israel and Palestine.

Prior to the fall of the Assad regime, if that's what we want to kind of conceptualize it as, Turkey and Syria spent the [00:09:00] summer and the fall and the beginning of winter essentially negotiating a reopening of their state's relationships. So Erdogan has been pursuing Assad for nearly six months at the point at which Turkey opens the borders for Hayyat al Tahrir al Sham to enter Syria.

And that order comes, critically, in the moment that Netanyahu is announcing the weak ceasefire on south of Lebanon and then also warning Assad to not play with fire. And I think it's really important to kind of reintegrate that tie that Netanyahu speaks and Erdogan moves when it comes to Syria. 

Egypt, Jordan Reject Trump Plan to Clean Out Gaza; Palestinians Return to N. Gaza in Historic Day

AMY GOODMAN: So, these comments of Trump, the last ones echo his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who had said in the last year that Gaza is great beachfront property, talking about it as a kind of real estate deal. Trump, most recently, on Air Force One on Saturday night saying that more than a million Palestinians should be moved to Egypt and Jordan, that he spoke to [00:10:00] the Jordanian king. Meanwhile, Jordan and Egypt — talk about their responses and, most importantly, the response of Palestinians.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, both Jordan and Egypt have rejected this, and they’ve done so since the beginning of this genocidal assault. You know, these comments were welcomed by the far-right ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, who said, you know, this would be the voluntary emigration that they’ve been dreaming about for Palestinians to be forcibly displaced outside of Gaza and for them to rebuild Jewish settlements in Gaza.

I think what’s — yes, we have to acknowledge what’s happening today, which are these incredible scenes of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Palestinians, who have withstood an unprecedented genocidal assault, returning back to the north. Now, we spoke at Drop Site to Mustafa Barghouti just a few days ago, and he said the return of forcibly displaced Palestinians to the north will be the ultimate defeat of Israeli [00:11:00] plans, because it means that the goal of ethnic cleansing did not materialize.

Let’s remember what happened. If we go back to October 7th, 2023, when Benjamin Netanyahu took to the airwaves and declared war on Gaza, he said, “Leave now,” to the, you know, 2.3 million Palestinians who are living in Gaza. Just a few days later, we saw this shocking directive for all 1.1 million Palestinians who are north of Wadi Gaza to flee to the south. And we saw this unbelievable, unprecedented aerial bombing campaign and many people forcibly displaced to the south, many of them to Rafah in the beginning. And let’s not forget that at the time, Western governments, including the United States government under the Biden administration, were trying to persuade Egypt to take in hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, displace them in northern Sinai, offering economic incentives. There’s reporting that shows that this was taking place. Egypt rejected it at the time, but, more importantly, Palestinians rejected this.[00:12:00] 

And then we saw them build what’s called the Netzarim Corridor, which bisected Gaza. This was a six- or seven-kilometer-wide strip of land. They completely depopulated, forcibly displaced, ethnically cleansed that area, destroyed almost all of the buildings there, set up military bases. And this was, essentially — reporting shows in Haaretz this was called a “kill zone.” Any man, woman or child, unarmed, would enter — it’s unclear where the border was of the Netzarim Corridor — they would be shot and killed. And this was essentially the place that divided Gaza. Once you crossed there, you could not go back. We saw in October also a concentrated extermination campaign in the very north of Gaza, in Jabaliya, Jabaliya refugee camp, in Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia, where they completely did not allow any aid in and then very systematically started attacking these towns and cities and forcing people out on, essentially, what were death marches to the south, [00:13:00] across the Netzarim Corridor, and back.

And, you know, despite all of this, people withstood. They remained on their land. And now we’re seeing these incredible scenes of people returning home. And to think that, you know, Trump can just say they should move to Egypt or Jordan, I think, you know, is preposterous. And we’re seeing right now that this is kind of an ultimate defeat of the plans of ethnic cleansing, that have dated back to the 1950s for Israel.

AMY GOODMAN: So, I wanted to go to that quote of Jared Kushner, made months ago — that’s Trump’s son-in-law and former adviser — weighing in on Israel’s war on Gaza, saying Israel should move Palestinians out of the besieged territory, which he said contains very valuable waterfront property, making the remarks during an event hosted by the Middle East Initiative at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

JARED KUSHNER: And Gaza’s waterfront property, it could be very valuable to — if people would [00:14:00] focus on kind of building up, you know, livelihoods. You think about all the money that’s gone into this tunnel network and into all the munitions, if that would have gone into education or innovation, what could have been done. And so, I think that it’s a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but I think, from Israel’s perspective, I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up. But I don’t think that Israel has stated that they don’t want the people to move back there afterwards.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s a pretty amazing comment, invaluable beachfront property. Earlier today, I was watching the Palestinian attorney Diana Buttu on Al Jazeera. When asked about what Trump said, you know, I think all agree it does look like a demolition zone. There’s no question about it. How can Palestinians live there? And she said, “OK, if there’s that question, rather than moving them to neighboring Arab states like Egypt and Jordan, what about moving them home?” She said 80% of the people of Gaza come from [00:15:00] places in Israel.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Yeah, I mean, this is why Gaza has long been a site of resistance in historic Palestine and long been a place that Israel wants to ethnically cleanse, because it is the largest concentration of Palestinian refugees in historic Palestine. So, it has always been a restive place. These people, who 80% of them are their descendants, want to return to their homes, which are mostly the towns and villages around Gaza. And like you said, this is now — they are returning, in these really incredible scenes that we’re seeing right now — 

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, this is a flood of humanity.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: People hugging, who haven’t seen — they’ve been separated from their family members, from mothers and fathers, separated from their children, for 15 months, and they’re reuniting for the first time. They never thought they would see each other again.

But they are returning to, as you said, a devastated landscape. Nearly the entire — every house has been destroyed or badly damaged. The government [00:16:00] authorities are telling people to bring their tents with them. There are not even enough tents for people to set up on the rubble of their homes. And as we’ve been seeing in other parts, as well, while Israel has violated the ceasefire nearly every single day, killing Palestinians, especially in Rafah, the death count, the official death count, has been also shooting up since the 19th, when the ceasefire went into effect, because dozens of bodies are being recovered from under the rubble. And so, you know, I’m afraid we’re going to see a lot of this as people search for their loved ones as they’re returning to this devastated landscape. But they are determined not to leave their land, and many of them will set up tents on the rubble of their homes.

AMY GOODMAN: And then we go to the West Bank and what’s happening there. We just spoke to Mariam Barghouti. You wrote a piece with her for Drop Site. If you can talk about intensification of violence against Palestinians there?

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, essentially, what we [00:17:00] saw soon after the ceasefire went into effect, a war on the West Bank, initially dubbed the Iron Wall. All of these things had been taking place already — attacks on Jenin, closures of checkpoints and so forth — but a massive escalation of this, to the likes of which we haven’t seen since 2002, an invasion of Jenin. Right now they are demolishing the refugee camp, not just with bulldozers as we’ve seen in the past. They are actually detonating, the way they have done in Gaza, parts of this. Two thousand families have already been displaced. Across the West Bank, there was usually around 700 military checkpoints. Now there’s close to a thousand. They’ve all closed down. Cities have been closed off from each other. People can’t leave their towns and villages to go to school, to go to work. They’re separated from each other. And so, this is — they’re laying siege to the West Bank. And a lot of what we show in the reporting and what has been said was that this was a trade-off that Netanyahu — trying to convince his ministers, like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, to sign [00:18:00] onto the Gaza ceasefire plan, that they would launch this kind of unprecedented military assault on the West Bank

#1693 Empowering Ethnostates: Ethnically cleansing Gaza and Trump's South Africa fixationTrump's Insane Plan To "Own" Gaza - Pod Save the World - Air Date 2-12-25

TOMMY VIETOR - HOST, POD SAVE THE WORLD: Shortly after we recorded last week, President Trump announced that in addition to his plan to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip, he also wants the US to occupy it indefinitely and deny those people he will displace the right to return home.

Trump advisors reportedly didn't know he was going to announce this Gaza occupation plan before he did it. And then they seem to try to walk it all back. But then Trump is just doubling down over and over again. Let's listen to a super cut of some of the things he said about this in the last couple of days.

CLIP DONALD TRUMP: I'm committed to buying and owning Gaza. As far as us rebuilding it, we may give it to other states in the Middle East to build sections of it. Other people may do it through our auspices. But we're committed to owning it, taking it. 

JOURNALIST: Mr. President, take it under what authority? It is sovereign territory.

CLIP DONALD TRUMP: Under the US authority. We're not going to buy anything. We're going to have it. We're going to keep it. And we're going to make sure that there's going to be peace. 

We'll build beautiful [00:19:00] communities for the 1.9 million people. We'll build beautiful communities, safe communities. It would be a beautiful piece of land.

JOURNALIST: Would the Palestinians have the right to return?

CLIP DONALD TRUMP: No, they wouldn't, because they're going to have much better housing, much better. In other words, I'm talking about building a permanent place for them. 

JOURNALIST: But what about the Palestinians who just won't leave? We've spoken, our team has spoken to millions of Palestinians.

CLIP DONALD TRUMP: They're all going to leave when they have a place that's a better alternative. When they have a nice place that's safe, they're all going to leave. It's a hell hole right now. 

JOURNALIST: But how are you so sure? Will the US force them to leave? 

CLIP DONALD TRUMP: You're going to see that they're all going to want to leave. 

TOMMY VIETOR - HOST, POD SAVE THE WORLD: So, no surprise that this plan didn't go over all that well in Arab capitals, like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, and Jordan. 

On Monday, in advance of King Abdullah of Jordan's visit to the White House on Tuesday, today when we're recording, Trump also said he would consider withholding aid from Egypt and Jordan if they refuse to take in Palestinians. For those who don't know, Jordan and Egypt are some of the top recipients of US military aid, and have been for decades, in large part because both countries cut the first peace deals with [00:20:00] Israel, and the stability of those governments is seen as the cornerstone for peace in the entire region. 

So Ben, a lot of, there's a lot of debate about this announcement and people wondering if Trump's serious or if he's bluffing and setting up a negotiating position.

I think I'd argue that the reaction we're seeing in the Middle East and the pressure this conversation put on King Abdullah, who was like sitting there, literally -- he looked like he was being physically squeezed between Trump and his own population in the Oval Office -- that just shows that it doesn't really matter, in addition to being illegal and unethical, calling for the forced migration of Gazans into Jordan, is already destabilizing the Jordanian government.

And, Abdullah might've bought himself some time in this Oval Office meeting by saying he'd taken 2000 kids from Gaza who are suffering from dire medical conditions, but I doubt the Trump pressure campaign stops here. 

BEN RHODES - CO-HOST, POD SAVE THE WORLD: No. And let's just point out for a second, Tommy, that a lot of people in the US have been in this kind of mode since the election [00:21:00] of taking Trump more seriously as this kind of dynamic political figure who was able to build a winning coalition, and have projected onto him a competence that he doesn't have. And this is clearly evidence of that. This idea is an absolute dead on arrival, crazy thing to be talking about. It's ethnic cleansing of 2 million people that don't want to leave. It is existential to Jordan and Egypt that don't want to take people in. 

But to gracefully plug something I wrote about this in the New York Times over the weekend, and the point I want to pull out of that is two things. And even if this doesn't happen, cause it's almost impossible to foresee how this would happen. And despite the fact that he's been taking questions, he hasn't, when he says he wants to buy it, it's not clear who he's buying it from. When he says he wants to own it, he's not clear how he wants to take ownership. They want to deny that US troops have anything to do with it. But how else could the US take possession of Gaza without troops?

But the two things that I want to [00:22:00] underscore are, first of all, just by talking about this in the way that he has the last couple of weeks, in addition to what he said about Greenland and Panama and Canada, I guess, he is completely ignoring the concept of state sovereignty, which is the cornerstone of the international legal system that was built after World War II to prevent big nations from just swallowing up smaller ones or grabbing territory like we used to do back in the colonial days.

And the reason that's so dangerous is because that interacts with what Vladimir Putin's trying to do in taking chunks of Ukraine, or what China might want to do in taking Taiwan, or what Israel might want to do in the West Bank and Gaza: it's treating land like real estate instead of sovereign territory where people live. That's the first thing. 

Then the second thing is just the total disregard for the opinion of the Palestinians. He has not even solicited the opinion of a single Palestinian to inform this plan to take over Gaza. And there are two million people that live there and don't want to [00:23:00] leave there. And it just suggests we're going back in time to this pre-World War period where big powers just took land and made deals over the heads of smaller countries or less powerful people. And that led to two world wars. That's why we set up a whole system of international laws to prevent things like this from happening. 

TOMMY VIETOR - HOST, POD SAVE THE WORLD: Yeah. And just again to hammer this home. half the population of Jordan is Palestinian. The king doesn't want another huge influx of Palestinians into his country for a bunch of reasons, but starting with the fact that it could topple his regime.

But on top of that, Palestinians don't want Jordan to become the de facto Palestinian state because it could deny them the right to return home to areas where they were displaced from in '67 or '48 or wherever in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza. And then Jordanians don't want a huge influx of Palestinians because they want Jordan to be Jordan, not Palestine. So the Jordanians hate Trump's plan. 

And then he's also leaning hard on the Egyptians to take in a bunch of people. But Egypt is struggling from massive [00:24:00] economic problems. They're currently relying on big loans from the EU and the IMF, and in recent years have taken in a ton of refugees from Sudan, Syria, Yemen, name your country. And they're struggling with that burden. And they don't want Hamas to reconstitute. If you displace a big chunk of the Gazan population into Egypt, Hamas reconstitutes there and then attacks Israel from Egypt, that could lead to an Israeli response into Egypt. They don't want that to happen. And they also, and Sisi and the leaders in Egypt also don't want Hamas to stir shit up and build support for Islamist parties within Egypt themselves. 

So, Trump just rolled this grenade into the Middle East with this plan. And everyone else were just watching to see if this thing is going to explode. It's a disaster. 

BEN RHODES - CO-HOST, POD SAVE THE WORLD: Yes, and you're right about what you said about Jordan. Look, King Abdullah is married to a Palestinian. There are millions of Palestinians who live in Jordan on the east bank, and that's often been a source of some tension because of Jordan's peace treaty with Israel. And so if [00:25:00] King Abdullah were to participate in the ethnic cleansing of Gaza by taking in some of these two million Palestinians who don't want to leave Gaza, I really don't know if his regime could survive that. I just, I think that the boiling frustration with what is already not a very good economic circumstance, with already displaced Palestinians, could get out of hand. 

And similarly in Egypt, where you have a brittle military dictatorship with a lot of anger seething underneath, that could explode too, particularly if you have Hamas introduced into that equation.

It also is relevant, Tommy, that USAID funds a significant amount of assistance into Jordan that that government really relies on. And for all Trump's talk-- 

TOMMY VIETOR - HOST, POD SAVE THE WORLD: That they've already budgeted.

BEN RHODES - CO-HOST, POD SAVE THE WORLD: That they've already budgeted.

TOMMY VIETOR - HOST, POD SAVE THE WORLD: They think already have, yeah.

BEN RHODES - CO-HOST, POD SAVE THE WORLD: Yeah and so I guess it could go hat in hand to the Gulf states and ask them to fill this gap that USAID provided. But it's not just money that USCAD provides to Jordan, it's expertise. It's help in running certain government programs. That's being yanked away. [00:26:00] Trump talks about rebuilding life for Gazans. Guess which agency does that? USAID. And USAID already cannot really fulfill its obligations under the ceasefire agreement, just the short term ceasefire agreement. When you think about the long term needs in Gaza to clear rubble, to demobilize and destroy unexploded bombs that are littering Gaza, nevermind temporary housing and then long term housing. Without USAID, I don't know how that gets done.

West Bank Annexation Inevitable - The Majority Report - Air Date 2-6-25

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Can you talk a little bit more about that, Zach? Like, that being such an escalation because people that may not be as familiar with the distinction between like the West Bank and Gaza. Gaza's bombed all the time. The West Bank is bombed occasionally, but it's mostly this rolling violence and seizure of land and vigilantes and IDF people shooting people and killing them in a more targeted way. 

ZACHARY FOSTER: The West Bank is divided into three areas. These three areas being area A, B, and C as a result of the Oslo process. And area C, which has [00:27:00] about 150, 000 Palestinians, Israeli soldiers and Israeli settlers have been terrorizing Palestinians on a daily basis for decades. And, ramping up in the past year. We've seen dozens. I think two dozen communities uprooted and ethnically cleansed primarily from area C. We're talking more than 1, 500 Palestinians ethically cleansed from Area C in just the past 15 and a half months. Then you have Area B, places like Sebastia, in the West Bank, which are now also increasingly coming under threat. We're talking about, how many Palestinians in an area, would be about 500, 000. They're also now facing, these are the sort of semi-rural small towns of the West Bank, they've been facing increasing attacks by settlers. 

And now area A, the area with the overwhelming majority of the population of the West Bank, the urban centers, Ramallah, Beit Lahem, Nablus, Jenin, Tul Karem, Hebron, Khalid, these areas are now facing a new level of violence, a level of violence that Palestinians in these areas have not seen in decades. These are areas like Jenin, Annapolis, where the Israeli military [00:28:00] is sending multiple, we're talking thousands of Israeli soldiers on the ground, ripping up streets, tearing up civilian infrastructure, destroying the water infrastructure, destroying hundreds of homes, destroying roads, destroying hospitals.

In January, just last month, the Israeli military entered a hospital, I believe it was in Jenin, and killed three Palestinians. So, these are undercover operations taken, carried out by the Israeli military in civilian areas, dressed up as Palestinian civilians, carrying out the crime of perfidy in international law, which is feigning status as a civilian during armed hostilities in order to kill Palestinians. They're doing it in the West Bank. They've been doing it in Gaza, by the way, as well. Recall that in the Nuseirat refugee camp in this past summer, when the Israeli military entered that refugee camp to rescue four Israeli hostages, they killed 274 Palestinians at the same time.

And it was during that operation where they feigned status [00:29:00] as both Palestinian civilians and as Palestinian aid workers. And so they're doing that in Gaza, they're doing that in the West Bank as well. It's a very frightening time right now for everyone in the West Bank, not only because they're dramatically expanding the military campaigns in the West Bank, both in the tactics and in the methods and in the strategies and area A, B and C, as we already said, but we're also now getting a confirmation that the plan really is annexation. We've known this all along, but if you follow the reports of B'Tselem, and if you follow the reports of Peace Now, every week, every month, the Israeli civilian administration takes another step and people think annexation is like, one day it's not annexed, the next day it is. That's not how it works. It's an incremental process, every week, every month, there's a new policy, a new regulation, which gradually incorporates the West Bank into the Israeli civilian administration. 

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And It was announced this morning that the Israeli military has been told by higher ups to begin to plan to remove those remaining Palestinians from [00:30:00] Gaza. And what that removal looks like is going to be incredibly violent. Can you react to that instruction? And give us some historical context about how many times Israel has tried to ethically cleanse Gaza, and they've failed. So, bad record. 

ZACHARY FOSTER: First of all, what we hear and what we see from Gaza is that Palestinians have no intent on leaving. So any kind of relocation effort is going to be forcible. It's not going to be voluntary. And Israel always blurs the lines between forced relocation and voluntary relocation. They forced Palestinians historically, as you pointed out. Israel has attempted to relocate, i. e. ethnically cleansed Palestinians from Gaza on countless occasions. They tried to do it in '48. It was through American pressure, 1948, it was through American pressure, the American most senior diplomat in Israel at the time, told the Israeli military, this is the end of the war, in [00:31:00] late '48, early 1949: no, you're going to withdraw your troops from Gaza Strip and Sinai now. And it was only because of that American pressure in 1948-49, that Gaza wound up in the hands of Egypt rather than Israel.

And then in '56, when Israel re-invaded the Gaza Strip, they slaughtered, they went on a campaign, they slaughtered 150 Palestinians in Khan Yunis, they slaughtered another 100 in Rafah, with the goal to incentivize flight. The same thinking that they adopted in '48 was you slaughter a few hundred here, incentivize the rest to leave this They did the same thing in '56, except '56 was not '48 and the Palestinians did not leave. Only about a thousand left after those massacres and then when the Israeli prime minister at the time realized he could not compel Palestinians to leave by force, they started to develop plans to figure out ways of, ridding Gaza of its Palestinian refugees. When they reoccupied Gaza in '67, they did the same thing. They developed a plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza. And this was at the highest [00:32:00] levels. The Israeli cabinet met on June 18th and June 19th, 1967. They made a few decisions. One of which was we will annex Gaza, after we can, after we're able to rid the population of most of its refugees. That was the decision made in June 1967, a week after Israel conquered that territory. And then from the period June 1967 to December 1967, Israel settled on a plan to depopulate this strip. And, basically from the end of the war in '67, until about the end of 1969-1970. Israel compelled 70, 000 Palestinians in Gaza to leave. And then from 1970-1972, Israel realized they weren't going to be able to compel more than that through these incentive programs, and so they did it by force.

And Ariel Sharon enters the Gaza Strip in 1971 with a plan to "thin out" the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip. They enter the refugee... they first enter Jabali in 1971, they displace hundreds of families, they [00:33:00] expel 12, 000 Palestinian family members of fighters. So these are innocent civilians by Israel's own admission. They expel them to Sinai. They continue in 1972. They try more attempts in 1974 and 1976. But the whole plan all along, well into the 1990s, is to rid Gaza of its refugees. Anyone who leaves the Gaza Strip or the West Bank for more than three years is not able to return. They lose their residency rights.

Israel has been in a constant effort over the past 56 years in Gaza and the West Bank to figure out ways of getting them out, of pushing them out, because Zionism is a political philosophy that says, how do we create a Jewish state in a land that's mostly non-Jewish? How do we create Jewish domination and Jewish control in a land that is mostly non-Jewish? Well, the easiest way of doing it is just getting rid of all those non-Jews. 

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: By killing or by forcible transfer, and that is what Zionism is, folks. And I think people are starting to wake up to the contradictions of what liberal Zionism is and what we need to do. Although we still need, one, and I was saying this before the show, [00:34:00] the evolution in this conversation is an endorsement of a one democratic state from the river to the sea. And we have still yet to see a politician in this country make that case, even the good ones that are standing up for genocide, against genocide. That is what the solution needs to be. Like South Africa, it must be imposed upon them. 

Trumps South Africa Fixation - What Next - Air Date 2-12-25

MARY HARRIS - HOST, WHAT NEXT: You know, I hear theories about folks being motivated to behave in certain ways because of their childhoods, and it makes me slightly suspicious, just because, I don't know, people grow up and they change their minds. Do you think Musk could have other motivations for why he'd be so interested in South Africa, tweeting so voraciously about it?

CHRIS MCGREAL: I think certainly there are business interests involved for Musk right now. For many years, he paid little attention to South Africa and It's notable that he has started to latch onto this idea that Whites are [00:35:00] victims of discrimination, of being persecuted through a new kind of racist system, just as he's also been trying to get his Starlink into the country and run into South Africa's Black empowerment laws, which essentially require Black ownership of a chunk of the company. I think it's about 30 percent depending on the business you're in. Musk is portraying that as a racist law, as a racist anti-White law, when it's a legitimate attempt to make sure that Black people have investments in the economy and benefiting from the economy as White people have done.

But it's notable that Musk has ramped up this whole idea that there's White genocide, Whites are being persecuted, a new racist system, just as he's also trying to get the terms on which Starlink could do business in South Africa changed. 

MARY HARRIS - HOST, WHAT NEXT: Yeah, tell me more about what this Starlink contract could mean for Musk and his businesses and what it could mean for South Africa.

CHRIS MCGREAL: Well, the idea would be that Starlink... so, you [00:36:00] know, South Africa being a huge sprawling country with large rural areas that are difficult to get conventional kind of internet lines to and all of the rest, it would provide some kind of service for farmers and for others who live in rural areas.

So, there would be a few hundred million, I believe, would be invested in this and he would expect to get a good return from that. That's why we're going in to do it. it's interesting to note that he's being backed in this. There's a petition been raised by AfriForum, which is this Afrikaner rights group that's been accused of being essentially a White supremacist group and which has done much to make the false claims of White genocide here in the United States and to push them towards Trump.

It's now adopting Musk's language and saying that essentially he's being blocked because of his race and that actually having Starlink in South Africa would help save the lives of White farmers who don't have good communications. So, you can [00:37:00] see now the merging of those two things of this long term campaign by AfriForum to persuade the Trump administration that they're victims of the post-apartheid order, with their direct backing now of Musk's business interests and claims.

MARY HARRIS - HOST, WHAT NEXT: Elon Musk and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa spoke by phone last week. Do we know what was said on this phone call? 

CHRIS MCGREAL: Essentially, Ramaphosa was trying to get Musk to get Trump to dial back both the rhetoric and the threats and the cutoff of aid and all of the rest.

I'm sure Musk had something to say about Starlink. We know, from before this, that the South African government has been considering allowing Musk to bypass the Black empowerment requirement, for Black businesses to have a stake in his Starlink cooperation in South Africa, by allowing him to invest in other social programs to an equal value.

So, South Africa is saying, Well, look, maybe we can [00:38:00] work around that. And I would imagine that that would also have been part of the call as Ramaphosa tries to diffuse this whole thing. 

MARY HARRIS - HOST, WHAT NEXT: You know, I'm wondering if you can step back a little bit, because you reported from South Africa during the end of apartheid, right? 

CHRIS MCGREAL: I did.

MARY HARRIS - HOST, WHAT NEXT: I wonder how that experience maps on to what you're seeing now in the United States as someone who reports from here. Is there anything that strikes you about this transition to this new administration where you think, I was in this totally different place. I can understand what's happening here in a way that maybe the people who've been in this place the whole time can't. 

CHRIS MCGREAL: Yes, I suppose the closest parallel is with this narrative that turns the oppressors into the victims, I think. And you're now getting a narrative in the United States that is an attempt to say that people who actually have [00:39:00] often been in the best position in this country are the victims. Hence, the attack on DEI, hence the attack on people who aren't White in general in some ways. So I think that kind of massaging of the narrative, the flipping of who is really at a disadvantage here, who is really in charge, it's a clear parallel. 

But there are, you know, I'm kind of hesitant to draw parallels, direct parallels, with the apartheid system and years because that was such a complex and individual thing to South Africa. What you have to remember there is that more than 80 percent of the population was Black and 8 percent at that point of the population was White and they were ruling the country. So, there are different forces at work here. I do think that the attack on the courts and the rule of law that may be emerging in this country, we're just seeing the first flickers of it with the reactions from J. D. Vance and others to the judge's orders on the various actions that have been taken by Musk and his [00:40:00] DOGE, may also prove a parallel in time.

MARY HARRIS - HOST, WHAT NEXT: Yeah. it's interesting. I see this administration taking aim at diversity, equity and inclusion stuff, which really hasn't been enforced with a full force of law. And what I see with the Trump administration taking on South Africa is a country that really has tried to grapple with explicit racism and what made apartheid possible and do that through rules about Black business ownership and land ownership. And it makes sense that that country. would be a target for a place that's going so aggressively after DEI. You know? 

CHRIS MCGREAL: Well, I think one of the things you see with Musk and Thiel and others of these libertarians that emerged from apartheid South Africa is that they imagined that at the end of apartheid, it was some kind of level playing field and everybody was just beginning at the starting line and they should just pull their socks up and get on with it. And it's an insane idea, [00:41:00] given the huge disadvantages that the majority of the population had, not least in education. 

Musk benefited from an incredibly good education in one of the best schools in Pretoria. And the idea that the end of apartheid meant that he was on a beginning at the same starting line as somebody who grew up in a Black township just outside of Pretoria, is ridiculous. But this is very much the idea that Musk and Thiel push. And I think you see the re-domination of that idea in this country, too.

#1692 Ethnically Cleansing America: Trump's racist whirlwind of deportation and criminalization of immigrationTrump’s Unconstitutional Rampage Against Immigration - Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts - Air Date 1-25-25

BISHOP MARIANNE BUDDE: I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away. And that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once [00:42:00] strangers in this land. 

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: So I wonder if you could just tell us a little bit about what it was in that clip of the bishop just imploring Donald Trump to have some compassion. What was that a tripwire for? 

AARON REICHLIN-MELNICK: So when that clip went viral, of course, Bishop Budd showed that mercy is still an important part of the American public discourse, and the idea of compassion still has a lot of strength. And Republican representative Mike Collins stated that he believed the bishop should be deported for having the audacity to ask President Trump to show mercy. And my response was to highlight how far we have fallen from the discourse that we used to have in this country around compassion, mercy, and justice.

These are not terms of weak people. They are core to our foundations as a country. They have been written into our laws. They are in fact, an [00:43:00] immigration law. Immigration law contains multiple. avenues for compassion, where people may be allowed to stay in the United States even if they are undocumented, and that has always been the case.

And so I think what touched a nerve is calling out this anti-mercy, anti-compassion behavior as against the founding principles of this country. 

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: The other, I think, big disconnect that we're all just sitting in, and Mark Joseph Stern and I talked about this earlier in the week when the first executive orders started coming down, is this gulf between the announced actions and the dictates of the Constitution, or the many statutes that control how law is actually enforced. And, earlier in the week, I said, look, a lot of executive orders are just letters to Santa. They don't have any actual force. And we're going to talk about that in a second. But I think on this question of asylum, we already have CBS News reporting that border [00:44:00] agents are being deployed right now to summarily deport migrants crossing into the country without allowing them to even ask for legal protection. At the same time, there's actually no longer any way to cross legally into the country, because on Monday, right after Donald Trump was sworn in, the administration shut down the CBP One app, which threw tens of thousands of migrants trying to navigate a lawful way to enter the country into limbo. 

So I think what I'm trying to ask is this question of how much force did these -- on the one hand, these executive orders are just wish lists. On the other hand, at least in this context of immigration and asylum, they're very much effective and they're leading to action on the ground.

AARON REICHLIN-MELNICK: Yeah, immigration is an area where the president does have a lot of authority. But immigration is ultimately set to Congress. The Constitution assigns the power of setting rules relating to naturalization to Congress and not to the [00:45:00] president. And for the last couple hundred years, that has been interpreted as meaning that it is Congress that ultimately gets to decide who can enter the country and who cannot, and not the president.

When the president does get that authority, it's usually because Congress has given the president that authority, and not because it's an inherent aspect of the presidential power.

But Trump doesn't agree with that. And what he has already said is that he can, in his own view, simply suspend the entirety of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the laws passed by Congress about how to treat people taken into custody at the border. And he has said that he can simply sweep those aside and order border patrol to turn people away, despite the fact that they do have rights in the law, despite the fact that they have rights under international agreements that the United States is part of. And he says he can simply toss that all aside under his own power. 

So to some extent these things have already gone into [00:46:00] effect. And there is more to come. There's a travel ban that can come, restrictions on legal immigration are foreshadowed in the executive orders and will be coming in the future. And that's an area where he does have a lot of authority restricting legal immigration. 

But what he can't do, and what the courts are likely going to intervene on, is the idea that he can simply declare "I'm President, therefore, I don't have to follow the laws if people are crossing our southern border." 

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: So I'm hearing you say that there's just this kind of "L'Etat, c'est moi," I am the president! I get to supersede everything: the Constitution, every statute, as you said, international law. And, in a strange way, by behaving as though that is true, even though it will all be tested in the courts, there feels like there's a bit of a knock-on effect where entities are starting to behave as though it's true, even if it's not yet.

AARON REICHLIN-MELNICK: Yeah, and we have already [00:47:00] seen a number of people who know better simply acquiesce to this kind of attitude towards constitutional authority and presidential authority. Of course, when it comes to things like his executive order to strip birthright citizenship for millions of non-citizens in the country, the Department of Justice is defending this. They have already filed legal briefings in court arguing that the consensus for centuries that birthright citizenship exists in this country is not real, and can simply be tossed aside with the stroke of a pen. So there are people going along with this. 

The imperial presidency is here, and it's in action, and the question is, how much will the courts push back on it? Because a lot of the institutional actors inside the government are, for the moment, being muzzled, pushed aside, or fired. 

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: Can we talk for a minute about the purported legal authority that underlies the president's claim that he's just going to, on day one, effectively shut down the southern border? Because there's a kind [00:48:00] of a weird mishmash of public health claims and national security, anti-terrorism claims, and of course, the good old foreign invasion claim. We knew that was coming. Can you just walk us through what the basis of this claim that there is a catastrophic emergency at the southern border that allows him to set aside existing statutes and constitutional protections?

AARON REICHLIN-MELNICK: Yeah, so President Trump invokes three specific legal authorities. Two of them are contained within immigration law. One of them is his claim that as president, he inherently can shut the border whenever there is an invasion, which is a pretty radical argument, considering, again, when the Constitution speaks of invasion, everyone agrees who has ever looked at this issue on a legal basis that it refers to a military invasion, an invasion by a foreign government.

And even if you [00:49:00] think that there is an argument that colloquially we are being invaded by migrants, I would disagree with that, but I can understand the argument from a colloquial standpoint. Very clear that there is not a military invasion at the border. And in fact, the vast majority of migrants who have crossed the border in the last four years have voluntarily turned themselves into law enforcement, to the border patrol, and are asking for protection. And I cannot think of a military invasion in the history of the entire planet that began with people voluntarily turning themselves into the law enforcement of the country to which they were invading.

Nevertheless, he makes a claim, first, that under the Constitution, in order to support the constitutional provision that says the executive shall protect the states against an invasion, that he can suspend the physical entry of individuals coming into the United States. Now, what that means as a practical basis [00:50:00] remains to be seen.

Separately, he invokes two provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which authorize the president to suspend the entry of individuals. One is the travel ban authority, Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. This is the authority that the Supreme Court said gave him extraordinary deference to suspend legal admissions into the country. And the other is a similar provision that operates for restricting visas. 

The travel ban authority, however, is already in effect at the border. President Biden invoked this authority in the past. President Trump invoked this authority at the border in his first term. But it didn't do anything on its own. The widespread agreement of the Trump's administration first term and the Biden administration was that this authority, when invoked at the border, had to operate along with another law that let them use that authority to restrict asylum. And the way that worked was that Biden and Trump [00:51:00] pushed out regulations saying, if you cross the border in violation of a presidential suspension of entry, we are deciding in our discretion not to grant you asylum. And they had a law on the books that says the Attorney General can set restrictions on asylum that they deem necessary. So there was a pretty clear legal fig leaf. 

Now, and there are good disagreements about how that authority was exercised and whether that asylum restriction was lawful, but nevertheless, they pointed to a specific law and said, this law authorizes us to suspend asylum. These new executive orders do not do that. They simply assert, I have put this suspension in effect under Section 212(f). Therefore, I am suspending not only asylum, but I am declaring that people cannot apply for any other benefit in immigration law that might permit someone to stay in the country. So that could mean a visa, that could mean applying for a green card through a spouse, that could mean applying for protection [00:52:00] under the Convention Against Torture. There are so many other things in the law that are not asylum that a migrant might be eligible for. And Trump is simply saying, I can come in and with a stroke of a pen say every one of these protections that Congress has written into law are no longer available for people.

And that is sweeping. He did not make this claim his first time.

Extraordinary Cruelty, Ordinary Policy: Immigration and Deportation Under Trump 2.0. - Unf*cking The Republic - Air Date 1-31-25

MAX - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: We can't talk about immigration without talking about why people come here in the first place. Enter the Washington Consensus. Now, we've covered it before. This was the brilliant idea to treat Latin America and the Caribbean like a commodity store rather than partners. Essentially, we've treated our neighbors to the south as a commodity source—labor, minerals, timber, oil, rather than a partner. We help build entire economies on the other side of the world, while ignoring the potential of the LAC to be more than a strip mine or cheap labor pool. 

Now, as we've said before, The Washington Consensus is a reflection of ethnocentric attitudes [00:53:00] rather than a suite of policy prescriptions and what contributes to this persistent narrative that these countries are filled with unproductive savages who just want to suck on the teats of our welfare programs.

The opportunities remain abundant and available if we only developed a more proactive and less racist attitude toward the region as a whole. And it looked for a moment during the global pandemic that we might wake up to the possibility of true partnership. One that would ameliorate trade, reduce the flow of asylum seekers, and reduce carbon emissions.

Sadly, the Biden administration ignored the opportunity even as the two largest economies in the LAC, Mexico and Brazil, moved further left and tried to open up more productive conversations throughout the region. No one represents this antiquated, paternalistic view of the Southern Hemisphere more than Joe Biden mind you. 

Biden could have moved to normalize economic relations with Venezuela and eliminate sanctions that only serve to [00:54:00] strengthen Maduro's authoritarian grip on the country and punish its citizens. I mean, for some reason, this dictator totally off the table. Every other dictator in the world we can do business with.

This is what led to the surge in migration that gave us Trump, because that was an actual crisis. And Biden could have also finished what Obama started in Cuba by minting it as a major trading partner and opened up the flow of tourism. He could have partnered more closely with new president Claudia Scheinbaum and returning president Lula da Silva to form an economic alliance that would reduce our dependence upon China.

All of this, all of his failures of diplomacy and foreign policy left a vacuum that is once again being filled by the bloviator in chief who's taking all of the wrong lessons from the strongmen in the region and ignoring partnerships with our two most natural allies who also happen to be the biggest trading partners.

Now, Trump once again designated Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism. Repeated his intention to implement [00:55:00] punitive tariffs on Mexico, threatened Colombia with sanctions after they refused to take in a military plane of 200 deported migrants, none of whom, by the way, were accused of committing any crimes.

And he's celebrating the brutal economic policies of Javier Millet in Argentina and authoritarian policies of Najib Bukele in El Salvador. Our policies and attitudes toward the LAC region are so short sighted, racist, and depraved it makes my blood boil.

In terms of who's being targeted in these roundups. The biggest threat I can see is in the characterization of criminality and status under the Trump regime. This is where it goes from business as usual, but with more teeth and video cameras, to dictatorship style pogroms. Consider the following scenarios.

MANNY FACES: About 35 percent of the deportations ordered over the past decade were for people who didn't appear in court under a deportation order. This goes back to Clinton's criminalization [00:56:00] catch 22. This person might be the breadwinner for a family here, sends money back home, is raising a kid born on U. S. soil, and is generally a productive citizen.

This person is also considered a criminal and might be rounded up by ICE. 

99 - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: According to an article in the Texas Tribune, currently nearly 3 million people have legal permission to work and live in the U. S. Under various federal programs that don't provide a path to permanent legal status or citizenship.

The programs can be renewed or scrapped at the discretion of each new presidential administration. End quote. These are the so called collateral roundups that Trump is proposing to include. 

MAX - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: Okay, alternately, They could be a member of a gang, wanted for a violent crime here in the United States, or perhaps in their home country.

There are immigrants being targeted by ICE currently, and historically, that fall under this category, and this is the pretense under which this administration and most of Trump land media is operating. A few good eggs will be swept up with the bad eggs, but that's the price we pay for freedom, [00:57:00] right?

This kind of aligns with what the young man at the top of the episode said as well. But let's dig into this last part a bit more. Right now, Congress is debating the Lake and Riley Act, which would require ICE to also detain undocumented immigrants accused of lesser, non violent crimes. There's a lot going on here.

So, let's take the undocumented person, Wanted for a crime in their home country. Assuming we have extradition privileges and communication with the nation of origin, this is pretty straightforward path, right? 

MANNY FACES: Unless of course, this person is a political refugee wanted for protesting an authoritarian regime and demanding fair and open elections.

MAX - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: Hmm, right. Well, I guess a proper procedure should be followed in this instance. But what about the undocumented immigrant that committed a crime on US soil? Surely they have to go, right? 

99 - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: Unless, of course, this crime involved your family and this person stands a better chance of roaming free once back in their home country rather than facing our criminal justice system.

MAX - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: Oh. [00:58:00] The Lake and Riley Act adds a bit of clarity by adding non violent crimes, which basically, just helps us weed out bad actors from our society. surely there's no harm in that, right? 

MANNY FACES: Sure, except for the part about only needing to be accused of a crime. In theory, you could press charges against someone you hold a grudge against for taking your parking spot, and suddenly they're in the system, and ICE is deporting them.

So, because you lost your parking spot at Trader Joe's and decided to make a false accusation against someone you don't know and it turns out that they're the only provider for an entire family, working nights and weekends in jobs that Americans won't fill, sending money home to El Salvador, so the rest of their family can survive and not seek asylum in the United States?

And one of the jobs is a caretaker to an old disabled lady whose kids don't live in the same state, so they pay this person off the books? Because her insurance doesn't cover the cost of an aid. And since ice swept up this person and the old lady wasn't notified, she goes three days without eating, gets dizzy, falls and hits her head and dies.

The family in El Salvador falls in a crisis and the entire family has to flee the country, but they're too [00:59:00] weak and hungry, so they die in the muddy waters of the Darien Gap. Everyone died, all because you got an honest immigrant deported. 

99 - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: Way to go, Max.

MANNY FACES: Asshole.

ANCHORMAN CLIP: Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean, that really got out of hand fast.

MAX - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: Point being, this level of nuance isn't being discussed anywhere on the left or the right. So it's important for us not to add to the confusion by getting it wrong.

Before we go, we should reinforce some facts that we've covered before to demolish some right wing bullshit. Now, you've heard it before. Immigrants are flooding across the borders to take advantage of our free social services. Really? Let's count what undocumented immigrants can't get and see there's Medicaid, TANF, Child Welfare Payments, SNAP, Unemployment Insurance, Disability Insurance, Social Security, basically everything.

But here's the kicker. [01:00:00] Undocumented workers pay about 13 billion a year into Social Security that they'll never be able to claim. They pay property taxes through their rent that funds public schools. The only benefits they can access? Emergency room care and public education for their kids, that's it.

And with respect to public education, public schools are primarily funded by local property taxes. These are paid by homeowners or landlords. Tenants pay these homeowners for apartments and rooms or landlords for apartments and storefronts. See how this works? That leaves emergency rooms, which I'll address in the Medicare for All episode.

And it also leaves school lunches. So that's the last thing, right? On this latter point, I have to concede. Undocumented children receive free school lunches. And the federal government is on the hook for that. Let's actually do a little math. Let's see. The federal government spends around 17. 2 billion on school lunches.[01:01:00] 

About 7 percent of students are undocumented. That's 1. 2 billion per year Feeding undocumented children. Now the federal budget for 2025 is 7. 3 trillion. So my math is correct. School lunches for undocumented children represents 0. 016 percent of the federal budget. 

MANNY FACES: So she put it that way to port them all.

99 - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: Stop it.

MAX - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: These right wing talking points are garbage and the media outlets that repeat them are garbage outlets filled with garbage people, but as leftists, We don't get to pick and choose the facts that support our narratives either. Now look, I get it, we need to call out Trump's cruelty, his racist rhetoric, his intentional trauma infliction.

But we also need to be honest about something. The difference between Trump and Obama isn't in the numbers. It's in the cruelty of execution and the willingness to put it [01:02:00] on display for all of us to see. He's taunted us, for sure. And yet, the left needs to be morally consistent here. Yes, Trump's approach is more brutal, more racist, more cruel, but the machinery he's using?

That was built and maintained by both parties. Clinton criminalized existence, Bush militarized the border, Obama perfected deportation, Biden used it all and then some, and Trump? Trump just took off the mask. The real solution isn't in who can deport more people or build bigger walls. It's in recognizing that the entire fucking framework is broken.

We need to rebuild our relationship with Latin America and the Caribbean, create real economic partnerships, decriminalize immigrant status, and stop treating people like political footballs. But that would require admitting that both parties have blood on their hands, and in Washington, that's the one thing that's still illegal.

In the meantime, fuck [01:03:00] Donald Trump. Elon Musk is a Nazi. Protect those you love, and even some you might not. Because next time around it could be you

Trump's Mass Detention Plan for Guantánamo Harkens Back to U.S. Detention of Haitian Asylum Seekers - Democracy Now! - Air Date 2-4-25

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: The Pentagon saying some 300 additional soldiers have arrived at the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have begun constructing a tent city to detain up to 30,000 immigrants and asylum seekers. On Monday, the Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel condemned the Trump administration’s attack on asylum seekers. This is what he said.

PRESIDENT MIGUEL DAZ-CANEL: [translated] For Cuba, the violent and indiscriminate deportation of immigrants by the United States, arbitrary detentions and other human rights violations are unacceptable. These measures are also used as a political pressure and blackmail weapon against the peoples of our America. The establishment of a detention center at the American naval base in Guantánamo, where it is intended to imprison tens of thousands of people, constitutes a [01:04:00] barbaric act.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: So, that’s the president of Cuba. Miriam Pensack, your forthcoming book is on Guantánamo. Can you give us the history of how the U.S. has used it?

MIRIAM PENSACK: Sure. So, something that I should mention first and foremost is that before Guantánamo became what it was known for in early 21st century, the sort of “forever prison in the war on terror,” the way that its ambiguous sovereignty, as a U.S. base coercively held on Cuban soil, functioned was to hold tens of thousands of circum-Caribbean asylum seekers, first from Haiti, roughly 40,000 from Haiti, then 35,000 Cubans who fled the island during what was called the Special Period, so the collapse of the Soviet Union, which prompted the total collapse of Cuba’s economy in the mid-’90s. So, this is actually a sort of back to basics, unfortunately, for Guantánamo.

And [01:05:00] those initiatives, first the Haitian internment and then the Balsero crisis of Cuban rafters a few years later, what happened with the Haitians, they were, by and large, repatriated to extremely dangerous conditions in Haiti, where a coup had taken place against Haiti’s first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. And Cubans eventually made it to the United States, but not after — you know, after effectively being held in what were concentration camp-, detention camp-like conditions in Guantánamo. And they were allowed into the United States because — in part because of the establishment of what became known as wet foot, dry foot.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Yeah, I also wanted to ask you about the Dominican Republic, where Rubio will also be visiting. The Dominican Republic has for years been involved in its own migration crackdown against Haitians within [01:06:00] the country, massive attempts to deport Haitians from the DR. What do you sense might come out of Rubio’s visit there?

MIRIAM PENSACK: I think there will definitely be a willingness to collaborate on immigration and deportation. You know, the Dominican Republic has been building a wall between itself and Haiti, which it shares the island of Hispaniola with. You know, there have been these mass attempts to deport Haitians. There have also been efforts to strip Dominican citizens of their citizenship if they have what has been in many cases very flimsy proof of Haitian origin or provenance. You know, so it’s very anti-Black, because Haiti was the first Black republic, and Haitians are — there are plenty of Black Dominicans, I should say, but there is a [01:07:00] huge degree of anti-Blackness involved in that. And the Dominican Republic has, in fact, left some of its citizens who it deemed Haitian stateless, because Haiti did not recognize them as Haitian citizens.

#1688 International Decline: The Old Is Dying and the New Cannot Be BornYanis Varoufakis on Cloud Capital vs AI: DeepSeek, Technofeudalism, Capitalism and the New Cold War - DiEM25 - Air Date 1-26-24

YANIS VAROUFAKIS - HOST, DIEM 25: The gist of DeepSeek's arrival on the AI scene and the carnage in the American stock exchanges is a sudden transition from proprietary to open source technology. It is therefore no great wonder that the moment DeepSeek became the most downloaded app on the Apple store, it pulverized the market capitalization of the hitherto overinflated US big tech stocks.

How did this happen exactly? How is it that a private commodified service is suddenly offered for free? And does this mean that techno federalism is in trouble to begin with? It's important to note that AI was never a proprietary technology in itself. The underlying code of all AI companies was [01:08:00] always open source.

What made American AI a quasi private commodity? Was the way in which these models were trained using huge amounts of privatized data, where I say privatized, you should translate Stolen data. Your data. My data. There was a Google memo that was leaked in 2017 that was widely discussed and refuted but it was a harbinger of what happened with DeepSeek.

In that memo we read the following words If an open source large language model, it said trained for a few million dollars, comes to outperform a proprietary model. Then there's going to be trouble. There will be no firewall, the memo continues, even to safeguard OpenAI. That's what happened. DeepSeek pierced the United States AI company's bubble by decommodifying the results of the model's training and doing it at a tiny, tiny cost to [01:09:00] itself.

Shifting the results of AI trained models from behind a paywall to the public realm. Within days since the release of the latest version of DeepSeek, developers around the world started building their own models On top of deep seeks. This was the nightmare of american big tech ai service providers who have been offering the results of prompts as a commodity in the form of subscriptions You see deep seek type applications can now produce high quality translations for free That's just an example.

And in so doing, they undermine the business model of companies like Deeple, the German company. In the broader scheme of things, this means that the morsels of cloud capital that Europe owned, like Deeple, essentially have lost their market value. Nevertheless, and this is a huge nevertheless, it is only AI as a commodity that has lost its grossly [01:10:00] exaggerated market price or value.

In sharp contrast, cloud capital utilized as Amazon, Meta, Google, and so on have been utilizing it. That is not as a commodity producing piece of tech, but as a produced means of behavioral modification. That business model is not at all threatened by companies like DeepSeek. And since techno feudalism is powered by cloud capital working that way, rather than commodity like AI services of the chat GPT 4 or 5 type, our techno feudal order is not threatened by competitors such as DeepSeek.

To help understand the difference between cloud capital and AI based commodified services, it helps to compare and contrast Alexa, take Amazon's Alexa, and OpenAI's Chat GPT. Alexa is not offering you a commodified service. It is your [01:11:00] free, pretend slave. Unlike GPT 405, you do not pay a subscription to Amazon for the right to order Alexa, to order your milk, or to switch off your lights.

Rather, you train Alexa to train you, to train it, to know you, so that it wins you over, it wins your trust, with good recommendations. So that it can ultimately modify your behavior, so that it can encourage you to buy a commodity from amazon. com with Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon, retaining up to 40 percent of the price you pay for a book or an electric bicycle.

Money that will be retained as cloud rent by the owner of Amazon Jeff Bezos in short and this is very important The work that Alexa performs for you is not a commodity that you buy unlike chat gpt Which works to sell you a commodity even in a subscription [01:12:00] form to put it in different words Once more chat gpt is subject to market competition and therefore vulnerable to companies like DeepSeek.

But Alexa is not. This is why OpenAI, ChatGPT's maker, is seriously damaged by the emergence of DeepSeek, but Amazon is not. That's my basic point. Cloud capital is in a league of its own, beyond market competition, from DeepSeek like upstarts. Because its power lies in its capacity to modify our behavior and remove us from any market. For example, to shift us from real markets to cloud feeds like Amazon or Alibaba. To wrap this up, in conclusion, cloud's capital capacity to drive techno fidelism is not challenged by companies like DeepSeek. Only companies like OpenAI, which invested so much, and so foolishly I would add, in providing a commodified service, these companies [01:13:00] stand to lose enormously.

This, I believe, is yet another sign that capitalism is dead at the hand of cloud capital, while techno feudalism is going from strength to strength. And as it does so, it fuels even further the new Cold War between the United States and China, which in my book, Techno Feudalism, What Killed Capitalism, I have explained away, I have explained this new Cold War as the almighty clash between these two huge concentrations of cloud capital, the American dollar denominated super cloudalist power, and the Chinese one denominated super cloudalist power.

Now, speaking of this new Cold War, which I have argued is mostly fueled by the clash between American and Chinese cloud capital, I wonder what impact DeepSeek's success will have on the United States government, not just Trump, but the whole gamut of the American state and its government, Silicon Valley and Washington DC Until very recently and the deep sea arrival on the scene, they had convinced [01:14:00] themselves that America had the huge AI lead over China.

Now that the tiny Chinese company has destroyed that confidence by producing on a shoestring better AI tech and services than Silicon Valley had imagined possible. I don't know about you, but I can almost hear the wearing of the cogs and wheels inside the heads of people in authority both on the east coast and the west coast of the United States as they are thinking, trying to understand, to predict if the Chinese can do this out of the blue.

As DeepSeek did, only two days ago. What else can the Chinese do tomorrow? It is reminiscent, isn't it, of the Sputnik moment. So, it will be interesting to see how Donald Trump reacts to this threat to companies like OpenAI. Especially since Elon Musk understood some time ago, quite presently, I [01:15:00] should say, and has spoken out against companies like OpenAI.

He seems to have understood the folly of commodifying AI services rather than going full on techno feudal. Goodness only knows what happens in a White House containing both the thoughts of Elon Musk and someone like Donald Trump. These are indeed turning out to be interesting times, of course, in the traditional Chinese proverbial sense of the phrase. 

Trump, China, and the New Cold War - Macrodose - Air Date 12-10-24

JAMES MEADWAY - HOST, MACRODOSE: Over the past couple of weeks, tensions in the simmering trade war between the world's two major powers have escalated still further. President Joe Biden's outgoing administration has added around 140 Chinese companies to its expanding list of banned entities.

In response, China has hit back with its own measures, including bans on the export of key minerals essential for modern semiconductors, with gallium being the most critical. [01:16:00] Economist Prashant Garg and his team at Imperial College London have done some fascinating research highlighting just how vital gallium is to the entire semiconductor supply chain.

We'll link to that in the show notes, but the key takeaway is something we've covered before. Semiconductor manufacturing is arguably one of the most complex machines humanity has ever built, and these chips power virtually every digital device we own. Any threat to that system comes with serious economic consequences.

It's almost miraculous, though now we take it completely for granted, that some of the most advanced pieces of equipment ever created, tiny silicon fragments with billions of transistors etched into place, are produced in such massive quantities that even the most cutting edge chips are affordable enough to end up in devices we casually lose on the bus or drop into a puddle.

But that complexity, stretching from obscure, often quite rare raw [01:17:00] materials necessary for different stages of manufacturing, to the wildly sophisticated machines needed to etch purified silicon, to the distribution across a globe of billions of these devices, means that the supply chain also contains huge vulnerabilities.

A couple of months ago in the show, we talked about how Storm Helene hit the US and temporarily shut down one of the very few mines producing high grade quartz, the kind needed to make the super pure silicon used in semiconductors. For a while, it seemed like the world's chip supply might face serious disruption a few months down the line, but in the end, the mine has reopened and is now operating at nearly full capacity.

The Imperial Report uses AI techniques to analyse thousands of standardised product records, mapping the connections between raw materials and the goods they're used in. Gallium, for example, is often substituted for silicon in some cheaper semiconductors, [01:18:00] and serves as the light emitting component in LEDs.

This gives it a vast range of everyday applications. And here's the kicker, China produces 98 percent of the world's supply. Last year, even limited export controls by China caused the global price of gallium to double, and it's not easy for manufacturers to simply swap one critical mineral for another.

So this new export ban will have a significant impact, rippling across the economy. Donald Trump has, of course, threatened a far broader trade war against China, claiming 100 percent tariffs on Chinese products. But, as we've suggested before, this looks more like the opening round in a negotiating position than a firm commitment.

His senior advisors, along with others closely connected to big business, have made it clear that Trump sees today's big threats as just the opening move in a negotiation that will really [01:19:00] begin when he re enters office in January. China, for its part, has treated the Trump announcements with some public concern, understandably, stressing the likely cost to US consumers.

But the country's ambassador to Washington has, for example, been keen to underline that they know full well Trump is intending to negotiate on final tariff positions. The broader strategy here is one that Trump's pick for treasury secretary, Scott Besant, outlined in a speech over the summer. If the international economic order is being reshaped, he argues, and it is, the US should use all the levers at its disposal to bend this reshaping to its own advantage.

One obvious move is leveraging the sheer size of the US economy, with its 350 million consumers and their dollar purchasing power. Trump has, for example, boasted for months about how he would raise tariffs on imports from China [01:20:00] by 60 percent or more. Just last month, he said on social media that he would impose a 10 percent tariff above any additional tariffs on all products from China.

He's also talked about using the threat of tariffs to push China and Mexico to do more to help curb the U. S. opioid crisis, since the two countries are the top sources of fentanyl and its precursor chemicals. Now, China insists it has no role in the U. S. drug crisis, but this is where we see how the threat of tariffs is being used to achieve a broader policy goal.

Much of this policymaking is likely to be fundamentally reactive, all under the broad banner of America First. It's about responding to a world that's seen as increasingly hostile to the interests, as the new administration sees them, of US capitalism. The two key interests here are military strength and, tied to that, technological leadership in critical high tech sectors.[01:21:00] 

China has moved with impressive speed over the last few decades, threatening to erode the US's edge in these areas. So from the first Trump administration, extended under President Biden, and now likely to deepen in a second Trump term, we're seeing increasingly aggressive trade moves aimed at preventing China from gaining that technological advantage.

This may not work as intended. The evidence so far suggests that China has responded by putting more resources into its own domestic industries. As a result, Huawei, the high technology supplier heavily targeted by tariffs, can now build phones with homegrown semiconductors that are not far off the cutting edge of what TSMC in Taiwan is able to produce.

In other words, the restrictions and tariffs have created a kind of hothouse for Chinese innovation, exactly the opposite of what was intended by successive U. S. [01:22:00] administrations. By pushing hard on what it sees as its own interests, the U. S. is actually undermining them. But this will likely only strengthen the case in Washington for even more tariff restrictions.

Obviously, none of this is particularly rational. In theory, there is a better way through this. If America is concerned about China's trade practices undermining its own manufacturing, it could, for instance, use a threat of tariffs to secure a more favourable position in negotiations with China, like agreeing to a controlled devaluation of the dollar, which would make US exports more competitive worldwide.

This is something Vice President in Waiting J. D. Vance has argued for. Now, back in 1985, a similar deal was struck with Japan, the so called Plaza Accords, where, under the threat of increased tariffs on Japanese exports, Japan agreed to revalue the [01:23:00] yen upwards. This made its own exports less competitive, but eased pressure on U.

S. manufacturers in particular. Cyan Vallet, from the German Council on Foreign Relations, writing in the Financial Times this week, argues that the U. S. under Trump could be about to achieve the same deal in parallel circumstances with China. Vallet believes that the macroeconomic entanglements of China and the U. S. will force a kind of economic rationality to reassert itself. Both sides will recognize a mutual interest in backing down from dispute. If, as in 1985, the U. S. is prepared to use its capacity to threaten wisely and to set up, quote, a grand bargain with China, so the dollar is allowed to fall in value, China allows the yen to rise, and tariff restrictions are dialed back.

I think this is far too optimistic. [01:24:00] One wrinkle is Vallee's call for spending cuts in the U. S., necessary in his global rebalancing to prevent the U. S. demanding to borrow more and more from the rest of the world. The first Trump administration was very careful not to touch most Americans welfare benefits, and Trump himself was associated with significant, COVID.

Whatever the chatter about cutting the administrative state we hear now, Getting politically unpopular spending cuts past this President and this Congress will be incredibly difficult. The main difference between the 1985 deal and today is that whilst Japan was politically and militarily subordinated to the U. S., China most certainly is not. So while Japan eventually buckled and accepted a deal that, in hindsight, wasn't particularly beneficial to its own economy, China has no reason to do the same thing.

 

Will Trump Crash Economy On Purpose- Historian Explains DANGEROUS MAGA Plot - Thom Hartmann Program - Air Date 1-28-25

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM : Democrats are [01:25:00] pointing out that Trump's threats to increase our national debt by as much as 7 trillion, that is the cost of another round of tax cuts for billionaires, Shift billions of treasury dollars into crypto and impose tariffs on imported goods. Any one of those three things could cause an economic crash.

All three of them might be a perfect storm. And Trump seems unconcerned. And the Republicans. They're meeting down at Doral, at his shabby Doral Golf Club down in Florida today. Right now to, you know, plot what they're going to do. They don't seem to worry either. Now, to the average person, the idea of a recession is pretty grim.

I mean, you know, millions of people lose their jobs. People have to sell their 401ks at a loss out of desperation just to pay the rent and buy food. Uh, you know, it's, it's a horror show for average people, particularly in a country where 54 percent of Americans right now live paycheck to paycheck. [01:26:00] So why isn't Trump worried about this?

Why are Republicans not worried about this? Why are the billionaires who put Trump and the Republicans in power not worried about this? Well, the reason is very simple. There's three. big benefits to billionaires to having an economic crash. It's why Reagan had a crash. It's why Bush had a crash. It's, there's actually a benefit to it.

First, it's a great excuse to cut government services to, to, you know, and, and, and also to cut taxes on billionaires. You just say, hey, we need to cut taxes to stimulate the economy, we need to cut government services because there's no money to pay for them. I mean, Reagan did this in 81, George W. Bush did this in, in 2003, 2002, second, the second reason is the time, times of economic crisis increased the tolerance for strongman governments.

FDR ran a strongman government, now it was one that everybody liked, but he was just You [01:27:00] know, stomping all over Congress and doing things with executive orders that Republicans were screaming were unconstitutional. People were freaked out. They wanted a strong government. In Europe, Hitler used the Great Depression to, to, as the rationale for, for his enabling acts, which, you know, gave him rule by decree.

And it appears now that Trump IGs in violation of the law, these inspector generals. I'll get into that more later on in the program. But Uh, he's, he's defying the law or refusing to enforce the law in other cases right now, right in front of us, right in front of God and the world, and nobody is doing anything about it.

And he's getting away with it. And that promises that more will come and it'll get worse and worse and worse as time goes on. Secondly, times of economic crisis, uh, you know, increase the need or the demand for strong man government. And in fact, this is where it's getting wild, um, [01:28:00] 58%. of young people, generation Z people in the United States, say they trust social media more than traditional news.

45 percent now believe women have gained too many rights. The number of young men who believe that women have too much power in the United States has increased from 32 to 45 percent in just five years, while 52 percent say they trust what they, readers say, see on social media. And then third, and this is the big reason, billionaires love economic crashes.

I remember sitting in Gloria Swanson's apartment back in the 1980s having dinner with her and, uh, she was on the board of our, uh, children's village and, you know, every six months or so I'd go down to New York and we'd have dinner together in her apartment and she would just tell me these wild stories.

And she told me this story, she was a vegetarian and I was a vegetarian and the program we ran was vegetarian, so we had this commonality. So anyhow, she told me this story about, uh, Joe Kennedy. [01:29:00] John F. Kennedy's father, and he was her manager for a while, he was her lover for a while, and he robbed her blind, he ripped her off terribly.

But her story about him was that when the Great Depression started, he had bailed out of the market just a week or two before the crash happened, and that during the crash, as the market was going down, down, down, down, down, Joe Kennedy, who was really, really rich, was buying stocks. Why? Because it's a buying opportunity.

If you're really rich when the stock market crashes and all the little people are desperately selling all their stock just to pay for their rent and their food, you can buy that stock at a discount and suddenly you're the richest person on earth. Joe Kennedy made a fortune doing this. As did J. Paul Getty.

He left his parents golden anniversary In 1929 to run down to Wall Street to buy stocks during the collapse and ended up one [01:30:00] of the richest men in the world. In fact, the richest man in the world. He said it was the opportunity of a lifetime to get oil companies for practically nothing, which is exactly what he did.

And this is what we saw this during the Bush crash. During the Bush crash in 2007, home prices dropped 21%. This was when, you know, there's millions of homes now owned by big corporations, hedge funds and big corporations out of New York, investment vehicles. This was when most of them were purchased, or many of them.

Over 10 million Americans lost their homes to predators like Steve Mnuchin. The stock market lost over 50%. During the Bush crash, its all time peak was on October 9th, 2007 at 14, 164. It collapsed to 6, 594. While 8 million Americans lost their jobs and were wiped out, the billionaires came in and started buying stocks that were being unloaded by working class people from their [01:31:00] 401Ks, even though they had to pay a penalty.

Between 2009 and 2012, the bottom of the Bush crash and the beginning of the real recovery, The top 1 percent of Americans saw their income grow by over 31%, 95 percent of all income gains during that period were the top 1%. If you, the S& P went up 462 percent by 2020. If you had invested in 2009 a billion dollars, just 11 years later, you would have 4.

6 billion dollars. And then they did it again 10 years later during the Trump COVID crash. And this was, you know, again, the, the billionaires, became insanely wealthy. And they don't have to pay taxes on this money. I mean, the, the, just that one year, 2020, the world's billionaires saw their wealth increase by a full 54%.

So here you've got Republicans down at Doral planning what they're going to do economically, governmentally, whatever, and how they're [01:32:00] not going to hold Trump accountable for impounding money. I'll get to that in violation of the 1974 impoundment act. Um, and the They're planning to crash the economy. You got the debt ceiling coming, you got all this wild stuff, another tax cut.

They want to crash the economy. I'm telling you, hang on to your seat, it's going to get wild.

#1689 The Media and the Moguls: Corporate Media is not equipped for TrumpRevenge- Trump throws lawsuits at the media and demands compliance - The ReidOut w Joy Reid - Air Date 12-17-24

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT:  

Donald Trump ran for president for one reason and one reason only: to make all of his legal problems -- poof! -- go away. And for the most part, he was successful, with one exception. Yesterday, the New York judge who presided over Trump's hush money trial denied his bid to toss out his guilty verdict, meaning Trump will have to live with the infamy of being the first convicted felon president.

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: And yes, MAGA, you are still a convicted felon before you are sentenced. That's how it works.

But that isn't stopping Trump from trying to hit the delete button on every other bad headline ever [01:33:00] printed about him, going so far as to sue Iowa pollster Ann Seltzer and the Des Moines Register, saying he's seeking "accountability for brazen election interference" over a November poll that showed Kamala Harris up 3 percent in Iowa.

Never mind the fact that Trump won the election and won the state of Iowa by double digits. He's clearly feeling emboldened by ABC News agreeing to pay a $15 million settlement in a defamation lawsuit. Nearly every legal expert said that they would have won. And as others in the media show, they're increasingly willing to comply in advance, like the owner of the LA Times, Patrick Soon-Shiong, who Oliver Darcy is reporting, requested that the newspaper's editorial board outright take a break from writing about Trump and balance any critical editorials or articles with positive ones.

Yeah, but here's the thing: these CEOs who are thinking, "Let me just give him what he wants this one time and he'll leave me alone. He won't hurt me or my company or he'll give me [01:34:00] goodies like tax cuts or tariff exemptions or federal contracts. A pat on the head." 

That is not how it works with Trump. His ego is too fragile and his needs are endless. As any parent knows, if your toddler is having a tantrum in the middle of the grocery store, the solution isn't to just buy them the cookies they're screaming for. Because then they'll just do it again and again, and you'll be out of money and sanity, and their teeth will be rotten.

And right now, Trump is that toddler. And he wants nothing short of complete obedience, and constant adulation. For everyone to say they love him and praise him, and tell him he's the best president ever! And it'll never be obsequious enough, or vigorous enough. He'll always want more. And punish and humiliate even those who do comply, just ask Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and all the Black Republicans who went to the mat for Trump during the campaign, only to get snubbed as he builds his administration.

He will always reward weakness with [01:35:00] more humiliation. And that includes foreign leaders like Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who went to Mar-a-Lago last month to kiss the ring, behaving like Trump was already president, which he's not. And how does Trump reward him? By publicly mocking Trudeau on his social media sites, once again calling Trudeau "the governor of the great state of Canada." 

Joining me now is Tim O'Brien, Senior Executive Editor of Bloomberg Opinion and MSNBC Political Analyst. And I have to tell you, this Trudeau thing really bothered me. Let me just put up this tweet that Trudeau posted on his -- why is he still on X Twitter? But he posted this tweet of himself, Look at me next to Donald. Look, what is he doing? When will people learn, Tim, that emasculating yourself before Trump, as Ted Cruz did, as so many have done, doesn't help and just makes him worse. 

TIM O'BRIEN: And it's also a reminder, Joy, that he has been this way forever.

He came up, as you [01:36:00] know, and as I know, we've talked many times, at the knee of Roy Cohn, who taught him how to weaponize the legal system. And he's learned that you don't necessarily need to go to court. And you don't necessarily need to ultimately break people. If they're scared enough in the first innings of any action you take, to capitulate, whether they're politicians, members of the business community, members of the media, members of Congress, or members of the judiciary. And, we can pull down examples of each and every one of these institutions and some of their leading members, deciding in advance that the safest way and the most productive way to deal with Donald Trump is to kiss the ring.

And we see example after example of once they do that, he then shames them in public. 

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: Yes.

TIM O'BRIEN: And he is not ultimately delivering on some of the things they want. And he does it to the people he even holds close to them. I mean, think about how many days was it [01:37:00] after RFK Jr. got nominated for HHS.

And there was a picture of him eating fast food with Don Jr. and Donald on the presidential plane. Eat your food. Take your punishment. And for Trudeau, who you set up in your previous clip in the introduction of this segment, his government, his own government is fractured because of this. And, he could very well be out of a job because of this. 

So I do think that people in the near term right now are petrified. They're not sure how to respond to the fact that Trump was reelected again, other than to capitulate. But they should keep, I think, their eyes on the prize. 

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: Well, I mean, yeah. And there's a game people play of mocking Canada. Well, now Canada has been mocked by its own prime minister. Justin Trudeau went down to Mar-a-Lago as if Trump is already president. He's not president yet. He didn't go running to the White House of the real current president. He went to [01:38:00] him as if he could just become a supplicant. And now Christia Freeland, who is his finance minister, she's out of there because she's like we need to come up with a strategy to deal with Trump's tariff plan. That is not a strategy and it is humiliating. And if I were a Canadian, I'd be absolutely disgusted.

it's interesting that it's said that there's a crisis of manhood, right? That is being said a lot on the right. There is a crisis of manhood. But it's on your own side, guys. It's people like Jeff Bezos, it's people like Mark Zuckerberg. Is this manly behavior to go and fall on your knees to Donald Trump? No! 

I want to show you one reason why people might be doing it though. Los Angeles Times wrote this. I'm sorry, not Los Angeles Times. I apologize for that. Robert Reich wrote this. Much better. he says that part of the reason the media is doing this, no large American corporation wants to be actively litigating against a sitting president, especially one as vindictive as Trump.

A $15 million settlement is chicken feed compared to the myriad ways Trump could penalize Disney, which is a $205.25 billion corporation that has other businesses [01:39:00] besides the media. So talk a little bit about that, because some of these media are actually owned by bigger conglomerates with other business that could be before the president, and so he wants to save his SpaceX and wants to save his other thing or not SpaceX. Whichever one is his. Bezos is one. Everyone's thinking about their other businesses. 

TIM O'BRIEN: Blue Origins. I think it's-- 

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: Blue Origin for Bezos. Yeah. Yeah. 

TIM O'BRIEN: I think that this is, in the American media model, it is always dependent on the integrity of the owners, because they're privately held concerns for the most part in less, or, publicly traded, but with close ownership.

PBS is the only media entity of note that is in there, some very powerfully funded nonprofits like ProPublica that do wonderful work. But when we talk about the legacy media and the mainstream media, we're talking about corporate media. In the era we're in now, corporations have multiple interests [01:40:00] that aren't only tied to their media holdings, and their CEOs are thinking about those things.

And I think you're seeing some media owners decide to dispose of media assets because it's troublesome. I think you have others doing anticipatory knee bending, because they don't want to go into battle in a courtroom with the president. it's bottom line thinking, it's strategic thinking, but it's not journalistic.

And, it's not tied to the idea, just that core basic idea, that the role of journalists in the world should be to seek the truth, and hold the powerful accountable on behalf of the public interest. 

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: Yeah, at this point, the Los Angeles Times is essentially saying if you report a negative fact about Trump, you have to balance it with a positive fact.

I'm not sure how that is serving journalists, and I can tell you that people inside the Los Angeles Times apparently, at least allegedly according to the reports, are not happy. And inside of Bezos operation, it's difficult in this moment when you just want to do the [01:41:00] journalism. it's difficult.

 

Public Broadcasting Is In Danger (Again) - On the Media - Air Date 1-10-25

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA:  

Donald Trump, who says journalists are scum and thinks fact-checking is really unfair, won the election. Now, all those accused of scummily fact-checking are scrambling to adjust. After all, Mr. Trump has already vowed to seek retribution for media offenses by, say, suing CBS for $1 billion doll because of "biased editing of a Kamala Harris 60 minutes interview," suspending ABC's broadcast license because of fact-checked him during a debate and suing The Des Moines Register for printing a poll suggesting Harris would win. A poll that turned out to be, wait for it, wrong. There's more.

Donald Trump: We're involved in one which has been going on for a while and very successfully against Bob Woodward where he didn't quote me properly from the tapes. Then on top of everything else, he sold the tapes.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: This week, the Washington Post's budget was cut by [01:42:00] its stupefyingly rich owner, Jeff Bezos, two months after he killed its endorsement of Kamala Harris, and just as Amazon signed a big deal to bring out a Melania Trump endorsed Melania Trump documentary. He's also given $1 million bucks to Trump's inauguration, as has Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, who just announced that Facebook is ending its fact-checking program, leading the president-elect to say that Zuck's company had "come a long way."

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: The point is fact-based journalism is in trouble. This hour, we're going to look at the plight of public radio, which we are, because who else is going to do it? First, a quick history. Back in 1967 when President Lyndon Johnson mired in Vietnam was trying to build the Great Society at home by passing the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Act, creating Medicare, and crucially, for the purpose of this story, creating the Corporation [01:43:00] for Public Broadcasting, which has been marked for death repeatedly. What is it?

President Lyndon Johnson: The Corporation of Public Broadcasting will assist stations and producers who aim for the best in broadcasting on the whole fascinating range of human activity. It will try to prove that what educates can also be exciting. It will get part of its support from our government, but it will be carefully guarded from government or from party control. It will be free and it will be independent and it will belong to all of our people.

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: It was a hard sell. Conservatives worried the CPB would promote liberal ideas. After all, Johnson's agenda was indisputably liberal. Some suspected its funds would flow more to some regions than others. Commercial broadcasters feared the competition. Even after the dust settled, well, actually the dust never really settled, it's been [01:44:00] kicked up by every Republican administration since. Yet through the decades, somehow every effort to slash or burn the CPB has failed, thanks to such battle-scarred warriors as Big Bird and this guy.

Fred Rogers: I end the program by saying, you've made this day a special day by just your being you. There's no person in the whole world like you, and I like you just the way you are. I feel that if we in public television can only make it clear that feelings are mentionable and manageable, we will have done a great service for mental health.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Despite Fred Rogers' appeal to empathy, Richard Nixon, not known for manageable feelings, viewed public broadcasting as an enemy to slay. In 1975, it was left to [01:45:00] Gerald Ford to set up a funding scheme to shield it, theoretically at least, from the immediate political winds. Congress was directed to appropriate CPB's funding two years in advance. Of course, Congress could kill future funding or even rescind what had already been allocated, but some insulation was better than none. Fast forward to 2017. Donald Trump tries to cut CPB's funding several times in his first term.

KAREN EVERHART: This morning, President Trump made public his proposed budget blueprint for the coming fiscal year. Among the items included, the elimination of all funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: He didn't get it done.

KAREN EVERHART: No, he did not. Those proposals did not fly in Congress.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Karen Everhart is the managing editor of Current, a nonprofit newsroom covering public media.

KAREN EVERHART: Members of Congress, particularly in rural states, recognize that public broadcasting is one of the only local originating sources of [01:46:00] news and information and programming, and they value that. Their constituents value that. What typically happens is the House goes along with a recommendation, especially when it's dominated by Republicans. The House will eliminate CPB's funding from its appropriations budget and then the Senate will propose an alternative number, and that number or something around that amount will end up in the final budget.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: More than 70% of CPB's annual appropriation goes directly to public media stations in the form of community service grants, CSGs, of which about 45% are rural. They can be used as they need to be to keep the station running and for programming, both local and national. They're not obligated to buy programs from PBS, nor do they have to buy from NPR.

KAREN EVERHART: Although most of them do because they're very popular with their audiences. They can choose to [01:47:00] buy programs from American Public Media or PRX or the BBC.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Last year, CPB received $525 million plus another $10 million in interest, about half of which went to local public TV stations and direct grants, about 15% to local radio stations. A big chunk went out in programming grants, mostly to TV. More went out to support the distribution system, et cetera. That said, the bigger stations are less vulnerable to attacks on CPB because it's not a significant part of their budgets.

KAREN EVERHART: They don't rely on CPB funding for essential services. That doesn't go towards their programming budget. It's the small stations where it really makes the biggest difference in what they do on a day-to-day basis. Those are the stations that are most at risk.

Fox News is Back at the White House. Plus, No Joke, The Onion Buys Infowars. Part 2 - On the Media - Air Date 11-15-24

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: You also say that not everything can be fact-checked, that the political ether is lousy with [01:48:00] lies large and small, that reporters should concentrate on the ones with the highest impact, or liars, where everything is said to a large audience. But how do you curate Trump?

BILL ADAIR: Well, I think the solution for fact checking Trump is to get some funding to literally fact check everything he says.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Fact-checking all of those claims, hiring someone to do it, wouldn't that have a numbing effect?

BILL ADAIR: Well, yes, but there are also people who transcribe everything he says.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: So how exactly does more fact-checking help our current environment?

BILL ADAIR: People would say, with me, like, when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Here's why. I think that, first, if you look at just the most basic thing, we talked about Trump, but this also exists at the state and local level.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Even more important, because those local papers have been hammered so hard.

BILL ADAIR: Exactly, and so here's proof of that. [01:49:00] My team looked at fact checking across the country and found that in half the states, there are no fact checkers holding governors, US Senators, members of Congress responsible for what they say. That's like driving on the interstate without any fear of getting a speeding ticket. You can go as fast as you want. Those politicians can say anything and never worry about getting fact-checked. We need more fact-checkers. The simple process of holding politicians accountable for what they say is a useful exercise that provides a ground truth. So that's step one. Okay, so is fact-checking working when it's done? No.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: And part of that is structural. Our media is crafted so that we never have to encounter an idea or a fact that we don't [01:50:00] like.

BILL ADAIR: Exactly. So we have to get creative in thinking about how we might get fact checks to people who aren't seeing them. Two thoughts on that. One, I'm not sure that shouting pants on fire is going to have an appeal to conservative audiences. I'm not sure that Truth-O-Meters are going to have an appeal to conservative audiences because they're associated with fact-checkers that probably conservative audiences have been told not to trust.

In researching the book, I searched how often PolitiFact and its fact-checking has been mentioned in negative ways on Fox, and it gets insulted a lot. We probably need to think about how we package fact-checking for conservative audiences. The other thing we need to do is to get more conservative media organizations to do their own fact-checking. Now, this is already happening. The [01:51:00] Dispatch, a center-right publication, does fact-checking and it's very popular, and we need more conservative media organizations to do fact-checking. I think those two things could really help because what we're doing now is not working.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: In writing this book, you stepped away from the day-to-day role of fact-checking and you've come to the conclusion that maybe pants on fire isn't the way to go. But have you gotten yet any insights or any really compelling ideas about how to package the truth in a way that can cross party lines?

BILL ADAIR: Not yet. That's kind of next on my to-do list.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: To me, that's a sort of, aside from that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?

BILL ADAIR: That's a big task. I think that we need to figure out what could appeal beyond [01:52:00] this NPR listening, New York Times reading, New Yorker subscribing audience and so.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: But nothing yet.

BILL ADAIR: Nothing yet.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: You got nothing?

BILL ADAIR: I got nothing for you, Brooke.

#1691 Democracy Emergency, Constitutional Crisis, Democratic Backsliding, Failing GuardrailsMusk's Coup and Trump's Christian Zionist Gaza Takeover - Straight White American Jesus - Air Date 2-7-25

BRAD ONISHI - HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: Elon Musk is treating the U. S. government like a startup. He's treating it like when he took over Twitter / X. And here's a piece at Wired, a different piece, that reads like this. "While this takeover is unprecedented for the government, it's standard operating procedure for Musk. It maps almost too neatly to his acquisition of Twitter in 2022. Get rid of most of the workforce, install loyalists, rip up safeguards, remake in your own image. This is the way of the startup. You're scrappy, you're unconventional, you're iterating. This is the world that Musk's lieutenants come from, and the one they are imposing on the Office of Personal Management, the GSA, and on down the line".

But Dan, as you're saying, the U. S. government is not a startup. And [01:53:00] this is where you and I have always tried to make a point about this whole 'do the government like a business'. The point of business is to make money. The point of government is to help people's lives get better, to care for people, to help people thrive, to create systems that allow for people to make decisions not for them, and not so that they're just like passive agents, but to create systems where people have good choices about food, shelter, care, about infrastructure, about education. 

Do you think that Musk and the people working for him—and I can go down the roster if you all want, the 19 year old freshman at Northeastern University, the 25 year old eugenicist, the 23 year old who just graduated and had his first job at Meta—do you think that they're concerned with the fact that the trillions of dollars they now have in front of them in a code, and where they're just like slamming Red Bulls all night and [01:54:00] hamming it up, affects people's real lives? That non profits are shutting down because OMB cut off the money? They don't.

This is not a startup. It is the most powerful government in the world. It's one that oversees 350 million people. Dan, I live near Silicon Valley. Startups come and go. One out of a hundred make it. Most of them expend a significant amount of energy and resources, and then they die, and then you just start another one. That is how the kinds of young men that Musk is dragging around think. 

It's also a huge cyber security threat. There's a piece of the conversation by Richard Forno, who's a professor at University of Maryland, and what he talks about is when you have this kind of fiddling with the code of the U. S. Treasury, when you have people who are taking this data and putting it on private servers—do you remember Hillary [01:55:00] Clinton's emails, Dan? The private server? Do you remember that?—that's what they're doing with the data, oh, not of, I don't know, some emails that she sent, which, not great, Hillary, okay, whatever. Oh, I don't know, Dan happens to be perhaps every American and their financial records, the millions of federal employees on someone's server who's 23 years old and walking around like a hacker on the metro with his backpack looking like Mr. Robot. That's a problem, and it flies right in the face of what we talked about over the last couple of weeks.

Donald Trump: well, I know this was DEI with the plane crash, because I have common sense. J. D. Vance: if you just use common sense like real people, not bureaucrats, not technocrats, not those administrative state liberal career hacks, then you'll have a good government. Okay, cool, so who did you guys put in charge of the entire Treasury, and who are [01:56:00] you allowing to hack our entire government? Oh, you mean people with specialized knowledge who are 23 years old and led by a madman, the richest man in the world? That guy who just did the Nazi salute twice? You want to tell me that's common sense? You want to tell me that now you're just like a man of the people? One of the plebeians who lives in the life-world of the peasants and is thinking through everything with common sense? Like you would down at Ace Hardware? You put in charge childrenwith technical knowledge. You allowed them to download the entire code and data of the nation, and then you're gonna turn to us and tell us you have common sense about non-White people and women? 

This is an authoritarian takeover. It's an attempted coup. And we should treat it as such. And I'll close this out, Dan, I'll throw it to you and we can take a break, go to something else. The Senate Dems need to figure it out. And I don't usually go for the Democratic [01:57:00] Party by the throat on this show, not that often, but Chuck Schumer, you're not the man for the job, bud. It's time to go. You're out here introducing legislation to do stuff and Hakeem Jeffries is tweeting that Jesus is in control, that's not gonna cut it. You cannot do business in the Senate when the social contract has been broken. They're trying to take your job, Chuck. They're saying they get the purse and they're gonna spend the money. And you're out here saying, this has to be stopped. Why are you using the passive voice, Chuck? Go get arrested. Go demand, I want to know which Democratic Senator is gonna get thrown to the ground and arrested at the Treasury building, trying to get in and see what the hell's going on in there. That's what I want. Show me that guy. Show me that gal. Show me that person. And guess what? They got my vote, 2028. Because right now I see a lot of like hand-wringing soft-handed BS from some of the only people who have a [01:58:00] chance to do anything right now. And this is not a way to win back voters and do whatever you've been doing since Kamala Harris lost. This is a way to make people think you're a bunch of old folks who are not built for the fight.

Why Are Dems Surprised - The Intercept Briefing - Air Date 2-7-25

SUNJEEV BERY: At a influencer conference, a political influencer conference last spring in DC, Cory Booker opened up the happy hour on the opening night of this conference talking about the importance of social media and messaging. As soon as he ended his remarks, he was hounded by a room full of some of the largest liberal TikTokers asking him why he supported banning the app that they message other young people on.

So it's odd that they have people like this, with these stances, with these actions, with this policy record, tapped to lead these critical pieces of infrastructure for the party in such a critical moment. It's, baffling to me. So I'm, wondering for both of you, how would you assess the democratic Party's leadership in this moment because you're both talking [01:59:00] about activism and organizing in addition to that Indivisible call There was a large protest outside the Treasury on Tuesday That was organized by Indivisible and Move On while members of Congress showed up that was from the outside. So what is leadership doing right now to restore faith in the party in their leadership and for the road ahead?

JORDAN UHL: I mean, I'll be blunt and say I'm not seeing it, and I'm just not seeing what needs to be done. And this is a moment for an asymmetrical challenge, right? Trump holds formal authority, but he obviously is going way beyond formal authority when it comes to things like abolishing agencies like USAID, that he doesn't technically have the power to do.

And meanwhile, Democratic leaders. They don't have a sense of what to do or how to operate. And the way you operate in a moment like this is by engaging in an asymmetrical challenge. Democrats don't have any formal authority, but they can build informal authority. I personally think Elon Musk is far more vulnerable than most people recognize.

And I could [02:00:00] imagine. A movement to call on Democratic senators to filibuster any legislation that provides any sort of appropriations or funding for any of Elon Musk's, financial interests, starting with SpaceX, a big chunk of his increase in wealth is just projections from the stock market of future earnings for Tesla and SpaceX, tens of billions of dollars could be subtracted from him very quickly.

But this kind of creative thinking isn't something that it. Democrats in office tend to be very good at because they're very well trained in, let's just be blunt kissing the ass of concentrated sectors of wealth in order to access that money to run campaigns. My personal opinion is any formal shift in how leading democratic politicians behave is going to occur because, people are leading from behind, movement organizations, concerned grassroots voters and donors are going to say, what the heck are you doing?

And then they're going to start listening, and then they're going to start quote unquote leading. 

AKELA LACY: Yeah, I agree [02:01:00] with 99 percent of that, I would say. I'm not sure that leaders, leadership in the Democratic Party is looking for feedback. I get the sense that they want to create the appearance that they're looking for feedback, but, maintain this practice of thinking they're the smartest people in the room and thinking that they have it locked down and, we'll listen to what you say, but we're actually, we know what we're doing.

I do think right now is an opening for some of that more creative thinking to come in. But I think that, you, really hit it on the head there. The idea that no one was prepared, that there was no strategy, and that they're playing catch up right now when this writing has been on the wall for months and months and months.

I mean, we can go back to June. We can, we can go back to October, November. But what possible reason could there be that Schumer doesn't have Democrats locked down to vote as a bloc against every single Trump nominee? He came out on Monday touting that they had 47 people, [02:02:00] including, the two independents, vote against the OMB chief.

But then you have other votes just this week, where it's like they have 22 people voting for a Trump nominee. They have 24 people in the Democratic Party voting for a Trump nominee. And they should be being held accountable for that. I think some of these outside groups are trying to do that. But when you talk about the sparks of potential openings for that creative thinking, whether it's from members of The Squad or members of the CPC, I think Pramila Jayapal has been very blunt that Democrats are not willing to learn from this moment, particularly on Gaza.

But you also see those ranks being decimated and whatever organizing has been done to build their capacity to do that creative thinking and fill that gap in Congress, since 2018, et cetera, et cetera, has been cut in half, every two years because of groups like AIPAC and these outside groups that Democrats continue caving to.

So that's the bigger, 30, 000 foot picture of the cycle of [02:03:00] why this seems to be impossible for people who say that they have all the information and all the answers.

Trumps American Takeover - Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick - Air Date 2-1-25

KIM LANE SCHEPPELE: So, I lived in Hungary for a long time. I also lived in Russia for a long time. And this is the third time I've ridden this escalator from democracy into someplace very dark. And unfortunately, what we're seeing here is so similar to what happened in Russia and particularly to what happened in Hungary.

And part of the reason why it's so alarming is that Americans have this idea that when democracy fails, it's going to fail with tanks in the streets. It's going to fail with some radical rupture. It's going to fail with normal ceasing to be normal. And when you look at how autocracy works these days in the rest of the world, it almost always comes in on the backs of a free and fair election.

So, somebody who is a, we call them populist, but you can call them whatever, charismatic leaders who [02:04:00] promise to shake things up, they get elected, often fair and square the first time. You go back and you look at the election monitor's reports from when Hugo Chavez was elected in Venezuela, or when Vladimir Putin was elected the first time in Russia, or when Victor Orban was elected the first time in Hungary, the election monitors all said free and fair election, no problem. And then what happens is that as soon as these guys come to power, they start to just take over and disable all of the checks on executive power. And they do it while their cover story is a lot of inflammatory rhetoric that causes pain to people.

So, now we're seeing immigration, we're seeing attacks on people with gender fluidity, we're seeing attacks on affirmative action, we're seeing attacks across the board on vulnerable groups and people who have really never been treated equally. But behind the scenes, what that's disguising, this was also [02:05:00] true in Hungary, it was true in Venezuela, it was true in Turkey, it's in all these places, inflammatory rhetoric disguises the real work of autocracy. And what's the real work of autocracy? Removing all checks on executive power. And a lot of that is happening in a very unsexy way in laws that are buried deep beneath the surface that only a technical lawyer could love. And that's where you start to see chipping away at every single constraint on what the president can do.

Now, America is a very big and complicated system. It's going to take a lot to capture all of it because we have federalism, because we have a lot of nooks and crannies where different sources of power reside. But Trump in his first term of office had not yet discovered this formula that you need the law to entrench yourself. So, he did a lot of horrible things, he caused a lot of pain, he was incredibly [02:06:00] arbitrary, he loves to sign executive orders, but when he left office, most of the U. S. government, it was battered, it was beaten, he dropped it on the floor, it cracked, there weren't people who were put into important positions, but he hadn't changed the legal infrastructure except for one thing, and that is the Supreme Court.

Hence, this podcast. So, now what I think Trump learned is what a lot of these autocrats learned. Victor Orban was in power once and lost power because he didn't learn this lesson. When he came back, and now when Trump is coming back, what they learned is that you have to learn to entrench yourself. And it helps if you compromise some institutions when you're in office the first time. But what Victor Orban did, and what now Donald Trump has done, is to use their time out of office to put together a team of people who will write all the laws you need to entrench yourself. And it's being written by private groups. It's not going through the normal lawmaking [02:07:00] process. Private lawyers are writing up all of these plans. And then as soon as you come into power, you start to shovel this stuff out the door as fast as you can. You take advantage of incredibly obscure laws already on the books that already give the executive tons of power. You override, you might declare an emergency, for example, we've seen two of them declared this week in the U S already, or I guess it was last week, or maybe it's, and who knows how many more will there will be. But, there's a lot of these emergencies being declared that give the president additional powers, but there's also new executive orders that are simply grabbing power right now. 

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: It sounds to me, Kim, like what you are saying is, and I know this is simplistic, but as you're trying to make sense of this flurry of executive orders that are coming at all hours of the day, and it's really hard for most of us to triage what's meaningful, what's important, we keep saying on this show, they are not the law, but they are certainly have [02:08:00] promises and instructions to agencies how to conduct themselves.

It feels almost like you're saying that there is one bucket that is distractions, chaos, confusion. There's another bucket that's really systematically shoveling power back to the executive branch and constructing an impermeable executive branch. Is that the best schema for thinking about this?

KIM LANE SCHEPPELE: Yes, yes, and of course that bucket of distraction is also actually harming people. And what it does is it takes most of the opposition and pulls their attention over to that. So for example, we've seen, immediately lots of lawsuits on birthright citizenship, lots of people putting out advisories on what to do if ICE comes knocking on your door. All that's crucial and people should be working on those things because these kinds of initiatives are causing real pain. But there's another set of things that's not getting nearly enough attention, and that is the second bucket, which is all the [02:09:00] stuff that is consolidating power in the executive. 

So, let me tell you two things that look familiar from Hungary because these were really crucial in the early days. So, one thing Orbán did was to immediately suspend the civil service law in order to fire tons of governmental workers. Okay? And we've seen that. A lot of the things that Trump has been doing is to rattle the civil service. Now, the Biden administration saw this coming, they enacted a regulation that actually made it impossible to directly fire people who had civil service protection, which is why you see these new executive orders coming in. And what they're doing is they're reassigning people to jobs they can't possibly want to do. Or they're putting them on paid leave just to get them out of the way. So the Biden regulation is doing something to slow this process down. But in some of these executive orders, they actually say in our view, this Biden regulation is unconstitutional. And so we are going to ignore it, which is why they're just firing some people also, okay? 

[02:10:00] But attacking the civil service, it's a big chunk of what Orban did. And he fired a lot of people. He then terrified the rest so that they were afraid to go against him. So even if there wasn't anything he could have really done, he puts people in fear of their careers, their jobs, they're disoriented. It happens so quickly, they don't know what to do. So attacking the bureaucracy, making everybody either quit, be fired, or in fear, was a big chunk of what he did, and that's what we're seeing.

The other thing he did was he defunded everybody who could possibly push back. Okay? So, in the U S government, it's been random defunding of everybody. That was not, shall we say, precision guided. But what I'm expecting to come is more systematic defunding of all the places where they think the opposition will come from. So, let me tell you what happened in Hungary. It turns out when I was living in Budapest, there were 12 daily newspapers in a [02:11:00] city of 3 million people. It was wonderful. You could read papers ranging from left or right to wonderful objective journalism, all kinds of stuff, but it was unsustainable. It turns out. You got 12 daily newspapers because most of their funding came from state advertising. As soon as Orban came to power, he cut the funding to cut all the advertising to all the papers and actually all the TV stations and radio stations that actually had been critical of his party. And it turns out they started to fail, economically.

What happens? His oligarchs swept in, bought up the media they wanted, or they let them fail. And when the rest of Europe looked at this, because this is all happening in the European Union, there's supposed to be a club of democracies, Orban says, Oh, well, you know, it's just the market. They can't sustain themselves. And this is when newspapers are failing all over the world for financial reasons. Didn't look like he'd done anything. 

#1690 Oligarchy Unmasked- Why Billionaires Hate Democracy and How They're Dismantling ItIs Elon Musk Staging a Coup? Unelected Billionaire Seizes Control at Treasury Dept. & Other Agencies - Democracy Now! - Air Date 2-3-25

WALEED SHAHID: If this story was taking place somewhere in [02:12:00] Central Asia or in Africa, the United States media, the United States State Department, international institutions would likely refer to this as a coup. A billionaire industrialist who donated $300 million to a campaign is installing his personal loyalists in key parts of the federal bureaucracy. This is essentially Viktor Orbán’s playbook.

And we need to know: Why does a billionaire industrialist, with millions in government contracts, military contracts for his private companies, need the Social Security numbers of every American, needs to know what every single check that the US government gives out to businesses, to charities? Why does this billionaire need to know this information?

He was not vetted or approved by the US senate. He has a history of corruption, for using public resources for private gain. He’s one of the wealthiest men in the world. In any other situation, this would be called state capture, and people around the world would be condemning it. But in the United States, we are [02:13:00] not used to this kind of level of creeping authoritarianism, of plutocracy, of oligarchy so explicit.

And we need to — as Representative Ocasio-Cortez said last night, this is a five-alarm fire. Senate Democrats need to be communicating to the American people. And last night, there was a call by Indivisible Action for people to visit their local — their senators and call for them to grind the Senate to a halt, to call for investigations and to know why does Elon Musk need to know this information. Why is he showing up on Saturday to the offices of the federal government demanding the private information of citizens all around the country?

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Well, Lindsay Owens, you say none of the reasons are good. Lay those out.

LINDSAY OWENS: Yeah, absolutely. So, for most Americans, this is the first time that they’ve ever heard of the Treasury payment system. So, what is the Treasury payment system? This is, effectively, the piece of the federal government that cuts the checks. And they cut a [02:14:00] lot of checks. This is $6 trillion a year — money that goes to individuals as Social Security payments for seniors; money that goes for organizations like Meals on Wheels to deliver lunches; foreign aid; as well as the funding that the government sets aside for key programs, paying its debts, making sure that we don’t breach the debt ceiling and default on our obligations.

So, this is really unprecedented that Elon Musk has grabbed control of the keys of $6 trillion in payments infrastructure. There are a few reasons this could be happening. The first is, as your viewers know, last week, President Trump tried to end federal spending, just stop federal payments altogether. This was so outrageous and in violation of the Constitution that the courts intervened and said that he couldn’t do that. What may be happening here is that Musk may be doing an end run around the courts, going straight to the source so [02:15:00] that he can continue to stop those payments that the courts said needed to keep staying online.

The second thing that may be happening here is this could just be a good old-fashioned cyberattack. Elon Musk could be interested in the Social Security numbers, the tax ID numbers of tens of millions of Americans. We know that he has partnered with Visa and is considering spinning out a payment system of his own. What we may have here is Elon Musk’s attempt to get the private information for his own financial gain.

The other thing that is incredibly worrying here is $6 trillion in spending is not just a lot of money, it’s a macroeconomically significant amount of money. If Elon Musk starts tinkering with the code, you know, the underlying technology that makes sure these payments go out seamlessly and effectively, he could inadvertently, or on [02:16:00] purpose, bring the macroeconomy to a halt. I mean, this is an incredibly concerning seizure of government infrastructure, but it is also an economically significant moment in the country.

So, I couldn’t agree more with Waleed more. I mean, the word “coup” is the right word to be thinking about here. And Congress must intervene. I mean, if I was a senator, I think the most important thing to do is bring the secretary of the treasury to the Senate today to answer questions about what Musk has access to.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: So, the Treasury Department’s inspector general, who could monitor DOGE’s activities, was among the 15 watchdogs who were purged by President Trump. Who’s now in charge of or overseeing Musk’s team?

LINDSAY OWENS: Yeah, Musk is in charge. So, that’s exactly right. Some of the key chokeholds here to make sure that something like this doesn’t [02:17:00] happen have been moved out of the way, studiously, exactingly moved out of the way. So, President Trump fired the inspector general of the Treasury, and the top civil servant of the Treasury Department, the man who was the acting treasury secretary between the time that Janet Yellen stepped down and Scott Bessent was confirmed by the Senate, has also been pushed aside, resigned over the fact that he didn’t want to give Musk, a private citizen, a billionaire, the keys to the Treasury payment system. So there is very little stopping Musk from taking this over. You know, Trump and Bessent have really given him a glide path.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: So, Waleed Shahid, where is the Democratic Party on this? Where are the Democratic senators and congressmembers on this? I mean, you have Hakeem Jeffries, who holds an emergency meeting of the Democrats after a judge stops the [02:18:00] federal payments from going out to — you know, stops the ban on federal funding.

WALEED SHAHID: So, the Democratic Party in Washington is largely asleep at the wheel. They are acting as if they’re kind of a librarian shushing noise in a crowded room. They are still believing in the normal procedures, normal decorum, normal — that everything here is the normal transition of power. And they still believe that what Elon Musk and Donald Trump are doing is just a libertarian reform of the government, not an oligarchic, plutocratic takeover of a private billionaire who is seeking to know — potentially seeking to know what his competitors might be doing with government contracts. He has private information that — Elon Musk has contracts with international governments all across the world. But the Democratic Party is not able to put forward an [02:19:00] opposition message right now, because they are — they feel like this is normal.

And that’s why it’s so important for concerned citizens all across the country to twist the arm of your Senate Democrat. Go to their office. If you go to Indivisible.org today, you can find a way to join your local chapter all around the country, whether your senators are Republican or Democrat or independent. They need to hear from concerned citizens, because the Democratic Party doesn’t move on issues of oligarchy, of plutocracy, of taking action, unless their constituents show up in person and demand that they hold hearings, take the bully pulpit in the media and also grind the Senate to a halt until we know why does Elon Musk have this information, someone who was not elected.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: So, the Democratic National Committee on Saturday elected the moderate political insider Ken Martin as chair, despite calls from voters to urgently switch gears and respond to working people’s needs following the party’s crushing defeat, though it wasn’t a [02:20:00] major numbers defeat, but it was a defeat in November. What do you think of Ken Martin? Where do you think it’s going?

WALEED SHAHID: So, the DNC is largely, at this point, a fundraising vehicle for the presidential campaign. I hope that Ken Martin reforms the party to do things like what I’m describing. The Democratic Party should be holding daily press conferences every morning to explain to working-class and middle-class Americans why it might hurt their pocketbooks for Elon Musk to have this information from the Treasury Department and from the OPM, that Elon Musk has a history of wanting to use public resources for private gain, that Elon Musk is someone who is live-tweeting that he wants to cut the federal government’s debt every day by billions of dollars, and one of the only ways to do that would be to begin to privatize Social Security. This is what the DNC should be doing.

Now, Ken Martin, we had lots of members of the “uncommitted” movement at the DNC who were being personally bullied by their DNC state parties, and Ken Martin, [02:21:00] thankfully, did intervene to make sure that that didn’t happen. And so, that was my only personal interaction with him, and he went out of his way to make sure that our uncommitted delegation was treated with respect. Other than that, I don’t know that much about him, but I’m looking forward to — hopefully he can put together a working-class, populist agenda for the party that isn’t just a fundraising handoff.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: So, Lindsay Owens, DOGE is not a formal government agency, right? Which means that it doesn’t fall into any category.

LINDSAY OWENS: Yeah, look, I think when President Trump announced that Elon Musk was going to be running the Department of Government Efficiency, there was a sort of tempting fantasy that maybe Musk, a tech but successful businessman, could come in and restore some efficiency in government, maybe modernize some aspects of government that could use some updating. I mean, I think with this weekend’s seizure of the Treasury payment system, we can be [02:22:00] crystal clear in putting that fantasy to bed. This is Musk determining who is going to get funding in this country, what programs are going to be funded in this country. And remember, Musk isn’t a disinterested party here. As we’ve talked about, he has many federal contracts himself, billions of dollars this year alone to his companies — SpaceX, Tesla and X, formerly known as Twitter.

But he also is interested in cutting this funding for a very personal reason, which is he is interested in paying for the tax cuts that Congress is teeing up this year. They are estimating $5 trillion in tax cuts, mostly going to the wealthy and corporations. And DOGE is the entity that is supposedly going to find the money, find the savings to pay for those tax cuts. So I think we can sum it up this way: Elon Musk is going to pay for his tax cut with your Social Security. That’s [02:23:00] really what we’re looking at here. That’s what DOGE is up to. 

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: What should people do right now?

WALEED SHAHID: People should go to Indivisible.org and visit their Senate office and demand an investigation of Elon Musk and that Senate business should come to a halt.

President Trump and the Power of the Purse - Takes™ by Jamelle Bouie - Air Date 2-5-25

JAMELLE BOUIE - HOST, TAKES™ BY JAMELLE BOUIE: However all of this ends, it should be emphasized that the president has no authority to do any of this. And he has sent us headlong into a genuine constitutional crisis. To specify, the president has no legal authority to freeze, suspend, or what's called impound congressional. appropriations. It is true that there is a 1974 law, the Impoundment Control Act, which sets up a set of procedures by which the president can request to Congress rescission of funds, meaning just withdrawing funds or reallocation of funds, but it's a very specific process. It's usually based on a rationale like "Oh, I found a more efficient way to do something for you." And in fact, when supporters of the idea of an impoundment power say that, Oh, it's happened [02:24:00] before what they're specifically referring to is a circumstance in the 1800s when Thomas Jefferson as president spent less than what was appropriated because he found a cheaper way to do it.

But even in whatever circumstances are outlined by the law, the president still has to contact Congress, explain to Congress what the president is doing, and give a timeline for when the funds are going to be used. Any attempt to impound funds outside of the parameters set by this law is on its face constitutional for the very, very simple reason that the Constitution gives Congress the full and unambiguous power of the purse. It is, in fact, the very first power enumerated under Article 1, Section 8, "the Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, in post and excises to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States."

The issue of an impoundment has come up before it came up during the presidency of Richard Nixon. Nixon, certainly a great American hero, wanted to stop spending congressionally authorized [02:25:00] funds, and various legal authorities popped up to say, no, you can't really do that. And in 1988, the Justice Department's office of legal counsel even put out a memo kind of reflecting. past empowerment controversies and stating outright that this power simply doesn't exist for the simple reason that it would contradict and undermine the constitutional structure itself.

It would be anomalous, said the Justice Department, for the president to both take care to execute the laws as per the Take Care Clause of the constitution, but also declined to execute the laws as Congress set forth. You can't really do both. You have to choose one or the other, and the constitution clearly lays out that the president's job is to take care that the laws are faithfully executed, which is generally understood to mean the president has to execute the laws as Congress writes them, unless Congress provides the executive with discretion as to how the laws are going to be executed. 

Now there's the plain text and logic of the constitution that makes clear that impoundment is not a thing a president can do, [02:26:00] but you can also look at the history of the constitution to make clear that impoundment is not a thing the president can do. During the fight for ratification, when supporters and opponents of the constitution battled it out in ratification conventions across the 13 states, supporters of the constitution had an answer for those who worried that the constitution gave entirely too much power to the president. "The purse is in the hands of the representatives of the people," said James Madison at the Virginia ratifying convention, responding to Patrick Henry's fears of military despotism. "They have all the appropriation of all monies." Of all money, this is a funny way to say that, yeah. 

Alexander Hamilton made a similar point when speaking at the New York Ratification Convention. "We have heard a great deal of the sword and the purse. Let us see what is the true meaning of this maxim, which has been so much used and so little understood. It is that you shall not place those powers, either in the legislative or executive singly. Neither one nor the other shall have both, because this would destroy that division of powers in which [02:27:00] political liberty is founded. It would furnish one body with all the means of tyranny. But where the purse is lodged in one branch and the sword in another, there can be no danger."

The principal aim of the 1787 constitution was to secure the future of Republican government in the United States. It's lowercase R republican, not the political party, but the notion of self government. Of self government bounded by rules and institutions. Of self government defined by scheme of representation. Of self government that rests on the virtue of the people. Of self government that is defined by separation of powers, and institutions that are meant to make sure that no one particular force can irrigate all the power to itself.

And this is not just me speaking here, Republican political theory at the time insisted on "the separate and distinct exercise of the different power of government, which to a certain extent is admitted on all hands to be essential to the preservation of liberty," that's James Madison, again. 

The president may have wide [02:28:00] authority to act across a number of areas, but the one thing the president cannot do is unilaterally decide what to spend and how much to spend. President cannot spend any more or less than what Congress mandates without the explicit approval of Congress. 

I'm going to quote Madison again, this time from Federalist number 58 written to the New York ratification convention to persuade them of supporting the "this power over the purse," wrote Madison, "may in fact be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people for obtaining a redress of every grievance and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure." 

To upset this balance of power, to, in effect, give the president the power of the purse, is to fundamentally unsettle and unravel the constitutional system of the United States. The system as it exists is built on the idea that these things are separate, that they have to be separate in order to preserve liberty and freedom.

A [02:29:00] Congress that cannot force an executive to abide by its spending decisions is a Congress whose power of the purse is a nullity. It doesn't matter. It effectively doesn't exist. It's not there. So if you read the memo announcing the freeze or the pause or whatever, it stated this was necessary so that officials could align their objectives with those of the President's will. And you see this type of phrasing all over the Trump government, that the president's will must be obeyed, that we must follow the president's will. But wait a sec. Let's hold up. Let's, let's stop. 

In the American system of government, the president's will doesn't direct the government. The people who serve the government don't pledge an oath to the President, they pledge an oath to the Constitution and to the American people. Everyone who serves in the government, career and political appointees alike, have a duty to obey the law and to follow the constitution. There is no mechanism in our system by which the mystical authority of the people flows into the President and [02:30:00] gives the president sovereign authority over everyone. It doesn't happen, that's not the United States system of government. 

President is a servant of the constitution, bound by its demands. Most Presidents in our history have understood this, even when they pushed for more and greater authority. But not Trump. He sees no distinction between himself and the office, and he sees the office as a grant of unlimited power. Or, as he once said, 

Donald Trump: an Article 2 where I have the right to do whatever I want as President, but I don't even talk about that. 

It's a thing called Article 2. Nobody ever mentions Article 2. 

More importantly, Article 2 allows me to do whatever I want. 

JAMELLE BOUIE - HOST, TAKES™ BY JAMELLE BOUIE: The freeze, the Elon Musk shenanigans, all of this is an attempt to make this a reality. He wants to take the power of the purse for himself. He wants to make the Constitution a grant of absolute authority. For lack of a better term, he wants to be a king. And the big question facing this country is [02:31:00] if we're gonna let him make himself a king, or if we're gonna try to do something about it.

Trump's Attack on Science Funding - The Brian Lehrer Show - Air Date 2-21-25#1694 Unhealthy Discourse - RFK Jr. and the Anti-Science Movement Endangering Global Health

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: Katherine, your piece lays out obviously an alarming picture of the Trump administration's impact already on science. What are the most significant changes that you're seeing so far?

KATHERINE WU: Oh, my goodness, do we even have time to go through them? There have been so many. I think this really comes down to the fact that it has been so many that it's actually difficult to point to the most significant ones. Certainly, the fact that funding has been frozen, that means that researchers are essentially not getting the funds they need to pay their staff to continue their studies.

That means participants in clinical trials are potentially being called and told, "Well, we can't continue to study anymore. This very important experimental drug that might be helping you stay alive may not be an option for your care anymore." We've seen thousands of federal workers fired from across government and that includes scientists doing vital work. [02:32:00] We have seen foreign aid abroad been totally dismantled.

People who need life-saving HIV treatments not getting the care that they need. I am sure I am missing things from this list only because the list is so ridiculously long. There truly has not been a sphere of American science or American science being done abroad that has not been impacted by this. It is the way that science is being done and who is allowed to be doing science right now, every aspect of it.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: One of your articles is called The NIH, National Institutes of Health, Memo That Undercut Universities Came Directly from Trump Officials. Remind us of that one.

KATHERINE WU: Yes, so this is one of the most important changes that has happened in the past two weeks. I suppose I hesitate to call it a change because it never actually fully went into effect. On February 7th, the NIH seemed to release a memo. They did release the memo saying that indirect [02:33:00] cost rates were going to be cut and indirect costs are basically overhead.

You get a grant. You apportion some of that grant to cover the day-to-day logistics of being able to do your research, paying rent for your lab, paying the utilities bills for your lab, making sure that administrative stuff gets done, all the logistical stuff that makes the research run on the side, not just the hard science that we picture or see in stock images. This is essential stuff.

Those rates can go as high as 60%, 70% at some universities. It's a very big deal for it to be slashed all the way down to 15%. For that to be a hard cap effectively overnight, which is what that would have done, that would have been devastating. That would have been an overnight salary cut for countless people and the work that they do. You can't sustain that kind of cut with no notice whatsoever.

This created huge uproar that has since been [02:34:00] temporarily blocked by a federal judge. We're going to see how that all shakes out once this is fully litigated in court. The larger issue here was that it was not NIH behind this memo, even though it was their website that released it. The Trump administration pushed that directive through and basically forced them to publish it on their website as what appears to be just a show of force.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: Let's take a call from a scientist. Isabel in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Isabel.

ISABEL: Hi. Thanks so much for having me. I'm a postdoctoral neuroscientist at Columbia University. I'm also a proud member and steward for my union, UAW 4100. I wanted to talk about how these funding cuts to science, health care, and higher education are impacting my job and the jobs of scientists like me. I love that I get to come into work every day and study how our brain makes memories. [02:35:00] These funding cuts are putting my job and my science at risk along with the work of thousands of other hardworking researchers and educators.

I also want to talk about something that's giving me some hope right now, which is academic labor power. Academic unions are more prolific than ever. This Wednesday, we organized a national day of action, including a rally here in New York City that was co-organized by my union, UAW 4100, and other academic unions across the city. These rallies brought together thousands of researchers, academic workers, and allies to say no to these funding cuts. It's really empowering for me to see the collective labor power that we're building in New York and nationwide. I think this is going to be a powerful tool to fight for the future of science, health care, and academic jobs.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: [02:36:00] Isabel, thank you. I'm going to add another voice to yours, Isabel, as our next caller, I think, is another scientist also getting involved with the UAW actions. Alexa in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hello, Alexa.

ALEXA: Hi there. I'm a lifelong scientist. I feel like I can talk to you about the ways that this has affected the prospects of my career and the ability to do science, but I'm really passionate also about us making the connection that what we're watching happening in science right now, what were victims of in science and in research and in higher education right now also is something that is part of the global or the US economy at large with the decline in manufacturing and that we should learn from history since we're organized with the United Auto Workers.

What they've experienced in the auto industry over the past 40 years is what we're experiencing right now in [02:37:00] research and higher education, and that when we talk about the funding of US science and US research at large, we can't pretend that it's been good. The past 30 years have been a major stagnation of research funding. That's come at the cost of workers where we haven't kept up with inflation.

That's why we've organized ourselves into unions. It's because of how bad it's been. The fact that this is happening should highlight to everyone across the US and internationally just how tenuous the system of research funding is. It's right now that we need to decide whether we believe that we are a country, whether we are people that believes in public knowledge production or not.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: What would you say to listeners who might think, "Okay, you're a microbiologist. The pharmaceutical industry is big and wealthy. If they want to develop medications--" I'm sure your [02:38:00] work isn't only on medications. If private industry wants to develop things that are science-based, that are going to be useful to the public, then they will make money on them. Why do we need taxpayers to subsidize this at the level that they have? What would you say to that?

ALEXA: Also get this question in another frame, which is, "You have a PhD. You're a microbiologist. Why don't you just work in private industry?" I just don't believe in that. I believe that there is such an important place for public research and for basic science research. I actually don't study anything in biomedicine. The research that I do actually is only valued by the Department of Energy right now. My PhD is in soil microbiology. I think it's so crucial. We have no idea what discoveries we make now will be important for innovation, technology, medicine, climate change 20, 30 years from now. We need to be investing in the big questions that really propelled knowledge [02:39:00] forward. Knowledge in and of itself is a public good.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: There isn't profit in basic research, thank you for your call. Katherine Wu, what are you thinking listening to those couple of callers?

KATHERINE WU: Yes, so much. I think it's worth reiterating just how important it is to keep training future generations of scientists. Discoveries don't get made. Drugs don't get developed unless there is rigorous training in place and funds to make sure that those young scientists have the training that they need, the support they need, especially scientists from underrepresented backgrounds.

I think the system now is so strapped that some universities are trying to figure out, "Do we need to pause graduate student admissions?" There could be multiple generations of young scientists at risk here. We will see the fallout of that loss for years and years and years. That is so much knowledge that is at stake here. Absolutely, I think the conversation about private funding is an important one.

I think if you think about the amount that the federal government contributes [02:40:00] to scientific research, if you're even to pair away at that a little bit, there isn't actually a really reasonable way for private funding to fill that gap. There's not enough of it. A lot of private funding comes with strings attached, right? It's what foundations want to fund. It's to their own ends. Certainly, pharmaceutical companies are doing their own research, but it's what's lucrative. What about rare diseases? What about things that don't have a big dollar sign attached to them?

It's incredibly important to work toward the public interest and not just where the money is. I also want to point out, we have so many examples of discoveries that were made totally by accident in the pursuit of basic research, penicillin maybe being the most famous one. There will be devastating consequences for everyone's health and well-being and our understanding of the world if any type of science is hampered by this continued pause.

Samoa's Health Chief Says RFK Jr. Spread Anti-Vax Misinformation Before Deadly Measles Outbreak - Democracy Now! - Air Date 1-31-25

DR. ALEC EKEROMA: In 2019, Samoa had a very low vaccination rate, and that was because of some problems back in 2018 [02:41:00] with a matching-mixing of vaccines that resulted in two deaths. And so, therefore, we had a low vaccination rate already. And then Kennedy visited, before the measles outbreak. Now, the measles outbreak, of course, it came from New Zealand across the islands, and because of a low vaccination rate, it just took off, and so resulting in so many deaths.

But the government responded quickly and demanded a vaccine campaign — vaccination campaign, and there was some international assistance to Samoa from all countries in the world, who came across — doctors and nurses came across to Samoa to help with the mass vaccination of our people. So, that drove the vaccination up, rate up, to 90%, within a few months.

So, Kennedy’s presence in Samoa a few months before that actually emboldened the anti-vaxxers locally and also from [02:42:00] New Zealand. And so, they were the ones, really, that tried to sow the vaccine hesitancy in the country. But, fortunately, our leaders did not believe that and mounted this emergency and mass vaccination campaign.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Why did Kennedy go to Samoa?

DR. ALEC EKEROMA: Apparently, he came to talk about some database that they could create. But when he was here, he talked to — well, he talked to the director — the then-director general of health and to the prime minister, but he also talked to local anti-vaxxers, as well. So, I’m not privy to what was discussed, but the result of his visit didn’t result in any improvements in our ICT or software capabilities in the country. None was promised.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: [02:43:00] I want to bring our other guest into this conversation. As we talk to the health director in Samoa, I also want to bring Brian Deer in, who was there in 2018 — in 2019 in the midst of the measles outbreak. He’s an investigative journalist and author of The Doctor Who Fooled the World. His recent New York Times opinion piece, “I’ll Never Forget What Kennedy Did During Samoa’s Measles Outbreak.” So, can you elaborate further on what Dr. Ekeroma is saying?

BRIAN DEER: Good morning, Amy.

Yes, indeed, I was out in Samoa at the time, and I spent a great deal of my time there speaking to the mothers of children who died from measles. And it was the most emotional experience, and I ended my time there just crying, as I became overcome by the pain of these mothers. Eighty-three people died, overwhelmingly small children.[02:44:00] 

Now, Mr. Kennedy thinks he knows better than anybody else. He claims that he’s not anti-vaccine. I’ve been following what is now called the anti-vaccine movement for 25 years. And I can assure you that Mr. Kennedy is not only an anti-vaccine campaigner, he is the preeminent anti-vaccine campaigner in the world. And he went to Samoa, and after the outbreak began, he then wrote to the prime minister, trying to suggest that it wasn’t, in fact, the virus at all that was killing these children, but was, in fact, the responsibility of the vaccine itself.

And he didn’t stop there. Even this week, speaking to senators, he claimed that nobody knows what these children died from, even though the measles was — the vaccine there had collapsed as a result of other issues. And then, after a vaccination [02:45:00] campaign that followed the outbreak, or took part — occurred at the same time as the outbreak, the children stopped dying. But Mr. Kennedy felt that he should tell senators that nobody knows what killed those children — extraordinary thing for him to say.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: What do you think, Brian Deer — and then I want to ask the health minister in Samoa — of him being the health secretary, the secretary of health and human services of the United States?

BRIAN DEER: Well, I have to say, listening to him over the last couple of days, Amy, that I was shocked by the attitude he displayed. He was making it absolutely clear that notwithstanding him being the — hoping to become the head of an agency with a $2,000 billion budget and employing 90,000 people, he was going to personally involve himself in vaccine science, and it would be [02:46:00] he who would be deciding whether the research was conducted properly, even though he has no medical or scientific qualifications at all, and not the enormous staff he represents and the agencies, that have actually written to him previously telling him that the research overwhelmingly and conclusively shows that there is no link between vaccines and, for example, autism. He was making it absolutely clear to senators that he was going to — in that job, with those enormous responsibilities, for that massive entity, he was going to involve himself in the individual pieces of research and deciding for himself whether vaccines, for example, cause autism.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And before we leave Samoa, Dr. Alec Ekeroma, if you can talk about the significance of if he is confirmed as health secretary here in the U.S.?

DR. ALEC EKEROMA: It is quite significant. Someone who is prominent [02:47:00] in the world, with a [inaudible] , spitting out anti-vaccine sentiments, emboldening anti-vaxxers around the world and in Samoa, is going to be a public health disaster for us. Already, we’re going to have reduction in U.S. funding to United Nations and to WHO that is going to affect our capability here. And then you add in Bob Kennedy into this role, that is going to slow down the flow of vaccines to us, that is going to harm our public health state in this country. And so, therefore, it will be a disaster for us.

President Trump's second administration and Project 2025 - Trump's Terms - Air Date 2-11-25#1695 Trump's Corruption As A Matter Of Course

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: Back in April 2023, without a whole lot of fanfare, a conservative political operative named Paul Danz laid out what was basically a political battle plan. 

What we're doing is systematically preparing to march into office and bring a new army of aligned, trained, and essentially [02:48:00] weaponized conservatives ready to do battle against the deep state. 

It was called Project 2025, a 900+ page blueprint for a future conservative president, because it's worth flagging that at this point, President Trump had not yet locked down the Republican nomination, to hit the ground running on day one. It outlined a suite of very conservative policies that would, for example, outlaw the mailing of abortion pills and abolish the Department of Education. It even suggests a return to the gold standard. 

Democrats saw this as a vulnerability for Trump in the 2024 campaign, and so we saw social media videos like this one from then president and then candidate Joe Biden.

JOE BIDEN: Project 2025 will destroy America. Look it up. 

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: We saw Saturday Night Live's Kenan Thompson on the stage at the Democratic National Convention holding up a giant bound copy of the plan. 

COMMERCIAL: You ever seen a document that could kill a small animal and democracy at the same time? 

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: After the plan became a Democratic talking point, Trump repeatedly disavowed Project 2025. Here he is on Fox News. 

Donald Trump: I have no idea what it is. It's a [02:49:00] group of extremely conservative people got together and wrote up a wish list of things, many of which I disagree with entirely, they're too severe. 

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: But now that Trump is in office releasing his own detailed plans, a lot of them are strikingly similar to the ones laid out in Project 2025. And one of its chief architects was just confirmed to head the critical Office of Management and Budget. Here's Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. 

CHUCK SCHUMER: And make no mistake about it. Russell Vought is Project 2025 incarnate. 

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: Politico has been looking into where Project 2025's ideas are showing up in Trump's early executive orders, and this past week, they published a breakdown of 37 different examples. Megan Messerly covers the White House for Politico and joins me now. Welcome. 

MEGAN MESSERLY: Thank you.

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: So, let's start with that list. What are some of the areas where we have seen the clearest echoes of Project 2025 in the action of the White House?

MEGAN MESSERLY: The biggest category is in the area of social issues. And that's obviously a broad bucket of things like school choice and banning diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, prohibiting transgender [02:50:00] troops from serving in the military. But we've really seen this cover a broad swath of policy areas from social issues to immigration and government staffing, energy, foreign affairs, the economy. Like it really touches every area of President Trump's executive orders so far. 

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: It wasn't just a policy plan, though, as well. This was a database of potential administration staffers. This was a conservative bench of people who are motivated to quickly dismantle big chunks of the government that they don't like. Have you seen that play out in the first few weeks of this administration? 

MEGAN MESSERLY: Absolutely. I mean, if you look at the list in Project 2025, there's this lengthy list of folks who contributed to the project. And there is significant overlap between this list and the folks who are now joining President Trump's administration. Many of them are former administration officials themselves, and we're seeing them go back in for Trump 2.0. Some of them are even joining his cabinet. Russ Vought, the new director of the Office of Management and Budget. His pick for CIA, John Ratcliffe. His border czar, Tom [02:51:00] Holman.

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: And it is fair to say that Vought did write a big chunk of this plan. 

MEGAN MESSERLY: Absolutely. He authored a whole chapter, in fact, on the executive office of the president. Vought is known for being really in the weeds, these nitty gritty details of really how to use executive branch authority to the fullest extent and even press that in terms of some separation of powers issues. He has this whole belief about impoundment, this idea that the president doesn't actually have to spend the dollars that Congress allows the federal government to spend. 

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: I want to stick on that for a moment because this seems like this is going to be a big fight of the Trump administration.

We saw this proposed freeze on federal funding. It got a lot of attention. It was challenged in court immediately. The administration eventually walked it back, at least for now, but they made it clear we want to do this again. You're saying that Vought has written about this, has talked about this, this idea that Congress appropriates the money, the executive branch, in his view and clearly in the view of many people in the Trump administration, doesn't necessarily have to spend it, can choose not to spend it. This is something that was in the plan? 

MEGAN MESSERLY: So if you look at the plan, he lays out this [02:52:00] theory of the case. I will say he doesn't go quite as far in Project 2025 as he has in other writings in fully laying out his legal theory here on impoundment, but he makes very clear in Project 2025 that he believes that Congress has delegated far too much authority to what he refers to as "the fourth branch of government," the administrative state, the career bureaucrats.

And so that's reflected in the federal funding freeze that we saw. A lot of folks I talked to, though, say the rollout of that freeze obviously threw Washington into chaos before the White House walked that back. But folks now close to Vought are telling me that they expect him to find a clear cut case where this can actually go to court and potentially make its way up to the Supreme Court to determine whether or not they agree with the argument that Vought has made, that the president does have this authority to say no to congressional spending edicts.

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: What is the White House saying right now? Because as we laid out, there was such a clear disavowal of this during the campaign. And as you have reported, yet so much of it is actually part of the action plan. 

MEGAN MESSERLY: Exactly. When we've asked them specifically about the [02:53:00] overlap between many of these executive orders and Project 2025, we haven't gotten a lot of direct response. But in general, the argument that we're hearing now from the White House is this idea that, if you look at Project 2025, a lot of these are just longstanding conservative ideas or things that President Trump himself did do during his first term. And so I think the argument there is, okay, yes, these ideas may be in Project 2025 but these are also just reflective of President Trump's priorities.

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: Have you -- it's still early, Democrats are clearly struggling with how to respond politically to all of this. Democrats seem to think this was a powerful argument during the campaign. Perhaps it wasn't because they lost. Have you seen, have you come across this? Have you looked at this at all? Are Democrats focusing in on this again in this moment?

MEGAN MESSERLY: They are. I think it's to be determined what the impact of that is. I think a lot of the American public, this label of Project 2025 did stick in their minds. When I was on the campaign trail, people were bringing it up to me of their own volition. So clearly that messaging really broke through and that's why Democrats were leaning so heavily on it. 

On the other hand, President Trump is [02:54:00] moving forward. He is now elected. So if there are any concerns about Project 2025 from Democrats, from members of the American public, those aren't the folks that hold the levers of power right now. And so it's full steam ahead from the Trump administration.

The Gangster Presidency - Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick - Air Date 2-15-25

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: So I've been slightly snarkily describing executive orders as letters to Santa, right? They're not binding on their face. They are directives to agencies about new priorities. But these are being treated, as you say, like a fiat from the King. And then the authority of that is cited to say, well, you know, the King said that we have to turn off the taps on this or that, or we have to end DEI wherever we find it. And so I would love you to just tell me really explicitly, in a normal administration, what an agency would do with a really broad sweeping EO. In other words, what would the regular procedure be to try to effectuate something? Because as you said, President Biden had some big swing EOs. 

SAM BAGENSTOS: [02:55:00] So usually, first, and this has been the case since the Kennedy administration, before the EO were to go out, the Justice Department would review it and make sure that there was actually authority to do the things in the EO, that the President has authority to tell the agencies to do whatever the President's telling the agencies to do, and that the agencies would have authority to carry it out. And that clearly hasn't happened here. Even if DOJ has looked at these EOs, clearly there are so many provisions where there's no authority that they're just not applying the approach that they've undertaken since President Kennedy.

So, that's number one. Usually when you get an executive order—and I've been on both sides of this process, both the drafting of them in the White House and also receiving end at an agency—when you get an executive order, you look at it and you say, Okay, well, so this is the president telling us that we have to apply our statutory authorities consistent with a particular policy. What room does the statute give us? [02:56:00] What room has Congress given us to do this? How hard would it be to implement these things? Let's figure out a process for trying to implement the President's policy consistent with what Congress has told us. 

What we're seeing right now is this just incredibly ham handed, reckless effort to take what the President said and just do it yesterday. So, President says I don't like equity. I'm against "gender ideology". And so you have the apparatchiks throughout the government going through with a control F looking for the word "equity" or looking for the word "gender" in any grant application, in any grant notice, in any program, in anything on a website and saying, Okay, we're taking it down. We're taking the money back. We're not spending any more money on this because it's inconsistent with the edict about what's the right way to talk about things in the world. That's just not the kind of thing that happens in any functioning government. 

And [02:57:00] like we can talk a lot about norms. I'm really happy to talk about past norms, but that's not the fundamental problem here. The fundamental problem here is we need a government that works. 

The people through decades have elected officials who have passed laws that create a government to solve problems for the American public, to make sure that people get health care, to make sure that people are protected against predatory actors in the economy. And if what you do is come in and say, I'm just going to take that all down because I just don't like governance or I just don't like the words that people are using, then what that's going to do is mean that people are going to live shorter, worse lives, and I think fundamentally that's the important thing. And we as a society have decided we want an effective government to protect people, to provide for people's needs, to make sure our healthcare system works, to build infrastructure, to prepare us for the next economy. And [02:58:00] all of this breaking of norms, why it matters is because it subverts all of those democratic decisions we've made through the years.

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: And maybe this goes without saying, Sam, but it's not just norms because it's also a breaking of laws. it's also, as you say, some of these don't go by way of the Office of Legal Counsel the way they should have, right? There's a systematic failure to check if something is lawful. It's almost as though the presumption is not only have we lifted off without looking at the norms, we actually don't care whether the law provides for this or not, because we've decided that the President's priorities supersede that. 

But there's one other piece I want to talk about. The other paradox of this just implosion that we have seen in the last couple of weeks of the federal government is that they've made the choice to just shutter agencies the way you would do a hostile takeover, where they just... they could have said to Congress, just turn off the lights. We don't like USAID, we're not [02:59:00] super fond of CFPB. Like, they've tried to do this before, but instead of saying in some world in which they actually could do this lawfully, they just bring in this like unelected centibillionaire who just with a bunch of guys and some code are just shuttering entire entities. 

And, so I want to flag some reporting on Thursday night that came out of Wired that says that, Elon Musk promising, standing at the Resolute Desk, promising maximal transparency on the DOGE website, which it turns out is just being kind of run out of X.

So I think it matters for our purposes, and I need you to help illuminate why, that this is done entirely extra governmentally, Sam, because it's very fast and it's hard to catch that this sort of embodies a maximalist theory of executive power. But it's not confined to the agencies themselves. It's just a guy running around with no accountability in a non existent agency with a bunch of kids who may or may not have read-only [03:00:00] clearance. That is significant, but help me understand structurally why. 

SAM BAGENSTOS: Yeah. I think it's of great concern for all the reasons that you've talked about and many more. So, we have this very powerful individual, Elon Musk, who has very substantial business interests that relate to the federal government, who has been given the keys to the most sensitive systems within the federal government. He has been given the power to turn on and turn off particular payments to particular entities, and he is using that in some ways as a blunderbuss just to shut down entire agencies, which means we have examples of people who are providing aid to prevent infectious disease that could ultimately come back to the United States, who are being stranded in potentially war torn areas because their money has been shut off for them so precipitously.

We have this agency USAID being basically shut down, notwithstanding that [03:01:00] Congress created it. That's a big deal. The power to turn on and turn off these payments can be a tool of vindictiveness and oppression, but also it can be a tool of corruption. Elon Musk is a major government contractor. He relies on government business and so do his competitors, right? And so he is now taking the power without any accountability, without any transparency to decide, yeah, we're going to turn off the spigot on the competitors. We're going to turn on the spigot on these things. That is incredibly dangerous. 

And, the fact that at the same time, President Trump is getting rid of the ethical checks, getting rid of the head of the Office of Government Ethics and appointing a political appointee, Doug Collins, his Secretary of Veterans Affairs, as the acting head, trying to fire the special counsel who's designed to enforce the bar against using the government for political purposes. And again, appointing a political ally [03:02:00] as the acting head there, right? This is all of a piece of creating a massive risk of corruption and then hiding anyone's ability to find out what's going on.

 

See Trumps blatant quid pro quo with Eric Adams play out live on Fox News - All In w Chris Hayes - Air Date 2-14-25

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN: We are right now in the midst of the biggest scandal of the Department of Justice. Since Watergate in the 1970s. So far, seven prosecutors have quit the DOJ in protest of Trump's corrupt deal with New York City's Democratic Mayor Eric Adams. In what can really best be described as a blatant quid pro quo, the charges in Mayor Adams federal bribery case have been conditionally dropped for now, in exchange for his full cooperation with Trump's plans for immigration enforcement and mass deportation.

In New York City. Now yesterday, six career prosecutors, people who signed up to work for Donald Trump resigned, rather than help facilitate such obvious corruption by dropping the charges. This morning, a seventh DOJ official, a man named Hagen Scotton, the lead prosecutor on the case, joined them. In a letter to Trump's acting Deputy Attorney General, Emil Bove, [03:03:00] Scotton called the deal with Mayor Adams a serious mistake, and he insisted that no system of ordered liberty can allow the government to use the carrot of dismissing charges or the stick of threatening to bring them again to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives.

Adding that any assistant U. S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials in this way. If no lawyer within earshot of the president is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool or enough of a coward to follow your motion.

But it was never going to be me. The formal filing to drop those charges was finally submitted about an hour ago following an intense pressure campaign by the man you see there, Emil Bove, to find lawyers at the DOJ's Public Integrity Office, that's the folks that prosecute public corruption, that would be willing to sign the requisite motion.

Now he finally convinced a trial lawyer near [03:04:00] retirement, as well as a supervisor at the criminal division, to agree. But here's the thing, a judge still needs to sign off on the whole thing. Now, we should say, Mayor Eric Adams denies the charges against him, insists his deal with DOJ was totally above board.

In a statement today, he did not explicitly deny a quid pro quo, but he did deny any trade of my authority as your mayor for an end to my case. But even that denial is difficult to square with the language that Bove himself used in his initial letter demanding the Southern District of New York drop the pending charges against Mayor Adams, so that he can quote, devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration that escalated under the policies of the prior administration.

Bove obviously understands how that could sound like, well, a quid pro quo, which is why he went out of his way to add a very funny footnote, preemptively insisting, it is not one. Citing an earlier memo from SDNY, as Mr. Bove clearly stated to defense counsel during our government, the government is not offering to exchange dismissal of a criminal case for Adams assistance on [03:05:00] immigration enforcement.

Heh heh. Perish the thought, where'd you get that idea? Except, federal prosecutors literally asked the judge to dismiss the case against Mayor Adams. Everyone can see what's going on here. Of course, this all started earlier this week when Danielle Sassoon, she was Trump's pick to serve as the acting U. S. Attorney for SDNY. She's a prosecutor with sterling credentials among conservatives, clerk for Scalia. She, in response to being ordered to drop the case, sent a letter offering her resignation directly to the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, right, bypassing Bove, who'd sent her this instruction, writing that, Adam's attorneys repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo.

Indicating Adams would be in a position to assist with the department's enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed. Adding, rather than be rewarded, Adams advocacy should be called out for what it is, an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal of his case.

In that same letter, Sassoon outlines a particularly damning anecdote in which Bove [03:06:00] admonished a member of my team who took notes during that meeting with Adam's lawyers and directed the collection of those notes at the meeting's conclusion. Like, why are you writing things down, lawyer from the justice department?

Probably worth stressing here, it's standard practice for prosecutors to take notes at a meeting like this, and that demanding they refrain from doing so and then confiscating their notes? is not a sign that everything you're doing is on the up and up. Bove responded to Sassoon's letter with a blustery 8 page letter of his own yesterday, where he admonished her for refusing to drop the charges, accused her of participating in a partisan witch hunt against an elected Democrat?

Bove also mentioned by name two Assistant U. S. Attorneys under Sassoon, who worked on the case, and basically directed them to contact his office if they were willing to drop the charges. And it was one of those attorneys that he name checked. Hagen Scotton, the guy I quoted a moment ago, who resigned today and told Bove to go kick rocks.

There's one more back and forth in letters between Sassoon and Bove I think is worth highlighting because [03:07:00] it gets to the nut of the point. A perfect encapsulation of just how corrupt, how rotten this deal is that Trump is offering Mayor Adams. Sassoon in her letter invokes the case of Michael Flynn.

That was Trump's former national security advisor in his last administration. And in short, Flynn was indicted for lying to the FBI. He pleaded guilty to the charges. Then Trump's DOJ, under Attorney General Bill Barr, demanded the charges be dropped anyway after he pleaded guilty. Now, the judge overseeing the case refused to dismiss it, but the whole thing eventually went away when Trump stepped in and simply pardoned Flynn on his way out of office.

In her letter to Bove, Sassoon points out that the president could just do the same thing now, noting that With Flynn, the president ultimately chose to cut off the extended and embarrassing litigation over dismissal by granting a pardon. Bove responded to that with some more bluster, basically admonishing Sassoon for daring to question Trump's authority.

Don't tell the president who to pardon. Let's linger here for a second because that example raises an important point, right? All this is happening because Trump did not pardon Adam. In fact, [03:08:00] we have reporting in the New York Times that Adam's explicitly sent a letter asking for a pardon. He didn't get one.

That kind of gives the game away, doesn't it? Because it's not as though this president is particularly shy about wielding his pardon power, considering that on day one he pardoned 1,600 January 6th rioters, including a bunch of folks who have since been re-arrested for other crimes, others who've committed violence.

He pardoned a guy that was running like, the biggest drug trafficking website in the world. Pardoned him. Trump intentionally did not just pardon the mayor, which would be fully within his rights. Instead, what he chose to do was to dangle freedom in front of him, in exchange for his preferred policy outcomes in New York City.

The conditional dropping of the charges on a possibly temporary basis was the quid, right? Well, today, as all this is developing, in the shadow of this scandal, today we got the quo. We got the quo when Mayor Adams went on a media tour along with Trump's so called border czar, where he was forced to insist he is a willing participant in Trump's immigration crackdown and deny the existence of any sort [03:09:00] of shady dealings.

MAYOR ERIC ADAMS: Think about my attorney, Alex Spiro, one of the top trial attorneys in the country. Imagine him going inside saying that the only way Mayor Adams is going to assist in immigration, which I was calling for, since 2022, is if you drop the charges. That's quid pro quo. That's a crime. It took her three weeks to report in front of her a criminal action. Come on, this is silly. 

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN: Now, that denial, again, was a little undercut during that very same interview when Trump's border guy, sitting next to him on the curvy couch, issued a not so veiled threat against Adams if he doesn't do what the big boss wants. 

Tom Homan: I came to New York City, I wasn't going to leave without nothing. I did the last time, and I told him I'm not leaving until I got something. And now I've got him on the couch in front of millions of people, he can't back away from this now, right? If he doesn't come through, I'll be back in New York City, and we won't be sitting on the couch, he'll be in his office, up his butt, saying, where the hell is the agreement we came to?

 

Air Date 3/7/2025

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JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast. 

Corruption, for those who indulge, isn't just a perk of power. It can also be a method for maintaining it. And Trump is not even bothering to hide the corruption he's working to facilitate, or how it's geared towards supporting his desire for unchecked power.

For those looking for a quick overview, the sources providing our Top Takes in about 50 minutes today includes Trump's Terms, The Real News, Amicus, the Brennan Center for Justice, All In with Chris Hayes, Democracy Now!, the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, and the Brian Lehrer Show. 

Then in the additional Deeper Dives half of the show, there will be more in four sections: Section A, The cabinet of greed; followed by Section B, Quid pro quo; Section C, Corporate interests; and Section D, King Trump.

President Trump's second administration and Project 2025 - Trump's Terms - Air Date 2-11-25

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: Back in April 2023, without a whole lot of fanfare, a conservative political operative named Paul Danz laid out what was [00:01:00] basically a political battle plan. 

CLIP: What we're doing is systematically preparing to march into office and bring a new army of aligned, trained, and essentially weaponized conservatives ready to do battle against the deep state. 

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: It was called Project 2025, a 900+ page blueprint for a future conservative president, because it's worth flagging that at this point, President Trump had not yet locked down the Republican nomination, to hit the ground running on day one. It outlined a suite of very conservative policies that would, for example, outlaw the mailing of abortion pills and abolish the Department of Education. It even suggests a return to the gold standard. 

Democrats saw this as a vulnerability for Trump in the 2024 campaign, and so we saw social media videos like this one from then president and then candidate Joe Biden.

JOE BIDEN: Project 2025 will destroy America. Look it up. 

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: We saw Saturday Night Live's Kenan Thompson on the stage at the Democratic National Convention holding up a giant bound copy of the plan. 

COMMERCIAL: You ever seen a [00:02:00] document that could kill a small animal and democracy at the same time? 

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: After the plan became a Democratic talking point, Trump repeatedly disavowed Project 2025. Here he is on Fox News. 

DONALD TRUMP: I have no idea what it is. It's a group of extremely conservative people got together and wrote up a wish list of things, many of which I disagree with entirely, they're too severe. 

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: But now that Trump is in office releasing his own detailed plans, a lot of them are strikingly similar to the ones laid out in Project 2025. And one of its chief architects was just confirmed to head the critical Office of Management and Budget. Here's Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. 

CHUCK SCHUMER: And make no mistake about it. Russell Vought is Project 2025 incarnate. 

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: Politico has been looking into where Project 2025's ideas are showing up in Trump's early executive orders, and this past week, they published a breakdown of 37 different examples. Megan Messerly covers the White House for Politico and joins me now. Welcome. 

MEGAN MESSERLY: Thank you.

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: So, let's start with that list. What are some of the areas where we have seen the clearest echoes of Project 2025 in the [00:03:00] action of the White House?

MEGAN MESSERLY: The biggest category is in the area of social issues. And that's obviously a broad bucket of things like school choice and banning diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, prohibiting transgender troops from serving in the military. But we've really seen this cover a broad swath of policy areas from social issues to immigration and government staffing, energy, foreign affairs, the economy. Like it really touches every area of President Trump's executive orders so far. 

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: It wasn't just a policy plan, though, as well. This was a database of potential administration staffers. This was a conservative bench of people who are motivated to quickly dismantle big chunks of the government that they don't like. Have you seen that play out in the first few weeks of this administration? 

MEGAN MESSERLY: Absolutely. I mean, if you look at the list in Project 2025, there's this lengthy list of folks who contributed to the project. And there is significant overlap between this list and the folks who are now joining President Trump's administration. Many of them are former administration officials themselves, and [00:04:00] we're seeing them go back in for Trump 2.0. Some of them are even joining his cabinet. Russ Vought, the new director of the Office of Management and Budget. His pick for CIA, John Ratcliffe. His border czar, Tom Holman.

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: And it is fair to say that Vought did write a big chunk of this plan. 

MEGAN MESSERLY: Absolutely. He authored a whole chapter, in fact, on the executive office of the president. Vought is known for being really in the weeds, these nitty gritty details of really how to use executive branch authority to the fullest extent and even press that in terms of some separation of powers issues. He has this whole belief about impoundment, this idea that the president doesn't actually have to spend the dollars that Congress allows the federal government to spend. 

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: I want to stick on that for a moment because this seems like this is going to be a big fight of the Trump administration.

We saw this proposed freeze on federal funding. It got a lot of attention. It was challenged in court immediately. The administration eventually walked it back, at least for now, but they made it clear we want to do this again. You're saying that Vought has written about this, has talked about this, this idea that Congress appropriates the [00:05:00] money, the executive branch, in his view and clearly in the view of many people in the Trump administration, doesn't necessarily have to spend it, can choose not to spend it. This is something that was in the plan? 

MEGAN MESSERLY: So if you look at the plan, he lays out this theory of the case. I will say he doesn't go quite as far in Project 2025 as he has in other writings in fully laying out his legal theory here on impoundment, but he makes very clear in Project 2025 that he believes that Congress has delegated far too much authority to what he refers to as "the fourth branch of government," the administrative state, the career bureaucrats.

And so that's reflected in the federal funding freeze that we saw. A lot of folks I talked to, though, say the rollout of that freeze obviously threw Washington into chaos before the White House walked that back. But folks now close to Vought are telling me that they expect him to find a clear cut case where this can actually go to court and potentially make its way up to the Supreme Court to determine whether or not they agree with the argument that Vought has made, that the president does have this authority to say no to congressional spending edicts.

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: What [00:06:00] is the White House saying right now? Because as we laid out, there was such a clear disavowal of this during the campaign. And as you have reported, yet so much of it is actually part of the action plan. 

MEGAN MESSERLY: Exactly. When we've asked them specifically about the overlap between many of these executive orders and Project 2025, we haven't gotten a lot of direct response. But in general, the argument that we're hearing now from the White House is this idea that, if you look at Project 2025, a lot of these are just longstanding conservative ideas or things that President Trump himself did do during his first term. And so I think the argument there is, okay, yes, these ideas may be in Project 2025 but these are also just reflective of President Trump's priorities.

SCOTT DETROW - HOST, TRUMP'S TERMS: Have you -- it's still early, Democrats are clearly struggling with how to respond politically to all of this. Democrats seem to think this was a powerful argument during the campaign. Perhaps it wasn't because they lost. Have you seen, have you come across this? Have you looked at this at all? Are Democrats focusing in on this again in this moment?

MEGAN MESSERLY: They are. I think it's to be determined what the impact of that is. I think a lot of the American public, this label of Project [00:07:00] 2025 did stick in their minds. When I was on the campaign trail, people were bringing it up to me of their own volition. So clearly that messaging really broke through and that's why Democrats were leaning so heavily on it. 

On the other hand, President Trump is moving forward. He is now elected. So if there are any concerns about Project 2025 from Democrats, from members of the American public, those aren't the folks that hold the levers of power right now. And so it's full steam ahead from the Trump administration.

The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau was protecting you from corporate greed. It's gone now. - The Real News Network - Air Date 2-18-25

AARON STEPHENS: This agency was created after the financial crisis in the late 2000s. This is an agency that is meant to hold banks and corporations and financial institutions accountable for malfeasance. It advocates for consumers when they are wronged. This is an agency that, for instance, somebody who, has been paying their mortgage on time, but the bank has been misapplying those payments as late, and then their house got foreclosed on, they go to the CFPB, right? And the CFPB is the one that steps in and says, actually, you guys were in the wrong here. We're going to keep this person in their house, right? They are the people on the street advocating for consumers. 

So [00:08:00] getting rid of an agency like that is going to leave millions of Americans without somebody to go to. And I want to just point out some of the numbers here. The CFPB has returned over $20 billion to consumers. It has a billion dollar a year budget, and it has returned over $20 billion to consumers, just on actions against corporations that have taken advantage of them alone.

You have folks like Wells Fargo that have been taken action against and they've had to pay back $2.5 billion for misapplying mortgage payments, like I mentioned before. And a lot of other actors, that are quite frankly in the tech space, which Elon Musk is very related to, that are seeing action taken against them as well.

And so you can see the through line there. Not having this agency protect consumers will mean that corporations will have a much, much easier time stealing from consumers and not having any kind of retribution against them. 

MAX ALVAREZ - HOST, THE REAL NEWS NETWORK: And it's, I guess this is more, as much a disclosure as anything, right? Because it's very hard to sit here as a journalist, as [00:09:00] Editor-in-Chief of the Real News Network, talking about this. But I'm also someone whose family lost everything in the financial crisis. I've been open about this my whole media career. It's where my media career started. We lost the house that I grew up in.

This agency was created because so many millions of families like mine got screwed over in the 2008 financial crash. And now here we are 15 years later being told that like shuttering this agency is a win for, I don't know what, efficiency? 

AARON STEPHENS: For who? If you talk about efficiency, again, I'll point out $20 billion return to consumers, billion dollar a year budget. That's efficient to me, right? And we're talking about an agency that is literally dedicated to protecting consumers. So the only thing that I could say this would be efficient for is helping big corporations take advantage of people, right? There is no other reason to go after an agency that is dedicated to making sure that people have a fair shake in a financial system that is usually difficult to navigate and sometimes, [00:10:00] unfortunately, as we've seen many, many times in the past, takes advantage of consumers, right? And there's no reason to go after an agency like this other than to make it easier for those folks to do that. 

But there is a really important story that is not probably going to be as told, which is that there are civil servants that dedicated their lives to basically saying, you know what, and like many of them have very similar stories to you, right? I saw somebody get taken advantage of, my family got taken advantage of, and now I've dedicated my life to fighting for consumers, and this is the agency that I'm part of. All of those people got an email that said, your work's not important, stop doing it. And so that's why so many workers showed up on Monday because and their message was very very simple It was we just want to do our job. We just want to protect people. Let us do our job. You've got hundreds of people that they're probably not making as much as they might be able to in the private sector, and they're doing their best to try and protect people and they're just basically being told this isn't important anymore 

As part of a larger plan, we're seeing the same playbook at different agencies. I'm not going to be surprised as Elon [00:11:00] Musk goes and attacks Social Security, attacks the Department of Education. These are services that affect working families everywhere across the country and you don't see him having the same kind of vitriol to a large corporation that's taking advantage of people. 

It's very clear that what's going on right now is they are dismantling the agencies that are protecting people just to give tax breaks and give an easier time for billionaires to take advantage of consumers. 

Let's talk through some of their playbook, right? Because what Elon Musk and Donald Trump will do is they will find one little line item budget thing that they know they can message on and they will say, look at this inefficient spending. And it'll be like $10 million in a budget of a billion. And they'll say, look at this inefficient thing. This is the thing that we're cutting. And then they won't talk about the millions and millions of dollars going to help consumers. But that's the thing they'll talk about, so that way they can message to folks, No, look, we're cutting, and we're being efficient. 

But the reality is that they're saying that publicly, so that way, behind the scenes, they can cut the things that help people. And I think that the CFPB is -- and one of the reasons why we are so passionate about it is because there are so [00:12:00] many stories of people being helped by this agency. And I, I'll give another random example, although there are literally thousands, people that went to a for-profit college that was not accredited. Large loans for this, and the CFPB helped state AGs sue that for-profit college, which led to not only money going back to those folks, but also loans being forgiven. Those are people that would have been in debt for probably the rest of their lives for a degree that wasn't even accredited. And that's the CFPB. That's what they're doing. 

And one of the reasons why I think centering this agency in this fight is a very, very good thing to do is because there are thousands of stories of people really going out there and seeking help from the CFPB and that agency doing the right thing.

One of the rules that they most recently announced, which is a great rule, which is now being attacked by congressional Republicans is their medical debt and credit reporting rule. You're talking about folks that, for those who don't know, when you have a medical, an amount of medical debt, it goes on your credit report, and it can significantly impact your life in the future. Not being able to get a mortgage, or not being able to get a car. And sometimes those procedures are just not things that you can control. [00:13:00] And the statistics have said it, and the studies have said it over and over again, having medical debt does not actually have any real determining factor on whether or not you're going to be paying back car loans or house loans. And it really doesn't affect anything. In fact, Experian has even said that publicly. And the CFPB said, you know what, this should be something that we address. We should not have medical debt have something that reported on their credit report. And there are thousands of stories of people saying, I had a procedure done in the '90s, it was out of the blue. I couldn't control anything about it. And now, 20 years later, I can't get a house. I have two kids and I can't get a house. Those are the people that are affected by closing this agency. And so I think centering those stories is really, really important in this conversation.

And just talking about really, who is Elon Musk and Donald Trump on the side of? Is it on the side of that person that is trying to get a home for their two kids? Or is it on the side of the banks that just want to make sure they can make every last dime out of these consumers? And I think the answer is fairly clear to that. 

The Gangster Presidency - Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick - Air Date 2-15-25

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: So I've [00:14:00] been slightly snarkily describing executive orders as letters to Santa, right? They're not binding on their face. They are directives to agencies about new priorities. But these are being treated, as you say, like a fiat from the King. And then the authority of that is cited to say, well, you know, the King said that we have to turn off the taps on this or that, or we have to end DEI wherever we find it. And so I would love you to just tell me really explicitly, in a normal administration, what an agency would do with a really broad sweeping EO. In other words, what would the regular procedure be to try to effectuate something? Because as you said, President Biden had some big swing EOs. 

SAM BAGENSTOS: So usually, first, and this has been the case since the Kennedy administration, before the EO were to go out, the Justice Department would review it and make sure that there was actually authority to do the [00:15:00] things in the EO, that the President has authority to tell the agencies to do whatever the President's telling the agencies to do, and that the agencies would have authority to carry it out. And that clearly hasn't happened here. Even if DOJ has looked at these EOs, clearly there are so many provisions where there's no authority that they're just not applying the approach that they've undertaken since President Kennedy.

So, that's number one. Usually when you get an executive order—and I've been on both sides of this process, both the drafting of them in the White House and also receiving end at an agency—when you get an executive order, you look at it and you say, Okay, well, so this is the president telling us that we have to apply our statutory authorities consistent with a particular policy. What room does the statute give us? What room has Congress given us to do this? How hard would it be to implement these things? Let's figure out a process for trying to implement the President's policy consistent with what Congress has [00:16:00] told us. 

What we're seeing right now is this just incredibly ham handed, reckless effort to take what the President said and just do it yesterday. So, President says I don't like equity. I'm against "gender ideology". And so you have the apparatchiks throughout the government going through with a control F looking for the word "equity" or looking for the word "gender" in any grant application, in any grant notice, in any program, in anything on a website and saying, Okay, we're taking it down. We're taking the money back. We're not spending any more money on this because it's inconsistent with the edict about what's the right way to talk about things in the world. That's just not the kind of thing that happens in any functioning government. 

And like we can talk a lot about norms. I'm really happy to talk about past norms, but that's not the fundamental problem here. The fundamental problem here is we need a government that works. 

The [00:17:00] people through decades have elected officials who have passed laws that create a government to solve problems for the American public, to make sure that people get health care, to make sure that people are protected against predatory actors in the economy. And if what you do is come in and say, I'm just going to take that all down because I just don't like governance or I just don't like the words that people are using, then what that's going to do is mean that people are going to live shorter, worse lives, and I think fundamentally that's the important thing. And we as a society have decided we want an effective government to protect people, to provide for people's needs, to make sure our healthcare system works, to build infrastructure, to prepare us for the next economy. And all of this breaking of norms, why it matters is because it subverts all of those democratic decisions we've made through the years.

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: And maybe this goes without saying, Sam, but it's not just norms because it's also a [00:18:00] breaking of laws. it's also, as you say, some of these don't go by way of the Office of Legal Counsel the way they should have, right? There's a systematic failure to check if something is lawful. It's almost as though the presumption is not only have we lifted off without looking at the norms, we actually don't care whether the law provides for this or not, because we've decided that the President's priorities supersede that. 

But there's one other piece I want to talk about. The other paradox of this just implosion that we have seen in the last couple of weeks of the federal government is that they've made the choice to just shutter agencies the way you would do a hostile takeover, where they just... they could have said to Congress, just turn off the lights. We don't like USAID, we're not super fond of CFPB. Like, they've tried to do this before, but instead of saying in some world in which they actually could do this lawfully, they just bring in this like unelected [00:19:00] centibillionaire who just with a bunch of guys and some code are just shuttering entire entities. 

And, so I want to flag some reporting on Thursday night that came out of Wired that says that, Elon Musk promising, standing at the Resolute Desk, promising maximal transparency on the DOGE website, which it turns out is just being kind of run out of X.

So I think it matters for our purposes, and I need you to help illuminate why, that this is done entirely extra governmentally, Sam, because it's very fast and it's hard to catch that this sort of embodies a maximalist theory of executive power. But it's not confined to the agencies themselves. It's just a guy running around with no accountability in a non existent agency with a bunch of kids who may or may not have read-only clearance. That is significant, but help me understand structurally why. 

SAM BAGENSTOS: Yeah. I think it's of great concern for all the reasons that you've talked about and many more. [00:20:00] So, we have this very powerful individual, Elon Musk, who has very substantial business interests that relate to the federal government, who has been given the keys to the most sensitive systems within the federal government. He has been given the power to turn on and turn off particular payments to particular entities, and he is using that in some ways as a blunderbuss just to shut down entire agencies, which means we have examples of people who are providing aid to prevent infectious disease that could ultimately come back to the United States, who are being stranded in potentially war torn areas because their money has been shut off for them so precipitously.

We have this agency USAID being basically shut down, notwithstanding that Congress created it. That's a big deal. The power to turn on and turn off these payments can be a tool of vindictiveness and oppression, but also it can be a tool of corruption. Elon Musk [00:21:00] is a major government contractor. He relies on government business and so do his competitors, right? And so he is now taking the power without any accountability, without any transparency to decide, yeah, we're going to turn off the spigot on the competitors. We're going to turn on the spigot on these things. That is incredibly dangerous. 

And, the fact that at the same time, President Trump is getting rid of the ethical checks, getting rid of the head of the Office of Government Ethics and appointing a political appointee, Doug Collins, his Secretary of Veterans Affairs, as the acting head, trying to fire the special counsel who's designed to enforce the bar against using the government for political purposes. And again, appointing a political ally as the acting head there, right? This is all of a piece of creating a massive risk of corruption and then hiding anyone's ability to find out what's going on.

Trump's Theory of Power - Brennan Center for Justice - Air Date 2-5-25

WILFRED CODRINGTON III - MODERATOR, BRENNAN CENTER: And so you just mentioned three different [00:22:00] areas that you wrote about. I'm going to start with the TikTok bite dance order. Around the country and around the world, everybody's been following this roller coaster that has been this divestment law. Can you talk about that order, what Trump is sought to do, how he's trying to intervene with the act of Congress in that regard?

TREVOR MORRISON: Sure. So last year, Congress passed a statute that you just referenced, requiring that either the parent company that owns TikTok, namely ByteDance, that either it divest its ownership of TikTok, or if it didn't, then, effective January 19th of this year, TikTok had to cease operations within the United States. The reason for this is a concern that ByteDance is controlled or subject to control by the Chinese government. And therefore, through that control, the Chinese government could potentially gain access to private information of TikTok users, and use that for purposes that would be contrary to the United States' national security. So a data privacy and national security [00:23:00] concern. 

This was challenged, on First Amendment grounds, and the Supreme Court held only three days before Trump was inaugurated, that the statute was constitutionally valid. It rejected TikTok's First Amendment challenge to the statute. And then it went into effect on January 19th, one day before Trump was inaugurated.

Trump had asked the court to pause the effective date of the statute so that he could try and negotiate a resolution to the issue, presumably by identifying a buyer for TikTok who was not affiliated with China. And by executive order, he basically did that. So the court upheld the statute. The statute took effect. But then by executive order, Trump just announced the statute is not going to take effect for 75 days. That'll give me time as a dealmaker-in-chief to go potentially find a buyer or to figure out some other resolution to the national security concerns here. 

But he gave no justification at all for what gives the president the power to just suspend or say, cancel a statute. I would emphasize, this is not simply a [00:24:00] matter of the president saying, as a matter of executive prosecutorial discretion, we will under-enforce the statute for a period of time. He actually directed his Attorney General to issue letters to the platforms that platform TikTok, telling them that during this 75-day period, nothing that they do in relation to TikTok violates the statute. When of course it does violate the statute. 

That is an assertion of a prerogative by the president to rewrite the law. And what everyone thinks about his policy preferences to negotiate a resolution to this in some other way, that policy preference can't be translated into law unless and until Congress amends the law, or repeals the law, or at least the president comes forward with some account of his constitutional power that would justify ignoring it.

All he has said really is that He's the president. The president is the commander in chief of the armed forces and has responsibility for national security, and he thinks that this issue should be resolved differently. So he's suspending the law to give him a chance to resolve it differently. 

The president in our constitutional [00:25:00] system does not have that authority. A system that gave legislative and executive power and judicial power to one person will be a different kind of system. And the executive order, I think, can be read to reflect a preference, the part of the Trump administration that he'd be viewed as having all of that power. 

WILFRED CODRINGTON III - MODERATOR, BRENNAN CENTER: Okay, so he's not setting enforcement policy priorities like previous presidents. He's trying to nullify this statute. It's gone to the Supreme Court. Now what? What happens next? 

TREVOR MORRISON: Yeah, that's the tricky part. And the answer to that kind of question will vary depending on the executive order. What the Supreme Court said in that decision that I referenced is that there is not a First Amendment problem with the statute. So TikTok's challenge to the statute lost, and therefore actually took effect. 

As I say, I think the president does not have the lawful authority that he is now asserting to suspend operation of the law. The question is, can that asserted power by Trump be challenged in the [00:26:00] courts? In principle, it could. But in our federal court system, the mere fact that an issue is really important, and could use some judicial resolution, doesn't necessarily mean that the courts can get their hands on it. We need to be able to identify a party with standing to sue Trump's suspension of the law. And thus far, no one has come forward to bring that challenge. 

And so we have, in my view, an illegal suspension of the TikTok statute, and so far no judicial resolution.

See Trumps blatant quid pro quo with Eric Adams play out live on Fox News - All In w Chris Hayes - Air Date 2-14-25

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN: We are right now in the midst of the biggest scandal of the Department of Justice. Since Watergate in the 1970s. So far, seven prosecutors have quit the DOJ in protest of Trump's corrupt deal with New York City's Democratic Mayor Eric Adams. In what can really best be described as a blatant quid pro quo, the charges in Mayor Adams federal bribery case have been conditionally dropped for now, in exchange for his full cooperation with Trump's plans for immigration enforcement and mass deportation.

In New York City. Now yesterday, six career prosecutors, people [00:27:00] who signed up to work for Donald Trump resigned, rather than help facilitate such obvious corruption by dropping the charges. This morning, a seventh DOJ official, a man named Hagen Scotton, the lead prosecutor on the case, joined them. In a letter to Trump's acting Deputy Attorney General, Emil Bove, Scotton called the deal with Mayor Adams a serious mistake, and he insisted that no system of ordered liberty can allow the government to use the carrot of dismissing charges or the stick of threatening to bring them again to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives.

Adding that any assistant U. S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials in this way. If no lawyer within earshot of the president is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool or enough of a coward to follow your motion.

But it was never going to be me. The formal filing to [00:28:00] drop those charges was finally submitted about an hour ago following an intense pressure campaign by the man you see there, Emil Bove, to find lawyers at the DOJ's Public Integrity Office, that's the folks that prosecute public corruption, that would be willing to sign the requisite motion.

Now he finally convinced a trial lawyer near retirement, as well as a supervisor at the criminal division, to agree. But here's the thing, a judge still needs to sign off on the whole thing. Now, we should say, Mayor Eric Adams denies the charges against him, insists his deal with DOJ was totally above board.

In a statement today, he did not explicitly deny a quid pro quo, but he did deny any trade of my authority as your mayor for an end to my case. But even that denial is difficult to square with the language that Bove himself used in his initial letter demanding the Southern District of New York drop the pending charges against Mayor Adams, so that he can quote, devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration that escalated under the policies of the prior administration.

Bove obviously understands how that could sound like, well, [00:29:00] a quid pro quo, which is why he went out of his way to add a very funny footnote, preemptively insisting, it is not one. Citing an earlier memo from SDNY, as Mr. Bove clearly stated to defense counsel during our government, the government is not offering to exchange dismissal of a criminal case for Adams assistance on immigration enforcement.

Heh heh. Perish the thought, where'd you get that idea? Except, federal prosecutors literally asked the judge to dismiss the case against Mayor Adams. Everyone can see what's going on here. Of course, this all started earlier this week when Danielle Sassoon, she was Trump's pick to serve as the acting U. S. Attorney for SDNY. She's a prosecutor with sterling credentials among conservatives, clerk for Scalia. She, in response to being ordered to drop the case, sent a letter offering her resignation directly to the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, right, bypassing Bove, who'd sent her this instruction, writing that, Adam's attorneys repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo.

Indicating Adams would be in a position to assist with the department's enforcement priorities only if the indictment were [00:30:00] dismissed. Adding, rather than be rewarded, Adams advocacy should be called out for what it is, an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal of his case.

In that same letter, Sassoon outlines a particularly damning anecdote in which Bove admonished a member of my team who took notes during that meeting with Adam's lawyers and directed the collection of those notes at the meeting's conclusion. Like, why are you writing things down, lawyer from the justice department?

Probably worth stressing here, it's standard practice for prosecutors to take notes at a meeting like this, and that demanding they refrain from doing so and then confiscating their notes? is not a sign that everything you're doing is on the up and up. Bove responded to Sassoon's letter with a blustery 8 page letter of his own yesterday, where he admonished her for refusing to drop the charges, accused her of participating in a partisan witch hunt against an elected Democrat?

Bove also mentioned by name two Assistant U. S. Attorneys under Sassoon, who worked on the case, and [00:31:00] basically directed them to contact his office if they were willing to drop the charges. And it was one of those attorneys that he name checked. Hagen Scotton, the guy I quoted a moment ago, who resigned today and told Bove to go kick rocks.

There's one more back and forth in letters between Sassoon and Bove I think is worth highlighting because it gets to the nut of the point. A perfect encapsulation of just how corrupt, how rotten this deal is that Trump is offering Mayor Adams. Sassoon in her letter invokes the case of Michael Flynn.

That was Trump's former national security advisor in his last administration. And in short, Flynn was indicted for lying to the FBI. He pleaded guilty to the charges. Then Trump's DOJ, under Attorney General Bill Barr, demanded the charges be dropped anyway after he pleaded guilty. Now, the judge overseeing the case refused to dismiss it, but the whole thing eventually went away when Trump stepped in and simply pardoned Flynn on his way out of office.

In her letter to Bove, Sassoon points out that the president could just do the same thing now, noting that With Flynn, the president ultimately chose to cut off the extended and embarrassing litigation over dismissal by granting a pardon. [00:32:00] Bove responded to that with some more bluster, basically admonishing Sassoon for daring to question Trump's authority.

Don't tell the president who to pardon. Let's linger here for a second because that example raises an important point, right? All this is happening because Trump did not pardon Adam. In fact, we have reporting in the New York Times that Adam's explicitly sent a letter asking for a pardon. He didn't get one.

That kind of gives the game away, doesn't it? Because it's not as though this president is particularly shy about wielding his pardon power, considering that on day one he pardoned 1,600 January 6th rioters, including a bunch of folks who have since been re-arrested for other crimes, others who've committed violence.

He pardoned a guy that was running like, the biggest drug trafficking website in the world. Pardoned him. Trump intentionally did not just pardon the mayor, which would be fully within his rights. Instead, what he chose to do was to dangle freedom in front of him, in exchange for his preferred policy outcomes in New York City.

The conditional dropping of the charges on a possibly temporary basis was the quid, right? [00:33:00] Well, today, as all this is developing, in the shadow of this scandal, today we got the quo. We got the quo when Mayor Adams went on a media tour along with Trump's so called border czar, where he was forced to insist he is a willing participant in Trump's immigration crackdown and deny the existence of any sort of shady dealings.

MAYOR ERIC ADAMS: Think about my attorney, Alex Spiro, one of the top trial attorneys in the country. Imagine him going inside saying that the only way Mayor Adams is going to assist in immigration, which I was calling for, since 2022, is if you drop the charges. That's quid pro quo. That's a crime. It took her three weeks to report in front of her a criminal action. Come on, this is silly. 

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN: Now, that denial, again, was a little undercut during that very same interview when Trump's border guy, sitting next to him on the curvy couch, issued a not so veiled threat against Adams if he doesn't do what the big boss wants. 

TOM HOMAN: I came to New York City, I wasn't going to leave without [00:34:00] nothing. I did the last time, and I told him I'm not leaving until I got something. And now I've got him on the couch in front of millions of people, he can't back away from this now, right? If he doesn't come through, I'll be back in New York City, and we won't be sitting on the couch, he'll be in his office, up his butt, saying, where the hell is the agreement we came to?

The Billionaires Government Branko Marcetic on Trumps Complete Betrayal of His Base - Democracy Now! - Air Date 2-27-25

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: First, respond overall to this highly unusual cabinet meeting, and then talk about the role of Russell Vought, who we don't usually see in front of the cameras, but who has played such a key role behind the scenes. 

BRANKO MARCETIC: I think the cabinet meeting shows the tenor and direction of the Trump administration, which Trump had campaigned on fighting for the forgotten American, for fighting for the working class, he said that he was going to fight Washington corruption. And then before he'd even been inaugurated, we saw him basically handing over the reins of government, not just to Elon Musk, but a whole host of billionaires. Now of course, you have 13 billionaires in cabinet [00:35:00] positions, running the government. It's a complete betrayal, I think, of the people who voted for Trump in the vain hope that he was actually going to solve some of the problems that were bedeviling them, and, really, really gives to lie to this entire rhetoric that we've heard for the last few years. 

With Vought, I think it's interesting because Musk gets all the attention, and, deservedly so, but, in many ways, I liken Musk to the private contractor, or the consulting firm that's brought in to basically do the dirty work of the people in management. And, that's Russell Vought. 

Vought's normally known as the Project 2025 guy. He's known as a Christian nationalist, a hardcore social conservative. All of that is true. But I think that the more important thing about Vought is, his entire career's history, and he's a guy who, most accurately to describe it, he is an anti-government radical. He is someone who [00:36:00] sees government as the biggest problem in people's lives. He sees everything that has been done, basically, since the Great Depression and the creation of the New Deal state, that has lifted people out of poverty, that has made it so that people aren't being preyed on and poisoned and otherwise hurt by greed, by corporate greed. He sees all of that as a tremendous, profound mistake that needs to be reversed. And that has been his life's goal. 

He sees Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, he thinks these programs should be eliminated or privatized. He has actually spoken to The Heritage Foundation. He said, You know I may not be into cutting Social Security and Medicare right now, but that's purely a strategic decision on my part. We want to basically start with the cuts that Americans will feel the least, things like foreign aid, and then eventually we will build up to the point where we can really take on these programs. Vought is such [00:37:00] a disbeliever in the importance of government in people's lives, that he thinks even the construction and repair of roads and highways is illegitimate and dangerous for the government to do.

And so this is really very much what's driving, I think, what we're seeing from DOGE and a lot of these attempts to just completely dismantle the federal government. It's part of a longstanding political agenda of this man that I think does not line up with what the US public wants. I think it doesn't really line up with a lot of what even Trump voters in this last election want. 

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Talk, Branko, about the memo that was distributed on Wednesday, that if you can continue to say, shocked so many, that directs agencies to submit their reduction-in-force plans by March 13th. It's not just about laying off employees.

And also, the bigger picture is, the amount of money that the federal budget goes to federal workers is tiny. If you're talking about [00:38:00] saving money, the fact that they're focusing completely there on these 2, what, .3 million federal workers who are in such agony right now. Tell us about the memo.

BRANKO MARCETIC: I mean, that shows you the entire game. It's not really about saving money. Spinning cuts and the deficit have been used by Vought -- and not just Vought, many, many, right wing voices over the years -- as excuses to try and basically dismantle the modern administrative state. That's what they want to do. That's what Vought has been pretty open about wanting to do. 

And so using the deficit is just an excuse. Vought's budgets that he made both when he was serving in the House, and also now when he was heading the Center for Renewing America, at the same time as they make these ruthless, ruthless cuts to the programs that people rely on, and call for the mass firing of federal workers. They also want to keep in place massive tax cuts for the rich that [00:39:00] Trump passed. And this was the same thing back in the 2000s when Vought's mock budgets kept in place Bush's tax cuts. 

So the idea here behind that memo is to start dismantling and make these agencies basically dysfunctional. Because that in itself is going to help create the groundwork for further dismantling and possible privatization in the future.

If government becomes dysfunctional, if it seems to not work, if it doesn't seem like it's actually serving the interests of people, then you can come through and say, well, look at that. The fact is government doesn't work. We should just sell this off to private corporations and let them do it.

That's what Vought has wanted to do with the Postal Service, for instance, for many years. There was reporting also that, that they're going to be starting to slash the workers from the Social Security Administration. To me, I think that's clearly an attempt by stealth to start to undermine Social Security.

They can [00:40:00] say, well, we're not going to cut it now. We're going to do as Trump is saying and leave it alone. But what they're basically aiming to do is to make the Social Security program function badly, so that down the line, a few years from now, when J. D. Vance is president, or whoever else, they can say, look how bad this is working now that we've fired all these people. This should just be privatized as we wanted to do 20 years ago. 

 

D.C. Gutted. Grassroots Galvanized. - Ralph Nader Radio Hour - Air Date 2-22-25

RALPH NADER - HOST, RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR: Listeners, sometimes it's really helpful to listen to C-SPAN, which records the actual hearings at Congress unedited because you get a flavor of how tough some Democratic members can be during this Trump period, even though the leadership is in the minority and is still trying to figure out how to overcome the Trump dictatorship.

I was listening the other day and Congressman Greg Casar from Texas was given 5 minutes by the Chairwoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of the Oversight Subcommittee, on the DOGE [00:41:00] so called department and here's how he used his 5 minutes. Pretty amazing.

REP GREG CASAR: This subcommittee is supposedly about looking into waste, fraud, and abuse. So I'd like to start talking about independent inspector generals, who are supposed to be looking into waste, fraud, and abuse. Mr. Talkov, do you know how many inspector generals at agencies that were investigating Elon Musk's companies have been fired by the Trump-Musk administration?

HAYWOOD TALCOVE: No.

REP GREG CASAR: It is five. Ms. Royal, the Inspector General of the Department of Labor had 17 open investigations into Tesla and SpaceX. Do you know what the Trump-Musk administration did to that Inspector General? 

DAWN ROYAL: No.

REP GREG CASAR: They fired him, and I think y'all know. Mr. Whitson, the Inspector General of the Department of Transportation was investigating Tesla. Do you know what the Trump Musk administration did to that Inspector General? 

STEWART WHITSON: No.

REP GREG CASAR: They were fired. The Department of Defense's Inspector General was looking into SpaceX. Mr. Hedtler, [00:42:00] do you know what the Trump-Musk administration did to that Inspector General? 

DYLAN HEDTLER-GAUDETTE: I believe he was fired. 

REP GREG CASAR: Thank you. I think everybody on the panel knows what the answer to these questions were. The U. S. Department of Agriculture Inspector General was investigating Musk's Neuralink. Mr. Talcove, now I'll ask you again, under oath, do you know what Mr. Trump did to that Inspector General that was looking into one of Musk's companies? 

HAYWOOD TALCOVE: No.

REP GREG CASAR: He was fired. The inspector general at the EPA was repeatedly taking on Tesla. Mr. Hedtler, since it seems that you're answering the questions that everyone knows the answer to, do you know what the Trump-Musk administration did to that inspector general? 

DYLAN HEDTLER-GAUDETTE: I believe he was also fired. 

REP GREG CASAR: Also fired. At least five inspector generals that were looking into Elon Musk's companies were fired by the Trump-Musk administration. These inspector generals who are independent, protected by law, they are the people that find the waste, fraud, and abuse and found many of the cases of waste, fraud, and abuse that have been brought up today, fired because they were looking into Elon Musk. 

At the NLRB, [00:43:00] the National Labor Relations Board, which is supposed to protect workers from getting their unions busted by folks like Elon Musk, made functionally broken by the so called Department of Government Efficiency that really is the Department of Government Efficiency for Elon Musk, not for you. They are trying to shut down the Department of Education, the Department of Labor. 

You know what Elon Musk doesn't seem to be looking into? His own contracts. Again, I'll ask you, Mr. Talcove, do you know how much money a day Mr. Musk will receive from the federal government for his contracts? 

HAYWOOD TALCOVE: No.

REP GREG CASAR: The answer is 8 million a day. Just last year, Elon Musk was promised 3 billion dollars from close to 100 contracts with the federal government. Ms. Royal, do you know how much the average person in this country who survives on Social Security, one of our seniors who's worked their entire life, about how much they have to survive on a day?

DAWN ROYAL: I do not. 

REP GREG CASAR: $65 a day. We're not looking into Elon Musk's 8 million [00:44:00] dollars a day. This subcommittee, chaired by Marjorie Taylor Greene and the House Republicans, is looking into your grandmother's $65 a day. 

Let me be clear. I think we would all support taxpayer savings. Look into money we might needlessly send to billionaires and big corporations, find taxpayer savings and send it back to your hard working family. But instead, what House Republicans and the Trump-Musk administration want to do is they want to look into your kids' lunch money, your kids' teacher's salary, into your grandparents' Social Security. They want to take that money and give it out in billionaire tax cuts and they're talking about that in committee tomorrow, in budget committee tomorrow. They just released their plan.

So, let me be clear: when Republicans talk about government efficiency in this Congress, they're not looking into billionaires who don't pay their taxes. They're not looking into billionaires who get rich off of government contracts. They're not looking into Elon Musk firing watchdogs who are supposed to keep them accountable. They're looking at cutting your public schools. They're going straight for your social security. [00:45:00] They're coming straight for cancer research. They're coming straight for the Department of Education. They're not looking at big tech. They're not looking at big pharma because those people fund their campaigns.

If this committee were serious about rooting out waste from our federal government, then today's whole hearing would be about how Musk and Donald Trump are firing the independent watchdogs who've done this work for decades. Instead, my Republican colleagues' actual goal on this committee is to distract from Trump and from Musk's corrupt war on accountability.

This will not be a subcommittee dedicated to making government efficient for everyday people. It's about helping Elon Musk and Donald Trump be as efficient as possible and robbing our government and handing out our government services to it to the rich. So this seems that this subcommittee is, [interrupted by MTG] just like the agency it's named after, a total sham.

CLIP: The gentleman's time has expired. The American people are 36 trillion dollars in debt. It certainly seems reasonable that someone has been fired. 

RALPH NADER - HOST, RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR: Yeah, yeah. 36 trillion dollars in debt due to the Republican tax [00:46:00] cuts with George Bush and Donald Trump and due to bloated military empire funding budgets and on and on. So, listeners, this is the kind of address you should spread the word about, and that's why we played it verbatim for you.

Elie Mystal On The Peoples Checks and Balances - Brian Lehrer: A Daily Politics Podcast - Air Date 2-21-25

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, BRIAN LEHRER: A DAILY POLITICS PODCAST: So, talk more about what ways of fighting back, by people concerned about all of this, that you might be keying on. Wendy brought up one in her call, and I think you're in the camp that says the Democratic elected officials have been too timid.

There have been some public protests this week, but not really mass protests. Not even the things we saw at the beginning of the first Trump term. There are some no buy days scheduled. or this one. I saw a story in the Substack by writer Parker Malloy, celebrating former NFL player Chris Kluwe, I think you say it, who announced, to the police that he would commit an act of non violent civil disobedience to protest anti trans bigotry in the administration, and so laid down [00:47:00] and went limp and forced them to carry him out.

This was in Huntington Beach, California. And it got some press. It got press in sports media, if not general media. Strictly non violent, but civil disobedience. And I'm really just asking what you hope people will do or what you think as, an analyst could be effective if you're in the camp that criticizes elected Democrats for being timid.

ELIE MYSTAL: Yeah, so Chris Kluwe, the, punter, and, just remember, Brian, when we're talking about he, how he got press, because he was a sports person, he's a punter! He ain't no quarterback, right? He was a punter, and he was able to get some heat, some press from his actions.

Imagine what that would look like if that was half of U. S. Congress. Imagine how much press it would get if half of U. S. Congress was literally laying down trying to block some of these, Trump appointees, some of these Trump, orders, physically. How much press would you get then? If it wasn't just random [00:48:00] punter from the New York from the Minnesota Vikings, right?

So when we talk about Democrats being too timid, not only am I talking about just their lack of message discipline and their kind of inability to, their inability to make the case, their inability to highlight. some of the people who are being fired for absolutely no reason, their inability to highlight the stories of pain and suffering and harm that's beyond all that.

I'm also talking about their timidity and inability to literally generate the kind of stunts that would get a lot of the press talking and whatever. So that's what I want the Democrats to do. Understanding that the Democrats have no actual power right now, right? and, because they have no actual power, that is, we have to be realistic about that.

My, my book, the one that you mentioned that's upcoming, is all about laws that Democrats could overturn if they ever get power again, right? And I think that talking about these laws is a good way to argue that they should have power again. But let's be clear, they can't do anything that I say in my book right now.

Because they [00:49:00] have no power. So it's gotta be more stunt based, more that kind of resistance for regular people who aren't famous punters, right? who aren't, who, aren't, elected officials who don't have, the kind of platform that's going to generate media attention. Us, basically, we have to do it collectively.

We have to take collective action. And yeah, the, protest here and there is, nice. I'm always for, I'm not a big marcher myself, I always do think that marching, is, helpful. What I think is most helpful is the economic stuff. Like these people need to feel it in their pockets.

and that, and to make economic boycotts work, you need massive collective action, right? I know in the Black community, we're really trying hard to get people to boycott them. Yeah. Target, right? It's Target has abandoned its DEI policies, but Target is interesting because Target spent a whole lot of, it's been a decade saying, Hey, Black people, we love you.

Target spent a decade basically like Tom Cruise and Jerry Maguire, right? We love Black people. Show me the money. That's Target for the [00:50:00] past 10 years until Trump gets in charge. And now all of a sudden, actually, we hate DEI. So you know what, Target? You don't get my buck, right? And when I go, when I'm buying back to school supplies, I'm going to Office Depot, I'm not going to Target no more, right?

That kind of mass, and Target's, stock prices are actually going down. But that's the kind of collective economic action we need, to where we can, where our wallets can make a difference. That needs to, happen. And the final thing that I'll just point out is that Trump's approval rating, our approval ratings are the highest he's ever been.

He's still underwater, he's still lower than most presidents are, in their first month after in office. But for Trump, they're the highest they've ever been. And so it's, and so Trump is going to keep doing this as long as his approval ratings are high. And so at some, core level, people need to understand What the problems are and how, what Trump is doing is going to affect them.

I think the messaging needs [00:51:00] to be much more focused on how this is going, this is hurting or going to hurt you personally, because the people who have the empathy to understand, to be outraged when things hurt other people, all those people already hate Trump. It's the people who are selfish and can only appreciate things when it happens to them that we need to work on now.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, BRIAN LEHRER: A DAILY POLITICS PODCAST: On the DEI and your neo apartheid argument for what Musk especially is trying to impose, People will hear that and they'll say, well, especially supporters of them will hear that and they'll say, no, they're trying to remove any racial preferences. This is what they say in all their official language and have everybody compete just on the basis of Merit, and so that's not apartheid, that's removing racial preferences, what do you say back to that?

ELIE MYSTAL: Firing people who already have jobs without looking at the performance record because they are Black or Brown or disabled or gay or whatever is [00:52:00] racist, is bigoted, straight up. Show me please the White guy they've fired from the government without looking at his performance. You can't find one. Haven't I? So, miss me with the 'it's not really racist'. Oh, it's explicitly racist. 

Now, in terms of the larger issue with DEI, Brian, I ain't fighting for DEI. DEI was a White man's solution. DEI was invented by White folks to help them comply with the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause and the Civil Rights Act, right? The 14th Amendment says you have to give equal protection of laws to all people regardless of race. The Civil Rights Act says that you can't be discriminatory in hiring. White employers were like, we don't know how to do that. Well, no, just hire the best person. No, no, no, we're just gonna always hire the White guy. Just that's how we go. So we're gonna create this whole other thing. That's gonna force us to hire Black people because we ourselves, the employers, cannot be trusted to do it fairly. And so people are like, all right, and I guess that's what we're doing today. So now that White employers are like, actually DEI is terrible, we shouldn't do fine. [00:53:00] Y'all made it up. Y'all can unmake it up. The question is still remains. How are you going to hire people fairly? How are you going to hire people on merit and what level of accountability will there be if you don't. That's what I'm fighting for. I'm not fighting for DEI. I'm fighting for the application of the Civil Rights Act. I'm fighting for the application of Equal Employment Opportunity Act, right?

Tell me Employer, tell me Target, tell me Meta, tell me Bezos, how you are gonna go about making sure that you hire the best person for the job and not the best White person for the job? The best applicant for the job, and not the best applicant who happens to be a grandson, grand niece, grand nephew of your CEO for the job. And what's gonna happen to you when you fail? What's the legal recourse that I have as a qualified Black man to hold you accountable when all you do is hire Chip Westinghouse III because you like playing squash with his daddy? Where's that lawsuit, right? That's the question, not DEI. [00:54:00] And so far, the White people in charge have yet to provide me with a frickin answer. 

Note from the Editor on the impact of corruption

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips, starting with Trump's Terms laying out the role of Project 2025. The Real News explained the impact of dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Amicus looked at the impact of Trump's executive orders and how they're being received. The Brennan Center for Justice looked at Trump's theory of power through the lens of the case against TikTok. All In with Chris Hayes laid out Trump's clear quid pro quo with New York Mayor Eric Adams. Democracy Now! explained the impact of Trump's billionaire cabinet and the role of Russell Vought. The Ralph Nader Radio Hour highlighted a speech from Representative Greg Cassar on the systematic deconstruction of the government's anti-corruption enforcement abilities. And the Brian Lehrer Show spoke with Elie Mystal about what kinds of actions are needed to resist. And those are just the Top Takes. There's a lot more in the Deeper Dive sections. 

But first, a reminder that this show is produced with the support of our members who get [00:55:00] access to bonus episodes featuring our team of producers, and enjoy all of our shows without ads. To support all of our work and have those bonus episodes delivered seamlessly to the new members-only podcast feed that you'll receive, sign up to support the show at BestOfTheLeft.Com/Support (t here's a link in the show notes), through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple Podcast app. 

And as always, if regular membership isn't in the cards for you, shoot me an email requesting a financial hardship membership, because we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information.

If you have a question or would like your comments included in the show, our upcoming topics that you can chime in on include the resistance to Trump, such as it is, and the international reshuffle as Trump effectively switches sides in Russia's war on Ukraine.

So get your comments and questions in now for those topics or anything else. You can leave a voicemail or send us a text at 202-999-3991, or also now findable on the privacy-focused messaging app Signal with the [00:56:00] handle bestoftheleft.01, and there's a link in the show notes for that. Or you can simply email me to [email protected] 

Now as for today's topic, I just wanna drive home an important point that I think might be a common misconception about corruption. Corruption, as I mentioned at the top, isn't just about using power for self enrichment. It's also about maintaining that power. 

People, probably no one in this audience, but some people believe a couple of wrong things about corrupt and/or authoritarian leaders.

First, there's the long held misconception that authoritarian governments are better at management and efficiency, demonstrated by the old claim from Mussolini that he made the trains run on time. The reality of authoritarians is that they require sycophants and enablers to be installed everywhere in the government, which means well qualified people get weeded out.

Obviously, that's not a great [00:57:00] strategy to get the best results from a government. But that misconception drives people to think that they're making a sort of trade off, right? They might think to themselves that they don't love the idea of some of the aspects of a strict authoritarianism, but at least there'd be the relief of all the benefits of a well run government to appreciate. Nope. That's a lose-lose you just signed up for, because the idea of an effective government under authoritarianism is a lie. 

Something similar goes for corruption. There's a disheartening perspective among some, probably no one listening, but some, that if the rich and the powerful are getting even more rich thanks to their power, well, as long as things are going well enough, then it's not really worth worrying about. This is the misconception that corruption is sort of a perk of power. It's apart from, or in addition to, running the [00:58:00] government. But it's not. Corruption becomes entirely wrapped up in the effort to maintain power once it's been won.

Authoritarian governments today look and feel different than they did a hundred years ago, and that means that they're managed differently than they were in the last century as well. Hitler and Mussolini had iron grips on all aspects of society, including the corporations that drove their economies and war machines.

Unsurprisingly, those dudes gave that whole system a pretty bad reputation, being mass murderers and dictators that curtailed almost all freedoms from their societies, et cetera, et cetera. 

So, when people today want to be authoritarian rulers for life, they have to go about it a bit differently so that there's still an air of legitimacy to their rule.

In the article, "The New Authoritarianism" from The Atlantic, Stephen Levitsky, author of How Democracies Die, explained the new form of modern authoritarianism, saying, quote: "Rather than [00:59:00] fascism or single party dictatorship, the United States is sliding toward a more 21st century model of autocracy: competitive authoritarianism, a system in which parties compete in elections, but incumbent abuse of power systematically tilts the playing field against the opposition." End quote. 

So if we take that description as granted, and of course he provides half a dozen or more examples from around the world of countries that run this way, it then stands to reason that an aspiring autocrat looking to build a competitive authoritarian state would have to use the power of government to, as Levitsky just put it, tilt the playing field against the opposition. There's a whole list of ways this is done in myriad sectors of society, but you'd better believe that the corporate sector is one of the big ones, and corruption is the tool by which control is exerted. The writer explains, quote, "State institutions may be used to [01:00:00] co-opt business media, and other influential social actors. When regulatory bodies and other public agencies are politicized, government officials can use decisions regarding things such as mergers and acquisitions, licenses, waivers, government contracts, and tax exempt status to reward or punish parties depending on their political alignment. Business leaders, media companies, universities, foundations, and other organizations have a lot at stake when government officials make decisions on tariff waivers, regulatory enforcement, tax exempt status, and government contracts and concessions. If they believe those decisions are made on political rather than technical grounds, many of them will modify their behavior accordingly." End quote. 

So when you hear about a sketchy business deal or an investigation of a corporation being dropped by the government, it's not just about [01:01:00] enrichment or kickbacks or paying back friends, it's about manufacturing behavior modification through the gangster-like approach to friends and enemies.

Now in a different article, this one from NPR, the headline, "Trump agencies drop dozens of Biden-era cases against crypto and other companies," it said that, quote, "The Trump administration is going soft on corporations that break the law by moving to pause or drop investigations of companies accused of foreign bribery, safety violations, unfair labor practices and environmental crimes." End quote.

And at least two of the cases mentioned relate to large cryptocurrency exchanges that had been under investigation but no longer are. And it's pointed out that crypto spent millions in political donations for the 2024 elections. 

So on one hand it's the demonstration that companies seen as friendly to Trump will be effectively [01:02:00] immune from prosecution. And on the other, there's that implicit threat that the opposite is also true. 

And that would be bad if that's where it ended. But that form of corruption always blows back on the general public. A staffer from Public Citizen is interviewed who lays out the stakes. Quote, "Trump is handing out 'Get Out Of Jail Free' cards to corporate law breakers. The consequences for the public when corporations face a diminished threat of enforcement are disastrous." Then the same person, responding to the absurd mirror world idea from Trump that these investigations were being dropped because the Justice Department had previously been weaponized against these companies, the person says, quote, "Punishing corporations for violating the law isn't weaponization. It's how agencies protect the public from ripoffs, pollution, illegal firings, and workplace [01:03:00] retaliation, and the full range of dangers that stem from corporate greed." End quote. 

And I just want to point out that anger at corporate greed and corporations in general is already at a near all-time high. And Trump has just indicated that he's more than happy to throw the general public to the wolves for the sake of attempting to entrench his own power.

SECTION A: THE CABINET OF GREED

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now we'll continue to dive deeper on four topics today. Next up, section A, the cabinet of greed, followed by section B, quid pro quo, section C, corporate interests and Section D, king Trump.

Elon Musk's role in government raises conflict-of-interest issues - Trump's Terms - Air Date 2-21-25

DONALD TRUMP: Members of Elon Musk's Doge team are continuing their march through government agencies on what they say is a mission to find fraud and wasteful spending. Musk himself is often seen at President Trump's side, who praises him frequently. And Elon Musk has done an amazing job, I have to tell you.

Him and his super geniuses, you know, these are Seriously high IQ people. Musk is [01:04:00] classified as a special government employee. That's a role created by Congress in the 1960s that allows parts of the federal government to bring someone on for a specific role on a temporary basis. He is also a tech billionaire.

And as NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith reports, the line between those roles is blurry. 

CLIP: We've got one more surprise. In case this wasn't enough, I'm gonna let Elon do it. Elon Musk was a surprise guest at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside of Washington, D. C. yesterday.

And as part of his introduction, the President of Argentina walked out on stage to give him a red and chrome chainsaw. President Malay has a gift for me. Musk waved it excitedly. This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy.

Taking a chainsaw to bureaucracy is what Musk claims to be doing with his project known as the Department of Government Efficiency. But last [01:05:00] week, when he met with Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, it wasn't initially clear whether he was there as a member of the Trump administration or as the CEO of Tesla, which is looking to expand in India.

Breaking news coming in. We're getting a reaction from Prime Minister Narendra Modi after his meeting with Elon Musk. He's taken to social media platforms to say it was a delight. Presenters on India Today speculated about whether they had discussed Tesla. A White House official says Musk met with Modi in his personal capacity.

Later, though, he was in the Oval Office for Trump's meeting with Modi. In frequent posts on his social media site X, Musk ping pongs between talking about his work slashing government and promoting his business ventures, many of which have government contracts or are regulated by federal agencies. But Trump and Musk dismissed concerns about possible conflicts of interest in a Fox News interview with Sean [01:06:00] Hannity.

I mean, I haven't asked the president for anything ever. And if it comes up, how will you handle it? Well, you won't be involved. Yeah, I'll recuse 

DONALD TRUMP: myself if it is. If there's a conflict, you won't be involved. I mean, I wouldn't want that, and he won't want it. 

CLIP: That did not assuage the concerns of Don Fox. He was the top lawyer at the Office of Government Ethics during the George W.

Bush and Obama administrations. Musk 

SPEAKER 2: seems to be in a position with the White House's consent that he can just change hats by the hour because it suits him. 

CLIP: The White House says Musk will file a confidential disclosure of his financial interests with the Office of Government Ethics by the end of next month and has been briefed on ethics requirements.

As a special government employee, A temporary role. He doesn't have to divest from his businesses. But he is supposed to recuse himself when necessary. Fox says there's little indication the normal process to avoid conflicts is [01:07:00] being followed. 

SPEAKER 2: The thing that the public should be concerned about is, well, we don't know.

Is he looking after our interests as taxpayers and citizens, or is he looking after his own business interests? 

CLIP: These questions about Musk come up as Trump just fired the director of the Office of Government Ethics, along with other watchdogs. Richard Brafault specializes in government ethics at Columbia Law School, and describes Musk as basically a walking conflict of interest.

Whatever the guardrails, and I guess that phrase guardrails has been used a lot, but whatever. The guardrails are there in terms of preventing public officials from engaging in self dealing. Enforcement seems to be gone. A White House official not authorized to speak about this publicly dismissed the criticisms as partisan, saying there is no concern in the White House about whether Musk will follow strict ethics rules.

Trump Calls Zelensky a Dictator While Crowning Himself King - Straight White American Jesus - Air Date 2-21-25

BRAD ONISHI - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: Okay, why are people obeying in advance? So we can talk about, uh, you know, tech companies and others in the private [01:08:00] sector. I want to talk about Congress and a piece of vanity fair. Cash Patel was just, you know, confirmed as head of the FBI. So Here's a piece of Vanity Fair by, uh, sorry, let me grab the,

all right. Gabriel Sherman. Sorry, Gabriel. I had it written down and I lost it. All right. So piece of Vanity Fair, Senate and House Republicans know Trump will orchestrate the running of a primary challenger backed by Elon Musk's unlimited resources. If a member defies, defies Trump. Dan, again, just real quick, why do you not?

Allow unlimited campaign contributions. Why do you not allow individuals to simply bankroll elections and, and, and campaigns because the richest man in the world can look at every member of Congress and say, if you go against our agenda. I'll put 100 million into making sure your primary challenger wins [01:09:00] next, next election.

This is not true, by the way, in places like the United Kingdom or Germany, where there's like severe limits on how much money can be put into these campaigns. Okay.

Let me keep reading. In private, Republicans talk about their fear that Trump might incite his MAGA followers to commit political violence against them if they don't rubber stamp his actions. They're scared shitless about death threats and Gestapo like stuff, a former member of Trump's first administration tells me.

According to one source with direct knowledge of the events, North Carolina Senator Tom Tillis told People that the FBI warned him about credible death threats when he was considering voting against Pete Hecks nomination for Defense Secretary. If you all remember, Tom Tillis was the one that, that signaled he, he probably was, was going to stand up to the Hegseth nomination.

He listened to, to women who had been victims of domestic abuse and violence. He was the one that [01:10:00] basically promised those who had been victims of Hegseth himself, I'm not going to let this guy go through. And yet he did, right? Tom Tillis ended up being the guy that, that made, made it all happen. So, one of the things that comes out in this piece, Is that Hillis has said that if people want to understand Trump, they should read the 2006 book, Snakes in Suits, when psychopaths go to work.

I'm not going to read the entire piece, Dan, and I'm not going to, like, belabor the point. The point is this. We've already talked at the top of this show about Trump allying with Russia and Putin. And abandoning Democracy, abandoning the ideology of democracy, abandoning allies who are democratic governments and leaders across the world.

We then talked about Trump proclaiming himself a King and taking the entire executive branch under his absolute control such that our, our [01:11:00] economy, our trade, our securities, our banking are all at the whim of him and Elon Musk. I want to fill out the picture if you are a congressperson right now, and you stand up to Trump, whether it's not putting cash Patel through or voting against something in the house that Trump puts forward, not only will you get primaried and have 100 million spent against you so that you lose, you're going to get Gestapo like threats.

Dan, this is the man that pardoned 1500 January 6th rioters. This is the man that let the people who attacked our capital after he incited a coup out of jail. Do you think? That like, this is above him, right? And I just want to add one more dimension to this about Kash Patel, which is not really a focus of today.

Kash Patel is now the head of the FBI. Patel is a man who has talked about going after political enemies. [01:12:00] He's a man who has talked about finding those in the, in the media who are anti Trump and putting them in jail. Kash Patel is somebody who is a raving conspiracy theorist. Dan, Tom Tillis. Says the FBI warned him about credible death threats when considering voting against beat HEGs F.

Hey Dan, next time someone has that decision in front of them, it may not be the FBI warning them about credible death threats. It may be the FBI sending the warning themselves. That is what Kash Patel as the head of the FBI means. Are you all with me here? Tom Tillis heard from our intelligence community, Hey, there's credible death threats against you right now.

The next time someone's in that position, it may be the FBI saying, Hey, Tom, you're going to vote the right way. You know, you are, I mean, like, you know, we don't wanna like have to come [01:13:00] back, you know, I mean, right. Do you all see what's at stake here now that Cash Patel's, head of the F-B-I-I-I go now there's a direct line here to Elon, Dan and I, I can, I can take us there, but you wanna jump in here on cash or on Tom Tillis or the fact that one of the reasons no one in Congress will stand up to Trump, including Republicans, is they're afraid they might get death threats against themselves or their family.

Do you know what kind of like governments have that structure? Dan? It's not democracies. It's not where the rule of law works. It's not where everybody gets a fair shot. It's called something else, so anyway. Thoughts 

DAN MILLER - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: here? Yeah, so gonna take a hard line here and say cry me a river, Congress people. Like, just cry me a river.

Cause, you know what happens to Congress people who don't get re elected? They go into the private sector and they make tons of money. Like, when is the last time somebody talked to somebody who lost in a primary and what, they're collecting unemployment? Like, they always land on their feet because that's how our government and our system and our country is [01:14:00] structured.

So number one, I am so tired of hearing Congress people cry about, well, I might lose an election, so I'm just not going to have any principles of any kind or stand up to anything or I'll talk to people off the record and I'll say these things because I'm just like, so what? So you lose a primary. So what?

So what? Like, what happens to you? Nothing. Credible death threats. That's awful. It is. It's awful. But guess what you're doing, congresspeople, when you let this? There are millions of Americans who have the threat of death and all kinds of things hanging over them right now because of the policies of the Trump administration, and that's what you're aiding and abetting.

And those people don't get warnings from the FBI. They don't have protections. They don't have Camp, uh, you know, Capitol Police, or Secret Service, or anything else that they can lean on. They don't have the resources to go into the private sector and make a quarter million or half a million dollars a year in some cushy job where they can hire their own security people if they really need to do that.

They don't get to do any of that. [01:15:00] So you sit in your offices being a part of the Washington problem that you say that you're opposed to while you enable this administration to actively threaten the lives of millions of Americans. And you do it because what, because you got some nasty emails or because, because you're not going to be in Congress anymore and you'll go out and you'll make more money than most of us will ever dream of making.

Like, I just, I have zero sympathy. For the GOP crybabies who want to say like, you know, always off the record or, you know, behind closed doors or unnamed sources or whatever, about how hard they have it as the ruling party under the dictatorial Trump. I just don't want to hear it. Just leave. Fine. Just leave.

Just go do something else, but stop with the crybaby stuff as you punish immigrants and you punish trans people and you punish women and you actively threaten the lives of millions of people. You are complicit. In this, you are leveling death threats against Americans by enabling this [01:16:00] administration. So I just Obviously, it really worked up about this, but I just, I am so tired of hearing people cry and whine about, well, Musk is going to come after us and there's going to be somebody with lots of money.

Fine. Do something else. Leave Congress. What is your worst case scenario? You're not in Congress anymore and you go to your cushy law firm job where your name gets put up as a partner and you make boatloads of money for not doing anything all the time ever. Yeah. That's rough. Really rough. Really rough fallback option for you.

How Kash Patel Came to Loathe the Media and Love Trump - On the Media - Air Date 2-19-25

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: So when does Donald Trump enter the picture and what exactly do you think Trump came to see in Patel?

ELAINA PLOTT CALABRO: Part of his kind of deal with Devin Nunes when he came to work with him was If I do this and complete my job, I would like you to promise that you'll recommend me for a job on the National Security Council in the White House. Devin Nunes stays true to that, he does recommend him, and essentially peddles to Trump this line that Kash Patel has [01:17:00] now developed.

I am the only thing standing between you and the deep state. I've uncovered their lies, I will continue to uncover their lies. Well, to Donald Trump, this sounds Great. Actually, Kash Patel getting on the National Security Council was not that easy though because you had people like National Security Advisor John Bolton who really did not want someone with as little experience as Kash Patel on his team.

So it did take a lot of push and pull before he was actually installed. But once he was in, I was told by colleagues of his on the National Security Council that he Was really kind of phenomenal at angling to get in front of Trump, making sure he was crossing paths with him at all times and perpetuating this line that he was his guardian within the White House against the deep state.

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Fast forward to the nomination, which has. Led to unearthing many comments that Patel has made about the FBI [01:18:00] and the media here. He is talking with Steve Bannon on the War Room podcast last December. 

KASH PATEL: We will. Go out and find the conspirators, not just in government, but in the media. Yes, we're going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections.

We're going to come after you, whether it's criminal or civilly. We'll figure that out. 

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: What do you make of this very alarming threat that he's issued? 

ELAINA PLOTT CALABRO: I think Kash Patel is somebody who you have to take deadly seriously when it comes to statements like that. A really instructive anecdote to keep in mind is that toward the end of the Trump administration, Kash Patel in his position as Chief of Staff to the acting Secretary of Defense, Became really enthralled by the so called Italygate conspiracy, which is related to Trump's election fraud conspiracy theory.

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: This is like an extremely convoluted subplot of like the larger [01:19:00] conspiracy theory that satellites and military technology were used to rig the election for Joe Biden in 2020. 

ELAINA PLOTT CALABRO: It's not for the casual election fraud conspiracy theorist. And in his position, he is able to get it up to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to say, we need to send people to Europe to talk with these men and try to investigate the two men who were behind, theoretically, the Italygate conspiracy.

The fact that he was able to get that far and was stopped only because some of his own colleagues in DOD and other agencies said, no, I don't think we should do this and I'm not going to do this. He has not been shy in roles far less powerful than that of FBI director, of using his sort of Whim driven theories or QAnon related fringe.

conspiracies to put them at the centerpiece essentially of the work that he is doing. 

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: So what would [01:20:00] it even mean to act on these threats of the FBI coming after members of the press? 

ELAINA PLOTT CALABRO: The end goal is always the same, that Kash Patel will use his power to collate all the supposedly incriminating documents, emails, memos that they are convinced will bury the deep state, essentially, and show to the American public just how corrupt they are.

I don't know, on a procedural level, how that works when you are director of the FBI, whether Kash Patel would see himself as basically an intelligence gatherer, an evidence gatherer, and then present them to the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, and ask her to initiate a case. 

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: You found through speaking to people who know him and had worked with him that he had a lot of trouble finding work after the first Trump administration.

This might explain [01:21:00] Why he's leaned so hard in the intervening years into commodifying his association with Trump. Can you tell us a little bit about his side hustles and sort of what he's been doing with his time? 

ELAINA PLOTT CALABRO: Sure, he starts cobbling together various other income streams in large part through the selling of cash branded merchandise.

A lot of the proceeds of which he says goes to a foundation he started called the Cash Foundation. The mission of which is to really vague and details of which are very hard to come by even in filings with the IRS and The merch I should say really runs the gamut. You have your cash crew polo tees. You have your cash scarves Rhino tanks basically anything that can be branded with K a dollar sign h there's cash wine 

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: that felt very trumpian to me

ELAINA PLOTT CALABRO: Yes,

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: six bottles of official cash wine for two hundred and thirty three dollars and ninety nine cents 

ELAINA PLOTT CALABRO: as of this [01:22:00] recording I believe it's sold out.

There was a market for it. It would seem another thing he does is he writes books Two of them are children's books. Actually the first one the plot against the king is a really vividly illustrated rendition of the russiagate conspiracy wherein You have King, Donald, for Donald Trump. You have Cash, the wizard.

And you have Duke Devin, Devin Nunez. And the shifty knight, Adam Schiff. 

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: And don't forget Hillary Queenton.

ELAINA PLOTT CALABRO: I could not forget Hillary Queenton. Never. It's quite a wild ride. And again, Cash, the distinguished discoverer, the wizard, is in the end the hero. He is the one that uncovers just all that the Shifty Knight and others have done to try to ensure that Hillary Queenton is chosen on choosing day and not King Donald.

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: I've seen many people recently quoting from his book, Government Gangsters, the [01:23:00] one that you studied so closely for your piece. There's this, like, grudge list at the end of the book, I believe, where he kind of lists off all the quote unquote corrupt people that are in his crosshairs. It includes Anthony Fauci, it includes former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr.

It's a fairly broad tent of people that have wronged him or upset him in one way or another. What names on there stood out to you? 

ELAINA PLOTT CALABRO: Names actually like Loretta Lynch and Eric Holder stood out to me because I think they go to show how Deep his grievances run from his time in the Obama administration works working as a prosecutor at DOJ You know, he frames his book in that way to say that that was his first major exposure to the deep state the corruption of high level bureaucrats in the federal government and so I think Sort of names from a past administration or people who didn't, who never worked directly in contact with Donald [01:24:00] Trump just show again how deeply he has kept these resentments, how long he has nursed them and when he does have power, the deep well that he has to pull from in terms of grievances.

Rachel Maddow on Billy Long Five things to know about Trump's pick for IRS commissioner - The Rachel Maddow Show - Air Date 1-4-25

BILLY LONG: hi, hey, and who get 25.

When you get $30,000 out of 30. 35? 40. Able to buy 45. 45 today, I a thousand to buy 60. 

RACHEL MADDOW - HOST, THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW: And so behold, the literal. Auctioneer, a man who talks fast for a living, uh, who Donald Trump has picked to be his commissioner of the IRS. Here are five things to know about Trump's IRS choice, former Republican Congressman Billy Long.

Thing number one, on the qualifications of Billy Long to be head of the IRS. Is Billy Long a CPA, a Certified Public Accountant? Is he an accountant? No. Does he have any background at all in any kind of accounting? No. Bookkeeping? No. Finance? No. How about math? [01:25:00] No. Is he a tax lawyer? No. Does he have a college degree?

No. Has he ever managed a large organization of any kind? The IRS has 85, 000 employees and a 12 billion dollar budget. Ever managed a large organization of any kind? No. No, he has not. In addition to his work as an auctioneer, he has been a realtor, he's also been a radio talk show host, and he once ran a mini golf.

That said, Billy Long has also moonlighted as a quasi professional poker player, which prompted this rare political headline from Poker News. Quote, President elect Donald Trump taps longtime poker player to head the IRS. So Billy Long has none of the qualifications for the job that every other IRS commissioner has had in the whole modern history of this agency.

But he did serve in Congress. While he was in Congress, [01:26:00] did he serve on any of the tax writing committees? No, he did not. But he did get an award while he was in Congress, and it was an award related to taxes. It was called the, quote, Tax Fighter Award from something called the National Tax Limitation Committee.

What is the National Tax Limitation Committee? When Forbes magazine went to look into it, they found that the website for this organization now points to What appears to be a gambling website based in Thailand. That makes it harder to figure out the selection criteria for this particular award. But Billy Long won it.

While he was in Congress, he did repeatedly introduce legislation to abolish the IRS, to in fact abolish the income tax as a thing, and instead replace it with a huge 30 percent sales tax on everything you buy. If that sounds familiar, it's because [01:27:00] this very expensive idea was ginned up by the Church of Scientology in the 1990s.

It has been kept alive by Republicans like Billy Long ever since. Thing number two. While he was in Congress, Billy Long did do one other tax related thing, which has to do with puppies, which sounds awesome, but it's When he was first elected to Congress, voters in Billy Long's home state of Missouri considered a ballot measure to improve conditions for dogs and puppies, puppy mill, dog breeding facilities in that state.

And it was basic kindness stuff. Um, the measure said that dogs needed to have food and water and housing and some way to exercise and run around. And the people of Missouri voted for that. God bless them. But when the Humane Society said that they, too, supported that measure, Billy Long, [01:28:00] newly in Congress, demanded that the IRS should launch an investigation into the Humane Society.

He demanded that the IRS should strip them of their non profit status. Now, in the end, his demands were not heeded. He did not succeed in getting the IRS to crush the Humane Society as retaliation for its efforts to protect But if he were in charge of the IRS, presumably he could now get that wish, which brings us to thing.

Number three. I mentioned that Billy Long mostly just has his auctioneer school degree. He has no background or training in anything substantively related to the IRS. But caveat, look at his Twitter bio. He can see it says at the top there, Congressman Billy Long CTBA. If you say it fast, it kind of sounds like CPA, but it's not.

It's not [01:29:00] a CPA certified public account. It's A-C-T-B-A. What is A-C-T-B-A? He says that it stands for Certified Tax and Business Advisor, CTBA, certified Tax and Business Advisor, which sounds very fancy. Is that a real thing? No, that is not really a thing. Headline, Billy Long, Trump's nominee to lead the IRS, touts a credential that tax experts say is dubious.

Quote, the designation is offered by a small Florida firm, Excel Empire, which was established just two years ago and only requires attendance at a three day seminar. Tax experts say they have never heard of CTBA as a credential in the tax profession. So, not a credential in the tax profession, but as a credential to be in charge of all taxes in the United States of America?

Sure. Why not? You said it. [01:30:00] Uh, the company from which Billy Long seems to have purchased this thing that sounds like CPA, if you mumble, they do list someone as their chief tax planner and tax attorney. But that is a person who let his law license in Ohio lapse 19 years ago and apparently never regained it.

So he appears to not be a licensed attorney of any kind, nor a licensed investment advisor. But his company will sell you that same CTBA, C P A, C T, C T B A credential that they sold Billy Long for somewhere between 30, 000 and 4, 997, depending on whether you catch the sale. Uh, the quote, tax attorney at this company, who again is not a licensed attorney, also reportedly invented a whole other new title besides CTBA.

Uh, so if you want to step it up a notch from the fake credential of [01:31:00] CTBA, you can also select the title, um, tax master. They will also proclaim you tax master, which also sounds amazing. We reached out to the tax master guy for comment, but he declined to answer our questions. That said, Billy Long himself apparently has not yet achieved the Tax Master title from this Florida company.

He hasn't paid for it or gone to the seminar or whatever, but maybe when he's head of the IRS, they'll give him that designation as an honorary degree. Thing number four. Go back to the Twitter bio for a second. Uh, there's something else there besides the not a real thing, fake CTBA tax credential. Right there in his Twitter bio, it says, Quote, DM me to save 40 percent on your taxes.

Seriously, that is still there right now on his Twitter bio, even after he has [01:32:00] been named to be IRS Commissioner by the incoming president. DM me to save 40 percent on your taxes. What that's about is this. Here's the current IRS Commissioner testifying in Congress. And what he's doing in this testimony is he's actually asking Congress to get rid of one particular tax program to close down a specific tax program because it had produced what the IRS called a quote, gold rush of bogus tax claims.

And that one particular tax program, which the IRS wants shut down because so many people are applying to it. In bogus terms, that is what Billy Long does for a living now at this company that he promotes. Now, two of its leaders were banned from working as securities brokers. But when COVID came around, they decided to start a new outfit that, among other things, promotes this particular.[01:33:00] 

The New York Times describes the company as taking a quote, expansive view of who is eligible to get money from this program. Billy Long certainly seems to. He, for example, says that you shouldn't listen to your CPA if your CPA tells you that this is a tax program for which you do not qualify. 

BILLY LONG: When people walk in and say, Hey, this auctioneer real estate broker, former congressman told me I'm going to get $1.2 million back.

Uh, you're my CPA. Why didn't you tell me that they out? Uh, instantly the reflex reaction is to go to bashing the, oh, it that, that's a, that's a joke. That that's a fake deal. That's not true. You're, you're gonna have to pay all that money back. You'll get audited. You know, they just come up with any excuse.

They can't, they, 

RACHEL MADDOW - HOST, THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW: they come up with any excuse when your your CPA. Tells you, you know, if you do this, you're going to get audited. You're going to have to pay this money back. You do not qualify for this thing. You [01:34:00] know, it's just any excuse. Forget your CPA. Come talk to Billy. We reached out for comment to Billy Long and also to the company that he works with.

We have not heard back. But I should tell you, the IRS has just warned that one of the quote, worst of the worst tax scams that taxpayers should be on the lookout for Is people telling you that you qualify for this tax program when in fact you don't? 

BILLY LONG: You know, they just come up with any excuse they can.

RACHEL MADDOW - HOST, THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW: Come up with any excuse. The IRS does this list every year. They call it the Dirty Dozen. Compiled annually, the Dirty Dozen lists a variety of common scams that taxpayers may encounter. Quote, don't fall prey. Says the IRS, uh, for the current dirty dozen list, it's, uh, what the IRS calls phishing and smishing scams.

They also have this big description about fake charities trying [01:35:00] to scam people. But number two on the latest IRS dirty dozen list of so called worst of the worst tax scams. Is this one. Beware of aggressive promoters who duped taxpayers into making questionable employee retention tax credit claims.

That is the tax program that is a big enough multi billion dollar fraud magnet that the IRS recently took the unprecedented step of setting up a backseize system, setting up an oh wow I didn't mean it system where people who have been duped by scammers into believing they were eligible for this thing when they weren't.

People can actually take back their filing from the IRS without getting into trouble for it. The IRS also really did ask Congress to shut this whole program down because it has been such a magnet for fraudsters. The IRS on its website right now warns this quote, employers should be wary of advertisements that advise them to [01:36:00] apply for money by claiming the credit when they may not qualify. 

The billionaires who run the world (and why they're psychos) - Red Flag Radio - Air Date 2-23-25

CHLOE - CO-HOST, RED FLAG RADIO: I think, um, Musk's kind of, he's probably always had, I'm sure, um, you know, far right political ideas. By his kind of more open, uh, adoption of, you know, racist rhetoric and conspiracy theories and, um, celebration of Trump kind of tracks a lot with his interests as the owner of Tesla. Like one of the big things, like you can literally follow his trajectory by like looking at his old tweets.

Um, but was his response to the lockdown because the, he was part of the kind of radicalization of just like, they're taking away our freedoms, like any attempt. Uh, by state governments and the federal government, um, in the U. S. uh, to, uh, put in any measures to protect people's health and, you know, restrictions to try and suppress, uh, the COVID 19 pandemic.

Musk was really hostile to this because it negatively impacted on Tesla factories and You know, if you want to make money selling cars, um, and there's a [01:37:00] good reason to think that like, uh, you know, Musk is increasingly not competitive with China, um, then you have to, uh, you know, deregulate, um, you know, push down our labor conditions, uh, have speed ups, um, try and lower wages.

Uh, that, uh, was totally, you know, any kind of health measures to try and suppress COVID was totally anathema to someone who's trying to make a lot of money selling cars. 

EMMA - CO-HOST, RED FLAG RADIO: Yeah. Didn't he just start up one of his factory or a number of his factories again, in, um, opposition to the COVID health measures and just like, yeah.

And I think that was a moment as well where he. was able to associate himself with Trump, who was still president and like invited him to the White House or something at that point. And kind of, they saw kindred spirits, uh, on the right. 

CHLOE - CO-HOST, RED FLAG RADIO: Yeah, much like, um, much like, uh, Clive Palmer, you know, being the capitalist to try and sponsor uh, the lawsuit against the Western Australian government to try and force them to open up during the pandemic.

Like, there's, you know, [01:38:00] uh, you know, a lot of capitalists just are right wing and have racist ideas because of their own ideology, but it fits in with their position as the capitalist class to kind of always want to kick down. Um, you know, always oppose any forms of regulation that limit their ability to exploit workers, to make a profit, uh, to sell, you know, the movement of commodities, etc.

So, yeah, we had our own version of that with kind of Clive Palmer being one of the faces of the capitalist class campaign against, um, health measures during the pandemic. But that was, uh, you know, one of Musk's, uh, one of the things that really, uh, pushed Musk to the center of that whole, uh, you know, right wing world, um, as well as just, like, wanting to remove any, uh, fact checking on Twitter or any idea that, like, people can just run around being open Nazis and spreading anti Semitic conspiracy theories.

EMMA - CO-HOST, RED FLAG RADIO: Yeah, exactly. Um, I think he just is a really right wing, this is kind of obvious or whatever, but he just is a really right wing racist guy. Like, it obviously all suits his, um, [01:39:00] economic interests, but people like Elon Musk, I think, are ideologues. Like, he is really He's not purely driven by just the immediate profits of Tesla.

He's driven by a worldview, um, that, you know, wants a, a completely deregulated and unhinged capitalism tramping on the face of ordinary people forever. He wants, you know, a race, a more racist world, a more misogynistic world and so on. So I think he's been able to use his economic power to try to shape the world in that direction.

Peter Thiel time. All right. So, Chloe, what have you learned about Peter Thiel, which I know, I know nothing about? 

CHLOE - CO-HOST, RED FLAG RADIO: I just don't even know where to start. Like, I feel like this guy is like, you know, Elon Musk is a more famous Trump backer now, kind of part of the tech bros from Silicon Valley that have kind of Trumpified.

Uh, kind of marching, um, in that direction, but Peter Thiel was the early adopter. Like, so he was, you know, the first Trump [01:40:00] presidency, the kind of billionaire from that Silicon Valley world that, unlike most of those billionaires who kind of still backed the Democrats at that time, uh, was a supporter of Trump.

Um, so like Musk, they actually made their fortunes from the same company, which was PayPal. Um, so, you know, someone was going to become a billionaire out of that, the kind of dot com moment where. you know, having a verifiable payment system online. Um, and they kind of accumulated a whole bunch of companies doing the same thing to kind of make PayPal the predominant one, eventually sell it to eBay.

Um, but yeah, Peter Thiel is an interesting capitalist because he is such an ideologue and has been from the very get go of his career. And I just think it's remarkable that both he and Musk come from a background of growing up in apartheid South Africa. Um, they're part of what, uh, The media dubbed the PayPal Mafia, which is like a bunch of tech guys from PayPal who made their fortunes who all had connections to apartheid South [01:41:00] Africa.

It kind of makes you the perfect capitalist in a way if you're just like willing to You made your money from like almost slave like conditions of Um, Black Africans or, you know, you, you come from that world. You grew up in like the open apartheid system. And Peter Thiel has, you know, gotten, uh, some criticism in the media because, um, he writes a lot.

He actually puts down his reactionary ideas, um, in essays and things. And he has And you've read all his essays now. I've read a couple of them. Um, they're, yeah, terrifying, um, but he, as an adult, describes South Africa as a sound economic, uh, system, um, under apartheid. Um, so he, uh, briefly, uh, when he was young, when his dad was working there, uh, studied at an elite all white school, um, in South Africa.

As a young high schooler, he got really into Ayn Rand. Um, I don't know if listeners are familiar with Ayn Rand. She was a Russian born American. so called philosopher, um, and novelist. Um, she was really the poster child for [01:42:00] extreme libertarian, laissez faire capitalist ideas, as well as like extreme McCarthyist.

And just like 

EMMA - CO-HOST, RED FLAG RADIO: anti communism. Hating the poor. Absolutely. And like, and also just a kind of propaganda about how the capitalists were awesome, intelligent, ubermensch. It's like, yeah. Um, Nietzsche on steroids. 

CHLOE - CO-HOST, RED FLAG RADIO: Yeah, so her novel Atlas Shrugged, um, it's like the bible for Silicon Valley tech pros because it's all about how, you know, the titans of industry, rugged individualists just like pursuing their own selfish, um, motives are actually like the, you know, ones, um, you know, uh, bettering society, um, through their, uh, genius and brilliance.

But not actually through helping. No, no. Deliberately through their selfishness. The poor people are 

EMMA - CO-HOST, RED FLAG RADIO: scum who deserve everything that they get. Um, yeah. And like the world is basically only exists for the self aggrandizement of these rich people. 

CHLOE - CO-HOST, RED FLAG RADIO: This is Peter Thiel is like one of the, um, you know, big kind of Ayn Randian, uh, guys in Silicon [01:43:00] Valley.

Um, and this influenced him when he studied philosophy, um, when he went to university. So, one of Peter Thiel's essays, um, which he wrote, uh, inspired by the response to 9 11, um, is called The Straussian Moment, and this essay makes Clash of Civilizations look soft, um, in it, um, so Uh, in it, he, um, welcomed the return to U.

S. unilateralism in military deployment. Um, and he called for a return to pre enlightenment thought. So, the enlightenment, he saw it as a bad thing, and he said that, uh, today mere self preservation forces all of us to look at the world anew. to think strange new thoughts and thereby to awaken from that very long and profitable period of intellectual slumber and amnesia that is so misleadingly called the enlightenment.

And basically [01:44:00] he wants to return to holy wars. Um, so he talks about, uh, when bin laden declares war on the infidels, the Zionists and the crusaders, um, you know, we shouldn't respond in half measures. Um, so this is like the most like visceral clash of civilizations. kind of politics, um, that, you know, is openly Islamophobic.

So he writes his essay, and at the same time, he leverages his PayPal wealth to build Palantir, which is his spy tech company that he created, one of the biggest, um, Uh, contracts is, uh, for the Palantir is with the U. S. Defense Department, um, and the CIA. Um, and this is literally like, you know, big techs, um, private big techs involvement in mass surveillance, uh, both of the civilian populations and, you know, spyware for, for states to kind of carry out, um, espionage, um, on other states.

And, uh, by the way, Palantir is still around. It's gotten a massive stock surge, um, since Trump, uh, entered, uh, the White House. Um, and to. [01:45:00] quote, uh, recently from the current CEO, Alex Karp, um, he said that the company exists to quote, power the West to its obvious innate superiority.

SECTION B: QUID-PRO-QUO

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering Section B quid pro quo.

The Billionaires Government Branko Marcetic on Trumps Complete Betrayal of His Base Part 2 - Democracy Now! - Air Date 2-27-25

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And, of course, if you're talking about privatizing the Postal Service, um, or Trump taking over the U. S. Postal Service, that also has a great impact on voting. But I want to ask you about The Washington Post reporting the Federal Aviation Administration's close to canceling a 2.

4 billion contract with Verizon and awarding the work To Elon Musk's Starlink, the contractors for work to overhaul a key communication system in nation's air traffic control system. Meanwhile, a separate investigation by The Washington Post has revealed Musk has built his business empire on 38 Billion dollars in federal funding via government contracts, loans, subsidies, and tax credits over the past two decades.

And the Post reports [01:46:00] the total number might be even higher because it's not known how much Musk Companies has received in classified work for the Pentagon and other agencies. Not to mention he pushed out the head of the FAA, right, in charge of Aviation. We've had one accident after another. He pushed him out because he didn't, like he would be fined and also was raising questions about his, um, uh, rockets bursting in air over places like Turks and Caicos, Bronco.

BRANKO MARCETIC: I mean, it's, I I don't know what other word you can use for this other than corruption. Uh, it, it, it's, you know, Washington has long been a place where. Uh, donors, uh, end up getting a, a, a tremendous amount of say over government policy, where they are able to use that to push their own business interests.

Um, both parties do it. It's Frustration with that, I think, is one of the reasons why Trump won in 2016 and why he continues to have [01:47:00] appeal with people when he says he's going to take on the swamp and Washington corruption. And yet here we have the Trump administration engaging in the exact same kind of corruption, uh, and swamp like behavior that it claims to be fighting, except on overdrive.

I mean, I don't think that we have ever seen anything quite this naked before, where, uh, the world's richest man gives a campaign. What, 280 million, um, and then is basically just, just a point, a role is carved out for him. He's not even, uh, uh, confirmed by any, uh, elected officials and is allowed to just basically Go through and, and, and start dismantling things from the inside while also then fattening his own pockets, um, from the same public money that he claims that he is trying to, um, root out waste and fraud from.

I mean, it's, it's, uh, it's pretty astounding. Um, I don't think we've seen anything like this before. 

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: In this last minute, we have, I want to ask you about Ukraine. Ukrainian [01:48:00] President Zelensky, headed to Washington, D. C., will sign a deal at the White House on Friday, giving the U. S. access to Ukraine's rare earth minerals and other resources.

Trump was asked about Ukraine during his first Cabinet meeting. Mr. President of Ukraine, can you tell the world a little bit about what type of security guarantees you're willing to make? 

DONALD TRUMP: Well, I'm not going to make security guarantees beyond, uh, very much. We're going to have Europe do that because it's in, you know, we're talking about Europe as their next door neighbor.

But we're going to make sure everything goes well, and as you know, we'll be making a, uh, we'll be really partnering with Ukraine in terms of rare earth. We very much need rare earth. They have great, rare earth. We'll be working with, uh, Secretary Burgum and with Chris, and you'll be working on that together.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Bronco Marchetti, it's your final comment. We just have 30 seconds. 

BRANKO MARCETIC: Um, you know, I think this continues the, the plundering of Ukraine, uh, that has been going on. [01:49:00] It's been bipartisan policy for, for years now, uh, to, to use deepening, um, U. S. military involvement in the country and, and, and economic dependence on the United States as a way to get Ukraine to, uh, uh, do a host of damaging neoliberal reforms that, that are contrary to the interests of the actual Ukrainian people.

And this is just, you know, again, it's, it's that on overdrive.

Quid pro bros - Today, Explained - Air Date 2-25-25

NOEL: Katie Honan is a senior reporter at the nonprofit news site The City. She also hosts the F-A-Q N-Y-C podcast. Yesterday, minutes before Katie went into a press conference with Eric Adams we reached her in the rotunda of City Hall to ask her about the life and times of New York’s mayor. 

KATIE HONAN [The City senior reporter]: Eric Adams is like a real New York story. He's a former police officer. He often talks about his, his path to the NYPD. 

<CLIP> ADAMS: As a 15 year old, I was arrested and beat by police officers. But I also learned how to turn my pain into purpose: I became a police officer, NYPD reformer… 

KATIE: And he was a very [01:50:00] activist police officer, challenging a lot of the racism within the department for a member like himself, as a Black police officer. And then he became a state senator representing neighborhoods in central Brooklyn, and then the borough president of Brooklyn. So when he ran for mayor in 2021, it was on a public safety message that really, especially towards the later months of the election season, really resonated.

<CLIP> PBS: The next mayor of New York will confront an economy battered by the pandemic, as well as rising rates of gun violence and homicide, that have made public safety the top issue for many voters. 

<CLIP> CBS NEW YORK: And as the city nears a full reopening, a lotta people are worried that surging gun violence could make it more difficult to attract visitors… 

<CLIP> ADAMS: This is a critical time for New York. We’re facing a pandemic of crime, inequality, and injustice. 

 And that is how he became the city's 110th mayor – of New York City.

NOEL: Before we get to the events of the [01:51:00] past couple of weeks, what's his reputation as mayor been? What do New Yorkers think of him?

KATIE: It's funny, when I speak to the friends of mine who don't pay attention to politics, I think because the mayor himself talks about his personality and his, his own word, which is swagger. 

SCORING <Triangle Time> 

<CLIP> ADAMS: When the mayor has swagger, the CITY has swagger… 

 He has his own message about who he is – you know, we all have stories about ourselves that we share. His, however, was very easily debunked. You know, his big thing is, ‘I'm a vegan mayor.’

<CLIP> ADAMS: When you’re eating the soul of a living being, you are also internalizing all the trauma when that animal is killed. 

 A few months into his tenure in 2022, he's going out to dinner and the waiter saying, ‘Yo, he ordered the fish,’ you know, which is not vegan. So there was that. 

NOEL: <laughs> 

<CLIP> REPORTER: I just want to clarify something: How often do you eat [01:52:00] fish and other animal proteins? 

ADAMS: I eat a plant-based centered life. Some people wanna call me vegan. Vegans eat oreos. And they drink Coca-Cola. I don’t. 

KATIE: And I think even his partying, it became a negative because people are like, ‘Why are you not, like, out doing your job? Why are you out at clubs with French Montana, a rapper? Why are you out of these private clubs? 

<CLIP> TIKTOK: French Montana. In your friend group. Is not a good sign. Monsieur Montana? <laughs> 

 He has such a large personality. His clothing, it's – everything's embroidered. It says Mayor Adams, in case you don't know who he was…

NOEL: <laughs> 

KATIE: …on his hat, on hit jacket. His phrase is “get stuff done.” There's GSD everywhere. So that's what we see of the colorful character of Mayor Adams. 

<CLIP> ADAMS: This is New York. It’s a PRIVILEGE to live in New York. And the leadership should have that swagger. That’s what has been missing in this city. 

 [01:53:00] SCORING OUT 

NOEL: When do things start to go south for him legally?

KATIE: Well, we found out that the investigation into him started in 2021 when he was still a borough president. But we saw it publicly… I would say it was the fall of 2023 when his top fundraisers’ home was raided by the feds. That morning, the mayor was on his way to Washington, D.C., to meet with the Biden administration to talk about the asylum seeker crisis, which – it continues to be, it’s sort of winding down now, but it was for years a large issue in the city financially and just in terms of organizing, in terms of what the mayor had to focus on, a lot of it was taken up by the asylum seeker crisis.

<CLIP> ADAMS: This issue will destroy New York City. Destroy New York City. We’re getting 10,000 migrants a month.

 So the mayor flies to DC and then immediately returns. And all we knew initially was that he had to return for, quote, “a matter.” So that was when we realized there might [01:54:00] be… <laughs> an investigation into the mayor. And then we saw a trickle of this until September 2024. 

<CLIP> FOX 5 NEW YORK: A Bronx neighborhood, swarming with FBI agents earlier today. Records show the address involved is owned by a top aide to Mayor Adams. 

<CLIP> ABC7: We have just learned that FBI agents seized New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ phones and an iPad earlier this week…

<CLIP> FOX 5 NEW YORK: The FBI raiding the homes of at least 5 people in Mayor Eric Adams’ administration, including two of his deputy mayors, the schools chancellor, and even – reportedly – the NYPD commissioner. 

 And then in late September, the mayor himself was indicted on five counts, including bribery and wire fraud.

NOEL: What are the details there? Bribery and wire fraud. What was going on, allegedly?

KATIE: The mayor, allegedly, in short, was helping out the Turkish government…

NOEL: The Turkish government! 

KATIE: The Turkish government, expediting a building that they have in Midtown, getting the fire permit expedited. You know, these things… It's New York City, it's a big city, and things take a lot of [01:55:00] time.

<CLIP> US ATTORNEY DAMIAN WILLIAMS: We also allege that the mayor sought and accepted over $100k in luxury travel benefits. These benefits included free international business class flights, and opulent hotel rooms in foreign cities. 

 And in addition to that, there was supposed to be a superseding indictment – so additional charges filed – but we don't know if we're ever going to see those.

NOEL: Okay. And once he's charged, what does he say?

 <CLIP> ADAMS: My fellow New Yorkers. It is now my belief … <duck> 

KATIE: The mayor immediately recorded a video and he said, I have done nothing wrong. This is a political attack. I'm being targeted. His phrase was: 

<CLIP> ADAMS: <duck up> I always knew that if I stood my ground for all of you, I would be a target. And a target I became. 

 Because he says he was targeted by the Biden administration because he was critical of their lack of help financially in New York City for the asylum seeker crisis. I'll point out that the investigation predates the asylum seeker [01:56:00] crisis. And you can repeat that to the mayor as much as you want but he's never going to listen to it. 

NOEL: <laughs> 

KATIE: He insists that he is a pure victim of political persecution, and he's continued to say it. And this is a kind of a, a note that's been picked up by a lot of, particularly right-wing outlets across the country.

<CLIP> FOX NEWS, JESSE WATTERS: He was one of the ones that spoke out against Biden, and if you speak out against Biden, you get punished. Menendez spoke out, got punished. Adams spoke out, got punished. Trump got more than punished. 

 

The Gangster Presidency Part 2 - Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick - Air Date 2-15-25

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: I read Bové's letter to Sassoon that came out on Thursday night very much as an implicit threat to also investigate her, to investigate the lawyers that quit. So let's just be really clear.

It's not just that these people are losing their jobs. They're also now subjecting themselves, as you said, taking themselves out of a career path that is a rocket to success. They're also subjecting themselves to the You know, investigative and prosecutorial power that Bove is [01:57:00] threatening. I want to make explicit what Dale Ho, who has been on this podcast, is the judge tasked with sorting this out.

Presumably at some point, um, somebody is going to pull the trigger and file a motion to dismiss the Eric Adams charges. And then this goes to Judge Ho in New York. And you've now said. He certainly has, it's well within his rights to investigate and interrogate why this is happening. And I would love for you to give us a sense of the scope of what he could possibly do to put this to rights.

HARRY LITMAN: Sure. I mean, what he could possibly do is very broad and we'll see, and it's now a high profile matter. But the legal charge that he has is to find that it is in the interest of justice. And I think again, and this is the great letter that you read from, you know, if it had been put [01:58:00] in the realm of raw politics or a pardon or whatever, then the notion would be, well, that's politics, but it has been put in the realm of law and an implicit.

Um, not so implicit, an assertion, uh, and a very threatening one, as you say, from Beauvais to Sassoon, you have violated your oath and we are going to investigate you. I mean, uh, you know, a judge, I think perceives immediately that he or she needs to call it true and figure out, what happened. So even if at the end of the day, there would be a possible way in which Ho could say, I'm not going to dismiss it.

That would be pretty extreme, but to actually look into it, that would be normal. And I think there's a little wrinkle here, Daya, because at this point, you can't expect Adams to speak to why this is. political and rank, nor the department. So I see him as potentially, he certainly has the [01:59:00] power appointing someone to make those arguments.

Supreme court does it all the time. And so I think that the claims from the prosecutors and from Beauvais will come into play. There'll be an effort to put Beauvais on the stand. The department will try to resist that, but it'll be ugly and always underneath. To me is the notion that the department now under its new leadership is scared of resistant to the truth coming out.

The truth being that this wasn't ordered for typical or even. Vaguely appropriate reasons, but was raw politics. And there's the whole other theme here where it would appear that Adams was coached by Beauvais to make the right offer. I'll really play ball on immigration. If you'll dismiss the cases, that's a whole extra layer of corruption.

[02:00:00] That's the sort of thing that, oh, I think will. Have every right to look into, and I don't see why he wouldn't. I'll just add the whole way things have gone down since the January 6th pardons, uh, which so insulted the entire bench of the, uh, very respected bench, bipartisan bench of the DC district court.

I think the district court judges in this country. Really see in the Trump administration, a great sort of disrespect for the law and see themselves as, you know, maybe the only bulwark to at least push back, scrutinize, get the facts out. So, you know, hoe better than I do, but I expect that this is going to move to a hearing with real evidence of what happened and what didn't.

And. That's just bad for the department and the posture that it's in. 

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: I think that what you're [02:01:00] saying, Harry, and it's a great place to land is that no matter what emerges from this, the quid pro quo here is that if Eric Adams continues to be the mayor and continues to do what he did, as you noted, Harry, on Fox News on Friday morning, which is say.

I get to be the mayor as long as I do the immigration dragnet I promised. There's nothing more corrupt. You can laugh about it on Fox, but that is quid pro quo corruption and the promise that he will be removed if he fails to do that. So. This isn't just a New York story. This isn't just an immigration story.

This is a stark promise that we will keep you out of jail if you do what we want. And if that doesn't scare the face off everybody, this is no different in that sense from the Saturday night massacre. This isn't a local New York mayoral corruption story. This is a promise from [02:02:00] DOJ that you either play ball.

And do what we say we could put you in jail. I don't know how to put it more starkly than that. 

HARRY LITMAN: Yeah, look, you play ball and not on the field. We're supposed to play it on. This is the broader, almost dragnet of Trump's politics. By the way, this has been happening. Uh, so basically Trump had a lawsuit against CBS saying that Kamala Harris interview was slanted and he has put his handpicked FCC chair in to basically say, we're going to scrutinize your efforts to try to do this huge profitable merger.

Uh, but we're going to look into how nice you're talking about Trump. There's no other way around it. That's got the exact same structure. As the impeachment did the abusive use of government power held hostage to Trump's private interests. And that just washed by in a moment, which returns me to the [02:03:00] point, you know, I think the sort of main meta point that we're discussing here, does this have purchase with the American people?

And I'll just repeat, you know, I am from DOJ and I want to say within DOJ. Everyone assistance all over the country. This is a body blow. It's going to hurt them going before judges. They're ashamed. This is exactly what they're schooled in not doing the reason they came to the department. But even leaving that aside, you know, I think the themes of corruption and there are multiple layers, as you say, and just the.

Bullying, you know, 22 people now in a room who's going to do the right job, the really sort of nasty, overbearing, insulting, threatening aspect to it. To me, that rings home to people generally, even if they're not schooled in the sort of DOJ way that [02:04:00] is now coming through in the letters so much what people see their jobs as being about.

Trump LEGALIZES Bribes From Foreign Countries - Thom Hartmann Program - Air Date 2-11-25

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: Trump signed an order pausing enforcement of a law called the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the FCPA. And this is a real problem, what he's doing here. I mean, you know, embracing Rod Blagojevich and Eric Adams, two corrupt Democrats, and saying, okay, everything's good with you guys.

He's just embracing corruption. I, 30 years ago or thereabouts, I was working for an international relief agency, Salem International, and, uh, we went, myself and Horse Fund Hire, we went to, um, Haiti to talk about, you know, acquiring some property there, some land there, to run a program, a relief program, you know, for, for extremely impoverished people.

And we met with the, with, uh, with the, the minister, I forget his actual [02:05:00] title, but he was kind of the equivalent of, of the home secretary or the, the, you know, the, the state, the, the secretary of state, you know, he, he, the guy who deals with other governments and things like that. And, uh, very friendly guy.

Uh, and, you know, in his office in the, in the capitol building there. Um, I think it was in Port au Prince. And, uh, the first thing he asked us for was a bribe. And we just had to say, I'm sorry, we don't pay bribes. You know, we, we operate in countries all over the world, mostly third world countries. Um, but you know, we don't pay bribes.

And, and he was like, then you can't, you can't do your work here in Haiti. And, you know, we will stop you. And by Ending the law again. Now, this was a German organization, so they weren't covered by this American law. Now, if, if we had been an American charity, I could have simply said, I'm sorry, I'm an American.

I can't by law do this. Now, do you want our help or not? But now every tin pot dictator in the world is going to be [02:06:00] saying to every business, you know, they're going to be saying to Coca Cola and to Ford motor company and whatever, Hey, you want to sell your cars? You want to sell your, your, your soft drinks.

You want to sell your pharmaceuticals in our country. Grease my Paul. And now that it's no longer illegal to do that, these companies are going to start doing it, which means that the companies that don't do it are putting their executives lives in danger and, you know, certainly the integrity of their operations.

This is absolutely criminal. I mean, this law was passed back in 1977, and it makes it illegal for American companies to pay bribes to do business in other countries, and vice versa. For other countries or other companies to pay bribes to do business here. And Trump just shut this down? It makes you wonder which count which countries Don Jr.

and Eric want to bribe in order to get Trump Hotel.

SECTION C: CORPORATE INTERESTS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: You've reached Section C corporate interests. [02:07:00] 

Why does corruption matter - Civics 101 - Air Date 10-15-24

DAVID SIROTA: So in 1971,

Richard Nixon had just installed the now famous recording devices in the White House. We 

CLIP: are going to use any means that we're getting done. 

MUSIC: I

DAVID SIROTA: want it done. 1971 was this moment in history in which the reformers, Ralph Nader types, were winning. Tons of legislative victories. It was a time of really incredible progress in America.

I mean, the country had declared war on poverty. The Voting Rights Act had passed. The Civil Rights Act had passed. The Medicare had passed. Medicaid. Richard Nixon signed the legislation creating the EPA and the like. I mean, this was an incredible moment. And Nixon had just installed his recording device in the White House.

And one of the problems that had not been solved, one of the last big problems that had not really been addressed, was [02:08:00] this thrum of corruption underneath the political system.

And Nixon ended up recording this exchange that he had with his treasury secretary, in which his treasury secretary said. To Nixon and they were they were strategizing together that they could shake down. That was the that was the term used they could shake down the Dairy producers and we're talking about the big giant dairy companies They could shake down the dairy companies for more campaign cash to Nixon's re election campaign in exchange for Nixon issuing a policy That would create a price support floor for the price of milk to keep the price of milk at or above a Certain minimum amount.

NICK CAPODICE - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: Hang on, shake down the [02:09:00] dairy industry? 

HANNAH MCCARTHY - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: Yes, milk, shakedown, milk, shake, we are not the first to notice the pun potential there. 

NICK CAPODICE - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: Milk them for all they're worth! But how is this a shakedown, exactly? You know, you help me get re elected, I'll help your industry out. That's quid pro quo, as old as time in American politics, isn't it?

HANNAH MCCARTHY - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: Well, Nixon may not have invented campaign corruption, but he sure did define it in a new way. 

DAVID SIROTA: It was very, very clear. They're going to give us money, we're going to do this policy. And what ended up happening was, this kind of came out. It leaked out at the time, not necessarily the tapes. The tapes did not leak out until Watergate a few years later.

The fact that so much money flooded into Nixon's campaign from the dairy producers, and then Nixon essentially reversed a decision from his agriculture department to then do these price supports, which enriched the dairy processors, the dairy [02:10:00] companies. It became this example of the kind of corruption that had become systemic in Washington and helped.

Basically, 

HANNAH MCCARTHY - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: even before Watergate went down, Congress was taking note of how campaign contributions could directly influence regulation. It was, like David said, very clear that Nixon had received a ton of money from the dairy industry and then turned around and helped the dairy industry. So, the 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act regulated money in federal elections.

Contribution limits, spending disclosures, prohibiting candidates from offering rewards in exchange for donations. 

DAVID SIROTA: I think what it exemplified was this cycle that we've been talking about, where Bad stuff [02:11:00] happens, Congress feels forced to react, uh, and Congress did react. Now, Nixon almost immediately after signing the Federal Election Campaign Act, signing it, I don't know, he didn't exactly love that he was signing it, he didn't do a big signing statement, but he felt sort of publicly pressured, publicly forced to sign it, uh, Nixon and his cronies uh, decided to try to immediately circumvented.

And what's fascinating is is that we uncovered a lot of previously never reported on documents in which they outlined their strategy of how to effectively undermine that anti corruption law immediately upon its passage. I should mention, when the bill was moving through Congress after this dairy corruption scandal.

Nixon was publicly saying he supports campaign finance reform. He supports anti corruption legislation. Meanwhile, we uncovered memos inside the White House in which they were plotting a strategy of getting [02:12:00] corporate donors to threaten members of Congress with financial punishment if they ended up voting for that anti corruption law.

NICK CAPODICE - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: Wow, that is,

DAVID SIROTA: well, I

NICK CAPODICE - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: guess

DAVID SIROTA: that is Richard Nixon. So, I, I realize that people listening to this will say, Well, it's not a surprise that Richard Nixon, of all people, was corrupt. And I think that's right, it's not a surprise, but I think we have to understand that the Watergate scandal and the Nixon administration, it really wasn't just a scandal about the break in and a desire to win an election.

It was really The first and biggest campaign finance and corruption scandal of the modern era. 

HANNAH MCCARTHY - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: And Nick, why is it important that Congress is monitoring this stuff? That they're playing watchdog in their own world? Because the public is often busy thinking about other things. For example, who's [02:13:00] thinking about the dairy industry in 1971?

DAVID SIROTA: Is Nixon going to end the Vietnam War? The public may be keyed into, is Nixon going to sign the bill creating the Environmental Protection Agency? The public may not be as keyed into agriculture department policy on dairy prices. And dairy price supports. So, the smaller, more granular, more detailed, more esoteric the issue becomes, in some ways, the more likely a politician is to think, well, that's the kind of issue I can go do the bidding of big money because the public's never gonna notice.

The average voter's never gonna know what I did. The average voter's never gonna know that I slipped this or that line into a bill. 

NICK CAPODICE - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: I mean, members of Congress barely have the time or opportunity to read every detail of a bill, so why would the public? 

HANNAH MCCARTHY - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: Exactly. And then there's the fact that you can always sneak language into a bill that gets you, or [02:14:00] someone else, what you, or they, want.

We hear about things like poison pillslanguage in a bill that basically kills it from the inside out. And riderslanguage attached to a bill that might have nothing to do with the bill. There are plenty of quiet routes to a legislative goal. Routes that voters might never notice or know about.

DAVID SIROTA: The more in the details you get, the easier it is for corruption to flourish. And what happened soon after that dairy scandal, Watergate happened. And what came out of Watergate was an effort to tighten and strengthen those campaign finance rules and those anti corruption rules. 

HANNAH MCCARTHY - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: We talked about the 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act.

After the Watergate scandal, Congress amended that act to limit contributions from individuals, parties, and political action committees. That 1974 [02:15:00] amendment also established the Federal Election Commission. But politicians were immediately opposed to these reforms. 

DAVID SIROTA: And what ended up happening was that even In the shadow of that scandal that everyone paid attention to, everyone knew about, the president resigned on, the bills to strengthen the anti corruption and campaign finance laws after Watergate, the famous bills to crack down, even those bills had provisions slipped into them to help create ways New ways for corporations and interests with lots of money to continue and actually expand their power to influence members of Congress.

 

 

Gregory Shupak on Palestine Ethnic Cleansing, Portia Allen-Kyle on Tax Unfairness Part 1 - CounterSpin - Air Date 2-21-25

PORTIA ALLEN-KYLE: Doing that report was so eye opening for so many different reasons, and both personally and professionally, and a color of change in our advocacy.

I remember years ago when I [02:16:00] discovered after going to H& R Block and paying more than 300 for a fairly simple return and finding out that the person who filed my return wasn't even in a CalPIT. And I remember how ripped off I felt. So fast forward, being in this role and doing this work and this report in particular, just going into how much of a scam the tax preparation industry, both the storefront tax prep Companies, so your H& R Block, your Liberty Tax, your Jackson Hewitt of the world, as well as large corporations such as Intuit and other software providers that provide these tax filing services.

And the reality of the situation is that you have an industry that has spent hundreds of millions of dollars. Preventing people from being able to either pay the government what they owe, or in many cases, receive money back from the [02:17:00] government that is technically already theirs. They have earned it, the government has kept more of it than they were perhaps entitled to, and now people are in the position for a refund.

And these businesses, especially for black taxpayers, for low income taxpayers, have found ways to To profit off of people's already earned money by inserting themselves as these corporate middlemen in the tax preparation game, where their sole role is to bleach people's pockets, either from the money that folks have already earned, and they are doing the refund.

Or by upcharging, upselling, and preying upon folks who are eligible for certain tax credits, such as the earned income tax credit or the child tax credit, and have made businesses off of selling the equivalent of payday loan products to these taxpayers where they take a part of their refund and just give people the rest under the guise of their income.

Giving them a same [02:18:00] day advance or a same day loan. And so no matter what the angle is, it is all unnecessary and all of them, and it's why government products like IRS Direct File are so important to both our democracy, how government works, and how people receive and keep their money. 

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: A key fact in your report is that the tax preparation industry has these basic competency problems.

Tax laws change all the time. You're looking for someone who can make sure you pay what you're supposed to and look for any benefits you're entitled to. And of course, throughout this, is that the most vulnerable people are the most in need of this help. But an unacceptable number, if we could say, of these tax preparers are not required to really prove that they know how to do it.

That's an industry wide failing. Oh, absolutely. There are no real 

PORTIA ALLEN-KYLE: requirements for tax preparers in [02:19:00] these companies, whereas if you go to an accountant. Accountants have professional standards. They have training requirements. Anybody can hang up a shingle and say, I am an accountant. The same way not anyone can walk into a hospital, put on a white coat and say, I am a doctor.

But what we have is an entire industry of people that are able to say, I am a tax preparer because I have applied for a job, maybe taken an internal Training to these companies and are now in the business of selling tax preparation, 

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: right? But not to everyone because let's underscore that the fact that these systemic problems This is a regulatory problem clearly, but it doesn't land on everyone equally and it's not designed to and so in this case you see that these unregulated tax preparers are taking advantage of, well, the people that it's easiest to take advantage of.

Talk a little bit more about the impacts of that particular kind of [02:20:00] predation. 

PORTIA ALLEN-KYLE: One of the ways in which, especially storefront preparers, are able to prey on communities is simply by location. And so many of these, like, franchised operations, some of them maintain year long locations, many of them do not.

But they pop up, kind of like Spirit Halloween, often around tax season. Right. In neighborhoods that are disproportionately Black or communities of color, disproportionately lower income. It just reports that we have taxpayers and residents who are eligible for what are expected to be larger refunds. So those who are eligible for the earned income tax credit, those who are eligible for the child tax credit.

And really play upon those folks in selling tax preparation services. And the key here is selling tax preparation services, because what they really are are salespeople. They have sales goals. It's why they are incentivized to. Upsell products, some of the products that they are also selling [02:21:00] are refund anticipation loans.

So they may lure you in and say, get a portion of your refund today or get an advance up front. That's a unregulated bank product. So you have a unregulated tax preparer now selling you an unregulated bank product, loan product that often sometimes reach interest rates of over 30%. And they know what they're doing, because that is where they make their money in the selling of product.

Right. And we see that in the data that reprogram such a vital volunteer income tax assistance program, disproportionately prepares the taxes of filers. Who don't have children and aren't eligible for so many of these companies will refer out other folks for whom they find that it is not worth it to prepare their taxes right on folks that they think are getting big refunds.

But more importantly, what really illustrates the difference in tax preparation and [02:22:00] expectation, the wealthy. Millionaires, billionaires, corporations, they're not going to H& R Block. Like Mark Cuban is not walking into H& R Block to file his taxes, right? Like folks on the other end of the income and wealth spectrum are relying on accountants.

Are relying on folks who are not just preparing a service in the moment, but who are providing a year round advice on how to make the system work for them. And so there's a service and an additional amount of financial insight and oversight that they are getting that an entire segment of the market is not being properly handled in this way.

Because at the end of the day, it's these tax lobby and these corporations that have fought so hard to keep taxes complicated. and confusing for the rest of us. Doing this while providing services that they know are subpar in quality and deliver questionable outcomes. I mean, demonstrated in the report, the error rate of those who prepare taxes for [02:23:00] companies like H& R Block, Liberty Tax, Jackson Hewitt, and other companies is extremely high, sometimes upwards of 60 percent.

So, You have a scenario where you have a portion of taxpayers who disproportionately have their returns prepared by preparers who are unqualified and unregulated and essentially increases their risk of an audit and then when they are audited with trial and that the IRS. Disproportionately have audited black taxpayers and particularly those who are eligible for EITC, et cetera.

And that is not unrelated to the way that it is structured and the predation of the corporate tax lobby in the first place. And while it sounds like when you see advertisements from H& R Block or Intuit, About how they stand by and guarantee their services, they'll defend you in an audit. Well, they need to defend you in an audit.

It's not altruistic. You'll need that protection because they're going to mess it up. Right. And have messed it up. Right. For so [02:24:00] many people and that part of the story is not often talked about when we talk about the disproportionate audit rate. It often is not always included how those folks had their returns prepared, and that's often by these same companies that are presenting and fighting against things like direct file, which is essentially the public option for taxes in the same way that the Affordable Care Act is, you know, in the exchange is the public option for health care.

The billionaires who run the world (and why they're psychos) Part 2 - Red Flag Radio - Air Date 2-23-25

CHLOE - CO-HOST, RED FLAG RADIO: well, while we're on to, uh, the Australian, uh, capitalist class, um, he's now an American citizen, but, you know, we couldn't do this episode without talking about Rupert Murdoch, um, and the Murdoch Empire.

Today he's worth 23. 4 billion US dollars, um, and yeah, he, you know, also like most capitalists already started out rich, um, he, uh, took over running Adelaide News, um, at the age of 21 from his dad, um, by the 1960s he had consolidated Australia's largest media conglomerate, [02:25:00] um, and from there Murdoch really pivoted to Try and take over the whole UK media landscape and then from from there the US.

And so today he has his enormous global conservative media empire, probably most famously Fox News, which is a major part of getting Trump into the White House and along the way he did just, you know, classic capitalist thing. So he was involved in massive union busting campaigns, particularly to try and break the power of the print unions in the UK.

Okay. Transcribed Um, it's worth saying, like, he's most famous for, you know, Fox News, uh, Trump, loving the Liberal Party, but Modok's also not afraid to back the Labor Party when it suits them. As he says, he can make money. Uh, under Labor governments as well. Um, so for example, he was a big backer of Tony Blair during the kind of new Labor turn to, you know, the most open neoliberalism and particularly the Iraq war.

Um, but Murdoch's probably most famous for using all of the means, the many means at his disposal to undermine Labor governments, uh, when [02:26:00] they just give him the shits and he wants to return to conservative rules. So, if you remember like the headlines on the Daily Telegraph, um, during the Rudd years, uh, kick this mob out.

Um, but he also, uh, was a big backer of Gough Whitlam, and then was the key guy that ran the kind of media assault upon, uh, Whitlam, uh, during the, uh, the coup against him. Um, so yeah, he's actually stepped down from being the chairman of Fox, um, and News Corp, um, last year. Uh, but yeah, still, you know, so involved in shaping just the media that, like, millions, billions of people around the world, um, consume.

And something like 65 percent of print newspapers, um, in Australia are News Corp, uh, newspapers that we read. So just appalling, uh, control that he has over the means of, uh, accessing information, um, for millions of people in Australia, billions of people around the world. 

EMMA - CO-HOST, RED FLAG RADIO: Yeah. And I think of all the capitalists in the whole world, he's probably the most responsible for the rise of Trump.

Like he really, [02:27:00] especially back to his first presidential bid. Um, you know, there was a kind of alliance between the Trumpist campaign and his media, um, in those years. Um, not that it, that was, you know, solely based on his support for Trump, like, I think Murdoch's right wing push far predates, um, Trumpism.

Uh, he's been trying to shape ideas in a right wing direction, promote racism and so on for, uh, for many decades. But I think, yeah, it really, um, he found a someone he could really commit to in the person of Donald Trump. I think we were 

CHLOE - CO-HOST, RED FLAG RADIO: reminded recently of just how pathetic Labor governments are in the face of these billionaire media moguls, um, when just awesome person Grace Thame, uh, turned up to We love you, Grace Thame.

Turned up to an Australia Day, um, Australian of the Year, uh, celebration, um, at Kiribilli, uh, wearing a Fuck Murdoch t shirt. Um, to which, like, Anthony Albanese was just, like, a pathetic [02:28:00] spineless dweeb and, like, you know, criticized when he was attacked in the media by, you know, Tame wearing the Fuck Murdoch t shirt.

He, like, totally threw her under the bus. Um, and Tame wrote this really excellent, uh, crikey article in response to it called, Why is my t shirt more offensive to our Prime Minister? than a 50 year assault on democracy, and it's just a great read. He talks about, um, you know, Murdoch's long history of being a nefarious goon, his role in sacking golf Whitlam, um, his connection to Ronald Reagan to, you know, uh, conservative figures in the US like Roy Cohen, um, who was the mentor of Donald Trump.

Um, And just the way that, you know, government's deregulation and neoliberal policies has helped Murdoch, uh, build his empire, you know, his nefarious, um, uh, tactics that his media outlets have used, particularly the phone hacking scandal from, uh, News of the World, um, where he, like, they hacked the, um, the phone of, like, murdered, a murdered schoolgirl and, like, lots [02:29:00] of other, um, figures.

Um, and yeah, to quote her article, she says, It alarms me how little people seem to know about Rupert, a man who owns far more than the news. If anything, his media empire is a front for his various business ventures. Um, it's the instrument he uses to promote policies that benefit him while brainwashing the everyday person into believing they're also good for them.

I don't know, like, I don't think Marxists would particularly agree with the brainwashing terminology, like, we think working class people have the capacity to reject a whole bunch of this, but there's so much that's right in this, um, particularly all of the links between, you know, uh, his media empire, but also just generally promoting the interests, um, of big business and the need to kind of push reactionary politics and try and get a section of the population to adopt reactionary politics, like the recognition that, like, Taking up, you know, virulent racism, you know, anti trans politics, all of this is about trying to get, uh, convince people to a certain degree to kick down instead of looking [02:30:00] at, you know, what the 1 percent are up to.

EMMA - CO-HOST, RED FLAG RADIO: Yeah. And, uh, it's, you know, we've talked mainly about capitalists of the US and Australian ruling classes, but I think it's a general pattern around the world that is not often recognized, which Grace Tame recognizes, that it's the fucking capitalists that push the most reactionary agenda. Um, obviously alongside their, their politician mates and, and so on, but, um, I think that's really important to understand that this stuff, not just like the pursuit of profits, but The racism and the hatred of ordinary people and stuff, that is all in their interest and they push it at all times.

So, um, a, a good example from elsewhere is, uh, Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani from India, who have both become, uh, some of the richest people in the, the world. I think Mukesh Ambani is Asia's richest man currently, and Adani was briefly the second richest person in the world before a series of scandals, kind of, uh, briefly tanked his Uh, his conglomerate, [02:31:00] but they have been able to, you know, very similar to what's happening with Trump now, ride the wave of, um, Modi's rise to power, uh, Modi, you know, rose to power on the back of extreme racism, anti Muslim, um, uh, and Hindu nationalism.

And these guys became extremely rich out of their alliance with Modi. They were offered all of the major infrastructure projects and, and, you know, um, deals. from the government, uh, and were able to become like, like kind of just situate themselves as some of the most important capitalists, uh, in Asia and definitely the most important in India.

Um, and they've just become part of like the global elite. Last year, Ambani had a party for 1200 Silicon Valley Bollywood like types, just all these rich people came to his personal skyscraper, uh, called Antilla, which cost 2 billion to build. Like, I don't even. I don't know if that's the most expensive fucking structure ever built or whatever, but that's insane.[02:32:00] 

Um, or at least as, as a personal residence. Uh, and you know, all of the classics were there, Zuckerberg, Ivanka Trump, Bill Gates, like Rihanna performed for them and stuff. So these are really part of the, um, the global elite. And I think they've, uh, you know, ridden to to that extreme wealth on the back of backing the most reactionary politics in India that is literally about, you know, pogroms against Muslims, uh, as well as, you know, enforcing a horrific level of exploitation of the working class as a whole.

D.C. Gutted. Grassroots Galvanized. Part 2 - Ralph Nader Radio Hour - Air Date 2-22-25

RALPH NADER - HOST, RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR: Well, Jimmy, you've done a lot of work on taxation, internet taxation, you've investigated all kinds of money laundering and tax evasions by big business and the super rich.

The reports are that Trump and Musk are going to get access to IRS personal data, which has never been allowed, and that they have put in place a toady as head of IRS forcing the current one. I had a friend who lost his his first term out of office, and he had about a [02:33:00] couple years more of his term.

Listen, this is the difference between Republicans and Democrats, among others, is that the Democrats let these heads of the Postal Service or the IRS finish their term When they win and replace the Republicans. The Republicans say, get out right now. They've got the IRS in their bullseye, and of course, both Trump and Musk are super low tax payers.

They're using every loophole possible, and it looks like they're going to get another tax cut for the super rich through Congress as fast as they can. Give us your view on this. What are the consequences here? 

JAMES HENRY: Well, I've been following tax justice issues since the 1970s when I started to write about this, I did a big study of income tax non compliance for the American Bar Association way back in 1983.

And we had all these attorneys from big Wall Street law firms sitting around the table talking about how important it [02:34:00] was to have tax compliance. In the United States, the United States had this proud record of pioneering in the progressive income tax system. It had corporate tax rates as high as 70 to 80%, especially after World War II, and income tax rates were very high, it had an estate tax.

And so it was really leading the world in terms of having progressive taxation. And that's an important thing to understand, because since the 1980s, we've seen the global tax rates come down substantially. Under the influence of Reagan and then continued by Democrats, by and large, there was this effort to have moderation of taxation, both for an individual and for corporations.

And so by the time Biden takes office in 2020, we have corporate tax rates down to 21%. That's already very low. We have income tax rates that kind of cap out at 40 percent or so, depending on income levels. But the average Those are the [02:35:00] rates. That's right, those are the rates. And I'm just talking about the actual rates that people are paying, especially the rich, are much, much lower than that.

So even before Trump came into office the first time around, we've seen a substantial reduction in the rates of taxation for both corporations and individuals. He comes in in December 2017 without any hearings at all. He arranges a corporate tax rate that drops the level and generates about 2 trillion of savings, most of which went to the top 100 companies over 10 years.

And it was financed basically by borrowing. Well, this time around, those tax cuts, which most of which expire. At the end of 2025, he wants to renew. It would cost about $4.5 trillion of increased deficit over 10 years. And the way he finances at this time, given the fact the United States has this huge deficit, is by packing away all of social programs in the federal budget.

So that's the source of this attempt to, [02:36:00] to cut $2 trillion, most of which would just simply be turned over to the wealthiest people in the country. So I see this as a huge step backwards in time toward the period before 1930 and unraveling all the progress the U. S. was responsible for. 

RALPH NADER - HOST, RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR: Tell our listeners, Jim Henry, over half of the profitable corporations in the U.

S. pay no federal income tax. Some of them get even refunds, so crazy is the tax system. How do they pull that off? Let's say General Electric, you know, made like 5 billion in the early 21st century, a few years ago. They paid no federal income tax. They got some returns because they were finagling with other tax liability companies trading off.

Explain, how do they end up making billions of dollars per company and paying no tax? Like Apple. Makes tens of billions. It's very, very little tax. The big banks make tens of billions. Explain to our [02:37:00] listeners, how can they get away with that? When the standard tax rate, as you say, is 21 percent on corporate profits.

Yeah. 

JAMES HENRY: Well, the actual effective tax rate is about half that. But Apple, in particular, is one I know well, I've written about their use of the offshore system. For decades, they parked about 65 percent of their worldwide income in a company in Ireland that was a citizen of nowhere for tax purposes. It wasn't subject to U.

S. tax, and it wasn't subject to Irish tax. And so they could leave the money there offshore, untaxed, until they decided to bring it back. So by 2017 tax bill that Trump enacted, They had accumulated hundreds of billions of dollars offshore that had never paid tax. That's one method is to use the offshore system.

News Corp, owned by our friend Murdoch, has 152 offshore subsidiaries. And so one of the ways you avoid tax is by gaming the international system. You park your income [02:38:00] in jurisdictions without any income tax. You leave it there until it's appropriate for you to bring it back to the United States. And they, they basically have managed to game the system.

So, you know, of course, large credits and depreciation oil industry benefits a lot from tax. I think the IMF has done some fascinating work trying to estimate the fossil fuel subsidies. So, the offshore tax system is a mess. One of the things that Janet Yellen was trying to do at the Treasury under Biden was to work with the European countries, members of the OECD, come up with a compact that would agree that can't have any tax.

Rate lower than 15%. Well, Trump is just kabosh that whole idea and put an end to about a decade of work collaborating with our, our allies by throwing that treaty out. That will mean that in fact, U. S. Companies are back in the game of putting their money in anywhere in the world and not paying taxes on it.

RALPH NADER - HOST, RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR: There's an even greater absurdity here. You [02:39:00] mentioned tax credits, that doesn't mean much to a lot of people, but what they do, for example, with Silicon Valley companies and so on, and drug companies, is they say, if you put money in research and development, you can take that as a tax credit against your income tax.

Like, well, of course they're going to put money. I mean, that's how they make money. So they're paying these companies at the expense of middle class taxpayers who have to pick up the tabs. And the burdens of federal expenditures. They're paying these companies for what they should be doing anyway. 

JAMES HENRY: Well, that's right.

And they would be doing anyway. You know, there's 150 billion dollars for being proposed. 150 billion tax cut being proposed as part of this package that Republicans are putting together for precisely that R& D credits that they should be making anyway. But the big picture here, and it's a little bit hard for ordinary Americans to kind of grasp all these technical issues.

And I'm familiar with the problem of trying to get people to understand the tax code to fight this fight. Basically, the U. S. [02:40:00] is now taxing corporations at Estonian levels. I mean, we have a tax rate that's below China's. You know, China's is about 25 percent corporate income tax. Ours is 20. Trump wants to make that even more generous for companies.

At the same time, one thing that I'm just shocked by, it's hard to be shocked by this administration, but any more than by anything else, but he's basically dismantling the IRS. The IRS had been for years sort of starved for financing for its tax enforcement efforts against large corporations and wealthy individuals.

They finally got the Biden administration to add another 80 billion over 10 years, which was hiring about 10, 000 additional investigators. Enforcement people and Trump has just fired them. So that whole effort to reinvigorate the IRS enforcement effort. So, you know, a lot of what we're talking about here is illegal activity.

It isn't even a question. It would have paid for itself that 80 billion investment [02:41:00] about 10 times over in terms of increased revenue collected. So it isn't that this is driven by rational economic policy. I don't think any part of Trump's program makes economic sense. 

 

Gregory Shupak on Palestine Ethnic Cleansing, Portia Allen-Kyle on Tax Unfairness Part 2 - CounterSpin - Air Date 2-21-25

PORTIA ALLEN-KYLE: And the reality of the situation is that you have an industry that has spent hundreds of millions of dollars. Preventing people from being able to either pay the government what they owe, or in many cases, receive money back from the government that is technically already theirs. They have earned it, the government has kept more of it than they were perhaps entitled to, and now people are in the position for a refund.

And these businesses, especially for black taxpayers, for low income taxpayers, have found ways to To profit off of people's already earned money by inserting themselves [02:42:00] as these corporate middlemen in the tax preparation game, where their sole role is to bleach people's pockets, either from the money that folks have already earned, and they are doing the refund.

Or by upcharging, upselling, and preying upon folks who are eligible for certain tax credits, such as the earned income tax credit or the child tax credit, and have made businesses off of selling the equivalent of payday loan products to these taxpayers where they take a part of their refund and just give people the rest under the guise of their income.

Giving them a same day advance or a same day loan. And so no matter what the angle is, it is all unnecessary and all of them, and it's why government products like IRS Direct File are so important to both our democracy, how government works, and how people receive and keep their money. 

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: A key fact in your report is that the [02:43:00] tax preparation industry has these basic competency problems.

Tax laws change all the time. You're looking for someone who can make sure you pay what you're supposed to and look for any benefits you're entitled to. And of course, throughout this, is that the most vulnerable people are the most in need of this help. But an unacceptable number, if we could say, of these tax preparers are not required to really prove that they know how to do it.

That's an industry wide failing. Oh, absolutely. There are no real 

PORTIA ALLEN-KYLE: requirements for tax preparers in these companies, whereas if you go to an accountant. Accountants have professional standards. They have training requirements. Anybody can hang up a shingle and say, I am an accountant. The same way not anyone can walk into a hospital, put on a white coat and say, I am a doctor.

But what we have is an entire industry of people that are able to say, I am a tax preparer [02:44:00] because I have applied for a job, maybe taken an internal Training to these companies and are now in the business of selling tax preparation, 

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: right? But not to everyone because let's underscore that the fact that these systemic problems This is a regulatory problem clearly, but it doesn't land on everyone equally and it's not designed to and so in this case you see that these unregulated tax preparers are taking advantage of, well, the people that it's easiest to take advantage of.

Talk a little bit more about the impacts of that particular kind of predation. 

PORTIA ALLEN-KYLE: One of the ways in which, especially storefront preparers, are able to prey on communities is simply by location. And so many of these, like, franchised operations, some of them maintain year long locations, many of them do not.

But they pop up, kind of like Spirit Halloween, often around tax season. Right. In neighborhoods that are [02:45:00] disproportionately Black or communities of color, disproportionately lower income. It just reports that we have taxpayers and residents who are eligible for what are expected to be larger refunds. So those who are eligible for the earned income tax credit, those who are eligible for the child tax credit.

And really play upon those folks in selling tax preparation services. And the key here is selling tax preparation services, because what they really are are salespeople. They have sales goals. It's why they are incentivized to. Upsell products, some of the products that they are also selling are refund anticipation loans.

So they may lure you in and say, get a portion of your refund today or get an advance up front. That's a unregulated bank product. So you have a unregulated tax preparer now selling you an unregulated bank product, loan product that often sometimes reach interest rates of [02:46:00] over 30%. And they know what they're doing, because that is where they make their money in the selling of product.

Right. And we see that in the data that reprogram such a vital volunteer income tax assistance program, disproportionately prepares the taxes of filers. Who don't have children and aren't eligible for so many of these companies will refer out other folks for whom they find that it is not worth it to prepare their taxes right on folks that they think are getting big refunds.

But more importantly, what really illustrates the difference in tax preparation and expectation, the wealthy. Millionaires, billionaires, corporations, they're not going to H& R Block. Like Mark Cuban is not walking into H& R Block to file his taxes, right? Like folks on the other end of the income and wealth spectrum are relying on accountants.

Are relying on folks who are not just preparing a service in the moment, but who are providing a year round advice on [02:47:00] how to make the system work for them. And so there's a service and an additional amount of financial insight and oversight that they are getting that an entire segment of the market is not being properly handled in this way.

Because at the end of the day, it's these tax lobby and these corporations that have fought so hard to keep taxes complicated. and confusing for the rest of us. Doing this while providing services that they know are subpar in quality and deliver questionable outcomes. I mean, demonstrated in the report, the error rate of those who prepare taxes for companies like H& R Block, Liberty Tax, Jackson Hewitt, and other companies is extremely high, sometimes upwards of 60 percent.

So, You have a scenario where you have a portion of taxpayers who disproportionately have their returns prepared by preparers who are unqualified and unregulated and essentially increases their risk of an [02:48:00] audit and then when they are audited with trial and that the IRS. Disproportionately have audited black taxpayers and particularly those who are eligible for EITC, et cetera.

And that is not unrelated to the way that it is structured and the predation of the corporate tax lobby in the first place. And while it sounds like when you see advertisements from H& R Block or Intuit, About how they stand by and guarantee their services, they'll defend you in an audit. Well, they need to defend you in an audit.

It's not altruistic. You'll need that protection because they're going to mess it up. Right. And have messed it up. Right. For so many people and that part of the story is not often talked about when we talk about the disproportionate audit rate. It often is not always included how those folks had their returns prepared, and that's often by these same companies that are presenting and fighting against things like direct file, which is essentially the public option for taxes in the same way that the Affordable Care [02:49:00] Act is, you know, in the exchange is the public option for health care.

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: What is direct file and why can we expect to hear in the media a lot of folks saying, Oh, well, you might think direct file is good, but actually, you know, um, what should we know about it? 

PORTIA ALLEN-KYLE: What we should know about it is, as I mentioned, direct file is the public option for taxes. Right. And it's important because it allows people to file returns and simple returns directly with the IRA.

The last year, the pilot program was only available in 12 states. This year, the program is open to folks living in 25 states. We hope to see and are fighting for the expansion after this season into all 50 states. And recognize the tough road ahead for that, but it is a program that in its first year, they over, I believe it was 130, 000 taxpayers, millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of hours in tax [02:50:00] preparation and already folks block.

This season to the direct file system and in the 1st, 2 week color of change has been doing a lot of advocacy. We are the top refer of traffic to direct file. And so we're already saving hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands of hours, which is a real benefit to community. This is a system that like in government working for you.

It is also important because the other thing that private companies have really invested in and fought so hard about is that even when you file with H& R Block, when you file with Intuit or Total Tax, like when you file with Liberty Tax, That information is still going to the government, to the IRS, but now it also is housed in this private corporation that essentially uses it as a part of their business model to sell other products to you and prey on you in other ways.

And so it's not a [02:51:00] coincidence that a company like Intuit own TurtleTax, which is, you know, a software platform that will take up your data. They also own QuickBooks, so they have a bunch of data on small businesses that keep their accounting in that way. They own MailChimp, and so they have information of millions of posts to join direct marketing, email campaigns, and so they can link data in that way.

And then also own credit partners and so for those who are looking to improve their credit scores, for example, and they also then have information about, you know, Americans would not level and match this to essentially pray in different ways with different types of tax products and other banking products.

And we've seen this in the expansion of FinTech. Tax product alone, um, that has been going crazy. You know, when Cash App, for example, is telling you that you can file your taxes for free, you should assume that you are the product. And cutting out that corporate middleman is critical and essential for not just [02:52:00] ensuring that families keep money in their pockets, save time.

That they are able to put back, spend with their kids, spend with their families, spend pursuing other things, but also is a data protection strategy as well. 

SECTION D: KING TRUMP

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally, section D. King Trump.

Did Trump End Fundamental Constitutional Structure Holding Back Fascism - Thom Hartmann Program - Air Date 2-10-25

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: The Supreme court is corrupt. Congress is a rubber stamp and the president is lawless. What happens next? And so J. D. Vance is now saying that he and Donald Trump don't obey federal judges. He tweeted, quote, judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legislative legitimate power. This is how autocrats run things.

It's an extraordinarily dangerous moment. And I think it's important that we put this in a historical context. It was, uh, Tuesday, July 17th, 1787 when, uh, 50 some odd men got together at the, uh, what was then the City Hall in Philadelphia, uh, it's now called Independence Hall, [02:53:00] uh, to draw up, to write the Constitution.

And they drew their inspiration for that day's efforts, that July 17th, 1787 effort, from Charles de Montesquieu, who's, uh, who had published a, a book. He was a French philosopher and, and, uh, Uh, well, a philosopher, uh, in 1748, he wrote a book called The Spirit of the Laws. And in The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu pointed out that it is absolutely critical that if you want to have a government that doesn't devolve into tyranny, that doesn't become an autocratic, strongman, single party state.

That you must have at least three separate branches of government that have relatively equal powers relative to each other. In this case, the legislative, Congress, House and Senate, the executive, the presidency, and the judiciary, the, the courts. [02:54:00] In fact, this is a quote from his 1748 book. He said, when the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty.

Again, there is no liberty of the judiciary power between the legislative and executive. So as this topic came up in the morning of July 17th, 1787 in Philadelphia, James Madison stood up to speak and, you know, his words were recorded. He said, you know, by, by quill pen, but recorded, he said, if it be essential to the preservation of liberty that the legislative, executive, and judiciary powers be separate.

It is essential to a main, maintenance of that, of that separation that they should also be independent of each other. In like manner, a dependence of the executive, the president, on the legislative would render it the executor as well as the maker of laws. And then according to the observation of Montesquieu, tyrannical laws may be [02:55:00] made, that they may be executed in a tyrannical manner.

Montesquieu conceived it to be absolutely necessary to a well constituted republic that the two forces should be kept distinct and independent of each other for guarding against the dangerous union of the legislative and executive departments. In other words, if the president were ever to dictate all terms to Congress, which then became a compliant rubber stamp, regardless of how excessive or even illegal the president's actions became.

That, Madison said, finishing his little rant, quote, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. We're there now. In simplified form, you know, basically the system that Madison and his compatriots came up with, to, was that the legislature creates agencies and funds them, the government. The president's job is to, and this is a [02:56:00] direct quote from Article 2, Section 3 of the Constitution, to quote, Take care that the laws be faithfully executed.

Of course, the laws were created by Congress. And the role of the Article 3 Courts is to make sure that neither overstep their authority and independently arbitrate disputes between them. Well, those decisions must be final. The Supreme Court's decisions must be final for the system to work. However, we've had this 44 year long war.

Against American government, against American democracy, against James Madison and the founders that was funded by a bunch of, initially some fossil fuel billionaires, later a larger group of billionaires, now the tech billionaires are in on it. Uh, this was originally called the Reagan Revolution, then it was called the Bush Revolution, then the Trump Re There's 1, 500 radio stations, there's three television networks, there's multiple newspapers and other publications, over 200 TV stations, hundreds of billions spent to purchase and then elect politicians.

And all of [02:57:00] this American democracy and government after 240 years is finally on the verge of collapsing and being replaced by something very much like Viktor Orban's Hungary or Vladimir Putin's Russia. Both houses of the Congress are controlled by Republicans, and in both cases, every single Republican senator and member of the House of Representatives has just rolled over and said, okay, Donald Trump gets whatever he wants.

The president, so that's the, that's the legislative branch, the executive branch, the president is just nakedly breaking laws and just saying, Congress, courts, I dare you. And the courts, you know, are just beginning to weigh in, but now J. D. Vance comes out over the weekend and says that he can, he can do whatever he wants, he can ignore the courts.

And in fact, the only way courts can have their opinions enforced is by having federal [02:58:00] marshals do it. And who do the federal marshals work for? Oh, that's right, Pam Bondi. And who does Pam Bondi work for? Oh, that's right, Donald Trump. This is Pam Bondi, our Attorney General, who's investigating FBI agents who were looking into Donald Trump's crimes when he stole top secret documents from the White House, took them down to Mar a Lago, and left them out where Russian spies could wander in and photocopy them.

He conveniently left a giant photocopy machine there, too, right next to them. Wasn't that nice of him?

This is the very definition of a constitutional crisis. When one branch of government says we're going to completely ignore the other branch of government, or even, in this case, the other two branches of government, and just do whatever the hell we want. We don't care what the law says. We don't care what the courts say.

And we're going to find out. I mean, we're already hearing stories that even though a federal judge told Donald Trump and Elon Musk that they cannot suspend federal payments, [02:59:00] That farmers in the Midwest and, you know, and people all over the world are not getting federal payments. That money is being withheld in order to finance tax cuts for billionaires.

And here we have, and by the way, this was all facilitated by the Supreme Court, by five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court in Citizens United in 2010, saying that bribery is just fine. If you want to, if a billionaire wants to own a politician, no problem. And so here comes billionaire Elon Musk saying, I'm going to own Donald Trump.

It only costs 270 million. Not even a billion, not even a half a billion.

So, and then, and then we look at, you know, Elon Musk. Well, what's in this for him? Well, let's just go through the list. The FAA administrator had launched an investigation into SpaceX. Now he's been fired. The Department of [03:00:00] Justice was looking into possible violations of securities and other laws by Musk and Tesla.

That investigation is probably going to die. The USAID Inspector General was investigating Musk's Starlink. He's gone. The Department of Defense's Inspector General, uh, opened a review into alleged failures by Musk and SpaceX to properly disclose contact with foreign leaders. You know, like Putin? He's been fired.

The USDA Inspector General was investigating alleged animal abuse at Neuralink, Musk's brain company. He's been fired. The National Transportation Safety Board, overseen by the DOT, had several open probes into Tesla. Uh, odds are they'll be dropped if they haven't been already. The EPA had settled multiple lawsuits with Tesla.

Uh, for, you know, hazardous waste violations and violations of the Clean Air Act. Now that the EPA is being gutted, there probably won't be any more. The National Labor Relations Board, overseen by the Department of Labor, had 17 open investigations against Tesla and SpaceX. For unfair labor practices, safety violations, and [03:01:00] discriminatory work process practices that are probably now, you know, moot.

The FCC was carrying out investigations and had issued court orders relative to Musk's business. The Federal Trade Commission was overseeing some of Musk's companies and had a consent decree in place. And the Air Force and the Pentagon's Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security had launched reviews into Musk and SpaceX's compliance with federal reporting requirements.

I think you can safely say all of these burrs under, under Elon Musk's saddle have, have been removed. And if not, so far, they probably will be soon. That 277 million investment that, that Musk made is going to pay billions in returns, it appears. Welcome to James Madison's very definition of tyranny.

 

DOJ files to dismiss NYC Mayor Adams case after request set off wave of mass resignations - The ReidOut - Air Date 2-14-25

GUEST 5: And that's, I think the, the, the, the top line takeaway here. Um, one is that, and we know where this is going to go to. So that low income heating program where [03:02:00] those people lost that money, that was straight out of project 2025.

I mean, right in the 900 page book, that was one of the programs that they were targeting. So in effect, Trump is just implementing a lot of the things that they've already written and prepared for, which means we know what's coming next. And we know the people that are going to be affected by it, which means there's no excuse.

For the, for Democrats, for the news media, not to be able to connect the dots. And your question is the important one here, because if we don't help build that connective tissue for his actions, to the harms that people are already experiencing, what's going to happen is that because they have narrative dominance and they have that massive megaphone there, when people start to ask questions, Hey, why is this happening?

They're going to blame the deep state. Malicious implementation right there and and they're going to use that anger and kinetic energy and turn it right back around to gather more power for themselves. So it is both an important opportunity, but we also need to make sure we're telling this story so that we don't, we actually prevent them from using it to get stronger.

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: Yeah, [03:03:00] absolutely. And you know, Antoine, you, you, uh, you made a video actually that, you know, taught that sort of sort of walks Democrats through some real way to tell this story, not even just on the red state pain, but just on the price increases that everyone is feeling right now. I'm gonna play just a little bit of that.

Do we have it? Maybe we have a little bit of that. 

DONALD TRUMP: We will stop inflation. We will make America affordable again. We have tremendous potential in this country. The President's tariffs are expected to have a major impact on the price American shoppers pay. Tariffs that could raise prices for many products.

It'll also bring your grocery bill way down. 

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: Consumers can expect to see increases on items like avocados, berries, and meat products. The 

CLIP: word grocery, you know, it's sort of a simple word, but it sort of means like everything you eat. 

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: With many thanks for our director downtown Sterling Brown. Um, here is, uh, your article, Antoine, is Trump ignoring his promises that won in the election?

What should Democrats be asking? Where should they be playing that video? 

GUEST 6: Well, well, Joy, I can tell you this as a, as the old African American proverb tells us quite [03:04:00] clearly, we tried to tell y'all. The fact of the matter is what we see now is a governing style of ram, jam, and screw. Ram these government overreach extreme policies down the throats of the American people, jam up the news cycle with multiple things at one time, and screw whatever constituency that will be impacted by these.

And quite frankly, I think the American people need to understand that these policies and this government overreach, this extremism does not just impact democracy does not just impact. Uh, those who may not have been 4. It impacts everyone in my home state of South Carolina. We better known in many places as the battered capital of the world.

The largest investments from the Inflation Reduction Act, perhaps in any other state, we've had two or three announcements where companies will not. Produce what they said they were going to produce just in Georgia a few weeks ago, the same thing. And so I think what's going to happen at the end of the day, if you look at his extremism, along with what the Republicans want to do in the Congress [03:05:00] with this budget cut in terms of Medicaid, people are going to be hurting.

And the people who benefit the most are going to hurt the most, in my opinion, those who voted for Donald Trump. 

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: Yeah. I mean, and by the way, who's going to gain the most Angelo are, you know, Trump and his family. They're already reaping money. They're selling meme coins. They're selling their personally, you know, enriching themselves.

Elon Musk is signing himself up for contracts while canceling Medicaid money. 

GUEST 5: Yeah. I mean, 800, 000 people lost money in that deal. Uh, you know, they thought they were going to get rich. They thought they were going to make some money off of Trump's momentum and they lost it. And that's the nature of a lot of these scams.

Uh, and that's a part, you know, that's the part about this that makes this even. more intense is that it's not just that they're using policies to directly affect people and harm people and transfer wealth. They're also then using their cultural and social influence to then fleece them and pick their other pocket, uh, with these sort of, with these other gambits and that, you know, and then further align their pockets.

And I mean, they are, they have really successfully [03:06:00] managing to double dip in the most odious ways. And one 

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: of the ways that

GUEST 6: Remember Donald Trump promised on day one, he was going to bring down inflation. He was going to lower the price of car insurance and all these other things. And here we have prices of egg gas and goods and everything in between are still up and yet his constituents who voted for him.

On this notion of the ones who are suffering the most, they're not in blue states, they're not in urban cities, they're in rural America, they're in urban America, they're all over the country. And that's why, if you look back and reflect on this election, what people understand is it was easier to be angry than it was informed.

Because if you were an informed voter in this election, you know, it was not a policy thing that the president put up that went to benefit. Working class Americans, as they thought it would have when we tried to make this idea that the election was going to be about economic and microeconomics in particular, not one person who voted [03:07:00] for him is benefiting from that, except that the wealthy, the well off and the well connected.

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: It was an open book test. The book was called Project 2025. Last word to you on this, Angela, because there, you said they were going to pivot and just blame someone. I mean, trans people are right now taking the brunt of it. I mean, they're being erased from the military. They're taking off the T in front of the Stonewall Memorial, which is literally Stonewall was done by trans people, black trans women did it.

I mean, they're literally just sort of making them vanish and disappear. It is. 

GUEST 5: They are insidious. They are. And that's a strategy. Yeah. I mean, and they, you know, they organize power on the fringes, and when you bring all those people in from of the fringes, now each of them get their small little piece of the puzzle and there's a very strong segment of the right wing.

That wants to erase that, erase trans people. There's a big push in right wing media about a couple, two years ago that said that this was the trans lie and that it was only gay white men that were at Stonewall. There weren't even anybody that wasn't white there. That is the narrative that they push. And part of it is to divide and [03:08:00] to weaken.

But it's also a reflection of the fact that they are fighting a culture war here and recognize that politics is downstream from culture, which is partly why he hung that portrait of himself in that mugshot in the White House. It's about culture. 

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: It's about violence. A mugshot in the White House. Can we show this?

I mean, it is the first thing you see when you go into the White House is Donald Trump's mugshot. Insane. I mean, he is a convicted felon. So I guess that is what he wants people to know.

 

AOC Exposes Republican Plan To Pay For Elon Musk's Tax Break By Cutting Medicaid - The Majority Report - Air Date 2-26-25

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: So they're going to have problems with this, and this is going to be like literally a year long process, maybe going into the fall. Maybe, you know, I don't know what the deadline is for reconciliation, but at the very least is going to happen over the next 67 months. In the meantime, we're 13 days away now.

They're going to try and pass a continuing resolution of the existing budget we have. They don't have time to come up with a new budget. They just agreed on these broad strokes today, yesterday. And the real question is, are Democrats going to [03:09:00] help them with this continuing resolution? And the answer should be a 100 percent unequivocal no.

Um, uh, Trump agrees that he does not have the right to exercise what we call impoundment or a line item veto. If Congress appropriates the money, the president is bound in the agencies are bound to expend that money.

And so that's the, that's what we're going to see over the next 13 days. We're turning away from the, what happened with that budget resolution. And now I'm going to look towards the continuing resolution for the, for the numbers that we have now. And in one other note, that budget contained a 20 billion cut to IRS.

And it was a, a future cut, right? Cause remember there [03:10:00] was 80 billion given to the IRS over the course of 10 years, 20 billion was cut in that first, uh, was pulled back in the last, uh, Biden negotiations, but it's in the budget. So it would be cut again. And they've already cut a bunch of IRS people and, and remember whenever they cut the IRS.

The first thing that happens, the first, every dollar that is cut reduces audits of wealthy people because that's the most expensive place. So hopefully the Democrats will hold strong and like they did yesterday and not help with the continuing resolution. And get out there and start messaging the Republicans are about to shut down the government.

The Republicans are about to shut down the government. The Republicans are about to shut down the government because they refuse to agree to our constitutional order. We'll see.[03:11:00] 

In the meantime, they're trying to pretend like they're not cutting, uh, uh, Medicaid because they realize like, Hey, this is a problem. 70 million Americans. Some of those live in red states. In fact, a whole lot of them do. Here is a North Carolina Republican, Addison McDowell, saying we're going to find fraud and abuse.

We're not going to actually do any cutting.

COMMERCIAL: Of cuts on the Republican side is the 2 trillion cut. Some Congress, uh, people have concerns that it could ensnare Medicaid. Congressman Don Bacon, for example, saying he wants, he wants to advance Trump's agenda on national security, energy and taxes, but doesn't want to make significant cuts to Medicaid.

It's not explicitly laid out in this blueprint, but it could be affected. Are you confident? Pause it. Let me just 

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: make this clear again. It's not explicitly laid out in this blueprint. [03:12:00] But, you know, I have a cup of, uh, of liquid IV here, and, um, if you tell me to empty out three quarters of that cup, well, let's say I had an eighth of coffee and the rest of it is liquid IV, and you tell me to empty out three quarters of this cup, guess what?

A bunch of it's gonna be the liquid iv. No. So thi this isn't laid out specifically, but you cannot get $880 billion from that committee's portfolio without cutting hundreds of billions of dollars for Medicaid. It's impossible. Or like the Egg committee is gonna be snap. Yeah, a hundred percent. 

COMMERCIAL: Recently laid out in this blueprint, but it could be affected.

Are you confident that this blueprint wouldn't lead to any cuts of Medicaid? I'm confident that there's waste, fraud and abuse in our government in every system that we have. Uh, and that's what we're looking to find. Does that include Medicaid? There's not a single, [03:13:00] if there is waste, fraud, and abuse in any program, we need to find it so that that includes, just to be clear, sorry.

A little bit of a delay that to be clear, if there is waste. Fraud and abuse, as you described it in Medicaid, that would be something you would be supportive of looking at. Absolutely. If there's waste, fraud, and abuse in anything, I can't imagine there's a single American that wouldn't want us to go and find that.

Okay. 

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Go find the waste, fraud, and abuse. How are you going to do that? Are you going to sit in your office in Congress and go, Oh, we're going to call up every single and we're going to check through this. No. What you do is you hire more investigators. At the DOJ or at CMS, HHS investigators to go look for more, uh, fraud and abuse that fraud and abuse incidentally, like we talked about yesterday, comes from providers.

There is no, they have done extensive [03:14:00] research on this and they've done extensive actually, um, uh, prosecutions of people who have committed fraud. Medicaid fraud. And it's not people who are going around pretending that they're on Medicaid and they shouldn't be. It is people who are defrauding Medicaid by charging them for stuff that they haven't done.

Medical, uh, device providers, ambulance companies, nursing homes, you name it. Providers, not beneficiaries. Here is AOC at the, um, That, that very same committee, House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing, this was from earlier that day, yesterday, I should say, uh, outlining that they're full of, they're full 

AOC CLIP: of it.

But that's the argument, right? But if that were true, [03:15:00] then one would think that. The so called cost savings from certain wasteful cuts would be reinvested in Medicaid. However, that is not what the committee is proposing. They are proposing that we have cuts to these essential programs in order to pay for Elon Musk's tax breaks.

The order has come down to this committee. Find 880 billion dollars. Find it for what? To pay for a tax cut bill that benefits Tax cuts on yachts, and private jets, and billionaires, and megacorporations, while secretaries and working class people pay higher effective tax rates than Facebook does.

Undocumented immigrants in this country pay more in [03:16:00] taxes than many large corporations do. And so the, the argument here that these cuts need to be for the sustainability of Medicaid doesn't really make sense when you realize that these cuts are being just moved to justify expenditures and deficit spending in another area.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Yeah. If you thought there was a waste, fraud, and abuse, and the only way to save Medicaid was to cut that waste, fraud, and abuse. And there was a magic button where you could be like, Oh, we're just going to. These people at Medicaid put in a line item, waste, and one's fraud, and one's abuse. We're just going to cut those.

Then you would reinvest it into the program into non waste, fraud, and abuse. But again, their whole argument is, well, if there's, um, if there's 10 percent fraud in Medicaid, the way that we deal with that is by [03:17:00] cutting Medicaid by 10%.

It's absurd.

If you have 10 percent of your inventory in your store is being shoplifted, the solution is not to cut down your inventory by 10 or 20%. Yeah. If there's occasional immigrant crime, it doesn't mean you do mass deportations. That's what we're looking at. And we'll see how far, uh, Democrats go in terms of being able to, uh, exploit this for political purposes.

Ho hopefully we're gonna see ads running in Republican districts, purple districts tomorrow.

 

Trump Calls Zelensky a Dictator While Crowning Himself King Part 2 - Straight White American Jesus - Air Date 2-21-25

BRAD ONISHI - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: And the point is this, Trump signed an executive order this week that is probably more important in terms of policy than him saying he's king. Now, that's important and we all know that. I've talked about it a million times in the show. But [03:18:00] this executive order, I'm going to read from a piece at NPR by Danielle Kurtzleben.

The executive order gives the president greater power over independent regulatory agencies, government entities Congress set up to be shielded from White House control. Well known independent regulatory agencies include the Consumer Product Safety Commission, The Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees markets.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insures bank deposits, FDIC. I think you've all heard about that. The Federal Reserve, which sets monetary policy. And it's supposed to be outside of electoral politics because you don't want every four years there to be somebody who can just sort of decide how the Federal Reserve works.

This executive order basically means that any new regulations have to be, uh, run by the White House and there has [03:19:00] to be White House liaison offices that regularly consult and coordinate policies and priorities. It also says that the executive branch going back to Trump only, and the president is the only source of interpret, interpreting the law that exists period, at least when it comes to the executive branch, the Y.

So all of that to say, Dan is there is an attempt here to make sure that these independent agencies. Are under the control of the president period Politico piece by Megan Messerly and Bob King, independent agencies often find themselves in the political crosshairs either because they take actions that appear to align or conflict with the sitting president's agenda.

Those include the SEC's efforts during the Biden era to force companies to disclose the risks they face from climate change, as well as the FCC's more recent actions to investigate companies such as CBS for alleged bias [03:20:00] against Trump during The 2024 campaign, Daniel Farber, who is a professor of law at UC Berkeley said this, one result will be to give the president much more control over the financial sector, especially via the SEC.

The ultimate result could be regulatory whiplash. The commission system has given these areas of law, some degree of stability. So the rules don't completely flip after every election that would change under Trump's order. You're left with the situation, Dan, where the federal election committee, the federal communications commission, federal trade commission, and the SEC securities and exchange commission are basically not independent from Trump's will.

The argument is that from Russ Vogt, the architect of project 2025 and friends. This is project 2025. We talked about it on the show 18 [03:21:00] months ago in July of 2023, the United executive, the unified executive theory. Russell vote argues that there should be no agencies that are independent from the president.

Now their argument is the president is elected and therefore the president should have full control over all of these agencies because if you're elected, that's what you get. The reason these agencies were set up to be independent is because, right, one person should not have complete control over.

Which companies are investigated for fraud, which companies are investigated because of consumer complaints. I don't know, Dan, federal communications. Does that sound like maybe one person shouldn't have control over the media and who, who's, who's censored, who, whose licenses are under threat. Maybe one person shouldn't have control over the federal reserve, especially when they're getting together with, uh, Elon Musk and talking about putting the, the, the federal, the, the.[03:22:00] 

The National Reserve and Dogecoin, okay, which is something that's been discussed already. The Federal Trade Commission. I don't know, Dan, we've had tariffs and, and things like that suggested. Do you think that like one person should have control over like, you know, how our trade is completely like regulated?

Especially when that person has business interests and like billions and billions of dollars at stake, whether that's Donald Trump or Elon Musk. Dan, it's not only that we have an executive who's trying to take control of these things, We have the exact kind of executive who the people who set them up had in mind to protect us from.

A kind of like wheeling, dealing businessman, who is a failure at every turn when it comes to like making deals, who's thinking, if I just have control of the markets and trade, if I have control of the securities exchange, if I have control of all of those agencies, you have to come to me. If you want favorable conditions for your [03:23:00] businesses, your conglomerates, your communications, labor, et cetera, this is taking control of the government in a way that we've never seen before.

I got more to say on this that I'm going to take us to Elon in a minute, but jump in here. 

DAN MILLER - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: Yeah, so I know I do this a lot, but I want to sort of almost back up and look at the whole structure of the executive order. Like system and the way that Trump is using it, because I think this is another important dimension.

So like, Trump obviously in the executive orders makes these bold claims and they're, they're real. The threat is real. Everything about Project 2025, like all of that is real. The part that is always sort of surprising to me, or maybe not surprising, but I want to keep in front of people is again, I've referenced this before, you made the reference weeks ago about people, this is my language, but the idea of like sort of preemptively complying with.

The demands of autocrats, right? And the weird thing about the executive order is they don't do anything in and of [03:24:00] themselves. It's Trump putting out a political fantasy. It's Trump saying, here's what I want to be. Here's what I want political reality to look like. They're not self enforcing. They don't have the force of law.

That's why they get, you know, challenged in court and so forth. And we can go down all the stuff about like what happens if they don't listen to the courts, etc. All real things. We can talk about the fact that all of these are intended to go eventually before the Supreme Court and really try to push the boundaries of executive authority and so forth.

But what's striking to me is how much it's this, this performance, this political performance, you sign this executive order, you make this proclamation that has only as much force As people give it to begin with, and this is the dimension that I keep seeing happen, is that every time Trump signs one of these, everybody just falls in line.

These executive orders that they are not self executing, they are not self authorizing, it's not a magic wand. Trump did not wave a magic wand and suddenly make it so that all [03:25:00] these regulatory agencies have to do what he says. The way that he says he wishes they would do what he says. And yet with executive order, after executive order, after executive order, we see individuals, organizations, institutions, government agencies falling in line in anticipation of them having the force of law, which of course makes us, they don't ever have to have the force of law.

Like everybody just does it. And it's just this kind of performative thing. And that's the part that I find so, a lot of things, a lot of adjectives. I find it maddening. I find it, if I'm just trying to be analytic about it, I find it fascinating. I also find it terrifying that, yes, the claims in this are really, really scary.

But that's all they are right now are claims until and unless everybody just falls in line and starts doing what Trump wants. In which case they give him the authority that he's claiming. And I think that's the dimension that I find so disturbing about the way that these executive orders are being received.

At a national [03:26:00] level. And we've, we've seen this, you know, with, with all the executive orders, everything from like, you know, trans healthcare to, you know, not allowing transgender women in sports to Trump's authority to, you know, birthright citizenship, like whatever they are. That performative dimension that people simply falling in line when they are not required to do so is what is giving the authority to Trump.

 

Credits

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: That's going to be it for today. As always, keep the comments coming in. I would love to hear your thoughts or questions about today's topic or our upcoming topics: the resistance to Trump, such as it is; followed by the international reshuffle as Trump effectively switches sides in Russia's war on Ukraine. You can leave a voicemail or send us a text at 202-999-3991. You can now reach us on the privacy-focused messaging app Signal at the username bestoftheleft.01. There's also a link in the show notes for that. Or you can simply email me to [email protected]. 

The additional sections of the show included clips from Trump's Terms; [03:27:00] Straight White American Jesus; On the Media; the Rachel Maddow Show; Red Flag Radio; Democracy Now!; Today, Explained; Amicus; The Thom Hartmann Program; Civics 101; CounterSpin; the Ralph Nader Radio Hour; The ReidOut, and The Majority Report. Further details are in the show notes. 

Thanks everyone for listening. Thanks to Deon Clark and Erin Clayton for their research work for the show, and participation in our bonus episodes. Thanks to our transcriptionist trio, Ken, Brian and Ben for their volunteer work helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work behind the scenes and her bonus show co-hosting.

And thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships. You can join them by signing up today at BestOfTheLeft.Com/Support, through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple Podcast app. Membership is how you get instant access to our incredibly good and often funny weekly bonus episodes, in addition to there being no ads and chapter markers in all of our regular episodes, all through your regular podcast player. [03:28:00] You'll find that link in the show notes, along with a link to join our Discord community where you can also continue the discussion. And don't forget to follow us on any and all new social media platforms you might be joining these days.

So coming to you from far outside the conventional wisdom of Washington, DC, my name is Jay!, and this has been the Best of the Left podcast coming to you twice weekly, thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show, from BestOfTheLeft.Com.

Air Date 3/4/2025

Full Notes Page

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Audio-Synced Transcript

 

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast. An old proverb says that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and we're all about to see how dangerous, as know-nothings and science skeptics take over the government agencies staffed by doctors and scientists with the goal of keeping the population healthy. 

For those looking for a quick overview, the sources providing our top takes in about 50 minutes today includes Way Too Early, Inside the Hive, The Dig, The Dream, The Humanist Report, Democracy Now!, and Some More News. 

Then in the additional deeper dives half of the show there will be more in four sections:

Section A: Health Organizations

Section B: RFK Jr. 

Section C: Anti-Science Dangers 

And Section D: Predators and Prey

ACTIVISM ROUNDUP

Amanda: Hey everyone, Amanda here with your weekly roundup of activism actions. There's a lot going on, so remember to do what you feel is most impactful and what is possible in your life. All right? All right. Let's dive [00:01:00] in. 

First, I want to talk about defying "overwhelm." In these times, it's helpful to have a repeatable plan of action to turn to. Women's March recently amplified Queer Nature's 2020 podcast about a decision making framework called OODA Loop. This framework was born out of the U. S. Air Force, but is applied across industries and situations, and in activism. OODA stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. So, for example, when you see something new and threatening in the news, observe it to understand the facts, orient yourself to learn its importance and the points of power, decide how and where you can engage that can be helpful, act, and repeat. OODA reflects the natural way people respond to an urgent threat or challenge, but you can also turn to this language when the overwhelm kicks in. It can mean the difference between spiraling and making a positive impact. 

Next up, on March 8th, International Women's Day, Women's March is organizing national events that will include house meetings, rallies, block parties, protests, and more, under the banner Unite and Resist, A National Day of Action. You can learn more and find events at [00:02:00] WomensMarch.Com. 

Speaking of actions across the country, the February congressional recess made national headlines and put Republicans on the back foot as they were forced to defend their support of a cruel and harmful budget and president back home. Indivisible is reporting that Republican leadership is now telling their members to avoid town halls altogether in response. That just means we have to keep up the pressure. The next recess is this month, so save the dates of March 15th to 23rd and get in touch with your local Indivisible groups now to get involved in town halls or office visits near you. The goal is to loudly amplify situations where Republicans cower or don't show, and ensure Democrats know the people want them to actively and forcefully resist this administration at every turn. 

And finally, there are critically important elections in multiple states coming up in early April. Florida will have special elections for their 1st and 6th districts on April 1st. These are red districts, but the hope is for big turnout from the left and for more people on the right to stay home. Look up candidates Gay Valamont and Josh Weil, [00:03:00] that's W E I L, to get involved. 

A few days later, on April 4th, Wisconsin will hold its election for a Supreme Court judge seat, which will once again dictate control of the state's highest court. Musk is sinking millions into this race, so strong support for the Democrat-backed Susan Crawford is essential. 

FYI, the special election for New York's 21st district is on hold as Republicans delay Elise Stefanik's confirmation out of fears over their extremely slim majority in the House during budget negotiations.

 

Remember that no one can do everything, but everyone can do something. Finding community and taking action are truly the best ways to deal with everything being thrown at us. We don't get to choose the times we live in, so we need everyone to act like everything is on the line. Because it is.

U.S. health agencies hit with mass layoffs by Trump administration - Way Too Early with Ali Vitali - Air Date 2-18-25

ALI VITALI - HOST, WAY TOO EARLY: We're learning more about what agencies have been affected by the Trump administration's continued mass layoffs across the Health and Human Services Department. That is, of course, just one, but several sources tell Politico the cuts have hit staffers at the Food and Drug Administration, as well as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, [00:04:00] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health. The firings were part of cuts affecting about 3600 probationary employees across the department. 

Joining us now, White House correspondent for Politico, Adam Cancryn. Adam, first, Trump officials are saying that these are methodological firings and that they are meant to serve the larger goal of cutting 10 percent of the workforce.

But there's actual tangible impacts to this. 

ADAM CANCRYN: There absolutely is. Anytime you do a culling of this many people, and we're talking about, the administration has said about 3, 600 people across the health department, that's going to hit several offices and it's going to hit several offices abruptly. And from what we've heard, the evidence that we've seen so far, these haven't been kind of precision surgical cuts. These are people who are finding out out of the blue that they are being fired. These are people who have been fired without their supervisor's knowledge or even Trump political appointees in the agencies knowing who of their reports is going to be out and what the impact is going to be afterward. 

ALI VITALI - HOST, WAY TOO EARLY: So [00:05:00] it's the same kind of a method that we've seen, this slash and burn, maybe ask questions afterwards. Is there any sense that when you look, for example, at disease preparedness and response teams, again amid an avian bird flu outbreak, as the White House has said, senior officials have said to me, well, you know, this is something that we're prepared to deal with. And yet they're slashing people from the very place that is dealing with it. How does that work? 

ADAM CANCRYN: Absolutely. We've seen cuts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, right? That the main public health agency for this country, HHS has an emergency preparedness and response unit, which is a lot of times on the front line of things like the bird flu response and monitoring Ebola overseas, that kind of thing. There were cuts in that office as well over the weekend. 

And so there's just this core tension of, how much can you pare down while still making sure that you're doing the surveillance, doing the research, doing the kind of activities that are gonna make sure that this country remains safe from all these various health threats? And that's really the question here is whether this White House feels [00:06:00] like it can really, really shrink the workforce and at the same time, keep an eye on these kinds of constant things that are at threat of coming into the country. 

ALI VITALI - HOST, WAY TOO EARLY: Because it's not just the layoffs that we're seeing at the agencies themselves. When you also talk about the funding freeze, you're seeing people who receive grants from these agencies doing important research on all matter of diseases also seeing their funding pulled. I think on the layoffs piece, though, there might be people who are wondering, is there an end in sight for this? It does feel -- and you and I were saying this during the break -- like every Friday, we get to a point where you go into a weekend of just hearing about layoff news. 

ADAM CANCRYN: Yeah, this has been the main source of anxiety talking to people in the Health and Human Services building, as an example, of people just don't know when this is going to be over. And it's ironic we're talking about "government efficiency," because I'm talking to folks who say, I haven't actually been able to do my job in the last few days because we're just trying to figure out if we will have jobs. One example: there was an office in the Medicare and Medicaid agency that around 4 p.m. Friday, there [00:07:00] had been no notices of terminations. Supervisors were telling their employees, I think we're safe because I think we do something this administration values. Wow. Termination started rolling in Friday afternoon into Saturday morning and afternoon. And now suddenly people are saying, I guess I'm out of a job. I guess I wasn't valued that much. So really a lot of anxiety and nervousness.

Department of Health and Holy Sh*t: RFK Jr.’s MAHA Movement and What It Means for America Part 1 - Inside the Hive - Air Date 2-5-25

CLAIRE HOWORTH: Let's talk about what he represents for Trump's second term. Claire, you brought up the MAHA, Make America Healthy Again, constituency. 

SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: [To RFK Jr.] I very much like the slogan that you coined, Make America Healthy Again. And I strongly agree with that effort. Do you agree with me? that the United States should join every other major country on Earth and guarantee health care to all people as a human right. Yes? No. 

ROBERT KENNEDY JR.: Senator, I can't give you a yes or no answer to that question. 

RADHIKA JONES - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: MAHA [laugher]. MAHA is the [00:08:00] Venn intersection of crunchy Earth mamas and anti-vaxxers and farmers because there's an agricultural, a huge agricultural component. And, during the hearings, we called them the MAHA cheersquad, but there was Cheryl Hines, who is also a MAHA industrialist because she has this line of candles. Megan Kelly, who's an avowed Kennedy supporter. Jessica Reed Krause, who is a "journalist" and MAHA extremist. And Vani Hari who's known as Food Babe on the internet.

So, that's who we're talking about when we talk MAHA. There's a little Hollywood intersection. These women in particular are all very glamorous looking. Vani has on these gorgeous gold costume earrings and a hot pink blazer, and she's got the perfect red lip. And I think Kennedy has built that part of himself, too. He's got a kind of [00:09:00] Schwarzenegger-esque physique and vibe. 

CLAIRE HOWORTH: Putin-esque, some might say. 

RADHIKA JONES - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: Putin-esque. I don't know. We might be too flattering to Putin. 

CLAIRE HOWORTH: Shirt on, shirt off, it's all the same. 

RADHIKA JONES - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: That was, that was MAHA aesthetics.

CLAIRE HOWORTH: And now Calderone, you can talk about MAHA beliefs. 

MICHAEL CALDERONE: Shirt off, shirt on, RFK can do it all. And he does bring a lot of these forces together. And RFK Jr. is somebody who has been railing against vaccines. I think he would consider himself a vaccine skeptic. And I think we saw with COVID this kind of radicalization, especially, and a lot of these forces coming together. And in some ways you can say, well, sure, I think ultra processed foods in school, lunches is probably a bad thing, or we should limit it. There's some aspects of this that I think a lot of people could get behind. But then at the same time, you take the skepticism of measles vaccines and fluoride in the water and so many other more radical ideas that RFK or others have espoused. And I think that's where [00:10:00] it gets into a more extreme vision for what Health and Human Services would be. He's essentially going to be the most powerful health advisor in 

America and would have a huge impact on American life.

CLAIRE HOWORTH: I would love to know what mythical moment in American history they mean when they say Make America Healthy Again. Is it before the polio vaccine? Is it the decade I grew up in, the era of AIDS? 

RADHIKA JONES - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: It all goes to some fake Norman Rockwellian idea of an America that most of us thinking Americans realize was never, if it existed for some, it certainly did not exist for all.

CLAIRE HOWORTH: Well, I got to say, I looked up life expectancy and I'm here to tell you that we are healthier now than we have ever been. Just FYI. Although I'm with him on the processed foods. So, Michael, regardless of what happens with the confirmation vote, what are your thoughts on what R. F. K. Jr. represents? 

MICHAEL CALDERONE: I think it's a power center here, and [00:11:00] he still has clout with his supporters, and it's in Trump's interest to keep RFK close to him. Now, what this means exactly, these two have vested interests together. And one thing we know about Donald Trump is he is incredibly transactional.

And whether RFK criticized him in the past, once you're in a fold again, that's a good thing in his book. We saw this on inauguration to where tech CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg who were out of the fold, suddenly they're back in. And I think Trump 2. 0, a fundamental difference with Trump 1. 0, is he does have more tech executives. He does have more celebrities, even though there are more celebrities on the Democratic side. He's got more this time. And the Camelot aspect is another part of it. To have a Kennedy in your fold, I think is a big win for him. 

CLAIRE HOWORTH: And quite frankly, I think it could also be a big win for RFK Jr. And that was the calculation he made back in August when he suspended his campaign and joined Team Trump.

MICHAEL CALDERONE: Yeah, I think they all are more [00:12:00] powerful together. And that's why it'll be interesting to see if these big egos, these big personalities with your Musks and your RFKs, how they all interact when there's not a campaign anymore and you're not fighting the Democrats, but they all got to work together in some way in the Trump orbit.

Psychiatric Struggle w/ Danielle Carr - The Dig - Air Date 2-17-25

DANIEL DENVIR - HOST, THE DIG: I want to turn to RFK's anti science politics and those households that do not believe science is real. What forms of pervasive American common sense about health does that politics reflect? We've been talking about the 'science is real' politics. What are these politics? Obviously, RFK is a unhinged, profit seeking grifter, power hungry person, whose opinions on vaccines could lead to truly dystopian public health outcomes if implemented. But, he's also right that industrial agriculture is a plague upon this country. What sort of common sense does RFK [00:13:00] Jr. encapsulate, and why does that common sense resonate so powerfully among so many at this moment? And then in particular, why is it that the sort of wellness politics, the so called medical freedom movement, what is it about it that creates for so many people the sort of particularly efficacious and often quite sudden entry point into far right politics? It's almost as if it's like a portal that people can step through, overnight sometimes. 

DANIELLE CARR: I think one of the things in play definitely is a sort of disaffection with the institutions of science that intensified during COVID but had been a long time coming in many ways and is not without its validity.

For instance, to take only the development of SSRIs, it is a fact that, in the 90s, the [00:14:00] manufacturers of antidepressant drugs were reporting data from these clinical trials in very selective ways, and that there was a capture of psychiatry by the brute sort of corruption of the scientific process by money and big pharma.

And you're not crazy to have some suspicion of a lot of the scientific establishment around the commodification of health in general. Like, this is not crazy, right? it is not insane to have a critique of the deregulation of the American food pipeline, such that, like, American food is poison. That's true. That is true. 

I just want to mark that. I think that this suspicion did really intensify during COVID and not for no reason. The wildly vacillating instructions that were given people, some of which was like, I think it was a mistake for the [00:15:00] CDC to say don't buy masks during a period in which there was a fear that this protective equipment would be hoarded. And so there were instructions that really vacillated. And I think that people were, quite rightly, left wondering whether indeed these organs of government science did have the everyday population's best interests at heart.

So that's one critique. I think in a broader sense, though, this type of thinking about health that seems to be, like, what do we know about it? It's really tied to influencers. There is this sort of, we could almost say, libertarian epistemology in play where these forms of knowledge making about like seed oils, or raw milk, or any of this other health stuff seems to gain legitimacy in some ways to the [00:16:00] extent that it does not participate in large institutions of science. We know that it resides in this sort of literalist fantasy of purity, whether that's gender can be straightforwardly deduced from some sort of biophysiological fact, or masculinity and femininity can be purified through the elimination of unnatural hormones and additives.

That's what we know about it. And one thing that I have been thinking about a lot recently is, Antonio Gramsci's idea of organic crisis, which I know your listeners might be familiar through the really wonderful series that you've had with Michael Denning about Gramsci. But for those listeners who haven't, Gramsci's idea of organic crisis is that essentially all of the institutions of legitimacy production and hegemony have broken down. [00:17:00] People do not feel that the institutions of civil or political society like Congress or the NIH, let's shorthand, represent them. And within these moments of generalized breakdown, there is a possibility for radical alternatives to emerge, like socialism or barbarism, right? And one of the things that Gramsci points out is it's in these conjunctures that you see the rise of what he calls Caesarism. These strongman figures who claim that they are speaking, standing astride history and shaping history through this power of the individual. And this is one way to think about this sort of influencer-yness of this new alt right health movement. Is this just Caesarism for science?

I think that's one way of describing it. I want to [00:18:00] just, as someone who was trained as a medical anthropologist, I am hesitant to engage in this kind of 'aren't they so stupid' discourse. Certainly, it might seem to like you or me to be ridiculous that the government has these secret med beds that it's hiding from everyday people, all of these other like different conspiracy theories and forms of belief.

DANIEL DENVIR - HOST, THE DIG: Or that elite pedophile cabals are stealing children and sado-sadistically sexually torturing them to extract adrenochrome, for example. 

DANIELLE CARR: Uh, I think that... is there a meaningful difference between your everyday NPR listener talking about intergenerational trauma, which the jury is really out on whether there is this kind of like mechanism for that kind of epigenetic transfer between generations. This sort of essentially [00:19:00] woke Neolamarcanism of the way that your average liberal like talks about trauma science and maybe the types of thinking that are prevalent on the right and less formally educated populations about the mechanisms of their health beliefs. I would say in the delta between those two in terms of "scientific literacy" or "legitimacy", might be less than we would like to think.

MAHA Forever - The Dream - Air Date 2-16-25

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Do you think he was born a conspiracy theorist? 

ANNA MERLAN: That's a good question. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Being a toddler with your uncle having died in the way that he did. And his dad. And then your dad. And then there's all these questions around it and questioning authority and stuff, like, is that just part of his personality from the jump? I mean we are not being armchair psychologists. 

ANNA MERLAN: No, I don't know. I mean it hasn't taken any of the other Kennedys in that direction. It's a pretty big family, but certainly he has talked a lot about conspiracy theories [00:20:00] around especially his uncle, JFK's, assassination. and has suggested that he thinks the CIA was involved. I believe he's also said that about his dad's assassination. But yeah, I think he's alone in the sort of vast forking, very dramatic Kennedy family in holding those views. So it's a mystery. It's a mystery where he got there. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: I just think about him as a toddler. Like, what happened? What do you do to a kid to make them this crazy? But, okay. 

ANNA MERLAN: He actually started his career as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan, which is kind of crazy. That didn't last very long. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Mm hmm.

ANNA MERLAN: Then he became part of two non profits that were environmentally focused. One was Riverkeeper that he was at for a long time. And the other was the Natural Resources Defense Council. I'll point out that, like, when he was running for president, there was an open letter from a group of people who had worked with him in environmental spaces asking him to drop out. So, like, you know. And then starting in 2005, he started engaging in [00:21:00] anti vaccine conspiracy stuff. He published this now really infamous article that ran in Slate and Rolling Stone at the same time called "Deadly Immunity". Slate ultimately retracted it. Rolling Stone I don't think ever actually did formally retract it, but tons and tons of corrections later, the article was taken down. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: It was an op ed? About vaccines?

ANNA MERLAN: No, it purported to be an investigative article. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Written by him.

ANNA MERLAN: Yeah, written by him. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: A lawyer.

ANNA MERLAN: Yes.

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Who has nothing to do with health care. 

ANNA MERLAN: Essentially, his entry into the anti vax world was he claimed that a mother came to him being, like, please investigate the environmental and health harms of vaccines. Please investigate what they're doing to our children. So, this was in the period of time when there was still a belief, which we now have thoroughly debunked, that vaccines might be linked to autism. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Right.

ANNA MERLAN: That is not true. But, during that period of time, that's when he got involved. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Was that mother Jenny McCarthy?

ANNA MERLAN: She was part of it. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Yeah, I know.

ANNA MERLAN: So, yeah, then he eventually became [00:22:00] part of an organization that was originally called World Mercury Project and then was called Children's Health Defense, and he is the CEO of, or was the, sorry, was the chairman of the board of that and then went on leave during his presidential campaign and now claims to not be part of it.

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: So, Children's Health Defense, I'm on their mailing list. 

ANNA MERLAN: Sure.

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: I know, but I feel embarrassed about it. I mean, it is great, but it's also like, I don't want to... 

ANNA MERLAN: Oh, it's very interesting. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: ...I don't want to add to his popularity by signing up for this thing. But it is very interesting. 

ANNA MERLAN: I love a mailing list.

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Their daily newsletters about like, how's your kid gonna die today? 

ANNA MERLAN: Yeah, also just the fact that they're so excited about Kennedy, like, today they're running a big sale on all of his books. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Mm hmm.

ANNA MERLAN: They sent out a fundraising email and then encouragement to buy the onesies that Bernie Sanders was mad about during the confirmation hearings. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Which ones?

ANNA MERLAN: It's like, I forget what the onesies say, but there's something about the baby being unvaccinated and Bernie Sanders put up a big image of them during the confirmation hearings and was like, do you stand by these onesies, which is just [00:23:00] objectively a very funny thing to say.

SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: You have started a group called the Children's Health Defense. You're the originator. Right now, as I understand it on their website. They are selling what's called onesies. These are little things, clothing for babies. One of them is titled "Unvaxxed, Unafraid". And they're sold for 26 bucks a piece, by the way. Next one is, "No Vax, No Problem". Now you're coming before this committee and you say you are pro-vaccine. Just want to ask some questions. And yet your organization is making money selling a child's product to parents for 26 bucks, which casts fundamental doubt on the usefulness of vaccines. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: And then the mercury thing, he said there was a study of some sort where children were given tuna fish and then immediately their blood was drawn and they have elevated levels of mercury and Joe [00:24:00] Rogan was like, whoa, really? What if we can make money just doing that? 

ANNA MERLAN: Yeah, it'd be great. That sounds so fun. That sounds so much easier. I love too that Joe Rogan's fact checking always consists of just asking his producer to Google things. And then Jamie, the producer, just clearly reads like whatever the first thing is that comes up and is like, well, it looks like it's, just, it's fantastic.

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Horrible and fun.

ANNA MERLAN: No, it's great. I think it's so great. I think you guys should do that. 

So, what Kennedy is mad about with the mercury is thimerosal, which is a preservative that is mercury based, not the kind of mercury that is dangerous to human beings or is that is found in fish, different kind, that he always conflates the two. So, thimerosal was a preservative that was used in some vaccines and was taken out of pretty much all of them by 2001. Has also never been linked to any harm in human health. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Got it.

ANNA MERLAN: It's a preservative. Nonetheless... 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: For vaccines.

ANNA MERLAN: For vaccines. And now lately he's been like, well, let's talk about mercury more generally.

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: Mm hmm.

ANNA MERLAN: Yeah, so he's talking about, when he talks about tuna fish [00:25:00] sandwiches, he's talking about methylmercury. That's what is in fish. What's in thimerosal is ethylmercury, and he's always like, well, you know, there's no safe kind of mercury, but that's not actually true. And in any case, thimerosal isn't used in anything anymore except I think some multi dose vials of flu vaccine. But it's been taken out of pretty much everything out of an abundance of caution and also because...

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: ...he's so annoying.

ANNA MERLAN: ...because the CDC does not want people not getting their kids vaccinated because they're afraid of a preservative. So, the thing about World Mercury Project was that it was devoted to trying to prove he harms of mercury in a bunch of things, including vaccines, it was obviously mainly focused on vaccines and Children's Health Defense then took on a different angle, which has been echoed by the wider anti vax movement, which is going away from making like specific scientific claims because those can be debunked to making more of a civil rights sort of freedom of choice argument around vaccines, which works incredibly well on Americans, especially, were very [00:26:00] susceptible to the idea that vaccines just should be a choice and nothing should be forced upon you, which is, of course, true. That's true. 

JANE MARIE - HOST, THE DREAM: But my body, my choice is also not part of this. 

ANNA MERLAN: This is the argument we get into when, for instance, you want kids to be vaccinated against measles before they go to school because measles is so incredibly contagious. And most people need to be vaccinated against it to keep it from spreading. So, this is the fertile space in which he found himself. And I would say that there have been a couple points where his career really takes off. One is after "Deadly Immunity", the article that he published in Slate and Rolling Stone, and the sort of hysteria that went on around this now debunked link between vaccines and autism until the paper claiming that vaccines could cause autism was retracted. And the doctor who heavily promoted it, Andrew Wakefield, ultimately lost his medical license in the UK.

Republicans are Proposing Bills SO F***ing Stupid They’ll Make Your Head Explode - The Humanist Report - Air Date 2-18-25

MIKE FIGURADO - HOST, THE HUMANIST REPORT: On the subject of unnecessary suffering, our new health secretary, RFK Jr., who's definitely not anti-vax himself, [00:27:00] by the way, is taking aim at SSRIs, which is a common medication used to treat obsessive compulsive disorder, depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues. Now, Mother Jones reports that RFK Jr. signed a memo within hours of his confirmation, laying out his plans for his first 100 days in office, which apparently includes an assessment of SSRIs. Quote, "The government," he said, "would assess the prevalence of and threat posed by the prescription of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, antipsychotics, and mood stabilizers." Oh goody. 

Now, the policy implications of this "assessment" are not clear, but we do know that he definitely doesn't like SSRIs and has talked about how they're overprescribed because he thinks he's more qualified than every doctor in the country. But back when he was still running for president, he was so anti-SSRI that on a podcast, he said that we should put people on SSRIs into labor camps, [clears throat] [00:28:00] excuse me, "wellness farms," to grow organic food to break their addictions to SSRIs and other drugs that he doesn't like.

But let's hear it straight from the horse's mouth, so you don't think that I'm misconstruing what he's saying. Quote, "I'm going to create these wellness farms where they can go to get off of illegal drugs, off of opiates, but also legal drugs, other psychiatric drugs if they want to, to get off of SSRIs, to get off of benzos, to get off of Adderall, and to spend time, as much time as they need, three or four years if they need it, to learn to get reparented, to reconnect with communities."

Now, he graciously says that this service will be offered free of charge, which is incredibly generous if you ask me, because I was expecting to have to pay to work for them, but apparently, it's free, which is cool. We all love to do work for free. 

The only problem is that if somebody, say, spends, three or four years there, how exactly are they supposed to support themselves during that time, and when they get out? It's not like all of us have rich family members that we can exploit, [00:29:00] that can support us if we want to take a multi-year stay at a wellness center. 

Furthermore, who are you, RFK Jr., to tell us that our doctors are wrong to prescribe us with the medications that they say we need? I mean, your brain, just like any other part of your body, sometimes requires medicine for it to work properly. So, even though being out in the sun and farming might make people feel better, it's not gonna change the underlying fact that their body lacks serotonin needed to function properly. 

But, he makes it seem as if being depressed or having anxiety is a choice, or the product of an unhealthy lifestyle, which is insulting, and confirms that he doesn't know what he's talking about. And I say this as somebody who's been on an SSRI for almost 10 years now. Before that, my quality of life was non-existent. Without it, I would be miserable. So the prospect of him taking that away from me, or making it more difficult to access these drugs? That is extremely dangerous. [00:30:00] Now, we don't know what he intends to do with them, but we know that he doesn't like them, and he's in a position of power to do something about it.

Doctors prescribe SSRIs for a reason. And if you're not a physician, you shouldn't speak about things that you're not qualified to talk about. And you certainly shouldn't be in charge of Health and Human Services for the entire country. But I'm afraid that that ship has sailed. 

But on the subject of criminally underqualified imbeciles, I do want to talk about the big guy himself, Donald Trump. Because I don't think that it's a stretch to say that his incompetence is bound to get a lot of people killed. 

Samoa's Health Chief Says RFK Jr. Spread Anti-Vax Misinformation Before Deadly Measles Outbreak - Democracy Now! - Air Date 1-31-25

DR. ALEC EKEROMA: In 2019, Samoa had a very low vaccination rate, and that was because of some problems back in 2018 with a matching-mixing of vaccines that resulted in two deaths. And so, therefore, we had a low vaccination rate already. And then Kennedy visited, before the measles outbreak. Now, the measles outbreak, of course, it came from New Zealand across the islands, and [00:31:00] because of a low vaccination rate, it just took off, and so resulting in so many deaths.

But the government responded quickly and demanded a vaccine campaign — vaccination campaign, and there was some international assistance to Samoa from all countries in the world, who came across — doctors and nurses came across to Samoa to help with the mass vaccination of our people. So, that drove the vaccination up, rate up, to 90%, within a few months.

So, Kennedy’s presence in Samoa a few months before that actually emboldened the anti-vaxxers locally and also from New Zealand. And so, they were the ones, really, that tried to sow the vaccine hesitancy in the country. But, fortunately, our leaders did not believe that and mounted this emergency and mass vaccination campaign.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Why did Kennedy go to Samoa?

DR. ALEC EKEROMA: [00:32:00] Apparently, he came to talk about some database that they could create. But when he was here, he talked to — well, he talked to the director — the then-director general of health and to the prime minister, but he also talked to local anti-vaxxers, as well. So, I’m not privy to what was discussed, but the result of his visit didn’t result in any improvements in our ICT or software capabilities in the country. None was promised.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: I want to bring our other guest into this conversation. As we talk to the health director in Samoa, I also want to bring Brian Deer in, who was there in 2018 — in 2019 in the midst of the measles outbreak. He’s an investigative journalist and author of The [00:33:00] Doctor Who Fooled the World. His recent New York Times opinion piece, “I’ll Never Forget What Kennedy Did During Samoa’s Measles Outbreak.” So, can you elaborate further on what Dr. Ekeroma is saying?

BRIAN DEER: Good morning, Amy.

Yes, indeed, I was out in Samoa at the time, and I spent a great deal of my time there speaking to the mothers of children who died from measles. And it was the most emotional experience, and I ended my time there just crying, as I became overcome by the pain of these mothers. Eighty-three people died, overwhelmingly small children.

Now, Mr. Kennedy thinks he knows better than anybody else. He claims that he’s not anti-vaccine. I’ve been following what is now called the anti-vaccine movement for 25 years. And I can assure you that Mr. Kennedy is not only an anti-vaccine campaigner, he is [00:34:00] the preeminent anti-vaccine campaigner in the world. And he went to Samoa, and after the outbreak began, he then wrote to the prime minister, trying to suggest that it wasn’t, in fact, the virus at all that was killing these children, but was, in fact, the responsibility of the vaccine itself.

And he didn’t stop there. Even this week, speaking to senators, he claimed that nobody knows what these children died from, even though the measles was — the vaccine there had collapsed as a result of other issues. And then, after a vaccination campaign that followed the outbreak, or took part — occurred at the same time as the outbreak, the children stopped dying. But Mr. Kennedy felt that he should tell senators that nobody knows what killed those children — extraordinary thing for him to say.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: What do [00:35:00] you think, Brian Deer — and then I want to ask the health minister in Samoa — of him being the health secretary, the secretary of health and human services of the United States?

BRIAN DEER: Well, I have to say, listening to him over the last couple of days, Amy, that I was shocked by the attitude he displayed. He was making it absolutely clear that notwithstanding him being the — hoping to become the head of an agency with a $2,000 billion budget and employing 90,000 people, he was going to personally involve himself in vaccine science, and it would be he who would be deciding whether the research was conducted properly, even though he has no medical or scientific qualifications at all, and not the enormous staff he represents and the agencies, that have actually written to him previously telling him that the research [00:36:00] overwhelmingly and conclusively shows that there is no link between vaccines and, for example, autism. He was making it absolutely clear to senators that he was going to — in that job, with those enormous responsibilities, for that massive entity, he was going to involve himself in the individual pieces of research and deciding for himself whether vaccines, for example, cause autism.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And before we leave Samoa, Dr. Alec Ekeroma, if you can talk about the significance of if he is confirmed as health secretary here in the U.S.?

DR. ALEC EKEROMA: It is quite significant. Someone who is prominent in the world, with a [inaudible] , spitting out anti-vaccine sentiments, emboldening anti-vaxxers around the world and in Samoa, is going to be a public health disaster for us. Already, we’re going to [00:37:00] have reduction in U.S. funding to United Nations and to WHO that is going to affect our capability here. And then you add in Bob Kennedy into this role, that is going to slow down the flow of vaccines to us, that is going to harm our public health state in this country. And so, therefore, it will be a disaster for us.

Dear Donald Trump Voters: His Actions Are Going To Hurt You Too - Some More News - Air Date 2-19-25

CODY JOHNSTON - HOST, SOME MORE NEWS: So, let's, at the start of this, pretend that COVID wasn't a big deal. I mean, it was. It killed a lot of people. But let's just say you're someone that thinks the CDC was overreacting, or that mask bans or lockdowns were a waste, and we faked a freakout about a light flu. Do you think that about all future pandemics? Like, if that movie Contagion happened, do you think we still shouldn't have masks or lockdowns? Or were you just bothered by COVID specifically? I am genuinely asking. Write down your answer and mail it, please. 

Logically speaking, it would be [00:38:00] very odd to think that there's no such thing as any disease or any pandemic, right? In fact, we are literally experiencing a bird flu problemo right now, so it really doesn't seem wise to, say, block the CDC from sharing their data with healthcare professionals like nurses and doctors and hospitals. Trump did that in his first week, as well as instructing the various federal health agencies under the Department of Health and Human Services to pause all of their external communication, such as health advisories or social media posts. 

Why do that? Does that help us? Does that help you? I'll make it simple.

Remember how one of the big concerns was egg prices? Like, we got to get rid of the Democrats and wokeness because eggs are too expensive. And now it seems like egg prices are only getting higher. That's because of the bird flu. That's currently spreading throughout the country. This disease is [00:39:00] killing our pets as we speak and has killed one human as of filming this. And so it is so clearly important for the CDC to be able to send out alerts and updates right now. And so it's very strange and dare I say bad and incompetent to order the CDC to shut off their communications with hospitals. 

Did you know that they found out that bird flu can be passed from your cat to you? Just one more way your cat can destroy you. They knew that, and they had to delete their findings after Trump ordered them to stop. How is that helpful? Is that not hurtful? Additionally, bird flu is a global problem, and yet Trump has pulled out of the World Health Organization, citing mishandling of the COVID pandemic.

He's probably not wrong in that reports have found that the WHO did mishandle COVID. Did you know who else did? The United States. The CDC absolutely screwed it up, as did Trump. [00:40:00] Pretty much our entire government failed during COVID. There's a lot of blame to spread around, but that doesn't really justify exiting the WHO, which serves to coordinate global responses to pandemics and other health emergencies. Trump is claiming to be steering policy to put "America first", but diseases don't have nationalities. Much like your germ ridden cat, they don't see borders. And Trump knows this. The value of sharing information and collaborating between countries to combat disease was one of the core premises behind Trump's Operation Warp Speed. By removing ourselves from the WHO, all we're doing is weakening our ability to respond to a global pandemic, thus hurting more Americans. 

Remember how, at the top of this, I said that people tend to choke to death in bathrooms? That's what we're doing here. We're removing ourselves from the support of the world in the name of independence. And so unless our Department of Health and [00:41:00] Human Services is really on the ball, this is going to jeopardize us. And here's the thing about the Department of Health and Human Services. It's going to be run by this guy talking to Bernie Sanders. 

SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: Vaccines, do not cause autism. Do you agree with that? 

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: As I said, I'm not going to go into HHS with any preordained...

SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: I asked you a simple question, Bobby. Studies all over the world say it does not. What do you think? 

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: Senator, if you show me those studies, I will absolutely, as I promised to Chairman Cassidy, I will apologize... 

SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: That is a very troubling response. 

CODY JOHNSTON - HOST, SOME MORE NEWS: So, RFK, if you're watching, thanks. Make sure to like and subscribe. But also, here. I just spammed the screen with studies that show vaccines don't cause autism. During his confirmation, RFK Jr. claimed that he isn't anti vaccine, and that he'll simply have to look at the evidence and draw his own conclusions. But he has been shown that [00:42:00] evidence over and over again. He also said if the studies prove him wrong, he'll publicly apologize. But then, apologize for what? He claimed he isn't anti vaccine, so that's weird. Also, the counter study he cited in his hearing has a whole bunch of obvious issues, and was by a guy who already has some redacted studies. Because RFK doesn't have a medical background. He's a lawyer with an axe to grind.

Doesn't it seem odd that the guy being charged with overseeing America's health also ran a personal campaign specifically against vaccines? Doesn't it worry you considering right now a town in Texas with the lowest vaccination rates and highest school exemption rates from measles vaccination is currently having a measles outbreak?

That shouldn't be happening. Does any of this worry you, especially since Trump has flat out said he's going to let RFK Jr., again, a man with no medical background, do whatever he wants? 

DONALD TRUMP: And, I'm gonna let him go wild on health, I'm gonna let [00:43:00] him go wild on the food, I'm gonna let him go wild on medicines.

CODY JOHNSTON - HOST, SOME MORE NEWS: I don't know, man. Honestly, some of what RFK believes is, in my opinion, not terrible. He wants to cut down on processed foods and end pharmaceutical ads on TV. He's willing to explore using psychedelics for medical treatments. Not that I do drugs! Haha, ok? But he's one of those guys who's right on the line of reason and then he trips and falls over on the other side because he also thinks vaccines and fluoride are bad and has boasted that he only drinks of raw milk. Boy, don't do that Bobby, did you not just hear about the bird flu? He also wants to replace a lot of HHS staff with people who, like him, aren't medical experts. 

Also, just my opinion, but I suspect he won't even be allowed to do the stuff he wants to do. Trump LOVES fast food, right? Here they all are eating it together. Most people like fast food. Trump's policies actually seem to go directly against a lot of what RFK is [00:44:00] saying. For example, some of Trump's executive orders were aimed at undoing directives to lower drug costs and expand Medicaid. How does eliminating the lowering of drug costs help you? Sounds like it empowers the pharmaceutical companies RFK is going after. And more likely, RFK will be there to allow Trump to downsize the HHS like he means to do with every other agency. He is extremely unprepared for another pandemic. And in fact, right now, the biggest pushes they are making are to go after abortions and eliminate guidance on HIV and contraception from federal websites, at least until a judge told them to reverse that. 

If Project 2025 is any indication, and it should be, the plan is most likely to use HHS to push more and more oppressive laws around reproductive health. According to Project 2025, exact quote, "HHS should return to being known as the department of life [00:45:00] by explicitly rejecting the notion that abortion is health care".

Now, Trump may have said he had nothing to do with Project 2025, but so far, a whole lot of his executive orders match up perfectly with it. So you have to ask yourself. Are you okay living in a country where abortion becomes outlawed? I don't know, maybe you are. Maybe you want to live in a country where women are required to give birth, even if it means they will die doing it, or that they were raped, or one of the many extremely practical and vital reasons someone might need to terminate a pregnancy.

And whether or not you realize it, this is going to affect someone you know. A friend, or sister, or aunt, or mother, or daughter, or that girl at Starbucks who said she liked your shirt but probably just says that to everyone so you really, really shouldn't make a move. Also, men. Men are affected by this because they tend to get people pregnant. And heck, I know you're going to hate this, folks, but some of them can get pregnant. 

This is actually where we might have to draw a [00:46:00] moral line in the sand. Because there are certain things that Trump is doing that, while having consequences for everyone, is going to have more consequences for specific people. And at a certain point, you just have to decide if you have empathy for those people or not. If we're in this together, or not. 

Note from the Editor on the tragedy of the mirror world

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips today starting with Way Too Early, highlighting the disruption of mass layoffs to our health systems. Inside the Hive considered the potential impact of RFK Jr. and the broader Make America Healthy Again movement in the Trump administration. The Dig discussed anti-science politics and the gateways to the far right. The Dream dove deeply into RFK Jr.'s history. The Humanist Report looked specifically at RFK Jr.'s threat to antidepressants, depended on by millions. Democracy Now! spoke with some directly impacted by RFK Jr.'s interference in Samoa's measles outbreak in 2019. And Some More News considered some of the consequences of [00:47:00] anti-science health policy. And those were just the Top Takes. There's a lot more in the Deeper Dive sections. 

But first, a reminder that this show is produced with the support of our members who get access to bonus episodes and enjoy all of our shows without ads. To support all of our work and have those bonus episodes delivered seamlessly to the new members-only podcast feed that you'll receive, sign up to support the show at BestOfTheLeft.Com/Support (there's a link in the show notes), through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple Podcast app. 

And as always, if regular membership isn't in the cards for you, shoot me an email requesting a financial hardship membership, because we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information.

If you have a question or would like your comments included on the show, our upcoming topics you can chime in on include the widespread corruption absolutely endemic to Trump and just about everyone that surrounds him, followed by coverage of what resistance there is to the Trump and Musk takeover.

So get your comments and questions in for those topics or anything else. You can leave us a voicemail or send us a [00:48:00] text at 202-999-3991. We're now also findable on the privacy-focused messaging app Signal at the handle bestoftheleft.01. There's a link in the show notes for that. Or you can simply email me to [email protected].

Now as for today's topic, I was reminded of -- I think my favorite conservative take on health policy and pandemic response that I've seen maybe ever, and I don't mean favorite because it was a good take, but it was a bad take in a relatively unique way that also shined some light on what it must be like to live permanently in the mirror world, as so many conservatives do these days. This was back in fall of 2021. Vaccines against COVID-19 were widely available. And one of the biggest hurdles to getting people vaccinated was the political divide wherein far more Republicans were skeptical of the science of the vaccines compared to Democrats.

And it was in that context, an [00:49:00] opinion article was published on the far-right site Breitbart written by a pro-Trump pro-Vaxxer. And the writer was clearly somewhat scientifically literate. He was understanding the difference between transmission rates and the much larger concern of hospitalization and death rates. He tried to argue to his conservative audience that they were being tricked into thinking that the vaccines weren't effective just because transmission of the virus was still high. Because people didn't understand that being vaccinated doesn't prevent the transmission, it just reduces the severity of the symptoms and often prevents hospitalization and death.

So far so good. We're on the same page. 

But in the midst of all of that reasonable understanding of science, he also decided to speculate on who was largely responsible for conservatives getting vaccinated at much lower rates. There was some blame cast [00:50:00] on anti-vaxxers for their lack of understanding of the science and promotion of conspiracies, but more of his anger was directed at the left for encouraging everyone, including conservatives, to get vaccinated.

No, you did not mishear that. Here's what he said, quote: "I sincerely believe the organized left is doing everything in its power to convince Trump supporters not to get the lifesaving Trump vaccine." End quote. 

And you're probably thinking, well, he's just in his own media bubble. He doesn't know what the left is saying. He doesn't know that they're advocating that everyone get the vaccine. That is not it, that is not his argument. 

Again, he argues that the left was doing this by loudly advocating that everyone get vaccinated, something that the writer strongly believes in. He agrees with the left that everyone should get vaccinated. And he thinks that the left [00:51:00] advocating that everyone get vaccinated -- in exactly the same way that he is -- is a plot to prevent people from getting vaccinated.

It's a brain bender. That's why they call it "the mirror world," and this is where in the article I got to experience the only time ever I've seen an article that includes both lessons on scientific literacy and the word "cocks". He explains his logic this way, quote: "The organized left is deliberately putting unvaccinated Trump supporters in an impossible position, where they can either not get a lifesaving vaccine, or can feel like cocks, caving to the ugliest smuggest bullies in the world." End quote. 

Now I'm being reminded of a side note as he's describing pro-vaccine advocates as ugly, smug bullies. I don't really need to lay out [00:52:00] the irony of that for a Trump supporter. But anyway, out of curiosity, I checked his Twitter profile today just to see what he was up to more recently. And his profile description just says that his pronouns are "Trump won." So he's clearly a class act -- not. Not one of those ugly smug bullies you might find on the internet. 

But just for more context, he went on to explain why the left would do something so harmful as advocate for a lifesaving vaccine. Quote: "The left's morality is guided by only that which furthers their fascist agenda, and so using reverse psychology to trick Trump supporters not to get a life-saving vaccine is to them a moral good. The more of us who die, the better." End quote. 

So, imagine for a moment what it must be like for that [00:53:00] guy to be able to hold all of those ideas in his head at the same time. On one hand, he has a basic grasp of epidemiology, to the point where he can explain the benefits of vaccines to skeptics, differentiating between transmission rates and severe cases. But on the other hand, he appears to think that millions of vaccine-advocating progressives, people who agree with him about vaccines, got the idea to kill conservatives. An idea that, I dunno, we all got together on a Zoom or something and we widely agreed that this was a good idea. And that we then decided that the way to do it was through mass reverse psychology, by encouraging people to get vaccinated. We would try so hard to convince people to get vaccinated, that conservative vaccination rates would drop, just as we planned, and millions would die because of it.

[00:54:00] Like I said, this is my favorite conservative health policy take, because it walks that incredibly strange line. He demonstrates the ability to use logic and reason. Not, you know, not all of them do. But then also gives a crystal clear look into the mirror world and that bizarro world logic that resides there.

My big takeaway from all of this is that it's genuinely sad that people like this are finding themselves trapped in the mirror world, flailing around for something logical to hold onto and coming up mostly empty. But then of course, it's a much bigger tragedy for society as a whole that there are millions of people trapped in that mirror world, but still casting votes in the real world, being nominated to cabinet positions in the real world. Cutting budgets and staffs in the health departments of the real world. All [00:55:00] based on a total, well, maybe not total, but enough of a lack of understanding of science, logic and reason that it's not that they're not capable of it, it's that it's been twisted in their minds so badly by the falsities and conspiracies of the mirror world that they don't know which way is up anymore. 

SECTION A: HEALTH ORGANIZATIONS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now we'll continue to dive deeper on four topics today. 

Next up, Section A: Health Organizations, followed by Section B: RFK Jr., Section C: Anti-Science Dangers, and Section D: Predators and Prey.

“Attack on Science”: Trump’s Exit from WHO Could Make Next Pandemic More Likely, More Deadly - Democracy Now! - Air Date 1-23-25

LAWRENCE GOSTIN: We rely on the WHO for so many things that we never even realize as a population. First of all, and most immediate, is that WHO has a global response capacity. And so, [00:56:00] wherever there’s a hot spot in the world, whether it’s polio in Gaza or Ebola in West Africa or mpox in the Democratic Republic of Congo, you name it, the WHO is there early, and they put out fires before they come to America. 

The other thing I want to mention, as I think it’s even more important, is that WHO has a vast network of laboratories, scientists and public health agencies that report on data. And our pharmaceutical companies, our public health agencies, like CDC and NIH, rely on that data to develop the vaccines and treatments that we need when the next health emergency hits. Americans are used to being at the front of the line when it comes to vaccines and treatments, with Africa and others at the back. We might find ourselves near the back of [00:57:00] the line next time, because we’re not going to have access to those vital pieces of information, like pathogen samples or genomic sequencing data or the emergence of mutations and dangerous variants. And so we can’t update our vaccines. We can’t create new vaccines. And it will even affect our seasonal influenza vaccines, because every year we use WHO data to update our influenza vaccines.

NERMEEN SHAIKH - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Professor Gostin, in the same executive order in which Trump said the U.S. would be pulling out of the World Health Organization, he also called for the U.S. to stop negotiations on the WHO Pandemic Agreement, which some say is even more injurious to global public health than U.S. pulling U.S. funding from the WHO. If you could explain, what is this Pandemic Agreement?

LAWRENCE GOSTIN: Again, I don’t think it’s as bad as pulling out of the [00:58:00] World Health Organization, but it is really bad. So, in the aftermath of COVID, countries around the world called for a new pandemic treaty, because this Pandemic Agreement really would be a treaty, to try to make the world less vulnerable to the next pandemic. This would include, you know, deep, what we call One Health approach — animals, climate and humans, because, you know, some 75% of all novel outbreaks arise in the animal community. It also includes equitable allocation of vaccines and treatments, and also rapid research and development for them, which is really very important. And then it has financing and other provisions for outbreak detection [00:59:00] and response.

The United States, for the last several years, has been kind of right at the head of the table. They’ve really — the Biden administration has been very constructive. And they’ve mediated between Africa and equity groups and the European Union. We’ve been the honest broker in the room. And now we’re walking away. And the irony is, is that what we’re doing is we’re allowing the global rules of the road without defending our national interests, our national values, and we cede leadership to our adversaries. I think one of the ironies of this whole thing is that President Trump has said that China has undue influence on WHO. Well, I’ve worked with WHO for nearly 40 years, and the U.S. has far more influence than China ever has, but that could change as we pull out of [01:00:00] WHO and the Pandemic Agreement.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Professor Gostin, I wanted to ask you about other moves that President Trump has taken that have alarmed scientists and doctors around the country and the world: the Trump administration’s abrupt cancellation of scientific meetings at the NIH and other places, as well as freezing many health agency reports and posts, what public health professionals around the country rely on to assess the health of the American people, including the MMWR, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, of the Centers for Disease Control. Can you talk about the significance of this?

LAWRENCE GOSTIN: Oh, it’s deeply consequential. I don’t think people understand how consequential it is. Let me start with health communications. Having access to timely and accurate health messages [01:01:00] from trusted public health agencies like the CDC and the FDA is really essential to Americans’ public health. Absent that, we can’t make good decisions about our health, our nutrition, whether there’s a food outbreak, say, of Listeria, whether there’s a warning about a novel circulating virus or of a dangerous spike in COVID cases. These are things the American people need to keep them healthy. And this will delay those things, and they will make them less true.

Just ask yourself the question: Who would you trust more to give you information about health than a career scientist at the CDC or the FDA, or a political appointee in the White House that filters scientific information through the lens of [01:02:00] politics? It really is outrageous. I’m also a member of several of these scientific committees at NIH, and I can tell you we’re not there conspiring. We’re there trying to figure out hard problems that affect the American population. You know, I know that a lot of President Trump’s administration’s kind of line is that these are, you know, fat bureaucrats. But I can tell you, at NIH, CDC, FDA, these are just — these are doctors, scientists, nurses, that get up every day and do their best to make America healthier and safer. They don’t always get it right, but I would certainly trust their integrity, their experience and their understanding of science to try to guide us through health emergencies and just everyday health problems that American families face.

The RFK Jr of it All: A House of Pod Collab - Hood Politics with Prop - Air Date 2-11-25

JEREMY FAUST: The CDC. What does the CDC do? [01:03:00] The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, um, is in Atlanta and they are, it's a massive organization. There's a lot of important work ranging from just pure epidemiology, meaning they, they keep statistics like how many people die.

What did they die from? That's something that they do, um, The CDC studies disease, it, it, um, helps scientists and physicians like me and you know what the latest recommendation is. So they have a vaccine committee that says, okay, what should the scheduling for pediatric vaccinations be? And we know that that has saved lives.

So many lives the past century. So, they, they do that. They, um, and they also partner with other organizations, both in the United States, so it could be non profits, it could be state public health officials. But also around the world in detecting [01:04:00] and combating outbreaks. So, I'll give you an example of that.

Right now, there is an outbreak of Ebola virus in Uganda. And I wouldn't recommend getting Ebola. But CDC scientists, in general, would hear about this, and their experts would be on a plane the next day To go to Uganda and say, how can we help? What do you have? What do you need? Yeah. How can we augment your resources, your expertise?

They're not there to tell 'em how to do it. They are there to, to, to see where our resources can plug holes and be of assistance. And that is the work that we do, um, with the WWHO, the World Health Organization. Um, and our, in our, in our own foreign aid, Trump put a pause on that last week. So we do not have those people on the ground helping that outbreak.

So that's an example of, of things the CDC does. They track down outbreaks. They'll send out literal, they call them disease hunters, is like the nickname. Some, someone says, oh, there's something happening in, [01:05:00] I don't know, rural Washington. These kids are getting sick. Someone goes out there and looks into it, and figures out, oh, oh gosh, there's like, there's a poisoning, salmonella, you know, we gotta make sure that people know about it.

So they do everything from keeping track of big, big data sets, you Tracking deaths, COVID hospitalizations, tracking disparities in outcomes, and how to treat diseases to responding to crisis. 

DR. KAVEH HODA - HOST, HOUSE OF POD: And just remind the world again, for those who may have forgotten, why is it important for us, the United States, to have involvement in infectious disease elsewhere in the world?

Why is that important for us? 

JEREMY FAUST: So why do we want to help people? That's the question you wanted to ask? Uh, why would we do that? Um, so you could, you could take the humanitarianist side and say, why do we care about people in Papua New Guinea or wherever?

But there's actually, uh, A geopolitical reason that we help people. One is our own security and one is soft power. So [01:06:00] our own security is, if we can go help a novel outbreak get controlled, it won't reach our shores. And we don't have that problem. That would be lovely. Another one is for HIV, for example, we provide up until recently.

Although the question is whether it's back online or not, it's very unclear. Yeah. But up until recently, we have provided. Since the Bush administration, which always shocks people, George W. Bush started this. We have been, we have this program called PEPFAR, which has provided HIV medications to poor nations, um, and has saved 25 million lives.

25 million lives. Um, which is pretty substantial. It's a government project that worked, actually. It's like amazing. And, um, so, yes, you could make the argument, like, why do we care, but when people actually have their HIV confirmed, Controlled by medications, there's less likely for, uh, resistant bad strains to, to emerge again, which can come here and make our lives more miserable.

So it could be selfish. You can make the altruistic argument, but there are selfish reasons to save lives overseas. [01:07:00] And then the last one is, I would say that I can, that I could think of is this soft power thing. We, why is America, why does America have a positive reputation or why did it? And a lot of it has to do with things you don't always think about.

It could be literally things like, we make the best movies, we have the best music, we, we have great writers, culture, right? Culture is a way to express That a, that a society is doing well, but another way to do it is to, to do the kind of work in public health that, that we've done. And so people actually say, Oh, the gosh, the Americans, they really screwed it up on this thing and this war, this foreign policy.

But on the other hand, they did save 25 million lives. So maybe we shouldn't be complete jerks to them. So it's, it's actually, there's a, there's a lot of reasons why we do this work. 

PROP - HOST, HOOD POLITICS: This is this again. And now we're crossing into my world because of the soft power, cultural power and how to be. Just how to be the man.

You know what I'm saying? Like this is how, this is how you run a, this is how you run a city. You be the guy they go to, no matter how much of a jerk that you are. If I'm the dude you got to go to, [01:08:00] then, then if I'm put up with a lot, you put up with a lot. Number one, you put up with a lot cause you have to come to me.

And then number two, um, if, if you're the guy that you got to go to, and you're a good dude, then like, When you're in need, you're going to be the first person they think of, right? When, when it's, when it's my turn, or if there's like, if we're lobbying for something like, okay, I could sell, you know, we could give this 10 million gallons of crude oil to this country, or we could give it to them.

Then again, they did save 20 million lives and maybe we should sell it to them first and maybe at a discounted rate, you know, so yeah, there's that, there's that. But I think. Uh, the, the best part to me is what you're saying as far as the selfish side of, like, you act like there's a force field at the 47th parallel that just stops the air from flowing.

Like, what is you talking about? Like, it is one planet, right? Like, why, why would, why would it not get here? Right? Like what? Like there's no. We don't really have a wall, guys. 

And even if we [01:09:00] did, like, you know. 

DR. KAVEH HODA - HOST, HOUSE OF POD: If COVID taught us nothing else, it should be that what's happening in other countries will impact us.

The potential impacts of Trump's decision to withdraw from the World Health Organization - PBS NewsHour - Air Date 1-21-25

LAWRENCE GOSTIN: I believe this is a truly historic decision. The United States really formed the World Health Organization in 1948, and has been its most influential and greatest funder for 75 years. This is going to make America decidedly less safe, less secure.

And it's hard for me to think of any national advantage that we get. I only see us alone and isolated, not stronger.

AMNA NAWAZ- HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: You mentioned the U.S. has been its greatest funder for WHO. If you take a look at this graphic, we should just point out, look at the top 10 sources of funding there, the U.S. there at the top, but there's other groups like the World Bank, the Gates Foundation, countries like Germany, U.K. and Japan.

But the U.S. is responsible for someone-sixth of the [01:10:00] organization's budget. So is President Trump's characterization that the U.S. is shouldering an unfair financial burden here wrong?

LAWRENCE GOSTIN: Yes, actually, I think it is wrong, but it's not totally wrong.

Let me explain. The WHO has a budget of roughly one-quarter of the U.S. CDC. So, for a global institution, it's chronically underfunded. It doesn't have the resilience and funding that it needs to put out fires all over the world. So the United States shouldn't pay less, but other countries should pay more.

China should, India, the Gulf states, many other middle-income countries. So I think that Trump would do a much greater service to the United States and the world if he stayed in and he negotiated a deal. Yes, [01:11:00] let's make WHO more resilient. Let's fund it better. Let's make it more powerful and let's make it more accountable with financial oversight.

But leaving it would gravely damage United States' national interests and world health writ large. It's not really like the border, where you can kind of seal off the Mexican border so that you can stop immigrants. Germs don't know borders. And a United States without WHO is a United States alone and isolated and more fragile and vulnerable.

AMNA NAWAZ- HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: Pulling out of the organization means that the U.S. would lose access to the World Health Organization's global public health data too, which you said would leave agencies like the CDC flying blind.

Help make that real for us. What is the potential harm that you are worried about?

LAWRENCE GOSTIN: I see this as the [01:12:00] greatest self-inflicted wound that this executive order has put for us.

I mean, it is a grave wound to WHO, but I think it's a more grievous wound to the United States. Here's why. The World Health Organization leads a vast network of public health agencies, laboratories, and international scientists that constantly track novel outbreaks and shares data.

Without that, CDC doesn't have an early warning. We can't respond. And so we're weaker. We're less prepared. But here's more. And I think it's really important. Our pharmaceutical industry, the NIH, needs these data to develop vaccines, therapies, and other lifesaving tools that we rely on.

If you remember back to COVID-19, and Operation [01:13:00] Warp Speed, and Trump gets a lot of credit for that, we were in front of the line for vaccines. We may be near the back of the line because we're not going to get data about how these viruses are evolving, what we can do to respond to them and create vaccines.

SECTION B: RFK JR.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering Section B: RFK Jr.

WATCH: Caroline Kennedy Slams Cousin RFK Jr. as “Dangerous” and a “Predator” in Video to Senate - Democracy Now! - Air Date 1-29-25

CAROLINE KENNEDY: Dear senators,

Throughout the past year, people have asked for my thoughts about my cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his presidential campaign. I did not comment, not only because I was serving in a government position as United States ambassador to Australia, but because I have never wanted to speak publicly about my family members and their challenges. We are a close generation of 28 cousins who have been through a lot together. We know how hard it’s been, and we are always there for each other. But now that Bobby has been nominated by President Trump to be secretary of health and human services, a position that would put [01:14:00] him in charge of the health of the American people, I feel an obligation to speak out.

Overseeing the FDA, the NIH, the CDC and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, agencies that are charged with protecting the most vulnerable among us, is an enormous responsibility and one that Bobby is unqualified to fill. He lacks any relevant government, financial, management or medical experience. His views on vaccines are dangerous and willfully misinformed.

These facts alone should be disqualifying, but he has personal qualities related to this job, which for me pose even greater concern. I’ve known Bobby my whole life. We grew up together. It’s no surprise that he keeps birds of prey as pets, because Bobby himself is a predator. He’s always been [01:15:00] charismatic, able to attract others through the strength of his personality, his willingness to take risks and break the rules. I watched his younger brothers and cousins follow him down the path of drug addiction. His basement, his garage, his dorm room were always the center of the action, where drugs were available and he enjoyed showing off how he put baby chickens and mice in a blender to feed to his hawks. It was often a perverse scene of despair and violence.

That was a long time ago, and people can change. Through his own strength and the many second chances he was given by people who felt sorry for the boy who lost his father, Bobby was able to pull himself out of illness and disease. I admire the discipline that took and the continuing commitment it requires. But siblings and cousins who Bobby encouraged down the path of substance abuse suffered addiction, illness and death, [01:16:00] while Bobby has gone on to misrepresent, lie and cheat his way through life.

Today, while he may encourage a younger generation to attend AA meetings, Bobby is addicted to attention and power. Bobby preys on the desperation of parents of sick children, vaccinating his own kids while building a following hypocritically discouraging other parents from vaccinating theirs. Even before he fills this job, his constant denigration of our healthcare system and the conspiratorial half-truths he’s told about vaccines, including in connection with Samoa’s deadly 2019 outbreak of measles, have cost lives.

And now we know that Bobby’s crusade against vaccination has benefited him in other ways, too. His ethics report makes clear that he will keep his financial stake in a lawsuit against an [01:17:00] HPV vaccine. In other words, Bobby is willing to profit and enrich himself by denying access to a vaccine that can prevent almost all forms of cervical cancer and has already been safely administered to millions of boys and girls. During my time in Australia, I worked on the Quad Cancer Initiative, and I learned that cervical cancer is among the top three forms of cancer among women in a majority of countries. Tragically, every year, more than 200,000 children lose their mothers. They are orphaned due to a lack of vaccines and screening. Those are the real-world consequences of Bobby’s irresponsible beliefs.

We are a close family. None of that is easy to say. It also wasn’t easy to remain silent last year when Bobby expropriated my father’s image and distorted President Kennedy’s legacy [01:18:00] to advance his own failed presidential campaign and then grovel to Donald Trump for a job. Bobby continues to grandstand off my father’s assassination and that of his own father. It’s incomprehensible to me that someone who is willing to exploit their own painful family tragedies for publicity would be put in charge of America’s life and death situations. Unlike Bobby, I try not to speak for my father, but I am certain that he and my Uncle Bobby, who gave their lives in public service to our country, and my Uncle Teddy, who devoted his long Senate career to the cause of improving healthcare, would be disgusted.

The American healthcare system, for all its flaws, is the envy of the world. Its doctors and nurses, researchers, scientists and caregivers are the most dedicated people I know. Every day [01:19:00] they give their lives to heal and save others. They deserve a knowledgeable leader who is committed to evidence and excellence. They deserve a secretary committed to advancing cutting-edge medicine to save lives, not to rejecting the advances we have already made. They deserve a stable, moral and ethical person at the helm of this crucial agency. They deserve better than Bobby Kennedy, and so do the rest of us. I urge the Senate to reject his nomination.

Sincerely, Caroline Kennedy.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: That was Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s cousin Caroline Kennedy, former U.S. ambassador to Japan and Australia, daughter of President John F. Kennedy. She sent that video and an accompanying letter to the Senate Finance Committee senators.

Department of Health and Holy Sh*t: RFK Jr.’s MAHA Movement and What It Means for America Part 2 - Inside the Hive - Air Date 2-5-25

MICHAEL CALDERONE: Kennedys have served in the Biden administration and other presidential administrations over the years.

CLAIRE HOWORTH: And also a lot of continuing tragedy. You have deaths from [01:20:00] overdoses, plane crashes. Yeah. And in a way, I feel like As we're saying this, and we're counting all of these trajectories, it's fascinating how RFK Jr. himself checks a lot of those boxes. You know, he went down a dark path, he found, and then he found a mission where he felt he could serve.

Talk about that a little bit, Michael. 

MICHAEL CALDERONE: Yeah, I mean, One of the interesting things, and we're, I think, looking back at this piece, Bobby's Kids, by Michael Schneerson, is, this is at a point in the 1990s where RFK Jr. is an environmental lawyer, and I think was pretty highly regarded at that time for the work he was doing with Riverkeeper, and it seemed like that was cleaning up the Hudson River.

Yeah, a good thing. That is that is a good fit. A good thing. We can. 

RADHIKA JONES - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: Climbed in some blue fluid, personally. 

CLAIRE HOWORTH: That is a fact. This piece was in 1997. It's from Vanity Fair. We all went went back and looked at it. It's pretty fascinating. 

MICHAEL CALDERONE: It's an incredible artifact to think of because at that time, It leads with other [01:21:00] controversies about other Kennedy cousins, it's not not a specifically on RFK, it's on other members of the Kennedy family and at this point in time in the 90s, RFK was one of the ones who seemed to be doing.

It's more public service oriented work than, than some of the others. 

CLAIRE HOWORTH: He was putting the noble in nobility. But you know, there was a line in that piece that felt like it could have been published last week. So this is a line from Bobby's Kids published in Vanity Fair in 1997. In fact, says another person close to the RFKs, meaning the RFK kids, the family values are more those of the mafia.

It's about power and control. It's like the mafia, even in the way the children are directed, not to be well rounded individuals, but to create an effective team. And the family rallying around is a through line in Kennedy lore. And that's what we saw in the last few years when RFK Jr. was running for president.[01:22:00] 

The cousins were not, they did not think this was a great idea, but they weren't really going to speak out about it. And all of a sudden last week, Caroline Kennedy, who I think It sounds like has been harboring these feelings for quite a long time, writes this open letter saying, don't confirm my cousin.

He's bad news. 

A predator. 

MICHAEL CALDERONE: A predator, and she even speaks to the fact that his substance abuse and his recovery is something that could be looked on as an asset.

But at the same time, she says that he's gone on throughout his life to misrepresent 

CAROLINE KENNEDY: lie and cheat his way through life, 

MICHAEL CALDERONE: and that is a pretty damning statement coming Radhika's point, it did strike me as well looking at Bobby's kids. How there's this gentility in the Kennedy family where you don't necessarily talk to outsiders about what's going on, and this has me thinking about another great Vanity Fair piece from just [01:23:00] last year in July of last year.

Joe Hagan wrote a piece. RFK Junior's family doesn't want him to run. Even they may not know his darkest secrets. And this was an incredible piece that really dove into both the family's thinking and the family's reluctance sometimes to say this publicly. 

RADHIKA JONES - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: And what would have happened if Caroline had said something sooner?

Um, Joe's. Project was all about digging into what the family felt behind the scenes, and he handled it very objectively as to whether or not there should have been a more, um, a firmer pushback at an earlier moment, you know, endorsing Biden in a group shot at the White House, right? Quite enough. 

CLAIRE HOWORTH: Now devil's advocate. Would it have mattered? I mean, we see this time and time again, and people pushing back on Donald Trump, you know, the people come forward called Donald Trump a predator. What happens? Nothing, he gets elected. So I uh, it's almost, it's possible that we're just past any of that efficacy. But the truth is this, the Kennedys have a lot of symbolic importance, and [01:24:00] I think that They still do hold this cultural power.

I mean, we've seen, you know, it's been almost 25 years since John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her sister died in a small plane crash. And you still have kids on the Upper East Side going out and buying Carolyn Bessette's headband, you know. Mm hmm. The influence, the kind of the style of them, the touch football, although hilariously in the Schneerson piece, I think someone's quoted saying, you know, you'd be more likely to put together a group to go to an AA meeting now than to play touch football.

But those images are very lasting. The idea that, again, that there's this sort of like version of, I mean, it sounds Trumpy, right? But it kind of, you know, American, it's not greatness, but it's like, I don't know, that they're Catholic. It's not WASP y. You do want to 

RADHIKA JONES - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: say WASP y, don't you?

CLAIRE HOWORTH: But, but, you know, something heroic.

But I think that, [01:25:00] We have RFK Jr. now playing the anti hero role, too. 

RADHIKA JONES - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: There's also this incredibly dark and kind of gothic aspect to RFK Jr. He's got this very strange history with animals, dead animals. He's put, according to Caroline Kennedy, mice and baby chicks in a blender to feed to his hawks because he's obsessed with birds of prey.

He drove a dead bear to Central Park. There's the whale. I mean, but who hasn't? Right. Right. Right. Who among us? Uh, there's, there, there are the emus running around his house in LA that, you know, Cheryl feeds I guess. And then he also has a terrible history with womanizing. He, as Joe Hagan reported for Vanity Fair, he has sent pictures of women's genitalia unbidden to contacts.

And then in that same story, Joe Hagan spoke to a woman named Eliza Cooney, who had babysat for the Kennedy family in the 90s, for RFK Jr. [01:26:00] himself, and who accused him of sexual assault. Now, Kennedy did not deny the allegations prior to or after our report published. Instead, he told Breaking Point, a self described anti establishment podcast. 

ROBERT KENNEDY JR.: Listen, I have said this from the beginning, I am not a church boy. I had a very, very rambunctious youth. I have so many skeletons in my closet that if, if they could all vote, I could run for king of the world. 

RADHIKA JONES - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: This whole story came up in his hearings when Senator Patty Murray, a Washington state Democrat, asked him about it. And only then did he deny it under oath, which really makes you think.

Last week, Eliza Cooney called Joe Hagan and said she thought that Caroline Kennedy's letter came too late to warn anybody off of RFK Jr. Indeed, that seems to be the case. 

MICHAEL CALDERONE: I think it's very telling that RFK said that he's not a church boy as a way to just sort of brush off [01:27:00] any sort of bad behavior of the past.

And I think when we're thinking about a son of privilege, and we're thinking about the way of the Kennedys may have seen right or wrong or what they could get away with. I think it is instructive to look at how he responded to this.

CLAIRE HOWORTH: We're also in this larger cultural moment, as evidenced by Mark Zuckerberg, uh, of all people, of kind of a reclaiming of what people have been referring to as toxic masculinity. Like, no, no, it's all good. Like this is how I behaved and I did it because I'm a man and I can do that 

MICHAEL CALDERONE: right and it hasn't stopped RFK from ascending to this cabinet position just like dozens of sexual misconduct allegations did not stop Donald Trump from winning a second term as president.

SECTION C: ANTI-SCIENCE DANGERS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: You've reached Section C: Anti-Science Dangers.

What you need to know about bird flu - On Point - Air Date 1-8-25

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: I do want to just go straight at this issue on how people are [01:28:00] reacting to the various measures that have been taken so far, regarding trying to prevent H5N1 from becoming a bigger issue.

Do you think that the right lessons have been learned from COVID or not in terms of deciding when to do things like advise a recall of raw milk?

DR. NIRAV SHAH: No, that's a great question. It's one we talk about here at the CDC all the time. Let me first start with just the big picture, which is, as Dr. Davis has noted, right now, we assess that the risk of H5 to the general public is low. But as others have noted on this call and on this program, the risk of a possible pandemic coming out of the H5 situation is not low. We assess it to be a moderate risk. And so right now, our advice for the general public is that they should be alert.

But not alarmed. And that said, for that reason, we almost on a daily basis are assessing where we stand with respect to H5, whether it's round things [01:29:00] like raw milk, and our guidance there, which I concur, raw milk is to be avoided. It's all the risks with none of the benefits, or around other ways that we can make testing more available or making sure we're getting a better understanding of how this virus is changing.

H5 is not the same as COVID. It differs in a number of ways, not least of which is that we have decades of experience understanding the virus, understanding how it transmits, and understanding the risk that it poses.

And that gives us a significant head start when it comes to things like medications, which we have available vaccines, which are a possibility if needed, as well as a good understanding of how to move in those directions if needed, when we get to those decisions, then we'll be in a posture to do.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: So I hear an echo of myself because a question I asked for every public health official who joined us for the first year of COVID is, How do you know when the if needed line has been crossed?

DR. NIRAV SHAH: Yes, that is the exact right question to [01:30:00] ask. And as you can imagine, it's not a bright line. It's not a situation where there's a giant switch on the wall. And one day we decide to flip it. We continually assess the situation on a daily basis with each new case we have, with each new sample, with each new piece of data.

And broadly speaking, there are a number of factors that we look at. Key among them is what's already been discussed, which is whether there is the emergence of person-to-person transmission. Of course, we've seen animal to animal transmission, and as a result, our antenna are very high. I share the concern of, say, Dr. Lakdawala, which is, our antenna are very high, and we are deeply concerned about the situation.

We haven't yet seen human to human transmission at the epidemiological level or at the molecular level, when we study the virus. Another thing that we look for is whether the virus itself has lost its susceptibility to the medications or the other therapeutics that we have available.

If we started to see [01:31:00] changes of that nature, we would want to ramp up our own posture. And then, of course, the third is what kind of disease is it causing? Right now, except for one case in the United States, the other 65 of the 66 cases that we've seen have caused eye redness. They haven't caused the significant respiratory conditions that we've seen with this virus in other parts of the world.

So these are some of the factors we look at, transmissibility, susceptibility to medications, severity of illness. If we were to see significant departures on any of those, relative to the history that we have with this virus over the past 20 years or so, that's when we would start moving closer to that line.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: Okay. So let me just repeat what you just said. In the United States, as of this moment, and again, just within the U.S., 65 of the 66 cases of bird flu in humans have resulted in this conjunctivitis, right? And no one wants to have that, right? I'm not saying that it's a great thing, but [01:32:00] are you making that point as a way of saying, hey, look, right now in humans, we are cautious, but we're not, no one's panicking, right?

DR. NIRAV SHAH: That is one of the points there, which is again, we want to be alert, but not alarmed. The other reason that is important. The prevalence of conjunctivitis rather than significant severe respiratory symptoms, is that what the vaccines do in particular is really reduce the severity of illness.

Now, vaccines can also reduce the likelihood of spreading it, but what they are exquisitely good at is reducing the severity of illness. And that's true whether it's the COVID vaccine, the flu shot or the pneumonia vaccine. Where really excel is in reduction of severity. And where we have not seen human to human transmission, and where we have not seen severe illness as the norm, then we have to wonder whether the vaccines are the right tool for the job right now, versus, say, [01:33:00] widespread use of medication. Which is what CDC recommends. Now that said, and I want to be very clear, we should not trifle with the H5 virus.

It is a dangerous virus, and around the world, we've seen that up to 50% of the people who can get infected with that virus can end up dying. So this is not an effort to suggest that we are minimizing the virus at all. Again, we are taking this very seriously, because this virus is not something to mess around with.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI - HOST, ON POINT: Why is the fatality rate, you just described a shockingly high fatality rate around the world. Is it really as much as 50% of people who get it can die?

DR. NIRAV SHAH: It can be, in other countries where they have experienced cases, in small clusters of cases. So then the question is, and I think where you're going is, what's different about now?

Because what seems to be different now is that the cases have been significantly milder than what we've seen historically. There are a few potential hypotheses as to why that might be the case. One of them is that, in the current [01:34:00] outbreak in 2024 and '25, we've been on it a lot more. We've been monitoring workers.

We've been testing individuals who have been exposed. And as a result of that, we're catching not just the severe cases, but also the milder cases as well. So it's possible that in other countries in the world that grappled with these outbreaks. They too have had a significant number of mild cases. They just weren't aware of those.

And thus, when you do the math, if the only thing is four cases, two of which are severe, you get a different number as a result of that. So some of it just might be that we have a better sense of the entirety of the iceberg rather than just what's above the water. Another piece of it might be the way in which individuals are exposed.

The bulk of cases that we've had in the U.S. have been from individuals who have had an exposure on the dairy farm, as Dr. Davis was mentioning. Fewer cases have been from individuals who had exposures to dead birds. The dairy farm exposure might end [01:35:00] up leading to a lower dose of virus than what you might get if you encountered a dead bird on the sidewalk.

And so that might be one reason why cases are a little bit milder. Again, that is not to suggest that anyone should not have their antenna up. We want folks to be tracking the situation, but we also don't want folks to be alarmed at this moment.

Trump's Attack on Science Funding - The Brian Lehrer Show - Air Date 2-21-25

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: Katherine, your piece lays out obviously an alarming picture of the Trump administration's impact already on science. What are the most significant changes that you're seeing so far?

KATHERINE WU: Oh, my goodness, do we even have time to go through them? There have been so many. I think this really comes down to the fact that it has been so many that it's actually difficult to point to the most significant ones. Certainly, the fact that funding has been frozen, that means that researchers are essentially not getting the funds they need to pay their staff to continue their studies.

That means participants in clinical trials are potentially being called and told, "Well, we can't continue to [01:36:00] study anymore. This very important experimental drug that might be helping you stay alive may not be an option for your care anymore." We've seen thousands of federal workers fired from across government and that includes scientists doing vital work. We have seen foreign aid abroad been totally dismantled.

People who need life-saving HIV treatments not getting the care that they need. I am sure I am missing things from this list only because the list is so ridiculously long. There truly has not been a sphere of American science or American science being done abroad that has not been impacted by this. It is the way that science is being done and who is allowed to be doing science right now, every aspect of it.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: One of your articles is called The NIH, National Institutes of Health, Memo That Undercut Universities Came Directly from Trump Officials. Remind us of that one.

KATHERINE WU: Yes, so this is one of the most [01:37:00] important changes that has happened in the past two weeks. I suppose I hesitate to call it a change because it never actually fully went into effect. On February 7th, the NIH seemed to release a memo. They did release the memo saying that indirect cost rates were going to be cut and indirect costs are basically overhead.

You get a grant. You apportion some of that grant to cover the day-to-day logistics of being able to do your research, paying rent for your lab, paying the utilities bills for your lab, making sure that administrative stuff gets done, all the logistical stuff that makes the research run on the side, not just the hard science that we picture or see in stock images. This is essential stuff.

Those rates can go as high as 60%, 70% at some universities. It's a very big deal for it to be slashed all the way down to 15%. For that to be a hard cap effectively overnight, which is what that would have done, [01:38:00] that would have been devastating. That would have been an overnight salary cut for countless people and the work that they do. You can't sustain that kind of cut with no notice whatsoever.

This created huge uproar that has since been temporarily blocked by a federal judge. We're going to see how that all shakes out once this is fully litigated in court. The larger issue here was that it was not NIH behind this memo, even though it was their website that released it. The Trump administration pushed that directive through and basically forced them to publish it on their website as what appears to be just a show of force.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: Let's take a call from a scientist. Isabel in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Isabel.

ISABEL: Hi. Thanks so much for having me. I'm a postdoctoral neuroscientist at Columbia University. I'm also a proud member and steward for my union, UAW [01:39:00] 4100. I wanted to talk about how these funding cuts to science, health care, and higher education are impacting my job and the jobs of scientists like me. I love that I get to come into work every day and study how our brain makes memories. These funding cuts are putting my job and my science at risk along with the work of thousands of other hardworking researchers and educators.

I also want to talk about something that's giving me some hope right now, which is academic labor power. Academic unions are more prolific than ever. This Wednesday, we organized a national day of action, including a rally here in New York City that was co-organized by my union, UAW 4100, and other academic unions across the city. These rallies brought together thousands of researchers, academic workers, and allies to say no to these funding [01:40:00] cuts. It's really empowering for me to see the collective labor power that we're building in New York and nationwide. I think this is going to be a powerful tool to fight for the future of science, health care, and academic jobs.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: Isabel, thank you. I'm going to add another voice to yours, Isabel, as our next caller, I think, is another scientist also getting involved with the UAW actions. Alexa in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hello, Alexa.

ALEXA: Hi there. I'm a lifelong scientist. I feel like I can talk to you about the ways that this has affected the prospects of my career and the ability to do science, but I'm really passionate also about us making the connection that what we're watching happening in science right now, what were victims of in science and in research and in higher education right now also is something that is part of the global [01:41:00] or the US economy at large with the decline in manufacturing and that we should learn from history since we're organized with the United Auto Workers.

What they've experienced in the auto industry over the past 40 years is what we're experiencing right now in research and higher education, and that when we talk about the funding of US science and US research at large, we can't pretend that it's been good. The past 30 years have been a major stagnation of research funding. That's come at the cost of workers where we haven't kept up with inflation.

That's why we've organized ourselves into unions. It's because of how bad it's been. The fact that this is happening should highlight to everyone across the US and internationally just how tenuous the system of research funding is. It's right now that we need to decide whether we believe that we are a country, whether we are people that believes in public [01:42:00] knowledge production or not.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: What would you say to listeners who might think, "Okay, you're a microbiologist. The pharmaceutical industry is big and wealthy. If they want to develop medications--" I'm sure your work isn't only on medications. If private industry wants to develop things that are science-based, that are going to be useful to the public, then they will make money on them. Why do we need taxpayers to subsidize this at the level that they have? What would you say to that?

ALEXA: Also get this question in another frame, which is, "You have a PhD. You're a microbiologist. Why don't you just work in private industry?" I just don't believe in that. I believe that there is such an important place for public research and for basic science research. I actually don't study anything in biomedicine. The research that I do actually is only valued by the Department of Energy right now. My PhD is in soil microbiology. I think it's so [01:43:00] crucial. We have no idea what discoveries we make now will be important for innovation, technology, medicine, climate change 20, 30 years from now. We need to be investing in the big questions that really propelled knowledge forward. Knowledge in and of itself is a public good.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: There isn't profit in basic research, thank you for your call. Katherine Wu, what are you thinking listening to those couple of callers?

KATHERINE WU: Yes, so much. I think it's worth reiterating just how important it is to keep training future generations of scientists. Discoveries don't get made. Drugs don't get developed unless there is rigorous training in place and funds to make sure that those young scientists have the training that they need, the support they need, especially scientists from underrepresented backgrounds.

I think the system now is so strapped that some universities are trying to figure out, "Do we need to pause graduate student admissions?" There could be multiple generations of young scientists at risk here. We will see the fallout [01:44:00] of that loss for years and years and years. That is so much knowledge that is at stake here. Absolutely, I think the conversation about private funding is an important one.

I think if you think about the amount that the federal government contributes to scientific research, if you're even to pair away at that a little bit, there isn't actually a really reasonable way for private funding to fill that gap. There's not enough of it. A lot of private funding comes with strings attached, right? It's what foundations want to fund. It's to their own ends. Certainly, pharmaceutical companies are doing their own research, but it's what's lucrative. What about rare diseases? What about things that don't have a big dollar sign attached to them?

It's incredibly important to work toward the public interest and not just where the money is. I also want to point out, we have so many examples of discoveries that were made totally by accident in the pursuit of basic research, penicillin maybe being the most famous one. There will be devastating [01:45:00] consequences for everyone's health and well-being and our understanding of the world if any type of science is hampered by this continued pause.

Bird flu is spreading faster. Should we worry? - Front Burner - Air Date 2-14-25

NICHOLAS FLORKO: There's actually several kinds of bird flu. So, the one that we're talking about today is called H5N1. And H5N1 has been around, actually, for decades. But it's become an issue for us here in the U.S. where I am when it started showing up in wild birds in 2022. We saw it spread then to domestic poultry, and then, things got even more worrisome when we started to see this spreading to dairy cows, which here in the U.S. was documented in March of last year. Now, luckily, we haven't seen the virus spreading from human to human, but that's of course why everyone is paying attention to this virus. If we start to see consistent human-to-human transmission, that's when things really start being worrisome and we could be heading towards another flu pandemic.

JAYME POISSON - HOST, FRONT BURNER: What do we know about how it spreads from animals to humans, though?

NICHOLAS FLORKO: [01:46:00] So, infected birds can spread it through their mucus, their saliva, their feces. So, if a human is around a sick bird without protective equipment, they could potentially catch the virus. And the leading theory of how it spreads from cows to humans is through their milk. So, that means folks that are might be at risk or folks who might be consuming raw, unpasteurized milk or handling raw, unpasteurized milk.

JAYME POISSON - HOST, FRONT BURNER: Are there any risks if you are just drinking, like, grocery store milk or, or, and sorry if this is a silly question, but what if you're eating, like, meat from one of these birds?

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Luckily, it seems that pasteurization of milk especially has prevented the spread of the virus. So, milk that is in your grocery store is safe as long as you are not in a place where they are selling or allowed to sell raw milk, unpasteurized milk. We haven't seen any [01:47:00] cases as far as I'm aware at all of, of someone eating potentially a sick bird. And I think that's just because birds are relatively symptomatic when this occurs. So, we wouldn't see those ending up in the meat supply.

JAYME POISSON - HOST, FRONT BURNER: This idea that it could potentially spread from human to human, how could that happen?

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Well, the virus would likely have to mutate, and that is the fear always when we're talking about a potential influenza. That is actually how we got the swine flu pandemic, if you remember that back in 2009. And so, the fear is that if we keep letting this virus spread unabated, that gives it more and more chances to pick up mutations and then, potentially it picks up a mutation that does allow it to actually spread readily from human to human.

JAYME POISSON - HOST, FRONT BURNER: I mentioned in the intro that Canada saw its first and only domestically acquired human case in this B.C. teenager back in November. This [01:48:00] 13-year-old girl is alright now, but she was quite sick for a while. She was hospitalized for two months. She was in respiratory distress, and she actually had to be intubated at one point. And I know the U.S. has seen dozens of cases in people and generally speaking, like what are the symptoms of how serious this can get?

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Here in the U.S., most cases have been much more mild than the one that you just described. The most common symptom that we've actually seen is eye redness or conjunctivitis. That, in addition to, you know, some typical sort of flu-like symptoms. That being said, and you know, as you said in the intro, we have had one severe case here in the U.S. last month in the state of Louisiana. We did, unfortunately, have a death from the virus.

REPORTER 2: Health officials confirming a patient in Louisiana is the first human to die from bird flu in the U.S. The Louisiana Department of Health saying the person was over the age of 65 with [01:49:00] underlying health conditions and contracted the virus after being exposed through a flock of birds in a backyard. The CDC analyzed the virus in that Louisiana patient, and found concerning new mutations which could help the virus infect people more easily.

NICHOLAS FLORKO: And I think that just underscores how serious this, this can be. And frankly, we know from historical data that bird flu in the past has been, has been quite deadly. So, we want to be on guard here for any changes and potentially, you know, these more severe cases popping up.

JAYME POISSON - HOST, FRONT BURNER: What would be the reason for why some people get, like, conjunctivitis and other people might have to be intubated?

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Yeah. I mean, we still have such few human cases of bird flu that what we know and what we can say definitively about different, different strains of the virus are limited. But the one thing I do want to note is both the teenager in [01:50:00] Canada and the person here in the U.S. that, that unfortunately passed, they actually were both in--, infected with a strain of the virus known as D11. That is not the predominant strain that's been spreading throughout the dairies here in the U.S. And so, there's this question of whether D11 might be more dangerous and if that becomes a prominent strain, does that cause issues? But we have so few cases right now, we really can't say definitively like, yes, this is more deadly or this is more dangerous, this strain versus this one.

JAYME POISSON - HOST, FRONT BURNER: You mentioned that bird flu had, has been quite deadly in the past. And I wonder if you could just tell me a little bit more about how it's popped up in, in history and what happened.

NICHOLAS FLORKO: Yeah, I mean, so the case fatality rate historically for bird flu, I believe, is above 50 per cent. So, we have seen some really worrisome outbreaks occurring in the past. And [01:51:00] I think scientists are still grappling with figuring out why.

REPORTER 3: As concern grows into anxiety in Hong Kong, hundreds of people have been calling special government hotlines, worried about a new strain of a potentially deadly flu that comes from chickens. Health officials say so far there have been six confirmed cases and now this. In four of those, the virus may have been transmitted from person to person.

NICHOLAS FLORKO: This time around, we very luckily, are not seeing this much higher death rate because, I think if you talk to anybody who has studied bird flu for some time, you know, if bird flu gets into the respiratory system, there's a lot of, you know, fears that this could cause severe illness and, and widespread death. But luckily, we haven't seen that yet. And I really do think scientists are still grappling with why that is. I don't think we know yet.

SECTION D: PREDATORS AND PREY

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally, Section D: Predators and Prey.

Ezra Young on Trans Rights Law, Anne Sosin on RFK Jr. ans Rural Health - CounterSpin - Air Date 2-7-25

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: There are a number of people in lots of places who have [01:52:00] centered their lives per force on concerns around food and health and medicine.

And they see a guy who seems to be challenging Big Pharma, who's saying food additives are problematic, who's questioning government agencies. There are a lot of people who are so skeptical of the U. S. healthcare and drug system that a disruptor, even if it's somebody who says a worm ate his brain, that sounds better than business as usual.

And so that's leading some people to think, well, maybe we can pick out some good ideas here, maybe, but you think That is the wrong approach to RFK Jr. 

ANNE SOSIN: I think that that's misguided. Certainly, there are some people who see RFK as a vehicle for championing their causes, and there are other people who think that we should seek common ground with RFK, that [01:53:00] we should acquiesce, perhaps, on certain issues, and then work together to advance some other causes.

And I think that That's misguided. I think we need to recognize what's given rise to RFK and other extreme figures right now, but we need to make common cause with the communities that he's exploiting in advancing his own personal and political goals. 

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: And in particular, you're thinking about rural communities, which have been played a role here, right?

What's going on there? 

ANNE SOSIN: Yes, my work is centered in rural communities right now, and I think we need to understand the political economy that's given rise to RFK and other figures, the social, economic, cultural, and political changes that have given him a wide landing strip in rural places, as well as some of the institutional vacuum That are K [01:54:00] and other very extreme and polarizing figures are filling. 

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Expand on that please a little.

ANNE SOSIN: Sure. So we're seeing growing resistance in some places, including rural communities to public health and interventions that have long been in place, including vaccination and fluoridation. Resistance to public health measures often in my view reflects unmet need. Sometimes those needs are material.

We see that people resist or don't follow public health programs or guidance because they don't have their material needs met and those material needs might be housing, paid leave, or other supports that they need. But the unmet need might also be emotional. Or effective that some people may resist out of a sense of economic or social dislocation, a feeling of invisibility or something else.

And [01:55:00] those feelings get expressed as resistance to public health measures that are in place. And so understanding and recognizing what those on that are is really important. And then thinking about how do we address those needs in ways that are productive and don't undermine. Public health and health care is really important.

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Well, vaccinations are obviously a big concern here, particularly as we may be going into another big public health concern with bird flu. So the idea that vaccines cause disease is difficult to grapple with from a public health perspective. Vaccines can't be a choose your own adventure if they're gonna work.

Societally, and it almost seems like we're losing the concept around vaccination. We're losing the concept of what public health means and how it's not about whether or not you decide to eat cheese. You know, there's kind of a [01:56:00] public understanding issue here. 

ANNE SOSIN: I think you're correct. I think we've seen just in the U. S. and increasing. Yeah. Why is the patient of public health? A loss of the recognition that public health means all of us public health is the things that we do together to advance our collective health and the increased focus on individual decision making really threatened all of us and we look forward around vaccination.

We have seen very well funded initiatives. To undermine public confidence in vaccination over the last several years, there have been a lot of money spent to dismantle public support and public confidence in vaccination and other life saving measures. And it really is poses a great threat is we think about not only novel threats, like H5N1, but also things that have long been under control.

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Well, finally, I [01:57:00] took a quick look at media, uh, major national media and rural health care, and there wasn't nothing. I saw a piece from the Dayton Daily News about heart disease in the rural south and how public health researchers are Running a medical trailer around the area to test heart and lung function.

I saw a piece from the Elko Daily Free Press in Nevada about how Elko County and others are reliant on non profits to fill gaps in access to care, and that's partly due to poor communication between state agencies and local providers. I really appreciate local reporting, local reporting is life, but some health care issues, and certainly some of those that would be impacted by the head of HSS are broader and they require a broad understanding of the impact of policy on lots of communities.

And I just wonder. Is there something you would like to see news [01:58:00] media do more of that they're missing? Is there something you'd like them to see less of as they try to engage these issues, as they will in days going forward? 

ANNE SOSIN: Certainly local coverage is Essential and I'm really pleased when I see local coverage of the heroic work that many rural health care providers and community leaders are delivering.

We see very creative and innovative work happening in our rural region in our research in our community engagement. And so it's. It's very encouraging when I see that covered, but all of the efforts on the ground are shaped by a larger policy landscape and a larger media landscape, larger political landscape.

And what we see often is efforts to undermine the policies. That are critical to preserving our rural health care infrastructure. We see well funded media efforts to erode social cohesion [01:59:00] to undermine our community institutions to sow mistrust in measures, such as vaccination. We see other work to harden the divisions between urban and rural America and within.

Rural places. And so I hope that media will pay attention to the larger forces that are shaking the landscape of rural life and not adjust to the, the outcome of that. It's easy to take note of the disparities between urban and rural places, but it's much harder to do the deep and complex work of understanding the forces that generate those uneven outcomes across geographic differences.

RFK Jr. Flunky LOSES IT When Confronted On Measles Outbreak - The Majority Report with Sam Seder - Air Date 2-22-25

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Right now, there is a measles outbreak in West Texas that keeps getting worse. And it's spreading into New Mexico. And in this area of Texas, there is a very low vaccination rate. This is the result of increased anti vaccine sentiment that is at a fever pitch [02:00:00] right now and has been since the pandemic, creating a political movement strong enough that it is now kind of incorporated into MAGA.

MAHA is a part of MAGA, and RFK Jr. is Health and Human Services Secretary. As insane as that sentence is to say out loud, and I surprise myself as I say it out loud, and how much it freaks me out, That's the case. Um, so Pamela Brown had one of the RFK Junior's advisors on to talk about what's happening right now in Texas with this measles outbreak.

And right now, the CDC just paused a meeting that they were supposed to have on the issue of vaccines, just delaying it indefinitely under RFK's leadership as Health and Human Services Secretary. They have stopped advertising. Uh, for folks to get the flu vaccine, as we're in the middle of one of the worst flu seasons.

It's a mess. And [02:01:00] there's also, uh, bird flu, right now, that has the capacity, potentially, to cross over to humans. And Elon Musk's Doge cut all those people. Then realized what they had done because they just basically clicked ctrl all or ctrl f in a document and then press delete and then realize Oh, these are the folks working on the bird flu that's making the egg prices go up which Donald Trump said he wanted to bring down Okay, can we hire you guys back please civil servants?

Can you please come back? It's a this. Here's one of RfK jr. 's advisors talking about this measles outbreak 

PAMELA BROWN: And just to be clear, these are two separate issues. There's vaccines, which are proven safe and effective, and we're going to talk more about that. But then there's the issue of disease caused by, you know, the food that we're consuming, processed food and all of that, which as you both agree on, that needs to be dealt with.

That needs to be a priority, of course, um, which is why in many ways, RFK Jr. has gained so much popularity among many [02:02:00] Americans, um, on that issue. But, but I want to go to you, Callie, to respond. And also, you know, with this measles threat. Is it now a time to promote vaccines, which again, the CDC says safe, effective, two doses are 90 percent effective against measles.

Um, is it now a time to promote that, especially among children who are being impacted by measles in places like Texas and in these six states who are unvaccinated according to health officials? 

CALLEY MEANS: Pamela, with, with respect, why aren't you asking me about the fact that 50 percent of teens have obesity? Why aren't there, there's other questions for you, but we're talking about this day after day.

Pamela. It's breathless. It's breathless coverage of five measles cases. You sound breathless. We, why aren't we asking why 16 percent of COVID deaths worldwide were Americans when we're only 4 percent of the world population because the CDC. 

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Pause it! You know why? Because of cranks like you. Because of cranks like you saying that the vaccine wasn't safe and effective, [02:03:00] then when we know it was a safe and effective at reducing transmission and severity, and then there were obviously variants, and we've had updated versions of that m. R. N. A. Vaccine, uh, that have still, uh, Protected people. And by the way, these were the vaccines greenlit by Donald Trump, the, uh, president who you now apparently serve with Operation Warp Speed, which was actually very successful, but the left would have done it differently. We wouldn't have just given billions and billions of dollars to Big Pharma.

We would have said, okay, we'll subsidize you to research it, but we own it after. 

MATT LECH: I hate these people so much. The death in this country preceded the vaccine because our ultimate priority was not public safety, but getting people back to work so they can serve the type of people that give these people money to go spew their goddamn bullshit on CNN.

How disgusting. Talking about obesity and kids. That's because of our food system, you idiot. 

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Yeah, agreed. You want to reform that? But then, what, the [02:04:00] lazy whataboutism. She, Uh, Pamela Brown , made a painstaking effort at the beginning of that question to say we are taking into consideration all these other things that you are throwing out there to distract from the fact that you're actually anti vax.

But can we deal with this measles outbreak where over a hundred cases are now being reported between West Texas and New Mexico combined? Can we have that discussion? Oh, no, wait. Another one of baptism. of 

CALLEY MEANS: COVID deaths worldwide were Americans. We were only 4 percent of the world population because the CDC said our immune says, no, it is related, Pamela.

And let me say why, because the entire coverage of Bobby Kennedy is around measles. The Democrats said the word measles 25 times in the first hearing and said the words, obesity, diabetes, and chronic disease, zero time. The HHS priority document under president Biden said the word equity 25 times. Said the word vaccine.

MATT LECH: Sorry, pause it one more second. I, I really get frustrated hearing people like this talk and think they should [02:05:00] be muzzled. But just say there's a reason that measles comes up with RFK because he has a history of lying or spewing his bullshit about vaccines that kills people. You search RFK American Samoa.

He's killed kids with his bullshit. 

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And now it's spreading to West Texas. Um, there the it's Texas State Department health data shows that the vast majority of cases are among people younger than 18. Um, and the, the, it's mostly, uh, concentrated with kids who are unvaccinated or under vaccinated, meaning, meaning they've maybe only had one dose, but keep going.

CALLEY MEANS: I did not say the word obesity or diabetes. There is a problem right now because this is not zero. This is zero sum. We are focused on a very small subset that's important. We need good infectious disease management. Bobby Kennedy, Dr. Offit, is not correct. Bobby Kennedy has said one thing about vaccines and one thing only.

That they should be studied like any other product. Dr. Offit on the ACIP committee has [02:06:00] recommended vaccines that have ended up being required. 

MATT LECH: Sorry, um, when he says they should be studied, he says that I don't trust any of the studies that have been done for decades about things like autism and vaccines.

I think it needs to be studied until it confirms my biases. And you're really stupid if you can't understand that. 

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Um, nearly one in five incoming kindergartners in that area in Gaines County did not get the vaccine. That 18 percent vaccine exemption rate for the county is one of the highest in the state, according to data from the WOKES.

Oh, actually, it's the Texas Department of State Health Services, so. Oh. What a coincidence that measles is outbreaking in the area that has one of the highest vaccine exemption rates in the state. 

MATT LECH: I just looked up what this guy is, what TruMed is. TruMed is a company that helps people use their health savings accounts and flexible spending accounts.

That dumb financial bullshit is part of the [02:07:00] reason why Americans die. It's because no parasite like this idiot, Kali Means, is that his name? No, no parasites like him should be even involved in healthcare. Yeah. Doing some sort of finance, like, no. It should be, you know. Public insurance, publicly paid for, not this fancy new tax scheme to give some people health care.

This guy is a parasite. 

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: But these are the anti vaxxers. They are the people. They are basically financiers are trying to make money off of them. What happened? Uh, wasn't RFK juniors like a charitable organization taking a bunch of shady donations and it was offshore or something like that? This is a business for these people selling you snake oil.

That, so an 18 percent vaccine exemption rate in this area that's getting this measles outbreak. Across, uh, the, the country, the national average is 4%. So it must just be a total coincidence

The Crunchy Mom To Alt-Right Pipeline - The Suburban Women Problem - Air Date 4-18-24

AMANDA WEINSTEIN - HOST, THE SUBURBAN MOM PROBLEM: Throughout history, men have been the face of alt right extremist movements. We think about this [02:08:00] sea of white men with red, Today, I'm going to be talking about the importance of men flooding the Capitol with American flags draped over their shoulders. Most of us don't picture modestly dressed women baking sourdough bread and preaching the importance of divine motherhood and the white racial purity of children.

TRAD WIFE 1: Today, I'm going to be talking about The Treadwith Movement. Being a wife and a mother should be your top priority, always. And that is what is so great about this movement. Order is coming back into place in a chaotic world. 

TRAD WIFE 2: No other society or culture, except the Western culture, which is built by Europeans, has been forced this, upon them, diversity and multiculturalism.

Hey y'all, welcome back to my channel. So today we are going to be [02:09:00] talking about boxed cake mixes and why they are tools of communism. 

AMANDA WEINSTEIN - HOST, THE SUBURBAN MOM PROBLEM: We've all seen crunchy mom or so called trad wife content on social media. It's usually a young millennial mother standing behind a kitchen counter talking about all the ways she lives a clean, traditional life.

They avoid modern medicine, eat only organic food, and typically oppose vaccinations. They want to live a more quote unquote traditional lifestyle. It's a very specific aesthetic, often presented as simple and natural. These traits are commonly associated with people on the left. But what happens when you go so far left that you end up on the far right?

SEYWARD DARBY: A big project within my wider project of the book was to dispel the idea that there is any one type of person who gets involved in white nationalism. 

AMANDA WEINSTEIN - HOST, THE SUBURBAN MOM PROBLEM: Sayward Darby is the author of Sisters in Hate, American Women on [02:10:00] the Front Lines of White Nationalism. After the election of former President Donald Trump, Sayward went on a search for the women involved in white nationalism to highlight their role in the movement.

One of the women she followed, Ayla Stewart, was a self professed feminist turned online tradwife personality. She went viral for what she called a white baby challenge, where she challenged others to have more white babies than she had. 

SEYWARD DARBY: I think it may come as a surprise to some people that women who had previously sort of professed to be uber liberal, um, you know, very, um, All organic foods like want to raise their own food.

Um, you know, very kind of bleeding heart on the, on like the edge of the left, so to speak, could radicalize in such a pendulum or seemingly pendulum swinging direction. But we have actually been seeing that type of radicalization happening, um, for, for quite a long time, particularly in the, [02:11:00] in the internet age.

And so I was really interested to understand that trajectory. What I discovered, really, was that it's actually not so much a pendulum swing, it's that people who are very, very sort of far to the left on, um, on the, it's not even political spectrum exactly, I mean politics is part of it, but it's sort of just like a way of interacting with the world.

It's actually more like a little jump, if you think of it as a circle, you know, you kind of jump from one side to the other. And if you think about You know, this sort of obsession with freedom from, um, impurity, freedom to, you know, raise your children how you want to raise them, um, freedom from influences you don't like, a sense of control, really, over, you know, the curation of your child's existence.

It's really not that much of a leap from, um, Being very lefty to actually being much more, you know, authoritarian, quite frankly. 

AMANDA WEINSTEIN - HOST, THE SUBURBAN MOM PROBLEM: Now to be clear, there's [02:12:00] nothing wrong with making sourdough bread or trying to live a more simple life. The danger comes when you take that small step forward and turn a quote unquote clean life into something far more extreme.

TRAD WIFE 1: Hi guys and welcome back to my channel. Today I'm going to be giving some tips for the ladies on how to achieve A masculine man, a provider man. In order to be approached, you have to be approachable. So there's that saying feminine fit and friendly. And I highly agree with that. You should be smiling a lot at the cashiers who are checking you out.

Or when somebody opens the door for you say thank you and smile You of course should be putting effort into your look whether you are into makeup or hair or Anything like that if you are just putting on sweat pants and a loose shirt and a hair and your hair in a bun I promise you you will feel better and feel more approachable when you put more effort into the way you look So I challenge you if you are the type [02:13:00] that likes the lululemon or the sweat pants for a whole week Put yourself in maybe jeans or put dresses on and skirts on and it will make such a big difference I promise.

There are some great feminine jobs out there that won't put you in that masculine dominating energy, but more so in that nurturing and feminine energy. Some of these feminine jobs are nannying and babysitting. I love babysitting. I think it's a lot of fun to be around energetic kids. Another one would be teaching or teachers aid because I believe to be a teacher you have to have a bachelor's I think.

Nursing is also a great occupation because you are caring for people, you are nurturing, it's not super dominating and aggressive. 

AMANDA WEINSTEIN - HOST, THE SUBURBAN MOM PROBLEM: The transition happens slowly, sometimes before you even realize it's happening in the first place. 

SAMANTHA: So many people are not just documenting their lives, they're creating their own brands.[02:14:00] 

And It's usually very aspirational, you know, it's a woman in either a modestly, you know, decorated home with neutral colors or bright colors. There's like a child on her hip, she's whisking things with a smile on her face, talking about how happy she is to have found this holistic medicine. There's a weird purity spiraling is actually what the far right and what other people call it.

AMANDA WEINSTEIN - HOST, THE SUBURBAN MOM PROBLEM: That was Samantha, an employee at Life After Hate, a nonprofit that works to help people leave the far right and lead compassionate lives. Samantha, who wishes to keep her last name anonymous, is an exit specialist and peer mentor. She works to help people exit extremist movements and provides the support they need to rebuild their lives.

SAMANTHA: There was a channel on the far right that, that had this, uh, a YouTube channel. They had like their own little sub YouTube channel, and it was just this blonde woman. And she would always, it was [02:15:00] like, I'm going to be making these sugar cookies, or I'm going to be making this like Swedish, traditional, Meal or whatever and you wash it and you're like, wow, I really love that recipe and like how it's all whole foods and this and that and then you realize it's a sub channel you go on to the main channel and it happens to be like, yeah, don't go tanning because it will ruin your white skin and you kind of you just fall into it.

SEYWARD DARBY: In the case of coded language and the way that people might not even know what they're being told and fed, um, you know, what we've seen particularly in the last seven, eight years, but it was really going on well before that too, is again, not necessarily overt, you know, are you a white person? Do you also hate other people?

It's that's not the message, right? The message that often draws people in is more, okay. Do you feel dissatisfied with your life? That can mean your personal life, you know, [02:16:00] the political situation that you find yourself in, that you think the country is in. Do you believe that, you know, you're not being told everything about how we got here?

Do you feel like there are things you can't say because it's no longer politically correct, um, to say, you know, I don't want to live in an urban environment because people will call you racist, or, you know, all of these things. It's kind of appealing to these, like, racist, quite frankly, instincts that I think a lot of Americans, white Americans, you know, have instilled in them just by virtue of the society that we live in and being told that those things are okay and that there's a community that will support those impulses.

And then it gets more intense and it gets more explicit in its racism. So, you know, radicalization is not as simple as, you know, an existing white supremacist organization Identifying a person who hates people who aren't white. Like that's not how this works. It's more looking for people who are susceptible, who are vulnerable.

Credits

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: That's going to be it for [02:17:00] today. As always, keep the comments coming in. I would love to hear your thoughts or questions about today's topic or our upcoming topics, which include the widespread and predictable corruption endemic to the Trump administration, followed by the resistance, such as it is, to the hostile takeover of the government.

You can leave a voicemail or send us a text at 202-999-3991. You can reach us on the privacy-focused messaging app Signal at the username bestoftheleft.01. There's a link in the show notes for that. Or you can simply email me to [email protected]. 

The additional sections of the show included clips from Democracy Now!, Hood Politics, The PBS NewsHour, Inside the Hive, On Point, the Brian Lehrer Show. Front Burner, CounterSpin, The Majority Report, and Red Wine and Blue. Further details are in the show notes. 

Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Dion Clark and Erin Clayton for their research work for the show, and participation in our bonus episodes. Thanks to our transcriptionist trio, Ken, Brian and [02:18:00] Ben for their volunteer work helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work behind the scenes and her bonus show co-hosting. And thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships. You can join them by signing up today at BestOfTheLeft.Com/Support, through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple Podcast app. Membership is how you get instant access to our incredibly good and often funny weekly bonus episodes, in addition to there being no ads, and chapter markers in all of our regular episodes, all through your regular podcast player. You'll find that link in the show notes along with a link to join our Discord community, where you can also continue the discussion. And don't forget to follow us on any and all new social media platforms you might be joining these days. 

So coming to you from far outside the conventional wisdom of Washington, DC, my name is Jay!, and this has been the Best of the Left podcast coming to you twice weekly, thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show from BestOfTheLeft.Com.

Air Date 2/25/2025

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Audio-Synced Transcript

 

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast. 

Racism is at the core of most of what Trump believes, so it should be no surprise when he aligns himself and the country with explicitly supremacist projects, like the perceived Jewish supremacy over Palestinians, and the assumed reverse racism against white South Africans.

For those looking for a quick overview, the sources providing our Top Takes in about 50 minutes today includes Pod Save the World; Today, Explained; What Next?; American Prestige; The Majority Report; The Ralph Nader Radio Hour; Rev Left Radio; and The ReidOut. 

Then in the additional Deeper Dives half of the show, there will be more in five sections: Section A, Trump's Gaza proposal; Section B, Afrikaners and Trump; Section C, West Bank violence; Section D, Historical context; and Section E, Resistance.

Trumps Insane Plan To Own Gaza - Pod Save the World - Air Date 2-12-25

TOMMY VIETOR - HOST, POD SAVE THE WORLD: Shortly after we recorded last week, President Trump announced that in addition to his plan to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip, [00:01:00] he also wants the US to occupy it indefinitely and deny those people he will displace the right to return home.

Trump advisors reportedly didn't know he was going to announce this Gaza occupation plan before he did it. And then they seem to try to walk it all back. But then Trump is just doubling down over and over again. Let's listen to a super cut of some of the things he said about this in the last couple of days.

CLIP DONALD TRUMP: I'm committed to buying and owning Gaza. As far as us rebuilding it, we may give it to other states in the Middle East to build sections of it. Other people may do it through our auspices. But we're committed to owning it, taking it. 

JOURNALIST: Mr. President, take it under what authority? It is sovereign territory.

CLIP DONALD TRUMP: Under the US authority. We're not going to buy anything. We're going to have it. We're going to keep it. And we're going to make sure that there's going to be peace. 

We'll build beautiful communities for the 1.9 million people. We'll build beautiful communities, safe communities. It would be a beautiful piece of land.

JOURNALIST: Would the Palestinians have the right to return?

CLIP DONALD TRUMP: No, they wouldn't, because they're going to have much better housing, much better. [00:02:00] In other words, I'm talking about building a permanent place for them. 

JOURNALIST: But what about the Palestinians who just won't leave? We've spoken, our team has spoken to millions of Palestinians.

CLIP DONALD TRUMP: They're all going to leave when they have a place that's a better alternative. When they have a nice place that's safe, they're all going to leave. It's a hell hole right now. 

JOURNALIST: But how are you so sure? Will the US force them to leave? 

CLIP DONALD TRUMP: You're going to see that they're all going to want to leave. 

TOMMY VIETOR - HOST, POD SAVE THE WORLD: So, no surprise that this plan didn't go over all that well in Arab capitals, like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, and Jordan. 

On Monday, in advance of King Abdullah of Jordan's visit to the White House on Tuesday, today when we're recording, Trump also said he would consider withholding aid from Egypt and Jordan if they refuse to take in Palestinians. For those who don't know, Jordan and Egypt are some of the top recipients of US military aid, and have been for decades, in large part because both countries cut the first peace deals with Israel, and the stability of those governments is seen as the cornerstone for peace in the entire region. 

So Ben, a lot of, there's a lot of debate about this announcement and people wondering if Trump's serious or if he's bluffing and setting up a negotiating [00:03:00] position.

I think I'd argue that the reaction we're seeing in the Middle East and the pressure this conversation put on King Abdullah, who was like sitting there, literally -- he looked like he was being physically squeezed between Trump and his own population in the Oval Office -- that just shows that it doesn't really matter, in addition to being illegal and unethical, calling for the forced migration of Gazans into Jordan, is already destabilizing the Jordanian government.

And, Abdullah might've bought himself some time in this Oval Office meeting by saying he'd taken 2000 kids from Gaza who are suffering from dire medical conditions, but I doubt the Trump pressure campaign stops here. 

BEN RHODES - CO-HOST, POD SAVE THE WORLD: No. And let's just point out for a second, Tommy, that a lot of people in the US have been in this kind of mode since the election of taking Trump more seriously as this kind of dynamic political figure who was able to build a winning coalition, and have projected onto him a competence that he doesn't have. And this is [00:04:00] clearly evidence of that. This idea is an absolute dead on arrival, crazy thing to be talking about. It's ethnic cleansing of 2 million people that don't want to leave. It is existential to Jordan and Egypt that don't want to take people in. 

But to gracefully plug something I wrote about this in the New York Times over the weekend, and the point I want to pull out of that is two things. And even if this doesn't happen, cause it's almost impossible to foresee how this would happen. And despite the fact that he's been taking questions, he hasn't, when he says he wants to buy it, it's not clear who he's buying it from. When he says he wants to own it, he's not clear how he wants to take ownership. They want to deny that US troops have anything to do with it. But how else could the US take possession of Gaza without troops?

But the two things that I want to underscore are, first of all, just by talking about this in the way that he has the last couple of weeks, in addition to what he said about Greenland and Panama and Canada, I guess, he is completely ignoring the concept of state [00:05:00] sovereignty, which is the cornerstone of the international legal system that was built after World War II to prevent big nations from just swallowing up smaller ones or grabbing territory like we used to do back in the colonial days.

And the reason that's so dangerous is because that interacts with what Vladimir Putin's trying to do in taking chunks of Ukraine, or what China might want to do in taking Taiwan, or what Israel might want to do in the West Bank and Gaza: it's treating land like real estate instead of sovereign territory where people live. That's the first thing. 

Then the second thing is just the total disregard for the opinion of the Palestinians. He has not even solicited the opinion of a single Palestinian to inform this plan to take over Gaza. And there are two million people that live there and don't want to leave there. And it just suggests we're going back in time to this pre-World War period where big powers just took land and made deals over the heads of smaller countries or less powerful people. [00:06:00] And that led to two world wars. That's why we set up a whole system of international laws to prevent things like this from happening. 

TOMMY VIETOR - HOST, POD SAVE THE WORLD: Yeah. And just again to hammer this home. half the population of Jordan is Palestinian. The king doesn't want another huge influx of Palestinians into his country for a bunch of reasons, but starting with the fact that it could topple his regime.

But on top of that, Palestinians don't want Jordan to become the de facto Palestinian state because it could deny them the right to return home to areas where they were displaced from in '67 or '48 or wherever in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza. And then Jordanians don't want a huge influx of Palestinians because they want Jordan to be Jordan, not Palestine. So the Jordanians hate Trump's plan. 

And then he's also leaning hard on the Egyptians to take in a bunch of people. But Egypt is struggling from massive economic problems. They're currently relying on big loans from the EU and the IMF, and in recent years have taken in a ton of refugees from Sudan, Syria, Yemen, name your country. And they're struggling with that burden. And they don't want Hamas [00:07:00] to reconstitute. If you displace a big chunk of the Gazan population into Egypt, Hamas reconstitutes there and then attacks Israel from Egypt, that could lead to an Israeli response into Egypt. They don't want that to happen. And they also, and Sisi and the leaders in Egypt also don't want Hamas to stir shit up and build support for Islamist parties within Egypt themselves. 

So, Trump just rolled this grenade into the Middle East with this plan. And everyone else were just watching to see if this thing is going to explode. It's a disaster. 

BEN RHODES - CO-HOST, POD SAVE THE WORLD: Yes, and you're right about what you said about Jordan. Look, King Abdullah is married to a Palestinian. There are millions of Palestinians who live in Jordan on the east bank, and that's often been a source of some tension because of Jordan's peace treaty with Israel. And so if King Abdullah were to participate in the ethnic cleansing of Gaza by taking in some of these two million Palestinians who don't want to leave Gaza, I really don't know if his regime could survive that. I just, [00:08:00] I think that the boiling frustration with what is already not a very good economic circumstance, with already displaced Palestinians, could get out of hand. 

And similarly in Egypt, where you have a brittle military dictatorship with a lot of anger seething underneath, that could explode too, particularly if you have Hamas introduced into that equation.

It also is relevant, Tommy, that USAID funds a significant amount of assistance into Jordan that that government really relies on. And for all Trump's talk-- 

TOMMY VIETOR - HOST, POD SAVE THE WORLD: That they've already budgeted.

BEN RHODES - CO-HOST, POD SAVE THE WORLD: That they've already budgeted.

TOMMY VIETOR - HOST, POD SAVE THE WORLD: They think already have, yeah.

BEN RHODES - CO-HOST, POD SAVE THE WORLD: Yeah and so I guess it could go hat in hand to the Gulf states and ask them to fill this gap that USAID provided. But it's not just money that USCAD provides to Jordan, it's expertise. It's help in running certain government programs. That's being yanked away. Trump talks about rebuilding life for Gazans. Guess which agency does that? USAID. And USAID already cannot really fulfill its obligations under the ceasefire agreement, just the short term ceasefire agreement. When you [00:09:00] think about the long term needs in Gaza to clear rubble, to demobilize and destroy unexploded bombs that are littering Gaza, nevermind temporary housing and then long term housing. Without USAID, I don't know how that gets done.

Elon's African roots - Today, Explained - Air Date 2-13-25

NOEL: When does Donald Trump become interested in South Africa, and why?

CHRIS: So there's a group in South Africa, which describes itself as an Afrikaner rights group called AfriForum. And, the Southern Poverty Law Center's described it as "white supremacists in a suit and a tie." The leadership of that group came to the United States in 2018, and amongst other things, they appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News.

<CLIP> FOX NEWS:

Tucker Carlson: “South Africa is a diverse country, but the South African government would like to make it much less diverse.” 

CHRIS: They laid out the case that whites were the victims of discrimination in South Africa, but particularly latched onto this issue of the killing of white farmers… 

<CLIP> FOX NEWS:

Ernst Roots:  ”Basically threatening white farmers, that if they do not voluntarily hand over [00:10:00] their land to Black people, then there would be a violent takeover. So, the situation is very dire in South Africa. They would be tortured to death and it would receive very little news coverage.”

CHRIS: …which is totally untrue. But they appeared on Tucker Carlson, Trump was watching, this is when he's president in 2018, and he tweets to his then-Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, telling him to watch the situation in South Africa with the whites, and how they're being victimized. And others pick up on this around the States afterwards…

NOEL: Huh.

CHRIS: …and it starts to gain some momentum.

NOEL: In the meantime, President Trump has become very close to Elon Musk, who, of course, is a white South African. Do we know whether Elon Musk's ideas about South Africa have influenced Donald Trump at all?

CHRIS: Well, you'd have to assume they did, because there's no real explanation otherwise as to why Trump is so engaged with this issue. 

NOEL: Hm.

CHRIS: Why, three weeks into his second term of office, he's suddenly issuing this executive order about one country. [00:11:00] So, one has to imagine that it's Elon Musk, who was born in apartheid South Africa and grew up there, left at 18. But he's not the only one. There's a group of white men that all have apartheid South African childhoods in some form or other, known as the PayPal Mafia. They all get to know each other at the top of PayPal. They all get rich through PayPal. These include the billionaire libertarian Peter Thiel. Now, Thiel was born in Germany, but his father took him to South Africa at a young age. And then the other kind of two major players are a guy called David Sacks, who is another tech billionaire. He's now Trump's AI and crypto czar. He was born in Cape Town, although his parents moved to Tennessee when he was five. So he did not grow up fully imbued with the apartheid system, although he grew up in the white South African diaspora of the time.

NOEL: What would life have been like in the 1980s for a kid like Elon Musk growing up under apartheid? [00:12:00] What, was the deal?

CHRIS: It separated every aspect of life. So jobs were reserved only for white people. Interracial marriage and interracial sex was illegal under the Immorality Act. Every aspect of daily life was separate. But Musk's teenage years would have been in a huge tumult of South Africa's uprising against apartheid. By the mid '80s, you've got a state of emergency, you've got civic society constantly protesting, you've got mass arrests, children incarcerated in their thousands.

<CLIP> SOUTH AFRICA NOW:

Kevin Harris: Under the sweeping powers of the state of emergency, an estimated 30,000 people, the majority Black, have been detained.

<CLIP> NBC NEWS:

Robin Lloyd: Cape Town was under siege. Police vehicles on every street corner. The city overwhelmed with protesters defying the government with marches. 

<CLIP> STANFORD: 

Desmond Tutu: In a situation of injustice and oppression. There can be no neutrality. You have to take sides. You have to say, am I on the side of [00:13:00] justice or am I on the side of injustice? 

CHRIS: The country increasingly ungovernable. The army attempting to keep some kind of order in the townships. So, Musk was growing up at this time of incredible turmoil. And on the streets of Pretoria, where he went to school, he would have seen the Afrikaner resistance movement, which was an openly neo-Nazi group that actually modelled its badge on the swastika and had the same colours as the Nazis and marched up and down the streets doing Hitler salutes.

SCORING IN <Stretched Too Thin - BMC>

 Errol Musk, Elon's father, has described his parents-in-law as open neo-Nazis and fascists…

NOEL: Hm.

CHRIS: …and supporters, enthusiastic supporters of apartheid.

<CLIP> PODCAST AND CHILL WITH MACG:

Errol Musk: They used to support Hitler and all that sort of stuff. 

CHRIS: Now, Errol himself a member of something called the Progressive Federal Party. And that really was a small opposition party in Parliament, opposed to apartheid. 

<CLIP> LBC:

Errol Musk: We never supported apartheid, really, but it was something [00:14:00] we inherited from the European countries.

CHRIS: But leaves the party eventually in the 1980s because it was advocating one person, one vote. In other words, complete equality of democracy. And he didn't agree with that. He was like a lot of white South Africans of that era, particularly English speakers who were doing quite well out of the economics of apartheid, who said that they were against it in principle, but actually didn't do very much to oppose it, and certainly benefited from it enormously. And so he was the liberal in the family, but obviously only up to a point.

 SCORING OUT

NOEL: So to bring us back to the present day, has Elon Musk said anything about white South Africans and what he believes is happening in that country right now?

CHRIS: Yes, he's had plenty to say. He's retweeted or commented on tweets that essentially argue that there's either a genocide underway against whites…

NOEL: Huh.

CHRIS: …or a genocide [00:15:00] coming. He recently openly challenged the President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, on Twitter, accusing him of imposing racist discriminatory laws against white people. So he's very much taken an adversarial position on this, which I suspect at least goes some way to explain why Trump has done the same.

NOEL: One thing we learned during the first Trump administration was that Donald Trump and the people close to him often have more than one motive for their beliefs. And some things that might seem ideological are not ideological or are less ideological than we might think. Does Elon Musk have any other incentive to push Donald Trump to take a stand on this – other than thinking white South Africans are being discriminated against?

CHRIS: Well, as it happens, we watch Musk's commentary on white South Africans ramp up at a time when he was starting to get into conflict with the South African government [00:16:00] over Starlink, his satellite business.

NOEL: Huh! 

 SCORING IN <Building Blocks B - BMC>

Trumps South Africa Fixation - What Next - Air Date 2-12-25

MARY HARRIS - HOST, WHAT NEXT: You know, I hear theories about folks being motivated to behave in certain ways because of their childhoods, and it makes me slightly suspicious, just because, I don't know, people grow up and they change their minds. Do you think Musk could have other motivations for why he'd be so interested in South Africa, tweeting so voraciously about it?

CHRIS MCGREAL: I think certainly there are business interests involved for Musk right now. For many years, he paid little attention to South Africa and It's notable that he has started to latch onto this idea that Whites are victims of discrimination, of being persecuted through a new kind of racist system, just as he's also been trying to get his Starlink into the country and run into South Africa's Black empowerment laws, which essentially require Black ownership of a chunk [00:17:00] of the company. I think it's about 30 percent depending on the business you're in. Musk is portraying that as a racist law, as a racist anti-White law, when it's a legitimate attempt to make sure that Black people have investments in the economy and benefiting from the economy as White people have done.

But it's notable that Musk has ramped up this whole idea that there's White genocide, Whites are being persecuted, a new racist system, just as he's also trying to get the terms on which Starlink could do business in South Africa changed. 

MARY HARRIS - HOST, WHAT NEXT: Yeah, tell me more about what this Starlink contract could mean for Musk and his businesses and what it could mean for South Africa.

CHRIS MCGREAL: Well, the idea would be that Starlink... so, you know, South Africa being a huge sprawling country with large rural areas that are difficult to get conventional kind of internet lines to and all of the rest, it would provide some kind of service for farmers and for others who live in rural areas.

So, there would be [00:18:00] a few hundred million, I believe, would be invested in this and he would expect to get a good return from that. That's why we're going in to do it. it's interesting to note that he's being backed in this. There's a petition been raised by AfriForum, which is this Afrikaner rights group that's been accused of being essentially a White supremacist group and which has done much to make the false claims of White genocide here in the United States and to push them towards Trump.

It's now adopting Musk's language and saying that essentially he's being blocked because of his race and that actually having Starlink in South Africa would help save the lives of White farmers who don't have good communications. So, you can see now the merging of those two things of this long term campaign by AfriForum to persuade the Trump administration that they're victims of the post-apartheid order, with their direct backing now of Musk's business interests and claims.

MARY HARRIS - HOST, WHAT NEXT: Elon [00:19:00] Musk and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa spoke by phone last week. Do we know what was said on this phone call? 

CHRIS MCGREAL: Essentially, Ramaphosa was trying to get Musk to get Trump to dial back both the rhetoric and the threats and the cutoff of aid and all of the rest.

I'm sure Musk had something to say about Starlink. We know, from before this, that the South African government has been considering allowing Musk to bypass the Black empowerment requirement, for Black businesses to have a stake in his Starlink cooperation in South Africa, by allowing him to invest in other social programs to an equal value.

So, South Africa is saying, Well, look, maybe we can work around that. And I would imagine that that would also have been part of the call as Ramaphosa tries to diffuse this whole thing. 

MARY HARRIS - HOST, WHAT NEXT: You know, I'm wondering if you can step back a little bit, because you reported from South Africa during the end of apartheid, right? 

CHRIS MCGREAL: I did. [00:20:00]

MARY HARRIS - HOST, WHAT NEXT: I wonder how that experience maps on to what you're seeing now in the United States as someone who reports from here. Is there anything that strikes you about this transition to this new administration where you think, I was in this totally different place. I can understand what's happening here in a way that maybe the people who've been in this place the whole time can't. 

CHRIS MCGREAL: Yes, I suppose the closest parallel is with this narrative that turns the oppressors into the victims, I think. And you're now getting a narrative in the United States that is an attempt to say that people who actually have often been in the best position in this country are the victims. Hence, the attack on DEI, hence the attack on people who aren't White in general in some ways. So I think that kind of massaging of the narrative, the flipping of who is really at a disadvantage here, [00:21:00] who is really in charge, it's a clear parallel. 

But there are, you know, I'm kind of hesitant to draw parallels, direct parallels, with the apartheid system and years because that was such a complex and individual thing to South Africa. What you have to remember there is that more than 80 percent of the population was Black and 8 percent at that point of the population was White and they were ruling the country. So, there are different forces at work here. I do think that the attack on the courts and the rule of law that may be emerging in this country, we're just seeing the first flickers of it with the reactions from J. D. Vance and others to the judge's orders on the various actions that have been taken by Musk and his DOGE, may also prove a parallel in time.

MARY HARRIS - HOST, WHAT NEXT: Yeah. it's interesting. I see this administration taking aim at diversity, equity and inclusion stuff, which really hasn't been enforced with a full force of law. [00:22:00] And what I see with the Trump administration taking on South Africa is a country that really has tried to grapple with explicit racism and what made apartheid possible and do that through rules about Black business ownership and land ownership. And it makes sense that that country. would be a target for a place that's going so aggressively after DEI. You know? 

CHRIS MCGREAL: Well, I think one of the things you see with Musk and Thiel and others of these libertarians that emerged from apartheid South Africa is that they imagined that at the end of apartheid, it was some kind of level playing field and everybody was just beginning at the starting line and they should just pull their socks up and get on with it. And it's an insane idea, given the huge disadvantages that the majority of the population had, not least in education. 

Musk benefited from an incredibly good education in one of the best schools in Pretoria. And the idea that the end of apartheid meant that he [00:23:00] was on a beginning at the same starting line as somebody who grew up in a Black township just outside of Pretoria, is ridiculous. But this is very much the idea that Musk and Thiel push. And I think you see the re-domination of that idea in this country, too.

American Jews, Israel, and Palestine w Peter Beinart - American Prestige - Air Date 2-11-25

DANIEL BESSNER - CO-HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: And so what role do you think that the peace process plays in American Jewish memory? Because I think it's actually really key to what happened in Gaza and what's been going on in Israel for the last 10, 15 years in your own community. 

PETER BEINART: Right. So, the idea is that basically Palestinians deserve what they get now because they had this opportunity to have their own country and they blew it.

And people don't even use the [unintelligible], people will say, 1947, and I mean they have this whole litany again. These are like statements that kind of, I don't know, it's almost like you push F1 on your keyboard, right? And people repeat them over and over again, as you know, because you're a historian. But if you look at actual scholarship on these things, you actually find there's not really very much scholarly support for this [00:24:00] narrative of they never miss an opportunity, to miss an opportunity, right?

In reality, at each of these junctures, the things that are being offered to Palestinians, if one tries to spend a moment thinking about a Palestinian perspective, it's pretty easy to understand why these things are deeply inadequate from their perspective. But yes, I think this becomes this weird way of kind of saying, okay, now Israel is absolved of all responsibility. Which just doesn't make any sense. Like, even if it were true that the Palestinians had really screwed up 20 years ago, it's like I sometimes imagine, let's imagine that Martin Luther King goes to meet with Lyndon Johnson and Lyndon Johnson says, here's the legislative, here's the civil rights and voting rights act. And the King says, not good enough, screw you. And so it doesn't get passed. And then you say, Well, 20 more years of segregation, they had it coming, right? It just doesn't make any sense, right? Even if you did believe that Palestinians bore all the responsibility. But I do think this is a way, these are the things that people say to allow them to sleep [00:25:00] at night, to allow them to basically to see what's happening in Gaza or the West Bank and be able to say, yeah, that looks really bad. But it's not our fault as a community and it's not the fault of the state that we love. 

DANIEL BESSNER - CO-HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: And this brings us very naturally to what I wanted to talk about next, which is this process of Palestinian dehumanization amongst American Jews and Israelis as well, but I think we're focusing more on America here.

My ultimate, almost macro level, historical perspective is that the Jewish dehumanization of Palestinian people is almost the cost of becoming fully White in the settler-colonial project of European modernity. That you have the apex of the Jew as 'other' is in the Holocaust. Europe is now Judenrein. That Hitler succeeded, Europe is, not a hundred percent, but not what it was. It is now free of Jews in a real sense. Jews were granted by the Western powers their own settler-colonial state in the Middle East. And the price of becoming fully [00:26:00] enfranchised in the Western mind, or what in academic parlance might be called becoming White, but you don't even need becoming White, people know what I mean. Becoming part of the community comes at the cost of Palestinian dehumanization. And that this is the ultimate sort of path of the Jewish people in modernity since roughly 1500. 

I'm just curious what you think about that. And then more broadly, what do you think about Palestinian dehumanization and how it came to be that what happened in Gaza is viewed as in any way, shape, or form acceptable.

PETER BEINART: Yeah, there's so much there. Part of Palestinian dehumanization, to take the context that you're talking about, is simply the dehumanization of people in the colonial world or post-colonial world, who are just considered to be backward and not deserving of the same rights and status as everybody else. And, that's still in Europe... 

DANIEL BESSNER - CO-HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: this is of course what the Jews were, internally colonized people, some might say, in Europe themselves, and then they transfer. [00:27:00] Yeah. 

PETER BEINART: But the Jews are, on the one hand, Europe's 'other'. And on the other hand, the Jews who create the Zionist movement are very, very European. And so they are thinking about... You know, Said says that it's not coincidence Zionism is born in the high age of imperialism, right? That the notions that the Zionists had about what they were doing in Palestine was very similar to what non-Jewish Europeans were trying to do in other parts of the world.

So, when Herzl writes to Cecil Rhodes, the arch imperialist of Southern Africa, and says, Hey, you should support what we're doing because it's a lot like what you're doing. That's not really surprising, right? These are European projects. 

DANIEL BESSNER - CO-HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: He's an Austro-Hungarian and the Austro-Hungarian empire is very different from the British overseas empire. So, the move, I think, to Western Europe is actually crucial for Herzl because he's emergent from a very cosmopolitan space and you have another Austrian, like Karl Popper, developing cosmopolitan ideology and that actually you just all should [00:28:00] live in the cities. So, as Herzl moves west, he becomes more almost like genocidal—genocidal is not the right word, but he becomes more colonial. That's probably the right word. 

PETER BEINART: And, famously there's a debate. But famously he was in Paris during the Dreyfus Trial and some people say that that's when he lost his belief in European liberalism. So yes, and obviously it's important to say that there were other Jews, many, many other Jews who had different visions of how to solve the Jewish question, whether it was Marxism or liberalism or some kind of nationalism experience that could be exist in Europe, Bundism or these kind of things. 

DANIEL BESSNER - CO-HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: But capitalism, right? Everyone's equal on the market. I think that's Soros. That's why Soros became, it's like everyone's equal on the market. Now you're just, how much money you can move around? And I think that's really actually important to understand. 

PETER BEINART: But when you think about today though, I think you're also right that, certainly, on the political right in the United States, in Europe, and even [00:29:00] in the center to some degree, I think the esteem that people have for Jews is very much connected to the Israeli project and the fact that Israel in some ways is, for a lot of folks, a kind of more successful version of the kind of settler-colonial state than they see in their own countries.

In some ways, imagine if you're a right wing Canadian or Australian and you think, Oh my gosh, we have these land acknowledgements all over the place. Like, we go around flagellating ourselves all the time for this kind of thing. Look at Israel, right? They don't feel this sense of self hatred. They're proudly, strongly nationalistic. They believe in the kids serve in the military. They have an immigration policy that maintains their demographic majority. They haven't all become secular. This is what we want in the west more generally. And I think that's obviously completely connected to the dehumanization and degradation of Palestinians and what makes [00:30:00] Israel such an icon for so many people around the world in the west and beyond the West, Narendra Modi too.

West Bank Annexation Inevitable - The Majority Report - Air Date 2-6-25

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Can you talk a little bit more about that, Zach? Like, that being such an escalation because people that may not be as familiar with the distinction between like the West Bank and Gaza. Gaza's bombed all the time. The West Bank is bombed occasionally, but it's mostly this rolling violence and seizure of land and vigilantes and IDF people shooting people and killing them in a more targeted way. 

ZACHARY FOSTER: The West Bank is divided into three areas. These three areas being area A, B, and C as a result of the Oslo process. And area C, which has about 150, 000 Palestinians, Israeli soldiers and Israeli settlers have been terrorizing Palestinians on a daily basis for decades. And, ramping up in the past year. We've seen dozens. I think two dozen communities uprooted and ethnically cleansed primarily from area C. We're talking more than 1, 500 Palestinians ethically cleansed from Area C in [00:31:00] just the past 15 and a half months. Then you have Area B, places like Sebastia, in the West Bank, which are now also increasingly coming under threat. We're talking about, how many Palestinians in an area, would be about 500, 000. They're also now facing, these are the sort of semi-rural small towns of the West Bank, they've been facing increasing attacks by settlers. 

And now area A, the area with the overwhelming majority of the population of the West Bank, the urban centers, Ramallah, Beit Lahem, Nablus, Jenin, Tul Karem, Hebron, Khalid, these areas are now facing a new level of violence, a level of violence that Palestinians in these areas have not seen in decades. These are areas like Jenin, Annapolis, where the Israeli military is sending multiple, we're talking thousands of Israeli soldiers on the ground, ripping up streets, tearing up civilian infrastructure, destroying the water infrastructure, destroying hundreds of homes, destroying roads, destroying hospitals.

In January, just last month, the Israeli military entered a hospital, [00:32:00] I believe it was in Jenin, and killed three Palestinians. So, these are undercover operations taken, carried out by the Israeli military in civilian areas, dressed up as Palestinian civilians, carrying out the crime of perfidy in international law, which is feigning status as a civilian during armed hostilities in order to kill Palestinians. They're doing it in the West Bank. They've been doing it in Gaza, by the way, as well. Recall that in the Nuseirat refugee camp in this past summer, when the Israeli military entered that refugee camp to rescue four Israeli hostages, they killed 274 Palestinians at the same time.

And it was during that operation where they feigned status as both Palestinian civilians and as Palestinian aid workers. And so they're doing that in Gaza, they're doing that in the West Bank as well. It's a very frightening time right now for everyone in the West Bank, not only because they're dramatically expanding the military campaigns in the West Bank, both in the tactics and in the methods and in the strategies and area A, B and C, as we already said, but [00:33:00] we're also now getting a confirmation that the plan really is annexation. We've known this all along, but if you follow the reports of B'Tselem, and if you follow the reports of Peace Now, every week, every month, the Israeli civilian administration takes another step and people think annexation is like, one day it's not annexed, the next day it is. That's not how it works. It's an incremental process, every week, every month, there's a new policy, a new regulation, which gradually incorporates the West Bank into the Israeli civilian administration. 

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And It was announced this morning that the Israeli military has been told by higher ups to begin to plan to remove those remaining Palestinians from Gaza. And what that removal looks like is going to be incredibly violent. Can you react to that instruction? And give us some historical context about how many times Israel has tried to ethically cleanse Gaza, and they've failed. So, bad record. [00:34:00] 

ZACHARY FOSTER: First of all, what we hear and what we see from Gaza is that Palestinians have no intent on leaving. So any kind of relocation effort is going to be forcible. It's not going to be voluntary. And Israel always blurs the lines between forced relocation and voluntary relocation. They forced Palestinians historically, as you pointed out. Israel has attempted to relocate, i. e. ethnically cleansed Palestinians from Gaza on countless occasions. They tried to do it in '48. It was through American pressure, 1948, it was through American pressure, the American most senior diplomat in Israel at the time, told the Israeli military, this is the end of the war, in late '48, early 1949: no, you're going to withdraw your troops from Gaza Strip and Sinai now. And it was only because of that American pressure in 1948-49, that Gaza wound up in the hands of Egypt rather than Israel.

And then in '56, when Israel re-invaded the Gaza Strip, they slaughtered, they went on a campaign, they slaughtered 150 Palestinians in Khan [00:35:00] Yunis, they slaughtered another 100 in Rafah, with the goal to incentivize flight. The same thinking that they adopted in '48 was you slaughter a few hundred here, incentivize the rest to leave this They did the same thing in '56, except '56 was not '48 and the Palestinians did not leave. Only about a thousand left after those massacres and then when the Israeli prime minister at the time realized he could not compel Palestinians to leave by force, they started to develop plans to figure out ways of, ridding Gaza of its Palestinian refugees. When they reoccupied Gaza in '67, they did the same thing. They developed a plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza. And this was at the highest levels. The Israeli cabinet met on June 18th and June 19th, 1967. They made a few decisions. One of which was we will annex Gaza, after we can, after we're able to rid the population of most of its refugees. That was the decision made in June 1967, a week after Israel conquered that territory. And then from the period June 1967 to December [00:36:00] 1967, Israel settled on a plan to depopulate this strip. And, basically from the end of the war in '67, until about the end of 1969-1970. Israel compelled 70, 000 Palestinians in Gaza to leave. And then from 1970-1972, Israel realized they weren't going to be able to compel more than that through these incentive programs, and so they did it by force.

And Ariel Sharon enters the Gaza Strip in 1971 with a plan to "thin out" the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip. They enter the refugee... they first enter Jabali in 1971, they displace hundreds of families, they expel 12, 000 Palestinian family members of fighters. So these are innocent civilians by Israel's own admission. They expel them to Sinai. They continue in 1972. They try more attempts in 1974 and 1976. But the whole plan all along, well into the 1990s, is to rid Gaza of its refugees. Anyone who leaves the Gaza Strip or the [00:37:00] West Bank for more than three years is not able to return. They lose their residency rights.

Israel has been in a constant effort over the past 56 years in Gaza and the West Bank to figure out ways of getting them out, of pushing them out, because Zionism is a political philosophy that says, how do we create a Jewish state in a land that's mostly non-Jewish? How do we create Jewish domination and Jewish control in a land that is mostly non-Jewish? Well, the easiest way of doing it is just getting rid of all those non-Jews. 

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: By killing or by forcible transfer, and that is what Zionism is, folks. And I think people are starting to wake up to the contradictions of what liberal Zionism is and what we need to do. Although we still need, one, and I was saying this before the show, the evolution in this conversation is an endorsement of a one democratic state from the river to the sea. And we have still yet to see a politician in this country make that case, even the good ones that are standing up for genocide, against genocide. That is what the solution needs to be. Like South Africa, it must be imposed upon [00:38:00] them. 

 

Israelis and Palestinians Standing Together - Ralph Nader Radio Hour - Air Date 2-15-25

RALPH NADER - HOST, RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR: Listeners, this group standing together is an enormously courageous group, given all the repression that's going on now and the censorship against dissent by the Netanyahu regime. I want to ask you the first question, tell us a little bit about your group, how involved the Arab Israelis are with the Israeli Jews that are the core of your mission and why you're named Standing Together, and whether you're growing in these times of tumult. 

ALON-LEE GREEN: Thank you for these questions. And yes, Standing Together is a Jewish Palestinian movement in Israel, bringing together the Jewish citizens of Israel and the Palestinian citizens of Israel to fight together for peace, against the war, against the occupation, for equality, for social justice. And we are growing in the last 16 months, since October 7th, since the war started. At the beginning, it was terrible. It was lonely. It was, you know, a nightmare that [00:39:00] didn't stop since then. But in the last few months, we created enough space for our message to be heard and accepted by many more than the beginning of the war.

We believe our message is just the common sense. If we control, militarily control, millions of people that are not the citizens of Israel, we will never be safe. If we refuse to go to peace, we will have endless wars. If we keep on building settlements in the West Bank and keep oppressing Palestinians wherever they live on the land, we, as Jewish people, will never have safety and a quiet life.

So we call for peace. We call for Israeli Palestinian peace. And we bring together the two main groups of our society inside the Israeli country. And it has been tough, but it's also have been hopeful to see that despite of all the hatred and the violence and the grief and the sorrow, we are able to stand together to create this space where Jews and Palestinians can grieve together, can cry sometimes [00:40:00] together, but also can dream of a better future together and act for this future.

RALPH NADER - HOST, RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR: Well, on December 13th in the New York Times, Alon-Lee, sixteen Israeli human rights groups, B'Tselem, Breaking the Silence, Refusenik, Rabbis for Human Rights, and others, called on President Biden to stop what they called "the catastrophe in Gaza". And that was an outstanding statement at the time, and the press didn't pick it up, there were no editorials, it just spoke for itself.

But, what it said to the American people who read that open letter to Biden is that there are very courageous people in Israel who understand the basic principles of Judaism, who understand what a democracy is all about, including dissent being the mother of almost all assent, and who are not just speaking out, but they're actually organizing demonstrations.

Standing Together organized [00:41:00] the biggest demonstration, calling for a ceasefire agreement, hostage deal since October 7th, drawing tens of thousands to the streets across the country. And with that background, I want to ask you the question: what's the status of the Arab Israelis? They must be under tremendous pressure. They've been very quiet. There have been no reports of any violence by them or against them. But maybe that's because the media is not reporting much about Arab Israelis.

Could you tell us about them and what their numbers are and how many of them have risen to become doctors and pharmacists? 

ALON-LEE GREEN: Yeah, it's a very good question. A context is to say that 20 percent of all the citizens of Israel are Palestinian citizens of Israel. You can call them Arab Israelis. A lot of them would prefer to be called Palestinian citizens of Israel.

They are part of the Palestinian people living on the same land that Jews live. Roughly the numbers of Jews on the land are 7 million. The Palestinians are also 7 million. 2 [00:42:00] million of them are citizens of the Israeli state and live in either solely Palestinian cities or mixed cities together with Jews like Haifa and Jaffa and Lod and Ramle and Akko.

In the last 20 years, we see a big shift inside this population from being, you know, more traditional. They assimilate much strongly in the society, they go to university, they become doctors, they become pharmacists, they become lawyers, see a lot of meeting places in our society. And, of course, it creates a lot of amazing and good effects on our society, but also it creates a lot of racism and pushbacks from the extreme Jewish right wing in Israel.

Since October 7th, this population, the Palestinian citizens of Israel, have been under great, great attack from the establishment, from the government in Israel, threatening them to not dare to sound a voice, to not dare to stand in solidarity with their families or people in Gaza or the West Bank. And basically they've been persecuted [00:43:00] into being criminalized if you claim that you're Palestinian and not just an Arab, which is a problem because they are Palestinians.

We saw a phenomenon of a lot of students from universities being kicked out of school just because of writing a post on social media, 'don't kill Palestinian children', or saying 'cease fire'. That was a reason to kick them out of school or to even fire doctors from hospitals in Israel. So that was the beginning of the war.

Right now, we do see that more Palestinians in Israel have the support around them to show solidarity with Gaza. Standing Together has become the largest group that is organizing Palestinians in the fight against the war or a ceasefire. We had a huge campaign collecting aid from Israeli cities, mainly Palestinian cities in Israel, to bring into Gaza.

And we saw tens of thousands of Palestinian citizens donating aid to Gaza in a very political campaign that said also, 'stop the war', [00:44:00] 'stop the starvation in Gaza', 'we stand with our people in Gaza'. So basically that's the status right now. You can see more Palestinians in Israel showing up in this struggle, but the fear from the government, from the police, is very, very serious.

On The Ground in Gaza Serving the People in Palestine - Rev Left Radio - Air Date 2-11-25

BREHT O'SHEA - HOST, REV LEFT RADIO: Can you talk about your, the horrors and the tragedies we understand and, They're worth saying because you need to see the realities and the contours of what's actually happening and the lives actually impacted.

But last time you came on, you talked about your personal relationship with the Palestinians that you met, their generosity, and that was a heartening aspect of it because, under The worst crimes of the century and under unimaginable conditions, there's still a beauty, a love for life, a generosity, to strangers, right?, that is profound and speaks not only to the Palestinian spirit, but to the best of the human spirit. Can you talk about some of the positive relationships that you, might have been able to, develop this time around? 

WILLY MASSAY: Yes, one of the relationships I developed was with the kids that were [00:45:00] living in the, sleeping on the hospital hallways.

So every morning I get up, I go get ready, and I'm going to the emergency room. these kids would be outside playing and be waiting. Really? Really? I was like, I don't even know how they remembered my name. But, I started giving them some chocolate that I brought in because these kids have not had chocolate, a piece of chocolate for over, over 14 months or so.

and, so we'll take, they will be asking me, Surah, surah, surah means let's take a picture. Let's take a picture. and we'll take a picture and we'll, they taught, they start teaching me how to count in Arabic. and, I can count up to 20 now. So I'm getting better. the amazing, children.

And these children will be saying, can I come with you to America? Can I see how America looks like? I said, I wish I can take all you to America, but, there's a lot of American people who love you, but there's some who probably will hate you just because you're [00:46:00] from Gaza. But I don't say that to them.

But, they just want to hear America and they're like, Oh, you're from America. How's America? do you know my cousin that his name is so and so? He lives in this city. He drives a Mercedes Benz, right? It's a big big big country, but this is the world view I want folks to remember the world view of these children growing up in Gaza.

Gaza is very small So everybody knows everybody so it's kind of cute in a way that everybody knows everybody if you're looking for someone in Gaza And they want you to somebody will know someone they will find for you but, this is the worldview they see, this is how they look at this, their lens.

I said, no, but I'll keep an eye out, but is that innocence in the beauty of the Palestinian people? I want to tell folks this, I want to tell you all this, Palestinian people are the most resistant, most beautiful, [00:47:00] powerful. people you ever meet, the generosity and the kindness of the people.

It's amazing. one night we were just sitting there and somebody had, Nescafe, two packets of Nescafe. There was like eight of us. So this brother is like, okay, we gotta make Nescafe. I'm looking, how many Nescafe? He's like, Oh, I got two packets. So he brought this tiny little cups of coffee to split that Nescafe of two packets to these eight guys.

And I'm thinking, I am an American and I'm, I have a, I have about maybe 20 Nescafé, packets in my bag. I'm keeping, I'm, trying to, I'm trying to say this all for tomorrow, this for tomorrow. And I'm thinking, why am I worried about tomorrow? Just bring all the Nescafé right now to these brothers.

Let's enjoy it. And these sisters here. What's the point? 

BREHT O'SHEA - HOST, REV LEFT RADIO: Because that's what he was doing.

WILLY MASSAY: That's what he was doing. He's he's, this is all he had. And it's here we go. Let's enjoy it. Let's drink Nescafé. It's the middle of the [00:48:00] night. But meanwhile. as in America, we want to think forward.

Okay. I'm going to preserve this for tomorrow. we keep things, we hoard things and I'm thinking, why am I hoarding Nescafe for the next 20 days? I'm just going to give it out. Let's do it. I can survive without Nescafe. So the generosity and the kindness of the people, it's amazing. I had this respiratory infection when I was there my second week.

I was really, sick, but I said, I am going to work. I'm going to work. You can take me over my dead body. I'll be still be working unless I'm really dead, and this, nurses and doctors, they bringing me herbs like sage and mint is not available. Now it's winter, but somehow somebody's found it.

They're bringing this, all these herbs that some of them, I don't even remember the names. They're like, you drink this with a little honey. They just, there's no honey, but somehow somebody found a tiny little [00:49:00] bottle of honey. They brought it to help me. And the, people I went to take care of, they became my nurses and my doctors, my caretaker, and teachers teaching me about these herbs.

And my, flu cleared. So this is the people that we are watching, that Israel is, ethnically cleansing. And all they're asking is for the world to wake up. Please wake up and, see our cause. Please fight for us. This is all what the Palestinian people are asking.

Note from the Editor on why Israel and Gaza are not are complicated as you may think

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips starting with Pod Save the World laying out the dramatically negative potential impacts of Trump's plan for Gaza. Today, Explained explained Trump's interest in South Africa. What Next? dove into Elon Musk's interest and influence on South Africa. American Prestige laid out some historical context of the attempted peace process in Israel and Palestine. The Majority Report looked at the [00:50:00] escalating violence in the West Bank. The Ralph Nader Radio Hour highlighted the Standing Together movement in Israel, comprised of both Jewish and Palestinian citizens. And Rev Left Radio spoke about the enduring human spirit that continues to thrive in Palestine. And those were just the Top Takes, there's a lot more in the Deeper Dive sections. 

But first, a reminder that this show is produced with the support of our members who get access to bonus episodes and enjoy all of our shows without ads. To support all of our work and have those bonus episodes delivered seamlessly to the new. members-only podcast feed that you'll receive, sign up to support the show at BestOfTheLeft.Com/Support (There's a link in the show notes), through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple Podcast app. And as always, if regular membership isn't in the cards for you, shoot me an email requesting a financial hardship membership, because we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information.

If you have questions or would like your comments included in the show, our upcoming topics include the dangers of RFK Jr. and the future of health in America, [00:51:00] and the widespread corruption absolutely endemic to Trump and just about everyone that surrounds him. So get your comments and questions in for those topics or anything else. You can leave a voicemail or send us a text at 202-999-3991. We're also findable on the privacy-focused messaging app Signal at the handle bestoftheleft.01. There's a link in the show notes for that. Or you can simply email me to [email protected]. 

Now as for today's topic, I just want to highlight something that I think is at the core of a lot of discussion about Israel and Palestine, which is that if you think it's complicated, like overly complicated, so much so that you're not sure that your opinions are valid, it's not your fault. It's been presented as overly complicated for a very long time. It's not a conspiracy, exactly. There are some legitimate complications at the heart of the conflict. But as things got [00:52:00] less and less complicated over long periods of time, those who have an ideological interest in propping up their own side's narrative continued to go back to the old "It's complicated" talking point, because it worked to tamp down uncomfortable questions that they didn't want asked. People feel intimidated by feeling that they don't know enough, so they just shut up. 

Some, who continue to beat the "it's complicated" drum, may be cynical about this and know that they're lying, but I'd guess that the vast majority of staunch supporters of Israel who defend against, or simply wave away, legitimate accusations of war crimes, human rights abuses, up to and including genocide and ethnic cleansing, truly believe themselves to be right to fall back on the idea that it's simply too complicated for those accusations to be accurate.

But in reality, even when you factor in all of the complications of history and context of the [00:53:00] land, the people, and the conflict, you get down to the very core of it, and as Ta-Nehisi Coates recognized when he visited the area in recent years, it's just not as complicated as we've been led to believe.

Before the recent war, it was already a system similar to Jim Crow America or Apartheid South Africa, where people had different rights based on their ethnicity and religion.

There is no context in which that is a legitimate way to run a society. Not because Jews don't have a well-earned fear that they may be targeted as a group, but because escaping the evils of an ethnostate in Europe only to form your own ethnostate puts you on the same path that leads to similar evil ends. Ethnostate is always the wrong answer, even if the question of how to keep a group of people safe is a reasonable one. 

You don't need a PhD in Middle East studies to have a legitimate opinion on the wildly unbalanced [00:54:00] power dynamics between Israel and Palestine, or how those power dynamics, coupled with the anti-Arab racism endemic in the US that helps propel our unflinching support for a far-right maniac like Netanyahu and his government, are being used to pursue ethnic cleansing. And to understand that ethnic cleansing is wrong, just in case that needs to be spelled out for some. 

What's really complicated is not whether or not it should be considered okay for Israel to commit crimes against humanity, just because some in power feel strongly that they should be allowed to. What's complicated, and more necessary to understand, is the psychological element of why a people born into a post-Holocaust world would gravitate toward a series of choices that would lead them from collective victim to perpetrator. 

I've said it before, but it bears repeating: Israel and Palestine don't need military [00:55:00] support and shipments of weapons; they all need therapists if there's going to be any progress toward peace without extermination.

SECTION A: TRUMP’S GAZA PROPOSAL

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: and now, we'll continue to dive deeper on five topics today. Next up, section A, Trump's Gaza proposal, followed by section B, Afrikaners and Trump, Section C, West Bank Violence, Section D, Historical Context, and Section E, Resistance.

‘American imperialism’- Trump says ‘we’ll own’ Gaza, using terms 'like a real estate developer’ - The ReidOut - Air Date 2-4-25

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: There are days and nights in this business when you have to leave open the possibility that you can still be surprised. I might even say stunned. I think this is one of those days. Donald Trump making news in the biggest possible way. I'm going to read you the quotes that I think are stunning to just about everyone who heard them today after a day of.

Calling for the people of Gaza who he numbered at 1.8 million to be relocated out of the Gaza Strip today, Donald Trump said the following about the Palestinian people. [00:56:00] They could instead occupy all of a beautiful area with homes and safety, and they can live out their lives in peace and harmony.

Instead of having to go back and do it again, the us the US will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do it, and we will do a job with it too. We'll own it. And be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site. Level the site. and get rid of the destroyed buildings when he was pressed on whether or not he would be willing to use the military to accomplish the U.

S. Takeover of the Gaza Strip. He doubled down on that, said we will do what's necessary. We'll do what's necessary. If it's necessary, we'll do that. We're going to take over the peace and we're going to develop it. He referred to the Gaza Strip as the Riviera of the Middle East. He said that world people world people will live in Gaza, including Palestinians and anyone else, I suppose, that wants to live in this new real estate [00:57:00] development.

He proposed today. Um, this was stunning. And this came in a press conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his first trip to the United States since he was labeled a war criminal by the International Criminal Court with arrest warrants issue. This is one of the few countries where Prime Minister Netanyahu can travel because the United States does not recognize the authority of the International Criminal Court, which rendered a judgment to that genocide and apartheid had taken place inside of Israel.

Disregarding the war in Gaza. So this was their joint press conference following a bilateral meeting. A stunner, a stunner by any, uh, by any definition of the word. I'm joined now by Vaughn Hilliard, White House correspondent for NBC news and Alex Wagner, host of Alex Wagner tonight. Um, and also Trump world, Trump, Trump, Trump land.

It's where it's, 

ALEX WAGNER - HOST, MSNBC: it's, it's a world. Yeah, 

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: [00:58:00] Vaughn. I do want to go to you first because this is a stunner. I'm just assuming that there is a lot of reaction right now to what we just heard. Official reaction, please share. I mean, 

VAUGHN HILLYARD: actually, I've been to a few people and there's just silence. I mean, let's be very clear outside of Jared Kushner making a passing remark, a seemingly passing remark back in March of Gaza having beautiful waterfront property.

We have not heard the words of candidate Donald Trump or President Trump suggest the takeover of a land where millions of people call home. The moving them out and the taking over and the ownership of the United States. And I think that what this represents, I think, cannot be overstated here. Back in the first Trump administration, there was some semblance of a, of a, of a governing structure in the Trump administration.

In 2020, with the help of Jared Kushner, they did put forward what they call the two state solution proposal, right? There was going to be a, a, two states, and yet there was going to have to have, uh, uh, have Israeli security forces overseeing the Palestinian state, uh, [00:59:00] Palestinian president Abbas completely rejected it.

Okay. But at least it was some sort of a plan or something that was put forward. This is not anything of a plan. This is a complete American imperialism, uh, at its roots, at its core. Donald Trump suggesting that, uh, uh, uh, this land in the Middle East would be better occupied and overseen by America, I, I just don't think we can really begin to even comprehend What we're hearing two weeks in from this administration in terms of, in terms of the role that the United States is supposed to play.

And even baby not Yahoo stood next to him and said, I think that the American president sees maybe a different plan than what I do. But this is, it's just remarkable. And I don't think the silence, he 

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: seemed stunned as well. I will say that BB Net and Yahoo Prime Minister Netanyahu definitely also seemed a bit stunned and taken aback.

and attempted to respond to it. Donald Trump also said that he has taken no position on Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank. That is also a dramatic change in position from the United States position. He [01:00:00] also acknowledged that Gaza has been crushed. He said it's been leveled. He's been, it's destroyed.

It's a demolition site. Um, BB Netanyahu, as he was describing the destruction of Gaza. That BB Netanyahu's president, Prime Minister Netanyahu's own military cause, he seemed to acknowledge that complete destruction, but his answer all day today has been permanent displacement or at least temporary until they're allowed to move back with the world people of the Palestinian people in Gaza.

This is actually stunning.

 

The ripple effects of Trump's plan to 'own' Gaza - Diane Rehm On My Mind - Air Date 2-13-25

DIANE REHM - HOST, ON MY MIND: What do you think the message, the overall message is that Donald Trump is trying to send to the Middle East countries in general? 

AARON DAVID MILLER: I think, in general, it's, with the exception of Israel, in general, it's, if you want support from the United States, free riding is over.

You're gonna have to stand up in a way that you haven't stood up before. [01:01:00] Marco Rubio was quoted just yesterday, and he's going to the region, Secretary of State Rubio, going to the region, that this is a region, he said, where people talk, but they don't do. And that comment, I think, was directed. Toward the Arab world.

So you have a transactional president. You see it everywhere, right? In tariffs, you see it in his bid to buy Greenland, you see it in his efforts to, uh, get, uh, Panama to decrease the amount of tolls that U. S. shipping pays through going through the canal by threatening. That the Panamanians are handing the canal over to China in violation of the 1978 treaties everywhere.

And you're going to see it on Ukraine too. Yes. He's trying to strike a deal with Zelensky. Ukrainians would turn over access to the rare minerals that they contain their [01:02:00] deposits in exchange for whatever Trump is going to give them. There is no value component to his foreign policy. I would argue there's very little strategy.

Uh, and I think it, it reflects. What we now see, um, and what we now see is a man, in my judgment, unlike any other president in American history. I would include Richard Nixon in this category as well. Harry Truman, Diane once quipped that Nixon may have read the Constitution but he didn't understand it.

Donald Trump just wants to put the Constitution aside. He is incapable, I'll phrase it this way, of turning the M in me, upside down, so it becomes a W in we. We have never had a president whose ambitions, whose motives, whose prejudices and sensibilities have no broader reach [01:03:00] than beyond his own political interests, his self interest, his vanity.

But it is stunning the degree to which norms and institutions That have, with all its imperfections, Diane, that has guided the Republic through decades, now seem to be, they no longer matter. 

DIANE REHM - HOST, ON MY MIND: You think that his instincts as a real estate developer are more at play here than his Knowledge, understanding of and behavior toward the interplay and the cooperation among various countries of the world.

It's as though he's saying, I want the Gulf of Mexico, I want the Panama Canal. [01:04:00] I want Canada. I want Greenland. It's an acquisitive, um, aspiration that seems to move him to talk about Gaza. I mean, he's talking about not foreign policy at all, but 

AARON DAVID MILLER: acquisition. Yeah, it's a very, I've never heard quite expressed that way, but the acquisitive character, the need to acquire, um, you know, it's symptomatic to kind of putting his name, the Trump brand, on all of these buildings, beginning with Trump Tower.

I mean, yes, it's the opportunistic, transactional, acquisitive character of a real estate developer. But You know, the American Republic is not some plaything that is there for Donald Trump's amusement and enrichment. You know, [01:05:00] presidents have obligations and responsibilities to the Constitution, first and foremost.

But the Constitution doesn't figure. at all in his sensibilities. He comes from a world in which you give only if you get. He comes from a world in which you, if you're criticized and you are hit, you don't absorb, you don't understand. You hit back, and you hit back harder. I mean, Donald Trump was the first Republican candidate to win the popular vote since 2004.

His victory was only the third narrowest in terms of the, of the popular vote. So Does he have a mandate? It's not. It's really kind of irrelevant. He is doing and acting, you know, I think about what FDR said about the office of the presidency. It's a place for moral leadership. And I just,[01:06:00] 

uh, it troubles me, to say the least. 

 

Shelter urgently needed in Gaza, Israeli raids in occupied West Bank - Al Jazeera News Updates - Air Date 2-11-25

AL JAZEERA ANCHOR: Thousands of Palestinians returning to their homes in northern Gaza are being met with new challenges. Their homes are destroyed, the tents they've been using for months through the wind and rain are now in many cases barely usable. And now There's more bad weather. Trucks and cars trying to pass through the Netserim Corridor are slowly navigating muddy roads because of overnight rain.

Aid agencies say the 200, 000 tents and 60, 000 mobile homes that are supposed to be delivered under the ceasefire agreement need to be urgently brought in. Hamas has accused Israel of violating the deal by restricting the flow of aid and shelter. In other developments, U. S. President Donald Trump has repeated his comments about taking over Gaza and says countries in the region could be allowed to develop parts of it.

DONALD TRUMP: I'm committed to buying and owning Gaza. As far as [01:07:00] us rebuilding it, we may give it to other states in the Middle East to build sections of it. Uh, other people may do it through our auspices, but we're committed to owning it, taking it. And making sure that Hamas doesn't move back. There's nothing to move back into.

Well, 

AL JAZEERA ANCHOR: Hamas has condemned Trump's proposal in a post on Telegram. Hamas official Izzat Al Rishk says Trump's statements are absurd and reflect a deep ignorance of Palestine in the region. Gaza, he says, is not a property that can be bought and sold. And it is an integral part of our occupied Palestinian land.

Dealing with the Palestinian issue with the mentality of a real estate dealer is a recipe for failure. He says Gaza belongs to its people and they will not leave it except to their cities and villages occupied in 1948. The Israeli military has continued its raids in the occupied West Bank, detaining two people on Monday.

Its forces [01:08:00] also set fire to a house in the town of Silat al Harithya, west of Jenin City, at dawn. The fire forced residents to flee. Several houses in the area have been destroyed in the past few weeks as Israeli troops step up their assault. Israeli forces stormed an area in Hebron and raided the home of a Palestinian prisoner who was released on Saturday as part of the latest exchange of captives and prisoners with Hamas.

Palestinian fighters battled Israeli forces near the house.

SECTION B: AFRIKANERS AND TRUMP

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering section B, Afrikaners and Trump.

Elon's African roots Part 2 - Today, Explained - Air Date 2-13-25

NOEL: JONNY STEINBERG [writer and senior lecturer at Yale]: Afrikaners are the descendants of the first white people who settled in South Africa. That dates from 1652. At the time, Holland was a great imperial power. About a century and a half later, when Holland was in trouble in the Napoleonic Wars, Britain took over the Cape Colony, a whole lot of English speaking white people arrived. And it was the descendants who formed themselves into Afrikaner nationalists, into a nationalist project in the late 19th, early 20th century. And I [01:09:00] guess it was to stand up against the British and to suppress Black people. And that project saw its culmination in 1948, when the party of Afrikaner Nationalism, the National Party, came to power and instituted apartheid.

 And what was it like? What was apartheid like?

JONNY: You know, apartheid is famously one of many brutal regimes in the 20th century. 

<CLIP> APARTHEID: 20TH-CENTURY SLAVERY [1971]: The policy of apartheid, literally separateness, has been elevated by the government of South Africa from a mere theory of racial superiority to the law of the land.

<CLIP> AL JAZEERA: 

Tania Page: For decades the National Party enforced racial segregation and violently repressed any dissent. Many died fighting it. Some famous, others forgotten by all but their families.

JONNY: Many millions of people were displaced from their homes. You know, in the political struggle against apartheid, many thousands of people were killed and detained. It was a long, bitter, bloody, difficult struggle for democracy, which miraculously [01:10:00] ended peacefully in a negotiated settlement in 1994.

NOEL: What happened in ‘94?

JONNY: Well, four years earlier, in 1990, the last president of apartheid, F. W. de Klerk, released Nelson Mandela…

<CLIP> SABC NEWS: There’s Mr. Mandela. Mr. Nelson Mandela, a free man taking his first steps into a new South Africa.

 …unbanned his party, the ANC, and decided that apartheid would end by a negotiated settlement with the people who were once his enemy. 

<CLIP> NELSON MANDELA FOUNDATION:

F.W. De Klerk: The eyes of the world are presently focused on all South Africans. All of us now have an opportunity and the responsibility to prove that we are capable of a peaceful process in creating a new South Africa.

JONNY: You know, a lot of people died in those four years. There was a lot of violence. It was a complicated process, but it was in the end a peaceful settlement that both sides agreed to, bringing in [01:11:00] democracy in April 1994.

<CLIP> CBS NEWS: More than 300 years of white domination ended for good with the swearing in of Nelson Mandela as this African nation's first Black president.

Nelson Mandela: “So help me God”

NOEL: So the Afrikaners went from having all of the power and from having this system, apartheid, that basically kept them in power. After the negotiated settlement, what happened to this group?

JONNY: It was a pretty gentle settlement on white people. Afrikaans people were about just over half of the white population. Most people carried on living their lives pretty much as they were before, to be honest.

NOEL: Hm.

JONNY: You know, that's a simple version of the story. When you scratch underneath, more complicated things are happening. 

 SCORING IN <Dibombe - APM>

 One of the things happening is that crime rates absolutely soared in the late apartheid and early post apartheid era. And white people became victims of crimes in ways that they didn't know under apartheid, which was very frightening. I mean, another thing happening – and, and this is about the land, this is not about all white people or all Afrikaans people -- but is about [01:12:00] farmers. A policy of land redress was introduced in the mid 1990s. And to explain what happened, it's necessary to go back to 1913 when a law was passed disallowing Black ownership of land in South Africa. Many, many people displaced from their land in the decades after that. By the early 1970s, several million people had been displaced from their land. And a policy of redress was set in place in the mid 1990s and, among other things, it allowed people who could show that they had had their land taken away from them after 1913 to get it back. But not by confiscating land, not by taking it away from those who owned it, but by buying it back at market prices. So that was the core of the land reform scheme, just stated at its most simple.

 SCORING OUT

NOEL: So in the mid 1990s, there's this process of land reform, and it's now 30 years later. Is that process still underway?

JONNY: It is [01:13:00] underway and, you know, I think many white people's grievances about that process are, are less about the policies themselves and the way that they've been implemented. Black and white South Africans are both enormously, enormously frustrated with South Africa's government for its levels of inefficiency and its corruption. And very often anger at, at that, melds with anger over the substance and the content of policy. You know, a fair amount of land has been redistributed. It has not been a particularly successful or a particularly well managed process. It has left both poor Black people and white landholders and others dissatisfied. So a lot has to do with the corruption and inefficiencies of the process itself.

NOEL: President Trump doesn't always speak with a great deal of accuracy. When he talks about South Africa now, as he has been doing recently, he will say things like “the land of white South Africans is being stolen.” Is this an idea that Donald Trump just came up with himself, or is this idea prevalent in South Africa also?

JONNY: Well, if you look at South Africans' response to Donald Trump saying [01:14:00] that, nobody has agreed with him.

NOEL: Huh!

JONNY: You know, land has not been stolen from anybody in South Africa since 1994. A lot of land has been bought at market prices and redistributed but not stolen. As for where these ideas come from, there have been South African organizations that have lobbied Trump very, very, vocally, very persistently, for a number of years on matters of land redistribution, but also on matters of crime, of the extent to which people who live in rural South Africa are vulnerable. And many white farmers have been victims of very violent crime. And Trump has heard about all of that from a very vocal, very articulate lobby that says that violent crime against farmers is not coincidental, that it's organized, that there's something behind it. It's an attempt to push them off the land. He has been told that by pretty extreme forces in South African society, not mainstream ones.

NOEL: Could you dig in a bit more on violence against white farmers. What does that mean, what does that look like? 

JONNY: So farmers [01:15:00] generally live in remote areas. They're far from rapid response. They're far from police. There are a lot of guns in South Africa. There's a lot of unemployed young men in South Africa, a lot of people making a living from crime. You know, people enter a remote property and hold up the people at gunpoints to take their possessions, sometimes kill them. Sometimes there's a terrible level of brutality in South African predatory crime. 

<CLIP> ABC: 

Jo-An Engelbrecht: In the last 10, 20 years in this area I can name 20, 30 attacks, murders on farmers.

<CLIP> AFP:

Hans Bergmann: We were busy having breakfast and they just walk around with a shotgun, two pistols and a stick, and they said “we are going to kill you today.”

<CLIP> ABC: 

Golden Mtika: Some of them, they have that past ideology of saying, you know, “the farmers took our land for free” and when they go there they take out the anger on them. 

Jonathan Holmes: So you think there is a racial… 

Golden Mtika: Yes. There is that racial element in it as well.

JONNY: [01:16:00] Levels of violence in South Africa are extreme. You know, in a country of 62, 63 million people, there are 20,000 murders a year. That is breathtaking. It's a violent place. And it's absolutely understandable and natural that, you know, the white farming community would feel under siege, would feel vulnerable, would feel scared. But it's another thing to say that there's an organized plot against them, that this is a manifestation of a deeper attempt to throw them off their land. You know, if you look at who is killed in South Africa, if you look at per capita murder rates, those most vulnerable to being killed are unemployed young Black men. And that's not for a moment to say that white farmers should not feel afraid and should not take action to defend themselves. But the idea that they're especially victimized is untenable.

NOEL: Hmm. And so, responding to this, President Trump has made this offer to help resettle Afrikaners in the United States. Have any of them said, yeah, we'd like to go? What's the response there?

JONNY: <chuckles> [01:17:00] People are pretty bewildered by the offer, you know, including the people who've been lobbying Trump. Nobody has taken him up on it. The head of Agri South Africa – it’s a pretty mainstream, perhaps a center-right organization – said, we're farming here and we're farming successfully.

Trumps South Africa Fixation Part 2 - What Next - Air Date 2-12-25

MARY HARRIS - HOST, WHAT NEXT: At the center of this back and forth between the Trump administration and South Africa is a law called the Expropriation Act. It was enacted last month, and in very rare cases, it allows the government to take land without compensating the owner. 

CHRIS MCGREAL: In fact, the law actually promotes a just and equitable compensation and then permits expropriation in very narrow exceptional circumstances such as the land has been abandoned.

MARY HARRIS - HOST, WHAT NEXT: The Guardian's Chris McGreal told me that misinformation around this law is largely being driven by Afrikaner organizations. Afrikaners are white South Africans who are mostly descended from the Dutch people who colonized this place. 

CHRIS MCGREAL: So the central claim being made by Afrikaner [01:18:00] groups and those who promote the idea of a white genocide in South Africa is that the post Apartheid political dispensation is essentially a racial conspiracy against the white minority.

That the whites have gone from being the oppressors to the victims. And there are a couple of things at work here. One of which is post apartheid laws to try and readjust the balance. So to give you an example, Whites make up just 7 percent of the population of South Africa, but they still own more than 70 percent of the land.

And that goes back to colonial era law in 1913, the Land Act, but also apartheid era laws. And part of the, you know, existing policy and laws is to try and redress that balance. And you have broader American will recognize this broader affirmative action programs to promote, you know, black educational education for people who were previously disadvantaged under apartheid, which [01:19:00] is people of mixed race origin, black people, uh, people of Indian and Chinese descent, all of those who were discriminated against.

MARY HARRIS - HOST, WHAT NEXT: It's interesting. You're saying there are all these laws to kind of make things more equitable, but at the same time, you're also saying that A very small percentage of South Africa is made up of white people and a very large amount of the land is owned by them. So while these laws exist, it doesn't sound like a whole lot of people are having their land taken away.

CHRIS MCGREAL: No, and so what you see with these laws across the broad spectrum is that they've changed society in many ways. Uh, you know, black people have much better education and access to higher education, um, even though there's Also massive unemployment amongst blacks. Um, but land is one area where there has been little change.

And, you know, more than 30 years after the end of apartheid, it's, uh, it's a particularly sore area for a lot of people [01:20:00] because the vast majority of the population, black population, is rural and poor and they see the land still in the hands of whites. So, no, it's become a symbol of, of In many ways, what hasn't changed in South Africa and how whites continue to dominate the economy in so many ways.

MARY HARRIS - HOST, WHAT NEXT: So are Afrikaners actually under threat in South Africa? 

CHRIS MCGREAL: No, I think that what they've lost their advantage that they had under apartheid and what you're seeing is that there's an attempt, particularly by Afrikaners, to rewrite history and make out that they are the victims of all of this. So for instance, a few years ago, there was a very popular song called Dela Rey, which is about a general from the Boer War.

MARY HARRIS - HOST, WHAT NEXT: For those who don't know about the Boer War, just give me one sentence. 

CHRIS MCGREAL: It was essentially that the British sent their armies to conquer these, these two, uh, white republics and, and essentially took their land, took their gold. And after that, the, the [01:21:00] Afrikaners were very much, uh, second class citizens under colonial rule.

Of course, black people were very much third, fourth and fifth class citizens. In that war, there was a A General De La Rey, who fights to the end, even though he knows he's going to lose. And there was a song came out a few years ago, and Afrikaners adopted this song. They were singing it at rugby matches and in bars.

And it was very much portraying themselves again as victims, bypassing apartheid, bypassing all the advantages they'd had, and turning themselves from the oppressor into the victim. And that's how now many of them see themselves as they are, again, the victims in South Africa, even though they've had all the advantages of those many years of apartheid.

 

South Africa's response to US threats - Focus on Africa - Air Date 2-7-25

CHARLES GITONGA - PRESENTER, FOCUS ON AFRICA: Many people may or may not know that Elon Musk is South African born, but he's tweeted about the South African government before. And in particular, this tweet in [01:22:00] 2023, where he said that. He had heard calls of a genocide of white people and he was referring to the killing of white farmers, which became a flashpoint in South Africa, but now he has the ear of the president, the support of the president.

How can this play out against South Africa? 

VERASHNI PILLAY: Indeed, there's a long history of South Africa's race relations being used and sort of leveraged within America, and particularly within Trump's space. Back when Trump was president in 2016, a local group called AfriForum, who tries to perpetuate what is It's really absolutely a myth that white people are being targeted more than any other racial group when it comes to murder and crimes.

They've tried to put out this myth of farm killings. They were quite successful in getting Trump's administration to take that quite seriously back in 2016. Now, as you've pointed out, Elon Musk separately to all of this has also been very vocal about the same issue. Ironically, as a white person who grew up in South Africa and left the country in his teens and who should know [01:23:00] better that there is no white genocide happening off South Africans, but it has become.

A sort of rallying cry for the right across the world. We've seen a conservative Australian prime minister say the same kind of thing previously. And it's sort of a dog whistle to a certain kind of voter to say we will take care of white interests. The fact is that it is very detrimental and it is very false.

What we've seen happen now is all of that just come to a boiling point with Musk now, as you're saying, having the ear of President Donald Trump and also having his own agenda of taking on some of South Africa's laws around ownership. Musk has been wanting to spread his Starlink internet network across the world and South Africa has sort of resisted saying, you know, we have certain laws around local ownership of international businesses.

And Musk has tweeted saying that, um, South Africa has openly racist ownership laws. And many people have speculated that this might be linked to his business interests. So you see all of that coalescing into this. all out attack on South Africa's race relations, including this [01:24:00] misinformation that there's a white genocide happening, that white farmers are being killed, when none of the stats really support that kind of narrative.

It is true that murder is a huge problem in South Africa. It is true that farmers are often targeted, but there's nothing to suggest that white people are targeted more than any other race group. 

CHARLES GITONGA - PRESENTER, FOCUS ON AFRICA: So on Thursday, we saw the U. S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, accusing South Africa of what he called anti Americanism, and he actually refused to attend the G20 meeting in Johannesburg that's happening later this month.

I'm just wondering whether America wasn't convinced by the latest explanations by the South African president about specifically, let's say, the Land Expropriation Act, for example, and even the call that they had with Elon Musk. Were they not convinced, or is there more to this than what we are seeing now?

VERASHNI PILLAY: There's a lot of different priorities in this particular administration. So Musk might be talking to Ramaphosa and might be having talked down from his particular high perch at this point, but he's not exactly an elected official, [01:25:00] right? So maybe he hasn't spoken to Marco Rubio. We don't actually know what we do know is that this administration has.

come out of the starting blocks in a fashion of just shock and awe. It's just, you know, we're going to take over Greenland. We're going to take over Gaza. We're putting terrorists on China and Canada. There is so much happening so fast that it is hard for anyone to keep track. And I wonder if anybody within the administration itself is keeping track of how rapidly things are moving and all the kind of.

Really extreme positions that this administration is taking outside of the democratic norm. So you saw Secretary Marco Rubio coming out and saying he's not going to attend the G20 summit that is scheduled to take place in Johannesburg later this year. And he did list the land reform bill, which by the way, has nothing to do with land grabs is very similar to other countries policies around land.

He came out saying that that's the reason that he wouldn't want to come. But he also said the reason he didn't want to come is because, uh, South Africa is using G20 to promote solidarity, equality, and sustainability. And everyone around the world is going, what, what is wrong with solidarity, equality, and sustainability?

So in a sense, The land issue might be one [01:26:00] issue, but really, um, as he said in his tweet, his job is to advance America's national interests, not waste taxpayer money. This is his way to signal to his constituency that they are not going to take part in any sort of bilateral agreements or international.

Forums where countries come together to try to find solutions. I mean, you see that they've withdrawn from the Paris climate agreement from the WHO, from all kinds of things. So as, uh, Marco Rubio saying, you know what, we're boycotting G20. It's not because South Africa is doing anything particularly bad.

It's in keeping with a general kind of trend of saying we're, we're an America first administration we're withdrawing. It's about us. We're not going to take part in world affairs unless we're taking over countries like Greenland and territories like Greenland and Gaza. Right. But, um. I don't necessarily think it will fix polio in South Africa because it isn't keeping with what they're doing with other international bodies.

CHARLES GITONGA - PRESENTER, FOCUS ON AFRICA: But the relations that South Africa keeps with Russia and China and Iran seem to make the U. S. very uncomfortable. As you know, this legal challenge against [01:27:00] Israel at the International Court of Justice regarding Gaza is one of those very uncomfortable things that America seems to, they look at it in that.

So how can South Africa navigate this, especially with this new administration of Trump? 

VERASHNI PILLAY: You know, absolutely. This is not just about land reform or America's current attitude towards the rest of the world. There are many different threads in South Africa and US' relationship, and one thing that is going to be a sticking point is South Africa sort of taking on a lot of the Western world in terms of its stance.

And Gaza going to the international criminal court arguing for. The genocide to stop against Palestinians. And a lot of that is going to cause some nations to be very uncomfortable, but it is a stance that many of us are proud of, but it is something that is going to definitely play a role in international relations.

The fact is it is a stance that the South Africa is not going to back down on, especially under the current government of the ANC, it is a stance that South Africa is not going to easy step away from. They're going to keep campaigning for this particular issue, as it is very close to the country's heart, [01:28:00] given our history of apartheid, um, the other issues that Absolutely true that South Africa is not playing the game as many Western democracies would like us to play it.

There is the sort of uncomfortable closeness with countries like Russia, countries like China that just shows how South Africa is caught between these different loyalties. On one hand, we want to be seen as a democracy that honors international norms. On the other hand, we're trying to build alliances outside of the dominance of the Western world to kind of show up our security, but that also.

creates the challenge that we are allowing ourselves with non democratic governments and governments that pose a problem to the Western world. So it is a very tricky tightrope to walk. On one hand, South Africa cannot ignore the fact that we need to build alliances like BRICS in order to counterbalance the outsize influence that the West and the developed world has on our Uh, kind of economic reality and our political reality.

We have to build those counterbalance bodies, but on the other hand, in doing so, like you say, we're going to align ourselves to, um, some, you know, Arab countries, some Eastern countries [01:29:00] that have questionable rights. And that is a very delicate tightrope to walk indeed. 

 

 

Trumps Insane Plan To Own Gaza Part 2 - Pod Save the World - Air Date 2-12-25

TOMMY VIETOR - HOST, POD SAVE THE WORLD: Um, Ben, I did want to just note that when, uh, Trump was asked If refugees from Gaza could come to the U. S., he said, no, Gaza's 5, 000 miles away. It's inconvenient. They'd rather settle in the region. But when white South African refugees who live on the other side of the planet, like literally, are apparently welcome in the U.

S., you know, one might wonder why they're treating so differently. 

BEN RHODES - CO-HOST, POD SAVE THE WORLD: Yeah, this is actually a really important story to get at the heart of. What this whole MAGA thing is all about, because it's obviously got a deeply racial component. Um, I mean, to build on your gods analogy, Tommy, when, you know, a country in which there was apartheid and, and just brutal systemic repression, and 70 percent of land is owned by white farmers who make up 7 percent of the population.

When a portion of that land that is [01:30:00] nobody's living on is reallocated. That's a. White genocide. But when you blow up all of Gaza and destroy all of it and ethnically cleanse it, it's called like a redevelopment program or something, you know? Um, so they applied their own, you know, feelings about South African white people to Gaza.

Uh, imagine what that would look like. I think just to add, you know, something to this, in addition to the Elon Musk of it all, like how much is this white South African, you know, calling the shots as you point out Trump. I think that this is also Trump is trying to kind of with the people around him, recreate the history of the last, let's say, post Cold War era, the last 35 years.

So for people like you and me, you know, older millennials, um, the high point of moral, um, Achievement in the world was Nelson [01:31:00] Mandela becoming the president of South Africa and and they're literally trying to reverse engineer that and say, No, no, no. Actually, the white people in South Africa were actually the victims.

And it's a mirror image of what they've done in this country. Like white people have somehow been the victims of racism. And I think that the true believers, the Stephen Miller types, they actually believe this. And if you look at what authoritarian regimes do, they do try to kind of recreate history itself.

And I think that the true believers, the Stephen Miller types, they actually believe this. And if you look at what authoritarian regimes do, they try to recreate history itself. And, and so I think they want to undo the entire liberal consensus around. What was good, you know, there was a good thing that apartheid ended and Nelson Mandela came out of prison and became president of South Africa, like they'll probably be pulling like Invictus off of shelves, you know, like, like, we can't watch that Nate Damon movie anymore, you know, but I know I'm making light of it, but it's a serious point, like they're, they're hyper focused in the same way that People on the left and liberals have focused on South Africa as a morality [01:32:00] play in a good way.

They're trying to reverse that from their own perspective, and it's super dark. 

SECTION C: WEST BANK VIOLENCE

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: You've reached section C, West Bank violence.

Trumps Nightmare Plan for Gaza - The Intercept Briefing - Air Date 1-31-25

JORDAN UHL - CO-HOST, THE INTERCEPT BRIEFING: To start, Akayla, would you remind us What are the terms of the ceasefire deal?

JESSICA WASHINGTON - CO-HOST, THE INTERCEPT BRIEFING: So the ceasefire was officially announced on January 15th, and it went into effect four days later on the 19th. It is supposed to take place in three distinct stages, the first of which includes a complete ceasefire, which means an agreement to halt fighting. But there's a huge caveat here that does not mean that the war is over.

And some experts are doubtful that it will hold. They expect Israel to do what it has done in other historical cases with respect to Palestinian territories, which is to create a pretext for resuming hostilities and to claim that, or to claim that Hamas has, has done so, and start [01:33:00] bombing or re instate the siege.

Also part of stage one is that Israel will release just under 2, 000 Palestinian prisoners. leave populated areas in Israel, but Israeli troops will stay in the border areas in Gaza. Hamas will also release 33 hostages in interval stages, and aid will start to be allowed into Gaza. The second stage of the ceasefire includes a permanent ceasefire, which is different from the complete ceasefire in the first stage in that it's a stoppage of war.

and an agreement to some form of mediation, um, which includes the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces and the remaining hostages in Gaza will be exchanged for more Palestinian prisoners. And then the final and probably most important part of the ceasefire stages is the third stage which includes the return of the bodies of dead hostages and the reconstruction, the beginning of the reconstruction of Gaza.

I just want to back up there and break down [01:34:00] what the reconstruction of Gaza actually entails and some of the limitations. Close to 70 percent of all structures in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged. Experts say that just clearing the rubble from the 15 months of the siege could take more than 20 years.

So we're talking about decades here. Israel completely destroyed Gaza's hospital system. Students have no access to education. Humanitarian agencies say there's no Safe place in the Gaza Strip for children to learn another big issue with the reconstruction is that one of the largest aid providers in Gaza is banned starting on Thursday under this new Israeli law, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, also known as UNRWA.

U. N. R. W. A. Uh, will be expelled from the territory. This group has provided the bulk of humanitarian aid over the last 15 months. More than two thirds of all food aid. They've sheltered more than a million [01:35:00] people. They stepped into vaccine vaccinate Children when the polio outbreak started as a result of Israeli attacks, and they also in provide really important mental health and psychosocial services for adults and children who've been traumatized by this war.

So that is the context in which all of this is happening. We just put up a story this week on the UNRWA ban and the logistics of reconstruction, which we can get into more. 

JORDAN UHL - CO-HOST, THE INTERCEPT BRIEFING: Yes, definitely want to get into that. But first, Jonah, I want to bring you in here. On his first day, Trump issued a slew of executive orders, including one that lifted Biden era sanctions on Israeli settlers in the West Bank.

First, tell us about the sanctions Biden ordered, and then what has happened since Trump lifted them. 

JONAH VALDEZ - REPORTER, THE INTERCEPT: Yeah, thanks for mentioning that, Jordan. For this one, let's go back to last February. Israel was at its peak of activity in its genocidal war in Gaza, but alongside that, in the West Bank, [01:36:00] Israeli settlers were regularly attacking Palestinian civilians, forcing them off their land, doing things like burning farms, olive groves, oftentimes injuring or killing Palestinians.

And the Biden administration, which at the time was under pressure from a growing anti war, pro ceasefire, pro Palestinian movement, Biden responded by issuing sanctions on certain individuals and groups who were carrying out this violence, mostly Israeli religious extremists. And what this means is these individuals had their U.

S. held assets frozen, which limits their ability to fund their settler violence against Palestinians. And fast forward to this past few weeks, on day one of his second term, Trump went out of his way to lift those sanctions. And literally within hours, what we see is a surge in Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians.

Resuming attacks on villages, setting buildings and cars on fire, injuring dozens. And then the next day, the Israeli government [01:37:00] launches a new invasion into the West Bank, which on its first day killed at least 10 Palestinians and experts are, we're quick to note that Biden's sanctions did little to stop settler violence in the West Bank.

Anyway, 2024 was a record setting year of settler violence on Palestinians, but they still saw it as a start. Uh, something to build on toward actually getting to the root of the problem, which is material support from the Israeli government itself. And with Trump lifting those sanctions, Israel is getting pretty much another pass to continue its violent land grabs from Palestinians.

Trump 

JORDAN UHL - CO-HOST, THE INTERCEPT BRIEFING: also rescinded a policy that had blocked sanctions against the International Criminal Court. Could you tell us about that? 

JONAH VALDEZ - REPORTER, THE INTERCEPT: Sure, yeah. This one, it's a little confusing, and really we could call it sort of a war of executive orders. Trump issued one, then Biden issued one, and now Trump again. So, to [01:38:00] understand the orders, we Gotta go back to 2020.

It's the final year of Trump's term. Uh, the U. S. at the time was withdrawing from Afghanistan, and the International Criminal Court, or the ICC at The Hague, was starting to investigate for possible war crimes committed by both the Taliban, but also U. S. soldiers. They focused on things like torture. And around the same time, the ICC was also investigating Israel for its own potential war crimes stemming from its war in Gaza, but in 2014.

And in that war, uh, the Israeli military killed more than 2, 300 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians. And the ICC was also investigating possible war crimes committed by Israel. In the West Bank. So at that moment, it's 2020. The International Criminal Court is super active trying to hold people's feet to the fire.

And Trump and his administration were worried the ICC would go even further after senior U. S. military officials [01:39:00] and also senior officials in Israel. So basically in an attempt to avoid accountability, Trump issued an executive order that gave the government power to sanction the ICC officials and prosecutors who are investigating U.

S. personnel or those of its allies. And we saw that government, uh, the government used those sanctions several months later. And that means, again, freezing people's U. S. held assets and limiting travel to the U. S., revoking their visas. So fast forward to 2021, Biden is in office and he issues another executive order that blocks Trump's 2020 order.

This lifts sanctions against the ICC officials. And now back here on day one of Trump's second term, he issues, you guessed it, another executive order to rescind Biden's executive order, which blocked the sanctions. Even though this doesn't mean that Trump's original 2020 order suddenly springs back into effect, it still leaves the door wide open for Trump to go after [01:40:00] the court again, something that members of Congress are also trying to do.

And remember the ICC has two active arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Galant for their alleged war crimes. 

Israels Ever-Expanding War on the West Bank - On the Nose - Air Date 2-5-25

AZMAT KHAN: So I think we've certainly seen since the 7th of October, 2023 trends that were already persistent in the West Bank over 2021, up until that moment of 7th of October 2023, definitely accelerate after that, not just in the way of Israeli search and arrest operations, but also settler violence.

And at that point, you know, we'd seen the obfuscation of the demarcations between settler and soldier, whereby you had Settlers that were now donning military uniforms, thereby making a lot of these incursions even more fatal and even more destructive in a lot of Palestinian localities. And where prior to the seventh, you saw a lot of Israeli operations were very much clustered in the north, which is where a lot of these perpetrators that were alleged to have conducted lone wolf attacks in Israel.

as the [01:41:00] justification for Israel conducting its search and arrest operations in the West Bank, often hailed from. I think this was the first time where we really saw Israel really indiscriminately just going north, south, central. I mean, even places like the PA administrative capital hasn't been immune to deadly Israeli search and arrest operations, where we've also seen fatalities and destruction.

Over the last 15 months, we've also seen very similar images. That we've seen in places like Gaza coming outta the West Bank in places like Ulka and places like Tobar, places like Janine, where quite literally entire neighborhoods have been raised to the ground and where we've seen forcible displacement and in many cases, just from the sheer scale of destruction and destruction to routinized daily life, where now seeing also associated displacement, and that is actually taking effect not just in the north, but also in the south.

In the center of the West Bank, places like Ramallah, for instance, where the routinization of daily life has been completely disrupted and where there is really no sense of security for Palestinians. 

TAHANI MUSTAFA: One particular area in which we've seen Israeli forces [01:42:00] ramp up the war in the West Bank has been through the use of airstrikes.

There were reports in 2022 of drone strikes that the Israeli army didn't confirm. And in 2023, there were reports of strikes they did. And after October 7th, those escalated significantly. We've seen some 60 or more deadly airstrikes across the West Bank that have killed people since October 7th. They have launched some of their largest raids.

Over the summer, the IDF came into multiple camps in the northern areas, including Junin, but also Jokaran. Balata and Farah camp in the north, where they launched these intense raids that coupled not only soldiers on the ground in these areas, going after what they said were fighters, but also conducting drone strikes and airstrikes with fighter jets.

There was an airstrike in Tilkarim that hit a cafe on October 3rd that killed. 18 people, [01:43:00] some of them children, and that was not a drone. That was an Israeli fighter jet. And I went right after it happened and collected the weapons fragments and was able to identify them as US weapons from a JDAM. And these are not normal tactics in a place like the West Bank, but with so much attention focused on Gaza, it has been incredibly easy to overlook that escalation.

ALEX KANE - SENIOR REPORTER, ON THE NEWS: I really want to dig into this question of aerial warfare. I mean, Obviously, during the Second Intifada, for instance, airstrikes were really common. And then, I mean, I don't know for how many years, but then there was a period in which airstrikes didn't happen. And yet, as you mentioned, perhaps beginning in 2022, and obviously significantly since October 7th, there's been an escalation in airstrikes.

And I'm not sure if people reading the news might. Sort of understand the significance. Like why should we focus on airstrikes? You know, what makes aerial warfare sort of different than the kinds of on the ground [01:44:00] military raids that we've always seen and why is it important to take stock of this aerial warfare in particular, 

TAHANI MUSTAFA: Israel has long claimed that.

They only conduct drone strikes in places where they can't make arrests. I've been to the sites of about 25 or so deadly airstrikes across the West Bank, and routinely it was very hard to understand why these particular targets necessitated airstrikes. I think that there is a question of risk to soldiers that, you know, they might be entertaining.

where there are Israeli soldiers on the ground while there are also airstrikes happening. I mean, these are residential areas where there's very densely populated Palestinians living in these camps, just house by house by house, connected to one another. So to conduct these strikes and to expect to be precise whether that's a drone is really just hard to understand.

And you can really see the impact it's having on families. I went to the site of a Christmas Eve strike that [01:45:00] occurred in Tilkarim. And. Two women were killed, you know, as far as I can tell, no militants were killed in that particular strike. There may have been militants nearby. Two women were killed and the husband of one of the women, her name was Baraa, but Baraa's husband told me that In the weeks prior to that, she had written a will about what she wanted for her family and what she wanted for her daughter and how she wanted her daughter to be raised, simply because she was anticipating her own death.

In that area, uh, that particular neighborhood, there had been a barrage of strikes and she lived with fear that she might be killed. And there were many civilians killed. In that neighborhood and in those areas and the months prior and so just imagine what your mentality might have to be to think that.

This is something that might reach you or impact you and they didn't have, you know, as her family told me, they didn't have anywhere else to go. You know, the Israeli army is often trying to evacuate [01:46:00] civilians and the populations of these camps and so many of them would tell me things like we had no other place to go.

They are quite poor, you know, living in the camps where they might have a home is a lot cheaper than trying to afford rent in major cities that where these camps are located near. And so often they are in these areas where these very intense military operations are taking place with airstrikes. And they're really caught in the crosshairs in ways that we have not previously seen.

AZMAT KHAN: Yeah. I mean, I think it definitely serves a military objective for Israel, which is maximum impact at the lowest possible cost for its soldiers. And that's exactly what these airstrikes do. We've also seen, and I think this was prior to the 7th of October, which is what many that had been following some of Israel's.

security operations in the West Bank were warning of, which is Israel doesn't have soldiers capable of actually conducting effective insurgency campaigns. And we'd seen that in a lot of these localities where they were going in over the last two years prior to that, trying to target armed groups, trying to target the problem of militancy that was growing across the [01:47:00] Northern West Bank.

And where you were literally seeing, I mean, you know, they were having to deploy some of their most special units, highly trained soldiers, again, something like four to five. Kids, effectively kids 18 to 22 year olds in places like the old city of Nablus. It's densely populated, incredibly congested, and I mean, the level of force that they had to deploy in order just to target those five kids was immense, and imagine those five kids being able to engage in a five hour shootout with Israel's special forces.

It was insane. And that's when you started to see Israel then having to deploy its air force, right? In places like Jenin, back in July, 2023, we only really saw Israel then having to deploy its air force in order to rescue its ground troops. Again, it's, it's a serious miscalculation of just how well trained its soldiers are.

And that was something that even military commentators were talking about in terms of the conduct of soldiers in trying to fight an insurgency campaign in a place like Gaza. If Israel could barely contain battalions of something like [01:48:00] 50 to 83 young men who had really no serious combat experience, then how were they meant to fare in a place like Gaza?

And I think that's been very much proven, especially in the case like Janine. I mean, even today, if we look at Janine now, the brigade don't total more than 83 in terms of young militants. Again, their combat experience very limited. And yet that camp has been under siege from both the PA that had to deploy a thousand Palestinian security forces and now the Israeli military, and still they don't have The issue of armed resistance under control.

I mean, we're just talking about over the last two months, nevermind the fact that Israel has been dealing with this since 2021. 

TAHANI MUSTAFA: Yeah, I might add, you know, it certainly questions the capability of them to fight on the ground, but also just about their intelligence. Repeatedly, there have been cases in which they have assessed, you know, a particular threat.

So, for example, in Timun on January 8th, they conducted an airstrike near where IDF troops were operating. and called it a terrorist cell. I went to the site the [01:49:00] next day and it was essentially an eight year old boy, a 10 year old boy, and a 24 year old, they were all cousins, who had been playing outside together and they had called this a terrorist cell.

They took the bodies and only, I think, later on that night did they return them and admit, you know, this was not the terrorist cell that they had initially described it as. And I went there and essentially This family awoke to the sounds of the strike, came outside, saw the bodies, a young woman named Isra, who is the sister of Adam, who was the 24 year old who was killed, said she could see Hamza, the 8 year old boy, still breathing, and immediately Israeli soldiers rushed in and prevented them from Seeking medical care, which is something I've heard again and again and again, is that after a lot of these deadly operations, you know, ambulances were either obstructed in one case, a medical worker was shot while he was trying to resuscitate someone [01:50:00] and Essentially, they watched their loved ones die right before them.

There are certainly cases in which they went after specific fighters. There are cases where they have killed who they anticipated. But over and over, I found cases where they either killed only civilians, Missed their target or they're really dubious questions as to what kind of intelligence they were operating under.

And I think that really plays a role in understanding not only the failures of October 7th, like Tahani said, their ability to conduct warfare against insurgency.

American Jews, Israel, and Palestine w Peter Beinart Part 2 - American Prestige - Air Date 2-11-25

DEREK DAVISON - CO-HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: How much, uh, power, I guess, uh, or not, not power necessarily, but how much do, do, uh, American Jews load onto settlers as this kind of boogeyman that represent, who represent everything?

Uh, too, too far, too extreme. These are the people that you can blame for, um, you know, the, the trouble, the, the mobs in the West [01:51:00] Bank or the people who want to march into Gaza and, and bring settlements back there. It feels like for a lot of people, the settlement movement becomes this convenient thing to point at and say, well, look, I'm not like those people, even though, even as, as you say.

you know, this little movement toward anything that would actually bring about the, you know, the two state solution or rights for Palestinians or a little concern about that, uh, when challenged on it, it's always like, well, I'm not like the, the Ben Gviers. I'm not like Smotric. I'm not like those guys.

PETER BEINART: Yeah. I think it's, I think, I think it's a good point. I think, first of all, it's partly because a lot of Israeli Jews who are kind of in the political center and a lot of American Jews. have a kind of cultural antipathy towards what they think of as religious extremists or religious fundamentalists. So part of this is a kind of an inter Jewish culture war which has to do with religion and, and, and secularism, right?

And so that, and so there's a tendency to say they are extremists and they're, they're, they're brutal because they are these [01:52:00] religious fanatics and we are modern, you know, enlightened people. But, you know, the truth is that, you know, Ben Gavir and Smotrich have still never expelled nearly as many Palestinians as, like, a young Yitzhak Rabin did in 1948, you know, under the leadership of David Ben Gurion, and these were settler, kind of kibbutznik, socialist Israelis, right?

So there's a, there's a long tradition here of expelling Palestinians and denying Palestinians basic rights. Israel from 1948 to 1966 when the Likud party was, had no shot at power when it was completely dominated by labor, socialist, secular Zionists held Palestinians under military law for, from 1940.

So this is, this is a deep part of the tradition, you know, secular among secular religious, you know, quote unquote, left and right Israelis. And so, and the, and the settler project is also, it's a project of the state, right? These are not. Independent actors. Now it's true, they can be a nuisance for the Israeli state sometimes, and sometimes they can, but, but in general, the only reason these settlements can exist in the West Bank is because [01:53:00] they are protected by the Israeli army and because the Israeli government has put huge amounts of money into maintaining this infrastructure, right?

Not to mention the fact that they are now very important. kind of almost backbone of some of the military units of the Israeli, of the Israeli defense forces. 

DEREK DAVISON - CO-HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: And I think to bring it back to politics and bring it back to the Democratic Party, you see that reflected in the way that the Biden administration tried this token policy of sanctioning these extremist quote unquote extremist settlers without any, you know, appetite for going after the systematic.

institutional things that support the settlement movement. It was just sort of for show, it seemed like. 

PETER BEINART: Yes, I think that's exactly right. And it was also a kind of way of saying, because we're not going to stop sending Israel the arms that are destroying Gaza, um, it's a kind of look over here. We're doing this thing here in the West Bank.

DANIEL BESSNER - CO-HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: So just building off what you said about the history of Israel and how this sort of oppression is baked in. Do you think this, uh, [01:54:00] this was ultimately coming that this, this was, uh, overdetermined that some form of ethnic cleansing was inevitably going to happen barring the United States or another, uh, another basically supplier to a client saying, you can't do that.

I mean, 

PETER BEINART: it does kind of look that way. I mean, in the sense it sure 

DANIEL BESSNER - CO-HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: does kind of look that way, doesn't it?

PETER BEINART: I mean, I mean, I mean, obviously, I don't know. I mean, you, again, Because it's, because giving Palestinians equality, uh, and citizenship in Israel has never been on the table. Um, and because this process of, and because a Palestinian state has kind of also, that ship sailed quite a long time ago.

That in some ways it was probably, now we can think of it, the system of kind of management, Israel had this kind of management system. The Palestinian Authority is a subcontractor in the West Bank working with the IDF. And in a strange way, Hamas also becoming a kind of partner of Israel, right? In recent years with what Tariq Bokhani calls the violent equilibrium that you bomb sometimes, but also you [01:55:00] send messages to one another.

And Israel under Naftali Bennett, you know, they, they had this idea that, and even under Netanyahu. We're going to maybe let them have some aid, some money, the Qataris can give them some money so they won't totally starve and maybe even a few of them can come into work in Israel and we'll have this carrot and sticks and we'll manage that, right?

I think in retrospect we see that was inherently probably a very unstable kind of system and one that was, was weakening. And then you say that you have no external restraints on what Israel is doing. So what is Israel going to do as the management system starts to collapse most spectacularly and horrifyingly on October 7th?

And also, again, to, you know, You know, so you say, okay, well, what's our solution to this problem? And then is it so surprising that Israelis would go for what we could call an American solution, which is like in the 19th century, the United States didn't say, okay, great. We stop at the Mississippi and then the native Americans can have everything west of here, right?

The process is continued because there was nothing to stop it. Right. And so the system of, of norms and restraints or whatever that [01:56:00] exists. in 2024 are simply far too weak to stop this process, at least so far.

SECTION D: HISTORICAL CONTEXT

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Up next, Section D, Historical Context. 

Why Palestinian Liberation Threatens the US Imperialist Order, w- Bikrum Gill - BreakThrough News - Air Date 5-21-24

BIKRUM GILL: And I think the examples that you raise particularly around the, the, um, the proxy war in Syria and in Libya and even Ukraine, I think those are very important, um, examples that are part of an interconnected project, uh, to maintain US imperialism.

Right? So I think, again, the first point to emphasize once again, is that the conquest of Palestine, the colonization of Palestine, the subjugation of Palestine, this genocide. Um, these are not things that are simply only about Palestine itself. Of course, we don't want to minimize the Palestinian national question and the question of Palestinian sovereignty.

But the denial of sovereignty to Palestinians, and again, the conquest of Palestine is a part of a broader regional project that is a, that is core to the exercise of U. S. global power. Right. And before that British global power. So what do we mean by that is that we know from British imperialism's embrace of Zionism and [01:57:00] it's.

Working with Zionism, a key objective there is to establish, um, at a very basic level, imperialist control over the hydrocarbon wealth. Now, of course, you can do this through local proxies, the Saudis and other client states, right? But there is a way in which Zionism is understood to be a direct Western implantation in the region, right?

That can allow, uh, for a, a more acute and sharper, uh, form of political and military control and projection of power. in the region. Now that control over oil, um, and the link up it's had with the dollar has been key, like I mentioned, to, to U. S. imperial power and its projection across the world. So that's one point worth emphasizing, right?

That the, the conquest of Palestine is a part of a broader regional dynamic. to deny sovereignty to the peoples of the region in order to control the flow of resources into and out of the region, um, in a way that benefits U. S. capitalist imperialism. So that's one thing. Now the second point though is, in [01:58:00] isolating Palestine from the broader regional dynamics, The point is to weaken Palestinian resistance, and it behooves the left and those in solidarity with Palestine to understand this, right?

If you're in solidarity with Palestine, but you're not attendant to the dynamics that are either strengthening or weakening actually material Palestinian resistance, Then you, what you risk doing is transforming your engagement with Palestine into one in which you, at most, what you can do is beg for the West or the imperialists to recognize Palestine and to save Palestine and to afford Palestine some autonomy, right?

But what are the concrete conditions for Palestine, Palestinian liberation, right? The concrete conditions are to challenge the terms through which Palestinians have been denied sovereignty and people across the rest of the region. Right now, how has this, this occurred is, well, it's been through the overwhelming military power that Zionism has exercised in the region vis a vis with the support first of British imperialism and then U.

S. imperialism, right? So now, to understand the example of [01:59:00] Syria that you emphasize here, um, we know that in the 1980s, of course, that the invasion of Beirut leads to the disarming of the, of the Palestinians, right? It leads to an Oslo road. Which is a part of the apex of U. S. Imperial power at the end of the century, the end of history.

There's no alternative. Get in line. Just play by the rules that the United States has set and the Western world more generally has set. So global South states, they have to beg for loans and credit and accept structural adjustment conditions. And in the Oslo framework, the Palestinians have to lay down their arms and basically depend upon them.

some idea of U. S. beneficence or goodwill to ensure that they will eventually get a state that their land will not be stolen and etc. But we know that doesn't happen through Oslo. Land theft accelerates and there is no road to Palestinian sovereignty because there's no material basis to it because the Palestinians have been Disarmed in the lead up to Oslo, but what else is happening in the region?

Of course, [02:00:00] we know that the Iranian Revolution, the rise of Hezbollah in Lebanon, um, the, uh, eventual emergence of an axis, a corridor between Iran, Syria and, and, uh, and Hezbollah that establishes an actual material force, a material basis with which to challenge us. Zionist and U. S. imperial power in the region, right?

So there's a material basis being built through which now there can be a shift from dependency, right, from a certain kind of begging and hopefulness that imperialism will grant you rights to actually raising up a military power, a force capacity that can become the real basis for sovereignty. What is sovereignty, right?

Exercising sovereign power over your resources, your lands, your labor. In a way that is not dependent on an imperial power. Well, then you need to have a force to be able to stand up to the imperialists and the colonizer. So this is being raised up through this emerging alliance in the [02:01:00] 80s and 90s and 2000s.

And we know, of course, we've discussed this before, but, uh, Hezbollah is very successful in doing so. And in 2006, when they defeat, uh, Israel actually to take a step back, you know, the The successes of Hezbollah in the 1980s and 90s is what inspires the Palestinian Second Intifada, which again then introduces this equation of force through which settlers are expelled from Gaza.

So we're seeing a different road emerging, a real road to real Palestinian sovereignty, which is a part of a road to broader regional sovereignty for peoples across the region more generally. Right. Now, how do the imperialists respond is you have Tony Blair speak of a Shia Crescent in 2006. You have the King of Jordan using the same language, right?

And, and, you know, actually Jordan and Egypt are very good examples here of how you have these two states that maybe at one point represented strategic depth for Palestinian resistance. At one point represented a. a, a, a depth of, of, uh, supporting armed struggle of armed resistance in the [02:02:00] sixties and seventies, uh, earlier, uh, then, then become a actually, uh, um, a support for Zionism and imperialism, right?

So this is what's being attempted to be imposed upon Syria after 2006. Syria becomes clearly a target to disrupt this, uh, a weapons corridor to disrupt the material basis of a rising challenge to imperialism in Zionism that is both inspiring and supporting Palestinian resistance. Right. So, insofar as there is an attempt to de link these struggles, right, to de link, uh, Palestinian liberation struggle from the U.

S. attempt to repress, uh, this axis by conducting a proxy war in Syria, right, this is a very, um, it has certain very risky implications, right, because what it will do is it will again and again return Palestinians to a dependent state. Right. And when you remove Uh, if you smash the Syrian state, you smash the Libyan state.

If you destroy Yemen, if you destroy all of these [02:03:00] regional forces that are actually constructing a power, a real concrete power to challenge imperialism, then you will leave Palestine again isolated and dependent and what, uh, only hoping for the goodwill of Western civil society. Right? So I think that is really, I think one thing that I would emphasize very strongly is that The maintenance of the axis of resistance, the maintenance of resistance forces in the region is really pivotal to actual real Palestinian sovereign reclamation going forward.

But that's not just for Palestine. That's for the whole region, right? Like I think, uh, then for the people of Yemen to exercise real sovereignty, the people of Syria, uh, people of Libya, uh, in Iran and elsewhere, to actually have a sovereign basis. Um, it is a broader regional question as well. 

Palestinian Writer Mohammed El-Kurd on -Perfect Victims- & Israel's Criminalization of Thought - Democracy Now! - Air Date 2-11-25

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: As you go around the country presenting Perfect Victims, you hear about this bookstore being closed — the owners being arrested. Your thoughts? And the [02:04:00] significance of going after the books?

MOHAMMED EL-KURD: I mean, I think this is — the attack on the Educational Bookstore in Jerusalem is yet another saga in the Israeli regime’s scholasticide, the attack on culture, scholars. You know, we’ve seen them literally bomb every single university in the Gaza Strip. And the Educational Bookstore is, in fact, not the first bookstore in Jerusalem to be closed down, its owners arrested.

So there is, you know, a criminalization of thought, a criminalization of the intellect, really. And we’ve seen this extend even to the realms of social media, where so many thousands of the people who have been arrested in the past 15 months have been arrested over Facebook posts. So, the Israeli regime really is waging a war of consciousness against the Palestinians’ ability to express national sentiments. And we see this also here in the United States with President Trump saying things like people who — students who support the resistance will have their visas [02:05:00] revoked. So there is an attack on, you know, the intellect itself.

JUAN GONZALEZ - CO-HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And, Mohammed El-Kurd, you ask why Palestinians have to preface their support for the struggle against the occupation with some kind of statement distancing themselves from resistance actions like the attacks of October 7th of 2023. Why is this problematic, while supporters of Israel are never expected to decry the everyday violence of the occupation?

MOHAMMED EL-KURD: Because it’s racist. Because there is an impossible standard. There is an impossible demand made of the Palestinians to be, you know, for lack of a better expression, perfect victims, to portray themselves with this ethnocentric civility that adheres to Western guidelines; otherwise, they would be deserving of death, they would be deserving of being bombed. And to reject this is to say that the Declaration of Human Rights is [02:06:00] unconditional, and it’s universal. And to reject this is to say that, you know, we believe in dignity. We don’t believe in having to shrink ourselves or to perform a different script in order to be awarded freedom and dignity. These are things we are entitled to.

JUAN GONZALEZ - CO-HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And I wanted to ask you about the slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” This became a flashpoint, is still a flashpoint, in the United States for attacking pro-Palestinian groups for being antisemitic or anti-Israel. Yet many in the Israeli government, in the current Israeli government, actually support “from the river to the sea” as an Israeli state, and no one raises a fuss about it.

MOHAMMED EL-KURD: Yeah, of course, because the issue is not the statement itself. The issue is who says it. The Israelis could say “from the [02:07:00] river to the sea” and more. They could say all kinds of explicitly genocidal statements. And yet, with us, they have to read between the lines. They have to infer and look for the hidden insidiousness in such chants. But it’s comical, in my opinion, that we are being often interrogated about our chants, about what we say on social media; meanwhile, when we talk about them, we’re talking about bombs and airstrikes and burning people alive in their tents in hospital beds.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Mohammed, before we talk about your title, Perfect Victims, I just want to ask about your background, because we repeatedly interviewed you here and when you were in Sheikh Jarrah. And for people to understand that neighborhood and what happened there and the people involved being the leaders of Israel today, talk about the occupation of Sheikh Jarrah and what happened in your own home.

MOHAMMED EL-KURD: Yeah, I mean, the story of our home is as unique and [02:08:00] absurd as it is common. This is a neighborhood where tax-exempt charities registered in the United States, settler organizations, Jewish American organizations, will come and claim our homes by divine decree, and they will exploit an already asymmetrical judiciary that is built by settlers for settlers to say these are — “Your homes are ours, and we have the right to kick you out of them.” And so, I, like many, many Palestinians, grew up with, quite literally, an American settler in my house. And it’s — 

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Wait a second. Now, you’re 25 right now.

 Twenty-six, yeah.

 Twenty-six.

 Yeah.

 When was your home — were you forced to share it with someone who wasn’t in your family?

MOHAMMED EL-KURD: It was about 2009. 2009, I came home from school, and half of our house was going. There was a settler inside it, a settler from Long Island. And, you know, right across the street from us, our neighbors, the Ghawi family and the Hannoun family, had lost the entirety of their home to settler organizations. And [02:09:00] across the years, these settler organizations have gotten more and more funding. And like you said, their accomplices and people who work for them and people who lead these organizations have found their way increasingly to the government. But this is indicative of a larger, larger —

 They set up offices in 

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Sheikh Jarrah.

MOHAMMED EL-KURD: Yeah, they set up offices in Sheikh Jarrah. They kind of use our homes as the home bases to build their electability, their popularity, because the Israeli public is really eager to see this kind of desperation, to see this kind of brutality. And it invokes a sense of safety in the Israeli public to see their politicians literally in the backyards of Palestinians saying, “We will take these homes. We will Judaize them. We will colonize them.”

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And your home today?

MOHAMMED EL-KURD: Well, my home today, like eight others, we have managed, through a massive, massive global solidarity campaign, to postpone the expulsion orders. But we still hang in the balance. We don’t know what’s going to happen in the next few years.

 How does that fit into [02:10:00] your title, Perfect 

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Victims?

MOHAMMED EL-KURD: Well, I mean, to do a global campaign and to demand solidarity for our neighborhood, you know, we were told and we were taught to perform this role of perfect — to read the script of the perfect victim.

So, to tell you more, you know, I grew up — as a child, as a 10-year-old, 11-year-old, we would have journalists, diplomats, all kinds of people visit our neighborhood as if it’s some kind of zoo. And I remember, constantly, I would talk to them. I would show them, you know, photos of the brutality that the settlers did against us. And I would be pulled to the side by, you know, other concerned diplomats or journalists, and they would tell me, “You shouldn’t use this phrase. You should use that phrase.” And it got to a point that, even as a child, I would correct my grandmother when she would refer to the Jewish American settlers in our home as “Jewish.” I would say, “No, no. Don’t mention that.”

But this kind of obfuscation, this kind of omission was kind of [02:11:00] drilled into us. And then you grow up, and you have internalized this entire framework of editorializing yourself, of curating yourself in a way that is nonoffensive to the Western gaze. And then you begin to curate and editorialize all the people around you. You look at people who have suffered pager attacks in South Lebanon, people who have had their homes demolished in the Gaza Strip, and you think, “What is the way I can make this victim, this young victim, nonoffensive or compelling to a Western racist audience?” At some point, you have to liberate yourself from these shackles and say, “Actually, this is the victim. This is the oppressed, not the oppressor, not the perpetrator.” And we should shift our focus and scrutinize the perpetrators, the oppressors, the colonizers, the focal point and the root cause of all of the violence in Palestine, which is ultimately Zionism.

JUAN GONZALEZ - CO-HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Mohammed, I wanted to ask you how Donald Trump’s recent comments on [02:12:00] Gaza tie into what’s at the heart of your book. He’s described Gaza as, quote, “a big real estate site” and basically said that he doesn’t believe Palestinians should be able to return once they’ve been removed.

MOHAMMED EL-KURD: I mean, ultimately, this so-called conflict has always been about the land, and any obfuscation of that fact is simply dishonest. Zionist greed has always been about Palestinian land. American interest in Palestine has been about keeping up a certain status quo, a military status quo, in the Middle East, but it’s also been about exploiting natural resources. I mean, Gaza is rich in natural gases.

But what I think Donald Trump is doing is that he is dropping the script of the State Department, the official American script, and just saying things as they are without a filter. And that is helping [02:13:00] people understand the long-term American project, because as disgusting and as abhorrent as Trump’s comments were about creating property on the Gaza Strip, it would have never been possible had it been not for the Democratic Party and President Biden flattening Gaza and allowing the flattening of Gaza in the first place.

On The Ground in Gaza Serving the People in Palestine Part 2 - Rev Left Radio - Air Date 2-11-25

BREHT O'SHEA - HOST, REV LEFT RADIO: Yes. And, and the, you know, you, you mentioned that the, there has been a history of You know, Muslims and Jewish people and Christians, in some instances throughout history, history in that area of the world, living in peace as, as more or less equals. And that's the thing that Zionism rejects. The very possibility that Jewish and non Jewish people in that area could live as, uh, you know, under a single government of equality, constitutional protections for all, and be seen as equal with one another.

So once you have a political ideology that says, I'm fundamentally, uh, hostile to the idea that I have to live as equals with these people. You're, [02:14:00] you're getting into fascism territory. Because that requires you to expel them, to denigrate them, to dehumanize them, and to teach children coming up in Israel.

You know, Israel always says, like, Hamas is teaching Um, you know, Palestinians to hate, hate Jewish people. But aren't, what are you doing when you inculcate Zionism? And actually what you do is this abusive weaponization of fear. Where you're saying, look what the Jewish people have been through. That's true.

These people want to do it again. The whole world hates you. Live in a state of perpetual fear and hatred of others. Because if you don't, then you will be preyed upon once again. So that's, when you tell that to an 8, year old kid. That's a form of sort of psychological abuse. Because it makes them feel. in a fundamentally hostile world where they grow up to feel like they have to do these sort of disgusting acts, because if they don't, then they're going to be set upon by the world and destroyed.

And, um, it just, it just ravages children in Gaza through the bombings and the malnutrition and the suffering. And even in, in, in so called Israel, where the [02:15:00] children are raised with this hate and this fear. That is imposed on them. It's all disgusting. It's all a crime against humanity. 

WILLY MASSAY: Yeah, you've seen the videos of the Israeli settlers going into the hills of, uh, overlooking Gaza.

And watching, they call it fireworks. With their children. This is a birthday celebration. Watching Gaza being wiped out, being carpeted, you know, carpet bombed. That's why they call it fireworks. These sellers, for my, for, for, for us here in America. Think about that. Let that sink in. Taking your children, watching other children being bombed and being shredded by the bombs we paid for.

Think about it. 

BREHT O'SHEA - HOST, REV LEFT RADIO: Yeah. And when I, when I do think about that. Um, there's a [02:16:00] parallel in American history, um, where that occurred, which is in the Jim Crow South, and actually throughout the country, the lynching of, of black people became a community event, where white people would come out, bring their children, and they would stand around and watch a black person be lynched.

Here in Omaha, um, in the 1800s, Will, Will Brown, falsely accused of sexually assaulting, um, a white woman. was jailed, you know, in the downtown here in Omaha, was set upon by a white racist mob. They literally broke into the fucking jail, pulled him out, strung him up by lampposts, shot him over and over again, burned his body, dragged it through the street.

Um, the mayor that came down to try to stop it was also, he survived, but was strung up on the light pole. Um, it was a brutal chapter in this place that I live right now, Omaha, Nebraska, born and raised, not even the quote unquote South, where this horrific event happened. The National Guard had to be sent in just to stop the race riot.

Um, and so there is that parallel [02:17:00] in human history and it's the absolute fucking worst of humanity. Yeah. That, that aspect of, of humanity. It's grotesque and it is the evil aspect of, of our human nature. 

WILLY MASSAY: Ain't a fool. As the American people, we have similar history to what is happening in, in Palestine today.

Different roads, checkpoints after checkpoints, settler colonialism, taking Palestinian lands by force. Gaza. We learned from history, my friends out there, we learned, we know what we did to the black folks in America. We cannot watch the same thing happen to the people in Palestine. Let me tell you something.

I saw, I saw this, I saw children shredded by our bombs. How Can we allow that to happen knowing our own [02:18:00] history, if you speak who will, why will we watch a father lose his entire family by our, by, by our bombs and, uh, uh, you know, uh, from Israeli military forces and why will a mother be a, be, be a widow because her entire child, her entire family has been wiped out.

Why will these children today live in a world where they have lost both of their parents, annihilated by our bombs? And if we look back as American people, we know what we did from the example, Brett gave lynching. Um, you know, the total massacre of people here, slavery, we should be the beacon of hope, beacon of freedom and stop any, because we are, we have come a long way.

We're not a [02:19:00] perfect union yet. We have still have some of those elements of racism, fascism, all that. But We have come a long way. Those who don't remember history are condemned to repeat it. Absolutely. That's George Santana. Yeah. 

BREHT O'SHEA - HOST, REV LEFT RADIO: So, absolutely. Absolutely, I don't think you can understand the present and you can't even understand yourself if you don't understand history.

Um, and I, I believe that the Americans that are apathetic, that look away, that, that remain silent, you dehumanize yourself. It's too easy. I mean, it's easy if you're an American right now to just be like, Hey, it's out of my control. What can I do about it? I'm just going to look away, um, and focus on my personal life.

When you do that, you disconnect yourself from your own humanity. And you, you, you belittle yourself, spiritually, existentially. You know, in all the ways that matter, you become a smaller person, and it hurts to see, it hurts to look, and to know that in some sense, because we're a part of this death machine, [02:20:00] by paying taxes and working and all that stuff, that we are in some sense complicit, and what that should bring about is not a sense of passive shame, but a profound sense of responsibility, that if I'm going to, if they're doing this in my name, if I'm paying for those bombs, If my government is doing this, you know, with my tax dollars and in my name, I have a responsibility to look, to be educated, to do whatever I can to contribute to it stopping, to speak out bravely and courageously, and to inform others about it.

And that's, that's a, that's a responsibility no matter if you have a platform or not, if you, you know, you live in a small town or a big city where whatever your life circumstances are, you can take that responsibility up or you can look away from it. And that, there's two different types of people, the people that pick up that responsibility and the people that turn away.

And I understand, to some extent, I'm, I'm, I have compassion for wanting to look away. Because it fucking hurts. It, it brutalizes you to look into the, the eyes of suffering human beings. And, you know, there's a human recoiling away because of that pain. But I think opening up your [02:21:00] heart, facing that pain courageously, and then taking on the responsibility that comes with it, is the only thing that, like, a spiritually mature human being can do.

 

SECTION E: RESISTANCE

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally, section E, resistance.

The World After Gaza-- Pankaj Mishra on Decolonization & the Return of -Rapacious Imperialism- - Democracy Now! - Air Date 2-13-25

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Well, you know, I think the primary impulse behind the book was really to put an end to this horrible loneliness that I felt, along with many other people, a kind of desolation induced by the fact that, you know, powerful people, powerful politicians in democracies, journalists, intellectuals were either silent about the ongoing genocide in Gaza or, even worse, vehemently supporting it. So, I think, you know, it forced many of us to reexamining not just sort of narratives of Middle Eastern history or Israeli history or Palestinian history, but a kind of broader [02:22:00] history of Western supremacism, of decolonization.

You know, we also saw a massive global divide open up in the responses to the atrocities in Gaza, with South Africa, country like South Africa, taking the lead in bringing a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. And, of course, we can now see South Africa is being severely punished by Trump and Musk for daring to do this. We saw public opinion in most of the world really shocked and appalled by the disproportionate Israeli response, and at the same time, you know, that public opinion asking questions of Western democracies, like “What happened here? Why are you supporting this endless massacre of thousands and thousands of people?” So, you know, in a very sort of — I think I would say that I find myself in a situation of a lot of people who were completely bewildered [02:23:00] by the Israeli response to October 7. And, you know, at least I have this option of turning my anguish or turning my bewilderment into some way of — some way of trying to understand this through writing, through prose. But, you know, it remains — it remains a baffling, a baffling episode, and, of course, we’re now entering the most intense part of it.

You know, you just described, whether it’s Ukraine — I’ve just been listening to this program now for 45 minutes, and this, you know, vast panorama of violence, disorder and suffering that we’re seeing today. And I think it’s really important not just to think about the past or the history, the larger history, of what is happening in Gaza today, but also about the present. And that is also something I describe in the book, whether Gaza signifies something more than just the latest [02:24:00] episode in a long-standing conflict in the Middle East. Does it portend the arrival of far-right, racial supremacist regimes across the Western world? So, I would argue — and I have said this in the book — that we are looking at a far more extensive moral, political and, I would say, intellectual breakdown than we have known, certainly in our own lifetimes.

 And that, perhaps, Pankaj, explains the title of your book, The World After Gaza, which suggests that there’s, in your view, some kind of rupture, that the world is somehow substantively different, it will be different, after this assault on Gaza ends, in the event that it does and what form it takes. So, if you could say something about that, and then also the point that you made earlier about decolonization? It’s a theme that runs throughout the book, in which [02:25:00] you say, correctly, I think, that the seminal event of the 20th century for the vast majority of the peoples of the world was decolonization. Why is that significant when we look at what’s happened in Gaza and the response to it?

 Well, I think, very simply, decolonization was not just a political event. It was not just, you know, a whole lot of nation-states in Asia and Africa becoming sovereign, becoming liberated from their European masters. It was also a profound emotional and psychological moment of liberation. I think, you know, from the 19th century onwards, the world was knit together by a very explicitly racial mode of imperialism and capitalism. And I think, you know, some of the best people in Asia and Africa fought against this global regime, and finally won, starting the mid-20th century, and created these [02:26:00] nation-states that exist all across Asia and Africa and are becoming both politically, economically and geopolitically more assertive. And there’s also a mental revolution also going on, has been going on for several decades.

So, I think, for many people in the West, who have been absorbed with a very different narrative — first of all, the narrative of the Cold War, the narrative of the end of history, the narrative of American unipolar dominance — decolonization still comes as a kind of news, or they confuse it with people asking for decolonizing knowledge in the United States or decolonizing educational syllabuses. So, I think there’s a very broad confusion about this world.

But what it really signifies is greater political, intellectual assertiveness [02:27:00] and a very fierce desire to not live in a world where racial privilege, most specifically white privilege, orders and forces a global hierarchy. You know, you can see this very clearly in sort of South African president a few days ago making a speech and saying, “We will not be bullied.” You know, Trump is imposing very severe sort of measures against the country, and there they are standing and saying, “We’re going to push back.” And likewise, I think you will find that kind of resistance in different parts of the world. And, of course, you know, what happened in Gaza shocked, appalled people from Indonesia to Brazil. That is also something, you know, that can really only be explained, this global divide, if you think about decolonization creating a new subjectivity, a new mentality, a new way of looking at the world.

 And, Pankaj, maybe President Trump [02:28:00] understands this very well, as he repeated his claim that the U.S. is preparing to take control of Gaza, own it, while permanently displacing the territory’s entire population of 2 million Palestinians. I want to just play that short clip of him sitting next to Jordan’s King Abdullah for talks on Gaza at the White House on Tuesday.

 We’re going to have Gaza. We don’t have to buy. There’s nothing to buy. We will have Gaza.

 What does that mean?

 There’s no reason to buy. There is nothing to buy. It’s Gaza. It’s a war-torn area. We’re going to take it.

 So, there you have President Trump saying not just we’re going to buy it, we’re going to own it — we’re going to have it — again, trying to push back on this whole trend, this whole move in the 20th century, of decolonization.

 Well, you know, this is the strangest thing, really, you know, that the United [02:29:00] States is going back — and that is part of the great American unraveling — it’s going back to a 19th-century model of rapacious imperialism that’s interested in territory, that is grabbing resources wherever they can find it. And this Ukraine deal you were just talking about, that is now so much about resources that Trump has eyed in Ukraine.

So, I think, you know, this is something that people have been talking about for a very long time, that the structures and mentalities of racial imperialism in the 19th century are very much alive. People like that were dismissed as woke, as politically correct. But we are now seeing a kind of real-time, live verification of those insights into the nature of the modern world. And, you know, what Trump is saying today is bringing a very refreshing kind of clarity. We can see how this wealth, how this great power [02:30:00] was slowly accumulated, and how people, fearing the loss of that power because China is rising, China is becoming dominant, are — you have the most powerful people in the world resorting to the most naked form of expansion, the most naked forms of appropriation.

Why Palestinian Liberation Threatens the US Imperialist Order, w- Bikrum Gill Part 2 - BreakThrough News - Air Date 5-21-24

RANIA KHALEK - HOST, BREAKTHROUGH NEWS: But there was this one Israeli American woman. Called Emily. Um, and she, you might remember that she made this claim and she made it repeatedly. Uh, seriously, sitting through this was like, it was like a form of torture. To have to just listen to these people's insane talking points.

But she kept saying that Iran is a colonizer. She was trying to use the words colonizer and imperialist. She tried to say that I don't know what they mean and she does. And that it's actually Iran that's colonizing Lebanon, and it's an imperialist power in the region. And I mean, she sounded insane, but there are people who, who believe this because it's said so often about Iran.

Like Iran is like a, or there's this term like sub imperialism, um, that some sort of like a [02:31:00] certain strain of, of people in the left sphere. We'll use when referring to a country like Iran, but you know, Israel supporters do like to like project, you know, Israel's colonialism and imperialism onto Iran and say, it's Iran that's imperialist.

It's Iran that's colonizing Lebanon. But you know, I want to emphasize Bikram and you know, this as an academic, that these words have actual meanings, like imperialism and colonialism have a def, they both have a definition. So can you explain to our viewers why Iran does not qualify? As an imperialist, let alone colonial power.

BIKRUM GILL: Yeah, absolutely. I think the, you know, the, to understand say colonialism and imperialism, right? It's very clearly these are, these are two, um, and just, I think maybe for your, your viewers and listeners, um, I recently gave a lecture at Middle East critique where I think I go into this in a lot more detail.

Like it's a very long kind of lecture where if, if people want some more longer definitions, but very briefly, you know, like [02:32:00] colonialism and imperialism is. is a is a set of relationships through which either colonizing power or an imperial power is going to um organize and dominate the colonized society the subjugated society in a way that denies sovereignty to those people in order to transfer resources and surplus value from Uh, the colonized, imperially subjugated zone into the colonizer country or into the imperial core.

Right? So that's, I think, very key. It's not enough to say that if one country has a relationship with another through which they are maybe engaged in some forms of relations of power or they're engaged in some forms of military collaboration or cooperation or engaged. In a conflict in a neighboring country that that automatically qualifies as colonialism and imperialism.

That is a very simplistic rendering, right? I think one thing that I often emphasize is like, look to see, does the relationship between these two countries, does it generate relations of development and underdevelopment? Does it generate [02:33:00] relations? through which, say, Iran's presence somewhere is actively underdeveloping that country, is actively de developing and destroying the productive basis of that country in order to transfer wealth from that country to Iran.

Where can you find that? You can't find that anywhere, right? So I think that, that definition of surplus value transfer. Uh, a militarized or economic basis to a denial of sovereignty that is done to transfer wealth from periphery to core, from colonized to colonizer. We can't see that with the case of Iran and what I will further emphasize.

Is that the Iranian Revolution in 1979 is itself a response to the colonization of Iran, to the imperial subjugation of Iran, the neocolonial subjugation of Iran. Iran was the case par excellence in the 20th century, uh, of neocolonial subjugation. And, you know, the relations we were talking about. over U.

S. imperialism being premised upon domination over the flow of oil into and out of the region. You know, the coup that happens in Iran in 1953 is a very key part of that project. And [02:34:00] the Iranian revolution in 1979, why does it become so threatening to U. S. imperialism is because, in my view, it is actually a direct challenge to that 1974 coup.

U. S. Saudi relationship. Because the Iranian revolution does not seem, it stands with Palestinians from its inception. It's never abandoned the Palestinian cause. It's been given opportunities to abandon it. If the Iranians abandoned Palestine, you can, you can bet in one day they would be integrated into the region, right?

That all of this discourse around rights and democracy and all this stuff, this is not anything that has ever been a concern. We know this to the West. So if they would have abandoned Palestine and accepted U. S. Germany. You know, Iran could be integrated into the region by the U. S. In a day, those opportunities have been there.

But from the Iranian revolution that you can see the Iranian revolution and shout out to my haters. You know, there's a lot of Zionist who is like, Oh, my gosh, he he said the Iranian revolution. is premised upon expelling the U. S. from the region. Like, wow, that's a big, controversial claim to make. But just to restate this point 

RANIA KHALEK - HOST, BREAKTHROUGH NEWS: I mean, I think the Iranian Revolution 

BIKRUM GILL: [02:35:00] says as much, too.

Exactly. Even, like, even Stephen Walter, like, these 

RANIA KHALEK - HOST, BREAKTHROUGH NEWS: boring

BIKRUM GILL: academics. 

RANIA KHALEK - HOST, BREAKTHROUGH NEWS: Yeah, I mean,

BIKRUM GILL: all these boring academics have made this point, right? But so the Iranian Revolution has excelled. It centers on a rejection and opposition to Zionism, but also the expulsion of U. S. imperialism from the region, understanding that there's no sovereignty to be had fully for Iranians or any people in the region while they are there.

So if you look at the history of Iran since 1979, whether one wants to be critical or supportive of any actions, what is very clear is The iranian position is often informed in the immediate sense by its direct security imperatives And its border regions right like that and that's something you can apply also to china and russia, right?

You can see the way in which those states operate on a very different logic through which they're not going to dominate and deny sovereignty in order to transfer surplus wealth from a periphery to a court. They're largely informed by, uh, security imperatives that are security imperatives in [02:36:00] response to the actual imperialist power in these regions, which is the United States, right?

So how does Iran operate in Iraq? Well, the Iranian presence in Iraq is going to be of a such to ensure that the United States can't go through Iraq and get to the doorstep of Iran, because we know that the next step is always regime change in Iran. Now, that's a very different logic than calling it an imperial or colonizing power, number one.

But number two, uh, Iran has been a very vital force to, um, different resistance forces in the region. Now that, that again, that's something that is a fact of the matter, right? Like you cannot understand. I think Amal Saad's work is very important in saying that Hezbollah is not a proxy of Iran. It's not a pawn of Iran.

These are allies in an axis. Iran has been a core part of that axis, right? Like it has been a core part of just as Iran learned from North Korea, uh, how to develop an endogenous weapons production capacity. They have also helped to diffuse that knowledge [02:37:00] across the region. So when you understand Yemen or his, uh, answer Allah or his bullet, how they Stood up as such sovereign forces that have endogenous force capacity.

You know, Iran is a key part of that question, right? So it has been key to the challenge to US imperialism in the region. It's certainly not operating according to the logics of imperialism and colonialism, uh, by any means. I think that's, that's important, uh, to emphasize, which doesn't again. That doesn't mean that any state doesn't have, uh, degrees of social discontent that people can analyze.

None of that does away with that, but it's to be very clear as to what is and is not happening and also to be clear of why Iran is targeted, right? Iran is targeted for the specific reason of how it challenges. U. S. imperialism in the region, 

RANIA KHALEK - HOST, BREAKTHROUGH NEWS: right? And then to speak to, you know, other, um, arms of the resistance axis.

I wanted to ask you to comment on the fact that we have groups like, like Hezbollah and Hamas, which are [02:38:00] Islamist groups. Um, Iran itself is a religion, religious country. It's, it has an, it has an Islamic, it's called like it's had this Islamic revolution. Um, So obviously there's a religious flavor to these, uh, movements and in the case of Iran, this country, can you explain why, despite all, all of that religious character, these are in fact, anti imperialist forces and that that's to say, you know, I'm not sitting here saying that they're like necessarily leftist forces.

I'm not, I'm not calling them leftist forces. They certainly have like socially conservative views and they're not necessarily all exactly the same. Like there's a lot of. Internal ideals that Hezbollah or Hamas might espouse that I would disagree with because I myself am not a religious person. Um, that said, these are still anti imperialist forces because again, imperialism has a definition.

So can you explain the meaning behind that? Why are they anti imperialist forces? 

BIKRUM GILL: So I think to be, uh, they, they are definitely anti-imperialist forces to be [02:39:00] anti-imperialist. And I think, um, you know, you can go to, uh, ed has Nala. I think I, I caught a speech that he gave, uh, this is long back. I don't know, I just caught it in passing.

But it definitely exists 'cause I, I, I, um, and I often find Nala to be one of the sharpest geopolitical analysts of our times, actually. Like, uh, you know, when the 2006 war happens. And there's this moment of revelation, maybe it had occurred to the Hezbollah leadership before, that is actually U. S.

imperialism. That is the primary contradiction and oppressive force, right? That, uh, that, that, the head of 

RANIA KHALEK - HOST, BREAKTHROUGH NEWS: the snake, the head of the snake,

BIKRUM GILL: right? Yeah. So that became definitely the, the, the, the, the line and a clear, sharp, uh, understanding. So what does it mean to be anti imperialist, right? What it means to be anti imperialist is to challenge the basis of imperialism.

The challenge, the basis through which imperialism denies sovereignty To a people, uh, whether, uh, in a national context or in a regional context, right? So, very clearly, both Hezbollah and Hamas have constructed [02:40:00] a force capacity through which to do that, right? Now, that's why they are categorized as terrorist organizations.

by the United States. The United States is not going to, uh, uh, categorize any organization that's not challenging U. S. imperialism. That's actually the qualifying condition, right? Like if you're challenging the basis of U. S. imperialist power, you will be categorized as a terrorist organization. 

 

Arab leaders to meet in Cairo on Gaza as ex-Jordanian FM urges dialogue for a political solution

ANCHOR, AL JAZEERA: To Amman now in Jordan to Jawad Anani. He's the former foreign minister of Jordan. Welcome, sir, to Al Jazeera. Good to have you with us. Um, it is indeed critical, isn't it, that both Egypt and Jordan, uh, step up and present this plan along with other Arab nations. Well, 

JAWAD ANANI: it was actually indicated by Mr Trump himself that, uh, He was waiting for alternatives after, uh, the initial, uh, rebuff of the, of the plan which he had presented, uh, at the press conference on the [02:41:00] plane.

Um, so in a way, after meeting with his majesty in Washington, D. C. last week, so in a way, I think that. Mr. Trump himself is looking for alternatives, but the way it was originally put, there was no way on here. There was no way at all for either King Hussein or President Sisi to accept that proposal with the United States actually owns not Not only controls.

He didn't say control. He said we'll own it. And, uh, then we will, you know, put people there who will help, uh, uh, make it a Riviera, uh, you know, all the, all the language sounded so flashy. So, so enticing. It was too good to be true. And the proposal that, uh, both Egypt and, uh, uh, Jordan would undertake to host the refugees or the people of Gaza [02:42:00] 1.

5 million, the original figure was, uh, was too much for them to take, given the fact that they have been hosting refugees and beyond their capacity, and they are still overburdened with the fact that Yeah, with this fact. 

ANCHOR, AL JAZEERA: So we've just been hearing that the proposal is to form a national Palestinian committee to govern Gaza, and that would be without Hamas involvement.

What levers do you think that, uh, both Jordan and Egypt and others can bring to bear on Hamas to accept the plan? 

JAWAD ANANI: It's not going to be easy because, uh, Hamas, uh, right now, Judging from their, the behavior of the movement and the delivery of, uh, of all hostages dead or alive, uh, they have shown that they want to express the fact that they still exist.

They have the muscle, they have the [02:43:00] weapons, they have the power to threaten others if they are, if things don't go their way. Uh, however, the fact that, uh, you know, probably the best dialogue is to tell Hamas that you, whatever you have done. Uh, it was a reaction to what the Israelis have been doing in besieging the people of Gaza and not allowing them to have a decent living.

And so now your turn is over, you have done all that you can, and now it's about time to really think into, uh, think in political terms. Uh, as long as The Israelis make it a point that Hamas should be disarmed and should be depoliticized. Uh, then the question comes, then, are we dealing with the spoilers of peace?

If that is the case, then also we expect Israel to change its leadership because there is no way in heck that [02:44:00] Arab leaders can find a way. to convince the current government and, and it's very loose, uh, structure, uh, to, to accept any, uh, process that would eventually lead to the resolution of the, uh, Arab Palestinian dispute over, over the occupied territories.

Okay. And also creating a political reform, political solution, which would accommodate, uh, Palestinians in a way that would guarantee Israel's security as well. 

Netanyahu's Gaza Disaster- The SHOCKING Truth Behind Israel's Defeat - Double Down News - Air Date 1-29-25

DAVID HEARST: Well, Israel has achieved none of the objectives it set itself 15 months ago. It set itself the objective of collapsing Hamas. Hamas is still very, very much a fighting force and it's in control of Gaza. The sight of Hamas in pristine Toyota Jeeps and new uniforms delivering the three hostages in the middle of Gaza City shocked.[02:45:00] 

the Israeli public who'd been fed a diet of news saying that Hamas had been collapsed. Here they were, back again, emerging like ghosts from the rubble, being cheered by the crowds, in control, after 15 months of total war. And they said to themselves, What the hell's been going on? Why have over 400 of our soldiers died for so called total victory over Hamas?

Well, we can see before our eyes that the Hamas fighters have got pristine new uniforms and are in total control of Gaza. In fact, Hamas was recruiting at a faster rate than Israel could kill its fighters, acknowledged by Israel's own generals. It set itself the task of returning all of That's the two hundred and fifty some hostages that Hamas captured.

And most of the hostages that did die, died at the hands of Israel's own bombs. The only way of getting these hostages out alive would be a [02:46:00] deal with Hamas. So on all of those objectives, Israel has failed. And let's be absolutely clear about this. The main obstacle to an agreement with the ceasefire was not Hamas.

It was not the Qataris or the Egyptians, uh, it was not the Americans, not even, uh, the Israeli High Command. The terms of the agreement are very much what Netanyahu could have agreed to months, months earlier. Why didn't he do that? Well, because I think he wanted to keep his extremist ministers, Smotrich and Ben Gavir, in the cabinet.

And also because the Israeli public believed in his propaganda, that the best way of getting the hostages back alive was to pound Hamas. Of course, the exact opposite is the truth. It's much easier to say what Israel has lost in the 15 month war. And apart from national unity and national cohesion, I mean, if you think about it, this is the first time in Israel's history that there have been virulent and active [02:47:00] demonstrations against the war while a war was itself in operation.

So there's all that. going on inside Israel. But outside Israel, Israel has lost decades of diplomacy, of pressure, and of lobbying in Washington to paint itself as the good guy in the Middle East, surrounded by irrational Arab alien forces. It itself has lost A generation of American Jews, 40 percent of American teenagers support Hamas, 66 percent of American Jewish teenagers believe in the Palestinian cause.

They are seeing this conflict through the prism of the last 15 months in Gaza. Now, this point was made by Biden's departing ambassador, Jack Liu, who has not uttered a word of criticism to what was going on in Gaza throughout his very troubled tenure as ambassador. But his parting shot to Israel was you've lost a generation of American supporters and these are the future leaders of the country.

That is a very significant loss. You've also [02:48:00] got Israel in the dock of world opinion now. Trump will just ignore the ICC or try and collapse that as well, but it's still in the dock for genocide and it's still in the dock for war crimes and there are warrants out for the arrest of Netanyahu and Yoav Galant and there are a myriad of court actions taking place in courts around the world which are tied and allied to that.

There's a court action against BP for supplying the oil that the Israeli military use. And there are many, many other cases. In fact, the Israeli army got so worried by the idea that their citizens could be arrested on holiday that they've now taken a great deal of action to disguise the identity of the officers who took part and who bragged about the killing field in Gaza on social media.

I mean, there are Basically two different wars that are being fought. Israel is fighting a western kinetic war aimed at eradicating the [02:49:00] leadership of a militant group that is fighting them in the hope that once that leadership goes then the fighters lose all discipline and all control and they give up.

And also in maximizing collateral damage, in terrorizing the population as a whole to make sure that they pay the maximum price for supporting Hamas or for allowing Hamas to continue. The other war that is being fought is a much, much longer term war, which has become a battle of wills. It's not the Palestinian fighters think that they can win any engagement against a vastly superior military force.

But what they can do is wear their enemy down. And by keeping on fighting one generation after another, that eventually Israel will be forced to negotiate with the Palestinians as equal citizens. on equal terms. [02:50:00] And this historically is the story of the liberation of Algeria. It's the story of Vietnam.

It took six more years for the Americans to withdraw after the Tet Offensive, which like The Hamas attack on October the 7th was deemed at the time to be a military failure, but which started a ball rolling that kept on rolling until America had enough and pulled out. America wasn't defeated militarily in Vietnam, it lost the will to fight it.

The French forces lost the will to stay in Algeria, even though at one point it regarded Algeria as an intrinsic part of France. So in the long run, the historical signs do not look good for Israel. In the short term, they can win every single confrontation with maximum damage, but Gaza showed that the people can resist that and still survive and still be able to reconstruct from the ruins.

Gaza looks [02:51:00] like Hiroshima because in a sense it is. Actually it's two Hiroshima's within the first month. Israel has dropped more bombs on Gaza than America did on Iraq in seven years of war. And more bombs than the allies dropped in the firestorms in Germany in the whole of the second war. That's the amount of firepower that was used against an enclave which was entirely cut off from the rest of the world and being starved.

And still. It didn't break Gaza's will, despite everything that was thrown at Gaza in 15 months. The bombs, the starvation, disease, everything that they endured. Total destruction over 80 percent of their housing. We've never seen figures like this, and we're still only coming to terms with it. with the contours of the scale of the destruction because we haven't toured Gaza from north to south.

That's still only just happening as we speak. As the [02:52:00] decayed bodies are being lifted from the rubble, the death toll will rise and rise and rise. The Lancet says there are three times as many dead bodies as have been claimed by the Palestinian Health Authority, which the mainstream media dismissed as Hamas run.

In fact, it was undercounting the death toll, not as Israel and the Western media would have it, overcounting it, undercounting it by a third. Gaza has shown that the human spirit will prevail and that despite everything that was chucked on it, it will not surrender, it will not wave a white flag, and it will march towards its right for a homeland, for equal rights.

and for self determination and sovereignty. Everything that Israel demands in its place is deserved by the Palestinians. And after the destruction of Gaza, no one, but no one in the world can argue that the [02:53:00] Palestinians don't deserve their own state. 

Credits

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: That's going to be it for today. As always, keep the comments coming in. I would love to hear your thoughts or questions about today's topic or our upcoming topics, which includes the future of American health under the leadership of our conspiracy theorist-in-chief, RFK Jr. And following that, we will examine the widespread and predictable corruption endemic in the Trump administration. You can leave us a voicemail or send us a text at 202-999-3991. You can now reach us on the privacy-focused messaging app Signal at the username bestoftheleft.01. There's also a link in the show notes for that. Or you can simply email me to [email protected]. 

The additional sections of the show included clips from Diane Rehm On My Mind; Al Jazeera News; Today, Explained; What Next?, Focus on Africa; Pod Save the World; The Intercept Briefing; On the Nose; American Prestige; Breakthrough News; Democracy Now!; Rev Left Radio; and Double Down [02:54:00] News. Further details are in the show notes. 

Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Dion Clark and Erin Clayton for their research work for the show and participation in our bonus episodes. Thanks to our transcriptionist trio, Ken, Brian, and Ben for their volunteer work helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work behind the scenes and her bonus show co-hosting. And thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships. You can join them by signing up today at BestOfTheLeft.Com/Support, through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple Podcast app. Membership is how you get instant access to our incredibly good and often funny weekly bonus episodes, in addition to there being no ads, and chapter markers in all of our regular episodes, all through your regular podcast player. You'll find that link in the show notes, along with a link to join our Discord community, where you can also continue the discussion. And don't forget to follow us on any new social media platforms you might be joining these days.

So coming to you from far outside the conventional wisdom of Washington, DC, my name is Jay!, and this has been the [02:55:00] Best of the Left podcast coming to you twice weekly, thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show from BestOfTheLeft.Com.

 

Air Date 2/21/2025

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JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast. 

There is nothing other than racism at the heart of Trump's immigration policy. He wants to deport as many brown people as possible, stop as many immigrants and refugees as possible, unless they're white people from South Africa or the nearly 40 million Canadians he's invited to enjoy immediate US citizenship. This is not complicated. Trump is a disgusting, blatant racist, and always has been, who's trying to turn the US into a white ethnostate. 

Now for those looking for a quick overview, the sources providing our Top Takes in about 45 minutes today includes Amicus; Today, Explained; Make Your Damn Bed; Letters and Politics; and Un-F*ing the Republic.

Then, in the additional Deeper Dives half of the show, there will be more in four sections: Section A, Rights and Fights; Section B, Gitmo & Haiti; Section C, Bipartisan Exploitation; and Section D, Reality on the Ground. 

Trump’s Unconstitutional Rampage Against Immigration - Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts - Air Date 1-25-25

BISHOP MARIANNE BUDDE: I [00:01:00] ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away. And that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land. 

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: So I wonder if you could just tell us a little bit about what it was in that clip of the bishop just imploring Donald Trump to have some compassion. What was that a tripwire for? 

AARON REICHLIN-MELNICK: So when that clip went viral, of course, Bishop Budd showed that mercy is still an important part of the American public discourse, and the idea of compassion still has a lot of strength. And Republican representative Mike Collins stated that he [00:02:00] believed the bishop should be deported for having the audacity to ask President Trump to show mercy. And my response was to highlight how far we have fallen from the discourse that we used to have in this country around compassion, mercy, and justice.

These are not terms of weak people. They are core to our foundations as a country. They have been written into our laws. They are in fact, an immigration law. Immigration law contains multiple. avenues for compassion, where people may be allowed to stay in the United States even if they are undocumented, and that has always been the case.

And so I think what touched a nerve is calling out this anti-mercy, anti-compassion behavior as against the founding principles of this country. 

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: The other, I think, big disconnect that we're all just sitting in, and Mark Joseph Stern and I talked about this earlier in the week when the first executive [00:03:00] orders started coming down, is this gulf between the announced actions and the dictates of the Constitution, or the many statutes that control how law is actually enforced. And, earlier in the week, I said, look, a lot of executive orders are just letters to Santa. They don't have any actual force. And we're going to talk about that in a second. But I think on this question of asylum, we already have CBS News reporting that border agents are being deployed right now to summarily deport migrants crossing into the country without allowing them to even ask for legal protection. At the same time, there's actually no longer any way to cross legally into the country, because on Monday, right after Donald Trump was sworn in, the administration shut down the CBP One app, which threw tens of thousands of migrants trying to navigate a lawful way to enter the country into limbo. 

So I think what I'm trying to ask is this question of how much force did these -- on the one hand, [00:04:00] these executive orders are just wish lists. On the other hand, at least in this context of immigration and asylum, they're very much effective and they're leading to action on the ground.

AARON REICHLIN-MELNICK: Yeah, immigration is an area where the president does have a lot of authority. But immigration is ultimately set to Congress. The Constitution assigns the power of setting rules relating to naturalization to Congress and not to the president. And for the last couple hundred years, that has been interpreted as meaning that it is Congress that ultimately gets to decide who can enter the country and who cannot, and not the president.

When the president does get that authority, it's usually because Congress has given the president that authority, and not because it's an inherent aspect of the presidential power.

But Trump doesn't agree with that. And what he has already said is that he can, in his own view, simply suspend the entirety of the Immigration and [00:05:00] Nationality Act, the laws passed by Congress about how to treat people taken into custody at the border. And he has said that he can simply sweep those aside and order border patrol to turn people away, despite the fact that they do have rights in the law, despite the fact that they have rights under international agreements that the United States is part of. And he says he can simply toss that all aside under his own power. 

So to some extent these things have already gone into effect. And there is more to come. There's a travel ban that can come, restrictions on legal immigration are foreshadowed in the executive orders and will be coming in the future. And that's an area where he does have a lot of authority restricting legal immigration. 

But what he can't do, and what the courts are likely going to intervene on, is the idea that he can simply declare "I'm President, therefore, I don't have to follow the laws if people are crossing our southern border." 

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: So I'm hearing you say that there's just this kind of "L'Etat, c'est moi," I am the [00:06:00] president! I get to supersede everything: the Constitution, every statute, as you said, international law. And, in a strange way, by behaving as though that is true, even though it will all be tested in the courts, there feels like there's a bit of a knock-on effect where entities are starting to behave as though it's true, even if it's not yet.

AARON REICHLIN-MELNICK: Yeah, and we have already seen a number of people who know better simply acquiesce to this kind of attitude towards constitutional authority and presidential authority. Of course, when it comes to things like his executive order to strip birthright citizenship for millions of non-citizens in the country, the Department of Justice is defending this. They have already filed legal briefings in court arguing that the consensus for centuries that birthright citizenship exists in this country is not real, and can simply be tossed aside with the stroke of a pen. So there are people going along with [00:07:00] this. 

The imperial presidency is here, and it's in action, and the question is, how much will the courts push back on it? Because a lot of the institutional actors inside the government are, for the moment, being muzzled, pushed aside, or fired. 

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: Can we talk for a minute about the purported legal authority that underlies the president's claim that he's just going to, on day one, effectively shut down the southern border? Because there's a kind of a weird mishmash of public health claims and national security, anti-terrorism claims, and of course, the good old foreign invasion claim. We knew that was coming. Can you just walk us through what the basis of this claim that there is a catastrophic emergency at the southern border that allows him to set aside existing statutes and constitutional protections?

AARON REICHLIN-MELNICK: Yeah, so President Trump invokes three specific legal authorities. Two of them [00:08:00] are contained within immigration law. One of them is his claim that as president, he inherently can shut the border whenever there is an invasion, which is a pretty radical argument, considering, again, when the Constitution speaks of invasion, everyone agrees who has ever looked at this issue on a legal basis that it refers to a military invasion, an invasion by a foreign government.

And even if you think that there is an argument that colloquially we are being invaded by migrants, I would disagree with that, but I can understand the argument from a colloquial standpoint. Very clear that there is not a military invasion at the border. And in fact, the vast majority of migrants who have crossed the border in the last four years have voluntarily turned themselves into law enforcement, to the border patrol, and are asking for protection. And I cannot think of a military invasion in the history of the entire planet that began with people [00:09:00] voluntarily turning themselves into the law enforcement of the country to which they were invading.

Nevertheless, he makes a claim, first, that under the Constitution, in order to support the constitutional provision that says the executive shall protect the states against an invasion, that he can suspend the physical entry of individuals coming into the United States. Now, what that means as a practical basis remains to be seen.

Separately, he invokes two provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which authorize the president to suspend the entry of individuals. One is the travel ban authority, Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. This is the authority that the Supreme Court said gave him extraordinary deference to suspend legal admissions into the country. And the other is a similar provision that operates for restricting visas. 

The travel ban authority, however, is already in effect at the border. President Biden [00:10:00] invoked this authority in the past. President Trump invoked this authority at the border in his first term. But it didn't do anything on its own. The widespread agreement of the Trump's administration first term and the Biden administration was that this authority, when invoked at the border, had to operate along with another law that let them use that authority to restrict asylum. And the way that worked was that Biden and Trump pushed out regulations saying, if you cross the border in violation of a presidential suspension of entry, we are deciding in our discretion not to grant you asylum. And they had a law on the books that says the Attorney General can set restrictions on asylum that they deem necessary. So there was a pretty clear legal fig leaf. 

Now, and there are good disagreements about how that authority was exercised and whether that asylum restriction was lawful, but nevertheless, they pointed to a specific law and said, this law authorizes us to suspend asylum. [00:11:00] These new executive orders do not do that. They simply assert, I have put this suspension in effect under Section 212(f). Therefore, I am suspending not only asylum, but I am declaring that people cannot apply for any other benefit in immigration law that might permit someone to stay in the country. So that could mean a visa, that could mean applying for a green card through a spouse, that could mean applying for protection under the Convention Against Torture. There are so many other things in the law that are not asylum that a migrant might be eligible for. And Trump is simply saying, I can come in and with a stroke of a pen say every one of these protections that Congress has written into law are no longer available for people.

And that is sweeping. He did not make this claim his first time.

Guantanamo’s other history Part 1 - Today, Explained - Air Date 2-10-12

NOEL KING - HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: So President Trump has directed that migrants be sent to Guantanamo Bay. What did his order say exactly? What are the specifics here? 

NICK MIROFF: Well, the order is basically to the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security. And it [00:12:00] says, you know, use use the Guantanamo Bay facility to expand holding capacity for dangerous criminals, but then also for whatever purposes you see fit. And that's kind of the key here. They seem to be looking at it both as a place where they can they can send in particular, you know, Venezuelan suspected gang members who they have a hard time detaining and who have been really a focus of a lot of the government's, the Trump administration's messaging around the, you know, worst of the worst criminals. 

 

DONALD TRUMP: Well, some of them are so bad we don't even trust the countries to hold them because we don't want them coming back. So we're going to send them out to Guantanamo. 

NICK MIROFF: But then they also are looking for capacity. 

DONALD TRUMP: This will double our capacity immediately. Right. And tough. That's a tough it's a tough place to get out of. 

NICK MIROFF: They do not have the space in the United States and their existing network of facilities to suddenly increase by thousands and thousands of people. And so that's going to be you know, that's the thing I'm really [00:13:00] looking for, do they plan to to to really bring, you know, up to 30,000 people, as President Trump said to this to this site off, you know, outside the United States. 

NOEL KING - HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: Is it accurate that we don't have facilities inside the continental United States for that many people? What do you know about that? 

NICK MIROFF: Well, it's not it's not quite accurate in that sense. It's that..so ICE is funded to be able to detain about 40,000 people at any given time in its network of detention facilities. And those consist of mostly, you know, privately run jails, but then also county jails that rent, you know, beds out to ice for relatively short term detentions. We're talking usually about a few weeks for the duration of the amount of time it takes ice to get somebody ready to be deported and to get them on a plane and back to their home country. And so the thing to keep in mind here is that President Trump has launched this incredibly aggressive enforcement operation with the kind of existing infrastructure [00:14:00] of ICE. 

DONALD TRUMP: So it's just an unforced error that we even have to be doing this. Now we need Congress to provide full funding for the complete and total restoration of our sovereign borders, as well as financial support to remove record numbers of illegal aliens. 

NICK MIROFF: ICE hasn't gotten new money. It hasn't gotten a huge increase in officers, and it certainly hasn't gotten a big increase in the number of beds it has available. And so while its current, you know, network is maxed out, it can look to expand by adding, you know, more beds in county jails. You know, we know that it's already talking to private contractors about expanding what they're able to offer. And then they've also looked at military bases in the United States where they could potentially hold people and actually add one more, you know, option that they're looking at. And this really kind of underscores the all of the above approach, which is that there are what they call soft sided facilities along the border, basically tent camps that they have used in [00:15:00] previous years to deal with surges in border crossings. And so they've been using them as kind of processing centers for migrants coming into the country. And I think that, you know, they're going to be looking to see if they can repurpose some of those to hold people who they're trying to send out. 

NOEL KING - HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: What is going on at Guantanamo Bay right now? Has anyone arrived? There are things being built. 

NICK MIROFF: Yeah. So, so far, they've sent about 30 detainees there on a series of flights and they are being held in the holding facility for the the military detainees, but then also for some of these other migrants, they're essentially being kept in kind of a separate legal distinction. But separately, they are eyeing this, you know, broader area where they would potentially. Build an outdoor holding facility. We know that there have been that there have been dozens of kind of, you know, tents set up for workers there. They appear to be staging, you know, other construction materials in preparation for for the, you know, [00:16:00] the expansion of this camp. And so the question is going to be, you know, how many people are they going to really try to send there? And then, you know, are U.S. federal courts going to allow that? 

NOEL KING - HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: What do we know about the the men and I'm assuming they're all men who have arrived so far. Are they? I mean, President Trump says we're going to send the worst of the worst there.Are these men criminals? What are they accused of other than being in the U.S. illegally? 

NICK MIROFF: Well, that's the thing. We don't know anything about them. I mean, the government hasn't released their names. It hasn't said what they're charged with, whether they've ever been convicted. We just have sort of broad outlines and know that they're primarily have been, you know, Venezuelan males who are accused by the government of being “Tren de Aragua.” They are our gang members. That's a Venezuelan prison gang whose, you know, members have showed up in the United States and have been linked to, to crimes over the past few years as part of this broader historic wave of Venezuelan migration. Whether or not they really [00:17:00] are Tren de Aragua rival gang members, you know, we no one can assess at this point unless the government starts to tell us more or we see actual, you know, information released about about, you know, why they were sent there and who they are. And in the absence of that, you know, we just we just really don't know.

Know your rights (immigration edition) - Make Your Damn Bed - Air Date 1-23-25

JULIE MERICA - HOST, MAKE YOUR DAMN BED: I want to share some resources that help us to understand our rights. Because regardless of your immigration status, you have guaranteed rights under the Constitution. 

According to the National Immigrant Justice Center, it's important to create a safety plan. Identify your emergency contacts, and memorize their phone numbers. Provide your child's school or daycare with an emergency contact to pick up your child, and provide authorization in writing for your emergency contact to make medical and legal decisions for your child. And inform your loved ones that if you are detained by ICE, they can try to use ICE's online detainee locator to find you. All they will need is your A number. 

Again, [00:18:00] every single person, documented or not, in the United States has constitutional protections. You also have the right to remain silent when questioned or arrested by immigration officers.

And now feels like good a time as any to remind everyone that you should not talk to the police. They are not only allowed to lie to you, but they're allowed to manipulate what you say. Don't talk to the cops. I saw a lawyer say a long time ago when dealing with cops to shut the fuck up, and it stuck with me. But it can make a huge difference in dealing with the repercussions. 

Being stopped by immigration officers or other law enforcement is terrifying, but it is crucial that you stay calm. During any encounter with law enforcement, it's important to do the following: 

One is to stay calm. Don't run, don't argue, don't resist, don't fight. Even if you believe your rights are being violated or you're being treated [00:19:00] unfairly, keep your hands where police can see them and check in with them before you move your hands to check for your wallet or to show your papers. 

Don't lie about your status. Don't provide false documents. If you're pulled over in a traffic stop, ask if the officer is from the police department or immigration, because again, cops can lie, and immigration officers often identify themselves as police, but they're not police. Ask them if they're from immigrations and Customs Enforcement, what we call ICE, or Customs and Border Protection, CBP. 

If they're immigration officers, follow these guidelines about what information to provide to them. If you are a U. S. citizen, or you have lawful immigration status, show your passport, show your legal permanent resident card, show your work permit, or other documentation of your status.

If you're over the age of 18, you should carry your papers with you at all times. If you are [00:20:00] undocumented, you have the right to remain silent, and you do not have to discuss your immigration or citizenship status with the police. You don't have to discuss it with immigration agents or any other official. Anything that you tell an officer can and will later be used against you in immigration court. 

If an officer knocks on your door, do not open it. Teach your kids not to open it. If they don't have a warrant, they can't come in. Officers must have a warrant signed by a judge to enter your home. The thing is, ICE provides warrants that are not signed by judges. They're ICE forms signed by other ICE officers, but they don't grant authority to enter a home without consent of the occupants. They're looking to trick you into that consent. So ask them what judge signed the warrant. You can access sample versions of what these warrants look like so you can see them yourself, at immigrantjustice.org, the link is in the show notes. 

[00:21:00] If you are outdoors and think you see an immigration officer nearby, move to a safe indoor space. But if you're a U. S. citizen and you feel safe to do so, it can make a huge difference if you begin to record the activity with your phone, or write down any relevant information about what you witness. Be really careful not to interfere or otherwise obstruct the operation. And in some places, like the state I live in, it is illegal to film cops within 30 feet or something, so look up your local laws with filming police. But I'm a big fan of the idea that we can not only waste these ICE agents' time, because they're wasting ours, but also ensure that they're doing their job by the book.

Just be careful not to post unverified information on social media, or interfere with the investigation, or otherwise put yourself in harm's way. 

And the ACLU suggests similar things when it comes to knowing your rights. They agree that you have the right to remain silent, and you do not have to [00:22:00] discuss your immigration or citizenship status with police, immigration agents, or other officials. Because again, anything you say to an officer can later be used against you in immigration court. 

But if you are not a U. S. citizen, and an immigration agent requests your immigration papers, you must show them if you have them with you. If you're over 18, carry your papers with you at all times. If you don't have them, tell the officer that you want to remain silent, and that you want to consult a lawyer before answering any questions.

And if an immigration agent asks if they can search you, you have the right to say no. Agents do not have the right to search you or your belongings without your consent or probable cause. Please note that in some states, if you are stopped and told to identify yourself, you must provide your name to law enforcement. But even if you give your name, you don't have to answer any other questions. They can ask you to show your license, your vehicle registration, and your proof of [00:23:00] insurance, but you don't have to answer questions about your immigration status.

Custom officers can ask you about your immigration status when entering or leaving the country. If you are a lawful permanent resident, who has maintained your status, you only have to answer questions establishing your identity and permanent residency. Refusal to answer other questions will likely cause delay. But officials might not deny you entry into the United States for failure to answer them.

If you're a non-citizen visa holder, you might be denied entry into the U. S. if you refuse to answer these officers' questions. 

If you need more information, please contact your local ACLU affiliate. The ACLU has been around a long time, and they have been doing the work. They've been doing the work for communities across our nation for decades. In the show notes there are a ton of resources and further reading on this, and most of these resources are available in other languages, so I [00:24:00] highly suggest you share far and wide, if you can. 

One of the resources I've included is the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement online detainee locator system. So that if someone you know is detained, you can find them in the system and check in on the status of their case. 

I've also included a PDF from the ACLU with a very brief, very easy to read, what to do if you're stopped by police, immigration agents, or the FBI. If you want to read it, share it, or print it and post it somewhere, that would be great too. 

And of course, I'm including a few other random resources for further reading, if you're interested. But I thought it might be helpful to call out some of the more important PDFs and documents just in case. 

Please stay safe. Stay calm. Stay grounded. And remember that no matter what, you do have rights.

Operation Wetback and the Bipartisan Legacy of US Deportations Part 1 - Letters and Politics - Air Date 1-16-25

MITCH JESERICH - HOST, LETTERS AND POLITICS: One of the slogans we hear from Trump and his supporters and people that he is [00:25:00] selecting to fill his cabinet and other positions in the administration is America First. America First. And I feel like this hasn't been very interrogated. It hasn't been interrogated enough about what that term means, America First. In the history of that term America First. 

There was an American First movement, American First Committee, during World War II, which if you do some investigation into it, you see that was considered a fascist group in the United States during World War II in the 1940s in that period of time.

Is the America First going back in history on your radar when it comes to the treatment and the attitudes towards immigrants in this country? 

ADAM GOODMAN: I think there's almost another parallel that might be more fitting in that sense or in that regard to the World War I era, a century ago.

Again, to where we had mass immigration from China, mass immigration from Japan, and especially from southern and eastern Europe, and increasingly so from Mexico. [00:26:00] But immigrants as a percentage of the overall population reached around 14%, in the 19 teens. That's roughly what it is now. It hasn't reached a similar level in the past century. But there's some kind of echo there historically. And also the buildup of xenophobia and anti-immigrant rhetoric and the scapegoating of immigrants for political gain, and racism directed at immigrant communities. It was another kind of echo we hear. 

And I think that one of the things that makes it so effective, both then and now, is that people have real needs, people are suffering and hurting economically, and politicians pick up on that and scapegoat immigrants as the reason why people are suffering. And that's not the case. Immigrants are not the cause of the suffering, but they're an effective scapegoat and much easier to point the finger at them than to actually address the [00:27:00] problems underlying people's hardships. 

MITCH JESERICH - HOST, LETTERS AND POLITICS: Tell me more about what's happening in World War I era, during the World War I era.

 

ADAM GOODMAN: Well, there's a lot of fear about different people who have different political beliefs and who are political radicals, anarchists and socialists from Southern and Eastern Europe, in addition to people who have been coming and pushing out workers from jobs.

So, Chinese labor, which in the late 19th century were seen as in direct competition by many other immigrant communities, including the Irish immigrants, who are moving west to work in mines and to work on the railroad, the transcontinental railroad. Immigrant groups pitted themselves against one another, and push for exclusionary policies and used politicians to try to achieve those goals and to protect their communities.

And, this is something that we [00:28:00] see in World War I era, in the 19 teens, really picking up what at that point was decades of pressure, to cut down on immigration. And the fact that there was such dramatic demographic change in the country in the late 19th and early 20th century, eventually leads to the passage of a series of acts in the 19 teens, 1920s, culminating in the 1924 Immigration Act, oftentimes thought of as the National Origins Quota Act. And what that did was drastically restricted who could come to the United States. 

By that point, most people from Asia were barred from entering. They created what was called the Asia Barred Zone. It didn't allow people who are laborers to come. Some people still were able to make it in around those quotas and around those restrictions, but usually people of means, people who had economic standing. And [00:29:00] it also dramatically reduced those from Southern and Eastern Europe. So places like Russia or Soviet Union, Poland, Italy, Greece, and elsewhere.

And so this is a time when immigrants were seen as a threat, a fundamental threat to the fabric of the nation. And these movements of America First and America for Americans, really pick up steam. 

Now, the fact that there was a war, this war of global proportion, also mattered a great deal. We see that there's a tie or connection between national security concerns and people coming from other countries being seen as a perceived threat or a potential threat. I think that's something there's echoes of as well throughout the past century. 

But, this really restrictionist, draconian act passed in 1924 [00:30:00] led to a dramatic reduction in who could come to the United States in the decades ahead, to the point where immigrants as a percentage of the population went from 14% in the 19 teens to about 5 percent by 1970. And since then, because of changes in law, that's increased again. And I think we're seeing the effects and impact of that now, the current presidency, of Joe Biden, but also moving into the second Trump term. 

MITCH JESERICH - HOST, LETTERS AND POLITICS: It's very interesting. From 5 percent or from 14 percent I think is what you said, to 5 percent after... 

ADAM GOODMAN: and now back up to around 14. 

MITCH JESERICH - HOST, LETTERS AND POLITICS: Now back up to around 14. And this is the 1924 Immigration Act. That would be the law of the land to what, the 1964 Immigration 

ADAM GOODMAN: 1965.

MITCH JESERICH - HOST, LETTERS AND POLITICS: 65 Immigration Act.

ADAM GOODMAN: Yeah, there's some other acts passed in the interim, but it's not until 1965 that another Immigration Act, under the guise of civil rights policy [00:31:00] passed during the administration of, Lyndon B. Johnson, eliminates the national origins quotas. 

But something I should have mentioned about the 1924 Act is that it did not apply to the Western Hemisphere. So it didn't apply to immigrants coming from Mexico, or from the Caribbean for that matter. And what happens is that once most of the migration is limited from Asia and from southern and eastern Europe, which had been supplying the labor that was much needed during that time, employers started looking more and more south to Mexico for their supply of labor.

That labor demand, and also the geographic proximity, obviously, of Mexico and the United States, leads to an increase in Mexican migration during the course of the middle of the 20th century. In addition to programs like the Temporary Guest Worker Program, sometimes referred to as the Bracero Program, which happened in 1942 to [00:32:00] 1964.

But in 1965, a few things happened. The Bracero Program ends, no longer allowing people from Mexico to come to the United States with legal status, albeit temporary and albeit under exploitative conditions. And also the 1965 Immigration Act, which does away with the national origins quotas, liberalizing immigration policy in that sense, puts the first ever cap on immigration from the Western Hemisphere. The first ever cap on immigration from the Western Hemisphere is under the 1965 Act. And this is the punitive side of the Act that people hadn't known as much about until recent work by scholars has focused on this and looked at how the combination of these factors led to fewer opportunities for Mexicans, who had been coming to the United States for decades at this point, to do so through legal channels.

Unsurprisingly, people continued to come, continued to migrate, because they had jobs, [00:33:00] because they had families, because they had created these transnational lives in many cases. However, now they were considered to be undocumented or unauthorized. So it's in part this crucial moment in 1965 that does away with the national origins quotas, but also would create the fundamental conditions politically, and in terms of policy, that would lead to the large growth of the undocumented population in the country.

Extraordinary Cruelty, Ordinary Policy: Immigration and Deportation Under Trump 2.0. - Unf*cking The Republic - Air Date 1-31-25

MAX - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: We can't talk about immigration without talking about why people come here in the first place. Enter the Washington Consensus. Now, we've covered it before. This was the brilliant idea to treat Latin America and the Caribbean like a commodity store rather than partners. Essentially, we've treated our neighbors to the south as a commodity source—labor, minerals, timber, oil, rather than a partner. We help build entire economies on the other side of the world, while ignoring the potential of the LAC to be more than a strip mine or cheap labor pool. 

Now, as we've said [00:34:00] before, The Washington Consensus is a reflection of ethnocentric attitudes rather than a suite of policy prescriptions and what contributes to this persistent narrative that these countries are filled with unproductive savages who just want to suck on the teats of our welfare programs.

The opportunities remain abundant and available if we only developed a more proactive and less racist attitude toward the region as a whole. And it looked for a moment during the global pandemic that we might wake up to the possibility of true partnership. One that would ameliorate trade, reduce the flow of asylum seekers, and reduce carbon emissions.

Sadly, the Biden administration ignored the opportunity even as the two largest economies in the LAC, Mexico and Brazil, moved further left and tried to open up more productive conversations throughout the region. No one represents this antiquated, paternalistic view of the Southern Hemisphere more than Joe Biden mind you. 

Biden could have [00:35:00] moved to normalize economic relations with Venezuela and eliminate sanctions that only serve to strengthen Maduro's authoritarian grip on the country and punish its citizens. I mean, for some reason, this dictator totally off the table. Every other dictator in the world we can do business with.

This is what led to the surge in migration that gave us Trump, because that was an actual crisis. And Biden could have also finished what Obama started in Cuba by minting it as a major trading partner and opened up the flow of tourism. He could have partnered more closely with new president Claudia Scheinbaum and returning president Lula da Silva to form an economic alliance that would reduce our dependence upon China.

All of this, all of his failures of diplomacy and foreign policy left a vacuum that is once again being filled by the bloviator in chief who's taking all of the wrong lessons from the strongmen in the region and ignoring partnerships with our two most natural allies who also happen to be the biggest trading partners.

Now, Trump [00:36:00] once again designated Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism. Repeated his intention to implement punitive tariffs on Mexico, threatened Colombia with sanctions after they refused to take in a military plane of 200 deported migrants, none of whom, by the way, were accused of committing any crimes.

And he's celebrating the brutal economic policies of Javier Millet in Argentina and authoritarian policies of Najib Bukele in El Salvador. Our policies and attitudes toward the LAC region are so short sighted, racist, and depraved it makes my blood boil.

In terms of who's being targeted in these roundups. The biggest threat I can see is in the characterization of criminality and status under the Trump regime. This is where it goes from business as usual, but with more teeth and video cameras, to dictatorship style pogroms. Consider the following scenarios.

MANNY FACES: About 35 percent of the deportations ordered over the past decade were for people who [00:37:00] didn't appear in court under a deportation order. This goes back to Clinton's criminalization catch 22. This person might be the breadwinner for a family here, sends money back home, is raising a kid born on U. S. soil, and is generally a productive citizen.

This person is also considered a criminal and might be rounded up by ICE. 

99 - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: According to an article in the Texas Tribune, currently nearly 3 million people have legal permission to work and live in the U. S. Under various federal programs that don't provide a path to permanent legal status or citizenship.

The programs can be renewed or scrapped at the discretion of each new presidential administration. End quote. These are the so called collateral roundups that Trump is proposing to include. 

MAX - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: Okay, alternately, They could be a member of a gang, wanted for a violent crime here in the United States, or perhaps in their home country.

There are immigrants being targeted by ICE currently, and historically, that fall under this category, and this is the pretense under which this administration and most of Trump land [00:38:00] media is operating. A few good eggs will be swept up with the bad eggs, but that's the price we pay for freedom, right?

This kind of aligns with what the young man at the top of the episode said as well. But let's dig into this last part a bit more. Right now, Congress is debating the Lake and Riley Act, which would require ICE to also detain undocumented immigrants accused of lesser, non violent crimes. There's a lot going on here.

So, let's take the undocumented person, Wanted for a crime in their home country. Assuming we have extradition privileges and communication with the nation of origin, this is pretty straightforward path, right? 

MANNY FACES: Unless of course, this person is a political refugee wanted for protesting an authoritarian regime and demanding fair and open elections.

MAX - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: Hmm, right. Well, I guess a proper procedure should be followed in this instance. But what about the undocumented immigrant that committed a crime on US soil? Surely they have to go, right? 

99 - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: Unless, of course, this crime involved your family and this person stands a better chance of roaming free [00:39:00] once back in their home country rather than facing our criminal justice system.

MAX - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: Oh. The Lake and Riley Act adds a bit of clarity by adding non violent crimes, which basically, just helps us weed out bad actors from our society. surely there's no harm in that, right? 

MANNY FACES: Sure, except for the part about only needing to be accused of a crime. In theory, you could press charges against someone you hold a grudge against for taking your parking spot, and suddenly they're in the system, and ICE is deporting them.

So, because you lost your parking spot at Trader Joe's and decided to make a false accusation against someone you don't know and it turns out that they're the only provider for an entire family, working nights and weekends in jobs that Americans won't fill, sending money home to El Salvador, so the rest of their family can survive and not seek asylum in the United States?

And one of the jobs is a caretaker to an old disabled lady whose kids don't live in the same state, so they pay this person off the books? Because her insurance doesn't cover the cost of an aid. And since ice swept up this person and the old lady wasn't notified, she goes three days without eating, gets dizzy, falls and hits her head [00:40:00] and dies.

The family in El Salvador falls in a crisis and the entire family has to flee the country, but they're too weak and hungry, so they die in the muddy waters of the Darien Gap. Everyone died, all because you got an honest immigrant deported. 

99 - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: Way to go, Max.

MANNY FACES: Asshole.

ANCHORMAN CLIP: Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean, that really got out of hand fast.

MAX - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: Point being, this level of nuance isn't being discussed anywhere on the left or the right. So it's important for us not to add to the confusion by getting it wrong.

Before we go, we should reinforce some facts that we've covered before to demolish some right wing bullshit. Now, you've heard it before. Immigrants are flooding across the borders to take advantage of our free social services. Really? Let's count what undocumented immigrants can't get and see there's Medicaid, TANF, Child Welfare Payments, SNAP, Unemployment Insurance, [00:41:00] Disability Insurance, Social Security, basically everything.

But here's the kicker. Undocumented workers pay about 13 billion a year into Social Security that they'll never be able to claim. They pay property taxes through their rent that funds public schools. The only benefits they can access? Emergency room care and public education for their kids, that's it.

And with respect to public education, public schools are primarily funded by local property taxes. These are paid by homeowners or landlords. Tenants pay these homeowners for apartments and rooms or landlords for apartments and storefronts. See how this works? That leaves emergency rooms, which I'll address in the Medicare for All episode.

And it also leaves school lunches. So that's the last thing, right? On this latter point, I have to concede. Undocumented children receive free school lunches. And the federal government is on the hook for that. Let's actually do a little math. Let's see. [00:42:00] The federal government spends around 17. 2 billion on school lunches.

About 7 percent of students are undocumented. That's 1. 2 billion per year Feeding undocumented children. Now the federal budget for 2025 is 7. 3 trillion. So my math is correct. School lunches for undocumented children represents 0. 016 percent of the federal budget. 

MANNY FACES: So she put it that way to port them all.

99 - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: Stop it.

MAX - HOST, UNF*CKING THE REPUBLIC: These right wing talking points are garbage and the media outlets that repeat them are garbage outlets filled with garbage people, but as leftists, We don't get to pick and choose the facts that support our narratives either. Now look, I get it, we need to call out Trump's cruelty, his racist rhetoric, his intentional trauma infliction.

But we also need to be honest about something. The difference between Trump and Obama [00:43:00] isn't in the numbers. It's in the cruelty of execution and the willingness to put it on display for all of us to see. He's taunted us, for sure. And yet, the left needs to be morally consistent here. Yes, Trump's approach is more brutal, more racist, more cruel, but the machinery he's using?

That was built and maintained by both parties. Clinton criminalized existence, Bush militarized the border, Obama perfected deportation, Biden used it all and then some, and Trump? Trump just took off the mask. The real solution isn't in who can deport more people or build bigger walls. It's in recognizing that the entire fucking framework is broken.

We need to rebuild our relationship with Latin America and the Caribbean, create real economic partnerships, decriminalize immigrant status, and stop treating people like political footballs. But that would require admitting that both parties have blood on their hands, and in [00:44:00] Washington, that's the one thing that's still illegal.

In the meantime, fuck Donald Trump. Elon Musk is a Nazi. Protect those you love, and even some you might not. Because next time around it could be you

Note from the Editor on what we can learn from imaginary borders

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips starting with Amicus discussing Trump's immigration overreach. Today, Explained looked at the plan to send tens of thousands of detainees to Guantanamo Bay. Make Your Damn Bed laid out many of the rights people should know when dealing with police and immigration. Letters and Politics looked at the history of the America First movement. And Un-F*ing the Republic highlighted the Washington consensus at the heart of our broken immigration system. And those were just our Top Takes; there's a lot more in the Deeper Dive sections. 

But first, a reminder that this show is produced with the support of our members, who get access to bonus episodes and enjoy all of our shows without ads. And to have those bonus episodes delivered seamlessly to the new, members-only podcast feed that you'll receive, sign up to support the show at [00:45:00] BestOfTheLeft.Com/Support (there's a link in the show notes), through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple Podcast app. And as always, if regular membership isn't in the cards for you, shoot me an email requesting a financial hardship membership, because we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information.

Now, if you have a question or would like your comments included in the show, our upcoming topics include Trump's other dystopian and racist proposal to ethnically cleanse Gaza, followed by the dangers of RFK Jr. and the future of health in America. So get your comments and questions in now for those topics. You can leave a voicemail or send us a text at 202-999-3991. We're also findable on the privacy-focused messaging app Signal with the handle bestoftheleft.01. There's a link in the show notes for that. Or you can simply email me to [email protected]. 

Now as for today's topic, I got thinking about Trump's line about the border between the US and [00:46:00] Canada being an artificially drawn line, right? This was all part of his rhetorical trial balloon to see if it might actually be possible to bully Canada into becoming part of the US. To be clear, this is horrible, imperialistic, inhuman, is not something you should do to people, especially when using the threat of economic hardship as a cudgel to bully an entire country full of people who are perfectly happy and proud to not be Americans.

That said, the philosophical idea behind the point about borders being artificial, actually, I think, makes that one of the smartest things Trump has ever accidentally said. Most borders are arbitrary to a greater or lesser degree. They just as often create unhelpful divisions between very, very similar people who should live together, as they create logical divides. 

Most of the [00:47:00] border between the US and Canada simply runs along the 49th parallel of latitude from the Salish Sea between Vancouver and Seattle over to a body of water that I'd never even heard of called the Lake of the Woods in northern Minnesota. And then from there, there are plenty more squiggles that mostly follow waterways and make maybe a bit more sense, but there is nothing more arbitrary and artificial than a straight line cutting across hundreds and hundreds of miles of land.

Now, just for fun, as if to make that point abundantly clear, check out Point Roberts, Washington on a map. It's a tiny peninsula of land owned by the United States that you can only access by ferry or by driving through Canada, because it just slightly pokes down from Canada over the 49th parallel. Does that make any kind of logical sense? No. None whatsoever.

So, not that Trump was putting this much thought into it or anything, but political borders drawn by humans are part of a concept called "imagined order." We imagine [00:48:00] things to be true and real, like governmental systems, economic systems, and borders drawn on a map. And they are real only in that we make them real by collectively believing in them and acting on those beliefs. But, in reality, they are imaginary. 

So what I find interesting is to compare this truthful statement about the artificial nature of borders from Trump, and his cohort of America First fascists who put a lot of irrational emotional energy and value on those arbitrary borders that divide up the world.

But all it takes is for Trump to get the idea that if we erase one of those imaginary lines, then he could expand our imaginary empire, and rule over more land and people as the imaginary king that he believes himself to be. That's when the sanctity of the borders completely falls away. 

But if I was just talking about them being hypocrites, that wouldn't be all that [00:49:00] interesting. My point is that when we fully embrace the reality that the arbitrary lines that divide up the world are, in fact, imaginary, it pokes an enormous hole in the idea that people in other countries who just happen to live on the other side of these imaginary lines are fundamentally different from us, or something to be feared.

Trump came to power largely on the idea that immigrants are scary and dangerous, and then immediately pointed out that borders are kind of bullshit. The reality is that most people in the world are perfectly lovely. Some are kind of assholes, and a very few are genuinely dangerous. But you can't tell which is which based on what country they come from.

And I know, it's obvious, Trump and company don't actually care about which country people come from, as evidenced by their embrace of Canada, Greenland, white South Africans. They just pretend that that's what they think, so that they don't have to say out loud that they think they can judge character based on the color of people's [00:50:00] brown skin.

Whereas we know that the best way to judge character these days is based on the color of their red hats. 

SECTION A: RIGHTS & FIGHTS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now we'll continue to dive deeper on four topics. 

Next up, Section A: Rights and Fights, followed by Section B: Gitmo and Haiti, Section C: Bipartisan Exploitation, and Section D: Reality on the Ground.

INTERVIEW: Knowing your rights in the face of ICE - The Worst of All Possible Worlds - Air Date 1-30-25

JOSH BOERMAN - HOST, THE WORST OF ALL WORLDS: I wanted to to pivot to talking a bit more concretely about ice, which we've been mentioning immigration and customs enforcement I think that a lot of people have a vague sense of what it is that ice is and what it does Um, but can you be as concrete and specific as possible about who they are?

Uh, where they get their power from and what their remit is both traditionally and as it is now under the Trump government. 

ISAAC ADAMS: ICE is a creation, is a sub agency of the U. S. Department of Homeland Security. So all of this bureaucracy that exists is part of the reordering of the government post 9 [00:51:00] 11. They have attorneys, we call them OPLA, the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor's Office.

They're the people that are essentially the rough equivalent of a district attorney. They are the people prosecuting immigration offenses. The ICE that most people talk about is ERO arm of ICE. It is the Enforcement and Removal Operations. They are authorized by congressional action as well as. All of our layers of legal framework that go with that executive mandate and regulations that have been promulgated as well as judicial authority being granted to them and authorizing them to enforce our immigration laws that does give them fairly broad powers.

to investigate and to question people. They are not police themselves, though. They, they don't investigate actual crimes. There is another part of ICE that is the Homeland Security Investigations Department, and [00:52:00] I'm not familiar with them at all. I usually don't interact with them. Um, that's more of the anti terrorism portion of ICE.

JOSH BOERMAN - HOST, THE WORST OF ALL WORLDS: So those are like actual police detectives, that kind of thing? 

ISAAC ADAMS: From my understanding, but I, I, my day to day interaction with them and understanding of the Homeland Security Investigations arm of ICE is, is very limited. Sure. Enforcement and removal operations during the Biden administration, um, they are the people that deal with the day to day interactions with immigrants who are in removal proceedings.

They, the most common way to deal with immigrants who arrive to the United States, um, is to without documentation and who are placed in any kind of proceeding is to release them on their own recognizance depending on the regime. They may or may not have an ankle bracelet to monitor then and make sure that they go to court but they have to do report dates.

It's kind of like, you know, you're going to, um, your parole officer, checking in, making sure that you're doing what you're supposed to do, that you're going to your courts. 

JOSH BOERMAN - HOST, THE WORST OF ALL WORLDS: And, [00:53:00] and sorry just to jump in here, but when you say release them on their own recognizance, what, what exactly does that mean? 

ISAAC ADAMS: So, the process at the border has, has been for most of my career, An immigrant will arrive at the U.

S. United States border, um, either at a port of entry that was much more acceptable and they provided methods for doing that under the Biden administration, there was an app called CBP one that. Now, those interactions are with a different Department of Homeland Security sub agency called customs and border patrol CBP would find the person, whether they entered at a port of entry.

Through CBP 1 during the Biden administration, or whether they crossed at some other entry point. They're grabbed by ICE. Usually, instead of detaining them, that takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of money, it's inhumane. What they do is they talk to them, they figure out what's going on, and then they determine, okay, this is a person that we're going to, that I can't remove based on our current guidelines for expedited removal.

I'm going to give them a notice to [00:54:00] appear in immigration court, and then I'm going to release them, make sure that we have an address, make sure that they know that they need to go to court. And then they're allowed to go, they have certain requirements, you need to check in, you need to report with us, and you need to go to the immigration court and let the judge know why you shouldn't be deported back to your native country.

JOSH BOERMAN - HOST, THE WORST OF ALL WORLDS: Where are these people usually housed during that interim period? Are these the people who would sometimes be in those detainment facilities that would get set up? 

ISAAC ADAMS: Yes, so this is, you know, the, this is the. Babies in prisons kind of thing that happened to the first time during Trump. Right. Okay. There, they had so many people.

We didn't have the detention facilities for it. This is one of the failures of the Biden administration. That's going to make Trump too much more effective. Biden promised us the first time when he was running for president, I'm going to eliminate the private prison industry. I'm going to close all private immigration detention centers.

That didn't happen. It didn't take very many steps even to try to [00:55:00] make that happen. If we had closed those, we wouldn't have the detention capacity to even be attempting to do the kinds of things that they want to do. 

JOSH BOERMAN - HOST, THE WORST OF ALL WORLDS: Do you have a sense of what the current capacity is? 

ISAAC ADAMS: It's pretty full. I don't know what the full current capacity is.

We have a lot of people in immigration detention, and the rules for immigration detention are quite expansive. This new Lake and Riley Act has made it even more expansive than they were before. Okay. Increasing the number of people who are not only detainable, but mandatory detainees. Um, hopefully we can challenge a lot of this act.

In the courts, I believe that in passing the Lake and Riley act, the Congress has actually exceeded their authority under the constitution in certain extent, in certain areas, there is a lot of leeway for the immigration courts and the immigration detention centers to say. No, you're going to be imprisoned as though you committed some kind of crime, even though you've only been accused of a crime.

JOSH BOERMAN - HOST, THE WORST OF ALL WORLDS: Well, and I think that's a really [00:56:00] important point, that the industrialization of this whole situation, it's basically created an entire separate industry. Like, part of what is going on here is that there is profit to be made, and That is to the benefit of the people who are operating these what are effectively prisons.

This is for the most part, not actually owned or operated by the United States government. These are this is all contract work, 

ISAAC ADAMS: and even when they are government facilities. Their local jails that are subcontracting part of their space out and they're being managed by private companies It's a huge for profit industry 

JOSH BOERMAN - HOST, THE WORST OF ALL WORLDS: So I wanted to take it back to the lake and riley act for a second because when I was watching uh trump Issue the proclamation that I guess we're reopening Guantanamo Bay to house 30, 000 migrants, which I want to talk about a little bit later.

Uh, there was a Fox News blurb on the bottom on their little crawler [00:57:00] talking about that act in basically, you know, framing it up as yet another great example of the United States of America defeating the immigrant menace. Um, and I was hoping you could talk a little bit about exactly what the Lake and Riley Act was about.

Is, uh, what it specifically empowers ICE to do, as well as how it reshapes the landscape regarding immigration more broadly. 

ISAAC ADAMS: Yeah, the, the biggest thing that the Lakin Riley Act does from, from my perspective, and I haven't read the actual full language of the bill, so I, I've just been watching the news reports and then following.

The chatter amongst lawyers groups and seeing what they say. The biggest thing that I've noticed about it is that it creates and expands the nature of what is called mandatory detention under our immigration laws. Mandatory detention says that in certain circumstances, Not only should we consider imprisoning this person and holding them indefinitely for [00:58:00] these kinds of serious crimes, but that it is something that we actually have to do.

We're obligated to keep them in prison while we determine whether or not they're allowed to stay in the United States. The Lake and Riley Act substantially increased the number of things that are considered mandatorily detained and, and expands the ability of ICE to detain people in general, whether or not we actually have the capacity or will have the capacity to detain that many people is yet to be seen, but because of the fear mongering that happens.

The, the levels of crime from immigrants is actually lower than the rate of crime amongst U. S. citizens, but they have made people afraid, oh, if only this person had actually been detained because he was a shoplifter. But what the sentence is effectively for shoplifting is possibly years in prison for shoplifting one time.

And actually the Lake and Riley Act, the language, it doesn't just say if you're [00:59:00] convicted of the crime, it's if you're accused of certain theft crimes. So the mere accusation that you did those kinds of things, and that's where in these states where you have lockstep support with the actual state law enforcement body, they can say, I saw you stealing that, reports you to ICE, ICE gets to detain you, and then you are in prison, effectively, in immigration detention, which is the equivalent of our U. S. prisons, until your case is finished, and that can be a very long time. The immigration courts do a good job of processing cases that are detained faster than they do cases that are non detained. Um, it does still take several months. Like you're going to be there probably for three to four months at the very least.

But if you win a case and ICE decides to appeal that you won that case, you're going to look at years because the appeals process with immigration courts takes years to actually work through itself. And the person [01:00:00] who's appealing that decision has to wait in immigration detention that entire time, if they're a mandatory detainee. 

How To Fight Trump’s Anti-American Agenda on Immigration and Refugees - Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams - Air Date 2-6-25

NAINA GUPTA: The 13 million undocumented people living here, they represent one in seven construction workers.

One in seven agricultural workers in Texas, around 50 percent of construction workers are here in violation of civil immigration law, even though they're contributing richly to that industry in Texas, deporting that many folks or scaring them enough to not show up. That means higher food prices, higher housing costs.

It means not having a workforce for healthcare aid workers. Those are real effects we'll start to feel quickly at the local. Economic level and over time. Um, in our national GDP and on a national economic scale. Now, this is all putting aside the actual direct financial cost of trying to deport this many people at the American Immigration Council.

We released [01:01:00] a report last year where we looked at the cost of arresting, detaining, deporting, Processing and removing a million people per year and over a 10 year period that would cost over a trillion dollars. Those are dollars that could instead of course be used to start head start programs all around the country to build affordable housing.

These are dollars that are being used for enforcement of immigration instead of other solutions that folks have been seeking or that we understand them to be seeking from the results of this election. And the final point I'll make about this. These costs, I mean, all this money and time to try to pull this off, and none of that offers a meaningful solution to a broken immigration system, right?

It actually inserts more chaos, and it wastes law enforcement resources in a way that does not make anybody safer at the end of the day. 

STACEY ABRAMS - HOST, ASSEMBLY REQUIRED: Do we have any current data on how many detentions and [01:02:00] deportations they've actually already carried out? 

NAINA GUPTA: Right now, we know that Ice under the Trump administration has set a target of approximately 1, 000 arrests per day.

Um, in less than two weeks, we've seen ice as a sub agency make around 12, 000 immigration arrests, meeting their approximate goal. We don't know whether they'll continue to meet that goal, whether that number Will increase by day, but we know that this is more arrests per day and per month than we've seen from the U.

S. government in some time and that they are doing this, um, in particular by using community arrests, non targeted enforcement actions, um, and, and are starting to use worksite raids. We don't know how many of these folks are actually being placed [01:03:00] into removal proceedings or how many will actually be deported.

That's information we hope that the, the Department of Homeland Security will make public or at least share with Congress. Right now, what we mostly have are the number of people who are being arrested. 

STACEY ABRAMS - HOST, ASSEMBLY REQUIRED: We are recording this on Monday, February 3rd. And last Friday, Trump's order for U. S. military aircraft to deport detained migrants took effect.

Again, without Republican objection. And so far we know six planes have transported migrants to Latin America. A U. S. official noted this is the first time in recent memory that military aircraft has been used for such removal. Why is this significant? And can you talk about the decision made by Guatemala regarding migrants and the ongoing conversation with Venezuela?

NAINA GUPTA: Yeah, so what's significant about the Trump administration leaning on resources from other federal agencies and the U. S. military is it's [01:04:00] their way to get over these procedural and resource issues. Obstacles, right? If they don't have funding from Congress, um, for DHS to initiate this many deportations.

Um, they're looking to other agencies to the U. S. military to fill in with those resources. So we should be alarmed when we see unprecedented use of the military for enforcing laws in the interior of our U. S. because that's the kind of authority that allows the Trump administration to follow through on this agenda faster than ever before.

And in terms of negotiations with other countries, right, what we're seeing is the Trump administration say to certain Latin American countries, First of all, we don't care what your politics are. We'll negotiate with you if you're going to take more deportees back home. And if you say no, and you push back the way that we've seen, for example, Colombia do, then we're going to threaten you with the use of tariffs.

[01:05:00] Um, that will be economically crippling for your country and your people. 

STACEY ABRAMS - HOST, ASSEMBLY REQUIRED: One of the pieces that's most terrifying to me is that Trump, as well as his fellow Republicans, are using these mechanisms to evade the checks and balances that are often the difference between autocracies and democracies. They are trying to leverage what they can do without having to abide by the laws as they exist.

And one of the ways that he's attempting to do this is the announced plan to use Guantanamo Bay to hold undocumented immigrants, calling it a tough place to get out of. And he later ordered the construction of a 30, 000 bed detention camp at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, which is in Cuba. So I want you to talk for a second about this.

What this decision says about the severity of his immigration policies that Republicans are suborning, but also what does it mean in light of the prior uses of Guantanamo as a federal military facility to be used for this domestic purpose? 

NAINA GUPTA: [01:06:00] Chaos, confusion and fear is the point with the Trump administration, right, they want headlines about arresting communities and moving 30, 000 people to Guantanamo. The question is, do they really have the legal authority? For the first time ever to put people on Guantanamo who are actually already here in the United States, and there are some important legal challenges that will be filed to push back against the use of that authority, and I want to flag that up top.

Now, you are correct that what we're seeing is the Trump administration, in addition to its fearful rhetoric. Try to get around the obstacles they face and the delays they face in their mass deportation agenda. And traditionally, Guantanamo has been a place where the U. S. government can do things in secret.

And there isn't accountability for violations of due process. There is an accountability for the conditions people are subjected to, and that is what Trump is aiming to do here. But the reality is that non citizens in the [01:07:00] United States, who would be possibly removed and detained in Guantanamo Bay, still have a right under immigration law to access immigration court proceedings.

And if the Trump administration does not allow them to access those proceedings, there is legal pushback that will be filed in the federal courts. Because he is still subject to the authority of Congress as expressed in the Immigration and Nationality Act. And what we're seeing, of course, across sectors, is the Trump administration overstep its constitutional bounds.

Ignore direction from Congress. And so, with the use of Guantanamo, That legal pushback in addition to public outcry will be incredibly important here. 

STACEY ABRAMS - HOST, ASSEMBLY REQUIRED: Well, that takes us nicely to the part of the show that is so important, which is what do we do about it? Um, you talked about the fact that we can engage in legal action.

You talked about the protests that happened earlier. [01:08:00] So I want to start with level setting. What would a humane immigration policy look like one that helps people move out of the shadows and allows them to fully participate in American life, both financially and socially? 

NAINA GUPTA: Yeah, this is the question. And unfortunately, in a moment like this, when we're inundated with so many changes and so much chaos, it's easy to lose track of the path ahead and the path ahead has to include some plan for giving.

The 13 million people who are here, who've been here for decades, a pathway to legal status. Now, the thing Americans have to understand is that ultimately, we want a system that encourages people to comply with the law. Right? To follow the rules. That's the mark of a successful system. Right now, Immigration enforcement agencies are being funded at unprecedented levels.

That has increased over time. And yet, there are more [01:09:00] people in violation of immigration law. That means our system is not working. It's not helping people comply with the law. It's not incentivizing them to do that. What we can do is have a system where we say, Look, if you're in violation of the law, there are certain consequences.

No, it should not be deportation as a one size fits all consequence, right? We should not be sending people to death and indefinitely detaining them when they're contributing in this way to our country. But there can still be some kind of consequence, like, Oh, you know, you have been here in violation for this many years, here's a pathway to citizenship, but you will have a two year path to get there.

And if along the way you violate other rules, it might take longer to get that, right? You can have a system of consequences that's more humane. and more reasonable, but that actually puts people on a pathway to getting out of the shadows and honoring what they've been contributing to our country. And so a shorter way of saying this, [01:10:00] that we hope to hear more Democrats frankly talk about, is a fair system is one that is both including legalization and that has enforcement.

And the two can go hand in hand. And they absolutely should not include at large community raids, or terms like mass deportation, or use of the national military. There's no reason to do that. These are not folks who make our lives any less safe. In fact, they create opportunities. Immigrants create jobs for other people.

Look, we can have an orderly system that makes Americans feel safe, but that also gives a pathway to legalization. For the many people who've lived here and who contribute richly to our country.

Criminalization of Immigration: The Power of Grassroots Organizing and Storytelling - Art of Citizenry - Air Date 2-13-25

MANPREET KAUR KALRA - HOST, ART OF CITIZENRY: Grassroots movements play a crucial role in the fight for justice by amplifying the voices of directly impacted communities and challenging unjust policies and systems through collective action.

These movements mobilize local resources [01:11:00] while holding governments and private actors accountable by centering lived experiences and nurturing solidarity. Grassroots organizations create sustained pressure, ensuring that immigrant rights remain a priority in public discourse and legislative agendas.

The 

MARU MORA-VILLALPANDO: work is, is vast because there's no one easy way to have a solution to this nightmare, such as structural manufacturer. crisis for immigrants, um, and people of color in general, that it takes a lot of effort to undo all the harm done. And so the work in itself is divided in several areas. So one of the main area is to be in touch with people in detention daily throughout the day.

So La Resistencia has three phone lines to which people in detention can call and report what's going on. They help decide what the strategy should be taken on outside. Many times people [01:12:00] in detention take their own strategies and they're organizing by launching hunger strikes or doing You know, some sort of actions, uh, in the inside.

Uh, there's a lot of campaigns, individual campaigns, a lot of people want to take their own campaign public because they have, uh, lost their cases. And we, we know immigration law is very complicated, it's extremely difficult. And it's made for people to lose, right? And so the work, um, in regards to working directly with people detained, it's both working and supporting their organizing inside, to supporting hunger strikes, to supporting their actions, uh, making public all the horrendous, uh, things that happen inside, you know, the conditions, um, and at the same time, It's taking on public campaigns, which they call the freedom all campaigns, which, uh, are meant to be focused on one person, but the angle of the campaign is to free everybody.

So that's one way the work is done. Another way is through [01:13:00] direct action by La Resistencia and a lot of ally organizations. They go outside the detention center as often as possible. They do vans, uh, Protests, demonstrations, anything that can be done. There's something that is called Solidarity Days, which at least once a month is done.

And, you know, we bring people to the detention center facility. And there's a video calls being done and paid for, you know, by La Resistencia. Eh, so people in detention can see through the video calls what's going on outside that people are definitely outside. People are rallying and they care and they're doing everything they can to support the Resistencia work to shut down the detention center.

And then there's another bucket of work that is a lot of policy. So it could be at local level with the city of Tacoma, you know, making them accountable to the fact that the, the detention center is in their city, a state level as well. They have passed a lot of state [01:14:00] legislation to bring accountability to the detention center itself, such as, you know, having inspections and they have also worked at a federal level trying to, you know, bring accountability to the federal, uh, congressional delegation, which hasn't really worked very well, but they keep trying.

And the last one is at an international level, which is to involve the United Nations and the Inter American Commission for Human Rights to intervene in behalf of, of those detained. So as you can see, it's a little bit of everything at every level and every angle, uh, available. And what I can say that I've learned a lot about, you know, migrant justice, uh, it takes a lot.

It's a lot of effort. And it's not fair that those that are supposed to lead the fight are not allowed to lead the fight because they probably didn't graduate from school, you know, they're not bilingual in English or trilingual, and that the resources are not provided to these kind of groups. [01:15:00] It goes to big groups, you know, that know how to write grants.

And so, Not only they have the burden of leading, they have the burden of leading in a very precarious way, even within the migrant justice movement. 

MANPREET KAUR KALRA - HOST, ART OF CITIZENRY: Grassroots organizers face significant challenges, including limited funding and resources. Additionally, it's not uncommon for activists to face political and legal barriers, such as surveillance or criminalization, to suppress dissent.

Despite these challenges, grassroots movements remain established. essential for driving systemic change and holding institutions accountable. 

MARU MORA-VILLALPANDO: I've done organizing for many, many years. I think I, that was kind of my path even since before becoming myself an immigrant, leaving my own country, being forced to leave my own country.

And so having the experience of being forced to migrate, having the experience of becoming undocumented, having the experience of, uh, becoming, you [01:16:00] know, part of the community has been criminalized. Uh, just because we are just because we exist is what pushed me to organize with my community as undocumented when I was I was undocumented for 25 years.

And so that led, uh, to my. need to, to connect with my own community and organize with my own community, which sounds easy, but it's not because a community being criminalized is a community that is being surrounded by fear, by poverty, by stigma. And so there's so many challenges that those communities have to face just to survive.

Now it's even more so when they're trying to lead. And so it took me years to actually be able to get to a point where I could say. That I was organizing with my community, the community that is experimenting all these, uh, terror from, uh, Immigration Customs Enforcement is [01:17:00] able to sit down and think and strategize what are we going to do and how are we going to do it and who's going to do it, um, and what's going to happen afterwards.

And so I think that that experience, one, of being undocumented myself, but also looking for the space. And the resources to be able to do the work. It's what really informed how I work and why this work needs to be done.

Birthright Citizenship: The SCOTUS case that solidified the 14th Amendment - Civics 101 - Air Date 1-23-25

 

FELIX POON: There are a lot of Chinese men traveling back and forth to visit family in China at this time, and many are getting denied reentry to the United States. Some of them just give up and make the trip back to China a trip that takes 33 days, according to an old newspaper clipping. But others fought their detentions in court with the help of the six companies.

NICK CAPODICE - HOST, CIVICS 101: The six companies? What's that?

FELIX POON: Well, companies is probably a misnomer. There are really six prominent Chinese associations in San Francisco, [01:18:00] and they came together as one to provide social support, but also to provide legal support to Chinese Americans. Here's Bethany Berger again.

BETHANY BERGER: In the first year of the exclusion laws, they brought 7000 cases challenging Chinese exclusion. And they were so successful in doing this that Congress and the customs officials kept trying to amend the laws to make it harder for them to win these cases.

HANNAH MCCARTHY: That's actually very cool.

FELIX POON: So the six companies are there for Wong Kim Ark. They file for habeas corpus.

NICK CAPODICE - HOST, CIVICS 101: Habeas corpus, that little Latin phrase that means bring the unlawfully detained person before the court.

FELIX POON: Yep. That's it. It's a right to a trial. Meanwhile, Wong Kim Ark is still off the coast of San Francisco on a ship, and that ship is about to sail back to China.

BETHANY BERGER: So we put on to another [01:19:00] ship, and then that ship wants to go back, and he's put on to another ship. And so this is a period of months in which he's confined, looking over at his hometown, but unable to set foot there.

NICK CAPODICE - HOST, CIVICS 101: So is he granted habeas?

FELIX POON: They do grant him habeas. But what's interesting here is that the judge actually agrees in principle with the U.S. government that Wong Kim Ark is not a citizen. But he says he has to go by legal precedent that was set by earlier court cases. And so he rules that Wong Kim Ark is a U.S. citizen because of the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment.

HANNAH MCCARTHY: So this judge makes explicitly clear that he has a racist idea here, and that he is only making this decision based on precedence. He basically says, this is against my better judgment, but I'm going to do this anyway. And so just as a reminder that citizenship clause of the 14th amendment says all persons born or [01:20:00] naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. So Felix Wong Kim Ark won.

FELIX POON: Yeah. He won. Woo! I mean, he was still unlawfully detained on three different boats for five months, but at least he won his court case.

NICK CAPODICE - HOST, CIVICS 101: So is that it, Felix? Like, is this happily ever after for Wong Kim Ark?

FELIX POON: Um, no. Not quite.

JULIE NOVKOV: Uh, the government immediately appeals. Yields. So they take it all the way up to the US Supreme Court.

FELIX POON: This is Julie Novkov. She's a professor of political science at the University at Albany and coauthor with Carol on their book, American by Birth. Wong, Kim. Ark in the battle for citizenship.

JULIE NOVKOV: The majority opinion is written by Justice Horace Gray, and his response is that if [01:21:00] people are in the United States and they're following the laws of the United States, and basically they're not in some sort of special category like that of a diplomat, um, they are living under the sovereignty of the United States, and therefore, children who are born to them in the United States are born under that sovereign power and therefore, according to common law principles, going back to England, uh, they are entitled to citizenship on the basis of the 14th Amendment.

FELIX POON: In writing the majority opinion, Justice Gray did reaffirm that there are exceptions to the Citizenship clause. Diplomats are not subject to the jurisdiction of the US. If they commit a crime, they don't face the justice system the same way that we do. So their children that are born here, not US citizens, children born here of a foreign occupying [01:22:00] force. Hasn't happened yet. Knock on wood. But if it did happen, not U.S. citizens. So what the majority opinion boils down to is that Wong Kim Ark does not fall into any of these exempt categories, so he is indeed a US citizen.

NICK CAPODICE - HOST, CIVICS 101: But hold on. If this case was decided the other way, wouldn't you then have to revoke the citizenship of millions of children born to European immigrants?

FELIX POON: I mean, basically. And Justice Gray wrote this in his opinion that to deny Wong Kim Ark his citizenship would be to deny citizenship to thousands of persons of English, Scotch, Irish, German or other European parentage who have always been considered and treated as citizens of the United States. This ruling is a big deal. It solidifies a path to citizenship for all immigrants that is based on the 14th amendment. But then there were some unintended consequences in the aftermath of the ruling. [01:23:00] Like what? So there's this phenomenon of paper sons.

NICK CAPODICE - HOST, CIVICS 101: Paper sons. I actually know about these. Do you Hannah?

Hannah McCarthy

I don't. I would imagine it's someone claiming someone as their their son or daughter, but it would be son in this case.

So since the only way you could be a legal Chinese immigrant to the United States was if you were a family member of somebody who had been born here, a child of somebody who had been born here. So you have all these people claiming, right? So all new Chinese immigrants to the US are claiming that they are the children of people already here on paper. Therefore, paper sons.

JULIE NOVKOV: Some of these paper sons were maybe not necessarily the sons of citizens, but they were close relatives. Maybe they were brothers, maybe they were nephews. But because there's an awareness among immigration officials that that this is happening, uh, they become far, far more suspicious. What evolves out of this is that you you wind up with kind of a cat and mouse game between [01:24:00] Chinese who are trying to get into the United States, and immigration officials who are trying to keep as many out as possible.

FELIX POON: And exclusion laws only get worse.

JULIE NOVKOV: By the time we get to 1924. Legislation is basically excluding almost all Asian immigration and denying, uh, immigrants from Asia any possibility of gaining citizenship. Um, this actually goes as far in the 1920s as denying citizenship to, uh, to to Japanese who had served in World War One.

SECTION B: GITMO & HAITI

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering section B: Gitmo in Haiti.

Trump Sends 10 UNCONVICTED People To Guantanamo! - The Bitchuation Room (with Francesca Fiorentini) - Air Date 2-10-25

FRANCESCA FIORINTINI - HOST, THE BITCHUATION ROOM: 10 migrants, uh, have been sent to Guantanamo who are now being held in cells that used to hold Al Qaeda suspects. Now I'm someone As I don't think that people should have been held in Guantanamo without charges for [01:25:00] decades and decades and decades.

Everyone is entitled to due process. So for me, I'm like, yeah, Al Qaeda suspects should also not have been treated that way. But holy shit, Kyle, like 10 men sent to the prison base. There's a picture of a cell that used to hold Al Qaeda. They are presumed to be. Members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

KYLE KULINSKI: Um, Nonsense. Not true. It's not true. Look, let me just, I'll put this very simply for people. This is fascism. What we're looking at right now, 100 percent is fascism. There's no way around it. The whole point of Guantanamo Bay is that it's in Extrajudicial prison, which means no due process, no habeas corpus, no recourse, they don't care what your side of the story is, there's no hearing, your ass gets thrown in a dark cell, and you have to stay there, full stop, period.

And even back when it was George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, it was always alleged terrorists. Well, guess what? We [01:26:00] learned, not that long after, the overwhelming majority of the people that they arrested were totally innocent. One of the first stories I ever covered was about a guy by the name of Murat Kurnaz, who's a German citizen, who was arrested in Pakistan on a bus, brought all the way to Guantanamo Bay, and then the government of Germany had to say, uh, hey, George W.

Bush, take Cheney. What are you doing? This is one of our citizens. They didn't do anything wrong. There's no evidence of any wrongdoing So that was when it was alleged terrorists. It wasn't that that's fascism as well Now he's gone above and beyond we're gonna arrest people On u. s. Soil who by the way, once you're on u.

s. Soil, you have rights period. That's how it works legally you have rights Yeah, like you get due process all that stuff. You have a right to all of that stuff and guess what? We just learned last week one of the people that ice arrested and is about to deport You Is a middle school teacher from miami dade who is a dreamer who was brought here as a kid They arrested a puerto rican family, including a toddler.

They arrested a [01:27:00] u. s. Veteran in newark, new jersey People are now deputizing themselves As part of ice like this is we are so far beyond even the twilight zone The idea of sending them to el salvador that is wildly illegal and unconstitutional Absolutely so the fact that like this in The fact that this isn't a bigger story the fact that more people aren't talking about this and the fact everybody doesn't draw a hard line and say We literally can't do this.

This is insane. We are a rogue nation any reasonable country would look at us now and say We should do regime change there because look at how they're acting it just blows my mind 

FRANCESCA FIORINTINI - HOST, THE BITCHUATION ROOM: No, absolutely. And I I think the other thing is like we've we've allowed ourselves I think mainstream news has also helped in this dehumanized immigrants Dehumanize immigrants to the point where, like, I didn't see, the New York Times did one piece pushing back on the cats and dogs and talking about Haitian migrants in Springfield, for example.

That was one piece. It was weeks later. Where's the camera crews? Where are the people talking about, like, [01:28:00] you know, the teachers who have DACA? Like, right now, they should be out there speaking. I mean, obviously, nobody wants to, like, out themselves, and the fear is, is real, you know, obviously, is very real.

But there's half a million DACA recipients. Like, my friends are DACA recipients. What the f k? Like, what is going to happen to them? Um, they were promised by the U. S. government that they would, this would be a pathway. That they would be safe. They would give their information. That's the whole point of seeking asylum, of seeking refuge, of being a refugee, of coming to this country and wanting to either do it right, or at least say, I'm going to register myself, living here undocumented, but you have my information.

Like, it is to say, like, So long as I'm, you know, whatever, abiding by laws, slash, paying a bunch of money into a social security fund I'll never see the, you know, benefits of, this is not a crime to live here, right? It's not a crime. So, obviously this administration doesn't see it that way, and Kyle, any dimwit, I'm [01:29:00] sorry, who thought that this wasn't the ultimate goal, like, I mean, you should really not be in the news space at all.

Like, there's no way that we all know that this was happening. We all knew that undocumented equals criminal. It does, it doesn't matter whether anyone actually committed a crime to say nothing of the fact that undocumented people commit far fewer crimes than American citizens. Um, so yeah, it's a, this is a huge story.

And the other thing that, you know, Maybe you know who it is, but apparently there's word that inside the Trump administration, there are people who like loved the Japanese internment as well. 

KYLE KULINSKI: Stephen Miller. It's got to be Stephen Miller. 

FRANCESCA FIORINTINI - HOST, THE BITCHUATION ROOM: So, you know, and these are the things where it's like, I mean, I felt like Gaza brought this up for me where everyone, you know, was suddenly talking about like, you know, World War II and, you know, Hiroshima, Nagasaki.

And it was like, well, we had to do it. And I was like, wait, wait, wait, hang on, time out. Wait, do you do people think that dropping the a bomb is justified [01:30:00] given that we knew Japan was going to surrender given the, you know, millions of lives lost? Like what? And then now you're like, Oh, no, no, we're in that upside down where people are now, like, actually, Japanese internment was a good thing, um, despite it.

Right. All of what we have learned, the horrors, the atrocities, the survivors of it, um, but under the Alien Enemies Act, uh, which Donald Trump has invoked by executive order, um, he allows this wartime authority allows the president to detain or deport natives and citizens of an enemy nation. The Alien Enemies Act has been invoked just three times in the American Hi in American History eight War of 18, 12 World War I, world War ii.

Obviously best known for incarcerating Japanese people during World War Two, provides sweeping powers to detain or deport foreign nationals, and is ripe for abuse. I mean, the fact that we even have this on the books, so it's like, again, I It is not hyperbole to say that [01:31:00] these are mass detention centers, gulags, whatever you want, that this is a threat.

And just today, what is it, some news channels being investigated for their coverage of Trump? Some from radios? Yeah, 

KYLE KULINSKI: San Francisco radio station, the FCC is investigating them because they didn't like how they covered immigration. So, look, it's a war. Or on the first amendment, it's a war on the constitution.

When it comes to it, there is no more international law anymore. This is a part that is genuinely chilling to me. And it all started with the genocide in Gaza that we've been witnessing. And then now Trump is already taking international law, which is laying on the ground, bleeding out of its nose, semi conscious.

He's taken a shotgun directly to its face when he comes out and says. Oh, we're going to take over Gaza. We're going to own Gaza and we're going to develop it. And man, they have some beautiful beachfront front property and whoa, we could build some hotels there and stuff. What we're looking at right now.

Everybody needs to realize we are living. We rolled back the clock to the 1800s and we're living in a situation where international law is [01:32:00] fake. There is no international law. The UN is now officially like the league of nations where Trump just came out today and said, we're sanctioning the ICC because they issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin and Yahoo.

And it's like, how many schools did Israel bomb? How many hospitals did they bomb? How many aid workers did they attack? How many world central kitchen workers did they attack? How many kids got sniped directly in the face? Like how many concentration camps did they set up? And all, they look at all of that and they go, We have the biggest military, so we can do whatever the hell we want, and everybody can shut up or complain about it, but nothing's gonna change, and we're gonna do what we want, so it really is a war on the notion of human rights, the notion of international law, and what we're witnessing is an outright assault On everything that we hold dear, right?

Every single thing we hold dear. And that now includes and this is the first time it's ever been in our lifetimes. Now, that 

includes even trying to roll back the few social safety net programs that we have, which have remained in place since the new deal. [01:33:00] Now, they're even coming after those. So it's like, this is it, guys

Trump's Mass Detention Plan for Guantánamo Harkens Back to U.S. Detention of Haitian Asylum Seekers - Democracy Now! - Air Date 2-4-25

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: The Pentagon saying some 300 additional soldiers have arrived at the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have begun constructing a tent city to detain up to 30,000 immigrants and asylum seekers. On Monday, the Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel condemned the Trump administration’s attack on asylum seekers. This is what he said.

PRESIDENT MIGUEL DAZ-CANEL: [translated] For Cuba, the violent and indiscriminate deportation of immigrants by the United States, arbitrary detentions and other human rights violations are unacceptable. These measures are also used as a political pressure and blackmail weapon against the peoples of our America. The establishment of a detention center at the American naval base in Guantánamo, where it is intended to imprison tens of thousands of people, constitutes a barbaric act.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: So, that’s the president of Cuba. Miriam Pensack, your forthcoming book is on [01:34:00] Guantánamo. Can you give us the history of how the U.S. has used it?

MIRIAM PENSACK: Sure. So, something that I should mention first and foremost is that before Guantánamo became what it was known for in early 21st century, the sort of “forever prison in the war on terror,” the way that its ambiguous sovereignty, as a U.S. base coercively held on Cuban soil, functioned was to hold tens of thousands of circum-Caribbean asylum seekers, first from Haiti, roughly 40,000 from Haiti, then 35,000 Cubans who fled the island during what was called the Special Period, so the collapse of the Soviet Union, which prompted the total collapse of Cuba’s economy in the mid-’90s. So, this is actually a sort of back to basics, unfortunately, for Guantánamo.

And those initiatives, first the Haitian internment and then the Balsero crisis of Cuban rafters a [01:35:00] few years later, what happened with the Haitians, they were, by and large, repatriated to extremely dangerous conditions in Haiti, where a coup had taken place against Haiti’s first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. And Cubans eventually made it to the United States, but not after — you know, after effectively being held in what were concentration camp-, detention camp-like conditions in Guantánamo. And they were allowed into the United States because — in part because of the establishment of what became known as wet foot, dry foot.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Yeah, I also wanted to ask you about the Dominican Republic, where Rubio will also be visiting. The Dominican Republic has for years been involved in its own migration crackdown against Haitians within the country, massive attempts to deport Haitians from the DR. [01:36:00] What do you sense might come out of Rubio’s visit there?

MIRIAM PENSACK: I think there will definitely be a willingness to collaborate on immigration and deportation. You know, the Dominican Republic has been building a wall between itself and Haiti, which it shares the island of Hispaniola with. You know, there have been these mass attempts to deport Haitians. There have also been efforts to strip Dominican citizens of their citizenship if they have what has been in many cases very flimsy proof of Haitian origin or provenance. You know, so it’s very anti-Black, because Haiti was the first Black republic, and Haitians are — there are plenty of Black Dominicans, I should say, but there is a huge degree of anti-Blackness involved in that. And the Dominican Republic has, in fact, left some [01:37:00] of its citizens who it deemed Haitian stateless, because Haiti did not recognize them as Haitian citizens.

Guantanamo’s other history Part 2 - Today, Explained - Air Date 2-10-12

JEFFREY KHAN: From 1981 to 1989, Haitians who are stopped at sea are ostensibly screened for asylum characteristics on Coast Guard cutters, And only six out of 21,461 who are screened get to come to the U.S. to pursue their asylum claims. Then in 1991, the first democratically elected president of Haiti, Jean Bertrand Aristide, is overthrown and thousands of Haitians take to the sea in an attempt to reach the United States to seek refuge. So the US government says, all right, what are we going to do now? We have thousands of Haitians piling up on these Coast Guard vessels in the Northern Caribbean. Should we bring them to the United States? 

Well, if we do, then they're going to get access to US courts and we're going to [01:38:00] have to deal with the US court system scrutinizing how we're handling these claims. The other option is, well, let's send them to Guantanamo. And so that’s what they do. And so they end up opening up a camp at Guantanamo Bay to detain and to screen for asylum characteristics the Haitians that they stopped at sea. At its peak in the 1991, 1992 period, you have over 12,000 Haitians being detained in these camps. It's men, women, and children who were held at Guantanamo. So it’s a vast tent city, it's crowded. It's miserable. And it's also confusing. Right, the Haitians who are there not exactly sure what their fate is going to be. They're not exactly sure how these immigration screenings operate, they don't have access to attorneys to inform them about the particularities of U.S. immigration and refugee law. [01:39:00] And there's a feeling like they're in a state of limbo and they're not in control of their destiny. 

BILL DVORNICK: Biggest problem right now in the camp with the kids is they’re frustrated. They’ve been here a long time and they’re ready to go home. Actually they’re ready to go anywhere at this point, a lot of them…the frustration level. 

JEFFREY KHAN: It's not an ideal situation to be in. You know, maybe you've spent a couple of weeks at sea, some sort of a difficult voyage. The Coast Guard picks you up, takes you to Guantanamo. Sometimes it may take a while for you to get to Guantanamo, so you're crowded onto these...the deck of a Coast Guard cutter exposed to the elements. And then when you arrive, you have to undergo what's called a credible fear screening to find out if you have a credible fear of persecution, which is supposed to be lower than the well-founded fear of persecution standard that [01:40:00] governs asylum claims within the United States. Now what happens at the time is the United States was hoping to resettle some of these Haitian asylum seekers who had passed their credible fear interviews in third countries other than the United States. But those third countries, according to the government, had asked that the Haitians be screened to determine whether or not they were HIV positive. So what the government does is they screen Haitians who have been shown to meet this credible fear standard, for HIV. And then if they test positive, they're not brought to the United States and they're put in a separate HIV camp on the base. And according to the Haitians who were there, told that they may be required to stay there indefinitely. Later on, what happens [01:41:00] is the government plans to hold full-blown asylum hearings for these HIV-positive Haitians at the base without attorneys. 

The camp itself was in a remote part of the base, which now houses a lot of the war on terror detention facilities. But at the time, it was sequestered from the populated areas of the base. And the Haitians really felt that. They're out in the middle of nowhere. They're isolated. They're told that they may have to stay here forever. And the conditions are poor. They had to take sheets of plastic and put them up on the windows of the shelters in which they live to keep the rain out. They complained of infestations of rats. They complained of abuses on the part of the military. When they formed protests, [01:42:00] they were met with a draconian response including pre-dawn raids by hundreds of military police with police dogs and this prolonged sense of limbo ended up creating really difficult conditions and a very traumatic experience for the Haitians who were held there. And so when I've conducted interviews with folks who were held in the HIV camp, and you know, it almost always brings them to tears when they remember their experiences being held in this HIV prison camp at Guantanamo.

JEFFREY KHAN: At the time that the HIV camp was shut down, the US was not sending any Haitians to Guantanamo any longer. Now, when Clinton came into office Guantanamo was reopened again, and Haitians were [01:43:00] sent to Guantanamo in 1994.

PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: And we are discussing what our response should be. There has been a significant increase in Haitian refugees…

JEFFREY KHAN: Cubans started taking to the sea in makeshift rafts, and the US decided to send them to Guantanamo as well. And so you had this period in 1994 and 1995 where you had tens of thousands of Haitians and tens of thousands of Cubans at Guantanamo at the same time. So since 1991, effectively, there has been a migrant detention operation at Guantanamo. In 2002, the creation of the Migrant Operations Center paved the way for small numbers of asylum seekers to be held at the base. And there's a specific process that governs the detention there. And [01:44:00] the idea is to send a message to people fleeing their home countries in the Caribbean that if they attempt to reach the United States by sea, they will be picked up and in very rare circumstances, if they pass their credible fear interview, they'll be sent to Guantanamo, but they will never reach the United States.

 Hey, so Jeff, is Donald Trump actually doing anything that we weren't already doing? Like this has made so much news, why? 

No immigrants have ever been sent to Guantanamo from the United States. This is the first time that has ever happened. 

JEFFREY KHAN: This is, from my perspective, in large part, political theater. The Trump administration has been hammering this idea that the crisis at the border [01:45:00] is an invasion. And an invasion requires a military response. And so what better way to equate immigrants with an invading army than to send them to Guantanamo, which is this place that in the public imagination is associated with the war on terror, with a war footing, with kind of exceptional reaction, exceptional powers, the use of Guantanamo to detain immigrants currently in the United States is doing a lot of symbolic work for the Trump administration. 

The messaging in some ways is very old. But the use of Guantanamo in this way is intended to cement in the public imagination this equation between immigrants and [01:46:00] an invading army of criminal aliens. 

SECTION C: BIPARTISAN EXPLOITATION

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: You've reached Section C: Bipartisan Exploitation.

Operation Wetback and the Bipartisan Legacy of US Deportations Part 2 - Letters and Politics - Air Date 1-16-25

ADAM GOODMAN: For a couple of years in the middle, the latter part of the 1950s, U. S. immigration officials, in collaboration with Mexican authorities and private Mexican companies, in addition to some private US companies, deported tens of thousands of people across the Gulf of Mexico on cargo ships that were designed and transported. meant to carry produce, you know, bananas, for example, that were taken from the Mexican state of Tabasco to states in the U. S. South like Alabama. And then on the return trip, these Mexican, privately owned Mexican cargo ships would pick up a group of deportees, 500 people, 800 people, depending on the ship, from Port Isabel, Texas, in the lower Rio Grande Valley, and then take them across the Gulf down to Veracruz, further away from the U.

S. [01:47:00] Mexico border. Now, you know, what this was really was an attempt at prevention through deterrence as what we later come to think of it as an effort by U. S. officials to make the conditions on these ships and to make the experience of deportation so miserable, um, and so challenging that people will decide not to return to the United States in the future.

If that doesn't happen, we know that if people do return, there's many factors that influence and affect people's decisions. But the conditions on these ships, you know, people, um, liken them sometimes to 17th and 18th century slave ships. Um, you know, the food was rancid. The conditions were just really inhumane.

They were not built for human consumption. Humans to travel on them, but there are humans in this case, Mexican migrants were thought of as human cargo, not just by us officials, but by Mexican officials and business people as well. It was an important [01:48:00] class dimension, class dynamic to this story. And eventually this operation ends after this, a mutiny aboard 1 of these ships where people jump overboard and.

You know, it becomes a national international news story, and it's no longer tenable. For the Mexican government to support this operation. So it ends, but that's not to say that, you know, the punitive tactics used to deport people stops. And that's something we know that continues in various forms. Um, you know, really in the decades since.

MITCH JESERICH - HOST, LETTERS AND POLITICS: Can you tell me more about the mutiny?

ADAM GOODMAN: The mutiny, you know, what we know is that, you know, there are a number of individuals, um, who jumped overboard on these ships when it was nearing Tampico. Which is. A little less than halfway, perhaps, um, on the trip from Port Isabel to Veracruz. Um, you know, really tragically, some people died after jumping overboard.

They were not. Not able to make it to shore, and [01:49:00] their remains were later found identified in some cases by the Levi's jeans that they were wearing. But this, you know, for understandable reasons, I guess, becomes. Delay a flashpoint and Mexican officials now kind of backtrack and try to try to go back on their support for the operation.

But if you look at the archival record. You know, the Mexican officials were very much in favor of the separation. Um, in the ways in which they described Mexican migrants, I think people would find. Equally important as the rhetoric used by the US officials. So in this case. You know, this operation was just one example, but we can really see the ways in which the business of deportation, um, and the necessity to deport mass numbers of people relied on physical, psychological harm.

And also material costs, you know, so profits, [01:50:00] um, you know, really drove this operation in addition to domestic and foreign politics. But there's these perverse economic incentives that, you know, are still around today in different forms, which people have probably followed in part through the stories about the private detention facilities.

But I should emphasize, it's not just, you know, the private, um, industries and businesses that are benefiting that are driving these operations. It's also in the public imperative, and this is something that we really see. Uh, the policies creating opportunities for. So as I mentioned earlier in our conversation, it's the policies that created a market into portable people and turn this into a business.

But the policies were different and people could come to the United States, you know, through legal means or regularize their status after some conditions are met, then they wouldn't be subject to these, you know, horrific experiences. 

MITCH JESERICH - HOST, LETTERS AND POLITICS: So, so it's a bad look. [01:51:00] People are learning and it's being covered.

People are learning about, uh, people are being deported on these ships that are, you know, uh, jumping off the ships, many of them drowning. It's, it, this is a catalyst for the end of this, for, for ending this program. That's how the program 

ADAM GOODMAN: essentially ends, you know, 50, 000 people later, um, and at roughly 75 trips.

On these boats, which carried again between 500 and 800 people on the vast majority were men, although, you know, roughly 10 percent from some of the ship logs and records. I identified where women and children, some entire families. Um, so, you know, this wasn't just a story of, you know, single male laborers, which wouldn't make it any less horrifying, but it's important to understand kind of demographic context as well.

And the different ways and the different people. Uh, that U. S. officials, uh, targeted in collaboration with Mexican officials and private [01:52:00] industry. 

MITCH JESERICH - HOST, LETTERS AND POLITICS: I think it's safe to say there has always been resistance to what has been happening dating for the last century, but it's really in the 1970s, isn't it? When we start to see the rise of something we would recognize today as an immigrant rights movement. 

ADAM GOODMAN: Yeah. As you point out, I mean, people have been organizing and engaged in activism, you know, long before the 1970s.

But I think we start to see. Both the current dynamics on the enforcement side as well as on the resistance side in the 1970s. You know, I refer to this time as the dawn of the age of mass expulsion. It's really the time in which, because of increasing presence of immigration officials and communities across the country, uh, deportation or the possibility of deportation becomes a fact of everyday life for many undocumented people.

You know, and some people here with legal status as well. And in response to that, in response to the fact [01:53:00] that an average of 900, 000 people per year are deported, starting in the late 1970s and really going to the present, with some fluctuations year to year. 

MITCH JESERICH - HOST, LETTERS AND POLITICS: Is this where we get sort of what we recognize today as raids?

ADAM GOODMAN: There are mass immigration raids happening all the time in the 1970s. And. You know, this is something that I document extensively, including, you know, one particular raid at a shoe factory outside of Los Angeles and. In the San Gabriel Valley in the town of El Monte. And there's a shoe factory there in which in May 1978.

A group of around 40 immigration agents descended on the factory. Surrounded all of the exits, close them off. And went in. And lined everyone up, lined up all the workers. And just based on. Broad racial profiling, you'll hold them down to their. Downtown Los Angeles headquarters at the federal [01:54:00] building.

And they were going to be on their way back to Mexico for deportation. Through these voluntary departures, because they're pressured to sign by these forms, agreeing to leave the country. Or be threatened with much harsher consequences, including. And indefinite time and detention while their cases played out.

And a group of, um, workers are boarding the buses to head to the border. And what happens that day is that the buses never make it to the border. Because in the background, behind the scenes, a coalition of labor organizers, immigration lawyers, immigrants themselves, and people who are involved in resistance work never I had filed an injunction in federal court and a judge had approved that and prevented their deportation.

So the buses have to circle back. And this case plays out over the course of the next 14 years, but long story short, is that many of the people were able to win their. [01:55:00] Cases they're able to have their deportation stayed and. They are not forced to leave the country and there's also a major class action lawsuit that's 1 that led to.

The victory in the sense that immigration officials would now have to inform undocumented people of their rights, uh, according to the Constitution, you know, when they were encountering them and apprehending them. And that was something that started with a group of 60 workers or so that fought their cases that led to, you know, that class action suit, which affected more than a million people in the country at the time.

So that's one story, um, of many, but yeah, immigration raids are happening, you know, across, um, urban areas and in some rural areas, agricultural areas, in which hundreds, sometimes thousands of people are rounded up. So, in 1982, just to give one other example, there's something called Operation Jobs, which is really a publicity effort, you know, to say that, look what we're doing to [01:56:00] crack down on, you know, immigration.

Um, immigration and immigrant workers who are supposedly taking the jobs of U. S. citizens who are desperate to have them, although that wasn't the case, which in a single week in 1982, 6, 000 people are rounded up in a series of mass raids. So, you know, what the incoming administration is promising has a long history and also in response, just as people are doing now to organize, um, and to plan that has an equally long history.

And, you know, that, that counterweight and that pushback. Uh, from the community and people looking at ways to transcend kind of the conventional definitions of belonging. Um, I think, you know, that's an important piece of the story that we need to, you know, really put front and center and not just, you know, feel impotent or that it's doom and gloom all the time.

Imperial Migration - Against the Grain - Air Date 2-4-25

EMILY MICHELLE-EATON: What I'm going to do is sort of zoom into the town of Springdale, Arkansas, um, which is the town where, um, which has become the largest new community of Marshall Islanders outside of the Marshall [01:57:00] Islands.

To think about first just why, why this town, why Arkansas? In fact, that chapter is, the subtitle of the chapter is Of All Places because, um, to many people, including to me when I started the research for this book, Arkansas seemed like perhaps an unlikely destination for Pacific Islanders. Certainly, there was not a long history of Pacific Islanders in the state.

Although, as I pointed out previously, there was, in fact, a long history of, um, migrant and refugee and asylum seeker flows into, into Arkansas. 

C.S. SONG - HOST, AGAINST THE GRAIN: So then why did Marshall Islanders in such significant numbers end up in Arkansas and in this city of Springdale, particularly? 

EMILY MICHELLE-EATON: So as I mentioned earlier, in 1986, the Marshall Islands elaborated the Compact of Free Association with the United States.

This gave them sort of, uh, unique migration privileges to the United States, we could say. And this really facilitated a dramatic emigration from the Marshall Islands to various sites in the United States. So, you know, obvious, [01:58:00] obvious destinations might seem might be places that were much closer, uh, Honolulu, uh, Guahan, uh, California, even, and then, uh, but then in, in the mid 1980s, we start to see the arrival of some of the earliest Marshall Islanders in Arkansas.

A lot of times, sort of, you know, People will talk about, uh, one of the first Marshallese arrivals to the state, John Moody, who had been in the area, um, previously to attend college. But, uh, Marshallese started to arrive to Springdale in really significant numbers in the mid 80s. Part of this was because of the sort of affordable cost of living in Arkansas compared to places like, uh, certainly in California and Hawaii, um, especially in terms of housing.

And Northwest Arkansas also offered a more robust employment opportunities, especially in the poultry and meatpacking sector. So for those unfamiliar, Northwest Arkansas, and Springdale in fact itself, is the headquarters of Tyson Poultry, the birthplace of its founder. And, uh, meat packing and, and chicken processing in particular, [01:59:00] uh, shapes so much of the, the physical, the geographical landscape and the political economy of that region as well.

Um, so that was sort of an initial draw that plus the cost of living. Then, of course, you know, it became a place that had a sort of a critical mass of community and with many, as with many immigrant, uh, communities. Flows, right? Once when people have an established community, have contacts, friends or family members that were there, it became easier for Marshall Islanders to relocate in that area, not as resettled refugees, but as sort of non immigrant migrants with a special, um, unique immigration provision.

Now, over time, We're talking about nearly 40 years now since this migration stream began, we see the establishment of, uh, sort of a more institutional presence of Marshall Islanders in the community. So we see the, the presence of Marshallese, uh, interpreters, non profits, uh, churches, over, there are over a hundred, uh, I believe Marshallese, uh, churches now in Springdale, as well as local agencies and [02:00:00] institutions that sort of have familiarity with Marshallese culture and the unique legal and policy landscape for Marshallese immigration.

So that's, those are some of the factors that help to kind of, um, establish and then, and then cement this, this growing community. 

C.S. SONG - HOST, AGAINST THE GRAIN: That's the voice of Emily Mitchell Eaton. She is a geographer based at Colgate University. Her recent work engages feminist theories and methods to map geographies of death, birth, care, and disability.

We are talking about her book, New Destinations of Empire, Mobilities, Racial Geographies, and Citizenship in the Trans Pacific United States. I'm C. S., and this is Against the Grain. I mean, a hundred churches that that's really kind of startling and amazing. Um, Springdale as a result has, of course, changed in dramatic ways demographically.

And in this book, you take us back to Springdale's origins [02:01:00] and reveal that Springdale was constructed As a white settler town, um, talk about that construction. Um, I'm, I'm guessing that Springdale at it's when it was begun was largely or solely white. Um, talk about that construction and what it had to do with or how it related to the presence of indigenous peoples in Arkansas in that region before white settlers came.

EMILY MICHELLE-EATON: One of the things that I'm Trying to unpack in the book is how we understand what are sometimes referred to as new immigrant destinations, places that have not historically received large immigrant populations in the past, and how they're changing over time. Uh, what I'm trying to challenge here in this chapter in particular, um, is, That zooms in on Springdale is the idea that this was sort of a quote unquote, naturally white town that all of a sudden in the 1980s started to receive migrants from [02:02:00] the Marshall Islands, as well as Mexico and Central America.

Now, I'm trying to sort of think about the construction of this as a white town through various processes of racial, Exclusion, uh, as part of a larger settler colonial process, um, and my essential argument here is that migrant arrivals to new places are shaped by longstanding racial geographies, right?

Landscapes that are forged both through kind of discursive and material processes of white supremacy. That are central to sort of empire making, um, and that those longer racial histories and geographies dramatically impact the way that new, uh, arrivals are received, are made sense of, experience place, and get worked into sort of the new narratives about those destinations.

And so, um, Springdale, as you guessed, uh, was established sort of as a white settler town, but preceded by, uh, processes of displacement of indigenous and [02:03:00] native populations through that region. So the book looks at. Um, how Springdale was created through sort of four main processes of racialized exclusion and dispossession.

Uh, first I, I spent some time thinking about Springdale as a site of indigenous removal, uh, as a site on the, on the Trail of Tears. So Springdale and neighboring Fayetteville in Arkansas were directly sort of along the path, the Trail of Tears, or the path along which, um, indigenous, uh, Peoples from what is now referred to as the Southeast United States were, were relocated, forcibly relocated, um, through, uh, what is now present day Arkansas into what is now Oklahoma, Oklahoma Territory.

Um, and so for quite some time, we have sort of the presence of Kapa, Chinooka, Caddo, and Osage. Populations in what we would now refer to as Northwest Arkansas, as well as being moved through that, that area, uh, forcibly and violently in order to make way [02:04:00] for a new white settler population. This period was followed by, in the early 19th century, the solicitation by sort of town, the town establishment of white workers.

Uh, which we see documented in historical newspapers and ads to bring workers to the area. Um, oftentimes touting the absence of black populations or other racialized, um, worker populations, as well as investors. And again, all of the sort of advertisements at the time were, were celebrating this as a white town.

Uh, you don't have to worry about these other sort of troublesome populations. This is a sort of a lily white town where your investment will, um, will bear fruit. So that's, those are sort of two early ways in which this town was constructed actively and violently as a white town. 

C.S. SONG - HOST, AGAINST THE GRAIN: Springdale was also for a time a sundown town.

Remind us of what sundown towns were. And I know you also want to talk about Japanese American internment in relation to Springdale. [02:05:00] 

EMILY MICHELLE-EATON: Sundown towns, uh, existed across the continental United States. Generally, that term refers to a place that excluded or forcibly removed its black population, um, at least for the purposes of living there, um, at sundown.

So what that might look like is having a sign at the edges of town saying, don't let the sun go down on you. So a very explicit, very violent sort of, um, way of marking the landscape to, um, threaten violence against, um, black workers who might seek residency in that town. Now, I was never able to find a photograph of the, the sign, uh, in Springdale, but many people told me that Many Springdale residents, long time residents, told me that that sign, they could remember it being there up until the late 1970s.

So this is a very recent part of Springdale's racial past. And then, uh, I also spent some time looking at, uh, Japanese and American internment and wartime othering. How Japanese, as well as [02:06:00] other East Asian populations, although smaller in numbers, were, um, both brought to the state more broadly, but then also faced racialized exclusion and othering in the town of Springdale.

So, um Um, as they were kind of drawn in, worked into that larger narrative about threatening outsider, perpetual foreigner, you know, these sort of larger tropes about, um, East Asians and, and Japanese Americans in particular at that time. So the main point that I'm trying to make here is that the creation of quote unquote all white space, even if only in our imaginations, this is a fiction, if you look at the history carefully, the creation of all white space in a settler colonial context is one that takes constant and violent action at many levels.

Discursive, the way we talk about places, who belongs there, who doesn't, at the policy and legal level, uh, and even in the shaping of the landscape, in the exclusion of certain populations from certain areas, in the, in the building of sort of, um, basement back door entrances for black workers and the construction of signs at the edge of [02:07:00] town, all these different ways in which, uh, white space has to be constantly shored up, uh, which is to say that it is not natural.

Um, And these racial, these histories of racialized exclusions continue to resurface over time in the way that local residents in Springdale talk to me about the meanings of their town, the racial histories of their town, uh, over the past several decades.

The Criminalization of Immigration: Profiting From Detention with Anthony Enriquez - Art of Citizenry - Air Date 1-30-25

MANPREET KAUR KALRA - HOST, ART OF CITIZENRY: How much transparency do we have into government contracts with private corporations? Public private partnerships are a significant public policy tool. However, these partnerships can raise concerns regarding incentives and motivations, including how open these partnerships are to scrutiny and oversight.

Remember, taxpayer money is funding these contracts. 

ANTHONY ENRIQUEZ: Yeah, the layer of contracting around immigration detention is pretty legally complex. And so, the federal government, uh, in some cases, will contract with a [02:08:00] locality, who will then subcontract with a private company. And there's really a bunch of different channels that you have to dig through in order to determine exactly how our Funds being spent some of the companies are not publicly traded companies and so therefore are not, uh, subjected to the same disclosure laws as a publicly traded company as well.

You know, I should also say the nature of privatized attention. It's not just 3 companies that own the building that is housing people. It's also the commissaries. It's also the phone companies. It's also. Some of the private medical services companies that are part of this large privatized machine as well, too.

So it's a very decentralized system. You know, there is no central database that shows us this is exactly how much they spent on that. Um, this is the report that they owe to [02:09:00] Congress or to some type of public oversight body that can explain where these fundings when that can justify how much salary, maybe a CEO is paid versus someone who.

Is a low level employee, you know, and and they're being paid for what at the end of the day is a public function. It's supposed to be law enforcement. Uh, and so unlike other types of law enforcement, this one uniquely really has a shroud of secrecy around it. 

MANPREET KAUR KALRA - HOST, ART OF CITIZENRY: Understanding this context around the detention center complex helps us contextualize the infrastructure in place to support hardline immigration policies.

How did we get here? Unpacking the history of immigration policy helps us better understand the way immigration conversations are shaped. The 1996 Immigration Reform Act marked a significant pivot towards a punitive approach in U. S. immigration policy. What were these policy shifts [02:10:00] and what were the social or political factors that drove these changes in immigration policy?

ANTHONY ENRIQUEZ: Let's start with the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act was the official name. It's often called IRA IRA within legal circles. It was really A momentous law, it completely recast undocumented immigration as a crime and really represented a fusion of immigration, civil legal enforcement with criminal legal enforcement.

It instituted an entirely new fast track of deportations called expedited removal, where immigrants were no longer given the opportunity to see an immigration judge, but instead could be deported very, very quickly at the border and a number of hours in some cases before they had the opportunity to seek legal counsel.

It [02:11:00] instituted a regime of mandatory immigration detention. For certain classes of immigrants, including people who are coming to the border or people who had previously served a criminal sentence, had been declared rehabilitated, had been released from underlying criminal detention, had, you know, potentially been reintegrated into their communities for years, if not decades, this group of people would now be subject to mandatory immigration detention.

And what that word mandatory means is the government never has to show justification for detaining you. There's no reason that we have to say you're, there's a need for your individual detention because you are a flight risk or you're a danger. And it means that you have no opportunity to challenge your detention before a judge.

So this also feeds, of course, into the privatization of detention, because if we have people who are [02:12:00] guaranteed to be detained, well, that sounds like a great business deal for someone, you always have a built in consumer of your product. You know, the year that this law passed, 1996, right, it might be difficult for people to remember, but this was in the heyday of a democratic presidential administration.

This was actually under Bill Clinton's presidency. And the political shifts that drove this type of tough on crime, tough on immigration law are part of a really concerted bipartisan effort to use a tough on crime approach as a bipartisan driver in elections that drives some people to the polls. So no matter who you are, that is part of.

And what your political platform and that's part of getting people to the polls. And we see this for instance today when there's still really, there's a lot of focus on crime, on how dangerous everything is when [02:13:00] statistically speaking, actually, crime has gone down. Major crime has gone down. There are small exceptions and things like vehicle theft, but for the most part, major violent crimes have gone down around the country.

And yet we still hear a really direct focus on how we're at danger and we have to get tougher on crime. 

MANPREET KAUR KALRA - HOST, ART OF CITIZENRY: It's important to note that the current administration is attempting to fast track deportation without due process. Recognizing that many of those most impacted by these policies are individuals from communities of color, it is crucial to critically examine the deep rooted racialization of immigration policies.

Throughout history, political leaders have weaponized fear by demonizing immigrant communities and framing the other as a threat to unify and mobilize their base. These tactics only further perpetuate systems of exclusion with harmful manufactured narratives [02:14:00] underpinning the policies that they are pushing forth.

This raises a critical question, what role does race play in shaping immigration policies? 

ANTHONY ENRIQUEZ: So, Race is kind of the red elephant in the room when we talk about immigration. Um, uh, I'm always wary of saying immediately the root of all of this is racism. And if you're against this, you're racist because strictly from a pragmatic sense, you know, that's really isolating people who say, well, Hey, I have a question about immigration or I'm uncomfortable.

And, um, You know, I like to keep a big time approach where I say you're welcome to have a conversation. We should learn from each other. Um, tell me about your concerns. I'll tell you about mine. But, uh, race has been a motivating factor in immigration policy from the very start, you know, the United States, [02:15:00] notwithstanding that we have an image of statute of liberties and gives me a tired.

Um, notwithstanding that we think of ourselves as a country of immigrants in many ways, the United States has always had an ambivalent relationship with immigration and with immigrants. You can think about the roots of a national immigration policy in the late 19th century was what are called the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Where the federal government said, we will not permit anybody of the Chinese race to come to immigrate to the United States. And, you know, after a long tradition of, of Chinese people coming and Asian people from other countries as well to coming to the United States, building the railroads that helped cross the planes from the East coast to the West coast.

Coming parts of vibrant economic communities on the West coast as well. You can think about the shift in the early 20th century to Southern and [02:16:00] Eastern European immigration. That was the root of really restrictive immigration laws and quotas on immigration from certain countries that occurred in immigration laws in the 20th century.

You know, this is back at a time when. Italian was thought of as a different race than white in American cultural imagination. And so, you know, the story of race is part of this, but also the story of class is a part of this as well, too. It's always been the case that some immigrants are welcome. You know, the, the president himself, his wife is an immigrant, the richest person in the country right now, who, you know, Elon Musk, who has been come a real stalwart ally of the president, he himself is an immigrant.

So there are certain immigrants who are welcome. Who we think of, we want them here. And, and, you know, [02:17:00] president Trump himself said things similar to this during his first presidency. We don't want those immigrants from those countries. We want people from this region of the world. That's also a story about class, not just race.

Um, you know, whether or not everybody who opposes immigration is racist. I, I, I don't believe that to be the truth. I do think what's happening here is people are looking for. The truth, and people are willing to settle for a narrative in some ways, this sense that we're all fighting for a piece of a decreasing pie.

And I think that's where, you know, we really owe a conversation with people, where we can give them the narrative and give them the truth about what's happening with things like immigration detention, where yes, you're absolutely right. Someone's getting rich off of this. It's not you. It happens to be someone who's taking your tax dollars, pocketing them in a multi million dollar [02:18:00] salary, and using this system of abuse.

And in the meantime, you know, the policies that current leaders are saying they want to expand are going to deepen that abuse. Both of the immigrant, but also of you. Of the economic abuse of you.

News Brief: Trump's Anti-Migrant Terror PR Strategy, Dr Phil's ICE Reality Show & NYT's MAGA Assist - Citations Needed - Air Date 1-29-25

 

ADAM JOHNSON - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: We wanted to kind of clarify some things about what’s going on on the ground as it impacts immigrants, both at the border itself and also within the communities that they live, and talk about the ways in which the US media has really set the table for the moment of, unlike in 2017, there is really not any kind of meaningful partisan counterbalance. It is almost uniform consensus that migrants are sinister and bad and a cancer to society. And the debate is whether or not we need to deport 100% of them or 50% of them. That’s kind of the range of debate right now in our media, because the parties that the terms of the debate and the media follows from that largely and this kind of priming the pump for Trump’s crackdowns.

[02:19:00] And again, high profile, and when we say terror regime, it’s sort of what it is explicitly, which is to say they want to scare people and make them frightened, to create an environment of fear and snitching that in their mind, deters immigration, but also gives law enforcement a very wide berth to kind of do whatever they want. And in this context, we saw the New York Times doing this before Trump even took office. The New York Times read an editorial to kind of prime the pump for liberals on January 10, 2025, called “A Big Idea to Solve America’s Immigration Mess,” which has some liberal bromides about humanitarianism, but accepts a lot of the premises, the MAGA premises, and then goes on to scold Democrats for being too far left by writing a sentence that is absolutely, 100%, factually false. It is just not true by any objective metric, especially in the last election, where they wrote quote, “in recent elections Democrats increasingly cast themselves as full-throated defenders of immigrants, regardless of legal status,” [02:20:00] unquote.

Now, in 2024, the Harris campaign and Democrats in general, for both the House and the Senate, ran on explicitly a quote-unquote, “Republican immigration plan.” Chris Murphy, the White House, among others, adopted what they described as a Republican immigration plan that would have tripled the budget of ICE enforcement, that would have exploded, to the tune of billions, so-called immigration enforcement, increased raids, increased deportations. But the New York Times again, all for nothing, it seems, in terms of getting quote-unquote “credit” for it, The New York Times is still operating under this assumption that there’s this far-left open-border policy and this kind of semi-pragmatic Republican Trump policy. We need to kind of meet in the middle, or meet closer to the Trump agenda.

They published a poll before Trump took office that also deceptively gave the impression that Trump’s immigration policies were popular. The headline was, quote, “Support for Trump’s Policies Exceeds Support for Trump: A new poll found the public is [02:21:00] sympathetic to the president-elect’s plans to deport migrants and reduce America’s presence overseas.”

The “reducing America’s presence overseas” question is laughably vague to the point of meaningless, but the immigration questions are fundamentally based on contradictions. Every single poll that’s been done about mass deportations has within it a total contradiction that is never reconciled by those promoting this idea that the people, the masses, sort of overwhelmingly want mass deportations. Recent polls show that 64% of Americans say undocumented immigrants should have a way to stay legally. 56% support mass deportation. But among those who support mass deportation, 43% say undocumented migrants should have a way of staying.

NIMA SHIRAZI - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: So it all depends on how you frame the question.

ADAM JOHNSON - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: It all depends on how you phrase the question, and the New York Times asks a push poll where they don’t refer to the people as “undocumented,” they refer to them as “illegal,” or they’re sort of “immigrants who are there illegally.” Sort of they keep using this loaded push language. They don’t even mention the contradiction that a good quarter to 30% of Americans simultaneously support mass deportations of [02:22:00] undocumented immigrants and want them to have a pathway to stay and become citizens. Because, guess what? A lot of people are super contradictory and have contradictory opinions, and there isn’t any kind of mass support for Trump’s policies. Peter Baker ran a similar article saying that while Trump may be not popular, many of his policies are. But that’s not true. If you actually run down a list of top 20 Trump policies, most of them are unpopular, depending how you phrase the question and the extent to which they’re popular or not, this is not why Trump is doing them, and it’s not why Democrats are doing them, and to the extent to which you can kind of manipulate and torture numbers until you get this broad consensus, is pretty much a textbook example of how you manufacture consent on the eve of Trump taking office. You give this impression that, well, Trump may not be popular, but increasingly people really want mass deportation, and that is not borne out by the evidence.

And there were so many weasel words in this article: “some,” “many,” “may.” Because they don’t really know what people want. And what Trump is doing, whether or not it’s popular or not, is of course, not why he’s doing it, and it’s not why Democrats are supporting it. There’s [02:23:00] an emerging national security consensus that climate chaos, again on display recently with the LA wildfires, that will increase refugees from the Global South to the United States, and that there needs to be a heavily militarized border. And everything after that, this idea that they’re all kind of just responding to this organic upward anger from the masses, is totally reverse-engineered, because, again, party polarization plays a large part in this. And when the most famous, popular leaders of a party begin to mimic Republican rhetoric on immigration, you’re naturally going to see people veer to the right on immigration. But even within that veering, like we mentioned, there are so many contradictions. There are so many ways you could frame this in a way that is not dehumanizing and doesn’t present immigrants as inherently sinister or a cancer on society, but that’s just not the way the media has chosen to do this.

Unlike 2017, where there was more of a sense that Trump’s policies were fascistic, they were a veer from the norm, they were not necessarily popular, they were dehumanizing. And now what you have is this kind of bipartisan consensus [02:24:00] that Trump, while his tactics may be unseemly or he may go too far, that the broad outlines of what he’s doing, the broad contours of what he’s doing, that there’s a mandate and it’s necessary and overdue. And so these extreme border policies are being presented as kind of normal policy. So he’s challenging birthright citizenship, which would have been unthinkable six months ago, is now presented by both the AP and NPR as, quote, “a sweeping new strategy,” unquote. This is just another sort of strategy the White House has taken. And in doing so, NPR quotes the Center for Immigration Studies to talk about why birthright citizenship is well within the purview of acceptable debates. The Center for Immigration Studies, or CIS, is a eugenicist, anti-immigration think tank that NPR, I criticized NPR for citing them seven years ago for FAIR.org. They’ve been categorized since 2016 by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group. They have tons of connections to antisemitic and white nationalist groups. CIS is just presented as this Washington think tank that deals in immigration, because the [02:25:00] Overton window has been ratcheted so far to the right that we now have NPR, again, as they did in 2017–

NIMA SHIRAZI - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: Being like, well, I guess that is up for debate.

ADAM JOHNSON - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: Well, going to white nationalist groups that have ties to antisemitic and far-right conspiracy theorists as a sort of sober–

NIMA SHIRAZI - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: As some kind of authority, right.

ADAM JOHNSON - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: And this is the current environment with which we find ourselves, and nobody wants to own it. And so the New York Times and other liberal groups, and even ostensibly neutral reporters, keep laundering this far-right policy shift as something they’re doing reluctantly because the masses demand it.

Building the Deportation Machine for Trump 2.0 - The Intercept Briefing - Air Date 1-17-25

MIKAYLA LACY - HOST, THE INTERCEPT BRIEFING: I've seen some of the reporting about does the infrastructure or the the technical capacity to actually do this exist? Can you talk about why that is not really the point? Point. Can you elaborate a little bit on that? 

JULIANA MACEDO DONACIMENTO: It's twofold, right? One is the rhetoric. It's fear mongering.

It's getting people to, you know, go back into the shadows. It's um, it's taking away people's statuses. It's [02:26:00] about getting people to Like leave the country by themselves, but it's also about scaling up the capacity that they have right now. Right? Like right now they have, you know, 40, 000 beds, uh, funded, um, Tom Holman, who's supposed to be the new borders are, has already said that he would expect Congress to fund them to tune of 86 billion to ICCBP and DHS, which is An insane amount of money, right?

Like more than triple their current funding to scale up, right? Texas has already offered space for them to put up new facilities. They're talking about soft sided facility facilities. So it wouldn't even take a long time to build them. So they are thinking about. How to scale up, how to do this on a mass scale, even though, you know, Tom Holman has also [02:27:00] said that we won't see mass work rates.

They don't have the capacity for doing that right now, but he is expecting to be funded to be able to do it. So, we are worried about the rhetoric, but we're also worried about what we can see by the end of the year. 

MIKAYLA LACY - HOST, THE INTERCEPT BRIEFING: Sean, you've been digging into the Lakin Riley Act, which empowers state attorneys general in immigration cases.

What does this actually allow them to do, and why are you concerned about it? 

SEAN MUSGRAVE: So these are provisions of the Lakin Riley Act that have not gotten nearly as much attention as some of the other features of it. So the Lakin Riley Act. would mandate detention of immigrants who are just accused of, um, or arrested for things like, like shoplifting or theft.

So those parts of the Lake and Reilly Act have gotten a lot more attention. The provisions I'm more interested in are the ones about state attorneys general, which do not typically have much, if [02:28:00] anything, to do with immigration. immigration. Some Republican attorneys general lately, particularly Ken Paxton in Texas, Andrew Bailey in Missouri, have spent most of the Biden administration just suing the Biden administration to try and expand their footprint in immigration.

What these provisions of the Lake and Riley act would do is just to, is do, do what Ken Paxton has asked numerous courts to do often unsuccessfully, which is to say state attorneys general can, can weigh in here specifically the Lake and Riley act would allow the state attorneys general to, to sue DHS or the attorney general, if they want a particular.

Immigrant to be detained or deported. So this is a really big expansion of the role of a state attorney general to say this particular person should be detained or deported. If I didn't agree with that determination, the other provision about state attorneys general, which is even even bigger is to. Uh, kind of bigger in scale [02:29:00] would allow someone like Ken Paxton to sue the State Department, uh, over visa policy over whether to grant visas to an entire country, uh, under the Provision called the recalcitrant countries, the policy, but I mean, in short, it's, it's a really big expansion of the input that a state attorney general could give into immigration, which up to this point, that's been a federal matter, not a state one.

MIKAYLA LACY - HOST, THE INTERCEPT BRIEFING: Yeah, I want to just like zero in a little bit on how unprecedented something like that is the idea that you could have a state official being tasked with using state resources to target individual people based on. Suspicion or sort of the bare minimum standard of not even evidence in some of these cases.

Can you just like talk a little bit more about how that's different from what state attorneys general are typically responsible for? And [02:30:00] why? Why? That's particularly alarming in terms of the Bleeding of the responsibility across these different agencies and across different policy spheres. 

SEAN MUSGRAVE: Yeah, this would just totally change the way that, uh, detention and deportation decisions.

Operate so this would what these, uh, the provisions about individual. Detention and deportation decisions would do would create. Kind of a new track for state attorneys general specifically, and it's it's a 1 way, which is interesting as as. The current version of the bill would not allow a state attorney general to sue ICE or the Department of Homeland Security to say we don't think that this person should be detained or deported.

It's one way they could only do it if they think that the person should be detained or deported. The other thing it would do, it would pull this into federal district court through, uh, The motion [02:31:00] of the attorney general and take this out of, um, kind of the typical immigration, um, court and like detention proceeding process.

So it really is just kind of a new track to give state attorneys general input into the very life altering decision over whether to detain or, or deport an individual. 

MIKAYLA LACY - HOST, THE INTERCEPT BRIEFING: Julianna, can, I want to bring you in here too on, on the Lincoln Riley Act. How is United We Dream thinking about this? What are, what are the major red flags here for, for you all?

JULIANA MACEDO DONACIMENTO: Yeah. I mean, the, uh, the provisions that Sean was mentioning are very worrisome to us. We know that Ken Paxton has, you know, targeted immigrants for a long time. And the issue of standing is one of the ways that we've been able to actually, like, defend, you Our communities in courts, right? Like it's how courts have been able to like stop some of the, some of his attacks, [02:32:00] but the mandatory detention is something that definitely is top of mind for us because of the potential for, um, you know, mass detention and mass deportations.

There's been some chatter about quote unquote dreamers or immigrant youth, as we like to refer to them. Ourselves are not affected by this. They're protected. That's not true, right? It doesn't even have an age limit, potentially underage. Immigrants who enter the country unauthorized and are caught shoplifting could be detained indefinitely, right?

So we are very, very concerned about this. We've been trying to raise the alarm in showing the potential for this to be tied to mass detention that would be funded by the upcoming reconciliation process that then is just a pipeline to mass deportations. Thank you very much. So there is like a through thread here of the plan of the next administration and how this bill [02:33:00] fits into it that folks are just not seeing and how dangerous it is.

SECTION D: REALITY ON THE GROUND

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally, Section D: Reality on the Ground.

The Reality at the Border with Jonathan Blitzer Part 1 - Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast - Air Date 2-4-25

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: Take us back to 1980 and when we get the first kind of version of what will become the embedded asylum law that is now at the center of so much of our immigration debates.

JONATHAN BLITZER: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, in 1980, at the start of this legislative push to create the 1980 Refugee Act, there was no legislation really ever in American history that dealt with asylum or refugee law in any kind of meaningful codified way. And just to be clear, I mean, you know this distinction, but it’s always worth just clarifying, asylum is providing protection to people fleeing persecution when they arrive at the U.S. border or at U.S. territory.

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: They have their foot on the shore or they get across the border. They are here now, they’re asylum seekers.

JONATHAN BLITZER: Exactly. Whereas refugee policy concerns people also fleeing persecution who by law, deserve some form of protection, [02:34:00] but who are processed outside of the United States --

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: Yeah.

JONATHAN BLITZER: -- either in a third country or before they leave their own. And so what had happened up until 1980 was essentially that president after president had to deal with ad hoc humanitarian emergencies in the world, where you’d have large numbers of people fleeing persecution, civil strife, war, famine, you name it. And what would happen is the president, through power enshrined in the 1950s, would essentially parole into the United States, grant a kind of temporary sort of reprieve to a particular population. And then what would happen is once that group of people were in the United States, Congress would have to pass what was called an Adjustment Act that would basically give them a legal avenue to regularize their status.

And so obviously over time, this becomes incredibly unwieldy. Every time there’s a humanitarian crisis in the world, and you can imagine in 1982, you know, you’re at the heart of the Cold War, there are all these international entanglements. The United States is really very much asserting itself on the world stage, there [02:35:00] was a kind of chaos that started to set in where every time there was an issue, you’d have 100,000 people, 200,000 people paroled in, then a subsequent act of Congress passed to regularize their status. And so the idea in 1980 was to finally put an end to that kind of improvisation and to actually codify some basic mechanisms for bringing people fleeing persecution into the United States in a kind of steady established form.

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: And there’s a geopolitical aspect to this too. Like Vietnam’s a great example, right? Where, you know, sometimes those refugees are leaving because they were our allies in a war we unsuccessfully fought for essentially over a decade. And then when Vietnam unifies under communist rule, these people have to leave. And both domestically and internationally, it looks a little bad for us to be like, sorry guys. I mean, it’s very similar to what happened in Afghanistan, right, with folks that helped the U.S. forces or translators. And so there’s this push to be like, we look pretty horrible here. We have both for political optics and [02:36:00] maybe some actual substantive moral obligation, which I think some of the people involved in this really feel we have to have these people come here.

JONATHAN BLITZER: And you know, it should be said, this is a general consensus that held, I think essentially until the first Trump administration, which was bipartisan and which consisted of stakeholders as diverse as the Defense Department and human rights advocates --

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: Yes.

JONATHAN BLITZER: -- who all believed in the value of the U.S. taking its sort of moral responsibility in resettling people in need. And this wasn’t just a matter of extending a lifeline to people who had been loyal to the United States or a victim of any number of atrocities tied to U.S. foreign policy, but also from a kind of Defense Department or State Department standpoint, it was a real impediment to diplomacy in the world to basically show that the United States was not doing more to help people who had been allied with the United States. And how could the United States say --

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: Right.

JONATHAN BLITZER: -- for example, following Vietnam, oh, look, we need all of these countries in Asia or in Europe to take on refugees --

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: Right.

JONATHAN BLITZER: -- at a time when we’re [02:37:00] ourselves reluctant to. So there was really a kind of --

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: Right.

JONATHAN BLITZER: -- broad consensus behind the basic underpinnings of the 1980 Refugee Act, which just to fast forward briefly, I really think held up until the first Trump administration. You would have Republican and Democratic administrations which disagreed on foreign policy, which generally disagreed on domestic immigration policy, but by and large recognize the utility of having a thorough going refugee policy that could meaningfully account for American involvement in the world.

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: And there’s also this Cold War dimension, which you mentioned, which I also just to skip ahead for a second, it’s so striking to me right now as the population of people the border has shifted over time and it actually is the people you write about primarily from what’s called the Northern Triangle, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador in Central America during 2023 at that peak was a lot of Cubans and Venezuelans. And what was interesting about that is, if you go back to 1980, right? It’s like they’re fleeing the communist regime of Cuba and the sort of ostensibly socialist dictatorship, [02:38:00] presidential dictatorship in Venezuela.

And you can imagine a version of right-wing politics. It’s like, we have to take these people because they’re fleeing the depredations of left-wing policy, which was part of the animating force that held this consensus together, as I understand it from your book.

JONATHAN BLITZER: Well, and so in the early ‘80s, you have the collision of two things right out of the gate. So you have the 1980 Refugee Act. And again, the idea is to, in a certain sense, remove ideology from the equation to say, anyone who can demonstrate that they’re being persecuted based on their identity in these specific ways laid out in the statute --

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: Yes.

JONATHAN BLITZER: -- is entitled to legal protection in the United States. And yet there is a real tension between that legal imperative and the clarity of the language of this new statute and the realities of the Cold War. And so in the early 1980s, you had large numbers of people from Central America fleeing absolutely brutal military regimes who were all allied with the United States in the Cold War. And so these people arrive in the United States with straight ahead, almost textbook claims for protection according to [02:39:00] this new law, which in many ways is a laudable piece of legislation, a real step forward for American immigration policy, human rights policy, foreign policy, and so on.

And yet, huge numbers of people from Central America fleeing right-wing regimes were denied asylum because if the United States were to grant asylum in large numbers to people obviously fleeing repression at the hands of American allies, the U.S. would essentially be recognizing its complicity in those atrocities. And so right out of the gate --

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: Right.

JONATHAN BLITZER: -- you have the promise of this law brought into check by geopolitics. And so in the early ‘80s at a time when, I believe the statistic is something like, you know, 23% of people seeking asylum were granted. You had in countries like El Salvador and Guatemala where people were fleeing absolutely unspeakable repression at the hand of U.S. allies, rejection rates that were 98 and 99%. So, you’re getting between 1% and 2% of Salvadorans and Guatemalans applying for [02:40:00] relief actually are getting it in the United States. Whereas by and large, most other people fleeing --

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: Right.

JONATHAN BLITZER: -- say Nicaragua at the time, where a leftist government was in power, and that accorded with kind of the general American view about what its role and stewardship should be in the region, those people were getting much higher rates of acceptance when they applied for asylum. And so, immediately there was this problem of the U.S. needing to square this new law with kind of deeply embedded geopolitical Cold War era orthodoxies.

"Fascism Is at the Door": Trump Threatens to Deport Pro-Palestinian International Student Protesters - Democracy Now! - Air Date 2-4-25

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Momodou Taal, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Africana Studies at Cornell University, almost deported last year after being temporarily suspended for his pro-Palestine activism. [Momodou] , if you can talk about what happened to you? We would report your story in headlines. There was tremendous outcry and pressure on Cornell to remove the suspension so you wouldn’t be deported. Explain what happened.

MOMODOU TAAL: Yes, so, [02:41:00] we partook in a protest at Statler Hotel on Cornell’s campus. And in that careers fair, which was taking place in the Statler Hotel, there was Boeing and L3Harris, who are targets of our divestment campaign, because we know that L3Harris and Boeing are directly involved in shipments and armaments of Israelis’ genocide against the Palestinian people. We eventually brought the careers fair to a standstill. And about a few days later, I was told that I was suspended. And someone on the F-1 visa being suspended means that you lose your student status, which triggers the loss of your visa, effectively being deported, being asked to leave the country. I was told in that meeting that I would have about 48 hours to leave the country.

With, as you said, public pressure, support, Cornell University backed down, and I am [02:42:00] allowed to finish my degree. However, I am still banned from campus. I’m allowed in one building on campus to work. I had to fight to be able to get library access. And I think there’s somewhat of a great irony that students who were protesting apartheid are now subject to forms of exclusion bordering on apartheid, with our movements restricted, and we’re only allowed to go to designated places on campus.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And how has your work as a graduate student continued to be affected since the university rescinded your suspension?

MOMODOU TAAL: It continues to be impacted, because, first and foremost, I’m excluded from campus life. I was teaching a class to undergrads, which was — I’m effectively banned from teaching. My class was taken away from me, which everyone knows is a [02:43:00] huge part of progression with your degree. My movements remain restricted. I had to fight, as I’ve said, to be able to use the library, to have work from the library — right? — to be able to go onto campus and to use certain access of certain parts of campus. Right now, as I said, I’m still only allowed in one building on campus. To demonstrate the egregious nature of this, I had to even fight with the university to say, if I use Cornell Health, go to see a doctor, initially I was told I have to inform them every single time I have a doctor’s appointment to be allowed onto campus.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Momodou, can you respond to Trump’s executive order, as he talks about alien students being deported, your colleagues at Cornell and other places that you’re hearing from, what kind of effect that this has had? And also, I mean, you were born in Gambia. You’re a [02:44:00] British citizen. Why you support the Palestinians and were involved in those protests?

MOMODOU TAAL: Thanks for both those questions. For the first one, of course, the executive orders, the language in which — the framing and the language of the executive orders clearly are targeting pro-Palestinians protesters, international students. And I think they’re intended to have a chilling effect on Palestinian protests, pro-Palestinian protesters, in order for them to stop protesting at the threat of deportation. The message that is being sent out is, if you are an international student who comes here legally, then you should not be involved in exercising your First Amendment right, or you will be subject to deportation. And that is the intended effect. I don’t think it’s going to work. I think, if anything, when fascism is at the door, what we do is come together and unite even stronger.

However, as for your second question, I think, fundamentally, yes, I’m Gambian. Yes, I’m British. [02:45:00] But fundamentally, I’m a human being. And I think what Palestine does, when we say Palestine is a litmus test, we’re saying that it is not that we privilege the Palestinian cause over every other cause, but rather Palestine holds a mirror up unto the world and says, “What kind of world do we want to live in? Do you want to live in a world in which every single international, multilateral institution is rubbished? Do you want to live in a world where the ICC and the ICJ are rendered defunct, and the U.N. rendered defunct, and there’s no such thing as an international cooperation of a world, and people are able to do — and leaders are able to act in any way they see fit, and kill women and children and men and boys, and enact genocide?” So, I think, fundamentally, why I get involved is because I’m a human being.

And finally, I will end with, the university was presented with a crossroad. That crossroad: Will they protect their students? They failed initially by suspending so many people. [02:46:00] Again, now with Trump’s presidency, the university is presented with another crossroad. And I’m calling on the university to not just be a bystander, but take an active position, an active role to defend their students and say, ’We’re not going to allow Trump and the right-wing fascists and outside agencies to come onto campuses and collect foreign students.”

The Reality at the Border with Jonathan Blitzer Part 2 - Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast - Air Date 2-4-25

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: If 80 to 90% of what you’re dealing with at the border for what used to be called INS and border patrol is Mexicans coming over to work, right? There’s actually different legal regimes. And in fact, it’s encoded in the bureaucratic language in the acronym OTM.

JONATHAN BLITZER: Exactly, yep.

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: Which you, as an immigration reporter, you will encounter and you will see. Explain what OTM is and the difference between what you can do with a Mexican you apprehend coming over the Rio Grande or at Eagle Pass and what you do with someone who’s OTM from Nicaragua.

JONATHAN BLITZER: Right, exactly. So OTM is sort of border patrol [02:47:00] parlance for other than Mexicans.

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: Think about this, those are the two categories, right? Like, it just shows you though, like how kind of vestigial the categories are.

JONATHAN BLITZER: Exactly.

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: Because like 90% of crossings right now are OTM, I think, or something like that. So it’s like, it makes no sense anymore, but back then it was like mostly Mexicans and then this other category called other than Mexican.

JONATHAN BLITZER: Right, and so, you know, administratively what that meant was the U.S. could summarily deport Mexicans back to Mexico. There was very little kind of bureaucratic complexity to it. What starts to happen, even in the early ‘80s, when you start to have larger and larger numbers of Central Americans fleeing these conflicts in El Salvador and in Guatemala and in Nicaragua and so on, is you have border patrol agents just having to spend the time filling out the paperwork for people who now have to be detained for a period whose asylum claims have to be heard if their asylum claims are eventually rejected. And there’s a whole administrative process for that, for how that plays out.

They then have to negotiate [02:48:00] with the governments in the region to begin to deport these people back to their home countries. And so it’s not a kind of summary expulsion. So that’s a layer of complexity. And then of course, there’s just the matter of, okay, well, if someone from another country is showing up at the southern border and claiming asylum, you’ve got to give them an initial screening, an initial hearing to determine whether or not they are credibly fleeing some form of persecution. Then eventually that claim has to be adjudicated. Now there’s like a lot of bureaucracy around how those claims got adjudicated over the years. But the point is, this immediately causes a bottleneck because the government is not prepared to deal with all of the administrative holdups associated with the population other than Mexicans who can just readily be pushed back across the border.

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: I mean, the one way to think about it is like if the ratio of labor hours per every Mexican apprehended is 10 labor hours per person, the aggregate labor hours per every OTM, is like a thousand or something. I mean, it’s [02:49:00] literally orders of magnitude, right? So one of the endemic parts of the system, when we get to 2014, it blows up is bureaucratic backlog is the defining feature of the whole thing. Like that is the system, it is, and people overuse the adjective Kafkaesque, but it truly is like the closest you get to the trial of Josef K in the U.S. is immigration processing.

JONATHAN BLITZER: Truly. I mean, it’s like, to the extent you can say this about the use of the word Kafkaesque, that’s an understatement. I mean --

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: Yeah.

JONATHAN BLITZER: -- you know, if you were to take sort of two snapshots of the kind of bureaucratic absurdity of how this looks, I mean, I was very interested in knowing, you know, in the kind of mid ‘80s, you know, what it meant if you’re working border control and suddenly, rather than apprehending a group of Mexican adults crossing, you apprehend, say, two Salvadoran families, or a Guatemalan family --

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: Yup.

JONATHAN BLITZER: -- or so on. These guys walked me through. Border patrol agents from that time walked me through just the actual assembly [02:50:00] line they had to create on an ad hoc basis in their office, whether it was in Arizona or in South Texas, where, all right, this guy’s got to work on the typewriter and start to create files. This guy’s got to take photos of every person who’s passing through. And someone’s got to get food for them. And this obviously becomes much more dramatic as the numbers grow over the years. There was also this question of, all right, well, where do we --

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: Where do we put them?

JONATHAN BLITZER: Where do we put these people?

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: Physically.

JONATHAN BLITZER: Yeah, what do we do? And so like literally in the ‘80’s, in the earliest days in some of these kind of remote border patrol outposts, you would have someone running to get like burgers for people. That was like one of the jobs in the assembly line. Which is just to say, I mean, for all of the money and kind of political posturing around the border and the need to secure the border, there was this kind of enormous logistical problem that just went undiscussed for many, many years. And then you fast forward to a moment like 2014, and there are historical underpinnings too, which we can talk about that lead to that sudden influx of people seeking asylum, and the [02:51:00] government is completely unprepared for it.

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: So let’s talk about 2014. I want to be clear that you tell the story of, there’s a sort of protagonist in the book named Juan, who is this incredible character, sort of leftist, who is a doctor and active in sort of leftist resistance to the like homicidal military junta that is ruling El Salvador at the time and murders an archbishop quite famously, Oscar Romero, who is part of the initial wave of this, right? And then in the early 1980s and you tell his story. I was there in 2014 covering this when people started showing up at the border. And it felt a little from our context, right, of like the national news media, like it’s dehumanizing to say it felt like an alien invasion, although often that was kind of the way I think it was characterized on TV.

But in the same way that in a film, there’s just a moment where like, it’s like, whoa, what’s going on here? Why is this happening? It felt that way. Of course, [02:52:00] that’s ludicrous. Like it was brewing for a long time. And you talk about this in the book, you report extensively, including Angelina who gets deported. Why does that, like, why is it 2014 that all of a sudden it feels like to Americans, these kids start showing up at the border from Central America?

JONATHAN BLITZER: Yeah, I mean, in some ways, this was one of the biggest things I wanted to explore in a book.

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: Right, was to answer the question of like, quote, “all of a sudden.”

JONATHAN BLITZER: Yeah, exactly, exactly. I mean, because in the U.S., right, this is like announced overnight. The Secretary of Homeland Security at the time is like flying back from visiting his kid in California and gets a call from like a Border Patrol officer saying like, sir, you got to get down here. I mean, it is like that. It is almost cinematic in the kind of abruptness of it --

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: Yeah.

JONATHAN BLITZER: -- from the U.S. perspective. And yet this has obviously been many years in the making. So to my mind, there are sort of two general movements to understand in the history behind 2014. The first we’ve already alluded to is the fact that, all through the 1980s, you have hundreds of thousands of what would in theory be legitimate asylum seekers. Many of them, again, were [02:53:00] never given the opportunity to meaningfully seek asylum, who flee places like El Salvador and Guatemala because of these intense, murderous civil wars that the U.S. had a major role in perpetuating and in arming these military regimes that brutalized their populations.

And so that’s the first piece of the broader puzzle that gets kind of set in motion because you have U.S. foreign policy actually creating a kind of new demographic in the region of people fleeing their homes in Central America and coming to the United States. And so, you know, in L.A., for example, over the 1980s, you had the size of the Salvadoran population expand by orders of magnitude to hundreds of thousands of people in that city who were in many ways starting from scratch.

And so one of the things you start to see in the early 1990s is what that looks like in inner cities across the country, particularly in Los Angeles, when you have the arrival of a new population that doesn’t necessarily have [02:54:00] immediate family ties or deep connections to the country, are starting from scratch, necessarily are doing so in kind of rundown urban enclaves where there’s already a lot of kind of racial strife and kind of an urban gang hierarchy that they have to immediately reckon with.

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: Yup.

JONATHAN BLITZER: And so in the early ‘90s, you have a small, but significant element of recently arrived Salvadoran youth who get brutalized on the streets of Los Angeles by Mexican gangs, by black gangs, and who don’t yet have an identity in American terms, who are kind of these newcomers who are immediately vulnerable. And some of them begin to form groups of their own, essentially in self-defense. Those groups over time start to harden. They start to harden as they get jailed in California, where the ethnic and gang identities sharpen even further in detention.

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: And they sure as hell harden in detention. I mean, inside prisons, it’s like, you can’t be unaffiliated, essentially. I mean, particularly along ethnic racial [02:55:00] lines. Like, you just are sorted that way. That’s the fundamental structure.

JONATHAN BLITZER: Exactly, and so, now your listeners, of course, know about MS-13, because kind of amazingly to me, when you go into this history, now, MS-13 is a household name --

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: Right.

JONATHAN BLITZER: -- in the United States, which is a kind of shocking thought when you think about the broader history of it. But gangs like MS-13 started in Los Angeles. They did not start in El Salvador. And in many ways, like the 13 in MS-13 is a nod to the Mexican mafia, which basically ran the California prison system from the inside and that these newly hardened Central American gang members had to appease in order to stay safe in prison. And these guys start in small numbers at first to get deported back to Central America in the kind of early ‘90s at a time when I have to say the politics mirror a lot the politics we’re seeing now.

The Border Has Eyes - Latino USA - Air Date 12-26-24

REYNALDO LEAÑOS JR: Tina was O'odham Nation, which is southwest of Tucson where And her people are known for thriving in the harsh [02:56:00] desert climate.

The reservation is about 2. 8 million acres or about the size of Connecticut. The nation is made up of 11 districts and there's about 34, 000 enrolled members. The Tohono O'odham people were separated when the border was created. This ended up splitting the nation with Tohono O'odham people now living on both sides.

The nation has not wanted a border wall for many reasons, but one of the main ones is because they worry that a physical wall could further cut their ties with the Tano'o'otam people in Mexico.

So we just entered the nation. 

VALENTINA ANDREWS: And so we're going to take a drive down south close to the border and check out one of those surveillance towers. 

REYNALDO LEAÑOS JR: Tina and I are heading to a small town on the nation named Cells. Our plan is to meet up with Tina's friend Joshua Garcia. He's also a tribal member who was [02:57:00] raised on the reservation.

He lives in the Chukuk District, which sits on the border where some surveillance towers were built. 

VALENTINA ANDREWS: Did you have this truck last time? I feel like it's a good one. 

JOSHUA GARCIA: No, only had it a year. Okay. Tina 

REYNALDO LEAÑOS JR: and I hop into his truck and head south to the Chukuk District on the border to go see one of the surveillance towers on their land.

Both Tina and Josh were outspoken against the Towers, and they tried to raise awareness about them. Tina had a podcast, and Josh would go around the community to talk about the surveillance Towers. This was their way of resisting the Towers. But despite theirs and many community members criticisms, The towers were still built.

So right now we're pulling up to one of the Alpette towers and we're still on this dirt road. You know, it's kind of bumpy, it's very rocky and to the side of us there's saguaros. And yeah, now we're kind of directly in front of [02:58:00] this tower.

In 2014, U. S. Customs and Border Protection approved the building of surveillance towers across southern Arizona, including several on the Tano'otam Nation. The multi million dollar contract was awarded to Elbit Systems of America. It's the U. S. division of a company named Elbit Systems, which is one of Israel's largest military companies.

More than 50 integrated fixed towers from Elbit would end up being built. This is a commercial that Elbit ran on their YouTube page in 2021. 

YOUTUBE: From cockpits to combat vehicles, Elbit Systems technologies are operational in dozens of countries. Our solutions enable domination of the battle to engage threats with power and Precision.[02:59:00] 

REYNALDO LEAÑOS JR: And they're also a global leader when it comes to the surveillance industry. Elbit has actually used similar surveillance towers on their border with Palestine. This connection between Elbit, Israel, and Palestine was a concern that many on the nation stressed. Some on the Tano'atam nation felt that having this same technology on their land felt like an occupation.

JOSHUA GARCIA: Should we stop and take a look? 

REYNALDO LEAÑOS JR: Yeah, let's

JOSHUA GARCIA: stop. I just think somebody's watching us. 

VALENTINA ANDREWS: For sure. Well, I'm gonna take a look, too. Bye. Wow, these panels are huge. 

REYNALDO LEAÑOS JR: The Elbit Tower is huge. It shoots more than 120 feet into the sky. And it's about the size of a 12 story building. It looks like a metal communications tower. Or a cell phone tower. If you look closely, you can see a camera at the very top of it.

These towers have the ability to see up to [03:00:00] 7. 5 miles within its radius. That's about the length of more than 110 football fields. They can watch cars, people, animals, and birds. really anything within its range. And these towers are sometimes within close proximity of each other to make sure they capture everything within its line of sight.

It's like surrounded, you know, by a chain link fence with some barbed wires around it as well. And directly in front of it is a massive solar panel. It's about the size of two trucks to help power these towers. These surveillance towers are part of a broader network known as The Integrated Fixed Tower System.

It's basically a bunch of towers on the border that monitor and talk to each other, and let border agents know when they detect movement in the area. This network has been described by some experts as the spinal cord of the virtual wall. [03:01:00] Both Tina and Josh stare at it. They have to tilt their heads back to see all of it.

Standing in front of this tower, what goes on in your head, just, like, looking at it? 

JOSHUA GARCIA: Seeing it, just know that somebody's there watching us, and at the same time, you know, hearing the birds out there singing, and how it's just such a desecration to the space. So to me, it just makes me really sad to see the signs here on our own supposedly sovereign land.

REYNALDO LEAÑOS JR: Tina and Josh tried their best to fight against these towers, but ultimately they were constructed after leaders from the nation approved the towers on their land. It was reported that this happened in 2019. CBP secured enough money to allow for 10 surveillance towers to be built [03:02:00] on their lands. It was also reported at the time that tribal leadership thought that by permitting these towers being built, it could help eliminate the need for a physical wall.

But federal officials have said that the need for the wall has not been eliminated. 

JOSHUA GARCIA: Even though the community It's on your side, but really it's those officials in our, our nation's governments that are the ones that are making these decisions. That's something that's the kind of hardest thing.

REYNALDO LEAÑOS JR: But it doesn't stop there. Elbit has already been awarded a contract to build more surveillance towers, possibly including these same types of integrated fixed towers along the border in the next few years. 

VALENTINA ANDREWS: Looking back on it today and seeing where we're at and what it is, and then actually standing next to one, you know, what we just did today was very, um, very surreal and very like, I'm just [03:03:00] still like, processing how the day went.

REYNALDO LEAÑOS JR: Tina says that when the towers were being built across southern Arizona, there's been a steady presence of Border Patrol agents in their community through the years. And they work hand in hand with the surveillance towers. The towers notify agents when they detect movement, and that tells agents that they need to monitor the area.

So it's not just the towers on the border that Tina has seen and had to deal with, it's also border militarization.

Credits

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: That's going to be it for today. As always keep the comments coming in, I would love to hear your thoughts or questions about today's topic or our upcoming topics, which includes Trump's other dystopian and racist proposal to ethnically cleanse Gaza and the future of American health under the leadership of the conspiracy theorist in chief RFK Jr.

You can leave a voicemail or send us a text at (202) 999-3991. You can now reach us on the [03:04:00] privacy focused messaging app Signal at the username bestoftheleft01, there's also a link in the show notes for that, or you can simply email me to [email protected] 

The additional sections of the show included clips from the Worst of all Possible Worlds, Assembly Required, Art of Citizenry, Civics 101, The Bitchuation Room, Democracy Now!, Today, Explained, Letters and Politics, Against the Grain Citations Needed, The Intercept Briefing, Why is this Happening, and Latino USA. Further details are in the show notes. 

Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Deon Clark and Erin Clayton for their research work for the show and participation in our bonus episodes. Thanks to our transcriptionist trio, Ken, Brian, and Ben for their volunteer work, helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work behind the scenes and her bonus show co-hosting. And thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships. You can join them by signing up today at BestOfTheLeft.com/support, through our Patreon page, or [03:05:00] from right inside the Apple Podcast app. 

Membership is how you get instant access to our incredibly good and often funny weekly bonus episodes, in addition to there being no ads and chapter markers in all of our regular episodes, all through your regular podcast player. You'll find that link in the show notes along with a link to join our Discord community, where you can also continue the discussion. And don't forget to follow us on any and all new social media platforms you may be joining these days. 

So coming to you from far outside the conventional wisdom of Washington DC, my name is Jay! and this has been the Best of the Left Podcast coming to you twice weekly thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show from BestOfTheLeft.Com.

Air Date 2/18/2025

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Audio-Synced Transcript

 

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast. 

Democracies slide into dictatorship in two ways: first slowly, and then all of a sudden. We have been sliding in this direction for at least as long as I have been paying attention to politics, which is a long time, and we're finally at the moment where that slow slide shifts into full speed. 

For those looking for a quick overview, the sources providing our Top Takes in about 50 minutes today include The Gray Area, The ReidOut, The NPR Politics Podcast, Amicus, Straight White American Jesus, Citations Needed, and The Intercept Briefing. 

Then, in the additional Deeper Dives half of the show, there will be more in four sections: Section A, Government Agencies; Section B, Constitutional Crisis; Section C, The Playbook; and Section D, What to Do. 

But first, your Call To Action for the week.

Activism Roundup - 2-17-25

AMANDA: Hey everyone, Amanda here, with your weekly roundup of activism actions. There's a [00:01:00] lot going on and the reality is that collectively we're in the 'throw everything in the wall' phase. And that's okay. Do what you feel is most impactful and what is possible in your life. All right? All right. Now, onto the work.

The House is on recess this week. That means your members of Congress are in your district and they need to hear from you in person. The message is twofold. One, tell them you fully reject the newly released GOP budget, which proposes 4. 5 trillion dollars in tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest among us, while slashing essential programs like Medicaid and food assistance. And two, call out Republicans' complicit behavior and silence in the face of Musk's government coup and demand Democrats fight back. Indivisible is calling for mass local action under the banner 'Musk or Us' and has created a congressional recess toolkit to make Republicans squirm and push Democrats to take action. Go to indivisible.org/coup for the toolkit and ways to get involved. 

Next, there are national boycotts going on right now to show Amazon and Target and other companies that [00:02:00] eliminating their DEI initiatives and cozying up to Trump was a big financial mistake. Amazon also used illegal and racist tactics to crush a union vote in North Carolina last week. So, I don't know, maybe just avoid them at all costs. These boycotts do not appear to be organized under one banner or organization. But there's a plan for a national blackout on all buying on February 28th. Also, a national 24 hour work stoppage across all industries is planned for March 14th. It's being called a national strike, but strikes are for union members. An actual national strike is planned for 2028. Again, these are actions not organized by one entity, so they may evolve as we get closer. 

Finally, it's being reported that ICE agents are frustrated that people know their rights. How do they know them? Organizations like United We Dream have been working tirelessly to ensure people know what to do when they encounter immigration agents. You can text 'Know Your Power' to 78757 or go to unitedwedream. org to learn and share resources.

If you're feeling the overwhelm, you're not alone. [00:03:00] Remember that no one can do everything, but everyone can do something and finding community and taking action are truly the best ways to deal with it all. We don't get to choose the times we live in. So we need everyone to act like everything is on the line, because it is.

Is America broken - The Gray Area - Air Date 2-10-25

SEAN ILLING - HOST, THE GRAY AREA: So let's actually just start with you summing up your thesis. In that piece, tell me about what you think is now the most vital debate in America. 

ALANA NEWHOUSE: The debate that I find the most interesting, and that I think is going to be the one that is going to take us through the next, call it 5 to 10 years, isn't a debate between Republicans or Democrats or between the left and the right, or even between progressives and conservatives. The debate that I find myself most drawn to, and I think a lot of other people increasingly want to participate in, is a debate about our institutions, and about the viability of them and the health of them. 

The two sides that I saw emerging [00:04:00] I roughly call "brokenists" and "status-quoists". And in the piece, I try to articulate the vision that each side has. And I hope that I express sympathy and interest in both arguments because I feel drawn to both sides.

My sense of the status-quoist argument is that they feel, with a lot of validity, that we have a lot of institutions in American life that took many, many years to build that actually create safety and predictability and opportunity for a lot of people, and that there's an almost nihilistic "burn it all down" energy that they feel coming from other people in American life. Because inevitably they see problems in those institutions and they want to fix them. 

On the other side, there are people who I call brokenists, and those are people for whom the [00:05:00] broken aspect of the big blocks of institutional life that they have to interact with, whether that's a university, whether it's their health insurance, whether it's a government entity. What they're feeling in almost in a 360 way is a sense of decay, and a sense that these things simply don't work anymore. And that, I think, in the case of many brokenists, there's a feeling that not only do those institutions not work, but that they're not reformable, and that we would be better off spending our energy building new replacements for them rather than trying to reform them.

So, the tension is between those two sides. 

SEAN ILLING - HOST, THE GRAY AREA: Yes, and I think you really do a service here in giving us that language. It's a very useful distinction. 

There's a man you quote in the piece. He's a reader who reached out to you. His name is [00:06:00] Ryan. And he said some very relatable things for me. And his perspective, his frustration really, serves as a kind of anchor for your essay.

Can you say a bit about him and what he articulated to you? 

ALANA NEWHOUSE: Yes. I met Ryan because, two years ago I wrote a piece called "Everything is Broken", which was my personal cri de corps about the broken aspects of American society that were affecting my life. And in the wake of that essay, I got hundreds of emails and DMs and texts from people.

One of them was from a man named Ryan, who was about my age, lives in Ohio, former vet, actually third generation African American veteran. And Ryan reached out and said, this piece spoke to me so deeply because this is what I feel, too. I feel that American society is so broken and I don't understand why.

We ended up actually becoming friends. We had a lot more in common than, [00:07:00] I think, either of us expected when he reached out. And over the course of a year of texting and sharing articles and just becoming friends, we were having conversations about how our thought was developing. And one day Ryan said on the phone with me, I realize I'm having conversations with people. Sometimes they're people who see themselves as on the right. Sometimes they're people who see themselves on the left. And the thing that determines whether or not I can talk to them is actually how they think about institutions. I don't care whether they come from the left or come from the right, whether they're a libertarian or a socialist. I care whether or not they look at these institutions and they think they're remotely healthy. Because if they do, I, think they're nuts. And if they don't, I can have a conversation. 

SEAN ILLING - HOST, THE GRAY AREA: Yeah. I need to be honest about my ambivalence here. I think of myself as an old school leftist. I guess I'm a [00:08:00] class warrior, for lack of a better phrase. I see that not only is the most important axis of power, but also the most politically potent. But you may be right; that deep down, the real debate now is between brokenist and status-quoist. 

I guess I would say, in the interest of maybe trying to push a little bit against both of our instincts, that sometimes there's a tendency for the most engaged, politically conscious types, like you and me, to assume that the rest of the country feels the way we do, you know what I mean? When the reality is that I think a lot of people are just living their lives, and while they may be caught up in the general polarized atmosphere, I'm not sure they have very deep ideological commitments or even very strong opinions. I just think a lot of people are very alienated from all of it. 

But then again, maybe that kind of widespread detachment is itself a symptom of the brokenness. 

ALANA NEWHOUSE: The reason why I like the frame is [00:09:00] because, as a reporter, it actually allows me to hear people and hear their concerns differently. It takes me out of rubrics that are familiar and allows me to really listen. 

And so you brought up the issues of class and of economic concerns. I hear them more clearly and loudly when I see them through the dichotomy of how our institutions are serving people. 

Let's talk about Medicaid. Can Medicaid actually properly get people the support that they need? That's a class issue. But it's also a health of the institution issue. And maybe if we take it out of the left-right dichotomy, we can have the conversation that we want to have, because it doesn't get people rooted in their defenses and their biases. It allows us to say, well, wait a minute. What if we say, instead of whether or not we believe in Medicaid or don't believe in Medicaid, believe in a social safety net, what if we talk about the effectiveness of the social [00:10:00] safety net? How is ours working? And as long as we have it, can we improve it? Is it possible, even? Because if it isn't, that starts a whole new conversation.

For me, that's generative, and that feels exciting because it also feels future oriented. 

Musk's 'DOGE' is spiraling U.S. into a constitutional crisis - The ReidOut - Air Date 2-7-25

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: Donald Trump: falling in line with President Elon Musk by calling for an end to USAID. The same USAID, aka USAID, that his wife, First Lady Melania, said embodied what her "Be Best" program stood for, and that First Daughter Ivanka used to establish a highly publicized initiative to empower women in developing countries. 

But we begin tonight, less than three weeks into this new administration, and we are already facing what is rightfully being described as a constitutional crisis.

It comes not from the man elected to sit behind the resolute desk, but from the unelected one, who appears to be pulling all the strings: tech billionaire Elon Musk. It's happening in real [00:11:00] time, thanks to Elon's made up Department of Government Efficiency that he and a handful of young adults from his private companies have unleashed on this country with nearly unfettered access to any agency or database they choose to infiltrate.

In this short time, we've seen them all but abolish the U. S. Agency for International Development. with plans to reduce its workforce from 5,000 to what's expected to be about 600. And it's being done without congressional authority, which is required, given that it was Congress that passed the law that formally established the agency.

Of course, this is just the start. With little pushback, Musk and his minions are gaining access to more and more U. S. government agencies every day. Just today, Trump said he instructed Musk to check out the Pentagon. And those people gaining access to the most sensitive systems are not the best and the brightest.

Yesterday, one of Elon's little henchmen resigned from DOGE after his now-deleted racist social [00:12:00] media posts resurfaced. According to the Wall Street Journal, the posts from 25-year-old Marco Elez included such gems as "Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool", "You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity", and "Normalize Indian hate."

And this morning, right on cue, Vice President James David Vance said Elez should be brought back onto the team, posting, "I don't think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid's life." Oh, okay, so now he's just a kid? A kid? A kid who was given direct access to Treasury Department systems responsible for nearly every single payment made by the U.S. government, including Social Security checks that people rely on. A kid? I thought they were highly trained professionals, man, not kids. 

To no one's surprise, Elon jumped on his personal version of Truth Social and tweeted in agreeance with JD and announced Elez's triumphant return, this afternoon. This after spending much of yesterday joking with his Twitter stans, Twitter stans about another one of his junior henchmen who [00:13:00] on his LinkedIn went by the name Big Balls and who also had access to millions of Americans' personal data.

The absolute unseriousness of these people stands in stark contrast to the dead seriousness of what they're doing to our country and the many unknowns about what they could be doing with our data. 

Meanwhile, the acting U.S. attorney for D.C., Ed Martin, who earlier this week said he would pursue legal action against anyone who threatens any DOGE employees, something that he offered no evidence has happened, is now saying that he is beginning an inquiry into those supposed threats, after a referral from... Elon Musk, who apparently now, in addition to wielding the power afforded to Congress in the Constitution, also has the power to order federal criminal investigations.

Martin wrote directly to Elon: "We will investigate them and we will chase them to the end of the earth to hold them accountable. We will not rest or cease in this. No one should [00:14:00] abuse American taxpayer dollars nor American taxpayer workers." Are these American taxpayer workers? I don't know about that. We don't have any evidence of that.

And by the way, we've heard no such pledge from Martin, after a conservative website funded by the Heritage Foundation published what it called a DEI watch list, with the names, photos, and identifying information of federal health workers involved in diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. And, that at one point described them as "targets."

Apparently in Elon and Don's America, the federal government is no longer here to protect you. It is here for one purpose and one purpose only: to empower and protect Elon Musk, and his friends. 

Trump's latest target the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau - The NPR Politics Podcast - Air Date 2-10-25

ASMA KHALID - WHITE HOUSE CORR., NPR: For people who are not familiar with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, can you describe what does this agency do?

LAUREL WAMSLEY - PERSONAL FINANCE CORR., NPR: Yeah, it's been around for about 14 and a half years now, and it is the consumer finance watchdog agency for the country. So it's part of the Federal [00:15:00] Reserve System, and it's funded through that. It is really the only agency whose mandate is to work on behalf of consumers to make sure that they are not being abused by banks, but also non-bank institutions.

They were formed in the wake of the financial crisis in 2008, where there was a lot of looking at how can we make sure that this doesn't happen again? And there are new rules coming in about mortgages and subprime mortgages, that kind of stuff. 

So they do stuff like that, but they do rulemaking as part of what they do. So they have recently made rules capping credit card fees and late credit card late fees, stuff like that, or that medical debt can't be on your credit report. 

But they also do enforcement. And so part of what they do is they have these examiners, they're called, they've got staff who go out to companies, and make sure that they are following the laws that are in place. 

But they also have a complaint line. People can literally submit [00:16:00] complaints when they think that they've been wronged or they've been slapped with a fee that they never heard about before. And the CFPB will look into it and often get their money back.

ASMA KHALID - WHITE HOUSE CORR., NPR: What exactly happened over the weekend? 

LAUREL WAMSLEY - PERSONAL FINANCE CORR., NPR: Okay, there was a lot. One of the first things that happened was on Friday, members of Elon Musk's government efficiency team showed up at CFPB headquarters and came in. They'd been added to the directory there. And they also were able to gain access to, or granted access to, internal CFPB systems for stuff like human resources, finance, procurement.

Russell Vought was also named the new acting director of CFPB. 

ASMA KHALID - WHITE HOUSE CORR., NPR: Which we should point out, he's one of the main architects of the conservative blueprint known as Project 2025. 

LAUREL WAMSLEY - PERSONAL FINANCE CORR., NPR: That's right. In addition to being the newly confirmed Director of the Office of Management and Budget. And no sooner was it clear that he had now taken over that he sent out an email with a pretty sweeping essentially stop work order to staff at CFPB, saying you really can't do any of the work that CFPB does.

Shortly after that [00:17:00] email, Vought posted on X from his own account that he would not be asking the Federal Reserve for the next round of funding for the agency. And then on Sunday, it came word that CFPB's headquarters would be closed for the week. There was no reason given for that, but staff members were told to work from home.

And then just this morning, there was another email that went out, said, actually stay at home, but don't work. Don't do anything. 

SUSAN DAVIS - POLITICAL CORR., NPR: I think that it's important to remember that conservatives have been against the CFPB almost from the start. As Laurel noted, it was born out of the 2008 financial crisis under the Obama administration. And the architect, essentially, of the CFPB was Elizabeth Warren, who at the time-- 

LAUREL WAMSLEY - PERSONAL FINANCE CORR., NPR: Senator from Massachusetts?

SUSAN DAVIS - POLITICAL CORR., NPR: No, now, but at the time, she was an intellectual academic from Harvard who had come up with the framework for this program. And it really was supposed to be regulation from the bottom up. There are obviously a ton of financial regulatory agencies that exist in the country of the [00:18:00] SEC, the FDIC, but they're top down regulators. And as Laurel noted, this was an opportunity to give consumers some recourse if they felt like they were victims of predatory lending through their mortgages, through their credit card companies. 

The CFPB will say they've actually been pretty successful by their own numbers. They say that in the 14 years since they were established, they've brought about $20 billion in consumer relief, that they've enacted $5 billion in civil money penalties, and that they say that they've provided some element of financial relief to 195 million Americans.

ASMA KHALID - WHITE HOUSE CORR., NPR: So how is that not popular with people, Sue? 

SUSAN DAVIS - POLITICAL CORR., NPR: So I think from the beginning, it was seen as a much more progressive populist idea of how you regulate the government. So more free market conservatives, people that don't think that you need to add additional regulatory layers on top of a pretty complicated regulatory framework. Conservatives just don't like regulatory agencies as a sort of a foundational view. And they felt that this one was redundant. I would also say it's important to note in this current political climate that a lot of tech companies really don't like the [00:19:00] CFPB because the CFPB has also taken more aggressive action looking at digital payment systems that are used over platforms like Google, which is new technology that CFPB has been looking at. So corporations don't like it because it adds another layer of regulatory fight that they have in their commerce. 

So it doesn't surprise me that Donald Trump took this action. This isn't oh, at one point Republicans used to like this agency. Republicans have never liked this agency. From the conservative side, this is a big victory for something they've wanted from the beginning.

ASMA KHALID - WHITE HOUSE CORR., NPR: So it also seems like what's happening with the CFPB is similar to what happened recently with USAID. Is it the same?

SUSAN DAVIS - POLITICAL CORR., NPR: I think it's same philosophically when you think about what Donald Trump's trying to do right now, which is broadly remake the federal government and make it smaller and make it more conservative. I think there's a lot of distinctions, certainly between the missions of the two agencies. 

The point that Laurel made, too, that I think is worth just focusing on for a second is how the CFPB is structured and [00:20:00] funded. I'm not an expert on this, but it is not funded through the annual appropriations of Congress, and that was by design. They wanted to create a regulatory agency that was more independent. So if you weren't subject to constant congressional appropriations, you weren't affected by shutdowns. Your work would not be influenced by Congress. 

A lot of members of Congress, especially Republicans in Congress, didn't like that, because they felt like when you directly -- they did not like it because when you do directly appropriate agencies, you have more oversight over them.

Legally now, I think what's interesting in the contrast between USAID and CFPB, USAID was directly appropriated by Congress. That's part of the litigation fight that's going on right now. CFPB was funded by transfers from the Federal Reserve, which is just a different, unique system. And I have seen arguments that that will put the administration on better legal footing because it falls within the power within the executive branch.

So in this instance, it's not really clear that Trump is defying Congress, because Congress never appropriated any money for this agency. [00:21:00] However, Congress did pass a law establishing the agency, so I think that will provide a basis for the legal fight, but I think that the Trump administration is on a different legal footing and at least being able to turn off the financial spigot for this one because it's controlled by the executive branch and not the legislative branch.

ASMA KHALID - WHITE HOUSE CORR., NPR: From my recollection, this was created as part of the Dodd Frank Act in 2010. So isn't it in the law? 

SUSAN DAVIS - POLITICAL CORR., NPR: The creation of the agency, yes. But to me, again, that's, we're in this like weird, we've never been here before legal limbo. Like he hasn't technically tried to shutter the agency, they've just put it in suspended animation.

I have no doubt that there's going to be some form of litigation against this. You're seeing this happen in all of these agencies. But how precisely they try to shut it down or not shut it down or how it affects the work, I don't think we entirely know just yet.

Trumps American Takeover - Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick - Air Date 2-1-25

KIM LANE SCHEPPELE: So, I lived in Hungary for a long time. I also lived in Russia for a long time. And this is the third time I've ridden this escalator from democracy into someplace very dark. [00:22:00] And unfortunately, what we're seeing here is so similar to what happened in Russia and particularly to what happened in Hungary.

And part of the reason why it's so alarming is that Americans have this idea that when democracy fails, it's going to fail with tanks in the streets. It's going to fail with some radical rupture. It's going to fail with normal ceasing to be normal. And when you look at how autocracy works these days in the rest of the world, it almost always comes in on the backs of a free and fair election.

So, somebody who is a, we call them populist, but you can call them whatever, charismatic leaders who promise to shake things up, they get elected, often fair and square the first time. You go back and you look at the election monitor's reports from when Hugo Chavez was elected in Venezuela, or when Vladimir Putin was elected the first time in Russia, or when Victor Orban was elected the first time in Hungary, [00:23:00] the election monitors all said free and fair election, no problem. And then what happens is that as soon as these guys come to power, they start to just take over and disable all of the checks on executive power. And they do it while their cover story is a lot of inflammatory rhetoric that causes pain to people.

So, now we're seeing immigration, we're seeing attacks on people with gender fluidity, we're seeing attacks on affirmative action, we're seeing attacks across the board on vulnerable groups and people who have really never been treated equally. But behind the scenes, what that's disguising, this was also true in Hungary, it was true in Venezuela, it was true in Turkey, it's in all these places, inflammatory rhetoric disguises the real work of autocracy. And what's the real work of autocracy? Removing all checks on executive power. And a lot of that is [00:24:00] happening in a very unsexy way in laws that are buried deep beneath the surface that only a technical lawyer could love. And that's where you start to see chipping away at every single constraint on what the president can do.

Now, America is a very big and complicated system. It's going to take a lot to capture all of it because we have federalism, because we have a lot of nooks and crannies where different sources of power reside. But Trump in his first term of office had not yet discovered this formula that you need the law to entrench yourself. So, he did a lot of horrible things, he caused a lot of pain, he was incredibly arbitrary, he loves to sign executive orders, but when he left office, most of the U. S. government, it was battered, it was beaten, he dropped it on the floor, it cracked, there weren't people who were put into important positions, but he hadn't changed the legal infrastructure except for one thing, and that [00:25:00] is the Supreme Court.

Hence, this podcast. So, now what I think Trump learned is what a lot of these autocrats learned. Victor Orban was in power once and lost power because he didn't learn this lesson. When he came back, and now when Trump is coming back, what they learned is that you have to learn to entrench yourself. And it helps if you compromise some institutions when you're in office the first time. But what Victor Orban did, and what now Donald Trump has done, is to use their time out of office to put together a team of people who will write all the laws you need to entrench yourself. And it's being written by private groups. It's not going through the normal lawmaking process. Private lawyers are writing up all of these plans. And then as soon as you come into power, you start to shovel this stuff out the door as fast as you can. You take advantage of incredibly obscure laws already on the books that already give the executive tons of power. You [00:26:00] override, you might declare an emergency, for example, we've seen two of them declared this week in the U S already, or I guess it was last week, or maybe it's, and who knows how many more will there will be. But, there's a lot of these emergencies being declared that give the president additional powers, but there's also new executive orders that are simply grabbing power right now. 

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: It sounds to me, Kim, like what you are saying is, and I know this is simplistic, but as you're trying to make sense of this flurry of executive orders that are coming at all hours of the day, and it's really hard for most of us to triage what's meaningful, what's important, we keep saying on this show, they are not the law, but they are certainly have promises and instructions to agencies how to conduct themselves.

It feels almost like you're saying that there is one bucket that is distractions, chaos, confusion. There's another bucket that's really systematically shoveling power back [00:27:00] to the executive branch and constructing an impermeable executive branch. Is that the best schema for thinking about this?

KIM LANE SCHEPPELE: Yes, yes, and of course that bucket of distraction is also actually harming people. And what it does is it takes most of the opposition and pulls their attention over to that. So for example, we've seen, immediately lots of lawsuits on birthright citizenship, lots of people putting out advisories on what to do if ICE comes knocking on your door. All that's crucial and people should be working on those things because these kinds of initiatives are causing real pain. But there's another set of things that's not getting nearly enough attention, and that is the second bucket, which is all the stuff that is consolidating power in the executive. 

So, let me tell you two things that look familiar from Hungary because these were really crucial in the early days. So, one thing Orbán did was to immediately suspend the civil service law in order to fire tons of governmental workers. [00:28:00] Okay? And we've seen that. A lot of the things that Trump has been doing is to rattle the civil service. Now, the Biden administration saw this coming, they enacted a regulation that actually made it impossible to directly fire people who had civil service protection, which is why you see these new executive orders coming in. And what they're doing is they're reassigning people to jobs they can't possibly want to do. Or they're putting them on paid leave just to get them out of the way. So the Biden regulation is doing something to slow this process down. But in some of these executive orders, they actually say in our view, this Biden regulation is unconstitutional. And so we are going to ignore it, which is why they're just firing some people also, okay? 

But attacking the civil service, it's a big chunk of what Orban did. And he fired a lot of people. He then terrified the rest so that they were afraid to go against him. So even if there wasn't anything he could have really done, he puts people in fear of their careers, their jobs, [00:29:00] they're disoriented. It happens so quickly, they don't know what to do. So attacking the bureaucracy, making everybody either quit, be fired, or in fear, was a big chunk of what he did, and that's what we're seeing.

The other thing he did was he defunded everybody who could possibly push back. Okay? So, in the U S government, it's been random defunding of everybody. That was not, shall we say, precision guided. But what I'm expecting to come is more systematic defunding of all the places where they think the opposition will come from. So, let me tell you what happened in Hungary. It turns out when I was living in Budapest, there were 12 daily newspapers in a city of 3 million people. It was wonderful. You could read papers ranging from left or right to wonderful objective journalism, all kinds of stuff, but it was unsustainable. It turns out. You got 12 daily newspapers because most of their funding came from state advertising. As [00:30:00] soon as Orban came to power, he cut the funding to cut all the advertising to all the papers and actually all the TV stations and radio stations that actually had been critical of his party. And it turns out they started to fail, economically.

What happens? His oligarchs swept in, bought up the media they wanted, or they let them fail. And when the rest of Europe looked at this, because this is all happening in the European Union, there's supposed to be a club of democracies, Orban says, Oh, well, you know, it's just the market. They can't sustain themselves. And this is when newspapers are failing all over the world for financial reasons. Didn't look like he'd done anything. 

Musk's Coup and Trump's Christian Zionist Gaza Takeover - Straight White American Jesus - Air Date 2-7-25

BRAD ONISHI - HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: Elon Musk is treating the U. S. government like a startup. He's treating it like when he took over Twitter / X. And here's a piece at Wired, a different piece, that reads like this. "While this takeover is unprecedented for the government, it's standard operating procedure for Musk. It maps almost too neatly to his acquisition of [00:31:00] Twitter in 2022. Get rid of most of the workforce, install loyalists, rip up safeguards, remake in your own image. This is the way of the startup. You're scrappy, you're unconventional, you're iterating. This is the world that Musk's lieutenants come from, and the one they are imposing on the Office of Personal Management, the GSA, and on down the line".

But Dan, as you're saying, the U. S. government is not a startup. And this is where you and I have always tried to make a point about this whole 'do the government like a business'. The point of business is to make money. The point of government is to help people's lives get better, to care for people, to help people thrive, to create systems that allow for people to make decisions not for them, and not so that they're just like passive agents, but to create systems where people have good choices about food, shelter, care, about infrastructure, about education. 

Do [00:32:00] you think that Musk and the people working for him—and I can go down the roster if you all want, the 19 year old freshman at Northeastern University, the 25 year old eugenicist, the 23 year old who just graduated and had his first job at Meta—do you think that they're concerned with the fact that the trillions of dollars they now have in front of them in a code, and where they're just like slamming Red Bulls all night and hamming it up, affects people's real lives? That non profits are shutting down because OMB cut off the money? They don't.

This is not a startup. It is the most powerful government in the world. It's one that oversees 350 million people. Dan, I live near Silicon Valley. Startups come and go. One out of a hundred make it. Most of them expend a significant amount of energy and resources, and then they die, and then you just start another one. That is how the kinds of [00:33:00] young men that Musk is dragging around think. 

It's also a huge cyber security threat. There's a piece of the conversation by Richard Forno, who's a professor at University of Maryland, and what he talks about is when you have this kind of fiddling with the code of the U. S. Treasury, when you have people who are taking this data and putting it on private servers—do you remember Hillary Clinton's emails, Dan? The private server? Do you remember that?—that's what they're doing with the data, oh, not of, I don't know, some emails that she sent, which, not great, Hillary, okay, whatever. Oh, I don't know, Dan happens to be perhaps every American and their financial records, the millions of federal employees on someone's server who's 23 years old and walking around like a hacker on the metro with his backpack looking like Mr. Robot. That's a problem, [00:34:00] and it flies right in the face of what we talked about over the last couple of weeks.

Donald Trump: well, I know this was DEI with the plane crash, because I have common sense. J. D. Vance: if you just use common sense like real people, not bureaucrats, not technocrats, not those administrative state liberal career hacks, then you'll have a good government. Okay, cool, so who did you guys put in charge of the entire Treasury, and who are you allowing to hack our entire government? Oh, you mean people with specialized knowledge who are 23 years old and led by a madman, the richest man in the world? That guy who just did the Nazi salute twice? You want to tell me that's common sense? You want to tell me that now you're just like a man of the people? One of the plebeians who lives in the life-world of the peasants and is thinking through everything with common sense? Like you would down at Ace Hardware? You put in charge childrenwith technical [00:35:00] knowledge. You allowed them to download the entire code and data of the nation, and then you're gonna turn to us and tell us you have common sense about non-White people and women? 

This is an authoritarian takeover. It's an attempted coup. And we should treat it as such. And I'll close this out, Dan, I'll throw it to you and we can take a break, go to something else. The Senate Dems need to figure it out. And I don't usually go for the Democratic Party by the throat on this show, not that often, but Chuck Schumer, you're not the man for the job, bud. It's time to go. You're out here introducing legislation to do stuff and Hakeem Jeffries is tweeting that Jesus is in control, that's not gonna cut it. You cannot do business in the Senate when the social contract has been broken. They're trying to take your job, Chuck. They're saying they get the purse and they're gonna spend the money. And you're out here saying, this has to be stopped. Why are you using the passive voice, Chuck? Go get [00:36:00] arrested. Go demand, I want to know which Democratic Senator is gonna get thrown to the ground and arrested at the Treasury building, trying to get in and see what the hell's going on in there. That's what I want. Show me that guy. Show me that gal. Show me that person. And guess what? They got my vote, 2028. Because right now I see a lot of like hand-wringing soft-handed BS from some of the only people who have a chance to do anything right now. And this is not a way to win back voters and do whatever you've been doing since Kamala Harris lost. This is a way to make people think you're a bunch of old folks who are not built for the fight.

Media Continues Painting Musk's Far Right Coup as Good Faith Cost-Cutting Effort - Citations Needed - Air Date 2-5-25

ADAM JOHNSON - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: So again, you have this image of a sort of post partisan, they want to get rid of waste, efficiencies, and in none of these articles, CNN, Washington Post, or the New York Times, are the obvious far right ideological preferences of Musk mentioned at all. He is simply presented as a patriotic billionaire who won. The reader gets the impression they're vaguely Republican, but they're treated as these kind of post [00:37:00] ideological patriotic billionaires 

NIMA SHIRAZI - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: Because hand in hand with this, Adam, is also the idea that billionaires know how to be efficient with money, right? There's kind of baked into these articles is the assumption, the kind of framing of, super rich people know how to make budgets. They know how to address waste. They know how to cut costs and gain savings. That's what makes them such deft businessmen. This is baked into all of these articles, rather than talking about the abuse, the subsidies that they themselves get, the contracts that they themselves get that are, of course, never on the chopping block, where this wealth comes from, no. They are just successful billionaires. And so therefore they know where to find costs to cut, it's kind of the what makes Bruce Wayne a superhero? It's that he's rich, like, that's the whole point behind Batman, we've talked about that before. That's the authority that they have, being "successful".

ADAM JOHNSON - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: And to be clear, it's [00:38:00] not as if the New York Times cannot telegraph or clearly state the ideology or the ideological preferences of those who are about to or seeking to enter government to influence policy. 

A 2020 article about Democratic activists within the potential Biden administration, specifically a Biden-Sanders task force about policing that was set up in 2020, in June of 2020, talking about those that wish to redirect resources from police into community care programs, mentions the word progressive five times and the word activist four times, which is totally fine, right? They have ideology, they have an ideological preference, and that's perfectly how you should report on that.

NIMA SHIRAZI - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: But it only goes one way.

ADAM JOHNSON - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: It only goes one way. When it comes to reporting on obviously fascistic, obviously White nationalist half-trillionaires, suddenly they're just cost cutting. They're just concerned with efficiency. They have the word right wing, the word conservative. Again, mentioning of his sieg heil. And the most batshit example of this, because we save the best for last as we usually do, was an article by Michael Scheer that came out on January [00:39:00] 30th. This was less than a week ago, right? This was 10 days after Musk clearly did a sieg heil at the inauguration three different times. A hundred and sixty five Jewish organizations just published a rejection of the ADLs, 'oh, he was just, you know, an excited gesture', have come out and said, 'no, this was clearly a 'sieg heil', advertisers need to pull the advertising from X and not invest in Tesla, etc. Clear as day sieg heil, right? Anyone with any intellectual honesty would look at that and go, 'oh yeah, that was deliberate and that was clearly what he was doing'.

But no, that's not going to stop the New York Times from doing this post partisan cost cutting framing. This is genuinely fucking bat shit. When I read this, I was like, oh my god, even for the New York Times, this is bad. So what they tried to do is orient the DOGE cost cutting, again, we're 10 days into this bloodbath of the liberal state, right?, as part of a kind of bipartisan continuum, and this is just sort of a more extreme version of it, the headline would read, "Beneath Trump's chaotic spending freeze, an idea that crosses party lines". So, he'd orient this in kind of normal balance the budget politics, writing, "There is a long bipartisan history of attempts to rein in spending and address [00:40:00] concerns about government inefficiencies, though the parties have grown increasingly divided about what to cut". And you truly have to read it. It presents this kind of Obama-Bowles–Simpson-Biden sort of tighten your belt, balance the budget rhetoric, as comparable to what Musk is doing...

NIMA SHIRAZI - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: ...that somehow doesn't mention that the family dinner table conversation right now in the Trump administration is about how much of a Nazi to be.

ADAM JOHNSON - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: Well, that and stripping Congress of any oversight of this processes, right? The Bowles-Simpson Committee was a series of recommendations that presumably would manifest into some bill in Congress that would actually be passed by Representatives that actually represent people, not the unilateral dictates of a stimulant-addled fucking billionaire, who just arbitrarily decides what to cut without any input from, I don't know, 330 million people in this country. 

So again, this has been a long whitewashing that goes up to this day. Just two days ago on February 3rd 2025, the New York Times finally did a kind of semi critical article about Musk's gutting of the [00:41:00] federal liberal state, the administrative state. But even that, the whole thing was just drenched in, again, still made no mention of his far right ideology at all and was drenched in euphemism. So this is "Inside Musk's aggressive incursion into the federal government" from February 3rd, 2025. It's got 9, 000 reporters. So I'm not going to list them all off, but just know that one of them is Maggie Haberman, of course. It referred to the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE, ha ha, get it? They refer to it as "a cost cutting initiative", "cost cutting project". So we have three different mentions. Every time they mentioned DOGE, they would call it a cost cutting effort. But of course, it's not a cost cutting effort, and it's not going to cut anything, because it can't really cut anything, because the federal budget is allotted by Congress. It's not like the money is going to mysteriously go back into the federal government. That's not how this works. And of course, even if that was true, which it's not, the goal is not to cut costs. They want to gut the administrative and liberal state because Musk believes that it keeps Black people and Brown people too comfortable and [00:42:00] too secure in their jobs, and doesn't allow workers to be abused.

And again, name it, saves the environment, protects endangered species, everything that sort of represents the already pretty raised within liberal state we have, he doesn't like because he's a fucking Nazi. And I know that because he did a sieg heil on television and constantly publishes Nazi content all the time.

But again, and we talked about this in our news brief two weeks ago, Musk is just simply too big to fail. The fact that he's an overt White nationalist and is clearly testing the limits of how overt he can be in this White nationalist, again, now he won't show up about South Africa. That's a favorite bugbear of VDARE and all these other White nationalist websites, is that he simply can't fail because if we have to acknowledge that he's a White supremacist on a White supremacist agenda to cut anything he perceives, including USAID, which he perceives as being beneficial to Black and Brown people and poor people in general, then that takes the media to a dark place where they have to acknowledge ideology, which again, if you're out of power, right?, if you're an activist or you're [00:43:00] poor, or if you're an enemy state, it's taken for granted that you have an ideological agenda. It's taken for granted that you have an ideological motive. 

NIMA SHIRAZI - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: It's part of the descriptor. It's part of like the kind of Homeric epithet of the way that these organizations or these approaches, these ideas, they are always framed, 'this is progressive, this is activist, this is supporting the liberal state', but you don't get it on the other side. You don't get it when it's Musk. You don't get it when it's Trump. 

ADAM JOHNSON - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: No, they're just concerned with cost cutting. They're just concerned with cost cutting. I mean, I can't tell you again, I read every one of these articles and dozens of more and I can't find any that mentioned much less lead with or center or make obvious the ideological agenda at work here.

And one would think that, I don't know, two weeks into this, this right wing purge, where he's obviously, again, talking about the "diversity initiatives" and going after people with disabilities and going after trans people and going after minorities and basically outlawing the acknowledgement of [00:44:00] the existence of minorities and trans people and queer people and people with disabilities. You would think, I don't know, they would lead with his fucking right wing ideology, at all, but again, that's just not something they're programmed to do because they are fundamentally editorially deferential to those in power, and those in power must be assumed to have good intentions and good faith. They cannot be assumed to have any ideological or sinister motives. So we keep getting this idea that, again, up until fucking today, and they're still doing it, that DOGE is just some Government efficiency panel. 

Why Are Dems Surprised - The Intercept Briefing - Air Date 2-7-25

SUNJEEV BERY: At a influencer conference, a political influencer conference last spring in DC, Cory Booker opened up the happy hour on the opening night of this conference talking about the importance of social media and messaging. As soon as he ended his remarks, he was hounded by a room full of some of the largest liberal TikTokers asking him why he supported banning the app that they message other young people on.

So it's odd that they [00:45:00] have people like this, with these stances, with these actions, with this policy record, tapped to lead these critical pieces of infrastructure for the party in such a critical moment. It's, baffling to me. So I'm, wondering for both of you, how would you assess the democratic Party's leadership in this moment because you're both talking about activism and organizing in addition to that Indivisible call There was a large protest outside the Treasury on Tuesday That was organized by Indivisible and Move On while members of Congress showed up that was from the outside. So what is leadership doing right now to restore faith in the party in their leadership and for the road ahead?

JORDAN UHL: I mean, I'll be blunt and say I'm not seeing it, and I'm just not seeing what needs to be done. And this is a moment for an asymmetrical challenge, right? Trump holds formal authority, but he obviously is going way beyond formal authority when it comes to things like abolishing agencies like USAID, that he doesn't technically have the power to [00:46:00] do.

And meanwhile, Democratic leaders. They don't have a sense of what to do or how to operate. And the way you operate in a moment like this is by engaging in an asymmetrical challenge. Democrats don't have any formal authority, but they can build informal authority. I personally think Elon Musk is far more vulnerable than most people recognize.

And I could imagine. A movement to call on Democratic senators to filibuster any legislation that provides any sort of appropriations or funding for any of Elon Musk's, financial interests, starting with SpaceX, a big chunk of his increase in wealth is just projections from the stock market of future earnings for Tesla and SpaceX, tens of billions of dollars could be subtracted from him very quickly.

But this kind of creative thinking isn't something that it. Democrats in office tend to be very good at because they're very well trained in, let's just be blunt kissing the ass of concentrated sectors of wealth in order to access that money [00:47:00] to run campaigns. My personal opinion is any formal shift in how leading democratic politicians behave is going to occur because, people are leading from behind, movement organizations, concerned grassroots voters and donors are going to say, what the heck are you doing?

And then they're going to start listening, and then they're going to start quote unquote leading. 

AKELA LACY: Yeah, I agree with 99 percent of that, I would say. I'm not sure that leaders, leadership in the Democratic Party is looking for feedback. I get the sense that they want to create the appearance that they're looking for feedback, but, maintain this practice of thinking they're the smartest people in the room and thinking that they have it locked down and, we'll listen to what you say, but we're actually, we know what we're doing.

I do think right now is an opening for some of that more creative thinking to come in. But I think that, you, really hit it on the head there. The idea that no one was prepared, that there was no strategy, and that they're playing catch up right [00:48:00] now when this writing has been on the wall for months and months and months.

I mean, we can go back to June. We can, we can go back to October, November. But what possible reason could there be that Schumer doesn't have Democrats locked down to vote as a bloc against every single Trump nominee? He came out on Monday touting that they had 47 people, including, the two independents, vote against the OMB chief.

But then you have other votes just this week, where it's like they have 22 people voting for a Trump nominee. They have 24 people in the Democratic Party voting for a Trump nominee. And they should be being held accountable for that. I think some of these outside groups are trying to do that. But when you talk about the sparks of potential openings for that creative thinking, whether it's from members of The Squad or members of the CPC, I think Pramila Jayapal has been very blunt that Democrats are not willing to learn from this moment, particularly on Gaza.

But you also see those ranks being decimated [00:49:00] and whatever organizing has been done to build their capacity to do that creative thinking and fill that gap in Congress, since 2018, et cetera, et cetera, has been cut in half, every two years because of groups like AIPAC and these outside groups that Democrats continue caving to.

So that's the bigger, 30, 000 foot picture of the cycle of why this seems to be impossible for people who say that they have all the information and all the answers.

Trumps American Takeover Part 2 - Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick - Air Date 2-1-25

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: Kim, I've kept you far longer than I pledged to keep you, but I want to end on this question. It is well known in the world of autocracy and authoritarianism that it's really hard to claw it back once you've lost it. And I'm hearing you say and I think I agree we're well into having lost something fundamental. There are a lot of people out there who are listening to this show, trying to decide what to do.

And I, would love to hear [00:50:00] your menu. I think we've asked several guests of what the mission is not for... I mean, yes, by all means, support your friends who are government workers, government lawyers, people dependent on government grants, folks, who are scared at universities... stipulated... what are you telling people to do?

What worked in Poland? What has worked in places that are clawing it back? What's the mission for listeners who really don't want to give up, but aren't sure that everything hasn't been lost already? 

KIM LANE SCHEPPELE: So first of all, it's important to keep toe holds that you can use to leverage into more power for the opposition. And by toe holds, I mean civil sector groups, I mean state governments in blue states, I mean anything that's not yet been captured. We should lean into state constitutional law. We should lean into the parts of the government that are going to not go down without a fight, right? We need to hold up and look at where [00:51:00] can public outrage at least gum up the works, right?

Everything that this administration does now that is bringing down democracy and causing pain should be met with friction. You may not be able to stop it, but you can slow it down. So again, if I can just, if I can tell a small story, when I moved into New York city in the 1970s, high crime rates, everybody was, really very concerned.

It was the height of dangerous New York. And I moved into an apartment on the Upper West Side, and the first thing I did, like everybody else, was to install three more deadbolts on my door. So while the guy's installing the deadbolts, I said to him, 'well, is this really going to keep out somebody?' And he said, 'actually', he said 'no'. He said, 'really talented burglars know how to break through all the deadbolts. What you're doing is you're slowing them down until possibly something else intervenes'. 

Okay. Now this is my lesson for everybody. You're not [00:52:00] going to look at things saying, can I win in the end? You're looking at the much nearer term. How do we slow it down? And so litigation may not result in a victory at the Supreme Court, but you still need to litigate just to slow it down. It may be that the local office near you says that they've run out of money. You do sit ins just to create friction. You want to slow down the autocratic power grab because we do have midterm elections coming up. We do have state governors who are finding ways to work together to build a kind of daisy chain of resilience that may be able to stand up to the federal government. So, anything you can do to slow it down in the meantime is the thing that's going to keep you safe in the long run.

And so, it's just generalizing the lessons from what keeps you safe personally. Think about how to generalize that to how can you do that at state level. And [00:53:00] small things that gum up the works. Resistance, not letting it pass without a fight. One of my friends just says subscribe to the media that are standing up to this, put your weight and your money behind the institutions that are throwing sand in the gears, and that's the basic thing that you can do.

We're all now just trying to slow it down, stop it in its tracks. Think of yourself as being like that guy in Tiananmen Square with the shopping bags in front of the tank. Whatever it is that you can do personally to just slow it down, just stop it locally, just do it. 

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: And maybe the gloss I would add, although that was so eloquent, I'm reluctant to gloss, but it is some version of to keep your heart soft so that you can see suffering for what it is.

KIM LANE SCHEPPELE: Absolutely.

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: And to not be alone, because I think that's the thing that is fearsome right now, is sitting on your phone and spiraling. There are so many people doing so [00:54:00] much phenomenal work. 

Note from the Editor on the long slide to dictatorship

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips starting with The Gray Area discussing the brokenists and the status-quoists. The ReidOut explained the constitutional crisis sparked by Elon Musk. The NPR Politics Podcast got into the details of the fight over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Amicus spoke in detail about the mechanisms by which democracy is undermined in favor of executive power. Straight White American Jesus contrasted business and government to highlight the absurdity of trying to run them in similar ways. Citations Needed criticized the media for failing to recognize the ideological motives behind Elon Musk and his fake Department of Government Efficiency. The Intercept Briefing critiqued the Democrats' inability to mount an organized defense against Trumpism. And Amicus looked at ways to create friction to slow the dissent into authoritarianism.

And those were just the Top Takes. There's a lot more in the Deeper Dive sections. 

But first, a reminder that this show is produced with the support of our members who get access to bonus episodes and enjoy all of [00:55:00] our shows without ads. To support all of our work and have those bonus episodes delivered seamlessly to the new members-only podcast feed that you'll receive, sign up to support the show at BestOfTheLeft.Com/Support (there's a link in the show notes), through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple Podcast app. And as always, if regular membership isn't in the cards for you, shoot me an email requesting a financial hardship membership, because we don't let a lack of funds stay in the way of hearing more information 

If you have questions or would like your comments included in the show, our upcoming topics include the dystopian plans for Trump's deportation regime, followed by Trump's possibly even more dystopian proposal to ethnically cleanse Gaza. And if you have any suggestions on non-dystopian topics that we can cover, I'm definitely open to suggestions.

In any case, get your comments and questions in now for those topics. You can leave a voicemail or send us a text at 202-999-3991. We're also findable on the privacy-focused messaging app Signal [00:56:00] at the handle bestoftheleft.01. There's a link in the show notes for that. Or you can simply email me to [email protected]. 

Now as for today's topic, I wanted to follow up on what I said at the top of the show, arguing that the slide into authoritarianism, fascism, dictatorship, whatever your preferred label, has happened over a very long time. I based that on a news story that crossed my awareness in the very first few months that I was producing Best of the Left back in March 2006. I've played this clip several times over the years when it seemed relevant, and there's been no time more relevant than right now. 

If you're not familiar with former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, it's good to know that she was a conservative Republican, she was appointed by Ronald Reagan, and was one of the votes on the court that installed George W. Bush into the presidency in the Bush v. Gore case. So when she criticizes Republicans and warns about what it takes for a country to [00:57:00] fall into dictatorship, she is not speaking out of ideological rejection of conservative politics; it is just out of concern for the future of the country. Here is the full three minute report from NPR, originally aired almost exactly 19 years ago.

MORNING EDITION: Supreme Court justices keep many opinions private, but a former justice is speaking out. Yesterday, Sandra Day O'Connor criticized Republicans who criticized the courts. She said the critics challenged the independence of judges and the freedoms of all Americans. Her speech at Georgetown University was not available for broadcast, but NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg was there.

NINA TOTENBERG: In an unusually forceful and forthright speech, O'Connor said that attacks on the judiciary by some Republican leaders pose a direct threat to our constitutional freedoms. O'Connor began by conceding that courts do have the power to make presidents, or the Congress, or governors, as she put it, "really, really angry. But," she continued, "if we don't make them mad some [00:58:00] of the time, we probably aren't doing our jobs as judges. And our effectiveness," she said, "is premised on the notion that we won't be subject to retaliation for our judicial acts." 

"The nation's founders wrote repeatedly," she said, "that without an independent judiciary to protect individual rights from the other branches of government, those rights and privileges would amount to nothing. But," said O'Connor, "as the founding fathers knew, statutes and constitutions don't protect judicial independence, people do." And then she took aim at former House GOP leader Tom DeLay. She didn't name him, but she quoted his attacks on the courts at a meeting of the conservative Christian group Justice Sunday last year, when DeLay took out after the courts for rulings on abortion, prayer, and the Terry Schiavo case.

"This," said O'Connor, "was after the federal courts had applied Congress' one-time-only statute about Schiavo as it was written, not," said O'Connor, "as the congressmen might have wished it were written. The response to this flagrant display of judicial restraint," said O'Connor, her voice [00:59:00] dripping with sarcasm, "was that the congressman blasted the courts.

"It gets worse," she said, noting that death threats against judges are increasing. "It doesn't help," she said, "when a high profile senator suggests there may be a connection between violence against judges and decisions that the senator disagrees with." She didn't name him, but it was Texas Senator John Cornyn who made that statement after a Georgia judge was murdered in the courtroom and the family of a federal judge in Illinois murdered in the judge's home.

O'Connor observed that there have been a lot of suggestions lately for so-called judicial reforms: recommendations for the massive impeachment of judges, stripping the courts of jurisdiction, and cutting judicial budgets to punish offending judges. "Any of these might be debatable," she said, "as long as they are not retaliation for decisions that political leaders disagree with. "I," said O'Connor, "am against judicial reforms driven by nakedly partisan reasoning." 

Pointing to the experiences of developing countries and former communist countries where interference with an independent [01:00:00] judiciary has allowed dictatorship to flourish, O'Connor said, "We must be ever vigilant against those who would strong arm the judiciary into adopting their preferred policies. It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship," she said, "but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings." 

Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: "We must avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings." And if present news is any indication, I think we definitely failed to avoid these beginnings. 

Now to be clear, the plan to take over the judiciary and bend it to conservative and corporate ends started well before 2006, way back in the 70s. 2006 just happens to be when a conservative Republican former justice who'd sat on the nation's highest court called out the rising authoritarian instincts within the Republican Party for what they were, the beginning of the very [01:01:00] predictable slide into authoritarianism that we are experiencing now.

SECTION A: GOVERNMENT AGENCIES

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: and now we'll continue to dive deeper on four topics. Next up, section A, government agencies, followed by section B, constitutional crisis, section C, the playbook, and section D, what to do.

Musk's Coup and Trump's Christian Zionist Gaza Takeover Part 2 - Straight White American Jesus - Air Date 2-7-25

BRAD ONISHI - HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: It is and we've been telling people to try to remain calm to try to remain in some kind of state of equilibrium, but that was hard this week.

And I, I recognize that too. I had moments of feeling like, uh, you know, panic was a word that, that is probably accurate. Let me run through what's happened for folks and then we'll, we'll do some analysis. Uh, basically over the weekend, uh, going back about a week now, we learned that, that Musk and the. Kind of raving, roving crew of henchmen hackers that he's put together have, uh, been able to gain access to government agencies.

And that included the treasury, the human resources agency. [01:02:00] They've shown up at the GSA. They have, have really tried to kind of get their way into any department they can, the department of labor. I'll read a little bit here. Hey, it's Elon Musk, charged with running the U. S. Government Human Resources Agency, have locked career civil servants out of computer systems that contain the personal data of millions of federal employees.

So we start to get these, you know, this information that government employees are locked out, and yet here's Musk, who has not been confirmed by the Senate, who is, we don't know about his security clearance, who is running this, as you referenced, Dan, nebulous government agency that is not really officially established.

And they are taking authority, usurping federal employees, and now who, Musk and who, have access to millions of federal employees and their personal data. They also were able to log on [01:03:00] to the payment systems of the U. S. Treasury. I'm going to read a little bit from Wired here, who's just done a great job throughout the last month reporting on this.

U. S. Treasury Department and White House officials have repeatedly denied that technologists associated with Musk's so called doge had the ability to rewrite the code of the payment system through which the vast majority of federal funding flow, federal spending flows. Wired reporting shows, however, everybody, listen, if you're driving, if you tuned out, if you're cutting cucumbers for dinner or chopping onions, stop.

Just stop for a minute. Wired is reporting that a DOJ operative did in fact have access. Write access, meaning they could write the code of the Treasury. Not only that, but sources tell Wired that at least one note was added to Treasury records indicating that he no longer had write access before senior IT staff stated it was actually rescinded.[01:04:00] 

We have a situation, and I'm gonna get to who's on Musk's team in a minute, Dan, okay? It's not a dream team, just, just, this is not, this is not an all star cast. They are able to get into the code of the U. S. Treasury. Not just to read, Dan. They don't have just like viewer access to the Google Doc. They have editing access to the Google Doc.

Okay? Now, who was the one that had access to this? It's a man named Marco Elles, a 25 year old Doge technologist, who was recently installed at the Treasury Department as a special government employee. One of a number of young men identified by Wired who have little to no government experience, but are currently associated with Doge.

He previously worked for SpaceX. And, and for X slash Twitter. What happened to this guy, Dan? Oh, I don't know. He resigned yesterday because he had a social media account that advocated for racism and eugenics. [01:05:00] Nonetheless, he was granted privileges, including the ability to not just read, but write code on two of the most sensitive systems in the U.

S. government, the Payment Automation Manager and Secure Payment System. This is an agency, they're talking about the Bureau of the Fiscal Services, an agency that, according to Treasury records, paid out 5. 45 trillion dollars In 2024. So Dan, millions of federal employees, trillions of American dollars, a 25-year-old who again confirmed by the Senate security clearance.

Oh, he just quit because he's a eugenics and an open racist. Okay. There are, and I'm, I'm con, I'm gonna continue just to go through some information here. Friends, there's a bunch of requirements on federal law about who can control the federal funds. Who can issue payments on the behalf of the federal government?

Who has access to those things? [01:06:00] Who has access to the sensitive private information? There's something called the Privacy Act, Dan. There's all kinds of statutes and regulations designed to protect people. Designed to protect the American people. From 25 year old hackers, who are open eugenicists and racists, from having their most sensitive information and being able to control who the government pays and who it doesn't.

Now, Musk is saying he's identifying false payments and illegal things and he's saving the federal government four billion dollars a day. Why does he get to decide that? Who gave him the power? Who authorized that? This is not his job, period. This is not the executive branch's job. It is not Elon Musk's job.

This is a coup. And what I mean by that is, this is the executive branch taking powers it is not given in the Constitution. And [01:07:00] taking them from the legislative branch. Presidents can send recommendations to Congress. There's the impoundment control act, but guess what? The president. Much less Elon Musk does not have unilateral control over the purse of the U.

S. Treasury.

Let me quote Elizabeth Popp Berman, writing at Liberal Currents. And you know this is good, Dan? You know why I know this is good? Because A, not only is Elizabeth Popp Berman A great commentator at the University of Michigan. But the New York Times asked her to write this, and then she wrote it, and they were like, oh, actually, too radical.

So you know it's good, right? You know it's good. Trump has already demonstrated his intent to gut parts of the government that threaten him or depart from his political allies interests or ideology. So all the things, Dan, that we're not going to have time to talk about today at length. Purging the FBI.

Prohibit funding for whole fields of study. And, as you [01:08:00] mentioned, halting spending and including unclean energy. The effort is unprecedented, but so far it has been met with mixed success. So there's, there's There's a lot of bureaucratic obstacles here. However, with Musk in control of the federal spigot, the messy and slow problem would be solved.

Places like the National Science Foundation, the president does have considerable authority to direct spending. If the president wants to create ideological litmus tests, he probably can. But even so, it takes time to make unenthusiastic employees review each grant for mentions of gender and equity and all this kind of stuff.

But if Elon Musk, Dan, just has control of the money spout, while they can centralize power and speed things up. And that's the goal. If you control the purse, you control the government. If you control the purse, nobody can get in your way. If you control the purse, you can do things like you did last week, with no warning, no guidance, turn off the money, [01:09:00] so that people who get Meals on Wheels, the elderly, school children who rely on Head Start programs, The young, people who are on Medicaid, the sick, they are cut off from help with no warning.

Having a president, Elizabeth Popperman says, even more so an unelected billionaire, hold direct, granular control of nearly 7 trillion dollars is power beyond the founder's wildest dreams. And we have seen elsewhere, notably in Hungary, that finding the ways to use government to defund the opposition has been an effective opening salvo in the expansion of authoritarian rule.

Trump Guts EPA's Environmental Justice Office, Putting Poorest Communities of Color at More Risk - Democracy Now! - Air Date 2-7-25

AMY GOODMAN: We end today’s show with President Trump’s moves to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights. On Thursday, 168 workers of the environmental justice office were placed on leave. The office was first established in 1992 after research showed communities with hazardous waste sites had a [01:10:00] higher percentage of Black and low-income residents.

For more, we’re joined in Washington, D.C., by Mustafa Santiago Ali, the former head of the EPA’s environmental justice program. He resigned in 2017 to protest a Trump administration proposal to severely scale back the agency.

So, you resigned under Trump administration one. Now it’s not scaling back; it’s shutting it down. Can you talk first about what environmental justice is, and what it will mean?

MUSTAFA ALI: Yeah. Well, environmental justice deals with the disproportionate impacts that happen in communities of color and lower-wealth communities. Those communities are everywhere from Appalachia to Flint, Michigan, to the Navajo Nation. It makes sure that folks have a voice, makes sure that they have an opportunity to play a role in the impacts that are happening in their communities. It also helps them to be able to play a role in moving from surviving to thriving.

AMY GOODMAN: [01:11:00] And so, you have 168, some people are saying 200, workers within the environmental justice program put on leave. So, what happens to communities across the country?

MUSTAFA ALI: Well, they’re now placed in a much dangerous situation because they no longer have that advocate for them inside of the Environmental Protection Agency. You know, we have over 100 million people in our country right now who are dealing with unsafe air, whether it’s from ozone particulate matter or a number of other things. And many times, our most vulnerable communities are the ones who are carrying those burdens. So they no longer have someone to make sure that they have the information that they need and that they have the ability to work with the agency and others to address that.

We know that we’ve got all these dangerous chemicals that are in our waters right now, everything from lead — and we saw what happened in Flint, Michigan, in Benton Harbor, in a number of other locations across our country. But we also have things like TCE and “forever chemicals” and a number of [01:12:00] other things that are just very deadly. So, they no longer have someone, a place to be able to go, to understand how to navigate these very dangerous situations that they’re often facing. They also no longer will have the resources that are necessary to help their groups to be able to properly advocate, to help to make change happen inside of their communities.

AMY GOODMAN: The Guardian has an article headlined “Trump’s proposed EPA leadership stacked with lobbyists and attorneys.” What concerns you most about the EPA right now? And what message do you have? Right now hundreds of EPA career workers have left. ProPublica reports those who remain feel deeply torn. You quit under the first Trump administration. What message do you have for those who are remaining?

MUSTAFA ALI: Well, first, I’m very concerned about the deregulation and the focus on corporate profits, because any time that we place profit over people, then [01:13:00] we are putting a crosshair on our most vulnerable, our most marginalized.

For all those brothers and sisters who are still there at the agency and for those who have been put on leave, I would give them the words of my grandmother: that you have power unless you give it away. And that means that not only them, but citizens across our country who believe that everyone has the right to have clean air and clean water, for their children to be able to be on land that is free from toxic pollution, that we have to raise our voices. We have to get engaged. We have to make sure that folks understand that this is not an American value, and that we also have to understand that there is power inside of our vote. I never tell anyone who to vote for, but I do say you should be thinking very clearly about voting for somebody who cares about your communities. So don’t give up your power. Continue to build relationships together, and stand in solidarity.

AMY GOODMAN: Last week, the Senate confirmed former Long Island Republican Congressman Lee Zeldin as head of the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency. Three [01:14:00] Democrats joined with the Republicans in the vote: Arizona Senators Rubén Gallego and Mark Kelly, Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman. The youth climate action group Sunrise Movement condemned Zeldin’s confirmation as a disaster for the planet and a win for fossil fuel executives, writing, quote, “He took $420K from Big Oil, pledged to undo climate protections, and has been all-in with Trump, backing corporate polluters at the expense of working people.” In this last minute that we have together, Mustafa, where do you see this country going right now? You just stood with other climate activists outside protesting. What is your ultimate demand?

MUSTAFA ALI: Well, our ultimate demand is to stop placing these crosshairs on vulnerable communities and communities across our country. We should be focused on making sure that folks’ health is being improved and not having a situation where folks are going to be sicker. Their actions also will make us poorer, [01:15:00] because we know that the focus for the 21st century has to be on a cleaner economy. So, once again, we have the opportunity to move people from surviving to thriving, but the current sets of actions that they’re moving forward on are going to do absolutely the opposite.

Trump's latest target the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Part 2 - The NPR Politics Podcast - Air Date 2-10-25

LAUREL WAMSLEY - PERSONAL FINANCE CORR., NPR: I guess the first thing I would say is, even if it doesn't disappear, you know, it can sort of become a shell of itself, which is kind of what I feel like we're looking at right now, right?

There's staffers, but they're not allowed to do anything. They can't make any rules. They can't do any enforcement. You know, they can't put out any information to help consumers, all that kind of stuff that is core to the mission of the agency. They already aren't doing and are not allowed to do under, under Russell vote.

So, you know, that's kind of what we saw during the first Trump administration. I mean, they also went after CFPB then, and really, you know, there's sort of this 

ASMA KHALID - WHITE HOUSE CORR., NPR: feels different than the first time. 

LAUREL WAMSLEY - PERSONAL FINANCE CORR., NPR: It does. I mean, I think you're seeing sort of the Elon Musk effect and, and probably also the Russell vote effect, right?

Like they've got a plan this time to hamper it even further. [01:16:00] Um, but I think it's also possible to just make the entity not. Strong and able to do very much. I mean, they can go and change the rules that were made under the Biden administration. They can really gut what the agency is set up to do. So, I mean, I think even if you don't destroy it, even if you don't give it any more funding, I mean, right now they're just going to start, you know, going through the reserve funds that they have there.

Um, but I mean, CFPB that can't do any of this stuff really, you know, it. You almost don't need to destroy it. 

SUSAN DAVIS - POLITICAL CORR., NPR: I also think that there, to me, there's a politically interesting point here because Trump is moving so fast and doing so many things in government. But this is one where I think it has the risk of maybe going a bit too far in that a lot of what he's doing right now is like campaign promise made campaign promise kept and he wasn't campaigning on shutting down like the agency that helps consumers.

This is arguably like a. pretty working class type agency, like if you've been wronged by your bank or your mortgage company, like this is the [01:17:00] recourse for everyday citizens to go to the government and say, help me like investigate this. And taking that away doesn't exactly fit with his other message of who he's fighting for and what he's about.

It really does seem like it is much more a favor to the banking industry and the tech companies. Like it's helping people at the top and not people at the bottom. And I don't know if people have, um, strongly held feelings about the CFPB. You might be able to get away with it that way. Like people just might not know, but there has certainly been millions of Americans who have engaged with this agency.

And it's like where you could go if you had been wronged. And while there's certainly other financial regulatory institutions overlooking like the health of the financial sector in this country, if CFPB withers on the vine or closes down, like. There's nothing else. There's no other recourse for consumers at that level with that much power anywhere.

So I think that it might start to have a ripple effect where like, look, people still get kind of screwed over by their banks and their mortgage companies sometimes. Like, that's not a [01:18:00] solved problem in America. It might sort of recreate some of that anger. 

LAUREL WAMSLEY - PERSONAL FINANCE CORR., NPR: Yes. And CFPB staffers, you know, uh, one who just left the agency told me that this is like taking the cops off the beat.

I mean, they are like the front line defense for consumers. And now we're just like telling this enforcement agency, don't enforce. Um, and so, you know, there's a lot of concern from other consumer advocacy groups saying with the agency hampered in this way, it just leaves Americans super vulnerable to scammers and fraud and financial abuse.

ASMA KHALID - WHITE HOUSE CORR., NPR: Well, there are legal. challenges underway at this moment to try to keep the agency open. I mean, correct. What are those? Yeah, 

LAUREL WAMSLEY - PERSONAL FINANCE CORR., NPR: so there's two lawsuits so far. One of them, my understanding is that it's about the, the staff themselves and sort of like their employee records and stuff being just handed over to Elon Musk's team that it's like, Putting them at risk, you know, their own health and financial information is now in the hands of that Doge government efficiency team.

Um, so there's concern [01:19:00] there. And then the second lawsuit is that votes directives to not let them do their work, um, is. You know goes against I think what's been directed by Congress and that he can't do that essentially can't unilaterally shut the agency down Yeah, because they are congressionally obligated to do the work that they're supposed to be doing 

ASMA KHALID - WHITE HOUSE CORR., NPR: Hmm, so I want to ask you a big picture question.

It feels like This attempt to, we could say, neuter CFPB is yet another move from the Trump administration that seems to mimic the Silicon Valley expression, move fast and break things. How likely is it that if these agencies get broken up, they could come back in some other form? I mean, in other words, if they die now, are they dead forever?

SUSAN DAVIS - POLITICAL CORR., NPR: That's a good question, and I think part of what, uh, bends towards the, uh, Trumpy and view in this is that yes, there is legal recourse. And yes, there is going to be a ton of litigation and they're not done yet, right? Like they're going to turn this on other agencies. Like this is part of a bigger effort.[01:20:00] 

Litigation just takes a really long time. So I don't know if USAID or CPFB, like if, if all of this is resolved in the ways that people want to keep that institution, but if it takes 234 years, like what's left and how do you build it back up or how do you restaff it? So I think you can do an incredible amount of damage in a short period of time.

Especially if the will of the White House is really going to try to suffocate these agencies over the next four years. Whether they ultimately succeed in the end, unilaterally sort of closing them, I just don't know. I don't have that level of crystal ball. But I think that if it's going to be a four year fight, like, if the CFPB re rises up again at some point, it could just Take a long time.

Musk's 'DOGE' is spiraling U.S. into a constitutional crisis Part 2 - The ReidOut - Air Date 2-7-25

CLIP: This man is blocking the door. He says he's a federal employee. He won't tell us who gave him permission to do this. All he knows is he's going to stand here and tell the members of Congress who are elected who vote for the funding for all of them in this building and for the [01:21:00] Student loans, and for the Title I family, he's gonna tell us that we can't come in and talk with anybody.

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: And that, my dear readers, is Auntie Maxine fighting for the kids. Today, at least 30 House Democrats were denied access to the Department of Education building in Washington, D. C., where they had hoped to meet with Acting Education Secretary Denise Carter. Trump has called for closing the department, something some Republicans have obsessed over since the Reagan era, but which cannot be done without Congress, which created the agency during the Jimmy Carter administration.

Republicans have long wanted their hands on that multi billion dollar education market, which they are very eager to privatize for profit. They also want to eliminate civil rights protections for all students, but especially black and LGBTQ students. Which is why those right wing culture warriors are stepping up their attacks on diversity initiatives and making DEI the new boogeyman.

Joining me now is writer and historian Ibram X. Kendi, the newly announced [01:22:00] director of Howard University's Institute for Advanced Study. Congratulations on that new post at Howard University, which is starting to look like the Avengers in terms of all of the educational greats that are there, including yourself, sir.

Um, Your thoughts on duly elected members of Congress, House and Senate members being locked out of federal buildings and agencies, but these doge people who have no standing as members and representatives of the people being allowed to not only go in, but go through the computers. 

GUEST 3: It, it, it really reminds me of some scenes during the Civil rights movement when we were trying to desegregate schools and universities and, uh, federal officials were denied entry.

Uh, and, and, and frankly, to me it's an, it's an act. [01:23:00] Connection because many of these people who, uh, were blocking, uh, these members of Congress from coming into these federal buildings are really trying to resegregate this country. 

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: And the thing is that is that they put very you'll find point on it. DEI has just become, in many ways, on the, on the MAGA side, just a substitute for black, right?

And, but sometimes they'll add the A and they'll admit that they know it also means disabled people and LGBTQ people and trans people. And so they admit that they know the expanded word for it, but I kind of feel like anti blackness is like the worm, right? That's on the end of the hook. And so that once their base like bites down on it.

They buy into the whole thing, right? They get all of it, including losing some of their own education benefits. If you get rid of the department of education, a lot of mega people have disabled kids who need those benefits and they won't get them. 

GUEST 3: Exactly. And that's the reason why they're hoping their own supporters.

Hear [01:24:00] black when they hear D I just as they hoped their own supporters heard black when they heard the term welfare and they cut welfare just as they hoped their supporters heard black when they heard the term affirmative action. You can go on and on. With programs that have helped a large number of Americans who are not black, uh, but then ended up actually supporting cutting, uh, the programs that, that, that were actually helping them.

And, and that's the insidiousness of anti blackness in this country. 

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: I want to just go through a few things that are just sort of put a point on this exact point. So in, in, in Florida, you had a teenager who was accused of waving a machete and threatening Kamala Harris, um, supporting people at the polls in Neptune Beach, Florida.

Prosecutors absolutely dropped that case. J. D. Vance, Vice President of the United States, while saying, Oh, I obviously disagree [01:25:00] with some of this po these posts, but saying, Oh, this just stupid social media activity and it shouldn't ruin a quote unquote kid's life, even though they've claimed that the people who are in our, our, our, our systems are professionals.

And this is 25 year old Marco Elez. Who had resigned from Doge after the Wall Street Journal reported that he'd made comments, uh, uh, you know, normalize Indian hate talking about eugenics, uh, and saying he was a racist before it was cool. And one more, and this is small, but it seems like it's part of the cultural change.

The Superbowl taking off and racism off of the, um, end zone and replacing choose love. When they're doing anything but choosing love here. I mean, the FBI agents are terrified right now that they're going to get doxed by on Twitter and get their lives ruined. Uh, people who worked at DEI initiatives are in a, what amounts to almost like a, a sort of a, a, a list to mark them and show who they are and, and it's being put out as like a watch list.

There's not choosing love here, but what do you make of this? All of these signals that they're saying, you know what, anti blackness and [01:26:00] racism is a okay in America again. 

GUEST 3: When you can organize and invade the U. S. capital for all the world to see, uh, put up, uh, structures to, to, to lynch people, uh, you can assault.

Police officers, you can, uh, urinate on the floor of the U. S. Capitol, and then ultimately you can get pardoned. Uh, you can pretty much, they're signaling, you know, so long as you're a so called patriot, uh, so long as you're attacking democracy, so long as you're attacking black people, uh, you won't be punished.

And I think that's the cruelty of what we're witnessing.

SECTION B: CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering section B, constitutional crisis.

What is a Constitutional crisis - Civics 101 - Air Date 2-11-25

HANNAH MCCARTHY - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: I mean, we're talking about the word crisis, right? But what are we even saying when we say constitutional crisis? 

AZIZ HUG: I don't think that we can say what a constitutional crisis [01:27:00] is because there's no, uh, shared definition in either the law or in A social science discipline, which we might look to for an objective opinion.

NICK CAPODICE - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: So in terms of the civics 101 of it all, we can't tell everyone what it is. Like, we can't define this term because people don't agree about what it is. 

HANNAH MCCARTHY - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: And because of the reason and the way the phrase constitutional crisis tends to crop up. Mr. Speaker, we are in a 

CLIP: constitutional crisis. I want you to know that the crisis is here.

And thus we have a constitutional crisis. In daily politics, 

AZIZ HUG: uh, when you hear talk of a constitutional crisis, generally, the definition at work, uh, turns upon the speaker's views about what values they prioritize. in government, and therefore, [01:28:00] uh, the definition they're using is often one that's not shared by others.

Because of that, I tend to avoid the phrase constitutional crisis, because I think it is more confusing than it is illuminating. 

NICK CAPODICE - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: All right, so people might say this is a constitutional crisis, but what they really might mean is I see this as a threat to what I care about or simply I don't like this, you know, and you're throwing Constitution, the law of the land, the latticework undergirding democracy.

Right up next to the word crisis. So basically you're saying everybody, we've got a democracy emergency, but what are we actually talking about here?

HANNAH MCCARTHY - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: Well, I think that maybe we should avoid even using the word emergency because what does that mean? Aziz tended to say breakdown [01:29:00] and strain, and he started me off with what the Constitution is ostensibly for, whether people are using it that way and what it means if they're not. 

AZIZ HUG: I think I would distinguish between a couple of different ways in which you could have substantial breakdowns in constitutional law.

Understood. In some sense, here are two. ways of thinking about that that I think are salient now. So the first is you might think that the purpose of the constitution is not just to create a number of offices or roles that are filled at the level of the nation. Uh, and that carry out the work of government.

It's also to impose constraints upon how those roles can behave and to carve out paths or lanes that they should [01:30:00] rather 

NICK CAPODICE - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: than should not be in. Now this I do at least think I know, Hannah, that the Constitution establishes the existence of government, the people in charge, and also puts guardrails on that government.

HANNAH MCCARTHY - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: Great. So those are two things that the Constitution is for. But if one of those things isn't happening, that could be a breakdown. 

AZIZ HUG: One way of thinking about a situation of substantial constitutional strain is to say, well, many of the mechanisms that kept those actors who were given power through or by the Constitution All or most of the mechanisms that kept them in their lanes are breaking down.

And although the creative part of the constitution, the bit of the constitution that elevates people to offices of public power and influence is working, the constraining part of the constitution, the element that [01:31:00] imposes. breaks and channels those people isn't in good working order. So that's one way of thinking about it.

NICK CAPODICE - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: So this makes me think of separation of powers and checks and balances. I feel like that's a pretty well known government guardrail. One branch might really want to do something. But the other branch checks it, uh, maybe has to approve it or is allowed to say no to it. 

HANNAH MCCARTHY - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: We know the framers were worried about tyranny.

They were worried about too much power being in one person or one group of people's hands. So they split it up. And they added some rules for keeping it that way. Because, because Nick, this whole system is supposed to be about the group. People having a say in their governance, people governing themselves.

AZIZ HUG: Another way of thinking about it is to say, well, one of the important and central goals of the Constitution is [01:32:00] self government. It's to fashion a set of officers that are not just responsible for doing the thing that's beneficial to the nation today, but that are capable over time of being responsive Not just to the voters of today, but to the voters of tomorrow and to the voters of the day after that.

You can think of that as democracy as a going concern. And another form of substantial constitutional strain occurs if that possibility of democracy as a going concern starts to recede meaningfully from sight. Starts to become a theory, but not actually a practice. And we know from looking around the world, other countries experience of what's come to be called democratic backsliding, that that kind of [01:33:00] recession into the twilight of democratic possibility is a real, uh, a real thing that happens.

Even in the absence of elections being called off or some kind of very clear signal of democracy ending. I think that's a different kind of constitutional failure.

NICK CAPODICE - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: Alright, so we've got these two principles. The guardrails that ensure democracy and people prioritizing self governance. Prioritizing democracy. And if either of those things gets weak or is strained, either because people give them up or because people find ways around them, Then we're not doing democracy anymore.

HANNAH MCCARTHY - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: And, by the way, there are people, as Aziz pointed out to me, who do not believe that the point of the Constitution was to create democracy. So those people might say, well, democracy receding is not a constitutional strain. 

NICK CAPODICE - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: Yeah, and I want to avoid the rhetorical exercise here [01:34:00] of, we're a republic, not a democracy.

We have a whole episode on that, if anyone is interested. But you and I, at least. We pretty much operate on the assumption that the point of the Constitution was to create democracy. 

HANNAH MCCARTHY - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: I guess you could call that a Civics 101 philosophy. But I think it's also one that a lot of people agree on, a lot of people think.

Yeah! 

NICK CAPODICE - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: And real quick, Hannah, it is possible, right, that when someone says, this is a constitutional crisis, they actually do mean the guardrails are breaking down. Or, democracy is backsliding. 

HANNAH MCCARTHY - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: It definitely is possible.

Is America broken Part 2 - The Gray Area - Air Date 2-10-25

SEAN ILLING - HOST, THE GRAY AREA: I have some brokenness and some status quo ist tendencies. I can be either, depending on the day you ask me. I don't know what the hell that makes me. I guess if I'm hearing you, it makes me like a lot of people. 

COMMERCIAL: Right.

SEAN ILLING - HOST, THE GRAY AREA: You know, somewhere in the middle.

I was probably at my most brokenness in the throes of the pandemic. 

ALANA NEWHOUSE: Yeah.

SEAN ILLING - HOST, THE GRAY AREA: The experience of, of watching even that. be so [01:35:00] easily and neatly subsumed by our partisan rancor. That was a kind of tipping point for me, in a realization that the information environment now, in conjunction with all these other forces, has really combined to create an incredibly unstable.

Situation that I do not think is sustainable. 

ALANA NEWHOUSE: I think if you can maintain having both brokenness and status quo is ways of looking at the world where you can feel comfortable with either one of them or both, what that allows you to do is judge things at a local level. Which is where I think all things are going to get built or fixed anyway.

It's a little bit like cleaning out your closet. So there's a bunch of stuff that you're going to take and you're going to throw it away. But not every item of clothing. Then there are a bunch of things that you're going to take and be like, these are really important to me. I'm going to get them fixed.

And then there are things that work great. They do great for you. So you keep those. If you have a [01:36:00] philosophy about your closet, you're going to end up with a bad closet. If you're like, Nothing here has to change. We're not changing anything. You're just going to end up with a bunch of stuff you can't use.

And a bunch of stuff that doesn't look good on you, right? And if you walk in and you're like, we're throwing everything out, you may lose something that was really important to you, that actually worked really well, that maybe was from your grandmother. Like, you don't want that. I think that American society right now is at a place where it would be amazing if we could almost assess everything.

Look at everything and say, How can we make this better for more people? How can we make this work better and help more people and make better, safer, more enriching lives for more of us? 

SEAN ILLING - HOST, THE GRAY AREA: You're not a fence sitter though, right? You're a brokenist, right? I mean, although you do say there's this caveat, maybe I should ask you about that.

The way you say it in the piece is to say that you're a brokenness with respect to American institutions, but not with respect to America itself. [01:37:00] I'm not exactly sure what that really means. I don't know what America is, if not a bundle of institutions girded by a culture, I suppose. So maybe you can just unpack that and explain your staunch brokennism.

ALANA NEWHOUSE: I wouldn't say it's staunch. Um, 

SEAN ILLING - HOST, THE GRAY AREA: I took some liberties there.

ALANA NEWHOUSE: Right. I think that, um, I have a hot hand with my brokenism, meaning I'm not slow to look at something and say it's broken beyond repair. That's a difference between me and I think some of my more status quoist friends is that their default is to say, Can we fix this?

And to take that conversation, I think sometimes too far past the point of usability and past the point of the legitimate use of anyone's time and resources and energy. So I see too many people throwing too many resources down the, what I think is just an abyss of institutions that seem like they're obviously failing and shouldn't be given those kinds of resources.[01:38:00] 

So I am quicker than a lot of other people I know. to consign things to the dustbin of history now. So that's what I mean when I say I tend to be brokenist in my impulses. Yeah. In terms of sort of the America question, I mean, here's where I get a little woo woo, I guess. I think one of the best things about America and one of the most gruesome in some ways things about America is its ability to forget the past, to almost like forget the past the minute it happens, which is responsible, I think, for both its capacity to be so future oriented that it constantly morphs.

Like, it molts, almost, but also then brings trauma with it, like, drags its own trauma with it constantly into the future because it won't deal with it. But for me, what that means, though, is, is that America has, at least historically, been fertile ground for pretty radical change. And [01:39:00] because America's been very open to the idea of, well, why don't we just all wake up tomorrow and do something else?

I feel excited about the idea that we could fix stuff and maybe replace stuff. And again, I'm not, I'm not European. I was on British radio and the interviewer said to me, So, do you, you believe that maybe that the British government's gonna fix everything, right? That they could fix it and we could all be okay?

I was like, I have no idea. I don't feel super hopeful about that, but I have no idea. Europe is different and Europe in some senses lives in its own past, America doesn't. And so when I talk about feeling like I immediately will consign an American institution to the dustbin of history, it's almost because America doesn't mind.

Like, you want to throw out all of the Ivy Leagues, literally just throw them in the ocean, America will be fine. It will just make a new thing, and it's brutal. It can be violent, [01:40:00] but that ability to simply replace what needs to get thrown in the garbage means that I feel like there's going to be something new in 20 years, whether we can see it now or not.

Trumps American Takeover Part 3 - Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick - Air Date 2-1-25

KIM LANE SCHEPPELE: So this is where I'm going back and reading a lot of stuff from the 1940s, you know, so after the Second World War, when everyone's trying to figure out how do we not let that happen again, there was a big debate among lawyers, including among American lawyers.

And what they were saying was, you know, Hitler came to power lawfully, Stalin can. Yeah. did a lot of things by law. So the question was, what was wrong with that picture, right? And was it enough that something was formally legal in the sense of it was passed and enacted according to the legal procedures you had in place at the time, right?

And there were a bunch of people who said, well, Yes. And we'll fix that by putting a constitution on top of it all. And then you have a standard to judge legality. Okay. So what that didn't anticipate [01:41:00] is, you know, and actually most of the world's constitutions date to after the second world war. So we're unusual in having a very old constitution.

We've gotten there first, but you look at us constitutional law and it explodes after world war two, a lot of constitutional protections we have in place are much newer than the constitution itself. But then what happened starting in the US, um, starting really in the 1970s into the 80s, was that people who were determined, and this movement by the way, to create a kind of what I call autocratic legalism in the United States, started really back in the 70s.

As a set of conservative lawyers started looking at the constitution and saying, gee, you know, constitution can be interpretable. We can make it mean something else by coming up with historical arguments, with textual arguments, with off the top of our head arguments that make the constitution say something that justifies what we're doing with this other law.

So that was the [01:42:00] protection. New countries like Nazi Germany, after the war, new constitution, strong constitutional court, let's do this to prevent law from being used in this way again. But in the U. S. we've had a long process of renegotiating what the constitution is capable of meaning. And for me, I mean, I, I must admit, I stopped teaching U.

S. constitutional law before I came to Princeton. I was a law professor. I still have that hat on much of the time. I stopped teaching constitutional law after Bush v. Gore, because I'm afraid I've seen this movie before, okay, but I think the moment of truth for American law professors and Americans looking at the, the interpretability of our constitution was the immunity decision in this past term.

Whoever thought, nobody had ever thought, as all the briefs said, even Trump's lawyers didn't make the argument that presidential immunity from criminal violations would extend as far as that court said. [01:43:00] And what you then realize is that we have not only a captured Supreme Court, but we also have a captured Constitution.

That was the thing that was supposed to prevent law from being used in this autocratic manner. And between decades of legal scholarship that has said, Gee, we can make, I don't know, the Fourth Amendment sound like a recipe for banana bread if we try hard enough, right? We, we just need a little interpretive, you know, a little history, a little textualism, whatever.

This has now meant that the anchor that was supposed to prevent this from happening in the U. S. is now not here. And again, this is exactly what happened in Russia. This was what happened in Hungary. In Hungary, by the way, Orban just rewrote the Constitution after one year. That happened in Venezuela. That happened in Ecuador.

Eventually, um, you know, Erdogan in Turkey did this, rewrote the Constitution. You know, that was after the Second World War. That was supposed to be the guarantor. That this wouldn't happen. And now [01:44:00] constitutional lawyers have gotten so clever that they've worked out ways to prevent even that law from preventing the consolidation of executive power without checks.

DAHLIA LITHWICK - HOST, AMICUS: One of the things that I noted in your work is that the tendency is. You take over the executive branch and then you capture the court in the United States. As you said up top, that was the one thing Donald Trump did really well in his first term. Everything else was sort of, you know, slipping on pudding, but like he really kind of nailed it in terms of capturing the Supreme Court and, and with the help of Mitch McConnell, with the help of the conservative legal movement.

And in so doing, we have this funny loop where the court with the immunity decision and the Colorado decision and its capacious view of executive power, in some sense, before Donald Trump comes into office, the court is already in place. And it's very different and quite scary because I think it leads to my impression from the [01:45:00] way we are talking about this.

Internally in the United States, not to worry, not to worry, because the court is going to be the bulwark against the authoritarian impulses, you're saying, and then you get into these nuanced discussions. I had one this week, an important discussion with Steve Vladek about what the court's going to do with impoundment.

But it is a conversation that, in some sense, legitimizes That the court will be acting as a check on the executive, except the court, in some sense, helped to construct this unbounded executive. 

KIM LANE SCHEPPELE: Exactly. So, on one hand, we can't give up on law, right? Because, I mean, you can't give up on law. Law also is a weapon in the hands of the opposition, and the entire judiciary is not captured yet.

We've already seen some stays of some really off the wall executive orders. Um, so, you know, the courts are not Hopeless or helpless. That said, it is a hierarchy and eventually all of these questions are going to wind up at the Supreme Court. And I think [01:46:00] people for whom the court has been the horizon of what law means in the U.

S. have already been shaken up badly and yet still have faith. Partly because we don't know what else to do, right? I mean, that's our professional capacity. That's what we teach our students. We still haven't, what's everybody doing standing up teaching constitutional law this semester, right? You think that the thing that you've known as a solid set of rules will still be there, at least in part.

But let me tell you, I know I used to work when I was in Hungary, I actually worked at the constitutional court. And they developed the most remarkable case law. I mean, they'd just been through dictatorship. So they understood what it was. And the court made all these decisions that would make it possible for dictatorship never to come back again.

So what did Viktor Orbán do? The first thing out of the box, he captures the constitutional court. Three years in, when he's got all his judges in line and now they're going to do what he [01:47:00] says, he passes a constitutional amendment because he also has a constitutional majority in the parliament. That simply cancels the jurisprudence of the constitutional court.

From 1990 to 2012, and all those cases we all worked on so hard all those years went poof into the air. Okay, now it probably won't happen exactly that way here, but when you've got a case law that can be updated by a court that's been captured, in theory, actually none of that is stable, you know, and so what I'm trying to get everybody for whom the Supreme Court is the primary focus of what they do to say, well, what if that's not so solid anymore.

You know, it's like leaning against a wall and suddenly you discover the wall collapses. Okay. I also worked at the Russian constitutional court where that happened. Okay. So you, when you work in a couple of these countries like that, you begin to realize constitutional law cannot be left only to the courts.

Okay. So then what do we do? [01:48:00] So, you know, one thing that some of the Hungarians did for a while, this happened in Poland after the court was captured. Some of the constitutional lawyers then started doing things like writing the opinion the court should have written. If the old law was still in place. and then acting like that opinion was real.

It's a lot of work for people who are going to then construct an entirely alternative jurisprudence. But the other thing you do is you take the constitution to the streets, right? And you don't lean on the technical, formal arguments that we're all used to making as constitutional law professors.

What is a Constitutional crisis Part 2 - Civics 101 - Air Date 2-11-25

HANNAH MCCARTHY - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: So, thinking about the breakdown of guardrails, I basically asked Aziz, Okay, so what if that guardrail breaks down?

What if the federal courts, what if the Supreme Court, says This is the way it has to be. And the person they're talking to says, Nope. 

NICK CAPODICE - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: As in, what if someone ignores what a judge or a justice says? 

HANNAH MCCARTHY - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: Right.

AZIZ HUG: Probably the best [01:49:00] example of government officials not complying with a instruction from the Supreme Court is what happened in the wake of Brown v.

Board of Education. Brown in 1954 declares that separate but equal in education is a violation of the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. For roughly a decade after Brown has decided, there is no meaningful change in the level of education. of, uh, school segregation outside of a couple of what are known as the border states, places like Maryland.

The reason for that absence of change is, uh, the officials responsible for managing schools at the local and the municipal level, and to some extent at the state level, successfully resisted the instruction 

NICK CAPODICE - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: in Brown. Oh, of course. And I know this is super complicated, Hannah. [01:50:00] And schools today are still wildly segregated, if not by law, then by policies at the state and local level, and everything from district boundaries to school choice to income inequality to a lack of a court overseeing things.

And it took something like 50 or 60 years before the last school district was formally desegregated in 2016. One of 

AZIZ HUG: the lessons That one might take from that is the answer to the question of what happens when officials defy the court is that the court loses. The court is not in a position to certain kinds of coordinated resistance by governmental actors.

The court loses? 

NICK CAPODICE - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: Like, that's the answer? Is that allowed? 

HANNAH MCCARTHY - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: It's not supposed to happen, but it can. It has. And it is a really big deal. [01:51:00] Remember, this system is about guardrails and about agreeing on democracy. Agreeing to abide by it and keep the project up. This is all just a theory written down on paper.

If we don't do it, we don't do it. 

NICK CAPODICE - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: Okay, did Aziz say anything about the federal courts? Today, if we're thinking about upholding the Constitution, how all these branches work together or not, how is that branch working right now? 

AZIZ HUG: I don't think we're in a world in which that characterizes the challenge to constitutional stability practice today.

I think we're in a world in which it's much more likely that particularly the justices of the Supreme Court take their cues for their rulings not from text, not [01:52:00] from original understanding, not from precedent, not from constitutional principle, but from What their ideological fellow travelers, uh, think.

NICK CAPODICE - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: Okay, let me make sure I understand this, Hannah. We're talking about the courts today, specifically the Supreme Court, and the way the Roberts Court interprets the Constitution and hands down rulings based ON the Constitution. All part of the project of upholding the guardrails, upholding the law of the land.

So what does it mean to base rulings on what your Quote, ideological fellow travelers, unquote, think instead of, you know, text, precedent, principle, et cetera. 

HANNAH MCCARTHY - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: So here's the example he gave.

AZIZ HUG: A really good example of this is the attack on administrative agencies that culminated this last year. The core of [01:53:00] that attack was an attack on the idea that when a federal administrative agency does something, when it interprets the law, it gets a lot of deference from the, uh, federal courts.

And this was really a non issue among any of the justices until about 2015. Oh, this is Chevron, right? 

HANNAH MCCARTHY - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: The Chevron deference, yeah. The court did away with that in a case called Loper Bright, which I made an episode about and warmly recommend you listen to if you want a better sense of what Aziz is referencing here.

But essentially, for a long, long time, experts in administrative agencies could interpret a statute, and the courts would generally say, You know, okay, we defer to you. You're the expert. 

AZIZ HUG: And in 2015, a couple of the justices start saying, well, hey, we shouldn't do this. We should, we should police what agencies are doing.

Well, what changes in 2015? The only thing that changes in 2015 is that in the course of the Obama administration, the [01:54:00] RNC platform has changed to include, we shouldn't give deference to agencies. And lawyers associated with the Republican Party and that movement start making arguments in that register.

NICK CAPODICE - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: So the Republican National Committee came up with this idea, and then they got it into the legal system. They put the question out there. I mean, that is how cases get before the Supreme Court. People actively try their best to put them there, often after years of planning. 

HANNAH MCCARTHY - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: Absolutely. That is often how it works.

But I think the reason Aziz brought this up is that, for one, This was, as he put it, a non issue in the court, until it became a part of a party platform. And for another, the actual reasoning, the logic of the majority opinion, is borrowed from the arguments that those lawyers were making, the lawyers associated with the Republican Party.

AZIZ HUG: Those arguments very, very quickly filter into traditional opinion. I think you can [01:55:00] say the same thing about affirmative action, I think you can say the same thing about the way that the religion clauses of the constitution, uh, are understood, I think you can say the same thing about the court's ruling on presidential immunity, uh, last year.

Uh, there are many instances in which even the grounds upon which the Roberts Court majority usually justifies itself, its originalist grounds, do no explanatory work. They're not even in the opinions. And the basis for the opinions can really only be understood in terms of changes in the legal culture, but changes in a very particular, uh, co partisan corner of the legal culture.

NICK CAPODICE - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: Okay, so a majority of the Roberts Court justices identify as Originalists, and we also have an episode about that, which listeners might find helpful right now. And Aziz is saying that in many cases, even their originalism or what they're calling originalism, which [01:56:00] is supposed to be about the text of the Constitution, does not explain their reasoning.

HANNAH MCCARTHY - CO-HOST, CIVICS 101: Yeah. Later on in an email, Aziz explained to me that he thinks, quote, It is hard to explain any rulings by the Roberts court on the basis of standard legal sources. Text history precedent. He also said that he thinks quote that it is hard to explain those rulings without seeing an effect of political affiliations.

SECTION C: THE PLAYBOOK

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: You've reached section C, the playbook.

Are We Sleepwalking into Autocracy-- Trump Embraces Authoritarian Playbook of Hungary's Orbán - Democracy Now! - Air Date 2-12-25

KIM LANE SCHEPPELE: So, first of all, you know, when Project 2025 came out, I sat down and read it, and the first thing I thought was, you know, this sounds so much like what Orbán did. And then, it turns out, a month later, there was a terrific article in The New Republic that made the connection.

So, Orbán has this English-language think tank. It’s called the Danube Institute. You can google it and see what it’s up to. And the Danube Institute had entered into a formal agreement with the Heritage Foundation to [01:57:00] actually provide consulting on how the Trump people were going to copy what Orbán had done. In the meantime, you know, when Orbán gives his Hungarian-language speeches, one of the things he keeps saying is, you know, “We are deep into the Trump administration and involved in its central planning.” So, you put all this together, and it’s actually not just that the Trump people are aping Orbán from a distance, it’s that Orbán has actually been involved in the design of Project 2025.

Now, this mirrors what Orbán has also done in Europe. So, the European elections, the elections to the European Parliament, were held last June, and Orbán’s Fidesz party spent more money on campaigning for fellow far-right parties in other countries, like not just in Hungary, but in countries all over Europe, than any other single party in Europe. And remember, Hungary is a tiny country, you know, nine-and-a-half million people, on the edge of [01:58:00] Europe. They’re advertising in Germany. They’re advertising in France. They’re advertising in much bigger countries. And it turns out that this advertising, along with the general sort of collapse and weaknesses of party systems across Europe, meant that the far right had victories really all over the place. And Orbán was able to take those far-right victories and cobble together what has become the third-largest political party in the European Parliament. And so, that’s an incredible political accomplishment.

And what you’re seeing is that Orbán is now sort of riding atop this wave of election victories across Europe and claiming to be the heart and soul of this new far-right movement. He was president of something called — the rotating president of what’s called the Council in the last half of 2024. And when he unveiled his presidency, the slogan was “Make Europe [01:59:00] Great Again,” which was also the slogan of this far-right gathering that we just saw in Spain as Orbán pulled together all these far-right parties. So, you know, Orbán is a prime minister of a tiny country on the edge of Europe, but he is now punching far above his weight in trying to consolidate this movement of anti-democratic far-right forces.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: This is Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcoming Donald Trump’s inauguration last month.

PRIME MINISTER 

JUAN GONZÁLEZ - CO-HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: VIKTOR ORBÁN: [translated]

PRIME MINISTER VIKTOR ORBÁN: The stars under which we stand now are much more favorable than they were in 2024. Not only we became stronger, but, in the meantime, the flagship of the Western liberal politics had sunken. The Western world received a patriotic, pro-peace, anti-migration, pro-family president in Washington.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: So, if you could respond to what Orbán is saying, Professor Scheppele? But also, one of the things you point out is that you have these authoritarian leaders that [02:00:00] don’t just take power. I mean, even Hitler won an election. Orbán won an election. And then, what that process is, consolidating the power, so much so that right now President Trump — what is it? — hundreds of executive orders? But isn’t that a sign of weakness, not strength? I mean, he’s got the House and the Senate. Why can’t he pass these laws, and not get around them, with Republicans in the majority in both houses?

KIM LANE SCHEPPELE: Right. So, actually, if you remember, in Donald Trump’s first term, he had even larger majorities in both houses for the first half of his first term. And even then, he did not move to legislation. So, I think part of the reason is that Trump wants to move fast. Orbán also wanted to move fast. You know, Orbán, in his first year in office, amended the Hungarian Constitution 12 times, changing 60 different provisions of the Constitution. Orbán had a supermajority in his parliament, so he was able to work with them. [02:01:00] Trump has got razor-thin majorities now in both houses. Also, amending the U.S. Constitution is beyond the bounds of almost any single political party. So Trump is doing something else. And this is the crucial thing about the autocratic playbook. It doesn’t look exactly the same in every country, because the political systems don’t look exactly the same.

So, Trump is trying to break things quickly so that by the time the courts catch up with him, by the time his own party starts to have second thoughts, by the time all of the forces that are checks and balances regroup and figure out how to push back, the thing will be broken, you know? So, I think what Trump has learned, and what Orbán also, I think, taught him is that, you know, think of government as an aquarium. If you just stick a blender in it and make fish soup, you’re not going to be able to restore the aquarium even when courts tell you, “No, you shouldn’t have done it like that.” So, this is really, you know, break things first, act [02:02:00] fast to create facts on the ground, and then, when especially the judiciary is slow to catch up with you, you can’t do anything.

So, let me give you one example from Hungary. In order to capture the judiciary, what Orbán did was to suddenly lower the judicial retirement age from 70 to 62. And in Hungary, like most European countries, the judiciary is a civil service activity, so you come in as a baby judge, you get promoted through the ranks. The people who are the oldest are also the most senior. So, you suddenly lower the retirement age, effective like today. All these judges are forced out of office. They then bring a lawsuit, saying, you know, “We were improperly, illegally fired.” Couple years later, the European courts get around to saying, “Yes, that shouldn’t have happened. This is a violation of European law.” By that time, Orbán has filled all the positions. He goes back to court and says, “Well, do you want us to fire the new judges?” at which point the [02:03:00] European Commission, which is enforcing this court decision, says, “Well, we really don’t want you to fire any new judges. Just give the new judges protections so that this can’t happen again.” OK? And what that meant, he captured all the courts and got European blessing for it all, because he moved first, broke things.

And this is what we’re seeing. You know, Trump is just creating facts on the ground. He’ll destroy agencies before the court tells him, “You have to restore them.” So, again, the metaphor is, you start as an aquarium, you create the fish soup, and no court can make you go back again.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: We just have 20 seconds, but what about if these federal workers, if the heads of agencies simply refuse to leave, create the constitutional crisis on the other side? The judiciary has to rule, and instead of ruling years later when all these people are gone, they rule now, and the agencies don’t get shut down.

KIM LANE SCHEPPELE: Yeah, well, a few of the officials who have been fired have tried to make a last stand. You know, some of the inspectors general did, and the head of the [02:04:00] Federal Election Commission did. The problem in Washington is that they can just deactivate your badge at the door. So, in Poland, when the judges went back into court after their retirement age was lowered, they could get into the court. But in our government, it’s very difficult, because the buildings themselves have so much security. But still, I think it’s good for people who are in office to say, “I’m not leaving until you force me,” and just create friction in the system. Slow it down is actually the best defense in circumstances like this.

Media Continues Painting Musk's Far Right Coup as Good Faith Cost-Cutting Effort Part 2 - Citations Needed - Air Date 2-5-25

NIMA SHIRAZI - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: Adam, we wanted to discuss a recent piece you wrote on the credulous reporting about what is currently a full scale assault on the federal government by not only, uh, Donald Trump, but his empowered, uh, deputy.

President Elon Musk and how the media is reporting this assault as, you know, kind of good faith cost cutting measures, you know, going line by line in federal budgets [02:05:00] that so far is seeing real, real threats, sometimes shutting down a lot of full scale firings and dismantling of government agencies from the U S treasury to.

The office of personnel management, that's OPM, general services administration, the GSA, small business administration, the SBA, tons of other agencies, including USAID. And yes, there are problems with all of these offices, but. What Musk is doing is not actually talking about the root causes of, say, quote unquote government waste, but rather is fully assaulting the federal government on purpose.

ADAM JOHNSON - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: 100 percent of people concerned with government waste don't give a shit about government waste. It is obviously pretextual. Anyone with half a brain cell who's read any kind of Heritage or Manhattan Institute report can tell you that government waste is always pretextual. Nobody gives a shit about waste, maybe like five guys at the OMB kind of care, make sure you fill out [02:06:00] your TPS report or whatever, make sure you're, you're dotting your I's and crossing your T's, sure, but obviously what Musk in his, what appears to be like Zoomer flunkies, weird, uh, Silicon Valley incel types who are his cultish followers have been gaining unprecedented and deeply me.

Insecure access, in every sense of the term, it's both insecure in that Musk clearly needs everyone to love him and also just not good protocol in terms of leaking people's information, is gaining unprecedented access to trillions of dollars worth of federal spending, ostensibly, again, to sort of find theft or inefficiencies, but they haven't actually found any because there's already systems in place for that.

And obviously it's fake. And that's also not 

NIMA SHIRAZI - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: the point. Exactly. It's totally. fake, let alone illegal, but it is totally fake. And the credulous reporting we're seeing is kind of taking all this at face value and like, as like a good faith attempt to slash the federal budget. 

ADAM JOHNSON - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: Well, so yeah, for recently, there's been slightly more critical tone, which we can get into, although they're still indulging the idea that it's a [02:07:00] quote unquote cost cutting panel.

But for the months leading up to Doge, which I can't believe I have to say this. I can't believe that the fact that I have to think about this fucking dickhead. Is its own transgression. Same for everyone else in this country, but nevertheless we have to, because he's effectively the president and slash dictator.

And what we're seeing truly is a right wing coup, which is to say it is illegal, illegitimate. Uh, nobody voted for it. And the executive branch by design, uh, certainly by the arrangement that the voters were voting for cannot unilaterally shut down entire federal programs and does not control the budget.

Congress controls the budget for very good reason because it's tensely Congress is controlled by the people. 

NIMA SHIRAZI - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: That's

ADAM JOHNSON - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: right. For

NIMA SHIRAZI - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: the time being, there is. still a certain level of separation of the branches of government. Congress has the power of the purse, still, for the time 

ADAM JOHNSON - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: being, as I said. So leading up to this moment, and I've been pulling my hair out about this on social media, I've written about it for In These Times, the way that the press, I focus specifically on CNN, New York Times, and Washington Post, because they're kind of three mainstream [02:08:00] outlets, I'm sure.

A bunch of other outlets have been just as bad, but we'll focus on them for the purposes of this news brief, just to limit the scope here. Have repeatedly, for months, been treating Doge and Musk's efforts as genuine, like, cost cutting efforts. Again, he is not presented as ideological, he's not presented as right wing, he's not presented as an attack on the liberal state.

And obviously there is a years, years of evidence that Trump is a right wing ideologue. He publishes and posts non stop hashtag white genocide, conspiracy theories, complaints about land theft in South Africa, wink wink, anti trans, you know, sort of. Knockout game type schlock constantly sharing memes that are originate from white supremacist websites.

He did a sake aisle at the inauguration clear as day three different times in hds We've already discussed this is not really dispute, you know, sort of something that one can dispute He clearly exhibits displays and makes clear his right far right wing ideology And has for [02:09:00] several years, so this is not like something the New York Times is not aware of despite their best efforts and somewhat infamously in 2022 to act like he's this sort of enigma who is both liberal and conservative, but this ideological position, which clearly again, the richest person in the world, almost worth half a trillion dollars with a long history of bigoted statements, it was completely erased from discussions of Doge and he was treated as someone who was simply interested in finding savings.

So let's find some of those. These are just, you know, main examples, there are thousands of other examples, but we'll just give you some sampling here to give you a sense of, we're calling it credulity, but it's not really credulity, they know what they're doing. Credulity as it reads, this is from the New York Times, November 27th, 2024.

The headline reads, Musk's slashing of the federal budget faces hurdles, in which they say Doge is, quote unquote, looking for savings, quote unquote, are there a budget cutters? This from December 6th, 2024, also the New York Times quote. Musk's cost cutting effort is being guided by a health entrepreneur.

The article would go on to say it [02:10:00] was a cost cutting effort, a quote, efficiency panel, a quote, cost cutting project, unquote. Another article from January 12th, 2025, the headline would read, Inside Elon Musk's plan for doge slash government costs. It was referred to as a cost cutting project, quote unquote, potential savings is what he was looking for.

And none of these articles, and we'll go into this later, is the word right wing, conservative, neo Nazi. Any sense or any hint of that Musk has an ideology, which may, I don't know, selectively pick out the liberal parts of government? Meanwhile, Musk is so concerned with quote unquote finding savings and quote unquote cost cutting, he mysteriously has not addressed the 14.

5 billion dollars in government contracts that his companies have. We'll get to that later. The Washington Post would indulge this cost cutting, efficiency, post ideological expense streamlining framework as 

NIMA SHIRAZI - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: well. Media view from nowhere is like in full effect here. So, you know, you have the Washington post December 21st, 2024 with the headline, Elon Musk's wishlist for [02:11:00] doge, in which it calls the clearly ideological project with a snarky name, a quote government efficiency commission and quote, the Washington post would also say, uh, nearly a month later, January 16th, 2025.

Quote, Musk's Doge weighs recommendations to cut federal diversity programs, end quote. Oh, you know, it's just weighing recommendations. In that article, it talks about Doge being a, quote, non governmental fiscal efficiency group. Calls it efficiency again, it's going to suggest, quote, proposed savings. We see this feign credulity again and again across mainstream media.

Never talking about the ideology behind this. Just taking at face value what Doge is set up to do, which is to clearly make poor people even poorer, to, uh, cut any kind of government services that improve the lives, or at least, uh, you know, sustain the lives, make people able to survive in an already unfair system.

[02:12:00] This is the point. He's not, you know, Going after massive military spending, of course, savings won't be found there. No, no, no. They're going to be found in social services that keep people alive. 

Musk's Coup and Trump's Christian Zionist Gaza Takeover Part 3 - Straight White American Jesus - Air Date 2-7-25

DAN MILLER - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: Yeah, so to start with that latter point, so in the context of the National Prayer Breakfast and events going on around the National Prayer Breakfast, Trump said, you know, one of the quotes he started with is he said, the people quote. Can't be happy without religion, without that belief. Let's bring religion back.

Let's bring God back into our lives. Suddenly, you know, Mr. Pious Trump, who doesn't know anything about any of that, but of course the, the, the religious conservatives love him as we know. And so speaking at events, he elaborated on how to bring this aim, and he announced a task force to be run by, among other people, like Paula White would play a role in this, the new Attorney General, Bondi.

So it's a task force to be run that is aimed at numerous things, but one is rooting out what he calls anti christian bias, specifically in the government, one big area. So he said it was aimed at halting what he called the absolutely terrible [02:13:00] form of anti christian targeting and discrimination within the federal government, including at the Department of Justice, at the IRS, at the FBI, and at other agencies.

He also vowed to protect Christians, quote, in our schools. In our military, in our governments, in our workplaces, hospitals, and in our public squares, end quote. And he said, and this, this is the key, so I, we talk about religious freedom and the language of religious freedom, and if somebody didn't know any better and said, well, of course, like, we don't want anti Christian bias, we don't want anti any religion bias, isn't bias bad?

Sure, it is, if it exists. But this is what he went on to say. He said that we will, quote, bring our country back together as one nation under God. This isn't about ending anti christian bias, this is about re establishing or maintaining Christian hegemony within all of those places. This is about the privilege of Christians within the Department of [02:14:00] Justice, the IRS, the FBI, and other agencies.

This is about the privileging of Christians. In our schools, in our military, in our government, in our workplaces, in our hospitals, in our public squares, all those places, places that he listed. You've talked about, you know, Hegseth and, and the white nationalist slogans that are marked on his body. We have talked about radical traditional Catholicism and white evangelicalism and all of these movements.

We have talked about all the moves that say that, you know, America's a Christian nation and should be based on theocratic principles and so forth. That's what this is aimed at and that's what gives away the game to me. When he says, this isn't, this isn't about Religious freedom, this is not about state neutrality toward religion.

This is not about the, the classical notion of the freedom to worship whatever god you want, or none at all, or however else we want to talk about religious freedom. It's about making us together into one nation under God. Meaning, what? The straight white Jesus. The straight white Christian nationalist God.

That is the God of the nation. That's what we're going to privilege. And it's going to result in the [02:15:00] targeting of religious diversity. It's high ties into DEI stuff in that regard. All things diversity are bad, including religious diversity. And it's going to do it on the grounds that it represents persecution of Christians.

So, I don't know, the next time Muslims, Muslim workers somewhere say that they should have a reasonable accommodation to like pray during the day or something, it's going to be talking about how this infringes on my right as a Christian business leader to, you know, to do whatever. All the way up to every level, as you say, tie this in with things like Musk and the funding and whatever, and you get powerful levels for this.

I think it's also obviously, and this is key, it's going to curtail efforts to curb Christian nationalism. People can remember in 2023, there was an FBI memo that detailed the overlap between Christian nationalism and radical traditional Catholicism. And I, I think, Brad, there are a few people who have been talking about this for a long time, pointing that out, and the FBI said Here's this analysis, and there's a lot of overlap here.

They did not say all Catholics are Christian Nationalists. They did not say [02:16:00] everybody who's a traditionalist Catholic is a Christian Nationalist. What they said is, you plot those two diagrams, there's a lot of overlap, and I'll just give you J. D. Vance as a great example of that overlap. And what happened?

There was GOP outrage, and the FBI director withdrew the memo. That is now, for Trump and this task force, anti Christian bias. It's not about bias, it's about determining before any investigation takes place, what outcomes can even be found, and ensuring that Christians can never be held accountable. that Christians can never be found to like violate other people's rights and things like this.

That, that's the, that's the aim of this, this anti Christian or anti Christian bias task force is the preservation of Christian privilege and the further instantiation of Christian nationalism is the sort of official religious ideology of MAGA Nation. 

BRAD ONISHI - HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: There's another example he uses. I'm glad you brought up the FBI memo on [02:17:00] Catholics who, a small number of Catholics, who might be something like domestic terrorist threats.

One of the other examples that came out yesterday was those who've been arrested and charged for blockading abortion clinics. Yep. And, you know, if y'all know your history, you know the history of, of, of pro natalism and abortion extremism in the Christian right. You also know there's been violence there.

There have been doctors who have been killed by anti abortion extremists. So, here we have people who are like, showing up to abortion clinics, causing trouble, causing violence. Making things such that people are threatened, they're arrested, and Trump's saying that's anti christian bias. You know, Dan, and there's no surprise here.

There's nothing here that we're like, Oh my god, didn't see that coming. Luke Adonis just got traded to the Lakers. That was one, Dan. Yeah, did not see that coming. This I did see coming.

This is the man who [02:18:00] pardoned January 6th riders. The violent ones. That is part of Anti Christian bias, because, I don't know, people like you and I have spent hours and hours and hours of our lives on podcasts, this one, and writing books and everything else, along with all of our colleagues, from Andrew Seidel to Matthew Taylor to Catherine Stewart to Sarah Posner to Anne Nelson, talking about how January 6th was a Christian nationalist crusade.

And so, this fits in not only to the patterns that we're talking about, it is directly tied to January 6th. Uh, and it is, it is, it is absolutely frightening.

SECTION D: WHAT TO DO

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally, section D, what to do.

Why Are Dems Surprised Part 2 - The Intercept Briefing - Air Date 2-7-25

SUNJEEV BERY: Let's start with the big picture.

I am shocked by how weak the Democrats response has been to the head spinning number of Trump actions. Last week, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer described people's concerns in this way. 

CLIP: People are aroused. I haven't seen people so aroused in a very, very long time in terms of [02:19:00] going, uh, trying to get this done.

So, yes, I think democracy will have an effect. 

SUNJEEV BERY: And Akeem Jeffries cryptically tweeted, Presidents come and presidents go. Through it all, God is still on the throne. It's hard to imagine a more watered down response. On Monday, we did start to see some pushback from congressional Democrats, who held a press conference in front of the USAID building in Washington.

After Elon Musk and crew shut down the agency. So for both of you, what do you make of the Democrats response so far? 

AKELA LACY: Well, first responding to Jeffrey's tweet, like, is God really on the throne? Like have you looked around? Like it's just kind of like the most useless rhetoric. I mean, this week on, on Monday, Jeffrey's and Schumer.

Did hold a press conference on legislative proposals to quote fight the chaos that the Trump [02:20:00] administration has already unleashed on the American people, including his his actions to freeze federal money and and the takeover of Doge, et cetera, et cetera, but Many people have already made this point. If they're already doing something unlawful, What is another law gonna do?

The, the context here is obviously what can Democrats do in the position that they're in with the Republican trifecta. You know, they've reportedly started a quote war room in the DNC headquarters. They just elected their new chair. Some people are calling more explicitly to not work with the GOP, but that's not coming from leadership.

JORDAN UHL: Yeah, I mean, I'll say that from my perch, what I'm seeing is a window into the broader culture of the, uh, elected officials of the Democratic Party. They are not organizers, by and large. They are not people who build and channel power to extract concessions from the powers that be. They are ladder climbers and aggregators of pre existing power.

And that's why the Democratic Party is [02:21:00] losing. You know, you have folks like Chuck Schumer. He's not. He's not a critic of concentrated wealth. He's a product of concentrated wealth. You know, Wall Street's in his backyard, right? I mean, Hakeem Jeffries is perfectly willing to throw Palestinians under the bus if it helps him, you know, in his personal political ascent.

So we're talking about people who are very good at navigating power and very bad at challenging power. And so that's why, despite the fact that this is Trump 2. 0, Despite the fact that we've, we've all been through a version of this before, you know, the democratic leaders came into this with no idea of what they were doing.

You know, I, I remember this, this quote in the New York times when they did an article about this, where the journalist mentioned that Senator Cory Booker was doing a social media training for other senators, where he was telling them to post on LinkedIn three times a week. And I just thought, what? What?

Like, this is what US senators are talking to each other about in the Democratic caucus. This is where we're at. You know, [02:22:00] so I, I'm just kind of shocked and surprised at, at the sheer gap between movement folks and Democratic Party constituencies and what Democratic Party voters want and what the center of the Democratic Party leadership is, is failing to offer.

AKELA LACY: Yeah. I mean, movement people are asking the obvious question right now, which is why? Are there any Democrats at all voting to confirm a single nominee? Like, that's one of the lowest hanging pieces of fruit. There was reporting about this being a concern raised in an organizing call with Indivisible earlier this week.

It was one of the main topics of conversation. It's so obvious. What possible reason could you have to not have every single Democrat voting as a bloc against all of these nominees? On Wednesday, Senate Democrats did finally come together to protest and delay [02:23:00] confirming Trump's nominee to direct the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vogt.

Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz announced that plan while he was on the train to D. C. on Wednesday. 

CLIP: Hey, I'm on my way to the Senate floor. We're going to have more than 35 United States senators on the Democratic side opposing Russ Vogt's nomination. We're going to take the floor for 30 hours. Russ Vogt is the main author of Project 2025.

He's the guy that established this federal funding freeze. He is the architect of the dismantling of our federal government, harming us with Medicaid portals shut down. With Head Start shut down, with agencies illegally stormed and the, uh, servers being seized, um, we've got to fight back and reunited all 47 Democrats in opposition to Russ Vought's nomination.

AKELA LACY: But still, before this, Democrats have had no plan. They have no excuse for not having had a [02:24:00] plan in place. There was no confusion about the fact that these nominees were going to be coming up for a vote. And still, There were Democrats who voted for several of Trump's nominees. Seven Democrats voted for his energy secretary pick, Chris Wright, a fossil fuel CEO and vocal opponent of efforts to fight climate change.

Only 23 Democrats voted against his pick to lead the Veterans Affairs Department. Uh, only 16 Democrats voted against his Interior Secretary pick. Uh, you have even for, on a vote for someone like Pam Bondi, where there was almost universal Democratic opposition, except for the vote of John Fetterman, who, you know, in very, until very recently, was held up as an example of what Democrats should be aspiring to.

All of this. Now again is reacting in real time to what trump is doing But it's not as if democrats had no idea that this was going to happen [02:25:00] But they can give the impression that they are actively responding to to outside pressure but The point is why did they have to wait for that pressure to act 

Trumps Dictatorship Can Still Be Stopped - If We ACT NOW - Thom Hartmann Program - Air Date 2-6-24

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: You know, the, the good news is yesterday there were protests literally from all over the, all over the nation. Uh, people saying, you know, basically, hell no, this, this is, we're not going to put up with this. Um, but, then, you know, today it's gotten, well, there's a, a number of lawsuits, for example. And, you know, this is, this is kind of a good sign.

So far the government has not won any of these lawsuits, but Musk and his people are still inside these agencies, and even if they're forced out, there's a lawsuit this morning that's being heard, or that was, you know, the hearing started at 11 o'clock eastern time this morning. Um, even if they succeed, it's entirely possible that they have buried code in all of these government computer programs and systems.

That will allow them to remotely access them, so they don't need to have access [02:26:00] to the buildings. I mean, keep in mind, this is, so anyway, my op ed today over at HartmanReport. com is titled, Last Chance to Stop a Dictatorship and Trump Knows It. Trump wants FBI agents who investigated his coup attempt, his facilitating espionage, and his other financial and criminal activities fired.

Uh, let's be very clear, this is how dictatorships start. A guy who wants to become a dictator always begins by changing how the government works. Even though the majority of the nation says, Hey, we kind of like the way things are. Uh, no. He says, I got a better way and it'll all work out. In the process, he breaks a bunch of laws, but people mostly don't do anything about it or even say anything about it because those laws don't directly affect them.

You know, Pastor Niemöller wrote about this in 1930s Germany. First, they came for the government workers. Then people start resisting. Which is when he begins to use the police power of the state. The people who show up in the streets, the people who [02:27:00] speak out in the media, the people who try to fight him in the legislatures, in the courts.

He figures out ways to get them fired, harassed, and ultimately imprisoned. When she was being confirmed, uh, Attorney General Pam Bondi refused to say that she would not follow or execute an illegal order on Donald Trump's behalf. You know, like if he directed her to investigate somebody who irritated him or prosecute somebody who had investigated him or imprisoned somebody who had spoken out against him.

We're there now. Pam Bondi, just this morning, announced that political prosecutions are about to begin, or at least the investigations leading to the prosecutions. At first, they're just going to be going after the police agencies themselves, mostly the FBI, as a way of bringing them to heel. You know, terrify the terrifiers.

Next, it'll be the press. First, they'll use financial terror to force compliance. We're already seeing that with Trump's lawsuits against all three major networks and multiple newspapers. [02:28:00] Uh, that will expand. Eventually it's going to turn into shutdowns and arrests. He's going to remake our schools so they become indoctrination factories for his white male supremacist worldview and this new authoritarianism.

He'll realign our democratic country away from our democratic allies and toward countries Run by dictators like he aspires to become. He's going to purge the military of leadership that might resist him, and of troops who might refuse his orders. He will remake our criminal justice system so it becomes more violent and brutal, opening prisons for the worst of the worst, in places beyond the reach of the law.

You know, like Auschwitz in Poland. or Guantanamo in Cuba. He will remake our media so it becomes a Greek chorus singing his praises and saying his every word. By proclaiming, as every dictator does, and as he did this morning at the National Prayer Breakfast, that divine providence and the blessings of God put him where he is, he's going to bring the country's largest [02:29:00] religious institutions to heel.

He'll proclaim grand plans and spectacular efforts, you know, like building the Autobahn, or remaking Gaza, Greenland, and Panama. They'll distract the public from the relentless, grinding destruction of the guardrails of government itself. He and his allies will empower civilian militias who will then become his terror shock troops against the people who oppose him.

Hitler had his brown shirts, Republicans in Nassau County, New York right now are trying to field America's first armed private militia. paid for by taxpayers dollars. He will remake commerce and business so that the most successful companies are those that throw money and resources at him. Fritz Tyson wrote a book about this, about his shame at facilitating it, titled, I Paid Hitler.

Someday, perhaps, Jeff Bezos or Tim Cook will write a similar book. America today is early in this process, although it doesn't typically take very long. It took [02:30:00] Hitler 53 days. It took Putin about a year. It took Victor Orban about two years. It took Pinochet less than a week, but he had the help of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger.

Trump and his Project 2025 friends, however, have been preparing for this for four years. They hit the ground running. This moment proves that the preservation of democracy requires constant attention and a collective commitment to uphold the integrity of its institutions, and right now, the only thing standing between democracy and dictatorship in America are public opinion.

The media and the Democratic Party. Republicans have completely caved and the courts are moving too slowly to stop him. Elon Musk and Donald Trump seem to think they can pull this thing off in a matter of weeks. And so far, because of the cowardice of Republican legislators and the disorganization and lack of leadership among Democrats, they might be right.

Unless we [02:31:00] all stand up and speak out now. And that's what I, you know, that's where I opened this thing. That yesterday, there were protests in every part of the country. Here in, here in Oregon, there was a, there were major protests in downtown Portland, and in downtown Salem, which is our state capital.

Also a college town down the road. Big protests all over the country. Democratic politicians are starting to speak out. My two senators are, uh, you know, uh, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley are, are particularly outspoken. We've got some good progressives in Congress. But the Democratic Party needs to get their act together, and they need to get it.

They need to get their act together soon.

Why Are Dems Surprised Part 3 - The Intercept Briefing - Air Date 2-7-25

JORDAN UHL: So, you know, Ken Martin, you know, who won a sweeping victory in the first round of the DNC elections.

They'd set aside a full day for multi round elections. You could sort of think of it as kind of rank choice voting over multiple stages, but they didn't need it. He, he won outright at the very beginning, uh, against Ben Wiggler and others, you know, so he, his platform is a, uh, wholesale. [02:32:00] political and strategic and internal reform of the DNC.

And if you just go to his DNC candidacy website, you'll see, he's not just talking about competing in all 50 states, but also every single county in the United States and really empowering Democrats at local and state levels to fight. He's also talking a little bit on his, on his platform page, a little bit more vaguely, but still about some of the issues.

With the ways in which the DNC is a top down institution, even though it's voting members draw in significant part from across the Democratic Party nationwide. So those things are all there. But as you know, 1 DNC member told me. The DNC is a slow moving ship and it takes a long time to turn it around.

And there are going to be pressures against devolving power to the base of the party, because when you devolve power to the base of the party, that runs counter to the desires, interests, ambitions, strategies of elites, right? Whether it's [02:33:00] the person in the white house or somewhere else, a lot of people can help the democratic party.

Grow into a more responsive organization by holding the DNC's feet to the fire on this so that some of these, this sort of problematic structure that essentially co ops the base for elite decided strategies, uh, finally gets broken. 

CLIP: Now, he started out by saying all the right things. And so it's important for folks to know that we have a spine.

We're not dead as a party. We're still alive and kicking and we're going to fight for our values and we're going to fight for American values. But what can he actually do? 

SUNJEEV BERY: What's the relationship between the head of the DNC and the congressional leaders of the party? 

JORDAN UHL: So that's an important question. So there's a, there's kind of an alphabet soup of DN, of democratic party organizations.

You've got a congressional campaign committee, you've got a Senate campaign committee. I'm sure Akilah can speak more to this, you know, uh, then there's a state legislative campaign committee and all of them raise money, move money back and forth. A lot of the DNC's money [02:34:00] actually comes from other committees, but the DNC still remains the one major body within the democratic party who's governing body, at least.

Technically, or officially is is in part grassroots driven. So there's, it's sort of that question again of formal versus informal authority. Like, what is who is going to be willing to push through quote unquote, the way things have been done and advocate for changes. And the good news is, I mean, 1 DNC member told me and, you know, and, uh, quoted them in the piece saying, I mean, everyone recognizes that.

I'm paraphrasing, but basically that the Democratic Party is dying and the country may die as we know it as well if we don't fix this. So there is a sense of urgency, but that doesn't necessarily mean everyone's operating from the same theory of change or what the solution should be. And I still see some, a significant gap, uh, in terms of some of the things that need to happen.

AKELA LACY: Yeah, I mean. This is sort of anecdotal, but the idea that you had Reid Hoffman, [02:35:00] like, pouring 250, 000 into the DNC chairs race on the last day of the race, you know, not much less than the entire cost of that race, I think says a lot about where you're things are on this stuff, particularly, you know, the appearance of, of being the elite or being very close to the elite.

Um, obviously, Ben Whittler, and the irony here being that it's like Ben Whittler, progressive darling, um, Wisconsin Democratic Party chair, who lost. But I think, you know, people were raising a lot of Red flags around that. You know, I know at the meetings leading up to the that election last week Concerns around lack of transparency around DNC campaign finance related issues was was a big issue of concern Um for people so yeah, I mean, you know, this goes back to This, you know democrats Somehow losing this argument over whether or not they're closer to the elites than Trump is, who's clearly out here [02:36:00] Appointing, you know, his, his financial supporters, you know, it's a messaging problem again and again, an ever, an evergreen theme here.

SUNJEEV BERY: I'm glad you mentioned that because I would love to talk about the corrosive influence of money in politics here. On one end of the spectrum, like you say, Reid Hoffman is pumping 250, 000 into this race. On the other end, in your piece, Sanjeev, you talk about Faz Shakir. Who paid out of pocket, and I saw on Twitter, his kids made his signs with marker and poster board, which I thought was adorable, but didn't necessarily lead to success, I, I, no knock on their messaging, I think the poster was beautiful, but it, to me, it reads as, hey, here's where the money's going to go, this is who you should support.

Am I wrong in that assessment? 

JORDAN UHL: I mean, I, from my conversations, the sense that I got is that there's a real tension in that, Democrats want to build a, a, a true national 50 state, several thousand county operation and that costs [02:37:00] money. So, they want money, right? And they want to raise money and you heard Ken, uh, Ken Martin's comments about good billionaires, right?

CLIP: There are a lot of good billionaires out there that have, that have been with Democrats who share our values and we will take their money, but we're not taking money from those bad billionaires. 

JORDAN UHL: Thank you, Joe Martin. And so they're, they're looking for that, that funding, what's been missing from the conversations that I had is that there still seems to be a fundamental failure to recognize that one party is telling a story as to why people are hurting and they are punching down in the naming of who's responsible, right?

The Republican Party, Trump, right? It's undocumented migrants. Uh, it's D I. It's transgender people. That's who Trump is punching down and blaming. The Democratic Party is not punching up. The Democratic Party is not punching. The Democratic Party is saying, Hey, look at this. We passed this bill. Hey, look at this funding, right?

They're telling a technocratic story about all the good things, quote unquote, we did. Whereas Trump is [02:38:00] saying these are the people who are hurting you. And, you know, Bernie Sanders is saying these are the people who are hurting you. He has a story. Elizabeth Warren has a story. You know, Lena Khan has a story.

But most Democrats don't, and one thing that I didn't hear come out of the conversations that I had with DNC members, and one thing that I don't see in the various DNC candidates, with the exception of Faiz Shakir, is that kind of explicit understanding that Americans need someone to blame, um, And if it's done right, then it points towards a constructive solution for how to build a more just society.

So that's what's missing. And that's the piece of this that needs to be addressed and kind of forced forward. 

Credits

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: That's going to be it for today. As always, keep the comments coming in. I would love to hear your thoughts or questions about today's topic or our upcoming topics, including the dystopian plans for Trump's deportation regime, followed by Trump's possibly even more dystopian proposal to ethnically cleanse Gaza.

You can leave a voicemail or send us a text at [02:39:00] 202-999-3991. You can reach us on the privacy-focused messaging app Signal at the username bestoftheleft.01 (there's a link in the show notes for that), or you can simply email me to [email protected]. 

The additional sections of the show included clips from Straight White American Jesus, Democracy Now!, The NPR Politics Podcast, The ReidOut, Civics 101, The Gray Area, Amicus, Citations Needed, The Intercept Briefing, and The Thom Hartmann Program. Further details are in the show notes. 

Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Deon Clark and Erin Clayton for their research work for the show and participation in our bonus episodes. Thanks to our transcriptionist trio, Ken, Brian, and Ben, for their volunteer work helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work behind the scenes and her bonus show co-hosting. And thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships. You can join them by signing up today at BestOfTheLeft.Com/Support, through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple Podcast app. [02:40:00] Membership is how you get access to our incredibly good and often funny weekly bonus episodes, in addition to there being no ads, and chapter markers in all of our regular episodes, all through your regular podcast player. You'll find that link in the show notes, along with a link to join our Discord community where you can also continue the discussion. And don't forget to follow us on any and all media platforms you may be joining these days. 

So coming to you from far outside the conventional wisdom of Washington, DC, my name is Jay!, and this has been the Best of the Left podcast coming to you twice weekly, thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show from BestOfTheLeft.Com.