Freedom Is Canceled

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Freedom Is Canceled"
As The World Churns
Release Date: June 13, 2025

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1. Introduction and Episode Overview

In the episode titled "Freedom Is Canceled," hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moody delve deep into the escalating political turmoil in the United States. They discuss President Donald Trump's planned military parade to celebrate his 250th birthday and the simultaneous rise of protest movements against his administration. The episode features insights from political scientist and retired scholar Norm Ornstein and human rights attorney Jamil Jaffer, who provide expert analysis on the constitutional and civil liberties issues arising from current events.

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2. Donald Trump's Planned Military Parade and Public Reaction

Danielle Moody opens the discussion by highlighting President Trump's intention to host a grand military parade, which she describes as an "ego-filled military spectacle." She criticizes the unprecedented nature of such an event in American history and points out the potential logistical and financial burdens it may impose on taxpayers. Danielle notes the weather's potential to disrupt the event and introduces the growing "No Kings" protest movement opposing the parade.

Andy Levy expresses his disapproval of the parade, emphasizing the uncharacteristic authoritarian imagery it presents. He states:

"The imagery is fascistic. The imagery is grotesque, and it has no place in our country." [02:55]

He further criticizes the parade for its high costs and the deliberate display of military might, contrasting it with his own respect for traditional military values.

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3. Rise of the "No Kings" Protest Movement

The hosts discuss the burgeoning "No Kings" protests organized by the group 5501.

Andy Levy remarks on the scale and significance of the protests:

"This feels like it's going to be a huge deal, and it feels like it's really going to send a message that there are a lot of Americans who are not on board with what the leadership of this country has been doing." [04:00]

He commends the organizers and participants, acknowledging the courage of those who attend protests despite not typically being activists.

Danielle Moody connects the protests to broader Republican spending habits, highlighting the contradiction between claims of avoiding waste and the extravagant expenditure on the parade:

"Donald Trump and Republicans in general don't care about waste... because Trump’s ego parade... No holds barred, oh, throw money at the king." [05:00]

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4. Critique of Republican Policies and Leadership

The discussion shifts to the broader implications of Republican policies under Trump's administration. Danielle criticizes the administration's handling of infrastructure and healthcare, pointing out the irony in their rhetoric against wasteful spending while approving costly events like the military parade.

Andy Levy underscores the inconsistency in Republican actions:

"They are the people who are simultaneously trying to take money out of the budget for Medicaid, for healthcare... while wasting tens of millions, whatever it is, dollars on a parade." [07:00]

He further expresses concern over the authoritarian direction of the administration, drawing parallels to fascist regimes and lamenting the erosion of democratic norms.

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5. Appointment of RFK Jr. and Anti-Vaccination Policies

Andy Levy addresses the controversial appointment of RFK Jr. to the Health and Human Services Department, specifically his decision to disband the CDC’s vaccination advisory committee.

"He fired the whole committee... at least half of those are very, very strongly anti-vaccine." [10:12]

Danielle Moody speculates on the economic repercussions of this move, suggesting that insurance companies may no longer cover essential vaccines, leading to increased healthcare costs for Americans.

"Insurance companies... take direction from the CDC vaccine advisory boards... If you want to get them, your insurances are not going to cover them." [12:00]

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6. Guest Insights: Norm Ornstein on Authoritarian Tendencies

Norm Ornstein, a political scientist and retired scholar, provides a critical analysis of the current administration's actions, drawing comparisons to authoritarian regimes.

"Donald Trump checks all those boxes and while he punishes his enemies, he may not go as far yet as, say, Putin." [19:52]

He introduces the term "nihilocracy" to describe the administration's approach, emphasizing the deliberate dismantling of safety nets and critical infrastructure.

Danielle Moody adds to Ornstein’s points by highlighting the administration's neglect of essential services:

"We're already starting to see with the outbreaks of measles... and whooping cough is back." [15:20]

Ornstein warns of long-term damage to the country's institutions and the challenges that will arise in rebuilding them.

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7. Legal Perspectives: Jamil Jaffer on Civil Liberties and Protests

Jamil Jaffer, a human rights and civil liberties attorney, discusses the critical role of the Knight First Amendment Institute in defending First Amendment rights amid increasing government suppression of dissent.

Jamil Jaffer explains the institute's efforts:

"We have a litigation program, a research program, policy and public education... successfully won those cases [against Trump]." [41:36]

He emphasizes the importance of peaceful protests as a cornerstone of democracy and warns against the administration's antagonistic stance toward free speech.

"Protesters are exercising a constitutional right in the same way that when you go to the ballot box and you vote." [43:59]

Jaffer outlines practical advice for protesters facing rights violations, including documenting interactions and seeking legal assistance.

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8. The Future of American Democracy and Call to Action

The episode culminates with a somber reflection on the state of American democracy. Both Norman Ornstein and Jamil Jaffer express deep concern over the administration's undermining of democratic institutions and the potential for further erosion of civil liberties.

Norm Ornstein provides a bleak outlook:

"The damage they're doing by blowing everything up... we have to start doing whatever we can now to lay the groundwork for the reconstruction that will follow." [55:55]

Danielle Moody underscores the urgency, questioning the effectiveness of upcoming midterm elections in countering the administration's authoritarian tendencies.

"Midterm elections are not happening." [30:49]

Jamil Jaffer reiterates the need for sustained activism and legal challenges to preserve democratic freedoms.

"This is as core to our system as, you know, that [voting]." [47:15]

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9. Conclusion

In "Freedom Is Canceled," Andy Levy and Danielle Moody provide a comprehensive examination of the current political crisis in the United States, highlighting the stark shift towards authoritarianism under President Trump's administration. Through expert interviews and incisive commentary, the episode underscores the critical importance of defending civil liberties and maintaining democratic institutions in the face of growing governmental overreach.

Notable Quotes:

• Andy Levy: "The imagery is fascistic. The imagery is grotesque, and it has no place in our country." [02:55]

• Norm Ornstein: "Donald Trump checks all those boxes and while he punishes his enemies, he may not go as far yet as, say, Putin." [19:52]

• Jamil Jaffer: "Protesters are exercising a constitutional right in the same way that when you go to the ballot box and you vote." [43:59]

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This episode serves as a stark reminder of the fragility of democratic norms and the urgent need for active engagement to safeguard freedom and justice in America.

Transcript

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[Danielle Moody]

Hello and welcome to as the World Churns. I am Danielle Moody with my fabulous co pilot in this disaster of a flight we call America, Andy Levy. So we're closing out the week here, folks. And as it turns out, Donald Trump may get some rain on his fucking ego filled military parade. That's right. So on Saturday, this coming Saturday, June 14th, the Army. Let's just be clear that the army was already had plans to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the army when Donald Trump was elected. He realized, ooh, ooh, it coincides with my birthday and ooh, I like big trucks and I like army fatigue and I want to feel very big and powerful like the man that I write love letters to, Kim Jong Un. And I too want a big military spectacle in my honor, even though no other president in the history of this country has ever, ever had anything like that. So it turns out God has other plans in more than one way because it may totally pour, which I love for him. But also, Andy, there are hundreds, hundreds of no king protests that are being organized and have been being organized for months around the country. By 5501, who we've talked about before, they've been putting together protests since inauguration and, and they've been growing every single few weeks that they have done them. What say you about God's reign plans for Donald Trump's ego fest?

[Andy Levy]

First of all, is there something wrong with me that when you said, when you were pretending to be Donald Trump and you said, I like big trucks, and the first thing that came to my mind is, and I cannot lie, I, I don't, I don't know that I feel good about that. But it just, you know, but yeah, you mentioned hundreds of no kings protests. I think we're up in the thousands I love this. I think it might even be over 2,000. I think that was the number I saw earlier today that they were up over 2000, which includes protests in other countries, by the way, which is just amazing. Look, a big shout out to 5501 and to all the other organizations that are participating in putting on these protests. This feels like it's going to be a huge deal, and it feels like it's really going to send a message that there are a lot of Americans who are not on board with what the leadership of this country has been doing. And I think that's important. And, you know, I'm not. I've said this before. I'm not a protest guy in the sense of, like, going to protests. It's just not my thing. But nothing but respect for the people who do. Except for the ones doing the drum circles. I have major issues with those people. But seriously, major props to those people, to the people who show up and show out and walk the line and all of that. And I really do think that holding it on the same exact day that Trump is doing his garbage parade in D.C. that is costing taxpayers a ton of money is probably going to ruin a bunch of the roads in our nation's capital because they weren't made to handle heavy tanks. And just the idea that this country has to do something that is a hallmark of authoritarian states, which is the big old military parade with Dear Leader waving and smiling, is grotesque. And look, I'm an Army veteran. Happy birthday, Army. This is wholly unnecessary. And the imagery is fascistic. The imagery is grotesque, and it has no place in our country. So I am really glad that there are gonna be these tons and tons of no Kings protests going on throughout the country. So, you know, good job there.

[Danielle Moody]

You know, here's the thing, too. And again, the military had already planned to honor this date, and I think that there were plans to do things at bases around the. Around the country to celebrate. There was no plan for a major parade that was going to cost tens of millions of dollars. And, you know, when you talk about, like, the fact that these tanks and there have been videos of them and pictures of them rolling across the bridges and the streets of Washington, D.C. and that they are probably going to ruin the streets of Washington, D.C. i think about the fact that in Donald Trump's first administration, we waited and every single day for four years for an infrastructure bill. Every single day for four years for. For infrastructure Day that never came until we elected Joe Biden. And it just goes to show, you that Donald Trump and Republicans in general don't care about waste. Right. Like all we've ever heard. My whole life, the Republican mantra has always been about waste and spending and all of these things. And yet when it comes to Donald Trump's ego parade, because that's what this is like. It's no holds barred, oh, throw money at the king. And I just, you know, it is. It's such a depressing sight. Like, in what way do you look out and you see tanks on city streets and you say to yourself, isn't that beautiful? Like, I just like, how, how do they make sense of this and say, yes, it's a show of force and strength? Like, the beauty about America is that we've never had to do anything to this extent because we are who we say that we are. I mean, at least we were right who we say that we were without having to scare the world to bend at our knees and our will. And look at how scary our dictator of a president is. That's never been who America is. And I'm just like, how do they justify this? How do Republicans justify this? And look, they've justified the fact that, you know, those that are fighting and marching in the streets for immigrant rights and for liberty and justice, those are insurrectionists, but those that defecate in the halls of Congress on January 6 and flew flags that said Trump on them and not American flags, like, those were patriots. So I know they can justify a lot, but this is like, I mean, every day is just a step over a cliff.

[Andy Levy]

There have been multiple reports now from various outlets that a bunch of senior Republican leaders in the Senate, in the house, etc. Are getting the hell out of town this weekend rather than be there for this monstrosity. And I find that very, very interesting that a lot of them are also the same people who voted for the cost cutting, big, beautiful bill and all that stuff that is supposedly going to save us money. I'm glad to see Republicans running and hiding, obviously, but the fact that this government is doing this parade at the same time that it's cutting things like Medicaid, I mean, this is obviously indefensible. And it's a question of can the Republicans run but not hide, or can they hide? And I'm hoping that it's the former, you know, that they can, they can get out of town all they want and pretend that this parade and the costs that it's going to incur and that it has incurred have nothing to do with them. But the fact of the matter is it has everything to do with them. And this is their guy, this is their party, and they can say what they want, but they are the people who are simultaneously trying to take money out of the budget for Medicaid, for health care, for, you know, things like that, while wasting millions, tens of millions, whatever it is, dollars on a parade. Because our president has an ego that's like, this big and needs to constantly be told how wonderful he is.

[Danielle Moody]

The ego is this big. The hands are this big.

[Andy Levy]

See, I'm a big. My thing is always, I think the more you have to be like, to me, his ego is this big. People will look at Trump and say, oh, his ego's huge. He thinks everything's about it. And I said, no, his ego is this big. That's why he has to constantly think that everything is about him and be told that everything is about him. People who have big egos, I find to be generally are the more secure people because they're just like, I know what I am. You know, say what you want, do what you want.

[Danielle Moody]

So anyway. Interesting, Andy.

[Andy Levy]

It's my little psychological spin on.

[Danielle Moody]

I like it.

[Andy Levy]

Yeah. So in other stupid news out of Washington, D.C. let's take a stroll through Trump administration appointees, shall we? And let's start with RFK Jr. Over at Health and Human Services. A couple days ago, he decided it was a smart move move to fire everyone who was on the CDC's vaccination advisory committee, the Advisory Committee on Immunization practices, I guess is the technical name. He fired the whole committee. And we know why he did it. He did it because there are. The people on there think that vaccines are actually a good thing. And RFK Jr does not think that because he's a absolute fucking moron. So he has now appointed roughly half of what will be the new makeup of this committee, eight people. And among them, at least half of those are very, very strongly anti vaccine. We've got Vicki Pebsworth. She is on the board of a nonprofit called the National Vaccine Information center, which, because, in the spirit of the day, is an anti vax organization that you wouldn't know from the name of it because they claim they're just, you know, giving you information. He appointed, maybe more so than anyone else, Robert Malone. Robert Malone has long claimed that he is one of the inventors of the MRNA technology that companies like Moderna are using used in their. In their Covid vaccines. That's not true. Uh, he was not one of the inventors of mRNA, but he is also a guy who has gone on Joe Rogan's show a bunch of times and spread conspiracy theories and has said that he doesn't believe the COVID shots are safe. And then there's a couple of others who are also anti vaccine. But Danielle, you know, as we've been saying for a long time, they want to kill us. And what better way to kill us than to remove our vaccines that protect us against diseases, you know.

[Danielle Moody]

So I also have another theory about what RFK Jr is doing with now this panel of non medical, non scientists, bunch of kooks, which is this. The insurance companies, private insurance as well as Medicaid take their direction from the CDC vaccine advisory boards in terms of what vaccines they're going to make available. And it is usually those vaccines that are then covered by private insurance as well as obviously covered through Medicaid. Well, guess what happens when you now have a bunch of kooks who now say, well, you don't need measles and you don't need chickenpox and you don't need polio and you don't need all of these different vaccinations that are necessary for us to stay healthy and not spread viruses that are preventable. Is that our insurances are not going to cover them if in fact we want to get them. That's my theory. My theory is that this also has an economic fallout that once again is going to cost the American people money. If you want to stay healthy, it is no longer going to be covered under your insurance. You're going to get a bill that comes along with the shots that you need to get. Your newborns and your toddlers and yourselves are no longer going to be covered by your insurance. You'll be pay insurance, right, and then have yet another separate bill that you're going to receive. That's my theory of how this is going to play out and how once again, Americans are going to be the ones that get squeezed in more ways than one. So not only are we going to get sicker, which we're already seeing with the outbreaks of measles and now, by the way, whooping cough is back. Just side note, that's on the rise as well. And on top of Americans getting sicker, we're also getting broker. Right? Because our money is not going as far as it used to. And now our money is going to have to go to things that our insurance companies who already suck are now going to suck even more because of the decisions that are being made. Like you want to talk about this country looking like A developing nation in. In a year's time. Like, that's, that's. And I. And no shade. And I don't mean that in a. In a. In a derogatory way, but underdeveloped countries, right, are so. Because they don't have access to the education, medicine, science and equipment for a whole host of reasons, namely colonialism and extraction. But, like, that's what is going to now happen to America. That was, once again, the place that people came to to get their medical needs met.

[Andy Levy]

Yeah, I mean, that's a really good point. Before we move on, the countries you're talking about didn't do that to themselves.

[Danielle Moody]

No, no, we are doing it to ourselves.

[Andy Levy]

And it's just unbelievable that we have access to all of those things. We have all this money, we have all this scientific infrastructure, we have all this medical infrastructure, and our government is now making a conscious choice to throw all that in the trash. So, yeah, it's just unreal. I'll pivot now to another member of Trump's cabinet, and that's Pete Hegseth, who faced some questions at a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Thursday. And among other things, he refused to say that he would follow any court orders that might say that the deployment of active duty Marines to Los Angeles is illegal. He didn't say he wouldn't obey them, but he refused to say he would obey them. He said we should not have local judges determining foreign policy or national security policy for the country.

[Danielle Moody]

So now deploying troops to LA is foreign policy? Yeah, okay, got it. Just making.

[Andy Levy]

Yeah, it's a real problem when, yes, he's a civilian, but he is the titular head of the United States military, and he is straight up refusing to answer a question as to whether he will follow court orders. You know, you want to talk about fascism? Fascism generally involves a military that is loyal not to a country, but to a person or to a regime. And that's what we're talking about here. And, you know, he. He said other stupid things. He said that we do have contingency plans to invade Greenland. Great. That's a real good use of taxpayer money. But it really is the saying that he would, you know, not automatically saying, well, of course we'd obey the court decisions. That's how it works in this country. The fact that he couldn't even bring himself to say that is really, really troubling.

[Danielle Moody]

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[Danielle Moody]

Folks, I am so excited to welcome to as the World Churns fellow nerd avenger Norm Ornstein, who is a political scientist and retired scholar at American Enterprise Institute. He's also the co author of It's Even Worse Than It Looks how the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism. You have seen Norman I on Mary Trump's Nerd Avengers Together and I could think of no one after the scenes from la, the anticipation of Donald Trump's ego filled military style Kim Jong Un parade that he's throwing himself for his birthday this coming weekend. Norm, people say we've never seen anything like this. You've been studying this and talking about it for God knows how long. Tell us, have you ever seen anything like this?

[Norm Ornstein]

Not in the United States, only in countries where they have vicious dictatorships. And that's true if we want to check all the boxes. Daniel with one exception that I'll talk about, which actually makes him worse. What happens with dictators? They go after the opposition, they hamstring the media, they take over the judiciary as best they can, they fix elections. They have rampant corruption and cults of personality. Donald Trump checks all those boxes and while he punishes his enemies, he may not go as far yet as, say, Putin. Nobody's been thrown out of a window as best we can tell. Although you know, who knows if Kristi Noemi will shoot somebody in the head and throw him into the pit to join her dog Cricket and her goat that she didn't like. But there's one difference and that is and almost all these other dictatorships, whether it's Russia or China or Hungary or Turkey, they want the trains to run on time, they want to actually provide services. I define this era as nihilocracy because it's nihilistic. They just want to blow everything up and not replace it with something that works. The misnomer, the Department of Government Efficiency, it was a department of blow stuff up. And we don't know what they do and we don't care. And what we're seeing is safety nets shredded. And it's not just the safety net for poor people, it's the safety nets for all of us. It's transportation safety, it is health safety, it is food safety. It's all of the things that most people don't know the government provides. Because you walk into a supermarket, you go to the deli counter, you buy some lunch meat, you don't think of the reality that if you didn't have the inspectors, you could end up with listeria or E. Coli and die. When you get onto the airplane, there are nervous flyers, but most of us just think, well, it's taken care of. We don't note that we have aviation inspectors to try and make sure at least that bolts don't go off the plane and doors go flying off and that we have air traffic controllers who are going to make sure the planes don't collide with one another and we have, you know, go over a bridge. We're not worried that because it hasn't been inspected, it could collapse. It's all of those things and more. And this administration is different in that respect, but in others, including the cult of personality, it's right up there with North Korea and Kim Jong Un. This is dear leader territory.

[Danielle Moody]

You know, I'm so glad that you laid out the examples in which the federal government ensures the safety and well being of the citizens of this country. And I think that one of the things that is most concerning, I mean one, there, there are a million a day of the things that are most concerning. But what I find most concerning is that they really just don't care. Not about their own constituency, not about their own base, not about America as a whole. And what is concerning is that we're only five months in, Norm, five months in. And we've had how many plane crashes? We've heard air traffic controllers in Newark saying our screens have gone out again. We have had breaks in intelligence with regard to signal gate and Pete Hegseth, including his wife and his lawyer and his friend on, on you know, coordinates for attacks we have seen, right? People be swept up, cars broken into that have children inside, parents, pregnant women be pulled off of the streets, and it's only ramping up. And I wonder what your reaction is, because when you look at some of the other countries that you've named, where they have, where Donald Trump is following the blueprint of those dictators, they know enough to give enough to the people so that they can maintain power, right? And also some type of, of, of applause and recognition for some of the good that is being done. This administration, this regime doesn't have that. And they're losing the will and the base of their people that were holding up the mass deportation signs now that their workers are gone. What do you make of the lack of care, the lack of commitment to any aspect of holding the American people in good favor with this regime?

[Norm Ornstein]

So I'll mention one other example, which is we recall when we had these violent hurricanes and storms and North Carolina had major parts of it devastated, also with fires. And the Trump campaign went after Joe Biden's administration, lying, saying that they hadn't done anything with fema. They were ignoring North Carolina when actually FEMA was very much involved since then. And since Trump came in, they're moving to abolish fema. When the North Carolina governor and legislature asked for more assistance because there are parts of the state that are still devastated, they said no. And of course, along with that, they fired a whole host of the meteorologists who anticipate when violent storms will take place. And that's going to devastate their own red states, maybe even more than most of the blue states. And I think, you know, one theme that I hope Democrats will pick up on and run on is, you know, we know there are a lot of people who voted for Trump who really would be just fine if he took an AR15 and broad daylight on Fifth Avenue and mowed down the entire avenue. But there is a significant share of people who voted for Trump who thought, government doesn't do anything for me. Blow the whole thing up, what do I care? It only helps others, and we need to educate them. And they will find out themselves pretty clearly what happens when that government disappears. But there's another element here that you alluded to. You know, I know some Trumpers. I have Trumpers in my family mostly. If you try to put that aside, difficult as it is, they're decent human beings who treat most other people with decency. This is indecent. This is cruel. This is deliberately cruel. This is sadistic. I think we have to try, along with challenging everything that they're doing, find a way to appeal to the better angels of people and point out over and over again how indecent this is. When you go into LA and you deliberately provoke this, not by going after criminals, but by going to a Home Depot where you have people who are here doing what we want those coming into the country to do. Get jobs, work hard, care for your families and round them up. Not people who have done anything that would endanger society. In fact, most of them are paying into the Social Security system and taxes and getting nothing back out of it. And you're rounding them up. When you have ICE agents going to an elementary school lying to pick up first graders by saying they have parental consent, and when they're outed by the school administrators and they don't have any of that, they take off their name badges and put their masks up higher while wearing no identifying materials, with no search warrants. First graders that they're taking. I just don't believe that the vast majority of Americans, or a huge share of those who voted for Trump and his cult figures in Congress would see that as appropriate. And that's what they're doing. And of course, even worse than that, they are now really going after their political rivals and enemies. Charging a sitting member of Congress who was doing her duty and blocked from accessing a facility, going after judges, and now handcuffing a US Senator in Los Angeles, Alex Padilla. We see what they're doing. They're trying to intimidate everybody. And of course, sending in the National Guard against the wishes of the governor and bringing out Marines. And let us note that neither the National Guard nor the military have enter any training in crowd control or any of the things that they are supposed to do out there. So it can only lead to more bloodshed. And it's all, I think, a pattern of trying to invoke the Insurrection act, which goes back, of course, to the early part of the Republic and was not designed for anything like this and maybe declaring martial law. And, you know, I just saw this. I've seen it repeated a lot on social media, the Quinnipiac poll, that his numbers are down even more and that this is not what people want. And while that is heartening at one level, I worry that if this guy thinks that his political standing is failing, he's not going to alter his course. The only way he alters his course.

[Danielle Moody]

Is if he's to go harder.

[Norm Ornstein]

Yeah, but he will do it if it hurts the billionaires and some of the economic numbers, he'll alter his economic policies. Otherwise he doubles down. And that's where taking over the country and making sure that there are not elections that could embarrass him or create a backlash, we have to worry about that. It's not anything we've had to worry about before.

[Danielle Moody]

So here's my question, because I'm so grateful that you brought all of that to the forefront. The intimidation tactics, what's happening with our Judges and our U.S. senators and the rounding up of people and how it is reverberating because people said, oh, I didn't vote for this, but in fact, you absolutely did. That being said, I have always said that Donald Trump's main goal is authoritarian, militarized control of the United States. We are, but I believe, Norm, a few weeks away from that, people keep saying that they are going to hang on to this hope of midterm elections. And I'm saying to you, midterm elections are not happening. When I say that to you, what is your response?

[Norm Ornstein]

I'm still hoping we will have midterms, but I am very doubtful we will have a 2028 election. And I can't challenge your assertions, Danielle. I'm hopeful on that front. But when I see Stephen Miller, before all of this happened in la, saying that this was an insurrection, that was a term he used very deliberately. And we've seen Trump now threaten to invoke the Insurrection act, and we've seen Trump say with his Dear Leader March, a military march, which is going to cost taxpayers a fortune, these fiscal conservatives, if people demonstrate there could be harsh consequences, it's laying the groundwork for just what you said. And we have to be fearful that if his standing collapses more rapidly that he will have more incentive to double down instead of to back off. That is a problem. And the fact that so much of our mainstream media is either unaware or in utter denial about this is absolutely frightening. You know, I was when Terry Moran was suspended by abc, my first reaction was absolute outrage. Then I read a column by Margaret Sullivan, who is one of our best observers of the media, longtime ombudsman at the New York Times, who said he crossed a line for a journalist of his type. So maybe a suspension is appropriate, but he shouldn't be fired. I still disagree with that. What he did was to say Stephen Miller is driven by hatred. Well, that is an objective fact.

[Danielle Moody]

It's not a. Stephen Miller has said it himself.

[Norm Ornstein]

Yes, and then he was let go. So when that happens on the Eve of sending Marines to a civilian area, a neighborhood or multiple neighborhoods in Los Angeles. What does it tell you about ABC and its parent company, Disney? Of course, it tells us something we already knew. Capitulation on the part of our media. CBS and Paramount, Disney and abc, which already caved, you know, giving Trump millions of dollars inappropriately because George Stephanopoulos accurately said that Trump had been adjudicated as a rapist, which is what the judge himself had said.

[Danielle Moody]

Had said. Yep.

[Norm Ornstein]

CBS, you know, throwing money at Trump because 60 Minutes did what is absolutely normal and in fact appropriate in editing an interview. I mean, it's just outrageous stuff. It leaves an awful lot of voters not understanding what we're talking about.

[Danielle Moody]

You know, my question then, you know, to all of that. We know where this is headed. We see that the media is complicit and, or capitulating right to Donald Trump's whims. We see that America is headed towards a major breaking point that we have never been faced with before, which is tanks in our streets. Right. Like we have not seen that in modern times. There are some of us that believe that this military parade is just a coordination effort to get large swaths of our military in one place so that they can be deployed across the country at a moment's notice. We are also a nation that has more guns than we do people. There are 400 million guns in this country and we have 330 million Americans. I only see this ending one way. So what, what when you see and hear these things that were once considered hyperbolic. I was once told that I was Chicken Little and saying that the sky was falling.

[Norm Ornstein]

Yeah, I get that a lot too.

[Danielle Moody]

And now, now here we are. So, you know, and, and we've, and our allies have cut their ties with us, so we know that they're not coming in right to help us. Where do you like, what is the recourse that the American people have outside of the thousands of marches that are planned for no Kings Day coming up this weekend, Is it a national strike? Is it a national boycott? Like what. What is the recourse?

[Norm Ornstein]

So first, we need these demonstrations, but what we also need as people go out there, it's not just saying I'm going to be peaceful, it is if you see anybody in these demonstrations who is not going to be peaceful, and that may be one of our like minded people, somebody on the left who decides to throw bricks or do something awful or. It might be as I would expect, since I think we are headed towards a vigilante force of Proud boys and oath keepers who've been pardoned and who will be told, whatever else you do now, I'll pardon you again. Inciting violence. You step in and stop it before it gets out of hand. We need that. I'm all for a general strike at some point soon to dramatize the opposition, which we've seen in other countries facing this kind of issue. I will say that in other countries, even in Hungary, where they had a massive demonstration, Orban didn't bring in the military and start shooting at people. We may be in a worse position than some of these other dictatorships. But the other thing we need to do is we need to hope that there will be an election. We know we have a couple of big elections coming up this year, elections for governors in New Jersey and Virginia. We have two incredible women running as the Democratic candidates for governor, Mikey Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger. We need to support them. And we also need to make sure we support the groups out there working overtime to try and keep our elections from being stolen by the people in power. And we need to support lawyers who are bringing lawsuits, because at least we've had a number of judges, an equal number of Republican nominated judges, including Trump judges, and Democrats who've said, no, you've gone too far. Now, there's another point here which is not hopeful, I'm afraid, which is the hopeful part, that somehow we endure four years of this and then we emerge out of it. And maybe we emerge out of it in a couple of years with a Democratic Congress. Maybe we emerge in three and a half more years with a Democratic president, House and Senate. But the damage they're doing by blowing everything up, the damage they're doing by undermining our intelligence and our diplomacy, by eliminating our foreign aid. And you want to talk about Indecent? Marco Rubio presiding over what is now more than 300,000 unnecessary deaths through these actions. And there will be more. We're not going to rebuild that very easily. And frankly, if you are, you know, half the terrorist plots that have been foiled in this country came about because foreign intelligence from our allies with their sensitive sources and methods let us know it was something like, hey, we have to tell you, the German intelligence service we fought, we saw a plot by ISIS or whoever it might be to do something in the United States. Here are the ones who are involved in it. None of our allies are going to for a very long time, even if they have people they trust back in power, because they don't know how long that will last. Exactly. Share sensitive intelligence with us. And so we're going to be blind for a lot of the world for things that are bad, things that could happen out there. You get rid of clinical trials and stop the research on Alzheimer's and cancer and other devastating illnesses. You can't just build that back up again overnight. So we have to prepare ourselves for the fact that what these horrible people have done in five months, what they could do in another three and a half years is going to take a lot more than just a couple of elections to build back up again. And we have to start doing whatever we can now to lay the groundwork for the reconstruction that will follow.

[Danielle Moody]

Well, Norm, we will have to leave it there today, but thank you, my friend, for bringing much needed clarity to this moment from the vantage point that you have seen this country for four decades. So I greatly, greatly appreciate you.

[Norm Ornstein]

I appreciate you too, Danielle. Just keep speaking the truth, as I know you will.

[Danielle Moody]

I'll do the best I can.

[Norm Ornstein]

Yeah, that's all we can do.

[Andy Levy]

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[Jamil Jaffer]

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[Danielle Moody]

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[Danielle Moody]

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[Andy Levy]

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[Danielle Moody]

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[Andy Levy]

Imagine what you could do with more. Visit betterhelp.com randompodcast for 10% off your first month of therapy. No pressure, just help. But for now, just relax. Human rights and civil liberties attorney Jamil Jaffer is a former deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union and has been the director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University since its founding in 2016. He's also an executive editor of the national security blog Just Security. And he joins me now to talk about the legal rights of protesters and journalists and more. Jamil, thanks so much for being here.

[Jamil Jaffer]

Thanks for the invitation.

[Andy Levy]

Absolutely. So, before we get into it, tell us about the Knight First Amendment Institute. What exactly do y' all do?

[Jamil Jaffer]

Sure. So we are, I guess, still a relatively new institute. We were created in 2016 by Columbia University and the Knight foundation to focus on press freedom and freedom of speech, especially in relation to new technology. We have a litigation program, a research program, policy and public education. You know, we were around during the first Trump administration and, you know, brought some significant First Amendment litigation back then, including the cases that challenged public officials blocking of critics from their social media accounts. So we sued President Trump over his practice of, you know, suppressing dissent on his Twitter account and successfully won those cases. And now we're litigating all sorts of challenges to the suppression of speech by the Trump administration, including, you know, a big case on behalf of the American association of University Professors against the arrests and detentions and threatened deportation of students who engaged in protests on campus last year. We also have a case against the US Department of Agriculture for purging its website of important data sets that scientists and others, you know, have relied on. And like so many other people, we're extremely concerned about the growing crackdown on protests and press rights in relation to the ICE raids.

[Andy Levy]

So let's talk about that a little bit, because coming up this weekend on Saturday is no Kings Day, and obviously we'll see what the turnout turns out to be. But there's a simply incredible number of protests planned all across the country and even overseas. Why is this so important?

[Jamil Jaffer]

Yeah, I mean, this is. I suppose it's a very cliched sentence, but democracy in action, you know, this is what it means to have a working democracy. As people express their views publicly, they join together to make clear to the government and others that they disagree or maybe agree with government policy. You know, this is a part of. Has been part of the American tradition from the beginning, and it's a right protected by the First Amendment. Your right to go out and assemble with other people and protest publicly. This is protected by the, you know, by the First Amendment. And, you know, I think it's exceptionally important that people feel free to exercise this right right now.

[Andy Levy]

So what is the proper role of law enforcement at protests like this? Because it feels often like law enforcement thinks its role is to suppress this dissent. But that's not what it should be, right?

[Jamil Jaffer]

No, absolutely not. The principal role of law enforcement at public protest should be protecting the right of people to protest peacefully. Now, obviously, law enforcement has a legitimate interest, and we want them to respond to people, individuals who are acting violently or dangerously. You know, they have to respond to those kinds of incidents, and they should. But they should respond in a measured way, and they should do it with due regard to the right of everybody else to protest. Peacefully. Unfortunately, that's not always what we have seen. Especially over the last few days, there's been, you know, a lot of evidence that law enforcement is, you know, in some cases deliberately, you know, using force unnecessarily or excessively against protesters, in some cases targeting journalists. And that is, you know, absolutely not what they should be doing. They are undermining the rights that they're supposed to be protecting.

[Andy Levy]

So talk about these First Amendment rights from a practical standpoint, because as we just discussed and over the years, we've obviously seen many local law enforcement organizations really not knowing or caring about these rights. And on top of that, we've got the Trump administration making it pretty clear that in their eyes, in a lot of cases, protest itself is, to them, just a flat out criminal act. So how do. If you're in one of these protests and the government is acting in a way that suppresses your rights, what are you supposed to do?

[Jamil Jaffer]

Yeah, I mean, well, first, I, you know, I agree with you. It's so shocking to hear senior government officials, including the president, referring to protest as if it's, you know, in the same terms as you'd use to talk about an enemy invasion or something like that. You know, that we are going to respond to protest with heavy force or with, you know, I think heavy force is the phrase he used, but something along those lines. The president wasn't focused on unlawful activity. He wasn't focused on the handful of people who might be disrupting these things violently. He was focused on the right to protest. And he said, you exercise that right and we will respond with heavy force. And that is absolutely, you know, an affront to the First Amendment and everything it represents. So that, that is really concerning to hear that message being delivered by the nation's most senior officials and, you know, as always, government personnel, civilian and military, lower down the line, you know, we'll hear that message and, you know, I worry, we'll, we'll act on it. But that, that is not how the First Amendment is supposed to work. It's not how the Constitution is supposed to work. People protesting in the streets peacefully are exercising a constitutional right in the same way that when you go to the ballot box and you vote for, you know, a public official, you're exercising a core democratic right. This is as core to our system as, you know, that. Right. And it's really, really disturbing that, that, you know, the president and other senior officials seem not to understand that, to.

[Andy Levy]

Be fair, they seem to have the same view of voting for someone other.

[Jamil Jaffer]

Than them, so that's true.

[Andy Levy]

They are consistent, if nothing else, in this particular respect.

[Jamil Jaffer]

They are. Yeah.

[Andy Levy]

Yeah. I'm starting to get the sense maybe they don't care about the Constitution all that much. I. I know that's a crazy thing to say, but.

[Jamil Jaffer]

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's. It's hard to avoid any other conclusion at this point.

[Andy Levy]

Yeah.

[Jamil Jaffer]

Or worse. It's not that they're indifferent to it. They see it as an obstacle to what they actually want to achieve, that you. It's. It's. They see the First Amendment as a problem, you know, and not as something. As a kind of feature of our democracy that, you know, we should all protect and be proud of, but rather as a. As a threat to what they want to achieve. And that's, you know, that's. That's a really. I don't have the words to express how disturbing that is.

[Andy Levy]

Yeah. And again, which is odd because they will blather on and on about, quote, unquote, free speech when it comes to certain words that they want to use without people saying, you know, hey, that's not cool.

[Jamil Jaffer]

I think that, you know, free speech is. Is like so many of these phrases, you know, abstract and malleable and, you know, just like national security and, you know, all sorts of terrible things have been done in the name of free speech, just like all sorts of terrible things have been done in the name of national security. Just because you put the label free speech on it doesn't mean that, you know, what you're doing is actually consistent with the values that we think of as core to the First Amendment. And over the last, you know, certainly over the last few months. But I would go back even further. Like, over the last few years, we've seen government officials increasingly using free speech or, you know, flying the flag of free speech while they're engaged in outrageous forms of censorship. And I think that's what's happening here, too. You know, you, You. You see the Trump administration pretending to. To defend free speech, you know, while calling in the Marines to intimidate people from exercising this basic free speech right.

[Andy Levy]

Yeah, I mean, look, it's free speech for me, not for thee. I mean, it's, you know, very clear that that's their position. So, you know, as you said, the Knight Institute has brought a lot of legal suits against the government, against people who would seek to take away the rights of protesters. What should protesters do when their rights are being violated? Whether it's by law enforcement, local law enforcement, sheriffs, or police, whether it's federal agents, whether it's National Guard or military. Assuming that, you know, you want to have the best case, legal case going forward, what should protesters do? Is there an answer for that?

[Jamil Jaffer]

Well, I'm not sure there's a single answer, but I guess I could offer like, a couple, you know, a couple ideas. So one is, you don't want law enforcement to have the ability to mischaracterize your conduct as violent or unlawful. So you have to be, you know, not just really careful about how you act, but really careful about how you talk about it. I mean, presumably people are going to be taping this interaction. You know, you can assume that people. People are taping the interaction, which is, you know, a good thing, but, you know, act in a way that doesn't give anyone the opportunity later on to mischaracterize what you did or what you said. That's one thing. The second thing is make sure that everything is documented. You know, so if. If nobody's taping it, then see if you can get somebody to take the interaction, if you can talk to witnesses after. So, you know, if you had an interaction with the law enforcement that, you know, went. Went the wrong way and you want to be able to hold people accountable after the fact, then while you're there, talk to other people who saw it, try to get their contact information so that you can, you know, call them up afterwards and ask them to testify or offer statements or corroborate whatever it is that, you know, you. You said or did. And then, you know, there are. There are often organizations on the ground that are focused on documenting police abuse and holding law enforcement accountable for any abuses. Those organizations are different from one place to the next. But, you know, some national organizations that are often on the scene of these protests, and this is not news to anybody but the aclu, the National Lawyers Guild, you know, they can. Even if they can't provide assistance, they can often refer you to somebody who can provide assistance.

[Andy Levy]

That's all. Great advice. Along these lines, was it last year that Knight produced the documentary Flashpoint Protests Policing in the Press?

[Jamil Jaffer]

Yeah, I mean, I think it was released very late in 2023, but. But then, you know, last year that the LA Times featured it. So, yeah, this is a documentary that we did. It grew out of a report we had Joel Simon, who is the former executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. He was a visiting fellow at the Knight Institute in 2023, and he wrote a report about the set of issues at the intersection of policing, protest and the press. And then later on, we made a documentary film that was sort of inspired by the report and the issues that were addressed in the report. And it was really about this quite complicated set of questions about how the police should police protest and in particular, how they should interact with journalists at protest. Especially in an age when a lot of the people doing the documentation, the only journalists used to do are now ordinary civilians. You know, just, you know, participants in the public protest carrying phones are, you know, doing some of the work that journalists used to do. And yet we still have a need for the journalists who are working for major outlets that have the ability to bring what's happening in any particular place to a national audience. And so, you know, how do we want the police to. For example, if there is a curfew, who should be allowed to stay after the curfew in order to document what's going on? Or if the police have a line beyond which they're not allowing protesters to proceed, should journalists be allowed to proceed past that line? And if so, how do the police decide who counts as a journalist and who doesn't? Now, I will say that this discussion of the rules around the police and protests sort of assumes as a predicate that the police are operating in good faith and that, you know, they actually want to distinguish between protesters and the press, and they are not actually intending to target the press, but quite the opposite, that they are, you know, trying to protect the press. And that is often the case. You know, I don't want to suggest that the police are always, you know, interested in, principally in suppressing dissent or targeting journalists. But, you know, over the last couple of weeks, we've seen over and over again, you know, evidence of law enforcement officials, law enforcement agents going out of their way to, number one, you know, train their weapons at civilian protesters and number two, use their weapons against, against journalists in a targeted way. Like, actually, I mean, you, you've seen the, the, the footage of the Australian journalist who was shot, you know, online, online tv, and that's a different set of issues. You know, then you're, then you're not talking about, you know, what rule should law enforcement agents who are operating in good faith adopt in this context? You're just asking them to, you know, abide by the most basic, you know, honor the most basic human rights protections. And it's, you know, unfortunate that at least in some cases over the last few weeks we found ourselves in that position. But still, I would say that, you know, people should take a look at this, this film. It's it's, you know, since the Night Institute produced it, you know, this is like, in a way, inevitably self promotion. But I rewatched it yesterday, the day before, and I wish it were not as prescient as it is. You know, it is like the main message of the film is that if we don't address these issues now, then the next time there are major mass demonstrations, the rules that have sort of held together until now are probably not going to be sufficient. And I think that's what we're seeing in the streets, that there's just no. The accountability frameworks that we have developed for protests in the past and the operation of law enforcement in relation to protests in the past, those accountability frameworks are not nearly adequate to the task. And I think we're kind of seeing that now.

[Andy Levy]

Yeah, particularly when you have at least some law enforcement, quote, unquote, wearing masks and not wearing any identifying insignia or anything on their uniforms. Yeah. And speaking of being prescient, a few months ago you wrote a blog post at the Knight Institute's website in which you said it may be the arrests of student protesters that pose the gravest threat to our fast fading democracy. And given what we've seen out of Los Angeles in the last few weeks, I'm sure you take no pleasure in saying I told you so, but you did tell us so.

[Jamil Jaffer]

Yeah, I mean, I see the, the, you know, the arrests of students, you know, on the basis of their protest activity as, you know, one of the things that kind of led us to the point we're in, you know, in, in now. But, you know, as always, I think, you know, when those students were arrested, there were many people who said to themselves, look, these are foreign students. There's a line between foreign students and everybody else. Or they said this is, you know, pro Palestinian speech. And there's between that and, you know, what I want to do. And it's always true that the first people targeted are the ones who are on the margins, least sympathetic to the majority. But it was obvious to me, and I won't pretend that it was obvious only to me, many other people said this too, but it was obvious to me that it was not going to stop with the pro Palestinian foreign students, that that was just the beginning. And I worry that even what we've seen over the last couple of weeks is also just the beginning. I'm glad that the protests are growing. I'm glad that people are willing to exercise their First Amendment rights in this particular way. But also when I listen to President Trump saying We're going to meet this with heavy force. I worry that what the Trump administration is, is really trying to do is provoke the kind of reaction that would justify the force they have already authorized. You know, they're calling in the, the. The Marines, they're commandeering the National Guard in circumstances that, that, you know, in my view, plainly don't require it. You know, the, the California says that it's able to address these protests on its own. It has done that many, many times in the past. And yet President Trump is, is, you know, federalizing the, the. The National Guard and, you know, calling in the Marines and threatening again, heavy force or whatever the phrase was. And I think that it's not so much a response to what's already happening on the ground, but I worry that what it reflects is a desire on the part of President Trump to create the circumstances on the ground that would justify the force he's already authorize and give him a pretext for authorizing even more. And, you know, it would be a terrible, terrible thing if all of us got accustomed to the sight of, you know, armed soldiers in the streets of our major cities and, and at the sites of, you know, public protest. You know, that can't help but have a terrible chilling effect on the exercise of First Amendment rights. And, you know, soldiers are not trained to handle public protests. They're trained to, you know, fight enemies overseas. And, you know, asking them to do. To do this work, I think is a, you know, could go very wrong.

[Andy Levy]

Yeah, absolutely. Jamil, thank you so much for joining us and for all the work that you've done throughout your career and for all the work that the Knight First Amendment Institute does now. I really appreciate you taking the time.

[Jamil Jaffer]

Thanks so much, Andy. Great to talk with you.

[Andy Levy]

All right, Danielle, let's close out this week. Who in the world is your Fuck that guy?

[Danielle Moody]

I mean, there are so many to choose from. It's becoming really difficult. You know, it's a problem.

[Andy Levy]

It's a problem.

[Danielle Moody]

I, I think we may want to ask our viewers, like, what should we be. What should the boxes be checked in order to, you know, be named fuck that guy? Because, dear God. But so here's a thing. So this week, Donald Trump at a press conference where he is asked by one of the stupidest reporters. I don't even know if you can call the man a reporter. But Peter Doocy at Fox, he asks Donald Trump this because apparently the only people also that get to ask Donald Trump questions are people from Fox or, like, News Nation or whomever so the question in hand is about what is going on with farmers. Farmers right now are really hurting for a number of reasons. One, because their entire workforce is, you know, being chased through the fields, literally by ICE agents. And guess what? They're not coming to work. And. Or they're at work and they're being arrested and deported. So Doocy says to Trump, what made you change your mind about targeting in California farmers and people in the hotel and leisure business? Trump's response? Well, we're not targeting. In fact, if you look today, I put out a statement today about farmers. Our farmers are being hurt badly by, you know, they have very good workers, they've worked for them for 20 years. They're not citizens, but they've turned out to be, you know, great. And we're going to have to do something about that. I would love Andy to keep going so that you could then try and make sense of the utter fucking sewage sandwich that is the rest of this transcript that I would love to say it was a really bad AI, but it's actually words coming out of Donald Trump's mouths in incomplete sentences, chopped full of just weird punctuation and just words, just words that don't make any sense. But essentially, the fact is that Donald Trump is very well aware of the fact that the farmers are being hurt, the hotel industry is being hurt, the restaurant industry is being hurt. Basically, every industry that helps this country run across the board is being hurt. Donald Trump admits it. When it comes to farmers and, you know, our high grocery prices. And I'm certain soon that, you know, on top of citrus and lettuce costing an arm and a leg because no one's there to fucking pick it. That he says, ah, well. Well, yeah, I guess we'll kind of have to do something about that. What is that gonna be? I'm just curious, like, what is the. What is this something about that. That you're. That you're going to do? Republicans told us that these migrants, these undocumented folks, they don't work. They're just coming in here and they're laying around. And yet. Where are you arresting these people? At work, at school, Right at their places of business. But you told us that they don't work and that all they're doing is sucking off of the tit of America, and yet you're running through fields that the good old white boys don't want to be picking but have all the things to say about these lazy black and brown people, these lazy brown people that need to be deported. And now Donald Trump is saying, oh, well, you know, they're great workers, they've been there for 20 years, but now you just sent them to an El Salvadorian or Libyan or South Sudan fucking gulag to die. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, for that reason, and my God, there, it just isn't enough time. Donald Trump is my. Fuck that guy forever and a day is long.

[Andy Levy]

Yeah. The statement is, you know, beyond being all the things you talked about, like, just grammatically almost unparsable, but it's also, it's sort of a. Interesting look into the mentality because he keeps saying, we can't take farmers and take all their people and send them back because they don't have maybe what they're supposed to have. You're the one doing this. You're saying, we can't do this. You're doing it. That is literally what you're doing. Then he goes on to say, you know what's gonna happen? They get rid of some people because, you know, they've been there for 20, 25 years and they've worked great. And then you're supposed to throw. No, you're not. You've chosen to do this. Like everything he's talking about is a, a result of his policies, as a result of his sending, you know, ICE thugs in, like you said, into the, into the fields, into workplaces, to Home Depots and places like that.

[Danielle Moody]

Yep.

[Andy Levy]

Where people gather, trying to get work, work, all of those things. And you are the cause of this. And he sits there and he's like, it's like it has nothing to do with him. You know, he can't even say, ah, you know, yeah, I went too far, I fucked up. He's just constitutionally unable to say anything like that. So he has to sit there and act like someone else is causing this problem and he's going to fix it. So it's just, oh, my God, fuck that guy so hard, Danielle.

[Danielle Moody]

It's just so. I feel nuts. I feel fucking crazy. Andy, give us something better.

[Andy Levy]

I don't have anything better.

[Jamil Jaffer]

Who is your.

[Danielle Moody]

Fuck that guy to close out the week.

[Andy Levy]

So here's what I got, Danielle. I got Military.com reporting on what went on behind the scenes at Trump's speech at Fort Bragg earlier this week that was held also in honor of the Army's 250th birthday. He gave a speech that was one of the worst speeches I can imagine to give in front of a military. It was a full on partisan, you know, ragging on Joe Biden. It's trying it was everything you're not supposed to do as commander in chief, he was doing it. And one of the worst parts of it was the response from the soldiers in the audience who were cheering him, who were jeering and booing. Every mention of Joe Biden and Gavin Newsom and the press. It was absolutely loathsome. It comes to turn out, as Military.com reports, they got a hold of some internal communications from within the 82nd Airborne Division, which is stationed at Bragg. What they discovered was, as they call it, a tightly orchestrated effort to curate the optics of this Trump speech, including hand picking soldiers for the audience based on political leanings and physical appearance.

[Danielle Moody]

So it was a pageant.

[Andy Levy]

Yes. Almost all the soldiers were male. One unit level message from within the 82nd Airborne bluntly said, according to Military.com, quote no fat soldiers. Another one said, if soldiers have political views that are in opposition to the current administration and they don't want to be in the audience, then they need to speak with their leadership and get swapped out. I mean, the other stuff is bad. This is scary and this is dangerous because first of all, you are asking, you are saying you don't want soldiers there who don't agree with some of the policies of this country. That's bad. You should, you shouldn't be saying that. I'm not saying soldiers should sit there ever and boo the commander in chief. That's not the kind of thing you do when you're in the military. But to have some sort of political test for, for our, for troops is going down a road that, oh my God, we do not want to, we do not want to be driving there. And the idea that they are supposed to tell their leadership if they don't want to be at this thing, as if that's not going to be held against them if that, as if that's not going to be a black mark that could kill any career in the military that they might want to have or cause them God knows what kind of trouble. The way things are going now, as a veteran, I am absolutely appalled at the behavior and leadership of everyone involved in this at every level of unit, whether it's a company, battalion, brigade, division, I don't care. Someone needed to say no, this is not how the army is supposed to work. We don't do things like that here. And apparently nobody had the balls to do that. And that is terrifying because, you know, if push comes to shove, and we're already starting to see it in Los Angeles where the Marines are being sent in, if push comes to shove. And Trump tries to make our entire military into his personal Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. And we don't have generals and we don't have colonels and majors and lieutenants and sergeants who are willing to push back on that. We are in deep fucking shit. So fuck all those guys. Disgraces to the uniform.

[Danielle Moody]

I'm going to say something unpopular, which is that Andy, I don't think that we have any of those people that are going to push back. I think that they have already been dismissed and or have left the military. And I think that yes, America, girl, you in danger.

[Andy Levy]

You know, I wish I could sit here and say, no, you're wrong and here's but I got no evidence that you're wrong.

[Danielle Moody]

No, fuck those guys.

[Andy Levy]

Not great.

[Danielle Moody]

Not great for us.

[Jamil Jaffer]

Nope.

[Danielle Moody]

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