Jonathan Metzl on America’s Mental Health Meltdown

Summary

As The World Churns - Episode: Jonathan Metzl on America’s Mental Health Meltdown

Release Date: May 9, 2025

Hosted by Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie, "As The World Churns" explores the chaos enveloping today's society, offering insights and navigation through political and social turbulence. In this episode, titled "Jonathan Metzl on America’s Mental Health Meltdown," the hosts engage in a deep discussion with psychiatrist and Vanderbilt University professor Jonathan Metzl about the current state of America's mental health amidst escalating political instability.

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1. Political Turmoil and Economic Policies

The episode opens with a critique of President Donald Trump's handling of the economy, particularly his imposition of tariffs and the resultant economic fallout. Danielle Moodie expresses frustration with Trump's erratic economic strategies, likening his approach to "Pinky and the Brain," indicating a lack of coherent planning ([02:50]). Kevin Cruz supports this view, emphasizing Trump's obsession with trade deficits and the inevitable negative outcomes predicted by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell:

"Trump doesn't care. Anyone pretty much who's not a part of the Trump administration knows that tariffs will do exactly what Jerome Powell is saying they'll do." ([04:10])

The hosts highlight the risk of stagflation—a combination of stagnant economic growth and high inflation—as a direct consequence of sustained tariffs, undermining consumer purchasing power and overall economic stability.

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2. Judicial Independence and Recent Court Developments

The conversation shifts to concerns about the Supreme Court's independence under Chief Justice John Roberts. Danielle voices disappointment over recent rulings that seemingly favor the MAGA movement and undermine judicial impartiality:

"Justice John Roberts should take a fucking seat. … There's actually a bit of good news out of North Carolina." ([10:45])

Kevin Cruz adds context by referencing Chief Justice Roberts' speech on maintaining an independent judiciary but criticizes the Court for recent decisions that weaken this cornerstone:

"The Supreme Court that has basically bowed to the MAGA movement… It's nice to hear John Roberts remind people that the judiciary is supposed to be independent." ([10:45])

This segment underscores fears that the judiciary is increasingly influenced by partisan politics, threatening the balance of powers envisioned by the Founding Fathers.

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3. Mental Health System Under Siege

Welcoming Jonathan Metzl, Danielle introduces the primary focus of the episode: the decline of America's mental health infrastructure. Metzl discusses the dual crisis facing mental health today—community resilience is waning while professional mental health services are under threat:

"The foundation underneath mental health is itself being dramatically threatened right now." ([30:50])

Metzl identifies two primary responses to societal stress: hypervigilance and resignation. He stresses the importance of community support and the need for the mental health industry to defend its expertise amid potential policy changes that could limit access to mental health services:

"There's a information vacuum, a trust vacuum right now. And that's just our job right now." ([42:43])

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4. Critique of Mental Health Leadership and Policies

The hosts critique recent appointments within the Trump administration that undermine mental health policies. Danielle condemns the nomination of Casey Means as Surgeon General, highlighting her lack of a medical license and ties to conspiracy theories:

"It's wildly obscene that the people that are in charge of the health and well being… neither one of them have medical degrees." ([18:03])

Kevin Cruz expands on the politicization and defunding of mental health services, warning of a potential collapse in mental health support systems:

"This is how we're treating human beings… if you wanted to get a grant now showing that vaccines cause autism or that guns promote mental health, there's going to be a slant." ([24:46])

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5. Positive Developments Amidst Chaos

Amidst the overarching theme of decline, the episode offers a beacon of hope through the recent political victory in North Carolina. Danielle shares how the Republican challenger conceded a Supreme Court seat to Democrat Alison Riggs, ensuring the integrity of voter votes despite attempts to undermine them:

"The people of North Carolina that kept their foot on the pedal here in terms of ensuring that their voices would be heard will now have a Democratic seat in the North Carolina Supreme Court." ([08:27])

Kevin Cruz applauds this outcome as a defensive measure against future attempts to silence voter voices:

"At least the good news is that it was eventually stopped. But this is the blueprint folks." ([14:23])

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6. Leadership Changes and Their Implications

The episode touches on significant leadership changes, including the election of the first American Pope, Robert Prevost, who adopts the name Pope Leo XIV. Danielle and Kevin express cautious optimism about his potential influence on the Catholic community:

"I hope that this Pope follows in the same footpath as the prior who was expanding the church to embrace LGBTQ Catholics… calling into question how we are not valuing the lives of the children of Gaza." ([16:39])

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7. Call to Action and Future Outlook

In the concluding segments, hosts and Metzl emphasize the urgent need to address the mental health crisis exacerbated by political instability. Metzl calls for collective action within communities and the mental health industry to rebuild trust and maintain support structures:

"We're gonna have to figure out how to fill that." ([42:43])

Danielle echoes this sentiment, urging listeners to stay informed and engaged in preserving mental health services:

"Good luck with your health. You're pretty much just, like, in the Cracker Jack box right now." ([24:35])

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Danielle Moodie ([02:50]): "This is basically Pinky and the Brain, and I'm not sure which one of his cabinet members … that is the brain behind his economic shifts."

• Kevin Cruz ([04:10]): "He thinks tariffs are a good idea and he's obsessed with trade deficits… tariffs will do exactly what Jerome Powell is saying they'll do."

• Jonathan Metzl ([30:50]): "The foundation underneath mental health is itself being dramatically threatened right now."

• Jonathan Metzl ([42:43]): "There's a information vacuum, a trust vacuum right now. And that's just our job right now."

• Danielle Moodie ([18:03]): "It's wildly obscene that the people that are in charge of the health and well being… neither one of them have medical degrees."

• Kevin Cruz ([24:46]): "This is how we're treating human beings… if you wanted to get a grant now showing that vaccines cause autism or that guns promote mental health, there's going to be a slant."

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Conclusion

This episode of "As The World Churns" offers a comprehensive exploration of the deteriorating mental health landscape in America, intertwined with critical analyses of current political maneuvers and leadership decisions. Jonathan Metzl provides authoritative insights into how these external pressures are undermining both community resilience and professional mental health services. The discussion calls for urgent collective action to rebuild trust, defend mental health infrastructure, and navigate the complexities introduced by an unstable political environment.

For listeners seeking to understand the intersection of politics and mental health, this episode serves as a vital resource, urging proactive engagement and informed advocacy to foster a healthier, more resilient society.

Transcript

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[Jim]

And we're back, folks. It looks like Jim from sales just got in from his client lunch and he's got receipts. His next meeting is in two minutes. The team is asking, can he get through his expenses in that time? He's going for it. Is that his phone? He's snapping a pic. He's texting. Ramp Jim is fast, but this is unheard of. That's it. He's done it. It's unbelievable.

[Jonathan Metzl]

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[Danielle]

All right, friends, so here we are as Donald Trump continues to raise alarms about our economy because he once again inherited an economy that was, quote, the envy of the world, dear friends. And then within 100 days, he has put us through a meat grinder. And to make matters worse, aside from, you know, pulling up childhood bullshit and calling the Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell a quote, unquote loser because that's what bullies do. Jerome Powell has said he ain't stepping down. And as a matter of fact, Wall street doesn't want him to step down. And, and he continues to ring every alarm bell, according to the New Republic and their latest article, Federal Reserve rings every alarm bell about Trump's economy because what Jerome Powell and, oh, I don't know every other fucking economist has said is, quote, this, if the large increases in tariffs that have been announced are sustained, they're likely to generate a rise in inflation, a slowdown in economic growth, and an increase in unemployment. This is what he said on Wednesday. He goes on to say this. The effects of inflation could be short lived, reflecting a one time shift in the price level. It is also possible that the inflationary effects could instead be more persistent. Avoiding that outcome will depend on the size of the tariff effects, on how long it takes for them to pass through fully into prices, and ultimately on keeping longer term inflation expectations well anchored. And what do we know, Andy, about Donald Trump and the fact that the man has no real plan, has no real strategy? This is not four dimensional chess. This is basically, I don't know Pinky and the brain, and I'm not sure which one of his cabinet members. I don't know if it's Ron Navarro, AKA Peter Navarro, who is his economic adviser, that is the brain behind his economic shifts that have sent the world into turmoil. But do you think there's a strategy here? Because I don't see one.

[Kevin Cruz]

Look, his strategy, if you want to call it that, is that he, despite what anyone and everyone tells him, he thinks tariffs are a good idea and he's obsessed with trade deficits and he thinks that trade deficits are inherently bad, which they're not. It's obviously good that Jerome Powell is saying this. Ultimately, it doesn't matter because Trump doesn't care. Anyone pretty much who's not a part of the Trump administration knows that tariffs will do exactly what Jerome Powell is saying they'll do. Trump, what they will probably lead to is what's called stagflation. It doesn't work. And there's a reason why we have looked at things in the past like the Smoot Hawley Tariff act as a bad thing for the country. And the only strategy that he has is to keep doing what he is doing because he's obsessed with tariffs. There's no economic backbone to it. Again, what Jerome Powell is saying has been said a million times. Danielle, you and I have said that, and we don't know jack shit about economics because you don't have to. It is just very obvious that if you start putting these absurdly high tariffs on goods coming into this country, that prices will go up and that, no, it's not going to lead to magically lead to some sort of manufacturing boom in America. It's just going to lead to higher prices and it's going to lead to consumers having less purchasing power. And so it's wild that we have to sit here. And I don't mean this as a dig at Jerome Powell again, I'm glad he's saying this. But it's wild that we're at the point where the chairman of the Fed has to say these things that I think are clear to a freshman economic student in college or even someone, people like us who don't know anything about.

[Danielle]

Saying that we're not, we're not as, we're not as, as knowledgeable as a freshman. It's true. I had to take economics.

[Kevin Cruz]

That is what I'm saying.

[Danielle]

But here's the thing, too, is that Donald Trump's treasury secretary was on Capitol Hill this week as well, sitting before the Financial Committee and When he was asked, he was being questioned by Representative Gregory Meeks, and Meeks was like, so you want to sit here and tell us that trade deficits, right. Are a national security threat? And Bessant says, yes, you know that. That's exactly right. And he goes, okay. He goes, do you know that we have had a trade deficit issue for the last 40 years? So you're telling me he's like, and that's under multiple administrations, both Republican and Democrats, that have not seen trade deficits as a national security threat. So what you're telling me right now is that you all are out here playing politics because this has one has nothing to do with the other. So for 40 years, this has been happening, right? And you all want to, again, what I continue to say, manufacture a crisis that does not actually exist. Because, again, I think it's important that Jerome Powell is saying the things that he is, because Donald Trump is going to try and hang the fact that American Shel are going to be empty, right. And that we are entering a place of stagflation. He's going to try and hang that on the fact that he won't lower interest rates, right. That he's going to try and hang this, the failing economy on Powell. And Powell is saying from the outset, like, no, I am telling you what potentially could happen if you continue with this trade war, with these nonsensical tariffs, because you don't have an actual plan here. You keep talking about bringing back manufacturing to the United States, but you're not talking about the timeline in which it's going to take to build those factories, skill those workers, Right. And be able to scale up in a way that there isn't going to be a gap between our ability to purchase what it is that we need and these and these magical factories returning to America. Right? Like, and, and so I think that for me, it's important that these conversations keep happening because Donald Trump is trying to lay the seeds of his next big lie, which is this, this failed economy has everything to do with either Biden, which he has started to say that, oh, it's going to be Biden's economy for the next two fucking quarters. Right? And that it has nothing to do with. I just got here, is what he told Kristen Welker on NBC. I just got here. So I don't, you know, they're talking about egg prices, and I just, you know, I was still unpacking boxes at the White House. I don't know what you're talking about.

[Kevin Cruz]

Danielle, you are absolutely Right. It is absolutely of a piece with him blaming Biden for everything. And, you know, I fully agree that he is. He is sowing the seeds to blame Jerome Powell for this. And Jerome Powell is basically saying, you know what? The Fed is an independent board, and we're gonna stay independent, and I'm not gonna do what you want me to do if I think it's bad. And it's interesting that right around the same time, we had Chief justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts delivering a speech up in Buffalo, New York, talking about the importance of an independent judiciary. And I'll just quote a little of what he said from an NBC News report. He said, in our Constitution, the judiciary is a co equal branch of government with the authority to interpret the Constitution as law and strike down acts of Congress or acts of the President. And that innovation doesn't work if the judiciary is not independent. Its job is to decide cases, but in the course of that, check the excesses of Congress or the executive. And that does require a degree of independence. It's nice to hear John Roberts say that. I wish he'd act more like he believed it. But it is interesting that a Supreme Court that has basically, whether Trump's been in office or not, has basically bowed to the MAGA movement, to the Federalist Society, to conservatives. It's nice to hear the Chief justice, you know, piping up and reminding people that the judiciary is supposed to be independent again. It would have been nice if he did this before, you know, helping to rule that anything the president does while in office as part of his official duties is legal and things like that. You know, that would have been checking the excesses of the executive that he's now so worried about. It's interesting in that it seems like maybe, you know, Trump. The rhetoric from the Trump administration is too much even for the justices who are sympathetic to Trump.

[Danielle]

Justice John Roberts should take a fucking seat. Because when you had an opportunity back in July of 2024 to say very distinctly in a ruling that American presidents do not have the power of a king, y' all MAGA members of the Supreme Court decided, no, no, he absolutely does, knowing exactly who was running for president at the time. So this was not a hypothetical in their ruling should have taken into consideration, my God, if a figure like Donald Trump becomes president again and we give him absolute immunity, and this is a man that at that time was appearing in multiple courtrooms around the country for his grifting, for his stealing of classified documents, for the insurrection, so on and so forth, and you still ruled that a president could have absolute and total immunity, which means that anyone in their clique, in their inner circle, also could be part of the pardon parade. And now John Roberts wants to sit down and talk about it. Sir, shut the fuck up. Like, in all honesty, do what you've been doing, which is nothing. Aside from the fuckery that is the Supreme Court, there is actually a bit of good news. And I know, folks, it is a struggle, you know, for us to find good news. And we try on a, on a regular basis, Andy and I and Seamus, we try to, to bring it to you. And so there is good news out of North Carolina. Over the last several months, there has been a battle as to whether or not the voters in North Carolina, their votes matter. Right. The Republican challenger for North Carolina Supreme Court finally conceded last November's election on Wednesday to Democratic incumbent Alison Riggs, two days after a federal judge ruled that potentially thousands of disputed ballots challenged by Jefferson Griffin, must remain in the final tally. Essentially, what the Republicans were trying to do here is say that those that had mail in ballots, right? And this is, again, this is the par for the courts with Republicans that mail in ballots, thousands of mail in ballots, should not count in the voting, which would have allowed this Democrat to be seated and the people's voice to be heard. And so a federal judge, a Trump appointee, said that they respect the court's holding that they're not going to move forward with dispensing of thousands of votes. And so the people of North Carolina that kept their, their, their foot on the pedal here in terms of ensuring that their voices would be heard will now have a Democratic seat in the North Carolina Supreme Court. This matters greatly, as we know that so many things have been, are being kicked to the courts. And this is exactly why the Republicans were trying to silence the voters there. And, and it did not work. And it is even better that it was a Trump appointee who has decided to, oh, I don't know, uphold the rule of law, which is, you know, the bar is in hell now. So we applaud them.

[Kevin Cruz]

Yeah, absolutely. I'll just finish by saying, you know, it's important to note that this was literally Republicans trying to steal an election. This was an election that was won by, by the Democrat. And even the former Republican governor of North Carolina, Pat McCrory, said, He said this is not just a recount or a challenge. He said this had to do with basically changing the rules after the election is over. And that's exactly what they were trying to do and they got pretty far with it to the point that it had to go to federal courts. But at least the good news is that it was eventually stopped. But this is, this is the blueprint folks. So yeah, this is very good news, don't get me wrong. And thank you Danielle for bringing a bit of good news to the show. But it's definitely something that is going to be a blueprint for trying to do to more of this in the future with other elections. Before we get to our next topic, we need to announce Habemus Popham. We have a new Pope and it is the first American Pope. It was Cardinal Robert Prevost of Chicago. He is taking the name Pope Leo xiv. You know, we'll find out more about him as we go on. But I will put point out as someone posted as Aaron Reichland Melnick posted on Bluesky Cardinal Prevost posted five times on Twitter in 2025. One was a criticism of J.D. vance's views on Catholicism. He said that Jesus doesn't ask us to rank our love for others. One was posting a link to an article that opposed Trump's immigration policies. And one was a he retweeted a criticism of Trump and Salvadoran President Bukele's laughter about Garcia. So cautious optimism maybe. Daniel.

[Danielle]

I mean, look, I'm not a Catholic, but I hope that this Pope follows in the same footpath as the prior who was expanding the church to embrace LGBTQ Catholics, who was on the side of being a humanitarian and calling into question how we are not valuing the lives of the children of Gaza and so forth and so on. So we will see Exciting news. Congratulations to the Catholics in this country and around the world on your new Pope.

[Kevin Cruz]

Danielle, you know, you started off by saying you weren't a Catholic, but I don't think that matters. I think, and look, I'm basing this. I think you can be an expert on the Pope without being a Catholic. I say this because President Trump's new nominee to be our Surgeon General is not someone who has, what do you call it, a medical license.

[Danielle]

I was going to say that's the tip of my tongue.

[Kevin Cruz]

Casey Means, not to be confused with former NASCAR driver Casey Mears. That may be.

[Danielle]

No one would confuse them.

[Kevin Cruz]

I was doing that. Okay. Casey Means is a conspiracy theorist. She is one of these Maha Make America Healthy Again wellness influencers. And she has no medical license. She went to Stanford Medical School, but she quit during her residency. After graduating from medical school, she quit her ear, nose and throat residency. And so she never got a medical license and she is, is, is someone who Donald Trump thinks should be our next Surgeon General.

[Danielle]

Danielle, make America healthy again. A tagline coming from a man that eats nothing but fast food and drinks full Coca Cola like is laughable at best. Also coming from a party that tried to trash Michelle Obama for wanting your kids to have healthy lunches and not have pink slime in the place of meat. But do you remember when Sarah Palin went on Fox News and said that Michelle Obama was trying to steal your kids desserts at the height of our obesity crisis? So, yeah, miss me with the bullshit. But nonetheless, it makes absolute sense. You know, Donald Trump, all of his picks come from a lineup at Fox. You should have stayed, Andy. You could have been the head of communications. Like, you know what I'm saying? Everybody is coming from the Fox ecosystem. So had you stayed, I mean, you could have had, I mean, what am I saying? Communications. You could have been, you know, Secretary of Defense. You could have, you could have had your pick. You could have been an ambassador. Roll the globe and pick your favorite country at this point. But I mean, it is wildly obscene that the people that are in charge of the health and well being of 330 million Americans, neither one of them have medical degrees, neither one RFK junior And now this Surgeon General. And I'm like, do any of these positions require you to have any prior experience? Like, it's like on LinkedIn, when you are going to look for a job, it says at least 5 years experience, 10 years experience. You would have thought that to be a secretary of any agency or to lead, be the Surgeon general that you would need to have basic requirements like be a doctor. But all you have to do is pour some flattery on Donald Trump and, and you can get whatever job you want. And just so people know that Donald Trump's initial choice for, for the Surgeon General position was an actual doctor. But guess who didn't like her? Laura Loomer. And guess who was at the White House this week whispering into Donald Trump's ear. Laura Loomer. Guess who walked out of the White House. And then guess who went on Truth Social and named a new Surgeon General from the one that he had named in November. I don't know what Laura Loomer got going on. I don't know what kind of little magic she's sprinkling over there on top of Donald Trump's fries, but seems to be working because she got more sway than anybody else in his little orbit. And she doesn't even have an official title. I'm sure she has a title inside the White House, but it's unofficial.

[Kevin Cruz]

You know, although we should point out, though, that Loomer is apparently not a fan of Casey Means either. She posted. Maha is literally being taken over by Marxists and grifters. The entire Maha movement is being taken over by Marxist Trump haters. It's a full fledged vetting crisis. So whatever she did in that meeting with Trump, I guess it wasn't great. It was good enough to get rid of the previous nominee, but not enough to prevent him from nominating someone else she doesn't like. Or maybe he just wants to make sure that she has to come back to yell at him again about this nominee and then he'll replace her. It is unreal, the amount of grifting and these damn wellness influencers who have done just unbelievable damage to this country. And Means has a sister named Callie who is a close advisor to RFK Jr and an interesting twist, Nicole Shanahan, who you may remember as RFK's running mate during his brief time as a presidential candidate. She is pissed off about Means being nominated, and she tweeted, it doesn't make any sense. I was promised that if I supported RFK Jr in his Senate confirmation that neither of these siblings, the Means sisters, would be working under HHS or in an appointment and that people much more qualified will be. And she goes on to say she doesn't know if RFK lied to her or if someone has gotten to him. So it is bizarre that we're now seeing all this infighting from these maga. Sorry, from these Maha freaks. But the bottom line is that this person is completely unqualified to be Surgeon General. This person is completely unqualified to be giving medical advice to anyone or setting any kind of medical policy. But as you said, Danielle, this is of a piece with RFK Jr. Who is, you know, also those things. So, you know, we'll see. I am hoping that no Democrats vote to confirm her, but I'm not holding. I'm not holding my breath, but I'm hoping.

[Danielle]

Don't hold your breath because I don't want you to pass out. But, you know, nonetheless, good luck, America. Like, good luck with your health. You're pretty much just, like, in the Cracker Jack box right now.

[Kevin Cruz]

Yeah.

[Danielle]

You know, rolling the dice on our health or just picking out whatever, you know, whatever comes. Just. Yeah, good luck.

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[Andy]

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[Danielle]

Folks, I am so excited to welcome to as the World Churns my friend Asia, esteemed New York Times best selling author of Dying of Whiteness, of of what We've Become. He is also a psychiatrist, a professor, a dean at the Vanderbilt University, Jonathan Metzl, which if you remember from the New Abnormal, was a frequent guest there. And if you follow me, you know that he is a frequent guest on a bazillion shows that I also get to host and co host. So Jonathan, welcome to as the World Churns. So today I want to talk to you about something that is very personal to me, which is the state of our mental health, our collective mental health during this time of an autocratic takeover, our falling empire and what it means to live and exist amongst the crumbling. And I ask you this because I feel like right now, at least with a lot of people that listen to me that I hear from, are really struggling right now. And I did a show recently where I talked very openly about the fact that I am very much struggling right now, that a lot of my mental health self care interventions are not seeming to work right now. And so I want to get your thoughts on what, what you're hearing and seeing and how we should be thinking about our mental health and emotional well being during the rise of autocracy.

[Jonathan Metzl]

I mean this is always an important conversation. First let me say, hey, I'm so, I'm so glad to be here. It feels like I've come home, you know. So it's really nice to be having this conversation and this question I think is one of the urgent questions of this moment, which is how do you take care of yourself when you've assumed that there are Certain foundational structures under your life which turned out to be in danger. So it's not just about the news, but it's also just the daily drumbeat of anxiety about every time you. It used to be like doom scrolling but now it's kind of like doom existing everywhere you go there's something that is threatening and challenging. So that's part of it. And then just the foundational structures that provide support and health. You know, things like the healthcare system for example, or the economy or infrastructure. All these things that we kind of depend on because what is a community but people working together to ostensibly share well being. And so first I would just want to say that that's a valid response, right? It's a valid response to feel anxious right now. And what I'm seeing, this is very unofficial, is like there's like a spectrum, right? And on one hand the spectrum is continual engagement, trauma, anxiety, you know, you're always on guard, you have a high cortisol response. It's almost like you're like in a war, almost. Even though you're not technically in a war. But it's like, I guess we could call it hyper vigilance on one hand and the other hand is habituation, giving up, resigned, I just can't do anything about it, defeated, things like that. So there's a, there's a spectrum between hypervigilance, which is bad for your mental health and autonomic system, and giving up, which is also bad because that's, you know, giving up. And so the question is like, how do you maintain some kind of stability in a way? And I guess there are a couple of things that I think are really, really important. Number one is, as we all know, it's an important time for community resilience. I'm encouraging everybody I know to like reach out to their support networks, to re. Engage past support networks. Yeah, to imagine kinds of community and be really, really creative about that. Part of this is very grassroots. So that's point number one that we can talk about. But the other important point is from a professional standpoint, the foundation underneath mental health is itself being dramatically threatened right now. And so the places that we would go to take care of our mental health, like a mental health practitioner, are really going to be challenged. And so part of the issue is do we defend the health, the mental health system? And the reason I'm saying this is because there's going to be a challenge to the approval for many standard psychiatric drugs, for example. There's going to be changes to the kinds of reimbursements people get from their health insurance. People are also going to lose their health insurance because they're losing their employment and so accessing mental health services. So there's like a, there's like a community part and then there's like a really real professional part which is just the mental health industry that we rely on is itself in its own crisis.

[Danielle]

You know, because that's one of the things too. And I, I, I again, I speak about my own emotional health and mental health often. I have been in therapy for, you know, seven plus years, right. And you know, one of the things that I talk to with my, talk about with my therapist, sometimes I ask, like, do you feel like your industry is actually built for this moment? Because I think that traditionally, right, you're, you're built for, you know, those that have internalized mental health issues or chemical imbalances, right, that, that you are dealing with. This is very environmental and situational. And so do you think then, Jonathan, that like your, the mental health industry, do they actually have the tools to be able to help people manage through this when it's something like, wildly different than what the industry has ever experienced before?

[Jonathan Metzl]

I love that question. That is, that's such a brilliant question. Is the industry built for this moment? What would that mean? And I would say I hope it rises to the challenge, right? Mental health has risen to the challenge of horrible crises, horrible catastrophes, global crises. There are trauma intervention models, there's PTSD treatment, there's mental health treatment in war zones after the Holocaust is kind of the foundational moment for much of American psychiatry. So the foundations of our industry are supposed to be set up for this moment. But the flip side, as you know from like, well, all the books, all my research, is that the idea that basically, oh, this is a psychological problem, you need to work on yourself, improve yourself. Oftentimes that framework can be incredibly dismissive of or negating the fact that there are real political things. But I mean, like during the civil rights era, for example, like, as you know from my work, black men were getting diagnosed with schizophrenia because they were saying, the government, the government is after me. And really the government was after them. It was actually a real response. And so I think hopefully we've learned over the years in mental health that it's not just enough to internalize things. Like sometimes you can also help people with strategies for dealing with real external crises. But the other two complicating parts of that are that it's not like a one size fits all motif, right? Some people have very different responses to external things than other people do. Some people give up, some people fight back, some people agree with it, some people disagree with it. So you just want to recognize that there are methods for understanding that. So that's part number one. But again, part number two is what will the mental health industry need to do to literally defend itself. Right. It's not just about patience. It's that there are going to be hearings about like, I don't know, 40 year old treatments like antidepressants that have treated billions of people. Nobody's saying they're perfect, there are trade offs for everything. But we're going to have a lot of like really standard treatments thrown up for grabs. And so the question is, what's also the mental health industry going to do to defend its own expertise, to defend its own financial structure? So it's not like, you know, all these things are happening at once. And so it'll be, I think it's important. I mean I'm, believe it or not, I'm talking back, I'm going to talk to psych audiences for the first time in a long time to try to explain to them like what, what's at stake right now.

[Danielle]

Yeah, because I, I mean, look, we have both a surgeon general that was just nominated that is not a doctor. We have the head of Health and Human Services that is not a doctor that believes that he has been helped with, you know, using heroin and believes that fluoride causes autism. And so when you take something that is seemingly, to use a lack of a better term, invisible, Right. A mental health issue is largely invisible to the naked eye. You can have a lot of theories as to how that should or should not be managed. And funny enough, you know, I think that toxic masculinity actually plays a part in their, this regime's thinking with regard to mental health issues. Right. Like on one hand, Republicans consistently want to say, oh, the gun crisis, that's about an individual mental health issue. We also don't want to fund mental health, but it's not about the guns. But then it's also this mentality of, well, I'm this tough guy, I don't need any help, I alone can fix this. Like there's nothing wrong with me, I don't need to change. And the entire industry is about how we evolve as humans and the supports that we need in order to be able to evolve in this hyper vigilant like space and place that we find ourselves. So when you take in, I guess, the, the, the deep character Flaws that are inside of this regime and place that in the realm of mental health and their opinions about it. What do you think about how this is going to. To. To move? And are we sitting on top of another crisis that isn't actually being talked about?

[Jonathan Metzl]

You know, to be clear, as I always say, I. I don't know anybody in. In the regime. I don't know anybody in the administration. I don't know what their character is or what their mental health is or anything like that. But I will say that if there's a framework correlate, having taught the history of psychiatry for many years, as you know, it's not for me, toxic masculinity. It's actually eugenics. And the reason I say that is because there's a thread of the messaging, at least, that is basically like, the strongest people will survive this. The most deserving people will survive this. People who are willing to take their health in their own hands, who are strong enough to whatever. And it just seems to me to suffuse all of this, you know, vaccines, you know, only the strongest people will survive.

[Danielle]

Yep.

[Jonathan Metzl]

And. And a lot. And a lot of this messaging about mental health, it's kind of like, who's deserving now. It's so frustrating because we've spent like, what, like 50 to 70 years fighting back against the strain of logic and showing how destructive it is for everybody. Not just for, you know, certain people. I mean, everybody loses when. When that's the strain of thought. But this idea that basically people are deserving, groups are deserving, strongness will get you through. That's. That was. That was like an old, bad, old stereotype of mental health and of. And of infectious illness. And the other thing we're seeing is the death of a kind of expert now. I mean, I've spent my whole career being a critic of psychiatric expertise. And I never said, oh, my gosh, it's perfect. But at least there's like a scientific method where you come up with a hypothesis, you have a treatment, you blind test that treatment against other treatments. The researchers don't know if they're doing the treatment or not. Then it goes out for review, and then it get, you know, whatever. There's like a whole process. You can't just make up shit. And now it's like this perfect storm of like, a particular kind of dismissiveness of the scientific method and the rise of, you know, so I guess, you know, who do we trust right now? Who do we trust and how can we regain trust in science? And I think it's incumbent on, on the mental health community to do all these things. I mean, I know mental health community is not used to doing this kind of thing, but I think that's going to be the charge is treating patients, recognizing the structure or the external forces are facing this. But also like defending our expertise, which we're not really used to doing.

[Danielle]

Right? Because I mean, on one hand you have to become an advocate, right, of and advocating for this industry and the space and why it's so important. And I think the reason why I ask if you, if you think that we're, we're seeing sitting on top of a crisis or we're at a kind of critical tipping point when it comes to mental health is that we are watching. For instance, you know, in, in, in one of the, the drafts of the Trump budget that was released 988A, A, A3 digigit hotline for LGBTQ youth suicide hotline is zeroed out in the budget. 1.3 million LGBTQ kids and youth have utilized those services. It was a bipartisan initiative because of this community being more likely to have suicidal ideations than their straight peers. Right. And so I wonder too, if these places, these spaces are healthcare, are being zeroed out, these safety nets are being wiped away. What, what do you envision, Jonathan, for our future as again, things are shifting so radically around us, how people, youth and adults are going to be able to be mentally solid, prepared, grounded during this time?

[Jonathan Metzl]

I mean, we are. Again, this is why I was saying about community before because again, these foundational issues, I mean, a lot of the research about at risk youth is coming from my department at Vanderbilt. So I know firsthand that people are losing their grants. There's going to be a change in knowledge, all these kinds of things. And, and so I just think that, but it's, you know, it's, it's all kinds of communities. I mean, veterans are losing mental health access right now, right? Clinics are closing, all these kinds of things. So it's just really, it's, you know, I just think that this kind of idea, that we're all in this together, hopefully. And the hard part, as you were saying before, is so many, you're being bombarded with so many things at one time that, you know, it's a natural response to give up or to say, I'm just going to protect myself.

[Jim]

Right?

[Jonathan Metzl]

That kind of thing. But, but I just think that this is an urgent issue. I mean, I'm actually going to be going around to psychiatric locations and asking people like, what Their strategies are. Because these questions are very similar to the questions I've been asking recently. And then the other thing is if psychiatric medications get, you know, withdrawn, it's unimaginable. What, what, you know, what, what's our strategy after that? And so I think that this is all very inchoate. I just think what we're doing right now is the most important first step, which is recognizing it's a problem. And the problem is different from the problems we've had before. Right. Because normally it was like psychiatric stigma we worked so hard to overcome. Right.

[Danielle]

To get to a place where. Yeah, yeah.

[Jonathan Metzl]

Where we can even talk about it. And now, now it's kind of like we need to fight for the infrastructure that's supported, which is that we developed an increasingly improving, I'm never going to say it's perfect mental health system. And the question is, where do we go from there? And also, again, paying attention to our own mental health, because I just think that that's something we forget about too often in a time like this.

[Danielle]

Yeah. And I also think, again, you're talking about your departments and, and where these studies and data and information comes from. And the fact is that those departments are being shut down, are losing funding and that there is a brain drain that is going to happen in America. I know that you travel globally and. Last question for you with just a couple of minutes that we have, you know, what happens if our scientists, researchers and folks leave the United States. States because they've lost their funding because of fear of retribution? What happens to the state of psychiatric care, mental health, et cetera in this country without those kinds of researchers?

[Jonathan Metzl]

I mean, whether or not they leave the United States, their research now is being defunded. And so where people are is important. Right. But it's secondary to the fact that all, all this knowledge that would have come and I mean, it's not just like some crazy far right or far left or something like that. Like the things that are being defunded now are like, can vaccines prevent pancreatic cancer? You know, things like, like, I mean, so we're, we're, we're just losing so much knowledge and a lot of that knowledge is going to get taken up by other places. I mean, I don't see China cutting their scientific budget. I don't see Russia even limiting the kind of research in infectious disease, in community illness and things like that. And so I feel like we're putting ourselves behind as a country when we act like this and reducing our own health and the other part of this is like if you wanted to get a grant now showing that vaccines cause autism or that guns promote mental health or something like there's going to be a slant. People thought there was a leftist slant on research, but I think what's coming is a rightist slant on center on research. So it gets back to the question of who do you trust and where do you go for information. I just think there's a information vacuum, a trust vacuum right now. And that's just, that's our job right now. We're gonna have to figure out how to fill that.

[Danielle]

Well, we will leave it there today. Dr. Jonathan Metzl, as always, appreciate your time, your expertise and your candidness. Thank you so much for making time for as the World Churns, it's my honor.

[Jonathan Metzl]

And let's please keep talking about this issue. It's so important.

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[Kevin Cruz]

When I asked historian and professor of history at Princeton University Kevin Cruz to come on the show, he graciously said yes and then asked if I wanted to talk about something in particular or just just the general state of chaos. And I thought general chaos made more sense and also sounded like a name George Lucas would give a bad guy. Kevin is the author of many books and the co editor of Myth America. Historians take on the biggest legends and lies about our past. He also has a super informative newsletter on ghost called Campaign Trails. Kevin, thanks so much for being here.

[Jim]

Always a pleasure.

[Kevin Cruz]

Let me start with a general chaos question. Is there an historical antecedent in America for what we're seeing in the first hundred days plus of Trump's second term?

[Jim]

No, I mean, I mean it depends on how we like in terms of the level of activity and the importance of stuff. Yeah, I mean it's, it's a flurry of, of things that we haven't seen in this degree since fdr, who kind of set the, the stage for what a first hundred days should be. He's the whole reason we even bothered to count this, because he set this record of 15 major pieces of legislation sent to Congress, 15 major bills signed into law, transformed the entire economy, everything from public power and industrial and farming reforms to he got beer back on the streets. Like it was a huge deal of what FDR did. So Trump has done as much as FDR has. He's done it, however, in the other direction. It's completely tearing things down and destroying things. He's done it without getting anything passed by Congress at all. He's done it all by executive order and kind of a dictatorial whim. And so that's remarkable. He's done just as much bad in the opposite direction and in an underhanded way.

[Kevin Cruz]

So of all these things that he's done, this myriad of things that Trump has done that Elon Musk has done with Trump's blessing, what strikes you as maybe the biggest deal as an historian?

[Jim]

I mean, the biggest deal is that they're doing this at all. Right? That you've brought in this one of the richest men in the world to basically dismantle government in a way that I'm not a lawyer, but seems to be flouting at least the letter of the law. Certainly larger understandings that you can't, you know, get these programs without an act of Congress, that in and of itself just that he's there, that They've got these 20 something kids who don't know what they're doing, unplugging machines and, and destroying programs that have done real good in the world is really remarkable. And I don't think we should, as we assess Trump and Musk, who is right there with him, we can't turn the page on the fact that just where we're at, that this guy is involved at all in this is, is really insane. There have been rich people involved in American politics before. We've had, you know, The World War II is famous for so called dollar a year men, corporate leaders who took roles in government kind of through self sacrifice, not making money as the name implied. But Musk is something totally different. He's wrecking things for us and enriching himself. And it's Totally off the rails.

[Kevin Cruz]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that is, you know, just a startling sort of unmaking of government that we're seeing. And I would probably put alongside that, or maybe even above that, the sort of complete dismantling of due process, which I think you could argue is sort of the foundation of our law.

[Jim]

Yeah. I mean, this is the irony. You know, Trump has the Declaration of Independence in the Oval Office behind little stupid theater curtains, and he's very proud of it. He's clearly never read it. Right. The Declaration of Independence is all about the kind of things that he is blowing past here. He is denying fair trials. He is shipping people off to foreign nations to be held. All the things that we used to complain about George iii, Trump is now doing right now. And it is remarkably dangerous. The weirdest part of this is this pushback. And we saw from Kash Patel just this morning in his testimony before the Senate, we saw it from Marco Rubio and other people of, oh, what are we supposed to do if we have to give everyone a due process? This is going to take forever. Yeah, that's the point. You shouldn't just be able to disappear millions of people on your word. That's why we have a rule of law and it's important to follow. And I'm sorry if it's going to slow down your effort to disappear 10 million people to some Latin American hellhole prisoners, but that's what this country is all about. And just because you want it, just because they keep on saying President Trump really wants this. President Trump has always believed this. That's not a good reason. He's been stupid for a long time. That's not a good reason to do something.

[Kevin Cruz]

Yeah. You know, it's sort of this Silicon Valley ethos, the move fast and break shit, but they're applying it to the Constitution and the rule of law.

[Jim]

Right, Right. And it's every again, there is bloat, there's inefficiency, of course, Redundancies in government. Yeah, absolutely. But everything that's there, going back to the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Individuals is there for a reason. Right. Somebody didn't just create, you know, we don't have food safety inspectors for fun. Right. There was a period in which this was a major crisis in the country. Right. We don't have all these kinds of safeguards in our legal system just for the hell of it. You know, Pete Hedgath is ripping out the logistics folks in the Pentagon. They're there for a reason. They help us win world wars. All this stuff is important. And we've got a set of people whose combination of unbridled ignorance and unbridled arrogance has put them in a really dangerous place where they are destroying things because they don't see the value in them. They don't assume that they have value. They refuse to listen to anyone who will tell them that these things are there for a reason and are instead just destroying them. And the reckoning is coming on this. We're already feeling it, but I think we're going to see some real serious problems come up in the near future. Hard to say where it'll be. Some pandemic with RFK Jr in charge. God help us. National security crisis With Hegseth at the Pentagon, we've certainly. Sean Duffy, former Real World cast member, now in charge of the Department of Transportation. As we've got planes crashing all the time, it's just going to be chaos. So buckle up.

[Kevin Cruz]

Yeah, I was thinking, you know, America has survived a civil war, among other things, but one of the things that resulted from the Civil War and that I think you would say helped us move forward were the Reconstruction Amendments, which are now, of course, under attack by the Trump administration and seemingly the Supreme Court. Assuming we get out of this madness, which I think we will, after a lot of pain for a lot of people, unfortunately. Do we need something, do you think, on that scale to deal with this, to make sure it doesn't happen again? Are we looking at, you know, the system has failed, or are we looking and needs to be overhauled and added to with more safeguards, or is this, you know, sort of a. Well, you know, this was a one off. The guardrails are actually fine.

[Jim]

No, I think the guardrails need to be reinforced. And so something definitely has to be done. In your question of do we basically amend the current system or do we kind of rip it up and start anew? I'm of the school, and I might be persuaded later, but right now I'm of the school that would hold that another set of amendments would be what's needed. Right. And so the kind of course correction we saw not just after the Civil War, but think about during the 60s, a raft new new amendments passed, some big, some small, but it used to be more of a norm for us to do this. And during the 60s, we almost solved one of our problems today. We almost had a. A change to the Electoral College, which after George Wallace nearly stole the election, or through the election of 68, into a. A toss up in the House, we almost had A moment there. Again, segregationists blocked it as they block everything. Good. But I think that if we have that kind of correction, I think we can make sure that we. The guardrails are there, but they've got to be formalized. Right. And so the real problem that we've seen with Trump was that a lot of things that held up as norms or traditions were just kind of assumed. We assumed, you know, somebody wouldn't. Wouldn't bend things to this degree, wouldn't abuse the pardon power, wouldn't be given such a long leash by the court, too. And so I think, say, a constitutional amendment that spells out quite specifically the president and the vice president are bound by the law. They cannot profit in office. You know, all the kind of things that Trump has violated. I think to spell them out quite clearly would go a long way to making sure this never happens again, because as we've seen, it can under the current system.

[Kevin Cruz]

Yeah. And talk a little bit about. More about, you know, Trump enriching himself and stuff like that. Talk about the grifting, the grafting that we've been seeing from Trump himself, from his family, from his administration. They are basically making the Nixon administration seem like a boys choir.

[Jim]

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And look, I, you know, I am. Have been incredibly critical of Richard Nixon. I think I've got a pretty good record on that.

[Kevin Cruz]

Pretty bold, Kevin.

[Jim]

It's bold. I know he's a very popular target. But look, one of the things Nixon did, and this is why that famous I'm not a crook speech, that's because they came after him finally for getting. For enriching himself in office. And for Nixon, that was too far. Right. And there's a question of whether or not he really did. He got a tax break on his presidential vice presidential papers. That's what that whole thing was about. But Nixon knew that was really bad. Yeah, Right. In that era, that was a sign of. Oh, that's the third. Like, we can make all these excuses about executive privilege and national security, and we've got to do this and we've got to do that, and maybe Watergate might fly there, but if you're putting money in your pockets, that is a clear sign that you've crossed the line. Right. To the point that when, again, we keep on holding up Jimmy Carter, Carter had to put the family peanut farm into a blind trust. Right. Not globetrotting. International deals were coming down to the Carter peanut plant in Plains, Georgia. Right. But that was the level of hands off that we were expected to have. And Trump made Noises about this. When he came into office, he had that ridiculous premise where his sons were going to be in charge and he would have nothing to do with it. He had that photo op, one of the many ones, where they piled up a bunch of blank paper on a table and presented. Pretended it was actually something. Right. And they made a big deal about it in the first term, but they slowly pushed the line. Right. The Trump International Hotel was clearly awash in foreign money, real estate deals that they were getting in. And Congress didn't push back as it should. Right. They really let this stuff slide. There's a lot of habit with this Congress. It used to be Republicans, now some Democrats, too, of, oh, well, it's Trump. He's different. No, I'm sorry. The rules still apply. And so now in his second term, it has gone to ridiculous lengths. He's got this meme coin where they're making millions of money, all kinds of deals are being dropped at the feet of his kids. Again, the pretense that there's any kind of wall between his official acts and his business acts is insane. I mean, you've got Amazon and what, making the documentary about Melania Trump to try to sweeten the deal. I mean, it's the kind of petty grifting that no matter what your politics are, again, a generation ago, this would have been seen as so far beyond the pale that it would have been laughable. Again, they would have assumed they would have ran this guy out of office, and yet every day he sits in there and breaks the clear letter of the Constitution.

[Kevin Cruz]

Yeah. And you mentioned Congress's inaction, which. Which makes me wonder, Kevin, do you. Do you think the Founding Fathers ever sort of envisioned when they set up this. This tripartite government with, you know, checks and balances, do you think they ever envisioned that Congress would just basically abdicate its responsibility, shrug its shoulders, and, you know, give as much power to the executive as possible?

[Jim]

No, no. The genius of the American system of government is that Madison understood human beings are greedy and selfish, and he made the system work on that. Right. There's an assumption that people in the executive branch, the legislative branch, the judicial branch, are all going to jealously guard their power, that they're not going to want to give anything to the other ones. What they couldn't have seen, they wouldn't have imagined. No, I'm sorry. They did imagine Trump. They warned about Trump specifically. What they couldn't have imagined, though, was a Congress that would be so beholden to a president that they would roll over and this is, again, the people that love George Washington wanted to make him a king, still thought Congress would stand and jealously guard its own principles. And yet they've now rolled over for, you know, basically a reality TV star with a bad makeup job. I mean, it is amazing. If the founders could come back today, they would never stop spinning. I guess they would be alive then, but they wouldn't be spinning the graves.

[Kevin Cruz]

But.

[Jim]

They would be upset, is the takeaway.

[Kevin Cruz]

Yeah, yeah, they'd be spinning in their graves trying to get out, I guess.

[Jim]

Right. Alive.

[Jonathan Metzl]

So you are.

[Kevin Cruz]

You're a professor at one of the lesser out of these.

[Jonathan Metzl]

Yeah.

[Jim]

What.

[Kevin Cruz]

What's your take on Trump's assault on universities? The responses from those universities, everything that we're seeing almost daily now?

[Jim]

Yeah. My response is, first of all, a stream of invectives and profanity. I think you've seen now clear evidence that there's a model to follow and a model not to. And Columbia has botched this every way imaginable. And I like to joke that I thought my fellow nerds in academia all had experience with bullies and knew that the way to deal with a bully isn't to immediately capitulate and say, I'll give you whatever you want, because then the bully just comes back and asks for more. The way you deal with a bully is you stand your ground, and if needed, you punch them in the face, metaphorically. FBI, you punch them in the face and you get them to stand down. And we've seen that now with the different approaches of the Ivy League institutions. Right. Columbia rolled over, Harvard is fought, is getting a little blowback now, but Harvard has decided there's no use in rolling over. They're just going to ask for more. So the reckoning has come. Now, lesser Ivy or not, we like to think of it as the most Southern Ivy. But Princeton, I think, has done a beautiful job on this. And admittedly, we're in a better position than others because we don't have a med school. We don't have the kind of vulnerabilities that a lot of Ivy League schools have with federal scientific funding. We have other stuff, though, that is bound up there, so we still have some skin in the game. And our president, Chris Eisgruber, has done, I think, a pretty solid job in holding the line and trying to get people to work together. So I think with all of this, not just the universities, but any of these Trump attacks. Right. You see it with the law firms we've seen with other things he tries to pick one person off. And I don't have to quote nimbler to you here, but there is a real strength in collective action, right? People have to stand together. And I think we're seeing the universities start to stand together, the law firms started to stand together. And I think it's incumbent on all of us to realize that whether or not we're currently in the crosshairs, they will eventually come for all of us. So you can't hide from this. All you can do is stand together in solidarity and push back against this. And when they push back, the last thing I'll say, when they push back, like a classic bully, they fold. Right. And we've seen this on the greatest instance of standing together, which was Trump's tariff issue. If he tried to do it a country at a time, he might have picked them apart. He went blanking against everybody and it blew up in his face. Right. People can stand together because they had no choice there. And we should all take that as a lesson.

[Kevin Cruz]

Yeah, absolutely. Look, I get, you know, I get Columbia alumni emails all the time and more so now. And just today, I got a lovely email from the president of Columbia, Claire Shipman, explaining why I think it was 70 plus students were arrested for protesting yesterday. But I'm not a strongly worded letter guy, but for the first time that I can think of, I actually have started replying to these Office of Alumni Relations, just being like, what the hell are you doing? It's unreal. And I saw just today in the New York Times, a professor of philosophy at West Point Point, a guy named Dr. Graham Parsons, announced that he is retiring at the end of this semester. He teaches military ethics. And he was basically like, I can't do this anymore under this administration. I mean, things are really getting bad, aren't they?

[Jim]

Yeah, they are. They are. And I read that. I felt for the professor. I understand where he's coming from, the constraints. I worry, though, that a wave of retirements like that, a wave of people saying, I simply can't do this. It's principled. I'm not going to argue with anyone who feels them to step away.

[Jonathan Metzl]

Sure.

[Jim]

But the result is if we then get people who are preaching a different line about what military ethics are, who are giving that kind of hegseth version of, you're not loyal to the Constitution, you're loyal to the president, and we're the president's army. That's really dangerous. Right. And I hope people know how seriously the officer corps has traditionally taken that, that oath. They Understand that as an oath to the Constitution, not as an oath to the President. And that's a vitally important thing here. And God help us all if that ever changes.

[Kevin Cruz]

God help us indeed. Kevin, thank you so much for coming on. Always a great pleasure to talk to you. And Kevin is an excellent follow over on Blue sky at Kevin M. Cruz. That's K R U S E. Are you beast guy.com or do you have.

[Jim]

A custom beast guy dot? You'll find me. I'm there.

[Kevin Cruz]

Okay. Yeah.

[Jim]

You don't want to. I'm. I'm there.

[Kevin Cruz]

Sorry. It's true. You're pretty unavoidable. Yeah. Thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it.

[Jim]

My pleasure, man. Take care. Bye. Bye.

[Danielle]

So, Andy, it is our first week with our new show as the World Churns. So how are you closing us out here with your fuck that guy to end this week?

[Kevin Cruz]

My fuck that guy is a congressman from Florida. His name is Corey Mills. He is a full on MAGA Christian conservative and it has now come out that he.

[Jim]

Was.

[Kevin Cruz]

He got married in 2014 to a naturalized US citizen from Iraq. And they were married by an imam named Muhammad Al Hanoudi at the Dar Al Hijira Islamic center in Virginia. So why is this any kind of deal at all? Al Hanoudi's sermons, it has been reported, called for holy wars against non Muslims, proclamations that Allah would curse the Americans, British and Jews. He had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, ties to Hamas, and oh, by the way, was an unindicted co conspirator in the 1993 World Trade center bombing plot. So here we have this MAGA Christian conservative, you know, among the people that are always railing about foreign terrorists, etc. Getting married by a guy who was an unindicted co conspirator in the 1993 World Trade center bombing plot. So, okay, Mills claims he didn't know even though all of this was, you know, public record. But whatever. If you're wondering, there may be some of you out there saying I didn't know this, but Corey Mills, why does that sound familiar? Well, he's been in the news for another reason lately. The news organization Notice in a piece by Reece Gorman and John Seward reported just a few days ago that a Bronze Star that Corey Mills received for actions that in Iraq in 2003 is now under question. He was given the Bronze Star even though it was for action in 2003. He got the Bronze Star in 2021. And now five people who served with Mills in Iraq say they do not have any recollection of Mills actually being at the incidents that it says on the Bronze Star paperwork that he was receiving the award for. Two of the men who were saying this are cited in the Bronze Star award document as people whose lives Mills saved. They both are like, he wasn't even there. And one soldier said, he didn't save my life. Another one said, I don't recall him being there either. One of the soldiers says, my wounds weren't even life threatening. Like, he said he got glass in his eye and that a combat medic, I think it was, patched him up. So this is a really weird dude, this Corey Mills guy. And there's a lot of stuff coming out about him now. So I thought that he would be a good addition to the. To the fuck that guy wall, because I don't think. I think he's a first timer. I think he was a fuck that guy virgin.

[Danielle]

Welcome, Corey.

[Kevin Cruz]

So, yeah, Corey Mills. Fuck that guy.

[Danielle]

So is the Bronze Star fake?

[Kevin Cruz]

It's not fake.

[Danielle]

Who gave it, like, who gave it to him?

[Kevin Cruz]

So he got the Bronze Star and notice. Talked to the general, now retired, who signed off on the recommendation. And he said that, look, he's like, we got a lot of awards, recommendations that came through, and they were, you know, approved in batches.

[Danielle]

And so, like, who, like, it approved in batches?

[Kevin Cruz]

Yeah.

[Danielle]

So, like, yeah, anybody could throw their name in the fucking hat and, like. And hope it just gets through.

[Kevin Cruz]

I mean, yes. I guess the idea is by time it gets to the level of a general officer. The hope is that it's been vetted.

[Danielle]

It was vetted. Oh, my God.

[Kevin Cruz]

And then the general officer signs off on this form. It's called a DA form. I think it's 638. DA stands for Department of the Army. And General General Gordon Bray says, yeah, you know, we got a bunch of these 638s would come through, and I would just sign them in batches.

[Danielle]

So, like, it should be called tldr. Too long. Didn't read, like, okay, fuck those guys. Like, that's just ridiculous.

[Kevin Cruz]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Metzl]

Yeah.

[Kevin Cruz]

So between maybe not earning the bronze star he got and being married by what actually looks like, you know, an imam with ties to terrorism. Not the best week in the world for Corey Mills, but. But again, fuck that guy.

[Danielle]

Fuck that guy.

[Kevin Cruz]

All right, Danielle. So close out the day. Who's your fuck that guy?

[Danielle]

This is not a virgin to the fuck that guy hall of infamy. But according to a story at the Daily Beast. Basically, what is happening with ICE is they are beginning to just do random stops, pull cars over that either have expired licenses, rolled through a stop sign, and if you are brown and inside, it is most likely that you are going to be scooped up. And that is exactly what happened to Denise. Paravargus and her husband Omar had just dropped off their three children, age 9, 5 and 4 at school in Austin. The younger two children, both boys, are U.S. citizens. They were pulled over by Texas state troopers for having an expired license. And then they were readily turned over to ICE as suspected undocumented immigrants. And apparently, you know, if you remember, Andy, Tom Holman, the quote, unquote border czar, has said multiple times over that, oh, no, we're not going to separate families anymore. We're going to deport the kids along with the families, whether or not those kids happen to be American citizens. And guess what? That motherfucker has made good on his promise. He said last month on Face the Nation, quote, having a U.S. citizen child after you entered this country illegally does not get a get out of jail free card. And so the father, Omar, was sent to ICE detention and then deported to Nueva Laredo, Mexico. The mother was released after being fitted with an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet by the ICE Intensive Supervision Appearance Program. She was instructed to check in at a, at a processing center. And she was told that if she showed up, then she would be eligible for asylum as well as work on a permit. And her understanding was that this was supposed to be a routine appointment. But the mother and her kids then became the latest people to guess what vanish into the immigration system and be held incommunicado. Grassroots Leadership and its legal team began an around the clock effort to locate them. We were just trying to figure out where she was. She wasn't showing up, the spokesperson said, and this is what is happening. So early Wednesday afternoon, Paravargas telephoned the grassroots folks to say that she had been deported and was in Reynosa, just across the border in her native Mexico, 15 miles from where her husband ended up. Their three kids were with her. Two of them are US citizens initially. What did the Trump administration say? We're going after the quote, unquote criminals. We're going to deport the criminals and those folks that are raping, murdering, and here illegally. And who are they picking up and deporting children that are U.S. citizens and moms and dads that have done nothing wrong other than have an expired driver's. I have an expired license plate. Now they're pulled over. And now they're deported out of the country or just vanish into the system. This is Trump's America. Tom Holman told us what he was going to do, and 77 million Americans voted for this. So for that reason, welcome back to fuck that guy. Tom Holman.

[Kevin Cruz]

Yeah. These people are truly, they're, they're just awful human beings. And, you know, I, I, I, I. One of the things that people are being taken advantage of, one of the ways people are being taken advantage of here is they're signing things and they don't understand what they're signing and they're probably, you know, look, I wasn't in the room, I can't say this for sure, but I am guessing that they're being lied to and told that what they are signing is not, in fact, what they are signing. And, you know, we're talking about people who, you know, probably don't have a great familiarity with the English language. It's not their native language, and, you know, they're being held in a cell and told, okay, sign this paper. And, you know, they haven't had access to an attorney. They're signing these things, they can't afford attorneys. And this is what we're doing to people. This is how we're treating human beings. And these people, people like Tom Holman, they apparently go home at night and look in the mirror and somehow think that they're the good guys. And I don't understand that at all. And the last thing I'll say is because every time I think about Tom Holman, I think about this. In 2015, the President of the United States gave Tom Holman an award. It was called a Presidential rank award, and it was for a distinguished executive. And this award was given to him for being very good at deporting people. If you recall, the president in 2015 was Barack Obama. And I just, every time I think of Tom Holman, I think of how deep rooted the problems are in this country to the point where President Obama gave this guy an award and it just, it blows my mind. So, yeah, fuck this guy and fuck that guy.

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[Jim]

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[Kevin Cruz]

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[Jim]

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