It Could Happen Here Weekly 202

Summary

Behind the Bastards – “It Could Happen Here Weekly 202”

Episode Date: October 4, 2025

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Overview

This compilation episode from "It Could Happen Here," a Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts production, brings together the week’s in-depth discussions on America’s slide toward authoritarianism, the escalating surveillance state, union organizing under threat, and the misuse of medical science as political weaponry. The hosts analyze the disconnect between the government’s narrative and ground reality, focusing on the Trump Administration's recent executive actions, media manipulations, and palpable public dissent as seen in the Disney boycott. Notable guests including union organizers, medical professionals, and civil rights lawyers provide frontline perspectives on resistance and survival under mounting state repression.

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Episode Structure & Discussion Breakdown

I. Union Organizing Amid ICE Raids & State Hostility

Guest: Tangent Wiggy (Tristan Acker), SEIU Local 1000 Executive Board Hosts: James Stout, Robert Evans
[04:43–34:00]

Key Points & Insights

• Intersections of Activism & Art: Tangent describes the overlap between hip hop, activism, and labor organizing in California’s Inland Empire.
• SEIU’s Role and Composition: The Service Employees International Union Local 1000 represents over 100,000 California state employees, covering a huge variety of workers including state hospital staff, disability office workers, and home care aides ([05:00–06:20]).
• Unique Regional Challenges:
  • Patton State Hospital: Notorious for housing “criminally insane” patients—a real-life Arkham Asylum environment—poses unique labor stress and risks ([06:21–08:45]).
  • Immigrant Claims in San Bernardino: Many state disability benefit applicants are undocumented; California pays based on proof of wages, not immigration status.
• Labor Demands & Wins:
  • Telework Revolution: State unions fought for—finally winning—widespread telework options during the COVID crisis ([09:00–11:17]).
  • Collective Action Payoff: Tangent details organizing a picket in 102-degree heat over state contract stalling, which resulted in an 8% raise for workers ([17:27–23:00]).
• Solidarity vs. Political Division:
  • Conservative and progressive state employees frequently butt heads over the union’s stance on immigration, LGBTQ issues, and wider social justice. Tangent:

    “I don't understand how you gotta be a progressive to want to be paid what you’re worth…” ([21:25])

• ICE Raids’ Human Toll:
  • ICE is conducting rapid, covert snatch-and-grab raids in the city, traumatizing families and bypassing due process ([28:36–30:36]).
  • Community pushback includes mobilizing politicians, police, and unions in defense, though with weird coalitions (e.g., being grateful cops show up instead of ICE).
• How to Help:
  • Get involved with unions, support local organizing, attend phonebanks for local ballot measures, and defend vulnerable communities undergoing targeting ([30:56–33:58]).
• Inland Empire’s Duality: Grit and Beauty: “IE got pride, boy... there’s danger, poverty, but there’s art, there’s dope tacos, and real community.” ([25:58–27:57])

Notable Quotes

• Tangent on Telework:

  “It took the quarantine crisis of 2020–2021 to actually get the state to agree to mass implement telework... We feel like we’re pioneers in that in a workforce way.” ([10:55])

• On Organizing in Adversity:

  “I teared up... coworkers I didn’t think would march in the heat with me—every lunch, we had people picketing... Within a month or two, we got an 8% raise. When we fight, we win.” ([17:27–19:30])

• On Conservative Union Members:

  “That’s actually a good point... I don’t understand how you gotta be a progressive to want to be paid what you’re worth.” ([21:25])

• On ICE Tactics:

  “They pushed a wife out of the way... took the husband, tossed him in the van, and drove off. It all happened so fast that no one was able to film it. That’s the trick.” ([29:45])

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II. The Reality Distortion Field: Trump’s Media Clampdown and Disney Backlash

Hosts: Mia Wong, Garrison Davis, Robert Evans, Tyler Black
[37:53–90:00 and elsewhere]

Key Points & Insights

• Approval Ratings Don’t Lie: Trump remains deeply unpopular (approx. 41% approval), even as the media amplifies his image as a commanding, beloved leader ([39:30–40:16]).
• Special Elections Undermine the Narrative: Democrats pulled off unexpected wins in deep-red districts, revealing widespread voter desperation for alternatives ([40:15–41:38]).
• Economic Unreality: Despite a “booming” stock market (especially tech fueled by the AI hype), most Americans feel recession’s sting, feeding the disconnect between “official” economic health and lived experience ([43:20–45:52]).

  • “We are actually living through the famous old tweet... the economy is candles. The whole economy is candles.” ([45:52], Tyler Black)

• AI Boom as Shell Game: GDP “growth” now driven by fixed capital investment in AI that provides no tangible returns, further distancing Wall Street from Main Street (“the economy looks okay, but... it’s not fine”). ([44:23–45:18])
• Corporate Media, Social Media Capture: The Trump team and allies exert control over CBS, social platforms, and capital-"L" Liberal media, shaping a reality where dissent disappears ([52:44–53:53]).
• Charlie Kirk’s Mythologizing: The right’s ability to stage-manage mourning for its “heroes”—and the resultant media unanimity—sparked visceral disgust and widespread pushback.

  • “With a man as absolutely rizzless and as obviously malicious and uninteresting as Charlie Kirk getting that treatment... everything is totally captured.” ([54:45–55:18], Tyler Black)

• Jimmy Kimmel, Disney & The Backlash:
  Boycott over Kimmel’s firing quickly eroded Disney’s subscriber numbers (1.7 million lost, $330+ million annual revenue hit), emphasizing public distaste for Trumpist overreach.
  • “There are more of us than there are of them... and there always have been.” ([204:01], Mia Wong)

Notable Quotes

• On Disney’s Dilemma:

  “Part of what was so brutal... it’s just obvious that Disney did that, the corporate people did that, and they did it because Trump did it publicly. Trump is humiliating these corporations publicly.” ([66:13], Tyler Black)

• On the Nature of Fascist Spectacle:

  “They are true believers in the spectacle and as such, break the fourth wall... Trump’s power was that he could puncture the spectacle.” ([70:23–70:39], Tyler Black)

• On Institutional Decay:

  “He’s not capturing anti-corporate sentiment. People are like, why are you doing that over Jimmy Kimmel? That’s weird, you're a creep. But as you mentioned, he's just sitting there watching TV and throwing his remote around. And unfortunately his remote dictates U.S. policy.” ([84:48–85:07], Tyler Black)

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III. Science, Weaponized: Tylenol, Autism, and the RFK/Trump Administration

Panel: Kaveh Hoda (MD), Tyler Black (Psychiatrist), Robert Evans
[92:36–133:10]

Key Points & Insights

• Debunking the Tylenol-Autism Scare:
  • The largest, most robust studies (Swedish cohort, 2.5 million people) find no causal link between prenatal acetaminophen use and autism when properly controlling for genetics and confounders ([97:01–98:37]).
• Political Weaponizing of Medical Uncertainty:
  • RFK Jr./Trump weaponize ambiguous or bad science, skipping nuance, and make public health shifts unsupported by evidence—ultimately hurting public trust and real patient care needs.
• Chilling Effect on Women, Mothers, and Neurodivergent Communities:
  • Blanket restrictions lead to moral panics/discrediting of neurodivergence ("profound autism... is extremely disabling for people around the person, generally autistic people enjoy their lives... this whole idea of autism being this travesty, it’s really doing a disservice") ([105:26–107:54]).
  • Recriminations and blame aimed at mothers instead of nuanced science ([108:37]).
• Tylenol’s Real Dangers vs. Political Theater:
  • Overdose is a real issue (liver failure), but telling pregnant women to “tough it out”—for “medical freedom”—is callous and misleads people into avoidable suffering ([109:49–114:19]).
• Media Nuance, Bad Faith Arguments:
  • The administration exploits the “there’s some nuance” angle to blur lines, create unjustified fear, and lend credence to anti-vax and anti-medical establishment stances.
• How to Respond:
  • Trust scientific consensus, use official/regional health agencies for information, be wary of grifters, and always talk to qualified health providers ([125:49–128:03]).

Notable Quotes

• On Nuance Abuse:

  “The one thing that they've tried to do is like inhabit nuance and then disingenuously use it.” ([114:04], Robert Evans)

• On Societal Costs:

  “To have a president come out and just say grit your teeth and bear it to women in regard to the one medicine that we've told them they can use during a pregnancy is insane to me.” ([108:37], Kaveh Hoda)

• On the Autism Panic:

  “This whole idea of autism being this travesty, this epidemic, this blight on society is really doing a disservice... Autistic people are perfectly content to be autistic.” ([105:26], Tyler Black)

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IV. Legal Realities of Trump’s Domestic Terrorism Order

Guest: Mo Meltzer Cohen (Civil Rights Attorney)
[139:08–132:19]

Key Points & Insights

• Executive Orders vs. Actual Law:
  • Trump’s “antifa as domestic terrorism” orders are frightening in rhetoric and disrupt left movements, but they do not change what is or isn’t illegal.
  • Law cannot be changed by executive order alone; actual prosecution still depends on existent statutes ([140:12–142:11]).
• Danger in “Soft” Repression:
  • Harassment, doxing, job loss, and chilling speech may increase—but criminalization of belief/association is still First Amendment-protected.
  • Quote:

    "The state cannot prosecute you for things that were legal when you did them... there is a difference between law and power.”

• Financial Surveillance and Crackdown:
  • The main tangible threat is ramped-up scrutiny of funding, financial flows, and self-policing/compliance (e.g., NGOs, bail funds, universities). The anticipatory compliance of liberal institutions remains a major vulnerability ([164:03–166:55]).
• Domestic “Terror” Designation Lacks Teeth:
  • Legally, there is no mechanism to designate domestic groups as terrorists—so this labeling is largely political, not actionable law.
• How to Protect Yourself/Movement:
  • If you deal with money, keep records and use it as promised; do not speak to federal agents without counsel; be vigilant but unafraid.
  • “When we fight, we win.” ([167:26])
  • NLG Anti-Repression Hotline: [phone]

Notable Quotes

• On chilling effect and resilience:

  “The fact that an executive order doesn't change the law does not mean an executive order will not result in a lot more state repression... but it doesn't mean Trump is not going to accomplish what he's trying to accomplish—which is to say, chilling us and chilling civil society.” ([148:00])

• On targeted financial repression:

  “If you are in a group that has a bank account or raises money... Keep very precise track of your funds. Have an accountant... be very, very careful about your money.” ([190:10])

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V. Weekly News Roundup: War Department, Urban Protests, and Federal Overreach

Hosts: Garrison Davis, Mia Wong, Robert Evans, James Stout
[197:12–266:43]

Key Points & Insights

• Symbolic Renaming & Rhetoric Escalation:
  • The Department of Defense now refers to itself as the Department of War; Secretary Pete Hegseth exhibits open authoritarianism regarding internal “wars” in cities ([205:37–206:39]).
• Federal Military Deployment on Protesters:
  • Troops (and National Guard) threatened against cities like Portland and Chicago over peaceful protests, stoked by media recycling old riot footage ([208:23–218:45]).
  • Quote: "There really hasn't been much in the way of… what we saw in 2020"—but raids and show of force continue ([208:44–209:47]).
• Escalation in Chicago:
  • A brutal South Shore ICE raid saw flashbangs, children zip-tied, and residents detained—an extreme new level of urban immigration enforcement ([226:49–227:51]).

    “They are zip tying children to each other as they drag them from their homes at one in the morning and saying fuck em kids.” ([227:51])

• Focus on Enemy Within, Precrime, and Surveillance:
  • DOJ memos and executive orders demand a crackdown on “anti-American” organizing. Financial and legal scrutiny ratchets up on NGOs, left groups, protest support networks ([242:51–266:43]).
• Resistance:
  • Grand juries sometimes refusing to indict, solidarity shown in Disney boycott, and mutual aid highlighted as key countertrends.

Notable Quotes

• On Department of War’s rhetoric:

  “He basically told the generals and admirals: if you don’t like it, you should leave. It was the quietest room I’ve ever seen.” ([224:57])

• On National Guard deployments:

  “In Chicago, there absolutely has been [an escalation]—and it’s horrible.” ([231:53])

• On financial targeting:

  “The Treasury Secretary will work with the Attorney General to, quote, identify and disrupt financial networks that funded [supposed] domestic terrorism and political activity.” ([254:16])

• On speech and organizing:

  “It’s not a time to do stupid things on your posting site of choice. Fighting words are not always First Amendment speech right now.” ([261:02], Robert Evans)

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Episode Highlights, Takeaways, & Tone

• Unflinching, Sarcastic, and Deeply Grounded: The show maintains its signature blend of gallows humor and direct, jargon-free clarity. Hosts and guests balance dire warnings with actionable hope and tactical advice.
• Real Frontline Stories: Tangent’s union organizing, the detailed breakdown of ICE raids, and Mo Meltzer Cohen’s legal guide to state repression showcase real struggles and resistance.
• Media & Speech: The episode repeatedly hammers the dangers of media distortion (both right-wing and liberal), the “vibe session” disconnect in politics, and the core importance of speech, organizing, and mutual aid.
• Calls to Action: Whether through supporting unions, mutual aid, trusted medical information, or just not self-censoring, the episode stresses collective action and not succumbing to fear.

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Union Organizer on SEIU, ICE & San Bernardino: 04:43–34:00
• Trump’s Polling, Media Wars, Disney/Kimmel Backlash, & AI/economy unreality: 37:53–90:00
• Debunking Tylenol-Autism/Medical Disinformation: 92:36–133:10
• Legal Realities of “Antifa Domestic Terrorism” Orders (Mo Meltzer Cohen Interview): 139:08–132:19
• National & Urban Repression, Organizing Fronts (Portland, Chicago), Federal “War” Policy: 197:12–266:43

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Final Words

The world is becoming more repressive and unhinged—but you’re not alone, and fighting together still works. Stay organized, stay informed, and don’t let the spectacle win. As Tangent puts it:

“When we fight, we win. When we unite, we win.” ([19:30])

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For detailed sources or specific news links, check the episode’s show notes.

Transcript

[James Stout]

This is an I Heart podcast.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

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[Robert Evans]

Actually weaken your hair over time.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

You can look great for holiday photos. Still not sure we get it. So right now purchase Mori at 50% off while it lasts and take a quiz for a custom hair care [e-mail] results can var Maury is not a substitute for medical advice. See website for more.

[James Stout]

There's a vile.

[Robert Evans]

Sickness in Amber's Town.

[James Stout]

You must excise it. Dig into the deep earth and cut.

[Kaveh Hoda]

It out from iHeart podcasts and grim.

[Garrison Davis]

And Mild from Aaron Manke.

[James Stout]

This is Havoc Town, a new fiction.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Podcast set in the Bridgewater audio universe starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc town on the iHeartRadio.

[Tyler Black]

App, Apple Podcasts or where you get your podcasts.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

In early 1988, federal agents raced to.

[Garrison Davis]

Track down the gang they suspect of.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Importing millions of dollars worth of heroin into New York from Asia.

[Mia Wong]

Had 30 agents ready to go with.

[James Stout]

Shotguns and rifles and you name it.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Five, six white people pushed me in the car. I'm going, what the hell?

[James Stout]

Basically your stay at home moms were.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Picking up these large amounts of heroin.

[James Stout]

All you gotta do is receive the package. Don't have to open it, just accept it.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

She was very upset, crying.

[James Stout]

Once I saw the gun, I tried.

[Kaveh Hoda]

To take his hand and I saw.

[Garrison Davis]

The flash of light.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Listen to the Chinatown sting on the.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Iheartradio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you get your podcasts.

[James Stout]

What's up everybody?

[Garrison Davis]

It's Nax from the Trap nerds.

[Robert Evans]

And all October long we're bringing you the Horror.

[James Stout]

Boogity boogity boogity.

[Kaveh Hoda]

We kicking off this month with some.

[James Stout]

Of my best horror games to keep you terrified. Today we'll be talking about our favorite horror and Halloween movies and figuring out why black people always die first.

[Robert Evans]

And it's the return of Tony's horror.

[James Stout]

Show side Quest R and narrated by yours truly. We'll also be doing a full episode.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Reading with commentary and we'll cap it.

[James Stout]

Off with a horror movie Battle Royale. Open your free AHA Radio app and search Trapped Nerds Podcast and listen now.

[Robert Evans]

Call Zone Media.

[James Stout]

Hey everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let you know this is.

[Robert Evans]

A compilation episode, so every episode of the week that just happened is here.

[James Stout]

In one convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to listen to in a long stretch if you want. If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, there's gonna be.

[Robert Evans]

Nothing new here for you, but you.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Can make your own decisions.

[James Stout]

Recording in progress. Okay, check this out. Now, I have always been amazed by when I take a second to actually tap into, like, my actual network of just friends, you know, how you have friends in categories, you know what I'm saying? Like, you just don't. And it's just like this music, homie. Work, homie. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? You just don't really picture those things colliding or when, like, your friends, like, meet each other, it turns out they know each other. It's the weirdest thing anyway, for me and my, like, podcast activists, you know, activism world, you know, a lot of times overlaps with the hip hop world because, you know, we believe in a lot of same stuff, but, like, this one, like, really happened. Yeah. Where I was just, like, in my own network. Somebody I've known for a while, who I'm just now learning. Your name is Tristan. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know your name was Jason. Yeah, exactly. You know, say that's how rap works. So introduce yourself however you want to be introduced. Yeah. You know, and then let's. Let's get into it. Hey, everybody. I'm Tangent Wiggy, AKA Tristan Acker. I got a lot of other names too, but I'll keep it to those for now. And I'm from San Bernardino, and I'm an artist in the community with. With propaganda as well. As a state employee, I paid disability claims for the state of Californ, California. And in my role as a state employee, I am a union rep, and I'm an elected member of my union's executive board. So I represent state employees from Ontario region to San Bernardino region and in between. And I'm on the bargaining team. So I go up to Sacramento and help prepare for bargaining against Governor Newsom and his team as well. Word. So you. So this is like, with. This is Frontline energy. Okay.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Which I love about it because it's like, like you said, like your. Your day job is. In some ways, it's. It's so crazy because it's like, as far away as that is from the actual, like, worker per se. Like, you have just this parasocial, like, intimate relationship with everybody that works for the state because, like, you seeing, you know what I'm saying, what they going through. Yep. And how great it is to think inside of such a. Here bureaucracy. There's somebody there that's like, no, I'm actually, like, fighting for y'. All. Yeah. I appreciate that words. So, first of all, tell them what the union is. Which union we talking about. Yeah. S as in Sam. E as in everybody. I as an incredible. U as in union. Service employees. International Union. But 1000. Right. So S. SEIU is one of the biggest international unions in the world. And. And everyone out there has probably seen the purple, purple SEIU stuff on all kinds of stuff, from nurses to state workers. Yeah. To. In. In home support services workers and. And home care. N. And there's a lot of different people that are under SEIU. More broadly, state employees in California are SEIU 1000. So we're Local 1000. And that's the broader union that I'm a part of all of Cali. Okay. You know, all 100,000 state employees that are represented. Damn. Okay. And. But I am elected to the executive board of DLC704, which is the Inland Empire. Well, the Ontario San Bernardino. Part of the Inland Empire's chapter word. Ontario San Bernardino. Okay. This is going to be very Cali specific. Like, obviously, this. Everybody here who listens ain't from here. So, like, I've. I've cracked many LA and IE jokes. And just like, you know, throughout. Throughout our time. You know what I'm saying? I like to say that I have an IE passport stamped. Like, I have my Pomona guy. I worked in Pomona. See, I didn't. I never lived there. Okay. But you see what I'm saying? So strong connection to Pomona, as far as I've seen. I've seen you.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

You.

[James Stout]

Absolutely. Yeah, that's what I mean. Like, I'm a naturalized citizen. I got a green card. I got it. I got an IE green card because, like, I worked at Pomona. You know, foundation was in Pomona, Mike and Dim Lights was in Pomona. For y' all listeners, these are like the hip hop and poetry spots that I kind of grew up in, because since I'm, you know, born in South Central, but I'm from the six through six, so. So you come. Me coming from La Puente Valinda, Pomona is just so much more closer than Leimert park, you know what I'm saying? So. Yeah, so I ended up just kind of, like, spending a lot of time there. And then for high school, I got. I got busted Inland Empire. So I got bused. I was. I went to school out of district because my parents split up It's a long story. But anyway. Sure. It happens a lot. Yeah. So that being said, like, I have a lot of love for the Inland Empire and spent a lot of time there. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So that's why I was like, I got, I got a visa. I got an IV visa. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. But that being said, what would you say? I mean, it's kind of like I'm kind of springing this one on you. But like, what would you say would be something that's like unique, a unique thing that someone from where you guys are at, like a service worker where you guys are at, that might be a unique issue that's specific to them, that wouldn't be somewhere else. I'll do two because I feel like I need two to kind of. To answer it. Well, one is that the Inland Empire in Highland, which is a city, kind of a little connected city to San Bernardino, Highland has Patton State Hospital, which is basically Arkham Asylum. You know, it's basically Arkham Asylum from the Batman comics, which is. It's a hospital for the criminally insane. Okay. Yeah. You know, it's like, like, in other words, like you committed crimes, but you have mental health issues. Yeah. So you're not in the regular prison, but you're not in the regular mental hospital. You are in the prison for the mental patients. Okay. And it's a. It's a massive 24 hour facility. And I feel like even though I work for EDD doing disability claims because I'm in a regional chapter with the patent hospital folks, they get a lot of the attention of what the union organization does because 24 hour facilities are very, very taxing and they're very ripe for abuse and for people to go through really difficult things. Word. And then the second thing I would say would be the fact that where we are, we have a lot of. We service a lot, maybe more of my job. Right. We service a lot of undocumented people. Like a lot of the disability claims I pay for the state, I paid. I pay to undocumented folks, which is one reason that the I stuff has been hitting so close to home. And also, people may not realize that California doesn't ra. Regulate about documented status the way that the federal government does. Right. So as long as you could prove your wages to the state of California in a legit, straight paperwork kind of way, we don't care that you're undocumented. We're going to pay you because you're a worker and you need our services. Facts and, like, I love that you said that, because when they talk about, like, how the undocumented don't pay taxes, I'm like, yes, they do. Yes, they do. Yes, they do. Yes, they do. They pay a lot. Yeah. If you can think of just off the head, like, obviously, over the years, the negotiations and different things that have come up have varied over time. We'll get to the ICE raids because that's obviously where everything got super ratchet, ratcheted up. But, like, what was some of the most. Like, I don't. Like. I don't know. How would I phrase this? Where you were. Like, this is the most reasonable request we can ask for. Like, this is just. Like, I don't. This is so. I don't understand why this is so hard for y'. All. Like, this is incredibly. I just want to, like, calibrate, because a lot of times people hear. They hear the word union. They got all these pictures about what the things are and what this. You know what I'm saying? They got all these pictures, but I'm just like, fam. You ever heard of a fire day week? Yeah, like, work week. That's unions, my g. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So, like, that seems very reasonable. You know what I mean? So. So if you could think of, like, some of the things you've had to negotiate, what was some of the most. Like, this is. I don't understand why this is so hard for y'. All. So have you ever. You probably heard the phrase every crisis is an opportunity, right? Yes. You know, you've heard people say that, right? So the union. My union and other unions have been pushing for telework, you know, being my entire 20 years with the state. You know, I'm seven. I'm. I'll be 17 years veteran with the state as of December. Right. Wow. Okay. The entire time. Wanted telework. It took the quarantine crisis of 20. 20, 2021 to actually get the state to agree to mass implement telework. And so that was like, that's a crisis that we made an opportunity that's like, hey, we needed. We needed telework. So many people are also caring for their kids, are also caring for their elderly people in their home, caring for a new baby or, you know, taking, you know, just at the house so the contractors could come fix their plumbing. You know, it's like, telework has been something that we thought was very reasonable for a long time. That it took. It took until the COVID crisis for Us to get telework. And we feel like we're pioneers in that in a workforce way. Because now there's lots of places that have telework. Partly because I think the work that unions like us have done. That's dope, man. You know, obviously coming out of the pandemic and recently, like, a lot of companies are like, hey, you guys can come back to the office. And people are like, absolutely not. Why? Like, why take it away? Hard to take it away once you got it. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Why would we do that? I know my own. Like, my wife, you know, she pre pandemic at the spot she was working at. She was working at nonprofit. You know, she was like, okay. I was touring so much that she was just like, dude, like, you want me in this office? At a certain time, it's stress on the whole family. I had to get my daughter to school. It's, you know, just breaking her neck to figure stuff out. She's like, I'm done with the stuff that can be done at a desk within an hour. She's like, I'm just. I'm just scrolling the Internet.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Like, I'm just like. Like, I'm trying to tell you for ac. You're paying for lights. You're paying for. You're paying for all this. There's no reason, like, I don't have to be here, you know? Right. And so she pushed. She was just like, you know, looked up her own rights, you know, figured it out, and, you know, without telling her business, she. She actually helped the staff unionize there. You know what I'm saying? She was like, look, man, it's ridiculous. You know what I'm saying? You got a real one. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Don't.

[James Stout]

Don't. Don't Google it. So, yeah. So something that you had to. You know, you said you. You actually go to the state, you. You interact with Gavin Newsom, you know, which is a whole thing. Sure. We have our opinions on Mr. Newsome. Sure. You know, and, like, how allied are you as an ally? Like, yo, say it. And, you know, people are complicated. We can't always agree on the same things. You know what I'm saying? Like. But, like, that's correct. There has been. There have been times where it's been like, hey, you know what? Salute. He's doing something dope. And then other times when he's not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Doing something, though, the other times it's like, bro, who are you? Yeah, right. Like, what is happening right now? So. So obviously, you know, when you Go up there. You're not interacting with him, you're interacting with his team, right?

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

The one time I actually met him, I went to the California Democratic party convention in 2012 in San Diego and I just went with a friend, just showed up. I was not a delegate. Yeah, I was a union rep already, but I had no official role. I just showed up and walked around the San Diego Hilton, which is also where they founded San Diego Comic Con. Yeah. And. And I got to meet a lot of officials, including some inland ones, including some really famous people like Nancy Pelosi's daughter. But I went up to, I went up to, at the time, Lieutenant Governor Newsom and basically thanked him because he had just voted against the tuition hike for the Cal states and uc. And I was, and I went to Cal State San Bernardino. I have my master's in poetry, my MFA in poetry from Cal State San Bernardino. And so I was still a student at the time. And he had just voted against the tuition increase. So there's a picture of me meeting him from that, from that time. That's the only. Oh, that's great. Yeah, yeah.

[Kaveh Hoda]

So that.

[James Stout]

And he had just done something good and he, and he said humble things about it when I thanked him for it. So my one personal interaction with him was good. But since then, when in the capacity of the union, I deal with his bargaining team. Like my, our bargaining team deals with his bargaining teams in Sacramento where. Okay, so give me one. Something that's been like opposite where what they were asking for. Yeah. Was like, this is completely unreasonable, guys. Like, what are you talking about? So every three years, every three years, our state employee contract goes up. Right. And so around the two year mark, we, we start gearing up negotiations, you know, and the state. Newsom has the power to summon us for negotiation, and we have the power to summon his team for negotiation.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Right.

[James Stout]

So at that two year mark, we start negotiating. So in 2022, we started negotiating about the 2023 expiring, you know, so that by the end of 23 we could have a new contract. When you're a state employee, it's difficult. It's hard to strike. Right. Like, you have to have an extremely high threshold to strike. Like if you're a, a private company and you're in a union, it's a lot easier to strike. You guys, I want to strike. You strike. Like that episode of the Simpsons. Homer became the union. Yeah, yeah. They're just like dental plan, you know, they started striking. Right, right. With, with the state because we provide Essential services to Californians in need. It is an extremely high threshold in terms of what it would take for us to legally be allowed to strike. Right. And Newsom and his team know that. So they could kind of like really slow walk negotiations and stop negotiating in good faith. But as long as there's like, you know, what is it? There's signs of life on the hospital ticker. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The negotiations, then they're stick that we're still obligated to not strike down. Right. So in 2023, our contract expired. Newsom was offering us 1 or 2% raise for the next three years. And meanwhile, he was going on TV saying, I'll debate Ron DeSantis. Oh, it was during that time, I want to help the, the Screen Actors Guild finish their contract and the Screenwriters Guild. And I want it. So it's like, whoa, whoa, bro, where are your kids? Why are you trying to go help their kids? Yeah, you know, like, you know, it was like, why you're not negotiating with us, but you're on TV talking about, I want to help Harrison Ford and I want to help, you know, I want to help the actors get their contract. And it's like, so I, something I had, I made a tick tock recently about how I think my, my lefty friends, and I'm lefty as hell, of course, but like artist friends, anti establishment friends, you know, leftist friends, I think hate Democrats in stupid ways, whereas there are smart ways to hate Democrats. Okay, Right. Like, to me, the stupid, the stupid way to hate Democrats is to be like, oh, both parties are the same. I'm going to sit out and let Republicans win and hurt us worse. Right. To me, the smart way to hate on Democrats is to realize when they're doing a good thing here, they're distracting you from a bad thing here, and then they're doing a bad thing here, they're distracting. You know, it's like a good thing. Yeah. Okay, Right. So, like, Newsom at times might be capitulating to Trump on something federally, but then he does something good state domestically in the state to kind of keep his rep up. Or the reverse. Yeah. Maybe he's fighting with Trump on something and that's good, but he's doing some whack, like slow walking our contract negotiations. Yeah. We're not Hollywood actors. Right. So when our contract goes up, you didn't get the news about it, like with the Screen Actors Guild, because that's slopping your Hulu. That's stopping your Disney. Plus, you know, you, you hear all about that when our contract expires. Yeah. You don't hear about it unless you're on disability, unless you're on one of our programs. And then you can't go to the office because. Because we're understaffed or because something's going wrong with us. Right. So 2023 was a pissed off time for us because he's offering us peanuts. He was offering to help everybody else. Let me help the actors. Let me help the screenwriters. Let me fight Ron DeSantis. Let me go. Go to Washington and have federal fights. Meanwhile, we're. Our contract expired. And when our contract expired, there's things we lose, there's stipends, we lose, there's benefits we lose.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

And had us had us in a bind. So I organized a work site picket at my office in San Bernardino in 102 degree weather. We can't strike, but we can pick it. Wow. Okay. See, I didn't know that. Right. You know, so that's part of being a union rep is like, what are my tools? Yeah, you know, like, what are my tools? Like, know your. Know your arsenal. Know your weaponry. Right. And so I organized the picket. We had signs, me and, and I'm just. I tear up when I think about this because I had co workers that I didn't think were going to march in the heat with me. I thought it might have been me by myself. You know, I was one of only one or two union reps in my office at the time. Now we have four because I've been recruiting, you know, and I have good people in my office, you know, but at the time, I was one of the only union reps. There was people who I knew had legit skepticism about the union. I didn't expect it, but every single lunch, not just my lunch, at every lunch we had people picketing in front of my office with signs. People were honking in support of us. Within a month or two, we got an 8% raise on that next negotiation. Let's go. You know, and so, you know, when we fight, we win. When we unite, we win. You know, like you don't. We're not fighting for nothing. And. And that was a do or die moment for me as a union organizer because I hadn't had many real fights yet. And I couldn't really point to my co workers and say, hey, we did this and got this. We did this and got this. So the fact that I got my co workers to march in 102 degree weather with me instead of just sitting in the air conditioned, having lunch and that we won that. A few weeks later, they said, you're going to get an 8% raise. That's hard. I was like, yes. Proof of concept. I have proof of concept. I'm not just wasting my coworkers time. I could tell you there's a tangible result to when we organized together. Together. See, that's. These are the type of, like, wins we need to hear because we've been. We've been taking some Ls, like, yes, sir. Speaking of L. So. Yalls. Yalls SEIU 1000. You know David Huerta, right? That's his name. David Wirtha is from one of the California SEIU branches. He's tightly connected to our union, but he's not one. He's not 1,000. Okay. Words. But he is SEIU, so he is part of us. Yeah. So when Ice, you know, invaded our streets. Yes. He was outside, you know, doing what he had to do. I know. S. SEIU set up the. The thing at Alvara Street. Yeah. They set up a location there for, like, to educate. It was just such a beautiful thing. But the first thing that got me out the house was the rally for when he was detained. So, like, yeah, man, tell me what was going on and as much as you can behind closed doors. Yes. So, yes, most of the listeners here know this story because this show is, like, pretty tapped in. But. Yeah, right. So what I would say is this, to me is an opportunity to talk about, like, the cultural differences with. With Inland and la. Right. Because, yeah, the union is very progressive. Right. But the inland is a much more conservative area. Right. And compared to Los Angeles, compared to San Francisco, compared to, you know, it's not as big of a city. It's more impoverished. Yeah. You know, there's a lot of, you know, even just the geography of it. Right. People, me, grew up in the city. Like, my, my. My mom grew up around where you're talking about La Puente and El Monte. I was born in El Monte. Right word. But there was a suburban exodus in the late 80s of, like, people who wanted to go from that east LA626 area to raise their kids in the inland, because that was the more conservative suburbs. Right. So for me, every time something like that happens with something like a David Huerta or something in one of the bigger cities happens, and we're fighting with the. With the right wing about things, it's a matter of me educating my inland people about why we care and why we're all connected, you know, and, and Then there's always some people, and I got to respect this. As a union organizer, I really have to be able to talk with my more conservative members, because there are people in the union that are not super progressive warriors like me. They're just workers who want to be represented. Right. I was gonna say that's actually a good point to hammer down because, like, yeah, last year, one of the shows on our network covered a union strike at a. I want to say it was like, a metal plant in Alabama, like, in the sticks of Alabama. These are good old boys from the south, but sure. But one thing we can agree on me is, like, pay me what I'm worth. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, it just seemed pretty simple to me. I don't understand how you gotta be a progressive to want to be paid what you worth, you know? So I think that that's a good point to say that, like, even in a rather conservative space, all of us want to go home and eat and earn the wages that I should be. Pay me what I'm worth. It just. It seemed that simple. Exactly. And so. So that's a tension that happens. Right. And this is. This is probably a discussion that happens among a lot of progressive groups in general that, like, there's people who want you to focus on your. On your issue, but there's also people who recognize that we're part of an interconnected society where it's like, if the immigrants are being harmed, then the laborers are being harmed. If the artists are being harmed, then the nurses are being harmed. If the teachers, you know, so. So there's always that divide. But in the inland, which is a more conservative area, there's especially that divide between people who are like, I don't want my union fighting about immigration and ice. I don't want my union fighting about the environment. Wow. I don't want the union fighting about lgbt. I just want the union to fight for my race. I want the union to fight for my telework. And that's all I want them to do. Right. So that's a. That's a big thing for. For me is to kind of explain to people how no David Werta fighting for immigrant rights is him fighting for you as a worker. Okay. You know, because if they came for them, they could come for you. You know, so. So that's kind of how I see that. Yeah. Did you feel like it landed? Well, it always does. Does with some, and it doesn't with some. You know, I'll be honest with you. There Left the union after the Charlie Kirk killing. Oh, wow. In my opinion, they're going to really weird logic jumps when they're like, well, the union endorsed Kamala, and Kamala has supporters that are happy about Charlie Kirk dying. The union. I'm like, so you don't want that raise? You really? Red string in that joint? You know, that is definitely the always sunny in Philadelphia meme of just. You, like, tying these strings together. Like, bro, I don't know what you talking about.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Yeah, right.

[James Stout]

And so, to be honest, there's been some of that. You know, I. I'll say this. The Charlie Kirk gave us more of that than the immigration stuff. But. But there's always those few whispers from a few people who are like, they're just not down with the broader. Yeah. Cause those of us who are in the leadership of the union, I think we have solidarity. You know, we have solidarity not just with other state workers, but with anyone who's in any seiu, with Teamsters, with anyone who's in any union, and with Californians, anyone who is somebody who is in a vulnerable group. Yeah. You know, and so there's just always that difference of opinion. I would say over. Let's say 60% hits in a good way. And in my area, because it's so conservative, let's say 40%. It doesn't. Doesn't. You know, it's something we work on. That's interesting. Okay. My last two questions would be this. Like, sure, I'll give them both. Like, so what are y' all currently kind of, like, pushing for? I'm assuming it has a. A lot to do with immigration and ICE raids and stuff, but also, in what ways can we, as just a broader community, help? Well, how do I put this? So I work in downtown San Bernardino. Okay. And my disability office is next to the Mexican consulate. Let's go. First of all, we need to paint the picture of San Bernardino. I really feel like for those that don't know California, the. The nature of what San Bernardino is is a part of this story that you might be missing. First of all, like, okay, all that, you picture everything that everybody else pictures around what you thought Compton was in the 90s, all the pictures that you think. Think, you know what I'm saying, that you go, oh, it's really San Bernardino. Like, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. So, I mean, I'm trying to say this in a way that's descriptive and not derogatory, because obviously, like, it's always Cali love for me, and I. You know, of course. Yeah. But there is a certain, there's a certain part of San Bernardino that feels like. Like just a spirit of like we just gave up. The walking dead. The walking dead. That's exactly it. It feels like a zombieland, like just this dark. I remember the Carousel Mall. Like you walk by that mall, it's eerie. It just feels like when people talk about the forgotten man, the forgotten America, I'm like San Bernardino? Yeah. Like yes. We didn't gave up on that city. Yeah. It recently gone from 230,000 people to only 200,000 people. But also probably because a lot of people that left were the most impoverished people. Our poverty rate went from let's say in the post Bush 2 recession, like 2010, we had a 30 poverty rate. We were, we were the most impoverished city in the state. We've gotten down to like 17 poverty which is still bad. Yeah. You know, that's still almost one one out of five people. What was it? It's very diverse. I mean as someone who pays attention to politics, it has all the problems. Exactly like you said, all the problems that people talk about when they see the important problems. It's post industrial, there's gun violence, it's diverse. There's poverty, you know, there's environmental issues. Because it's such a warehouse empire. Yeah. Because it's such a, you know, area of freight and warehouses. It's like the air quality is some of the worst in the states.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

You know we. We have real problems. You know, we got real problems. And in downtown. Downtown San Bernardino is a lot of where the problems are. We want to get it like downtown Redlands and downtown Riverside and. And some of the other nicer downtowns. But it's just not there yet. And there are people absolutely working on that. And like there are a couple alleyways in the city to sound so it sounds so humble but we have a couple alleyways in the city that got $500,000 grants recently to kind of make them an arts alleyway to kind of look like something more like the Claremont Village. Let's go. You know. And so. Yeah, you know, and so we are always working on it and I will always, you know, as somebody co founded the Inland Empire Music Award show and other platforms that I put on not just my art but I helped put on other artists in the Inland. I will always tell you about the amazing tacos you could get in my city. The amazing small businesses you could support my city. The amazing art community. Yeah. Put on by my, by my OGs like Judah 1 of Pomona, like Noah James of the Inland and Lisa J. And yeah. And many others, you know, who've helped build a really beautiful ecosystem. Like, there's, there's. Please come. Come to San Bernardino and hit me up and I'll take you to safe, beautiful parts of it, you know. But yes, it's. It's rough. To your point, I know I want you to get to the next thing, but to your point, that was the same as that picture of Compton to where it's like, yes, like, in the sense that, like, we know it's dangerous, we know there's poverty, we know there's that. But there's beauty here, there's dope stuff, you know, and let me come, like. And again, like, just the hood rules where it's like, well, you and me, like, so you're good. You know what I'm saying? Like, you and me, you know, and some of the. Yeah, like, we can, we can definitely shine lights. Like I said, like, you know, I've talked about Noah James on this show, you know what I'm saying? I've talked about Judah 1. You know, I talked about since Sears, C4, like, the people that, like, I came. I came up with, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. The Inland Empire. A lot of the stuff that the nation attributes to LA is really I. E. You know what I'm saying? Yes, sir. And we know, like, we know because they're not lying about it. We know that. Matter of fact, nobody has pride about. IE got pride, boy. Like, they're like, no, no, no, no. We are the Inland. And I love that about y'. All. Anyway, I'm wearing my Jaden Daniels. See, check it out. Yep, yep, yep, yep. You know, huh?

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Because the IE got a heisman. The IE got a Heisman. So. Yeah. Okay. So anyway, so your office is next to the Mexican consulate. Mexican consulate, right. And so I've actually spent my, you know, I've been at this office in San Bernardino since 2014, and for five years before that I worked in the Riverside office. But I've been in my office in San Marino 2014, and I have gone to so many. I've infiltrated so many right wing protests that are in front of the Mexican consulate. Yes. And like. And like, so I'll go hang out with them and like, oh, what are you guys, what are you guys doing? And then I'll like, like take their markers, I'll take their posters and I'll just kind of be like, oh, yeah, maybe you have a Point there. And then I'm like, I'm in my office. And then my. My secretary, you know, the secretary of my office is like, oh, where can.

[Robert Evans]

You get these markers?

[James Stout]

Look, I got you some markers. You know, because it's like, you know, and so I'll infiltrate right wing protests, but. But on the flip side, lately, you know, ICE knows they could come to my corner, and my corner in downtown has the Chase bank, the Wells Fargo bank, the Mexican consulate, the disability office, the old city hall building. Like, it's. It's like the hub. It's one of the downtown hubs of the city. And ICE has been coming and snatching people in front of my office. It happened. It's happened twice, at least in the last month. And one of the days that it happened, I was in the office, I called my congressman, I called the. The mayor. I got all the local authorities involved. By the end of the day, the horse mounted unit of my city's police was, like, patrolling to make sure ICE wasn't messing with us. Wow. And I tell you, homie, what a weird place this is. I've never been so happy to see the regular cops. Right, right, right. You know, what is this? What is this timeline? What are you doing to me? Yeah, what are you doing to me? We're like, I'm in. I'm in 7:11 at 6 in the morning, my coffee, and I see regular cops. I'm like, thank you, sir, for at least showing a warrant. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Arrest me. Yeah, exactly. You know, because ICE is doing none of that. None of it. None of that. They're not doing warrants to do it. They took. I don't want to cry. They. They pushed a. A wife out of the way. She's like, what are you doing? They took the husband, tossed him in the van and drove off. It all happened so fast that no one was able to film it. Damn. No, in this era, no one was able to film it. And they know that how, that they're doing it that fast. That's the trick. Yeah, that's the trick. That's what we've been telling. Like, a lot of people have asked me, just friends from out of town, like, dude, has it. Has it toned down? And I was like, no, it just went underground. It's like they just. Yeah, they're a lot more sneaky now. Like, it's not this big display of power. It's more the sniper guerrilla warfare to where, like you said, you just getting your gas, like you out here pumping gas, and then somebody just and it's so fast I can't film it. You know what I'm saying? Yes. And the hard part for me is like, is, is to your point, to where it's like, since you're not identifying yourself, like, like you might not even be a ICE agent. And, and that's a thing that happened. That's a thing that there are people who impersonate law enforcement officers and go harass people just on a racist basis.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

You know, and, and, and it's arguable that the Trump administration is empowering people like that man. Yeah, so, so yeah, it absolutely is happening. To be honest, my union, we're going to always support the actions that are fighting back against it. But the, but the only things that we really have jurisdiction to, to actually fight.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[James Stout]

Is, is our, is the labor related. And so, you know, we, we actually just got telework extended in exchange for delaying our raise, you know, because the state's really broke right now for a lot of reasons. Yeah. We delayed for two years a raise that we were about to get in July. So there were already a couple months past not having that raise. But in exchange we got our telework agreement extended for two years. So what I would tell people who want to get involved is like, if you are in a workplace that has a union, get involved, you know, and, or if you had someone in your life like me who does union stuff outside of work, next time they invite you to a phone bank or next time they invite you to an event, go, go support. Because we're absolutely. We were at the no Kings protest. We were at the anti ICE protest. Like, like, like, like we're in the unofficial capacity. We're gonna, we're gonna do all those kind of things to support the broader community. And, and even though it's my union, like for example, on Wednesdays we have a lot of our meetings, we're doing phone banking for Prop 50. Right. Which is the whole redistricting thing, which gives us the power to take some seats away from the Republicans. I know there's a lot of, there's a debate to be had there, but ultimately it's, it's us trying to take. Keep some power, power away from the right wing. And you don't have to be in my union to go to those phone banks. If you want a phone bank to help Prop 50 pass so we could take some Republican seats away from the Federal House of Representatives. Hit me up, Hit up anybody in, in, you know, in the Inland Empire chapter of seiu. And we can bring you to a phone bank in Ontario and we'll get pizza or barbecue or whatever. And we could phone bank against these dang Republicans. Yeah, man. Man, Tangent. I appreciate this, man. I appreciate you, man. I've been wanting to have wanted you to have me on. I love your show and I love you, man. I think you're such a cool dude. I think you're wise. I think that you're, you're engaging the community in a cool way. You're an artist I respect a lot. And not just me. I mean people, friends, like sincere. Yeah. Like explain to me why you're significant to them and why you're an influence and stuff like that. So I appreciate even being on your radar, brother. Man, stop it. Stop it some more. I'm just kidding. My wife says that. Okay, so perfect. Well then tell us how people need to hear your music, how they can get in touch with you, how they could follow you. Give me all the links. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So T A N J I N T. It's Tangent. You know, you can find me on everything. Twitter, Instagram, you know, Facebook, what was it? The, the Inland Empire Music Award show that I'm a co director and co founder of [e-mail] that's its only empire.com and also I want to encourage Inland Empire artists. You know, you still have from now till the end of September to, to submit to the award show. And, and we've been doing it for three years. We partnered with non profits and businesses. We throw a dope ass gala. Yeah. You know, award show at a little art center in downtown San Bernardino at the Garcia center for the Arts. Or we give away real trophies and real awards and we have red carpet media and performances. It's like, it's like the Grammys for the Inland Empire. So you know, please get involved in. It's only empire.com. that's only empire. Now. Fam Likely is my group with Diesel. We got a new album out that's like Scam Likely on your phone, but Fam Likely, because it's likely that your fam is hitting you up. Fam Likely. West Coast Avengers is my first group. The more nerdcore, Inland Empire stuff. And we got a new album that came out just under a year ago now, the Harvest. So I'm, I'm everywhere. You can catch everything all over the place.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Tangent Wiggle. Thank you so much, my brother. Hey, thank you, man. Much love.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

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[Garrison Davis]

This is the story of the One.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

As a custodial supervisor at a high school, he knows that during cold and flu season, germs spread fast. It's why he partners with Grainger to.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Stay fully stocked on the products and.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Supplies he needs, from tissues to disinfectants to floor scrubbers, all so that he.

[Tyler Black]

Can help students, staff and teachers stay healthy and focused.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Call 1-800-granger.

[Tyler Black]

Click granger.com or just stop by Granger.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

For the ones who get it done.

[James Stout]

There's a vile sickness in Abbas Town. You must excise it, dig into the.

[Tyler Black]

Deep earth and cut it out. The village is ravaged.

[Robert Evans]

Entire families have been consumed. You know how waking up from a dream a familiar place can look completely alien? Get back everyone. He's got ds.

[James Stout]

And if you see the devil walking around inside of another man, you must.

[Tyler Black]

Cut out the very heart of him.

[Mia Wong]

Burn his body, and scatter the ashes.

[James Stout]

In the furthest corner of this town.

[Tyler Black]

As a warning from iHeart podcasts and.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Grim and mild from Aaron Manke, this is havoc, a new fiction podcast set in the Bridgewater Audio universe, starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc town on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. The Devil Walks in Avistown I just.

[Garrison Davis]

Think the process and the journey is so delicious. That's where all the good stuff is. You just can't live and die by the end result.

[James Stout]

It's scary putting yourself out there, especially.

[Garrison Davis]

When it's something you really care about.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

And something that you hope is your your passion in life and you want people to like it. Let's get delicious and put ourselves out there.

[James Stout]

I'm Simone Boyce, host of the Bright side.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

And those were my recent guests, comedian.

[James Stout]

Phoebe Robinson and writer Aaron Foster. On this show, I'm talking to the.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Brightest minds in entertainment, health, wellness, and pop culture.

[James Stout]

And every week we're going places in our communities, our careers, and ourselves.

[Garrison Davis]

It's not about being perfect.

[James Stout]

It's about going on a journey and discovering the bright side of becoming.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Few people know that better than soccer legend Ashlyn Harris. It's the journey, it's the people, it's the failures, it's the heartache, it's the little moments. These are our moments to laugh, learn, and exhale. So join me every Monday and let's.

[James Stout]

Find the bright side together. Listen to the bright side on the.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Iheartradio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Mia Wong]

Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about why everything feels absolutely awful and also deeply unhinged. I am your host via Wong and oh, boy. Thing feel bad.

[Kaveh Hoda]

I don't know.

[Mia Wong]

This is my most. This is my most Robert esque intro in a while. With me to talk about why everything sort of feels like this and the disconnect between the fact that, like, everyone actually hates tropes, Trump, and the way that's being not covered and reflected in everything that you interact with is Vicki Osterweil, who is a writer and editor at the Collective journal call, doer of many things, Agitator.

[Tyler Black]

Busy. I'm very busy.

[Mia Wong]

I think it says bricklayer Mason.

[Tyler Black]

That's right.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. Who also has a new book called the extended universe out April 14th of next year that is about the way that Disney sort of took over the world through the deployment, expansion, and usage of the violence of the copyright regime. A thing that is suddenly very relevant again in our weird Jimmy Kimmel hours. So we'll be talking some more about that and about Disney's long history of fascist bullshit towards the end of the show.

[Tyler Black]

Exactly.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Tyler Black]

Yeah. Well, it's a pleasure to be here, Mia. Thanks. And yeah, we are all Jimmy's Kimmel. You know, know, in this moment, I think. Oh, God.

[James Stout]

Oh, no.

[Tyler Black]

Jimmy's Kibble posted that. I love you.

[Mia Wong]

Okay, so I think that the place I wanted to start is with this, like, question of, like, why does it feel like this? Yeah, And I think part of the reason it feels like that is that Trump's approval rating is really low. Like, people don't actually like him. It's like 41. His river rating is 41%. It's down like a point in September. Even with all the Charlie Kirk stuff, it's still Down.

[Tyler Black]

Yep.

[Mia Wong]

His most popular policies, immigration policy, which is terrifying, but his most popular policy is pulling at 42%. So no one actually likes him or anything that he does. Right. And like, like 41% is still like a lot of people, but it's not the majority of the country. Yeah, notably, like by how math works.

[Tyler Black]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

There's been a few things I think are interesting about this. There, there, there, there are signs that this is actually really, really, there's something substantive happening here. One of them was a special election that I think people paid attention to for about two days and then forgot about, which was a special election in, in Iowa, which, like, prevented the GOP from getting a two thirds super majority in, in, in the state legislature. And the Democrats, somehow, miraculously, even though the Democrats are hideously unpopular, they won a special election in a district in western Iowa that was plus 11 for Trump this year. And this is not like a, like, this is a district that is like just Sioux City or something or like, you know, this is a, this is a gerrymandered ass district that is like a little bit of Sioux City and then stretched out all the way into a bunch of rural areas, like, diffuse the vote. They won this district by 11, like last year. They lost this election by 11 points in Western Iowa.

[Tyler Black]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Unhinged. They're doing like all the elections like this. Like, it's, it's f. Ing ridiculous. Like, and again, this, this is like, this is again, like voting for people who are like, not popular. But it's like literally any alternative. People are like, holy shit. Western Iowa is like, nah, fuck this. This fucking sucks ass.

[Tyler Black]

Like, yeah, a thing that, you know, I've been following a bit is that farmers are freaking out. Yeah. Soybean. Soybean crops and corn crops are going to be rotting in the fields. You know, I think soybean, Soy. Soy in particular, something like 50% of the US soy crop is traditionally exported. And by traditionally, I mean every year exported to China. This year, China is not buying any American soybeans. Yep. So literally half of the market is going to die. And I don't know, you know, sometimes these numbers don't. Don't really do justice. If half of an economy collapses, that's the whole economy collapsing. That's not, that's not like, oh, yeah, they just like took, you know, a haircut. Like, that's massive.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. American farmers are like the most bailed out class of people who are not like major corporations in the entire world. And it's not working like they keep. They keep being like, oh, it's okay. We'll just, like, give you a bunch of money. And it's not enough because China has decided not to buy any of the soybean crop. But it's like, okay. And this is something we talked about, like, at the beginning of the administration, which is that, like, this administration has been going through and systematically alienating every single part of the coalition. Yeah, they're pissing off, like, the farmers. They're pissing off, like, the major pharmaceutical companies. They're pissing off the military. They're pissing off a whole bunch of the parts of government bureaucracy. Like. Like, they've kind of stripped the FBI to the bones over, like, comey stuff that they're still mad about. And then the guy they put in charge of it is just, like, completely incompetent. And it's like, okay, there's only so long. You can sort of go, like, systematically alienating every part of your coalition, just like, basically attempting to drop a bomb on the economy every single week. And sometimes it drops and sometimes it doesn't.

[Tyler Black]

Yeah, exactly. I think there's actually an interesting sort of parallel here with tech stocks and with, like, the economy in general that has been sort of, you know, on the ground for most of us, has felt like it's been in recession since 2020. Right. You know, of different sizes and localities. But it's felt bad for a while now. It's really bad. No one can get a job.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Tyler Black]

Like, things are really, like, prices are going up, up, up. Everyone feels bad, and yet the stock market is still achieving highs. And I think there's sort of a generalized equivalent strategy of, like, make it look like things are normal and good and like, that will actually support things materially. And, like, I mean, maybe it will forever. Maybe the bottom will never fall out. I don't know. I don't think that's. I think that's a bad bet. But, like. Okay.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, well, but. And I think the interesting part of this, too, is if you look at what's going on with the economy, and it's also worth noting, right? Like, the economy, nominally, in sort of econometric terms, looks fine. You're not fine, but it looks sort of okay.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

The stock market's still growing. There's technically, like, economic growth, but, comma. We both sold this chart a couple of weeks ago. That is the most unhinged thing I've ever seen in my entire life, which is there is a GDP chart by a JP Morgan analyst which shows that Tech. In the last like, year, roughly, like in the last sort of like short term window, it's been 35 to 45% of all US GDP growth.

[Tyler Black]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And when I say tech, by the way, like, to be clear about this, it is technically a composite of like all the sector.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

But like it's basically just the, like the top, like the, the five big tech companies, right?

[Kaveh Hoda]

Yep.

[Mia Wong]

It's like Apple, it's Microsoft, but basically. And this is the one that's like unhinged right now is that like the most valuable company in the world is Nvidia, a company that makes graphics cards.

[James Stout]

Yep, yep.

[Mia Wong]

And this is all because this is all of this GDP growth quote unquote, is AI boom stuff, right? It's like massive fixed capital investment. Sure. It's like, yeah, there's, there's like incredible fixed capital investments, but the fixed capital investments are just. We're building a diesel powered AI data center somewhere in Tennessee that is going to poison the entire population for no benefit. Yeah. And it's like all of these companies have gone just completely, totally all in on AI. A thing that doesn't make any money, can't make any money, and structurally will not make any money. And this is like a third of the growth of the economy.

[Tyler Black]

We are actually living through the famous old tweet the drill. Is it drill about the candles? Someone help fix my economy. We're living in the candles tweet. The whole economy is candles.

[Mia Wong]

And this is something that our colleague at Zizron argues that there's just. There is not enough, enough money in the world to just continuously bail these companies out.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Like there just isn't. Right. The cash flow of these companies is like they've managed to achieve a cash flow rate that like can't be replaced by government contracts, which is just unbelievable. And I think this is one of the disconnect things, right, because like, it's interesting, you're starting to see a little bit of stuff crop up from like local level politicians where every once in a while you get them be like, oh yeah, no, it is like a recession economy like on the ground in like Wisconsin, but I feel like in the media. And this is one of the things that I think makes everything insane. It's not being treated that way.

[Tyler Black]

Yeah, no. And I think, you know, you went exactly where you know, we talked about going, but we were gonna go. Which is that like part of what is so crazy making about this current moment is precisely that disconnect between sort of the on the ground experience. That everyone's been having for years now, but is, like, especially intense and, like, the fact that like, like AI is very obviously not interesting or good and no one likes it. And like, even the people who sort of are, I think, mostly in good faith, like, trying to take it seriously and who are like, yeah, it's going to change everything. Like, you know, like, normie people at in work stuff, like, they don't really use it very much or if they do use it, like, it's not effective. There wasn't a campaign to force everyone to buy smartphones when the iPhone happened. Everyone wanted one because it was, like, obvious what it did for you. Now, you know, of their. Obviously, whatever. This is not a defense of the smartphone, but, like, there is this broad recognition that that is nonsense, right? That, like, the AI economy is nonsense. That, like, the economy that everyone says is doing fine feels bad. And this has been going on since, you know, Biden campaigned on, you know, oh, it's just a vibe session. The, you know, the economy is fine. And, like, the economy wasn't fine.

[Mia Wong]

No.

[Tyler Black]

One of the charts I really am obsessed with is a chart from, like, Bloomberg, which is like, small business owner confidence from 2010 to 2025. And if you look from 2016 to 2020, which is the first Trump term, it goes up like 500%, right?

[Mia Wong]

Jesus Christ.

[Robert Evans]

It just goes up.

[Tyler Black]

It just is huge. It's the highest. It's been by huge margin and it just drops again in 2020. So it finally made me understand why so many libs were so committed to the vibe session analysis. Because there was a massive vibe inflation under the first Trump administration. Administration. So the reason people felt like the economy was good was because small business owners, and this is the classic analysis of fascists, right, is that the petty bourgeois, the small business owners, they were like, this is the best times you've ever lived through based on no evidence. And if you work for a business and your boss is like, things are booming, we're doing great. If you don't run the numbers, you're likely to believe it. If everyone around you is saying that, there's no reason to doubt it, unless you don't really believe your boss a lot of the time. But you know what I'm saying? It's just. It hasn't. It has an effect of. Of making everyone feel like things are better. That chart started to creep up again after Trump's election, November 2024, before Liberation Day. But on the announcement of the Liberation Day, tariffs, tanks. So that's gone.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. It's gone. Yep, yep. And I think that's a really vital sort of component of what's happening is like, you know, we, we talk a lot about how so there's sort of these like self contained like reality tunnels that people are gone down, but it's also really diffused by class.

[Tyler Black]

Yes, yes.

[Mia Wong]

And this t the AI stuff for example, where it's like if you are in the tech sector, AI is kind of useful because the one thing it can sort of kind of do decently well is program.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

And if you're. And if you are in this sort of like world, which is again enormous portions of all of the economic growth right. That is happening is coming out of these places. And it's like, oh, this really does look like, like the future is here. If you've, you suddenly have this machine that can do your job for you. And it's like, well, maybe coding wasn't that hard begin with maybe. But like, you know, like I say this is someone who learned to code and hated it. But like, you know, but like it creates these sort of like self reinforced like reality tunnels. But every. But the thing about the reality tunnels is like every once in a while like the actual world comes in like a giant arrow and punctures it. And that's what happened to the small business people was they were like, oh, what do you mean they got rid of the de minimis succession. What do you mean they're putting all these tariffs up? What do you mean they're like, like just straight up taking a sledgehammer to the entire logistics system that have been like, that's the basis of like most American small businesses are like our shipping businesses, right? Like, or they're either either directly shipping businesses or they rely on, on cheap imports from a whole bunch of different countries. And this even goes into like the grift economy, right? Like massive portions of the grift economy are just like, yeah, like drop shipping.

[Tyler Black]

Grift bullshit supplements stacks. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, like, yep, yep. You know, it's another reality tunnel. I mean. Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Oh, these products and services.

[James Stout]

Damn it.

[Mia Wong]

That, that was a better one than I was going to do.

[Garrison Davis]

I was going to do.

[Mia Wong]

Do you know what else is a scam but these products and services that support this podcast. We are so back. We have never been more back. I want to kind of also talk about what's been happening structurally with the media as this has been going on, which is that Trump and his party has staged a pretty successful takeover of a lot of it. You know, you Had, I mean, Elon Musk obviously buying X, but like they're in the process of taking over CBS basically by using the fact that quote unquote, free media is actually capitalist media. And you can just buy them out and bully them by threatening them with losing money. You can in fact just completely get them to fall in line or have your own rich backers just buy it. And I think this, this is sort of fueling the disconnect, right? Where there was also this, this post2020. All of like this, the senior management level of all of the newspapers kind of lost their minds in 2020 because their staff was like, no, we don't want to Prince Tom Cotton calling for the US army to be deployed against protesters. And these people were like, okay, fuck it. You see, it's like the Washington Post, they were like, yeah, we will literally rather burn the Post than have that happen again. And the Post obviously is like under the control of Jeff Bezos, who is a style where Trump ally. And I think this has been contributing to it because they've been able to take over social media platforms and they've been able to take over the sort of corporate bourgeois media. And it's created this incredible unreality of this image that he is this staggeringly popular leader and that the things he do are popular and that there's been like a giant cultural shift towards his stuff. And it's like. Well, I mean, there kind of has been a cultural shift in terms of like, you know, elite liberals are allowed to be racist again.

[Kaveh Hoda]

It's like all of the people who.

[Mia Wong]

Always wanted to be eugenicists are like, you know, on that shit now.

[Tyler Black]

And they, you know, they cracked their knuckles and warmed up under Covid. Right. Like, this is, this is also contagious in a way. And yeah, but yeah, no, I think that, that exactly right. And I think part of what we saw in the last week, I mean, I know we were going to talk about this a bit that like the last week when we're recording this, which was the week of the Charlie Kirk memorializing, when everyone pretended that ventilating a Nazi was like the greatest tragedy that had befallen American heroes. And I saw a lot of people who had been up until then relatively level headed suddenly really start to panic that week and feel like things were really. And I think part of that was because with a man as absolutely rizzless and as obviously malicious and uninteresting as Charlie Kirk getting that treatment, like he was, you know, Robert Redford or whatever, who also Passed. I think that happening in unison across all the media. I think people finally realized like, oh, everything is totally captured. And the people who hadn't really thought that felt like that there was sort of this unanimity. The unanimity you're talking about. Because they're able to project this unanimity through this one sort of media voice. And the fact that that was punctured by Jimmy Kimmel getting fired and there being a genuine upswell of popular attention about the man show guy who hasn't been funny probably since he was 14 or whatever. I think a lot of people have focused on that as being extremely embarrassing and cringe. Which, yeah, accurate. But I think also they couldn't even hold it together for a week, right? They couldn't even hold this full court press together for a week. They had that Charlie Kirk documentary. They were like, we're going to film it on, you know, on Sinclair. All the places where we would be showing Jimmy Kimmel. They just canceled it. They put it on YouTube.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

26,000 views. This means that I am very, very proud of this. More people listen to me complaining about the way that everything everywhere all at once was spreading the bourgeois patriarchal ideology of the family. More people listen to me talk about that on this show than watch their stupid fucking Charlie Memorial.

[Tyler Black]

Yeah, sorry to that man, but do not care. Like people don't care about that guy. And. And it didn't. And also, as you said at the opening, his polls have gone down. People are like, shut up about this. Like they don't care.

[Garrison Davis]

It doesn't work.

[Tyler Black]

Polls aren't everything. But like, I think this disconnect that's so hard is that if you are mostly getting your information from a media environment, which all of us do, like that's how most of us get all of our information. That's. This is not a judgment. It feels like everyone is like, you know, is at like half master for their beautiful. Their beautiful boy. Look what they did to my beautiful Bo with his tiny little face and his huge neck that like apparently was made of steel and caught bullets. Like a Fox News article said that he was like particularly strong bodied and he kept. He saved other people.

[Mia Wong]

Okay, I need to talk about this for a second because this is so fucking unhinged. Okay, so his like surgeon or whatever was like, oh yeah, he was.

[Robert Evans]

He started.

[Mia Wong]

His surgeon wrote a thing about like this bone that doesn't exist in your neck that he was like, oh yeah, he had this really thick bone there that stopped the bullet. And this got like, picked up by, like, Fox News, who's now running a story about this magical iron bone in Charlie Kirk's neck that, like, God put there or something to save. I just, it's.

[Tyler Black]

It's so I can read the headline for you. Hang on, I've got it here.

[Mia Wong]

Oh, God.

[Tyler Black]

This is Fox News on X. There's a picture of Charlie Kirk. It says, surgeon says Charlie Kirk's body stopped bullet in, quote, absolute miracle that saved others. TPUSA says. And then, quote, man of steel, Charlie Kirk's body stopped a bullet that would typically, quote, just go through everything. And it was, quote, an absolute miracle. Nobody else was killed. His surgeon told Turning Point usa. So that's weird behavior that people don't like. That's not. Yeah, no. So I think, like, basically they have this capacity to do this, like, really, really intense, unified message across the entire spectrum of the media. And we're seeing it again and right now with like, NPR publishing, basically. Does Tylenol actually cause autism? The science isn't out yet, you know, or whatever, like, as their headline, you know. So, like, obviously, like, that's scary if you're used to a reality which is shaped largely by the media. And Trump has gotten into office twice based on a media reality shaping effect. The media has been the main tool, both social and mainstream, for putting him into power. So it's understandable to take it seriously because it does need to be taken seriously. But there's other stuff going on.

[Mia Wong]

Well, and like, the funniest version of this was just how fast Disney caved on bringing Jimmy Kimmel back.

[James Stout]

Yes.

[Mia Wong]

Which was like, sub one week.

[Tyler Black]

Yeah, no, it was sub one week. And you know, to me that says that actually the boycott spread real fast and real far. Like, there was a Disney Adult on TikTok. Right, right. Who was sort of like, giving people instructions on how to cancel their Disney World vacations and was like, canceling his Disney World wedding, you know, and, like, this was like, all happening really, really fast. People were really mad. And, you know, yeah, it's again, it's goofy that it's over Jimmy Kimmel, but it's not really about Jimmy Kimmel.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Right.

[Tyler Black]

It's because everyone hates this, man. They hate this.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And people don't actually want this dipshit to just literally. And, you know, and he's trying to do this again. Right. He's apparently trying to sue Disney. Like, they don't want the fucking orange guy to be able to just straight up say what is legal to say on tv, which is the thing that he is attempting to do right now.

[Tyler Black]

And the other thing about it that I think is really important and relevant is that a better dictatorship doesn't go to the press and fire this man. They pull strings behind the scenes. They get him to retract on his show in a way that causes no attention. And the people who follow Kimmel see it enough to understand that power has been pulled behind the strings, but they probably don't really think much about it.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Tyler Black]

That is how, like, real, really smooth, smooth repression of a free press into a bot press involves a lot of strings being pulled behind the scenes. And in fact, it has been happening for 20 years in America. There has been a lot of that going on. Part of what's so obscene about this whole situation in a certain way is that Trump just needs to do less. Things have been set up for fascism for a while. He just needs to do less. And he can't help himself. They can't help themselves because they're, you know, because they need it to be in this sort of public mode. And also he's lost his, you know, his juice.

[Mia Wong]

But yeah, yeah, well, and it's also just like. I mean, this is also partially. Trump is just like pathologically obsessed with late night comedy.

[Tyler Black]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

Because he's a TV guy. And so he's just mad. Red and mad and nude online. Except. Except, like the previous version of it where, like, you were just like throwing shit at your television set in, like 1955, which is a really terrifying thing to have in the presidency. But, you know, speaking of, speaking of having things in the presidency, these products and services, look, if they paved you more, you get better transitions, but they don't.

[Tyler Black]

So vote for them.

[Mia Wong]

We are back. So, you know, I, I think it's worth noting that, like. Yeah, no, like, like the immediate financial pressure of, you know, just, just the collision of. Wait, hold on. Like the people who buy things, which is most people, admittedly like Disney adults are a very narrow subset of people. But like, like the speed and rapidity of which reality, which is people don't, like, this guy hit the, like, sort of, you know, just like, sort of smashed through this, like, tunnel of the Charlie Kirk stuff was just unbelievable. And like, part of this, this is something that Marisa Kabas from the Hand Basket reported, which is that part of what was going on was Disney was about to roll out a price increase.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And so they had to bring it back so they could do their price increase. Which, brother, just delay the price increase if you' you authoritarian Whatever. Okay. You know, I am happy. These people suck at doing this. It's great. We like it. We like that they're bad at it, right?

[Kaveh Hoda]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

You know, like, Disney is being pressured here. But I think it's worth talking about something that you have been spending a ungodly amount of time in the minds of, which is Disney and fascism. Oh, boy. Yay.

[Tyler Black]

Yeah. I mean, part of what's been so funny about this week for me personally, and that's what really, really matters, obviously, is that, like, you know, when we went into this administration, we started seeing what they were doing. I was like, I can't believe I'm writing a book about free trade and lawfare.

[James Stout]

Right?

[Tyler Black]

Like warfare by law. Like, you know, like, like sort of this, this massive corporate legal apparatus that has been supported by global trade regimes. Because they're ripping it apart, right? Like that. Like, yeah, like farm. The pharma tariffs is like a huge blow to the IP radio. Sorry, the intellectual property regime. The IP regime is what I analyze in the book I've just written and is coming out in April. And it's about how Disney really was like a sort of pioneer in understanding the value of intellectual property and manipulating it and how you can see that through the entire corporate and artistic history of Disney studios. So it's about, like, Disney movies and how they're all connected. They actually all sort of tell stories about IP in certain ways and how we sort of miss that angle on them very often, very frequently and misunderstand how much IP functions in the broader society. Because, for example, fast fashion companies. Now, I know you said talk about Disney, I'm talking about something else. But fast fashion companies, they actually own very, very little materially. So their offices are leased mostly. Their factories are contracted. Everyone who makes the sewing is contracted. They might own their stores, but they probably lease their stores. They have very few direct employees of the than like store level. If they don't franchise, but they might even franchise, they might not even employ the store level people, but they probably do store level people, corporate employees. And then they own their ip and maybe they own a headquarters building somewhere.

[James Stout]

Right?

[Tyler Black]

Like that's a fancy building. Yeah. And everything else is, quote, unquote, owned by them, controlling the designs, the logos, the images. And they can guarantee that they can make almost infinite money off of that. Because the global trade regime enforces copyright law in a way that would make people who would like to see any human rights thing enacted blush with shame. And it is incredibly effective. It is the one thing that international law does quite well is enforce. Is enforce copyright and trademark and patent. So when you have stuff like the. You know, you can no longer ship under $800 without tariffs. Like, those companies are entirely reliant on being able to move these products as cheaply and as quickly as possible because they don't own ships, they don't own factor. They don't even really own the. You know, they. They own the shirts only when they arrive on American shores, really.

[Mia Wong]

This has always been the dream of the reproduction of capital, which is to have a company with no assets that makes money.

[Tyler Black]

Exactly.

[Mia Wong]

And they're so close. They're so close.

[Tyler Black]

Close.

[Kaveh Hoda]

And.

[Tyler Black]

And all this stuff is destroying it. So I was like, well, great. Now I've written this whole book about how Disney, you know, is actually really like a state actor. And, like, they have. They have, like, a sovereign territory in Florida that people talk about a little bit called the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which you may or may not know about. People talked about Celebration Florida a bit when that happened in the 2000s, which is like a weird, creepy company town that they run. They actually own a huge section of. It's like two counties. It's larger than the size of Manhattan in central Florida.

[Mia Wong]

Jesus Christ.

[Robert Evans]

What?

[Tyler Black]

The conflict was Desantis over the don't say Gay Bill, which people interpreted largely through the lens of the horrifyingly reactionary politics he was pushing, which is understandable. Understandable is also a conflict over sovereignty in Florida because they don't pay taxes in the same way. They make their own laws, they have their own police force.

[Mia Wong]

So basically, Jesus Christ, Disney made the first networks.

[James Stout]

They did it.

[Tyler Black]

They actually did it. And they've been doing it for 30 years or no, that's 69 is when they get the deal for reading.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Holy shit.

[Tyler Black]

They've had it for a long time. People don't love to talk about this for some reason, and I think it's really interesting. Terrifying, but really interesting. But the reason that that's all really, really connected to intellectual property is because one of the things that Disney did, despite, you know, having literally their own state lit in the middle of Florida, is maintain themselves as the Magic Kingdom. They are associated with childhood nostalgia, magic. Even as they've grown and grown and grown into this behemoth, like, they've managed to largely stay connected to this sort of image of American innocence in childhood. And there have been more moments in the 90s they overreached a bit. There's been, like, you know, there have been problems. And you can read all about that. But basically they did image management on all these different levels. So they managed Mickey Mouse, they managed the law around copyright. Like copyright extensions, famously were largely driven by Disney lobbying in 1976 and then again in 1998.

[Mia Wong]

Yep.

[Tyler Black]

Anyway, so all of these things, I'm trying to reduce a very big argument into a very small package here, but basically Disney designed and the other IP businesses that work around it, it have figured out that if you can control the way your product appears in the market and you can control the images and the feelings people have about them and the sort of thoughts and stuff, you can really do whatever you want materially behind the scenes. Right. That controlling an image is so powerful. And part of why what's happening with Disney, why it's falling apart so fast, is because if they give in to Trump at all, it requires shattering that image. That has been a century in the making. Right. Like, part of what was so brutal about the thing with Jimmy Kimmel was like, it's just obvious that Disney did that, that the corporate people did that, and they did it because Trump did it publicly. Trump is humiliating these corporations publicly. Right? He's humiliating them. He's forcing them to come to heel. It's not working popularly. He's not capturing anti corporate sentiment. Really. People are like, why are you doing that over Jimmy Kimmel? That's weird. You're a creep. But then also. So he's also destroying the legitimacy of everyone. It's pulling everything down around him. It's a family annihilation. Right. He's so angry about 2020 and, like, being tried that he's just gonna rip everything down around him. Wow, that was a. I just said a lot of different things.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

But.

[Tyler Black]

But all of which is to say, like, what's so interesting about, like, the Trump regime in some ways and the relationship to Disney is that Disney has for so long built this image of America that has managed to persist, exist, like, across and against, you know, a century of increasingly violent, ineffective, and visible imperialism. Like in Korea and Vietnam and then Iraq and Afghanistan. It was so crucial to the image of what American capitalism was. And then Trump, a man who is just as built by images as the Disney Corporation, comes and is just like, just is ripping it all down because he's sort of, you know, one gaping, narcissistic wound. Right. Like running. Running a country. Right? Yeah. So if you look at the history of. Of Disney in general, Hollywood and intellectual property management in general, what you can see is the way that this media apparatus has been built. When I say Media apparatus. I think people tend to think when you talk about images or the spectacle or whatever, they just think about stuff on tv. But no, it's also all the products that circulate through society. And it's like the way that you get paid for your job with the idea of clout is actually part of that. It does function as a form of payment. People make fun of that, like, oh, good. But then everyone acts as though it's real. And then when everyone acts as though it's real, it's real. It's a social relation. So the entire spectacular economy, which is built entirely on images that rely only on being forced through a sort of massive group think from the top of the economy in the political class was built by these corporations, but it was built explicitly to, you know, reap as much wealth as possible for. For their shareholders. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mia Wong]

To make money. Yeah.

[Tyler Black]

Trump is too perfect a product of that, and this regime is too perfect a product of that. And now it's all. It's all, you know, it is its own gravedigger, you know.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. Report has a line about, like, the way that the spectacle sort of, like, intrudes into and, like, becomes reality. And, like, if Disney is sort of like the stage manager of this. Right. Like, Trump just is the thing, like, come to life and powering through it, and he doesn't. Because he is the image and not the thing that creates the image. He has different interests.

[Tyler Black]

Yes.

[Mia Wong]

Than the people who create the image who are, you know, trying to make money. Trump is trying to, like, satisfy all of his, like, vindictive sort of narcissistic rage.

[James Stout]

Exactly.

[Tyler Black]

It's worth remembering that, you know, although the damage he's doing is extremely real.

[James Stout]

Real.

[Tyler Black]

He genuinely is fighting over the election and over, like, Comey. Like, he is, like, he really believes these things. This is a regime that believes the things that, for example, Karl Rove would teach people to say to get away with doing what they wanted to do.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Tyler Black]

These are, as you said, they are the image itself. They are true believers in the spectacle and as such, break the fourth wall.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Tyler Black]

If we're going to use a theater metaphor here, as such, they end up, like, just destroying it. And I think Trump's power was that he could puncture the spectacle.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Tyler Black]

And then there were all the people as you. As you described, and the people who make the spectacle, maintain the image, make the image. They were around him. So they would just. They would just close up the puncture, they would close up the suture, they would work really, really hard. Right. So what I mean by that is, like, Trump would say something absolutely unhinged, and the New York Times would be, like, controversial statement from President Trump. Right. Which, like, completely normalizes it. And, like, everyone would sort of pretend that he hadn't just said the most unhinged lunatic shit. And this is the first administration I'm talking about. Right. Like, people would just pretend that it was normal. Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

He was speaking of Four Seasons, total landscape. Right. Like, just like shit would happen.

[Tyler Black]

Exactly. And everyone would sort of try to. Would normalize it. And that normalization repaired the fabric of the spectacle, and it made Trump's fans really happy because you get to watch august institutions such as the Washington Post going over backwards to make. Make an obvious obscene lie seem like a reasonable claim.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Tyler Black]

So they were humiliated in fixing the spectacle behind him as he punctured it.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Tyler Black]

But he has actually, too successfully gotten rid of everyone who did that repair. He actually thought they were his enemies. The Rhinos. Right. The Republicans who kept him in line, the Democrats, the media, they have been purged. They have all been purged and controlled. And now they all just repeat what he says. And what ends up happening is that the spectacle just remains torn, and people see through it like it's just not working anymore. And I think what's scary is that it still feels like they're repairing the spectacle around his claims, because the entire media is speaking as one and the Democrats are speaking as one and the Republicans are speaking as one, and they're all agreeing. You know, we imagine someone else, John Q. Public, sitting there and seeing that and going, oh, okay, it's all pretty normal. Like, oh, Charlie Kirk was a good guy. You know, we sort of project that that is there. But actually more and more people who would have been like that in the first regime are like, well, I don't believe any of this shit.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Tyler Black]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And I think it's also worth saying, like, the way that we're talking about this in terms of his unpopularity and reality, in terms of why it feels like this, it doesn't mean that there's not just horrible shit happening constantly. Right. And that's the other part of his ability to sort of eliminate the legitimization part of the spectacle, which was that, like, that it was, to some extent restraining him. Right. Like, that's the reason why there wasn't just, like, there were a bunch of deportations under Trump, there were a bunch of deportations under Biden. The thing that's happening now is not the thing that Was happening before, right?

[Tyler Black]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

The Secretary of the Interior wasn't showing up at like 5:30 in the morning in a suburb of Chicago to blow up someone's door and drag a bunch of American citizens out of their house.

[Kaveh Hoda]

House.

[Mia Wong]

Like that was like not happening.

[Tyler Black]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Before. And that stuff is just, you know, it's unbelievably horrifying. And it's also not popular.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

Like even, even those approval rating numbers. Right. Like, you know, like his immigration policy in theory is the most popular thing he's doing. And also ICE can't do mass large scale raids because if they stay in one place for too long, so many people will show up. They can't do it. And you know, and the lightning raids that they've been doing have been really brutal and really effective. But like, those are not the tactics. A stormtrooper force that broadly has the popular. Has popular consent. Yeah, right. They don't move like that. And you know, I talked about this. I guess it'll be like two weeks ago on executive order, but like people are like stopping these raids in like Wheaton.

[Tyler Black]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Like Wheaton used to be literally the center of the base of power. Power of like the Bush administration Moral Majority shit for like 40 years. This was like the center of the Christian right. And they have lost Wheaton.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

It's been like electing Democrats and it's not just electing Democrats. Like the speed at which it's moved from election Democrats to like a bunch of people showed up and are stopping like lightning ICE raids, which is really impressive. Genuinely very, very impressive organizing. It's very hard to do. Most times it doesn't work because you can't get there fast, fast enough. And somehow, again, like the place that used to be the capital of the Moral Majority, it's like Jerry Farwell's like home domain.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

Like the, the epicenter of like, of the Christian right is doing anti ICE raid shit. Like what? Like, and this is something that's been going on for like, you know, probably like four or five years. Like them doing like really serious, very good direct action. The entire terrain of the world is shifting beneath us while all of these people constantly try to like paint over this little tiny scaffolding. They've set up to be like, no, no, the ground's still there. There's all these holes in the middle of it. But like, you know, we're gonna put on some tarp that like looks like the sky beneath it. It's like, wait, why is the sky down? Don't ask questions. Just keep walking.

[Tyler Black]

Exactly. And I think that's, like. I think that's really important. And a thing that I think happens sometimes when I sort of make this analysis with my friends, I think they think that I'm saying that, like, fascism isn't here or that, like, this isn't a fascist regime or that, like, they don't want to do Nazism. They very clearly do. My analysis has been since February. I mean, part of what's happened is in February, when the Doge stuff was going on, I was like, well, the American Republic is over. We'll never be able to go back. Now. What do we do? So I think a lot of the disjuncture and the confusion and the craziness feeling that people are having is because people are coming to those realizations on separate timelines, because it's really hard to accept. It's a hard and complicated thing to feel and to recognize that actually this is a dying regime and a dying empire. And that does not mean it's less dangerous. In fact, historically, it's often more dangerous. And it's death throes. And it does not mean. When you and I talk about him being ineffective, it does not mean that the stuff he's doing isn't terrifying. We're both trans women who organize with other trans women. We know about it, okay? Y', all. We are dealing with the false fallout all the time. But, like, the situations that we could be going through, the situations that they could be achieving that with the public that they were handed by the Biden administration that had broken solidarity around Covid, that had created an effective red scare around Gaza that had, like, you know, basically perpetuated two genocides and gotten liberals to, like, say that that was normal and good. Right? Like, that was a very, very scary public. Yeah, To. To hand to Nazis, too, now with Nuke.

[James Stout]

Right?

[Tyler Black]

And, like, I think, you know, we do ourselves a disservice when the only fascist regimes we think about are Nazism. And when we think that, like, it's inevitably, like, going to be just like the Nazis. Or even if we just say, well, it could be more like Italy, like, there are dozens of different dictatorships across the history. I don't expect everyone to study all of them. But, like. But, like, it's worth understanding.

[Mia Wong]

Learn a third one. Pick one. Literally, pick one. Fucking anyone. That's not the main two. There are so many like, you have. You are spoiled from.

[James Stout]

Exactly.

[Tyler Black]

Yeah, yeah, you can do. You could do. If you, you know, pick a decade, you know, you, like the 70s go for Swarto in Indonesia. You like the 80s. Brazilian military dictatorship, no problem. Like, or you could do Korea in the 80s. You got lots of choices. Oh, the 50s. Go for Greece, no problem. Don't worry about it. The reason that I bring all that up is just to say that, like, things are really bad and if we don't, you know, throw down this will successfully build an authoritarian fascist state eventually, just by the sheer inertia of the power, power that they have available and the time that they can wait. But as you're saying, and as I've been sort of seeing also, there's tremendous amounts of resistance. It is completely uncovered. It is not being seen. But because they live in the spectacle that they themselves have made, they also don't see and understand their level of resistance. Like, they've disorganized the FBI, right. They fired about like, was it like a fifth of FBI agents, like head agents? And then like a bunch more are now doing like street crime and are like being put into ICE raids. And people talk about that as being terrifying. And it is terrifying. The desire they have to do really brutal ICE raids and to use every resource available to them is scary. But also, if they don't have the FBI's eyes on the ball, which they clearly don't anymore, they have redirected the FBI. They are not nearly as cognizant of what's going on in terms of resistance as they were even six months ago.

[Mia Wong]

No. If you look at the guy who shot Charlie Kirk, right, this is like Carly Kirk is like their guy, right. The FBI is so stripped down right now that with a full court press, the only reason they caught that guy was because he didn't understand that discord wasn't private and he like dropped his gun and didn't pick it up again.

[Tyler Black]

Yeah. And his dad recognized it, Right.

[Mia Wong]

And if he had done those two things, they wouldn't have found him. Like, yeah, they didn't catch him. He turned himself in.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

And that's again, someone assassinated like their guy and they couldn't find him. Like this repressive apparatus, it is really, really scary and very good at doing the thing that it's focused on doing right now, which is like dragging immigrant families from their homes at like 5 in the morning by blowing their fucking doors down and like dragging them away to a prison. Right. It's not good at anything else.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And the thing, right, that, that is a very, very good way to create an engine of, of immense human misery that whose spectacle they can sell. But it's not actually a good way to hold together an authoritarian dictatorship. We have seen very, very successful sort of dictatorships in the last 20, 30 years. Right?

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And they take a bunch of forms. I think the most classically 1930s Nazi Party one is Modi in India. And Modi in India has done the thing in the sense of like, has really, really successfully transformed the consciousness of people in India to this sort of like unbelievably unhinged right wing fascist version of like Hindu supremacy. That hasn't happened here.

[Tyler Black]

Right. You know, it's worth knowing that the RSS, which is his brown shirts, like, has 4 million people in it.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Tyler Black]

Like, I mean, you know, it has million, they have millions of brown shirts. Right. Like ICE is having trouble hiring 12,000 extra agents in a continent of 400 million people. Again, this doesn't mean that everything's fine. But yeah, like if you look at that, if you look at Erdogan in Turkey or you look at Putin in Russia or even Orban to his, to a different degree in Hungary, like, they slow rolled it, right. They, they went through a few elections that were like slightly sketchy but basically normal, like, and they like, and they just slowly built power and it took them a decade to get to the point where they were openly doing authoritarian stuff that Trump is trying to do.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Tyler Black]

And like, again, there's no rules. It might work what Trump is doing, but like compare it to Milei in Argentina.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Right.

[Tyler Black]

Who they all loved so much, who came into power similarly to Trump, started throwing truth bombs everywhere, you know, just like ripped apart. And has now had to come hat in hand begging for a bailout to the United States. Yep. Because his whole thing, his regime fell apart within 24 months.

[James Stout]

Yep.

[Tyler Black]

There is ultimately a material limit to what you can do. Yeah. You can't just speak reality into existence for that long.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And that's, that's the thing.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

If, if it was possible to just speak reality into existence, we would all be living under neoconservatism.

[James Stout]

Right. Right.

[Mia Wong]

There would be like a pure, well functioning oil extracting American client state in Iraq right now.

[James Stout]

Yep.

[Mia Wong]

And I don't know what the fuck they would have done with Afghanistan. But like, if, if, if you could just do the thing. And I've, I talked about this on the show, I talked about this on the show all the time.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

The thing the neoconservatives thought they could do with evidence based reality thing. Right. Where like they, they thought that what they could do was just instead of Observing reality and creating your positions from it. They thought they could just purely influence and manipulate reality to become whatever they wanted it to be, and they couldn't. Right, like, where the is George Bush right now? Right? Like, where is Dick Cheney? Like, the Trump administration somehow staggeringly has managed to, like, they finally found a war crime so bad that John Woo, the architect, like, the guy who wrote the tort manuals, was like, wait, hold on. You can't just blow up random, like, boats of people in Venezuela. Like, what, What? Like, I, I, I, I literally. It had not even occurred to me that it was possible for you to commit a war crime so bad that the guy who wrote the torture memos was like, hold on, hold on, hold on. Wait, I didn't sign up for this.

[Robert Evans]

Like.

[Tyler Black]

Yeah, they're absolutely, like, unhinged. They're horrible. And, and thank God they are so unpopular and so bad at this. Yeah. Because if they were just a little bit better at this, I think it's very clear what they want.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, we're screwed.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Like, we go under it, like, four months, but that hasn't happened because they're not good at this. And they're tearing apart the very institutional apparatus, like Disney. Like, they're tearing apart the very institutional apparatuses that were designed to, like, propagate them. Like, Trump could have just made peace with Disney, right? Like, Trump could have just used, you know, like, like, basically, like the way that every other thing, like, like the way literally the Nazis did, right? Like, until, like, literally until they were forced to break it off during, like, World War II, right? Which is like, use Disney as a propaganda apparatus for you.

[Tyler Black]

And Disney was gun shy because of the fight with, the fight with Santas. Didn't go that well for them, surprisingly. You know, like, they, they had some trouble with that, and so they were gun shy, like, going into the administration. Like, they were very quiet, like, they were not rocking the boat. They were making lots of statements about how, like, you know, we support it. Like, he didn't have to goad them into taking a position in the culture war. Like, they were just very glad that they weren't fighting off Desantis anymore and that they weren't fighting off, you know, the Daily Wire, you know, claiming that they were, you know, whatever the woke mind virus or whatever the hell, you know, like, they were just, they were just putting their, keeping their heads down, trying to rebuild after the disaster of the pandemic, right? Like, trying to, like, get their cruise line back up and, like, as profitable as it could Be, you know, like they're, they were working on, like they were just doing their thing and they were like, no reason Trump should stop that. There's no reason Trump should stop that is what they thought.

[Mia Wong]

No, it's like they, they were implementing like a lot of the culture war stuff that they wanted in terms of like, okay, we're going back to white people, we're never having another non white character again. Like, eat shit.

[Tyler Black]

Like, they cancel, they, they're canceling TV shows with just like queer characters. Like they're just, they're just doing stuff like that. They're doing, they're doing everything that the regime wants. Months. But as you mentioned, he's just sitting there watching TV and throwing his remote around. And unfortunately his remote dictates U.S. policy.

[Mia Wong]

I think that's an important note to close on because his remote dictates US Policy to the extent that everyone pretends that it does. And one of the things that can start happening in the end stages of these kind of regimes is that the levers of power become unglued from the mechanisms that state. Yeah, right. So he just like declared that Antifa is like a domestic terrorist organization.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

We're going to be talking about that later this week, possibly earlier this week. I don't know when this episode's coming out, but that doesn't do anything in and of itself. He's just like waving a magic wand around. But if he doesn't have the repressive apparatus to make that matter, then okay, then, then him throwing the remote around isn't like, like gesturally controlling the arm of like one of the most sophisticated, what's supposed to be one of the most physician repressive apparatuses ever. Right. And they rely on both the compliance of the state bureaucracy, which they've been decently good at pulling in line, but also they rely on our compliance for this and you don't have to comply with them. That's, that's, that's the, that's the fun thing about, about existence is that they can't, yeah. Just, they can't just make it real unless you help them.

[Tyler Black]

And as we saw, as we've already talked about, the Charlie Kirk special doesn't go up right. They say like the COVID vaccines are like, we're going to restrict them. And most of the pharmacies are just like, just check a box saying you need it. Like, you know, like not in every state. But again, like these massive institutions, they can't really get them in line. So why are you letting them get you in line.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And remember, you know, like, they had better control of their institutional apparatuses in 2020. And the outcome of that was there was a giant uprising and they put the President in a bunker, a thing that he's still mad about to this day. Right. Even when it looks like they have total control, they don't. And I don't know if he's going to like end up in a Hitler bunker. But look, as of right now, as it stands, the record of Trump administration's ending with Trump hiding in a bunker is 100%. So you know, if, if, if the past is to be a prediction of the future, we could see it again. When all of this shit goes to hell and the economy collapses and everyone one's like, oh, this was all a lie the whole time. Wow. Damn. Hey, look like, you know, and. Oh God, I don't know if you can say that, but I don't know if we can. We're just gonna, we're just gonna, we're just gonna put a really long leap over that entire sentence and we're gonna, we're, we're gonna leave that sentence as an exercise to the reader.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Completing the.

[Mia Wong]

Sentence, just figuring out what it was saying, saying, not doing the thing. Okay, this has been. It could happen here. Vicky, where can people pre order your book?

[Tyler Black]

Oh, you can go to heymarket. That's who's putting it out. And they have a list of links. You can also go to my Bluesky account, Vickyacab, BSky Social and you can find a link there.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And where can people find you and your work?

[Tyler Black]

Cawshinythings.com, it's the collective anarchist writers or any other acronym you like. C A W. That's where I'm working most right now. Regularly now.

[Mia Wong]

Good crow theming. That's great. That's great.

[Tyler Black]

It's corvid based.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, we love, we love a corvid based economy.

[Tyler Black]

Thanks so much for having me, Mia.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, thanks for coming on.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

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[James Stout]

There's a vile sickness in Abbas Town. You must excise it, dig into the.

[Tyler Black]

Deep earth and cut it out. The village is ravaged.

[Robert Evans]

Entire families have been consumed. You know how waking up from a dream, A familiar place can look completely alien. Get back everyone. Let's go. Dax and if you see the devil.

[James Stout]

Walking around inside of another man, you.

[Tyler Black]

Must cut out the very heart of.

[Mia Wong]

Him, burn his body and scatter the.

[James Stout]

Ashes in the furthest corner of this town.

[Kaveh Hoda]

As a warning from iHeart podcasts and grim and mild from Aaron Manke, this is Havoc Town. A new fiction podcast sets in the Bridgewater Audio universe starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc town on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. The Devil Walks in Abbostown I just.

[Garrison Davis]

Think the process and the journey is so delicious. That's where all the good stuff is. You just can't live and die by the end result.

[James Stout]

It's scary putting yourself out there, especially.

[Garrison Davis]

When it's something you really care about.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

And something that you hope is your passion in life and you want people to like it. Let's get delicious and put ourselves out there.

[James Stout]

I'm Simone Boyce, host of the Bright.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Side, and those were my recent guests, comedian Phoebe Robinson and writer Aaron Foster.

[James Stout]

On this show, I'm talking to the.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Brightest minds in entertainment, health, wellness and pop culture.

[James Stout]

And every week we're going places in our communities, our careers and ourselves.

[Garrison Davis]

It's not about being perfect.

[James Stout]

It's about going on a journey and discovering the bright side of becoming.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Few people know that better than soccer legend Ashlyn Harris. It's the journey. It's the people, it's the failures, it's the heartache, it's the little moments. These are our moments to laugh, learn and exhale. So join me every Monday and let's.

[James Stout]

Find the bright side together. Listen to the Bright side on the.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Iheartradio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just like great shoes, great books take you places through unforgettable love stories and.

[Tyler Black]

Into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Me this feeling of Like Butterflies.

[James Stout]

I'm Danielle Robay, and this is Bookmarked.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

By Reese's Book Club, the new podcast from hello Sunshine and I Heart Podcasts.

[James Stout]

Where we dive into the stories that.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

That shape us on the page and off. Each week. I'm joined by authors, celebs, book talk stars, and more for conversations that will make you laugh, cry, and add way too many books to your TBR pile. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[James Stout]

Apple Books is the official audiobook and.

[Tyler Black]

Ebook home for Reese's Book Club.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Visit apple co/reeseapplebooks to find out more.

[Robert Evans]

Hello and welcome to the podcast. It's me, James, today, and I'm very lucky to be joined by a couple of people who I'm about to introduce to discuss the very important topic of Does Tylenol give your baby autism? I think we probably already know the answer, but nonetheless, we have half an hour to talk about it. So you will hear Dr. Kaveh Hoda laughing. That's.

[Kaveh Hoda]

That's me.

[Robert Evans]

That's Kaveh.

[James Stout]

Yep.

[Robert Evans]

Many of you will know him, but he's a medical doctor and host of the House of Pod podcast. And I'm also joined by Tyler Black, who's a psychologist in British Columbia. Welcome, Tyler.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Psychiatrist.

[Robert Evans]

Psychiatrist. Fucked it up.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Them fighting words, James. Them's fighting words.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

No, I know. Yeah. This is. Yeah. It's like when people call me a sociologist. I understand. Or even worse, an anthropologist.

[Kaveh Hoda]

It's a pleasure to be here.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

And.

[Kaveh Hoda]

And no worries. Tyler is Canadian, so to see him correct somebody on something makes me happy. No, I'm very sorry.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

But that's who I get him on.

[Kaveh Hoda]

He's very sorry. He's very sorry about that. I love Tyler very much. He comes on my show not infrequently. And one really pleasant thing that's happened, one little bright spot in the last, I don't know, five years of terror that have been happening medically is seeing Tyler gradually, over time, become grumpier and more willing to fight.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Kaveh Hoda]

That's the only bright spot I've had. Thank you, Tyler, for that.

[James Stout]

That.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Yeah, you're bad.

[Robert Evans]

I imagine that's a side effect of your consumption of acetaminophenage of maybe. Yeah.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Gotta cut back, bro. Gotta cut back.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

All right. For those not familiar, why are we talking about Tylenol? Might be the name you're familiar if you. Especially if you're American people. I like to Use brand names a little more. I still find that very confusing and I've lived here for the better part of two decades. But why are we talking about Tylenol?

[Kaveh Hoda]

Tyler, do you want to introduce this, this concept?

[James Stout]

Sure.

[Kaveh Hoda]

So, yeah, Tylenol goes by paracetamol in UK and other places in the world. It's acetaminophen here. So it really is not talking about Tylenol, though. The shorthand that the political people who've been talking about it have specifically called out the brand Tylenol, which is bizarre. But this stems from both a mission that RFK Jr, when he took over as the HH, has sort of had, which was to find the cause of autism, which is, you know, his political quest to find some environmental cause. I mean, he started as an environmental lawyer. I don't think he's doing this disingenuously. I think he truly believes there is an environmental cause to autism. But of course, RFK wield science, probably driven by the brain worm. And so he has this way of having a conclusion and then finding the science to support it. Um, and it was very clear that he was going to point towards vaccine, vaccine schedule. And at some point this is definitely coming. Yeah, I think this might be a roundabout way to do it through fevers and Tylenol. But the Tylenol link is something that has been a question mark. So a really quick aside will be that when drugs are regulated, the drug companies have very little natural interest to study it in pregnant people. It only brings them risk. There is no reason to do it. You are required to submit what studies you have on animal toxicity in utero and these types of things, but not really that much for humans. And so the drug companies usually put their hands up and go talk to your doctor about using this.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Kaveh Hoda]

And then the rest of us in medicine have to take that information that's been generated about this medication and try and interpret it on pregnant people. And it creates this system where we create the evidence over the next 20 years in what we call pharmacovigilance or post marketing studies, where we basically, has there been a problem? Did we find any birth defects? You know, and we kind of do it backwards. It kind of makes sense because you couldn't really do an RCT on pregnant women to start with if you didn't know any reason for the drug. So it's one of those sort of loopholes. And so this natural conversation has resulted in science that points in a number of directions. Does acetaminophen cause autism? Can't be answered by the current science because it's all cohort data. It's looking backwards. It's looking at populations. It's confounded. However, the best study was published in 2024, which makes the timing of this announcement really awkward. There was 2.5 million people. It was a. I believe it's a Danish study. Swedish. Swedish study.

[Robert Evans]

Okay.

[Kaveh Hoda]

And in that study, there was a small link found, but because they had 2.5 million people, they could check that link by looking at sibling pairs within that 2.5 million. So in that group, they had 16,000 sibling pairs both exposed to and not exposed to acetaminoph. And lo and behold, they found that there was no relationship there. So this really is one of the more definitive correlational studies that says pretty much any effect we're seeing is probably confounded. It probably isn't due to the acetaminophen, though there are some animal studies that might hint at it. It appears to be minor. And, Kave, I see you're about to say something. Yeah, first of all, that's exactly right. I think that there are a lot of things that Maha and RFK Jr talk about that are just insane and you can dismiss out of hand. This is a topic that is not complete rubbish. It is something that has a little bit of nuance and we can talk about, as Tyler was just mentioning, there is some evidence that there might be a small relationship. But the real key is determining if it's a causal relationship or just correlative. Are they just related for some reason or another, or are they caused by each other?

[Mia Wong]

Other.

[Kaveh Hoda]

And that study that he talked about, that Swedish study, looked at about 180,000 infants that had parents that were exposed to acetaminophen. What's really elegant about that is that it looked at the siblings. That's why it's such an important study. And that's. Would I say it closes the door on the matter? No, I agree with Tyler. I think the preponderance of evidence now is that there is no connection between Tylenol and autism.

[James Stout]

But.

[Kaveh Hoda]

But I don't know if this study totally closes the door. It is really well done, though. So they showed that if you look at siblings, if you look at a family, there's no connection. You take out some of the variables, you take out some of the confounders there that can obfuscate or confuse an issue. You take those out of the picture and you see that there's no relationship between Tylenolycin and menophen. What's interesting, that same study that we just study, if they then put those back in, if they didn't account for the siblings, then yeah. It showed that there is a little bit of evidence, a small basic relationship between, you know, acetaminophen and developing autism. But once you start accounting for some of these, these really tough to account for variables, then you start to see that that falls apart. And that implies that most of these other studies are not causal but correlative relationships. The sort of 2025 update is. And I think this might, I think as that we learn more about it, this might have been something that was either solicited or developed in tandem with RFK and his goals. But there was a publication in 2025 by I think the Harvard Dean of Medicine.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Who has been a plaintiff's witness for attorneys battling Tylenol in developing autism. So there is a bit of a financial conflict of interest. There's there.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Yeah, yeah. Dr. Baccarelli, who published a study called a navigation review. And it's basically a sciency version of Let Me Tell a Story and here's the evidence that supports it. Basically what they did is they took the number of studies, they counted the number that pointed towards Tylenol as a factor and they counted against it and they found about 20 something in total. The majority of them found a link to Tylenol and autism and then a minority found no link. But of course that's not really how we do science in 2025. If we had two studies and you can actually look at his, his studies and some of These studies are 200 people, 300 people, 500 people. Yeah. And then you have this other study that's 2.5 million people. You know, in, in the real world, that larger study would dwarf the significance of the other ones. But in the way that this navigation study was set up, they're all kind of equal in. In fact, he treats the non confounded sample that Kave was mentioning as its own study and then he treats the controlled sample with siblings as its own study. So the same study from Sweden was cited twice, one for and one against. You can see how you could shape a narrative, which is what a narrative review is. It's when you shape a narrative, it's not a very sciency way to do things. We like to do systematic way reviews. And this did provide a bit of COVID because now everyone in HHS can point towards this study by the Harvard Deed of Medicine, published in BMC Environmental Studies, peer reviewed, showing that a navigational study shows that there could be a link. But it really, if you read the study, any scientist reading it would be like, yeah, there could be a link. But the largest study in that group suggests there is no link.

[Robert Evans]

Right. Yeah. It's a. Someone's playing games with evidence to. When they've already decided what their conclusion would be.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Let's talk about this fascination with autism that. That exists in. In the maha.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Robert Evans]

Make America healthy again. For those who are not familiar what's happening here, people are probably diagnosed with autism at a higher rate now than they were when these people were young.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Robert Evans]

That is not, however. Well, I will let you guys explain that. Explain how that doesn't mean that we're giving children autism, if that is my understanding especially correct.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Sure. I'll jump in first. So there's a number of ways to test whether or not the rate is truly increasing. So the first thing to say is, over the world, we've seen a gradual increase in the global population that has autism from about 0.8% of the population to about 2% of the population. That's what's happened over the past 25 years of studies across the world. Now, that's not exactly the exponential rise that you often hear about in the United States. The United States has a lot of unique features, or so you have a ton of people working in this area. You have a ton of researchers. Lots of people have access to healthcare. There's many reasons why global numbers might not look like American numbers. But the general idea behind this increased rate of autism, most of that increase is due to our change in diagnostics and the way that we label things. So when RFK was a kid, there were kids that were excluded from school because they were literally called retarded. They. They were not allowed to come to school. They were known as spazzes and goofs. And they were the. The ones that, you know, were made fun of and they struggled throughout life. Now, were they called autistic? No. Did they have the same symptoms that the kids today that are being diagnosed with autism have? Probably. And the way that we can control for that, there's some really elegant studies. One is we take diagnostic criteria from children, and then we ask adults currently living today to go through a structured interview looking for those things. And guess what? We find the same rate in adults that we see in kids. This idea that, that it's an exponential rate. Now, I think the rate is also increasing, but I think it's increasing gradually. And this is because the extreme of ages are having kids more often Especially at the older end. And we do know that older age is related to autism, especially older age of the father. And we also know that premature babies and babies with significant developmental disabilities are surviving their. Their. Their postnatal period as soon as they're born. Instead of instantly dying or dying during childbirth or not being able to be resuscitated, they're kept alive and survive. And this is good. But this does mean that there's more neurodiversity in the world because, of course, these children have encountered significant harm. Yeah, I agree with that. I do think that the diagnostic criteria has expanded, and that's part of why we see more. But, yeah, I think the two things we know that are related are some genetic predisposition if there's people in the family that have it, and the older age of patients. And as we get older, older. I'm an older father myself, you know, you. You see more with older patients, and that's more common now than it's ever been before. So these are all a part of it. Once you take a look, for example, going back to that Swedish study in 2024, that was so good, that sibling study looks at the genetics of it, and once you account for the genetics of it, you start to be able to say, okay, maybe this other stuff, like Tylenol isn't important.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. Is there a gender element to this as well? Yeah, I may have misremembered here. My understanding is that women, femme people, tended to be diagnosed at a lower rate until relatively recently.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Yeah. So not only is there a gender component, but I do think that the biological sex of the child has an impact on the genetic expression, because it seems like the transmission from. To males is higher than the transmission to females. So there might be something. Something buffering about that extra X chromosome. You know, we have this shrimpy little Y chromosome that makes us all degenerates. You only have one Y chromosome? Sorry, are you a super male? I have two Y's. Yy, you know, hairy my ears are. So there are a number of disorders that the X, the extra X chromosome is protective for. And I do wonder if that's the case for autism. But what's also true is we have stereotypes about what girls should be and what boys should be, and that leads to boys being diagnosed with autism more frequently than girls. So the girl that's quiet and awkward and anxious is labeled as an anxious kid a lot more quickly than when you see that in a boy, that the parents think autism or the clinician thinks autism. So there could be some social reasons for that discrepancy as well. And then the last thing I really wanted to say is that the really tragic thing about all of this is profound autism, which autism is a spectrum. Profound autism is extremely disabling for people around the person. Generally autistic people enjoy their lives, especially if the world is set up in a way so that they can live safely and without impediment. Autistic people are perfectly content to be autistic. And this whole idea of autism being this travesty, this epidemic, this blight on society is really doing a disservice to the wide variety of people that we're now calling autistic. Because when our criteria explain expanded, we created a whole space of autistic people who are very what we would call non profound autism. These are people that have difficulties in social communication or do the same thing over and over despite, you know, it being at an abnormal level. But it's what they need to soothe themselves, you know, that will be called autism. Now, now, would a parent want a child who's in a home constantly rocking back and forth and just soothing themselves by licking their fingers or whatever, you know, some very severe autistic behavior? No, that probably wouldn't be the parents ideal. But I've worked with so much autism in my life. I'm a child and adolescent psychiatrist. I've seen so many autistic kids, they can live happy, happy, happy lives. Autistic. So I'm not a fan of the blight sort of messaging of it either.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I'm really glad you mentioned that because that's one of the worst things about, in a sense, one of the most damaging things about this. People who are living happy, healthy and fulfilled lives are being, being like slandered or pathologized, derided by the government of this country. And that's.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And it, I'm sure will have an impact on those people because it would have an impact on anyone to see this condition that as you said. Right. Like maybe difficult for people who are not familiar with it to navigate, but it doesn't mean that you can't have a fulfilling and happy and very pleasant life suddenly suggested there's some kind of massively disabling and terrible travesty and that the person who gave birth to you is to blame for this. Right, right.

[Kaveh Hoda]

That's what really bothers me is like we're always trying to find ways to blame mothers. This is. Yeah, this is, this is a mantle and I apologize for that listener. Please don't at me for that. Yeah, but part. Part of what this is is like, control over women. And, you know, while that Swedish study I mentioned may not completely close the issue, I think it's pretty clear that the end evidence pretty strong against there being a connection between Tylenol and to make a wholesale governmental recommendation that as a country for us to move this way, to make such strong claims, to have a president come out and just say, grit your teeth and bear it to women in regards to the one medicine that we've told them they can use during a pregnancy is insane to me. So there's the autism issue and the insult essentially, to that community, but also to women in general. It's insane to me that this is happening right now. Again, there is a bit of nuance to this issue, as I mentioned. It's not, like, totally insane to ask about and question it, but to make a wholesale directional change in how we recommend managing patients without pregnant is nuts. It's just nuts. Yeah. And to piggyback on that, it's really no normal. It was normal advice in 2024 for us to say, yeah, you can use Tylenol, but try to use it sparingly. We're not really sure. Use it when you need it, though, because we do know that pain and fever and these types of things are bad for the baby.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Kaveh Hoda]

You know, so this. This kind of way in which it's now been massaged. So I saw a letter from Dr. Marty Macary, who's another grifter who's now in the. In the American political system, there has written a letter basically saying at the bottom, use it judiciously. And it is the only one that's approved. But that's exactly where we were before. There was no need for a pest conference. Every doctor was saying, use Tylenol sparingly, but you can use it. James, can I tell you what's driving me crazy about this?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, please.

[Kaveh Hoda]

This administration has done something. Trump in general has done something that has blown my mind, which is somehow, time and time again, I find myself defending people. People and things that I would never want to defend. Like, first of all, I'm watching Jimmy Kimmel. I don't know how that happened. I blame Trump for that. Second, Tylenol is a dangerous medication. I'm a liver doc. Yes. Suicidal. I deal like Tylenol overdose is causing acute liver injury and acute liver failure is a massive, real issue across the world. World.

[James Stout]

And it is. It's.

[Kaveh Hoda]

It's a real thing. So there are reasons that we should Be watchful of Tylenol, but this is not one of them.

[Robert Evans]

Right, yeah.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Personally, I'm a champion of all. Tylenol should be like the uk. It should be in individually wrapped pieces because there is evidence that that reduces the rate of intentional overdose and even ICU overdoses that cause liver failure. So take away freedoms.

[James Stout]

Right?

[Kaveh Hoda]

This is the medical freedom crowd. It's amazing.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. We should take an advertising break and then come back. So we'll do that.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Oh, God, that would be fantastic. If I could take an advertisement. I could use an ad right now. So bad.

[Robert Evans]

Amazing. Yep. It's going to be for lemon pepper water, which is the only pain treatment.

[Kaveh Hoda]

You should be taking bark to put between your teeth. Nick speaking.

[Garrison Davis]

Rug.

[Robert Evans]

Sure, sure. Yeah, yeah. Go get some leaves and fucking eat them. What can go wrong? All right, we are back. Thank you for that message from Leaf pain relief.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Hit the spot.

[Robert Evans]

It's good. Don't eat leaves. I saw someone posing with a. They were taking their graduation pictures. Very nice setting. I'm not going to say the flower, I guess just in case.

[James Stout]

No.

[Robert Evans]

It can cause quite remarkable hallucinations and it is not. Not a good idea to be like half, half an hour.

[James Stout]

It.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's a nice looking flower. If you didn't know, you might huff it now.

[Kaveh Hoda]

I want to know what the hell you're talking about. You're going to tell me later.

[Robert Evans]

I'm assuming you've lived in California your whole life.

[Garrison Davis]

How do you not know this?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I'll text you after we're done.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Dandelions. Is it dandelions? I've been told not to.

[Robert Evans]

Roses. Yeah.

[Kaveh Hoda]

It reminds me, though, there was a TikTok video of. There's been a few of women proudly being pregnant and ingesting Tylenol. And to be clear, that's a. That's an insane response to this problem. Like, please don't take Tylenol as a point, as Kevin was saying before the break.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Tylenol does deplete the glutathione in your body and it is toxic to your liver. If your liver doesn't have the glutathione necessary, it directly injures the liver. And this is what happens when you take an overdose is it overwhelms the amount of glutathione that your liver has and it causes liver damage. And most pregnant women who want to keep the baby are very judicious to begin with, not just like dowdy willy nilly, you know what I mean? Like, they're like, oh, God, this is really bad. I better take something. And Tylenol, by the way, sucks, you know, as a pain medicine. You know, it's not gonna. It's like the thing you take when they won't give you anything else. It's not a great one. So you to take it from them without a good reason, without a proposed mechanism. If you're gonna make extraordinary claims, you have to have, if not extraordinary evidence, preponderance of it. So this is really bothering me, as you can tell, because it does not exist.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. I think something you mentioned earlier, like when, like you said you're back to a corner where you're defending like Big Pharma and Tylenol specifically, like, is the one thing that they've tried to do is like inhabit nuance and then disingenuously use it.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Absolutely. Yes, yes. That's the entire anti vaccines move.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. Right. And then it leads to people responding in a way that erases nuance entirely. I understand where we get there, that response, but like it's, it's not the correct response. Right, yeah. People want you to be like, this is 100% safe.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Robert Evans]

They want you to say, this is actually the perfect medication and it's fine and you should have it for breakfast.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Yeah. And the HHS tweeted out a statement that Tylenol did in 2017, basically saying, we don't recommend Tylenol in pregnancy. But no drug maker recommends any medication. They all say, specifically, talk to your doctor about this medication. They're not allowed to recommend the medication, only doctor. So. So when they're using that language and then HHS tweets it out, HHS is tweeting it out specifically to give the illusion that we don't want pregnant people to be taking this medication. They, they specifically said, we don't recommend it. And that's a nuance and that's how they use it. And it just sucks.

[Robert Evans]

Right?

[Kaveh Hoda]

That's exactly right. Entitled all the makers of it. By the way, I am curious about the fact that Johnson Johnson spun off Ken View. I wonder if they knew this was coming and that's why they did it. The same way that dupont spun off. It was only three years ago that they did. Yeah, but you know, like dupont spun off the company in charge of all their pfas, their forever chemicals, because they knew shit was coming down the pipeline. I wonder if that was the same reason here Tylenol did this. Well, they put, they put Band Aid and Neutrogena in the same group. So I think it was more Just to consolidate home stuff. Interesting. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Got a press conference coming next week.

[Kaveh Hoda]

About Band Aids, cancer cause anxiety.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Anyways, it's very interesting to me that this is happening at all, really. I mean, what I thought was interesting about the press conference, and I wonder if you guys picked up on this too, was, you know, I was wondering, why is this pivot happening? How can RFK Jr be happy about this? He can't be happy about leaving his crusade against vaccines. The MAHA community behind him clearly doesn't love that aspect. And I wonder why they're pivoting to that. And I wonder. I wonder what you guys think about that. I did feel that during that press conference, Trump really went out of his way to sort of give lip service. And we could. We should talk about this too, about vaccines. He talked about vaccines a lot, even though there's no new evidence about vaccines causing problems. And Trump gave this terrible advice about breaking up the vaccines, which we know is a terrible idea because that's gonna lead to decreased uptake overall. The more visits you have to go back to, the less likely you're gonna do it. So the more likely you're not gonna get vaccinated.

[James Stout]

But.

[Kaveh Hoda]

But it made me wonder why this is happening now, why they decided to. To make this pivot. And I wonder what you both think about that. My theory is the link with fevers. If I'm being really conspiratorial, I would say that they're going to try and link vaccine induced fever to autism and they're going to say, oh, we thought it was the Tylenol, but it turns out to be the vaccines. It's the fever. And the fever is caused by the vaccine.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. My theory is gender. I think that telling pregnant people to suck it up is when you've got, you know, your dudes all standing on the podium there. Right. Like, the majority of pregnant people are going to be women. It's something that men have been doing to women for millennia.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Like it's a safer bet then, yeah, your kid might die, but, you know, you never know.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Yeah, yeah. Which actually is, you know, that brings up another thing I think we should talk about, which is what Trump kept saying. Yeah. Trump kept saying, don't take it, but he was like, what's the worst that happens? Nothing bad will come of. Yeah. So it invokes this precautionary principle, which is like, you know, why not avoid the Tylenol? What's the worst that can happen? And that doesn't work here. No. Because we know that People are taking this for a fever. Tylenol is not good for inflammation. Doesn't work on inflammation the way Advil Ibuprofen does it, but it can work on a fever. And we know that fever can have some risk, at least as much, if not more than tiny Tylenol in harm to the baby and harm to the pregnancy. So to me, the precautionary principle just doesn't apply here. And to hear the president. I never heard a president give medical advice before like that. It blew my mind. I felt like I was disassociating while I was watching this. I'm like, this cannot be realized. And he said it so unequivocally. Don't take Tylenol. Just suck it up. And I tweeted something that I read from Dr. Glockenflocken, who is one of my favorite medical comedians, but he said, this will kill people. And I do agree. I think people were very incredulous when I said, this will kill people. And they were like, what do you mean, people dying of a fever? I'm like, yeah, kind of. Fevers can be really bad for you. And if you're not going to hospital and the only thing you have is Tylenol, it's a really good idea to take the Tylenol. And there's some people that don't go to hospital for lots of reasons. And fevers can kill you. They just can.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Kaveh Hoda]

So I disapprove of the Canadian and Englishman referring to the hospital as hospital. They need you guys to refer to it as the hospital.

[Robert Evans]

I've forgotten about that. Yeah. Always for the definite article. Yeah.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Taking it to a hospital. Yes. Thank you, guys.

[Robert Evans]

But, yeah, I think you're right. Like, there is no, like, no harm option here. Right. Like, that is a Damage is done when, when people don't take this.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Kaveh Hoda]

I just imagine this. This poor mom, you know, at home, you know, doesn't have great health care, but does have a bottle of Tylenol and is bad. Battling a. Sorry, I'll Americanize this, like 104 degree fever. Thank you. Don't make me do math. Yeah, you're welcome. Don't make me do math. You know, and, and, you know, it's. It's around that 103, 104 mark where we actually get really worried about the person's brain. We get really worried about their health and what's gonna happen and, and what would happen to that person in hospital. They would absolutely get Tylenol right away prescribed by a doctor. Right. That moment. And so I worry about this. I worry about this mom presenting to hospital with her fever, she's pregnant, and the doctors say, okay, we're going to give you Tylenol. And she says, no. Yeah, right. Why? Because I don't want. I don't want my child to have autism. Because people are listening to this guy, first of all, again, the hospital. Second, they're going to listen to this guy. It's insane. People are really going to take this advice. And I could see, you know, especially the more Trump following people saying, you will never give me Tylenol, not in this hospital.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Kaveh Hoda]

And so, so it does sound silly that not taking Tylenol could kill you. But if you're so scared of Tylenol because it causes autism that you don't take it when it's recommended to you by a doctor, where it's prescribed to you by a doctor, you could die. And. And I won't be surprised when there are more fever induced deaths in 2025 and 2026 in the United States. I already have the CDC wonder data search ready to go because I study mortality all the time and I am absolutely, completely sure we're going to see a few more fever induced deaths than we would have previously.

[Robert Evans]

Jeez.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Maybe, like, we can finish up by explaining to people like, you know, if you're talking to someone in your family. Right. Someone who maybe isn't a listener satisfaction badly to either of our podcasts. I know this isn't directly the area either of you specialize in, but from what I understand, pregnant people like the way that drugs are categorized, as we spoke about earlier on, there's not like, yeah, go ahead and take all of these. Right? There's like, probably fine if you have to, probably a bad idea, unless you really need to. And like, maybe some straight up don't.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Can you explain that for people?

[Kaveh Hoda]

Sure. So there's a classification system, and it's technical, but it's exactly like that. There are very few medications that, that are like, totally fine. These are medications that are given during pregnancy that have been well studied in pregnancy, but for the most part, pretty much everything else in my world of psychiatry, SSRIs and antipsychotics and benzodiazepines and whatnot. They all have the same classification, which is basically contraindicated. Don't take it unless your doctor prescribes it for you. Now, we still get pregnant people with depression and psychosis and who need all these medications. And so we do have to infuse, interpret it based off of the data that we have, and the data that we have always comes late. So if we find a problem, it's found too late. And generally it's precautionary. So typically, I don't know, Kaveh, if there's a similar thing in GI work. But like, for me, I'll get a call all the time. Oh, we have this woman. She's 32. She's really worried. She normally takes antidepressants, but she's thinking about stopping them because she's really worried about passing it to her baby or whatever. And I'm like, how bad is the depression? Well, it was really bad. She was hospitalized three times and nearly died. I was like, probably want to keep antidepressant treatment going and just let her know that there could be some harm to the fetus. But depression is way worse. And we just go with, God, do your best. There are certain medications where we are going to say, you absolutely shouldn't take these during pregnancy. And you should discuss that with your, your obstetrician. You talk that over with your gynecologist and your, your primary care doctor. You should talk it over with your medical team. That's great. But every medication has some small amount of risk, some larger than others, but it's really about the risk versus the benefit. And this has been well studied by the experts. And what you've heard, what those people have heard from Trump and RFK Jr. Is well outside of the normal recommendations from the experts like the acog, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the people who have been keeping our pregnant patients alive and relatively well for many, many years, this is well outside of those recommendations. And while it's an interesting topic and I think maybe, you know, sure, I'd like to see more studies on it. I'm never going to say don't study this more.

[James Stout]

More. Right.

[Kaveh Hoda]

I would say that the preponderance of evidence and scientific belief and medical belief in this one goes against what they're saying. And I would say at least talk it over with your doctor. If you have a question, talk it over with your doctor. And that's. You mentioned it before. Town law has sort of like, you know, tried to hedge its bets by saying, talk it over with your doctor. But the reason they do that is they know most doctors are going to be reasonable about this and follow the scientific evidence that's there. So I would say if they really have a question, they should talk about their doctor. Because Trump, whether or not they love him or not. This is well out of his range of understanding. And he is getting, it's like a game of telephone. He's getting a version of the medical information transmitted to him by RFK Jr who is getting a weird version of it from his belief system. And it's being supported by people who are there solely, literally just there to do the beck and call of Trump at this point. And that's super dangerous. And so if they can keep an open mind about it, talk it over with their doctor, continue to do what their parents did, I think they're going to be okay.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Real quick. Because for reasons that are largely related to the way that we do healthcare in the United States, people sometimes are reticent to talk to their doctor, unable to talk to a doctor. Reliable sources of medical information versus the shit that you find on Google. Give us like a five minute primer.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Yeah. So, you know, in almost every jurisdiction there is an official health agency that you can go to their website and get good health data. So in B.C. we have HealthLink BC and there's a number that you can call to speak to a nurse. In America, you have great, I would say used to be great, like Cleveland Clinic used to be really great, but they got a little hokey. I would still say, you know, there are some really good American places that you can, can go. Mayo Clinic has a lot of public facing information that has pretty good general descriptions. But just make sure it's from a place that is official because there is a whole space now that's going to be opened up. Because the second part of this presentation that RFK gave was about a generic medication that might help some people with a very specific form of autism. And I promise you, the amount of huckstering that's going to happen based on, on that. The alternatives. You know, we made a joke about lemon water before the ad break, but there are going to be people who are going to be selling the alternative to Tylenol that is autism free. Yeah. And that, that's really worrisome.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Be wary of anyone that has something in their Instagram, their TikTok, their wellness post that uses the words detox. Be wary about ancient remedies, please. Be wary about anyone that is selling something like Dr. Oz, who by the way, sells a version of the folinic acid or the leucovorin that they're talking about here. So be wary about that. We don't sell shit. Be wary about people like Dr. Vaccarelli, the dean of Harvard Epidemiology, who, by the way, I've heard is a good doctor from the friends I have in Harvard. They say he's not a bad guy. But be wary about the fact anytime you see someone's making $150,000 off a quarter court trial to sue Tylenol and has a vested interest in these things, so you should be wary about those things. That's definitely something to look for. And if you're looking for a trusted source, Speaking of hucksters, you could listen to my podcast, the House of Pod, anywhere you find podcasts where we're going to talk about medical stuff just like this. And I will bring you trusted sources.

[Robert Evans]

Beautiful. That was all a long play to get you to listen to Kaveh's podcast.

[Kaveh Hoda]

But no, I'm in it for the long con. I'm in it for the long con.

[Robert Evans]

But, buddy, yeah, thank you for helping us clear that up a bit. I think it's. It's a real rough time for healthcare in general and, and especially people with autism, like, like. Or neurodivergent people. It really sucks to see the entire federal government badmouthing people. Yeah. So, yeah, we are thinking of you.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Very similar to the, the, the issue with trans kids. Like, I'm a Canadian, you know, and we have right next door to my province, Alberta, which is very much taking the route of Florida and other things with respect to trans policies. And it's just got to suck to be a trans kid in Florida right now. It's got to suck to be a trans kid anywhere in America right now, knowing what's coming down the pipeline. And it'll be the same for people with autism and families with autistic kids.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Yep. I could conservatively complain about this for another three hours.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Kaveh Hoda]

We didn't even talk about hepatitis B, by the way. We didn't talk about hepatitis B. But we can talk about that some other point.

[Robert Evans]

Okay.

[Kaveh Hoda]

There's just so much. There's so much, and it's so terrible. And you're absolutely right. It's really like, for that community right now. By the way, I wanted to debunk something because it's been said multiple times.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, get it?

[Kaveh Hoda]

Rfk. And a whole bunch of people have said, I didn't know anybody autistic when I was, you know, my. When I was a kid or whatever. I've never met someone autistic my age. Donald Triplett was the very first person diagnosed with autism in 1943, I believe. 1940. 1943. He just died last year. I Think he was something like 80, 90 years old. Okay. Yeah. Autistic people are old, too. This idea that there aren't old autistic people is so ass backwards. It was just not diagnosed. Yes. And. And. And it's. It's such a shame because when. When he. When Donald Triplett passed, you know, like, people in psychiatry notice that's not the type of thing that people in the world notice, but he was the very first auto autistic person. He lived a full life. He was an engineer. He had autism. It was diagnosed. He was the first ever case diagnosed, and he also lived a life. And so for RFK to just erase him completely and say, I've never known an old person to have autism is just ridiculous.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And if you conduct yourself as RSK does with being a piece of shit to neurodivergent people, then even people who have been diagnosed aren't just gonna be like, hey, man. Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about more because you're being a turd to them and you're being unkind. Yeah. Like, what do you expect?

[Kaveh Hoda]

Yeah. I mean, yeah, Tyler Grandin is like, how old is she now? Like, in her 70s. I mean, it's. It's absurd to think that this is a totally new thing. I mean, it.

[James Stout]

It.

[Kaveh Hoda]

It also tells me that he was probably a bit sheltered and. And probably didn't meet enough people. Wow. Kennedy sheltered. Wow.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Yeah, He's. He's had a different experience of life to many of us.

[Kaveh Hoda]

I got through the whole podcast without making a Tyler N Pun. I'm very proud of that. I usually do pretty much every time, and it pisses my wife off so much. I'm really proud of you, man. You've shown a lot of growth.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Yeah. That's great. I was. I was gonna make one, but I thought I'd leave it. Didn't want to offend. Yeah. Thank you very much. Where can people find both of you on. On the Internet, if they'd like to, or, you know, in person?

[Kaveh Hoda]

Don't find me in person.

[Robert Evans]

Do not do that.

[Kaveh Hoda]

As you can listen to my podcast, the House of Pod. Anywhere you listen to podcasts, you'll hear people like James, you'll hear people like Tyler. Last time Tyler was on was actually for episode 284. We did an episode on adult ADHD with author Rax King, and she's Brad. So that's a good episode to listen to. And you can find me on blue sky at KaveMD. I still have a Twitter account and Instagram account, but I don't really use those that much. So find me on Blue Sky. Blue sky, by the way, as a shout out, as a plug. I think it's good for science. If you're interested in science, science based stuff. It may not be that much fun for everything else, but at least in terms of like, if you want to follow doctors, scientists, that's a good place to go. That's, that's where a lot of us have gone. So. Okay, I'll be there at Blue Sky.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Kaveh Hoda]

And I'm, I am still on Twitter. Tyler Black, 32. I'm slugging it out. It is a lot of hate and a lot of death threats now, especially as I've, I've been on a few trans podcasts, I've been on quite a few medical, anti vax and vaccine podcasts. So, you know, I'll pop up from time to time on a podcast or something. But I'm not really have anything to plug anymore. I'm just really hoping that we can continue to fight this. This sort of. It's a really disgusting reality in this decade that, that misinformation has won the day and literally misinformers are the political leaders now. And misinformation has just eroded science to the point where I don't know if America's ever going to get it back. Yeah, if we do, this has set us back many years. This has set us back many, many years.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's pretty bleak.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Well, that was fun. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Let's end on that hopeful note. Yeah. All.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

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[James Stout]

There's a vile sickness in Amstown. You must excise it Dig into the.

[Tyler Black]

Deep earth and cut it out. The village is rapid, ravaged.

[Robert Evans]

Entire families have been consumed. You know how waking up from a dream, a familiar place can look completely alien?

[Kaveh Hoda]

Get back, everyone.

[James Stout]

And if you see the devil walking around inside of another man, you must.

[Tyler Black]

Cut out the very heart of him.

[Mia Wong]

Burn his body, and scatter the ashes.

[James Stout]

In the furthest corner of this town.

[Kaveh Hoda]

As a warning from iHeart podcasts and.

[Garrison Davis]

Grim and mild from Aaron Manke, this.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast set in the Bridgewater audio universe, starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoctown on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Garrison Davis]

The Devil Walks in Abbostown. I just think the process and the journey is so delicious. That's where all the good stuff is. You just can't live and die by the end result.

[James Stout]

It's scary putting yourself out there, especially.

[Garrison Davis]

When it's something you really care about.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

And something that you hope is your passion in life and you want people to like it. Let's get delicious and put ourselves out there.

[James Stout]

I'm Simone Boyce, host of the Bright.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Side, and those were my recent guests, comedian Phoebe Robinson and writer Aaron Foster.

[James Stout]

On this show, I'm talking to the.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Brightest minds in entertainment, health, wellness, and pop culture.

[James Stout]

And every week we're going places in our community, our careers, and ourselves.

[Garrison Davis]

It's not about being perfect.

[James Stout]

It's about going on a journey and discovering the bright side of becoming.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Few people know that better than soccer legend Ashlyn Harris. It's the journey, it's the people, it's the failures, it's the heartache, it's the little moments. These are our moments to laugh, learn and exhale. So join me every Monday and let's.

[James Stout]

Find the bright side together.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Listen.

[James Stout]

Listen to the bright side on the.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Iheartradio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just like great shoes, great books take you places through unforgettable love stories and.

[Tyler Black]

Into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Me this feeling of like butterflies.

[James Stout]

I'm Danielle Robaix, and this is bookmarked.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

By Reese's Book Club. The new podcast from hello Sunshine and I Heart Podcasts, where we dive into the stories that shape us on the page and off. Each week I'm joined by authors, celebs, book talk stars and more for conversations that will make you laugh, cry, and.

[Robert Evans]

Add way too many books to your TBR pile.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Apple Books is the official audiobook and.

[Tyler Black]

Even ebook home for Reese's Book Club.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Visit Apple Co ReeseAppleBooks to find out more.

[Robert Evans]

Hey everyone, it's James here. We promised that we would get you something on the changes, or lack thereof after Donald Trump's series of executive orders targeting certain groups. And we reached out to a lawyer, Mo, who is a fantastic lawyer, and we asked her to interview them. They said they had just done an interview with Finals Tour Radio, which is a excellent show, and they suggested that I take a listen to that. I took a listen to that and I think it's a fantastic interview and I don't think there's much that we can add to it. So we're going to re air that interview in full. The one thing I would add to it is that there have been a number of cases recently where grand juries have not returned an indictment. That's relatively rare, but we are seeing that more frequently. And that just enforces everything that Mo says here, which is that at this time we still have separation of powers. And at this time the executive cannot simply make law. One still has to be prosecuted according to a statute by a district attorney or a USA attorney.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Robert Evans]

The President cannot just make law in this instance pertaining to the First Amendment by executive order. That doesn't mean that there will not be harassment. And as you'll hear here, those two are distinct things. And I think Mo gives an excellent outline on how we should think about and conceive this moment in American history. So without any more of me taking your time, this is an excellent interview that bursted with mo. I hope you'll enjoy it. And if you would like to check out Final Straw Radio, you can do so using the link that I will put below this episode.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Could you please introduce yourself for the audience with any name, pronouns, location or other other context that would help us understand who you are.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Good morning. I'm Maura Meltzer Cohen. Everybody calls me Mo. My pronouns are they or Mo. I'm an abolitionist, an educator and an attorney in New York. Primarily, I represent people who are arrested in the course of justice struggles and do advocacy for incarcerated people and movements.

[Kaveh Hoda]

So we're here to talk about the recent White House statements following the assassin. I mean, I mean, I mean following the reelection of Trump, but more recently the assassination of Charles Kirk. That antifa is a domestic terrorist organization. Can you talk about what legally changed with the executive order of September 22nd of this year? Or yesterday's, when we're recording this National Presidential Security Memo number seven titled Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence. Again, it came out on September 25th. What changed with, with those?

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Well, before I answer that question, the first thing I want to say is nothing that I say on this program is legal advice. This is information. If you want legal advice, I vigorously encourage you to have a privileged conversation with a human attorney who is admitted to practice in your jury jurisdiction. As to your overall question, what changed legally is essentially nothing. I think the top level takeaway here is that these executive orders are frightening. They are a frightening contribution to an already dangerous political discourse and they may very well end up being quite disruptive to left movements, including I think primarily centrist liberal movements. But nothing that was legal last week is illegal this week, certainly not because of those statements. And the state cannot prosecute you for things that were legal when you did them. So, yeah, I mean, I can't see the future. But as of right now, the law and the Constitution have not changed. So if this administration wants to in any meaningful legal way, way designate anyone, any group as domestic terrorists, they can change the law, which is not going to be quick or easy, or they can dispense with the law. But under the current legal regime, there is no mechanism that would make it illegal to be antifa, whatever that means, or to hold anti fascist value values, or to assemble or to petition the government. And you know, to be clear, not that doing any of those things or being any of those things are necessarily effective at creating social change right now. But my point really is they're not.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Illegal just to sort of throw this back your way. So there was, when you were responding to that, it made me think of there's a veteran who lost a bunch of his property during the Helene hurricane that is, you know, about a year ago, hit this region. He was recorded like he went pretty viral calling out and shouting down a state politician who had a, like public meeting here in the area. Just saying there's been like total like lack of support after the storm and here are all the needs and you're just a lying politician. This sort of thing. The same man right after the executive order that Trump made about, about burning US Flags went out and burned one across from the White House and then he got arrested for it. Like I thought that there was a Supreme Court decision back in the 80s that said it's not actually illegal to burn a flag. So does that make his executive orders now law?

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

No, there is a Supreme Court decision. It's called Texas v. Johnson, and it is still law. And it was, in fact, after Texas v. Johnson, Congress actually tried to make a federal statute criminalizing burning the American flag, and it was found unconstitutional. It is astonishing and illuminating that that man was arrested for burning an American flag, which is absolutely constitutionally protected conduct. I will say. I'm not sure what he was actually, actually charged with. Right. If he was charged with, you know, creating a fire hazard, I suppose that apart from the fact that it's clearly First Amendment retaliation, I suppose that you could be criminally charged with creating a fire hazard in a public place or something like that. But no flag burning remains protected, regardless of what the President or Congress says about it. It would take either an amendment to the Constitution or a very serious change in Supreme Court jurisprudence to make flag burning illegal.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Okay. Yeah. So this is a distinction I'd love for us to get back to in a moment between legality versus what, you know, the, the sort of, like, box that, that powers decide to put a thing into. Like, I know I've. I've definitely been detained not for being an annoyance to the cops, but within my legal rights. But they'll say, ah, but your shoes untied on a Tuesday, you know, whatever, and then like, waste my time.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Let's talk about that. And because I, I do want to talk with more specificity about these specific executive orders and statements, and also about what legal mechanisms do exist that are and can be and have long been used to surveil and disrupt and target the left. But actually, before we do that, why don't we talk about sort of some of the categories that are playing in play here and be really clear about definitions or at least understand that there are differences between these categories. Right. Because there is a difference between the law and political discourse, and there is a difference, importantly, between law and power. And there is certainly at least some daylight between the legal constraints on state power and the state's power to ignore those constraints. And then I think what will be significant to this discussion and is there is a significant difference between antifa, which is a set of practices or beliefs that are not necessarily even all that well defined and what this administration refers to when it uses or deploys the word antifa. And there is yet more difference between the boogeyman that is being invoked by that word and the individuals and organizations that the administration actually intends to about Talk Target. There's a difference between political targeting, surveillance disruption, and prosecution. Right. Those things are all different. And there's a difference between prosecution and Conviction. And there is an important difference between someone's political beliefs and associations which are and remain protected by the First Amendment and politically motivated conduct that is illegal. So, you know, executive orders and these kinds of statements on national security are policy statements. They don't in and of themselves make things happen. They don't in and of themselves change the law. And an executive order that is inconsistent with the Constitution or existing law at least ought to be unenforceable.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Okay, but, yeah, but recognizing that, that distinction, you know, cops are going to, cop investigators are going to investigate and those processes are disruptive for people whose lives they're affecting. They can affect your job prospects, they can affect your housing stability. They can affect whether or not some unhinged person decides to attack you because they've heard some conspiracy theory about you. But so it, that distinction of like, well, you might get exonerated by a court after you've been held in pretrial for a year. I guess that is an important distinction, right, because it means you're not spending, you know, an extra 30 years or 20 years or whatever behind bars with the terrorism enhancement.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Well, I mean, that is also cold comfort. I'm really not trying to be dismissive. I think it's important to recognize what these distinctions are and the primarily because I want people to understand, understand what exactly we need to be prepared for and what we need to be worried about and what tools we have and what tools are effective at resisting what's coming down the pike. And in order to do that, we need to know what's coming down the pike. We need to know who actually has power in this situation. The fact that an executive order doesn't change the law does not mean an executive order will not result in a lot more state reproduction oppression or that it won't disrupt movements or even ruin lives. It doesn't mean that Trump is not going to accomplish the thing that I think he's actually trying to accomplish here in the immediate short term, which is broadcasting to his base that non state action against people identified as or perceived to be part of the despised group, you know, is desirable by this administration will be condoned by this administration. I think that is important to recognize. Saying that it doesn't change the law does not mean it isn't dangerous. I just want to be very precise about, I think the ways in which it is likely to be dangerous and some of the ways that it might not, might not be. And again, I'm not trying to be dismissive, but state repression exists all the time. State Repression against leftists and anarchists in particular has been ongoing the whole time. This is not a Trump thing. And in fact, I think it's important to note that the executive who's probably most responsible for having laid this groundwork is Biden, who set forth a policy strategy that focused on funding the federal targeting of what at that point he was calling political extremists, which was a label that was being applied to groups on the left as well as neo Nazis and alt right groups. So this administration has already been in, engaged. And not just this administration. Right. We have centuries at this point of targeted disruption of left movements. The way that it's currently being rationalized is a little bit different. The way that it's being broadcast, normalized is a little bit different. But it's, I will say I don't think this is actually anything all that new or different. And the difference in how dangerous it is is one of scale maybe, rather than it's. It's a difference in scope rather than nature, I think.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Yeah, I think that's an important distinction. I think that, like, sometimes people in the center and even sometimes people on the left will look at in particular things that Trump administrations do because they are obfuscatory. They're like confused, confusing, and they're bombastic. And there's a part of us that will say, like, no, but that's not what's actually happening. That's not what actually was the motivation for that person or like, that person voted Republican in the last election, whatever. And so I think that that distinction that you're making of, you know, this may be like an approach to motivate the base. It may prove not to be legally like standing, but in that decision mean that it doesn't have an impact on people.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Yeah.

[Kaveh Hoda]

And what we should be looking for out of this is a projection of not only like a call to action or red meat for the base or whatever, but also like a clear proposition of that's meant to chill us and chill civil society, that these are the intentions moving forward, this is the narrative, and this is the story that they're going to be going with.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Right, Absolutely. And I think it is important to point out right now we're seeing a lot of people pointing out the hypocrisy and the sort of the fact that these rationales are really untethered from factual reality. And I suppose that's true and important to note, but pointing out the hypocrisy is not going to be particularly useful. I mean, I think it's Part of the point, right? Manipulating the facts, making narrative claims that are totally unsupportable and muddying the waters in this really fundamental way is part of the project.

[Kaveh Hoda]

There was a. A German jurist, I guess, who became the highest jurist during the Nazi regime in Germany, but continued writing theory, like, was writing it before as a member of the conservative revolution, Revolution, as they called it. And then afterwards, he survived the war and continued living in Germany, writing Carl Schmidt, who talks a lot about, like, the limits of liberal approaches towards legality and liberal governance, with a belief that, like, it makes sense to push it to its limits and beyond, break it, and recognize that governance is about the imposition of power and the sheltering of those who are under the control or in the protected community of the state, with a consideration of war through the state's power against internal enemies as well as external enemies. And this is the devil's bargain that we make. It's like Hobbes on steroids. And it feels like a lot of the stuff that the Heritage foundation and Project 2025 has been pushing was that they have this. I know that there are some theocratic democrats in that movement. There's the unitary executive theory that a lot of them have been pushing. And they'll play with this idea like, the Trump administration will play with this identity of the king, King Trump or whatever the dawn, as it were. Like, making these executive decisions and being unbeholden to anything else. And they've actually been, like, you know, saying to courts, you can't stop us from deporting these people to an unsafe third country. Whatever. Stop us. I wonder if, like, I wonder if you have any comments on. On this, if I'm coming out of left field or. Or what?

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Well, look, I'll say this for Carl Schmidt, as opposed to the Heritage foundation, he was at least intellectually honest. Yeah. I think that we are in this moment where they're trying to normalize what. What Schmidt would have called, like, a state of exception, where there's sort of unbridled executive power and the sort of suspension of any constraints on state power. Right. And it's funny because I've been in conversations over the last months where I'm talking with a bunch of my friends, none of whom are particularly enamored of the current legal regime, and we're talking about how dangerous it is that the administration is dispensing with the rule of law. And it's sort of amusing for a bunch of anarchists to be like, oh, no, the rule of law is collapsing. But When I'm talking about the rule of law in this way, I'm really, really talking about constraints on state power. And those are what's collapsing. And that's exactly what Schmidt envisioned and argued for, frankly. And I do think we're seeing that. I think one of the things that I noticed in some of these EOs, especially the couple of statements from the last few days, is he keeps talking about things like love of God and anti Christian sentiment, which is, I mean, this is entirely incompatible, compatible with the First Amendment, which provides that no state shall establish a religion. Right. I mean, we really are outside the contours of recognized, you know, legal norms, constitutional norms. And I think a lot of this stuff is functioning and is meant to normalize this kind of discourse and to inject it not only into, to the exercise of government power, but to normalize it in terms of what people understand to be legitimate legal discourse.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Kind of shifting a bit like, let's get into some of the implications of this. So if it happens, hasn't changed law, but we recognize that practices and culture are being shifted. I've heard of a bunch of people getting fired and getting doxing attention. There's a website now, I think called like who Killed Charlie Kirk? Or the People who Killed Charlie Kirk or something like that, maybe an app. It's kind of like the post Charlie Kirk assassination version of Canary Mission. Does this mean that police are coming after people for sharing memes? Is that happening? Is that what's happening in these cases?

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

I mean, police have always been coming after people for sharing memes. I would say I get calls at least every month from people who have been visited by federal agents because they said something on the Internet that was upsetting to somebody else and then they reported it and the FBI was just following up on a tip. But that said, this doesn't vitiate the First Amendment. Let me say that in human language.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Thank you.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

This does not undermine the First Amendment. The First Amendment still exists and all of the legal framework around having the right to say things as long as those things are not true threats, that still exists. So it is not unusual for people to be targeted or monitored or visited by law enforcement, enforcement. But typically that stuff doesn't actually really go anywhere. I am concerned about people being subject to doxing and having negative social consequences and fallout from this kind of stuff. And it certainly is, you know, can be life ruining. I again, I don't, I don't mean to trivialize the effects of this kind of retaliation, social retaliation, but it is not the same thing as a criminal prosecution or a criminal conviction. It's, it's a different set of mechanisms. Now, one thing that I do think is interesting is that these EOs and the statement that came out on the 22nd and yesterday particularly identify certain modes of that, that kind of social conduct that you're talking about, like doxing swatting, right, which is making a false report of like an ongoing violent crime so that a SWAT team shows up and.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Raids somebody's home, which can be deadly.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Right. This is very dangerous. And interestingly to me, anyway, there are these specific behaviors that are identified and condemned in those statements. And those specific behaviors are largely tools of the right. People on the left are not notably interested in sending law enforcement to someone's house. So there is a perverse way in which this may end up being sort of protective, I suppose, because I think it would be very difficult for the government to go after the people who are exposing ICE agents, which again, is not illegal right now. Even if it were to become illegal. It isn't right now. And it would be very hard for them to go after those folks and not also go after the folks who are running that silly website about people who say something mean about Trump. Charlie Kirk.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Yeah, I mean, I guess to me, and this is the speculation outside of like legal advice or any. Not that we're giving legal advice, but outside of like the legal framework, definitely.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Not giving legal advice.

[Kaveh Hoda]

I mean, it kind of points to a thing that already this, this hypocrisy or this difference between what it's called when one party does it versus what it's called when another party does it. Like outside of the fact that the government gets to do what it wants to until the government stops itself from doing a thing. I mean, it, it feels like it's a part of the career creation of a differentiated subjectivity. Like there's the subject of the state that falls under the values that are being attacked. Christianity, whiteness, heteronormativity, these, like patriotism in these certain ways versus the people that are doing these same things but are corrupt, are dirtied, are outsider internal enemies, are Soros fellow funded, however we want to. Like, yeah, that. But yeah, I guess that's not, I mean, that's, this is nothing new. It's just an amplification of that same. Right?

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Yeah, very much. And you know what, what is changing a little bit, although all of these threads have been present, is that this administration is rationalizing this particular kind of targeting with respect to in particular, Palestine, solidarity, disparity. Movements, gender non conforming people and what they're calling antifa. So you know, we're seeing, we've been seeing congressional investigations, the allocation of funds to federal law enforcement, purging not just individuals but whole agencies that the administration feels are insufficiently aligned with its priority, replacing federal law enforcement. That and I mean ranging from FBI agents on the ground to DOJ with people who will enthusiastically and blindly pursue these priorities and using a lot of resources to target the nonprofit tax status and funding of groups identified as being aligned with any of the disfavored movements. And one of the things that they're doing is kind of, it's this real spaghetti, you know, throwing everything at it. And it, it's very overwhelming. Overwhelming. It's overwhelming for movement, infrastructure, it's overwhelming for legal, for people on the ground. And it's all happening at once. And I think it's all being comp. It's mutually compounding, it's mutually reinforcing, it's demoralizing. And in particular the stuff that's happening with immigration is so devastating and because immigration is so wholly under the control of the executive executive, that is an area where he's able to sort of make a policy and make it so and have it be carried out by fiat. And he has made his own private army with ice. And I think one of the effects that I in just in my observation that that has had is that people see that happening and assume that he has that level of control over, over everything else. And I do want to point out again it's absolutely devastating to see what's happening in the immigration space. But in fact he does not have that level of control over the rest of government and over non immigration law. And I think that's really important to remember.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Yeah, it seems about pushing boundaries and experimenting. There's a lot of people that have talked and not to get too far down the road with the this but like with the like attempt to normalize. Sending National Guard or sending active military to different states or federalizing National Guards to be present from different states in these places. Yeah, almost like if it's constant and like overlapping enough, then eventually just military being on the streets generally rousting houseless folks is going to be a normalized thing.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Man, I'm in New York, there's military people in all our subways. Like that got very normalized post 911 in certain places. And so you know, again this is not to say that it's okay, but it isn't new.

[Kaveh Hoda]

So to get back to antifa sure. Antifa.

[Robert Evans]

Antifa.

[Kaveh Hoda]

How is the administration identifying antifa and the legislation left and what are they actually dismantling and attacking? I'm thinking, like, heard a lot of talk about bail funds or like lgbtqia, youth advocacy organizations, secularist groups, like, yeah, what's going on?

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Yeah, well, this is, this is where things get really fun. Most of the groups that are actually being targeted are not remotely related to antifa. George Soros is not antifa. The various legal defense funds are not antifa. Antifa is the rationale, but not the reality. So one of the interesting issues here is that a significant group of the people who really need to be very worried are people who work in the nonprofit sector, in extremely normal and liberal community advocacy organizations and NGOs, and these are people who have nothing whatsoever to do with antifa by any stretch of the imagination, nation, who are being attacked, whose funding is being attacked, who are primarily, I would say, at risk, not because they have engaged in anything approaching unlawful conduct. And frankly, I think the biggest risk for many of those people is the anticipatory compliance of their funders. We have seen a really similar thing happen with universities where universities have been targeted by the state, by the federal government, and have been accused in particular of antisemitism. And frankly, I think it would be the work of an afternoon for general counsel at any of these universities to point out that, in fact, there is a legally established difference between antisemitism and anti Zionism, that criticism of the nation, state of mind, Israel, is in fact entirely legally distinct from criticism of or threats against Jewish people. And if any of these universities actually bothered to challenge these allegations, I think that they would win in court on the law. And what we're seeing instead is the universities declining to challenge, challenge these allegations, settling out of court, paying large amounts of money to the allegedly aggrieved parties, and capitulating in ways that are unnecessary, unwarranted, not legally justified, irrational, and cede more ground, not just more ground than is legally called for, but more ground than is even being asked. Asked for in these cases. And so, you know, this is, to me, one of the great dangers of normalizing these discourses is that these large institutions are engaged in acts of self preservation that actually undermine civil society when even a small amount of courage would go a very long way to preserving it.

[Kaveh Hoda]

I think we also sort of saw this in the early days of the administration with legal firms that had brought challenges to the administration in the past backing down or refusing to offering their fealty or whatever to the administration. And we're seeing it now also with some of these large media corporations silencing some of their pundits or whatever, or in some cases, I mean, it's clearly quid pro quo because they've got, you know, a merger that's being discussed by the FCC at the moment.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Well, what we've seen, though, we have seen a lot of that sort of craven capitulation. But what we've also seen is when we fight, we win. Now, I'm not trying to be a Pollyanna about this. What I'm trying to say is the demands that are being made by this particular administration are actually so far beyond the pale that based on our legal regime as it currently is, when we fight, we win. And so I think it is very worth reminding people that however imperfect the law is, the current state of the law forbids much of what this administration is doing, and it is actually worth standing up to it. There are other groups of people similarly who are not related to Antifa. And one of those groups is toasters, like, including boomers who are on Facebook and Twitter making jokes about how the right is so hypocritical and those people are getting targeted. And I would just gently remind everyone that the First Amendment does still exist and that the solution to repression is not self censorship, but courage. And also, as I have said many times, including to you on this program, discretion is the better part of valor. And not everything needs to be said on the Internet. So maybe think about it before you post something that you would not like to hear read back to you by a humorless person prosecutor. Then we have these other groups that are engaged in exposing law enforcement, which I referred to a minute ago. And I think the groups that are, you know, exposing ICE are definitely going to be targeted, have already been targeted for that activity. But it sort of remains to be seen how that can happen while also protecting Canary mission. Right. Then we have groups that are being perceived as or identified as anti antifa who are the people who are like doing food not bombs and community gardening and cooperative bookstores and prisoner letter writing, all of which are extremely First Amendment protected activities, and all of which are not only likely to be highly surveilled, are already highly surveilled. And this is the group of people who I think are actually probably most used to this and best prepared for it and also might be really hard to prosecute effectively because they're not doing crimes. And you know, like the NGOs that we were talking about, the biggest point of exposure for all of these groups is likely to be financial. We can certainly anticipate that the state is highly interested in looking at all of our bank records to the extent that our bank records exist with all the money we have. Right. Like, we're all handing around the same stack of 20 singles to. To each other. But, hey, you know, wire fraud, what I can say is that, you know, something like a bail fund and, you know, community support funds do need to be very cautious. That has already always been the case. And this is a really good time to hire a CPA to go over your books and to make sure that you have kept really meticulous records to make sure that if you have raised money for something, you have only used it for the thing that you said it was going to be be used for. And this is, once again, something that largely is a feature of far right organizing. Right. I don't know if you remember, but Steve Bannon was actually prosecuted for wire fraud because he was raising money to do something.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Build the wall.

[Robert Evans]

Build the wall.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Yeah, he was raising money to build the wall, but not using it for that purpose, which is wire fraud. Right. So if you run a bail fund, presumably you already know that you have to be very careful about how you raise that money and how you monitor and track and use that money. So most of the people, I would say the overwhelming majority of people who are sort of going to be subject to this kind of monitoring, A, have already been subject to it, and B, haven't actually done anything unlawful. And, you know, that doesn't mean this won't be disruptive. It just means, look, I'm not naive enough to say that your innocence will protect you, but it's a good, good start. And then we have folks who maybe actually do engage in unlawful conduct or revolutionary action or people about whom that claim could somewhat credibly be made. And that's actually just a different. A different group. Right. And those things were illegal last week, and they're illegal now, and they're not more illegal because they're politically motivated. Right. Although, you know, there are terrorism enhancements and sentencing enhancements and things like that. The fact that fact is like, you know, it can't be more illegal to spray paint Free Gaza on the side of a building than it is to spray paint. I love Trump on the side of a building. Right.

[Kaveh Hoda]

I mean, what. Whether or not this, like, pans out in the courts. Right. Is one thing, but I know that, like, say, for the library case that happened here, where people were arrested because Some people were filming in. In this, this like, Palestine related workshop in a public library and they were asked to stop filming. And then a scuffle broke out and a phone got knocked to the ground and people got apparently dragged outside. Again, I was not there for this. But like, now the people are facing like, people who are in the crowd who are not. The people who were filming are facing charges of ethnic intimidation. And that's a very specific case in a different jurisdiction from where you are practicing law. But it's not just about, like, what's being charged against them isn't about assault per se. It's. It's this enhanced, politically driven statement based on the rhetoric that's, you know, based on the politics.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Right, absolutely. And I'm glad you pointed that out because I certainly do not want to suggest that politically motivated prosecutions don't happen. They absolutely happen. These recent statements don't change the way in which they. They happen. Right. And there are ways of targeting people for prosecution based on their politics. And those have. Those are, again, not new. I think the point that I'm trying to make is that I don't think this has changed substantively. Yeah, like the fact that the president said antifa is a domestic terrorist organization just doesn't really change the legal landscape. This has been the targeted surveillance of the left. Whether you call it Antifa, whether it's the Green Scare, whether it's the Black Liberation army, this has been a priority for decades of administrations. More and more legislation has been developed to criminalize garden variety protest conduct. We saw that a lot around Standing Rock and blm. More and more resources are allocated to testing creative strategies for monitoring and creating criminalizing political activities. You know, again, state repression and the tools that are used in the service of state repression are just not new. And the fact that you put out these statements is maybe a good reminder that we should be circumspect and aware of repression and prepared to bear up under it.

[Kaveh Hoda]

So is the RICO 61 Atlanta case a model for what we see moving forward at a federal level in relation to these domestic terrorism charges, conspiracy, racketeering, the focus on bail funds and other abolitionist infrastructure or civil liberties organizations like section h of that September 25 statement refers to the Attorney General pursuing, quote, politically motivated terrorist acts such as organizing doxing campaigns, swatting, rioting, looting, trespass, assault, destruction of property, threats of violence and civil disorder. Like, I know those are all things that, you know, they've already got charges attached to them. It's just these are now being framed within the framework of being terrorist acts. But you know, you said like these practices of attacking adjacent, like supportive moves, movement and civil society organs is not, it's not in and of itself new. But it seems like the framing, especially with the Atlanta case where the prosecutors brought up at the beginning, like they gave a Merriam Webster dictionary definition of anarchism and then said all these people fall under this umbrella because they all have this ideology, therefore they are a conspiracy. Is that what the administration is trying to do and is that different from from what they've already done at a federal level?

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

So first of all, I do think that that's very likely that they will try. I think this is signaling a real interest in that. I don't think that's particularly new, but I think that it's clearly being prioritized. So let's talk about rico. Rico, let's talk about RICO briefly. RICO is the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act. And it was enacted in a think 1970 to go after the mob, right? It was to go after crime families, but it's been used against so called gangs and in other politically motivated prosecutions for a long time. And so RICO is really used to kind of criminalize whole communities. But it requires that an actual crime has happened, right? Association or ideology in itself is not sufficient. So we. It requires an actual crime. It's has happened. And it also requires an enterprise like a coordinated enterprise. And because the First Amendment protects association and a large diffuse group of people sharing values is not an enterprise. You know, I'm not sure it's not a straightforward path to say we want to use RICO in a politically motivated way and to actually be able to capture, capture this group under a net. Right? That's like, you know, saying we want to go after antifa is like saying we want to go after people who like cats, right? There are people who like cats, but they certainly aren't coordinating together. I suppose that there are actually people who would say like, yes, I identify strongly with this set of values, but it's not a membership organization. And, and it would, I think be very difficult to mount a prosecution or to mount a successful prosecution on the basis of what are clearly First Amendment protected beliefs and associations. And there's pretty good law on this point actually. And it comes from an effort to prosecute a bunch of anti abortion protesters under rico. And the court said you can't do that. The fact that there's a large group of people who happen to believe the same things does not mean that they are an Enterprise. So look, don't get me wrong again, this would be hugely disruptive, but it would be very difficult to sustain an effective prosecution or obtain a conviction if there was one competent investigator, prosecutor, judge or jury member anywhere along the way. But yes, hugely disruptive if, if they manage to do it. I would like to note something about the, the Stavcop City RICO that's important. So first of all, yay. All those, all those charges, those ricos were dismissed for legal reasons of being utter bull. And I know that, you know, there's some concern that that will be appealed, but I, I think it is worth noting and celebrating that when we fight, we win. But sort of more to the point, in this context, I do want to note that Georgia's RICO statute is different from the federal RICO statute and it's actually easier, even worse than the federal RICO statute and it still couldn't be effectively used in this way. And also federal RICO has often failed. Right? Efforts to use federal RICO in a politically motivated way have also failed. So if you look up like the Ohio 7, which was a fairly early effort to bring a politically motivated RICO that did not go great for the government. So yeah, I think that's important to note about rico.

[Kaveh Hoda]

So you mentioned this like FBI designation earlier. It had been for a while I think under, I thought it, this came up under Obama, but maybe it came up under, under Biden for the prosecution of January 6. But anti government extremists, which included militia movements and also anarchists, it's been shifted to far left extremist in the verbiage of, of the DOJ and who they're pursuing. Anti law enforcement and anti conservative attacks have been framed as, you know, of concerted effort by far, far left extremists in the media and also like by these institutions as they're, you know, moving forward before they actually make any arrests or whatever. And through their prosecution, sometimes using terms like, you know, antifa or trantifa or whatever sort of motivations they're giving. I also wonder if you could say a thing specifically about this sort of framing that is being given again that is like, like I was thinking of about this be like before more recent mass shooting events that have happened or before the hullabaloo around Charlie Kirk's assassination and, and the shooter, the alleged shooter's relationships to other people that there seems to be this concerted effort around clinically framing and politically flaming framing transness as a mental health issue, but also as a political extension of woke gender ideology that's coming for your choice, children. And it's like, it's, it's interesting because, like, in order for people in a lot of cases in the US to be able to gain access to medical care that they desire or need around maybe gender dysphoria or some other, some other experience, they often have to use these, like, clinical terms for what they are experiencing and why they need medication for it. And not faulting people for making that approach because you need the medicine that you need. But now this is being turned around and reframed as therefore, if people need this stuff and they're making this argument, therefore they have some sort of mental deficiency or some sort of issue which is being used in order to challenge people's right to keep and bear arms under the second Amendment or saying that people are like, because of their transness, being motivated towards this attacks. Like, I don't know if you have anything to. Again, not exactly, exactly like, not exactly a legal issue. But I don't know if you have any observations.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Well, I mean, I guess when it comes down to it, just to be very clear, the DSM makes very clear that or that being trans is not a mental illness, that gender dysphoria is distress caused by discrepancy between the assigned gender and your actual gender, which would exist, exist if any CIS person were being treated as a gender that they didn't identify with. Right. That would be a distress that would arise for any person. I think that there are real problems with the sort of clinicization or medicalization of gender affirming care, but I do want to be very clear that that does not have to and does not formally or officially include pathologizing trans identity. That's something that's being imputed and being imposed, but it has no basis in clinical practice. Not that that necessarily matters to the government, but I do think it's important to point that out. I think given that previous efforts to restrict gun ownership on the basis of previously diagnosed mental illness have not been super successful, I don't know that this one will be either. But again, this is an issue of power and less an issue of law or logical, coherent legal philosophy.

[Kaveh Hoda]

So this term has been coming up a lot of. With Trump or the administration talking about domestic terrorists, there's been a lot of pushback from the legal community or from civil libertarians saying, what the hell are you talking about?

[James Stout]

About?

[Kaveh Hoda]

Can you talk about, like, what it means to be called a domestic terrorist? What, what changes that makes in like, how the law approaches you or how.

[Robert Evans]

You can be convicted?

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Yeah, Gladly. So at this point, what it means to be called a domestic terrorist is actually nothing. There is no legal procedure for designating a domestic terrorist group or to. For designating a domestic group a terrorist organization. And given the current law on the matter, it's even with this Supreme Court, I think it would be very, very difficult to change the law in the way it would have to be changed in order to make that designation. There are ways to freeze the assets of a domestic group. There are ways to posit or show a connection between a domestic group and a designated foreign terrorist organization, which is a real thing that has legal effect. There is a way to financially designate a group or an individual as, you know, having this kind of relationship to a foreign terrorist organization or an fto. So. But there's no legal mechanism for designating a domestic terrorist group. That's not a thing. So this is a place where the government could simply dispense with the law. But I do not think this is a place where the government can use the law to create a category of domestic terrorist organizations. And just to, like, explain FTOs a little bit, there is a category of organization that are designated by the State Department as, quote, foreign terrorist organizations. FTOs are designated by the State Department and they are listed on the State Department website. Right. It's not a secret who they are. You're not going to suddenly find out that, you know, you gave money that to, I don't know, the Greek equivalent of the aclu. And now it's, you know, it turns out it's an fto. There are certainly cases where the government has successfully claimed that a connection between a domestic group and an FTO exists in, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. And if you have a connection to an fto, you can be prosecuted for what's called material support for terrorism. And it's a very serious charge. It's a very frightening charge. And it does criminalize a lot of things that most people understand to be protected by the First Amendment right. It criminalizes providing things like medical care care to certain groups. It criminalizes providing education or legal support to certain groups that are designated foreign terrorist organizations. And frankly, this is the idea that underpins material support for terrorism charges is offensive to many people because it does feel very much incompatible with constitutional norms under the First Amendment. It's an important thing to be aware of. But it would be very surprising to me if the government were able to successfully make broad claims connecting, quote, antifa to foreign terrorist organizations.

[Kaveh Hoda]

I was, when you were saying that that had me thinking a little bit about the Holy Land Five case. I was trying to remember that example, I guess like to belabor this. Can we talk about the distinction between domestic terrorist organization, which is a classification that doesn't exist, versus the charge of committing terrorism? Because people who get terrorism enhancements, at least like the, like Marius Mason, the one example that comes to my mind, right. Who is a member of cell that was associated with the Earth Liberation Front, like, so that that person got over two decades in prison based on like being convicted of crimes that existed and then getting enhancements based on the definition that those were terrible terrorist. Amplifying the amount of time. Right.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

The difference is the difference between criminalizing conduct or defining conduct as being terroristic and criminalizing a group. The First Amendment protects freedom of belief, association and expression. And that means that however much we might be targeted for our beliefs, associations and expressions, expression, we cannot be prosecuted criminally for anything besides our conduct, our actions. And so there can be terrorist offenses and enhancements for sentencing on the basis of conduct that you are convicted of. If you engage in certain illegal acts and a judge determines that those acts were motivated by desire to do terrorism, then the penalty for engaging in those acts can be enhanced. But you cannot designate a group, a belief or an expression as being a crime in itself unless there is conduct associated with it. Because we don't criminalize people's identities. I mean, we do criminalize people's identities. Identities, but it's.

[Kaveh Hoda]

But we don't say it out.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Impermissible to prosecute people for having those identities.

[Kaveh Hoda]

I guess of note, as I understand the terrorism enhancements that the prosecutors are pursuing in the Luigi Mangioni case have been dropped, is a thing that I heard.

[Robert Evans]

Yes.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Which I mean, at the same time this is referenced in one of those documents that came out from the White House as being terroristic act.

[Robert Evans]

So, yes.

[Kaveh Hoda]

What do the courts know? Okay, thank you for. For making that distinction more clear. All right, so how might those of us on the left or in justice movements, as you stated it, conceive of the state's view of us? How do we rally support for our identities and positions? What are some good practices? Understanding, like having had this conversation, the terrain on which. Which we're operating.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Absolutely. So I guess what I would say about best practices is understand whether you are at risk, even if you're somebody who has not traditionally been at risk, even if you're someone who has lived your whole life believing that the system works and that this particular administration is like an aberration I would say, look, this administration is preoccupied with the funding streams for very mainstream liberal causes. And the fact that it's sort of lumping everything under the banner of antifa, you know, is probably a big surprise for some of these groups like, you know, Suburban White Moms Against Guns or whatever. But they are very focused on things like wire fraud and money laundering and stripping nonprofits of their tax status if there's even a whisper of the possibility that those nonprofits are pursuing goals that are in any way antagonistic to state interests. So if you are in a group that has a bank, bank account or raises money, the best practices here haven't changed. Keep very precise track of your funds. If you raise money, use it for the thing you said you were going to use it for. Have an accountant, you know, be very, very careful about your money. And again, the best practices for the rest of us also haven't changed. This is political discourse that reaffirms what we already know about targeted surveillance. And we have for a long time known how to deal with this. If you are approached by law enforcement, remember that the Fifth Amendment protects your right not to speak to them. You have no obligation to speak to law enforcement. It is a crime to lie to federal agents, and that means that it is safest not to say anything. Besides, I am represented by counsel. Please leave your name and number and my lawyer will call you. There is truly never a compelling reason to speak to federal agents before consulting with an attorney. The NLG Anti Repression Hotline can be reached at 212-679-2811. You can call to have a free privileged conversation about your rights, risks and responsibilities, and to be connected with appropriate legal resources in your area. And at the end of the day, we keep ourselves safe by refusing to submit to this fear, refusing to comply in advance, refusing to second guess whether we actually have rights. And more importantly, we persist by being confident in the fact that no matter what, our communities are going to rally around and care for each other.

[Kaveh Hoda]

I think that would be a great place to tie up. Thank you so much for having this conversation and for the insights that you've shared and for the work that you do.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Mo, you're very welcome.

[Kaveh Hoda]

It's always a pleasure.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

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[James Stout]

There's a viral sickness in Abbott's town. You must excise it. Dig into the deep earth and cut it out.

[Tyler Black]

The village is ravaged.

[Robert Evans]

Entire families have been consumed. You know how waking up from a dream? A familiar place can look completely alien?

[Kaveh Hoda]

Get back everyone, and if you see.

[James Stout]

The devil walking around inside of another man, you must cut out the very.

[Mia Wong]

Heart of him, burn his body and.

[James Stout]

Scatter the ashes in the furthest corner of this town.

[Kaveh Hoda]

As a warning from iHeart podcasts and.

[Garrison Davis]

Grim and mild from Aaron Manke, this.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast set in the Bridgewater Audio universe starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc town on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.

[Robert Evans]

The Devil Walks in Abbostown I just.

[Garrison Davis]

Think the process and the journey is so delicious. That's where all the good stuff is. You just can't live and die by the end result.

[James Stout]

It's scary putting yourself out there, especially.

[Garrison Davis]

When it's something you really care about.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

And something that you hope is your passion in life and you want people to like it. Let's get delicious and put ourselves out there.

[James Stout]

I'm Simone Boyce, host of the Bright.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Side, and those were my recent guests, comedian Phoebe Robinson and writer Aaron Foster.

[James Stout]

On this show, I'm talking to the.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Brightest minds in entertainment, health, wellness and pop culture.

[James Stout]

And every week we're going places in our communities, our careers and ourselves.

[Garrison Davis]

It's not about being perfect.

[James Stout]

It's about going on a journey and discovering the bright side of becoming.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Few people know that better than soccer legend Ashlyn Harris. It's the journey. It's the people, it's the failures, it's the heartache, it's the little moments. These are our moments to laugh, learn and exhale. So join me every Monday and let's.

[James Stout]

Find the bright side together. Listen to the bright side on the iHeartRadio app.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Just like great shoes, great books take you places through unforgettable love stories and.

[Tyler Black]

Into conversations with with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Me this feeling of like butterflies.

[Tyler Black]

I'm Danielle Robaix and this is bookmarked.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

By Reese's Book Club. The new podcast from hello Sunshine and I Heart Podcasts where we dive into the stories that shape us on the page and off. Each week I'm joined by authors, celebs, book talk stars and more for conversations that will make you laugh, cry and.

[Robert Evans]

Add way too many, many books to your TBR pile.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book club on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Apple Books is the official audiobook and.

[Tyler Black]

Ebook home for Reese's Book Club.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Visit Apple Co ReeseAppleBooks to find out more.

[Garrison Davis]

Happy Groktober everybody.

[Robert Evans]

Oh shut the fuck up. We can't.

[Garrison Davis]

This is it could happen here. Executive Disorder our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis. Today I'm joined by Mia Wong, James Stout and Robert Evans. This episode we're covering the week of September 21st to October 1st.

[Robert Evans]

And what a week it was.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, does not feel like it should be October, but who cares? I guess the government's shut down right now.

[James Stout]

So.

[Garrison Davis]

So all of the dozens of anarchists around the country are rejoicing as the Senate has failed to pass a short term funding bill.

[Robert Evans]

That's right everyone. We did it. We defeated the state using the power of the state.

[Garrison Davis]

Many such cases as the government's shutdown. Trump is threatening mass layoffs and Republicans are framing this whole shutdown as being caused by Democrats who are trying to do defend health care for quote unquote illegals. Which isn't real. Undocumented immigrants do not get federal health care. That's not even what the Democrats are fighting for. Would be cool if they were. Would be cool if you're in this country you could just get health care. That sounds nice. Wouldn't that be a cool, almost utopian place to live? But that's not what's happening. And the rights confronted with this, but they just do not care. Here's Mike Johnson, speaker of the House on cnn having a little debate about this.

[Robert Evans]

If that counter proposal was enacted is illegal aliens would be paid for.

[James Stout]

American taxpayers hard earned dollars would be.

[Robert Evans]

Paying for benefits for illegal aliens.

[James Stout]

Again, we're not doing that. But it's against federal law for people who are here illegally to get. Yes.

[Mia Wong]

And that's why our reforms are so important to enforce all that.

[James Stout]

What the important thing to remember is.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

What'S happening at the Democratic proposal, that.

[James Stout]

People who are here illegally because they.

[Robert Evans]

Don'T have the level of specification that.

[James Stout]

We had in our bill, it will unwind that. And all the those things that the CBO just verified will be reversed.

[Mia Wong]

We can't afford to do that.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

But you see my point that there's no.

[James Stout]

I don't argue that you're making. Right.

[Mia Wong]

No.

[James Stout]

That is a red herring in this.

[Robert Evans]

In this debate.

[Garrison Davis]

So what the Democrats are actually doing right now is they're trying to extend the current, currently enacted federal subsidies for the Affordable Care act, which keeps millions of people able to access health care. And Democrats are also trying to reverse some of the federal health care cuts, including to Medicare, Medicaid, which happened under the one big beautiful bill earlier this year. That is what they are actually fighting for. The White House is retruthing and retweeting proposals from the Democrats that include health care for aliens. But that's legal aliens. That's like legal, documented residents. And they're framing this as health care for, quote, unquote, illegals.

[Robert Evans]

It's a. It's a bad faith representation, as it always is. Like, people can go all the way. Back to the episode that I made with Robert and Sophie last year about what Trump might do to learn more about the public charge rule and how that pertains to people who are not U.S. citizens. I don't think we really have the time, nor is this the place to go over that here. But there is not and there has never been a massive federal free healthcare plan for undocumented people. In fact, people who are undocumented are not going to see the doctor right now because of the persistent and untrue rumor that ICE are taking people from hospitals. That is not something I'm aware of ever happen happening. I do take people who are already in their custody to hospitals and they will wait for those people while those people are treated. That is not the same as entering the hospital and grabbing people based on their immigration status. And I'm aware of several cases where people whose life was genuinely in danger were afraid to go and seek medical attention because they were afraid that they would be targeted for their immigration status.

[Garrison Davis]

So we'll see how long this government shutdown lasts. The last one started in 2018, lasted 35 days. If this shutdown's still happening next week. I'm sure we will include some details about government services being affected. But this could resolve in a few days, a few hours, or in a few weeks. We do not know. But luckily not all is depressing and dark in this country. There still is a ray of hope. And that ray of hope is named Jimmy Kimmel, who is thankfully back on the air. I know we've all been watching. We've all been watching this certainly. And nexstar and Sinclair have ceased preempting his show. So it's back on air across the country. Free speech is so back in America. Robert, do you want to talk about the Disney boycott?

[Robert Evans]

Yes. So we've gotten some data finally on the damage done to Disney as a result of the boycott after they fired Monsieur Kimmel.

[Garrison Davis]

Suspended. Suspended. Monsieur Kimmel.

[Robert Evans]

Suspended. Suspended.

[James Stout]

They were definitely going to fire.

[Garrison Davis]

They wanted to fire his ass.

[Robert Evans]

They definitely wanted to. To fire him. And you know, there was a lot of posting online about.

[Garrison Davis]

There's a lot of posting online, a.

[Robert Evans]

Lot of posting about people canceling their accounts and people being like, wow. And it's, I always, it's always very frustrating to me because like people get very excited and it's impossible to tell in the moment. Is this actually anything right? Yes. 16,000 people shared this thing about how the website for Disney was down, but that doesn't mean anything other than like someone saw the website down and a bunch of people shared and posted it. So it was very difficult to tell. Like, is there actually any follow through on this? Is Disney's bottom line being hurt? And thankfully, I'm very happy to say that it does look like Disney suffered a substantial financial setback as a result of the boycott campaign.

[Mia Wong]

Yep.

[Robert Evans]

Something like 1.7 million paid subscribers canceled. And this was immediately before Disney was looking to announce a price increase. So like, this is, this is like a serious. I'm not surprised they reversed course. This is like damaging to them. We're not talking about the amount of money that a company like Disney would just ignore.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And I think the most important thing here for all of us, and this is something I talked about, we did an episode about this. This is actually before Kim will have been reinstated by Sinclair. But one of the really important things here is that everyone fucking hates this government. They are hideously unpopular. All of their sort of legitimization system stuff, all of the sort of media complicity they've bought has bought them about a 4% approval rating bump from where they were this time in the administration the first time so he's at about a 41% approval rating. Everything that he's doing is hideously underwater. Like, his most popular thing is his immigration policy, which is horrible, but it's again, like 42%. Everyone hates these people. And it's very easy, because of their control of the media sphere, to believe that they have this sort of total hegemonic power over everyone in the US until the exact moment where it gets challenged and everyone's like, wait, hold on. No, it turns out most of the country hates this. Does not want Jimmy Kimmel axed from Disney.

[Garrison Davis]

Comrade Kimmel has joined the fight.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, yeah. There are more of us than there are of them, and there always have been.

[Garrison Davis]

And by more of us, Mia is referring to herself and Jimmy Kimmel as a coherent political class. Just for the record there.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, no. The only two members of the coherent political class Mia Kimmel is in. But that's good news.

[Garrison Davis]

Just overall, the fourth estate, which holds.

[Robert Evans]

Me up, and Jimmy Kimmel.

[Mia Wong]

This is the worst day of my life.

[James Stout]

The entirety of the fourth estate. But I don't know, there's a little.

[Robert Evans]

Bit of good news for you. A bunch of people got really pissed at something blatantly anti First Amendment, anti Democratic, massive overreach of the state thought crime nonsense. And the company suffered such dramatic. Within, like, literally in the space of a week. That's 330 million or so million dollars a year that Disney lost that even Disney can't ignore that kind of money.

[Garrison Davis]

A whole bunch of like, regular people.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, like people who subscribe to Disney. Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

An army of ordinary liberals. The actual, like, silent majority in this country said, no Disney.

[Robert Evans]

We're like, well, that's gross and scary. I'm not paying Disney anymore. And it's good that they did that.

[Garrison Davis]

Currently, the right's trying to manufacture a counter boycott against Netflix for having children's shows with non binary characters, mostly using clips from children. Children's shows that are like two or three years old. Clipset Lives of TikTok has already posted years ago. Now Chaya Raichek and others are recirculating these clips being like, look at, look at how Netflix has gone too far, is pushing woke nonsense down the throats of your children by using like, ancient clips from like the Jurassic Park TV show. Like, okay, guys, good luck with that. Have fun.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

In other news, the Department of War. So this actually happened last month. On September 5th, Trump signed an executive order approving the name the Department of War as a secondary title for the Department of Defense to use in official correspondence, public communications, ceremonial contexts and non statutory documents within the executive branch. While the administration also works on changing the name officially through Congress, Hegseth nearly immediately switched all of his accounts and his office nameplate to read Secretary of War.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, you know, he pushed hard for this one.

[Garrison Davis]

Defense.gov now redirects to war.gov and they're just referring to this in all public appearances as the War Department. Something that we've talked about on the show before of them wanting to do. And they're going to continue to push this and using this kind of war framing for domestic operations. Yeah, not just international deployments.

[Robert Evans]

This was its historical name. Right. Like way, way before it was a dod yeah, yeah. It was just to be clear for people, that doesn't mean that it's like a good reason to change it back.

[Garrison Davis]

Trump truthed last week, quote, at the request of the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, I am directing Secretary of War Pete Hagseth to provide all necessary troops to protect war ravaged Port Portland and any of our ICE facilities under siege from attack by antifa and other domestic terrorists. I'm also authorizing full force if necessary. Thank you for your attention in this matter. War ravaged Portland. How's it, how's it hanging out there for our Portland correspondence?

[Robert Evans]

It's fine. It's kind of rainy. I had a nice tapas dinner on Sunday. It was pretty good.

[Mia Wong]

The crows are really nice.

[Garrison Davis]

Does someone want to mention like the nature of the Antioch ICE protests happening in like one square block in like the south waterfront of downtown Portland?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's in the South Waterfront. McAdam is what people here call it, the neighborhood where the ICE auxiliary facility is. And there have been protests off and on pretty much since Trump took office. Usually on like a good night, you get maybe 150, 200 people. There were some nights kind of around where things blew up in LA that there were more like five or six hundred people out for a, of couple, couple of days. There really hasn't been any of the, like, what we were seeing in 2020 in terms of like the mass, mass gatherings and, and you know, there has not really been much in the way of like people getting arrested originally getting arrested for crossing a line that separates federal property from like state property, so to speak, and like step over it and then a bunch of guys run out and grab them.

[James Stout]

Right. That's, that's mostly what the arrests are for.

[Robert Evans]

A lot of people have had charges dropped. Mean, I. People get fucked up charges when they get charged. But a Lot of them are not really sticking because they're not very strong. Like, because there's just not much going on. Right.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

We'll talk more about why Trump thinks there's this Apocalypse now scenario happening in Portland. But, yeah, so far the protests have been relatively mild.

[Robert Evans]

Yes.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, the vibe is very much like the classic Portland thing of people with like holding donuts on fishing lines out in front of the cops.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

It's like that. Not like Molotovs.

[Robert Evans]

The response has been crazy. Like there's a video going around that's a bunch of federal agents. I think they're FPS rolling in from a van from outside of the ICE facility and arresting somebody who again, probably crossed a line or threw something generally is why people have been getting arrested.

[James Stout]

So that the response has been nonsense.

[Robert Evans]

That that video is from recently and I'm seeing it attributed to Trump's declaration of war. But like, I saw stuff like that.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Three months ago, four months ago.

[Robert Evans]

Like it's been happening every day. Like they do roll up in their vans when they. Because they periodically throughout the day, we'll have feds come in to go grab a couple of people and that this is a thing they've been doing. So they've been it so far at least. I have not seen either an escalation on the ground really in terms of like, what protests, what the protests are doing and the numbers of protesters since Trump's declaration. And I also really haven't seen an escalation in, in what's being deployed on the ground.

[Garrison Davis]

We have not seen the Oregon National Guard presence that is being promised. No, this has just been DHS officers.

[Robert Evans]

I can confirm, just based on some, some information that's come my way, that there do seem to be an increased.

[James Stout]

Number of DHS Blackhawks flying with their.

[Robert Evans]

Transponders off, which there's a couple of reasons they can do that. Some of them is for if they are trans, transporting like high value, quote unquote deportees. Right. People who are being deported for some sort of serious crime. Sure. Some of it is if they are feel like they are under threat and are doing like emergency personnel transfers, they're not generally supposed to fly without their transponders. Although, again, you can't really trust anything to work the way it's supposed to work. But there is some evidence that they have been ramping up and they have been flying more MQ9s over the city Reaper drones for surveillance purposes. So that I can say there does seem to have been a degree of escalation but in terms of we're not seeing troops marching through the city yet. And I, I honestly can't. It doesn't seem to me, as of the moment that we're recording this, that there has been an escalation in the level of force used on the ground. Right. Yeah.

[James Stout]

Now, that said, the level of forced.

[Robert Evans]

Use on the ground before Trump declared his war on Portland or whatever was still pretty extreme. That has continued. I just, it doesn't seem like what's happening right now is a massive increase over where we were two weeks ago.

[James Stout]

You know, that's all I'm saying.

[Mia Wong]

And I think the place where that has happened is Chicago, and we will get to that later.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Well, Trump has continued to talk about deploying, quote, unquote, troops to U.S. cities, including at a meeting of top brass on Tuesday, September 30, where Pete Hagseth basically ranted to top generals and admirals about no more wokeness in the military. Military. But Trump also spoke telling top military officials to prepare to deploy military to liberal run cities, calling it a, quote, war from within. Let's play the clip.

[James Stout]

But it seems that the ones that are run by the radical left Democrats, what they've done to San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, they're very unsafe places and we're going to straighten them out. There'll be a major part for some of the people in this room, that's a war, too. It's a war from within. Controlling the physical territory of our border is essential to national security. We can't let these people in.

[Robert Evans]

The two separate issues there that he conflated. Right. Protests in cities and people crossing the border.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. And that's the way Trump's been.

[Robert Evans]

Yes.

[Garrison Davis]

Talking about this for a while. I mean, same thing with, like D.C. right. Combining this like crime is issue with undocumented immigration and also with protests against ICE operations targeting undocumented immigrants, all kind of bundled together into this. Into this war from within.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. I mean, the immigration issue. Right. Is one that gives him a much broader leeway in the powers constitutionally available to him as the executive than policing with the military, which is on the face of the thing that shouldn't happen in the United States. United States. It makes sense from a tactical perspective for them to conflate those two things together. I will say, even if it's not particularly real.

[Garrison Davis]

During this televised meeting, Trump told military leaders, quote, last month I signed an executive order to provide training for a quick reaction force that can help quell civil disturbances. This is going to Be a big thing for the people in this room talking to the generals because it's, it's the enemy from within and we will have to handle it before it gets out of control. It won't get out of control once you're involved. Unquote. So they're directly addressing admirals and generals.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

About them having to help form a quick reaction force to quell civil disturbance, which won't get out of control once they're involved. Calling it again, the enemy from within. A line that Trump used a lot during the tail end of his presidential campaign in 2020. 24.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, which is just, it's.

[Mia Wong]

Every single element of it is just fascist.

[Garrison Davis]

It's, it's pretty, it's pretty blanket authoritarian stuff. Like there's no like sugar coating it here.

[Mia Wong]

No. Yeah, yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

They don't need to like use coded phrases. Right? They just say this stuff.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, no, it, like they're just, yeah, they're just, this is, this is just fascism. Like they're just trying to do it.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, they're just saying the thing.

[Garrison Davis]

In the meeting, he explicitly labeled these dangerous cities as a training ground for our military national.

[James Stout]

But I want to salute every service member who has helped us carry out this critical mission. It's really a very important mission.

[Tyler Black]

And I told Pete we should use.

[James Stout]

Some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.

[Tyler Black]

National Guard, but military because we're going.

[James Stout]

Into Chicago very soon. That's a big city with an incompetent governor.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Stupid.

[James Stout]

Governor Stupid.

[Mia Wong]

I think it's worth noting both the mayor of Chicago and the Governor Pritzker have, have been very unhappy about this. Like as much as Pritzker has kind of not been doing anything about like CPD aiding ICE in raids, he is absolutely not budging at all about not putting National Guard troops in. So if they're very serious about following this through, we're going to see some kind of large scale confrontation. And Pritzker is not the kind of like knock kneed Gavin Newsom type governor.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, he's not Gavin Newsom.

[Mia Wong]

He's not simply just going to let Trump do this and. Yeah, and that's going to be a major source of confrontation. Assuming this specific, like we're going to send the National Guard in to Chicago, stuff like happen soon.

[Garrison Davis]

Trump also talked about talking with Tina Kotak, governor of Oregon, about deploying Oregon National Guard and her pushing back against that, but ostensibly acquiescing in some way because there's been an announcement from the Oregon National Guard that they will be deploying and people in Oregon probably aren't going to be happy about it. They won't understand the mission. But during this meeting, Trump did talk about his phone calls with the Oregon governor.

[James Stout]

Portland, Oregon, where it looks like a war zone. And I get a call from the liberal governor, sir, please don't come in.

[Robert Evans]

We don't need need you.

[James Stout]

I said, well, unless they're playing false tapes, this looked like World War II. Your place is burning down. I mean, you must be kidding. Sir, we have it under control. I said, you don't have it under control, Governor, but I'll check it and I'll call you back. I called it back. I said, you, you. This place is a nightmare, probably. It's certainly not the biggest, but it's one of the worst. It's brutal. They go after our ICE people who are great patriots and tough job too, but they love it. They love it because they're cleaning up our country.

[Robert Evans]

They love it because there's a $50,000 sign up.

[Garrison Davis]

Well, unless they're playing false tapes. So the tapes aren't necessarily false. But if you're watching Fox News 24 7, what Fox News is doing is they're playing a lot of clips not from the year of our Lord 2025, but in fact from 2020, when Trump's last federal invasion of Portland happened, where he deployed bortac, which looked much more like a war scene. Do you know why? Because of the massive amounts of chemical munitions that BORTAK like caked downtown Portland in, which made it look very similar to a war scene. So, yeah, that. Those are the clips that are playing nonstop on tv. I've been watching Fox News clips. They're just playing clips of Portland 2020 to make this look like a different situation than what the current on the ground situation is, which may have some intense mom, but not nearly the intensity of five years ago, which again was stoked by Trump's own military police force, which was deployed to the city.

[Robert Evans]

So, yeah, there's some information that Trump got corrected internally. I don't know that I think that that's going to mean anything. But yeah, six year old footage, five year old footage being used to justify military deployments is about what you'd expect, really.

[Garrison Davis]

Literally yesterday I saw footage circulating on X, the fucking everything app of someone throwing a Molotov cocktail into a street.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I remember that Molotov and I'm.

[Garrison Davis]

Like, I remember that Molotov, that Molotov.

[Robert Evans]

Getting thrown half a decade ago.

[Garrison Davis]

It only hit another protester whose feet got very Badly burned.

[Robert Evans]

Yes.

[Garrison Davis]

And that's the type of footage circulating that makes it look like, you know, once again, Portland's burning down. Portland's always burning down. Using like one or two select clips from. Yeah. Half a decade ago.

[Robert Evans]

And again, no buildings actually burn.

[James Stout]

Burnt down.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. They've created a reality around what happened in Portland in 2020 that you will never change with facts or evidence. Right. Like to people who watch Fox News, Portland was burned to the ground in 2020. And again, even on the worst nights in Portland, we could go three blocks and get food from a food cart. Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

We got a lot of great Chinese food that summer.

[Robert Evans]

Get great Chinese food shawarma, you know. Yep. In la, when the city was whatever, under siege, I went to Buffalo Wild Wings and pretty, pretty normal Buffalo wild wings at 2am on a Wednesday scene. That's a war zone.

[James Stout]

That's a war zone.

[Robert Evans]

I had my plate carrier on. I was ready to go.

[Garrison Davis]

Here's some ads. We'll be back to talk about Chicago, but enjoy these possibly Buffalo Wild Wing sponsored ads.

[Robert Evans]

I doubt it. No vegan food.

[Garrison Davis]

All right, we are back.

[Robert Evans]

Sweet. And it's good to be back. I want to talk very briefly about Pete Hegseth Sec War, as he is calling himself now.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Robert Evans]

And the little speech he gave Pete Peg Seth. He's, he's, he's working on his, his physical fitness for sure. His bod there. He put a big emphasis on, on physical fitness in his speech along with grooming standards and other shit.

[Garrison Davis]

Male standards.

[Robert Evans]

Yes. Everybody has to attain the male standard for the various role of their combat roles if they want to do that. Right. So that would mean, you know, the army physical fitness test. Right. Whatever the, the male standard, quote unquote was, would be everyone's standard. I don't want to go deep into Hegseth career. That will be. That would be another episode possibly of another show. But I do want to talk about the stuff. Did you notice he said no more. He left a number of generals, but one of them was Millie. Right. He said no more. More Millies Chiarelli. And I forget who the other one was, but I thought that was interesting given what we saw Trump say about a qrf. Right. Milly had a long career in the military. Right. He, he saw plenty of combat and all that stuff. But I think he's most well known to most people for his cooling effect on the use of the US military against protesters in 2020. I'll say. I think that is what that was referring to. Right. That hes was Talking about, remember, removing that kind of person from command. And Milley also said no to Trump when he wanted to deploy for. And he was also working behind the scenes, he's admitted now with Pelosi being like, we need to have a plan if he tries to use the nukes after the election. Yeah. Milley was doing everything he could to mitigate what he saw as a massive danger of Trump responding in a completely disproportionate way.

[Garrison Davis]

A legitimate national security danger.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Someone whose job is protecting the United States, like that's a reasonable concern. Was a reasonable concern at that time. Obviously, the Trump administration does not want people like that in command anymore. And that was something that he spoke about at length. The rest of his speech focused on shit like fitness standards, like grooming, visible tattoos, a bunch of stuff that you would expect from a mid career infantry officer who hasn't had a particularly distinguished career. Right. Like that's the. That mid career infantry officers do.

[Garrison Davis]

I think you mean war fighters, James, which is Hag Seth's preferred term for soldiers.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, me. Yeah, well, because it's gender neutral. Start that.

[James Stout]

They've been doing that for a while.

[Robert Evans]

But yeah, it's on the MREs. It's been on the MREs for a while. But yes, Heth does like the phrase war fighters. Yeah. His, his stuff was, like I said, not something you would expect from someone who. I think he was.04 in the national Guard.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Robert Evans]

I don't think any of that is particularly new. He issued a number of directives. One thing I did want to talk about was this change in grooming standards. So the War Department has issued a new directive on shaving profiles. What this does in practice, as we can see from their announcement, which features prominently a black soldier shaving is. It takes away long term shaving profiles for soldiers with medical conditions such as pseudofolliculitis or eczema, or other soldiers who, who experience skin irritation by shaving. Right. Previously, those soldiers may have had a, like a waiver which they could show to their officers. If their officer said, hey, soldier, why haven't you shaved? Soldier, sailor, air me, space force guardian, whatever. Right. Why haven't you shaved? They could say, well, I'm on the shaving profile because of this condition that I have now, you will only have a year and then you will have to somehow rectify that condition. They talk about treatments a little bit and it's an outsole which you can read if you want. I'm not going to read them out for you, but this will very clearly target black service people the most. And I don't think that's a coincidence. And as we see from the. From the picture of the black soldier shaving in the. In the release that they sent out there, this is happening at the same time as the rest of this stuff. Right. And at the same time, as we've seen trans folks removed from the military, as Hegfest seems to be going pretty hard on. On removing women from combat roles. He's previously been more outright in that. This time he's. In his speech, he was talking about how women, if they could meet the same standards as men, would be welcome in combat roles, but they. They wouldn't, quote, unquote, lower the standards. The whole thing was pretty remarkable to see Hegth lecturing people who have spent collectively maybe hundreds of years in combat.

[James Stout]

Really?

[Garrison Davis]

People who spent decades losing wars.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Decades of cumulative time.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, centuries between them. Right. But explaining how warfare works to people who have vastly more experience in it than him.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Yes.

[Robert Evans]

And basically telling them it's not a myth that we haven't seen from fascist states before.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Robert Evans]

The soldiers were fine, but they were betrayed by the politicians and the generals. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is nothing new, but it was still kind of remarkable to see Hegtes delivering it to the generals.

[Garrison Davis]

And specifically, both Hegseth and Trump made statements about if the generals and admirals did not like what Trump and Hegseth were saying, they should just resign. They should just leave.

[James Stout]

I've never walked into a room so silent before. This is very.

[Tyler Black]

Don't laugh, don't laugh. You're not allowed to do that.

[James Stout]

You know what? Just have a good time. And if you want to applaud, you applaud. And if you want to do anything.

[Kaveh Hoda]

You want, you can do anything you want.

[James Stout]

And if you don't like what I'm saying, you can leave the room. Of course, there goes your rank. There goes your future, but you just.

[Robert Evans]

Feel nice and loose. Okay.

[James Stout]

Because we're all on the same team.

[Garrison Davis]

Part of this is because Trump just wants more loyalists in the upper brass of the military. Like that's part of this process. That's why he doesn't want Millies. He doesn't want people that will deny him. He wants just a complete loyalist government, and that includes the military.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

And if that means that we're going to have a whole bunch of generals and admirals resign because of Hagseth and Trump's anti woke ranting, then that's a desirable outcome for the administration at this point.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Speaking of war, Chicago.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. I mean, the scenes that I have seen, the most frequently described as war or looking like a war this week have come out of Chicago, where on Tuesday the 30th, there was one of the most brutal raids that we've seen from the feds yet in any city. This took place in South Shore, which is a 90% black neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, where a whole bunch of immigrants who. I don't know if people remember when Texas and a bunch of other states in the south started busing immigrants up to cities in the north. Chicago is one of the ones where that happened. A lot. A lot of these people ended up in South Shore. And there was a massive raid on an apartment complex in the South Shore. Agents showed up in a combination of moving vans, sort of unmarked vans, and armored vehicles.

[Robert Evans]

Vehicles.

[Mia Wong]

It's still unclear exactly how many people were taken. We still don't know. Estimates at the time suggested about 40. It's very unclear. What we do know about the raid was that it was absolutely brutal. A bunch of the initial reports thought there had been shooting, but there hadn't been shooting. What there had been was that they blew into this apartment complex with flashbang grenades.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Pretty common for people to mistake those two.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And the are just, you know, these are just regular people who suddenly at one in the morning, a bunch of explosions start going off. There's a whole bunch of pictures that you can see in various articles about this, of doors torn off their hinges. The agents did a. I think this is a classic Chicago police tactic, but, you know, they just went through and just started grabbing everyone's stuff and tearing through it and throwing it onto the ground. There were Black Hawk helicopters, like, constantly circling this just random apartment complex. There was a massive FBI presence alongside Border Patrol and ice.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

It's also worth mentioning that independent outlet book Club Chicago, which is one of the very sort of prominent independent local media outlets there, obtained a picture from a neighbor who was like, next to the raid that show Chicago Police Department on the scene, which they are. They are expressly forbidden, like, by state. State law, from assisting in immigration enforcement. It is worth reading this article in order to see this quote, quote, we did not participate in or assist with any immigration enforcement, spokesperson Maggie Hyun said in a statement, followed immediately by pictures that clearly show a CBD car on the scene of this raid. Yeah, this raid is a really significant escalation of force in a city that has. I mean, has already seen ICE literally shoot someone and kill them. But yeah, I'm going to quote this from Tribe, which is another independent news outlet in collaboration with Unraveled Press. Veronica Castro of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights at a press conference said, quote, this looked like hundreds of masked agents knocking down doors and dragging families out in the middle of the night holding babies that were unclothed. Castro added, so they are dragging people from their homes in the middle of the night holding naked babies because people haven't had time. Like they're not giving people time to like even put clothes on something. You see a lot in the accounts of this. I'm going to read some more from an account from abc. As I got to my unit to stick my key in the door, I was grabbed by an officer and I said what's going on? What's going on? He never actually told me. He said I was being detained, said Alicia Books. Neighbors like Ebony Watson say they ducked for cover as they heard several flashbangs. They was terrified. The kids was crying, people was screaming. They looked very distraught. I was out there when I seen the little girl coming around the corner because they was bringing the kids down too. Had them zip tied to each other. Watson said, that's all I kept asking, what is the morality? Where is the human? One of them literally laughed. He was standing right there. He said fuck em kids. So that is what these raids are looking like now. It is again also worth noting that like this is, this is a very significant escalation of force. They are zip tying children to each other as they drag them from their homes at one in the morning and saying fuck em kids. Yeah. And this also marks what seems to be a pretty large pivot away from the areas they had been targeting before, which tend to be the suburbs and the outlying areas and into various very majority, the majority black parts of Chicago. And we're going to talk more about this next week with journalists who's been on the ground. Yeah, I mean for example a couple of hours before we recorded this episode. So there are sparse details but there is a video that shows the feds just two hands on neck choking a black man in East Garfield Park. It's deeply unclear why, why this is happening, but they are just doing this now. And what we have so far, we don't know why they were doing this, but this is also something I think is very alarming. This is also reported by Tribe there is a video from the scene where an agent is recorded saying, just so you guys know, this is not an immigration enforcement action. The agent Goes on to say they were responding to a robbery in progress. All we know about is there was a car crash and they just started choking this guy. It's unclear exactly what's going on with this. There probably will be more details by the time this episode is going out, but the feds are just doing this stuff every day in Chicago. I mean, just randomly choking black people on the street and this massive, hideous raid in South Shore are pretty significant escalations in places they haven't been targeting before. And it's. And it's hard to see this ending anytime soon or there. You know, things getting any better from here, especially with the sort of, you know, as you were mentioning earlier, there hasn't been really any sign of like, an intensification of federal violence in Portland, but in Chicago there absolutely has been. And, yeah, it's horrible.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. So talking of intensification of federal activity, I guess according to a notice posted in the Federal Register, DHS is going to to use the Cultural, Environmental and Historical Protection Waiver that we reported about that came out this spring to force through wall construction in the San Diego sector. I am guessing that in part we will see this used to waive one of the acts that is waves of Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. And I'm guessing it in part that this will be used to waive that.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Robert Evans]

Because Kumeyaay ancestors are in these areas and at the end, tail end of the previous Trump administration. I reported on this for Sierra, which is a magazine of the Sierra Club. Kumeyaay people were using ceremony. So they were participating in ceremony every day at construction sites in order to slow down the clock. And they also filed a lawsuit. Right. But they were trying to basically run out the clock on the Trump administration in 2020. 2020. They successfully, in some areas, prevented some construction. But with the waiver of nagpra, it's hard to see how they will be able to do that. They also waive a bunch of other acts, the Eagle Protection act, environmental and migratory bird treaties. A bunch of other acts. Right. This comes on the same week as Secretary of War Pete Hedthous restored Medals of Honor Honour to soldiers at Wounded Knee. If people are not familiar, this is not the episode where I do a history of things that have happened at Wounded Knee Creek. But this was the largest mass shooting in US History.

[Garrison Davis]

This was just a slaughter.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Hundreds of unarmed Lakotas, civilians, were murdered by the United States military.

[Garrison Davis]

This wasn't a battle. This was just a massacre.

[Robert Evans]

There were significant casualties for the U.S. military. Most of them were caused by the U.S. u.S. Military, I. E. Friendly fire and a completely disorganized slaughter of civilians. There was a standoff at Wounded Knee later in the 1970s in which two indigenous people died, one went missing. You can read Mary Brave Bird's book about that if you want a first hand account of that. It's a very good book. But yeah, Hegseth is doing this I think because Lloyd Austin had previously ordered a review of those medals because they weren't found fighting, they were just killing people. Therefore it makes sense, you know, to strip these medals of honor in that there was very little honour in what they did. Hegseth has restored those. Very amusingly he said this is final. Like another SECDEF couldn't just order a review like in 4 years and change it again. CBP has also issued a request for comments here in San Diego about its plans to build 7.6 miles of wall west of 2 Tecate as well as 1.3 miles of wall east of Tecate, more secondary barrier east of Otay Mesa and install or maintain 51 miles of quote barrier system attributes which may include fiber optic cables, lighting poles, artificial lights, power cables, surveillance cameras, access and patrol roads and utility shelters. What this would do I think most people who haven't spent time at the border are not aware that there are vast gaps in the border border wall. Right. And this would close some of those. There are still gaps east of this area. Like when a lot of people were entering in 2023, they were coming east of here in a more mountainous area. But this will close existing gaps in the wall around Tecate, around Marin Valley. I imagine that after that they will continue to move east. The areas where there are gaps, some of the areas where there are gaps further east aren't that hard to access. Some of them of would be very hard to access with construction machinery and therefore they'd have to spend a long time building a road before they could even begin building the wall. Reuters has conducted a review of more than 2 million court records and concluded that federal prosecution of drug cases, especially those of high profile traffickers, have dropped to the lowest level in decades.

[Garrison Davis]

Fell forward again.

[Kaveh Hoda]

A word.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I've. I mean normally you would see things like racketeering, money laundering, conspiracy charges, right? But These are down 24% compared to last year. Even ongoing investigations have stalled as a federal law enforcement apparatus is focusing the vast majority of its people on deporting people who have not been accused of any crime.

[Garrison Davis]

Even just like the Regular FBI investigative capacity, it's been shifted massively to large extents towards just immigration enforcement. So they're not, they're actually just not going after as much like actual crime.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I think some agencies like the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive, for example, I think have the majority of their agents tasks to immigration raids right now. The FBI, one agent described what he had been tasked with as, quote, photo op bullshit, which was taking photos of their teams on and before raids for use by the ATF and the White House in social media posts. So they do appear to have to have lost the support of even some federal law enforcement. Talking of federal law enforcement, we have also learned this week about an FBI operation during the Biden administration during which Tom homan allegedly accepted $50,000 in cash.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

What?

[Robert Evans]

You didn't hear about the Tom Homan bag? What a joy to be able to share this with. No, this is going to get better. Just, just keep it, keep. Simmer, simmer down.

[James Stout]

It was in a bad.

[Robert Evans]

Simmer down, simmer down, simmer down. So Tom Homan, for those who are not familiar, is Trump's border czar and a longtime border security official dating back to the Biden administration. Let's find out about how they got on to Tom Homan. No, no, no.

[Garrison Davis]

Said that there was $50,000 in cash.

[James Stout]

Cash.

[Garrison Davis]

But for what?

[Robert Evans]

Just wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Another Obama era ICE staffer Julian Calderas, who agents, undercover agents had contacted as part of a separate investigation, repeatedly suggested to the agents that they may wish to bribe Homan in order to obtain government contracts. Calderas repeatedly suggested this to the undercover agents, so much so that they diverted their investigation and set up this investigation. Investigation. They gave Homan the money, but waited to see what he would do in office. In order to see. I guess they felt they would have a stronger case if he came back to them and said, you know, I have these five federal contracts. Which one would you like? The Trump DOJ took no further steps to investigate and has closed the investigation. According to NBC, the Trump administration is claiming this was a setup by the FBI. But of course, the investigation occurred in. In September of 24, so before the election. Again, it was not an investigation that they started on. It branched off because Calderas repeatedly suggested that they should continue to. They should try and bribe Homan. The agents who, who did this operation were posing as businessmen trying to get government contracts. Right. Okay, this might explain. So Homan was a big time Trump affiliate, right? Big time Trump supporter. People were suggesting that he might be made secretary of Homeland Security. Security. This might be why we'll never know for sure. Right? This might explain why he's been given this slightly less formal role, which I don't believe he has to pass through Congress, which is quote unquote, border czar.

[Garrison Davis]

This is like the level of normalized corruption which exists in every level of this administration is like, remember when they just could not stop talking about Hunter Biden? It was like all the time. And meanwhile you have like, like, you know, like all of like Jared Kushner's dealings with like tutor Saudis. Tom Hoban getting $50,000 in cash. Undercover agents posing as businessmen to help obtain like government contracts. It's like an absurd, comical cartoon world.

[Robert Evans]

Though it's Keystone Cop shit. We don't know if he's given the cash back.

[Garrison Davis]

Oh, he. That cash is long gone.

[Mia Wong]

So much cocaine. Like I could either confirm or deny it was spe cocaine.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. A wild instance of corruption.

[Mia Wong]

Oh God.

[Robert Evans]

Finally, I want to talk about Venezuela. In Venezuela, it seems that Stephen Miller has been taking the lead on strikes on alleged drug smugglers. According to a Guardian piece, the strikes had been authorized by the Homeland Security Council. Sure. That's a body that Miller leads which has massively grown in influence since the Trump administration. It seems like most people in the administration were pretty much going, kept in the dark about this until very shortly before the strikes took place. They were justified under the Article 2 powers which give the President authority to use force in limited self defence engagements. But it seems like Miller is, pardon the pun, driving the ship on this increased violence that we're seeing against Venezuela.

[James Stout]

Foreign.

[Garrison Davis]

We are back for our final story. This episode we're going to talk about the National Security Presidential memorandum's number seven titled Countering Domestic Terrorism and organized Political Violence, which was signed by President Donald Trump on Thursday, September 20th, 25th. This relates in many ways to the antifa domestic terrorism Executive order from last week. But this memo is a lot more clear in outlining actual policy changes that will affect law enforcement investigations. So let's go over the four sections of this very, very long memo. I've tried to condense it down as much as possible, but there is some good information in here to know. Section Section 1 asserts that there's been an increase in political violence in recent years with assassinations and quote unquote riots in Los Angeles and Portland which have resulted in a more than 1,000% increase in attacks against ICE officers since Trump's inauguration 2.0. The memo states that riots and violence aren't organic Events or isolated incidents, but in fact, quote, a culmination of a sophisticated organized campaigns of targeted intimidation, radicalization, threats and violence designed to silence opposing speech, limit blood political activity, change or direct policy outcomes and prevent the functioning of a democratic society, unquote.

[Robert Evans]

We've spoken about the. The statistic about attacks on ICE officers before and how that's very misleading.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, I mean, an ICE officer is attacked when a ICE officer's fist encounters the face of a child. Right, that's, that's.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Latino grandmother.

[Garrison Davis]

Yes.

[Robert Evans]

Latina grandmother, in that case.

[Garrison Davis]

Well, and a lot of this talking about, you know, riots as not organized events or incidents. What, what they describe here is this like culmination of this sophisticated, like, campaign. This is just describing like, the process of like, what protesting is, right. Trying to direct or change policy outcomes, which comes up a lot in these, like domestic terrorism laws, which when over applied to just nonviolent acts of speech, just start infringing upon very standard first amendment activity.

[Robert Evans]

It's one of the five fundamental freedoms of the First Amendment right. Like the right to assemble, the right to. Well, several of them actually. The right to assemble, the right to speak, the right to petition the government. Like these are fundamental.

[Garrison Davis]

The right to twitch stream at a riot as a free member of the press. Yeah, definitely.

[Robert Evans]

That's not a right that I choose to exercise, but I guess it is one that exists. You and I have. You were in Portland, I was in Los Angeles. The idea that these cities were fundamentally damaged by these protests is just not true.

[Garrison Davis]

Well, and they're not just talking about damage from riots. They're also talking about. About, you know, effects on individual citizens. This memo describes how these, you know, organized campaigns start by, quote, isolating and dehumanizing specific targets to justify murder or other violent action, unquote. Claiming that this process happens across, quote, anonymous chat forums, in person, meetings, social media, and even educational institutions. These campaigns then escalate to organized doxing with the explicit intent of encouraging others to harass, mass intimidate or violently assault targets, unquote.

[Robert Evans]

I mean, this is what the right has done to like, express especially migrants and trans people, right, for. For a very long time. Anonymous chat forums and do they mean.

[Garrison Davis]

A Reddit, Reddit telegram maybe?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I know, I know that some subreddits have been closed since the issuing of this memoir memorandum, which I'm wondering if it is related not explicitly, but.

[Garrison Davis]

Like, I think this memo would be in this section, like referring to things akin to. To ICE Watch.

[Robert Evans]

Okay. Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of.

[Garrison Davis]

Sense as well as you know, standard like you know, anti fascist action against like legitimate neo Nazis which yeah the right is, is not against doxing as a practice as we have seen the past few weeks with the state sponsored organized doxy and harassment campaigns against people for their comments about the death of Charlie Kirk.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

The memo goes on to list a collection of quote common recurrent motivations and indica or indicators that unite this pattern of violence and terroristic activities under the umbrella of self described anti fascism. These movements portray foundational American principles, support for law enforcement and border control as fascist to justify and encourage acts of a violent revolution. Common threads animating this violent conduct include anti Americanism, anti capitalism, anti Christianity, support for the overthrow of the United States government, extremism on migration, race and gender and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion and morality, unquote. So insofar as this memo has been reported, it's mostly been on on this specific section here listing the the indicators that could be driving terroristic acts under the umbrella of anti fascism, including all of these beliefs that people are allowed to hold in the United States due to the rights granted to us in the Bill of Rights in the Constitution.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I mean the hypocrisy is the point and it's sometimes not worth or it's not the point but it's, it's not particularly. You know it doesn't change anything by pointing out but I will just point out that like the, the idea that border control is a foundational American principle. It's not true that it was not until the Chinese Exclusion act that the United States began to exclude anyone from coming here and that was in the 19th century. History understanders will have noticed that the United States began at some point before the 19th century.

[Garrison Davis]

One thing I will say regarding like this section some reporting around this memo is framing things things like you know, anti capitalism or anti Christianity is now that is going to be used as evidence that you are a terrorist. That is not the explicit way is written about in this memo. These are indicators which if some investigator sees on a Twitter account or a Blue sky account could then cause them to investigate further into this person or group. But it's not like just expressing these things will itself deem you a terrorist and be putting you in jail. This, this does rely on action. Now the memo does go on to talk about trying to prevent crime before it happens. I think this would be more in the way of how the FBI tries to set up like sting operations or catch people who are planning A violent act before they actually do it.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

As we've even seen the past few weeks, with people being arrested for planning retaliation attacks following the death of Charlie Kirk, this has happened.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Now the memo calls for a new national law enforcement strategy to quote, investigate all participants in these criminal and terroristic conspiracies and disrupt networks, entities and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts. Unquote. So that is the, the pre crime aspect of this order, which they could use some of these beliefs like.

[Robert Evans]

Right, yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Extremism on migration or race, gender, anti Americanism as justification to start investigating groups which then arrests could follow prior to imminent violent act as deemed by federal law enforcement.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I mean, in theory, the role of the especially federal law enforcement has always been to investigate people who were planning violent or terroristic acts. The difference here is that this is being specifically framed around a certain group and this probably will lead to more attempts by them. More surveillance on people. People within. Exactly. Groups. Right.

[Garrison Davis]

No, this is very worrying in terms of like surveillance, suppressing speech, chilling speech, because what they're qualifying as violent or terroristic acts is just ordinary protest activity, first activity, non government organizations that support progressive causes or values. That's the real like concern here.

[Robert Evans]

It's worth stating here that in Los Angeles, for example, a number of grand juries did not return indictments of people who were accused of quite serious crimes that the grand jury did not think it was reasonable to indict them for. Right. This is unusual. Most federal prosecutions do result ultimately in a guilty plea. Right. Because they bring very strong cases when they bring them. But it's worth noting that the specifically like the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles has not stuck the landing on all of its attempts to indict people for things that they did during that time of protest in June.

[Garrison Davis]

In terms of like, implementation, the memo says, quote, law enforcement will disband and uproot networks, entities and organizations that promote organized violence, violent intimidation, conspiracies against rights and other efforts to disrupt the functioning of a democratic society. Unquote. Networks, entities, organizations. These refer to like established organizations like actual, like formed groups that have political activity. Now section two outlines how the National Joint Terrorism Task Force will, quote, unquote, coordinate and supervise a new comprehensive national strategy and orders the local Joint Terrorism Task Force around the country to quote, investigate potential federal crimes relating to acts of recruiting or radicalizing persons for the purpose of political violence, terrorism, conspiracy against rights, or the violent deprivation of any citizen's rights, unquote. The GDTF's Joint Terrorism Task Force will also investigate institutional and individual funders, including employees of organizations which are, quote, responsible for, sponsor or otherwise aid and abet the principal actors engaging in the criminal conduct as previously described.

[Robert Evans]

That's a broad net. Right.

[Garrison Davis]

There's a lot of this stuff. Like the antifa order also alluded to this. Trump's statements made in the Oval Office have alluded to this. Going after funders, foreign funders, whether that's groups like the ACLU or like bail funds. They mentioned George Soros very often. Yeah, the Open Society Foundation. Right.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. I think the Right. Has had a fascination with Soros for a long time.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Robert Evans]

They've been looking for a reason to either exclude Soros from. From participation in US Politics and just to be like, obviously, I think most people realize this, but that that fascination is rooted deeply in anti Semitism. George Soros is a Holocaust survivor. And there has been like, an attempt to find reasons to exclude Soros from. From US Political activity for some time. I think it's reasonable to see this in that trend.

[Garrison Davis]

This sort of, like big organizations, foreign organizations is also mentioned in this memo and saying the Investigation will include NGOs and American citizens with foreign ties that could be in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration act or, quote, money laundering by funding, creating or supporting entities that engage in activities that support or encourage domestic violence, terrorism, unquote. The memo states that the Attorney General shall issue guidance which ensures that domestic terrorism priorities include, quote, politically motivated terrorist acts, such as organized doxing campaigns, swatting, rioting, looting, trespass, assault, damage of property, threats of violence and civil disorder. The guide shall also include an identification of any behaviors, fact patterns, recurrent motivations or other indica common to organizations and entities that coordinate these acts in order to direct efforts to identify and prevent potential violent activity, unquote. This is a worrying list of things that are not domestic terrorism that they're going to try to claim aren't domestic terrorism. Trespass.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Like, trespassing is now domestic terrorism. That's not a great thing for the Attorney General to be issuing guidance on.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Civil disorder is a very broad and somewhat nebulous term. Right.

[Garrison Davis]

Like, are they going to call the organized docs campaigns that the right is doing right now domestic terrorism? No, of course not. Right. These things are just taking form for explicit, like, political prosecution for the political ends of the Trump administration.

[Robert Evans]

I think the goal here, like some of these, there isn't even a statute Right. Like, I'm not aware of a broad federal doxing statute, aside from, you know, certain specific instances where it might be a crime to reveal someone's address.

[Garrison Davis]

Violent intimidation of probably like federal law enforcement would be one thing that they go after.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, Federal law enforcement, people with protective orders, that kind of thing. Right. And yeah, there are probably ways of doing that, but I think a lot of this is, is intended to have a chilling effect on speech and organizing.

[Garrison Davis]

Absolutely. The Treasury Secretary will work with the Attorney General to, quote, identify and disrupt financial networks that funded domestic terrorism and political activity. And she'll deploy investigative tools, examine financial flows, and coordinate with partner agencies to trace illicit funding streams, unquote. Again, very obsessed with this idea that there's tons of money that is funding antifa, which if you know anyone under the antifa umbrella, you know that they are extremely broke.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, this is.

[Garrison Davis]

Left wing protesters are not the most financially stable bunch. Yeah, there's, there's not this illicit funding stream. This is a huge, a huge idea that the right has like, latched on.

[Robert Evans]

Ironically, this is something that the right shares with the authoritarian left. Actually. The idea that people can't act independently unless there is a large, well funded actor motivating them to act is something that, because the authoritarian right and the authoritarian left agree on some things. And one of them is that, like, people can't take the initiative to act. Right. That there has to be some kind of vanguard in the case of the authoritarian left or nefarious funder in the case of the authoritarian right. And so this, this lines up with the way that they understand, understand the world.

[Garrison Davis]

I mean. Yeah, and this, I'm just talking specifically here in terms of like, regular people on the ground attending protests. There's like big, big groups like, you know, often like, you know, communist aligned groups that may be receiving funding possibly from foreign sources.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for real.

[Garrison Davis]

But I do not believe that is what this order is. At least this section is actually wanting to go after. That might be what they, in the end actually end up targeted, end up sweeping up. Because it's the only thing that actually has like, you know, foreign funding, but like, you know, Capital A and TIFA teenagers with like umbrellas showing up in front of an ICE building are not receiving money from like Iran, China or Russia.

[Robert Evans]

Like, yeah, as you say, it might be large. The Sovereign Policy Law center, the aclu, the Open Society Foundation, Bill Gates Network for Strong Communities. Yeah, like some of these organizations might be what they're trying to drag a.

[Garrison Davis]

Network over here or Nonprofits. The next section instructs the IRS to, quote, take action to ensure that no tax exempt entities are directly or indirectly financing political violence or domestic terrorism, unquote. And calls for the IRS to refer suspect organizations and their employees to the Department of Justice for investigation and possible prosecution.

[Robert Evans]

It's probably worth noting the context here that there was. This is after a 2010 congressional investigation that found out that the IRS had gone after some Tea Party groups. Right. Do you remember the Tea Party, Garrison? You were seven at that time.

[Garrison Davis]

I remember the Tea Party, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. So the feeling here, Biden, if you remember, Garrison also hired a number of new IRS agents. There was a conspiracy theory that these were to provide some kind of armed, massive, armed element to the IRS that was going around in the Biden administration. Administration. I'm sure the IRS had an armed element.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Robert Evans]

There is not a federal investigative agency that doesn't like the Postal Service has cops and probably a SWAT team. But there was a feeling on the right that Biden mobilized the IRS against right wing individuals. And I can see this being the old painting. I'm swinging back in the other direction a little bit.

[Garrison Davis]

One of the more interesting sections that I've highlighted of the Method memo instructs investigators to, quote, question and interrogate individuals engaged in political violence or lawlessness regarding the entity or individual organizing such actions and any related financial sponsorship prior to perfect adjudication or initiation of a plea agreement, unquote. That's directing, like the interrogations of people arrested at protests, like specifically go after who's funding them to be a protest. I'm sure some very fruitful information will come out of. Yeah, referring back to our discussion of like, you know, the, the common motivators or indica, including things, you know, like anti capitalism, anti Americanism, and how those beliefs in and of themselves I do not think will be sufficient for declaring someone a terrorist and like locking them up is because later in this memo, the memo directs investigations to, quote, prioritize crimes such as the following. Assaulting federal officers or employees, conspiracy against rights, conspiracy to commit offense, solicitation to commit a crime of violence, money laundering, funding of terrorist acts, or otherwise facilitating terrorism, arson, violations of the RICO act and major fraud against the United States, unquote. So could the government use these indicators to then find groups to target, to stick some of these crimes onto groups or organizations? Absolutely. That's probably what they, they're going to do. Yeah, but these, these are the things to like, be aware of and they're going to try to, you know, Slap these on people who are just arrested at protests, people who work for nos, people who work for legal support networks, maybe migrant assistance networks. Like that's, that's going to be the, the target for a lot of these things. And we've seen some of these, like, conspiracy charges in San Diego, like with their, with their antifa prosecution case. We've seen similar stuff in Atlanta with Stop Cop City. Right. There is precedent for this. We've seen the state try to, and to a degree of success and failure, actually push these charges forward.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. The panic that those two cases created. I think we're still pre, you know, trial in the Atlanta case. Right.

[Garrison Davis]

Trial's in progress.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, sorry, pre, I guess, conclusion of that trial.

[Garrison Davis]

But the current indication is that most of these RICO charges are not going to stick.

[Robert Evans]

Yes. And most of the conspiracy charges in San Diego did not.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Robert Evans]

And most of those people ended up not being convicted of all the things they were accused of. I do see the major fraud against the United States and I think that's probably going to use against NGOs. I do also wonder they have spoken before about the payroll protection plan and looking at PPP fraud.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. I mean, financial crimes are always, are always really scary, right? Like.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. Like a lot of nonprofits, you know, like people undoubtedly, given the scale of the PPP people abused it. I think non profits would be a lot more buttoned up than almost anyone else in that regard. You know, these, especially these big liberal nonprofits. But that is an area which I'm sure that the Trump IRS will be looking at.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. And they might even try to slap these on people making jokes or quote, unquote, threats online.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Garrison Davis]

Solicitation to commit a crime of violence.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. People shouldn't be saying stupid shill on social media right now.

[Garrison Davis]

Which, which is absolutely like a chilling speech.

[James Stout]

Right?

[Garrison Davis]

That is chilling speech.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

That is a bad thing. But you don't want to give these people extra ammunition to use against yourself right now.

[Robert Evans]

Fighting words are not always like First Amendment speech right now. Like, I'm no expert in where that starts and where that ends, but yet, yeah, like in terms of, of not doing stupid things, like, this is not a time to do stupid things. On your posting website of choice, section.

[Garrison Davis]

2 closes by calling for investigators and federal police to, quote, adopt strategies similar to those used to address violent crime and organized crime, to disrupt and dismantle entire networks of criminal activity, unquote. So, yeah, especially with all this financial stuff. Money laundering, rico, consistency, conspiracy charges. They're Basically using or they want to use like tactics to take down like organized crime rings just targeting their political enemies, targeting political organizations and people who attend protests. Like that is, that is the real gist of this memo.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Section three instructs the Attorney General to designate qualifying groups or entities under investigation as domestic terrorist organization organizations per the definition of domestic terrorism in 18 USC 23315, and to submit a list of such groups to the President of the United states. And Section 4 instructs the attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security to designate domestic terrorism a national priority area and provide extra funding for law enforcement to, quote, detect, prevent and protect against threats arising from this area. That is the bulk of talk of the National Security Presidential memorandum number seven, promising to chill speech and go after political opponents and organizations, entities and individuals and employees of organizations.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Very, very undemocratic. Very, very, on its face, authoritarian.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

You don't even need like, like allegations of political targeting. Like they're writing down how they want to do political targeting. They're breathing, bragging about it.

[Robert Evans]

I just really would briefly want to raise the example of the flag burning. Right. So Donald Trump signed an executive order ordering the Justice Department to investigate flag burning earlier this year. I can't quite remember when. Subsequently someone called Jan Kerry of North Carolina was arrested after they burned a flag, an American flag, just to be clear, outside the White House. I guess the flag burning executive order doesn't appear apply to like your, you know, like anime flag or whatever. This is specifically about the flag of the United States, something which I think Johnson vs Texas is a Supreme Court case. Right. But there is a considerable amount of legal precedent that that is First Amendment speech. Kerry was arrested. What is being missed in the discussion is that Kerry was charged with two misdemeanor crimes. One was for lighting a fire, not in a designated area and receptacle. The other was for lighting a fire in a manner that threatened to cause damage to him, resulted in the burning of property, real property and park resources. These are both offenses that you can be incarcerated or fined for. I want people to know that. Right. Like he was not arrested because of the executive order, although the executive order may very much influence the climate, which led to his arrest and charged with these other things. But he wasn't charged with violating the executive order because that is not how it works.

[Garrison Davis]

They can't change the law with executive orders or presidential memorandums. What they can can do is direct how the law will be enforced or policy guidelines. Right. And that's what this is affecting Right now, all of these branches, like the dhs, Justice Department, federal police, are going to be following the policy guidelines and outlines established in this memo to then try to enforce the laws that we have, some of which they will probably find ways to do it and sometimes they won't.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. We have a very broad range of statutes criminalizing a very large range of things. And someone will find some way in there to criminalize someone for something that might seem on the face of it to be not nefarious. But that doesn't mean that we have executive legislative fusion. We don't write, we have two branch of the government. And that is important to remember too.

[Garrison Davis]

No laws have been changed criminalizing anti Americanism. Right.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

That is an important thing to keep in mind. That does not mean that this order is not going, going to chill speech, suppress free speech, or be used to criminally target people.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Criminal prosecutions can ruin the lives of people for years and years, regardless of the actual, like, outcome. Right. Even if they get off on the charges. And totally we want to be clear that we're not like, minimizing the effects of this, but we do want to actually break down what like the threat model is specifically for like, NGOs, legal organizations that help protesters or migrants, LGBTQ organizations. Right. These are probably going to be the first targets of a lot of like the conspiracy, fraud, sections of disorder. Besides, you know, protesters that get rounded up and get put into, into this like, political war game that they're playing.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Similar to how regular protesters in Atlanta then found themselves suddenly amidst like a 3 year long RICO domestic terrorism case.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Despite not participating in any kind of large organized aspect of Stop Cop City, they were just regular attendees. So there'll be stuff similar to that that, that happens throughout the next few months to years. And I think that is where we should keep our attention focused on mitigating the harms of government overreach.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. So for the fundraiser this week, something slightly different. I wanted to read off this. GoFundMe for the emergency circus. They are traveling south of the US border. I believe they're going to migrant shelters in Tijuana to hold circus acts, circus performances for kids. I have obviously not obviously, but I've spent a decent amount of my life in refugee camps and migrant shelters. And they can be pretty hard places for kids. And it's something that I think about almost every day. And so people bringing joy to those children is something that I think is wonderful and very important. People get the impression that legal funds are important and kids having a laugh is not important, but like children have a right to be children and that's taken away from them by the immigration system. And so I would like if you supported this the website is www.gofundme.com f EC off ice. It will also be in the show Notes. If you would like to email us, you can do so at our encrypted email address, which is Cool Zone Tips Proton Me. Your email will only be end to end encrypted if you send it from an encrypted email address. ProtonMail is an example of an encrypted email address.

[Garrison Davis]

Before we close the episode, I will tease an episode for next week. There was a shooting at a Mormon church on Sunday which the right briefly tried to turn into like this culture war narrative on attacks on Christianity and then once information about the shooter became more clear, they quickly dropped the subject. So on Wednesday I'll be doing an episode talking about this shooting and a few others and how various outlets on the right and left are only reporting on these big shootings insofar as they can turn them into political weapons against the opposition party. We reported the news.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

We reported the news.

[James Stout]

Hey. We'll be back Monday with more episodes.

[Robert Evans]

Every week from now until the heat death of the universe.

[Mia Wong]

It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media.

[Garrison Davis]

For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Visit our website coolzone media.com or check.

[James Stout]

Us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple.

[Mia Wong]

Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[James Stout]

You can now find sources.

[Mia Wong]

Sources for It Could Happen here listed directly in Episode Descriptions.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Thanks for listening.

[James Stout]

There's a vile sickness in Amber's Town. You must excise it, dig into the deep earth and cut it out.

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From iheart Podcasts and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manke.

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A new fiction podcast sets in in the Bridgewater Audio universe starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc town on the iHeartRadio.

[Tyler Black]

App, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[James Stout]

What's up everybody?

[Garrison Davis]

It's snacks from the Trap nerds All.

[James Stout]

October long, we're bringing you the Horror Boogity boogity boog.

[Kaveh Hoda]

We kicking off this month with some.

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Of my best horror games to keep you terrified. Then we'll be talking about our favorite horror and Halloween movies and figuring out why black people always and it's the.

[Robert Evans]

Return of Tony's Horror Show Side Quest.

[James Stout]

Written and narrated by yours truly. We'll also be doing a full episode.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Reading with commentary and we'll cap it.

[James Stout]

Off with a horror movie battle Royale. Open your free Aha Radio app and search Trap Nerds podcast and listen now.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

In early 1988, federal agents raced to.

[Garrison Davis]

Track down the gang they suspect of.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Importing millions of dollars worth of heroin into New York from Asia.

[Mia Wong]

Had 30 agents ready to go with.

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Shotguns and rifles and you name it.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Five, six white people pushed me in the car. I'm going, what the hell?

[James Stout]

Basically, your stay at home moms were.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Picking up these large amounts of heroin.

[James Stout]

All you gotta do is receive the package. Don't have to open it, just accept it.

[Kaveh Hoda]

She was very upset, crying.

[James Stout]

Once I saw the gun, I tried.

[Kaveh Hoda]

To take his hand and I saw.

[Garrison Davis]

The flash of light.

[Kaveh Hoda]

Listen to the Chinatown sting on the.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Iheartradio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you get your podcasts.

[James Stout]

I love that you created this system.

[Robert Evans]

That revolves around you, creating pockets of peace.

[James Stout]

World mental health day is around the corner. And on my podcast, just heal with Dr. J, I dive into what it really means to care for your mind, body and spirit. From breaking generational patterns to building emotional.

[Mo Meltzer Cohen]

Capacity, I'm going to walk away feeling like, yes, I'm going to continue my healing journey.

[James Stout]

Listen to just heal with Dr. J from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an iHeart podcast.