9/25/25: ICE Shooting Details, Trump Pushes Comey Indictment, Italy Deploys Ships To Aid Gaza Flotilla

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

Episode: 9/25/25 – ICE Shooting Details, Trump Pushes Comey Indictment, Italy Deploys Ships To Aid Gaza Flotilla

Date: September 25, 2025
Hosts/Panelists: Ryan Grim, Freddie DeBoer, Alex Colston (live from Gaza flotilla)

Episode Overview

This episode tackles three major, timely stories:

1. New details and political fallout from the recent Dallas ICE facility shooting.
2. The Trump administration's push to indict James Comey and Letitia James, raising alarm over the weaponization of the Justice Department.
3. A live update from the humanitarian flotilla headed to Gaza, which has come under attack and is now receiving naval backup from European states.

The hosts frame the episode with their usual anti-establishment lens, foregrounding skepticism about elite narratives and state power grabs.

---

1. Dallas ICE Facility Shooting: Details, Motives, and Fallout

Segment starts 05:02

Incident Recap

• Three migrants shot (one dead, two critically wounded) at the Dallas ICE facility. The shooter is deceased, apparently by suicide.
• Early law enforcement and FBI statements assert an "ideological motive" for the attack. Bullet casings reportedly marked "Anti ICE" were recovered from the scene.
  • "The FBI is investigating this incident as an act of targeted violence. Early evidence, such as rounds found near the suspected shooter, contained messages that are anti-ICE in nature." (Law enforcement press conference, 06:00)

Media & Political Reaction

• Ted Cruz and Donald Trump rapidly politicize the incident, using it to justify calls for a crackdown on "left-wing" terror networks and demonize anti-ICE rhetoric.
  • Trump: "This violence is the result of the radical left Democrats constantly demonizing law enforcement... I will be signing executive order this week to dismantle these domestic terror networks..." (Read by Ryan Grim, 09:23)
• Hosts express deep skepticism about the evidence and the narrative formation.
  • Ryan Grim: “For the FBI director to just be like tweeting out this unverified evidence is extraordinary and may create problems down the road in other cases…” (07:03)

Shooter Background – Not Ideologically Straightforward

• Investigation by journalist Ken Klippenstein: Friends describe the shooter (Joshua Jan) as a deeply alienated "edgelord" heavily immersed in 4chan/meme/shitposting culture rather than as a typical ideological actor.
  • "His humor was deeply ironic, often offensive and aggressive to the point of alienation. He was most certainly an edgelord, an irony guy, one friend said." (Ryan reads Klippenstein’s reporting, 15:32)
• The inscription "Anti ICE" is believed by friends to be a deliberate, ironic provocation — more to create chaos and confusion than to express actual political commitment.
  • "If that's authentic markering on those shell casings, it's ironic... The purpose is what's going on right now with us two boomers here discussing 4chan irony and meme culture on a serious platform..." (Freddie DeBoer, 13:11)

The “Edgelord” Trend & Nihilism

• Hosts discuss a pattern of recent mass violence committed not from coherent ideology, but from alienated young men acting out for attention amidst nihilism and desire for spectacle.
  • Freddie DeBoer: "It's just impossible as somebody who is like just still, you know, well grounded to identify with that... There's an absence of meaning. And the killings are meant to create a meaning." (18:24)
• Broader forces at play: America’s gun culture, mental health crisis, social alienation, pandemic, economic malaise.
  • "The other [factor] has to be something about hopelessness and a lack of meaning... There's something about the direction of the country and people's sense of whether or not their futures are going to be better..." (Freddie DeBoer, 24:20)

Political Weaponization & Warnings

• Concern that the administration will use this and other incidents for actual crackdowns, expanding anti-terror powers against the left or any opposition.
  • Ryan Grim: "I'm very worried about what this government is going to use these killings in order to effectuate... using either real or imagined emergencies in order to grab more and more power." (34:00)
• Critique of Republican rhetoric: J.D. Vance’s tough talk ("You can go straight to hell...") is flagged as a double standard.
  • Freddie DeBoer: "He's saying, if you're somebody who is going to use disturbing rhetoric about the other side, you can go to hell... what are you talking about?" (35:20)

---

2. Trump Pushes Indictments of Comey and Letitia James: DOJ Weaponization

Segment starts ~41:31

Context and Revelations

• Trump has been openly pressuring DOJ to indict political enemies, including former FBI Director James Comey and NY AG Letitia James.
  • Ryan Grim: "Trump on main posting like, you need to go after my political opponents. What is going on and why hasn't this happened yet?" (43:00)
• The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was forced out for refusing to bring “spurious” cases pushed by the White House.
• Trump’s hand-picked replacement (insurance lawyer with no criminal prosecution background) is said to be moving forward with indictments.

Possible Charges and Legal Realities

• Comey: Expected to be charged for allegedly lying to Congress in 2020 testimony about leaks (statute of limitations about to expire).
  • Freddie DeBoer: "My recollection is that [Comey] did say, I did give it to this guy... sounds like a guy who's being deliberately misleading, but is trying to stay on the legal side of perjury." (48:19)
  • Ryan Grim: "It's a pretty high legal bar here and one that, apparently, the previous Trump picked U.S. attorney did not feel that they had met." (46:01)
• Letitia James: Alleged mortgage fraud based on a technical error in paperwork, immediately corrected; seen as a dubious charge.

Weaponizing the State

• Critique of the "do unto others" logic from Trumpworld, and the precedent of using DOJ to punish political foes.
  • Ryan Grim: "It's not about the details... If the federal government goes after you in this way at all, even if it doesn't make it to trial, even if you're found innocent... it ruins your life. Then that's the intent." (51:51)
• Example: Alex Jones reportedly able to get the DOJ to re-investigate Sandy Hook, illustrating state capture.
  • "The fact that Alex Jones can call the DOJ and get them to try to reopen Sandy Hook... shows how weaponized, how far gone we are..." (53:23)

Revenge & Zero-Sum Mentality

• Interview with Peter Navarro (Trump ally, recently imprisoned): “They did it to us, we’re going to do it back to them, and we’re going to come at them 10 times harder than they ever could have come at us.”
  • Ryan Grim: "I see a lot of energy on the right basically being not trying to hold any sort of consistent ideological principle, just pure revenge, vengeance kind of energy and also zero sum." (56:19)
• Steve Bannon’s comments: If Democrats regain power, they’ll "re-weaponize" the DOJ against Republicans.
  • Freddie DeBoer: "[Bannon] is saying, look at that...they are going to reweaponize the Justice Department again when they take power and they're going to come after all of us. We're all going to jail if we don't put them in jail first." (57:08)

---

3. LIVE: Gaza Flotilla Update – Aid Attacked, European Navies Intervene

Segment starts 60:03

Situation on the Ground (or Sea)

• Gaza aid flotilla ("Global Samud") has been attacked by drones and munitions while nearing the shore—boats hit with flashbangs, chemicals, and one dismasted.
  • Alex Colston: “There were at least 12 attacks across nine boats...one had a chemical capsule fall to the deck, spray a member of the crew... One of the flashbangs dismasted a boat, and that one was decommissioned, and so it's no longer sailing with us.” (61:32)
• Security footage is used to counter skepticism about whether the boats are under attack.

International Dynamics

• Italy officially deploying a naval ship to provide rescue support; Spain and possibly Ireland may follow.
  • European parliamentarians are directly communicating with the flotilla; Italy offers to deliver aid via Catholic charities (rejected by organizers).
  • Alex Colston: "The Italian government...has said they would facilitate the aid themselves via a Catholic charity. The organizers have rejected this proposal because the plan is to open up the humanitarian corridor." (65:23)

Israeli Government Response

• Israel reiterates that it will not allow vessels to break its naval blockade, branding the flotilla "a provocation" and linking it to Hamas.
  • "There’s nothing to be believed in the statement that Israel is interested in facilitating aid to the people in Palestine." (Alex Colston, 64:48)

Human Stories & Mood on the Flotilla

• Tension and resolve are expressed by Alex Colston, who underlines the mission’s solidarity and higher risk compared to government officials, but less than that faced by Gazans.
  • "We're trying to do what governments won't do. ... Whatever we’re able to succeed at doing, it’s minimal compared to the courage of Palestinians who face being killed every day." (Alex Colston, 66:48)
  • "There is a real spirit of solidarity... as we have this very high risk action that we're taking." (Colston, 70:51)

Hopes & Prospects

• Organizers hope increased European naval involvement will force open a maritime humanitarian corridor.
  • Alex Colston: "We are in completely uncharted waters here. Never has there been a military escort for any of these missions over the last 17 years during the blockade. Never has there been this much public pressure." (71:08)

Memorable Exchange

• Freddie DeBoer: “And as I mentioned, we’ve got the newsletter and the editing from here on in—just, you know, be safe, keep your head down, keep that toilet working, keep the toilet working…” (74:31)

---

Notable Quotes (with timestamps)

• “For the FBI director to just be like tweeting out this unverified evidence is extraordinary and may create problems down the road...”
  — Ryan Grim, (07:03)

• “This violence is the result of the radical left Democrats constantly demonizing law enforcement, calling for ICE to be demolished...”
  — Read from Trump statement, (09:23)

• “His humor was deeply ironic, often offensive and aggressive to the point of alienation. He was most certainly an edgelord, an irony guy, one friend said.”
  — Ryan Grim reading Klippenstein's reporting, (15:32)

• “If that's authentic markering on those shell casings, it's ironic. … It’s him sending some ironic message.”
  — Freddie DeBoer, (13:11)

• “It's just impossible... to identify with that. … There's an absence of meaning. And the killings are meant to create a meaning.”
  — Freddie DeBoer, (18:24)

• “I'm very worried about what this government is going to use these killings in order to effectuate... using either real or imagined emergencies in order to grab more and more power."
  — Ryan Grim, (34:00)

• "He's saying, if you're somebody who is going to use disturbing rhetoric about the other side, you can go to hell... what are you talking about?"
  — Freddie DeBoer, (35:20)

• “Trump on main posting like, you need to go after my political opponents. What is going on and why hasn't this happened yet?”
  — Ryan Grim, (43:00)

• “If the federal government goes after you in this way at all, ...it ruins your life. Then that's the intent. Right. It's meant to ruin your life, put you through ruinous discovery, have you rack up ruinous legal bills.”
  — Ryan Grim, (51:51)

---

Timestamps – Key Segments

| Time | Segment/Topic | |-----------|------------------------------------------------| | 05:02 | ICE Shooting: Recap, Law Enforcement Briefing | | 09:23 | Trump & Political Reaction | | 14:00 | Shooter's background, meme culture, nihilism | | 23:43 | Underlying causes: guns, meaninglessness, USA | | 34:00 | Political weaponization, crackdown fears | | 35:20 | GOP rhetoric double standard – JD Vance | | 41:31 | Trump DOJ targets Comey, Letitia James | | 46:01 | Comey charges: reality check | | 53:23 | DOJ “weaponization” & Alex Jones anecdote | | 56:19 | Revenge mentality on the right | | 60:03 | Gaza flotilla live update with Alex Colston | | 61:32 | Attacks on flotilla detailed | | 64:48 | Israeli government response | | 65:23 | European naval involvement, negotiations | | 66:48 | Human perspective: solidarity, fear, resolve | | 71:08 | Hopes for humanitarian corridor |

---

Tone and Language

The episode is direct, sardonic, and critical, mixing grave concern over societal trends and state repression with irreverent asides and insider left/progressive lingo. The hosts maintain skepticism, urge listeners to look deeper than "official" narratives, and elevate first-hand sources and marginalized perspectives.

---

Takeaways for New Listeners

• The Dallas ICE shooting is less about an organized ideological campaign than a symptom of deep, dangerous social alienation in America.
• The Trump administration’s open pressure on the DOJ marks a new and alarming escalation in the weaponization of the justice system for political revenge.
• In Gaza, grassroots humanitarian efforts face militarized resistance—but growing international support offers new, if tenuous, hope.
• Throughout the episode, the anti-establishment lens calls out hypocrisy on both sides and champions independent reporting and skepticism of government/elite narratives.

Transcript

[Ryan Grim]

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[Alex Colston]

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[Alex Colston]

Hey guys, Sager and Crystal here.

[Ryan Grim]

Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.

[Alex Colston]

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[Ryan Grim]

So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad, free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.

[Alex Colston]

We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see [e-mail].

[Ryan Grim]

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Breaking Points. Ryan Grimm, great to have you, my friends.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Always lovely to be here.

[Ryan Grim]

Lovely little commie takeover this morning as promised. Lots to get to for sure. We've got actually thanks to our friend Ken Klippenstein's new details about this shooter at the ICE facility yesterday that ended up killing one migrant and critically wounding two others. So we'll break all of that down for you. As far as we know at this point, we've also got some new moves from the Trump administration to charge Jim Comey and Letitia James. Lot going on there. Break down those details for you. We're gonna have a live report from that Gaza aid flotilla. Actually one of Ryan's colleagues is on board, so he is gonna join us and give us an update as they have been under attack. We got another Ryan special for you. Actually met with the president of Iran while he was in New York. So you've got some details for us there. Right.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Well, I wasn't here yesterday, so yeah, we can break down how they're feeling about the fact that they're about to get attacked again for no reason.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, yeah. Well, that will be really interesting to hear from you on that. We're also tracking a story out of North Carolina with potential national implications. Ryan and Sager covered earlier this week the way that electricity prices are skyrocketing in part because of the expansion of these AI data centers. Well, in North Carolina, they're now trying to move legislation to make sure consumers are bearing the additional costs of these AI data centers. So this is something you definitely want to pay attention to. And then sticking with the AI theme, we have an expert joining us with a dire warning, as dire a warning as you could possibly get from his book. If anybody builds it, everyone dies. I just actually finished listening to this book this morning. I was telling you, Ryan, and it's fairly persuasive and it is deeply terrifying.

[Freddie DeBoer]

I would rather not be persuaded of that premise.

[Ryan Grim]

Maybe skip this book then. To be honest with you. Maybe skip this book because I've read.

[Freddie DeBoer]

A bit about it and it's. Oh God.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. So you can see all the, like, near term effects of the use of the water and the skyrocketing of electricity prices and all of these, and the consolidation of wealth and power, all of that. But his scenario is even bleaker, which is basically the end of humanity. So some uplifting content there at the end.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Will the memes keep getting made even after we're all gone?

[Ryan Grim]

After the apocalypse? Will the super intelligence make memes, probably so. But things in AI language that we.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Would not, if we were here, we wouldn't even comprehend. Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. I guess that's the real tragedy here.

[Freddie DeBoer]

That's the real tragedy.

[Ryan Grim]

All right, thank you to everybody who's been supporting us. BreakingPoints.com if you're not already a member, you get access to the full Friday show. We've already got some interesting topics planned for then. But let's go ahead and get to what we know about this shooter. Yesterday in Texas targeting a Dallas ICE facility, Three migrants were shot. One of them is dead. Two of them are critically wounded. That's the latest we know this morning. Let's go ahead and take a listen to a little bit of a law enforcement press conference from yesterday.

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Today at approximately 6:40am we received assist the officer call.

[Ryan Grim]

We responded to the call, got to the scene, and we later learned that.

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We had four individuals that were shot.

[Alex Colston]

Two of them deceased, including the shooter. DPD was quickly was able to locate the shooter who was deceased.

[Ryan Grim]

We're going to be working this investigation.

[Alex Colston]

Shoulder to shoulder with our federal partners.

[Ryan Grim]

The FBI is on scene.

[Alex Colston]

I can confirm at this time that the FBI is investigating this incident as an act of targeted violence. What I can also share with you is that early evidence that we've seen.

[Freddie DeBoer]

From rounds that were found near the suspected shooter contain messages that are anti ICE in nature.

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While we're not releasing identities of any.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Victims at this time, what I can confirm for you is no members of.

[Alex Colston]

Law enforcement were hurt during this attack. There are people out there who are.

[LG XBoom Advertiser]

Seeing what is being placed online and they're coming in.

[Alex Colston]

They're doing acts of violence against ICE employees.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Your political opponents are not Nazis.

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We need to learn to work together without demonizing each other, without attacking each other.

[Ryan Grim]

So Ted Cruz moving there immediately to make a political point. You heard them say there that they found bullets that had anti ICE messaging. As it turns out, we can put. Kash Patel tweeted this out. This is what they're saying that anti ICE messaging is, which it literally just says anti ice. Let me read from you his post here. And let's just also say, like, for the FBI director to just be like tweeting out this unverified evidence is extraordinary and may create problems down the road in other cases where you have future trial. But in any case, he says this morning, just before 7am local time, an individual fired multiple rounds at a Dallas, Texas ICE facility, killing one, wounding several others before taking his own life. FBI, dhs, ATF are on the ground with Dallas PD and state authorities while the investigation is ongoing. An initial review of the evidence shows an ideological motive behind this attack. See photo below. And that's of the bullet casing saying Anti ice. One of the unspent shell casings recovered was engraved graved with the phrase Anti ice. More updates will be forthcoming. These despicable, politically motivated attacks against law enforcement are not a one off. We are only miles from Prairie Land, Texas. Just two months ago. Bless you Ryan. An individual ambushed a separate ICE facility targeting their officers. It has to. The FBI and our partners will lead these investigative efforts to see to it that those who target our law enforcement are pursued and brought to the fullest extent of justice. Thankfully, no law enforcement personnel were injured as they don't care as much about the migrants who were killed slash injured. Please pray for the injured and deceased. Trump of course immediately seizing on this as well. Ryan can put this up on the screen and JD Vance, also we have comments that we'll show you later. Leaning into the idea of a explicitly political, ideological, you know, radicalized attack here, Trump says, I've been briefed on the deadly shooting at the ICE field office in Dallas, Texas. It has now been revealed the deranged shooter wrote Anti ICE on his shell casings. This is despicable. The brave men and women of ICE are just trying to do their jobs and remove the worst of the worst criminals out of our country. But they are facing an unprecedented increase in threats, violence and attacks by deranged radical leftists. This violence is the result of the radical left Democrats constantly demonizing law enforcement, calling for ICE to be demolished and comparing I officers to Nazis. The continuing violence from radical left terrorists in the aftermath of Charlie Crook's assassination must be stopped. ICE officers and other brave members of law enforcement are under grave threat. We have already declared antifa a terrorist organization. I will be signing executive order this week to dismantle these domestic terror networks. I am calling on all Democrats to stop this rhetoric against ICE and America's law enforcement right now. Trump administration is fully committed to backing law enforcement, strong borders, securing our homeland, deporting violent illegal criminals, and fully rooting out the left wing domestic terrorism that is terrorizing our country. Thank you for your attention to this matter. So Ryan, obviously you know, the national mood is quite fraught at the moment. You just had the assassination live that we all watched with horror of Charlie Kirk. You have the Trump administration using his martyrdom to, you know, grab additional national security powers. He references there the antifa terror organization, Terror terror designation for the antifa organization, which isn't even a thing that really exists, but whatever. Now he's floating another executive order to dismantle these networks, whatever that means. A lot of rhetoric coming from the administration about a coming crackdown and now feeding this new shooting into that narrative to further justify this power grab.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Yeah. And the problem for Trump is that there's no evidence that, you know, quote unquote, any networks or any progressive Soros run.

[Ryan Grim]

Right.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Institutions, you know, had anything to do with this shooting or with the shooting of Charlie Kirk, that, that, that it would almost be hopeful in a way, like, oh, we found the networks that are doing this.

[Ryan Grim]

We can disrupt it.

[Freddie DeBoer]

We found their funders, their leaders. We're gonna, we're gonna round them up, we're gonna. This, they're breaking the law. They're trying to run a little insurrection here. We're gonna roll them up and put them all in jail. We almost wish that that was the case. It's not. And so Ken Klippenstein, we can put this up on the screen. Ken is his new beat, apparently, is being the only one to do any reporting in the wake of these killings. And he was able to talk to three friends of Joshua John, who was.

[Ryan Grim]

Identified as the shooter and who took his own life.

[Freddie DeBoer]

And what's interesting and is the caveat for his reporting that he makes in the piece, none of them had been friends with him in recent years. So there's still a lot to be learned about his last year or two. But what they described is a person who spent his time on 4chan, which is. How would you even describe it? It's like a right coated, irony laden, nihilistic den of young, young men.

[Ryan Grim]

Yes.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Basically.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Freddie DeBoer]

And that's where edgelords gather. And they say edgy things, they push them, they say things they don't mean in order to, like, get a rise out of people, you know, they, they, they shield themselves in all of this irony. What his friends said is that his edgelord online behavior began to bleed into his in real life personality.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Freddie DeBoer]

And it was just brutally obnoxious. Like he was insufferable to be around.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Freddie DeBoer]

And so people stopped suffering him, which is why.

[Ryan Grim]

And they even say, like, if you're having trouble finding anyone who associated with him in recent years, this is why.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Because they don't exist.

[Ryan Grim]

We all withdrew from him. Yeah. He was too much, too much to take.

[Freddie DeBoer]

And so, so how does he go from there? And then. So when everybody saw the shell casings that Crystal put up earlier, that had in blue marker written anti ice.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Freddie DeBoer]

The entire world was like, are you not even trying?

[Ryan Grim]

Like, really?

[Freddie DeBoer]

This is utterly absurd. First of all, left wing people don't say anti ice.

[Ryan Grim]

Right.

[Freddie DeBoer]

They say f ice, abolish ice. Something like that. There's. I've never heard them say anti ice.

[Ryan Grim]

No.

[Freddie DeBoer]

And that's almost too parliamentarian.

[Ryan Grim]

Right.

[Freddie DeBoer]

It's too establishment to just say, you're anti ice. Not. It's not. Now his friends say, if that's authentic markering on those shell casings, it's ironic. It's like it's him sending some ironic message. That is, that is. And the purpose of it in some ways is what's going on right now with us two boomers here discussing like 4chan irony and meme culture on a serious platform. Like, we're anthropologists. They love that because it's so ridiculous.

[Ryan Grim]

It's absurd. It's a violent, real world shitpost in a way.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

To get everybody to, you know, what does it mean? And what were his politics? And to create just a mess. I mean, it's a, you know, it could be seen as like accelerationist potentially as well. But I was telling you, Freddie DeBoer wrote a fantastic piece in the wake of the Tyler Robinson assassination of Charlie Kirk about this. You know, the previous trend that we tend to have internalized is there's some existing ideology and then the violent act flows out of that, you know, that ideology. And this is more like there's an absence of idea, there's an absence of meaning. And the killings are meant to create a meaning. And, you know, I think Tyler Robinson, it's still a question mark to me whether he fits into that. Cause there seems to have been like, you know, some sort of the genuine concern over Charlie Kirk. Yeah. Single issue kind of fixation. But on that same day, you had this neo Nazi, more right wing school shooter. But again, it was all this Internet gobbledygook memeology. So was he really sort of through and through ideological neo Nazi? It seems more like it came out of this same sort of fever swamp. And he modeled himself on another school shooter who was very similar with Internet memes. The trans shooter that got so much attention in Minneapolis because of their gender identity. Similar thing. Like they put up a video with over 100 different weird online like memes and symbols and all kinds of crap. So there seems very much to be a trend here. And I want to read a little bit from Ken's piece because just so you get the specifics of what the friends were saying. And we're not just paraphrasing. So Ken writes. None of Joshua Jan's former friends believed that the anti ice inscription could possibly be sincere. Feeling such a serious political statement was anathema to who Jan was. His humor was deeply ironic, often offensive and aggressive to the point of alienation. He was most certainly an edgelord, an irony guy, one friend said. Edgelord being online speak for someone who likes to espouse edgy, nihilistic views. Asked about the inscription on the bullet, the friend said, josh was an edgelord who wanted someone to get blamed. I think he tried his best to write something goofy to rile people up. Another friend showed me a Facebook post describing how Jan had flooded his friend's comment section with rape jokes. Quote, playful shock humor, the friend said. Jan's profile on the gaming platform Steam showed that the vast amounts of time he spent playing video games, particularly shooters more than 6,000 hours on Rust, 3,000 on Team Fortress 2, and 1,000 on Left 4 Dead 2. Even time to play three and a half hours in the past two weeks, which sounds like a real downtick in his video game playing time. Only three and a half hours. That's nothing. Among the dozen or so users names he used was one reading impeachment. When I asked if this was not a clear reference to anti Trump politics, his friends recoiled at the idea he would express opposition to Trump so sincerely and straightforwardly. Instead, they saw it as part of the broader ironic Persona poking fun at anti Trump resistance types. Now, they do say that he did.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Not like Trump and not a fan of Trump.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. But that he also didn't like any politicians. The only politician they mentioned him having spoken favorably of was actually Ron Paul. They said if anything they'd pin his politics as more libertarian. So look, again, your caveat is important that these are people who have disassociated with this guy for a couple years. But we do also have his brother coming out and saying something similar about like he didn't really care about ice. He wasn't really particularly political. And so clearly and you also have an administration that you can't trust. Like the FBI is completely political and run by an incompetent moron and fool. Which is why so many people, the minute that the anti ICE bullet casings drop are like there's fucking no way that that's real. I actually, now that I've seen this reporting, I actually am more willing to buy that that is legitimate because it is such a weird thing to write anti ICE that it does feel like something a shitposter would do.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Just messing with you.

[Ryan Grim]

Just messing with you. Exactly. So in that frame, like with Ken's framing here, it actually does make more sense to be that. That could actually be something that's real.

[Freddie DeBoer]

And in the end of it, though, our attempt to like, make any sense of this is always going to be broken by the fact that this is a person who went and took the life of at least one person to put two in critical condition, ironically.

[Ryan Grim]

Right.

[Freddie DeBoer]

And it's just impossible as somebody who is like just still, you know, well grounded to identify with that. Like, you can, you can go back and read about like far right, like violence or far left violence in Europe and like Italy and Germany against the fascists or whatever. And you say, I wouldn't want to participate in that myself, but I get it, like, right? This makes rational sense. There was an act of human history. It's just impossible to get to a place where you can understand like how you go from where he was to like, I'm going to get a rifle and ironically shoot up an ice building when I don't even like care about ice that much. And I'm going to kill, I'm going to care so little about it that I'm actually going to kill detainees.

[Ryan Grim]

Right. And troll with the bullet casing. A lot of people also were noting, I don't know a lot about guns, guys, but they, they called this like a stripper clip where it's. These were intentionally left. Right? They were not used and sort of like just intentionally left there. Yeah. And so this like, assuming this is like if we're taking the government's word for it, and this is legitimate, that was an intentional statement, like a troll, but in the most disgusting, violent way imaginable.

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[Ryan Grim]

Right. I know if Sagra was here we would be having probably a debate at this point because we've already had several versions of this debate about you know, he would go down this degeneracy video games. We don't know anything about this guy's like porn habits in particular. But he'd say porn addiction like lockdown.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Like this kid suffered through, you know, the lockdown, the COVID lockdown.

[Ryan Grim]

He might sacra doesn't usually bring that part that could go wrong.

[Freddie DeBoer]

He should because it turbocharges all of the other things.

[Ryan Grim]

But he's more inclined to go in the direction of like we've gotta cut off the video games, we've gotta like regulate porn. We need to, you know, he's more in that camp and I am in the camp of you have to deal more with the root causes. Like the whole world has the Internet, many Asian cultures are much more game addicted than we are and spend a lot more on video games, a lot more time on video games than we do. And yet we're the only country that has these only developed country that has these routine mass shootings, routine school shootings. So there's something specific to the American political context that is creating this. And so I'm curious what your view is on kind of the underlying factors that are leading to now we have these repeated instance of these sort of black pill nihilist edgelord killers.

[Freddie DeBoer]

To me, one of the Only explanations. Well, first of all, this guy's got a gun. Like, in a lot of countries, this guy doesn't have any access to a gun.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Freddie DeBoer]

It's just like the idea that he could even get one to this kid in most countries would be absurd.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Freddie DeBoer]

It's just not possible.

[Ryan Grim]

Have a gun. His brother says he wasn't a great marksman, that he grew up in gun culture. Like, he was used to hiring, to handling firearms from a young age. Obviously, Tyler Robinson, even to a greater extent, grew up in like, you know, sort of extreme, what I would call extreme gun culture. There's all sorts of family photos of them, you know, with various weaponry, et cetera.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Right. So that's one obvious distinction. The other has to be something about hopelessness and a lack of meaning.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Which is ironic because if you look at just straight up, you know, wealth, gdp, et cetera, like the United States compared to every other country is doing better.

[Ryan Grim]

Right.

[Freddie DeBoer]

But there's something about the direction of the country and people's sense of whether or not their futures are going to be better than the last generations that that makes it so it doesn't matter what the absolute score is, whether, like, this guy had, you know, a lot of people around the world would love to be able to, you know, have the video game console or consoles that he had and access to nice TV and like, like all, all. All the things that allowed him to play the thousands of hours of games. But at the same time, those, like, he also must have had. Forget him. Like, in general, Americans have like, a deep sense of hopelessness about the future. And so it doesn't really. So just telling them, well, you're doing better than people in Thailand.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Freddie DeBoer]

They're like, well, I don't care.

[Ryan Grim]

Right.

[Freddie DeBoer]

I feel. I feel, like, miserable.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. I mean, it's a seeming decline in living standards because while there's a plethora of sort of, like, inexpensive items available, the key building blocks, housing, education, healthcare, more and more expensive. There's, I think the, you know, being in the tail end of neoliberalism here has hit men harder than women in a way, because so much of men's, like, the cultural value, what the culture says to men is like, you're a man if you can provide. And then there's. It's so difficult to be able to do those things, to be able to have the job, have the, you know, the family, do the thing that your parents and grandparents did. And so. And of course, you guys know, none of this is, like, justifying it's. Just trying to grapple with, like, what the hell is actually going on here. Because it's very difficult, as you said, to understand. It's actually impossible to understand. But I think we have enough data now to say that there is some broader, deeply troubling trend. That's it then. This is something that Sager has said. Like, it would be more comforting if there was. If it was like a Weather Underground sort of situation. We're like, here's the antifa network and we're going to disrupt them and we're.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Going to do here what they want.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. We're going to J. Edgar Hoover them. And, you know, we can get to the sources of funding, we can deal with this. This is this sort of widespread cultural social phenomenon, and there's no reason not to expect it's gonna continue to expand and proliferate, which is what is so terrifying. And one of the things that Freddie DeBoer also writes in his piece, which we should put a link to and probably get Freddie on, like, next week to talk about as well, but that, you know, the school shooters, like, that's become such a part of the background noise of American society that it barely gives you, like, whatever infamy and sick meaning making that you're trying to apparently achieve with these random acts of violence. And so the sort of school shooter phenomenon may be expanding now into these, like, political assassinations and political attacks. And that the profile of these sort of killers looks actually very similar to the, you know, the typical school shooter kind of profile.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Yes. And he was 29 years old, which is actually getting a little on the older side for these shooters. But again, five years of the pandemic, I think, upended a lot of people who are now 29. He was 24 when he goes into it, now he's 29. And as his friend said, over the last several years, he became a completely obnoxious guy. But I think you're exactly right that the phenomenon that We've understood for 20 years of the school shooter type is moving into other types of things. Now, the school shooter Maltreater and you know, Dallas is only. It was 2016 when the guy shot, what, six, killed six police officers. Five or six police officers. Remember that this giant shootout.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, that's right.

[Freddie DeBoer]

In 2016 in Dallas, which, again, like, if that happened one time in France, you know, it'd be like they'd remember it for 100 years.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. And try to do something about it, whereas we know no one's going to do anything about it. Another Factor that I think has to be added to the mix is obviously like mental illness knows no national boundaries, but we have a vast amount of untreated mental illness here, both because of cultural stigma around seeking help and a lack of universal health care and insufficient amount of inpatient beds and mental health resources more generally for people. So I think that's part of it too. So in any case, let me just put up these last few pieces that we have about what we know regarding Joshua Jan. Put a five up on the screen. So he also, in addition to the anti ice engraved bullet casing, we also have this bizarre map that was stuck to the outside of his car that showed radioactive fallout across the US don't know what that's all about, but in any case that, you know, I mean it feels like something a schizophrenic would like send to one of our houses, frankly. But in any case that's one of the things that they found as well. We've got. We could put the next piece up on the screen. I mentioned his brother again early days of finding out what this, you know, to the best we can possibly understand what was going on with Joshua Jan in the days and years leading up to this murder spree. The brother says, I don't think he was politically interested talking to NBC News. He wasn't interested in politics on either side as far as I knew. Didn't have strong feelings about ice as far as I knew he did. This is important to know. He did vote and everybody's of course going to look at the social media profile and what can we glean about this guy? He voted in Texas's Democratic primary in 2020. That's the only record that we have of him voting in any election. So it wasn't a Democratic primary. The brother also said that Joshua Jan knew how to shoot. Their parents owned a rifle, but that Joshua was not a skilled shooter. Apparently he lived and was born and raised in a suburb of Dallas. Joshua was interested in moving to property his parents owned in Oklahoma. The brother said, quote, he's not a marksman. He would not be able to make any shots like that. Photos of the rifle rounds they said found near Joshua's body suggest he used an antique rifle chamber and a high power round similar to the gun that was used to kill Charlie Kirk. And if it was before a certain date, it would not have had a serial number. That was one of the things that we learned about the rifle that was used to murder Charlie Kirk is that it was like his grandpa's rifle you know, potentially like World War II era rifle and did not have serial numbers because it predated the law that required serial numbers on these firearms.

[Freddie DeBoer]

And the shooting itself lends credence to what his brother is saying and also to what all his friends are saying that he, like, if you're saying like he's A, not a good shot, but also B, didn't have strong feel, actually have strong feelings about ICE or anything that he fired into the building itself just indiscriminately and did not hit or hurt anybody inside the building. He then fired on a van that was just on the street and it was one of these transport vans where they're moving detainees filled with migrants.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Freddie DeBoer]

And that's where he struck three people, killing one and critically wounding two. So, right. It's. He's so just in his mind, he's just on this roofer and he's just looking down. He aims at. Aims at a van and aims at an entire building, which. Which kind of does align with the idea that he's just creating a spectacle.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Freddie DeBoer]

That there's no real plan here.

[Ryan Grim]

I think a lot of people who are on the right in our audience and elsewhere will look at this and say, you guys are coping. The bullet says anti ice. You just don't want it to be one of yours. And so you're making up all this nihilist edgelord stuff. And that's certainly the direction that the administration is going in. We showed you a little bit of Ted Cruz there instantly at the press conference. And J.D. vance also gave a speech yesterday and, you know, also using these killings and claiming that, you know, left wing violence is out of control and we're going to crack down and going directly after Gavin Newsom in particular. Let's go ahead and take a listen to a 7 because here's what happens.

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When Democrats like Gavin Newsom did say that these people are part of an authoritarian government. When the left wing media lies about what they're doing, when they lie about who they're arresting, when they lie about the actual job of law enforcement, what they're doing is encouraging crazy people to go and commit violence. You don't have to agree with my immigration policies, you don't have to agree with Donald Trump's immigration policies. But if your political rhetoric encourages a violence against our law enforcement, you can go straight to hell. And you have no place in the political conversation of the United States of America.

[Ryan Grim]

So, Ryan, for me, I'm very worried about the underlying trend of these killings. And I'm also very worried about what this government is going to use these killings in order to effectuate. And it won't be the first time that either one of us has lived through some sort of a, you know, authoritarian crackdown in service of, quote, unquote, safety. And look, these people, Stephen Miller, J.D. vance, Donald Trump, they make no bones about the fact that they view anyone left of center as their political opponents to be crushed and have made it a habit. Like the storyline of this administration is using either real or imagined emergencies in order to grab more and more power. We already have the antifa executive order. There's apparently some other executive order coming out. Ken has been reporting about the way that they're creating new categories of domestic extremism. So, you know, that is the landscape that we're in right now. And of course, we also covered this week the speech crackdown on Jimmy Kimmel and the fallout from that. I will say I'm very heartened that the backlash to that actually ended up having some teeth. And ABC Disney felt pressured enough to bring him back on air, and they're apparently putting pressure on both Sinclair and nexstar to stop preempting his programming as well. I think the fact that you had that grassroots pushback and it was successful is a really important development. But what do you make of the administration's approach here?

[Freddie DeBoer]

Is J.D. vance listening to himself? He's saying, if you're somebody who is going to use disturbing rhetoric about the other side, you can go to hell and you have no place in our politics.

[Ryan Grim]

I know.

[Freddie DeBoer]

I'm sorry, what?

[Ryan Grim]

Right?

[Freddie DeBoer]

Like what? Like, what are you. Like, what are you talking about here? Like that.

[Ryan Grim]

And I feel like with that, you.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Can go to hell. Like, like. And this is not a guy, this is not a poster on 4chan. This is a vice President of the United States.

[Ryan Grim]

I feel like he is intelligent enough that he says things like that, that he knows you and I will lose our minds over. Like, you literally just said, don't do the violent rhetoric, and then you did the violent rhetoric.

[Freddie DeBoer]

If you go to hell, you have no place in our politics.

[Ryan Grim]

I think he and Stephen Miller both do that intentionally, to quote, unquote, trigger us. But I mean, I do. Like, it's. In some ways, I don't know if it's the least important point, but on the politics of this, I do wonder if Republicans are gonna get what they want out of this, when I don't think the Republican Party led by Donald Trump is exactly known for their civility. Mild, careful rhetoric. Civility attention to detail and accuracy in all things. That's not really what they're known for at this point, but they really are trying to apply this double standard of we can call you fascists, we can call you commies, we can say you're evil literal demons who should be destroyed and like go straight to hell, but you can't accurately describe what we're doing if you call us authoritarians, while we're doing an authoritarian crackdown, while you just want us to be murdered.

[Freddie DeBoer]

And so if the Democratic Party did not exist, which for all intents and purposes nowadays, it actually doesn't, if there was no national media whatsoever, what the public would still see would be these social media posts and the press conferences put together by this administration, which includes routine ASMR videos of people in handcuffs and chains, which includes multiple members of the administration and in Congress standing in front of human beings stacked on top of each other in that torture chamber down in El Salvador, which includes street footage of a female student, Ramesa Ozturk, in Somerville, Massachusetts, getting dragged off the street and shoved into a band by masked agents, which includes all of the videos we've seen of people, of all of the violence that's taking place all over the country.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, like that. National Guard in the streets, all of that.

[Freddie DeBoer]

We would see all of that without a single Democrat saying the F word or the G word or without the media talking about it. And the final is this kid Yan, he's not the type that cares what Democrats say. He obviously hates Democrats and Republicans.

[Ryan Grim]

You don't think this was. He was inspired by Gavin Newsom.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Gavin Newsom? Yes. He's a giant Gavin Newsom fan. And when Gavin Newsom speaks, he marches.

[Ryan Grim]

I mean, Democrats literally don't inspire anyone.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Right? Yes.

[Ryan Grim]

Killer or non. So.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Right. So there is a reality. And J. Vance says, well, you can disagree with our immigration policy. Okay, well, like, what words are you allowed to use to disagree with it? And you know, but it clearly has become like a main thing. So if you're, if, if this, if this kid is looking for some spectacle, 29 year old kid is looking for some spectacle. You know, the big thing is it's, particularly in Dallas, I'm sure it's, it's. There's ice everywhere. And so, you know, if that's what they're looking for is attention. So I would just say, like, I would caution people in assuming that like any of these types of people have any respect whatsoever for Democrats and care what they say about ice.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, I think that's well said.

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[Ryan Grim]

All right, let's go ahead and get to this next piece about Comey because this is, I think, pretty important. So just to back up for a second, Sagra and I covered previously that the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, which is probably one of the most important jurisdictions in the country, it's right here across the river. They do all kinds of national security cases, et cetera. In any case, that U.S. attorney who was handpicked by Trump was forced down seemingly because he would not bring spurious cases against Trump's enemies. We also had, which we also covered Trump posting to True Social, a message that perhaps accidentally that appeared like maybe he meant to send it directly to Pam Bonney, but he posted it openly basically saying like you gotta go after Comey, you gotta go after Schiff, you gotta go after Letitia James.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Fire this woman, Lindsey.

[Ryan Grim]

What's going on? We're bringing in this woman, Lindsey, she's really great, et cetera. So putting direct pressure in public, whether it was meant to be or not, on Pam Botney. I mean, look, in another world, this would be impeachment worthy. And I mean truly, it genuinely would be. And Instead we're like 10 news cycles later in any case, so. U.S. attorney, go ahead.

[Freddie DeBoer]

The Saturday Night Massacre.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Which was for 50 years the biggest political scandal in this country was when Nixon fired some Justice Department officials because they weren't doing what he wanted. And it was a decades long cataclysmic constitutional rupture.

[Ryan Grim]

Yes.

[Freddie DeBoer]

And it was nowhere near as bad as what Trump is doing.

[Ryan Grim]

Right. Trump on main posting like, you need to go after my political opponents. What is going on and why hasn't this happened yet? And now, lo and behold, brings in this lady, Lindsay Halligan, who has never prosecuted a case.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Insurance lawyer.

[Ryan Grim]

Insurance lawyer, former pageant girl, participated in one of the Trump beauty pageants. Apparently, in any case, he's brought her in and she is apparently willing to do some of this. So now msnbc, which this is another interesting thing that you were pointing out, they have Carol Lennock now, who is a real reporter, teaming up with Ken Delaney and who is more of a typically like a Democratic administration stenographer. But in any case, them teaming up and breaking the story about charges against Comey are likely to be filed in the next few days along with they're trying to get Letitia James on these sort of bogus mortgage fraud charges, which they've also tried to go after her, Adam Schiff and Lisa Cook, who is the Fed board governor, over similar, like you said, it was your primary residence, but it wasn't really your primary residence thing. In any case, let's take a listen to MSNBC's Kendelaneon detailing a bit of.

[Alex Colston]

This office is expected to charge Tish James, the New York Attorney general, with mortgage fraud. And of course, Donald Trump we all saw posted on Truth Social in recent days, exhorting his Attorney General to charge both of those people as soon as possible. But again, you know, this is grand. Juries are secret. This is a fluid situation. It's also important to know though that the U.S. attorney, the Trump appointed U.S. attorney in this office, Eric Siebert, was essentially forced out last week in part because he was refusing to bring these cases. We're Told that he was opposed to both to prosecuting both James and Comey on these grounds.

[Ryan Grim]

Put the next piece up on the screen. Delaney and also writes some of the details here. Former FBI Director Jim Comey, for years, the target of President Trump's ire, expected to be indicted in the coming days in the Eastern District of Virginia. Full extent of the charges being prepared is unclear. Sources believe at least one element of the indictment, if it goes forward, will accuse him of lying to Congress during his testimony on September 30, 2020 about whether he authorized a leak of information. Five year statute of limitations on that charge would lapse on Tuesday. Ryan, I tried to dig into the specifics of what they're saying Comey lied about and you know, potentially well, it looks like they don't have more that's than what's in the public sphere, given the fact that this previous handpick US Attorney was like, I can't charge him. There's not enough there, there. But effectively he claimed he stood by earlier testimony where he had said he had never authorized these particular leaks to the press. They're saying they have contradictory evidence. There's some question about whether or not that was true. But remember, if you're gonna be found guilty of lying under oath, it requires that, you know, it requires specific intent that you knew you were wrong. I mean, it's a pretty high legal bar here and one that apparently the previous Trump picked U.S. attorney did not feel that they had met.

[Freddie DeBoer]

And maybe they're going to end up going with contempt of Congress, which would be a vaguer type thing. Usually contempt means you got a subpoena and you refuse to show up because maybe they can't quite nail perjury. The timing is key. The testimony that you're referring to was September of 2020.

[Ryan Grim]

Right.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Which. And the clock is about to tick on the statute of limitations, literally next week or something. Five years. Yeah, very soon. And so basically he was asked if he leaked this information, what he did. And Comey is a slippery dude. And Comey, from my perspective, has basically abused his power at the FBI his.

[Ryan Grim]

Entire career, helped get Trump elected and.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Also helped get Trump elected. No gratitude at all for Comey because the data is quite clear. If Comey had not done both of those press conferences going after Hillary, both helped Trump. He doesn't end up winning by the 40,000 votes or whatever he won by so completely. We're in a completely different world if Comey had not abused his power. So that aside, the question was, did you leak these memos about your interactions with President Trump, particularly when Trump had lunch with him and told him, go easy on my guy, Mike Flynn. That winds up in the New York Times. What he had done is he'd gotten his car right afterwards, typed up a memo, and then he gave it to a friend of his. And then after he was out of office. And so this is another argument that he makes for why this was fine. He authorized his friend to leak them to the New York Times. So he did not personally leak them.

[Ryan Grim]

Was it McCabe that leaked them?

[Freddie DeBoer]

I think. No. I think his name is Richmond, Dan Richmond or something like that. That guy, whoever that was. He's a professor. Some. He did an interview with the prosecutors, like, two or three weeks ago. That's been reported. And so it was after that interview where they're like, we just have nothing here and didn't file anything. People can go back and read his September 2020 testimony. My recollection is that he did say, I did give it to this guy, but he acknowledged that if you go back and read the testimony, he sounds like a guy who's being deliberately misleading.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Freddie DeBoer]

But is trying to stay on the legal side of perjury.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Freddie DeBoer]

And so maybe that's why they'll end up with.

[Ryan Grim]

Pretty much happens every day in this.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Yeah. That's called a congressional testimony. Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

That's the way this works. I mean, and I think it's important to lay out those details. I think it's also important to say it's really not about the details.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Of course it's not.

[Ryan Grim]

Trump wants. Give me something Hates this guy, wants to go after him. Made that crystal clear to Pam Bondi. And now they are, along with Letitia James on the mortgage, quote, unquote, mortgage fraud thing with Letitia James that they may be trying to indict her over. So the claim is. And there's this one guy at the Federal Housing Authority who, Bill Pulte, who's like, feeding this stuff to Trump about Schiff, Tish James and Lisa King.

[Freddie DeBoer]

It's going through everybody's mortgage records. Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

And with Tish James in particular, it seems like they really don't have a leg to stand on because at least what's reportedly happened is there was a mistake in a mortgage application for. She was actually trying to help. I think it was maybe her daughter. It was a relative. Get a house here. And there was a mistake that said it would be her primary residence. And she emailed the. You know, the person she was working with was like, no, no, no, this is not my. You know, this would not be my primary residence. So there's clear, like, documentation that there was a. Sure. There was a. Maybe a filing paperwork mistake that was made that she immediately tried to clear up. And the idea is that if it's your primary residence, you get a better mortgage interest rate, something Trump would know a lot about as someone who engaged in routine real estate fraud with regard to inflating assets and deflating assets and doing whatever that was beneficial for him for getting a loan or lowering his taxes, et cetera, something that Tish James actually went after him for. So that's the crux of the idea of, I guess, what they would go after Tish James. Now, the other question is whether or not a grand jury is actually going to indict. Now, they say a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich, but we have seen with this administration several noteworthy times, including with the sandwich guy here in D.C. where they were like, no, we're not gonna charge him. Not gonna do it. Now, D.C. is a different jury pool than, you know, the Eastern District of Virginia somewhat. I mean, D.C. is the most liberal jurisdiction in the country, but Northern Virginia is also pretty liberal. So it's not crazy to imagine that you could have a grand jury look at this and be like, we're not going along with this. The requirement at justice is supposed to be that you have an expectation at trial a jury would find them guilty. And Delaney and also reported that there was a memo that was sent to this new U.S. attorney saying that charges should not be brought against Comey. There's not enough evidence to establish probable cause a crime was committed, let alone enough to convince a jury to convict him. So sort of career prosecutors there put this memo together for her, and she's like, well, the big guy wants me to do it, so I'm doing it. Yeah.

[Freddie DeBoer]

I wonder if any of those. What those lawyers are gonna do. It'd be amazing. Like, I don't think she'll be able to pull it off. Like, I don't think she'll be able to get a grand jury or a judge to sign off on this, but if she did, it would be truly amazing, because I don't expect that these prosecutors who are, you know, these are Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, like, whatever you think of them, like, these types of prosecutors, I don't think that they would participate in it. So this insurance lawyer would have to bring the case herself.

[Ryan Grim]

Herself, who's never prosecuted.

[Freddie DeBoer]

This would be her first criminal case. Like I said, I don't think it gets past the indictment phase. But if it did, be quite a spectacle.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, but it's important to say, like, if the federal government goes after you in this way at all, even if it doesn't make it to trial, even if you're found innocent or trial, whatever, I mean, it ruins your life, then that's the intent. Right. It's meant to ruin your life, put you through ruinous discovery, have you rack up ruinous legal bills. And just imagine that you had this federal government targeting you directly and in their sights. That would be a terrifying experience. And that's exactly what is meant to be done here. And I mean, it's openly admitted, effectively, by Trump.

[Freddie DeBoer]

And you saw Ken Martin, who. They wanted to make us run for DC but couldn't get through the Senate. So they now have gave him like, three jobs. Ed Martin? Yeah. Like, Ken Martin's a DNC guy.

[Ryan Grim]

That's right.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Gave him like three jobs inside the Justice Department. The weaponization of the Justice Department. And he came after at the apparent request of Alex Jones. And the. The FBI agent who was first on the scene at Sandy Hook and said he was gonna. He was now under investigation, wanted a bunch of information from the guy, and his boss told him, no. Todd Blanche, I believe it was.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Was like, oh, no, no, this is. This. We're not doing Alex Jones's handiwork on Sandy Hook. Are you nuts? And so they completely withdrew this letter. But still, the fact that Alex Jones can call the DOJ and get them to try to reopen Sandy Hook.

[Ryan Grim]

Oh, my God.

[Alex Colston]

Shows.

[Freddie DeBoer]

How weaponized, how far gone we are, this institution.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. Well, there's one last interesting clip I just want to play for you of Peter Navarro. And this is interesting because of course, the right has been claiming that, you know, the Biden administration, the Obama administration, that they. They're the ones who weaponize the Justice Department against them and against Trump. And, you know, it's not like they don't have any case to make there.

[Alex Colston]

Yeah.

[Freddie DeBoer]

You know, indicted him a bunch of times. And they did that whole Russiagate thing.

[Ryan Grim]

They did. They certainly did. And so they've been saying, we're gonna end this weaponization. They weaponize the government against us, et cetera, et cetera. And then you have Trump just brazenly, like, blowing past any sort of plausible deniability and weaponizing not just the Department of Justice, the entire government against his political housing administration. Yeah. The Federal Housing Administrator. You know, the friggin HHS has an anti Semitism task force. Right. I mean, what are we talking about here? So, in any case, Casey Hunt over at CNN asked Peter Navarro to explain that inconsistency. Let's go ahead and take a listen to what he had to say.

[Alex Colston]

Great to be with you. And it is kind of funny. I mean, I did go to prison. I did go to prison for honoring the Constitution, and I'm the only one. And meanwhile, there's a lot of people out there who should be in prison, in my judgment, and I think in the judgment of many people in the Trump administration, James Comey at the top of that list. Now, I don't have any inside knowledge.

[Ryan Grim]

Of this is what's going on with James Comey. How is it not basically the same thing that you're saying happened to you?

[Alex Colston]

Because he broke the law and I didn't. Simple as that. Let me lay this out for you. The big picture here.

[Freddie DeBoer]

And again, I don't know.

[Alex Colston]

I don't know what he would be charged with. There's so many things.

[Ryan Grim]

Our reporting is perjury.

[Alex Colston]

There's so many things.

[Ryan Grim]

So specifically, just as a refresher, Navarro spent four months in prison for two misdemeanor counts of contempt of Congress. He defied a subpoena from the House select committee investigating January 6th. He refused to appear for a deposition or produce requested documents related to his role in efforts to challenge the 2020 election results and was sentenced to four months in prison and fined $9,500, according to Grok. So basically, they were like, they subpoenaed him and he just was like, no, I'm not showing up. I mean, that's pretty brazen. You know, in terms of securing a conviction against someone, that's pretty brazen. So what I've seen, Ryan, is on this, on the free speech stuff. Basically, some parts of the right will try to do an intellectual like, oh, well, here's why it's different and it's not the same. And they did it, and we're doing something completely different. But I see a lot of just like, yeah, they did it to us. We're gonna do it back to them, and we're gonna come at them 10 times harder than they ever could have come at us. And you guys were out there pressuring and getting people canceled over, like Covid misinformation or whatever. Well, we're gonna kick Jimmy Kimmel off the air, and we have no regrets about whatsoever. That's where I see a lot of energy on the right basically being not trying to hold any sort of consistent ideological principle, just pure revenge, vengeance kind.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Of energy and also zero sum. I saw Steve Bannon on a show last night saying, citing these Hakeem Jeffries comments where Hakeem Jeffries said. Hakeem Jeffries said, look, let me remind you that the statute of limitations runs beyond this Trump administration. So if you're committing crimes now, look out, there could be accountability. Which is the irony here of Hakeem Jeffries doing absolutely nothing to resist the Trump administration and then claiming he's going to do something in the future. Just kind of the worst of all worlds. So what Bannon is saying, look at that. What Jeffries is saying is that they are going to reweaponize the Justice Department again when they take power and they're going to come after all of us. We're all going to jail if we don't put them in jail first.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Like that's his argument. He's like, and while we move so slow, he said, you know, the Democrats, they move with alacrity.

[Ryan Grim]

Oh my God, please.

[Freddie DeBoer]

It's funny how, what different worlds we all live in.

[Ryan Grim]

Cause like, if you ask, he doesn't believe that. He can't believe that.

[Freddie DeBoer]

There's no way he believes that because he's, he watched the movie.

[Ryan Grim]

He's actually intelligent. Yeah.

[Freddie DeBoer]

I mean, he is one of the few people. He did go to prison.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Freddie DeBoer]

So he, you know, I'm sure he's got his own perspective on it, colored by the fact that he actually went. Was behind bars leading up to the election for. Same thing as Navarro.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. Just refusing to testify.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. Well, we'll see if Democrats have Democrats move with alacrity. Yeah. Incredible.

[Freddie DeBoer]

I'm gonna have to look up alacrity.

[Ryan Grim]

Because that's not my, it's not your understanding of what that term means. It's not embodied.

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[Variety Podcast Promoter]

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[Alex Colston]

The only constant in Hollywood is change.

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Open your free iHeartradio app, search daily.

[Ryan Grim]

Variety and listen now by Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries. All right, let's go ahead and get to this live update from that flotilla from Alex Colson of Dropsite News.

[Freddie DeBoer]

The Global Samud flotilla, a convoy of ships bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza, is getting closer and closer to the shore, but coming under increasing attacks from swarms of drones in the Mediterranean and meanwhile starting to get backup from European powers including Italy, which has said it is sending a naval ship to assist the flotilla as well as Spain, which is said it it also plans to intervene. There's some suggestions from Ireland that they may also get involved. Joining us now is my colleague over at Dropsite News, Alex Colston. From the Sirius is the ship you're still on, is that right, Alex?

[Alex Colston]

That's right. It's called the Sirius Haifa because the boats are also named after Palestinian towns.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Got it. Got it. So, and we apologize if any viewers get seasick from watching you kind of float up and down, but I imagine the seasickness is much worse among your crew. So I hope folks can just bear with us for the moment. So two nights ago, we saw the most serious attack yet on the flotilla, which, you know, footage of which we just showed. Can you talk about talk a little bit about what, you know at this point about, you know, what kind of attacks there were and what kind of damage there was?

[Alex Colston]

Definitely there were at least 12 attacks across nine boats. One boat was attacked twice with flashbangs. I think about four were also attacked with flashbangs. One had a chemical capsule fall to the deck, spray a member of the crew, and then it fell into the water. The person sustained minor injuries. One of the flashbangs dismasted a boat, and that one was decommissioned, and so it's no longer sailing with us. And, yeah, they. They started around midnight, and they continued till about three in the morning. And around three this, they tapered off, but we were all concentrated together. And it was actually quite a kind of a remarkable scene, which is that there was just the horizon and the boats, and then every so often there'd be an explosion and we would try to capture it because there's a lot of incredulity about the threat that the boats are under. And so we are a bit at pains trying to, like, document the extent of the attacks. I mean, the footage you shared is from a security camera, and those security cameras are there not merely for our security. It's to broadcast to the world that the boats are under attack.

[Ryan Grim]

I don't know why there would be incredulity about that, given that Israel is basically calling you Hamas. We can put this up on the screen from the Israeli foreign Minister. This is C2, guys. They say we have another proposal for the Hamas Samad flotilla. If this is not about provocation and serving Hamas, you are welcome to unload any aid you might have at any port in a nearby country outside Israel from which it can be transferred peacefully to Gaza. Israel will not allow vessels to enter an active combat zone and will not allow the breach of a lawful naval blockade. Is this about aid or about provocation? Alex, how would you respond to that?

[Alex Colston]

I believe this was the most recent statement that they made. They've made a handful of them at this point. I can tell you what the organizers say, and I can tell you what I make of that. But first to say that the organizers all say uniformly that if this were true, if Israel was willing to facilitate aid, there would be no. No real reason for the flotilla to exist. There'd be no reason for us to have independent civilian efforts to break the siege and to get aid into Gaza. So if it's a provocation, the provocation is Israel should deliver the aid. But we know that they're not going to do that. We know that they're not going to deliver sufficient amounts of aid. They've funded unra. They've. They've. They've implemented a deadly, quote, unquote, humanitarian distribution mechanism that is helping to corral Palestinians, and then they are killed. By Israeli forces. There's nothing to be believed in the statement that Israel is interested in facilitating aid to the people in Palestine.

[Freddie DeBoer]

What have you heard from either Spain or Italy or what have the organizers heard and what are they sharing with you have of like and have you started to see this Italian ship which said it would be there for rescue? By the way, it made clear that it would be there for potential rescue rather, which is distinct from saying we're going to be there to offer defense to this flotilla. Have you, have the organizers heard from these governments or are these just statements that they're catching on social media just like everybody else?

[Alex Colston]

No, the members of the steering committee have met with members of the Spanish parliament. There's an Italian member of parliament on board who is in contact with the Italian government. These are active and ongoing negotiations with European governments to come to an understanding about what kind of protection or support these governments are going to provide. The Italian government, for instance, has said that they would facilitate the aid themselves via a Catholic charity. The organizers have rejected this proposal because the plan is to open up the humanitarian corridor. But at the same time, though, the organizers have also said that they welcome any and all governments to participate in facilitating the humanitarian mission. But the fact of the matter is, is that we are going to sail toward Gaza with or without a military escort.

[Ryan Grim]

Alex, how are you feeling at this point? On the one hand, you've got Israel outright attacking your boats and calling you Hamas. On the other hand, you do have at least a couple European nations that are saying, hey, we're going to, you know, make sure that you at least don't get killed. You know, I mean, just like as a human being, how are you feeling about your personal safety right now?

[Alex Colston]

So. So it's hard to say what's going to happen. And I mean, I say to myself at least, and I think a lot of people agree, especially on the ship that I'm on, because we talk about it a lot. We're trying to do what governments won't do. And that requires a certain level of conviction and courage and commitment. And at the same time, whatever we do and whatever we're able to succeed at doing and trying to open up, opening a humanitarian corridor, it's minimal and next to the courage of Palestinians who face being killed every day. So I feel a little bit like I don't want, I don't want to be over alarmed. I am nervous. And at the same time, I think the standard that has been set for courage is not with governments, but with the Palestinian people.

[Freddie DeBoer]

I mean, and I think that that's, that's good of you to say, but at the same time, you know, there's no such thing as a courage Olympics, and we all have one life on this planet. And, you know, whether you lose it in Gaza or on a ship because Israelis are sending some message, you've still lost a life. So, you know, I would discourage people from, and including yourself from like, discounting, you know, what it is that you're, that you guys are going through. How are the rest of the people feeling going? It feels like a bit of a rollercoaster. Two nights ago, it seemed like they were presaging a much more violent attack. And then the intervention of the Spanish and the Italian navies. Seems like. How was last night? It seems like last night was fairly quiet, which went against the expectations and may have had something to do with the intervention of the Europeans. What's. How was last night?

[Alex Colston]

It was. It was low key by comparison to the night before. The waters that we're sailing into are increasingly getting more rough because there's a storm between Greece and Gaza, and we're making preparations for that. Just to respond to the other thing that you said, you know, I think for me at least, we can, we can control what we can control on those boats, which is that to demonstrate that we're a humanitarian mission, we're nonviolent, we're committed to humanitarian aid, and everyone on board is also extremely conscientious and well organized, and we take care of each other. And we. And, you know, as it said, we protect us. And I think in that respect, I have to have trust in that.

[Ryan Grim]

And.

[Alex Colston]

I have to believe that the solidarity among the people on board and across the organization is enough to sustain our attempts. And I actually do believe in that. Quite firmly. I don't. Of course, I'm worried for my personal safety, and of course I'm. And I think even more than that, and this is what all the organizers and crew members say on board. We're far more concerned about one another. Like in the case of an Israeli interception. Right. I think most of our impulse is to put our hand in front of someone and prevent them from being harmed by Israeli soldiers or not let them be dragged off or harassed. You know, we're under strict orders not to do that so that we don't provoke the Israeli military. And I want to say that that's harder for me at least, than to imagine being personally assaulted or whatever. Like, I just want to say that I think that's worth underlining Actually, that there is a real spirit of solidarity that's a matter of protecting those around us as we have this very high risk action that we're taking.

[Ryan Grim]

Alex, my last question to you at least is, what's your fondest wish for what you're able to accomplish here?

[Alex Colston]

My fondest wish?

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. What would be the best possible outcome.

[Alex Colston]

That we make it to Gaza, for one, that European governments, if not the United States government, I don't have much faith in, that would help facilitate opening a humanitarian corridor that the ships that are following behind us will be able to maintain and keep it open so that there is a humanitarian corridor by sea and that the Israeli government will be so overwhelmed by the public's support for measures like this that real significant humanitarian aid can be given the people in Gaza. And I actually don't think at the last couple of days, especially with the naval vessels joining us, I'm starting to believe more and more that it's not a wish, that there are real developments taking place that are making it increasingly likely for that outcome. And again, I understand it will be a difficult thing to achieve. But at the same time, we are in completely uncharted waters here. Never has there been a military escort for any of these missions over the last 17 years during the blockade. Never has there been this much public pressure. So I would say the geopolitical situation is far more favorable, even if the winds aren't favorable for us, for an outcome like that. So I actually don't want to treat it like a remote possibility. I want to treat it as a live and significant one.

[Freddie DeBoer]

And also while you're here, I'll put in a plug for the work you're doing for Dropsite. Alex, believe it or not, the entire time he's been on this boat has continued his editing duties for Dropsite, including our new newsletter, Dropsite Daily, which impressive. The time zones that actually good for you because right. It's your, your. The time you're handling is less in the middle of the night, but it's always amazing. I'll wake up and see that he's. Alex has already gone through like a full edit of the newsletter and then he's on to editing further pieces. How's it, how's it been to continue normal life, so to speak, off the boat while being kind of surrounded by Israeli drones and in the middle of Mediterranean unable to see even a speck of land? Like, what's that experience been like?

[Alex Colston]

I mean, I, I miss normal life a little bit.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Imagine.

[Alex Colston]

I, I think I mentioned to this this to you before, Ryan, but I mean, I grew up on boats. I'm not, you know, I don't get seasick. I, I really enjoy being on boats and, and you know, trying to like, maintain both my like, day job and fix a toilet on the same day has been a bit difficult sometimes. But you know, I have a lot of, I've made a lot of friends and I have comrades and people who I trust and we have camaraderie and you know, we try to be happy and sing and stay afloat and I don't know, I actually think compared to normal life sometimes that's a lot better because it's not isolating, it's not atomizing. We're all in this, in one mission and one purpose.

[Freddie DeBoer]

Yeah. And as I mentioned, we've got the newsletter and the editing from here on in, you know, just, you know, be safe, keep your head down, keep that toilet working, keep the toilet working. And you know, just wishing you all the best in the last leg of this journey.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. Thank you so much, Alex. We'll be following it closely, of course.

[Alex Colston]

Thank you so much.

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[Variety Podcast Promoter]

There's a lot going on in Hollywood. How are you supposed to stay on top of it all? Variety has the solution. Take 20 minutes out of your day and listen to the new daily Variety podcast for breaking entertainment news and expert perspectives.

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[Ryan Grim]

This is an iHeart podcast.