← It Could Happen Here
It Could Happen Here
Executive Disorder: Platner Allegations, Return of the Tariffs, ICE Shootings
00:53:26
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This is an iHeart podcast, guaranteed human
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media.
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A
This is. It could happen. This is. It could happen here. Executive disorder.
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That's right.
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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 and Robert Evans. This episode, we're covering the week of July 1 to July 8 for some small things. Last week, Ben Gvir, the Israeli National Security Minister, canceled an upcoming trip to New York City for the UN Police summit amidst calls for him to be arrested for war crimes.
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B
That's good. That's good to see. It's nice to see that he's. He's feels scared, even a little, you know.
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A
Yes.
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C
Yeah.
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A
The planned protest outside of the UN took place even though Ben GVIR did not travel to the city. No one really knows if Mitch McConnell is actually still alive as he remains hospitalized after being admitted in mid June for suffering cardiac arrest. On. On Tuesday, a bunch of Republican senators said that they for sure talked to him for multiple minutes about all his favorite topics.
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B
Definitely not AI generated images and shit.
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D
Yeah, yeah.
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A
There's really no clear indication on what his current mental state is. Laura Loomer has said that he's effectively brain dead. Not a reliable source either.
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B
Not at all.
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D
No.
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A
But the audio from the 911 call.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Indicates there was CPR being performed.
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B
So based purely on that, what Loomer says is very likely because when people at McConnell's age need CPR and are like at the time at which EMS arrives, this is not uncommon result. Like what Loomer suggested. Yeah.
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A
We could see a historic weekend at Bernie's, even in American politics if Republicans wouldn't hold on to the Senate seat without doing a special election.
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B
Honestly, it'd be the best way to honor his memory. Like that's the appropriate way to honor Mitch McConnell's memory.
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D
One last filibuster.
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B
Kind of breaking the law. One last time to stack things in the GoP's deck.
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D
I also, I also want to note that friend of the show, Myra Lazine from Trans News Network did request comment about the status of McConnell from his office and has not received a reply. We will let you know if, if we get any kind of confirmation from their press staff that he is in fact alive.
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A
And our colleague James Stout, who will have a special segment later on this episode, also wanted us to note that San Diego has begun defunding and closing more than 30 public toilets today.
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B
Cool.
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A
To that I will add in a not humble brag Fashion that Mamdani and the MTA announced a new plan to expand bus routes.
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B
Great.
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A
The same day.
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B
Anyway, you can have either world people, but not. Not if you live in California, actually.
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A
No toilets or slightly faster buses. The two choices of American politics.
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B
Yeah, the two choices that are presented to voters.
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D
Well, okay, I'm going to. I'm going to present a third choice, which is. I do want to talk briefly about something that's happening in France right now. There is an attempt that has passed the lower house and is pending a vote from the upper house as we speak to pass a police immunity law. I don't know what exactly the term to describe it is, but it is a law that would automatically treat any police killing as justified until proven otherwise. This is obviously an extremely dangerous bill. It effectively allows the police to, as long as there are no witnesses, kill someone and not be investigated or removed for it. So that is still technically making its way through the French Parliament, but very much looks like it could pass and is extremely bleak.
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B
Cool.
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D
Yeah. Which is, obviously, this is a bill backed by the French far right that's also being backed by, you know, a bunch of the French, quote unquote, center right. And. Yeah, quite bad.
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A
Speaking of bad, let's get on to our first main story this week. As many of you know, there's been a major update in the main Senate race. On Monday, a woman named Jenny Rasico came forward with an allegation that Graham Platner raped her in 2021. Rasko told POLITICO and CNN that she and Platner had been seeing each other on and off for about two years. And then one night in 2021, Platner entered her home, quote, unquote, heavily intoxicated, despite Rasico explicitly telling him not to come over. Once inside, Platner forced himself on her while she resisted and repeatedly told him to stop. And then he raped her. Rascoe told Politico that Platner did not remember what he did the next morning, but shortly thereafter, she cut off contact with him after telling him what happened that night was not consensual.
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B
Yep, I guess this is what it took. Unfortunately, I'm like, I'm sorry this lady had to come forward and say this.
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D
Yeah.
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B
But, you know, it does look like this has done the job, finally, of ending this guy's career. I mean, I guess we'll see. Anything could happen still. But I don't know what else to say.
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A
Her specific allegation is heavily corroborated in the reporting.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Politico interviewed the woman's next boyfriend, who in 2023, she told him about what happened with Platner and also reviewed emails to a therapist discussing the sexual assault. Politico published some private Facebook messages between Resco and a friend of hers whom she warned against getting involved with Platner. And that was years before he ran for office. I'll read some of those texts here. He can be charming and funny and he's a decently intelligent person. He's not all bad, but I ended up in a bad situation with him and I will just very politely call him consensually careless at times. She followed up by writing, when drunk, plus ptsd, he lies. Also doesn't listen to you when drunk, unquote.
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B
And it's still remarkable, honestly, how much slack she was trying to cut him in that message. Like, unnecessarily empathetic way of expressing that to someone else about a person who had done that to you. Yeah, I don't know. That's what struck me about that.
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One of the most, like, devastating parts of this is that Rasico told Politico that she previously withheld this accusation because she agrees with Platner's political platform. Yeah, quote, one of the reasons I didn't come forward sooner was the huge moral conflict that I had between supporting his politics but not supporting him as a person. I just want the truth out there. I just want people to have a whole scope of who he is as a person. Unquote.
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B
Yeah.
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After Resco made this allegation, which is Platner's first public allegation of rape or sexual assault, Lindsay Fifeld, the Republican operative who was at the center of the New York Times report on Platner last month told the Washington Post that Platner sneakily removed condoms during sex.
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D
Jesus.
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Which is also a form of sexual assault.
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D
Yeah.
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In a video released on Monday, Platner denied the allegations and said, quote, we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward. Following the allegation, Platner lost high profile endorsements, many of his volunteers, and support from community organizations. The 30,000 member activist organization, Maine People's alliance, whom Platner was a member of, withdrew their endorsement and told him to step down. The Democrat nominee for governor, Hannah Penigree, who Platner supported as a ranked choice candidate, released a statement calling for him to drop out of the race. Quote, for Maine, for the future of control of the U.S. senate. And because no party should stand behind a candidate facing allegations of assault, Graham Platner should exit the race immediately. Democrats need a nominee who can beat Susan Collins in November. Graham Platner is no longer that candidate. Graham Platner tapped into something real. Voters hungry for change showed up with real passion and energy. That energy doesn't have to go away. It needs a new candidate to carry it forward. That last little section by Hannah is part of what I was trying to express in my recent piece outlining the campaign's platform and on the ground strategy. And I think looking back at his campaign, it really is worth trying to understand why it worked as well as it did. Up to this point, up to this allegation. This election has highlighted that there can be a considerable gap in the way certain candidates are talked about online and how they are viewed by the local organizations or the local electorate. Now, at least the organizations are breaking with Platner. We don't have a great idea yet of how voters see him post these allegations, but there was a series of focus groups that the Bulwark ran in June with a group of Maine women who supported Platner, but said that they would draw the line at an allegation of sexual assault. So my last episode was focusing on trying to explain how he won the primary and how his relationships with unions and local activist groups contributed to that campaign success. And there is a reason that I waited till after the primary to discuss that platform in detail. And we had done some piecemeal reporting on some of his other scandals, but the information circulated on Blue sky right now about Daniel Moroff, who was mentioned in the piece, was not as publicly accessible when that episode was written. And I think a piece fully evaluating or relitigating all the personal issues with Platner or some of his staff would have needed to be a separate episode, which is why that piece starts off with mentioning all of the main scandals before narrowing its focus on why he won the nomination and focusing on why he won the nomination so handily, like over 50 points against Democratic establishment candidate. I think it's really important to understand what's happening in American politics right now. Right?
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B
Yeah.
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A
Platner got the most votes in state primary history. He did 83 town halls, amassed over 15,000 volunteers. And just a. Like a semiotic analysis of Platner as a person doesn't tell us how his campaign attracted such historic support in Maine. Right. Politics isn't just about vibes and symbols or even individual character, but rather structural forces. And there is a distinctness at the root of politics between symbols and, like the real forces of society, those forces can be aesthetically flexible and adapt a lot of different symbols. For every Graham Platner, right, a bad guy who represented good politics in Maine, there are many more people who represent very bad politics who dress themselves up in a spotless, like, moral symbology. Look at right now, right? There's a lot of Democratic, like, party figures who are taking a lap. People who have supported Andrew Cuomo and the Clintons who are saying, like, aha, I told you so. Who couldn't have seen this coming? And like, that's, that's gross on its face because of the types of behavior that they are very clearly okay with excusing to put forward their candidates. But, but also I think this, this, this reaction of like, who couldn't see this coming, right? There's all these red flags. This also, like, fails to, like, understand how we got to this point. Like, Platner wasn't chosen to be the nominee by online leftists, but rather the people of Maine. But there are contributing factors that led us to a very, a very precarious situation, including the lack of serious vetting by some of the consultants working on this campaign.
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B
Oh, yeah.
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As well as Chuck Schumer's clearing the field of other Democratic candidates, which helped create this effectively, one on one Mills v. Platner matchup, while other qualified candidates were pushed into the governor's race. And now some of those people might be going after the Senate nomination. Following the assumed dropout of Platner in these next few days, we do have to wonder.
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B
And by the time people listen to this, there's a good chance, I guess, this, this won't matter. But, like, what if he decides to just fuck the party, right? Like, what if they don't sort all this out? It's not an impossible situation. From where we're sitting right now, I don't think it's the likeliest, but it's not impossible. From where we are right now, it's not impossible.
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A
That is an interesting kind of thing to think about.
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B
Yeah.
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Consultants like Morse Katz are urging him to drop out. And there is a lot of reports coming out that are suggesting that he will. And to this point, Platner has been a very effective conveyor of a working class centric platform. And his resilience as a candidate through his other well publicized personal issues have proven a real hunger for a new kind of politics. But by making himself the avatar of that movement in Maine, he has also severely compromised the movement. There's a lot of people who supported his campaign despite his past based on this idea that, that those Past experiences led him to this working class politics his campaign was predicated on, that he was not the same person who made those like, awful Reddit posts a decade ago. But the details and the recency of this rape allegation suggests that is not really the case. This allegation affirms a larger pattern of behavior which is itself disqualifying and illuminates false and misleading statements Platner has made to supporters, which further undermine his integrity, reliability, and the trust necessary for an electorate, for unions and community organizations to put forward a candidate with faith that he will follow through on the working class platform that he adopted. This redemption story that the campaign ran with attracted a lot of supporters, supporters who Platner assured that no new damaging allegations would be coming out against him. And this not only betrays the trust of those supporters and his volunteers, but it also puts the viability of their shared working class politics at risk based on their association with him and especially this new accusation of rape.
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D
I think there's two things that are sort of important to keep in mind when thinking about this. One is that it's quite common for someone who is a rapist to also, you know, be extremely charismatic, to be a good communicator, to be very skilled at manipulating social situations, and that none of the things that they can be good at make it okay for them to be a rapist. But also that's how a lot of the people who are able to do these kinds of things are able to maintain themselves and are able to survive. That's how a lot of politicians who get into this place are able to just survive, despite the fact that they have credible rape allegations. We should mention, you know, for example, that there are significant credible rape allegations against the President of the United States. A thing that has not stopped him from being elected twice.
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B
A conviction, not just allegations, it's a
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conviction found liable in civil court.
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D
Yeah, multiple allegations. Right. Like, you know, and then I think the second issue here, right, and this is something you were mentioning when you're talking about, like, the. The problem with him making himself the avatar of this sort of like, movement of structural forces, is that this is just to some extent one of the risks and one of the challenges you face when you're attempting to run a working class movement that is centered around a charismatic figure, because there is always just a decent chance that they've done something horrible. This is a problem with just the structure of electoral democracy, right?
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A
Yeah.
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D
This is a structural problem with the way that electoral democracy is about selecting your Rulers and the fact that people who want to become rulers also just have a higher chance of being able to get away with shit like this. And that's something that you have to manage to make sure that, like, your movements are not just one guy who can fuck the entire thing over by being a piece of shit.
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E
Yeah.
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A
And yeah, Rasico specifically talking about how she hesitated to come forward because she agrees with this, with this politics, with this movement, I mean, is completely devastating. And like, this reminds me of, you know, the Cesar Chavez allegations. Right. Like, sexual assault is a problem across everything from, you know, like non hierarchical anarchist organizing to the labor movement to electoral campaigns. Not every rapist is going to have a Nazi tattoo.
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B
Bad politics.
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A
No, neither is gonna have. Is gonna have bad politics, Right?
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B
Yeah.
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A
And like, relooking at the sort of many red flags this has. I think a lot of people saw that, like, something like this is a possibility, but a possibility is not an inevitability.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And for a lot of people, especially in Maine. Right. The. The political platform and the community ties that Platner established outweighed the many red flags of Platner as a person. He kind of pushed that to a very. A very far limit, like farther than I've seen in a lot of electoral campaigns of how far he was able to maintain support.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Rather than that illustrating something uniquely special about Platner as a person that shows the depth of the desire to unseat Susan Collins and the lack of trust in the Democratic establishment. Now, this rape allegation is obviously completely discrediting by itself and also because of how it clearly illuminates this pattern of lying and dishonesty. I think that that, that compounds a lot of the issues that people have been talking about with Platner for a long time. And, you know, like, even something like the tattoo. Right. Even if he did not know what the tattoo was when he got it,
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B
which I never believed. Like, and we said that when at the time, that. That's. That was never a credible story. Right.
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A
Fellow Marines in his group who also got the tattoo were interviewed by Zito. They said they didn't know what it was.
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B
That's not what I'm. What I'm talking about is he stated that he had not realized prior to it coming out that it was Nazi. After he had said that he loved the movie Come and See, which that image is in repeatedly. That was when I was like, well, he's a liar. Right?
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A
Yes, we said.
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B
We talked about this on air, by the way.
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C
Yeah.
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B
Just to Be clear.
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A
Yes. And debating whether or not he is a Nazi overlooks the other very clear issues exemplified by the tattoo. You know, recklessness, poor judgment. And then considering these new allegations, you know, Platner's dishonesty, Right. Based on the conflicting reports of when he learned of the tattoos, Nazi associations. And I think that bolsters the fact that he has a pattern of lying and especially like lying to get into power. Multiple times these past few months, Platner has reassured senators, supporters and volunteers that no new allegations would be coming out against him, even while he was aware that Jenny Rascoe was speaking with outlets like the New York Times. Platner has until July 13 to drop out of the race, to be removed from the ballot, and the party has until July 27 to select a new candidate to appear on the November ballot. There's a lot of conflicting reporting on when exactly Platner is going to drop out and why he has not yet. And I might do an update on this based on what will change in the next few hours, the next day. But as of right now, there is seemingly a conflict or kind of like a power struggle between his campaign and the Democratic Party on deciding the transparency of the process to select the next candidate. There's been a few people from the governor's race, as I mentioned, who's thrown their hat in the ring. Troy Jackson has filed paperwork. He was the only DSA endorsed candidate in the main governor's race, also endorsed by Sanders. Dr. Nurav Shah, a kind of more like moderate progressive, announced his intention and as part of his announcement he mentioned opposition to Israel. So he's kind of trying to move in the direction of platinist politics, even though traditionally he has been more of a moderate liberal. We'll find out in these next few days if the platform and campaign style that was so successful can transfer to someone else. Because I think this campaign has provided a very effective blueprint of in person engagement. Town halls, leaning on local organizing connections and having those connections and organized labor help determine a platform. A platform that has stuff like Medicare for All, tax the Rich, no Money for Israel, Supreme Court reform, destroying Citizens United, but also stuff like investing in manufacturing, public utilities, building clean energy and strengthening labor organizing laws. Yeah, quick update here. A few hours after recording, Platner released a lengthy 11 minute video maintaining these allegations are false and attacking the corporate media system and the quote unquote political establishment. Towards the end of the video, he announced the campaign is suspending operations and said he will withdraw from the race, though he has not yet officially dropped out of the race, and reports indicate he will not do so until Monday, which is the deadline. Also on Wednesday night, we got a better look at what the replacement process is going to be. And instead of an open caucus, basically a mini primary, the Maine State Democrats have decided to go Forward with a 600 person nominating convention with 500 delegates elected proportionally by county committees and 100 delegates from the state committee. This is not the most open or Democratic option the state party could have gone forward with and could cause some real blowback from voters who will be unable to participate in choosing the nominee.
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B
Well, we should talk about, I guess, the Ryan Grimm of it all.
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A
Yeah, sure.
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B
So Ryan Grimm with dropside news published earlier today.
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A
And breaking points as well.
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B
Yeah, and breaking points earlier today, this Wednesday, the 8th, when we recorded that essentially the initial reports had not mentioned a couple of what they felt were relevant facts. One of which was that before texting him not to come over, she had texted about needing a massage on her glutes, which I don't see as super relevant. No, I think the argument being made particularly by Dropsite is that like, well, this was still a relevant detail that was not included. The other thing that was in that report that is more relevant is the fact that Politico had details about this assault way before they released them. Right. Like, way before it actually came out that may have been relevant to voters. I do think that's a fair critique. I don't agree with the relevance at all of her mentioning that she needed a massage. That's not an invitation to sex. That doesn't like. I see that as entirely unrelevant. And I think that this is within a traditional of that particular journalist defending people that he likes from allegations that are credible. I don't particularly respect this decision, but it's relevant.
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A
No, it's a pretty gross move to take this moment and then try to like, inject any amount of doubt into what's happened and peddling this.
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D
Yeah.
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A
Politely. I'll say, soft rape apology. That's. It's disgusting. There's a very similar thing coming from the young Turks from. And Kasparian and Chenk. I'm happy that the majority report people turned on Graham, like immediately apologized for defending him throughout these past few months and said that they were wrong about him as a person. Yeah, I'm glad they did that. But what Grim did here and what the young Turks are doing is just completely despicable.
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B
Yeah, I think it's gross repulsive. Yeah. I don't Think there's any reason to bring that specific detail up other than to try to inject doubt like you said?
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D
Yeah. I want to say just one thing about the way that consent works, which is that if you withdraw consent at any time, no matter what happened before it is withdrawn, that's how it works. And if anyone, regardless of what happened until that moment, you have to continue consenting. And if you stop consenting the moment you stop consenting, like you have stopped consenting and it becomes assault. I just, I want, I want to be extremely clear about that because people are trying to muddy the waters about this and this is just an important thing for people to understand about the way that consent works.
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B
I think that would be even more relevant if she'd said come over and then said don't later. But like, what she said was not even starting the.
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D
Yeah, yeah, no, it's not even that. But I just, I just, I just want to be clear about.
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A
According to Grimm's report, she did not even ask him for a massage.
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B
Yeah.
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A
His entire motivation to do this is, is so, is so suspicious. He's trying to say this is about like journalistic integrity and how Politico and CNN were dishonest with, yeah. Rasico's, you know, claims. And like that's, that's, it's completely absurd. I think anyone with half a brain cell can see what he's trying to do here and it's. And it's gross.
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B
I simply don't agree with that. Yeah.
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D
Yeah. And. And I think the other thing that's kind of very bleak about this is that like there is more proof here than.
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C
Yeah.
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D
Most people who are sexually assaulted are going to have. Right. And this is still the reaction that, that it's getting from like, fortunately not a very large number of people, but still people who have large parts, but still pretty influential. Yeah.
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A
People. Yeah, yeah.
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D
And, and that's, you know, like this is part of the reason why, you know, when this shit happens everywhere from like five person anarchist collectives up to like the DSA up to like the Democratic Party, up to the, like the President of the fucking. Why this shit plays out like this, because this is just a structural factor of politics writ large, is that you are going to have to deal with people who fucking do this and their fight to get away with it and people who try to run cover for them.
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B
Yeah. I think this is part of why I have an issue sometimes with folks when there's a new allegation against a conservative politician or a right wing church figure. Or something. And they're like, it's always these guys. And it's like, no, it's every. Like, pedophilia is all over the place. It exists in left wing organizations and right wing organizations. And when you start being like, well, this is a thing the bad people do, not a thing the good people do, then you've created a place in which the people who do that have cover. Like, that's what you're doing when you're like, no, bad people do that. So no one that I agree with would.
- [27:19]
D
Yeah, yeah. Like sexual violence and getting away with it. That's a structural force, right? Like, that's. That's something that is brought about by, like, large scale structural forces that, regardless of what people's stated politics are, transcend those divides and people do it anyways.
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A
Well, let's go on a break and then we will return with more news because more things happened this. This past week.
- [27:41]
D
Yeah.
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B
All right, we're back and, you know, there's simply nothing to say, but it's time for a little musical interlude.
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A
Sorry, don't like
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B
Rocky Casper. Rocky Casper.
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A
Tyree for like it.
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B
Rocky Casper.
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A
Rocky Casper.
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E
Ah.
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B
Oh, God. That just hits every single time.
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A
It's been too long.
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B
Yeah, it really has. It really has. It really has time. Makes fools of us all. Mia, what's happening in tariffs today?
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D
The tariffs have been in committee, which is why the tariff song has been in the box, but they are no longer in committee. So long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away, which is to say February in a slightly different department, we talked about the possibility of Trump replacing the tariffs that the Supreme Court struck down by using a series of different sets of tariffs. One of the sets that we mentioned are tariffs imposed by using Section 301 of the US Trade act of 1974. This allows the administration to carry out an investigation into unfair trade practices and then impose tariffs after the investigation is concluded. Now, the administration basically set one of these investigations in motion, effectively the moment the ruling was decided in February. And on July 2, they returned with their conclusions, which, lo and behold, found that 54 countries were failing to take appropriate measures to, quote, impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor. Now, these countries, on top of Russia and China, include traditional US Allies like Israel, Japan, South Korea, and India.
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A
I think you mean the Islamic Republic of Japan. I'm sorry, I just. I could not let that one escape me.
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D
I missed that reference. Did to someone Trump.
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A
Trump today said the words, the Islamic Republic of Japan When I think he did not mean to say the Islam. Islamic Republic of Japan.
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B
What country has taken fewer Islamic refugees than Japan? Like, I don't even understand how that could be. Like a conservative bugbear.
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A
He says the Islamic Republic of Japan fired missiles at US Ships.
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B
Okay, okay. He just misspoke. He misspoke. He was trying to say Iran. But you just said. It's just a normal senior moment from our president as he launches or continues a series of illegal attacks on foreign countries. Just a normal senior moment from our warmonger president.
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C
We're good.
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B
We're good. Everything's fine.
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D
Yes. Incredible stuff happening here that our. Yeah. Our president cannot produce. Actually admitted. Admittedly, this is not the first time in our lifetimes that our president has not been able to correctly name the country which he is bombing.
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B
Sure isn't. Sure isn't. It's not even the second president that this has happened to in our lifetime. No, I'm not certain it's the third.
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D
We're like three out of four. I'm pretty sure Bill Clinton could do it, so that's like three out of five.
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B
But I don't. I'm not 100%. He's a country boy. He probably fucked it up once. Now, we didn't bomb as many people when he was president, but we didn't bomb no people.
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D
That's probably true. Good God. Good God. Okay.
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A
So sorry. Sorry. My apologies.
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B
It's okay.
- [31:22]
C
It's okay.
- [31:24]
D
Returning from this.
- [31:24]
F
This.
- [31:25]
D
This bleak interlude. So again, countries that the US Are saying, like, are not enforcing this prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor. So these, again, include a bunch of traditional US Allies like Japan, South Korea, India and Israel, which is sort of interesting. It also says, quote, the following six economies have failed to effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor. Canada, Ecuador, the European Union, Indonesia, Mexico and Pakistan. So on this list, that is the entire eu, Canada, Mexico, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, and Turkey, which is a list of the world's largest economies. And then also there's a few kind of oddball ones, like poor Sri Lanka, which. They really have something out for Sri Lanka. I don't know exactly why it keeps showing up on these tariff lists, despite the fact that these poor people have been just suffering unbelievably devastating economic consequences for a very long time. Now I am in the unfortunate position of having to agree with California's Attorney General, a thing I am not typically doing. But he did, in fact, say something which is true. That this list of countries is in fact 99% of all U.S. imports. So, okay, now we can obviously note here the hypocrisy of imposing tariffs for forced labor in a country whose constitution specifically allows forced labor for prisoners. And note that, you know, forced labor of various kinds, from indentured servitude to debt, peonage to various kinds of slavery, have been key elements to the development of capitalism from the beginning. But this is not about forced labor at all, as I think anyone who is even remotely paying attention will understand. So the tariff rates are nominally tied to setting up systems that ensure that goods produced with forced labor aren't being sent to the US with countries who are, like, out of compliance with the US system would do that, getting a 12%, 12.5% tariff rate and countries who are complying facing 10% tariff rates. That's at least the theory. The practice is not that, as the diplomat notes, quote, the proposed tariff rates, however, cannot be explained by human rights concerns alone. Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines have not established import Prohibition systems meeting US standards and face a 12.5% tariff. Malaysia and Cambodia likewise lack such systems, but face a tariff of only 10%. So this is just a fairly naked attempt to reimpose the set of tariffs that Trump initially imposed in February in the wake of that Supreme Court decision. We talked about those in a different episode. They are up for a July 24 deadline. So it's pretty clear that this report is time to come out in a way that allows these tariffs, which are very, very similar to the ones that were already in place, to go into effect. Now, it's worth noting that those tariffs had some bad court rulings. They're probably not going to last long enough to get, like, a good Supreme Court ruling on it before they come out of effect. So those ones probably won't be lifted by a court order just because there's not enough time. But there's a good chance that these tariffs are also not going to survive. But the California attorney general is part of a very large group of state attorney generals, which features the attorney general of almost every state with a Democratic governor, which I'm not going to read
- [34:44]
A
the list out because it's a bunch
- [34:45]
D
of them, but they are once again suing the administration over these tariffs. So here we are again, riding the tariff roller coaster. And yeah, we're back with the Trump administration trying to impose 10 to 12% tariffs on most of the economies in the world.
- [35:05]
A
Speaking of the Islamic Republic of Not Japan.
- [35:08]
D
Oh boy.
- [35:09]
A
Here is James Stout with A special segment.
- [35:14]
C
So what I want to talk about today is this lawsuit recently filed by the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund, represented by Public Citizen, which has some incredible accusations about what the United States government has done to people who are Iranian nationals seeking asylum in the United States. Specifically, they're alleging that the US Government has disclosed confidential information on Iranian nationals seeking asylum in the USA to the Iranian government. I am going to reference a complaint and quote from at length quite a bit here because these accusations are crazy. They're crazy in that I think they're false. I don't think they're false crazy in that they are abhorrent and disgusting. Especially when you consider that the United States government has consistently talked about the rights of people in Iran while all the time violating those same rights. So let's quote from that complaint. Quote. Many of the asylum seekers are pro democracy protesters, members of religious minorities such as evangelical Christians or members of the LGBTQ community who seek refuge in the United States because of the grave dangers they face in Iran. Disclosing their confidential information to the Iranian government violates the asylum seekers confidentiality rights, endangers their family members and acquaintances who may still be residing in Iran, and puts those who are subject to removal to Iran directly or through chain rafaelment via third countries at risk persecution, torture and death following their arrival in Iran. If you're not familiar with chain refilement, it's sending someone to a third country that will then send them to the place that the USA can't or won't send them due to concerns of persecution or torture. So it's an end run around international law. It's barred by the 1951 Refugee Convention and the UN Convention against Torture. But the US has been doing it a lot under the Trump 2.0 regime. In the course of my work, I have met Iranians from all of the groups described in this complaint as well as those who are ethnic minorities in country. In addition to being parts of the groups described in this complaint, can think of a group of young Iranian women I met in the Darien Gap who I spent a good deal of time talking to. Really lovely folks. There's a man with them as well. Actually, now I think about it, you can hear them in my Darien series. I met some Iranian Christians in outdoor detention. A number of them remember one of them was having a heart problem. So it's been a deal of time trying to help her and get her medical attention. As I've covered before on this show throughout the USN Israel's bombing campaign on Iran. Iran has kept killing its own citizens. In the last couple of weeks it has engaged some of the armed Kurdish groups and there have been casualties on both sides. The process of the US government sharing these records with Iran, the suit alleges, began in March of 2025. It seems to have continued when the US was bombing Iran that year. It seems to have continued while Iran massacred thousands of its own citizens in January of this year and it continued throughout the United States and Israel's current war on Iran. Indeed, a flight left for Iran on January 25th of this year as the dead from the pro democracy protests were only recently in their graves. Iran doesn't have an embassy in the US and these affairs go through the Iranian Interest section of the Pakistani Embassy. It was to that Iranian interest section that the State Department reached out in March of 2025. According to the lawsuit, the March 2025 meeting produced an agreement between the United States government and the Iranian government under which ICE and Iranian government officials have begun holding monthly meetings to share the immigration files and information of Iranians in ICE custody. In addition, since the March 2025 meeting, US government officials have periodically mailed or hand delivered immigration files of Iranians in ICE custody to the Iranian government. It then goes on to allege that ICE has provided officials from the Iranian interest section with access to people that it has detained and worked with the Iranian government to pressure these people to waive their rights. This is going to be them signing voluntary deportation paperwork where it very clearly is not voluntary when they're held against their will and pressured to do it. But that's what you'll hear it called. Many of the Iranian detainees did not consent to meet with the Iranian intersection officials but were required to do so by by ice. According to Iranian detainees who met with an Iranian intersection official, the official had knowledge of their immigration cases including the details of their asylum applications. These non consensual meetings with the intersection officials solidify the detainees belief that they have been identified to the very same repressive government that they had fled. The United States government allowed the Iranian government to select the Iranians deported to Iran. According to this complaint. Some of those people were then interrogated by the intelligence section of the IRGC on their rival in Iran. Some of these people had detailed on their application as they must to make a good asylum application, right that they had participated in the 2022 Janjan Azadi movement. Woman Life Freedom. It's a Kurdish slogan slogan of the Kurdish Freedom movement that was used by pro democracy protesters in Iran after the murder of Jina Amini by Iranian police. This sparked a whole movement. Right. I'm sure you can find a great deal of good writing on that movement. It was very well covered. I have met women who took part in that movement. As I said before, you can hear some of them in some of my podcasts. They tried with every fiber of their being to make Iran better.
- [41:01]
B
Right?
- [41:02]
C
They saw their friends dying to try and make Iran better, and then they fled because it was made very clear to them that the state was willing to fill the streets with blood before it changed. Now, those people are obviously afraid of telling the truth on their asylum applications or even to their lawyers, especially while they're in detention, because they now know that that information could be delivered directly into the hands of the Iranian government. They may have said in their applications, I was part of this movement because I'm opposed to the government. And now that information is being delivered to the government. They came here to experience some of the freedoms that their friends died for. And instead they were hand delivered to the regime that they had fled from. The US did not ask for any protections or guarantees for their safety. At the very same time the USA was using the rights of Iranian people as a pretext for its war in Iran, it did this as it was depriving people of those very same rights back here. This is disgusting. I will link to the complaint in the sources if you'd like to read it yourself. I'm going to keep an eye on this one. Even amongst the horrors of the second Trump administration, this is just particularly abhorrent.
- [42:18]
A
We'll go on a break and then return for one more batch of news. We are back. Next up, two shootings by ice, which have both occurred just this last week, exactly half a year after the shooting of Renee Good.
- [42:44]
D
Robert.
- [42:45]
B
Video captured Wednesday morning in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, showed ICE attempting to arrest an undocumented immigrant from Mexico named Clemente Laura Hernandez. There's video of this incident. You can see like a black car with flashing lights, like an unmarked police car blocking, like a white suv. Agents get out of the car and rush the suv. And again, they just kind of look like guys with guns in a moment. And one of them starts screaming that he's going to shatter the window and yelling at the driver. At that point, the driver pulls away in a panic. They hit the black unmarked car that had been blocking them. They speed off. ICE points out they're going the wrong way down a one way street. And they, they hit another uninvolved civilian vehicle and it's like, yeah, they were panicked because an unmarked car drove up and gunmen ran out and started surrounding and screaming at them.
- [43:40]
C
It scared them.
- [43:41]
B
That's the kind of shit that happens in countries where the cartels are in charge of everything. If you pretend that, like, ICE is in any meaningful way different from a cartel or a gang, as of us recording this, this person has not been taken into custody. I hope they stay that way.
- [43:55]
C
Yeah.
- [43:56]
B
Also, earlier this week in Houston, Texas, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, who is 52 years old, was driving in the East End when the same basic thing happened. Unmarked cars surround him. Guys with guns get out. He gets really scared and he drives off and he gets shot as he's driving away. ICE accused him of having weaponized the vehicle. He was taken to the hospital where he died. Salgado Araujo had no criminal record. He had been in the country for more than 30 years. He was in a car with several people, including his brother. There's no evidence whatsoever of any kind of violence in his past. There's no evidence that he wanted to hurt anyone. There's no evidence that he was doing anything but being terrified by unmarked armed men surrounding him. His son has come out and said that if he knew they were ice, he certainly would have stopped and complied. He had no idea what was happening, which, again, seems very credible to me. There's already been a cavalcade of people coming out to demand an independent and impartial investigation into what happened, including U.S. representative Sylvia Garcia, who's a Democrat from Texas, and obviously his son. And Alejandra Salinas, a Houston City Council manager, also called for an immediate and partial investigation. I don't know what good I think that's going to do. Like, realistically, for one thing, no law enforcement entity can be trusted to conduct an independent and impartial investigation of ice, period. Especially right now. For another, there's literally no way to guarantee that they will be held to account, even if the evidence, and I think it suggests that they were acting entirely wrongly and murdered a man. Like, I don't believe anything's going to happen to this guy at this point. So, yeah, I guess I support the idea of an independent and impartial investigation. I just don't think that's going to get us anywhere yet.
- [45:48]
D
Yeah, I mean, I think. I think if we want an actual independence, like impartial investigation, it's going to have to happen after this. This administration regime is out of power, and that's a thing that can be done.
- [45:59]
B
Right.
- [45:59]
D
But it's going to just take a bunch of time until these people don't have control of all of the state security services. And in the meantime, they're just going to keep doing the same shooting over and over again.
- [46:10]
A
There's been growing protests in Houston these past few days. This is some audio recorded Tuesday published by Reuters.
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F
People are here to work. Families are dying. People are dying. What are they doing murdering innocent Mexican people? People, they come to work. They come here to work. So what if they don't got papers? So what?
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B
Immigrants are welcome here.
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A
Say hello, say it clear. Immigrants are welcome here.
- [46:36]
F
Trump did this to us. What happened to taking the murderers out? What happened to taking the rapists out? What happened to taking the drug dealers down? Not innocent people. That's not what you said, President Trump. You didn't say that.
- [46:49]
A
Since then, the protests have only grown. On Wednesday evening, hundreds of people marched in Magnolia park on the street where Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was shot by ice. For our last segment, let's talk about America 250. So this past weekend marked the 250th anniversary of the United States, and things went off without a hitch. I heard the Great American State Fair was lots of fun, that it was. It was totally packed. That no parts of any stages nearly killed dancers as they were setting up the event, that there was no severe weather events that disrupted it. I heard it was fun. And adding to the fun was President Trump, who spent much of the 4th of July weekend talking about the growing threat of communism and the need to pass the Save America act following the Supreme Court's ruling in support of counting mail in ballots. In Trump's July 4 speech commemorating the historic occasion of America's 250th birthday, the president said that to keep America great, we must pass the Save America act, the troubled voter restriction bill that has failed to pass Congress. All voters must provide a little thing called proof of citizenship. There will be no mail in ballots except for illness, disability, military deployment or travel. And you won't have cheating on the elections anymore. It's very simple. Speaker Johnson has indicated his plan to pass another version of the SAVE act through reconciliation. The bill has repeatedly been stalled in the Senate, and that has bolstered a lot of Trump's frustrations these past few months. Now, following the Supreme Court ruling, it appears that Republicans will take another crack at it. But Trump also spent much of the America250 address railing against communism. America will never be a communist country. It's like a cancer. You gotta cut it out and you gotta cut it out fast. The communist system is the opposite of the American system, and the communist system has never worked. Our warriors did not fight communism on battlefields across the world only to have that menace rear its ugly head right back here in America. Unquote. Real, real 1950s style reaction to seven Social Democrats getting elected. But I think that the fact that how scared he is and other people, including on the Democratic Party side, and you know, there's been a wave of articles from the Atlantic. Really scared of the more kind of social democratic, democratic, socialist direction that the party's been going. Really frightened. In fact, I think like a few days ago, Trump even said the words a Social Democrat and said they're just communists. But the fact that Trump had to learn what Social Democrat is is a really interesting indicator of where we are at as a. On the eve of July 4th, Trump gave another speech at Mount Rushmore after speaking to the AI Ghost of Roosevelt.
- [50:18]
C
God.
- [50:19]
A
And during this Mount Rushmore speech, he spoke at length about how Communism is a, quote, moral threat to American liberty. It is the greatest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl harbor, or even 9, 11.
- [50:35]
B
World War I is simply not a threat to our country. Not in any way, shape or form was our country threatened at any point in World War I. Obviously, some Americans were killed as a result of Germany attacking shipping, but in no way were we in danger.
- [50:48]
D
Yeah. And then, like, does he understand that Pearl harbor was part of World War II? Like, does he, like, get that? I.
- [50:53]
B
He was just shooting buzzwords off. I think that's all that was.
- [50:57]
F
Yeah.
- [50:57]
D
Incredible guy. To control the largest nuclear weapons arsenal in human history.
- [51:04]
A
Trump also called Communism the enemy of the Constitution, the enemy of July 4, 1776, quote. On the eve of this 250th anniversary of American heritage, we resolve and swear for all to hear that the citizens of the United States of America will vanquish Communism quickly. President Trump also had this banger line, which is the only clip I actually want to play of this speech.
- [51:33]
E
You can be loyal to Karl Marx or you can be loyal to America. You can be a communist or you can be a patriot. You cannot be both. As for those who peddle Marxist lies about our heritage, who tell our children that we live on stolen land or that our heroes were oppressors, they're doing something much worse than slandering our past. They are slandering and attacking our future. Not going to let that happen.
- [52:04]
A
You can be loyal to Karl Marx or you can be loyal to America.
- [52:08]
B
Yeah.
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D
So true. So true. President Donald Trump.
- [52:13]
A
It's just really stunning thinking about this is how the President of the United States is spending the 250th anniversary of the country.
- [52:22]
C
Yeah.
- [52:23]
A
That he, he thinks it is important to start bringing this stuff up. I just thought that was a little interesting tidbit that happened this weekend. Anyway, I think that is all we have for news this week.
- [52:37]
B
Okay. Well, I guess it's been, it hasn't been a short news week, but, you know, we don't always have to talk for an hour and 20 minutes about the shit that's happening. You now kind of know what's happening.
- [52:46]
A
No, this is just a 55 to 1 hour and 3 minutes with James segment instead. A short Newsweek.
- [52:53]
B
Yeah. A short news week. All right. Go. Go with Christ, my friends.
- [52:57]
A
We reported the news.
- [52:58]
C
We reported the news.
- [53:08]
A
It could happen.
- [53:08]
D
Here is a production of Cool Zone Media.
- [53:10]
A
For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media,
- [53:13]
D
Visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts can now find sources for it could happen here listed directly in episode descriptions.
- [53:25]
A
Thanks for listening. This is an iHeart podcast.
- [53:33]
C
Guaranteed Human.