Executive Disorder: Pogrom in Belfast, Trans Healthcare, Denaturalization Cases

Summary

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It Could Happen Here – Executive Disorder: Pogrom in Belfast, Trans Healthcare, Denaturalization Cases

Cool Zone Media, iHeartPodcasts | June 12, 2026
Hosts: Garrison Davis, Mia Wong, James Stout, Robert Evans

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Overview

This episode of “It Could Happen Here” recaps a turbulent week in the United States and internationally (June 3–10, 2026). The team tackles domestic and global crises, with a particular focus on:

• The racially motivated pogrom in Belfast, Northern Ireland
• New U.S. policies impacting trans healthcare
• Rising cases of citizenship denaturalization
• The politics and violence surrounding immigration and elections
• Escalating U.S.-Iran military tensions

The tone is candid, urgent, and deeply critical, offering insight and context for ongoing societal collapses and reactionary movements.

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Rundown of Main Topics & Key Insights

1. Updates and Oddities in U.S. News

[01:13–10:17]

• Santa Rosa Island Fire:
  A mariner without proper safety equipment caused multiple incidents, leading to environmental damage.

  • “He bought the boat for a single dollar.” – Garrison Davis [02:22]
  • Hosts criticize enabling such irresponsibility and note that people often buy boats as cheaper housing in Southern California.

• ICE Deaths and Immigration Headlines

  • The 19th in-custody death reported this year at a Georgia correctional center.
  • The “Secure America Act” passed, giving ICE & CBP $70B in new funding, potentially a hedge against future midterm disruptions.
    • “This is about 240 billion allocated… in a single year.” – Garrison Davis [10:21]

• Right-wing Figure Eyeing Presidency

  • Gregory Bavino launches “exploratory” 2028 campaign with a bizarre, Nazi-inspired, propaganda-heavy website.
    • “America as a whole has already fallen to the grasps of the foreign global one world hellscape ushered in by Barack Hussein Obama... The Commander can not only usher in the great restoration… but also cement… a strong and sovereign United States that will last a millennia.” – Sam Taggart reading campaign website [08:00]
  • The team discusses the blurring of fascist and communist aesthetics in Bavino’s branding, noting AI-generated images and cringeworthy slogans like “Men Fight Back”.

2. U.S. Election Chaos and Conspiracies

[12:04–20:52]

• Election Results in Maine & California:

  • Detailed account of ranked-choice voting delays and accusations flying from right-wing media and candidates.
  • Steve Hilton (R), a former Fox host, edged out Tom Steyer (D), advancing along with Javier Becerra.
  • Homeless voters as scapegoats for supposed fraud—debunked by the team.
    • “Homeless people can vote. Like what?” – Mia Wong [14:30]

• Media Misinformation:

  • Critique of the Washington Post’s false reporting on LA mayoral race concession.
    • “The Washington Post lied. Like, that's just in a Post article. That's just a lie...” – Sam Taggart [15:16]
  • Trump and right-wing pundits (Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity) push stolen election lies.

• Republican Leadership Sows Doubt:

  • Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, leverages delays to suggest “schemes so diabolical… impossible to prove.”
    • “It is impossible to prove. But I think everybody knows instinctively something is wrong here.” – Mike Johnson, paraphrased by hosts [20:02]

• Ongoing Normalization of Election Conspiracy:
  Hosts brace listeners for continual accusations of election rigging in future cycles.

3. International: Pogrom in Belfast, Northern Ireland

[21:08–32:26]

• Harrowing Events:

  • On July 9, white mobs attacked homes of non-white residents; properties burned, families assaulted and displaced.
    • “Mobs attacking hotel… at that point it was more focused on hotels that refugees were believed at.” – Sam Taggart [23:22]
    • Quoting an eyewitness: “Some of the men rushed the front door and broke it down... as they stormed the property. Some claimed to be liberating it. Graffiti nearby demanded ‘local homes for local people.’” – Mia Wong, reading Hanal Othman’s report [22:10]
  • Police widely accused of “standing down” and failing to protect targets of violence, echoing similar patterns in 2025.

• Roots and Amplifiers:

  • Loyalist neighborhoods with deep far-right, paramilitary roots; racist ideology as a continuity from British imperialist occupation.

    • “This is a very, very old white supremacist project.” – Mia Wong [31:09]

  • Far-right UK discourse has given rise to the claim of a “two-tiered” police system, flipping the reality of discrimination.

    • “This is nonsense… but it has been spreading rapidly, pushed by far right actors like Tommy Robinson and of course Elon Musk.” – Mia Wong [26:05]

• Role of Media and Musk:

  • Elon Musk heavily involved in stoking violence, echoing dangerous precedent set by RTLM during Rwandan genocide, though with differences.

    • “He has been basically devoting… the majority of his time to inciting a pogrom.” – Sam Taggart [26:16]

  • Media’s ability to incite is contextualized but not seen as sole cause; roots are local and historic, but platforms like X (Twitter) amplify and accelerate violence.

4. U.S. Immigration Policy and Denaturalization

[32:26–39:13]

• Court Strikes Down Broad Immigration Restrictions:

  • Recent restrictions on asylum, green cards, and work permits for immigrants from 39 countries declared unlawful—a crucial win.
    • “This case serves as a perfect example of immigrants doing just that. They went on to say the USCIS used pretextual concerns of national security that mask anti-immigrant sentiment.” – Garrison Davis [33:10]

• Rise in Denaturalization:

  • DOJ launching removal proceedings against 17 naturalized citizens, most charged with pre-naturalization crimes not disclosed during interviews.
  • Focus includes identity fraud and, strikingly, a Catholic priest’s abuse case.

• Ongoing Detention Abuses:

  • New GAO report highlights horrors at Camp East Montana (Fort Bliss)—neglect, violence, and a murder by asphyxiation with evidence destroyed.

    • “A guard lost a loaded gun.… people with diabetes and HIV did not receive treatment plans…” – Garrison Davis [36:37]
    • “…a coroner’s autopsy found the death to be a homicide due to asphyxia… evidence… was missing or destroyed.” [37:20]

  • Privatization (“lowest price, technically acceptable” contracting) blamed for life-threatening conditions.

5. Trans Healthcare Policy Updates

[39:13–49:29]

• Military Policy:

  • Federal court blocks Pentagon from expelling trans service members, critiquing policies as “arbitrary and based on animus.”
    • “[The policy] is driven by the bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group.” – Quoting circuit court ruling [40:50]

• State-Level Challenges and Threats:

  • Texas Children’s Hospital settles, agreeing not to provide “sex rejecting procedures” (a new anti-trans term) to minors and establishing a “detransition clinic.”
    • “This points to the fact this clinic is not going to be used for consenting detransition… mainly going to be used as a conversion therapy clinic…” – George Taveras [43:11]
  • Cleveland Clinic fined, agrees not to provide youth gender-affirming care for 20 years.

• Medicaid Restrictions and City Responses:

  • Oklahoma bans Medicaid payments for gender-affirming care; New York City launches a no/low-cost gender-affirming care clinic (pilot).
    • “A good first step… rest assured, we are working on this.” – Quoting NYC Health Commissioner [47:00]
  • Legal and federal threats already drive hospitals to proactively stop care for minors, with grand jury subpoenas seeking youth medical records. Class action aimed to block forced disclosure.

6. Additional Stories

[49:29–53:54]

• ICE Agent Charged with Assault:

  • Rare criminal charge against an ICE agent for shooting through a front door, injuring bystanders.
    • “This is interesting… that they were able to obtain the DHS OIG support. I had forgotten the DHS OIG was still doing stuff like this.” – Garrison Davis [50:32]

• U.S.-Iran Military Escalation:

  • US Apache helicopter reportedly brought down by Iranian drone; subsequent U.S. “self-defense” airstrikes escalate the situation.
  • Israeli and Houthi attacks continue in the region; ongoing real-world violence emphasized over social media discourse.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Nazi-Inspired Political Branding:

  • “He’s trying to do like a knightly order… obsessed with the fucking Schutzstaffel.” – Sam Taggart [04:38]
  • “America… will last a millennia. A thousand-year Reich in other words.” – Sam Taggart, quoting/criticizing campaign language [08:30]

• On Media Corruption:

  • “It was a choice to get this wrong… you know that your editors, your bosses and your colleagues chose to lie.” – Sam Taggart [15:37]

• On the Cynicism of U.S. Elections:

  • “This is going to be every election for the rest of my life.” – George Taveras [20:22]
  • “It’s literally any fact that, like, is inconvenient.” – Sam Taggart [20:26]

• On White Supremacy in Northern Ireland:

  • “Part of the reason it’s happening… is that this is a very, very old white supremacist project… carrying on the long imperial British tradition.” – Mia Wong [31:09]

• On the Parallel to Rwanda:

  • “RTLM’s propaganda… played a role in the genocide and incited… but it's not exactly as direct… what Musk is doing has more of a direct causative effect.” – Sam Taggart [28:47]
  • “Nothing’s monocausal. People want to do this in history.” – Sam Taggart [30:20]

• On Immigration Languishing in Limbo:

  • “People… at the stage where they take the oath… had been delayed… They will be able to proceed… if USCIS actually moves.” – Garrison Davis [34:14]

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Timestamps: Key Segments

• [01:20] – Santa Rosa Fire and tragic mariner saga
• [03:30–06:55] – Gregory Bavino’s campaign website & right-wing aesthetics
• [10:17] – ICE & CBP funding bill details
• [12:06–14:32] – U.S. election results and Republican reaction
• [15:16] – Media misinformation (Washington Post debunked)
• [21:08–32:26] – Pogrom in Belfast: accounts, analysis, and media amplification
• [32:26–39:13] – Immigration court updates and denaturalization
• [39:13–49:29] – Trans healthcare policy updates and legal threats
• [49:29–53:54] – ICE agent charged; U.S.-Iran military escalation

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Final Thoughts

This densely packed episode pulls no punches in highlighting the interconnected crises of white supremacist violence, anti-immigrant and anti-trans policy, media complicity, and institutional failures both in the U.S. and abroad. The hosts remain vigilant, skeptical, and openly critical—reminding listeners of the historical and contemporary machinery of collapse while championing the need for direct action and accountability.

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Transcript

[Sam Taggart]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.

[George Taveras]

This is George Taveras and Sam Taggart from Stradiolab.

[Mia Wong]

Let's be real.

[George Taveras]

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[Sam Taggart]

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[George Taveras]

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[Sam Taggart]

Febreze.

[George Taveras]

Freshness that fits your life, your space, your style. Febreze is a proud sponsor of the Elton John Impact Awards, honoring those who have helped shape a more inclusive and compassionate world with their artistry, advocacy, and unwavering commitment to equality.

[Sam Taggart]

You won't want to miss the Elton John Impact Awards podcast, available on June 1st on the iHeartRadio app. And everywhere podcasts are heard.

[Garrison Davis]

Call Zone Media. Garrison thinks that's good.

[George Taveras]

That's good. If we were brave. If we.

[Sam Taggart]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

New Halloween costume unlocked.

[George Taveras]

That's not happening, Howard. This is it could happen here. Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world, and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis. Today, I'm joined by Mia Wong, James Stout, and Robert Evans.

[Sam Taggart]

Hey.

[George Taveras]

This episode, we're covering the week of June 3rd to June 10th. James, some small news items to start.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, many small things. This weekend, new details have emerged about the Santa Rosa island fire. If you remember, the fire was started by a Mariner. At first it was reported that the Mariner had started the fire by firing distress flares. It now appears that the mariner's engine caught fire. Starting to fire.

[Mia Wong]

Oh.

[Garrison Davis]

Then he fired distress flares. But there's more. Okay.

[Sam Taggart]

How many fires did this guy have involved in his boating trip?

[Garrison Davis]

Well, he ran into the island next door a week before. Okay.

[Mia Wong]

Oh, boy.

[Garrison Davis]

And was towed by Coast Guard to their harbor, where they found that he didn't have a. A number of items that you have to have on his boat for safety equipment reasons. Right. So they pounded his boat for six days until a Good Samaritan donated those items. He then left the harbor and crashed into the next island.

[Sam Taggart]

I think that Good Samaritan made a mistake. I think we can agree this is not the Mandel.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. Yeah. I think doing anything to enable this man to re float on the seven seas.

[Sam Taggart]

He should not be in the sea.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. This guy listened to too much Jimmy Buffett. Yeah. Unfortunately, like, this seems to be one of those situations. He bought the boat for a single dollar. We generally don't give advice on this podcast, but I Will say you couldn't

[Sam Taggart]

have said a funnier thing than that.

[Garrison Davis]

It's not uncommon in Southern California for people to buy boats in order to find a cheaper place to live.

[Sam Taggart]

Yes, of course.

[Garrison Davis]

Things like slip fees, registration. People don't realize these things add up. I have worked on some old diesel engines on these boats. They're not particularly straight. I'm not a great diesel mechanic to begin with. But they're not particularly straightforward. And this results in what I think we have seen here, which is a delta between confidence and ability on the seven seas. This isn't a boat that one should be sailing alone. Much less so if they only bought a couple of years ago for a single American dollar. No, unfortunately it did destroy a large grove of Torrey pine which only exists there and here. So. Yeah, I know. Be careful out there would be pirates. Moving on now. ICE has reported its 19th in custody death this year when Correctional Center Georgia. Yeah. Continuing to set all the worst records. A court has vacated the President's hundred thousand dollar H1B visa tax cases bought by California et al. But it's more than a dozen states that will be impacted by the tax. This is a good one. Gregory Bevino appears to be eyeing a run at the presidency. Sure. This is interesting. So he launched an exploratory website. Yeah, why not? Why like his website bavino2028.com the campaign appears to have originated from Jacob Engels. Engels is a right where he's kind of Roger Stone protege. They broke ways. Engels was appears to have been charged with his methamphetamine possession earlier this year.

[Sam Taggart]

Oh wow.

[Garrison Davis]

It was Engels who was first posting this House Bavino 2028 thing in Bavino's replies. And Engels now appears is listed on vivino2028.com oh God.

[Sam Taggart]

In this house Vivino thing he's just. He watched too much Game of Thrones. Right. That's why he's saying that.

[Garrison Davis]

I think so.

[Sam Taggart]

Because I looked into it. That's as far as I can tell it's him trying to do like a nightly like we're the new Knightly Order. I mean it's part of his SS cosplay is how I kind of interpreted it because he clearly is obsessed with the fucking Schutzstaffel and they wear like a Knightly Order and that's. I get those vibes from Greg.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. Like if you look at the website. Right. Like you could like he's prominently featured wearing his now infamous great coat. Trench coat.

[Sam Taggart]

Whatever you want to call that big fucking coat. Yes.

[Garrison Davis]

I don't know if Pavino, like, Pavino. Maybe he's just trying to run this as far as it'll go. Right. He just lost his job, so maybe he's looking for like, something new to do.

[Sam Taggart]

Oh, sure.

[Garrison Davis]

Like, I'm not sure how serious Vivito is with this. I do think he's. He's definitely trying to continue to, I guess, influence the national discussion. I guess.

[Sam Taggart]

Well, in the Internet. I mean, he's hanging out with the fucking Martin Selmer over in Portugal. He's hanging out with like, straight up, like Christchurch mass shooting affiliated Nazis, you know?

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sam Taggart]

Like he's going for it.

[Garrison Davis]

Everyone should just scroll down to the Our Founders section of this website.

[Mia Wong]

Okay, hold on. Before we do that. This link has now appeared in our group chat. That is the most Nazi ass, just profile picture thing I have seen in a long time.

[Garrison Davis]

It's like a Wolfenstein.

[George Taveras]

Very Wolfenstein aesthetic.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, right.

[Sam Taggart]

But in the same way that they're also clearly aping from communist aesthetics. The red background, the way he's kind of framed. Is this weird?

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. Is it kind of West German?

[Sam Taggart]

I would almost say it's like generic propaganda now, which is sort of like a mix of like West German East Germans or Eastern or East German ussr. Like the use of red, the use of the olive branches, the sun.

[George Taveras]

The sun rays coming from his body.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, the Oakley.

[Sam Taggart]

It's just kind of like generic propaganda. House Bavino Men fight.

[Garrison Davis]

It's an AI generated image. Right. So it is based on the way

[George Taveras]

the text is formed. It does appear to be an AI generated.

[Sam Taggart]

It looks AI.

[George Taveras]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

It's not properly framed. Right. The framing on the left and right is thicker than the framing at the top. There is no framing at the bottom. Like Zameter. Our shit.

[Sam Taggart]

Oh, my God. No, I think we're all missing something, which is that right underneath the big propaganda image in tiny text, the words in very tiny text, almost hidden. Bavino knows what America needs. America's men.

[Garrison Davis]

It's not in quotation marks, but no, the slogan of the campaign is Men fight back.

[Sam Taggart]

Yeah. Or the slogan to House Bavino. It's a little unclear.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, right, unclear. Maybe it's howls Bovino. Maybe he's struggling to make rent, having lost his job at the border patrol. And this, he's setting up a pack to pay his rent. But yeah. Incredible.

[Sam Taggart]

Wow.

[Garrison Davis]

Our founders section. Really?

[Mia Wong]

Oh, my God.

[George Taveras]

Okay, I have scrolled down to the Our Founders section and there is an incredible specimen.

[Sam Taggart]

The A bold national strategy part is really upsetting to me. Yeah. Because he's calling himself the Commander in capitalizing the V and the C in A in a very like. Here's the ways. Following the Commander's maximum effectiveness in quelling the foreign hordes that have subsumed our nation's cities, both large and small, the American people witnessed what true leadership powered by a warrior mindset actually looks like as the Commander endeavored to restore order and national sovereignty. That is one sentence. Second sentence. America as a whole has already fallen to the grasps of the foreign global one world hellscape ushered in by Barack Hussein Obama. However, we believe that the Commander can not only usher in the great restoration of America, but also cement the continuity of a strong and sovereign United States that will last a millennia. A thousand year Reich, in other words. And that also was one sentence. That is two sentences that I just read.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[Sam Taggart]

I need to be clear.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. The campaign, a couple of Gmail addresses they're using here.

[Sam Taggart]

Some really small font by the way, periodically.

[Garrison Davis]

Right.

[Sam Taggart]

Yeah, it's very inconsistently. This looks like they had AI lay out his website too.

[Garrison Davis]

Well, they have one woman on their founders page and like everyone else in size like 20 and she's like size 11.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Sam Taggart]

Like the set will have, you know, images of him or of his post where you can see his name, but it refers to him only as the Commander. So like there's a post of Greg's where like it's that post that he made at the airport where he's like pointing at the flight to Newark when he was on his way to Portugal, being like, should I just handle it myself and you know, go to Jersey to deal with this? And above that is perhaps I must resolve this personally as a quote, the Commander challenging the inertia of the open borders bureaucracy in response to like it's written like Greg Bevino became the overall dictator of America and this is a history book 60 years later. Like that's the way his website is written.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, it's incredibly low effort. Quite concerning.

[Sam Taggart]

And he really has a high opinion of himself. Yeah, I gotta, I gotta say that.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, I do wonder how much this is just Engels just writing this. Like as a fan. Yeah.

[Sam Taggart]

I wonder how much he had to do with this. But yeah, this does not seem like he had nothing to do with it. I will say that based on my knowledge of Greg Bevino.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. He's shared it on his own social media.

[Sam Taggart]

Great.

[George Taveras]

In other news, the months long fight over ICE and CBP funding has come to an end. In a 214 to 212 vote on Tuesday, the House has passed a reconciliation bill funding ICE and cbp.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, this is the so called Secure America Act.

[Mia Wong]

Right.

[Garrison Davis]

It'll give them $70 billion. So if we look at that combined with the big beautiful bill, there's about 240 billion allocated to them in a single year. That doesn't mean they have to spend it all this year. Right. The Secure America act gives them a window up to September 30, 2029 with no particular allocations for any given year. To me that strikes me as a hedge against funding after the midterms. I think that is what that's about. Also notable that Garrison said that they use reconciliation to allow simple majority in the Senate.

[George Taveras]

We went over the details of a previous version of this bill a few weeks ago. This money is going to go towards hiring, arming new officers, hiring more administrative staff, attorneys, and this is all going to be towards immigration enforcement as well as some money allocated for acquiring new border technology. The $1 billion of quote unquote security funding for Trump's ballroom was removed from the bill by the Senate last week. Two other short things I want to mention. Yesterday a federal grand jury indicted two people in relation to Stop Cop City protests and alleged crimes in 2022. And Wednesday morning the FBI raided about seven people in Michigan related to pro Palestine protests at the University of Michigan and protests against University of Michigan officials. As of recording like this just happened a few hours ago and relates to an indictment that was unsealed this morning as well which charges eight people. We'll cover this more in detail in the future.

[Mia Wong]

We're gonna do one more quick segment here and then when we return we're going to talk about the pogroms in Belfast.

[Garrison Davis]

Yay.

[George Taveras]

Some updates related to primary elections in Maine. Graham Platner has won the Democratic primary with about 72% of the vote. The governor's race is too close to call with the ranked choice voting yet to be tallied. But I'm keeping my eye on the Sanders and labor backed candidate Troy Jackson who campaigned with Platner. Jackson is about 9,000 votes behind the pre ranked choice vote candidate Dr. Nirav Shah. After a week of counting, we have more definitive results from the elections in California last week.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[Sam Taggart]

Which a lot of people are saying is an unforgivable F up of democracy. That they counted all of the votes and it took them a while. But yeah, Garrison, please continue and we'll talk about the chaos that is being justified by the fact that this took

[George Taveras]

a while to count, Tom Steyer will not be making it onto the ballot this coming November.

[Sam Taggart]

Nope.

[George Taveras]

With 91% of the votes counted, Steyer has earned 1,928,381 votes, or 22.5%. Republican Steve Hilton, former Fox News host, has edged IR out by about 200,000 votes, earning 25% of the vote and advancing to the general election where he will go up against liberal Democrat Javier Becerra with 27.9% of the vote. Katie Porter won just under 400,000 votes. Karen Bass still leads the LA mayoral primary with 95% of the votes counted. Bass has nearly 300,000 votes, winning 34.3%. Progressive Nithya Rahman has moved into second place with 29%, beating Republican Spencer Pratt with 25.5%. So the general election will see Rahman go up against Bass. Reality TV star Spencer Pratt was up in the early vote, but as Ramon started to pull ahead, Trump and others began claiming the election was being stolen from Republicans. Pratt has insinuated that Ramon's lead came from LA's homeless population. And Musk wrote that, quote, the level of fraud here is mind blowing.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Also, homeless people can vote. Like what?

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, yeah. Provided they are US citizens. Like, yeah.

[Sam Taggart]

Yes, yes. That it's, it's all lies. Yeah. I mean, and a lot of what's, even, what's being reported in the Washington Post is, is straight up lies. Like, they just published an article today that includes this line. And again, the, the theme of the article is like, well, you know, obviously this election wasn't stolen, but the fact that it's taken so long is really a problem. You can't actually blame all these people if they, if they think it's suspicious. This is not evidence of a rigged election, but it creates fertile ground for conspiracy theories to take root. It didn't help that Raman tearfully conceded last Tuesday. But it's irresponsible for Pratt to intimate on social media she did not concede. She didn't tearfully concede.

[George Taveras]

That did not happen.

[Sam Taggart]

That never happened. The Washington Post lied. Like, that's just in a Post article. That's just a lie by the Washington Post. Like an intentional lie, I would argue.

[Mia Wong]

Incredible.

[Garrison Davis]

I guess, to just go into this so people understand, like, you know, like I've written for broadsheet newspapers, several people. This is not one person fucking up.

[Sam Taggart]

Right.

[Garrison Davis]

This is an institutional fuck up.

[Sam Taggart]

This was a choice.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[Sam Taggart]

It was a choice to get this wrong.

[Garrison Davis]

The person whose name Is on the byline. Wrote that. Yes. An editor then edited it, a copy editor then edited it, and then somebody laid it out for the website.

[Sam Taggart]

Yep. And you know this. If you're listening and you work for the Post, you know this. Yeah. You know that your editors, your bosses and your colleagues chose to lie and are choosing to continue to lie and spread lies through their publication. You're aware of this if you work there still.

[George Taveras]

Anyway, I know Benny Johnson, Tim Poole, Laura Ingram and Sean Hannity all alleged that Democrats stole the election. And Trump has continued to make claims that the election was rigged. Quote, here we go with the very late and massive numbers of mail in ballots.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, no shit.

[George Taveras]

Truth.

[Garrison Davis]

Sorry.

[Sam Taggart]

Yeah, man. It's convenient.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Just eternal 2020 Trump truth.

[George Taveras]

Earlier this week, quote, not possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost the LA runoffs after the big lead he had Third World nation, unquote.

[Garrison Davis]

Did he understand what the word nation means? No.

[George Taveras]

No, I don't think they saw these truths. I don't think he understands how election works, obviously. Or he does and he's just saying what he needs to say here. Notably, on Sunday, Trump stormed out of an interview on Meet the Press when asked if he had any evidence of, quote, unquote, cheating in California.

[Sam Taggart]

The election was rigged. It was a dirty election and it's happening again right now in California.

[Garrison Davis]

Presented evidence happening right now in California.

[George Taveras]

Right now.

[Sam Taggart]

It's. Look at, look at what's happening California

[Garrison Davis]

that it's more days doing well in California.

[George Taveras]

It's. They're not.

[Sam Taggart]

They're dropping fast because it's a rigged election.

[Garrison Davis]

Let me tell you.

[Sam Taggart]

It's four days and they aren't even close to coming up. That's how they. You know why they're doing that?

[Garrison Davis]

Because they're cheating on the election.

[Sam Taggart]

There's. What, do you have evidence to support? All I have to do is look.

[George Taveras]

All you have to do is look.

[Garrison Davis]

Is he in front of a green screen that depicts a John Deere tractor and planter?

[George Taveras]

No. They are in Wisconsin in some kind of barn and it's raining outside in this barn with the John Deere tractor and like hay bales. It's an interesting kind of like real world set they have.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. Okay. And the focus is very weird. Like the. Yeah.

[George Taveras]

Trump later called vote counting in California, quote, unquote, crooked. Just like how the press is crooked, quote. You're either crooked or you're stupid. You know that these elections are rigged. Your network knows that they're rigged.

[Garrison Davis]

We're like a third world country.

[Sam Taggart]

Your Elections are crooked and you're crooked.

[George Taveras]

At least the press is crooked. And so is ABC and CBS and CNN.

[Sam Taggart]

But Mr. President, you're one sided, crooked network. So let's call it quits because I've had enough.

[George Taveras]

Thank you, darling.

[Sam Taggart]

Have a good day. Mr. President, let's please. I travel traveled all the way to Wisconsin. God, that's embarrassing. Yeah, just being mean to him. Be rude, Yell at him, call him a fucking liar. Scream at him, stop doing this bullshit. Like, I'm sorry, I have no sympathy for that.

[Mia Wong]

Like, people booed him. Dream the national anthem at a Knicks game. You can fucking do this.

[Sam Taggart]

Scream at him, call him a piece of shit. Like, you know you're not getting anything out of just letting him talk. Call him a liar. Shout over him, stop pretending.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sam Taggart]

Fucking cowards. I'm sorry.

[George Taveras]

And yeah, you're right. I think we should definitely pay attention to the fact that Trump did cause the Knicks to lose that game.

[Sam Taggart]

Yeah, he did. He did. He did. And honestly, that's what I like about him. Because it continues. James Jolin.

[George Taveras]

House Speaker Mike Johnson was asked about these claims on Monday and said that the vote counting in California, quote, unquote, stinks to high heaven and that the schemes are so, quote, unquote, diabolical that it's impossible to prove election rigging. The President keeps saying that there's election

[Garrison Davis]

fraud in the California mayor's race.

[Sam Taggart]

What evidence is there to prove that? You tell me, Manu. They are counting votes weeks after the election. We have entire nations with huge populations like India that can count their votes in 24 to 40.

[Garrison Davis]

You're saying it's rigged, like the President.

[Sam Taggart]

I'm not saying it's rigged. I'm saying it's state to high heaven and everybody knows that. Let's remove the appearance of impropriety. Let's have. What a concept. Let's have votes on an election the day of the election. That's what many states are able to do. I think California is playing around with this.

[Garrison Davis]

But what evidence is there to prove that There was a rank.

[Sam Taggart]

Some of these efforts are so diabolical and so far upstream, it is impossible to prove. But I think everybody knows instinctively something is wrong here, here.

[George Taveras]

So this is, I think, very clearly a preview of what's to come in the midterm elections.

[Sam Taggart]

Yeah, for sure.

[George Taveras]

And they are kind of laying this out here. It's, of course, impossible to prove, but we all know that it's wrong.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[George Taveras]

This is going to be every election for the rest of my life.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, Yep, yep.

[Sam Taggart]

But there's going to be anything that happens that does not meet the increasingly fanciful version of reality they have to believe. Yeah. Right. It's not just elections. It's literally any fact that, like, is inconvenient. There's any storm that shouldn't have happened based on when they think a storm should happen.

[Garrison Davis]

Right, yeah.

[Sam Taggart]

This is just life now.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. It's necessary to, like, create the version of reality that they're existing in. Yeah.

[George Taveras]

We're gonna go on break and then discuss the pogroms in Northern Ireland.

[Mia Wong]

We are back. Ooh, yeah. On Tuesday, July 9th, this is the day before we are recording this, which is important because we don't know how that's going to proceed from here when you're listening to it. But on June 9, there were widespread attacks on the homes of non white people in Ireland. In what I and many others have described as a poke rom mass assailants kicked down doors forced on white people from their homes and lit houses and cars on fire. People were being stopped in the streets. I'm going to read a little bit from a report from Hanal Othman who was on the scene reporting on what was going on. As a woman from an ethnic minority background looked down from an upstairs window. Some of the men rushed the front door and broke it down with the attack. Thick with smoke from fireworks, they attacked the downstairs windows with bricks. As they stormed the property. Some claimed to be liberating it. Graffiti nearby demanded local homes for local people. A woman in the crowd said to her friend, quote, there's wee girls inside.

[Sam Taggart]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

It is an extremely bleak and worrying event. The nominal cause of this pogrom was a video of a stabbing in Belfast that has gone viral on social media, which has been amplified by right wing forces both in Ireland, the UK and across the world. Probably most famously by Elon Musk. We will touch on that more in a second. But before we say anything about the broader context, I think it's important to state two things here. One, Ireland, and also protect particularly the factions of Irish politics you're going to be getting to here has had racism problems long before any of these events. Famously, you know, if you want to look at the most immediate stuff in the recent past, exactly one year ago today in Northern Ireland, there was a smaller race riot, there was a smaller scale version of the thing we're seeing here with less damage, but still absolutely terrifying effects.

[Sam Taggart]

This very much rhymes with the race riots that we saw in the UK a couple of years ago. Right. Like similar Deal similar motivation. Mobs attacking hotel. At that point it was more focused on hotels that refugees were believed at. But yeah, like you were saying, basically the same idea.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, these are white mobs. It's also I think important to note on top of just the general sort of racism of our society, this program's largely taking place in loyalist neighborhoods. You know, these are places with very, very long standing far right paramilitaries with very close ties to the police. A lot of the people in the streets are, you know, sort of parts of old loyalist paramilitary and criminal networks. These are in many cases like believed to be the same networks that, you know, were doing shit during the troubles and have been active in various forms throughout the occupation of Ireland and deportations. Belfast notes that leaked emails from police after the 2025 riots. They are from the riots themselves. They said, quote is important for you to understand our expectations. Unless there is an obvious Article 2 issue, we do not expect you to expose yourself to significant unnecessary risk. So what that in effect is saying is that this is in effect a stand down order. If you don't, if you, if you think that anything would be even, let

[Sam Taggart]

the mobs do what they're going to do.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, right. And that' that's just the stuff, this is from the 2025 riots. Presumably similar orders went out during these riots. And that's just the stuff that they sent via email. Right. That has been, that has been leaked out. The police again very notably did very, very little while all of this was happening, while people's houses were being burned down, while people were being dragged out of their homes. These attacks also come after weeks of far right discourse in the UK

[Garrison Davis]

about

[Mia Wong]

like the killings of two white men by non white men. Yeah, I mean on the BBC they are having debates about whether there is a quote, two tiered police system which, you know, when I initially saw that I was confused because yeah, two tier police system has been the way that, you know, like anti anti police violence activists have talked about the way the police system functions where there is a way the police function for white people which is that it treats them significantly better. And then there's the way it works for non white people. The far right has flipped this on his head and is now arguing to an extent that his now sort of national discourse on the fucking BBC is arguing that there is a two tier police system where non white people are let off the hook for their crimes and where white people aren't protected by the law. This is nonsense. But it has been spreading rapidly pushed by far right actors like Tommy Robinson and of course Elon Musk.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sam Taggart]

Musk specifically has been really pushing this and he was, he was a big figure too in what happened in the UK a bit ago.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And the 2025 Irish riots too.

[Sam Taggart]

He was. That's exactly right. And he's been non stop pushing and making posts, making claims to the extent of like we need to. The only way things will get better is if we keep protesting. You know, this has to be handled like forcefully, yada, yada, like that sort of shit. Like he has been. Yeah, he's been basically devoting, as far as I can tell, the week that he is about to have and that he is having his ipo devoting the majority of his time to inciting up a grom.

[Garrison Davis]

Yes, seems to be.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. He retweeted a post from Restore Britain which is a somehow even further right. Just. Yeah, straight up effectively fascist party, but even further right than the already horrifying Reform Party saying, quote, do not make peace with evil, destroy it.

[Sam Taggart]

Yep.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

There's another one where you just like, either you fight back or you die. That's what it comes down to. There's been a lot of comparisons between Elon Musk and Radio Rwanda, which is a radio outlet that was broadcasting calls for the Rwanda just.

[Sam Taggart]

Well, and that's, that's not accurate really.

[Garrison Davis]

But you're referring to rtlm, right? Radio Television Libre Mel Colie. Yeah, yeah, yes. Radio Ronda is a different thing.

[Mia Wong]

Oh, sorry, am I like.

[Garrison Davis]

Radio Render is a currently existing corporation. So we should. We need to be extremely clear in our terminology.

[Sam Taggart]

Let me, let me be very clear here because I actually had this pulled up for this. RTLM was the radio station that is often accused of helping to coordinate, or some people will just say straight up incited the genocide. It was owned by a guy named Felician Kabuga, who was an extremely wealthy Rwandan man and who was personally very much involved in like wanting to push for the genocide. RTLM regularly called Tutsi's cockroaches and encouraged people to cut down the tall trees. However, there are also good reasons why this is not quite as direct as it seems. RTLM did not coordinate attacks, they did not plan specific actions. And analysis in the modern day has shown that a lot of the worst massacres, in fact the majority of the worst massacres did not have any direct relation to RTLM. Now, RTLM's propaganda and broadcasts played a role in the genocide and incited and continued to like escalate the Violence, but it's not exactly, I would argue, it looks like. And we also, we don't have perfect analysis of what's just happened in Northern Ireland. So maybe this will prove to be wrong. It looks like what Musk is doing has more of a direct causative effect. Yeah, but that's also not clear to me at the moment.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mia Wong]

My estimation so far. But again, like this is changing. My estimation so far is that I think it is actually closer to it in that I, I think, I think even if Musk isn't there, something like this happens.

[Garrison Davis]

Sure.

[Mia Wong]

Because I think a lot of this is mobilization through like very local Irish political forces and these sort of unionist networks.

[Sam Taggart]

But it's also really difficult to say just because.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Sam Taggart]

All of those networks have been heavily influenced by Musk's X in the last eight years too. So it's.

[George Taveras]

Yeah.

[Sam Taggart]

I don't know how you want to.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[George Taveras]

And it's feeding off of like a decade of intensifying anti immigrant sentiment across the uk, including Ireland and Northern Ireland.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Sam Taggart]

And this is also something people will point out when you're talking about Rwanda and rtlm, which is that like. Well, as much blame as you want to give RTLM and some of these other media organizations that unquestionably had some role in motivating and fueling what happened. I mean, the root of the Rwandan genocide comes from the period of colonialism when the Tutsis were like a favored group of people within the country, which is what started a lot of these under underlying hatreds. Right. Is. Is the way in which the colonial power played these different groups off of each other. So anyway, whatever. Like as is always the case, it's always going to be deeper than some guy has a media outlet.

[Garrison Davis]

Right.

[Sam Taggart]

But that doesn't mean the media outlet is not involved in what's happening.

[Garrison Davis]

It was the same in Rwanda. Right. Like we had the Interaham way, like. Right. Like they existed and they existed like distinct from rtlm, but like the environment that allowed those two things to happen. Nothing's monocausal. People want to do this in history.

[Sam Taggart]

No. And it's the difficult thing of both. It's very important to point out when something like this rhymes with something that happened in a genocide that killed a million people. And also the more you learn about stuff like this, when people make those comparisons, the more learned people are like, well, that's not quite right. Actually. This is. It was a little different, you know.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. The Genocide Memorial Museum in Kigali is the most Moving museum I've instituted in my life. It's incredible. If you have the chance, everyone should go.

[Sam Taggart]

We need to do more in bastards on Rwanda. But, yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Anyway, wonderful country. Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

The one thing I also want to mention, sort of in closing here is that, you know, again, like, part of the reason this is happening, part of the reason it's been a lot of, you know, these. Of these unionist networks, part of the reason it's happening the way that it is, is that this is a very, very old white supremacist project.

[Sam Taggart]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Going back, like, you know, like through the British occupation of Ireland. Right, right. And it's a project that's been aligned with, like, the Rwandans were once British in the sense of like. Like the, you know, this. This is carrying on the sort of long imperial British tradition as, like, yes, the world. One of the world's, like, largest and most bloody and ruthless white supremacist organizations. Yeah.

[Sam Taggart]

And we talked about this in a meeting we were having beforehand. But, like, loyalists in Northern Ireland have regularly made a habit of, particularly in the 70s and 80s, displaying Rhodesia flags. In the 90s, apartheid, South Africa flags. It's very common to find Confederate flags. Like, you know.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. Like, partly as a direct response to the internationalism of Republicanism, they just decided to align with the worst people on the planet. Yep.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. There'll be another episode up on this Monday that goes into more detail and we'll have more information as it comes out. This is, again, a rapidly changing situation. There might be more by the time you hear it. Days of this. It's possible that the police will crack down harder because there's been some pressure put on them by basically every government involved in this, but we just simply don't know that at this time. And. Yeah, it's a absolutely horrifying day.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. Pretty horrible to see. Let's do immigration in the U.S. now, another country where things are going great. So a judge has ruled that Trump administration's broad restrictions on asylum and work permits. These were issued after the shooting of two National Guards. People in D.C. are unlawful. To quote from the court order here. More than six months ago, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services enacted a series of policies that threw the lives of countless immigrants living in the United States into indeterminate legal limbo. The agency announced that it will be placing an indefinite pause on the adjudication of immigration benefit requests from individuals from 39 African, Asia, Latin American, Middle Eastern countries. Since then, individuals from these countries have been categorically barred from receiving final decisions on among other things, their asylum, work permit, green card and citizenship application. And USCIS hold on adjudications cannot be attributed to anything that these individuals did wrong. Rather, it arises solely by the happenstance of their birth. And then I found this interesting in the court documents here. In ruling on these motions, the court is reminded of a line often repeated in discussions around immigration policy. If people wish to immigrate to the United States, they ought to follow the law and do things the right way. This case serves as a perfect example of immigrants doing just that. They went on to say that the USCIS had used what they called pretextual concerns of national security that mask anti immigrant sentiment that is forbidden from letting influence its decision making. In legal terms, that means the USCIS's actions were contrary to law, arbitrary and capricious. There's a fairly like emphatic court response rate. This will affect a great deal of people. This has effect left a great deal of people in limbo, right? Most famously, I guess there were people who were at the natural, the stage of their naturalization where they take the oath to become American citizens, right? The very final step, it is obviously a formality. You've passed the background checks, done the interviews, et cetera, et cetera. But it's still a necessary step. Without doing it, you do not become a citizen. And those people had been delayed and unable to do that. They will be able to proceed with that. Other people will be able to proceed with their process. With the caveat that uscis, if we have reported before on the show, is heavily focused on denaturalization. And it might be very hard for them to actually make that progress and get USCIS to move on stuff. Talking of denaturalization, the DOJ has begun proceedings against 17 people. These people are either accused or convicted of serious crimes. What it seems that in most cases people have been adjudicated to have committed crimes. In some cases they pled guilty to crimes after they naturalized, but that they were doing before they naturalized. And what they are arguing here, the DOJ is arguing, is that therefore they lied when they were naturalized because they were asked if they had committed any crimes for which they had not been arrested. So by not confessing to those crimes in their interview, they were therefore lying.

[George Taveras]

They were lying on the forum, yes.

[Garrison Davis]

On the form or in the interview, or both. And therefore that is why they are trying to denaturalize him. This is a large denaturalization. 17 people is a lot. A couple of them also are alleged to have applied for immigration benefits under Multiple different identities. One that I found particularly interesting is a Catholic priest who abused a minor parishioner. Just interesting because it's interesting to see them going there. I'll follow these and kind of keep tabs on how these progress. But they have been ramping up denaturalizations. We are beginning to see them kind of reaping the work USCIS has been doing since the Trump administration fundamentally turned that agency around and pointed it at denaturalization. Meanwhile, a GAO report on immigration detention in Camp East Montana. I've never seen it written like Montana with. So I'm guessing it's Camp Montana, like Joe Montana. Yeah, well, like, like I, they write, it says Montana. So like I don't know, but it's. It's in Bliss, right? Like it's inside Fort Bliss. So like one would expect normally like a Spanish style pronunciation given the region.

[Sam Taggart]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

But maybe they just like fucking N. Yeah. I don't know. Like why they're not. Anyway, it's Camp. Its name is spelled like the state, not the, not the Spanish word for mountain. Some of the things detailed in this port are pretty shocking. A guard lost a loaded gun. Oh boy. Yeah. People with diabetes and HIV did not receive treatment plans and quote, unquisition. Yeah. On February 20, 2026, ICE issued a discrepancy report for detained non citizen death by use of force. In January of 2026, the coroner's autopsy found the death to be a homicide due to asphyxia. However, the contractor did not provide use of force and death reports to ICE as required. In addition, evidence associated with the incident was missing or destroyed. Jesus.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, like one of their guards strangled someone to death, it appears.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. There's a range of ways someone could be asphyxiated. Right. Like I. Yeah, that's true, but I'm guessing they attempted to restrain this person violently and like as we've seen many other times in American history, murdered them.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

And then evidence of that was destroyed. What is allowing this to happen? It's that the contract was solicited using a worldwide expeditionary multiple award contract vehicle. That's a generally like a military contract vehicle. It allows an experienced pool of military contractors to apply for the contract. They probably did it like this to expedite the awarding implementation. Right. Like Camp East Montana is a soft sided facility on Fort Bliss. I've talked about it before here. Soft sided facility means tents. Right. It means keeping hundreds of people in tents. They hired a contractor who had no experience using what's called a lowest price, technically acceptable evaluation approach. So they filter out people who can't do the requirements that they have for the contract and then they look at which of the ones that does meet the requirements has the lowest price. Right. This has resulted very clearly in them contracting someone who's completely incapable of managing a facility like this. And even among ICE facilities, this one appears to be particularly heinous. And this has resulted in very, very predictable and easily foreseen human tragedies. Right. They are capable of doing better than this. Conditions were very bad at Bliss for Afghan people. Right. Who came here after the withdrawal from Afghanistan. I wrote about that for the nation. You can look it up. I interviewed someone who was there. But this is even worse. Rather than learning from that, they've just gone deeper. This has resulted in at least one person being killed. It's pretty horrific.

[George Taveras]

Let's go on break and then we will return for some stories about trans healthcare and war with Iran. We are back. I have a sort of hodgepodge collection of stories related to trans health care and trans rights in the United States that I'm going to go kind of sequentially and they. Some of them tie together. But let's start with the trans military ban. We have an update on this. A federal appeals court has at least temporarily blocked the Pentagon from expelling transgender members of the military. So trans people may be barred from enlisting. So this is kind of sort of like a new form of don't ask, don't tell in a way of you can get in if you're not trans, but once you're in and you are trans, there's no legal grounds to remove you from the military. This was a 2:1 ruling that found Hagseth's anti trans policy was, quote, driven by the bare desire to to harm a politically unpopular group and, quote, both arbitrary and based on animus. For those reasons, the policy violates the plaintiff Appelli's constitutional right to equal protection of the law, unquote. The last bit is very important, like the equal protection clause in cases like this is going to be the. The main thing that trans people are able to rely on now. Circuit Judge Robert Wilkins, an Obama appointee, wrote that the Trump admin claimed their anti trans policy is solely about whether the military can disqualify people from service due to a mental health condition like gender dysphoria. Judge Wilkins wrote, quote, but the record shows that the purpose of the Hagseth policy is to target applicants and service members who express what the administration believes is a, quote, unquote, false gender identity. And the policy goes far beyond disqualifying persons currently or recently suffering from gender dysphoria. Some of those disqualifications are completely unexplained and have no reasonable justification. Unquote. Hagseth almost immediately announced he is appealing to the Supreme Court.

[Garrison Davis]

Oh, boy.

[George Taveras]

We will see where this goes. Yep. Last month, the DOJ announced a settlement with the Texas Children's Hospital as part of an ongoing national investigation into violations of federal law for providing gender affirming care to minors. The Texas Children's Hospital has entered into agreements with both the DOJ and the Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton that includes a commitment to not perform, quote, unquote, sex rejecting procedures on minors, which the DOJ says includes puberty blockers and cross sex hormones. This is a new term that they're really, really rolling out. It's sex rejecting procedures. That's. That's. You're going to see this a lot more in these next few weeks to months.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[George Taveras]

The hospital in Texas also agreed to pay over $10 million in damages and civil penalties to, quote, resolve allegations that it submitted false billings to public and private payers to secure insurance coverage for pediatric sex rejecting procedures. The department alleges this conduct violated the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic act, the False Claims act, and federal fraud and conspiracy laws, unquote. So they're saying that by billing insurance, whether public or private, for, quote, unquote, sex rejecting procedures, trans healthcare, that this was an act of fraud. Now, this is a settlement. And at the end of the settlement, they do note that these are just allegations that these have not actually been proven. Liability has not been proven in a court. But these are the allegations that resulted in the settlement. Now, as a part of the settlement, the Children's Hospital will also open the first ever, quote, unquote, detransition clinic. So detransition care is the same as transition care, Right? It is the same type of care. Yeah, I know this. This is. This is like what I do. There's not enough d. Transitioners out in the world to, like, sustain an actual full clinic. Which points to the. The fact that this clinic is not going to be used for consenting detransition. This is mainly going to be used as a conversion therapy clinic for. For kids who want to transition but are now going to be forced to go to a clinic like this because they're not able to get their health care.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[George Taveras]

Through this hospital or really, like in Texas as. As a minor. The Cleveland Clinic in Ohio settled a very similar case last week, paying a $308,000 fine and agreeing to dedicate $2 million in funds for detransition care while promising to not provide gender affirming health care to minors for 20 years.

[Garrison Davis]

Jesus.

[George Taveras]

That is the part of the settlement in the Cleveland Clinic case. My God.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[George Taveras]

In mid May, Oklahoma passed a bill prohibiting Medicaid coverage of gender affirming care, including surgery and HRT as well as offering this care in state owned facilities. The bill does not cut funding to doctors at private healthcare facilities to provide hrt, as I've seen some claim online. This, like many of the Medicaid restrictions, primarily affects poor trans people on state Medicaid and may make care hard to access in the future, depending on how private hospitals react to this bill, even though it does not necessarily force them to change the way they operate. Lastly, later this summer, New York City will begin testing a pilot program for a direct, low slash, no cost gender affirming care clinic for adults opening in a low income neighborhood in Queens. I think this is a good first step in providing access to care considering the Trump administration's threats to restrict Medicaid and Medicare coverage or remove Medicare Medicaid eligibility from hospitals that provide gender affirming care services. But as we know, trans youth have borne the brunt of these threats. Now, both Mamdani and the city health commissioner have said they are working to expand city provided gender affirming care services to cover trans youth. Commissioner Martin told the City Council last Friday, quote, we are committed to this issue and want to make sure that we provide the services and resources for youth as well as making sure we don't expose ourselves to clawbacks from the federal government which disrupt the rest of the care we can give. There's much more to come on this, but rest assured, we are working on this, unquote. Something that is worth understanding here is that this new pilot program, this, this city run low slash, no cost drop in clinic, is completely separate from the city's H and H municipal hospital system, which already operates multiple H and H prize centers that currently offer youth gender affirming care, including hrt. I called one this morning to confirm that they are still offering services to children, people of all ages. Now, HNH is funded through city subsidies and patient revenue through Medicare. The new pilot program is attempting to launch an alternative care service that isn't reliant on insurance or federal funding. If that comes into question and they're trying to get this clinic up and running off the ground as soon as possible and then once the pilot program is tested, expand it Last week, Mamdani announced a $15 million investment in gender affirming care, quote, unquote, as a first step, and said that the funds would be used to, quote, unquote, unlock care for youth who have had their health care restricted by private hospitals, though it's currently unclear how exactly these funds will be used. For a while, advocates in New York City and state were fighting for care in the state budget which delayed some of the process on this city provided care because they were expecting about $8 million of care from the state budget which eventually fell through. So now the city process is ramping up on this. Earlier this year, two major hospital systems in New York City stopped providing gender affirming care to trans youth. Ahead of perspective, HHS federal rule changes that would prevent hospitals from receiving federal funding if they offer gender affirming care services to youth. These rules have yet to go in effect, but two major hospitals essentially complied beforehand. The risks from the federal government aren't just isolated to restricting federal funding. The Trump administration has employed a variety of threats in an attempt to intimidate patients and care providers. Last month, the two hospitals that discontinued care for trans youth received a criminal grand jury subpoena from the U.S. attorney's office in the Northern District of Texas requesting information on patients under 18 years of age. At least one of the hospitals, Mount Sinai, is complying with the subpoena, though telling parents the records would be anonymized, whatever that means.

[Garrison Davis]

Oh yeah.

[George Taveras]

A group of trans New Yorkers who have received care at NYU Langone and their parents have filed a class action lawsuit to protect their medical records, though patients at Mount Sinai could also sign onto this suit. The suit has extended the deadline for the subpoena till late June as both the hospital and patients fight this in court. A similar administrative subpoena requesting records for youth patients was challenged and successfully blocked in Rhode Island. These subpoenas should be fought on the strongest grounds by both the patients, the state, the city and the hospitals themselves and beyond the all ages care currently offered by the HH Health system. I think it was also fair to advocate that the direct low, no cost drop in clinic expand to cover all ages. Once the pilot program is up and

[Garrison Davis]

running this summer, we'll briefly discuss the detention of an ICE officer and the war on Iran.

[Sam Taggart]

We do have a good ICE arrest for you this week.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The one good ICE arrest, right. Let's just start there then. So Hennepin county attorney has filed charges against ICE agent Christian Castro. Castro was arrested in Texas. He's arrested by Texas Rangers with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Investigators and DHS Security Office of the Inspector General Staff at the scene. According to a statement by the Hennepin County Attorney's Office, Castro was charged with, quote, four counts of second degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime for an incident on January 14, 2026, when he discharged his weapon through the front door of a home knowing there were people who had just run inside. The bullet traveled through the door and struck one victim in the leg before making its final impact in the wall of a child's room. They didn't know in this that the case might be removed to federal court, but they say that he would still be ineligible for presidential pardon. It is not usual when announcing any prosecution to consider the impact of a presidential pardon. It is interesting that they did. The case in question refers to Castro's shooting of Julio Sorcerer Sellis in which DHS claimed that so Cesar Solis and two others attacked Castro with a broom and a snow shovel and that Castro, quote, fired the defensive shot to defend his life. DHS very quickly dropped its case, put two agents on leave for providing accounts that were contradicted by video evidence. Probably Castro was one of them. Right. This is interesting a that they were able to like obtain the DHS OIG support. I had forgotten the DHS OIG was still doing stuff like this. To be honest, I didn't think they were. So this will be one that we will follow. That only leaves us with Iran where this week a a United States Apache helicopter was people have been using shot down. I'm not sure if it was shot. It was taken down reportedly by an Iranian drone and reportedly by a collision with that drone. It's possible that this happened accidentally. But given other things we've seen Right. With in Ukraine, for example, it is possible to take down a helicopter with FPV drone. That would be my guess as to what happened here. Its crew were then rescued from the Strait of Hormuz by another drone, an uncrewed surface vessel. The US only bought these online in March of this year. So this is the first time that we're aware of that they were using this capacity.

[Sam Taggart]

Right.

[Garrison Davis]

So this is like a boat drone, an uncrewed surface vessel and it scooped. Well, it didn't scoot them up. They got on it, it collected them and then it took them to a second location where a helicopter was able to lift them up as a direct result. And according to Centcomb, at the direct order of the President, the US then began Self defense, I'm quoting here, right, Quote, unquote, self defense strikes against Iran. They claim these strikes were a quote, unquote warning shot and will not impact negotiations. But as we record this on Wednesday afternoon, they have just announced another series of strikes. This all comes after Israel and Iran exchanged missile salvos when Iran responded to Israeli bombing in Beirut. And the Houthis have also claimed a missile attack on Israel and have said that they would begin targeting Israeli shipping. Again. We are already teetering on the edge of this becoming a massive international conflict in a region again. I mean it is a massive international conflict, right? But returning to these full scale conflict that we saw until the ceasefire, which has been repeatedly violated but no less has reduced the amount of bombing that's happening. Israel also bombed Palestine this week. Among the people killed was an 8 year old boy named Judd Solomon in northern Gaza, which is tragic. Yeah, we'll keep reporting on this. Like I've tried really hard not to make our coverage of especially what's happening on Iran Twitter review because real people are killing and real people are dying. And like it's, it's focusing on the stupid shit that the President said or that, you know, Netanyahu said on Twitter. Like isn't a true social converted to Twitter or whatever. Like that's not really what's at stake here. Like what's at stake is people's lives. And so I, I want to kind of avoid doing the back and forth social media review. But yeah, that's what I got this week.

[George Taveras]

Cool.

[Garrison Davis]

Oh, breaking news as, as we, as we go to press here. The Berlin Zoo has announced the name of its newborn pygmy hippopotamus.

[Sam Taggart]

And I thought Hitler was a mistake. I'm going to be honest with you guys. I don't think that's an appropriate name for them to use.

[Garrison Davis]

A little Hitler. I'll drop a link in the chat so you all can appreciate it. It's like a new mudang just dropped moment. They are calling it broochen brochen. I don't speak German.

[Sam Taggart]

Sure. Okay guys, that's market.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, great.

[Sam Taggart]

Good work guys. That sounds like a candy children aren't legally allowed to eat in my country.

[Garrison Davis]

Another dub for German marketing. It means bread roll. I guess it is a very cute hippopotamus.

[Sam Taggart]

That's a pretty cute name. Bread roll would be a cute name for.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I guess if you're German, it's a cute name. Hit us up, German language listeners. Does it seem cute to you?

[Sam Taggart]

No, don't because you'll just get angry at us for not understanding your strange language. In my defense, you live outside of America, the only other country in the world, right?

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, I think that's it.

[Sam Taggart]

Yeah. I'm just going to ignore the Iran reporting that you.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, yeah, we just did. Yeah, yeah, we'll not mention that. Email us at coolzonetipsoton me. Some of you marketing fuckers are still trying. Remarkable. I'm pretty sure it's one person who just creates new aliases, but I'm playing whack a mole over there in the block list. Okay? I will read your name out if you keep doing it.

[Sam Taggart]

All right, well, I think that's gonna be it for all of us here. And it could happen here. That's the it. And it could happen here is. This is us doing it. The podcast Goodbye.

[Mia Wong]

Put a trans girl on your couch.

[George Taveras]

We reported the news.

[Garrison Davis]

We reported the news.

[Mia Wong]

It could happen Here is a production

[Sam Taggart]

of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media Media, Visit our website, coolzone media.com or

[Mia Wong]

check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Sam Taggart]

You can now find sources for it

[Mia Wong]

could happen here, listed directly in episode descriptions.

[Sam Taggart]

Thanks for listening.

[George Taveras]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Sam Taggart]

Guaranteed Human.