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It Could Happen Here
Executive Disorder: State Dept. Summit on Left-Wing Extremism, Alien Terrorist Removal Court, Canada Tariffs
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- [00:00]
Tarika Foster Brasby
This is an I heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Hey, everybody, I'm Tareka Foster Brasby. What's up, y'? All? I'm your girl, Sheryl Swoops. When you tune in to a new episode of our podcast, Levels to this, you're definitely gonna get some spicy WNBA analysis. But we're more than just hoops and the real conversation is what we actually bring. So it's been really, really cool seeing kind of these women just really step into their power off the court and understand that they are basketball right, and they're not asking for permission. Listen to levels to this with Sheryl Swoopes and Tarika Foster brasby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:48]
Ryan Weiss
Hello, my love. I'm Ryan Weiss, and For the past 15 years, I've been an emotional intelligence coach and a spiritual guide and been I've. And I'm sharing with you my new podcast, Waking up with Ryan. Waking up with Ryan is a daily audio video podcast here to help you connect with yourself before the noise of the day takes over. So let's start our days together with a moment of calm that's just for you. Listen to Waking up with ryan on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:18]
Tarika Foster Brasby
Hey, it's Nora Jones and my podcast Playing along is back with more of my favorite musicians. Check out my newest episode with Finneas.
- [01:26]
James Stout
So I went home and I asked
- [01:27]
Robert Evans
Billie if she want wanted to sing it. She immediately made it her own thing.
- [01:32]
Garrison Davis
You really know how to make me
- [01:34]
James Stout
cry when you give me those ocean
- [01:38]
Emily Oster
eyes and I'm scared.
- [01:41]
Tarika Foster Brasby
So come hang out with us in the studio and listen to Playing along on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Emily Oster. I'm an economist and data expert.
- [01:52]
Perry Wilson
And I'm Perry Wilson.
- [01:53]
Emily Oster
I'm a medical doctor.
- [01:54]
Tarika Foster Brasby
And this is our new podcast, Wellness.
- [01:57]
Emily Oster
Actually, you're getting a staggering amount of health and well, information.
- [02:00]
Perry Wilson
And some of it is awesome and
- [02:02]
Tarika Foster Brasby
some of it is, well, actually bull. Fortunately, we're both people who know how to read studies and can tell you what's worth trying out and what you can safely ignore.
- [02:12]
Emily Oster
Listen to Wellness actually on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [02:21]
Marco Rubio
Media.
- [02:27]
Garrison Davis
This is it could Happen Here Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happen, 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 with a special segment by James Stout. This episode we're covering the week of July 15 to July 22. On Monday morning, someone poured gasoline in front of an entrance to the federal immigration court in New York City and lit the gasoline on fire. A 43 year old army vet was arrested outside the building and has been charged with arson. The man brought a sign reading ICE off our streets and also allegedly launched bundle of fireworks and fired pellets from an airsoft rifle. Three U.S. service members were killed this week on an air base in Jordan as a result of Trump's war with Iran. The New York Times reported that the Trump administration has tried to obtain phone and text records from New York Times journalists and their families to uncover the source of leaks regarding the security capabilities of the new Air Force One. Courtesy of the Qatari government. Kash Patel is overseeing this investigation. This is a huge First Amendment breach.
- [03:35]
Marco Rubio
Yeah.
- [03:37]
Garrison Davis
After multiple failed election campaigns, Katie Porter has announced she is leaving politics to become a book influencer.
- [03:44]
Robert Evans
Oh, God.
- [03:45]
Garrison Davis
And has rebranded her Instagram account to Katie Porter Turns the page.
- [03:52]
Robert Evans
What? Okay, I mean, bold move to be like, you know what? The growth industry of the future is books. I can't fault the desire there, but I just don't think history is going to really work that way. Katie.
- [04:06]
Garrison Davis
Secretary Kennedy has announced the Trump administration is pausing more than $1 billion in Medicaid payments to California and Minnesota due to, quote, suspected fraud and non compliance. Play a short clip here.
- [04:21]
Robert Evans
That includes more than $867 million for California and over $200 million for Min. If those states want that money, they need to provide documentation that these payments are legitimate.
- [04:38]
Garrison Davis
This will seriously harm, if not kill
- [04:40]
Robert Evans
people, huge numbers of people.
- [04:42]
Garrison Davis
This is just a billion dollar cut to Medicaid citing quote, unquote fraud.
- [04:48]
Robert Evans
It's aimed at blue states that the administration sees as enemies.
- [04:51]
Garrison Davis
You know, let's move on to our first main story and it'll be kind of a through line this episode. As I briefly mentioned last week, on Thursday, July 16, Marc Rubio and the State Department held an international conference on the scourge of left wing violence and antifa terrorism. This is just the latest escalation following Trump's designation of antifa as a quote, unquote terrorist group last year. And the emboldening of law enforcement's targeting of left wing groups. The National Security Presidential Memorandum number seven. According to the State Departments, this international conference was attended by representatives from 66 countries. Over 60 senior ministers were invited, but only 17 ministers actually were in attendance, though, other political leaders and experts and law enforcement officials traveled to D.C. for the event, including the senior chief of the Hellenic police from Greece. According to a reporter from the La Jornta newspaper, Mexico was invited to the summit, but the President declined to attend because the conference seemed, quote, more political than really related to combating criminal groups.
- [06:05]
Robert Evans
Yeah, amazing. Imagine that.
- [06:08]
Garrison Davis
And before the conference, Washington Post reported that many senior ministers were confused as to the purpose of the event and why they were invited to the conference with two European diplomats telling the Post, quote, we don't have antifa and quote, our law enforcement authorities have not focused on left wing terrorism because this is not considered a high priority threat in our country.
- [06:28]
Robert Evans
It doesn't really exist. Yeah, to us.
- [06:31]
Garrison Davis
So this international summit put on by Marco Rubio was titled the Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism. Come on, very serious, completely leaving out
- [06:44]
Robert Evans
the right and also, as we'll talk about later, blaming a lot, basically the entire modern left on Cuba because it's a mix of Marco and everyone trying to pander to Trump. A lot of these are grievances either rooted in the 70s or like a four month period in 2020.
- [06:59]
Garrison Davis
Yes, right.
- [07:00]
Robert Evans
Like that's their entire conception of the left.
- [07:02]
Garrison Davis
To open the summit, Rubio told this story of a civilizational threat posed by leftists, Marxists and anarchist political violence. Violence that has laid dormant since the 70s, but has now awoken. Rubio applauded our counterterrorism strategies in taking down, quote, unquote, radical Islamist extremism. But while our focus has been on ISIS and jihadism, law enforcement and the counterterrorism apparatus has been unable or unwilling to go after left wing violence. Let's hear from Rubio.
- [07:36]
Marco Rubio
For far too long, however, our counterterrorism doctrine has had a blind spot. A blind spot when it comes to to extremist violence from the political left. Even today, the very idea that far left terrorism could be a serious threat is treated as a right wing fever dream, or worse, as a dangerous fascist conspiracy. It's treated this way by many in the press, by many in academia and our universities, and by many of our legacy institutions. You will no doubt see the dogma rear its head in the coverage of this very conference. In spite of the clear and the undeniable reality, in spite of the objective
- [08:14]
Garrison Davis
numbers and statistics, one of the main tactics employed by Rubio, Stephen Miller and others throughout this conference was the subtle conflation of mass casualty incidents from the far right with instances of property damage or in the most extreme cases, targeted assassination attempts. Against political figures attributed to the far left, which people on the far right also do, by the way, much more often.
- [08:41]
Robert Evans
Yeah.
- [08:43]
Garrison Davis
Rubio said, quote, a whole industry grew up in our countries around the study of extremism. We have think tanks and fellowships and journals and consultancies with the unspoken understanding among them that only one kind of political violence was a true threat to the system. A bomb planted by a neo Nazi group was a nefarious and murderous act of evil. It is. But a bomb planted by a Marxist revolutionary, well, that's just merely a tragic excess of idealism. Perhaps its means were misplaced or overzealous, but its ends were virtuous and just unquote.
- [09:19]
Robert Evans
No one's ever said that. No, no one said it. No one in US politics has ever said that. You can find some maniacs who've said anything about anything. But, like, that's simply not a discourse in America.
- [09:30]
Garrison Davis
CVE researchers generally would not describe Marxist bombing plots as virtuous and just.
- [09:36]
Robert Evans
I've never heard a bombing plot described as virtuous. The only act of what you could call terrorism I have ever seen in the recent days people call virtuous is, you know, what happened to that healthcare
- [09:45]
Garrison Davis
executive, which Rubio does talk about.
- [09:48]
Robert Evans
Yes. And that is definitely a lot of people cheered that on. But I can't think of a single instance in which a bombing has ever been cheered on.
- [09:55]
Emily Oster
Also, like Marxist bombings, It's like, when was the last time a Marxist, like, actually said, like, this is not a real thing.
- [10:02]
Robert Evans
It is in that what Rubio is talking about is a spate of left wing affiliated bombings that occurred from 1971-72. He talks about this in the Cuba. And that's what he's saying.
- [10:11]
Emily Oster
Like, that hasn't happened. Like Weather Underground has been above ground
- [10:16]
Robert Evans
for like, that's entirely what all this is based on.
- [10:19]
Emily Oster
Yeah, yeah. And it's like, it's not a thing now.
- [10:22]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [10:22]
Robert Evans
Is what old people remember about the left in the 70s.
- [10:25]
Emily Oster
Yeah.
- [10:25]
Garrison Davis
You know, it's not directly referenced, but I know the DOJ did make a big hubbub about foiling a quote, unquote, far left. Or it's kind of like an anti imperialist like Maoist bombing plot in California late last year. Also, a confidential human source who was working with law enforcement was involved in the planning of this operation, which was stopped by law enforcement before they could ever carry out the attack.
- [10:51]
Emily Oster
And that's the closest thing to like an actual, like, Marxist.
- [10:53]
Garrison Davis
That is the closest recent thing. Yes.
- [10:56]
Emily Oster
Like, that's it like in the last, like very long number of years.
- [11:01]
Garrison Davis
Now, Rubio claimed that, quote, an extraordinary ideological prejudice was embedded in the way we talk about political violence and extremism to the point that this prejudice has become the neutral and objective baseline quote, so entrenched in the mainstream conventional wisdom that it came to be regarded as an apolitical fact. For an example of this, Rubio mentions the protests against the murder of George Floyd.
- [11:29]
Marco Rubio
Many people in positions of power have repeatedly dismissed acts of violence and even terrorism as legitimate forms of political expression, so long as they served a left wing cause. It is why during those George Floyd, so called George Floyd riots in the summer of 2020, as criminals, extremists and burned and looted their way through America's great cities and nearly brought the country to its knees, city governments all across the country simply refused to prosecute the people conducting these acts of violence and terror. It is the reason for the now infamous image, maybe you all recall this, of a news anchor from a very prominent agency, a news anchor standing in the neighborhood consumed in flames. Meanwhile, the cryon on the bottom read that the protests were mostly peaceful.
- [12:22]
Robert Evans
Can't even say Chiron, right?
- [12:24]
Marco Rubio
My God, this was something worse than a double standard. Left wing violence was not just excused, it was treated as sacrosanct. A protected class unto itself.
- [12:36]
Garrison Davis
A protected class unto itself. Protecting their ability to light trash on fire in the middle of a street.
- [12:43]
Robert Evans
That's what happened. There weren't thousands of arrests and prosecutions.
- [12:46]
Garrison Davis
That is the other thing is that the Trump administration did that a little bit. But this was at the end of 2020. The Biden administration did tons and tons of like federal arrests with people involved in these protests. People who are still in jail. Meanwhile, the January six people are out of jail and have had pardons.
- [13:05]
Robert Evans
Yeah.
- [13:06]
Garrison Davis
Rubio referenced instances of political violence in Europe from recent time, like a firebomb attack on the home of a Greek politician that killed that politician's mother earlier this month. Rubio did not mention that four suspects have already been arrested and that this firebombing was the first time in over a decade that someone was killed in an attack targeting a politician in Greece. Rubio also referenced a five day blackout in Berlin last winter caused by a power line sabotage. People claiming to be responsible for the attack associated themselves with a far left eco extremist group. And lastly, Rubio mentioned that in February of this year, quote, a French 23 year old succumbed to traumatic brain injuries, beaten to death on the streets of Lyon by a group of far left militant thugs. This 23 year old was a neo fascist, quote unquote activist. That's what he's referred to in local news coverage, who died two days after being brutalized in a large street brawl during a far right protest outside of a university event featuring a Palestinian lawmaker. Eleven antifascists were arrested for this. Rubio tried to connect the current emerging threat of far left political terrorism to historical Marxist struggles in the 20th century and particularly the 1970s. Rubio name dropped urban guerrilla groups in Central and South America. Farc, the National Liberation army, the Shining Path, Maoist guerrillas in Peru, as well as European groups like Italy's Red Brigades, the Red army faction in Germany, Marxist extremists in Greece and in the us The Weather Underground, the Black Liberation army and the Symbanese Liberation Army.
- [14:44]
Marco Rubio
And today we face a new wave of this old evil. Here in the United States, the share of left wing terrorist attacks and plots has risen to levels not seen in decades. In Germany, far left violence has jumped by more than 40% just the last year alone. In Greece, more than 80% of radical violence is now driven by far left and anarchist actors. These, these are not abstract statistics. Americans have seen what those numbers mean. An all out assault on our immigration officers, sniper attacks, explosives, armed ambushes, A transgender shooter opening fire on Catholic elementary school students as they pray, his gun marked with slogans like where is your God now? A health care executive executed in cold blood in the streets, multiple assassination attempts on a sitting president and the murder of the greatest conservative activist of a generation.
- [15:47]
Garrison Davis
So there's a lot there. Anarchist violence certainly isn't new in Greece.
- [15:51]
Robert Evans
No.
- [15:51]
Garrison Davis
And again, in the American context, this little speech by Rubio conflates mass casualty events with property damage and isolated targeted violence. He references vague, quote unquote, all out assaults on immigration officers, as in big protests in Minneapolis. He references one sniper attack by a suicidal man who was not very political and leaned libertarian. In Texas, he references a transgender shooter who also was not politically motivated in the traditional sense and initially planned to shoot up an LGBTQ music venue. The United Healthcare CEO assassination is arguably the closest thing here to like left wing motivated violence.
- [16:33]
Robert Evans
It's definitely politically motivated.
- [16:35]
Garrison Davis
Even that suspect wasn't particularly like left wing politically. No, belief in some political ideology was not the driving force behind that assassination. It wasn't ideologically motivated, but rather materially motivated based on interactions with our inhumane healthcare system. Trying to understand every public act of violence, whether that's a shooting or an assassination. Just as existing in between, this left right binary is a very limited way to actually try to understand public acts of violence. Because not all shootings have an obvious ideological driver. Public acts of violence can be downstream of someone's personal experiences and material conditions. As for the Trump assassinations, two have been from people who were largely moderate liberals, not leftists, and the first attempted assassination did not appear to have what we would traditionally consider to be a political motive. Again from someone with a conservative background who was closer to what we would describe as having like a school shooter mentality. I'll talk about this a little bit later, but I think it's really important to understand that just because the target is a political figure does not mean it is political violence. The attempted assassination on Ronald Reagan is a key example of this, and investigations into the first Trump assassination found that the shooter, Thomas Crooks, searched online for a variety of events to commit a shooting at. In the month prior to the shooting, he did more than 60 Internet searches related to Biden, Trump and information about the upcoming DNC and RNC conventions. Trump's campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania just happened to take place in the right place at the right time. And for someone who's just trying to do a high profile shooting, it might not even matter what the outcome of that attempted shooting is. These public acts of violence usually have a suicidal component, a drive for self annihilation, while simultaneously gaining some final sense of meaning or purpose by crudely emblazoning yourself in history through a violent act. This kind of public suicidal violence can be a sort of final attempt of communing with the world. The AP summarized a report published last year by the center for Strategic and International Studies that found that left wing terrorist attacks as of July of last year had surpassed those from the far right for the first time in more than 30 years. But a closer look at that data showed that the uptick reflects a very low starting level and a concurrent drop on the far right. There was an average of 0.6 left wing incidents annually from 1994 through 2000, compared with an average of 20.6 on the right, the report shows. From 2016 to 2024, there were an average of 4 per year on the left and 22.7 per year on the right. Those numbers have dropped dramatically on the right as of early July 2025, with only one incident. Meanwhile, there had been five from the left. So yes, left wing attacks in 2025 did outpace what that report as of July categorized as right wing attacks. But that's because there was a big drop off in right wing attacks once Trump came into office, and a very small increase in attacks attributed to the left. And that is the sort of statistics that, that Rubio is using to make this push.
- [20:06]
Emily Oster
Yeah. And it's worth noting. It's like, okay, so why have there been less of these sort of right wing political terrorism events? And it's like, well, because ICE is just doing them instead.
- [20:15]
Robert Evans
Yeah. The state's doing the violence for them.
- [20:17]
Emily Oster
Yeah. It's the same reason that you can look at the period in which sort of like jailhouse lynching suddenly collapses. And the reason they collapse is that the US Government just starts executing those people. And this is a very explicit deal that's made between the state and, you know, the specific kind of lynch mob is like, we'll just carry out death, like, penalty sentences against these people if you stop storming prisons and lynching them in there. So, you know, that's like what's happening here, right, is like you have people with mass shooter profiles who are, you know, ICE officers shooting, like immigrants in the streets now.
- [20:48]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [20:49]
Garrison Davis
One thing that was really common throughout Rubio's whole speech and some of the follow up remarks by like, Miller and Bessett is like a big thing that was undergirding their rhetoric was this assumption that if the target of violence is viewed as right wing, then the attacker must be left wing. And any attack that goes against what they would consider like a right wing symbol, whether that's ice, whether that's the president, whatever, then whoever is attacking that symbol must be coming from the left wing or have some left wing motivation. And that's the way that they're trying to frame a lot of this. One of the old categories of violent extremism is called anti government violent extremism, which is a very broad category which can encompass some people who have explicit ideological drivers, but also can include people who are doing public suicidal violence who will target the government or political figures as an expression of their own political and societal alienation. Someone who does this kind of public suicidal violence can often lack a recognizably coherent political philosophy that can be easily grafted onto our Democrat Republican binary, with there sometimes being a mix of political beliefs across the left right spectrum. But now that Trump is in office, any attack against the federal government can be used by the Trump administration as an example of left wing terrorism attacking a right wing government. Take for instance, the sniper attack in Texas targeting an ICE facility and vehicles, although actually shooting multiple immigrants. This shooter was described by his friends as being largely apolitical, but Leaned libertarian. This shooting also had a suicidal aspect in that he did kill himself after the shooting. With Trump in charge of the federal government, nihilistic and self destructive attacks against American society may take a form which can be characterized as left wing violence. Another example of this is the plot against the UFC Freedom250 events where self described Christian patriots who saw themselves as aspiring revolutionaries tried to start the second American Revolutionary War by targeting high level politicians and public figures. At the UFC White House event, these people are not on what I would consider the left wing, but in the conservative coverage of this attack, this was framed as an anti capitalist attack targeting Trump's cabinet. Towards the end of Rubio's speech he started talking about this like international strategy that they want to develop to handle this emerging threat. Quote, this is an international conference because we are facing an international transnational threat. These are not distinct and isolated cells. They are interconnected networks. They do not recognize our borders. They do not believe in fact in the nation state itself. They coordinate, they communicate, they travel, they train and they act together, sharing the same infrastructure and sharing the same enemies, sharing the same mission. I'll play one more clip from Rubio here.
- [23:52]
Marco Rubio
Antifa militants and their comrades travel from across Europe and to the Americas to participate in each other's attacks, to funnel propaganda and training materials and target information through shared encrypted channels, moving through underground networks of safe houses and finance and sustain their operations through transnational funds. And they work alongside hostile foreign states that share their mission, like Iranian proxy networks who are increasingly intimately tied to leftist militant groups around the world. The Cuban regime's sprawling intelligence and ideological network helped to build the far left in our country and in our hemisphere. And it remains inextricably linked to the far left groups and movements across and beyond the West. Today's far left terrorists can raise money in one country, they can host their communications in a second country, they can receive training in a third country, they can recruit militants in a fourth country and then together strike a target in a fifth country.
- [24:59]
Robert Evans
A thing that we've never seen happen.
- [25:00]
Garrison Davis
This is complete fiction.
- [25:01]
Robert Evans
A thing that's never ever happened.
- [25:03]
Garrison Davis
This is like not once.
- [25:04]
Robert Evans
Where are they training, Marco? Cuba.
- [25:07]
Garrison Davis
This is like a Tom Clancy novel.
- [25:09]
Robert Evans
He does think they're training in Cuba. Actually, I shouldn't ask that.
- [25:12]
Emily Oster
Yeah, the only thing that functions like this is the Central Intelligence Agency. Like nothing else works like this.
- [25:18]
Robert Evans
That's not entirely true. Like the global far right does to a degree work.
- [25:21]
Emily Oster
That's true.
- [25:22]
Robert Evans
Right. Like there's an element now I wouldn't even describe it that way because that's more elaborate than I've ever seen the global far right do, honestly. But, yeah, there are versions of that do occur where people are, like, traveling to one country for armed training or whatever.
- [25:34]
Emily Oster
Yeah, Yeah. I guess you could look back at the old, like, world anti communist networks.
- [25:38]
Robert Evans
Exactly.
- [25:38]
Emily Oster
Like league networks where they would do that, but like this.
- [25:41]
Garrison Davis
I mean, I wonder if they would consider stuff like traveling to, like, Rojava. Right. A leftist traveling to Rojava or traveling to, like, you know, see, like, Zapatistas.
- [25:48]
Robert Evans
Right.
- [25:49]
Garrison Davis
If that's kind of what he's thinking of or if he's even thinking about it in, like, a real literal way.
- [25:53]
Robert Evans
I can tell you specifically what he's thinking about in this. I mean, he's thinking about two things. He's trying to directly draw a comparison for political purposes to the influencers who went over to Cuba recently. But the thing that he is actually thinking about is the way a chunk of the global far left worked in, like, the 60s and 70s. Gaddafi trained the IRA. Right. Like, there were a lot of. Like, not all of them, but, like, there was. People did travel from left wing groups to other places and then carried out attacks in other countries. That was a thing that occurred during what is often called the golden age of terrorism. This is a lot of. This is just more Marco not leaving the 70s behind. Like, even though, again, it's 50 years since that kind of shit's been going on almost. And Gaddafi's dead. Like, the IRA isn't exactly active anymore either.
- [26:39]
Garrison Davis
We'll return to talk more about far left transnational terrorism after this ad break.
- [26:52]
Juliana
Bill, why is my eye twitching? Does this mean I'm in perimenopause? Maybe I have adult adhd. I need to look this up. Where's my phone?
- [27:00]
Perry Wilson
Juliana, your phone is hot to the touch. I think it's asking you for a break.
- [27:04]
Juliana
You know what? Maybe I should just ask ChatGPT.
- [27:07]
Perry Wilson
Or maybe we can ask an actual human.
- [27:09]
Juliana
Yes, like a couple sex therapist.
- [27:11]
Perry Wilson
Whoa, that escalated quickly.
- [27:12]
Juliana
But okay, because I have questions.
- [27:15]
Perry Wilson
We have questions.
- [27:16]
Juliana
And I bet everyone has questions like, is it normal to sleep in separate bedrooms? We do that.
- [27:22]
Perry Wilson
How about this one? Is bribing your kids bad parenting or just negotiating?
- [27:25]
Juliana
Oh, and I still do need to know, why was my poop green that one time?
- [27:29]
Perry Wilson
Hypothetically.
- [27:30]
Marco Rubio
Right.
- [27:31]
Perry Wilson
Okay. Well, instead of letting the Internet guess, we've got actual people answering these exact
- [27:36]
Juliana
questions and laughing with us has got to be better than spending three hours down a rabbit Hole online.
- [27:42]
Perry Wilson
Listen to Bill and Juliana, the podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
- [27:52]
MC Jen
You said to me, yo, you know, keep at it. Cause you let me rap for you. It was magical for all of us.
- [27:57]
Garrison Davis
Ah, we made it.
- [27:58]
Robert Evans
We made it.
- [27:59]
Perry Wilson
Yeah.
- [28:00]
MC Jen
I'm like, we.
- [28:01]
Garrison Davis
You know, I'm like, I these guys.
- [28:02]
Emily Oster
But who are you?
- [28:05]
MC Jen
I'm MC Jen. And this is last but not least, I'll be chatting with guests from all walks of life about the power of humor when it comes to facing difficult times. Like the co founder of Rough Riders, Darren D. Dean. Talking about as a kid. Do you remember that we met even way before that?
- [28:20]
Francesca Hong
Let me think.
- [28:21]
Emily Oster
Did you walk up to the gate?
- [28:22]
MC Jen
That was me, D. That was you? That was me. The day we found out that you and the whole crew was at Hit Factory. The mission was to get me to go to the gate, start freestyling, and see if I could get in the studio. I'm rapping and then suddenly I hear a voice. Hey, open the gate.
- [28:36]
Stephen Miller
Let.
- [28:36]
MC Jen
Let him in the gate. Slowly went. They all. They watching this and they watch me walk into there. And that is a moment that I will remember for the rest of my life. Listen. And last but not least, with MC Gen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
- [28:52]
Francesca Hong
What did black music, food and culture teach us about who we were becoming?
- [28:56]
Garrison Davis
2016 was sort of that last era
- [28:59]
Tarika Foster Brasby
of monoculture where we still consumed things
- [29:03]
Francesca Hong
in community, from Beyonce and Rihanna.
- [29:06]
Garrison Davis
Everybody wanted to be Beyonce.
- [29:08]
Tarika Foster Brasby
I don't think we'll ever see another Rihanna.
- [29:11]
Francesca Hong
To soul food, memory, identity, and the stories we carry through black culture.
- [29:15]
Robert Evans
What does it mean to be black
- [29:17]
Tarika Foster Brasby
and eat in America? So we were this group of people who knew how to work with the land, who knew how to live with the land. We make it do what it do.
- [29:25]
Francesca Hong
Therapy for black girls is bringing together the conversation, shaping black life right now.
- [29:29]
Tarika Foster Brasby
You will never make me feel bad for being a black girl, for being a black American girl ever.
- [29:34]
Francesca Hong
Therapy for black girls is bringing it all to the mic. Listen to Therapy for black Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [29:44]
Tarika Foster Brasby
Hey, everybody. I'm Tereka Fosta Brasby. What's up, y'?
- [29:47]
Robert Evans
All?
- [29:47]
Tarika Foster Brasby
I'm your girl, Sheryl Swoops. When you tune in to a new episode of our podcast Levels to this, you're definitely gonna get some spy CWNBA analysis. I see a lot of men who get into the space because now it's a hot product and that grinds my gears to dust. But then the conversation goes on and levels up beyond basketball. It's been really, really cool seeing kind of these women just really step into their power off the court and understand that they are basketball right? And they're not asking for permission because on Levels to this, the game is always the starting point. But we're more than just hoops and the real conversation is what we actually bring. This is Levels to this, the podcast about all the levels of stuff that women go through. Listen to Levels to this with Sheryl Swoopes and Tareka Foster brasby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [30:54]
Garrison Davis
We are back. There's one last part about this antifa far left terrorism summit that happened at the State Department that I want to hone in on, and that is the remarks made by Stephen Miller. So brace yourself for a short clip of Miller here.
- [31:11]
Stephen Miller
President Trump issued a directive. In our parlance, it's called a National Security presidential memorandum, or NSPM NSPM 7 to be exact, that directs for the first time in American history, all of our law enforcement and intelligence agencies to work together to disrupt, identify, defund, debank, arrest and prosecute these political terrorists that are operating in our country. There's no point at which the left wing terrorist is satisfied with his gains and ceases progressing inevitably left to run its course. It always becomes a gulag. It always becomes the mass imprisonment of political enemies, the stripping of their rights and freedoms, inflicting immense pain, humiliation, suffering, in order to establish complete and total control, control through psychological and physical and actual terror.
- [32:15]
Garrison Davis
We must disrupt, identify, defund, debank, arrest and prosecute these political terrorists or else they will turn the country into a gulag and conduct the mass imprisonment of political enemies and establish total psychological control.
- [32:29]
Emily Oster
It's just that we must do the genocide before they do the genocide against us thing.
- [32:33]
Garrison Davis
Like, and that is a lot of how Miller and the ambassador for the Counterterrorism Bureau talk about this. Like, we need to stop this before it gets bigger. We know it seems kind of small right now, but by the time that everyone realizes this is a huge threat, then it's already too late. Then we've already lost. We have to end this thing right now as it still is. Like an infant. Like, we cannot let this thing grow up. That is very much how he talks about it and he is really frustrated about the way that attempts by the Trump administration to do this have been curtailed or have not been able to really be followed through on to the extent that he wants. And he has a specific thing that's been happening that he's really upset about. And that's a little term that some people in the audience might be familiar with called jury nullification.
- [33:17]
Stephen Miller
There's a real threat that those who are not themselves terrorists, but who support left wing violence will create the conditions that allow that violence to go on without any meaningful inhibition. So to be specific, we've seen some of our nation's cities in America, like Washington, D.C. and New York City, something, again, it's an American term, but it's known as jury nullification. This is when a person is obviously guilty of a crime, but the juror, because they're ideologically sympathetic to the perpetrator, will not sentence them to the crime which is obviously committed. We've seen in the United States again and again, individuals who are part of left wing organizations who've committed assaults against ICE officers or federal law enforcement who have been brought to court where clear evidence has been presented against them that the jury has refused to convict for purely political reasons. When you've reached that point, it demonstrates how deeply the cancer has begun to infest your society.
- [34:21]
Garrison Davis
According to a new report in Just Security, quote, nearly half the cases nationwide brought against protesters and immigrants for assault against a law enforcement officer were dismissed by judges, withdrawn by prosecutors, or resulted in jury acquittals. In at least 18 publicly reported instances, grand juries have refused to indict. At least 16 grand jury subpoenas have been blocked or withdrawn, and judges have dismissed or prosecutors have dropped at least 79 cases relating to ICE protests or federal law enforcement surges across D.C. chicago, Minnesota and Los Angeles. In a period of two months, the U.S. attorney's office in D.C. dropped more cases than it had in the previous 10 years combined, unquote. And that also shows the scale in which they're bringing these cases against protesters. This is something that Miller is really upset about. This is something that is severely prohibiting the administration's ability to go after, quote, unquote, left wing terrorism, what they view as left wing terrorism. And he's really frustrated about this. Here's one last quote from him. One of the hallmarks of left wing violence and terrorism is its completely pretextual and disingenuous appeal to civil liberties in an effort to shield its own violence. This is the tactic that the left always uses to try to protect itself from facing criminal punishment. It is essential that we are wise enough and strong enough to understand that these Appeals must fall on deaf ears. We must stay the course and be completely unflinching in the pursuit of justice and against these enemies of civilization, unquote. And Miller and Rubio went on pretty lengthy rants about how the threat of left wing violence really is this civilizational threat against what is beautiful and what is good and what is natural. It's a quote from Miller against this like ugly hatred that fuels the left. This sort of like, you know, like resentment for like failing at life. And now they want to attack those of us who like succeed, those of us who like builders. Very fascistic stuff at the end of both of their speeches.
- [36:18]
Robert Evans
And also very Ben Shapiro stuff, to be honest. The whole builders and takers thing, I mean, he didn't start that. But it is interesting to see there's so many old throwbacks to this because you can tell these are guys who get started in right wing politics before the current era because they keep hearkening back to stuff that's just not as big a part of the modern vernacular, which is always interesting to me, how stuck a lot of these guys are in the past.
- [36:42]
Garrison Davis
At a post conference press conference for foreign Press, the coordinator and ambassador at large for the Bureau of Counterterrorism reiterated that the US counterterrorism strategy is still focusing on three main types of threat groups. Narco terrorists, Islamic or jihadist terrorists, and far left terrorists, and that they need to, quote, identify terror actors and plots before they happen. He calls far left terrorism a resurgent threat with a clear upward trend and that they are, quote, committed to addressing it before it metastasizes, that they want to halt this scourge before it grows into something larger, more unified and more deadly. The Ambassador outlined three concrete outcomes from this conference. The first was on designations and accountability. And like Rubio, he promised that additional foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorist designations for quote, unquote, far left groups are under active review and are going to be incoming soon following the four designations of Europe based groups last year. So there's going to be more left wing or antifa related groups designated as foreign terrorist organizations. Secretary Besant talked about how legitimate nonprofit and charitable structures are being quote, exploited as a mechanism to conceal the movement of illicit funds to support political terrorism. And the Ambassador talked about how international partners are discussing prospects to align their own legal frameworks to ensure that these networks cannot simply relocate across borders as a part of these terrorist designations. The Treasury's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence will take steps to dismantle the funding which sustains These groups and the State Department is also offering payments of up to $10 million for information disrupting far left terrorist financing. The second outcome of the conference was on operational coordination, like deepening information sharing between partner agencies and coordinating on travel restrictions and strengthening the protection of critical infrastructure like transportation and energy systems. It was also announced that Germany would host the next counterterrorism workshop. The last concrete outcome of this event was new visa restrictions targeting members of far left terrorists and aligned groups. For more on that, let's throw to our colleague James Stout.
- [39:02]
James Stout
Hi everyone, it's James. Coming at you with the second attempt to record this. Find myself traveling every Wednesday at the moment, so apologies for missing out on recordings. Everyone else, I will be back next week, I promise. We will return to our usual shared conversation. But I did want to check in with everyone this week because I want to talk about a couple of things. Last week, for the first time in its history, the United States government attempted to remove someone through the use of the Alien Terrorist Removal Court. This is something that was first published by Seamus Hughes at Court Watch. I want to give credit where credit is, Hugh. Seamus spends an ungodly amount of time looking at PACER and other court documents and found this. Some background on this court, right? It's established in 1996 by the Anti Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. That law allows the Attorney General to designate someone as a terrorist and use this process if Title 2 removal would be a threat to national security. Now, the hearings in the atrc, I will say they fly extremely close to the sun with regards to constitutional rights and the concept of a fair trial. There are lots of provisions in this law for classified evidence, restrictions on the things that the defendant can obtain by discovery. The law also says an alien subject to removal under this title shall not be entitled to suppress evidence that the alien alleges was unlawfully obtained. That's great stuff. It's just worth noting, 1996 is before the start of the global war on terror and it therefore predates the existence of the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, where the United States had a base at Guantanamo Bay. But the large scale extrajudicial torturing of people, what they called enhanced interrogation at Guantanamo Bay had not begun in 1996. Right. I'm not saying that they were not doing extrajudicial things in 1996. I'm just saying that like the Gitmo as we understand it today, for those of us who have grown up with it as a political reality for most of our adult lives, didn't exist in that sense, then I'm not saying that there were not people detained there. They probably were. I'm not saying they did not do extrajudicial things in pursuit of, quote, unquote, anti terrorism. I believe they did. Boasberg mentioned this court, Judge Boasberg, we remember him from the El Salvador secot cases, when he told the government that there was a procedure for someone accused of terrorism because the government basically said, oh, well, these people are terrorists. Look at that. We put them on a plane, sent them to a death camp in El Salvador, essentially.
- [41:25]
Ryan Weiss
Right.
- [41:25]
James Stout
A prison that very few people leave. Eventually, most of those people did leave in this case, but it was very unusual for someone to leave that camp. And what he said was, quote, so if there's a national security concern with having these hearings, whether via habeas or otherwise, you can always go to the atrc, which would be a first. But that's what it's there for, right? So at the time, he's pointing to it saying, if you can't put the evidence for these people's, the need to remove these people out in public, that's why we have the atrc. Why don't use that? Trump administration said, we can use that. That does not mean we have to use that. And that was their argument. Right. The court is open not just to people engaged in terrorism, it's also their families. It's also people accused of things like soliciting others to engage in acts of terrorism or raising funds. It also appears that once a person, they've submitted an application for removal through this court, they can detain a person. The court has this crazy website, like, it looks like it was very hastily created. It's not a usual website for a court at all. Usually court websites look like they were made in the late 1990s. They are very difficult to navigate, and they have a huge amount of data that it's hard to find. That's why a lot of us like to use Court Listener or some other website rather than going directly to the to the court pages, which can be very hard to navigate. This page lists the judges where each of the judges comes from a different U.S. circuit. And it has the two documents that the court has made available so far. One is pretty much all blanked out. The other one is a court order in which the court's chief judge asserts that, quote, the government could benefit from an opportunity for more thoughtful consideration. So they've made an application to remove someone by this court, and that is a response of the court at this time.
- [43:04]
Francesca Hong
Right.
- [43:05]
James Stout
Obviously this is very concerning, Right. Immigration court to begin with, I think is getting closer and closer to being something that is sort of openly flouting the Constitution and people's rights there. You know, immigration judges are not judges in the sense that you understand judges to be, even though some of them have worked hard to give people due process and many of them are now being removed, one could surmise, because of that. But if we look at this, in addition to the United States adding groups in Mexico and Europe to the FTO list, foreign terrorist organization, for those who aren't familiar, it's especially concerning, right? And it's especially concerning when we look at another announcement this week which explicitly cited NSPM7 which we've spoken about length on this show, limiting visas for people it calls anti fascist and far left terrorist groups. The announcement began going to quote from extensively here, right. Far left terrorist and aligned groups use sophisticated organized networks to perpetrate violence as a political tool, seeking to implement an extreme political vision through intimidation and coordinated campaigns of terror. It is a strategy that explicitly aims to undermine the political foundations of free and self governing societies, utilizing bombings, assassinations and other forms of terrorism to silence speech, limit political opposition, change policy outcomes and sabotage political processes. This announcement also said that it targets members of far left terrorists and other aligned groups who have supported or incited acts of terrorism, supported violent criminal activity, participated in economic sabotage, financed, recruited or provided logistical support for violent or criminal actions committed by far left terrorists and other aligned groups, and or facilitated the convergence of far left terrorist and other aligned networks for the purposes of violent action. Some of these are pretty broad, right? Economic sabotage, normally I would say with ludicrous suggested that could include bds. But I think given where we are, it's not crazy to think that some of these facilitating the conversions is that holding a big summit is the logistical support for violent criminal actions. Does that mean bail funds? All of these things, cash bail I guess is less of a thing. Outside the US does that mean people who have done jail support? That kind of thing? This is super concerning. The State Department explicitly cites section 212, subsection A, part 3, subsection C of the Immigration and Nationality act, which deals with the inadmissibility of aliens. This section begins, quote, an alien whose entry or proposed activities in the United States Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is inadmissible. So that's a very very broad category, Right? Notably it is not subsection B which deals specifically with terrorism in which terrorists are inadmissible. This is a different one which deals with this very broad power given to the Secretary of State to decide whose admission would be bad for the United States foreign policy consequences. They've used this before, right? This is a favorite of this administration. But again, this is an example of a law which gives massive leeway to, in this case, part of the executive branch, Secretary of State. And it is therefore he's using that leeway, right. To do this. I think that we should be especially concerned when we combine this with some of the other things that we're seeing, right? We are seeing social media surveys of applicants, right? People have to submit their whole social media before they apply. We are seeing phone searches at the border more and more frequently, right? Famously, the JD Vines meme. But it's not uncommon to see these phone searches at the border. Now, we have also seen this week the elimination of duration of status for a number of visas. F1s being probably the most numerous. F1 being a student visa, Right. Also some foreign journalist visas, other visa types as well, included there. But I want to focus on the F1s because I think that will be the one that impacts the most people. So generally, with an F1 visa, once you maintained status, that is, once you are still in school, you could keep your student visa, right? Now, these include, like, a time limit on the duration of the visa. For some people, this will be a serious issue. If you are entering, for example, just speaking from experience here, if you are entering a program in the United States in the humanities and you are entering with a bachelor's degree, right. Not a master's degree, you will then have to advance to candidacy, right? Complete the requirements for your master's degree and demonstrate competency in two languages. Let's assume you are not someone who is multilingual. That could take a while, right? Like, depending on how strict the testing is at the particular university you go to, then you will have to research, then you will have to write, then you will have to do a dissertation. These time limits on the F1 visa are less than the nominal time to degree at some institutions. And that means that it's going to be very hard for graduate students, especially, to come to the United States to do those degrees. That, combined with this denial of visas thing, is going to have an impact on the way campuses look in the United States. It's going to have a broader impact than that. Of course it is. But this is a thing that I have direct experience with. F1 student visas are numerous. I've taught dozens, if not hundreds of F1 students. I came on a student visa when I did my PhD and one of the reasons that people come here, and this is something that I've heard from so many people, is that, like, this country has a Bill of Rights and the very First Amendment to the Constitution guaranteed freedom of speech. And that isn't the case everywhere. And that is a thing that is good, but it is more and more and more under attack, especially for foreign students. Right? We've seen this right from the very beginning of the Trump administration, and I believe that this will be part of that same attack. Right? And when we look at all these things together, these are the clearest signposts we have seen yet to the new McCarthyism. Right? We can talk about what Rubio said about Cuba. We can talk about this antifa summit, which I will talk about soon in more depth. But it is not hard to draw a line from, for instance, the prosecution and the persecution outside the legal system of Lincoln brigadiers. Right. People who volunteered to fight fascism in Spain to what is happening today. And it is sad but not shocking to see yet another shameful aspect of this country's history resurfacing and becoming policy again. So I guess I'll just finish up by saying if this has impacted you, if you are someone who's recently had a visa refused, if you are somebody who was trying to get in on F1 visa and is now finding shit, I don't think I can do my degree in that much time. What do I do here? I always want to tell stories about people, not just about government announcements. So you can hit us up coolzonetipson me if you'd like to talk about that. Thanks. And I'll be back with everybody next week.
- [50:01]
Garrison Davis
We will discuss tariffs and even more far left terrorism after this ad break.
- [50:16]
Juliana
Bill, why is my eye twitching? Does this mean I'm in perimenopause? Maybe I have adult adhd. I need to look this up. Where's my phone?
- [50:24]
Perry Wilson
Juliana, your phone phone is hot to the touch. I think it's asking you for a break.
- [50:28]
Juliana
You know what? Maybe I should just ask ChatGPT.
- [50:30]
Perry Wilson
Or maybe we can ask an actual human.
- [50:32]
Juliana
Yes, like a couple sex therapist.
- [50:34]
Perry Wilson
Whoa, that escalated quickly, but okay, because I have questions. We have questions.
- [50:40]
Juliana
And I bet everyone has questions, like, is it normal to sleep in separate bedrooms? We do that.
- [50:45]
Perry Wilson
How about this one? Is bribing your kids bad parenting or just negotiating?
- [50:49]
Juliana
Oh, and I still do need to know, why was my poop green that one time?
- [50:53]
Perry Wilson
Hypothetically. Right. Okay. Well, instead of letting the Internet guess we've got actual people answering these exact
- [51:00]
Juliana
questions and laughing with us has got to be better than spending three hours down a rabbit hole online.
- [51:05]
Perry Wilson
Listen to Bill and Juliana, the podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
- [51:16]
MC Jen
You said to me, yo, you know, keep at it. Cause you let me rap for you. It was magical for all of us.
- [51:21]
Emily Oster
Ah, we made it.
- [51:22]
Robert Evans
We made it.
- [51:23]
MC Jen
We can't. I'm like, we.
- [51:24]
Garrison Davis
You know, I'm like, I know these
- [51:26]
MC Jen
guys, but who are you? I'm MC Gin. And this is last but not least, I'll be chatting with guests from all walks of life about the power of humor when it comes to facing difficult times, like the co founder of Rough Ryders, Darren D. Dean, talking about as a kid. Do you remember that we met even way before that?
- [51:44]
Francesca Hong
Let me think.
- [51:44]
Emily Oster
Did you walk up to the gate?
- [51:46]
MC Jen
That was me, D. That was you? That was me the day we found out that you and the whole crew was at Hit Factory. The mission was to get me to go to the gate, start freestyling, and see if I could get in the studio. I'm rapping, and then suddenly I hear a voice. Hey, open the gate. Let him in the gate. Slowly went. They all there watching this, and they watch me walk into there. And that is a moment that I will remember for the rest of my life. Listen. And last but not least, with McGinnis on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [52:16]
Francesca Hong
What did black music, food and culture teach us about who we were becoming?
- [52:20]
Garrison Davis
2016 was sort of that last era
- [52:23]
Tarika Foster Brasby
of monoculture where we still consumed things
- [52:27]
Francesca Hong
in community from Beyonce and Rihanna.
- [52:30]
Garrison Davis
Everybody wanted to be Beyonce.
- [52:32]
Marco Rubio
Ugh.
- [52:32]
Tarika Foster Brasby
I don't think we'll ever see another Rihanna.
- [52:35]
Francesca Hong
To Seoul. Memory, identity, and the stories we carry through black culture.
- [52:39]
Robert Evans
What does it mean to be black
- [52:40]
Tarika Foster Brasby
and eat in America? So we were this group of people who knew how to work the land, who knew how to live with the land. We make it do what it do.
- [52:48]
Francesca Hong
Therapy for black girls is bringing together the conversation shaping black life right now.
- [52:53]
Tarika Foster Brasby
You will never make me feel bad for being a black girl, for being a black American girl ever.
- [52:57]
Francesca Hong
Therapy for black girls is bringing it all to the mic. Listen to therapy for black Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.
- [53:07]
Tarika Foster Brasby
Hey, everybody. I'm Tareka Foster Brasby. What's up, y'?
- [53:10]
Francesca Hong
All?
- [53:11]
Tarika Foster Brasby
I'm your girl. Sheryl Swoopz, when you tune in to a new episode of our podcast, Levels to this, you're definitely gonna get some Spy CWMBA analysis. I see a lot of men who get into the space because now it's a hot product and that grinds my gears to dust. But then the conversation goes on and levels up beyond basketball. It's been really, really cool seeing kind of these women just really step into their power off the court and understand that they are basketball, right? And they're not asking for permission because on Levels to this, the game is always the starting point. But we're more than just hoops and the real conversation is what we actually bring. This is Levels to this, the podcast about all the levels of stuff that women go listen to Levels to this with Sheryl Swoopes and Tarika Foster brasby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [54:17]
Robert Evans
We're back. So earlier this week the U.S. state Department put out a 100 page report, this would be on Monday, about Cuba's history of trying to overthrow or manipulate US Politics via left wing activists and quote unquote, left wing militants going back to the 60s. When they say going back to the 60s. Basically what I mean is pretty much exclusively the 60s and 70s is almost everything in this document that relates to the US Directly in any way. The document which is basically this is just to give you a little bit of background. This is all Rubio, right? Not just what Garrett has been talking about, but particularly trying to drum up fear and panic around Cuba and justify an invasion or regime change in Cuba. That's been his whole life goal for a very long time. There's a pretty good Guardian article from last year with the title Marco Rubio, Nir's Goal of Toppling Cuba's Government. And I want to read a brief quote from that. The campaign against Cuba's government is the culmination of a personal pursuit spanning decades. In a video released on Cuban Independence Day this week, Rubio said in Spanish that a U.S. embargo was not the reason for the country's privations, telling Cubans that currently the only thing standing in the way of a better future are those who control your country. All roads have been leading to Cuba for Rubio, said a person who has known Rubio since his time as a local politician in South Florida. He has wanted this for a long time and now he finally has the authority to reach that goal. Now Trump has made a couple comments that make people believe he is in the process of planning to try and force the government of Cuba out one way or another. Last Thursday, he told reporters, other presidents have looked at this for 50, 60 years doing something about Cuba, and it looks like I'll be the one that does it. So I would be happy to do it. Now, hard to say is that actually means anything. Trump says a lot of stuff that doesn't come true, but there's been real world reasons to believe that he seriously intends to do this. I mean, first off, what happened in Venezuela, right, where we used our special operations forces to take out and extradite a legally elected, well, tax, right. The president of a sovereign country, right? This is something that, like, you've had like a lot of planners in the Pentagon talking about for years is like, well, we could use these guys to just deal with problems, problems at the top, right? And for Rubio, there's a lot of speculation that Venezuela was kind of a proof of concept for him, right. That we could in fact use a very small footprint force, get the current ruling regime out of there or enough of them that they're not willing to fight back anymore. And that might be something that the US Military is capable of doing. I don't have a great sense as to Cuba's defensive capacity or how functional they would be at doing this, or how much support the regime would enjoy in the event that the US Tried this or how much that support would matter. It kind of depends on the weapon systems they use at the moment. We know that the US Nimitz and its strike group have recently been brought into the South Caribbean Sea as part of an ongoing military buildup. And there have been some other signs that the regime is planning to act. Axios recently published an article that cited administration estimates that Cuba now has some 300 military drones, quote, and was considering using them to attack a US Base at Guantanamo Bay. US Ships or even targets in Florida,
- [57:23]
Garrison Davis
Miami, your days are numbered.
- [57:26]
Robert Evans
Now, folks, I'm gonna walk you through some stuff. First off, we don't actually have hard evidence that they bought any of these drones. There was some earlier reporting and I'm sure they have been talking with Iran. And I know that they have ongoing defense agreements with Russia. And I wouldn't be shocked if they had bought like 300 of these, like, Shahid style, cheaper suicide drones. Here's the thing. The night before we recorded this, Ukraine launched a major attack on Moscow using 400 drones. If Cuba does have 300 Iranian drones, that is roughly enough to carry out an offensive against US forces for two to three seconds. Perhaps a little more. Maybe more like 15 to 20, you know, but it's not an invasion force. It's not really a defensive force. And we also don't know that they even have them. Right. It wouldn't be weird if they did. But this isn't any reason to believe there's any kind of a threat coming from Cuba. The fact that they're trying to really hype up 300 drones, it's 20, 26. You can run through that in an afternoon.
- [58:21]
Emily Oster
Yeah, and also, like, I just want to be very clear, Cuba is not planning to launch strikes on the United States.
- [58:26]
Robert Evans
Come on, like, you look at the last 60 years of history, right? We had one big dust up with him over the fucking Bay of Pigs. And obviously the Cuban government funded and sent soldiers and doctors and other stuff into a variety of countries, and that led to conflicts in places like Africa with the US but there's never been any direct aggression from Cuba towards the United States. No, we're not in danger from them. One of the most ridiculous things you could do today is watch the celebrated Aaron Sorkin movie A Few Good Men, which is entirely about how well, you know, you don't understand how difficult it is protecting America from Cuba. You know, we really. We got to be extra crazy to keep the Cubans off the walls of the United States. Like it's fucking nonsense. And it's. Marco is number one. Marco comes from a Cuban American background. His whole family hates the Castro government. He has wanted and seen himself as ordained to destroy the communist government in Cuba for his entire life. That doesn't mean that there's any kind of realistic threat here or any real reason to feel like any kind of actual danger. And you can see that in the report itself, right? There's even some bits here where almost admit it.
- [59:33]
James Stout
Right?
- [59:33]
Robert Evans
I'm going to read one segment. The Cuban campaign against America is unique. It is irregular and covert. Even at the peak of its military power, Havana never possessed the capacity to defeat the United States in a conventional armed conflict. Instead, the Cubans perfected a new model for a long war of attrition organized around espionage, infiltration, sabotage, proxy networks, and a revolutionary infrastructure designed to turn America against itself. Did Cuba do that? Did Cuba turn America against itself? And also, if they've protected a war of attrition, why are they out of gas? And like, the United States is the healthiest economy in the world. I mean, it's because we stole a bunch of shit. But there's no evidence that Cuba's done some sort of Horrible damage to the US and in fact all of the damage says otherwise. That we've continued to fuck over the Cubans for goddamn no reason for decades. It's incredibly frustrating. And again, the more you read this, the more you realize unless he's talking about like shit that because he does periodically talk about like fucking South America and some of the different, like Cuban like state involvement there. But when he's talking about acts that can be traced to Cuba that involve violence in the US at all, it's just shit from the 60s and 70s, right? Which is like back when Cuba's economy was functional and they had the backing of the ussr and also like none of it ever came close to doing serious damage to the United States as like a national, like as a nation, right? None of that. That was never in the fucking cards. You know, it's very frustrating to have to even take any of this serious. But you do, because they are going to try to blame and try to punish and imprison based on this fucking fantasy, right? And one of the things you've seen a lot of quotes like when Marco came up to talk and give a speech about this report, he accused Iran and Cuba of funding both antifa and the dsa, right?
- [61:12]
Emily Oster
Like, come on.
- [61:13]
Robert Evans
And he'll make these comments in his speeches. The actual report isn't even willing to go that far because when you get to the meat of the report, Marquito doesn't even have the guts to call the DSA a Cuban op. Quote, the DSA was not founded as a Cuban intelligence or influence front. It was born in 1982 as a Fusion of socialist organizations and movements from both the old left and new left factions. And you know, like they're right that people in the DSA are very angry about what the US is doing to Cuba because they're out of fuel and starving and being continually harmed by our completely pointless boycotts and trade fucking wars. Like there's not much more than that for most people to it. There's some weirdos out there.
- [61:50]
Garrison Davis
But it is really interesting how carefully the report talks about DSA because like DSA is mentioned a lot. DSA is mentioned very frequently, but there's no direct connection. DDSA is mentioned 24 times in a 100 page document. But they are very careful to be like DSA can be sympathetic to the Cuban government, but DSA is not a result of Cuban influence necessarily.
- [62:14]
Robert Evans
No. And I think the argument they are making is that you had a split between the old left and the new left and the Cuban Government founded a bunch of new left factions. And because the DSA is a fusion of old left and new left factions, that means that they're partly a result of Cuban operation. Sure, that's what they're trying to argue. Right. It's nonsense.
- [62:36]
Garrison Davis
Or build some sort of historical justification to if they go after DSA people or activists who have gone to Cuba to deliver humanitarian aid that build some sort of framework to criminalize people who are sympathetic to people living in Cuba.
- [62:51]
Robert Evans
Yeah, I think that's precisely what's happening. And one thing that's kind of telling is even among news sources that are like sympathetic to the right and to the administration, no one's pretending that this paper isn't just Marco like pushing out his own personal vendettas. Like, I found a Washington examiner article that summarized the report as Marco Rubio accusing the Cuban government. Here's an exact quote from the Washington Examiner. Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused the Cuban government of running one of the most sophisticated infiltrations of, of US politics, in part using the Democratic Socialists of America. So even with a lot of these articles, they're like, yeah, this is just Rubio fucking spouting off, right? Like, this is mostly old Marco. And among some of like the crazy, like anti communist sites I've been reading, they're still like, well, there's nothing new in this. They didn't. They are reading like, well, nothing past like the 70s involves the US directly.
- [63:41]
Garrison Davis
Which isn't to say there's not real danger here, right?
- [63:43]
Robert Evans
There is no huge danger.
- [63:45]
Garrison Davis
One of the main activists at that Code Pink, which was this organization that, that co organized some of those aid trips to Cuba, is under federal investigation right now. And this indicates that despite how much of this is just Rubio having fun with his little pet project, this does show where the targets of the administration are. Oh yeah, and that can be the DSA and people doing humanitarian aid trips.
- [64:09]
Robert Evans
And it's specifically because of that humanitarian aid trip, right? Like that gave Rubio a really good like, you know, honestly, more than anything, I think just pissed him off because he hates the Cuban government more than anything. And the idea that anyone would want to like, bring aid to the people in Cuba is like, infuriating to him. Now again, we know that Trump is in the process of planning to try and force the government of Cuba out one way or another. That doesn't mean he actually will. Right. He hasn't committed fully to that yet. But given what happened in Venezuela and given what's going on in Iran, I Think it would be foolish to say, I don't think he's going to try. Right. Like, I think that's not the smart. If I'm making a bet, I certainly hope he doesn't. I hope they get scared. I hope shit with Iran is bad enough that they chicken out. But I think it would be foolish to assume they're not going to try and unseat the government of Cuba. Right.
- [64:53]
Stephen Miller
Yeah.
- [64:54]
Robert Evans
I don't think that's the rational way to look at this. Right. And whether this is all bluster or not, you know, is going to be seen. But as I said, the US Nimitz and its strike group have moved into the south Caribbean and there's a lot of talk about, like, oh, we think the Cubans are planning an attack on Guantanamo. Last Thursday, Marco Rubio repeated his claim that Havana has weapons they acquired from, quote, Russia and China and that they host Russian and Chinese intelligence in country, which is also interesting that he, he's so stuck in the Cold War, he has to keep bringing Russia into it. Now there's a big debate as to like, how committed is Trump actually to unseating the Cuban government? And that's always hard to tell because when he does talk about it, it sounds like, oh, he wants that feather in his cap. But you also get the feeling this is a thing where whoever he talks to last, as in a lot of cases, going to heavily set his agenda. And Senator Chris Murphy, who serves on the Foreign Relations Committee, said something like that, quote, I do think that as Trump gets older and he spends his days sleeping and worrying only about his ballroom, he's increasingly susceptible to dangerous people around him with dangerous agendas. And there is a crowd of Cuba hawks who have always wanted us to invade and who think they might be able to take advantage of an increasingly checked out old man. And I just think we have to be prepared for that. And honestly, I think Chris pretty much that. Like that. Yeah, that's more or less right, Chris. I think that's, that's, that's basically an accurate summary.
- [66:10]
Garrison Davis
Sanest man in the room.
- [66:12]
Robert Evans
Yeah, that sounds right to me.
- [66:16]
Garrison Davis
Let's turn to the midterm elections before we close. In Florida, the groiper candidate for governor, James Fishback, who I did an episode about a few months ago, is not going to win that election. But he is polling double digits, which is bad. And worse, he is dominating youth polls. He has 51% in youth polls. That's ages 18 to 34. Really a really dark look at a future of the Republican Party. Fishback is like barely even, like a crypto fascist. He's barely even hiding it. I mean, he plays with dog whistles, but also just openly says a bunch of like, anti Semitic stuff and very racist attacks, all with a sort of wink, wink, nudge, nudge in that classic groiper charisma style. But there's another aspect of the Fishback race I want to briefly mention is that there's been a lot of AI ads targeted against Fishback where it has like, AI generated video, you know, deepfake style of Fishback with like the squad and Russia and Putin and Alon Omar and Rashida Talab, foreign generals, Muslim leaders in the Middle east with hijabs. Basically, he's like welcoming all of these people into his home and they cut up an anti Israel cake. And that's the ad. It looks, I mean, like someone like me can tell it's AI. A boomer might not be able to. And this is something that Thomas Massie, since losing his race, has said that he. He believes through talking with, with voters, specifically older voters, that many boomers and older voters believed the AI ads against Massie, that Massey was in like a throuple with like AOC and someone else, Elon Omar. I think that he actually got calls, his office got calls asking if this was true. So these sorts of AI ads are a real problem. Obviously the fact that these are against Fishback, I'm not being sympathetic to fish back here, but this is a more general societal problem. Moving on to another governor's race in Wisconsin, Democratic socialist Francesca Hong is ahead in the polls, but many people are still undecided. In a Wedgwood poll for mid July, Francesco Hong is up 38%, Mandela Barnes is 30% and David Crowley is 9%. Though undecided or supporting another candidate is pulling at 23% in that poll. So there could still be upwards of like 20% of people who are undecided. There's been some other polls in the past few days that show Francesca Hong about 15% above everyone else. So that is a good sign for her. I know there's been some organizers from New York and across the country going into Wisconsin right now to help with this last leg of the campaign. This is a very important race looking at what the future of the viability of democratic socialism is going to be in swing states this past week. David Crowley re entered the race, which may split the moderate vote, which could help Hong win the primary. It's another thing to keep an eye on here in Maine, Troy Jackson is set to be the Democratic Senate nominee after organizers and volunteers secured the vast majority of delegates for the nominee replacement convention. I've mentioned Jackson a few times on the show because he ran for governor with the endorsement of DSA and Bernie Sanders. He was the only person to receive the endorsement of dsa. Platner did not. Jackson's a former state lawmaker, a five generation logger, very pro labor, like the most like legitimate working class pro labor candidate. He's pulling a little bit ahead of Collins right Now, like about 3%. But this is going to be a very close race. This is going to be very tough. Another really close race right now is the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan with corporate and APAC backed Haley Stevens going up against left wing populist Abdul El Said. There has been a ton of outside spending the past few weeks with multiple attack ads smearing, El Said as quote unquote sexist. And these are all just for him, like criticizing female politicians, like criticizing Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama, like not attacking them for being women, but doing very, sometimes actually very soft criticism of like their ability to improve the world as political actors. But the playbook that Stevens and that larger campaign has been using has been trying to smear El Said as a quote unquote sexist podcast bro. This is the sort of last, last slighted defense. This style of liberalism has had this going back to this sort of identity reductionism. When they are faced with, you know, vast actual economic and policy differences between two candidates, the only thing they can do is oh, but Haley Stevens, I am a woman and this man must hate women. AIPAC is helping with this. They have already spent at least $15 million with other corporate PACs helping Stevens with another 12 million. As of July 1, there's already been over 46 million in ad spending, 74% of which supports Stevens. And there's a lot of money going in since that July 1st date as well. One of the pro Stevens ads has manufactured a fake Obama endorsement using old clips of Obama talking about Haley Stevens because she worked with him like 15 years ago. Now Obama has declined to comment on this sort of manufactured fake endorsement, which is effectively just letting them do that. If he's not going to say no, I haven't actually endorsed in this race, then basically he's allowing them to lie about him endorsing Stevens in this race. Meanwhile, El Said is on the news almost every week getting grilled about why he doesn't support Israel enough. And Israel has been a very important part of this race. This is in Michigan. Michigan was a big part of the uncommitted movement and Stevens is a ridiculously pro Israel candidate who has voted to send tens of billions of dollars in unrestricted aid to Israel, has stopped the Lebanon War Powers Resolution, has banned the State Department from citing Gaza Health Ministry death tolls. And Stevens also sees Israel in her dreams
- [72:45]
Robert Evans
and in the United States Congress.
- [72:49]
Tarika Foster Brasby
I will continue to fight for the people of Israel. I will continue to fight for Israel's existence.
- [72:58]
Emily Oster
Israel comes to me in my dreams. I see Israel's future.
- [73:03]
Garrison Davis
Meanwhile, El Said wants to abolish ice, fight for Medicare for all and cut off all aid to Israel. He's certainly running a downstream of Zoran Mamdani style campaign with his videos. He has declined to explicitly call himself a democratic socialist, but there's a lot of similarities in his platform to some other DSA candidates like Zoran though. El Said is not endorsed by dsa, but he is running with backing of the UAW and the Working Families Party. Speaking of elections, let's close out by talking about election security because on Thursday night President Trump delivered what was promised to be a very important address to the nation on election security. The speech started out as a basically mini version of his last State of the Union before he announced the release of heavily redacted CIA documents on how China tried to influence our past elections, intelligence reports on possible vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure, and finally claiming that 250,000 non citizens are registered to vote with no further details or evidence of that number. Basically this whole speech was a big ploy to try to pass the SAFE act to restrict mail in voting and disenfranchise voters with heightened ID requirements. Trump also talked about how China had stolen election data. What actually happened was China downloaded publicly available voter data in 2022 that the Trump Admin now claims could be used by foreign countries to fraudulently vote in our elections. And of course China was looking at possible influence operations as many foreign countries do. Russia has done foreign influence operations. That's not changing vote tallies or hacking into voting machines. That's doing disinformation campaigns which as we've seen with tenant media, Russia has certainly been involved in recently. And according to some of these documents, China was looking into if they wanted to run influence operations for the 2020 election and they actually declined to. After Trump's address, reporters questioned John Solomon, a former right wing journalist who Trump brought on to his election task force to investigate possible voter fraud, and Solomon clarified that there's no evidence that any foreign power Tampered with US Voting machines or manipulated the vote count.
- [75:38]
Robert Evans
You acknowledge that there were no votes changed in 2020?
- [75:40]
Perry Wilson
I. All I can acknowledge is what the intelligence shows. Right. I only know the Intelligence Committee has zero evidence that someone has flipped, that a foreign power flipped a vote in 2020, 22 or 24.
- [75:50]
Robert Evans
And you have. No, you're able to.
- [75:52]
Perry Wilson
We're not.
- [75:52]
Robert Evans
Through all the documents, you're able to acknowledge that Venezuela has not tampered with voting. Which machines in the United States?
- [75:57]
Perry Wilson
No, the, the, the intelligence is very clear. They did it on their own machines. Why is it important that they did it on their machines? Their machine protocols are the same as America. Why? Because for a long time they did.
- [76:08]
Robert Evans
Exactly. And so the 2020 election was in fact the results as we, the American.
- [76:14]
Perry Wilson
I'm still researching, so let me, let me. This is the first.
- [76:16]
Marco Rubio
But there's no intelligence, there is no
- [76:20]
Robert Evans
intelligence that the election would have said that Donald Trump was president.
- [76:26]
Garrison Davis
On Friday, the day following Trump's address, DHS Secretary Mullen announced that regardless of if the SAVE act passes, he will institute mandatory changes to election security, including scrubbing states voter rolls.
- [76:44]
Marco Rubio
We are going to make our second, our, our security enhancements mandatory, meaning that if these states want to grant and they want to be reimbursed to work or to run federal elections, they're going to have to implement security issues. Just security issues. We're not trying to get into anything else, but we're saying that the machines have to be secured and that your voter registration list needs to be secured, scrubbed.
- [77:16]
Garrison Davis
If this actually happens, this could possibly lead to many people thinking they are registered to vote, who are actually not come election day and then be unable to vote. This is a voter disenfranchisement tactic. Secretary Mullen later directly contradicted what John Solomon said the night before, saying that, quote, we know for sure that foreign adversaries have vital pieces of our voting machines and the quote, unquote, key to the back end of these machines.
- [77:46]
Marco Rubio
We know that they can change voter registration and your vote. We know it's possible. There's not a question. It's not even for debate.
- [77:57]
Garrison Davis
Finally, on Wednesday, the House advanced a bill to stop insider trading, except Republicans added SAVE act style measures into this bill to pass new voter ID requirements to please Trump. And part of why they put those SAVE act style measures into this bill is so that they could attack Democrats in upcoming elections for voting against a bill to stop insider trading. Literally seconds after this bill was voted on the White House, rapid response accounts started posting quote, disgraceful. 198 Democrats just voted against banning members of Congress from trading stocks while they're in office. Yes, they're corrupt, as you can see. Very transparent ploy to manufacture a vote to be used in elections to attack Democrats for being corrupt. This, quote, unquote insider trading bill will now go to the Senate with those Save act style voter ID measures included.
- [78:56]
Robert Evans
All right, thank you for that, Gare. And last but certainly not least, we've got one more edition of the Tariff song and then talking about tariffs after it.
- [79:07]
Emily Oster
All right, let's talk tariffs. So long ago in a galaxy far, far away, which is to say really, truly not that long ago, we did an episode on the hideously illegal terrorists Trump imposed under the quote, unquote authority of Section 122 of the Trade act of 1974. These are the ones that are based on this completely manufactured crisis about the US Facing a balance of payments crisis. A thing that cannot happen and is not happening now. These tariffs, which is just a general 10% tariff on all goods, are set to expire on Friday, July 24, quite possibly the day you were listening to this. So on Monday, July 20, Trump took the most dramatic tariff action he has taken since the Supreme Court found he was illegally using the International Emergency Economic Powers act to apply tariffs in February. By the time you are listening to this, presumably he is going to have unleashed a wrath. You know, I was originally gonna say raft, but wrath actually works too, of new tariffs. But as of the time of recording, the one that has been revealed specifically is that he is imposing a 50% tariff on goods imported from Canada or some goods imported from Canada. Now, I'm going to get into what that tariff is actually going to do in a second, but the important thing here is not this specific tariff itself, but the legal authority Trump is using to invoke it. He is invoking Section 338 of the so called Smoot Hawley Tariff Act. If the name vaguely rings a bell, it's probably because Smoot Hawley is best known for exacerbating the Great Depression to the extent that it is in basically every, like every history textbook of the United States that you will read in, in high school will have this in it. This act, Smoot Hawley, is the final frontier for tariff authority. It is the tariff big red button. It is a power that has never been invoked before, even by its creators. And I genuinely don't know if it even still exists. This is the tariff Rubicon, and Trump has just crossed it. Now, before we get into this more. Let's talk for a second about Trump's nominal 50% tariff on Canada, which is actually much less of a big deal than it looks. The tariffs are supposed to take effect on August 19 and has about a million carve outs for, you know, different kinds of Canadian goods, including, for example, things like energy products, which is a huge amount of what we import from Canada. So this is only going to apply to about 5.2% of Canadian trade with the U.S. i mean, obviously that is still kind of a big deal for that 5% of trade.
- [81:52]
MC Jen
But.
- [81:52]
Emily Oster
But, you know, there's a good chance that these tariffs aren't going to go into effect at all and that this is sort of a piece of trade leverage for negotiations with Canada. These, you know, even if they did go into effect, aren't going to be the biggest deal. I'm also going to briefly mention that we finally got the long awaited pharmaceutical import tariff. And when I say long awaited, I have literally been waiting for these tariffs to be announced since the beginning of the administration to the point where I literally stopped covering the announcements that they were coming because they just never did. Apparently they are also kind of a joke. They impose a 100% tariff on pharmaceutical imports, which would be a massive deal, except it starts in 2028 and eventually rises to 200%. And like, okay, yeah, sure, Donald, whatever you say, that's not happening. None of the specifics of the tariffs matter at all or matter much at all. What is significantly more important is Trump invoking 338 of Smoot Hawley. Now, the reason he's doing this is pretty clear. All of the other avenues he has to impose tariffs legally actually have restrictions attached to them. Section 122 tariffs, as we've mentioned, are only supposed to be when there's a balance of payments crisis and you can only impose a flat rate. And once he imposes them, they have to be renewed by Congress, and that's just not happening. So those are expiring on Friday. We've talked about the Section 301 tariffs a few weeks ago. Those are the ones that nominally are about forced labor, but those also have limits and can only be imposed after a long and slow process of trade investigations. Now, obviously the way that Trump has used both of them is illegal, but even trying to use them illegally, they have definite limits. Section 338 of Smoot Hawley has basically no limits. And the one limit that's relevant for our purposes is a 50% maximum tariff rate. Otherwise, it lets the President impose tariffs on whatever country he wants. For the extremely nebulous reasoning of that country having placed, quote, the commerce of the United States at a disadvantage compared to the commerce of any foreign country, Trump can, you know, say any country is doing this for any reason. We are back to Calvin Ball nonsense. This nominal legal authority allows Trump to do whatever he wants, trade wise up to a 50% tariff tariff. Now, again, it is widely expected that by the time you're reading this, we're already going to have seen more tariffs. I'm expecting something akin to a smaller scale version of liberation tariffs. By the time you're listening, you will know more. Now, the reason I'm Talking about section 338 of Smoot Hawley and the reason I've described it as like the big red button of tariffs, like it's the tariff Rubicon, is because not only has it never been used before. Right. You know, the section 122 has also never been used before, but this one specifically, section 338, there is a real question as to whether it's even still in effect. Now, the argument you will most commonly see is that Section 338 has never formally been repealed and therefore is still on the books. This is a law that was passed in 1930. The Trump administration is making the argument that because it has never formally been repealed, it is still on the books. However, the problem is that there exists a thing called superseding statute or a, quote, implied repeal. This is the argument that I've seen that this law is not still on the books. I've seen various versions of it. The one that is kind of spreading around now for better or for worse, kind of for worse to some extent, is from Philip Zelikow, who is a Hoover Institute guy and a history professor who's writing in Reason magazine. So, like, you know, these are not the people I would normally turn to in terms of getting legal analysis on everything. But I actually think there's a kind of a decent argument that they might be right. And their argument is that, okay, because of the way that, you know, laws can supersede other laws. Right. If you write a second law that is about the same thing as the first law, and it covers explicitly the same thing, it can repeal the first law. It's sketchy. The courts don't like it functioning like that, but it does technically work like that. And, you know, Zilliqo argues that a whole train of statutes ranging from the Trade Expansion act of 1916 to our old friend Section 301 of the Trade act of 1974 cover exactly the same things and therefore have repealed the statute. I think that's actually plausible. And this is, you know, part of the reason why no one has ever actually tried to use this stuff, because there have been subsequent legislation to describe these exact powers and describe what you can do with them. So whether it even still exists is extremely dubious. Now, this is probably not going to survive a challenge in court, but until the legal challenge actually winds its way through the courts, Trump is going to be free to do his Calvin Ball nonsense. And we're back to, you know, 2025 era. TRUMP Just declaring a tariff is happening on a country every morning. Now, on a broader level. Right. What's happening here is that the way the Supreme Court has been doing shadow docket decisions have allowed Trump to simply keep breaking the law and seizing more illegal power and then using it until the Supreme Court gets around taking that power away. Now, obviously, this is not true of everything he's been trying to do with tariffs. In particular, he's been extremely successful in simply applying the tariffs and then keeping them into effect until the legal challenges go through the courts. That looks like what's going to happen here, which is going to give him probably another. I mean, it's going to give him at least half a year, probably of the ability to just do whatever bullshit tariff policy he wants, which means another year of completely unhinged economic instability for the entire global economy. It means another year of all, you know, of supply lines being degraded, of prices increasing, and of all of us getting absolutely screwed. Okay, Put a trans girl on your couch.
- [88:02]
Garrison Davis
We reported the news.
- [88:04]
James Stout
We reported the news.
- [88:13]
Tarika Foster Brasby
It could Happen.
- [88:14]
Garrison Davis
Here is a production of Cool Zone Media.
- [88:16]
Robert Evans
For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media
- [88:18]
Tarika Foster Brasby
Media, Visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check
- [88:21]
Garrison Davis
us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
- [88:23]
Emily Oster
Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts,
- [88:26]
Tarika Foster Brasby
you can now find sources for It Could Happen here, listed directly in episode descriptions.
- [88:30]
Garrison Davis
Thanks for listening.
- [88:35]
Tarika Foster Brasby
Hey, everybody. I'm Tareka Foster Brasby. What's up, y'?
- [88:38]
MC Jen
All?
- [88:38]
Tarika Foster Brasby
I'm your girl, Sheryl Swoops. When you tune in to a new episode of our podcast levels to this, you're definitely gonna get some spy, cw, NBA Analysis. But we're more than just hoops, and the real conversation is what we actually bring. It's been really, really cool seeing kind of these women just really step into their power off the court and understand that they are basketball, right? And they're not asking for permission. Listen to levels to this with Strobe Swoops and Tarika Foster brasby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Nora Jones, and my podcast Playing along is back with more of my favorite musicians. Check out my newest episode with Finneas.
- [89:24]
Garrison Davis
So I went home and I asked
- [89:25]
Robert Evans
Billie if she wanted to sing it. She immediately made it her own thing.
- [89:30]
Garrison Davis
You really know how to make me
- [89:32]
James Stout
cry when you give me those ocean
- [89:36]
Emily Oster
eyes and I'm scared.
- [89:39]
Tarika Foster Brasby
So come hang out with us in the studio and listen to Playing along on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [89:47]
Ryan Weiss
Hello, my love. I'm Ryan Weiss, and For the past 15 years, I've been an emotional intelligence coach and a spiritual guide. And I'm sharing with you my new podcast, Waking Up With Ryan. Waking Up With Ryan is a daily audio video podcast here to help you connect with yourself before the new noise of the day takes over. So let's start our days together with a moment of calm that's just for you. Listen to Waking Up with ryan on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [90:17]
Tarika Foster Brasby
I'm Emily Oster. I'm an economist and data expert.
- [90:20]
Perry Wilson
And I'm Perry Wilson.
- [90:21]
Emily Oster
I'm a medical doctor.
- [90:23]
Tarika Foster Brasby
And this is our new podcast, Wellness.
- [90:25]
Emily Oster
Actually, you're getting a staggering amount of health and wellness information, and some of
- [90:29]
Tarika Foster Brasby
it is all awesome and some of it is, well, actually, bull. Fortunately, we're both people who know how to read studies and can tell you what's worth trying out and what you can safely ignore.
- [90:41]
Emily Oster
Listen to Wellness, actually, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [90:47]
Tarika Foster Brasby
This is an iHeart podcast, Guaranteed Human.