Executive Disorder: White House Correspondents Shooting, Voting Rights Act

Summary

It Could Happen Here: Executive Disorder — White House Correspondents Shooting, Voting Rights Act

Episode Date: May 1, 2026
Hosts: Garrison Davis, Robert Evans, James Stout
Theme: “A chronicle of collapse” — this week’s episode analyzes the White House Correspondents Dinner shooting, the Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Act ruling, and their implications amid America’s ongoing institutional unraveling.

---

Episode Overview

The hosts open their “Executive Disorder” weekly newscast with a rapid-fire overview of major headlines from April 22–30, 2026, before drilling deep into two central crises:

1. White House Correspondents Dinner Shooting: A would-be mass shooting near President Trump and the DC press elite, unraveling the shooter’s background, motives, and the uncertain details of what actually happened.
2. Supreme Court Undercuts Voting Rights Act: A 6–3 ruling guts core protections for Black voters, requiring proof of discriminatory intent, not just discriminatory effect.

The team balances their signature irreverent banter with careful, evidence-based analysis — especially when deconstructing the shooting, the swirl of conspiracy theories, and the broader ramifications of institutional dysfunction.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

I. News Roundup: American Collapse in Fast-Forward

(02:57–09:08)

• DHS Shutdown to End (03:50): Congress votes to reopen DHS without ICE/Border Patrol funding, pending Trump’s signature.
• FISA Section 702 Reauthorization (04:00): Surprising bipartisan split over expanding surveillance powers.
• ATF Reverses Biden’s Pistol Brace Rule (04:17): New regulations call for “biological sex” on forms; culture war continues.
• Outlandish Patriotism: A passport for the 250th anniversary features Trump’s portrait and golden signature.
  Robert Evans [05:02]: “If we have any foreign border control agents listening, you have to detain anybody you see with that passport.”
• Paramount/Warner Bros Merger & Media Dinner Intrigue (05:44): Top media/legal figures — including Trump, Stephen Miller, and Barry Weiss — secretively meet as media consolidation surges.
• Political Shifts in Maine (06:50): Governor Mills vetoes data center moratorium, drops Senate bid.
  Robert Evans [07:06]: “The gap between how random progressives and Democrats online talk about [Graham Platner] and how people in Maine feel about him has been massive... online consensus will never matter as much as what [candidates] actually do on the ground.”
• New IRA Bomb in Northern Ireland (08:48): Old tensions boil over with a car bomb near Belfast.
• Piracy and Jihadist Insurgency (09:38): Surge in Somali piracy; Mali facing major Islamist advances; Myanmar junta rebrands but resistance remains strong.
• Major Lithium Discovery in Appalachia (12:32): Enough to replace “centuries” of imports — but at huge ecological risk.
• ICE Rebrands as 'NICE'? (13:56):
  Robert Evans [14:06]: “It’d be like, look, it’s 1943, people have issues with the Gestapo, let’s call them the Fun-stapo now.”

---

II. Landmark Supreme Court Ruling Guts Voting Rights Act

(17:42–20:45)

• Supreme Court Strikes Down Louisiana Map (17:42):
  Garrison Davis: “The new ruling substantially undermines the 1965 Voting Rights Act ... requiring evidence of intentional racial discrimination, not just effect. ... At least 15 House districts are now at risk of elimination.”

• Consequences:

  • Deepens the Republican gerrymander in the South
  • Makes it much harder to challenge racial discrimination in districting (need to prove intent)
  • Diminishes black representation

• Strong Dissent:

  • Justice Kagan: “The court’s decision will set back the foundational right Congress granted of racial equality in electoral opportunity” [18:06]

• Host Reaction:
  Robert Evans [19:17]: “This is inarguably the most important thing going on this week. Even with the shooting ... The Voting Rights Act has a body count attached to it.” James Stout [19:43]: “It’s no coming back from this.”

• Necessary Escalations (per hosts):

  • Pack the Supreme Court and “imprison a bunch of the people currently running things” (Evans, 19:55)
  • Statehood for DC & Puerto Rico, aggressive Democratic action
  • Ongoing litigation means immediate impacts are unclear, but major midterm/Kentucky ramifications by 2028

---

III. White House Correspondents Dinner Shooting: What Happened?

(24:00–59:00)

A. Sequence of Events

• Timeline

  • April 25, shortly before 8:30pm: The alleged shooter (Cole Allen) approaches a Secret Service screening on the terrace level. He ditches a black coat, sprints past a magnetometer with a 12-gauge shotgun, and heads for ballroom stairs (the president, family, and cabinet downstairs).
  • James Stout [25:37, quoting DOJ]: “As the defendant did so, he held a shotgun in both hands in a raised position ... fired the shotgun in the direction of the stairs ... A US Secret Service officer drew his weapon and fired five times ...”

• Weapons:

  • Legally purchased Mossberg shotgun (Aug 2025), .38 Super pistol (Oct 2023), two knives, four daggers.
  • Used a shoulder holster, carried extra ammo and tools.
  • Robert Evans [29:00]: “None of this screams highly trained.”
  • “Enhanced” police photos may be misleading due to digital AI sharpening.

• Shooter’s Journey:

  • Traveled Amtrak cross-country, journaling in his phone’s notes app. Used open internet sources to track the President.

B. Did He Actually Shoot?

• The government insists Allen fired his shotgun once toward a Secret Service officer (“Officer VG”), who was hit in the chest (but protected by body armor) [31:49].
• Ballistics evidence: buckshot pellet fragment found; spent shell in chamber.
• But:
  • Video analysis (Washington Post) shows only four muzzle flashes — all from the agent, not the gunman.
  • No clear video or witness evidence of Allen firing his shotgun
  • Cartridge in chamber may have been a safety/storage measure; the defense is likely to challenge DOJ’s version

Robert Evans [37:13]: “It’s really rare — impossible — to discharge a 12 gauge shotgun in a hotel like this and not have there be some sign of what you hit ... They make holes in things, that’s what they’re for.”

• Host Consensus:
  • Unclear if Allen fired at all.
  • DOJ statements often conflate “agent was shot” and “shooter was firing” as distinct events.
  • [38:54]: “They’re still affirming the agent did not shoot himself, which does not mean he was not shot by another agent.”

C. The Shooter: Background & Motives

• Who Was Cole Thomas Allen?

  • Mechanical engineering student at Caltech, teacher/tutor, keen on Nerf club (opposed modding Nerf guns to look real).
  • Prominent member of Caltech’s Christian Fellowship.
  • Robert Evans [54:45]: “He specifically justifies what he’s doing as a Christian—on Christian grounds.”

• Digital Footprint

  • Bluesky: “Random Californian guy with posts about American politics, support for Ukraine and observations of small creatures.”
  • Solidly center-left/liberal: big on Ukraine, reposts Will Stancil, anti-Elon Musk content; nothing far-left or revolutionary.
  • Manifesto: mix of apologizing to friends, a focus on maintaining “rules of engagement,” minimizing casualties, but ultimately viewing himself as acting to stop a “pedophile, rapist, and traitor” (Trump) from “coating his hands with [Trump’s] crimes.”
  • Minimal Democratic party donations; got engaged (2023+) with left protests (“White Awakes” abolitionist group).

• Manifesto Highlights:

  • Discussed targeting administration officials (“not including Mr. Patel — they are targets prioritized from highest ranking to lowest”) but claimed “most people chose to attend a speech by a pedophile, rapist, and traitor and are thus complicit…” [50:37]
  • Left rules of engagement in a “terrible format,” noted not being “military.”

• Religious & Personal Context

  • Deep, mainstream Christian background.
  • Christian source, Christianity Today [55:53]: “Allen’s father was an elder at Grace United Reformed Church … Allen himself was a strong evangelical Christian.”

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D. Security Commentary

• Allen was surprised by the lax event security, describing a “sense of arrogance” at the hotel:
  • Manifesto [58:08]: “I walk in with multiple weapons and not a single person there considers the possibility that I could be a threat. Crazy stuff.”

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IV. Conspiracy Theories: “Seeing Patterns That Aren’t There”

(62:13–74:12)

• Garrison Davis [62:13]: “Immediately after the event, tons of conspiracy theories cropped up ... Every journalist has a different version that gets immediately blasted out online and on the news.”
• Examples:
  • “Predictive programming” — Trump spokesperson joked about “shots fired” before the dinner ([64:33]).
  • A mysterious Twitter Pepe account named “Cole Allen” with an old tweet, “proving” a plot; overanalyzed Tuxedo images aligning with Trump’s, etc.
  • “Clues” like security officer’s husband telling a journalist to stay safe, broadcast call conveniently cutting out.
  • Red carpet video: “staged event with a shitty script and pre-positioned cameras” (though, as the hosts note, “it’s a press event!”).
  • The “need” for Trump’s new White House ballroom cited as the shooting’s real purpose.

Robert Evans [69:20]: “When people are actually plotting a conspiracy, they don’t go around leaving the little Easter eggs for you to find.”

• Reality Check:
  • Twitter account anomalies can be faked after the fact, names are common, and all “evidence” is circumstantial.
  • No sign the shooting achieved any deep state goal (except perhaps, ironically, bolstering the ballroom rationale).

---

V. Other Major Legal & Policy Developments

(75:09–80:52)

A. Court Rejects ICE’s Mandatory Detention Policy in Second Circuit

• 3–0 panel (Trump appointee author) rules that long-resident migrants aren’t “seeking admission,” overturning mandatory detention.
• “If someone sneaks into Yankee Stadium ... found in the 7th inning, no one would call that seeking admission.” [Judge Bianco analogy, 76:40]
• Sets up Supreme Court showdown; policy split with 5th/8th Circuits.

B. Border Wall Waivers & Legal Challenges

• Predecessor (Noem) signed major environmental waivers for Big Bend, Texas; local coalitions now suing.
• “Building roads to build barriers massively increases damage … in a state already short on public land.” (80:53)
• Marfa region highlighted as especially endangered.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Voting Rights Ruling:
  • “If [Democrats] don’t pack the court, there’s simply no chance of improving or fixing any of the problems this country has.” — Robert Evans [19:28]
• On the Shooting’s Unclear Details:
  • “It’s really rare — impossible — to discharge a 12 gauge shotgun in a hotel like this and not have there be some sign of what you hit ... They make holes in things, that’s what they’re for.” — Robert Evans [37:13]
• On the Conspiracy Rabbit Hole:
  • “When people are actually plotting a conspiracy, they don’t go around leaving the little Easter eggs for you to find.” — James Stout [64:49]

---

Timestamps for Major Segments

• News Roundup & Banter: 02:57–17:42
• Supreme Court Ruling / Voting Rights Act Discussion: 17:42–20:45
• White House Correspondents Dinner Shooting:
  • Event Overview, Forensics, Shooter’s Background: 24:00–59:00
• Conspiracies & Disinformation: 62:13–74:12
• Other Major Legal/Policy Developments (ICE, Border Wall): 75:09–81:31

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Conclusion

The episode captures the sense of a democracy eroding amid policy chaos, elite hubris, and proliferating conspiracy. The hosts blend dark humor and grounded critique, warning that, beneath the day-to-day media circus, much deeper and more consequential transformations are occurring.

If you missed the episode:

• The Supreme Court made a seismic change, gutting key voting rights protections.
• The White House Correspondents Dinner shooting remains shrouded in ambiguity, with both policy and conspiratorial clouds swirling.
• Meanwhile, legal and ecological fights over the border and immigration detention escalate, underscoring America’s “chronicle of collapse.”

“We reported the news. All of it. Again.” — James Stout [81:33]

Transcript

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[Garrison Davis]

This is it could happen Here. Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis. Today, I'm joined by James Stout and Robert Evans. This episode we're covering the week of April 22 to April 30. Anything, anything interesting happen this week?

[Robert Evans]

Very little.

[James Stout]

Not much news.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, not much. I mean, Garrison, you've joined the ranks of the vaccine injured, right?

[James Stout]

That's right, yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, I got.

[James Stout]

Also joining us of four live vaccines inside Garrison's body.

[Garrison Davis]

Yes, thank you. Thank you for having me and my four live vaccines which have obliterated my body and mind this week as I scrambled to finish the Mamdani piece. But news happens whether or not I feel bad. So let's get to it.

[James Stout]

In fact, it seems to happen a lot when we that does seem to feel that the news sometimes conspires that way.

[Garrison Davis]

Now, we will talk about the thing. Obviously we'll talk about the thing. But first, some smaller news items. To start, Congress has voted to end the 76 day DHS shutdown without funding for ICE or Border Patrol. The bill now goes to Trump today and if he signs it, the shutdown will be over. The House voted to reauthorize FISA Section 702, the Warrantless Surveillance Authority. 42 House Democrats voted to reauthorize. 22 Republicans voted against. The bills expected to be stalled in the Senate. At least this version of the bill as it included an amendment about digital currency, which the Senate will fight over. The ATF released a new list of proposed reforms and regulations repealing the Biden pistol brace rule as well as requiring, quote, unquote biological sex be used on ATF forms. The State Department is releasing a limited edition passport for the United States 250th anniversary featuring a portrait of President Trump superimposed on the Declaration of Independence and an American flag with his golden signature below. Google Trump golden signature for more.

[Robert Evans]

Look, I'm just gonna say if we have any foreign border control agents listening, you, you have to detain anybody you see with that passport.

[James Stout]

Yeah. It is now possible for Nicki Minaj and only Nicki Minaj to assemble the most unique collection of United States government documents in history. If she becomes a citizen, because she is apparently the only recipient of the gold card.

[Robert Evans]

Is it golden visa? Yeah.

[James Stout]

Yeah. So she could really, she could really get a unique, you know, Pokemon combination here of I guess it would be she'd have to advance pretty quickly from she would. I'm not clear how one goes from Gold Card citizenship. And the only way we'll find out is by closely following Nicki Minaj, the

[Garrison Davis]

DOJ indicted former FBI Director James Comey for the second time, this time for posting an Instagram image with the numbers 8647.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Once again, Trump's FCC is going after Disney's ABC licenses by directing Disney to file an early renewal order after Jimmy Kimmel made a joke a few days before the White House Correspondents dinner about First Lady Melania Trump having the quote, glow of an expectant widow. It pains me to say critical support to Jimmy Kimmel, President Trump, David Ellison, Todd Blanche, Stephen Miller, Barry Weiss, Paramount's chief legal officer and several CBS journalists met in a closed door dinner in Washington D.C. last week as the Paramount buyout of Warner Brothers and CNN progresses. Nightmare blunt rotation Maine Governor Janet Mills vetoed the state's 18 month data center moratorium, the first of its kind in the country. Days later, Mills dropped out of the Senate race, paving the way for populist candidate Graham Platner to receive the Democratic nomination and go up against Susan Collins in the midterms.

[James Stout]

Most of Dems seem to already be behind him. I saw a post from the Democrats account picture of Graham.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see how the Democratic Party kind of falls in line behind this guy given the fairly unique degree of controversy over the Nazi tattoo and a couple of other things that have come up. But this has been in general, the gap between kind of how random progressives and Democrats online talk about Platner and how people in Maine feel about him has been massive from the jump. And I think a lot of it has to do just with the fact that this guy went about campaigning in a very dedicated way. He visited basically every county that like he could. And it goes to show that the consensus that builds online around candidates will never matter as much as like what they're out there actually doing in the world. And it's useful to get a reminder of that whether or not you think this is a tremendous disaster. Just the degree to which all of the talk about this guy online had no impact on his ability to actually like win. Now this is a unique case. There aren't a whole lot of seats that are like the seat that he's going to be taking. Right. In terms of like both the weakness of your primary rival and the weakness of the other party. If you should happen to win the primary. Like this is not every congressional district, but it's still kind of an interesting case study.

[James Stout]

Maine is also like, it's not California, you know, like a Californian side discourse happens online because we're a vast state and you know, these big cities and such. And Maine is different. Like he has good ground game and that matters more there, it seems.

[Garrison Davis]

And this signifies like a rejection of democratic establishment politicians. Like a hunger for change.

[Robert Evans]

Yep.

[Garrison Davis]

And the fact that someone with all the controversies that come with Platner was able to beat the democratic establishment, I think shows how hungry, how hungry people are to upset these, these blood sucking monsters.

[James Stout]

Yeah, we'll keep reporting on that. I'm kind of interested in this race. So.

[Garrison Davis]

Yes, no, absolutely. I mean, Susan Collins plays a unique role in the Senate right now. Finally for me, on Saturday, a car bomb exploded at a police station in Dunmari, Northern Ireland. Outside Belfast, a group calling itself the quote unquote, New IRA claimed responsibility and a 66 year old man has been arrested.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, New IRA. 66 year old man.

[James Stout]

Well, the New IRA grows out of the Real IRA, right.

[Robert Evans]

Was it the New IRA who killed that journalist a few years back in Belfast?

[James Stout]

You know what? I don't know.

[Robert Evans]

The new IRA. Yep. Admitted responsibility. Yeah, yeah, that's the new IRA as well. Lara McKee is the name of the journalist who was killed.

[James Stout]

Okay.

[Robert Evans]

I think just out of negligence and incompetence during an action these people were a part of.

[James Stout]

Yeah, this is like just before COVID times. Yeah, vaguely remember. So two large vessels, including a tanker have been seized by pirates off Somalia. Another attempted hijacking by pirates was prevented. I'm just going to quote the UKMTO here. The master of a cargo vessel was approached by two small fishing vessels with armed persons aboard. One vessel approached within 600 meters. Warning shots were fired and the suspicious craft returned fire. The suspicious boat moved away and made clear of the vessel. All crew are safe and accounted for. Vessels are advised to transit with caution and report any suspicious activity to UKMDO or authorities are investigating. I saw another incident where a. A ship had fired a flare at people who were allegedly attempting to board it. Right. That it seems like there has been an uptick in incidents, especially as ships generally are having a hard time right now. The United States has also been boarding a number of vessels to inspect them as part of its, its blockade on Iran and Iranian goods. Secondly, Jnim, that's Jamat Nusrat Al Islam, Wal Muslim and the Aswad Liberation Front in Mali launched A shock offensive this week that saw them sweep into Mali's capital, assassinate the defense minister and force the military hunter and its allied Russian forces to abandon whole cities. They also abandoned a number of bases. Right. The JNIM have captured like massive amounts of Russian Africa core material. But this is a pretty ground shaking offensive. This is a big change for Mali. The Hunter in Myanmar, I think I'm gonna still keep calling them that. They've rebranded themselves as a civilian government. They're not. No. Min Ahlan has retired as a general and just become president and changed clothes and done the same. Like the Hunter reclaimed Falam this week which is in Chin State. It's capital of Chin State. Fighting has been happening there for months. I've been talking to people pretty regularly who are taking part in the, in the battle there. They're obviously, you know, they lost friends in the battle. They are not happy about this. But I think it's fair to say that spirits among the resistance generally remain pretty high and they hope that they'll return to Falam soon enough. Doug Burgum has announced a United States Geographic. Is it geographical or geological survey?

[Robert Evans]

USGS Geological Survey. Yeah, I know that because of the film Evolution starring David Duchovny.

[James Stout]

Not familiar.

[Robert Evans]

This is an important piece of news for the listeners. There was a brief period of time in between files in Californication where we thought that David Duchovny might have a career as a comedic actor and no,

[Garrison Davis]

he did not that he might have a career. I love Duchov career.

[Robert Evans]

He's had a great career, just not as a comedic actor. Yeah.

[James Stout]

Okay. So Doug Burgum has announced that the United States Geological Survey found enough lithium to replace three centuries of imports in Appalachia.

[Robert Evans]

Enough left the end to do that or make one American small town normal for a weekend.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

I want to read from this because it's kind of interesting. Quote, the southern Appalachians hold an estimated 1.43 million metric tons of lithium oxide concentrated in the Carolinas. And the northern Appalachians hold an estimated 900,000 metric tons concentrated in Maine and New Hampshire according to estimates in a new USGS scientific paper. That is like I guess big Appalachia, like going up into Maine there. Leaving that aside, lithium mining is incredibly disruptive to the environment.

[Robert Evans]

Right?

[James Stout]

Yeah. Generally there's two ways you could do it. You can extract it from brine like they do in Chile and I think other places and they're trying to do that in California. Otherwise it's open pit mining. The water use, energy use Ecological damage will be huge. The potential for disasters is not zero. And the people of Appalachia should be more than familiar with how this tends to go. Right. This is a long history of mining and mining disasters. Moving on. Donald Trump has reposted a tweet about changing the name of ICE to Nice.

[Garrison Davis]

Nice Agents.

[Robert Evans]

They should do this. I want them to do this.

[James Stout]

Yeah. It would be absolutely disastrous for audio journalism.

[Robert Evans]

It'd be like, look, we understand, you know, it's 1943. People have a lot of issues with the Gestapo. We're going to call him the Fun Stapo now.

[James Stout]

Yeah. The Nice stoppo. Yeah. The great staple.

[Robert Evans]

SS now stands for super sweet. Actually,

[Garrison Davis]

the White House account and the DHS account have posted nice images or hype videos since this as well.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

We have to consider there's, like, a 40% chance this happens at least.

[James Stout]

Yeah, no, this might happen.

[Robert Evans]

This could very much happen. Like, we're laughing, but this could be the future.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

What does the N stand for?

[James Stout]

National.

[Robert Evans]

National.

[James Stout]

It's just. It's what they call a backronym.

[Robert Evans]

I know. Garrison. With these guys, the N could have stood for a couple of things, a few things.

[James Stout]

Yeah, sure. Trump. Truth. Great idea. Do it. That is how policy is made these days.

[Garrison Davis]

This is how government policy works now. Via. Via Truth.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

This has made something clear to me that I was kind of dancing around for all, which is that I am in, in general, of any policy that just pulls the wool off of people's eyes. Like this. This is one of those things where it now should be clearer to even the really stupid people where we are as a country, when we do, when something like this happens. And so I'm supportive of it. Like, we can't have any artifice. The more you dress things up, the more people get deranged. So at least this, everyone knows what's happening. Yeah, it's really clear.

[James Stout]

I'm also generally in favor of, like, they have a budget. It is vast, but it is fixed. And if they want to spend it or rewrapping their vehicles to say nice. Yeah, fine.

[Robert Evans]

Also, it's gonna make them feel lame.

[Garrison Davis]

Are they gonna do that by buying end stickers or do they have to get the whole new sticker, do you think? Right. Are they just slap the end?

[Robert Evans]

I hope they just slap it in.

[James Stout]

I don't know if we want to open the. Open the door to them having stickers with an on, but yeah, who knows? Garrison? They had previously spent quite a lot of money wrapping vehicles, so it's not beyond them to get. Maybe they'll get a whole rebrand. Maybe it'll be nice and a picture of someone, like, holding cake.

[Garrison Davis]

Or they got to find some way to spend the seven bajillion dollars that they have.

[Robert Evans]

So either that or, you know, when we get someone better in, we could keep the name, but just create, like, a brand partnership with the city of Nice. I was going to say that. And turn them into advertising. Instead of pulling people away from their families, they can tell people about all of the new deals on airfare to France that are available right now.

[Garrison Davis]

We don't even need to abolish Nice. We can just perform it.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

We could just.

[Robert Evans]

We could just reform it to a. A tourism agency. For one city in France.

[James Stout]

There is a type of biscuit which I suspect maybe comes from Nice, but it's generally referred to as a nice biscuit because it has NICE stamped on the biscuit. Sure. So perhaps we could, instead of guns, give them biscuits and they can hand those out.

[Robert Evans]

Think of how much better it'll be. Some guy shows up for his, like, you know, immigration court meeting and he finishes that, and on his way out, there's a delegation of guys from. From Nice just being like, you want to go on vacation? One of France's top five or six

[James Stout]

cities, I assume the Nicoise cops. Yeah. They give you, like, one of those special sal they make there with. Yeah. So many.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

It could be great. Hit us up.

[Robert Evans]

This could be it. This could work. Yeah.

[James Stout]

If you're the mayor of Nice, we can. We can introduce you. Yeah. Finally, the United States has indicted the governor of Sinaloa on drug trafficking charges, which is a pretty significant thing.

[Garrison Davis]

Well, that's not as funny.

[James Stout]

Yeah. No, no, no. Well, they're not going to be brand rebranding it Sinaloa, clearly, are they?

[Garrison Davis]

So, speaking of not being funny, let's actually talk about the bad news this week.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana voting map as a, quote, unconstitutional racial gerrymander, unquote, that effectively created a black voting district. The ruling was split six, three. On ideological lines. Alito wrote the majority opinion saying that the district violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution. The new ruling substantially undermines the 1965 Voting Rights act, reinterpreting Section 2 provisions against racial discrimination to require evidence of intentional racial discrimination, not just discrimination, as the effect. So in the future, proving discriminatory motives may be needed in order to win legal challenges against gerrymandering. By citing the Voting Rights act, this ruling specifically depowers black voters while enabling Republican gerrymandering to continue. Republicans in the south will now be able to redraw House district maps that lean Democrat that have a high number of black voters. NPR estimates at least 15 House districts are now at risk of elimination. In the dissent, Justice Alana Kagan wrote the court's decision will set back the foundational right Congress granted of racial equality in electoral opportunity. Unquote.

[James Stout]

Yeah, this is bad.

[Garrison Davis]

This is possibly the worst escalation of the continued undermining of the Voting Rights Act.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

I mean, this is inarguably the most important thing going on this week. Even with the shooting that we haven't talked about. Like the gutting of the way more important people died for. Like the Voting Rights act has a body count attached to it.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

The court has to be packed the next, like, if there's ever another Democratic or left of center administration and they don't pack the court, there's simply no chance of improving or fixing any of the problems this country has. Like, it's a necessary prerequisite.

[James Stout]

It's no coming back from this.

[Garrison Davis]

D.C. and Puerto Rico also need to become states and have their own congressional representation. Like any future opposition administration has to go completely gloves off. Like.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And we have to imprison a bunch of the people currently running things. Yeah. Like there's a lot of stuff that has to happen, but one of those is the Supreme Court needs to get packed because by God, these people are not going to approve of anything that isn't insane.

[Garrison Davis]

It's unclear if this ruling will have immediate impacts on the upcoming midterms, but by 2028 it will certainly have impacts.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Stout]

They, they had filed for an emergency decision on redistricting or I guess not redistricting. Like, like pre district. I don't know what you would call that. But, but to get this in effect before the midterms, basically. Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

The Supreme Court also sent this to a lower court to work out more details. That's going to obviously be ongoing litigation about it. Just as there will be about Florida's redistricting measure that they are trying to finalize before the midterms as well.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

And indeed California, as I think there have been some arguments made, like now that this decision has been made by the Supreme Court.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[James Stout]

Like other states will have to consider this in their redistricting. Should we take a break?

[Garrison Davis]

We shall. And then we can talk about the dinner.

[James Stout]

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[James Stout]

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[James Stout]

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[Robert Evans]

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[Mental Health Podcast Guest]

The story I've told myself about love or relationships can then shape my behavior and that can lead me to sabotage the possibility of connection. This Mental Health Awareness Month. Tune into the podcast Deeply well with Debbie Brown and explore the journey of healing, self discovery and returning to yourself. We explore higher consciousness, emotional well being, and the practices that help you find clarity, peace and self mastery in a world that can feel overwhelming. The world is becoming lonelier. We're not becoming more social and connected, we're becoming more individualized. But we actually need people and connection. If you've been searching for a soft place to land while doing the work to become whole, this podcast is for you. To hear more. Listen to Deeply well with Debbie Brown from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.

[Debbie Brown]

May is Mental Health Awareness Month and your twenties they can feel like a lot on the psychology of your 20s podcast we unpack the anxiety, the overthink thinking, the heartbreak, the identity crisis, all of it that comes with being in your 20s. Because if you've ever thought, is anybody else feeling this way? They definitely are.

[Mental Health Podcast Guest]

I feel like my 20s was a process of checking off everything that I was not good at to get to what I was good at. Oftentimes we take everything a little bit too seriously and we get lost in things that we later on decide weren't

[Robert Evans]

even important important to us to begin with.

[Ken Klippenstein]

There was a large chunk of my twenties that I like was just so wanting to like be out of that phase, out of my skin and I just like really regret not living in the present more.

[Debbie Brown]

Each week we break down the science behind what you're going through and give you real tools to navigate it. Your 20s aren't about having it all figured out. They're about understanding yourself just a little bit better. Listen to the psychology of your 20s on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Garrison Davis]

Okay, we are back. Let's talk about the dinner. Let's talk about the Shooting that happened at the dinner. The thing that everyone else has been talking about for the past five, six days. So. Yeah, on April 25th, during the White House correspondence Dinner. Everyone's favorite event.

[Robert Evans]

It's a shame we weren't there.

[Garrison Davis]

It is unfortunate that we were not there to point our vertical video at our face as the news happens in front of us.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, I. I would have been filming just your face, Garrison, and just like really tight in, like to the point where it's. It's difficult for you to get up and move. I keep wedging. No, Garrison, face the camera. Come on, people need to see this.

[James Stout]

I'd be assuming the war fighter posture.

[Garrison Davis]

You're gonna. You're. You're gonna get up like egg Seth and storm around. Yeah, I would.

[Robert Evans]

I would also be shielding myself behind Stephen Miller's wife.

[Garrison Davis]

Hey, that could have been either way. He could have been protecting the wife.

[Robert Evans]

I know. Either way.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's funny.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. At least. At least Miller wasn't. Wasn't getting cucked. Unlike the FBI director.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, that is funny that he abandoned his wife. Yeah.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Girlfriend. Girlfriend.

[Robert Evans]

Girlfriend. Sorry.

[James Stout]

I guess we should just go. Let's recap the events for people who live under a rock.

[Garrison Davis]

So shortly before 8:30pm the alleged shooter approached the Secret Service security screening checkpoint located on the terrace level of the hotel. This was the level above the ballroom level where the actual dinner was taking place. James, we should probably just read from the court document.

[James Stout]

Yeah, I think I'm just. Yeah, I'm just gonna read this straight from the. The government's DFJ statement in court. Right before the dependent approached the checkpoint, he discarded a long black coat that concealed a 12 gauge pump action shock. The defendant then sprinted through one of the magnetometers at the checkpoint and ran in the direction of the stairs leading to the ballroom where the president and members of his family and cabinet were located. As the defendant did so, he held a shotgun in both hands in a raised position parallel to the ground. A United States Secret Service officer observed the defendant fire the shotgun in the direction of the stairs leading down to the ballroom. The Secret Service officer and others at the checkpoint heard the gunshot. The Secret Service officer drew his service weapon and fired five times at the defendant. The defendant fell to the ground and was restrained by law enforcement and was placed under arrest. The defendant suffered a minor injury to his knee, but was not shot. We can in a second talk about whether he shot the Secret Service officer.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Cuz there's an interesting Washington Post review that's out Too now. Mm.

[James Stout]

Yeah. And a couple of court documents just filed today.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Let's talk a little bit about the. Just circumstances this. Right. This person had purchased. According to court documents, he purchased two weapons from separate firearms dealers in California, buying the shotgun on or about August 17, 2025, and the pistol on or about October 6, 2023.

[Garrison Davis]

He had the pistol for a while. The shotgun was more of a recent purchase.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Yeah.

[James Stout]

The pistol is a fascinating choice.

[Robert Evans]

Amazing choice.38 super.

[James Stout]

Yeah. I have never seen a.38 super handgun outside of. They're very. They're common in Mexico because they have a certain cache and cultural value.

[Robert Evans]

Every.38 super handgun that I have personally held was embossed in gold and silver.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And usually a Mexican flag, but not exclusively.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Or like some sort of heraldry that denotes. That is associated sometimes with organized crime. Like I'm. I'm not. When I say associated with organized crime. A few weeks ago. Right. I talked about a material support for terrorism case which centered on a firearms dealer who was selling grips for.38 super pistols with images that are associated with cartels. Like when you buy a.38 super, someone at the ATF gets an email. I bet. Like, these things are very rare and they have a certain consumer base.

[Robert Evans]

Now, Obviously there are normal.38 super pistols that exist. They're just like today most people buy. Because it's a weird moon round too. It's not a normal. Like, there's nothing wrong with it, but it's not a round that's commonly carried. It's expensive. It's primarily something that has like, cachet for drug dealers. But I guess also my interpretation, and I guess we're. I know maybe this is getting too much into my side of things, but I do have a theory as to why he would have picked this gun and the shotgun that he picked. But we can talk about that later if you want.

[Garrison Davis]

We'll get to that in a sec. Yeah.

[James Stout]

He also had a, I believe two knives and four daggers. Yeah. Six bladed weapons.

[Robert Evans]

Really want to see pictures of those bladed weapons?

[James Stout]

They are in the court documents. Buddy. Let me. Let me. Let me just find those for you.

[Garrison Davis]

We have an enhanced image of some of them too.

[James Stout]

Yeah. So we should talk about this. The government submitted a quote, unquote, enhanced image in the court case. Mr. Allen took a picture of himself at about 8:03pm so about half an hour before he rushed past the magnetometer. There in the picture we can see he is wearing black suit pants. He is wearing a black shirt. He Has a red tie which inexplicably is tucked into his pants. He has a shoulder holster and a large KA bar knife in a downwards drawer configuration. He is carrying a pair of pliers and a pair of wire cutters in a holster on his left side. On his right side he is carrying a small leather bag which allegedly contained more shotgun rounds. And the 1911 is in a cruster or shoulder holster. Right. None of this screams highly trained.

[Garrison Davis]

The quote unquote enhanced image was basically a zoomed in.

[James Stout]

Oh, yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Copy of this photo that if I were to guess the word enhanced means that they use some kind of sharpening or AI image sharpening tool.

[James Stout]

Yes, yes.

[Robert Evans]

None of which are real in terms of like. None of which are actually enhancing or sharpening.

[Garrison Davis]

The details that you are seeing should not be allowed in to be like, viewed in court.

[Robert Evans]

Right?

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

The AI is guessing there's not extra data in the photo that the AI is uncovering. Like, the AI is basically attempting to clean up an image, which is fine if you have like a blurry photo of you and like your wife when you got into your first apartment together that you want cleaned up.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

But that's not. It's not valid.

[Garrison Davis]

It should not be important.

[Robert Evans]

It should not be.

[James Stout]

Yeah. I'm sure we'll see the defense challenge this and I'll be interested to know, like, what AI they used. And you know, did they ask for various iterations of the enhanced or did they, you know, like. This will be interesting. I don't think it materially inserted anything. We can see the same Samsung phone. I can see the handle of the knife in both images. I can see the handle of the handgun.

[Garrison Davis]

This is more of like a principal thing.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Then like, did this specifically affect the photo in this case in any way that would lead to the evidence being more useful?

[James Stout]

Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah. This is a bad slippery slope. So talking of his phone, he kept it with him as he traveled across the country on a train, taking notes about the landscape as he went.

[Garrison Davis]

Amtrak.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah, he. He took Amtrak. And like, he was enchanted by like the deserts and the. He liked Chicago. He thought the woods on the east coast were great.

[Garrison Davis]

He kept like a, like a journal where he wrote about the trip.

[James Stout]

Yeah. In the notes app of his phone. Yeah. And then the day of his attempted shooting, he used open sources to track the President's movements. Should we move on to did he fire his gun?

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, that's a big. Because that is a big question right now. That's one half the question. The other half is, did he shoot a Secret Service agent? Which.

[Robert Evans]

Right. Did he shoot anybody?

[Garrison Davis]

The DOJ is saying he fired a gun.

[Robert Evans]

The DOJ claims that, but is not

[Garrison Davis]

really affirmatively saying that he shot an agent.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, no, they. They've said a couple of different things. They've said that an agent was struck by gunfire. They've said that it was not friendly fire, but they have not said that he was struck by the assailant shotgun by the gunman's actual weapon. And that's partly because there's not hard evidence yet that the gunman actually fired his shotgun.

[James Stout]

Let me read you what they filed in court today. Yeah. The evidence gathered and analyzed to date establishes that your client fired his Mossberg 12 gauge pump action shotgun at least one time as he ran past the magnetometers on the terrace level of the Washington Hilton on April 25, 2026, when the weapon was recovered. It had once been cartridge case in the chamber, which has been identified as having been fired in the Mossberg shotgun. The government's preliminary ballistics video analysis showed that your client fired his shotgun in the direction of Secret Service Officer vg, which Officer VG observed. Additionally, at least one fragment was recovered from the crime scene that was physically consistent with a single buckshot pellet. That fragment was recovered from a location at the scene consistent with your client firing his shotgun in the direction of Officer vg. The government is aware of no physical evidence, digital video evidence, or witness statements that are inconsistent with the theory that your client fired his shotgun in the direction of Officer vg, or the Officer VG was indeed shot once in the chest while wearing a ballistic vest. They go on. The further to say the government also recovered 5 spent 9 millimeter Luger cartridge cases, each of which which was determined to have been fired from Officer VG's service weapon. The government also identified five separate bullet holes in the walls opposite from Officer VG, consistent with the directions that Officer VG fired his service weapon. That's like the most. Yeah, that's the most detail that we've seen from them of their case. Right. His defense had previously suggested that the. Because of some of the public statements Attorney General Blanche had made, the government may have exculpatory evidence either that he didn't fire his gun or that he didn't shoot the Secret Service agent in question.

[Garrison Davis]

Which administration officials have gone on the news to say that the Secret Service agent did not shoot himself. Which is not saying that another Secret Service agent did not shoot him though.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

And it doesn't seem like he shot into like a plasterboard wall, it seems. Right. So he didn't maybe get splash back, which is.

[Robert Evans]

No, the, the only holes we've seen look like they came from pistols. And that's something the Washington Post actually did like, look into because there's at least one. There's a couple, I think, of live stream videos that showed like holes from a bullet in the wall. But the Post talked to Rick Vasquez, a firearms consultant and former chief of the Firearms Technology branch at the ATF, or what was then the atf, who said that the holes were consistent with handgun rounds. Now, that's not like a firearms technology. There's a lot of woo there. But it's also pretty easy to look. I mean, sometimes it can be kind of messy because, like the, the balls in like a double aught buck shot shell are kind of similar in size to 9 millimeter. Right.

[James Stout]

Somewhere in a 30 caliber range. Right.

[Robert Evans]

But they don't tend to hit with the same kinds of patterns. Right. Like it does. There does tend to be a significant difference, especially that kind of range the night of the shooting or within a few hours of it. Trump posted security camera footage and the Post got a hold of a higher resolution copy of that footage. And they went through like a frame by frame analysis of it because, as you noted, James, they claim that Cole discharged his shotgun while he was passing through the magnetometers. The magnetometers, right. They didn't say it happened elsewhere. They said it like, as he was going through that checkpoint that you could watch him sprint through like he's fucking Naruto running his way into the correspondence dinner. And in their frame by frame analysis, the Post only found evidence of four muzzle flashes, all of them from the agent who was allegedly struck by something's weapon. Right. So first, I mean, and you can hear, in other footage, you can clearly hear more shots than that. Like, I don't doubt that there were. That he discharged five shots, but the video only shows four. And crucially, it does not show Cole's shotgun firing. And the video follows him until he goes off screen. So maybe whoever wrote that out should have written after passing through the magnanometers, but they seem to pretty clearly be saying it was while he was in that little security area. And there's not evidence in the footage of him firing. We don't see anything that looks like firing. Like, nobody reacts as if he has fired. Like there's just no evidence that he shot. And, you know, they're hinging a lot on the Fact that there's a spent cartridge in the chamber of his 12 gauge. But number one, that's actually not an uncommon way to store that kind of 12 gauge shotgun with a spent shell in the breeches. Because it makes it easy if something were to happen. It makes it easier to basically get a fresh round in without needing to have a chambered round at all times. Which a lot of people, most people don't like to do.

[James Stout]

Yeah. And they're not drop safe either. Like it's a bad idea to do that.

[Robert Evans]

You don't want to do that with a shotgun. You know, is it possible that he was storing it that way? Is it possible that he loaded one, an empty round in there intentionally? Because he didn't actually. He was hoping to do a suicide by cop and he didn't intend to actually shoot anybody. Is it possible he just fucked up? It's also perfectly possible he fired later. But it's really weird that they wrote it out that way if that's what they're alleging. Because we see him when he's at the security checkpoint at the magnetometer and he doesn't fire. In the footage that we have. Yeah.

[James Stout]

There's been a lot of press statements that are sort of talking around. Exactly. Not making the explicit statement he fired his shotgun and he shot the officer in the chest.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[James Stout]

And certainly like, I don't, I'm not sure about the distance we're talking about. Like. And then thus the spread that would. Would happen with it would be minimal

[Robert Evans]

spread even with a sawed off in a, in a narrow corridor like that.

[James Stout]

Yeah. I mean you go by an inch per yard. Right. Like that's the amount that it generally spreads. And so if you hit this person once, assuming this person has a chest at 20 inches wide. Yeah. That doesn't line up. Right.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Might be different with buckshot.

[Garrison Davis]

I mean, obviously if they had evidence that the Secret Service agent was shot by Mr. Allen, we'd have seen it. They would be running with that. The fact that they do not have evidence that, that the agent was shot by Alan is, is shown in the way that they're like talking about this.

[James Stout]

Like he was shot.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

And the guy discharged a shotgun. Separate statements. Exactly.

[Garrison Davis]

Two. Two separate statements.

[Robert Evans]

Yep.

[Garrison Davis]

They're still affirming that the agent did not shoot himself, which does not mean that he was not shot by another agent.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And there's a. In that Washington Post article, they talked to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and asked him to explain like, why. Why are you guys never willing to Say like where the round that hit the officer came from. Right. They asked him the question that we've been asking. And Blanche answered, we want to get that right. We're still looking at that.

[Garrison Davis]

There you go.

[Robert Evans]

Right. And that is a big change. As the Post notes, a day earlier he told ABC that officials believe the gunman had shot the officer. So he has pulled back, which leads me to think maybe this guy didn't shoot at all. Or maybe he fired later, maybe even totally by accident. Maybe when he was falling down, he like discharged. I mean, but if so, also you would think there'd be a photo somewhere of where he discharged the shotgun. It's surprisingly easy for bullets to get lost. Right. And by that I mean just get so destroyed and whatnot by impact that there's not really much of anything to find. That happens all the time. It's really rare and I would argue impossible to discharge a 12 gauge shotgun with any kind of shot shell in a fucking hotel like this and not have there be some sign of what you.

[James Stout]

Yeah, they make holes in things. That's what they're for.

[Robert Evans]

They make multiple holes, unless it's a slug, but then they make a really big hole. And Cole had specifically written that he was not intending to use slugs. In his manifesto. Suicide, no, whatever you want to call it. He specifically stated that he was using a 12 gauge loaded with buckshot because he wanted to reduce the chances of over penetration and of injuring or killing someone he did not intend to hit.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, let's talk a little bit about his background, maybe a few other things from that manifesto. I know, Robert, you've. You've done some digging into that.

[Robert Evans]

I did the normal thing that at least one of us does, generally all of us do in some form ever after every kind of mass shooting or like publicly notable terror attack or whatever. And just found myself looking through a stranger's social media. Yeah, there's been a bunch a couple of good articles out about him. Now, most of like the first things that we knew about this guy, like the very first fact is when his name came out, there were two different guys who kind of lived in the Torrence area who were immediately like. There were responses under Cole Thomas Allen to Cole Allen. And one of them was like some fucking white dude who worked at, I think it was a consulting firm or something. I don't know, it wasn't very, but he just looked like he might have been 30. And the other was Cole Thomas Allen. And it was him winning a teacher of the year award at the he worked at a company that was basically doing like, top college test prep tutoring, right?

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

So he was a teacher. Some people got really angry at the description of him as a teacher because they're being like, he's trying to, like, badmouth public school teachers. And he's not a public school teacher teacher, but there are other kinds of teachers. He was the teacher of the month at the tutoring academy that he worked at.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

I had found by the time I got there, which is like 20 minutes after the name started spreading, the Facebook page of the school that he worked, or of the tutoring academy, whatever that he worked at, which I'm not going to name, but it was hundreds of posts already being like, good to see this is who's teaching your kids? You know, like, you hired a terrorist. All this kind of like.

[James Stout]

Yeah, the issue.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's, it's, it's bleak. It's the normal thing that happens, you know, with anything related to this in this case. Right after that, Trump posted a picture of the detained and stripped mostly naked gunman that was obviously the Cole Allen who had won the teacher of the month. Like, immediately visible, like you could. It was a positive ID was very quick from that point on. So at that point, a couple other things started coming out because, you know, I had, I had looked through from that Facebook page, I had found a couple other posts about Cole Thomas Allen or different places where he had accounts, which made a couple other details of his background obvious. He was a mechanical engineering student in Caltech kind of during the first Trump administration.

[Garrison Davis]

Yep.

[Robert Evans]

You know, that was honestly, like most of. Of what was like, immediately obvious is that like, he'd been an engineering student at Caltech, he'd worked as a teacher, and he'd been a part of. In his LinkedIn, you can see that he'd been a part of Caltech's Christian Fellowship and the Nerf club. Right?

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Now, Ken Klippenstein talked to one of his co fellow peers during this period of time who noted that while he was at NERF club, Cal had like, kind of led. There was like a conflict within the club over people modifying and otherwise altering their Nerf guns to make them more resemble real weapons, as Nerf has also come out with more guns that look like real guns over the years. And he was really against this. Like, he was very against the idea of like, NERF guns that were modified to look like real guns or just like people playing with things that looked like real guns. Now fast forward to the actual day of the shooting. His Blue sky account got found fairly quickly alongside the LinkedIn. Obviously that got deleted in very short order, but it was archived thankfully by a very nice person who realized that it was probably be useful to have actual documentation about what this guy was doing online rather than rely on a bunch of different articles making claims. So I went through all of that. You know, as soon as it came out, he had about 500 followers. He was following about 114 people. He did not post often on his own, but when he did in like the. The two different occasions I could find of him like posting on his own in this incomplete archive of his Blue sky, one of them was him posting in like sympathy and solidarity with Ukraine, which is something that was very consistent. He reposted a ton of different fundraisers from different Ukrainian military units.

[Garrison Davis]

That was in his user bio as well. Support for Ukraine.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. He was massively supportive of Ukraine.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And very angry at the Trump administration's failure to like follow through with US obligations in that regard. And the only other post of his that was like him writing something that I saw was him basically critiquing an article about using AI in the classroom. And like people who were advocating the use of AI in the classroom. He's very much against that.

[Garrison Davis]

He was a reposter though.

[Robert Evans]

He was a reposter. And we'll talk about like some of the things he reposted. His bio read, hi, I'm a random Californian guy with posts about American politics, support for Ukraine and observations of small creatures. And then he includes a quote. I choose my own battlefields not through my blood, but with my heart. I stand on the battlefield to protect what I want. So that is. I like type that quote in. And that is a quote from an anime. The same anime that his. His profile picture was also from this like specific anime, which is Kagura. I don't know how that's pronounced. I think the character that he had is PFP of was Kagura. It's this like red haired lady with these weird like ball things on either side of her hair. Like, I don't fully know how to describe this lady's hairstyle. It's kind of like vaguely Princess Leia esque. And that appears to be who he's. His PFP photo is. Okay, the series is called Gintama. I don't know much about this. I've heard people online being like, oh, he was a fan of like this anime that means something or other. But like, I don't actually understand enough about the anime to give much of an analysis of that. I think it's just people being like. Because of the character he likes. It makes sense that he's a guy who would do something very extreme. I don't know enough about the anime to say how relevant that is, but. But the quote kind of does sound relevant to what he actually did. Like, I stand on the battlefield to protect what I want.

[Garrison Davis]

And you can read. You can read stuff like that in his manifesto.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And you can read stuff like that in his manifesto, which we'll talk about. His actual reposts are very normal lib coded.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

He's a liberal, hugely supportive of Ukraine. Nothing about Palestine in there, nothing about Israel in there. A photo has since come out that appears to be legitimate of him wearing like an IDF shirt some time ago.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

He doesn't say anything. Again, in the limited, we don't also have. We don't have his whole blue sky in here. In the limited archive, we have. I don't see anything of him like him talking at all about Israel. So I don't have enough to say that he was strongly supportive. But he certainly. There's a real discrepancy between how he talks about Ukraine and him mentioning anything at all about what's happening in Gaza. Right.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

What is believed to be his Twitter account has also been scraped and not as well archived, but there's screenshots of reposts on Twitter reposting Brianna Wu with some criticism of pro Palestine protesters or things that are critical of Palestine and in a nominal way, supportive of Israel.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And it's kind of hard to tell. Was he just more quiet about this online because he wanted to avoid, you know, getting dogpiled, or is this just something that, as the genocide got worse and worse, he became less willing to. To talk about? I don't know, but it's. It's kind of. It's just noteworthy how much like, how absent that kind of discussion is next to how often he talks about Ukraine

[Garrison Davis]

next to the Ukraine stuff.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Yeah. He also reposted a bunch of very normal posts. There was one from a user. You know, if you guys remember, like a week or so ago, the New York Times published an interview with Hasan Piker. The streamer, and the article was titled the Rich don't play by the rules, so why should I? Why Petty theft might be the new political protest. It's where Hasan tried to introduce the term microluding to the discourse, which I don't support at all. But it was like a pro shoplifting Kind of like, argue. Kind of a casual and jokey pro shoplifting argument. Right. I don't want to. People have blown this out of proportion. But it's interesting that he came down against Hasan's side on that. He was basically reposting someone who was like, hey, I've been a lot of. I've spent a lot of time in countries where graft and grifting are, like, normal, and it's really bad for that to happen. You don't want that to happen to your country. So he's certainly not, like, on the far left. Like, direct action is good. I love committing crimes. Anarchist side of things. He is not at all that kind of guy.

[James Stout]

Yeah, he's a liberal.

[Garrison Davis]

He is a Will Stanzelite.

[Robert Evans]

He is a lot of Will Stancil reposts.

[Garrison Davis]

Lot of Will Stancil posts.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, he reposted me a couple of times. He posted me, like, talking about, like, the Pope, right? Like, because. Making fun of Trump for calling the Pope soft on crime. Like, not any of my, like, spicy takes, right?

[Garrison Davis]

No, just like, viral posts on Blue Sky.

[Robert Evans]

He didn't do a lot of spicy takes. He reposted a lot of, like, normal viral stuff you'd expect. He was really angry about COVID 19. He hates Elon Musk. He reposted a lot of, like, you know, Elon Musk wants poor African children to die. Like, kind of content talking about that after some of the more recent articles about how many people died as a result of, like, the American, like, aid cuts that Musk was a major part in. He was very angry about that. He reposted Bill Kristol saying, abolish ice.

[Garrison Davis]

Okay?

[Robert Evans]

And there's a couple of different posts that he shared about or from people who were criticizing the White House Correspondents Dinner. And particularly, like, when Jake Tapper fucking made a post about, like, here's the napkins that we've got that have, like, freedom of the press, you know, the First Amendment stuff on it that, like, it was supposed to be like, this is our protest against the president, right? Like, we've got these. These monogram napkins. And he made fun of that, like, a lot of people did. He was. He was generally critical of anyone who would be at the correspondence dinner, which was reflected in his manifesto where he said that, like, the journalists and other people at the event who are not in the administration aren't my targets. And, you know, he said he didn't want to hit them. But also he was, quote, I would still go through most everyone here to get to the targets if it were absolutely necess necessary on the basis that most people chose to attend a speech by a pedophile, rapist and traitor and are thus complicit. But I really hope it doesn't come to that. Right.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Another interesting bit from his manifesto is, quote, administration officials, not including Mr. Patel, they are targets prioritized from highest ranking to lowest.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Interesting. Interesting. Parenthetical.

[Robert Evans]

I wonder if that's just because some people were joking after that article came out about how Cash Patel, they had to, like, break down his door because he was too drunk to reach. People were joking, like, maybe it's best if Cash stays in office because he's so. I wonder if that was the joke he was making.

[Garrison Davis]

Unclear what he meant by that.

[Robert Evans]

But he doesn't give us any reason to believe possible. And he doesn't share any jokes like that. Right. So that is kind of legitimately baffling.

[Garrison Davis]

No. Most of the manifesto is, like, apologizing to people he knows.

[James Stout]

Yep.

[Garrison Davis]

For how this will be, like, disruptive.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

And then talking about his own, like, rules of engagement.

[Robert Evans]

Yes.

[Garrison Davis]

Which he says, quote, probably in a terrible format, but I'm not military, so too bad. Unquote.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And it's interesting because he had also shared at least one post on Bluesky that was like, kind of pro gun control. That was like talking about how it's bad to have a gun, basically. Like, it increases the danger that you're in, which it did for this guy. But it is interesting in terms of the firearms he chose because this is clearly a guy who supports more gun control. He seems to find it difficult, distasteful certainly, to, like, celebrate guns. Right. And celebrate, like, military style weapons. I kind of wonder if he picked the firearms he picked because they did not look like the pistol didn't look like a Glock or like the standard police guns that he sees people owning. And a shotgun doesn't look like an AR15.

[Garrison Davis]

Like an AR15.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. I kind of wonder. Although he says it was to minimize penetration, so maybe that's more likely.

[Garrison Davis]

Other thing I want to mention is because the shotgun was purchased in August, and he does make a few references in the manifesto to thinking of having done something like this for quite a while. But this was his first opportunity that he saw that seemed semi possible.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And I also had the thought that, well, when he bought the shotgun, because he specifically states that he wants to use a shotgun to minimize, like, casualties, then the date at which he bought the shotgun might be the date at which he decided he was going to do this. Right. Or it might be the point at which he started taking actions.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

It would make sense that maybe that would be around when he had started planning to do this. And, you know, there's so much different shit happened around August of 2025. It's kind of impossible to say. This is definitely it. I did notice that August 25, 2025, is when Trump issued his additional measures to address the crime emergency in the District of Columbia executive order.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. The military occupation of D.C. yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Okay. So. And this is when Trump is really. And a bunch of. There's a bunch of different news stories around Trump trying to deploy the National Guard in US Cities. And I kind of wonder if maybe that's when he. But that's purely theoretical. There was a lot of other bad stuff happening, you know, so who's to say? He also seems to be angry about our war against Iran. Like the fact, like, the war of choice that Trump launched against Iran. He doesn't get a post a lot about it, but there are some references in the manifesto that kind of make me feel like that that may have also been, like, a major thing that helped push him to make. Make this decision.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Because he specifically stated that I'm a citizen of the United States of America. What my representatives do reflects me, and I am no longer one to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes. Right. Like, there's some reasons to believe that that probably played into it as well.

[Garrison Davis]

Interestingly, he does sign the manifesto with his Blue sky username.

[Robert Evans]

He sure does.

[Garrison Davis]

Cold Force.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

He thought that was cool.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Perhaps that was a name he used, I don't know, in his nerfing activities or like it was something that meant something to him.

[Robert Evans]

Another thing that's probably worth talking about because Trump has made the claim several times that this guy was anti Christian. That hatred of Christianity is what drove him. As I said before in Caltech, he was a member of the Christian group. I'll talk about that in a second. But in his manifesto, he specifically justifies what he's doing as a Christian. There is a segment in there where he's going through, like, some objections he knows people in his life will have and kind of rebutting them.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And objection. One is, as a Christian, you should turn the other cheek. Rebuttal. Turning the other cheek is for when you yourself are oppressed. I'm not the person raped in a detention camp. I'm not the fisherman executed without trial. I'm not a school kid blown up or a child starved or a teenage girl abused by the many criminals in this administration. Right. So he specifically is justifying this as a Christian On Christian grounds. On Christian grounds. He thanks his church, which seems to have been a major part of his life. So there's a quote from Ken Klippenstein's article about his time at Caltech. He was pretty prominent at the Caltech Christian Fellowship. Pretty Christian and mellow. If I didn't see his face eating carpet, I would have never believed it. And then I found a Christianity Today piece that just came up a few hours ago. And a line from that is, Allen's father, Thomas Allen, was listed as an elder at Grace United Reformed Church in Torrance. And an evangelical congregation that describes itself is preaching a gospel that is Christ centered, covenantal and confessional. The church's leadership page and social media pages have been pulled down and yeah, it's fucked up. They had to have like security guards, armed guards, like escort worshippers inside and out this weekend just because of like all of the. The press around this.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Elizabeth Terlinden, who also knew him at the time, told the New York Times he was definitely a strong believer in evangelical Christianity. At the time that I knew him, she was in the Celtic Christian Fellowship with him. So this guy appears to have been like a very strong evangelical Christian. Like a liberal Christian. Yeah, we don't exactly know. Was he always. Was his Christianity always like progressive and like liberal tinted or was he kind of, you know, more conservative at a different point in his life? Yeah, we do know that within the last couple of years he got involved in left wing activism in Los Angeles. His sister told law enforcement that after he got more involved in left wing activism, particularly a group who called themselves the White Awakes, which was referencing an anti slavery protest in the 1860s.

[James Stout]

Oh yeah, okay.

[Robert Evans]

Right. Like these were some of the people who like back Lincoln. So he joins some group in Ellicas called the White Awakes. For some period of time, he starts talking more radically, starts showing up to more protests. And I think he's helping with a couple of different kinds of things with a couple of different groups. But that's when his sister says he starts making like a lot more radical statements and maybe sometimes aggressive statements. And that lines up with when he buys a gun and he starts training after 2023. So this may have just been a thing where he, he didn't have a full plan at that point, but he accepted the possibility that he might need to do violence in Order to support, you know, his. His ideals, we don't really know, but that's. That's all we've gotten in terms of a journey. Yeah.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

In October of 2024, he did make one donation to the Kamala Harris. The Harris presidential campaign via ActBlue.

[Robert Evans]

$25. Yeah, but not a lot of. Not a long history of donations to the party. Not a long history of, like, volunteering for the Democratic Party specifically. Seems to have been a pretty loyal voter. Yeah, but this is a guy who I think really during, like, the. It would be during the Biden years, gets more involved in, like, left wing protests and organizing. He becomes angrier. And then after 2024, he gets really, really angry at Trump and eventually, probably sometime late last year, decides to take action and for whatever reason, picks the Correspondent's Dinner to do it. It's probably also worth noting that he sends this manifesto thing out right before he carries out the attack. Like, he's staying in the hotel for a couple of days before all this happens.

[Garrison Davis]

He booked two nights.

[Robert Evans]

We actually get him to reflect a little on the security that he's experienced while he's been there. And that's a really interesting part of this. He says, I expected security cameras at every bend, bugged hotel rooms, armed agents every 10ft, metal detectors out the wazoo. What I got, who knows? Maybe they're pranking me. Is nothing. No damn security. Not in transport, not in the hotel, not in the event. Like, the one thing that I immediately noticed walking to the hotel is the sense of arrogance. I walk in with multiple weapons and not a single person there considers the possibility that I could be a threat. Crazy stuff.

[Garrison Davis]

Most of the security seemed to be isolated around the actual ballroom and the levels immediately above and below.

[Robert Evans]

And again, he doesn't get anywhere close to the president or any other, like, important person. Right. So you could argue the security did its job. He was just in the same hotel. But, yeah, crazy stuff. I don't know. I don't have anything else.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Let's go on ad break and then return to briefly discuss some of the conspiracy theories that have spawned after this alleged shooting.

[Robert Evans]

Love it.

[James Stout]

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[James Stout]

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[Garrison Davis]

Okay, we are back. Immediately after the event took place, tons of conspiracy theories started cropping up, obviously piggybacking off of the Butler, Pennsylvania ones. This was not helped by the confusion in early reports because once you get every journalist in D.C. in one room and then an event happens, that means every journalist has a kind of different version of the event that gets immediately blasted out online and on the news. So there was not. Not a clear sequence of events in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. There was reports that maybe it was just dishes being dropped. Eventually it was clear that, no, there was an actual shooting. And Wolf Blitzer did lose a shoe in the course of the events.

[Robert Evans]

He sure did. Poor Wolf out.

[Garrison Davis]

Also not helping things. Trump was basically live truthing this investigation on the night of the shooting, and it was not clear to many people that the shooting did not happen on the ballroom level.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

And that the shooter did not get close to the targets.

[Robert Evans]

Well, also, the people. People in the main room were still very scared because, like, they had no real context on what was happening. And everyone around them just started freaking.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Because there's the military running around, Secret Service running around. They heard gunshots. Yeah. It is a frightening thing. You're seeing J.D. vance get pulled offstage. Trump's ducking down.

[Robert Evans]

What I do feel is kind of interesting about this is you've got this whole D.C. class of, like, press and other important people who are not in power themselves, but are close to it, and they're. They do a lot of the things that they do because they like being close to power. And there's this illusion that comes with that. I think for a lot of these people of importance, that gets ripped away when the Secret Service pulls all of the people who are important out of the room and you're just left wondering if you're in danger. Like, that's what it'll be like if there's a nuclear war. All of these people will suddenly have the few folks who have a detail get ripped out of the room, and then you'll just hear the sirens start and have nothing, no idea what's happening. And realize that your whole life in pursuit of being close to power has brought you no security. Crazy stuff. Wild times. Anyway, Garrison.

[Garrison Davis]

One of the core pieces of quote unquote evidence that was used to assert that the shooting was some kind of false flag or psyop, was a comment made by Press Secretary Carolyn Levitt shortly before the dinner.

[Mental Health Podcast Guest]

This speech tonight will be classic Donald J. Trump. It'll be funny, it'll be entertaining. There will be some shots fired tonight.

[Robert Evans]

Great stuff.

[Garrison Davis]

Poor choice of words there. On behalf of the press secretary.

[Robert Evans]

Excellent choice of words.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Also, though, like, it's not a Dan Brown novel, when people are actually plotting conspiracy, they don't go around leaving the little Easter eggs for you to find.

[Garrison Davis]

Of course. Yeah. Why else would the Deep State orchestrate A top level secret psyop and not decide to leave little clues beforehand?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, they have to leave little clues, Garrison. Haven't you listened to Alex Jones? That's part of the deal they make with the demons, is that they have to. They have to leave little clues for the evil that they're doing while they're doing it.

[Garrison Davis]

They call that the Riddler's Law.

[Robert Evans]

Uh huh, that's right.

[Garrison Davis]

Now, another thing that got amplified in the conspiratorial milieu was a Twitter account with a Pepe profile picture wearing the same outfit as President Trump the night of the dinner, who tweeted the alleged shooter's name about two and a half years ago. This post is the account's only visible post. The banner image of the account is a bunch of streaks of color. But if you overlay the image of Trump holding his fist up in the air at Butler, the color streaks and the darkened areas line up with the Trump Butler photo. What now the alleged shooter also had an undergraduate research fellowship at NASA for the summer of 2014. And the name of this Twitter account matches the name of someone at Lockheed Martin who published a NASA paper at the same time that the shooter was at NASA. And the shooter worked for the Jet Propulsion Lab. The same labs that those scientists who have gone missing also have been working out of.

[James Stout]

Yeah, Garrison, you want to get out the pegboard?

[Garrison Davis]

When I saw this, I started to feel a little bit scared because I thought I was getting too close.

[Robert Evans]

Too close to the shoot.

[Garrison Davis]

I don't know, I was afraid.

[James Stout]

Too close to us needing help.

[Garrison Davis]

But this. But that's not all. Because the Pepe. The Pepe Twitter account was also connected to a time travel study because the color streak banner photo was traced to a website on how to build a time machine. And this photo was used on the webpage for the time machine study. So what's, what's, what's really going on here? First of all, this, this quote unquote time machine website is actually a Europe based project for quote, 3D digital of cultural heritage. Scanning like artifacts and uploading them online as like 3D models. Yeah, that's their quote, unquote time machine is preserving cultural heritage.

[James Stout]

Yes. An archive.

[Garrison Davis]

And actually this color streak image has actually been floating around the Internet for a long time. I've, I found versions of it since at least 2018. There are hundreds of people named Cole Allen in the US on data broker sites right now. The first archive of this Pepe Twitter account whose profile picture only matches Trump's because it's a tuxedo, One of the most common outfits for men at events like this.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, it is the same outfit that Trump was wearing at the dinner. It's also the same outfit Trump has worn at every dinner because it's what you wear at dinners if you're the president. Tuxedo.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

But the, the first archive of this post is from after the shooting. So we don't know what this account looked like prior to the shooting. Now, now, this account could have tweeted tons of random names and then deleted all the other posts to pull a stunt like this. Or people at Twitter like, you know, x the Everything app, the people who work there could have backdated the account and the post to boost engagement on the platform. Now, those aren't any more likely than just a simple coincidence, but there are other explanations other than gesturing vaguely towards a pre planned psyop. Now, spreading images of this, a Twitter account isn't necessarily putting forward a specific conspiracy theory. It just gets used as a data point among other unconnected data points to sow public mistrust and undermine reality, inferring meaning from odd coincidences.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Garrison Davis]

This is, this is seeing patterns that aren't there. And literally in the case of seeing the butler photo in a splash of colors. And again, like, why would quote unquote, they drop hints beforehand. Right? Is this, is this predictive programming? But predictive programming isn't really necessary to get the public to accept an event like an attempted assassination. In fact, that would only sow suspicion, dropping these little hints. Just so suspicion for an event like this, it doesn't actually make it more acceptable. Right. The whole idea of predictive programming is, is sowing seeds to get the public to accept an otherwise unacceptable thing. And that's not necessary for a presidential assassination.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Now, there are some other things that propped up in this conspiratorial shenanigans. In the wake of the shooting, a Fox News reporter was calling in to report her experience at the dinner and suddenly cut out when she started talking about something that Carolyn Levitt's husband said to her.

[Robert Evans]

He kind of leaned over and said, you know, I watched you on tv. You do a great job and you need to be very safe. And he was very serious when he

[Mental Health Podcast Guest]

said that to me.

[Robert Evans]

And he kind of looked around the room and he said, you know, there are some.

[James Stout]

Sounds like we lost Aisha's phone there.

[Garrison Davis]

Well, well, well, what? So her audio actually cuts out at different points. During this televised call, the anchor said that she was having cell service issues and later on X, this reporter posted that she was about to say that Carolyn Levitt's husband was, quote, telling me to be careful with my own safety because the world is crazy, unquote. But it does make for a funny moment, a funny moment of television.

[Robert Evans]

That's a good moment. That's an incredible time for your call to cut out. Like just awesome stuff.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

There's other, other viral posts spreading video of the military storming past the red carpet or people in military fatigue storming past the red carpet after the shooting.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

With one person writing, quote, law enforcement doesn't act like this. Neither does the military. This is a staged event with a shitty script and pre positioned cameras, unquote. The cameras are there because they're there to film the red carpet. They're pre positioned.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Because this is an organization where all the press gathers.

[Garrison Davis]

This is a press event. That's why there's pre positioned cameras.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

It's how you do. You know the White House Correspondents Dinner.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Also you're gonna see some types of cops that you have never previously seen. When someone tries to assassinate the President, there are a whole lot of people whose job it is to stop that happening. Lots of them aren't necessarily uniformed officers who you see every day in the Secret Service. Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Other people also thought it was odd that, you know, Trump has skipped every correspondent dinner across his two terms except for this one. And then all of a sudden there's a shooter in the lobby. How did the shooter know that Trump would go to this one? Because the shooter planned, planned this since early April. How would the shooter know this? Well, it's actually quite simple because Trump announced he was attending this dinner in early March. And according to court documents, Cole Allen started searching for information about this dinner in early April. A month later, before then booking two nights at the Washington Hilton, Trump already announced that he was going to be attending the dinner. The, the oddest aspect of the conspiracism post, post this event is that Trump needed to stage this not for any national security reasons or to seize more power, but to construct the White House ballroom, which has been the main thing that people on the right have been talking about after the shooting. The people on the right have not been using this shooting to like, go after liberal terrorists, but have been talking nonstop about how this security breach demonstrates the need to construct Trump's massive ballroom. And that's the main thing they're talking about.

[Robert Evans]

It's so funny, the idea that they

[Garrison Davis]

would stage that the Deep State is going to stage A false flag just to push for the ballroom.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Is to me, frankly, very funny.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. We don't get an enabling act in our new fascists. We just get a fucking ballroom.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Okay. I mean, I guess I prefer this. Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

The Reichs take fire to construct a nice. A nice dance floor.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah. Just. Yeah. I mean, a lot of this was, like, centered on the safety and security exemption which was provided in the injunction against the building of the new ballroom.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[James Stout]

The issue here is that the Trump administration already filed on 3 April a claim that the entire building was a contiguous hole. They couldn't do the security part without doing the fancy dance floor part. Right. And like, yes, Trump has also truced about this previous to this event. This. This wouldn't have really added anything. They did try and get the National Trust for Historical Preservation to withdraw their court case, which they didn't subsequently to this, the events of the White House correspondence dinner.

[Garrison Davis]

So, yeah, that's most of what I have on the conspiracy stuff. There's certainly more, but that's.

[James Stout]

Oh, there's more. Yeah, we're gonna leave it there.

[Garrison Davis]

There's always gonna be more.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Garrison Davis]

Like, that's. That's the way how it is. We don't have good data on, like, the widespread belief of this theory. There was. There was a poll that circulated that said like, something like 47% of Democrats thought the attempted assassination was staged. But this poll, which is from the Manhattan Institute. So take that with a grain of fascism. This poll is actually pulling the Butler shooting, not this recent one. And people did not acknowledge that when they were spreading this poll around. So we don't know how many people actually believe that this shooting was. Was staged. But you can certainly see a lot of people asserting as such on the Internet that.

[James Stout]

Shall we move on to a couple of other topics that we need to cover?

[Garrison Davis]

Yes, this will be a super, super sized episode, but it is what it is.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Let's go talking to people, talking about things on the Internet. I think some people got. This one got a little carried away. A's 3:0 decision of a panel of second circuit court judges has rejected ICE's mandatory detention of people seeking to deport. With a few exceptions, the opinion was written by Judge Bianco, who is a Trump appointee, and stated that, quote, petitioner entered the United states unlawfully in 2004 or 2005 and has resided here ever since. He is therefore deemed to be an applicant for admission by section 1225 A, but he is not, quote, seeking admission because he is not requesting lawful entry into the United States after inspection authorization. The government's attempt to muddy these textually clear waters defies the statute's context, structure, history and purpose, contradicts the Supreme Court's dictate in Jennings and long standing executive branch practice. And its interpretation of the statute raises serious constitutional questions that should be avoided even if the statutory language were ambiguous. The statute in question here is the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant responsibility act of 1996, and specifically the fact that it has a mandatory detainer for people, quote, unquote, seeking admission to the USA. Now, this ruling puts the Second Circuit in agreement with over 370 judges across the nation, but notably at odds with the 5th and 8th Circuit.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[James Stout]

Judge Bianco, in a really incredibly New York analogy here for seeking admission, wrote, if someone sneaks into Yankee Stadium at the start of the game with no ticket for admission and no intention of ever paying, and he is later found by security in a seat in the seventh inning, no one would consider that to be seeking admission to the game. So hopefully that's. That explains to people that the argument that the government is making here is that someone who has been in the country for a long period of time is still seeking admission. Right? The Trump administration placed itself at odds with other administrations. Right. This has been law since 1996, as Bianco wrote, quote, for five presidential administrations over nearly three decades, it did consistently release detainees on bond whom the government now argues are covered by section 1225. Even in President Trump's first term and the first few months of his second, the agency adhered to the decades old understanding and the relative scopes of sections 1225 and 1226. Under these circumstances, the fact that no president has ever found such power in the statute is strong evidence that it does not exist. That pretty much explains itself. What I have not been able to work out is whether this pertains to people who are detained, as in who are arrested in the Second Circuit or people who are held in the Second Circuit, or both. My guess would be both, because it is the law in the Second Circuit. Right. So it applies in the Second Circuit. Certainly most detention facilities are not in the Second Circuit. A lot of them are in the Fifth, which has come down the opposite way on this. This is why the Supreme Court exists. Right? Big disagreement between these several circuit courts here. Moving on, let's talk about the border wall. Before leaving office, Secretary Noem signed several waivers for border wall construction. This was not in the week before she left office, but in this year, one of them waived 28 laws in the Big Bend area of Texas. The waiver included 175 miles of the riverfront of the Rio Grande, including parts of the state park, national park and federally protected river. Some of these areas are very popular for outdoor recreation. These waivers are now being challenged in court by the Centre for Biological Diversity. They're out of Tucson. You'll see them in a lot of border legal cases. The Friends of Ruidosa Church and a Terlingua river guide named Billy Miller. It's an interesting coalition. Right. That we don't often see, like a church group. Has the sort of approach to this, that it would destroy historical and cultural heritage to build the wall there. Obviously the river guy, Billy Miller. Mr. Miller has the claim that it would be disruptive to a business and to people's enjoyment of. Of nature on the river. Currently, what they are doing is focusing on Chispa Road. That's. It's near, like Valentine, Texas, northwest to Martha, where they're carrying out road improvements that they did not notify county officials about, which has obviously caused some disruption. I've actually ridden my bike out there a fair bit. Did some work making a film out there a few years ago. It's a really beautiful part of the country. I'm sure a lot of people will be familiar with Marfa, which is nearby.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, it's a great city. Great little muff.

[James Stout]

Muff is great. I love that area of Texas.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I watched it all burn down one beautiful, beautiful afternoon when those horrible fires started. Yeah, it was wild.

[James Stout]

Yeah, I bet. Geez. Luckily, Marfa has recovered. Great place to visit. You can go and see the Prada store, which people now think is AI generated, which is great. Our reality is cool.

[Robert Evans]

You can go see the Judd foundations or the Cunati foundation, the Donald Judd Museum. You know, a lot of good stuff out in Marfa. Pretty good cheese sandwich restaurant.

[James Stout]

Pretty. Pretty fancy glamping set up there as well. Yep. So I checked out the CBP SmartWall interactive map, which sometimes, like, they don't always have to give notice when they're changing their plan. So sometimes you find out via the SmartWall interactive map. And right now it shows vehicle barriers and patrol road planned inside the national park.

[Robert Evans]

Right, right.

[James Stout]

So this will cause damage far, far beyond the riverfront. Evidently, to build barriers at the riverfront, they have to build roads to get to the riverfront, which will also spread this damage over an area that, like, especially in Texas. Texas is not a state which is abundant with public land. It is not like those states further west in that regard. And I know this is an area which is very special to a great deal of people. I'm really interested in writing more about this. So like especially people in the outdoor industry or folks in that region. I'd love to hear from you. You can do call zone tips at Proton Me if you want to talk about that. Do you want to do the we reported.

[Garrison Davis]

We reported the news.

[James Stout]

All of it. Yeah. Again, callzonetipson me for story tips for your marketing emails. You can just go ahead and flush those we reported the news Foreign.

[Robert Evans]

It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzone media.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly in Episode Descriptions. Thanks for listening.

[James Stout]

Foreign.

[Robert Evans]

This is an I heart podcast.

[Debbie Brown]

Guaranteed human.