Executive Disorder: White House Weekly #45

Summary

Podcast Summary: It Could Happen Here — "Executive Disorder: White House Weekly #45"

Date: December 12, 2025
Host: Cool Zone Media / iHeartPodcasts
Panel: Robert Evans, Garrison Davis, Mia Wong, James Stout (with Sophie Lichterman mentioned)

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Overview

This episode is a rapid-fire weekly dispatch on political, cultural, and social collapse stories from December 4th to December 10th, 2025. While focusing primarily on the political chaos surrounding media monopolization, White House maneuvers, and emergent authoritarianism, the hosts also discuss contemporary headlines from the U.S. and beyond—ranging from the Warner Brothers' acquisition to alarming trends in national security policy and social disenfranchisement.

True to the show’s ethos, the hosts filter grim news through irreverent humor and a collective skepticism about power, while occasionally finding moments of cathartic comedy amid the ruins.

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Key Topics & Insights

1. Media Monopolization and the Warner Brothers Takeover (03:55–11:04)

• Netflix vs. Paramount:
  The group unpacks the high-stakes bidding war for Warner Brothers, focusing on how media consolidation threatens the diversity and integrity of the American press. Paramount’s bid is powered by Skydance (Larry and David Ellison) and gets financial backing from Saudi, Abu Dhabi, and Qatari investors. Netflix is the other contestant, prompting speculation about which would be "less bad" for the future of film and journalism.
• Political Implications:
  • Paramount’s deal includes CNN, which, per hosts, could see it turned into a right-wing propaganda channel akin to what's happened to CBS under Barry Weiss. Netflix’s deal pointedly does not include CNN.
  • Paramount’s strategy seemingly rests on winning Trump’s favor, leveraging the "antitrust" card to try and stymie a Netflix acquisition.
  • Quote:
    “The basics here is that Paramount...recently acquired by Skydance...imposed Barry Weiss on CBS, which has become increasingly right-wing under her ‘leadership’.” —Mia Wong (05:33)
  • Jared Kushner’s consultancy is involved in Paramount’s bid, per Axios, intensifying the cronyism.
• Trump’s Manipulation:
  The president is enjoying the spectacle, “wanting Paramount and Netflix to compete for his approval,” neither side being close allies.
  • Quote:
    “None of them are particularly great friends of mine.” —Trump, quoted by Garrison Davis (09:12)
• Cultural Absurdity:
  • Bugs Bunny’s fate joked about being of personal interest to Saudi leaders ("The entire Saudi military is incapable of stopping Bugs Bunny." —Garrison Davis, 06:41).
  • The dismal options: “Netflix destroys film forever and the Nazis gain control of CNN. It’s a great system.” —Mia Wong (10:31)

2. Quickfire National and Local Political Updates (11:05–18:20)

• Food Not Bombs & Civil Liberties in Florida (12:28–13:45):
  Arrests for late-night food sharing led to city officials “white-knighting” by issuing unsolicited permits.
  • Quote:
    “Food Not Bombs is an action, not an entity...it’s a protest action.” —James Stout (12:50)
• National Guard Legal Challenges (13:47–14:54):
  A federal judge uses the Domestic Violence Clause to critique National Guard deployment, marking a new argument in curbing state violence.
• Democratic Resurgence in South (16:16–18:01):
  Democrats win Miami mayorship and flip state seats, even among traditionally conservative demographics.
  • “The Florida Democratic Party...make Bobo the Clown look like Napoleon. These are some of the most incompetent people in the history of politics and the Republicans are losing to them. That’s astonishing.” —Mia Wong (17:03)
• Notable Lawsuit:
  Conservative podcaster Benny Johnson threatens to sue Milo Yiannopoulos for outing him.
  • “We’ll be keeping up with this story pretty close. I know this has a lot of ramifications for listeners.” —Robert Evans (18:01)

3. J6 Pipe Bomb Investigation—Brony Angle & FBI Critiques (21:48–29:53)

• Suspect Identified:
  A man is arrested and charged with planting January 6th-related pipe bombs—identified via standard investigative techniques, not new evidence.
  • FBI’s slow action ridiculed: “...they had all the information they needed to have caught this guy very long ago and did not.” —Garrison Davis (23:38)
• Media Misdirection:
  Right-wing attempts to link the suspect’s My Little Pony fandom (“Brony”) to gender politics and “anarchism” mocked as a distraction.
• Online Radicalization and Violence:
  Discussion on how mass violence perpetrators often have more in common with each other than with any coherent political cause.

4. U.S. Immigration and Social Media Surveillance (41:00–47:20)

• ICE Deportation Scandal (40:17–42:15):
  The government deports a man granted asylum under torture conventions, in direct violation of a court order.
• Digital Surveillance Expansion (44:11–47:20):
  DHS and CBP announce plans to massively expand required social media, biometric, and “liveness” data collection for foreign tourism under ESTA, raising civil liberties and economic concerns.
  • “The normalization of this sort of social media scanning...to identify, you know, undesirable political beliefs...” —Robert Evans (46:28)
  • Practical impact: U.S. tourism-dependent economies (e.g., Florida) expected to suffer.
  • Another chilling point: “I have kind of my fringe fears this will be used to train LLMs.” —Garrison Davis (46:44)

5. National Security Strategy 2025: Nativism and Authoritarian Themes (48:19–57:39)

• Nationalist Rhetoric in Official Doctrine:
  The new NSS is described as the most ideologically explicit statement yet from the administration, blending Twitter-fueled white nationalist tropes with policy.
  • “We want Europe to remain European.” —NSS document, read by James Stout (50:34)
  • “This just sounds like your average white nationalist Twitter post.” —Robert Evans (50:34)
• Immigration as Scapegoat:
  Political and economic failures persistently blamed on immigration (border security reimagined as primary national security).
  • Directly evokes historical scapegoating and structural anti-Semitism (see Moishe Postone’s theories; Mia Wong at 57:07).
• Soft Power Decline:
  Hosts observe the U.S. has little soft power left to lose, undermining any claims of “restoring” it abroad.

6. Lighthearted/Darkly Ironic Moments (Selected)

• Snyderverse Conspiracy Cult (58:48–61:20):
  Banter about the unhinged online fandoms speculating that Saudi investors would restore Zack Snyder's DC films or even “execute his enemies.”
• Trans Housing Insecurity (62:50–65:05):
  The show closes on a serious note:
  • “If you have an extra room, put a trans person in it...people are going homeless and dying.” —Mia Wong (62:50)
  • The group discusses regional differences in housing pressures, the need for mutual aid, and the bleakness of “couch surfing as housing policy.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It’s so cool that we live in an economy where your two options are Netflix destroys film forever and the Nazis gain control of CNN. Great system.” —Mia Wong (10:31)
• “We want Europe to remain European.” —NSS, read by James Stout (50:34)
• “This just sounds like your average white nationalist Twitter post.” —Robert Evans (50:34)
• “Food Not Bombs is an action, not an entity.” —James Stout (12:50)
• “The normalization of this sort of social media scanning...to identify, you know, undesirable political beliefs...” —Robert Evans (46:28)
• “If you have a couch, put a trans girl on your couch...cultural shifts toward sharing space more...can be mitigated by just putting people on your couch.” —Mia Wong (62:50)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• [03:55] — Warner Brothers acquisition: media consolidation, politics, Trump angle
• [11:12] — Local political stories: Florida, Food Not Bombs, Democratic wins
• [21:48] — January 6th pipe bomb suspect: Brony lineage, FBI critique
• [40:17] — ICE deportation scandal
• [44:11] — DHS/CBP surveillance expansion against tourists
• [48:19] — National Security Strategy 2025: explicit nativism
• [58:48] — Snyderverse fandom as an internet cult phenomenon
• [62:50] — Trans housing insecurity; call for mutual aid

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Final Thoughts

The episode depicts a country and government that’s both collapsing and mutating, with nativist policies and media shenanigans intertwined, and communities urged to look out for each other as formal institutions falter. The hosts' tone is equal parts darkly comic, urgent, and sardonic—offering both trenchant critique and some deadpan gallows humor.

This is an essential episode for anyone wanting a crash-course in the political, economic, and cultural entropy of December 2025, and the various (often darkly funny) ways ordinary people, activists, and fandoms are contending with it.

Transcript

[Garrison Davis]

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[Robert Evans]

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[Garrison Davis]

Call Zone Media. All right everybody, this is an emergency episode of It Could Happen here. We're dropping everything else for the most important breaking news in the country. Andy Dick has overdosed in public in the city of Los Angeles. Thankfully, in preparation for this, we've had our entire team deployed to the Areas around Andy Dick's home. James, do you have any updates on the situation?

[James Stout]

No, I'm not sure who Andy Dick is. Just like a public figure in America.

[Garrison Davis]

I could have planned this out better. Yes, Andy Dick is America's sweetheart and he's going through some troubled times. Okay. They narc, they Narcan demon public. No, it's Andy Dick's fault. This is entirely on Andy Dick.

[James Stout]

Yeah, well, good on the person who had Narcan.

[Mia Wong]

Carrie Narcan.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

No one should ever feel sorry for Andy Dick. I feel bad for the Narcan.

[Robert Evans]

This is it could happen here. Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world and Andy Dick. I'm Garrison Davis. This episode I'm joined by referred to someone.

[James Stout]

The first time we only use the last name Garrison.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I'm joined by Mia Wong, James Stout, Robert Evans, and Sophie Lichterman. We are covering the week of December 4th to December 10th.

[Garrison Davis]

So one of the big stories of the last week or so is something that would seem, would be unequivocally a bad thing in any other political climate, which is Netflix buying Warner Brothers and contributing to the shrinking ever further of like America's like the number of people who actually own all of the media that Americans consume.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Monopolization's obviously bad, but in this case.

[Garrison Davis]

I mean, it's bad that on that end it's probably better that Netflix buy it than Paramount buy it.

[James Stout]

Yes.

[Garrison Davis]

So I guess I'm like, well, okay.

[Mia Wong]

This could be worse Predator versus Alien situation.

[Robert Evans]

This is a really weird situation. Right. Because a lot of people are really dooming about, you know, Netflix requiring Warner Brothers and what that'll mean for like, you know, art and the, you know, theatrical model of film distribution and then not realizing that Paramount's counter bid based on Saudi money.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Would place Warner Brothers in the control of one of the most Trump aligned like media enterprises in the United States right now.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. So let's, let's, let's roll back a second and look at what is actually going on here. And it's actually very important to note this is being recorded on Wednesday, December 10th. This whole situation is changing extremely quickly. There could be some. Another unhinged thing could have happened by the time you, you're listening to this. But the, the basics here is that Paramount, which was recently acquired by Skydance.

[Robert Evans]

Which is, which direction did that acquisition go?

[Mia Wong]

I mean, technically speaking, it was a merger, but it was really. But it was Skydance taking control of Paramount. Skydance had been run by Larry Ellison's son, David Ellison.

[James Stout]

David.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, so, and this is, this is, this is, this is the, the regime that sort of imposed Barry Weiss on cbs, which has become increasingly right wing under her quote, unquote leadership. We're going to do a full episode about this, I think on Monday.

[Robert Evans]

We're going to be tuning into the Charlie Kirk, Erica Kirk town hall on CBS this Saturday.

[Mia Wong]

Oh, God, they can't make me. I will have recorded this episode before they did this.

[Robert Evans]

I'm going to be tuning in because it looks phenomenal.

[Mia Wong]

So it's worth pointing out. So Larry Ellison, who is the father of David Ellison, is one of the most terrifying of all of the right wing billionaires.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

He's kind of more quiet than someone like Andreessen or Elon Musk about being a unhinged right wing fanatic. But he's one of Trump's biggest supporters. He has a whole thing about how everyone's inevitably going to be under total constant surveillance that will make everyone behave. Well, we'll cover this more later, but the Ellison's the father son Ellison duo and Paramount, backed by the Saudis Abu.

[Garrison Davis]

Dhabi and Qatar, they want Bugs Bunny desperately because he keeps, my sources are saying he keeps pranking Mohammed bin Salman by cross dressing.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And it's really.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. The entire Saudi military is incapable of stopping Bugs Bunny. Their best bet for taking him down.

[Robert Evans]

Well, I think what's, what's an interesting fact in these various bids for control of Warner Brothers. The Netflix deal does not include cnn. The Paramount deal does.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. Before we get into that, we should, we should say what Paramount is doing now, which is Paramount on Monday began to try to just do a hostile takeover by just straight up buying out the shares at what they're claiming is the higher share price. There's a whole lot of complicated stuff.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

About share pricing here that you don't really care about.

[Garrison Davis]

And there have been so many dishonest headline. One being like Paramount lost the bid by just 75 cents. No, 75 cents a share. That's like hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars.

[Mia Wong]

And that's not even, it's, it's all, it's all ridiculous.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

The Wall Street Journal has been getting a lot of the information about this. We've gotten to a point on Wednesday where investors are going to the Wall Street Journal and being like there's going to be a bidding war. There's going to be a bidding war. But the Wall Street Journal points out, and I think this is an interesting thing here that's important to set these hostile takeover attempts to almost never work. It's like 30% of the time.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And it's sub 30% that these, that these things kind of work. But the other card that the, the father son Ellison duo have is claiming that Trump is more likely to back Paramount's buyout than the Netflix one because Trump can sort of stop this through antitrust.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Or quote unquote, antitrust stuff. Per Axios, Jared Kushner's consultancy firm is part of Paramount's buyout plan. And per Wall Street Journal, David Ellison met with Trump administration officials in quote, recent days and has offered to. You know, this goes back to what Garrison was saying about CNN being part of. Part of this package they have been offering to effectively due to cnn what they did to cbs, which is put it under the control of some right wing fanatic and turn it into a propaganda, a pure propaganda outlet. This is, you know, obviously corruption of a sort of mind blowing.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And a product of the fact that like our quote unquote, free press is literally just for sale. Amazingly, this is not. This doesn't seem to be working.

[Robert Evans]

No. I mean, and Trump has spoken positively about Netflix and the Netflix CEO the.

[Garrison Davis]

Past few days, but he's also spoken negatively.

[Robert Evans]

Spoken negatively about both of them. Yeah, both the Netflix. Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

He's talking negatively about Ellison recently. And there's a. There's a quote from an article I found in the Wall Street Journal.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Trump has so far avoided publicly backing a bidder. None of them are particularly great friends of mine. He said. At a White House roundtable on Monday, a person close to Trump said the President will want Paramount and Netflix to compete for his approval of a deal. Which does sound very Trump.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And apparently the specific thing he's mad at Paramount about is for having Marjorie Taylor Greene on cbs.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, he's so cool.

[Garrison Davis]

It's really funny.

[Mia Wong]

There is no amount of sort of ass kissing that you can do to actually make Trump consistently be on your side. It's really hideous. This is all disgusting.

[Robert Evans]

Unless. Unless you give him the FIFA World Peace Prize.

[James Stout]

Yes.

[Garrison Davis]

Oh, yeah. He'll die for FIFA now.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Can I just say, fuck me.

[Garrison Davis]

He's actually renaming American football to soccer.

[Robert Evans]

God, I love the FIFA trophy because it looks disgusting. Have you seen the FIFA trophy?

[Garrison Davis]

Yes, I have guessed 15 minutes on that fucking thing.

[Robert Evans]

Just all those hands grasping that ball.

[James Stout]

Oh my God. Yeah. Really Genuinely one of the. One of the most impressive actors. Sports sycophant see since 1933.

[Robert Evans]

But. But, yeah, it doesn't seem like Trump is as keen to back Paramount's bid as what some of the Paramount people thought he might be. And the Netflix deal might just end up actually going through.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And we'll see about this. This is all going to change probably by the time you're reading this or listening to this. That's. That's the one that you do. But it's so cool that we live in an economy where your two options are Netflix destroys film forever and the Nazis gain control of cnn. It's great. Great system.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

No notes.

[Robert Evans]

And what would really be damaging if Paramount's able to buy Warner Brothers is that then they would be in charge of Nathan Fielder's rehearsal, which does target the fascistic Paramount regime.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

James, what's some small news stories we can go with here before our first break?

[James Stout]

Yeah, okay. I'm operating on a couple of computers here, so this is gonna have to work around some constraints, fam.

[Robert Evans]

Good thing you're wearing your 5.11 uniform to help maintain the discipline necessary.

[James Stout]

Garrison. This is not 5.11, my friend. This is 5.1.1. You cannot get this shit outside of Syria and Iraq, and I fucking love it. Yep. Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

I still have my knockoff Timberland shirt, which just says Thixngand. And looks. Honestly, the label looks like an AI slop tried to put the Timberland logo. It's amazing.

[James Stout]

My favorite is the one that just says 165 plus 11. I love fake 511 shit. If you have fake 511 shit, I have a collection of it. Send it to me. I will retire and make a museum one day. I cannot get enough of it. I love that. It started as a rock climbing brand in Yosemite and now it is a lifestyle brand in Syria. It's perfect.

[Garrison Davis]

I tell you, I miss my Adonis tracksuit that I got in Turkey.

[James Stout]

I got some. I've got some Merle boots as well. Yeah, I love that shit. I got a fake Gerber knife graber. That one. That one. That one.

[Garrison Davis]

That's not fake. That's from.

[James Stout]

Yeah, I know. Yeah, yeah. Bullshit knives. Yeah, it's one of my favorites.

[Mia Wong]

Gonna start putting on women's hats very soon.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Okay, let's talk about the news. So this is a fun one. Schrodinger's permit, we're gonna call it. In Pensacola, somebody participating in Food Not Bombs was arrested. Following that, at a press conference, the city announced that a person was arrested for being in a park. Too late, right? I guess. In Florida of course. Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

This is the most serious crime imaginable.

[James Stout]

And also giving food to poor people, which is probably like a felony in Florida. So the city then announced the issue had been resolved because there was a permit issued to Food Not Bombs for them to be in the park late and give people food. Food Not Bombs did not apply for the permit, nor do they want the permit. Right. That's not how Food Not Bombs works. Food Not Bombs is an action, not an entity.

[Garrison Davis]

Right.

[James Stout]

Like it is a protest action. The city is now reviewing if the permit is releasable under public records laws. So someone can find out who attempted to white knight Food Not Bombs. Yeah. Some of the suggestions as there's a guy who runs some kind of. We will cooperate with the cops to get people off Fentanyl charity, which uses some incredible AI imagery on its Instagram page.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, that sounds good.

[James Stout]

Yeah. So I will keep you updated on this Florida story.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, thanks for that, James.

[James Stout]

In the Oregon vs Trump case regarding National Guard deployment, Judge Jay Bybee, not normally a guy associated with woke a George W. Bush appointee, has penned an extensive opinion, I think it was 64 pages, on the domestic violence clause of the Constitution and how it ought to restrain the use of the Guard. It's like a different argument than we've seen previously.

[Garrison Davis]

Right.

[James Stout]

In discussions about the National Guard because.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I've read the other judge opinion pieces, but not this one.

[James Stout]

Yeah. So Bybey's been in it for a while and he's been someone who has. I've previously not really been an opponent of what I might see as of overreach in terms of state power and violence. But yeah, using this. This is a different clause to the Constitution. Right. So it's now moving along in that discussion yesterday as we were recording this. So that would be. On Tuesday the 9th, the Democrats held a bicameral shadow, quote, unquote, shadow hearing on the detention of U.S. citizens by DHS that doesn't really have the power to do much. And I have not had time to listen to the entire recording because it was only streamed on Facebook. I love that we have an opposition in this country.

[Robert Evans]

God, I love the Democrats.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, they really. I like how together they've got it like after a rough patch, they're really firing it all.

[James Stout]

Like a Phoenix from the ashes have been absolute ass whooping in the election.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, yeah. Like an ass Phoenix.

[James Stout]

Exactly. Yeah. Ass Phoenix. That's my band, actually. I can't believe that you plugged us on air. Thank you. Okay. Trump's ongoing barrage of Hate about Somali people has been met with some incredible posting. People who are not on x.com will have missed this, but like, genuinely some of the funniest response to some of the most hateful shit like Trump and Miller have both been on a. And I guess Fox News. Fox News went to Minneapolis and heard a call to prayer and had a meltdown about it. But this is. This campaign, I guess, by Trump and Miller is very much ongoing. We spoke about that last week with the tbs. If people aren't familiar, they can check that out. Last week. Yeah. Eileen Higgins won the Miami mayoral election. Do I want to make a Pitbull joke?

[Garrison Davis]

The dog you talking about, Mr. Worldwide.

[James Stout]

Well, we could do. Margaret is a major issue. I'm just trying to work on the acronym.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, God.

[Garrison Davis]

Because I'm always thinking about Mr. Worldwide. James. He's never far from my thoughts.

[James Stout]

No, I often think about Pitbull and how he and Hillary Clinton often wear exactly the same thing.

[Garrison Davis]

That's right. They have a lot in common, actually.

[James Stout]

They do.

[Garrison Davis]

The primary thing.

[Robert Evans]

Is this like a Miami.

[Garrison Davis]

Yes, it is, Mr. Worldwide.

[James Stout]

It's in fact a Miami thing. Yeah. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

I don't know.

[James Stout]

Yes.

[Robert Evans]

But this is the first time a Democrat has won the mayoral office in Miami in almost 30 years, which is.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, this is wild.

[Robert Evans]

Significant.

[Mia Wong]

This is astonishing.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

This was like a pretty decent win. This was a runoff election, but it's still a pretty, Pretty substantial win.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And I think there's. There's a. There's a few important notes here. One is that even the Miami Cuba demographics swung massively towards the Democrats, which is sort of apocalyptic news for the Republicans. That's really, really bad. If you're losing the Miami Cuban population.

[Garrison Davis]

If you have got Miami Cubans to think critically about politics, things are dire.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And the other thing here, too, is that the Florida Democratic Party, like, I would compare them to clowns, but like these. These motherfuckers make Bobo the Clown look like fucking Napoleon. These are the most. Some of the most incompetent people in the entire history of politics. And the Republicans are losing to them. That's astonishing. There were a couple of other results like this.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. This week, Democrats flipped a Georgia state House seat. The seat moved blue by 22 points. Jeez.

[Mia Wong]

Yep. They flipped Albuquerque City Council. There's all of these little results. And this has been happening basically since we got the first special elections of the Trump administration where the Republicans are losing like R + 22 districts. They're getting destroyed in places that it shouldn't be possible for them to lose. And this is a. This is another major confirmation of the MIA everyone hates them theory. Every day it gets more and more validated. Everyone hates them.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, last small news story that I think is worth mentioning because it's, I think, pretty important, actually. Conservative podcaster Benny Johnson is threatening to sue Milo Yiannopoulos for alleging that he is gay. So we're going to be keeping up with this story pretty close. I know this has a lot of ramifications for listeners.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, great.

[James Stout]

Cool.

[Garrison Davis]

We should do ads.

[Robert Evans]

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[James Stout]

Watch it on prime video starting January 8th. Have you ever wiped with a piece of dry single ply toilet paper and.

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[Garrison Davis]

Wow.

[Robert Evans]

That's.

[Garrison Davis]

That's the move.

[James Stout]

And you can dress her up?

[Robert Evans]

Absolutely. A Casamigo's margarita is the perfect cocktail all year round. Oh, sure, a marg is great, but picture this. A big red bow around her neck, maybe some pearls.

[James Stout]

She is a total moment.

[Robert Evans]

And the most interesting person at the party is always the one making Casamigos.

[Garrison Davis]

Margs for the group.

[Robert Evans]

Or the person who showed up with.

[James Stout]

The Casamigos to the party.

[Robert Evans]

Wait, what about Casamigos Mules? Ooh, yes, in those little copper cups. Or Casamigos espresso martinis.

[James Stout]

Now that's how you keep the party going.

[Robert Evans]

Or Casamigos crayon. Totally. Casamigos' really is the gift that keeps on giving. Well, you know what they say.

[James Stout]

Anything goes with my Casamigos on Second.

[Robert Evans]

Thought, a holiday party might be in order. That sounds like a great idea. Please drink responsibly. Imported by Casamigos Spirits Company, White Plains, New York. Casamigos Tequila, 40% alcohol by volume.

[Advertisement Voice]

Attention parents and grandparents. If you're looking for a gift that's more than just a toy, give them something that inspires confidence and adventure all year long. Give them a Guardian bike, the easiest, safest and number one kids bike on the market. With USA made kids specific frames and patented safety technology, kids are learning to ride in just one day. No training wheels needed. It's why Guardian is America's favorite kids bike and the New York Times and Wirecutter's top pick three years in a row. This holiday season, Guardian is offering their biggest deal of the year, up to 40% in savings on all bikes, plus $100 in free accessories. Guardian bikes have become the most sought after gifts of the season. And inventory is going fast, so don't wait. Join over half a million happy families who've discovered the magic of Guardian. Shop [e-mail] that's guardianbikes.com.

[Garrison Davis]

We're back and we're Talking about the January 6th pipe bomb guy suspect. Yeah, well, I mean, we know there's a person. We don't know that that was a guy. We know someone planted those pipe bombs.

[Robert Evans]

I'm going to talk about the suspect. Yes.

[Garrison Davis]

I want, I want to start just for a little bit by again talking about the degree to which I really hope this is apocalyptic for the Blaze.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

What they did is a case study in what you should never do as a publication. It was unethical, it was idiotic, and it was deeply dangerous. And if the Capitol Police officer does not sue them. I don't know what kind of advice she's getting other than maybe just sheer terror at the number of death threats she's already received. But like, ma', am, getting all of Glenn Beck's money is the only thing that will keep you safe right now. Please do it.

[Robert Evans]

No. Yeah. So you, you were out last week when we, when we got the. This like some of the very first reporting on the pipe bomb.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, I know. Is only thing I regret about my vacation. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

But very little information was out last week. And we have more information now regarding the alleged January 6th pipe bomber, or technically January 5th pipe bomber, who is now charged with transporting an explosive device with intent to kill, injure or damage property and attempted malicious destruction by means of fire and explosive materials. According to court records, the FBI identified the suspect through Cell tower records, license plate readers and purchases of potential bomb making materials including the pipes, the cap ends, the wires, steel and 9 volt batteries. It doesn't appear that they gained possession of new information, but by changing the agents looking at the information they were able to piece piece this together to actually make an action on it leading to the arrest.

[Garrison Davis]

It's a classic FBI story of they had all the information they needed to have caught this guy very long ago and did not.

[James Stout]

Yeah, right.

[Robert Evans]

Or lack the ability to like put the pieces together in a way that makes them able to do the rest.

[Garrison Davis]

But as is always the case, this was not an issue if they didn't have enough access to information. There was too much encrypted. There was, you know, they need more power. No, they had everything they needed. They just didn't think right. Yeah, that's what it was. They weren't thinking right. You know.

[Robert Evans]

Still very little has come out officially about the alleged bomber's potential motivation who may be innocent.

[Garrison Davis]

Let's be clear.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

There's nothing alluding to his motivation in the charging documents besides just an interest, a years long interest in bomb making starting in 2019 and continuing into like 2021. Now NBC has reported based on sources inside the law enforcement investigation team, but embassies reported that before the suspect acquired an attorney, he confessed to investigators and told the FBI that he believed in 2020 election conspiracy theories. But some new information from the New York Post which I have verified may have actually cracked this story wide open. They have learned that the suspect is a Brony. My Little Pony fan draws a lot of actually relatively good quality My Little Pony fan art and writes. Finally My Little Pony fan fiction. I could read some here.

[Garrison Davis]

Garrison, what is the quality of their fanfiction? Yeah, let's let's just, just give us like 15 minutes.

[Robert Evans]

I'll read a paragraph, quote. Apple Bloom's eyes snapped open as she sat up in her bed, panting heavily and sweat dripping from her red mane. It was another bad dream about that village she had discovered back in the Everfree Forest. Sunny town. At first it seemed like a normal, peaceful little village, kind of like Ponyville. What was strange was that none of the inhabitants had cutie marks. In fact, they hadn't the slightest clue as to what a cutie mark was.

[Garrison Davis]

So could you send me that link? Could you send me that? Oh sure, quick. Yeah, thank you.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I'll actually, I'll. I'll send this to the entire team chat.

[Mia Wong]

I'm demanding hazard pay at the next union Negotiations. We need hazard pay.

[Robert Evans]

Actually, like, this is very standard but relatively good quality My Little Pony Brony activity non sexual entirely. Like, I've looked at a lot of this guy's art. It's fairly clear prose, fairly high quality My Little Pony fan art in a variety of styles from different eras of the show. Not like a sexually fetishistic depiction.

[Garrison Davis]

Can't wait to see the headlines from this cool zone. Host defends Capitol Bite Bombers Bros.

[Robert Evans]

But no, like, a high school classmate told Washington Post that he was bullied for having a My Little Pony backpack in school.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[Robert Evans]

He's had this interest for quite a while. Kind of. Kind of tapered off a few years before, before the bombing. But for a while, this was like kind of one of his main hobbies. On, on a Tumblr profile, he lists his interest as, quote, parkour, music, video games, mainly horror drawing, improving myself philosophically, and anime, unquote. Okay, well, his grandmother has described him as, quote, almost autistic. Like, because he doesn't understand a lot of stuff, unquote. He's only ever worked for the family bail bond business.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, well, I mean, look, I'll say this. He wasn't bad. Like, he could have had a future in private security or something like that. Like, not bad opsec, as it turned out.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

But I don't know.

[Robert Evans]

A funny slash dark thing is that in the right wing's just desperate effort to make everything about trans people, they have turned this Brony thing into like a, you know, the trans people also like My Little Pony and like, Brony and like, like quotes from, like, psychologists in, in some. In some of these articles about how. How Bronies, like, play with like, gender boundaries by. By being fans of like, a girl's, like, a property that's usually enjoyed by girls. So there. There's been like, a slight attempt to try to kind of paint this in like a. In like a pseudo translate, but that's not getting much traction because, like, cronies are. And like, come on. I think this, this whole strategy is, is on the out in some ways.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Am I, am I incorrect here? Because I had just caught this, but I didn't actually. This is like, while I was on vacation, I had heard that he expressed a belief that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, that's.

[Garrison Davis]

Do we know if that's accurate? Okay. Okay, so he does seem to be.

[Robert Evans]

That's being reported by the NBC that, that he told investigators that he believed in like, 2020 election conspiracy theories, the ones that were spread by Trump.

[Garrison Davis]

So, I mean, it seems like from what we have, one of the more predictable ones. And like, it's not. If this is like a weird right wing, you know, Brony, this is not the first time a right wing Brony has done something violent.

[Robert Evans]

He doesn't seem super political in my opinion. Like, none of his online activity points towards a deep interest in politics.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, no, but if he said he thought the election was stolen, then that makes sense as being a contributing factor.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, a factor perhaps, but not, not a huge, like, online presence that revolves around politics. Like, a lot of people who aren't super into politics maybe thought the election was like, stolen or like rigged.

[Garrison Davis]

I mean, as we try to point out periodically, the vast majority of people who will carry out a shooting or other act of mass public violence in the US are going to have more in common with other people who do that than anyone specifically, just in political terms, for the most part, because most of them are, you know, they're shooter stands. They're, they're, they're that sort of thing. Like, this is their special interest. Bombings or whatever.

[Robert Evans]

He does seem to have, like, it's a lot of special interests. Right. It used to be my little ponies. Then it became bomb making. That just seemed to be a special interest of his for like three or four years was just like the practice of bomb making. This is just, just something he got like, into. And I think that's more of a motivating force and like a specific partisan political motivation. And I think it's really funny, like, reflecting on a, a statement that, that law enforcement leaked last week saying that he had like, anarchist, like, leanings, which is very, very amusing. Now in light of all of that.

[James Stout]

For a long time they have used anarchism to mean like a predilection for violence or chaos.

[Garrison Davis]

Doesn't like the government, blah, blah, blah. Right.

[James Stout]

Like, yeah, yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Part of this is just the way people tend to use the term anarchism. When I was doing my research for like, the nuclear doomsday device episodes, there's a bunch of otherwise great pieces that are like. And then in the, in the wake of a global nuclear war, society will collapse and all that will be left is anarchy. And it's like, guys, like, it's not anarchy. That's, that's going to be the problem that like, like you realize this, that the cause of a nuclear war is, is like all of this. Like, yeah, it's, it is not at all anarchy as opposed to nuclear war. I'm worried about for example.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah. The nuclear weapon part.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. I'm worried about, like, democracy, fucking authoritarianism. I'm worried about all of those things. Anarchists would never have built a nuclear doomsday device.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah. It's why I used left libertarian sometimes in my academic writing, because it was just. The term is just not comprehensible. Especially like someone coming, having been raised on US Media, and in the wake.

[Garrison Davis]

Of a global nuclear war, you'll be lucky to get some anarchy, because it probably means someone's found some food and is cooking it for you.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Food, not bombs are like food after they've rebranded, but they're still going food, comma. Yeah, yeah. The bombs.

[Garrison Davis]

Is actually done with bombs.

[Mia Wong]

We did it. We replaced the bottles of food.

[Robert Evans]

One other update. I'll squeeze in here quick. It's short.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled that Texas can use its newly drawn congressional map in the upcoming 2026 midterms, likely adding five Republican seats. The lower court order, which found the new map was racially gerrymandered intentionally, has been stayed indefinitely as the Supreme Court prepares to consider whether to overturn the lower court's ruling entirely, a process which could take months go well into the midterm cycle. So the Supreme Court has authorized the use of that new map for this next election.

[James Stout]

Talking of fan fiction and covers of things, here is a song that was originally the worst song by the Clash, and now it's about tariffs.

[Robert Evans]

I think the COVID is of a similar quality as the alleged bombers fan art, in my opinion. Dear God, There's a lot of good Twilight Sparkle stuff that he. He was drawing. I'm sorry.

[Mia Wong]

So, all right. China is technically, once again buying American soybeans as part of the sort of giant trade deal that Xi Jinping and Trump negotiated. But come on. It is not buying soybeans at the rate that the White House said it would. In the fact sheet that was released by the White House about the negotiations, this is a huge problem because farmers are still not being able to sell enough soybeans to not get completely fucked. And the White House is now putting out a bunch of statements saying, oh, no, we actually screwed up the fact sheet. They said that they would buy the soybeans not before the end of the year, before the. At the end of, like, the growing season.

[Robert Evans]

That's good. That's good.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

So.

[Mia Wong]

And. And his other solution to this has been a $12 billion farmer bailout, which is funny because he did a $12 billion farm bailout in his first term when exactly the same thing happened and it didn't really do anything.

[Robert Evans]

Well, at least we're not bailing out, let's say Argentina.

[James Stout]

Funny example, Garestan. What makes you choose that one?

[Mia Wong]

Oh, God. Yeah. So the issue with this farmer's bailout is, and this is something that farmers have been saying through all of the trade press, any regular press, they can get access to every local media outlet. Every single farmer who anyone has interviewed has gone, we don't want to bailout. We want to be able to sell our blasted soybeans. And they still can't. And this is, you know, becoming a real problem for this administration that even after their giant negotiations to get China to buy soybeans, they still can't do it. And farmers are continuing to be very, very pissed off about this.

[Robert Evans]

Where are my beans? Yeah, they're sitting in the silos. They're still there.

[Mia Wong]

They can't sell them.

[Garrison Davis]

How am I going to keep up.

[James Stout]

My soy consumption and going to be forced to become. I don't know what other vegan options there are. Some other kind of boy, I guess.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Well, we'll just have to get it from Brazil instead.

[Robert Evans]

Brazil mentioned everyone. Cheers.

[Garrison Davis]

Hey, they're doing good these days.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, yeah. Hasn't there been some Bolsonaro news recently?

[Garrison Davis]

I feel like there has been. Let's roll the ads and then we'll talk about it.

[Robert Evans]

Okay.

[Mia Wong]

This has been turf talk.

[Robert Evans]

10 athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points. You are the fittest of the fit. Only one of you will leave here with an IFIT contract for $250,000. This is where mindset comes in. Someone will be eliminated. Pressure is coming down. This is trainer Games.

[James Stout]

Watch it on prime video starting January 8th.

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[Robert Evans]

This is Bowen Yang from Los Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. And I'm Matt Rogers from the very same podcast. It's the holiday season, and you know what that means. Holiday parties. They're the best, but there's always the stress of what to wear, what to bring. Easy solution. Beau, bring a bottle of Casamigos. Casamigos.

[Garrison Davis]

Wow.

[Robert Evans]

That's the move.

[James Stout]

And you can dress her up?

[Robert Evans]

Absolutely. A Casamigos margarita is the perfect cocktail all year round. Oh, sure, a Marg is great, but picture this. A big red bow around her neck, maybe some pearls.

[James Stout]

She is a total moment.

[Robert Evans]

And the most interesting person at the party is always the one making Casamigos margs for the group or person who.

[James Stout]

Showed up with the Casamigos to the party.

[Robert Evans]

Wait, what about Casamigos mules? Ooh, yes, in those little copper cups. Or Casamigos espresso martinis.

[James Stout]

Now that's how you keep the party going.

[Robert Evans]

Or Casamigos crayon. Totally. Casamigos really is the gift that keeps on giving. Well, you know what they say, anything.

[James Stout]

Goes with my Casamigos.

[Robert Evans]

On second thought, a holiday party might be in order. That sounds like a great idea. Please drink responsibly. Imported by Casamigos Spirits Company, White Plains, New York. Casamigos Tequila. 40% alcohol by volume.

[Advertisement Voice]

Attention parents and grandparents. If you're looking for a gift that's more than just a toy, give them something that inspires confidence and adventure all year long. Give them a Guardian bike. The easiest, safest and number one kids bike on the market. With USA Made Kids specific frames and patented safety technology, kids are learning to ride in just one day. No training wheels needed. It's why Guardians. Guardian is America's favorite kids bike and the New York Times and Wirecutter's top pick three years in a row. This holiday season, Guardian is offering their biggest deal of the year. Up to 40% in savings on all bikes plus $100 in free accessories. Guardian bikes have become the most sought after gifts of the season. And inventory is going fast. So don't wait. Join over half a million happy families who've been discover the magic of Guardian. Shop now@guardian bikes.com that's guardian bikes.com.

[Garrison Davis]

We're back. And you know who's not free to listen to podcasts? Jer Bolsonaro.

[James Stout]

We can hope.

[Garrison Davis]

After trying to cut off his ankle monitor, he has been taken into custody for attempting or at least probably trying to escape. Trump had made comments about it expecting to see him soon. Yeah, I don't think. I think he's gonna die in prison. He's not doing well. I will say one thing we gotta do. You know, back when he got stabbed, I think everyone's opinion on it was like, oh fuck. You've just, you know, you've made him a martyr. You got to look cool and seem like a badass. This has done nothing but empower him.

[Robert Evans]

No one cares.

[Garrison Davis]

No, actually, that stab did a lot of damage. Like that ruined his life. Low key.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

So thoughts and prayers to that guy wherever he. You know, we just didn't realize the level of game that you had, my man.

[Robert Evans]

No, I mean, it's. It's. It's tough. I mean, we used to have the two, like, of the world's sickest men, Bolsonaro and Steven Crowder, just fighting it out to see who would stay sicker for longer.

[James Stout]

What about Jordan Peterson? That seems like erasure.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, See, he's taking the spot because he's still vanished from the Daily Wire because of his, like, bizarre illness.

[Garrison Davis]

His daughter says he's basically dead.

[James Stout]

Yeah, he's like, patient zero for CWD in humans or something. Right?

[Robert Evans]

Like, the Daily Wire still is acting like Peterson's, like, still a person.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. It turns out cold turkey quitting benzos via a fucking coma in Russia is a bad call.

[Robert Evans]

Speaking of Crowder, I did watch the Two Hours Steven Crowder, Nick Fuentes interview this week.

[Mia Wong]

Oh, God.

[Robert Evans]

And it was really uncomfortable.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, I'll bet.

[James Stout]

I can imagine.

[Robert Evans]

They were just, like, jerking each other off for two hours. Nick was trying to be nice and, like, not act like Steven's this, like, like, totally irrelevant, like, boomer. And Steven was trying to make Nick think he was cool. And it was so painful to watch the entire time. Yeah, it was. It was bad. There was nothing else notable from that. I guess. Let's. Let's actually move to some notable, notable stories to close this episode.

[James Stout]

Yeah. So I want to talk about the case of Faustino Pablo Pablo. A US district court in El Paso, Texas, has granted Mr. Pablo Pablo a tentative restraining order directing the government to return him to the United states by the 12th of this month, which will be the day that you are hearing this episode. Mr. Pablo Pablo entered the USA in 2012 and was found removal by a judge. However, that judge granted his application for withholding of removal under the Convention against Torture because he would likely be tortured if he was returned to Guatemala, which is where he's from. In theory, he was removable, therefore, to a place where he would not likely be tortured.

[Garrison Davis]

Right.

[James Stout]

This is what we've seen the US Government doing more and more in the last year. Really?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

He spent more than a decade. He moved to California, attended his ICE check ins, until he was detained at an ICE check in on the 5th of November Mr. Pablo, Pablo's lawyer filed a habeas petition and asked the court to enjoin ICE from removing him from the Western District of Texas, which is where they took him on the 17th of November. Right. So he was detained on the 5th. People who listened to my immigration series a couple of weeks ago will be familiar with this. Right? People were detained in la, ferried all around California and then sent to Texas. This is what happened in his case. He wouldn't have been sent to the same place people in my series were because that's for family detention. By the time the court ordered the government not to remove him, they had already sent him back to Guatemala just to cover. There is one country in the world that he has withholding of removal to because he will be tortured there most likely, and that is where they sent him. The government conceded that they had made a mistake and said they, quote, tentatively scheduled a flight for 4 December. He did not take that flight. As far as we know, he is still in Guatemala. He's in hiding and the court has ordered that the government facilitate his return by the 12th of this month. So we'll probably update you on that in next week's Ed.

[Robert Evans]

I'm going to talk about an expansion of social media monitoring which we've already seen for visa applicants but now expanding out to tourists as well. Customs and border protection and DHS have posted a 60 day notice for proposal to revise the electronic system for Travel Authorization application, which is a waiver that some foreign tourists can use to avoid getting a tourist visa. And the proposal is to add mandatory social media collection for all foreign tourists using the ESTA visa waiver. This proposal would require that applicants provide their social media information from the past five years, citing a January Executive Order quote, protecting the United States from foreign terrorists and other national security and public safety threats, unquote this would match the sort of social media monitoring we've seen applied to some visa applicants and immigrants just now extending out to tourists using the ESTA application. And to comply with this January Executive Order, CBP is also planning to add, quote, several high value data fields to the EST application when feasible. Unquote this would include, quote, telephone numbers used in the last five years, email addresses used in the last 10 years, IP addresses and metadata from electronically submitted photos, family member names, parents, spouse, siblings, children, family telephone numbers used in the last five years, family member dates of birth, family member places of birth, family member residences, biometric face fingerprint, DNA and IRIS business telephone numbers used in the last five years and business email addresses used in the last 10 years, unquote.

[James Stout]

Yeah, this is a wild amount of data. I mean they can flash some of this like really quickly again against like quote unquote watch lists, right?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

But some of this a like to gather this data to gather biometric data. That's not possible with like say you're applying on your cell phone or your home computer. Right. So this might require an appointment.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. For some of the fingerprint stuff. Part of the proposal is also requiring a selfie be submitted with this application separate from whatever's on the ID that is being used. And so they could extract some like facial biometrics from that. Yeah, but they can also, they can also collect that stuff like at the airport or ports of entry. They have fingerprint scanners now at a lot of these like entry kiosks.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah. The selfie isn't just a selfie, it's what's called a facial liveness scan, which is what we've spoken about before with CBP1. Right. That, that like notoriously was very poor at capturing black faces. Generally you sort of have to like move the phone around your face to check that. It's not like it's not me holding up a life size copy of Garrison. It's actually Garrison.

[Robert Evans]

A 3D Garrison.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. The Garrison mannequin that we all got for Christmas last year.

[Robert Evans]

Can you, can you send one to me?

[James Stout]

Sorry, it's not legal in New York. Yeah. This will make it a lot harder for people to apply for ESTA visas. It's going to create a massive of like dragnet of data for people applying for ester visas. I'm guessing that kind of is the goal already. Right. So like if you live in these countries, you, you don't always qualify for an esta. There are certain things you could have done, certain countries you could have been to certain like if you have a criminal record etc, where there you wouldn't be able to get an esta. So like this is kind of already a something of a, like a pre vetted group and, and countries from which citizens can apply for esters. That in itself is like a tier. Right. Not everyone in the world can apply for an esta.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's already a semi exclusive waiver with like a cost burden as well.

[James Stout]

Yes, yeah, yeah. It creates a massive data mine which I'm guessing might be what they're going for.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I mean just the normalisation of this sort of like social media scanning to identify, you know, undesirable political Beliefs that Mark Rubio in the Department of State or DHS deems as, like, a national security threat.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

I also have kind of my fringe fears that this will be used to train llmc.

[James Stout]

It's probably fair, but.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, we'll see.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

How is this not going to be catastrophic for any business that relies on tourism? Any state that relies on tourism. Right. Like.

[James Stout]

Like, yeah, Florida.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

I know that's not the top risk, but, like, it just seems, again, they're. They're going out of their way to over every single demographic in the country, which I don't think is going to work out for them in the long term.

[James Stout]

Yeah, it's a. This is. Yeah, this is a weird one for me because it's the. Yeah. The economic cost is so obvious.

[Garrison Davis]

It's a catastrophe. And there's a part of me that's like, maybe this is a good thing. Just because it's part of, like.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Garrison Davis]

We've always known and have been trying to say for years, every single aspect, like, these people are bad for Everybody. There's, like, 150 people in the country who benefit from the policies that, like, the most extreme parts of the right wants to push, and everyone else is going to be completely fucked over by it, and we might as well just take the mask off. Like. And maybe that's some of what we're seeing in the collapse of Trump's approval is people realizing, like, oh, my God, these guys really just want to destroy everything good about life. Like, that is conservatism in a nutshell.

[Robert Evans]

We hate life and ourselves.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, well, yeah, that was the Democratic Party in that Simpsons episode, Garrison. But, yes, we want.

[Robert Evans]

What's worse for everybody? There, that's the.

[Garrison Davis]

Yes, There you go.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah, that's the other one.

[Garrison Davis]

50.

[Mia Wong]

50. You got it.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Talking of worse for everybody, do we want to talk about the National Security Strategy document that the Trump administration released? Let's go for.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, we should do a dedicated episode about that, but we could talk briefly about it.

[Robert Evans]

We have 15 minutes.

[Garrison Davis]

Let's not use all 15.

[James Stout]

Yeah, I've pulled a lot of quotations from it, and we're not gonna be able to discuss all of them here. I think we will have to discuss this probably next year when we do a whole episode on it. It is one of the more like, especially in terms of, like, foreign relations, one of the more like sort of, this is our ideology, this is our outlook, and these are our goals documents that I've seen from this administration. Right. They talk about how I'll just quote from it here. American strategies since the end of the Cold War have fallen short. They have been laundry lists of wishes or desired end states and have not clearly defined what we want, but instead stated vague platitudes and have often misjudged what we should want. They talk about how they are going to retain soft power. Soft power, people aren't familiar. Is a theory that Joseph Nye has an international relations. It's a power to compel opposition, persuade rather than to force.

[Garrison Davis]

Right.

[James Stout]

The United States has been hemorrhaging soft power like someone with their artery cut, like in the last 12 months. Like soft power is a fraction of what it was a year ago. I find it very odd to see them even mentioning that, to be honest, when like, I mean, they have soft power. If you're Viktor Orban talking of Orban, there's this incredible stuff about Europe here. Quote, we want to support our allies in preserving the freedom and security of Europe.

[Robert Evans]

Europe.

[James Stout]

While restoring Europe's civilizational self confidence and Western identity.

[Mia Wong]

Jesus Christ.

[James Stout]

Another quote.

[Mia Wong]

That's good.

[James Stout]

This is wild. The larger issues facing Europe include the activities of the European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birth rates and the loss of national identities and self confidence. Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less. And then I'm missing skipping a bit here. We want Europe to remain European.

[Robert Evans]

This just sounds like your average like white nationalist, like Twitter post.

[James Stout]

Yeah, no, like, yes, it comes from Twitter.

[Garrison Davis]

Right.

[James Stout]

This is just a Twitter report.

[Robert Evans]

This is like very Twitter brained, like types of politics.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mia Wong]

This guy has like a Greek statue avatar.

[Robert Evans]

Exactly.

[James Stout]

100%.

[Robert Evans]

I think it's really fun to think of Europe being like, like I'm Europe. I have a lot of self confidence issues. I can't really speak up for myself in big groups like the European Union. Like, come on, what do you mean? Self confidence, Grow up.

[James Stout]

Yeah, it's wild. They're like, you know, they're saying that like white European people don't have enough white European pride.

[Robert Evans]

People don't respect my Western identity.

[James Stout]

Like, okay, yeah, notably like for instance, the country of France, a country which lacks self confidence and pride in its identity. This is, this has been an issue for a long time.

[Robert Evans]

It's very funny to have this in like a. This is what, like a U.S. foreign policy or national security document?

[James Stout]

Yeah, this is like These are the guiding principles of our like foreign policy going forward.

[Robert Evans]

And they're like jorking off about like Europe remaining European.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Stout]

Just like shit talking an entire continent.

[Robert Evans]

No, America should think Europe is gay and we should stay away from it. That's what our national security should be is Europe is gay. We don't want to deal with whatever Europe is doing. We're America.

[James Stout]

Yeah, leave us alone.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, that ended really well for us in the 30s.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Well there's almost like an early 20th century vibe to this document. They talk about the Monroe Doctrine.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, they do.

[James Stout]

And they talk about the Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine which they define as, quote, we will deny non hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities or to own or control strategically vital assets in our hemisphere which people aren't familiar with the Monroe Doctrine. It's the US sort of has a right and obligation to exercise some control over the outcomes of the entire western.

[Robert Evans]

Hemisphere, like say Venezuela.

[James Stout]

Yes, that would be one example, Garrison. Yes.

[Robert Evans]

See it's totally different from Iraq because this is on our hemisphere. So it's good intervention actually.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Manifest destiny has given us the right to all of the Americas and so we can, we can intervene in outcomes that. There's a lot about the nation state in here and the idea that the quote unquote nation state should prioritise its own interests. I wonder what they're talking about there. Because we have many nations that are excluded from states all around the world. Right. Like the Kurds being one example. Right. Are they saying that nations and states should always align whilst their special envoy to Syria is saying that he said this week that decentralization has never succeeded in the Middle east. Which is a wild statement to be saying in a place where like you can drive in a single day to the sites of three different genocides from northeastern Syria. Right. You can see the places where the Armenian genocide happened, the Yazidi genocide and the Anfar. Like you can do that drive in a day if you don't get hung up at the border.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. I mean honestly for now, if we're counting some of what was done against, against the Alawites fall, that's a little unclear at the moment, but yeah, possibly.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Like to say that centralization is the only way for the Middle east is a wild statement. So I don't know how some of this pans out. There's also a lot here on border security as national security. Right, sure. I'm just going to read one. They use the word nation a lot nationalism was a subfield of my PhD, so obviously, like I said, I'm interested in the exact understanding of nation they have here because there are several. But throughout history, sovereign nations prohibited uncontrolled migration and granted citizenship only rarely to foreigners who also had to meet demanding criteria. The West's experience over the past decades vindicates this enduring wisdom. In countries throughout the world, mass migration has strained domestic resources, increased violence and other crime, weakened social cohesion, distorted labor markets, and undermined national security. The era of mass migration must end. Border security is the primary element of national security.

[Garrison Davis]

Great.

[Robert Evans]

This is the only terrain they have left because they've abandoned class interests and like, exploitation. So the only thing they can actually focus this on and they focus, like the focus the economy on is through nationalist immigration policies. It's. This is like the last refuge for the right once they're still trying to appeal to some sort of populism, but don't actually want to address real class conditions.

[James Stout]

Yeah. And for a lot of the right, when they talk about nationalism, they are talking about ethno nationalism.

[Robert Evans]

There's a people, you know, the people are the nation. Yes.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Volk, like, which is not always like blood and soil. Nationalism is one type of nationalism. It's not all types of nationalism. Right.

[Robert Evans]

Like, that's the cool thing about the United States. This is the one country, one of the only countries where this, that principle has been, like, opposed in varying degrees since the country's founding.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Like, it's supposed to be the example, maybe along with France. Right. Of like, subscriptive nationalism, where nationalism was not an ethnic quality, it was subscribing to a set of values and beliefs.

[Robert Evans]

Philosophical idea.

[James Stout]

Yeah. That does not seem to be the vibe I'm picking up. There's a lot more in this document. They spent a decent part of it shit talking. Other documents, other previous national security strategies being like that. These are always longer than verbose, but we're going to keep it brief. Yeah. And then off they go. But yeah, I think it's, it's worth us maybe doing a whole episode on because I think it's one of the more like coherent statements of belief. Not, not a lot of this stuff is new. We knew that's how they thought about immigration. Right.

[Robert Evans]

You hear them talk about it on Fox on Newsmax. Like any Stephen Miller, like, public statement is going to talk about, talk about how, how, you know, immigration is changing, you know, the, the economic makeup of the country and like the core identity of the country is changing which defend Western identity. That sort of stuff.

[James Stout]

Yes. Seeing it all written in a document together, I think is where this has value.

[Robert Evans]

Totally.

[James Stout]

And I think. Yeah, seeing that all laid out, seeing the, you know, the way these things play into their view of the world and then as I following what's actually happening in the world and like, like, you know, clearly that when they're talking, they're talking about the United States, when they're talking about nations, Right. They're not talking about the Kurds, they're not talking about Yazidis, the Catalans, other nations that have states. Right.

[Robert Evans]

It's just so funny because they, they lay out all these economic things.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Robert Evans]

Straining domestic resources, violence and crime, weakened social cohesion and, and destroyed labor markets. Right. They lay out all of these things which have direct, like, like economic causal drivers.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And they're like, no, no, no, no. It's actually not about these economic factors. It's just about immigration. Like, there's so, it's so blatant.

[James Stout]

Yeah. No other ideology in history has scapegoated a certain group for the economic disaster in a country that's never happened before.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

It's just one for one. If you go back to Moishe Piston's theory of like structural anti. Semitism as the driver of the Holocaust, it's literally just this.

[Garrison Davis]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

Except this is an even more blatant version of it.

[Robert Evans]

See, but like the Nazis, even though, did try to do some like, populist economic policies as well.

[James Stout]

Yes.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

The Strength Through Joy program. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

The modern American. Right. Doesn't even try to do that. It's just the immigration. They're not even doing like a weird like, like right wing, like socialized.

[Garrison Davis]

There, there's a. I'll just, I'll push back. There's a little bit of like the talk with, oh, we're going to have a. Give every American $1,000 that it invested in that. Like there's. They are like, talk.

[Robert Evans]

They talk about it. They don't do it.

[James Stout]

They don't do it.

[Robert Evans]

But they talk about it. Yes, sometimes.

[James Stout]

Yeah. He talked about a tariff check.

[Garrison Davis]

Right.

[James Stout]

Trump was going to give every. Every American stimulus check. Yeah, yeah. The first term they did during COVID Right. They, they threw some money around.

[Robert Evans]

But there was that like. Yeah. One or two stimulus checks we got at the end of COVID Yeah. The end of the first, you know, batch of the pandemic cycle, to be more accurate.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Robert, was there one other thing you wanted to talk about? We've time.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. This is basically related to the Warner Brothers acquisition. For whatever reason, Reddit's algorithm will periodically give me little hints and bits of the war between Zack Snyder fans and the rest of the world.

[Robert Evans]

I know a lot about this. I know a lot about this.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, I'm not a big Zack Snyder fan, you know, but I don't care. Like, I didn't feel strongly anti or pro his DC movies. There are some crazy people out there who believe and they are like reading the tea leaves. They think the Saudis are going to like, kill his enemies.

[Robert Evans]

They're going to restore the Snyderverse. Robert. Yeah, you know, this is, I've been following this just as like a personal interest for years.

[Garrison Davis]

It's nuts. It's crazy.

[Robert Evans]

No, there are fascinating people. Like, there are fascinating, unique people to study.

[Garrison Davis]

Like, the number of people who literally believe that it, like, there should be people executed publicly for, for not letting Zack Snyder finish his movies that didn't.

[Robert Evans]

Make money is outstanding because. Well, because Netflix has partnered with Snyder for years. When, when, if Netflix takes over, they're obviously going to restore the Snyder verse. James Gunn is going to be going.

[Garrison Davis]

To restore the Snyderverse. Paramount takeover, the Saudis, they can do it too.

[Robert Evans]

So it's, it's really for Snyder Bros. Things are looking up. So put your money in Snyder coin right now.

[Garrison Davis]

Well, my favorite thing about that is that, like, as soon as they announced the deal, they were like, and James Gunn is staying.

[James Stout]

Y.

[Garrison Davis]

They talked a lot about him on the call because, like, his movies are a big part of what makes Warner valuable right now. Right. Like, he's, he's good at making money for the people that he works for. And the level of conspiracy theories, like, no, they have. It's like QAnon. No stuff. They have to hide that Zack Snyder's back because they can't let people know yet. Robert. But he's already been told he's back.

[Robert Evans]

They've been doing this for like eight years.

[Garrison Davis]

It's so funny. I had not realized how crazy they were.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I love it. It's really fun.

[Garrison Davis]

Anyway, that, that's. I always enjoy encountering a new cult. I think Zach is kind of taking advantage of them to get his Instagram follower count up. It's very funny. He's like, posting stuff that's like, their reading is like, he's messaging that it's coming back. Even when guys like Ben Affleck's like, it was the worst. I hated being Batman. I would never do that again. I don't Want to be.

[James Stout]

It's.

[Garrison Davis]

I love it. I just love seeing deranged people be deranged about something that's actually harmless for once. Yeah, we could get. We could get a Snyderverse related shooting. That's not impossible.

[Robert Evans]

Snyder does encourage it a little bit, but Snyder is not, I think, the villain of this story.

[Garrison Davis]

And no, he's clearly friends with Gun like.

[Robert Evans]

And specifically, he has dropped his. His plans, which. Which he had for years to do some Ayn Randed adaptions, which I'm bummed about because I think Snyder sign Rand would be great. And in. Instead. Instead he's writing this, like, this, like, lesbian movie with someone with Tignato.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

So unfortunately, we're trading Ayn Rand for, like, this, like, lesbian cinema slop, which I am.

[Garrison Davis]

I think it's lesbian about.

[Robert Evans]

Because I think. I think Zack Snyder's Ayn Rand would be a much more fascinating piece of art.

[Garrison Davis]

No, no, I want to see Ben Shapiro get 150 million to make Atlas Shrugged.

[Robert Evans]

That's what I'm saying. They bought exclusive TV rights to one of the books. I forget if it was Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged, but since the daily wires, like, finances have collapsed, I do not think they're going forward with that right now.

[Garrison Davis]

Oh, but Gare, the Pendragon cycle, it's coming out, though.

[Robert Evans]

I'm excited.

[Garrison Davis]

We gotta watch that together, but we gotta find it. We gotta have the company pay for us to meet an Airbnb in a third state and just. Just watch that son of a bitch.

[Robert Evans]

If we want to this year to plan some kind of a cool zone convergence to. To. To watch. To watch the Pendragon cycle together. I would. I would happily travel for that.

[Garrison Davis]

I think we're ethically obligated to do that.

[Mia Wong]

Okay, final, final closing note. Trans housing insecurity continuing to increase. If you have an extra room, put a trans person in it. If you have a couch, put a trans girl on your couch. This is going to be Mia's message going forward. Forward. Jesus Christ, people. Just put a trans girl on your couch. You can figure out how to live together. It will be fine. People are going homeless and dying. Please do this.

[Garrison Davis]

Wait, is there, like, data on, like, what's. What's that? Is this just as a result of, like, the continuing, like, people being forced out of their jobs?

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, this is.

[Garrison Davis]

This is.

[Mia Wong]

This is all. This is. This is me finally talking about something I've been tracking for a very, very long time. Which is. I mean, I say very long time, but, you know, even over. About the past four or five years has been massive transmigration into places like Portland, into places like Chicago, into places like New York.

[Robert Evans]

They're getting housing in New York. There's a lot of, a lot of trans housing in New York. I think this, yeah, this, there's, there's some like regional aspects of this.

[James Stout]

Don't come to San Diego. We.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, it makes, it makes sense that the cities that are safer are having like a big influx.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And there's a lot of people.

[Garrison Davis]

Those are also cities that do not have great housing supply.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's neoliberalism and there's been a lot.

[Mia Wong]

Of issues with it. And that's something that can be mitigated by just putting people on your couch.

[Robert Evans]

I mean, yeah, that's a. As a short term, maybe. I don't. Honestly, the couch thing freaks me out as a long term solution.

[Mia Wong]

Well, but I mean, that's the thing though. It doesn't have to be a long term.

[Robert Evans]

If people have connections to help other people get jobs.

[James Stout]

Yeah, sure.

[Robert Evans]

Like pay a, pay a low amount of rent for like a room that's way more solid than like this like forever couch surfing thing that sometimes people like refer to.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

As like quote unquote, trans housing.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Okay. But again, but the, the, the idea here is that there, and this is something that I have run into extensively is there are a bunch of people who basically just need to get out and need like a couple of months or a month to get back on their feet and don't have the ability to do it and are going homeless because of that. And it's killing people and, and it fucking sucks.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And that is something that can be mitigated with sort of cultural shifts towards sharing space more. And we're all going to have to do it more because the economy is about to collapse even more.

[Robert Evans]

So great fun. Yay.

[Mia Wong]

Put a trans girl on your couch.

[James Stout]

If you would like to email us, you can do so by emailing Cool zonetips Proton me. Many of you already have. I'm sure there are more of you to come. If you want it to be encrypted, you should send it from a Proton mail address as well.

[Garrison Davis]

Okay, everybody.

[Robert Evans]

Well, happy holidays. I think we have one more E.D. episode before the end of the year. We reported the news.

[James Stout]

We reported the news.

[Mia Wong]

It could happen.

[Robert Evans]

Here is a production of Cool Zone Media.

[Garrison Davis]

For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media.

[Robert Evans]

Visit our website toolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app.

[Garrison Davis]

Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Robert Evans]

You can now find sources for it could Happen here listed directly in Episode Descriptions. Thanks for listening. 10 athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points. You are the fittest of the fit. Only one of you will leave here with an IFIT contract for $250,000. This is where mindset comes in. Someone will be eliminated. Pressure is coming down. This is Trainer Games.

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